Category Archives: Parties

The Kochs are backing Nikki

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Does it seem weird to anyone besides me for the hopes of Republican orthodoxy to rest on her shoulders?

Hey, remember this mailer I wrote about back in August?

It was the one from the Koch organization Americans for Prosperity Action, urging Republicans to dump Trump.

Now, they’ve taken a more substantive step: They’ve made an endorsement:

A conservative-leaning political action committee backed by the influential Koch network is endorsing Nikki Haley for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Americans for Prosperity super-PAC says Haley is best positioned to beat former President Donald Trump in the primary election and President Biden in the general election.

In a letter addressed to “Grassroots Leaders, Activists, and Interested Parties,” Americans for Prosperity Action says it’s throwing its support behind the former South Carolina governor and United Nations Ambassador.

The statement says the Republican party has been choosing “bad candidates who are going against America’s core principles,” and that Democrats are responding with what it calls “extreme policies.”…

They’re making the move even as, in recent weeks, Nikki’s been making her own moves, rising to battle Ron DeSantis toe-to-toe — for the honor of being in second place, a couple of light years behind Trump.

Interesting. What the boys from Wichita seem to be trying to bring about is a return of the Republican Party, taking it back from you-know-who.

Is that possible? Can they even have a measurable effect in that direction? We’ll see. I wonder. Let’s say these guys could wave a wand and cause Trump to immediately have only one primary opponent. And let’s say every single real Republican left backed that one opponent.

Could they still deny the nomination to the interloper and his barbarian horde?

I hope they’re right to think they can bring that about. And just as fervently, I hope they’re dead wrong that this other person could defeat my main man Joe…

I’m posting this mailer from August because for some reason, it’s not showing up on the previous post…

OK, these people should no longer hold office

EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote the first 600 words or so of this a week ago, and ever since then, I’ve been totally absorbed with other things — first, a project I needed to complete for ADCO, and then, a very fun trip my wife and I took to Asheville. We got back late yesterday. Of course, it’s still timely, so I thought I’d add an ending to it and post.

I know some of y’all think I’m a really stubborn, arrogant guy who never changes his mind. Not so.

Here’s an example, from yesterday:

Y’all may be familiar with my views on worrying about who holds what congressional seat in a district somewhere else in the country. I don’t approve of it. I think I initially decided this in connection with the fact that folks where I lived — either when I lived here, or in Tennessee or Kansas — would run off at the mouth about how they hated, say, Ted Kennedy. I decided that it was none of their business whom the people of Massachusetts chose to elect to represent them in the Senate.

And you can’t say that without also believing that it was none of other people’s business whether South Carolinians wanted to keep re-electing Strom Thurmond. The whole point of representative democracy is that people in each state — who may have different sets of values — get to elect whomever they want.

Therefore I’ve always harrumphed at people trying elect the people they want in other people’s states and/or districts.

And I still see it that way. But I had just really had it with the yahoos in question. Y’all know how much I despise these stupid, repeated fights over the budget in which nihilists who hate our country threaten to shut down the government, or actually do it, simply because they can. And the Garland thing was so deeply offensive to anyone who values this country or believes in the most basic demands of civility. And while I haven’t taken the roll and compared all the names, it’s basically the same sort of people.

But however much it irritates me, I don’t change policies for personal reasons. I came to this fork in that road (and took it, as Yogi would say) because this country can’t continue to function with these people in these positions. We’re just sinking lower and lower, and our liberal democracy is ceasing to function to such an extent, that these people who live to destroy can’t be in these positions any more.

They just can’t. This is not about party (and usually in the past, people were concerned about who won contests elsewhere because they wanted their party to control Congress). And it’s not about ideology, in any conventional sense. Traditionally, ideology’s role in politics was to drive debates between people who all wanted the good of the country, but disagreed over how that might be obtained.

But in the last few years — mainly since the Republican Party ceased to be the Republican Party in 2016 (it had been creeping that way for several years, but 2016 was the final explosion) — we’ve seen the emergence of a new sort of creature, slouching towards Washington. At this point, one of my more cynical friends will offer a list of people from history who ran for office because they were out for themselves. Certainly. And we still see such people. Currently, this Menendez guy is charged with being one.

But this is different. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the cheap Trumpist hustlers of the House are people who are in office because they represent any sort of consensus of views in the places where they come from. I mean, I know that Westerners aren’t nearly as refined as us East Coast types (ahem), but I don’t think Lauren Boebert is in any way a fair representative of…

SECOND EDITOR’S NOTE: The rest is what I added this evening, in order to finish this.

… Colorado. I mean, that’s where John Denver hung out, and he was a pretty normal and pleasant guy, for the most part. Just an ol’ country boy.

And why do people who are not normal or representative get elected? Well, when you’re talking about the House — and we are here — the problem, as I’ve said again and again, is gerrymandering. Both parties have worked hard to draw themselves as many safe districts as possible since 1990, and the Republicans have been way more crafty at it than Democrats (although not everywhere, but I’ve never lived in New York).

Crafty, but not very smart on an individual basis. In 1990, you were dealing with fairly normal, garden-variety Republicans. It was before Newt Gingrich, before Club for Growth types such as Mark Sanford, before the Tea Party, and before You Know Who.

But over the next few decades, those “safe” seats elected “Republicans,” alright, but not the kind that Robert A. Taft would recognize. And the center-right folks found themselves getting knocked out of office in their own primaries by extreme yahoos who didn’t have to appeal to a majority of people in the district — just to a majority of the small minority that turned out for party primaries. And sometimes, the yahoos themselves got tossed out by more extreme yahoos.

And so we got to where we are now.

Now I’m not saying we need to round these people up on buses and drive them out of the country, as poetic as that might be.

I prefer to start reversing the process. Serious redistricting reform, combined with something like ranked-choice voting, and (my fave) the universal primary — in which everyone seeking an office runs in one primary, regardless of party, and the top two go on to the general.

That wouldn’t fix things immediately, but it would be the most lasting solution.

However we do it, though, these folks have got to go. I’m not particular as to where they go, as long as they’re no longer running our country. Send them to a resort, if you want…

FINAL EDITOR’S NOTE: Yeah, I saw Congress reached a deal to keep the government operating… for 45 days. Call me crazy, but I really, truly believe we’re going to need it to keep going somewhat longer…

McCarthy is SO proud he led the House to keep the country going for a few more days. Are you proud, too?

Asa Hutchinson in Columbia today

This afternoon, the Post & Courier held one of its Pints & Politics events at J’s Corner Restaurant & Bar (where Jaco’s used to be). It was sponsored by AARP.

It was the first one of these I’ve attended. I went because the guest was Asa Hutchinson, and I’d been wanting to hear him speak since reading a favorable column about him in The Boston Globe, after he had met with that editorial board recently. The headline was “New Hampshire, please consider Asa Hutchinson.”

I don’t live in New Hampshire, but I’ve considered him now, based on little beyond that column and hearing him this evening. So I’m just getting started, but I will say that he is now my favorite Republican candidate for president. Which, of course, isn’t saying much, but if Chris Christie wants to recapture the top spot on my Top Five Least Awful Republican Candidates list, he’s going to have to do a lot better.

Of course, you know Joe Biden’s my guy, and nobody else comes close. But Hutchinson is the least objectionable Republican, and that’s important to me. I keep dreaming of having another No Lose election like 2008, when I would have been happy to see either McCain or Obama in office. (I can dream, can’t I?) That involves, and the very least, having someone unobjectionable run against Joe.

And I must say I kind of actually like Hutchinson. I have a few objections to him, but the thing is, he seems to be a real Republican, a normal human being who isn’t out to destroy America. He talks about his admiration for Nixon and Reagan — neither of whom is a fave of mine, but I’d give a lot to have either of them before You Know Who, or any of his many imitators.

So I’ll be watching. In the meantime, I shot a few random minutes of video near the start of his conversation with Schuyler Kropf and Caitlin Byrd, and you see it above. Caitlin asked him for his “stump speech,” but they either got off-track on that, or he has the shortest stump speech I’ve ever heard.

