Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards Asks to be Impeached

This is government by hostage taking like in the bad ol’ days of Edwin Edwards.
The only way John Bel Edwards will release the hostages is if he gets more tax increases.

Governor John Bel Edwards, who campaigned to fix the state budget problems with cuts, not by raising taxes on an already high taxed citizenry, spoke to the the citizens of Louisiana Thursday night. In his twelve plus minute speech, the Governor addressed the state's budget deficit of nearly $1 billion dollars…and he told Louisianans it's worse than he thought. (even though he had sat in the Louisiana House of Reps from 2008, and as minority leader since 2012 where he voted for deficit spending)  So now he targets Health and Higher Education for cuts.

On the day he stopped TOPS funding for state college students, Edwards spoke in dire terms:

“I will also tell you about cuts we are facing that, without your support to fix, will close down higher education institutions all across our state."

Then he he pull out all the stops and jumped with all fours squarely onto the third rail of Louisiana politics while measuring his neck for a noose by saying the cash crisis even threatens the upcoming LSU football season and more:

“…the LSU main campus in Baton Rouge will run out of money after April 30th, as will the LSU Health Sciences Center in Shreveport. There is no money left for payroll after those dates.”

Governor Edwards vetoed a bill passed by the legislature in the special session that would've cut the budgets of five state boards and save millions. Beholding to unions, he has yet to propose cuts in a bloated state employee staff, or outside consultants. (Thanks Boobie Jindal)

He tried this emotional terrorism last month when he threaten to cut a program in Louisiana that helps parents of special needs children with housing, transportation, healthcare, and other essentials. The program is a valuable tool for families truly in need of assistance when developmental disabilities can take up so much of a parent’s time and resources. And, Edwards, had threatened to cut those services if the legislature didn't raise taxes. 

They Did.

After passing a 28 page bill, the state now virtually taxes everything. Besides raising sin taxes on alcohol and cigarettes, new taxes include things like your membership fees and dues to civic organizations like the American Legion, YMCA, Daughters of the Confederacy, Daughters of the American Revolution, local historical societies, concert tickets and Opera and Symphony memberships. But that's still not enough for John Bel.

But ya don't have to pay taxes on your food stamp purchases!

By threatening to turn off the dialysis machines at Charity Hospital and canceling the most anticipated LSU's Football season in years, the good governor has pulled the noose a little tighter. And we aren't very picky which lamp post he'll swing from.  

[KEEL 710AM]
[And So It Goes In Shreveport]
[image via The Hayride.com]

Fishnet Friday: Evening Edition

Finally: Something Moochell Obama and I Agree On.

She Doesn't Like Seeing Herself On TV

The famously self-confident first lady admitted she avoids watching herself on TV –
“because it’s kind of uncomfortable … Like oh, I don’t like the way I looked. 

excerpts from DownTrend

The last time we heard from Michelle Obama she was bragging about how sexy she thought she was. In a stunning reversal, the First Lady now says she feels uncomfortable looking at herself on TV, indicating that maybe she doesn’t think she’s terribly attractive. 

Join the club Mo! It only took you seven and half years, but you finally realized that you're unpleasant to the eyes and ears of all Americans.

“My bottom teeth stick out a little bit. And if I had had braces, they would be fixed by now. So for all of you who don’t like your braces, you will appreciate it when you’re my age.”

Man, she is way off on what makes her so hard to look at. It ain’t her bottom teeth, though they are kind of funky, but rather the whole package.

However, as soon as her semi-honest assessment arrived, it disappeared into the classic Obama lack of self-awareness. She was asked what her plans are when she and her husband mercifully leave the White House:

“Sometimes I like to travel when I’m not too tired, and you know what, the president and I, we might just take a vacation … we might just do nothing for a second.”

Traveling, taking vacations, and doing nothing on the taxpayer’s dime is all the Obamas have done since they got to Washington. How is it even possible to do less than what the Obamas have done, or more correctly not done? Plus, it’s going to be a lot harder to vacay when the American people aren’t footing the bill. A community organizer’s salary doesn’t pay for five-star accommodations.

From a privileged black family, she has no idea what the real world is like. Living it up on our tax dollars, Moochell is having a great time traveling the world in luxury while we watch our standard of living decline. And with the size of that ass she has never missed a meal no doubt.

First, her skin color kept her back, then her gender was a hurdle to cross, and her sex appeal almost stood between her and success.  

Butt Michelle has finally realized what the rest of us have known along:  She's Monkey Butt Ugly. Hopefully she finally shows some respect to the country and keeps her ugly mug and her clown wardrobe off of TV for the remainder of her husband’s final days in office.

