File photo of Tom, taken at the governor's mansion back when he worked for Mark Sanford.
Most of the time, people say that Tom Davis is gearing up to run against Lindsey Graham in the 2014 Republican primary. Sometimes, they shift and say he’s one of those preparing to run against Nikki Haley that year. But usually, it’s Lindsey Graham.
Tom encourages that way of looking at things by posting stuff like this on Facebook:
Lindsey Graham is now in front of every TV camera he can find, condemning health insurance mandates, but making no mention of the bill he cosponsored in 2009 (S. 391; the Wyden-Bennett Act) to impose mandates and corresponding noncompliance penalties.
I had forgotten about the Wyden-Bennett Act, if I ever knew about it. Well, good for Lindsey.
Tom forgets that conservatives used to be for mandates, before Barack Obama started agreeing with them. But Tom is not alone in that. Republicans in general have wiped that from their memories, because it would be inconvenient to their goal of demonizing the president over it.
Remember how in 1984, Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia? Until things changed, and all those records and memories were expunged, because now Oceania had always been allied with Eastasia, and at war with Eurasia?
It works like that.
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So does this count as one of the issues Lindsey flip-flopped on? Davis has Graham nailed as a camera hogging frontrunner.
Nice 1984 analogy.
Graham has certainly flip-flopped on this but so has practically the entire Republican Party. Remember back in 1993 when Hillarycare was attacked mercilessely by the right because it had a business mandate? And what was the GOP alternative. You got it, an individual mandate. Lindsey was all for it back then. Seriously Brad, don’t you grow weary of defending this flip-flopping ultra partisan GOP, big spending hack?
Has anyone seen this? Our General Assembly passed a bill effectively banning municipalities from competing with companies in the broadband internet arena. First I’ve heard of this:
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/06/south-carolina-passes-bill-against-municipal-broadband/
What makes Graham camera hugging compared to, say, Davis?
@KP
How many times has Graham appeared on Meet The Press, etc.
When was the last time you saw Davis on TV?
Please somebody! Run against SC Governot Nikki Haley in the Republican primary!
Even a zombie as governor would be better than what we have now!
Of course, Boss Hogg Haley could just lock up them Duke boys until after the primary and the election…
Thanks, Bud, I hadn’t read about that.
Doesn’t surprise me that the SC leg would adopt a bill written by commercial interests.
@bud – why would a municipality provide broadband internet? I can just see the City of Columbia using the broadband revenues as a slush fund just like they do with the water & sewer revenues. Next thing you’ll know they’ll be wanting to put po’ folks online for free, and to give them cable TV besides.
Amazingly, if you get foodstamps you also now qualify for a taxpayer funded cell phone, so I guess I shouldn’t be suprised. We’ve got the richest poor people in the world…. #richcountryproblems
A municipality would provide broadband to encourage people to come downtown, say, and patronize merchants there. It expands the reach of the internet to poor people, too. The library isn’t always open and kids can’t always get to the library….
@’Kathryn – merchants can already provide wireless access points if they want to. Starbucks, McD’s and countless others do.
But following your logic – is there ANY limit to the services that should be publicly provided at taxpayer expense “to the poor” and the “kids”?
They’ve already got free food, healthcare, smartphones, subsidized housing, education, library, reduced rates at the Drew and God knows what else.
Just off the top of my head, I’m thinking: Free cars & bikes because the bus stop may be far away and the busses might not always run. Free bottled water b/c you might be a long way from a drinking fountain. Free zoo admission b/c travel to exotic lands is expensive and kids might not get to see a lion or monkey. Maybe we should give them a free A/C unit, and free power as well, cause it’s hot outside. Some “walking around money” perhaps, b/c they’ll feel better about themselves if they’ve got a bit of green in their pockets – it’ll help their self esteem. Maybe some of the latest brand name fashions, so they don’t have to look poor, and some jewelry just in case.
Seriously, where do you people draw the line?
Actually, Silence, I think there’s a pretty bright and clear line between what Kathryn mentioned and the largesse you suggest.
Providing broadband to encourage economic activity downtown seems akin to building and maintaining roads. It’s infrastructure for economic development. To a great extent, Internet access is in this century much the same thing that roads were to earlier generations (and still are, of course — we need roads for UPS to deliver the stuff we order on Amazon, after all).
That said, I’m not necessarily opposed to the legislation in question.
One morning several weeks back, I ran into Pam Lackey of AT&T having breakfast with Dwight Drake and one or two other lobbyists. I asked what was up, and she (or maybe Dwight) explained this legislation. It sounded fairly reasonable to me at the time, but I knew that I didn’t really fully understand the implications (and I definitely didn’t have time to research it), so I made a mental note to watch for it in some news outlet that still pays reporters to do that kind of legwork.
