Showing posts with label Bobby Jindal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bobby Jindal. Show all posts

Saturday, December 12, 2015

डोनाल्ड का विग उतारो



इस चुतिये की तो जम के पिटाई होने वाली है। ये हरामी का पिल्ला, हिटलर का नाजायज औलाद। ..... और एम्बुलेंस तैयार रखो। हम अपना कम्पैशन नहीं खो बैठे हैं। .... समझने वाले समझ जाएंगे ये भी रियल एस्टेट का ही लफड़ा है। पोलिटिकल रियल एस्टेट। ...... जब हम न्यु यॉर्क में आ गए हैं तो इसे चाहिए कहीं दुर चले जाए, अलाबामा या ऐसा ही कोई जगह।

Bobby Jindal 2024
Donald's Poll Numbers Are Name Recognition
Donald Trump: Marxist? Hitlerian?
Republicans Asked For Unlimited Money In Politics
The San Diego Shooting: Defining Terrorism

Friday, December 11, 2015

Eliot Spitzer, Barack Obama

Governor Eliot Spitzer and Senator Hillary Rod...
Governor Eliot Spitzer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There was a time when Eliot Spitzer was the next President Of The United States and Barack Obama was this good looking Senator you saw on TV who showed no signs of even trying to pass any major bill, but Spitzer was cutting butter with his knife in a major executive position. Obama had announced not only was he not running for president in 2008, he was not even interested in being Vice President. When you have been in DC one month, what else could you say?

Bobby Jindal 2024
Preet Bharara, Eliot Spitzer Parallels

Jewish people are different. I had not met too many before I got to New York City. But the outsize influence was obvious: there was data. 12 million people have imprints that 200 million people don't. A billion have not. That outsize influence is because they have packed so much knowledge per cubic millimeter of brain matter. Generation after generation. As in, others could do this too. Stop throwing stones and sit down and read.

In some micro interactions it struck me as to the level of emotional intelligence. And it was so obvious it was not individual. Part of it was the cubic millimeter thing. Part of it also is the history of persecution. When Hitler kills six million of your kind, that gives you a heightened sense of reality. For example, I had a Beware The Ides Of March moment a few weeks before my cliff fall in 2008, but I did not pay attention. I only saw it in retrospect. It was a Jewish guy. I have had several such micro interactions.

There is this super gifted politician in India. Bihar was the superpower when India was world. I have Bihari heritage. And there is this Jewish-like knowledge heritage Biharis have. Buddha, who gave the world its first republic purely on knowledge power, was Bihari. If they could only get their house in order, they could lead India again, because the future is not in coal, or even solar, it is in knowledge. Nitish Kumar. In terms of political gifts, Nitish Kumar and Eliot Spitzer are alike. You see a butter-knife thing. Bill Gates is a fan. What Nitish has done for Bihar's poor, Bill can only imagine.

Nitish was in alliance with Modi's party for a decade and a half. He walked away a year before Modi ran for PM. Many people think Nitish made the mistake of his lifetime. I am not so sure.

It can be said Eliot Spitzer said, fuck it, the black folks have been wronged too much by this country. And it is possible he combusted. It was a conscious political decision. Like Nitish walked away from Modi.

I identify with Jews on many levels.

When Punjab started combusting as a state in India, it was the leading state measured by per capita income. Both Bobby Jindal and Preet Bharara, I think also Nicky Haley, have Punjabi heritage. It is not rocket science that the most successful group felt acute disrespect. As in, if the disrespect is happening, you are going to feel it. There is no brushing it aside. Why can't people digest headgear? Why do you struggle with turbans and naqabs? The violent part was tragic, beyond tragic. Sikhs are like Jews, small in number but large in impact.


Wednesday, December 09, 2015

Bobby Jindal 2024

photo of gurudwara ponta sahib
photo of gurudwara ponta sahib (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • You have to be yourself. If you talk fast, if that is you, don't slow down. You can be only one person, and that is you. Just be yourself. You slowed down artificially for that speech in 2009, and that was the beginning of your end. 
  • You became particularly shrill after that. Two reasons. One, the Great Recession hit you and your state. When that happens, people sometimes end up in dark corners. Two, that counter Obama speech in 2009 put you at the receiving end of racism. People who say they are only individuals, they don't have group identities are two dimensional creatures. And racism is a three dimensional reality. When 2D creatures get hit with a 3D reality, they don't know what hit them. You got infantilized. That was racist. But you will not understand if you keep claiming you are only an individual. 
  • I have had hundreds of meals at the local Gurudwara. India is sorry 1984 happened. Now own up to it. You are Indian. Like JFK was Irish. He wore it on his sleeve. You are Indian, your wife is Indian, your kids are Indian. Your Indian identity goes back thousands of years. America would not be great if it did not allow you room for your Indian identity. I mean, my favorite thing about America are inter-racial, cross-cultural kids. But that does not take away from heritage, mine, or yours, or anyone else's.
  • On social issues you may hold any view you want, that does not bother people. But to say the alternative view is not valid is Taliban, it is not America. So on the social issues, you have to be live and let live. And since America is a free country, and social views don't change fast, it is best to push the social views to the background. You know where you stand, you respect where others stand, and you make them feel like you respect them, and you are done. No one is convincing nobody. Everybody is too smart by one and a half. 
  • And focus hard core on the economic issues. This is where you will sink or swim. If you can show America you can help create the industries of tomorrow, you will regain your pre-2008 aura and seeming invincibility. Barack Obama is a tough guy to go against. Hillary knows. So do you. But she is running again. 
  • As for the industries of tomorrow, talk to Vivek Wadhwa, the smartest dude in Silicon Valley. He was your active supporter, before you became shrill. 


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Donald Trump And The South

I can just imagine people across the South going. "You know what, people in New York are not that different from us after all!" What do they know!

I won an election in the South before Bobby Jindal won an election in the South, even though mine was much smaller, but still, it counts. I know a thing or two about the South.

When Trump badmouthed McCain, people were like, this is it, the Trump balloon will burst now. I did not agree. How do you think W beat McCain in South Carolina in 2000?

Donald Trump is a serious dude with a sense of humor. A lot of people mistake his sense of humor and don't take him seriously, me among them. The Trump balloon will burst, but now is not the time. Not enough damage has been done. For one, I don't expect the guy to have done his policy homework. It takes a lifetime of preparation to run for president. The Donald started just a few weeks ago. What does he think America is? A bankrupt company?

