Headline from the Greenville News site:
I also enjoyed this quote from the AP story (which we also ran, under a more realistic headline), which in Mark Sanford's book is a major admission:
"Throw enough money at any problem and you're going to help some folks."
Watch now — Lee's going to start calling him a socialist…
One more thing… you notice how, if you want to know what Mark Sanford is doing or saying, you have to go to Washington or tune in to national media? He's never been very interested in South Carolina, much less in governing it, but he's definitely gone to new extremes in recent weeks.
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Kind of reminds me of a John Wayne movie called “Trouble along the Way,” in which he plays of all things a football coach who, in trying to create a indulges in a profit-sharing plan that his co-conspirators called “socialism.”
To which Assistant Coach Chuck Connors says “It ain’t socialism if we can get in on it.”
Here’s to profit sharing!
Re the governor: Maybe Mr. S is letting Andre sit in the big boy chair.
Did you see the debate on California’s state government budget problems?
Illegal aliens cost them $30 billion a year, but they don’t have the courage to cut off the welfare to criminals who are wrecking the schools and hospitals.
The other big fact was that 144,000 wealthy people, who paid over 25% of the income taxes, moved out of California in the last few years.
Take heed.
Sanford has been doing a lot of blinking recently. He is not very good at playing the game of chicken.
You know, I thought maybe Melville had been toking on Queequeg’s tomahawk pipe, but then I saw that the movie actually does exist. Donna Reed was in it. So was Charles Coburn, the guy who is the reason why I’m always getting James Coburn’s and Charles Bronson’s names mixed up (quick, name two iconic ensemble-cast blockbusters in which they both appear).
What purpose would it serve for Sanford to talk to (for example) the editorial board of The State?
The people of South Carolina voted him back into office presumably to keep doing what he had been doing the first four years.
Do you think somehow you’re going to change his mind on how government SHOULD work?
The difference between Sanford’s principles and your own is that his have been put to a vote of the people of the state. And he won.
Doug,
Something tells me Guv. has never changed his mind IN HIS LIFE.
###
..not saying that’s a bad thing…just saying it IS a thing.
Mab’s probably right.
Funny thing is, I get grief all the time — specifically from Doug, in fact — for my alleged inflexibility.
Meanwhile, I get grief from other people for CHANGING MY MIND about Mark Sanford. Even though every single step of that process was painstakingly set out as it happened on our pages, I had to ‘splain that whole sequence of events to somebody yet again a day or two ago.
And Doug — actually, Mark Sanford DID come in to see the editorial board, within the context of that very re-election campaign to which you refer.
He told us that THIS time he was really going to try to do that restructuring thing that had been our main reason for endorsing him four years early. But — and you can file this under the “won’t get fooled again” heading — we didn’t buy it.
Brad, give Sanford a break. He’s hard at work restructuring the Palmetto state in the tradition of Emperor Justinian. The later pulled his government out of the west, in effect creating anarchy (aka Dark Ages).
Apparently, Sanford wants for the entire US what he has helped create for SC, highe rate of unemployment (3rd in the nation). His 2012 rival, Jindal, beat him to the punch by refusing unemployment benefits. SC did cut funding for autism by 42% and spent only 600k of 10M that was available over the past couple years so this government is bad idiotology is taking hold.
The image of the south has been reinforced by these Southern governors – barbaric tribes running rampant down there.
His 2012 rival, Jindal, beat him to the punch by refusing unemployment benefits.
What happens to this federal money that is refused? Does it just not get spent or does it get spent in another state?
I assume it will just go unspent (a big assumption for federal spending, I know). But isn’t the price tag of the money that Jindal refused basically 1/50th of the benefit (or in reality, probably less than that)? I assume each person in each state will be responsible for paying back each dollar spent, including that which would have gone to Louisiana. So isn’t this still a dumb move?
Of course, I have no clue if this is how it works or not. I can only assume. But, if so, then you can almost guarantee Sanfo… I mean Jindal is looking to the national stage rather than doing what’s in the best interest of his state.
James Clyburn said Governor Jindal was was prejudiced against black.
Jindal is of Indian ancestry, and more “black” than Mr. Clyburn.
James Clyburn is the racist. He has never held a real job. For years, he ran the Affirmative Action Enforcement Office of SC, until the legislature created a racially biased Congressional district, in order for Clyburn to get his current racial preference job.
Damn, Lee, why are you picking on Clyburn? Do you think South Carolina’s Republican politicians have had “real jobs” at any greater rate than Democrats?
