Very Serious People

These very serious people all hold positions of responsibility and must be taken very seriously when they address very serious issues.

Very Serious Person #1:
SC Governor Nikki Haley

  

There are two people in the world who spell their name "Nikki."

One of them is the governor of South Carolina.

SC governor defends Confederate flag at Statehouse: Not ‘a single CEO’ has complained

Wait, that can't be right, can it?

 “What I can tell you is over the last three and a half years, I spent a lot of my days on the phones with CEOs and recruiting jobs to this state,” the governor noted. “I can honestly say I have not had one conversation with a single CEO about the Confederate flag.”

Oh, Geez. . .

Nikki, bubula, you're not supposed to say things like that out loud. You're supposed to pretend that you give a shit about the opinions and feelings of people, even those little non-CEO people, um what do ya call 'em. . . oh, yeah voters!

Okay, so that was one slip. I'm sure everything else she had to say was about very serious ideas and. . .

Haley said that she had tried to improve the perception of the state by ordering employees to answer the phone with the phrase “it’s a great day in South Carolina.”

  

Oh fer fuck sake. . .

That's how you improve your state's image? By having your employees recite some bullshit tagline when they answer the phone? Do you really imagine that anyone is calling the state, hearing "It's a great day in South Carolina" and thinking "it is? Well, heck I'm a gonna bring my whole durn business down thar if the days are really that great! It's rainin' cats & dogs up here in North carolina, Im a headin' down south right now! Pack up yer things, ma - we'se a movin!"

This is like how Chic-Fil-A makes their employees say "it's my pleasure" every time the serve a customer. * No one believes them. Everyone knows they're being forced to say that. It's not like customers are thinking "oh, it's her pleasure? Well, shoot then I guess I don't feel so bad about the miserable minimum wage in this state. If I'd  only known that this cashier is doing this job for her own enjoyment!"

But, really, even if people are fooled by your employees insincere catchphrase, do you really thin that erases the history of slavery and racism that the Confederate flag represents? Don't you think that even with this exercise in P.R. genius, people might still be reminded of the more shameful parts of your state's history when they see that flag?

“But we really kind of fixed all that when you elected the first Indian-American female governor,” she insisted. “When we appointed the first African-American U.S. senator, that sent a huge message.”

  

You stop that, Judge Judy! Stop laughing! Nikki Haley is not to be laughed at. She is a very serious person!

Just as serious as Very Serious Person #2:  Jeb Bush.

Jeb Bush does not currently hold a position of responsibility, but he used to be Governor of Florida and has, well not exactly thrown his hat into the ring, but he is holding his hat in his hand and pacing around the ring waiting for someone to finally ask him to throw it in.

You can tell how serious Jeb is just by his answer to this question about an actual important issue:

Progress Michigan: Do you think Secretary Land should support the Paycheck Fairness Act?
Bush: What's the Paycheck Fairness Act?

 

 You know, I'm sure that there are a lot of folks out there who don't know what the Paycheck Fairness Act is. But none of those people is qualified to be the President of the goddamned United States of America!

Oh, I'm sorry. You were saying? Saying very seriously?

Progress Michigan: The Paycheck Fairness Act is a piece of legislation that would ensure women receive the same pay as men...equal pay for equal work.
Bush: Equal pay for the same work, not for equal work—I think that's the problem with it. I think there's a definition issue.

Whoah! Hold it right there!

Am I misunderstanding you, or is your position seriously that women doing the same work as men is not the same thing as women doing equal work? Is that really what you're saying? Like if a male accountant is doing the same job as a female accountant, that's not equal because of course the female accountant's work would not be as good? 'Cuz, um, boobs? Or something? Are you really trying to imply that? Because that's what I'm hearing.

Progress Michigan: So you don't think Secretary Land should support it?
Bush: I don't know. You'd have to ask her.

Really? You'd have to ask Secretary Land what YOUR OPINION is on whether she should support the Fairness Act? Now that's a serious thinker! No wonder he's considered "the smart one."

  

George was "the cute one." Neil was "the mysterious one."

And of course, no discussion of very serious people could be complete without

 Very Serious Person #3: Louie Gohmert

Discussing the very serious subject of the miniscule possibility DEAD CERTAINTY!!! that there could be an Ebola pandemic in the US, Gohmert offered this analysis:

“You know, it’s a shame that the CDC head, Frieden, is apparently the commander of the Democrats’ new war on women nurses,” Gohmert opined. “Because, goodnight, they set them up, and then they throw them under the bus.”