Much of The Donald's high flying in the polls is his talking stupid. Not even Bobby Jindal is being able to compete! (Did I hear Bobby say the Confederate Flag is his pride? Bobby, where are we here?)

The Donald Is Plenty Smart
The Trump's Trump Card
Friends Of Hillary: On Both Sides?



Wait until they find out The Donald's hair is fake. One thing they can stand in the South is that your hair is fake and you are running for president.

Friday, June 26, 2015

Bobby Jindal: The Record, The Prospects

English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 --...
English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 -- President George W. Bush and Governor Bobby Jindal greeting EOC employees, during disaster recovery efforts for Hurricane Gustav. Jacinta Quesada/FEMA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Louisiana is in a sorry shape. That sinks Bobby Jindal. Hillary is casting a really long shadow. That sinks Bobby Jindal. Jeb Bush is a Bush, but also was Governor. He was not stellar, but he was not all that bad. And he leads in the polls. That makes it hard for Bobby. Bobby does not have a program for the future. I am sure he has. But nothing has come out to grab the imagination yet. Yet another laundry list of conservative principles like tax cuts and bigger defense budgets are not a program. They are a regurgitation. That sinks Bobby Jindal. Maybe term limits are not such a good idea! The guy can't run for another term in Louisiana, and he might have lost if he had had the chance. It looks like a political dead end for him.

But speaking just of political tactics, one glaring detail I note is, the guy is too politically inflexible. He probably stands for a constitutional amendment at the federal level for balanced budgets. If such a thing had been in place before the 2008 recession, America would have had a decade long Depression on its hands, and then some. Bobby's utter inflexibility on raising taxes are the main reason why he is in such a bad shape politically. Principles should guide you. They should not dictate and limit your actions. You can be smart and belong to the Don't Confuse Me With Facts school of thought. Bobby is proof.

A plummeting popularity in your home state is perhaps a non starter for a presidential campaign. Louisiana's "structural budget imbalance" is the weight around Bobby's neck.

The only silver lining is, if you become the nominee and then lose to Hillary, you can't run again. But if you never win a primary, you might have the option to run again some other time.

He needs to lose, and then get into the US Senate. And he needs to become more of a sailor, less of a stopped clock. Heck, I am for tax cuts. But they need to make economic sense. I am for balanced budgets too. To me a smaller government is one that is too small to tell a woman what to do in her private life or with her private parts. There is a way to present conservative principles as a tool to create the industries of tomorrow. That presentation can be a winner.

One six year term in the US Senate would do him much good.

On social issues you have to be live and let live. This is America. This is a democracy, not a theocracy. This is not Iran.



