'Smart'

From Hullabaloo here.

Richard Shelby [GOP Senator from Alabama] left the Democratic party in 1994 finally signaling the final success of the Southern Strategy and the long overdue gathering of all conservatives under the same banner. It was a good day for Democrats. We may be a lot of bad things, but at least we don't have to claim this nasty, braindead piece of work:

Another local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.

“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”

According to the Associated Press, state officials in Hawaii checked health department records during the campaign and determined there was no doubt Obama was born in Hawaii.

That's a US Senator we're talking about, not some wingnut talk radio "entertainer." But then, Shelby's been making no sense for a long time and his economic incoherence is more obvious by the day. (He's no better on national security.)

Between Jindahl, Barbour and Shelby, the Southern Republicans have hit the trifecta. If you live in one of their states and are counting on getting through this economic crisis with even the shirts on your backs, you probably need to think about relocating.

From TPM here ("Grandstanding Jindal").

As you can see in our feature story about Louisiana Gov. Jindal refusing $98 million of the stimulus money headed for his state, that amounts to under 2% of the total money Louisiana will be receiving. So not exactly going out on a limb. We were all set to have that be our headline. But what's less clear is how much of the total $7.68 billion his state is getting he's in a position to turn down. A lot of it doesn't go through him in the first place. So we felt compelled to leave it implicitly clear that Jindal had apparently found the ideal number that would give him some shred of credibility with the neo-Hooverite right while also allowing him to get through his term as governor without getting impeached.