Beyond that, a few points from the few notes I took:

  • When I mentioned that I had objections, that mostly came from when Caitlin asked him to rattle off in 30 seconds what he would do first if elected. He immediately mentioned some please-the-base stuff, starting with immigration. Of course, maybe she should have allowed him more than 30 seconds, so he could branch out more. Whatever, that was the low point.
  • One of the best things was that while he wasn’t shouting “I’m a Never Trumper!,” it’s fairly clear he comes pretty close, saying things like “Is that who we want to lead our country into the future?” He sees his mission as making the case that we need to go in another direction. As for the multiple indictments, he was very mildly critical of the case against Trump in Georgia, but that’s mainly because, as a former U.S. attorney himself, he thought Georgia should have sat back and let the federal indictments run their course.
  • Another fave moment for me — possibly because I’m still plodding through, but enjoying, Theodore Rex (I just moments ago finished reading about the Perdicaris affair in 1904, which “The Wind and the Lion” was very roughly based on) — was when Caitlin asked him to name his favorite president who was not named Reagan. He picked TR without having to think too hard. So bully for him!
  • Asked about Mitt Romney’s retirement and his copout comment about stepping aside for the “next generation,” Hutchinson — who is three years older than I am — had pretty much the same reaction I did. I didn’t get the whole quote, but he has the same impression of the GOP’s “next generation” that I do. He specifically mentioned Matt Gaetz, so….
  • I could have used a lot more talk about world affairs, beyond his discussion of drug trafficking from south of the border (based on his having headed the DEA — yeah, this is a guy with actual experience in federal government) and some generally positive statements about Ukraine. That is, that he’s for “standing with freedom against oppression.”
  • When Schuyler asked him what non-religious book he had on his bedside table, he said on this trip he’d been reading Abraham Lincoln’s Cooper Union speech. Not exactly a book, I guess, but much better reading than anything certain other people have ever tackled.
  • Being in South Carolina, he said some nice things about Nikki Haley. A bit too nice, I thought, when he praised her international experience.
  • On the other hand, I liked what he said about Henry. As you may know, Hutchinson got his bachelor’s degree from Bob Jones University. (Asked why, he said his pastor back in Arkansas had recommended it.) Then, he had intended to get his Juris Doctor from USC Law School, but ended up at the University of Arkansas School of Law. He speculates that had he stayed here, he would be governor of South Carolina, not Henry. I mean, he was just joking around, but it struck me as a fairly pleasant idea.
  • And while I don’t want to completely destroy his already-slim chances, he even sounded a bit like a Democrat a couple of times, for what it’s worth. For instance, he said some folks want to raise the age for receiving Social Security, but he thinks “how about the construction worker,” whose strength is not likely to hold up until 70? Bottom line is, he sounded overall like a center-right pol, from in the non-crazy days when the two parties weren’t all that far apart. In other words, he’s a Republican. And with Mitt Romney, John McCain and Lamar Alexander out of the picture (and Lindsey Graham now living on the far side of Alice’s Looking Glass), that makes him rare.

That’s it for now. I’ll be watching this guy as things progress.

Thoughts on the ‘debate’ last night?

Actually, the first thing I’d like to know is how many of you watched it.

I didn’t. Well, I tried — about a half-hour into it — and I couldn’t. I mean, technically couldn’t get it on my TV. You see, this wasn’t an event for the American people; it was an event for Fox News. It was only available if you had cable, which I don’t. It certainly wasn’t on WACH-Fox 57, which I can get. Oh, I watched for a few minutes by a path that looked like a workaround, but it only offered me 10 free minutes, and at least half of that was commercials.

Of course, I’ve read various accounts of it, and listened to the “The Daily” podcast this morning, which was devoted entirely to it. So I have some thoughts. Those of you who watched the whole sorry spectacle (and I feel for you) may have a great deal of, um, enlightenment to add. If you’re not in a coma or something.

Here’s what I have:

What passes for a ‘profile in courage’ in the GOP — It’s been many, many years since we’ve seen anything we could call an actual presidential debate — you know, something that sheds light on the degree to which the candidates possess qualities that it would be useful for a POTUS to have — instead of a circus contest to see how many clowns can crowd onto a stage, while trying to goad each other into gaffes. It’s about as dignified as the Three Stooges. We reached a new low last night (really, in the parts I heard, Quemoy and Matsu weren’t mentioned even once), and possibly the lowest point was when the participants were asked whether they’d support Trump if he were both convicted of a crime, and nominated. The three hands on the right shot up, with Vivek Ramaswamy succeeding in his mission to convey the greatest enthusiasm. DeSantis, in the middle, looked to both his left and right before deciding he’d better put his up his, too. Then Pence did. Christie started to raise his, then shook his head, pointing his finger downward and twitching it back and forth. Asked to clarify his gestures (I think it was a form of New Jersey Sign Language), he hemmed and hawed and said “someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct,” and overall gave the impression he’d never given the question a moment’s thought, and was trying to think what to say as he said it. And yet this was the closest anyone came to answering negatively, making his performance a Republican Profile in Courage, 2023 edition. How do I know all this, since I didn’t watch? Here’s the video.

Calling the kettle black — Nikki Haley was exactly right when she said to Ramaswamy, “You have no foreign policy experience and it shows.” And the rest of us were right when we said that about her when Donald Trump named her to be ambassador to the U.N. And if you think he did that because he thought she had such experience, you’re as wrong as you can be. He did it to make his buddy Henry McMaster governor. You know, the first statewide elected official in the country to ditch Reaganism and support the abasement of the country.

That said, did Nikki have a big night? Lots of observers think so. — Of course, it depends on how you’re scoring it. A number of people made the observation that she was the one person up there who was campaigning for the general election instead of the primaries. That means speaking in terms that are less objectionable to rational human beings. And she was rewarded with a lot of praise for that modest achievement — she was the consensus star of the evening, for instance, among NYT opinion writers. And David Brooks out-and-out said, “Nikki Haley Is the Best Trump Alternative.” That’s pretty clear. He adds, “She seems to be one of the few candidates who understands that to run against Trump you have to run against Trump.” Maybe so. As a big Brooks fan, I’m listening…

Trump showed them all up, and stole the spotlight — He did this by traveling to Atlanta this evening and turning himself in at the jail. America eagerly awaits the mug shot. But wait, you know what? I remember hearing before all this that he was supposed to be doing something with Tucker Carlson. Did that happen?

That’s probably enough to get us started. Thoughts?

“No, I was doin’ dis…”

Did y’all get this in the mail, too?

My reaction of course is, Well, let’s certainly hope it would be my man Joe’s “ticket to another four years.”

Of course, I fervently hope we’ll have the same result even if any of these jokers — the ones having a “debate” tonight — turns out to be the nominee.

Obviously, that’s not what Americans for Prosperity — that’s the Koch brothers’ group — is hoping. They want one of those other Republicans to be nominated, and then beat Joe! (Shudder.)

I’m just curious about who got it, and who didn’t. I probably got it because, living in Lexington County — where the GOP nominee always gets elected — I’ve voted in quite a few GOP primaries. Or maybe it’s just that this is Lexington County. Or maybe, with all that Koch money to spend, everybody got it.

So… who got it, and who didn’t?

 

Top Five Least Awful Republican Candidates

It won’t be fun, but I urge you to think HARD on this one.

As y’all know, all I want to happen with regard to the presidency is for Joe Biden to win reelection comfortably, and remain alive and healthy for four years, during which someone — I have no idea who — as suitable as he is emerges to succeed him.

But as the philosopher said, you can’t always get what you want. (See video clip below. Or this one, if you prefer.)

All sorts of things can happen. And it’s not just a matter of Joe’s age — look up “Kennedy, John” or “Garfield, James” or “Harrison, William Henry” — although his age makes more people aware of reality than they really should be with younger examples. And there’s a great deal to think about beyond death or physical disability. Anything, from the spectacular to the mundane, can crop up to end a political career. A sharp downward trend in the economy, for instance, would do it.

So, if one wants a sane and happy future for the country, one would look to other options — the “get what you need” part of the philosopher’s equation. Although I earnestly pray that we don’t have to fall back to that, because any of the paths remaining to us would require major miracles even for the country to be just kinda OK.