Bobby Jindal Enters Presidential Race, Saying ‘It Is Time for a Doer’
Louisiana’s first nonwhite governor since Reconstruction but whose popularity plummeted as the state struggled with a $1.6 billion shortfall ..... He said that Louisiana cut the number of “government bureaucrats” by more than 30,000 positions, and that the state now had the highest population in its history, with more people moving to Louisiana than leaving it. ...... his approval numbers in the state have fallen sharply ...... poll found him sharing the bottom of a list of 16 candidates ...... “I don’t think anybody in Louisiana thinks he can win” ....... “What Jeb Bush is saying is that we need to hide our conservative ideals,” Mr. Jindal said. “But the truth is, if we go down that road again, we will lose again.” ..... he had a message and a path to victory, casting him as the youngest candidate with the longest résumé in a wide open Republican race. They said that in such a crowded field, all it takes to win Iowa, and alter the dynamics of the race, is 26,000 votes. ..... The state has the seventh-highest unemployment rate and the third-highest poverty rate in the country. In February, Moody’s Investors Service, the credit-rating agency, revised the state’s financial outlook from stable to negative, citing its structural budget imbalance. ....... he had the reputation of a kind of wonky boy genius. At age 24 in 1996, he was appointed secretary of the state Department of Health and Hospitals, the biggest department in state government, and he quickly went to work cutting jobs and slashing its budget. ...... attributed the budget shortfall, the state’s worst in decades, in part to the downturn in oil prices that hurt Louisiana and other energy-producing states and in part to the Jindal administration’s fiscal policies.
Bobby Jindal faces an uphill fight in the crowded 2016 field
Jindal is now polling toward the bottom of the field, registering at just 1% ..... Jindal's popularity in his own state has suffered -- a recent poll has his approval at 32% -- thanks to budget troubles and perhaps a preoccupation with playing to a national audience. His refusal to raise taxes to help balance the state's books has resulted in deep cuts to popular programs and areas of government spending such as health care and education. ...... "Half these people don't know who their own damn governor is, let alone the governor of Louisiana," Anderson said, referring to voters nationwide who aren't plugged into presidential politics as much as reporters and operatives. ....... Jindal was a political wunderkind when he first burst onto the scene helping shape health care policy. In 1996, at the age of just 24, Jindal was appointed as head of Louisiana's department of health policies.
Trump jokes about being behind Bush in New Hampshire poll
Bush earned 14% of the vote in the crowded GOP field, followed by Trump with 11%. ...... Trump, the billionaire with a penchant for bombastic rhetoric and unorthodox claims, is catching on with Republican voters early on in the cycle. ..... "I'm not thrilled, cause how could Bush be in first place?" Trump said. "This guy can't negotiate his way out of a paper bag!"
The Sophisticated Bigotry of Bobby Jindal
The Louisiana governor wants Christians to stand apart from secular society, but condemns Muslims who do the same. ....... he will likely campaign on two major themes. The first, which he outlined last February at the Reagan Library and last May at Liberty University, is that Christians are at war with a liberal elite that is trampling religious liberty and secularizing American culture. The second, which he laid out this month at London’s Henry Jackson Society, is that “non-assimilationist Muslims” are endangering America and Europe...... Unfortunately for Jindal, these two arguments contradict each other...... Jindal made little effort to define American or European culture except to associate it with “freedom.” So it’s hard to know exactly which aspects of it he believes Muslims refuse to embrace. But in his speeches last year on religion, Jindal discussed American culture at greater length. And his verdict was surprisingly harsh. “American culture,” he told students at Liberty University, “has in many ways become a secular culture.” Many churches, he declared, now espouse “views on sin [that] are in direct conflict with the culture.” In case students hadn’t gotten the message, Jindal repeated himself: “Our culture has taken a secular turn.” ........ People of faith, he argued, must recognize that they are fighting a “silent war” against the secular, liberal elite. And they must keep waging that war no matter how much of a cultural minority they become. “Our religious liberty,” he insisted, “must in no way ever be linked to the ever-changing opinions of the public. ...... let’s imagine a scenario. A devout Christian emigrates from Nigeria to a progressive American college town, where she takes up work as a pharmacist. She quickly finds herself at odds with the dominant culture around her. Co-workers mock her modest dress and her insistence on interrupting work to pray. When she calls homosexuality a sin, they denounce her as a bigot. Ultimately, her employer fires her for refusing to dispense contraception....... Based on his speeches at Liberty University and the Reagan Library, Jindal’s advice to this woman would be clear: Wage “silent war” against the culture that oppresses you, even if you’re a minority of one. If necessary, “establish a separate culture within” the dominant one so you can raise children who fear and obey God...... Now imagine that our devout Nigerian is a Muslim. Suddenly her resistance to the dominant culture makes her not a hero but a menace. ........ The only principle he's really defending is anti-Muslim bigotry. ........ At Liberty University, Jindal name-checked a broad array of believers, with one conspicuous absence: “For me, I am a Catholic Christian. My parents are Hindus. I am blessed to know Baptists, Jews, Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and so many more in the rich tapestry of American faiths.” When he rehearsed the same litany at the Reagan Library, he left Muslims off the list again. Jindal has refused to retract his claim that certain European neighborhoods are “no-go” zones where non-Muslims are not allowed, even after Fox News apologized for propagating the same lie. And in his London speech, he asked “how many Muslims in this world agree with these radicals” who “do not believe in freedom or common decency?” Although “freedom” and “common decency” are vague terms, the vast majority of Muslims clearly oppose ISIS and Al Qaeda. But instead of citing such evidence, Jindal answered his question by declaring, “I have no idea.” Which is to say, he doesn’t want to have any idea because looking at the actual evidence might make it harder for him to smear Muslims as a whole......... In 2012, Herman Cain distinguished himself as the leading Islamophobe in the Republican presidential field. Jindal is now well-positioned to fill that role. The only difference is that Cain spoke like a pizza executive while Jindal speaks like a Rhodes Scholar. But strip away the fake sophistication and it’s bigotry just the same.
Bobby Jindal’s Science Problem
just about every challenge that America faces today has a scientific component, from revitalizing the economy to dealing with climate change to managing health care. ....... Leading candidates made it clear that they rejected climate science (Herman Cain and Rick Perry), thought that vaccines caused mental retardation (Michele Bachmann), and didn’t “believe” in evolution (a bunch of them, most prominently Rick Santorum). One candidate, John Huntsman, bravely tweeted, “I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy.” To scientists, Huntsman’s candor was “right on!” To Republican primary voters, apparently he was crazy. ......... Jindal has an elite résumé. He was a biology major at my school, Brown University, and a Rhodes scholar. He knows the science, or at least he ought to. But in his rise to prominence in Louisiana, he made a bargain with the religious right and compromised science and science education for the children of his state. In fact, Jindal’s actions at one point persuaded leading scientific organizations, including the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology, to cross New Orleans off their list of future meeting sites. ......... What did Jindal do to produce a hornet’s nest of “mad scientists,” as Times-Picayune writer James Gill described them? He signed into law, in Gill’s words, the “Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), which is named for what it is designed to destroy.” The act allows “supplemental textbooks and other instructional materials” to be brought into classrooms to support the “open and objective discussion” of certain “scientific theories,” including, of course, evolution. As educators who have heard such coded language before quickly realized, the act was intended to promote creationism as science. In April, Kevin Carman, dean of the College of Science at Louisiana State University, testified before the Louisiana Senate’s Education Committee that two top scientists had rejected offers to come to LSU because of the LSEA, and the school may lose more scientists in the future. ....... And now Jindal is poised to spend millions of dollars of state money to support the teaching of creationism in private schools.
Bobby Jindal announces entry into 2016 presidential race
spending 45 percent of his days outside of Louisiana last year. And this year, some of Jindal's top state-government aides left to join his presidential "exploratory committee." ...... at this point, his chances of winning the GOP nomination seem extraordinarily low. ...... Just eight years ago, Jindal's future looked far brighter than it does now. ...... The former Rhodes Scholar and McKinsey consultant was elected governor at age 36, the first Indian American ever to govern a state. “The question is not whether he’ll be president,” Republican strategist Steve Schmidt said in 2008, “but when he’ll be president.” ...... a relentless focus on making government run faster, smarter and cleaner. ...... To address doubts among national conservatives, Jindal repeatedly embraced harder-line conservative positions -- both in terms of Louisiana's budget and in terms of social issues. But each time, he moved further away from the wonky, pragmatic persona that had made him famous in the first place. ......... By the end of this year's session, legislators were so unhappy with Jindal that they tried to stop paying for his security detail at presidential campaign events. ...... In his first year as governor, 77 percent of Louisianans thought he was doing a good job. By last month, the figure had fallen to 32 percent, an all-time low. ...... Aides think he’s an excellent retail politician, and that his up-from-the-bootstraps story will resonate in a contest with former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the heir to a presidential dynasty.
From Piyush to Bobby: How does Jindal feel about his family’s past?
