Louisiana

It’s always a happy day when you see some racist sack of crap relinquish his power:

A Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to marry a couple because the bride was white and groom was black resigned Tuesday.

Keith Bardwell, who is white, quit the post with a one-sentence statement to Louisiana Secretary of State Jay Dardenne and no explanation of his decision: "I do hereby resign the office of Justice of the Peace for the Eighth Ward of Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, effective November 3, 2009.

Don’t worry Mr. Bardwell, I’m sure FOX News is working on a job offer for you.

Then the special election held in Louisiana yesterday for the state senate district 16 seat, had to be a test for Bobby Jindhal. And guess what? He lost – big time:

Baton Rouge lawyer Dan Claitor beat businessman and fellow Republican Lee Domingue — the candidate with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s backing — to win the state Senate District 16 seat in Saturday’s special election.

Claitor garnered 11,713 or 66  percent of the vote to Domingue’s 6,114 or 34 percent, based on complete but unofficial election returns.

Compare that to the NY-20 race, which is still going back and forth by a handful of votes.

There is a really good rundown of the results over at MyDD.  I can’t wait to hear how Republicans attempt to spin this. So we have all our ducks in a row, here’s where we stand:

• Chris Murphy is ahead, but very slightly in NY-20, which is a very conservative district. To the Republicans this is a sign of a rebuttal of Obama’s agenda.
• A Democrat beats out a Republican endorsed by the state’s Republican Governor in Louisiana. Also this occurred in a very conservative district. Oh and that governor is supposed to be one of the front runners for the GOP in 2012.

So if NY-20 was a rebuttal of Obama, then we can only describe what happened in Louisiana as a flat out kicking to the curb of the GOP’s 2012 hope. There is no other way to describe this, but I’m sure the GOP will have some great spin to put on it in the coming days.

Last week it was “wasteful spending” for the stimulus to have money allocated for a high speed rail. This week, it’s apparently fine for that money to be in the stimulus when your Louisiana and requesting $110 million of it. Way to go Bobby!

Or Republican Governor refuses stimulus money because of some failed far right ideology:

When President Obama signed the Economic Recovery and Reinvestment Act last week, it included three different provisions to benefit unemployed workers. The first provided funding to states that allowed for a $25 per week increase in benefits. The second extended the Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program which gives 20 weeks of federally-funded unemployment benefits to individuals “who had already collected all regular state benefits,” while the third provision widened the pool of people eligible to receive unemployment benefits.

Today, however, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his intention to oppose changing state law to allow his Lousiana citizens to qualify for the second two unemployment provisions. Jindal said the state would only be accepting money to increase the unemployment insurance payments for those who currently qualify</a> for unemployment insurance.

In all, Jindal turned away nearly $100 million in federal aid for his state’s unemployed residents. Further, as the National Employment Law Project projected on Febuary 13, EUC extension alone would have benefited 24,981 Louisiana residents. Jindal justified his decision by claiming that expanding unemployment benefits would result in tax increases for businesses. In a press release, the governor’s office explained:

What Jindal is doing here is putting his political aspirations ahead of the lives of the people he serves. “You can’t feed your family? Tough shit! I want to be president some day!” I wonder how Jindal’s future would look if he ended up being recalled?

You’re probably wondering why I am thankful for that. Well it’s because of this:

In a year when national Republican fortunes took a turn for the worse, Louisiana delivered the GOP two seats in Congress in elections delayed by Hurricane Gustav.

Indicted Democratic U.S. Rep. William Jefferson was ousted Saturday from his New Orleans area district, while Republicans narrowly held on to the seat vacated by a retiring incumbent.

The wins followed Republicans' reconquest of another House seat earlier this fall that had been lost to Democrats.

In the 2nd Congressional District, which includes most of New Orleans, Republican attorney Anh "Joseph&quot; Cao won 50 percent of the vote to Jefferson's 47 percent and will become the first Vietnamese-American in Congress. His only previous political experience was an unsuccessful 2007 bid for a seat in the state legislature.

Jefferson should have just quit, but instead he has decided to keep on going and cost his party a seat. This sounds like a man out for his own interest – something that goes hand in hand with corruption.

This was like Wyoming with no one talking about it, but Louisiana held their Republican caucuses last night. John McCain won the state and Ron Paul came in second.