'Tis the week before Christmas
And all through the nation,
We continue to deal with….
The same political constipation!

It's been a tough year for our great Republic with natural disasters, the loss of more American military overseas, political gridlock in the Congress and here in California, and a realization that our government, as good as it is, needs a major tune-up.

This time of year, for my family and me, has always been about staying close to home, cooking, opening gifts, gong to church, and just generally celebrating Christmas. I tell you this because a couple of years ago, the wife and I decided to alter out Christmas celebration and spend it out of town.

We chose New Orleans and its great Christmas traditions, the fantastic food, the great people, cruising down the Mississippi River and watching the burning towers built by locals along the river banks. It was a great Christmas with our youngest daughter, an 18-year-old at the time.

So as we hurry and scurry around buying last minute gifts and wait for jolly old St. Nick, I can't help but be frustrated by what has NOT happened in the Big Easy since the devastation of Hurricane Karina. Last week, a judge ordered the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, to extend the funding for people who have been living in hotels all these months. Where did the FEMA bureaucrats think these poor people were supposed to go?

As you and I have moved on to other things in life, we don't have to deal with the hell these people have been facing and will for years to come. Think about it a minute. Not only did they lose their homes and personal belongings like clothes, furniture, photos, family heirlooms, kids' toys, computers, etc., but they lost their jobs. Not just the work they did as a plumber, secretary, nurse, teacher, sales clerk, restaurant server, et al, they lost any ability to be a part of a social structure where a place to work even exists. The hospitals, restaurants, stores, and offices they once occupied have also been wiped out.

I never get sentimental about most things I do in life, including the places I visit, but my first Christmas away from home and seeing the continuing devastation and government inability at all levels to take care of business really pisses me off. I have a much better command of the English language than to express my anger in such primitive ways, but to simply say that "I am mad" is to greatly sanitize my families and I am not usually want to do that.

Without any disagreement, the task of cleaning up New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast is beyond anything we have ever seen in this great country. But to read the emails of the likes of the head of FEMA worrying about getting a reservation at a good restaurant, the Governor worried about what type of clothes she should wear in public, and the African-American mayor of New Orleans spouting off that he didn't want to see "Mexicans over-running" his city in the clean-up efforts is revoltingly disgusting.

Politics, and the analysis paralysis of inept politicians and bureaucrats, is killing people in our country. The aftermath of Katrina is a perfect example. Very little gets done and it takes forever to figure that out. Have you ever asked yourself why Louisiana, with a Democrat governor, is so far behind repairing the damage in her state? And yet, her neighbor governors in Mississippi and Alabama, who were also devastated, have made major progress in starting the rebuilding process and they happen to be Republicans. I'm not trying to engage in partisan politics here, I am just pointing out facts.

While Louisiana continues to thrash about accusing the federal government of a deliberately slow response to the hurricane damage allegedly because the victims were black, and the mayor o New Orleans complains about Mexicans, Mississippians and Alabamans don't give a hoot about color as long as you come to help rebuild their beautiful coast and help restart their businesses.

It's sort of a Christmas-type of attitude in those two states. Come and be jolly, work with us and help us, and we'll all have a good time and we look forward to a new and prosperous new year.

But the Louisiana victicrats, as talk show host Larry Elder likes to refer to the liberals in our society, would rather bitch and moan about their ills, complain that life isn't fair, express their profound despair that it's going to be a bleak Christmas and say they can't possibly even think about the New Year. Instead of being a part of the solution to their own problems, they remain a part of the problem itself.

Merry Christmas to all, and may Santa, dressed as the Wizard of Oz, bring the politicians in Louisiana and their victicrat pimps in Washington DC, some new hearts, some new brains, and certainly some courage to do the right thing from now on.