One course would be some suitable Democrat that is not currently visible on the horizon emerges and somehow seizes the mantle before it settles on the shoulders of Kamala Harris. I have trouble even imagining a scenario.

The other most obvious path would be for someone remotely acceptable to get the Republican nomination. I’ve been shaking my head as each eager GOP candidate has emerged, ready to seize any opportunity that the rapid decline of his or her party creates in the next year. It’s not a pretty spectacle.

But this morning, I forced myself to rank them in descending order, from the least to the worst. Or at least, the top five along that continuum, among the ones who have thrust themselves forward upon the nation’s attention.

Here they are. Be mindful that I haven’t been given a lot to work with here. No actually good, decent, acceptable candidate — such as John Kasich — has stepped forward, apparently because such people see no chance for the likes of them in today’s GOP. So, working with what I have, here goes:

  1. Chris Christie — At this point, you throw up your hands and stop reading, right? You’re like, you think he’s the best? No. Have you been reading up to this point? We’re talking least bad, in a nightmare scenario. The thing about Christie is, I kinda remember when he was a not-too-terrible (but pretty awful at times) governor. No, I can’t shake that awful image of him standing behind Trump, with a look of horror that reflected a man whose very essence had just been scooped out of him, but at least he had the humanity left to know he should look that way.
  2. Mike Pence — Normally, I’d put Pence at No. 1 Least Bad. His worst episodes aren’t quite as lurid as Christie’s, and I’m mindful of the case Paul DeMarco made for him — a lot of good points. But his main bad point remains that he was, willingly, Trump’s boy for four years. Yes, I appreciate that, with MAGA hellhounds on his heels, he refused to abet his master’s attempt to overthrow the election. That, as much as anything, puts him at No. 2. Without that, he might not even make the list. The NYT reports that his announcement video sort of glides over his time as veep, and emphasizes his service as governor before that. Good idea.
  3. Tim Scott — As I’ve said, nice guy, but I don’t see anything from him that comes close to showing he is prepared for the job. I suspect I put him ahead of Nikki for one big reason: I don’t know him. I’ve never even met him, which emphasizes how briefly he’s been a visible statewide figure, much less national. I don’t even know he’s a nice guy — he just seems to be, from a distance. But I know Nikki.
  4. Nikki Haley — I’ll always honor her for taking the flag down. People who don’t know the situation — even people who haven’t seen the appalling videos of her submitting humbly to the neoconfederates — think this was a mere political calculation based on a necessity thrust on her by tragedy. But it was more than that. For a generation, Republicans in South Carolina had run from the issue. Even David Beasley, a very decent guy, only tried briefly to do something before collapsing under the backlash. So I give her credit. As for why she’s not higher on my list — well, search for her name on this blog, and review the entire record.
  5. Ron DeSantis — Clearly at the bottom. I’m unlike Democrats in that his constant harping on Kulturkampf issues that endure him to the MAGA base usually don’t appall me in any way having to do with the substance of the issues. What does appall me is that he spends all his energy on these things, which loom in our politics mainly as ways to divide the country, rather than on real issues that might address the good of all. So what use is he? None at all, that I can see. And has he done things that appall me in a substantial way? You bet. I can’t think of anything I’ve seen any politician do yet in this century that was as disgusting as duping desperate refugees to win the love of hateful people.

They’re all sad prospects — worse than that, really. There’s not a lot of distance between No. 1 and, say, No. 4. Some of the judgments I made are based on small, subtle, even whimsical things. But I decided to make myself do it, and this is what I came up with.

I don’t know much about this Doug Burgum guy who announced today, but he doesn’t sound promising. However, if further evidence offers reason to do so, I’ll post an amended list.

I’d really like to see y’all to take a shot at this unsavory challenge, and share what you come up with. One overriding rule: Do NOT under any circumstances rank them according to “the one I think would be easiest to beat.” That kind of grossly irresponsible thinking is one of the quickest ways to national suicide. Here’s the truth: Anyone, absolutely anyone — as we saw in 2016 — who obtains the nomination of either of the two major parties has about a 50 percent chance of becoming president. Let that sober you. Least objectionable first, then on down…

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Graham, Scott, also vote in favor of default

After I posted last night about the debt limit deal, the Senate did as I had hoped and passed it. So that’s done.

No thanks to Lindsey Graham or Tim Scott, who were among the 36 — all but five of them Republican — who voted instead for the United States to default on its debt, plunging the U.S. and world economies into turmoil.

Graham, for his part, offered an excuse that gave us a glimpse of his old self, the senator we knew before he lost his mind in 2016 — he said it was about national security. But that doesn’t wash. I’ve seen nothing on his vote since it happened, but hours before, he made a speech:

Graham made an impassioned speech Thursday on the Senate floor, saying small increases in fiscal year defense spending are not part of a “threat-based budget” but one that lacks safety and security for Americans. He later said that a supplemental defense budget for Ukraine and other spending must be agreed upon swiftly by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to make up for the House GOP’s below-inflation 3 percent military increase….

And as it happened, Schumer and Mitch McConnell joined together to offer as much assurance as anyone could reasonably expect under such rushed conditions, with default looming on Monday:

None of the amendments were adopted. But in an effort to alleviate concerns from defense hawks that the debt ceiling bill would restrict Pentagon spending too much, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) issued a joint statement saying the “debt ceiling deal does nothing to limit the Senate’s ability to appropriate emergency supplemental funds to ensure our military capabilities are sufficient to deter China, Russia, and our other adversaries.”…

As for Tim Scott — I’ve found nothing about why he voted the way he did. Maybe I’ve looked in the wrong places, but I found nothing on his website, on social media or in any news reports. Which reminds us of why it’s weird that he’s running for president. He’s not a guy who tends to be out front on anything, making his views known in developing situations. He’s not making an effort to tell us, and if he said something on the floor of the Senate, no one covered it.

He’s just this nice guy who’s happy to be a U.S. senator — his bio line on Twitter says “Just a South Carolinian living his mama’s American Dream” — and who doesn’t get swept up in what’s actually happening. Look at that Twitter feed, by the way. There’s nothing there — at least, anywhere near the top — posted in real time in response to anything that was happening, or anything he was doing. It’s just a bunch of prewritten campaign stuff, going on about how awful Joe Biden is.

You know, the Joe Biden who threw his all into working with McCarthy to keep the nation from defaulting for the first time in history.

And then, Graham and Scott basically said Nah, let’s go ahead and crash into the mountain…

What do these ‘reluctant’ Democrats want?

Hey, y’all, I’m back — again. Remember how I told you I’d been on the island of Dominica, and that I would tell you all about it, but didn’t? That’s because I left town again for a few days, to accompany my wife to Memphis for her 50th high school reunion. I try to never miss a chance to go to Memphis. (And yeah, we made it to Pete & Sam’s.)

But before I start sharing travelogues, I thought I’d try to get some basic, everyday posts up. I’ve had several on my mind the last three days, but have been too busy trying to catch up with work (still not there) and emails (about 2,600 waiting, still unread).

So let’s start with this:

If you go to that on Twitter, you’ll see I got some likes, but also some new things to think about from our good friend Phillip Bush. He wrote:

‘Reluctance’ probably isn’t the right word. There’s no single word I can think of for this, but ‘being disheartened that we have no other choice’ probably covers it for many people.

I responded that “disheartened” is hard for me to understand as well. For my part, I’m deeply grateful that Joe is willing to do this. I think he sees, just as I do, that there’s no one else available right now.

But Phillip wasn’t done:

But Joe bears some responsibility for there being “no one else available” on the D side. And, will you still be grateful to Joe when he loses to DeSantis?

I’m not sure how Joe is responsible for the lack of other suitable candidates. That’s a problem that already existed, to which he responded by stepping up himself. (Maybe Phillip can elaborate on that point here.) And I’ll always be grateful to him for stepping forward when his country needed him — whether he succeeds or not.

This leads to my original concern about this “reluctance” I keep hearing about, which I continue to see as irrational and counterproductive.

Irrational because, what is it these people want? Who is it they see out there who could carry the banner better? Who do they think is MORE likely to beat DeSantis, or anyone else? I’m not seeing anybody. And Joe didn’t cause that problem. He stepped forward to offer himself to fill the void.

