You don’t know me and I’m not a Lousianan, but I did want to share one brief thought with you this Sunday morning. I pen it in reference to your national performance supporting the federal hijack of up to a fifth of the US economy.
I’ve been to New Orleans – it has a number of attractions and an envious reputation among tourist destinations, and I’ve spent personal and professional time in the city. I would have liked to do so again in the near future, perhaps a number of times.
I do enjoy NO and I’m sure many others do as well. In fact, I understand that NO entertains roughly 7.5 million annual visitors for an income of five billion dollars.
I regret to inform you that as the result of your accepting what’s widely seen as a financial offer to throw your vote on healthcare — and notwithstanding your unusual logic about the economic plight of your constituents — should this measure pass the Senate and eventually be signed into law, I will probably never again visit New Orleans. I don’t know your motives nor are they important; it’s that appearance of impropriety thing.
In fact, I might go out of my away to avoid Louisiana entirely.
Based on the figures I cited from the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation for 2009, (PDF) those seven million-plus annual tourists spend an average of $700. A former employer once sent a half dozen of us there for four days apiece.
So. If we divide these recent legislative earnings by $700, and then assume a local average gross profit margin from food, lodging, and entertainment of say 50%, we find that 1,000,000 tourists could, if they adopt this thinking, actually completely negate Louisiana’s short-term net proceeds from whatever it was that somehow uniquely sent $300,000,000 to your state.
Over two years that number could wipe your state’s windfall from the books and replace it with a comparable loss.
Then we could do this for either your entire term, year by year, or forever. Year by year.
I’m happy that your constituents feel enriched by your actions, but I’m curious: Is it possible that 10% of NO’s tourist base would adopt this eventuality in 2010? How about 5% for each of the next two years? I mean, polls tell us that on average, over half of them oppose federal “healthcare”. Don’t they?
What if one-half or one-quarter or even one-eighth percent of the US come to similar conclusions and go elsewhere on vacation next year?
Have a pleasant weekend and best of luck with your senatorial goals.
Yours,
JHoward
Comment by happyfeet on 11/22 @ 1:07 pm #
I agree. I’m not of a mind to reward the inbred dickheads what loosed this bought and paid for sow-titted whore on our little country. It’s not America how these welfare whores from Louisiana think.
Comment by Danger on 11/22 @ 1:19 pm #
Well placed volley sir
Keep firing!
Comment by Danger on 11/22 @ 1:23 pm #
By the way,
If your looking for the same eclectic type of entertainment Key West is the better bet.
Harder to get to but they do have a much better beach and much less crime.
Comment by JHo on 11/22 @ 1:33 pm #
Probably leftists will flock to NO next year. Celebrate!
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/22 @ 1:41 pm #
Just by coincidence, our memory Bible verse this month is:
“Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds those who see and twists the words of the righteous.” – Exodus 23:8
Read it and heed it, Senator.
Comment by Salt Lick on 11/22 @ 2:10 pm #
If your looking for the same eclectic type of entertainment Key West is the better bet.
I lived in New Orleans for 8 years and enjoyed what it had to offer, but these days I’d choose Charleston, SC. It has similar architecture and food, but less crime and closer beaches.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/22 @ 2:28 pm #
Anyone who’s read PJ O’Rourke’s “Parliament of Whores” will never forget his description of NO as “a high-crime drainage ditch.”
Comment by Carin on 11/22 @ 2:49 pm #
I’m with you JHoward. Can we add our names (in agreement, not to take credit for the idea or wording) to your letter?
Comment by Joe on 11/22 @ 3:00 pm #
Dear Senator Mary L. Landrieu,
I am hosting some sailors on shore leave and I just wanted to see if you were available for a party. I think we can pool $200, maby $300 bucks. Let us know if you are available.
Cheers.
Comment by Snowcone on 11/22 @ 3:21 pm #
Honey, let’s skip Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year and go to Dollywood for Pig Knuckle week!
Okay!
Comment by happyfeet on 11/22 @ 3:22 pm #
New Orleans is whores, Mr. Snowcone. Dirty dirty whores.
Comment by JD on 11/22 @ 3:26 pm #
Amazing that snotnose/alphie thinks itself superior to people that do not agree with its inanity. Guaranteed it is a coastal “I am superior to people in fly-over country” elitist fucker.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/22 @ 3:27 pm #
Snowcone does bring teh stoopid, I’ll give him that. If there was a World Cup Stupid competition, he’d be a serious contender.
