Political Jackwagons on Alabama's Goat Hill Led By Senator "Cry Baby" Scott Beason

 Jackwagon

1. a useless piece of equipment, usually military, used to refer to a mule-drawn freight wagon which had been pieced together from dicarded or substandard parts, and subject to frequent breakdowns. Jackwagons typically were good for only one or two uses, then abandoned or discarded along roadsides and in ditches, and were often re-cannibalized to create new jackwagons. . 

2. possibly a TV-appropriate form of jackass

Senator Scott Beason is all spun up over being taken to task about the Mack truck sized loopholes in his bill on lobbyists, that is one of seven bills on ethics reforms the Alabama legislature is working on during the lame duck Special Session called by outgoing Alabama Governor Bob Riley.

Beason spent all of Monday morning on radio airwaves throughout the state carrying on about what “people don’t understand” and the need to “start somewhere” with reining in the undue influence of the snakes that slither through the Alabama State house seeking to put the bite on our legislators with their poisonous money from special interests.

Beason scrapped the 42 page bill that Governor Riley introduced in favor of his own whopping two page bill (one page is an explanation not rules per say) that essentially does nothing to stop the corrupt lobbying on Goat Hill. Some radio hosts and bloggers and even a few brave newspapers (a rare animal in Alabama) have hit Beason hard in his glass jaw about the lack of teeth in his bill that passed unanimously last week.

He deserves it, a good whack to jaw that is, because his bill is worthless and he knows it. But he’s damn arrogant about the criticism and suggests that Alabama voters aren’t very smart and incapable of reading a bill and understanding it when he says this (which he did over and over again on Monday morning radio shows): “We have to write something the people can understand.”

How about that 62% pay raise you voted for Senator Beason? Did you not tell the voters about that until after you voted on it because it would be too difficult for them to understand? Or maybe it was because they would forget that little issue by the time elections came around again. (More below on that.)

Credit: politicalparlor.net

We were not a fan of Riley’s proposition on ethics because the man has no clue of what ethics means, but that was a (albeit bastardized) version of bills that have been around for years in the legislature. The point is they've been at this a long time with no results and have had more than enough time to “get it right.”

“We have to make sure if we do something, that we do it right, and that takes time.”

Where the hell have you been for the last four years Senator Beason? How many times before have ethics bills been proposed? This isn't the first time by a long-shot you've had to seriously consider the issue, but perhaps the operative word is "serious."

“We have fulfilled the letter of our promise to Alabamians by passing something. We can revisit the issue in the spring and fix problems in the bill.”

Now we get to it, you've kept a perceived promise to the voters even if the spirit of the bill went through a tree grinder beforehand. Who cares if it’s bad, we did what we said  we would do, technically.

He knows how to play the game and he should considering he has Jack Biddle’s old seat and wore an FBI wire to catch his fellow legislators cozying up to corruption. That's another one of those issues that "will fade in time" according to Jabo "jawbone" Waggoner.

Alabama's politicians seem count on two things from the voters: that we're basically idiots and that we won't remember when any of the legislators screw up. It's very comforting to know that the voters are held in such high regard by the Alabama's little kings.

When Beason was asked about the fact that his bill would do nothing to stop corporate monetary influence from sidestepping his bill this was his response:
“It’s the lobbyists that are the real problem in Montgomery. I don’t think the companies they work for are the problem, I don’t think it ever has been.”

That doesn’t need even the simplest explanation from us--it’s so nonsensical on its face that we have to wonder if this golden boy Bubba ever really thinks before he speaks.


“Just because someone writes it it’s the truth” Beason retorts in response to the bloggers busting him on his ineptness and his ineffective legislation. How dare anyone have an opinion if he cannot respond to it immediately, we can't have the people thinking for themselves and asking hard questions now can we? Don’t write anything bad about me, just listen to what I say you uneducated people who are incapable of understanding a bill that’s written on paper instead of a chalkboard with pictograms.

Oh, okay, so don’t believe anything we read, but believe anything you say?

More nonsense.

In response to one radio host about why Governor Riley vetoed the ethics bill in 2007:

Host:   “Senator Beason, do you know why Governor Riley vetoed that bill?”
Beason:   “I don’t know all the reasons, but one of them may have been that it would scrutinize family members of the democrats.” (slight paraphrasing)
Host:   ***crickets***

On that same radio show last week, that issue came up and the response from the Rainy Day Patriots guest was the opposite of what Beason said. The guest said that they had heard the bill was vetoed because it would focus stronger disclosure of Governor Riley’s familial kin. That rumor has some legs and it is widely suspected to be true from some very credible sources.

The host, in our opinion, missed a good chance to follow through with Beason and put him on the spot about blaming all of Alabama’s ills on the democrats. They have a lot to be blamed for, granted, but the republicans strut around in their manufactured high cotton of a mandate by the voters to say and do whatever they want.

Representative government is not representative when you compromise the voice of your constituents you elephants of Alabama.( Mules is much more appropriate as we have explained in numerous previous posts.) Alabama is raising hell about the weakness of what the legislature is (not) doing on Goat Hill to enact strong ethics reforms. We suggest the senator from Gardendale put on his big boy britches and stop insulting the ability of Alabamians to understand what is and is not in these defanged bills, especially yours, sir.

Credit: J.D. Crowe Press-Register

So stop whining Senator Beason and do something worthwhile to end the cesspool of corruption in Alabama and maybe you’ll be in the electronic woodshed a lot less often.

You remind us of the Geico commercial with the former drill sergeant acting as a therapist and we think that you are in need of some tough talk for the jackwagon style efforts that you and the newly elected republicans are trying to pull over on Alabama.

PS--Worn any wires lately Senator?