A target rich environment (Republicans)

[flamin lib]

The current Republican congress offers so much entertainment for those of us who pay attention. It is what the Pentagon calls a "target rich environment".

House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R Illinois) suggested that rebuilding New Orleans might be a mistake and said that a lot of it should be bulldozed. I guess Denny doesn't realize that 30% of the nation's petroleum is refined and distributed through New Orleans or that 30% of the nation's sea food is imported through that port or that 60% of the country's farm produce is exported from New Orleans. Yep, it's just a bunch of drunken Cajuns and strip joints, might as well bulldoze the place. The ignorance of the people who currently run the Government amazes me.

Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) suggested that the house withold disaster aid from Louisiana. He said it was because of "it's rampant corruption in Government". He seems to have forgotten for the 16 years prior to the current Governor and Mayor those offices were held by Republicans. Oops, foot meet bullet . . .

Good old Ricky Santorum (R Rep. Pennsylvania) gets two mentions. First he plans to float a bill to punish those who fail to evacuate natural disasters. Fine idea don't ya' think? No house, no clothes, no job and sometimes no family. Yeah, lets slap 'em with a fine.

Moreover, Ricky thinks the National Weather Service did a terrible job of forecasting Katrina. He's blaming them with the destruction and death along the Gulf Coast. "Obviously the consequences (of poor forecasting) are incredibly severe, as we've seen here in the last couple of weeks, if we don't get it right and don't properly prepare," Santorum said in a radio interview. Never mind that Representative Santorum has authored a bill to keep the National Weather Service from making it's forecasting available to the Public. That's right, your tax dollars pay for NOAA, the National Weather Service and the Hurricane Center but Ricky wants you to have to buy it from third party providers, many of which are in !GASP! Pennsylvania!

By the way, there was an internet contest to find a definition to fit "Santorum" when used as a part of speech, like being "Borked".

Santorum: noun; 1) that frothy mix of semen and feces resulting from unprotected anal sex.

Rep. Richard Baker (R Louisiana) was overheard telling lobbyists, "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did." Nice. So much for the Compassionate part of Conservatism.

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R Texas) toured the Astrodome, where children evacuated from New Orleans were playing. DeLay likened their stay to being at camp and asked, "Now, tell me the truth, boys, is this kind of fun?" The youngsters nodded yes, but looked perplexed. Yeah, Katrina has just been a barrel of laughs for the kids.

Of course we can't leave out kindly old Mother Bush. "What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," she said in a radio interview from the Astrodome in Houston, "And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this — this is working very well for them."

At least she got the overwhelmed part right.