WaPo: U.S. Allies Can't Wait for Obama to be Gone

Cain TV:

If you can think back this far, the U.S. populace was down on George W. Bush this time eight years ago in part because he supposedly had alienated our allies by being a go-it-alone cowboy. The remedy for this was to elect the cool guy who gave speeches about how we all have to listen to each other and all that sort of thing.

We did find out, did we not, that there is a huge difference between saying something in a speech and actually doing it? Today America's allies would surely love to have Bush back, since despite what you heard from the media, he did not insult them nor did he disregard their concerns. 

As the Washington Post of all sources reports in devastating detail, it's Barack Obama who does all that:

Even before he became president, Obama introduced himself to the world as a multilateralist who aimed to solve the thorny problems of the 21st century collaboratively. “True partnership and true progress . . . require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other,” Obama told adoring crowds in Berlin in 2008.

He followed up that speech one year later in Cairo by quoting verses from the Koran, acknowledging America’s mistakes and calling for a new partnership with the Muslim world “based upon mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Seven years later, the soaring, optimistic language of those early speeches has long since been subsumed by the messy reality of war and diplomacy. Obama has not been able to forge a close rapport with many world leaders.

The president’s cold-eyed view was apparent last year after the attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly by two militant gunmen. World leaders from Germany, France and Britain marched through the streets of Paris with longtime adversaries such as the Israeli prime minister and the head of the Palestinian Authority. No senior official from the United States marched with the European leaders, prompting a rare apology from the White House.

“I’ve never heard that Obama has a personal relationship with any of them,” said Xenia Wickett, head of the Americas program at the London-based think tank Chatham House. “It is neither hot nor cold. There is no personal relationship.”

For Britons especially, that’s a break from a long history of starry-eyed relationships between leaders across the Atlantic. Roosevelt and Churchill. Reagan and Thatcher. Bush and Blair. Obama, the mixed-race child of a single mother, and Cameron, a stockbroker’s son with royal lineage, have never had the same kind of personal chemistry. -

For all his campaign talk about reaching out with an open hand, blah blah blah, he knows he gets no political benefit when he makes the concerns of our allies a priority. Also, he genuinely doesn't care about them. 

Americans might want to take that into account when they pick the next president. It's not about how well a candidate says things, nor is it about how much you didn't like the last guy. It's about a candidate's demonstrated and proven priorities. Obama's priority is himself. Don't pick a new president whose obvious priority is and always has been herself.

Biden: Don't Call Me 'Goofy Uncle Joe'

Joe Biden doesn't want to go down in history as "Goofy Uncle Joe." Unfortunately, that's not up to him.

 During one of his daily commutes on an Amtrak train, Vice President Biden sat down with CNBC's John Harwood and talked about his career and the politics of the future. One interesting question popped up. Here's the transcript from NBC News:

HARWOOD: So George H.W. Bush was weak, Dan Quayle was dumb, Al Gore was wooden, Dick Cheney was Darth Vader. Do you feel sympathy for those guys, having done this for seven years? And are you comfortable with Goofy Uncle Joe?

BIDEN: No, I'm not comfortable with Goofy Uncle Joe. But one of the things that's important to know — and one of the reasons why, when I first got asked about this job I said no — is there is no inherent power in being vice president.

Biden added that he told President Obama that in his secondary role, he required only to be "the last guy in the room." 

h/t Truth Revolt 

_____________________________________

Don't worry Joe, in our hearts you'll always be the 'last guy in the room'.......ya know, like the one who won't leave after the party is over.....

 

Helen Keller Photography Work Sold at Auction

Middle Finger News Service - Of all the accomplishments of Helen Keller, the least known was her love of photography. Recently a small collection of her work was auctioned off for an amazing price to an anonymous bidder. Included in the collection was one of the first known selfies, (below) taken in 1923, and given to her teacher and mentor Anne Sullivan with a note written on back, "My hair is a mess, such a windy day."

Before They Were Cool, A Selfie by Helen Keller

Why I love Earl.....

You Just Never Know What's Gonna Drop Out of That Man's Skull.

EARL OF TAINT

The 2016 Congressional Pig Book

"Every year, Citizens Against Government Waste combs through the minutiae of appropriations bills to find examples of what every taxpayer objects to: government waste. Every year, CAGW exposes that waste in its annual 'Congressional Pig Book.'

"The 2016 Congressional Pig Book shows 123 instances of earmarked, pork barrel spending in the federal FY 2016 budget. Combined, they cost taxpayers $5.1 billion. That's up from $4.2 billion last year. 'While the increase in cost over one year is disconcerting, the two-year rise of 88.9 percent over the $2.7 billion in FY 2014 is downright disturbing,' the group says.

"That $5.1 billion is less than one percent of the federal budget. Cutting waste alone won't put the budget on sustainable footing, but it certainly wouldn't hurt. That $5.1 billion is better off in taxpayers' hands. 'Earmarks create a few winners (appropriators, special interests and lobbyists) and a great many losers (taxpayers).'"— Jason Russell, Washington Examiner

This Just In.......

