![stoneagechronicles:
cognitivedissonance:
quickhits:
GOP Crazies Tell GOP Crazies to Stop Being So Crazy. It’s a case of the message being correct, but delivered by a perfectly inappropriate messenger. As Republicans sort through the rubble left behind by the 2012 election cycle, they’re beginning to divide into two camps: “we’ve got to stop being so danged crazy!” and “we weren’t even close to crazy enough.” It’s pretty clear who’s right here. After all, Todd Akin, Richard Mourdock, and Allen West didn’t lose their races because everyone thought they were big ol’ flaming liberals. They lost because their electorates were obviously tired of rightwing frootloops. The problem with this intra-party division is that one group bleeds over into the other. Crazy people are demanding other crazy people stop being so darned crazy.
Politico: Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal on Monday called on Republicans to “stop being the stupid party” and make a concerted effort to reach a broader swath of voters with an inclusive economic message that pre-empts efforts to caricature the GOP as the party of the rich. In his first interview since his party’s electoral thumping last week, Jindal urged Republicans to both reject anti-intellectualism and embrace a populist-tinged reform approach that he said would mitigate what exit polls show was one of President Barack Obama’s most effective lines of attack against Mitt Romney. “We’ve got to make sure that we are not the party of big business, big banks, big Wall Street bailouts, big corporate loopholes, big anything,” Jindal told POLITICO in a 45-minute telephone interview. “We cannot be, we must not be, the party that simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys.”
“It is no secret we had a number of Republicans damage our brand this year with offensive, bizarre comments — enough of that,” Jindal said. “It’s not going to be the last time anyone says something stupid within our party, but it can’t be tolerated within our party. We’ve also had enough of this dumbed-down conservatism. We need to stop being simplistic, we need to trust the intelligence of the American people and we need to stop insulting the intelligence of the voters.” Pretty on the money. Only one problem: Bobby Jindal is the stereotypical Republican whackjob. After all, it was Jindal who bizarrely criticized volcano monitoring as a waste of money. Ironically, Jindal later blew $200 million on a scheme to protect Louisiana from the Deepwater Horizon oil slick — after being warned by scientists that it wouldn’t work. For the record, Louisiana’s not a wealthy state with hundreds of millions of dollars they can flush down the toilet whenever the governor thinks he’s an engineering genius. If Bobby Jindal represents any wing of the Republican Party, it’s the crazy anti-science and anti-fact wing. This is a man who participated in an exorcism in college and signed what is most likely the most backwards piece of education legislation into law. Among the “facts” kids in Louisiana are now allowed to learn are that dinosaurs and humans lived side by side, that “God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ,” and that slavery and the Great Depression are being misrepresented as bad things.This is the guy who’s telling other Republicans to stop being so crazy. But my point isn’t to single out Jindal. The point is that Jindal represents a real problem for the GOP — namely, that crazy people don’t know that they’re crazy. He’s absolutely correct that the GOP needs to stop being the party of morons and lunatics, but he has absolutely no idea that he’s one of those morons and lunatics. He wants to see Republicans stop promoting every brand of conservative craziness but the science-denialism that embraces creationism and believes global warming is a hoax perpetrated by socialist scientists. Republicans have to reject every form of insanity and idiocy except his particular brand, because his isn’t crazy or stupid. And that’s the entire GOP’s problem in a nutshell. They all need to stop being nutjobs, but they all think the other sort of nutjob is the problem. So the anti-science nuts blame the anti-abortion nuts, who in turn blame the economic flatearthers, who point their fingers at the next group of crazies down the line. You can see how well that’ll pan out for them. No, what Republicans need is not for one group of lunatics to start listening to another group of lunatics. What the Republican Party needs is new Republicans. And the old Republicans aren’t exactly willing to be replaced by a saner brand. Nor are Republican voters eager to replace them. So they’re left with Bobby Jindal as a prime example of their dilemma; he both put his finger directly on his party’s problem and totally misunderstood it at the same time. And so, it’s unlikely that the problem will be solved anytime soon. -Wisco [image source]
I once witnessed a guy who was tripping the light fantastic have an argument with his reflection over who deserved the blame for taking “a drug bomb made of sad” in the first place.
I imagine this now the current state of the GOP.
tl;dr version of Jindal: The whole Republican party needs to Etch-A-Sketch. Except for me.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdfpmsX4T11qfengno1_500.jpg)
A state Senate committee approved legislation Thursday that would allow charter schools to refuse to admit students on the basis of their ability to speak English, their sexual orientation or other factors.
State Sen. A.G. Crowe, R-Slidell, said his bill is designed to ensure that executive branch agencies and local governments stop including bans on discrimination against characteristics not listed in state law as a condition for private companies to do business with their agencies.
The state Department of Education contracts with those seeking charter schools were the chief examples cited during testimony for Senate Bill 217. Gov. Bobby Jindal did not respond to requests for comment about calls to unilaterally strip the anti-discriminatory language from the department’s contract criteria.
On the other side, state Sen. Ed Murray, the only “no” in the 5-1 vote by the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations committee, said the possibility of SB217 becoming law and negating the anti-discriminatory prohibitions in charter school contracts is “really scary.”
Murray said, “I can’t believe that at the same time we as a Legislature are passing bills that expand school choice, that we would also allow charter schools to deny admission based solely on a child’s ability to speak English well enough or play basketball well enough.”
“The focus is really simple,” Crowe said. “It says stick to the law.”
State law currently forbids discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national ancestry, age, sex or disability. If the Louisiana Legislature wants to expand that list to specifically protect people from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation — or anything else — legislators should pass a law, Crowe said.
Randy Trahan, an LSU law professor, testified on Crowe’s behalf that anti-discrimination language that carries the force of law is becoming more and more prevalent in government agency procedures. Only the Legislature has authority to pass laws, he said.
“The executive branch has gone rogue,” Trahan said.
One of those executive branch agencies gone rogue is the state Department of Education, he said.
Leslie Ellison, of New Orleans, testified she refused to sign a charter school contract with the state Department of Education because it required her company to promise not to discriminate against gays and others, criteria that are not listed in state law. The Louisiana Department of Education “doesn’t have the right to insert” its own opinions into a state contract, Ellison said.
The Education Department provision states: “Charter schools may not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, creed, sex ethnicity, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability, age, ancestry, athletic performance, special need proficiency in the English language or in a foreign language, or academic achievement in admitting students, nor may charter schools set admissions criteria that are intended to discriminate or that have the effect of discriminating on any of these bases.”
Gene Mills, who heads Louisiana Family Forum, said after the hearing that “we’re sending a message” for Jindal to strip the provision from his Education Department’s contract criteria. Louisiana Family Forum is a coalition of religious groups that lobby the legislature on social and other issues.
Jindal did not respond Thursday to four requests for comment about the policy.
Jindal’s press secretary, Frank Collins, wrote in an email, “We’re against discrimination, but we don’t believe in special protections or rights.”
State Superintendent of Education John White also did not respond to a request for comment. His spokeswoman, Rene Greer, wrote in an email: “The Department is reviewing the bill in relation to its current charter authorization process.”