And it’s counterproductive because if Democrats don’t enthusiastically back Joe — their only option — this nation will plunge back into the steep decline we experienced starting in 2016. And it’s likely to be worse this time around.

So what’s your problem with Joe? His age? Hey, I’d love it if Joe was 20 years younger — he would, too, I’m sure. But that’s not being offered as an option. We’ve got the Joe we’ve got. And I like him…

If only Nikki had looked like that when she sat with Trump

First, I offer my apologies to you, dear readers, for not posting for 10 days. I’ve been busy. And of course, once I go several days, I feel like I need to post something big, and I don’t have time for big, and more time passes. Stupid, really. There’s no reason I can’t post small things, so I’ll try to do that.

One thing I’ve not written about is our Nikki’s decision to blithely seek yet another job for which she is not qualified. Here’s what I had to say about that on Twitter:


I just haven’t wanted to get into it, because its just all so absurd. I’d rather talk about the death of Raquel Welch or something. But I’ll share with you an email exchange I had yesterday, and we can use that to get into this, if y’all are interested.

I got this from Andrew Kaczynski with CNN, headlined “CNN question on 2010 blog post:”

Brad,

Hope you are doing well. I’m reaching out for background research purposes on this old blog post on Nikki Haley’s interview with the Palmetto Patriots.

Trying to get a list of interviewers. WSJ identified Robert Slimp as one interviewer. And I saw you screenshot the website at the time. Wondering if you remember anything else about the members.

 

Andrew Kaczynski

So that caused me to dig a bit, and I responded:

So those guys disappeared, huh?
No, I don’t remember much about them. Guys like that are always skulking about, and my only interest in them has been when we see Republican candidates going to genuflect before them.
This might help, though…
You seem to be looking at an old version of the blog. Here’s the same page on the current version.
There are still dead-ends from that, but I poked around a bit and found this post from 2017, in which I presented video of Henry McMaster appearing before the same group. That video was still active, and it took me to the group’s YouTube page, which is still up and running.
And there I found a video of Nikki appearing before them. And lest it disappear, I downloaded it. You might want to do the same.
I watched a little of it, and was reminded of how odd it was 13 years ago.
Look at her. She appears to be a prisoner, doing her best to appear cooperative — I assume someone told her she HAD to do this, and she was toughing it out. The usual smile, the easy charm, are missing. But it doesn’t matter whether she WANTED to do this or not, does it? The fact is, she did it. She gave them the answers they wanted. She saw it as the price of admission, and she paid it.
And no one should forget that.

Kaczynski said that the one guy he had a name for (gleaned from an old story co-written by our own Valerie Bauerlein), Robert Slimp, died in 2021. I found the obit, and it’s interesting. Here was a guy whom Republican candidates in South Carolina regarded as a gatekeeper of South Carolina’s precious “heritage,” and yet he was not from South Carolina, and none of his named survivors lived here. Still, Republicans believed they must abase themselves before his group if they wanted to win a GOP primary in seeking high office.

And seriously, look at Nikki’s face in that video. She looks scared to me, or at least very unhappy. Sort of like a prisoner about to give a confession under intense interrogation. As I said to Kaczynski, the fact that she was unhappy doing it doesn’t excuse her. She still did it, and that’s unforgivable.

But here’s something else that worries me, and should worry everyone. When she was sitting next to Donald Trump demonstrating her bona fides to MAGA extremists, she didn’t look like that. She was smiling.

And that is truly creepy…

If only she’d looked like that when she appeared with Trump.

Want to see something really disturbing?

Yikes.

See the item on the far left of the image above.

I saw this teaser for a story on my Washington Post app this morning. I certainly didn’t click on it. There will be hundreds of such stories in the coming months, and I will have an overabundance of opportunities to torture myself reading complete nonsense.

Perhaps, at some point, there will be such a story that will have a positive answer to my perpetual question: “Can you give me a list of potential candidates who are both sane, and somewhere remotely close to being qualified?” I won’t be holding my breath. It’s been quite a few years since I’ve seen such a list. And of course in this case, the guy in the back fails the first test, and the South Carolinians in front of him fail the second.

And yes, I realize the people who write such stories only apply one test: Who might have some chance of securing the support of Republican primary voters? As I mentioned, I apply other standards.

Why do national media persist in taking South Carolinians seriously when anyone familiar with them wouldn’t spend a second entertaining such delusions?

Remember when they actually wrote about Mark Sanford as presidential timber? Every time they did, my head practically exploded. Then finally, after he disappeared for several days and then popped up to deliver his Argentina presser, it dawned on them that maybe, just maybe, they needed to take him off their list.

I certainly hope neither Nikki Haley nor Tim Scott have to endure anything that traumatic to correct this misperception. I don’t want that for them, or for the rest of us. But I would love it if people assigned to the absurd task of telling us what will happen in the future would stop and ask themselves whether there is anything in either person’s background that indicates readiness to become POTUS.

The inevitable conclusion would be no, there is not…

Just FYI, SC’s Ralph Norman is one of the main clowns in the speaker-election circus

I don’t have a lot of time for commenting on it, but I wanted to make sure you knew this — because until today, I did not.

That’s because my main source of South Carolina news, and SC angles on national news, is The State. And while you can go thestate.com looking for the information and find it, I still look at the paper through the lens of the print edition. No, I don’t read the dead-tree version literally — I dropped that years ago. I read all the newspapers to which I subscribe on my iPad. But some apps are better organized than others, and while I find the NYT‘s very helpful, I’m not pleased with the way The State‘s is organized. So I look at the e-edition each morning, before moving on to NYT and The Washington Post and the Boston Globe for national and international news and commentary.

And as near as I can tell, the fact that Ralph Norman is one of the 20 or so GOP crazies repeatedly sabotaging Kevin McCarthy’s bid for U.S. House speaker has not appeared in those reproductions of the print edition. (Maybe it’s been in those “Extra” pages that the app provides, but I don’t read those pages, because I read other papers for more timely news on those topics.)

I learned that this morning from The New York Times. You might always want to peruse this item, which breaks down every vote in the nine ballots.

By the way, in case you wondered, he’s the ONLY member of the SC delegation doing this. The other Republicans are dutifully lining up behind the guy who they think will win. Which doesn’t make them profiles in courage or anything, but it does make Norman alone.

Now, let’s get something straight: I’m no fan of Kevin McCarthy. I not only don’t want him to be speaker, I am embarrassed that such a person is in position to be seriously considered.

He is unsuitable for the position, to say the least.

But these Republicans who keep voting against him are doing so because they don’t think he’s unsuitable enough. So I wanted to make sure you knew Ralph Norman was one of them.

I suppose I should enjoy the situation. As David Frum wrote in The Atlantic (in a piece headlined “No Tears for Kevin McCarthy“):

Because the people attempting to inflict that defeat upon McCarthy include some of the most nihilistic and destructive characters in U.S. politics, McCarthy is collecting misplaced sympathy from people who want a more responsible Congress. But the House will function better under another speaker than it would under McCarthy—even if that other speaker is much more of an ideological extremist than McCarthy himself.

The defeat of Kevin McCarthy in his bid for the speakership of the House would be good for Congress. The defeat of Kevin McCarthy would be good for the United States. It might even be good for his own Republican Party.

McCarthy is not in political trouble for the reasons he deserves to be in political trouble. Justice is seldom served so exactly. But he does deserve to be in trouble, so justice must be satisfied with the trouble that he’s in….

We could talk about this back and forth all day, but I just wanted to make sure that as we watch this, my fellow South Carolinians know that Ralph Norman is one of those “most nihilistic and destructive characters in U.S. politics”…

 

 

 

Hey, 2nd District — give Judd Larkins a listen

Someone knocked urgently on the door that leads in from the garage while I was having a late lunch yesterday. It was my friend and neighbor John Culp, and he had brought me a Judd Larkins yard sign.

Well, it’s about time. I got James Smith and Jaime Harrison signs for him back in 2018, and he’s been owing me.

It also reminded me. A few months back, I had breakfast with John and Clark Surratt one morning at Compton’s, and John had brought along Judd Larkins and Marcurius Byrd for us to meet. Judd is running for office, and Marcurius is his campaign manager. Later, I got him together with James Smith over coffee, and they got along well.