When Bobby Jindal was elected the first Indian American governor in U.S. history, residents of his father’s village here set off firecrackers, passed out sweets and danced in the streets. Many had spent three days praying at a local temple for his victory........ “My dad was one of nine. He was the only one who got past fifth grade. Part of what drove his determination and success in life was his education. My parents put a strong emphasis on education, hard work, an unshakable faith. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your last name is. You can be anything in America.” ....... donors from Indian American groups fueled his first forays into politics. Yet many see him as a man who has spent a lifetime distancing himself from his Indian roots. ........ Bobby Jindal’s father, Amar .... Stairs led to the roof where Amar, a studious boy, built a small shed so he could study by lamplight, away from his boisterous family. ..... “Every time I saw him he was reading a book,” recalled a local Hindu priest, Sudama Ram Sharda, 84, who performed Amar’s marriage ceremony. “Either lying on the cot reading or in the shop.” ........ He walked five miles to school until fifth grade, when his father bought him a bike. Amar Jindal went on to become the only one of his siblings to attend college, according to his sister, Satya Bansal, 72, who still lives in the area. The other boys had some schooling, but the five sisters had none at all. “I wanted to go, but it was not my destiny,” Bansal said. ........ In Punjab’s capital city, Chandigarh, the aspiring engineer Amar fell in love with a classmate’s sister, Raj, a doctoral physics candidate. The two — both from the bania, or “trader” caste — married in 1969, a rare love marriage at a time when arranged unions were far more commonplace. ........ In 1971, they sold Raj’s wedding dowry and moved to the United States, where Raj had gotten a scholarship to Louisiana State University. About four months later, she gave birth to her first son. ........ Raj went to work for the state of Louisiana as a data processor while Amar worked as a civil engineer. ..... The Jindals were part of a small community of Indian families in Baton Rouge at the time, many who had come to Louisiana for university jobs. There was no temple then, and Bobby Jindal remembered that they gathered at someone’s home most Sundays for Hindu religious ceremonies known as pujas, with potluck curries afterward. ....... “My mom was fully committed to raising us as Americans,” Jindal said. “That was a conscious decision. We ate food that would be familiar to other families in south Louisiana. She wanted to raise us like other kids in the neighborhood.” ....... He hid his initial conversion from his devout Hindu parents, huddling in the closet to read the Bible by flashlight. ....... “At first they were angry about it,” Jindal recalled. “Then they wanted to understand: Was this a fad? Was it something I was serious about? Was I doing this for a girl? Why was I doing this? They questioned the motivation behind it. They asked me — and I thought it was reasonable — to read Indian books, Indian texts as well. It took time.” ........ When Jindal launched an ambitious campaign to become Louisiana’s governor in 2003, the Indian American community rallied behind him. ........... elected governor in 2007 and reelected in 2011 with two-thirds of the vote — in part by positioning himself as a buttoned-down bureaucrat who could clean up the state and by learning how to cultivate the “Bubbas for Bobby.” ...... He began wearing cowboy boots more often and got a hunting license. ..... As the years went by and Jindal’s political star rose, many in the Indian American community became disillusioned with their native son. ....... She said Indian dress was also discouraged for his 2008 inauguration. Jindal says that message did not come from his camp: “People were welcome to wear whatever they wanted.” ........ Discouraged by a lack of engagement, some of Jindal’s early donors have faded away, according to Sanjay Puri, chairman of the U.S. India Political Action Committee. Jindal’s top-contributors list now includes such recognizable names as cosmetics mogul Georgette Mosbacher........ Suresh C. Gupta, a Potomac, Md., doctor, gave a fundraiser for Jindal’s first gubernatorial bid. But he said Jindal has actively tried to disassociate himself from the Indian American community in recent years. ......... When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to the United States last September, a host of politicians attended his rally at Madison Square Garden. Jindal did not. When Jindal’s name was mentioned, he was booed by the crowd. ........ His parents remain proud of their heritage but still made the decision to raise their children as Americans, he said, and “there’s nothing contradictory about that.”
Why liberal racists are attacking Bobby Jindal
The reason Jindal has come in for such treatment is because he’s an eloquent advocate for integration and the promise of America. They’re not making fun of his background — they’re treating him like the Indian Clarence Thomas. ......... Jindal’s argument is clear: Your ethnic or religious heritage doesn’t make you any less fully American. You don’t need a qualifier just because your parents or grandparents were born elsewhere. This is America, after all. ...... race in America is far more complex than it once was. ....... Leftist school administrators will constantly remind kids with darker skin that they stand apart. ........ Even though Jindal was born in the United States, they won’t allow him to simply be “American.” They refuse to let him identify by his country of birth, instead forcing him to identify by the birth country of his parents. .... It’s bitter, and it’s bigoted, and it’s extraordinarily unseemly. But it’s also enlightening, telling us what leftists really think about the American melting pot: They don’t like it one bit.
Bobby Jindal, How Did You End Up Here?
Bobby Jindal was never supposed to wind up here. In 2008, some people called him the GOP Obama. His minority status as an Indian American, his wonkiness — he graduated Brown at age 20, then became a Rhodes Scholar — evoked the kind of technocratic wunderkind bridge-building that Obama had sought to accomplish from the left........ And then it all went to hell. ...... So there he was, on Wednesday, semi-officially announcing his candidacy via creepy hidden camera footage of him telling his kids that he was running for president. ...... The knock on Jindal — the fact that you will see repeated until he slinks back to Baton Rouge and starts cold-calling conservative think tanks for the best seven-figure sinecure — is that he famously declared after Romney's 2012 loss that the GOP needed to stop being "the stupid party," and has been going balls-to-the-wall stupid ever since. And while that's true, it overshadows the fact that Jindal's always veered between weird and wrong, when he isn't both........ Jindal inherited over $800 million in budget surplus and immediately spent it while taking a machete to the tax code and creating $800 million in tax cuts, mistakenly thinking that the good times of recovery investment and post-Katrina federal money would last forever. (He railed against the Obama stimulus dollars, then took them as quietly as possible.) Jindal punted billions in tax subsidies to business, then spent nearly every year of his governorship rigging a "neutral" budget by raiding rainy day funds and savings accounts, selling public assets and treating one-time credits as annual revenues — then rearranging the smoke and mirrors again the next year. (It's OK, only the universities were put on the chopping block.) Then he tried to abolish the corporate and income taxes. Facing a chasm in the budget of his own creation, Jindal cynically railed against "corporate welfare" while trying to use a possible rollback of his state's corporate giveaways as blackmail to force out-of-state corporations like IBM to respect homophobic "conscience" exemptions he favored......... and teach absolutely bugfuck facts like: man and dinosaurs were contemporaries, dragons might have existed, slavery and the KKK were usually good, the Great Depression is just liberal propaganda and gay people have no more rights than child molesters......... standard GOP bromides of freedom values entrepreneurship tradition liberty competition....... He went to England and tried to claim that Muslims had created "no-go" zones in England, which came as a surprise to English people, who live there....... He has a 28 percent approval rating in his own home state......... Iowa is strongly conservative and evangelical, and in spite of Bobby spending 12 months talking about the scourge of Islam and Big Brother coming to take everyone's Bibles away, he's polling at 1 percent in the state. This is his audience — this is who he's been talking to for the last year — and nobody cares. Bobby Jindal probably fucked up and installed his Iowa analytics team in a basement so he can't even plausibly claim to be polling above ground........ Far more plausibly, he's about to write a dead-end blog for the Heritage Foundation.
Bobby Jindal was supposed to be ‘the next Ronald Reagan.’ Here’s what went wrong.
Barack Obama had just been elected president. America was still swooning. And Jindal, who had been in office for less than a year at that point, was riding nearly as high as his Democratic counterpart from Chicago. ...... Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich had recently referred to Jindal as “the most transformative young governor in America.” Radio host Rush Limbaugh had taken to calling him “the next Ronald Reagan.” GOP White House nominee John McCain had already eyed Jindal as a running mate, and earlier that month, Steve Schmidt, McCain’s chief strategist, had told the Washington Post that “the question is not whether he’ll be president, but when he’ll be president — because he will be elected someday.” ....... His timing couldn’t be worse. ..... To say that Jindal is “barely registering” in the latest 2016 polls would be an overstatement. According to RealClear Politics, he currently averages 0.8 percent support among Republican primary voters, placing him dead last among the 15 contenders ..... The most recent NBC/Wall Street Journal survey pegged Jindal’s support at zero percent. ...... In May, Jindal’s job-approval rating hit “an all-time low” of 31.8 percent ...... Even President Obama, who lost Louisiana by 17 percentage points in 2012, is more popular than Jindal in the Pelican State. As the Washington Post recently put it, “Bobby Jindal is at the nadir of his political career.” ...... Why hasn’t Jindal become the next Reagan — or, as my profile posited, “the GOP’s Obama”? ..... a story of real promise — promise that many in Louisiana say he has squandered.
Bobby Jindal wants to downplay his Indian heritage, but Twitter won't let him
Bobby Jindal said Wednesday that he was “done” with being seen as Indian-American...... He is a native-born American ...... Using the hashtags #Jindian and #BobbyJindalIsSoWhite, Twitter users, many from India, mocked Jindal’s words and his attempt to distance himself from his Indian heritage. Many found comedy fodder in the fact that while he goes by Bobby – a name he apparently took from the “The Brady Bunch” – his given name is Piyush, and that he converted from Hinduism to Christianity as a teenager. ...... highlighting the racial ironies of Jindal tweeting, “I’m tanned, rested, and ready for this fight.” ..... "The single most important moment in my life was the moment I found Jesus Christ – the moment Jesus Christ found me."
Bobby Jindal Really Pissed Off Indians And They Responded Perfectly On Twitter
'Not much Indian left' in Bobby Jindal: The Washington Post explores
The governor's office was unimpressed with the Post's many insinuations....... "For years, liberals have attacked Governor Jindal for not being brown or Indian enough for their liking," Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin told the Washington Examiner's media desk. "Liberals are fixated on race."......... "Governor Jindal is proud of his heritage. He believes we need to stop fixating on race and hyphenated Americans. We are all Americans," he said.

