Adventures of the Coconut Caucus

So how much do you think is the average annual salary of the average person out there in Averageland, USA?

Believe it or not, it’s $45,000. Naturally, some people make less, some people make far more. But most people aren’t too far from basically rubbing two pennies together and somehow putting food on the table, buying gas, clothes, health insurance (if you can afford it, and millions can’t), sending the kids to school, and doing all the other myriad of things the average person out there does.

So what do you think most people would say if someone offered them $168,000 to while the hours away in an spacious, air-conditioned office with all kinds of suck-up assistants, interns, glad handlers and hangers-on?

The only requirement is that you take a shower every day, comb your hair, wear decent clothes and wake up extra early to go on t.v. and talk about how wonderful your boss is and how wonderful the world is, even while it falls apart around you.

Sounds like a cushy gig, eh?

Well, apparently not for White House Press Secretary Tony SnowJob, who today said he was hitting the road, not because all that constant lying was making him sick, not because having to defend the indefensible was giving him ulcers, not because he realized his boss is not the president of the free world, but actually Alfred E. Neuman, no; not any of that.

He’s leaving because he simply cannot make it on that kind of money; that somehow more than $10,000 a month was not cutting it for him and that he needed to make more money. Poor thing.

Well, we’ve got to give him one thing today: he didn’t lie about it. And that’s a first, coming from the Bush White House.

Oh, by the way, the Latino angle is that the average Hispanic worker out there gets by on about $25,000 a year.

’nuff said…

La Bloguera adds: So I wonder how much that guitar costs? Maybe he should stop squandering his meager family budget on entertainment….

Our nonbinding sources have confirmed that Castro was not involved in this “personal attack” on Mel Martínez.. but it is only a matter of time before the Third World Miami Cuban peoples blame him for this….

Plane carrying Martinez fired on in Iraq

The senator, 3 other members of Congress were onboard; the C-130 wasn’t hit.

Ben Evans | Associated Press

WASHINGTON - A military cargo plane carrying three senators and a House member was forced to take evasive maneuvers and dispatch flares to avoid ground fire after taking off from Baghdad on Thursday night.

The lawmakers said their plane, a C-130, was under fire from three rocket-propelled grenades during the course of several minutes as they left for Amman, Jordan.

Of course if the Cubans in Miami still want to blame Fidel Castro for this that means that he is no longer dead again….

What in tarnation is going on around here? The lazy, hazy days of summer, especially the week before Labor Day, is supposed to be a time when people sit back and hang out, preparing for the onslaught of activity and madness that happens when Congress gets back, kids go to school, and the air starts to turn cool and serious.

But we’ve been hit by some real whammys this week. First Panchito GONEzales quits (pobrecito), and now the immigrant community suffers another blow with the apparent arrest of REPUBLICAN SENATOR LARRY CRAIG OF IDAHO (where the best damn potatoes come from) in a men’s room at the Minneapolis International Airport.

The police says he was looking for a little nokie, he says he was just being friendly and aw shucks, although he did sort of taunt the police to try and do something against him, being that he’s a U.S. senator and all. They of course proceeded to nab his ass, sort to speak…

Check out his lame-ass statement here:
Craig, who incurred the ire and wrath of the conservative element within the GOP for his support of legislation legalizing undocumented farmworkers, said it was all a big misunderstanding (the gay sex thing, not the thing about supporting illegals). Yes, he said, he had gotten arrested, yes, he had pleaded guilty, but he doesn’t know why he pleaded guilty because it was all a gigantic misunderstanding.

After all, he’s a married man with grown kids and the whole nine yards; what in the world would make anyone thing he was thatkindofpersonhorrors!
But active members from the Friends of Dorothy community know he’s one of them, just deep, deep, deep in the closet.

And apparently he’s done it before (ALLEGEDLY, OF COURSE).
Now we know immigration reform is dead FOR SURE…

By now, y’all have heard that our own Panchito GONEzales is outta here, at least starting September 17.

The tsunami of reactions is to be expected, with most of them saying vaya con dios, my dahling.

Except for poor Mel Martínez, who, loyal to the end, calls the man who said the Constitution was “quaint” a person who conducted himself with honesty, dedication, bla bla bla. While some other GOPers gave him a wishy-washy assessment, there was Martínez front and center, backing him up all the way down.

But on to the bigger issue: how can we stop the rest of world from blaming the entire Latino community for this one bad apple? All communities of color know that this is bad, because while a clearly mental midget and legal beagle leaves, this means no more Latinos in high falutin’ jobs for a while. Panchito screwed it up for all of us. The white man gave us a chance, and look what happened. The beaner screwed up. And screwed up big.

Now we’ll be stuck with another white guy, at least until another suck-up of color comes along…

On the other hand, this should help community colleges and other less-expensive institutions of higher learning in their recruitment efforts. Panchito has most definitely shown the world that an overpriced Hah-vahd lawh dahgree don’t add up to a bucket of spit.

So EVERYBODY is reacting to the Alberto GONEzales being resigned to go back to the Texas border…. We expect that since the Hispanic Caucus is busy planning their upcoming gala, they may react in a few weeks to the fall of the first Hispanic Attorney General and torture PR guy…

Meanwhile others react:

• Hilaria Clinton, from the Senate, not at all related to the fact I am running for president…
• ACLU: We will remember all that torture and the abolishing of our civil liberties
• Of course John Conyers, still waiting for answers to the amnesia…

Oh yeah, and he is also 3 feet tall….