Oh, you haven’t heard of Judd? Well, he’s the Democratic nominee for the 2nd Congressional District. But since everyone knows that district is drawn to provide Joe Wilson with a sinecure for life, that he inherited it from Floyd Spence, and that no one else will sit in that seat so long as Joe lives, folks don’t pay much attention to who runs against him. No matter what Joe does. Or, since this is Joe we’re talking about, no matter what he doesn’t do.

So Judd doesn’t get a lot of attention. But he should, because he is the kind of person who should get elected to public office, and Joe Wilson, by comparison, is not.

At the very least, watch the one and only debate in this “race.” It’s coming up Monday night, Oct. 24, and will be webcast from River Bluff High School at 7 p.m. If you’d like to attend in person, I’m pretty sure you can still get a ticket. If you want to see it on TV, I’m told you’re out of luck.

But if you miss that, don’t worry — you can go out and read some of the extensive news coverage of this election to decide who will go to Congress and run this country, such as… wait… how about… OK, I’m not finding any. No, wait, Marcurius has posted a story on Facebook from The Lexington Chronicle, and I’m sure y’all all subscribe to that, right? In case you don’t, here’s a link.

At some other point, I’ll put up a separate post asking why we even bother to pretend to have elections for Congress, since no one knows anything about these “races.”

But now, a few words about Judd, since you probably won’t see much anywhere else. First, I urge you to go check out his website. On the “About” page, you’ll learn such things as:

Judd was born and raised in a small town in Greenwood County called Ninety Six. Judd’s father is a high-school dropout turned success businessman while Judd’s mother was a schoolteacher before tragically passing away from breast cancer when Judd was just 14 years old. Judd attended Ninety Six High School where he was a two-sport star and Track and Field State Champion.

After Graduating High School, Judd attended Clemson University where he graduated Su(m)ma Cum Laude with a degree in Language (Chinese) and International Trade. While attending Clemson, Judd spent two summers in China becoming fluent in Mandarin Judd also holds a Master’s in Business Administration (MBA) from the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge (UK). While attending Cambridge, Judd worked on crafting a business plan for new, innovative transplant technology and also conducted market research for a finance firm located in Dublin, Ireland. After Completing his MBA, Judd was based in Luxembourg while working for an Asian Financial Company…

Yeah, that needed some editing. And yeah, he holds a master’s degree from Cambridge. Personally, I went to Oxford — my wife and I spent six days there in 2011 and had a lovely time — but I guess a master’s from Cambridge is OK, if that’s all you’ve got.

In other words, he’s a smart kid. That he’s a kid is undeniable. If you meet him, you might think that self-proclaimed champion of the kindergarten set, Joe Cunningham, looks a bit like Methuselah by comparison. But again, Judd’s a smart kid.

More than that, he’s an idealistic, thoughtful, considerate, unblemished sort of young man who would do a lot to improve our ideology-poisoned Congress — if he could get elected.

Based on what I’ve seen, Judd’s campaign has little or no money. I don’t think he’ll do as well as Adair Ford Boroughs (who at least got to be U.S. attorney), because he’s simply a lot less visible.

Basically, his campaign seems to consist mainly of going door-to-door and introducing himself to people. Nothing wrong with canvassing, of course, but it’s kind of hard to do enough of it when the odds are stacked against you to this extent. In a congressional district, there are just too many doors you’ll never have time to knock on.

“There’s just so much ground to cover,” Judd told me when I checked in with him Wednesday. “We’re probably gonna run out of time.”

But Judd tries anyway. And generally, he’s pleased with the reception he gets. He hasn’t had anybody cuss him out, in spite of his being a Democrat and all. He doesn’t seem to do as well getting time with big shots in business and politics, but “Regular folks are generally nice.”

“Folks are like, oh, I saw you last week. Thanks for being here,” he said. “We need somebody new, somebody younger.”

I would add that they need somebody who’s all about telling you what he would do if he got the chance to serve (here’s his platform), and not about how bad that other guy is. Some of the folks out there tell him that, and Judd listens. “They all seem to be tired of the fighting. Just do something,” they tell him.

Of course, if he wanted to go negative, Joe gives him plenty to work with. Adair did a good job of pointing that out — the fact that the main thing about Joe is, he does nothing. (And don’t think it’s because he’s lazy. It’s a deliberate approach, which he inherited from his predecessor Floyd Spence, who I think got it from Strom Thurmond — do nothing as a legislator, and take care of constituent service. If you do anything, it might tick people off.)

But Judd’s not interested in that. Nor does he care to go on about what’s wrong with the Republican Party, or any of that stuff so many want to yammer about.

He wants to make life better for young and old, with a particular emphasis on the small towns all over his district, such as the one he grew up in — Ninety Six. (And by the way, when he speaks, you can tell he’s from someplace like that, Cambridge or no.) Again, here’s his platform. He can also speak intelligently about international affairs, but that’s not what he talks about.

Anyway, those are the kinds of things Judd wants to do. Y’all know I’m not big on platforms and promises. But I am a big fan of Judd’s approach. He wants to identify “universal issues” that people care about regardless of politics, and then “try to find allies on the issues,” and “find a solution.”

You know all those people on both ends of the spectrum who are all about putting a proposal out there that they know the competing party will oppose, and then running against the opponents on the basis of their opposition? It’s Plan A for so many in politics. And nothing ever gets done.

Well, Judd Larkins is sort of the opposite of that. Check him out.

Oh, and yeah, I put up that sign John gave me…

 

Stop dropping hammers before someone gets hurt!

I’m still debating with myself about unsubscribing from all these fund-raising emails I’ve been getting from Democrats ever since I was in James’ campaign. That would cut my email burden about in half. But then, I wouldn’t get the chance to make fun of them.

Two things continue to strike me about them:

  1. They’re so stupid. Or rather, they assume the recipient is so stupid.
  2. They are amazingly lacking in originality. You get the same painfully hackneyed clichés over and over, sometimes multiple times in the same day.

Oh, and before you Democrats get all huffy, I’m sure the Republican fund-raisers are at least as as dumb and repetitive — probably far more so in these days of enslavement to Trumpism — but I have no way of knowing, because they don’t send me any. Which shows they have at least a smidgeon of smarts.

So I mock the ones I have.

There are several basic formulas for these things, and two types seem contradictory. There’s the poor-pitiful-us-please-send-us-money ones, which start with such headlines as “This is not the message I had hoped to send today.” Then there’s the ones that brag about how Democrats are mercilessly beating up on the opposition.

The idea with all of them is to stir emotions — any emotions, apparently — because they’ve learned that makes people give money. Or at least, the consultants say they’ve learned that. Personally, I wonder. Wouldn’t it be cool if occasionally an idea crept into these appeals? Even I might give if I got one like that.

Anyway, in recent days I saved a few of the “look how we’re beating up on them” variety, mainly because of the astounding literary monotony of them. All of these pictured in this post came in in a nine-day period — and I probably failed to save some of them.

You’ve seen the one above. Here are a couple more:

Now at this point, you might be saying, “Well, women — even that Republican one we like — just can’t handle tools, the poor things!” But hush your mouth, you sexist pig — male Democrats are apparently just as clumsy:

I’ve been known to repeat myself — everyone needs an editor, and I don’t have one here on the blog — but even if I were in a coma, I don’t think I would do something like this. I mean, think about it — that same headline is going out over and over to the same people! Does anyone actually truly think that’s a good idea?…

Yep, I’m supporting Micah Caskey

Here’s the sign Micah put in my yard, and I’m fine with it. But I wish he’d picked a spot where my lawn looked better.

Ken misunderstood something earlier. He said the presence of the Micah Caskey ad you see at right was “apparently an endorsement.” No, no, no. That’s just an ad.

An endorsement would be, well… something like that sign I have for him in my yard, shown above. I didn’t put it there. But I did ask Micah recently when he was going to have signs available, and then one day earlier this week, this one appeared. And I’m fine with it. In putting it up, he was just doing what I would have done myself.

Not the same as the endorsements I used to do in the paper, but close enough, given my present circumstances. In the old days, I wouldn’t have endorsed him without talking to his opponent — or at least trying to (some people — like Hillary Clinton in 2008 — decline to come in).