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Bobby Jindal: Louisiana Record

English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 --...
English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 -- President George W. Bush and Governor Bobby Jindal greeting EOC employees, during disaster recovery efforts for Hurricane Gustav. Jacinta Quesada/FEMA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I get the impression Bobby Jindal has been too ideologically pure. The Left "accuses" Hillary of not being pure. Note that. This guy should be running a think tank, not a state or country. Makes you wonder about think tanks though. What are they preaching? Louisiana is starting at the bottom. Bill Clinton's Arkansas was like that. And after Bill Clinton was done with it, Arkansas was still at the bottom, with slight improvements. There is just something about Louisiana. Maybe it is too close to Haiti.

Governing is a dynamic situation like sailing. You are supposed to respond to the winds, something Bill Clinton got accused of. Why is the boat not steady? Well, the wind be blowing left and right.

Tax cuts funded by swiped credit cards might make rich people happy, but I don't see how that contributes to economic growth. Raising the minimum wage, on the other hand, is instant stimulus.

Bobby not making sense to me is probably good for him. Even Dems start out on the Left before the primaries, and should they get past them, then conveniently move to the center. But Bobby is starting with really low numbers. It will be interesting to see how he plays out with the voters. How many primaries before he is out! Bust!

The guy won two elections in a row. Can't say he is a bad politician.