But I never saw any reporting on it, and didn’t think about it again until I saw what Bud posted…
Oh, and by way of full disclosure — I also made a mental note to myself to write to Pam about renewing AT&T’s ad on the blog. The period they had paid for ran out in May, and I thought I’d check and see if they’d like to renew.
But I forgot to do that, too. I keep misplacing these mental notes…
@Brad – but TWC, ATT, VZ and whoever else pay for that infrastructure – the backbone, the last mile of service, all of that – same as SCE&G does for ‘lectric & gas, or NS & CSX do for rail. All are neccessary, and all are provided, more than adequately by private companies. I’d say that internet is more akin to electric service than it is to roads.
There is nowhere downtown that doesn’t have at least some sort of broadband service available – b/c the lines are already there, thanks to ATT or TWC.
City of Columbia already has a hotspot around City Hall.
Internet access is so critical for poor kids to keep up with modern society and try to move up from the underclass–far more so than most of the examples Silence posits. Kids already DO go on field trips to the zoo and the museums for this very reason.
and visiting a zoo is not about seeing a monkey because you can’t travel, but about appreciating biodiversity, ecology–all manner of scientific concepts….sheesh!
@Kathryn
How would poor kids use the Internet to move up from the underclass? Please don’t suggest that they’ll be browsing Wikipedia all day.
Or could we just give them access to domain names that end in .edu or .gov?
Playing Solitaire is a great way to learn facility with a mouse. Searching the internet for what you are actually interested in develops skillz. I spent a lot of time in the Aiken Library researching my various personal crazes, and in the process learned some useful skills.
@’Kathryn & Brad – The examples I gave weren’t that farfetched. I think that some of the local school districts are giving their students iPads. In my day we had to work to buy our iPads, and it was way hotter than it is now, and it was uphill both ways.
Seriously though, in my day we had to get our pornography on dialup. You’d dial up to a BBS on the ol’ 1200 or 2400 baud modem (if you were lucky) and maybe you’d get through. Then you’d start downloading a file, and maybe by the next day you’d have a JPG of a naked woman. Kids today got it too easy.
Why don’t we give them free internet access, they’re already getting free iPads and cell phones… you know the stuff the rest of us have to save up for and work to keep. Let’s just give everyone a trophy while we’re at it and not keep score. I hate people who think that just because someone doesn’t have something others do that the government needs to give it to them.
@Doug – If you blocked Facebook and porn on these items they wouldn’t be used.
@Kathryn
How much upward mobility would you say has occurred for those of us with internet access?
If you can’t read or write, the internet is just television.
I admire your high expectations. Unfortunately there is little evidence that access to computers or the internet have made any difference in the intelligence of students. I’d say it’s made it worse.
@ Doug & SDII – .gov pornography is the best, for my money. You just gotta know where to look…
Right, I save up for broadband access.
I used to have to save up for my textbooks, and those brown paper bookcovers with blue drawings of crossing guards.
The cellphones for food stamp recipients, who cannot otherwise afford any phone service, makes it possible to contact them, and for them to deal with the state. Costs us very little for a prepaid dumb phone, but is beyond the means of many working poor who struggle to meet basic needs. They don’t get iPhones.
This problem is really the story of the mish mash of “good ideas” that we just through out there to appeal to certain sectors. Its throwing stuff at the wall and hoping it sticks.
A man should eat what he kills. Its a populous viewpoint but those who do not work do not eat.
Instead of focusing the efforts on those that show no desire to be elevated above the their existence lets focus on people that want to move up and just need a hand.
If you are willing to stay in school we will watch you kids. want to work a real job give them a cell phone till they are on their feet
@tavis–you are familiar with welfare reform?
@Kathryn
Ask your husband if he finds the readiness level of his students to be noticeably higher today versus ten years ago. You would think that a generation of kids who have been exposed to computers from kindergarten on would be much more capable of understanding the concepts he teaches, right?
Playing around on Facebook and Twitter is just playing around.
@Kathryn – “They don’t get iPhones.”
Those are saved for the bums who hangout outside of the State Library.
“you are familiar with welfare reform?”
Please explain how this works. When exactly does that take place? I’ve seen generations of welfare recipients that are still receiving monthly checks. As long as nobody is willing to make waves the slugs of society are going to keep demanding handouts.
Steve has not seen any drop-off in readiness in his students. Indeed, he is gratified that he has more American students and female students. He does teach only higher level courses, so….
@SDII–where, exactly, have you “seen” generations of welfare recipients?