This time — well, I’ve yet to see a lot from Micah’s opponent one way or the other. I had looked at her Facebook page, and as I was writing this, I finally looked again and saw a link to her campaign Facebook page, which led me to her actual campaign site. I don’t know why my usual approach — Googling “Melanie Shull for House” — didn’t work. Maybe she hasn’t had a lot of traffic. Anyway, I don’t know the lady; I haven’t met her. I just haven’t seen any reasons to support her over Micah. And I have seen some reasons not to. But I’m still looking, and listening.

My support for Micah goes back a ways. I’m not talking about the fact that Micah’s grandfather and great-grandfather were good friends with my mother and her family in Bennettsville long before I was born. Although that’s true enough.

I just mean — well, the stuff I’ve told y’all in the past. If you’ll recall, I briefly considered running for this seat myself when Kenny Bingham left it. But in doing my due diligence first, I met Micah, and decided not only that I really liked him and agreed with him on a bunch of things (in fact, on most things we talked about), but that he was a way stronger candidate than I would have been. I also liked his strongest primary opponent Tem Miles, although I preferred Micah.

Since then, I’ve had a lot of interactions with Micah, and have been pleased — mostly by the intelligent, straightforward way he approaches whatever subject we talk about, and his evident desire to serve all the people of South Carolina, not just this or that ideological clique. Do I agree with him on everything? Nope. And as the Republican Party has gotten crazier, and he has tried to keep his seat in spite of it, there have been more things I disagree with him on — such as the guns legislation last year. I went into that with him, and with y’all, in some detail at the time.

Ken mentioned some other things today. As did Doug. Well, I might disagree with Micah on some, but not all, of those things, too…

Interestingly, when I was at this point in writing this post last night, I got a phone call from a number that called itself CASKEY4STATEHOU. It was a sort of cross between a poll and an appeal for support. I think. The connection was very poor — which might be the fault of my hearing aids, or something — and I asked the guy to hang up and call back. But I didn’t hear from him again.

One of the few clear parts of the conversation was when he asked me whether I’d consider putting a sign for Micah in my yard, and I said, to put it the way John Cleese would, “We’ve already got one.”

Anyway, after that call, I called Micah and we talked a bit. We spoke a little about the medical cannabis thing. I heard nothing one way or the other on that to make up my mind.

We talked more about this contested primary race he’s in. He didn’t have a lot of info about his opponent to share, although he did send me a video that he said was of her speaking at a “Moms for Liberty” event. In the video, she alludes to her reasoning for running. She doesn’t really have anything bad to say about Micah, beyond an assertion that he is not sufficiently “for the people.” Which I take to mean he fails to be ideologically pure, although it’s not entirely clear.

She is clearer about her strong opposition to Satan and his doings in the world. I’m with her on opposing that guy, but I fail to see what that has to do with this election. I think you have to be fully on board with her views of the world, and her own definition of what it means to be “Christian,” to get it. I believe she’s very sincere about her beliefs, but they are not the same as my own, so there’s a gap there.

To give you a sampling of her views, the latest post on her campaign Facebook page declares:

I will fight to halt the creeping and insidious integration of Critical Race Theory into SC’s education system. No child should be taught that they are defined by their skin color or ethnicity.

I completely agree with the second sentence of that. I could probably write a book on the first sentence. I haven’t really gotten into it here on the blog because I would pretty much have to write a book to explain what I think, as opposed to the ones-and-zeroes debate over CRT that is consuming so much oxygen these days. It’s gotten to be about enough fun to talk about as abortion.

On her campaign website, she says:

Melanie will be a voice for the silent majority suffering at the hands of cancel culture, government overreach, and progressive policies which threaten our freedom, our values, and our families.

That’s from her “issues” page. Anyway, I’m planning with an undivided mind to leave Micah’s sign up, and I plan to vote for him in June. And no, I don’t plan to give him his money back for the ad, either….

Of Micah, I say what I have for the several years since I met him. He’s a smart guy, and a fine American. He’s a good representative, one of the best. Some of y’all don’t like some of the stands he’s taken, but I actually admire him for some others. Here’s one where I was particularly proud to have him as my rep. And, of course, I’ve always appreciated his having served his country in combat as a Marine officer. To me, he’s very much a representative “for the people” — for all of us.

And now, you’re seeing him face something that the few reasonable Republicans left in our country are wise to fear — someone running to the right of them in a primary. (Cue another discussion of how gerrymandering is ruining our republic.) Here’s hoping he gets re-elected anyway. Because he’s a good guy, and a good rep.

Here, by the way, is Micah’s website. The ad also links to it.

Here’s that video he sent me of his opponent, in which I think (the audio is poor) she says she is at Maurice’s BBQ joint speaking to Moms for Liberty. By the way, if you saw this post last night and didn’t see it later, that’s because I realized just before going to bed that the video, which I mentioned above, hadn’t posted. So I switched it back to draft mode, then this morning added the video, and did some editing of the sort of free-association prose that was here originally…

Joel Lourie on losing Bob Dole

I just thought I’d share this with y’all. I found it on LinkedIn, and asked Joel, and he said he didn’t mind.

It’s what Joel Lourie, former Democratic state senator, had to say upon the death of Bob Dole the other day. I share it because it reminds us the way one human being is supposed to speak of another, regardless of such insignificant things as party affiliation:

Bob Dole was a good man, and yes, definitely a hero, and he deserves all the kind words that come his way.

You’ll see Joel’s post got more than 140 likes. Quite a few were from other friends of mine, including James Smith…

How about if we pay attention to reality instead?

Oh, look -- Henry's "urging" vaccines! But read the actual story. The news is that he's NOT mandating masks, and he's only URGING vaccines....

Oh, look — Henry’s “urging” vaccines! But read the actual story. The news is that he’s NOT mandating masks, and he’s only URGING vaccines….

For a couple of months, I’ve had in mind a certain blog post, but haven’t written it because of the time it would take — time I don’t have. The basic idea was this: As you know, I’m sick and tired of the usual stupid news stories with ideologues yelling about whether people should, for instance, wear masks in public.

My idea was to contrast that with the real world. When I go out in public — to the grocery, to Lowe’s, to Walmart, and especially to medical facilities (which I visit a lot, usually to take my parents to appointments), people, generally speaking, wear masks. Everyone does at the medical facilities, because otherwise they don’t get in. Elsewhere, sure, fewer people were wearing them, but it was never perfect. Even at the worst moments of 2020, there were always some twits who didn’t wear them — in places where folks in charge lacked the nerve to enforce the rules. This summer, the numbers of maskless were greater — even serious people were starting to think they didn’t have to — but it wasn’t some ideological war. Reality was complicated, and most people were trying to be sensible.

But I missed my time for writing that. In recent days, things have changed. For instance, on a personal level, last night my wife told her high school classmates she would not be attending the 50th reunion in Memphis. Everyone else in the class was sending in similar messages. She attending a Catholic girls’ school that had only 37 seniors graduating in 1971. Of those, 22 had planned to attend. Now none are going, so once again the event is postponed.

This morning, she followed that up with a note of regret that she would not be attending a wedding she had planned to go to while in Memphis.

As she did these things, I nodded, because it seemed consistent with what I’ve seen around us in recent days — hospital beds filling back up, people re-evaluating gatherings and resuming precautions when they go out, all because of such factors as the Delta variant and the insanely large number of people who have refused to get vaccinated. Here and there, you even see a report of someone who had refused but has wised up.

Normal, rational human behavior — people adjusting to shifting circumstances. All that is in the real world in which we live.

But then I look at the world being described most prominently in media we consume — from mainstream to social. And I see the idiotic ideological arguments, the same taking of absurd positions that would be laughable if they weren’t so harmful to public health.

You know what I’m talking about. Locally, our alleged “governor” continuing to refuse to take any responsibility for public health. (At least he’s consistent, right? This is what the majority out there voted for, to its great shame, in 2018.) Our attorney general reaching out to try to prevent other elected officials from taking any such responsibility as well. Other such behavior across the country, from local to federal levels.