  

What???

Now, not being a very serious person myself, I really don't understand what the fuck any of this is supposed to mean, but apparently the head of the CDC, at the behest of the Democratic Party, is purposely infecting nurses with Ebola? Because the Democratic Party hates women nurses? I guess that makes sense, I mean why wouldn't the Democrats hate a group made up largely of women who are union members?

“The idiot comes out and says that clearly she had violated protocol,” the Texas congressman continued. “At least in football, they have to tell you what you violated.”

Umm. . . okay. Football. Sure. That just could not be more germane. Whenever anyone doesn't behave the way a football referee would, it's safe to say that person is an idiot. 

And on that note, I think that's about all the very serious people I can take right now. 

 

*Yes, I used to eat at Chic-Fil-A. No, I don't any more. They say they've stopped contributing to anti-gay groups, but the damage has been done. To my arteries.

This Is Who They Are

South Carolina Gov Vetoes Abuse And Rape Prevention Funding, Calls It A Distraction

  

Quit distracting me! I'm trying to destroy a state here!

Haley explained these vetoes in the Department of Health and Environmental Control budget by writing, "Each of these lines attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement, but nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina's chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on lines distract from the agency's broader mission of protecting South Carolina's public health." 

(emphasis added. By me.)

Oh. I see. Victims of rape and abuse don't make up a particularly large voting bloc? So who cares about them?

This is your Tea-Party, America. This is who they are. They do not care about anything except enacting policies to further enrich the already wealthy or damage government's ability to do anything positive. Trying to prevent rape and domestic violence? That's just a "distraction."

Nikki Haley Can Teabag Like a Man

I don't know why I always expect women to be less evil and stupid than their male counterparts.

 

And I'm almost always disappointed.

 

You were expecting, maybe, Mother Theresa?

Aaaaanyway. . .  Somehow South Carolina ended up with a budget surplus of around $210 million dollars. Now you'd think that South Carolina could figure out a lot of things it needs to spend money on, 

 

 

  

Like a less embarrassing school mascot?

But, this being South Carolina in the teabagger era, they could only agree to spend half of that money on schools, while the other half would go to lowering business taxes in the state.

 

Mah Distillin' bizness needs a tax break more'n them kids need that fancy book-lernin'!

( I kid South Carolina, I've been there, it's a fine state. )

But even that was too much for Governor Nikki Haley.

Gov. Haley Would Veto Spending Surplus on Schools

Gov. Nikki Haley says she would veto a Senate plan 
to spend $105 million in surplus funds on schools.

"If you're not giving it in tax relief, if you're not giving it to pay down debt, you send it back to the taxpayers. That's where it belongs," she says.

Okay, South Carolina has a population of about 4.5 million people. So if Haley sends that $105 million back to the taxpayers, that comes out to about Twenty-Three Dollars and Thirty-Three Cents per South Carolinian. I'm sure that will be a real life-changer for them.  Or you could hire 2,100 teachers at $50k per year. But yeah, it's generally accepted teabagger wisom that the people know better how to spend their money than guv'mint does! So, I'm sure each set of parents will take their $46.66 and use that to make a much smarter investment in their kids' futures. What ever they spend their $46.66 on will obviously have a much more positive impact on their children's lives than some dumb old teacher would have.

 

Forty six dollars? Here's to you, South Carolinians!

Heck, I'm sure the schools probably don't even need the money anyway! You know how well-funded these darn socialist schools are what with their commie teachers' unions, and their PTA bakesales and whatnot!

"It's a bad situation out there as far as education is concerned and good teachers are being laid off because the school districts just simply don't have the money," says Sen. John Land, D-Manning, Senate Minority Leader.

"You've got to remember that we are way behind in education," he says. "Three years ago, we were giving $2,500 per student going back to the local districts to educate our children across this state. We are down now to about $1,700 per student."

Oh. Well still, though. Forty six bucks per family! Thank you Governor Haley!
Screw giving money to schools, right governor?

"We could give double this budget to education and there would be people saying it's not enough," Haley said, without specifying how much money public education should get. "It needs to go to students in the classroom."

Yeah, double the amount is still not enough, so it only makes sense to give nothing. It's like one meal a day isn't really enough food for a growing boy such as myself, heck even two meals might not be sufficient, so why eat at all? And the money needs to go to the students in the classroom. God knows you can't accomplish that goal by givng money to the schools!