Comment by Snowcone on 11/22 @ 3:28 pm #
What I find laughable, JD, is the idea that any Republican would be willing to sacrifice personal pleasure for political gain.
Comment by JHo on 11/22 @ 3:35 pm #
You catch the Folsom street fair this year, snowy? It ain’t Opryland Resort, but then not much is, hear?
Comment by donald on 11/22 @ 3:58 pm #
I’ve been to Opryland one time. I stepped in, walked into the bathroom, and wad drvin out by the smell on somebody dropping an Obama.
Comment by Pablo on 11/22 @ 4:03 pm #
Dollywood can’t touch Nawlins’ municipal vomit and urine quotient. Nor beads.
Comment by JD on 11/22 @ 4:09 pm #
Fuck off, alphie. What you do know know about those that disagree with you would fill the Grand Canyon.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/22 @ 4:23 pm #
You have no idea where those beads have been.
Comment by newrouter on 11/22 @ 5:20 pm #
“22% of people in Louisiana have no health insurance”
is that because they’re stupid or because they can’t afford it
Comment by Bob Reed on 11/22 @ 5:22 pm #
So what, now we’re going to start the [x] doesn’t care about the po’ folks in Louisiana because we don’t support Obamacare…
Sounds to me like those people could all have a gubmint paid for private plan if Senator Landrieu would use the 300 million that she got bribed with to buy it. That’s all right, there are a much greater percentage of Louisianans that are going to vote against her based on this show if support for Obamacare; suffice to say, she’s going down in the next election. But that’s okay, remember how Obama told all the pols they should be willing to trade their electoral prospects for the pleasure of “doin’ the right thing”…
He’ll be joining them though, ‘cuz I’m not sure if Obama is in the fast lane on the road to perdition, or simply on the exit ramp, but this will not play with all the protesters from this summer either. It’s strange, but voters remember politicians voting against the public’s economic interests; and this bill definitely is in both the long and short terms…
Comment by JHo on 11/22 @ 5:25 pm #
Elevate your game, Tim. Whether you know it or not, lives depend on votes like yours and not in the way your limited mind evidently thinks, not based on that lie you just foisted off as a fine sensitivity for your fellow man.
I propose that I’ve sent a number of times more cold hard cash to what you would define as underprivileged than you have, son.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/22 @ 5:29 pm #
22% of people in Louisiana have no health insurance. JHoward doesn’t care.
Add me to that list. It’s not my obligation to provide it.
Comment by JD on 11/22 @ 5:34 pm #
Tim – Sen Landrieu should personally spend that $100,000,000 to buy them all health insurance policies. And donate all her campaign dollars to same. You should too. To prove you care. Douchenozzle.
Comment by happyfeet on 11/22 @ 5:39 pm #
the number of people the Chicago street trash little president man will slaughter with his vicious dirty socialist third world health care scheme is really awful to contemplate
Comment by SBP on 11/22 @ 5:55 pm #
Even MoDo is starting to slag off on Doctor Utopia a bit.
Comment by B Moe on 11/22 @ 6:29 pm #
Isn’t Las Vegas kind of popular with tourists?
And in the words of my favorite poet, the late, great, Deacon Lunchbox:
“They got dope-sniffin’ dogs at Dollywood- my vacation plans are ruined!”
Comment by SBP on 11/22 @ 7:29 pm #
#28: Might consider Vegas if they actually dump Cryptkeeper Reid at the next election, which is looking more and more likely.
Comment by ghost707 on 11/22 @ 7:32 pm #
Even MoDo is starting to slag off on Doctor Utopia a bit.
I think part of that may be due to Sarah Palin running over her with an M1 tank by way of monstrous book sales.
And then backing up over her and then running her over again. Poor Maureen just can’t win.
Comment by Jeffersonian on 11/22 @ 7:37 pm #
#28: Might consider Vegas if they actually dump Cryptkeeper Reid at the next election, which is looking more and more likely.
This is a point I’m going to hammer home on a call to my Democratic Senator tomorrow: Dingy Harry can promise you anything he wants now, sweetheart, but don’t expect to collect come 2011. That walking cadaver is going to be pushing a broom at the Bellagio from then on.
Comment by JHo on 11/22 @ 7:43 pm #
Dingy Harry on Democare.