Occasionally, I comment, usually on social media, when things get really far from reality:

But mostly, I just look around and wish I could see more reporting on what’s really going on, and less about what stupid things “leaders” who refuse to lead are prattling about.

Sometimes I do see it. For instance, there was this, put out by The State in the past 24 hours:

Lexington Medical Center is experiencing a critical shortage of intensive care unit beds as it approaches a record-high number of COVID-19 patients, hospital officials said.

More than 90% of the West Columbia hospital’s 557 beds were occupied Tuesday morning, including 146, or about 26%, of which were filled with coronavirus patients, Lexington Medical Center spokeswoman Jennifer Wilson said.

“We are approaching our highest number of COVID patients hospitalized at one time ever,” said Wilson, who added that the situation at Lexington Medical Center was “very serious” and encouraged South Carolinians to get vaccinated.

The vast majority of the hospital’s COVID-19 patients are unvaccinated, she said.

Only 16% of coronavirus inpatients at Lexington Medical are vaccinated, and just three of the 43 COVID-19 patients in the hospital’s ICU are fully dosed….

That’s about the hospital that you can see from the street I live on, if you walk down that street a bit to get a better angle on it. What’s going on there, and in the hospitals across South Carolina — and the nation, and the world — is infinitely more important to me than the pronouncements of people who have made it startlingly clear, over and over, that they will in no way do or say anything that reflects what’s happening in the world.

Oh, and by the way, Jennifer Wilson — quoted in that news item I cited above — is married to that same attorney general mentioned above. The difference between them is that she lives and works in the real world, while her husband lives in one in which continued employment depends on showing people you are devoted to Trumpism.

Yes, reporters should continue to cover what the governor and AG say and do. Who knows, they might even run across a “man bites dog” story like this one from Arkansas: Arkansas’ governor says it ‘was an error’ to ban mask mandates. You know, a point at which reality and Republican political speech actually coincide.

Maybe someday our governor will stop trying to outstupid Texas, and instead endeavor to outsmart Arkansas.

But while you wait for that actual astounding news to develop, cover the reality more, please…

What? You mean that guy’s still governor of New York?

cuomo

About a week ago, I ran across the name of Andrew Cuomo in The New York Times, and saw that they still referred to him as “governor.” (Or maybe just “Gov.” before his name. I can’t find the piece right now.)

I hadn’t seen the name in awhile, and my first reaction was, Really? That guy is still governor of the state of New York?

And when I got this notification on my phone this morning, I had the same thought again: “New York Gov. Cuomo Sexually Harassed Multiple Women, Investigation Finds.”

Well, actually, I had two thoughts. The first one was to the statement in the headline itself: Yeah, we all knew that.

The second thought was Really? You mean that guy is still governor up there?

Perhaps you will have other thoughts. Personally, I dismissed this sleazeball quite a while back. I see that I last made a reference to him here, in an open thread on March 10:

What about that Cuomo guy? — I’ve never paid much attention to this guy, which was probably wise on my part. I’m not hearing anything good about him. And I don’t just mean the nursing-home deaths. I mean, who hires a 25-year-old “health adviser?” This guy does, if he likes her looks. Wow. Have you seen the picture included with this story about the gov making his unwelcome moves on a tiny, vulnerable, appalled young woman? He looks like Dracula with his latest victim. What a jerk. By the way, I have a problem with the hed to that Gail Collins column I linked to above: “Sex and the Single Governor.” He married Kerry Kennedy in 1990 and they have three kids. Yeah, they divorced in 2005. But he’s Catholic; she’s Catholic. He’s not “single.”

Yo, New York: Deal with your problem. We have enough headaches dealing with the various absurdities cranked out on a regular basis by our own governor. I don’t have time to waste worrying about yours…

Lynn Teague: And so it begins… redistricting South Carolina

The Op-Ed Page

newest 7.20.21

EDITOR’S NOTE: As I’ve said so many times, there is no one more important thing we could do to reform and reinvigorate our democracy than to end the scourge of partisan gerrymandering. And it’s hard to imagine any task more difficult. So, when I got an email from our friend Lynn Teague telling me the Senate was about to start work on reapportionment, I was assured to know she would be riding herd on the process, and asked her to write us a situationer. I’m deeply grateful that she agreed to do so…

By Lynn Teague
Guest Columnist

The Senate Redistricting Subcommittee will hold its first meeting to begin the process of redrawing South Carolina’s legislative district boundaries on July 20, and the House is planning its first meeting on August 3. The redistricting process, held every ten years to adjust legislative districts to changes in population, is required by the U. S. Constitution. It is among the most important political processes in our system of government, but one that the public often ignores. The impact isn’t immediately obvious without a closeup look, and a closeup look can easily leave citizens confused by technical details and jargon. The nonpartisan League of Women Voters wants to see that change. We intend to do all that we can to demystify and inform the public and encourage participation.

Lynn Teague

Lynn Teague

Why should you care? Gerrymandering is designing district boundaries so that the outcome in the November general election is a foregone conclusion. At present South Carolina is not heavily gerrymandered by party (although there are surely those who would like to change that in the upcoming process). It is, however, very noncompetitive. The map of Senate districts shows how many voters had no real choice at the polls in November 2020. Why is this? Sometimes it is because the population in an area is very homogenous and any reasonable district that is drawn will lean predictably toward one party or the other. However, too often the problem is incumbent protection. This is a game that both parties can and do play, carefully designing districts to make them easy to win the next time around. Because of this obvious temptation, the United States is the only nation that allows those with an obvious vested interest in the outcome to draw district boundaries.

The other major impact of designing very homogenous districts is that it feeds polarization. Representatives are able to remain in office by responding only to the most extreme elements of their own parties, those who participate enthusiastically in primary elections, and ignore the broader electorate. When you call or write your senator or representative and get no meaningful response, this is often the reason. He or she doesn’t have to care what you think. When you wonder why our legislators take positions that are more extreme than those of the South Carolina electorate as a whole, this is why. They are looking out for themselves in the primary election. They don’t need to be concerned about your vote in November.

What can you do? The League of Women Voters hopes that citizens across the state will participate in public hearings, write to their own representatives and senators, and urge representatives not to distort districts to protect incumbents or parties. Both Senate and House will hold public meetings across South Carolina to solicit comment on how redistricting should be done. The dates for these meetings have not been announced.

The League of Women Voters of South Carolina will be hearing from our own group of independent experts in our League advisory group, will present our own maps, will testify in public hearings, and will encourage members of the public to participate. Everyone can follow along as we present information that is needed to understand and participate on our website at www.lwvsc.org. Click on “Redistricting: People Powered Fair Maps for South Carolina.” There you can also subscribe to our blog, VotersRule2020. Follow @lwvsc on Twitter and “League of Women Voters of South Carolina” on Facebook. Our theme is #WeAreWatching. Everyone should watch along with us, and let their legislators know that they shouldn’t make the decision about who wins in November.

Lynn Teague is a retired archaeologist who works hard every day in public service. She is the legislative lobbyist for the South Carolina League of Women Voters.

DeMarco: Bishops move to sever the tie that binds

The Op-Ed Page

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By Paul V. DeMarco
Guest Columnist

You would think that American Christians, including the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, would be rejoicing that there was a faithful occupant of the White House.

Although white evangelicals overwhelmingly supported Biden’s predecessor and cheered many of his policies, Trump rarely attended church and seemed unfamiliar with the Bible (once referring, during a campaign speech at Liberty University, to the book Second Corinthians as “Two Corinthians” a mistake that any child with a year of Sunday school would avoid).

Most Christians believe that corporate worship is essential to a complete and thriving relationship with their Creator. Biden’s desire to join weekly with other Catholics and remember who they are and to whom they owe their most important allegiance should be reassuring to those of every faith and no faith. However, some of the bishops are disquieted by the highly publicized gap between Biden’s abortion stance and Catholic teaching (he personally opposes abortion but supports abortion rights policy). At an assembly of the bishops last week, there was enough concern that three-quarters of them approved drafting a document examining the “meaning of the Eucharist in the life of the church.” Some of the bishops clearly have Biden in mind with their vote, including Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, who has said unequivocally that Biden “should not receive Holy Communion” for his abortion stance.

