Welcome back to the ‘sphere, Laurin!

Did y’all know that Laurin Manning has returned home to the blogosphere? I expect you DID know, because she’s been blitzing the media the last few days. Here’s her new blog. And here’s her Twitter feed. And she was on Pub Politics the other day. Note below.

And some people think I’m media-savvy. (No, really — some people do. I didn’t say how many.)

Laurin’s candidate Vincent Sheheen didn’t make it, but Laurin has apparently accepted the mantle of loyal opposition to keep his successful opponent straight in office. Someone has to do it, I suppose, and I can’t, because I’m too shy.

An example of Laurin’s Haley accountability efforts:

An intrepid reader points out that according to this article in The State this morning, Gov. Nikki Haley met with fellow Budget and Control Board members Sen. Hugh Leatherman, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Rep. Dan Cooper, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, behind closed doors….

So what’s the big deal?  Well, the three of them constitute a quorum of the powerful five-member Budget and Control Board, a public body that controls much of the administrative functions of state government.  Brian White, head of Ways and Means sub-committee for health care was in attendance too, so they were obviously discussing health care, budgets and deficits.  Under the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act, meetings of public bodies must be open, and a “meeting” is the “convening of a quorum of the constituent membership of a public body, whether corporal or by means of electronic equipment, to discuss or act upon a matter over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction or advisory power.”

Intrepid reader remarks: “Where was Loftis and Eckstrom? Transparency so the public can see government, or secret meetings defying the rule of law? Where are the minutes of the meeting? Almost 300 million on the table for deficits and they meet in private and without all members.”

Smoke-filled room indeed.  Not exactly the sunshine and transparency we heard so much about in the 2010 election.

It’s good to have Laurin back, and I don’t say that for any sort of political reasons (heck, even Will Folks  is glad to have her back — and rightly so). This isn’t business; it’s personal. Laurin was one of my first blog friends back in the early days of my old blog, and helped me find my way as I was figuring the medium out, because she had been there and done that. Despite her tender years, she was old in Blog Years, compared to me. Back in 2005, SC political bloggers were a mutually supportive community, and Laurin was one of the most helpful.

Go check out her new effort. You might want to get oriented by reading her introductory post. If you forget where he blog is at any time, find the link in my rail at right.

Pub Politics Episode 42: The book and the soapbox from Wesley Donehue on Vimeo.

6 thoughts on “Welcome back to the ‘sphere, Laurin!”

  3. Cicero

    Brad,

    I’m glad you added Laurin’s link, but you need to get rid of some of the dead blogs, as well. You’ve got at least five that are either obsolete or on extended hiatus.

  5. Brad Warthen Post author

    This gets me to reminiscing about my early blogging days, back in 2005.

    Laurin and Tim Kelly (“Crack the Bell” was the name of his site at the time) were two of the only bloggers out there. It was a small, supportive community, and both of them offered me helpful advice as I was starting out. (Later, Tim Kelly would be the person to talk me into trying Twitter, thus starting me on the road to addiction.)

    Later, Adam Fogle came to my attention with “The Palmetto Scoop,” which I still think may have been the best political blog I’ve seen in SC. Of course, I’m giving him extra props for naming his alerts “TPS reports.” Also from that side of the aisle, there was Sunny Phillips with her “Crunchy Republican.”

    All those blogs are gone now. So it’s nice to see Laurin back at it.

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