Louisiana Voice

Here’s a scary thought: Steve “KKK” Scalise once described himself as “David Duke without the baggage.”

Oh, wow. Just wow. Now Scalise has announced his intention of seeking the Speaker of the House office just vacated by Kevin McCarthy, thanks to the House’s reigning idiot poster child (there are so many to choose from) Matt “Is that your little daughter?” Gaetz. The sheer irony is that Scalise appears to be the lesser of the two indisputably horrible choices for the job, his ties to past white supremacy rallies notwithstanding.

Here’s another scary thought: The other announced candidate for the post: Ohio’s Gym Jordan, who inexcusably chose to look the other way at SEXUAL ABUSES of male wrestlers while a coach at Ohio State University. Jordan is almost – but not quite – as stupid as Alabama Sen./former football coach/Florida resident Tommy Tuberville, who seemed to be a bit CONFUSED on the three branches of government. That Jordan sounds like Daffy Duck on helium should make it at least entertaining should he prevail over Scalise for the speakership.

Here’s the scariest thought, however: There is nothing anywhere that says the speaker must be a member of the House. Theoretically, you or I could be appointed – or worst scenario of all, a guy named Donald Trump, Gawd help us all, Tiny Tim. Could you imagine him as third in line for the presidency? And with an investigation, albeit a anemically weak one, ongoing into the possible impeaching of Joe Biden…talk about a real-life circus with clowns and seltzer bottles!

A reader sent me a recap of The New York Times summation of the current situation. Our reader wrote:

Imagine if you were a foreign leader surveying the political chaos in the United States:

• For the first time in history, a party has just fired its own speaker of the House in the middle of a term.
• In the Senate, one of the two party leaders, who’s 81 years old, has twice recently frozen in public, unable to speak.
• A Supreme Court justice has allowed wealthy political donors to finance a lavish lifestyle for him and his wife (and that same justice’s wife urged officials to overturn the 2020 election result based on lies.
• A likely nominee in the upcoming presidential election is facing four criminal trials and regularly speaks in apocalyptic terms about the country’s future.
• That nominee is essentially tied in the polls with an 80-year-old president who many voters worry is too old to serve a second terms.

If you were an ally of the U.S., you’d have to be worried. If you were an enemy, you’d have to pleased.

Nothing would surprise us if either of these scenarios occurs. The lunatics in Congress and their blindly loyal followers have absolutely no sense of irony. Otherwise, it seems the party that once considered itself the mortal enemy of socialism and communism (remember “Better Dead than Red”?) wouldn’t be cozying up to a guy named Putin.

As a classic example of how the right-wing Republicans can overlook obvious irony, there was a post in today’s Hayride. The post was about a State Senate race up in the Shreveport-Bossier area of the state.

The Hayride’s latest CONSPIRACY THEORY is that someone in the post office up there is trying to torpedo the campaign of current State Rep. Alan Seabaugh by neglecting to distribute his mailers while flooding mailboxes with those of his opponent, former Northwestern State University basketball coach Mike McConathy.

The real story, however, is not the absurd idea that the U.S. Postal Service would somehow have a dog in this hunt but the Hayride’s disparaging of McConathy’s qualifications.

Personally, I have no clue as to either candidate’s qualifications, Seabaugh’s 12 years in the House notwithstanding. I do know that he is term-limited from running for representative again so, the obvious solution to hanging onto power is to just move across the spacious foyer of the State Capitol to the Senate chamber for another 12 years. (Francis Thompson of Delhi has mastered the art of hanging around since 1975 in that manner.)

The kicker, though, the real chuckle, came down in the post when McConathy was described as “a complete cipher as a political candidate.”

Huh? A complete cipher? But there was more. “He’s demonstrated absolutely zero command of public policy. He’s struggled to take any position at all on any issue of note…”

This from a medium that openly supports candidates like Gym Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren “Family Values-Family Jewels” Boebert, and the aforementioned Tuberville, none of whom has shown much in the way of legislative acuity. Nor have they demonstrated an abundance of what the old folks used to call good old horse sense.

Of course, The Hayride has every right to voice its opinion and I would never infringe on that right (Rhonda Santis might be another story, however, as, on a whim, he just might). It’s just that I could not pass up the opportunity to make my own observations on that post.