Bobby Jindal Does Not Offend Me



As Jindal’s G.O.P. Profile Grows, So Do Louisiana’s Budget Woes
here in the Louisiana capital, there is mostly one topic on everyone’s mind these days, and it is quite distressingly close to home: the fiscal reckoning the state is facing for next year and perhaps for multiple budgets to come. ...... “Since I’ve been in Louisiana I’ve never seen a budget cycle as desperate as this one” ..... Louisiana’s budget shortfall is projected to reach $1.6 billion next year and to remain in that ballpark for a while. ..... culprit: the fiscal policy pushed by the Jindal administration and backed by the State Legislature. ..... In a state the size of Louisiana, the shortfall is huge. But it is all the more daunting considering that the governor has unequivocally ruled out any plans for new revenue, bone-deep cuts have already been made to health care and higher education, ad hoc revenue sources have been all but drained and robust economic growth has yet to materialize. ...... Mr. Jindal’s first term began in 2008 with a heady surplus of around $1 billion, high oil prices and a stream of federal disaster recovery money after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. He threw his support behind the largest tax cut in the state’s history and, for a time, had reason to boast about an economy that outperformed the nation’s. But oil prices are fickle, and the recovery money dried up and the recession arrived, if late and in a milder strain than in other states. Since 2010, here as elsewhere, middling has been the new normal. ..... a slower-than-ideal recovery is not unique to Louisiana. How the state has dealt with it is the root of the problem ..... “the vast majority” of the shortfall to the downturn in oil prices and insisting that a shrunken state government was the goal, not an unfortunate side effect. .... per capita income in the state is at its highest ....... next year Louisiana State University, the state’s flagship institution, is facing a potential 40 percent cut in its operating budget. Possible cuts to health care for next year, when compounded by the loss of matching federal dollars, could approach $1 billion. ..... Trust funds for infrastructure and low-income older adults have been sapped, buildings sold, tax amnesties repeatedly declared, legal settlements spent and reserves drained. ..... the plunge in oil prices, “muted job growth” and “a structural deficit.” .... how “fiscally irresponsible” the state had been for the last seven years.
Bobby Jindal says Louisiana's growth has outpaced the nation's since the recession
Jindal said, "The Obama economy is now the minimum wage economy. I think we can do better than that." ..... the per capita income of Louisiana, you were 47th lowest in the United States, not all under your watch. ..... In Louisiana, we now have more people working, highest incomes in our state's history. Larger population than ever before. And the president can't say all those things about the country. Our economy has grown 50 percent faster than the national GDP, even since the national recession.......... Between 2007 and 2012 (the last year for which data is available), inflation-adjusted GDP grew by 2.5 percent nationally, but by 6.4 percent in Louisiana. ...... For 2008-12, Jindal would also be correct. During that period, Louisiana growth (7.9 percent) easily outpaced United States growth (3.2 percent). ..... But he’d be wrong for 2009-12, when United States growth (6.7 percent) exceeded Louisiana growth (4.6 percent)..... And he’d also be wrong for 2010-12, when the United States economy grew (4.1 percent) and the Louisiana economy actually shrank (by 1.2 percent)...... United States growth also exceeded Louisiana growth between 2011 and 2012 -- 2.5 percent to 1.5 percent....... "Louisiana's economy is highly dependent on the energy sector which, no matter where in the business cycle we lie, is always in demand," he said. "So, when the economy is in a recession, we tend to do better than average. When the economy is doing better, energy demand is somewhat higher, but not dramatically so. So when the economy is doing well, we lag behind the U.S. average. I suspect that we were doing better when the economy was in the heart of the Great Recession, but we have fallen behind as the overall economy has rebounded."
Bobby Jindal’s Troubles at Home
Jindal is quick to say, private-sector job growth and the economy in Louisiana have outpaced the national average during his tenure as governor...... here’s what Jindal doesn’t say: Louisiana’s budget is hemorrhaging red ink, and it’s getting worse. He inherited a $900 million surplus when he became governor seven years ago, and his administration’s own budget documents now show the state is facing deficits of more than $1 billion for as far as the eye can see. There are no easy solutions today because Jindal has increasingly balanced the budget by resorting to one-time fixes, depleting the state’s reserve funds and taking money meant for other purposes....... Meanwhile, the state’s unemployment rate has risen from 3.8 percent when Jindal took office, a point below the national average then, to 6.7 percent today—nearly a full point higher than today’s national average. ..... As the son of Indian immigrants who was a Rhodes scholar, Jindal, 43, has stood out as a national GOP star since his 2007 election as chief executive of Louisiana, with an image invariably described as wonky. In 2009, he was chosen to give the GOP response to Obama’s State of the Union address, but his unnatural singsong delivery was mocked. Since then, he’s back to fast talking and reeling off numbers while he courts Republicans outside of Louisiana. A year before the Iowa Republican primary, he has shifted his political emphasis by making an obvious pitch for religious conservatives, highlighting his faith ...... We have serious, serious problems with our budget. For seven years, we have spent more than we’ve taken in ..... (A governor in Louisiana has so much power that he appoints the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, along with committee chairmen.) ...... Jindal blamed the state’s budget woes on factors beyond his control. “The oil price drop has been good for consumers, but it’s had a big impact on our revenue” ..... Jindal’s aversion to tackling politically tough issues and his tendency to resort to ploys to paper over the problems. .... In 2003, as a private citizen running for governor (he narrowly lost), Jindal promised to “oppose and veto all efforts to increase taxes.” ..... As governor, he has taken the “no tax” commitment to such lengths that in 2011 he vetoed legislation supported by dozens of Republicans that sought renewal of a 4-cent portion of the state’s 36-cent-per-pack cigarette tax, the country’s third lowest. “His only reason is that he’d taken the crazy position that if you renew a tax or suspend an exemption it was a tax increase,” said state Rep. Harold Ritchie, a Democrat and smoker who sponsored the measure. Lawmakers found a way to approve it without Jindal being able to exercise a veto..... Louisiana has 33,000 fewer state workers than when he took office, in large part because he got the legislature to privatize the public hospitals. ..... The conservative Tax Foundation ranked Louisiana as having the 46th lowest tax burden as a share of state income. Louisiana also scores at the bottom in education and health care....... The state legislature cut income taxes for higher-end earners by a total of about $700 million per year...... He then shaved another $341 million in the middle of the 2009 budget cycle to avoid ending the year with a deficit. Jindal—buoyed by the tax cuts, his anti-government rhetoric, a growing state economy and his opposition to abortion—won reelection in 2011 with 65 percent of the vote.
Is Bobby Jindal Getting Started or Already Finished?
Jindal is polling in the low single digits in early Republican primary polls. ..... none of them, not one, can match our record of actually shrinking the size of government. .... He's a candidate who can hold his intellectual ground with anyone, and he has dominated Louisiana politics for the better part of a decade. Yes, it's a crowded field. And yes, it would take a momentum-kindling moment on par with then-Sen. Obama's legendary "Blue America-Red America" speech. But Jindal has been preparing for this moment for years, and he may yet have a second wind.
Bobby Jindal’s Fiscal Record
Jindal took office in January of 2008, and 2015 will be his last year in office. He has scored well on the Cato Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors earning an “A” in 2010, and a “B” in both 2012 and 2014. All three report cards commend Jindal’s resolve to cut Louisiana state spending. ..... Since fiscal year 2009, the first full fiscal year of Jindal’s term, state general fund spending has decreased by 7 percent. Per capita state spending has fallen from $2,089 in 2009 to $1,883 in 2015, a decrease of 10 percent. This spending restraint is quite remarkable. For comparison, per capita state spending grew nationally by 8.5 percent during the same time period. ..... Total state spending, which includes money from the federal government for programs like Medicaid, stayed constant while Jindal was in office. It was $28.9 billion in 2008 compared to $29.1 billion in 2014. ...... State government employment has decreased 26 percent since he’s been governor ...... State higher education spending fell from $1.1 billion a year in 2009 to $535 million in 2015. His 2016 budget includes further cuts to the state higher education system ....... Jindal’s strong fiscal record is partly undercut by Louisiana’s generous economic development programs, i.e., corporate welfare. Jindal helped expand the state’s wasteful film tax credit program. In 2013, the state wasted $250 million on the program, which is one of the largest film giveaways in the nation. The state offsets 30 percent of the cost of film production expenses. An episode of Duck Dynasty, the popular television show, represents $330,000 in tax credits to its production company. His administration also gave $36.5 million to the New Orleans Hornets, the professional basketball franchise, to encourage them to stay in New Orleans through the 2024 season. ...... Louisiana general fund spending has fallen during Bobby Jindal’s tenure as governor. At a time when states were increasing spending, Jindal instituted reforms that cut the state workforce and lowered per capita spending. This feat makes Jindal unique among Republican contenders for the presidency.
How Bobby Jindal Wrecked Louisiana