Who? Mark Sanford (please). Andre Bauer? Henry McMaster? Lindsey Graham or Jim DeMint (who worked for his father-in-law’s advertising agency)? Joe Wilson or Bob Inglis? Or, going back in time, Strom? (He was a school superintendent before he started his 50-year career in public office — does that count?) David Beasley?
Jim Clyburn is a career politician, making his way from one position to another. Just like almost everybody in either party.
I am glad that Clyburn has made it virtually impossible for Republican governors to refuse the stimulus. Our Republican-controlled General Assembly certainly won’t turn it down, nor should they.
I live in the Northeast section of Richland County and you’d never know there was a severe economic downturn. As the seat of government in S.C., right alongside Fort Jackson, we have a lot of people who work for the government or are retired and drawing benefits. Yet we have in S.C. the third highest rate of unemployment. What must it be like in the rest of our little commonwealth??
If you listen to Lee Muller, government service is suspect. While I am sure he would not object to at least some government spending on things like police, prisons, and the military, he basically rejects all other forms of government activity. Supposedly, the free market, freed of government regulation, will bring us all the fruits of prosperity we could ever want if only we work hard enough.
But is that really the case? It was the unregulated free market in finance and non-traditional banking coupled with the Bush tax cuts and unbridled federal spending on two unnecessary wars that got us into this mess and turned a surplus into a travesty!
In one of Lee’s other posts, he asked me what my services as a teacher would be worth on the open market. Without government schooling, probably not much. But I chose to work for degrees in the liberal arts and education because I wanted a career in public education after consciously weighing the pluses and minuses. I could have gone into accounting (my dad was a CPA) like my brother and worked for some private firm, but this was not my choice and, after 25 years in S.C. schools, I can say that I have been happy with that choice.
I know as Brad has stated that there are way too many people who want to destroy the public schools. They don’t like the secularism, the desegregation, the teaching of evolution or the idea that the South should not have seceded from the Union. And they hate the idea of education as a common schoolhouse for democracy in which everyone gets a chance to start on the path to making something of themselves.
If you’ve read any of my posts, then you know that I have been quite critical of the millions we spend on testing, “accountability,” administration, and any and everything that takes us away from the classroom. But let’s not forget how much is right about our common schoolhouse for democracy.
Kids learn to get along with one another regardless of background; they learn teamwork both in the classroom and when the play sports or work on student activities; they learn the importance of negotiating their way through a small society governed by the rule of law in which they must cope with the demands placed upon them while respecting their neighbors’ rights.
As a result, we have some damn good schools in South Carolina! No, they may not always score high on paper-and-pencil multiple-choice tests, but just think of what they learn just by being together in their polyglot, multi-ethnic, multicultural classrooms and schoolhouses. It’s just the best training for becoming an American I can think of!!
Now think, too, about the kids whose parents have segregated them into an all-white “academy” named after some confederate hero where they learn that Dixie will never die and that some deity created their world in seven literal days. Do you mean to tell me that a free market in education with vouchers that would facilitate more of that kind of education would be a good thing for S.C.!!
SCISA schools vary dramatically in quality. You have Hammond Academy and her academic sisters–and then you have all the rest.
If we as Americans retreat into culturally, ethnically, religiously separate educational academies, how can we learn to live and love one another??
Lee thinks that my credentials aren’t worth a damn unless I can use them in the open market. But public service is a choice police, teachers, nurses, civil servants, public administrators, and elected officials make all the time to serve society for less than they could have made had they studied to work in private industry.
My point is, just as the public schools serve to bring us together, so too does government viewed as public service. The proper role of government is to serve the people and make it possible for everyone to have a chance in our society, not make it possible for the rich to become ever richer while the rest of us sink economically.
I have to laugh at Sanford, Jindal, et al. They’re so exercised about accepting federal money. Of course, it’s not for the rich and their pet projects.
This is why Republicans are going to lose even more than they already have in the 2010 elections. Americans are starting to see which party is the party of the people.
“I know as Brad has stated that there are way too many people who want to destroy the public schools. They don’t like the secularism, the desegregation, the teaching of evolution or the idea that the South should not have seceded from the Union.”
You really think secession is an issue 150 years later? To you, maybe, but not to the people you’re talking about. What concerns them is the federal government mandating the indoctrination of their children into the religion of your brand of political correctness.
Yes, Rich, you’ve emphasized evolution and political correctness so important they’ve taken on the scope of religion.
“And they hate the idea of education as a common schoolhouse for democracy in which everyone gets a chance to start on the path to making something of themselves.”
