Filibustin' a Move with Crazy Jimmy B

Well, readers, you may have noticed that one of KY's original good ole boys has been in the news rather prominently (again) as of late--and you know that's never a good thing for KY. Well, this time it's really not a good thing for the huge numbers of unemployed: everyone's "favorite" cantankerous governmental nap-taker, Jim Bunning, has been a lot more active than usual in his job this past week: he's been the lone Senator holding up the legislation that would extend jobless benefits (i.e. unemployment and health insurance) to roughly one million currently out-of-work Americans. Way to take a stand, there, Jimmy boy--right onto the backs of your constituents (KY's unemployment rate is currently one of the nation's highest--10.7%), and during the worst economic crises since the Great Depression, no less.

You may remember the salad days of Jim Bunning insanity fun--back in the years and months before he "decided to retire" (read: before he was pressured by the entire GOP to bail on reelection due to a torrent of gaffes and truly offensive outbursts). You could pretty much count on Jimmy to make the news bi-weekly--whether it was dissing Mitch McConnell or publicly celebrating Ruth Bader Ginsburg's cancer diagnosis or cussing out reporters during a conference call, you knew that if Jimmy had shown up somewhere and said something, whatever it was would be derogatory, petulant, sexist, rude, profane, and/or outlandish. The local newspaper had even suggested (bluntly, and not in jest) that he was getting dementia--they ran an interview last summer with a mental health specialist who used Jimmy's behavior to diagnose a possible loss of brain function(!).

So anyway--here we are, every single one of the other Senators voting to extend unemployment except Jim. Jim who, suddenly, feels like taking a stand rather than his usual MO: i.e. stare in jaded silence, perhaps blurt some shitty remark and then, later, a nap. Or maybe just stay home and skip the whole ordeal. But now we meet principled Jimmy, Mr. Fiscal Responsibility. But don't be fooled, it's still the same old Crazy Jimmy B: while his fellow Senators tried to change his mind he complained about missing a UofK basketball game; when Sen. Jeff Merkely (D-OR) asked him to stand down Jimmy replied "tough shit!"; and when reporters asked him for an interview he casually flipped the bird to one of the producers (according to ABC News)(!).

Of course, these days Jimmy can afford to be a self righteous finger-wagger at our expense: he's not running for reelection next year, so he doesn't really need to worry about the fallout (although, I'm not sure he ever really worried about it before, either). So maybe he figures that by using his final months in office to be an anti-middle class obstructionist A-hole he can cash-in on a little of that tea bagging fever. Maybe Fox News will even make him their newest correspondent...he would fit right in, maybe even make some of their other sideshow attractions seem sane and well-balanced in comparison (note to Glenn Beck: it's gonna take a mighty river of tears to compete with the cluster bomb of crazy that is Jim Bunning, so start hydrating now).

And it's not just unemployment benefits that will be affected: 2,000 federal workers will be furloughed, reimbursements to states for transportation projects will be halted (including two bridge replacement projects in Kentucky), a provision expired that would have stopped a 21% cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors, and loan programs for small businesses are now on hold. Whew! That's a whole lotta work for an old guy like Jimmy--I'm sure it was enough to really tucker the poor guy out. Let's hope all the angry phone calls and bomb threats that his Kentucky office has been receiving this week hasn't kept him from catching his z's.