A Good Mornday Morning

Salon.com Writer Out Salons Salon.com

This primary season has brought out the crazies in mass. The over the top, the uninitiated, the attention hungry websites and the clueless first time voters. The right has it's own wealth of these, but the crazy needle on the left always points directly to Salon.com.

Lately, for the most part, all Salon does is yell shrilly at people for belly dancing while white or other, but equally genocidal crimes against the proletariat. It's also become the favored home of young idiots smugly explaining the many murders of Hillary Clinton.

But in a posting Saturday they were playing deep left field crazy more than the usual. In the post by Danielle Corcione, she proclaims that a pure young person (?) should not vote at all ....maaaaybe for Bernie Sanders, but that would still be “uncomfortable”......because voting makes you complicit in the criminal enterprise that is American politics.

"Four years ago, I attended a College Democrats conference in Chicago. I set foot inside Obama’s campaign headquarters and felt the enthusiasm about his presidency first-hand. For the first time, I called myself a Democrat with confidence. Democracy empowered me. I wanted to share my enthusiasm with the entire world."

Okay, now that Danielle has clarified her credentials as a typical 'Age of Obama Millennial Idiot', it gets even better.  She drones on about Sanders winning the popular vote in the Wyoming caucus by 12%, but Clinton scored four more super-delegates. "This is a crime against the will of the people", using none other then Joe Scarborough for support, while declining to mention Hillary Clinton’s 2.4 million vote lead in “the will of the people.” 

"I’m uncomfortable abstaining from the most invaluable, basic aspect of democracy. It’s a new concept for me. However, shedding my Democratic label is also new to me. 

So far, Sanders is the most competent candidate for my political positions and stances. Although I’ve been a vocal advocate for him in the past, he doesn’t meet my standards for gun control, racial justice and foreign policy. 

Previously, Sanders voted against background checks for gun purchases in Congress and explicitly explained his stance against reparations. Only recently has he started standing up for Palestinians.   

However, if Sanders somehow wins the nomination, he’ll get my vote. I’ll feel uneasy about it, but at least the Democratic ticket picked my more favorable candidate. 

Otherwise, I’ll leave that space blank...."

Boycott voting! That will definitely teach all those scum sucking plutocrats, instead of them laughing their asses off while snorting cocaine off the backsides of unartisanal, non-organic, fair-trade sex slaves. 

"In a truly democratic system, we’d have more competent, diverse candidates. Voting no longer provides me the indulgence and satisfaction it once did. I feel it does more harm than good with our current political climate. If I vote for Clinton as a rejection of Trump, or vote for Sanders to dodge a Clinton vote, what duty am I actually performing? 

When I vote for a president I don’t support, I support a flawed political system. I refuse that system."

NOTE: Danielle Corcione would like to move to Narnia, where unicorns run free so she can vote for Aslan, who is Jesus and stands up for Palestinians the right way instead of only doing so just recently.

I've Noticed Something Strange About Roger Lately.

Fishnet Friday

University of Alabama Forced to Except New Mascot

Tuscaloosa, AL - President Obama's use of his phone and pen to sign an order that the University of Alabama replace its racist elephant with a donkey caused a predictable outcry from some extremist obstructionist Republicans, including partisan and ungrounded accusations of abuses of power by the executive branch.

According to President Obama:

"University of Alabama lost their privilege when they did not share their football trophies with the less fortunate colleges and universities. Besides, some folks at the university thought they could get away with putting a Republican elephant next to a word that has 'bama' in it. That is a distasteful and disrespectful attack against me. And I want Americans to realize that personal attacks against me will not be tolerated. It's not who we are."

University of Alabama students became divided on the issue, with the best and the most progressive part of the student body organizing spontaneous marches in support of President Obama and his ruling. 

"Elephants are a symbol of oppression and Alabama has won too many trophies for their own good. The mascot change is progressive, and I hope Alabama will learn to share a bit more," said Melissa Click, former communications professor at the University of Missouri, who joined the march as a volunteer legal observer...."  

Continue Reading 

Al Jazeera America Turned Out The Lights With a Bang

Screen Shot Courtesy of Middle Finger News Service™

After three years of abject failure, Al Jazeera America News Network goes dark.

On Tuesday night, Al Jazeera America closed the network with a three-hour broadcast from 6 to 9 p.m., which will be repeated from 9 p.m. to midnight. The final broadcast featured a number of Al Jazeera’s on-air personalities and has been described as a thank you to the network’s viewers. In a statement, Mr. Anstey and Ms. O’Brian said that strong journalism was a “responsibility which every media organization should carry with determination and resolve. We are proud to have done so since our first to our final moment on air.” BOOM!