‘Kathryn – Aren’t there people who have lived in Allen-Benedict Court or Gonzales Gardens their entire life?
@Kathryn
No dropoff is not exactly a ringing endorsement of computers/internet as teaching aids capable of lifting the downtrodden into middle class.
Unless you use a tool properly, it is worthless — and in the the of technology in schools, a waste of valuable resources that could be spent on good teachers.
@Kathryn – Columbia, South Carolina, the Southeast. Are you saying that people are leaving welfare after two years like the welfare reform was supposed to do? Because all I’m seeing is people staying on food stamps, living for decades in Section 8 housing, their kids on free lunches, students going to college for free on government grants (the majority never coming close to graduating), being diagnosed with every psychological disability known to man, etc… Are you seeing things differently? Are you seeing people picking voluntarily leaving government programs?
“picking” themselves up and…
I repeat–where exactly are you seeing these things–do you work for DSS?
I suggest that you think you know things you don’t actually know. Food stamps isn’t welfare. Our enlisted troops often qualify for food stamps! Section 8 housing isn’t welfare. I think there are very few Pell grants given.
Welfare is cash assistance. Statistics show that the law is being followed w/r/t welfare (TANF)–there are time limits and work/education limits and they are enforced.
Section 8 housing is still public assistance. It’s a shame that any of our soldiers qualify for SNAP. I wonder if that’s still true, maybe if they have a large number of dependents.
Way too many kids seem to “qualify” for free/reduced lunch, and now breakfast too.
Just pop em out, and turn them over to the government – the taxpayer can take ’em to raise. We’ll feed em, clothe em, educate em, put em in housing, and once they are grown up, we’ll do the same for their kids too!
A lot of those “pop em out kids” are the children of children (repeat)….until we figure out a way to stop very young kids from reproducing, we will have to keep feeding the resulting children. These are children, who will be hungry, if we do not feed them. They will have an even harder time learning. I do not begrudge them nutritious meals.
Back when I was representing juveniles, I had a 13 year old girl, pregnant with her second child. Her mother was also pregnant. Her grandmother was 33. You do the math.
@ ‘Kathryn – there is a foolproof way to stop them from breeding, but it is politically unpalatable, to say the least. Morally objectionable would be a better description.
Yes the morons are shortening up the generational cycle. A family member prosecuted a 19 year old- sent him away for 40 years, IIRC, and he already had 5 kids, by 4 different women.
I don’t need to watch Maury b/c it’s going on all around me.
@ Kathryn. When a 13 year old girl is pregnant with her second child, why isn’t there a male arrested for abuse? And why isn’t her mother arrested for child neglect? Clearly the child isn’t being protected.
@ Pat–Well, because if the male who impregnated her is also under 14, there’s no crime. As far as child neglect goes, that doesn’t meet the standard–she looked very well fed and sheltered. I mean, DSS doesn’t have the means to deal with every/any teen pregnancy as a neglect case–they barely can deal with physical cruelty.
@Kathryn – I don’t work for DSS, but I do work with people who work with DSS directly.
Food stamps and Section 8 housing aren’t “welfare”??? “welfare” is cash assistance? Just because you don’t put the cash in the recipients hand to hand over to the landlord or grocery store doesn’t mean they don’t get cash assistance. If you pay $100 at Publix, and the person behind you pays $40 for the exact same items is “welfare”. If you rent an apartment for $1000/month and the family across the hall pays $200 for the same apartment is “welfare”.
@Kathryn – What government welfare program actually hands people cash?
“I had a 13 year old girl, pregnant with her second child. Her mother was also pregnant. Her grandmother was 33. You do the math.”
Girl is 13
Mother is X
Grandmother is 33
So what you’re trying to tell us is that the grandmother, mother and girl all were pregnant at the age of 10 years old. I’m calling BS.
I see three generations of welfare recipients, which you state don’t exist.
So is this topic dead, since there hasn’t been a response to any of our questions to Kathryn?
Section 8 is just welfare for landlords. It also keeps rents artificially high.
“If you pay $100 at Publix, and the person behind you pays $40 for the exact same items it’s “welfare”. ” ~ I call that “couponing”.
I wonder if many people on SNAP bother to coupon. I guess it wouldn’t help out with WIC, since that’s just a list of stuff you get for free. With SNAP, it seems like they should coupon, just so that they can stretch my tax dollars that are paying for their food a little farther.
When I first came to Columbia, I found a nice new apartment complex. When they looked at my application they turned me down… “because I made too much”. I think I was making around $30,000 at the time.
@Susanincola – What if they don’t present coupons, just an EBT card?