Jesse Jackson’s Amazing Magic Bus

Watch Rev. Jesse Disappear…just like his passengers...

Yesterday's Chicago Sun Times news headlines are talking about the slightly irreverent Reverend Jessie Jackson’s 600 passenger bus caravan carrying “displaced” and “indigenous” people back to New Orleans.

To prevent some Hurricane Katrina victims from remaining in "permanent exile," the Rev. Jesse Jackson will be traveling from Chicago to New Orleans with 600 evacuees Monday so they can sign up for jobs rebuilding their devastated hometown.

The "hope caravan" will leave Chicago at 5 a.m. Monday from the Rainbow/PUSH headquarters, 930 E. 50th St. Jackson will pick up victims along the route that will go through East St. Louis; St. Louis; Memphis; Jackson, Miss., and Mobile, Ala., to New Orleans, where they will meet with another Rainbow/PUSH bus full of evacuees from Houston.

Sounds like a good idea to me, but apparently there are a few extra empty seats on the good Reverend’s buses. Of course you won’t hear or see this part of the story on TV, but the St. Louis newspaper lets us know how things are going.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson today called for Gulf Coast victims of Hurricane Katrina to receive priority when it comes to jobs, job training and contracts in the region’s reconstruction.

He criticized the Bush administration for failing to have a plan to help evacuees quickly return and participate in the economic opportunities now there.

Instead, that work is going no-bid contractors, he said.“Just as there was no mass plan for rescue and there was a botched plan of radical dislocation, there’s no plan to return those who have been dispersed around the country,” Jackson said today in St. Louis.

“You have the indigenous citizens having to sharecrop or subcontract to Halliburton and Bechtel,’’ he said.

Jackson said President Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove, is overseeing reconstruction of the Gulf Coast, and that he and others in the White House are using Katrina to push their political agenda. He said black, Democratic-leaning voters have been radically dislocated and are being kept in "permanent exile."

"Karl Rove is a political reconstructionist" who wants to "change the character" of Louisiana politics from the mayor's office to its congressional representation.White House spokesman Allen Abney said Bush, working with Cabinet members, and not Rove, is leading the Gulf Coast reconstruction effort.

"Our focus is reconstruction of the region, to get it back up economically," Abney said. "It's not about politics. It's about recovery.

"Organizers said three people boarded the bus in St. Louis. Two spoke only Spanish.

I seem to remember that Rev. Jackson and other so called “black leaders” were screaming bloody murder when white republicans called the New Orleans refugees “refugees”, but Jackson has no trouble calling the displaced people "exiles" and “indigenous.”

He also refers to them as “share croppers” to Haliburton's "no-bid contracts."

Give me a break...

I wonder how Jackson felt when TWO of the total of THREE passengers that boarded the buses in St. Lewis spoke Spanish, not English. I bet that once they got out of sight of the TV cameras Jackson’s people invited the Mexicans to return their tray tables and seatbacks to the upright and locked position and exit the bus at the next stop. Heck, they might have just slowed down and pushed them out the door of the bus.

Being the saavy politician and race warlord that he is, it seems that Jesse is busy revising his numbers downward due to the low turnout thus far:

Starting early Monday in Chicago, Jesse Jackson was picking up evacuees who were forced to leave New Orleans but who want to return to rebuild their city. The caravan made stops in St. Louis, Memphis, Tenn., and other cities on its way to New Orleans.

Jackson said he originally had expected to take 600 evacuees, but after talking to Nagin, reduced the number to 200. He said jobs and housing had been guaranteed for them.

Let's sit back and watch the media shift gears and bury the low passenger turnout under the story of Jackson’s bashing of President Bush.

I'd also like to point out that there is supposed to be HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of displaced New Orleans residents.

If things are as bad as Jackson says, where are all of these willing able-bodied workers--out spending their FEMA checks?

And let's not forget that Karl Rove is an Eeeeevvvviiiilllll, Evil man.....