Comment by cynn on 11/22 @ 8:53 pm #
Jcoward: I must have missed your original outrage at the offhand neglect of New Orleans during Katrina. You know, gotta flush that toilet somehow. I wouldn’t go there on a bet.
Comment by geoffb on 11/22 @ 9:42 pm #
The memes, they are strong in this one.
Narrative, narrative, wherefore art thou narrative.
Comment by maggie katzen on 11/22 @ 10:01 pm #
oh, it started waaaaay before that.
Comment by SPC Jack Klompus on 11/22 @ 10:16 pm #
“Honey, let’s skip Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year and go to Dollywood for Pig Knuckle week!”
Fuck off you worthless pile of shit. You should be beaten within an inch of your miserable excuse for a life, you pointless loser.
Comment by RTO Trainer on 11/22 @ 11:05 pm #
What “offhand neglect”? I was there and I know that they got more help than they could use, much less deserved.
Comment by Joe on 11/23 @ 1:26 am #
Comment by Snowcone on 11/22 @ 3:21 pm #
Honey, let’s skip Mardi Gras in New Orleans this year and go to Dollywood for Pig Knuckle week!
Okay!
I’m guessing no “Honey”. If there is a Honey, she hates you. Hey wait a second…
Is Snowcone Gordo?
Comment by McGehee on 11/23 @ 7:09 am #
Mississippi had a disaster directly as a result of Katrina. In Louisiana all the storm did was expose the real disaster, which was generations of corruption and neglect by state and local pols.
Comment by JHo on 11/23 @ 7:12 am #
cynn, deep into Sunday’s box of pink rosé, probably missed the link to Landrieu excoriating the country for shipping too much cash in. More cash!
Comment by BJTexs on 11/23 @ 7:50 am #
There’s a difference between asking for more time and asking for cold hard cash, meya.
Comment by JD on 11/23 @ 7:52 am #
Meya is only mendoucheous on days that end in y. It explains a lot.
Comment by SDN on 11/23 @ 10:49 am #
“generations of corruption and neglect by Democratic state and local pols.”
Details are important.
Comment by SDN on 11/23 @ 10:51 am #
meya, I’m calling the Vatican to report a miracle: you and I actually agree on something. Yes, they should have to conduct an actual filibuster. The Republicans should have followed this rule for the Democrats threats when they were in charge, too.
Comment by McGehee on 11/23 @ 12:06 pm #
I tend to eschew and leave out redundancy.
Comment by cincimaddog on 11/23 @ 2:01 pm #
Great letter, but a waste of time. Landrieu did exactly what her constituency expects, feed off the federal teat. More federal money is spent in Louisiana than most states, and it shows in the form of corruption, graft, poverty, and inadequate public school systems.
Does anyone remember when the Louisiana government complained because the Feds wanted to restrict the purposes of their relief money? Ol’ Mary was right up front saying not to worry about it, Louisiana knows how to best spend that money, just give it to us. No wonder the levees failed. There is a history there, but I won’t get into it.
Louisiana, brought to you by the same populist tripe that Obama is feeding us now… with the best government money can buy.
Comment by alppuccino on 11/23 @ 3:52 pm #
How does it compare to Alaska?
It’s way south dumbass
Comment by BJTexs on 11/23 @ 3:54 pm #
How does it compare to Alaska?
In Alaska, no federal levee money goes to build piers for casino boats.
Your welcome.
Comment by JHo on 11/23 @ 4:19 pm #
No idea how meya’s carefully-thought missives go missing all the time but I like it!
Comment by McGehee on 11/23 @ 7:06 pm #
Narrowly interpreted, this is correct. But it’s not for lack of trying.
Now, technically, it’s not a casino boat and it wasn’t for a pier. Still…
What’s worse is, the operator in this case is not only a Republican, but was under consideration to finish Frank Murkowski’s Senate term when Murk was elected governor in 2002. But the worst part is who prevented that particular piece of pork from being doled out. Heh.
Apropos of nothing, when Sarah Palin won the Republican gubernatorial nomination in 2006, it was be defeating Murkowski. It was precisely that kind of GOP featherbedding that Palin ran against, and from which comes such Alaska Republican sniping at her as may actually go on.
Comment by Slartibartfast on 11/24 @ 10:13 am #
Alaska doesn’t do such a good Mardi Gras, I think.
Comment by McGehee on 11/24 @ 4:10 pm #
Their red beans and rice leaves a little bit to be desired, but reindeer-sausage jambalaya is pretty good.