Take out the words “for democracy,” and your statement is an absolute lie. Leave them in, and you’ve proven my assertion about political correctness, only you don’t mean “for democracy,” you mean “the way I think things ought to be.”
“If you’ve read any of my posts, then you know that I have been quite critical of the millions we spend on testing, ‘accountability,’ administration, and any and everything that takes us away from the classroom. But let’s not forget how much is right about our common schoolhouse for democracy.”
It’s a schoolhouse for education, Rich. Democracy is but a fraction of what should be taught there.
“As a result, we have some damn good schools in South Carolina! No, they may not always score high on paper-and-pencil multiple-choice tests, but just think of what they learn just by being together in their polyglot, multi-ethnic, multicultural classrooms and schoolhouses. It’s just the best training for becoming an American I can think of!!”
So school is not about learning, nor performance, but merely learning to worship diversity. The “best training for becoming an American” is to learn that celebrating our differences is more important than being right. Never mind that kids who can’t pass simple multiple-choice tests won’t get into college. Indoctrination is first and foremost.
“Now think, too, about the kids whose parents have segregated them into an all-white ‘academy’ named after some confederate hero where they learn that Dixie will never die and that some deity created their world in seven literal days.”
You really think “an all-white ‘academy’ named after some confederate hero where they learn that Dixie will never die” still exists in South Carolina somewhere? I bet you couldn’t find a private school that meets two of those parameters, much less all three of them.
Or are you merely speaking as you have told me not to do, using hperbole?
Weldon,
Just what kind of politically correct indoctrination do you think I give my tenth-graders in American Studies? I use the work of recognized scholars such as Eric Foner and Leon Litwack in addition to a standard textbook supplemented by video from PBS.
The theme of my class is that American history is the struggle progressively to widen the circle of freedom to be include everybody. We began as a slaveholding republic and have struggled to include everyone in the American dream of peace, freedom, democracy, human rights, and equal opportunity.
If your child were in my class, what would you have me tell him or her? That this is a country only for people who have theirs and screw everybody else??
Our very diversity requires that we bring everyone into the fold. Many third-world countries have failed–with dire consequences–to include the aspirations of all their people in the public policy they craft.
Tell me what you would want me to tell your children about America! Is it an inclusive vision of freedom and justice for all? If not, the ball is in your court, what kind of vision do you have?
Would you want me to tell your children that ours is a government of the People, by the People, and for the People, or is it designed to protect first and foremost the power and privileges of the very wealthy who might someday deign to engage in job creation for us peasants.
Tell me, is the constitution just for white males like you, or is it for everybody!? And if it is, show me where the founders ordained that cut-throat capitalism is the way to go! In view of the crisis on Wall St., has unbridled, unregulated capitalism worked??
Tell me what your vision of our republic would be, because history has never been primarily about names and dates and factual data; it has always been about the interpretive construction we place upon such information.
Someone on the blog is giving Sanford credit for our high unemployment and bad economy. That credit should go to Jim Clyburn and the NAACP boycott.
Ish, I made that statement about Sanford and unemployment. Blaming the boycott is a non sequitur at its finest. The boycott started 9 1/2 years ago. Unemployment in SC has exploded by 50% in the last two years. The first March of Sanford’s 2nd term the rate was 6.2%. It’s now 9.5%.
And now he is looking to refuse unemployment benefits.
His provincial idiotology plays well with the “real America” base but as I have written previously, the national GOP (and the wannabes like these southern governors) is woefully out of touch with the other 70% of the U.S.
What strikes me as annoyingly arrogant is Sanford’s comments that he objects to “strings attached.” What? Does he only want “free money” with no accountability or vestiges of local effort? Even when gave my kids an allowance, it required some room cleaning or yard mowing. Only a spoiled child pitches a fit if help comes with “strings attached.” Keep on posturing, Guv, until the leaders in your own party in our state make it even more clear how out-of-touch they consider you to be.
Sanford doesn’t want the money at all.
South Carolina doesn’t need any bailout money.
The legislature blew the $3 billion surplus revenue pouring in under economic growth of President Bush. They bloated state government for 3 years. Now, all they have to do is shrink it back to its 2004 level. If they were smart they would shrink it back to its already-bloated 2001 level of spending. No one was suffering from lack of spending in 2001, and no one would suffer now.
Now James Clyburn says it is racist for governors to not spend all the borrowed money in the HR-1 spending bill and other spending bills to come.
Clyburn sees the spending bill as wealth redistribution along racial lines, retribution against white people. I take him at his word.