The Jindal administration is talking about cutting up to $300 million from state support to colleges and universities — that calculates to about $1 billion in higher ed reductions since Gov. Bobby Jindal took office in 2008 — and hacking another $200 million or so from health care. State agencies are looking at 15 percent to 20 percent removed from their budgets, which could translate into furloughs and reduced services. ..... “We’re going to end up placing fees and all kinds of things on ordinary citizens, just so” Jindal can say on the presidential campaign trail that he didn’t raise taxes ...... Jindal is sacking his own state to preserve his viability as a Republican presidential candidate — specifically, so he can say that he never raised taxes, but rather cut them. Even Quin Hillyer, the conservative columnist for the Advocate, thinks the state’s tax policy, under which the poor pay a greater percentage of their income in taxes than the rich, is a “moral abomination.” ........ Since taking office, Governor Bobby Jindal has cut taxes a total of six times, which included the largest income tax cut in the state’s history – giving back $1.1 billion over five years to the hard working tax payers across the state, along with accelerating the elimination of the tax on business investment, making Louisiana no longer one of only three states in the country that taxes manufacturing machinery. ........ when the state faced a $341 million budget shortfall, Governor Jindal chose to make state government more lean by finding strategic costs savings in the budget, rather than making across the board cuts or passing the bill on to taxpayers. ........ The cut was a giveaway to the rich, and Jindal, a reform Republican, was against it. But it was popular with the GOP legislature, so he embraced it — and it blew a massive hole in the state budget ....... What he won’t tell you about is his refusal to cut corporate welfare, which costs that state treasury a fortune every year ....... “Duck Dynasty” is the most popular show in the history of A&E. Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer. Valero is America’s biggest independent refiner, earning $6 billion in profits last year.... But despite all that success, they’re all receiving generous subsidies from the taxpayers of Louisiana, through programs that funnel more than a billion dollars every year to coveted industries. ...... During Kathleen Blanco’s four years as governor, the value of some of Louisiana’s largest tax breaks doubled. Since Bobby Jindal took the reins in 2008, the cost has more than doubled again ....... In his first year in office, the only year he did not have to resort to such tactics, Jindal himself deplored such bookkeeping, comparing it to “using your credit card to pay your mortgage.” ...... The state is facing a projected $1.6 billion budget shortfall next year, and higher education institutions have been told to prepare for $300 million to $400 million in reduced funding in the coming academic year. If that happens, LSU could be on the hook for more than $60 million, roughly 40 percent of the university’s operating budget. ........ LSU (and other state universities) will be getting only 25 percent of the state funding it received when Jindal took office. Think about that. It’s a disaster. Gov. Jindal and the GOP legislature have been a catastrophe for higher ed in this state. ...... that has meant that lawmakers only have room to maneuver within the higher ed and health care budgets. Last year, voters protected Medicaid from further state cuts, which leaves higher ed as the only target left. ......... But Jindal has done a number on health care for the poor too. He has largely privatized the state’s public hospitals, and refused as a matter of principle to take the federal Medicaid money due the state because of Obamacare. So now he can tell GOP primary voters nationwide that he stood up to Obamacare. ....... Services are now closed. There is now no emergency room in north Baton Rouge, where the majority of the city’s poor, uninsured people live. .......... We have serious, serious problems with our budget. For seven years, we have spent more than we’ve taken in. ...... governing not as a commonsense manager, but as an ideologue ....... He was first elected as a conservative, clean-government technocrat, and brought a lot of hope to many Louisianians. .... Yes, I’m fully aware that Louisiana is bound to break your heart. … [But] I think [Jindal’s] going to write the next great Louisiana story. Maybe just this once, it’s not going to be a farce. ....... The higher ed funding crisis does NOT exist because of a lack of willingness to spend on education. Louisiana actually ranks 18th in higher ed spending per capita. The problem exists because we have way too many four-year universities. In New Orleans, UNO and SUNO literally sit right next to each other. In the sparsely populated northeast part of the state, we have LA Tech, ULM and Grambling. This is, again, a structural problem that isn’t Bobby Jindal’s fault. What is needed is not cuts to LSU, but the bravery in the legislature to change a couple of lower-tier 4-year institutions into community colleges, killing duplicative programs that accomplish little and graduate almost no one. ........ Tuition at Louisiana’s public universities is also the 4th lowest in the nation, meaning that the cuts could probably be ameliorated by raising tuition, which is something that is almost guaranteed to happen...... he’s certainly right about the unsustainability of the state university system — a problem that was there before Jindal, and will remain long after he’s gone. The problem is that all the pols are standing together on this, because those universities are very important to their towns. But this can’t go on forever. The state needs something like the federal base-closing commissions, to give political cover to closing down institutions that ought not be kept open.
Republicans will have to spin struggling state economies in 2016
From New Jersey to Wisconsin to Louisiana, GOP governors with their eyes on the White House have presided over unbalanced budgets, unfunded pension liabilities, credit downgrades and sluggish job growth. .... That comes in contrast to an increasingly rosy economic picture nationally, with a strong December jobs report that capped off the best year in terms of economic growth for the nation since 1999. Unemployment, at 5.8 percent, was below predictions, and job growth has continued for month after month. ........ "In my judgment, they are so tied to an extreme ideology that they don't want to be confronted by the facts and the truth about what their approach, their trickle-down approach leads to: Greater deficits, a weaker economy, and greater inequality" ....... Louisiana has become more business-friendly under Jindal's watch, according to a number of nonpartisan rankings ...... Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, whose promised conservative "experiment" of implementing steep tax and spending cuts has crippled the state's economy, as evidence the conservative vision of governance doesn't work.
How Bobby Jindal Broke the Louisiana Economy
Louisiana State University President and Chancellor F. King Alexander said that the state’s flagship university, which could lose 80 percent of state funding after years of already deep cuts, was developing a worst-case scenario plan for financial exigency—basically, the academic equivalent of bankruptcy. ....... Jindal, a hard-charging former Rhodes scholar, has always nursed grander ambitions, and voters generally gave him a pass. ....... While he was popular and powerful enough to avoid a reelection fight in 2011, by 2015 his approval rating had sunk to 27 percent, according to one poll; a friendly survey by his own consulting firm pegged the number at 46 percent, hardly a resounding vote of confidence. ........ He spent 165 days out of state in 2014 ...... Jindal chalks up the current budget shortfall to the drop in oil prices, and that’s definitely contributed. A larger piece of the puzzle has been his determination to maintain a pure record on taxes. ....... These days it’s hard to think of anyone who has as much influence over what Jindal’s willing to do than Norquist, whose rigid rules for what constitutes a tax increase line up perfectly with Jindal’s. In practice, that means the governor has insisted that the budget be balanced without tax increases, despite the prospect of devastating cuts to higher education and health care, the two main areas that don’t enjoy constitutional or statutory protection. ....... there’s not much left. Gone are $800 million from the Medicaid Trust Fund for the Elderly and $450 million for providing development incentives, and the rainy day fund has dropped from $730 million to $460 million on his watch. ....... the Republicans running to replace Jindal in this fall’s election. All three .. say they will look for a way to accept the Medicaid money and take an open-minded approach to examining tax exemptions. ..... in a clear swipe at Norquist, he added that, “I represent the people of Louisiana; I don’t represent someone who lives in D.C.”
How Bobby Jindal is leaving a budget mess for Louisiana's next governor: News analysis
Gov. Bobby Jindal refused to roll back income tax cuts or ever-increasing corporate tax breaks. Instead, he raided reserve funds and sold off state property. ..... "They've used all the smoke that was in the can and all the mirrors that they could buy and now they're out of tricks. Their solution is to gut higher education like a fish," said Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy. ....... "Our budget has been full of sleights of hand -- it's almost a Ponzi scheme of moving moneys around, one-time money around, to serve recurring needs," Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne, one of the Republicans vying to be Louisiana's next governor, said at a recent forum. .... national credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service described Louisiana'sbudget as having a "structural deficit" ...... The governor has successfully trimmed some spending by cutting more than 30,000 full-time state employees. He's reduced the state's vehicle fleet, privatized much of the Medicaid program, turned over the state's charity hospitals to outside managers and looked for ways to make state government more efficient. ...... The state owes $190 million to federal officials for improper Medicaid spending in hospital privatization deals, an order being appealed, and a $270 million repayment to the state "rainy day" fund in 2017 as part of a legal settlement. Economic development deals will cost the next governor at least $340 million over his first four years..... Far fewer savings accounts will be left to pay those liabilities because Jindal drained or reduced trust funds. ....... When he talks of his record in national appearances, Jindal doesn't mention the budget troubles. He describes cutting Louisiana's budget from $34 billion in 2008 to $25 billion -- but doesn't explain much of that drop comes from spending down one-time federal recovery dollars after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. ..... New money hasn't rolled in, despite promises that tax revenue would increase from multibillion-dollar manufacturing and petrochemical projects announced by the Jindal administration in the last few years. ...... In his first year in office, Jindal signed off on the largest individual income tax cut in Louisiana history, stripping hundreds of millions from the state treasury at the same time the national recession hit. ....... The Legislature's chief economist, Greg Albrecht, has described Louisiana's tax break programs as spending with no annual oversight from state lawmakers before the money goes out the door. ...... As they ran into Jindal's resistance to tax break changes, lawmakers who voted for budgets packed with the governor's patchwork funding say removing the dollars would force harmful cuts to colleges, public safety and health care. For the upcoming session that begins in April, lawmakers are scrambling to find loopholes to generate new money but allow Jindal to call the plans "revenue neutral." ..... "Everybody says, 'Oh, you're using one-time money.' I tell people that say that, 'Well, tell me what you want to cut,'" said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Jack Donahue, a Republican. "'Is it higher education? Or is it health care? What university do you want to close?' The truth is, from a political standpoint, that's not possible."

