Jackass Bauer

...and South Carolina just continues wallowing in glory.

If you need any further proof that the GOP is the Party of Scrooge, let's consider the case of South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer, a guy who recently said, "My grandmother was not a highly educated woman, but she told me as a small child to quit feeding stray animals. You know why? Because they breed." He was leading up to a diatribe of welfare recipients and how we ought to stop feeding them because it fosters "a culture of dependency."

This is very much in keeping with Louisiana state Rep. John LaBruzzo who back in 2008 proposed paying poor women $1000 so they stop making less of themselves.

Likening the poor and disadvantaged to stray animals who only hang around if given a handout and the necessity of sterilizing them is something that only a Republican assclown would propose and is dangerously close to what Jonathan Swift suggested with tongue firmly in cheek in his "A Modest Proposal."

It's perhaps interesting to note that South Carolina is not only one of the poorest states in the union, it also boasts that out of its 47 counties in 2008, there isn't a single county in which 10% or less of the inhabitants live below the poverty level while over half, or 27 contain a 17% or greater constituency living below the poverty line.

In Allendale County (41.8%), the hardest hit county, almost half of the children live in poverty. I'm sure that'll go over real big when Jackass Bauer's election kicks into high gear. Of course, in keeping with the Republican tradition of Emersonian "self-reliance", neither Bauer nor LaBruzzo or anyone else of their odious, oleaginous ilk bother suggesting any alternatives to welfare, such as job creation, employment and academic education, grants that would pave the way to that end, you know, ways for people on welfare to get off welfare and make something of themselves.

But that would make too much sense and common sense, as with its cousin The Truth, has a liberal bias. It ought to be noted, also, that in that same year nearly 29% of South Carolina's population was African American (over twice the national average of 12.8)%, which begins to explain why well over half its counties live below the poverty level.

Lest the people of South Carolina forget that slur against their own poverty, they can also pay attention to his criminal history that includes speeding, getting belligerent with police officers and getting off scot free. This is a guy who's so unstable that Gov. Mark Sanford, just before shipping out for his stint in the AF Reserves, refused to temporarily transfer power to him.

And Republican-leaning voters have a wealth of choices: Of the four GOP gubernatorial contenders, three of them are national laughingstocks, including the aforementioned Lt. Governor, SC Attorney General Henry McMaster for his attack on Craigslist and Congressman Gresham Barrett who was roundly booed by Tea Partiers last April.

I never thought I'd say this, but I miss Mark Sanford already.