Clyburn cannot subvert or bypass the state constitutional budget appropriations process. Like Obama, Clyburn knows nothing about how America is supposed to work, and cares even less about the rule of law. I eagerly await the lawsuits to strike down his childish riders on HR-1.
Clyburn understands more about our constitution than Lee does. The supremacy clause of the constitution makes all federal enactments legally incumbent upon the states regardless of their own laws or procedures. Federal law takes precedence, period.
I thought the Civil War settled that. But maybe Lee was out the day that was covered in his high-school US history class.
Lee may know a lot about the automotive industry, but he clearly knows little else!!
If your child were in my class, what would you have me tell him or her?
Nothing, Rich. My grandchildren won’t be in your class to reconstruct reconstruction.
Not no way, not no how. I wouldn’t knowingly have them exposed to Eric Foner and Leon Litwack, nor you, rewriting American history to suit your narrow, race-obsessed views.
Weldon,
Read the front page of the State today. There is a new book of S.C. history that tells the narrative of our state’s history substantially the way I understand it. It should not be controversial in the 21st century to stress the importance of race in shaping our state’s history.
The old confederate history is as lost as the cause itself was. If S.C. and the rest of the South are to have any role to play in shaping national policy over the next generation, then the essentially false narrative of S.C. history with which you were raised needs to give way to the truth.
Rich, you don’t care about how America is supposed to work under the Constitution, so it’s not surprising that you don’t know, either.
The federal government cannot give money directly to individuals except through tax rebates, like the failed stimulus efforts of 2008 and the coming one of 2009.
The feds can share revenue with the states, and earmark it for programs which the states run, but the state legislators and governors have to run that money through the appropriations process.
You socialists have to rewrite history.
Socialism is ran the world into mass slaughter in the 1930s, with all the socialists like Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Stalin, Mao, and FDR running huge deficits to fund militaristic make-work programs and finally, outright military adventurism.
Rich, I didn’t say obsession with race is controversial. Apparently, in this wonderful world that civil rights legislation created, obsession with race in indeed the norm. I, however, meant to say that obsession with race is just plain wrong.
We have a black president now. That should indicate that after a half-century under civil rights legislation, black people have caught up.
But it still doesn’t mean that the four black members on the seven-member school board I’m on would vote to hire a white superintendent if he or she were the most qualified. Likewise for principals. Our black school board members see almost nothing but color. They want black rule.
You can take credit for that, because even though Lincoln was white, and Kennedy, and Johnson, and Clinton, you’re teaching your black students to blame white people for everything. Yeah, I know your course probably isn’t quite that simplistic, but the more you emphasize the mistreatment of black people through history, the more you set up modern white people to be blamed for things they not only never did, but couldn’t even imagine doing.
So you promulgate hate by rewriting history to make sure you include every white misstep, but you give lip service to bringing everyone into the fold.
Like Obama and bipartisanship. Well, fine, apparently, as long as the Republicans sign on to his ideas.
SOS, different day.
Weldon,
You are on a school board where the people are majority black?? Are you kidding?
Please look at the new book on S.C. history and see if blacks have been fairly represented in our written history.
No, Rich, I’m not kidding.
Okay, I believe you. But still take a look at that book featured on the front page of today’s State paper.
Weldon said it right. He uses words well. That is what I wanted to say. Also, black people could not have made it this far without a lot of white people’s help. But the black children are not taught this. Instead, they are taught to distrust all whites. What a difficult way to start out. Rich wants to teach just the part of history that adds to his ideology. If you are going to tell part, tell it all. Most white people are not racist.
Whether or not most white people are racist is a moot question. One thing is for certain, Ish. You definitely ARE racist.
What kind of “white people’s help” did you have in mind historically?
How about slavery, Jim Crow, the contract-labor system, disfranchisement, oppressive police, lynching?
How about that white trooper in Greenville who recently ran over a fleeing black suspect with his car and then called through his radio that he had just got him a n***?
And to think that a court in Greenville–a jury of the man’s peers–engaged in another act of jury nullification and found the man not guilty.
I showed that video in class and asked my kids what they thought. Needless to say, no one saw it the way the jury did.
I recommend another book, “Slavery by another name” by Blackmon (2008). Go to http://www.slaverybyanothername.com and just look at the pictures!
Hard to come to the conclusion that blacks have benefited from “a lot of white people’s help.” Easy to conclude that your social studies education, Ish, both in high school and in college, just did not tell you the whole story.
I graduated from high school in 1974. I can tell you that I didn’t get the whole story, either. That came much later through my own reading and research.
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jhoncena
National media is very good to watch and enjoy
Christena
Entertainment at one stop