Bobby Jindal Does Not Offend Me

English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 --...
English: Baton Rouge, LA, September 3, 2008 -- President George W. Bush and Governor Bobby Jindal greeting EOC employees, during disaster recovery efforts for Hurricane Gustav. Jacinta Quesada/FEMA (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
President George W. Bush (right) is greeted by...
President George W. Bush (right) is greeted by Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (left) and his wife, Supriya Jolly Jindal (center), on his arrival to Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport Monday, April 21, 2008, where President Bush will attend the 2008 North American Leaders’ Summit. White House photo by Joyce N. Boghosian (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, at campaign e...
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, at campaign event for presidential candidate John McCain in Kenner, Louisiana. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Bobby and Gay Marriage
Bobby Jindal's Speech
Bobby Saying All The Right Things
Biden, Bobby
Bobby, The Biology Major
Bobby Jindal: Our Economy Is Strong
Bobby's Running Mates

Except on gay marriage. His stance on gay marriage to me is like he wants to snatch away voting rights from blacks. And for that one stand, I have to dismiss everything else he might stand for. And it is a political disagreement.

But I never thought any less of his Indian heritage just because he converted. There are plenty of Christians who are Indian citizens in India. You don't have to be Hindu to be Indian, in India. Why should the rules be any different in America, of all places?

It is a basic democratic ethos that other people might have different opinions. I am a progressive. Bobby is a conservative. And we both are just fine. But I must admit, Bobby has made me take a second look at some pretty hard core conservative positions. As in, really? You feel that way? That is your worldview? Really? I guess the conditioning being, in America, if you are brown like Bobby, you are very likely to be on the other side.

I have also been fascinated that Bobby is smart, and successful. I mean, Louisiana, of all places. The most famous politician out of that state used to be David Duke, I think, a flaming racist. How can Louisiana throw up someone of Bobby's looks? That is progressive progress.

When he says he is proud of his Indian heritage, but he wants Americans to be just Americans, how is that any different from progressives saying everyone in America should be treated as equals regardless of race? Race being the topic it is, sticky, it is not the kind of reactions that will surface, it is more that he even bothered talking about it.

My political perspective is, after getting hit by the truck called Donald Trump, a lot of Republicans might welcome that Bobby has now announced. Trump is the opposite of gravitas. Bobby is all wonky and stuff. That is a counterbalance.

But like I said, on Bobby I am a one issue dude. You are opposed to gay marriage? You are out. That is a civil rights issue. Too bad, because on many other issues, even when I might disagree, I think Bobby has some well thought out, well reasoned arguments that would make for good political ping pong.

Some Indians attacking Bobby sound like blacks who attacks blacks who read, as if reading is too white. What's white?

As for 2016, we have had a brown/black guy, now it is a woman's turn to step in. Hillary will out wonk Bobby, hands down. When I say Bobby is smart, it is a relative term. He is smart in a party of stupid.

An Indian origin person becoming a serious candidate for President Of The United States, that is a lot of pride for Indians in India. They will not care what Bobby says. He might get a lot of social media love from afar.

Bobby Jindal presidential bid sparks Twitter mockery

As for his chances, I don't know, it is tough. Hillary is going to beat whoever. But will Bobby make it to the ring? Right now the bet is on Jeb Bush, right? But I like how Bobby said, it is White House or bust. I like that attitude. Maybe he wants to run, and then go into the private sector. Or go into the US Senate later? Or maybe correct himself on gay marriage and run again later? I mean, he is young. He will still be young in 2024. One term in the US Senate might be a good preparation. I don't think anyone has been both Governor and Senator before running for president.

How is his record in Louisiana? I mean the economic record. How is the state faring?