Catholics are obligated to attend Mass weekly and expected to take Communion. Although I married into the Methodist church, I was raised as a Catholic and understand the centrality of Communion to Catholics, who believe that the elements actually become the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament.

Refusing Communion to any Christian who comes to a house of worship is an affront. The bishops’ desire to deny Biden the Eucharist put me in mind of an experience I had over two decades ago while I was visiting with a Catholic family member. During the visit, our families went to Mass together. Although I am no longer Catholic and technically should not partake, I always accept Communion when it is offered. Methodists have an open table. The invitation is to “all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin, and seek to live in peace with one another.” So, no matter who is offering Communion, I feel invited.

When I rose from the pew, my children, who were still in elementary school, naturally followed. I knew this might be a problem since this was a large church in which one stood before the Eucharistic minister, received the wafer in cupped hands, and the took a sip of wine from a common chalice. In our home church, we kneel at the altar rail and take juice in tiny individual cups. I didn’t have time to give them any instructions except, “Watch me.” I chose one of the side aisles thinking that a modestly dressed nun might be less imposing to them than a tall, portly priest arrayed king-like in his vestments. They were both nervous and the nun deduced by their hesitation that they had not received the strict instruction Catholic children get when they prepare for their first Communion. Thankfully, she did not withhold the elements from them, but she gave me a look of displeasure I will never forget.

I understand the bind that faith leaders are in. If there is no dogma, then they worry “What do we stand for?” and “How do we distinguish ourselves from the secular world?” And I also understand the moral urgency that the bishops feel toward abortion. Lives hang in the balance. I think their denunciation of abortion is defensible, as is Biden’s position.

Unfortunately, and Brad can disagree with me here, the Catholic Church is expert at inducing guilt. The majority of bishops feel so strongly about Biden’s positions on abortion and same-sex marriage that they feel a public shaming is in order. I saw both the positives and the negatives of the church’s robust adherence to dogma in my parents, whose educations through high school were entirely in Catholic schools. They both are highly motivated, disciplined, honest and smart. The nuns who taught them expected, even demanded, that they excel. But there was a downside. Eventually the weight of those rigid expectations and a perceived dearth of compassion drove them, as adults, to the Episcopal church (the Catholic teachings barring women from the priesthood or from using birth control also played a major role).

I can see nothing to be gained by the bishops denying Biden Communion. It will satisfy no one but a group of authoritarian Catholics. Biden is the kind of faithful man that any church should want. There are very few Catholics (or adherents of any faith, for that matter) who accept every one of their church’s precepts. For example, more than half of Catholics surveyed by the Pew Research Center in 2019 agree with Joe and support abortion in all or most cases.

And what disastrous evangelism. At a time when U.S. Catholic affiliation is dropping (along with most other denominations) the bishops’ desire to rebuke Biden will only serve to repel potential converts and may push some teetering Catholics out of the flock.

The Catholic faith needs some good news. It will take decades for the reverberations of the sex abuse scandal to dampen. Still, as Brad reminds us, Catholicism is the oldest and largest (by far) of the Christian denominations. It offers its followers a connection through time and space that is rivalled only by Islam. Even though I’m no longer Catholic, I experienced that connection one morning in February 2020 in Africa. I travelled there for a two-week mission in a hospital in Mbeya, Tanzania, with the USC School of Medicine. The leader of the trip was a Catholic physician who took me to an early morning Mass at Saint Anthony of Padua Cathedral. It was one of the most moving worship services I have ever experienced. A group of nuns chanted and sang accompanied by shakers and drums giving the service a unique energy and rhythm. Even though I understood almost nothing except “Yesu Kristo” and “Mungu” (“Jesus Christ” and “God” in Swahili) I felt the connection that Brad has described.

The bishops would do better focusing on our commonalties as human beings and what binds us rather than trying to humiliate the President.

Dr. DeMarco is a physician who lives in Marion, and a long-time reader of this blog.

The churc h in Mbeya, Tanzania, where Paul attended Mass in 2020.

The churc h in Mbeya, Tanzania, where Paul attended Mass in 2020.

I see the GOP just did an amazingly shameful thing. Again.

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This is a screenshot from video of Rep. Cheney speaking after the vote, which you can watch by clicking on the image.

That’s essentially what I said on Twitter this morning about the Liz Cheney thing, and started to move on to other topics.

But perhaps we should pause on that one for a moment, seeing how I may have been a trite too dismissive of the significance of this moment in American political history.

Perhaps we should contemplate what Tom Friedman had to say in his piece, “The Trump G.O.P.’s Plot Against Liz Cheney — and Our Democracy.” He wrote it before what happened this morning, but with full knowledge of what would happen. And as ominous as it sounds, he may have been on the money:

One of America’s two major parties is about to make embracing a huge lie about the integrity of our elections — the core engine of our democracy — a litmus test for leadership in that party, if not future candidacy at the local, state and national levels.

In effect, the Trump G.O.P. has declared that winning the next elections for the House, Senate and presidency is so crucial — and Trump’s ability to energize its base so irreplaceable — that it justifies both accepting his Big Lie about the 2020 election and leveraging that lie to impose new voter-suppression laws and changes in the rules of who can certify elections in order to lock in minority rule for Republicans if need be.

It is hard to accept that this is happening in today’s America, but it is.

If House Republicans follow through on their plan to replace Cheney, it will not constitute the end of American democracy as we’ve known it, but there is a real possibility we’ll look back on May 12, 2021, as the beginning of the end — unless enough principled Republicans can be persuaded to engineer an immediate, radical course correction in their party….

Indeed. Let’s focus on that bit about these twits saying that this action against the one prominent person among them willing to speak the obvious truth is crucial to “winning the next elections for the House, Senate and presidency.”

Not for long, though. I only have this to say about it: If that’s what they believe and assert — which they have done in the last few days, in a Orwellian effort to “justify” what they’re doing to Rep. Cheney — well then none of them should ever be elected to anything, ever again. As you know, I’m willing up to a point to accept certain behaviors by elected officials that are meant purely to get them elected or re-elected, if they are worthy people otherwise. Because if you don’t get elected, you can’t do any good for anyone.

But sometimes, the thing you’re willing to do proves that you are not a worthy candidate. For instance, Lindsey Graham struggled for years to keep the yahoos from tossing him out so that he could stay in office and push hard for sensible immigration policy, or for dialing back the partisan madness that was undermining our method of selecting federal judges. But when you just give up completely, and commit yourself with slavish devotion to the worst person ever to hold high office in the country, you completely abandon any argument that the nation is better off with you than without you. Obviously, you should no longer hold office.

And any Republicans who want Donald Trump to have anything to do with their party, and are willing to embrace his outrageously destructive Big Lie in order to achieve that, are people who should not only lose the next election, but the one after that, and every election to come.

Friedman’s column continues with the ways Republicans are, across the country, trying to undermine our electoral processes so that no one can ever trust them again. In our Identity Politics era, much of the attention has been on the GOP’s efforts to discourage voting by People of a Certain Color. As dastardly as that is, it’s hardly the whole story. Writes Friedman:

There are also the new laws to enable Republican legislatures to legally manipulate the administration and counting of the votes in their states….

We’re talking about new regulations like the Georgia law that removed the secretary of state from decision-making power on the State Election Board, clearly aimed to curb the powers of the current secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, after he rejected Trump’s request that he “find” 11,780 votes to undo Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia….

As Stanford University democracy expert Larry Diamond summed it all up to me, while we’re focusing on Liz Cheney and the 2020 elections, Trump’s minions at the state level “are focused on giving themselves the power to legally get away with in 2024 what the courts would not let them get away with in 2020.”…

I’m probably close to getting in trouble with the copyright attorneys at the NYT, but I assure you I’m not trying to steal anything; I’m trying to help Friedman spread the alarm. I strongly urge you to go read the whole thing (and everything else you can find from honest, knowledgeable sources), and if they want you to pay for it, by all means pay. As I do.

It’s important because Friedman predicts that once Republicans complete the task of rigging the electoral system in their lying, malodorous favor, “both Democrats and principled Republicans will take to the streets, and you can call it whatever you like, but it is going to feel like a new civil war.”

Because what else is there to do, when our civilization is no longer held together by the rule of law, reference for the truth and profound respect for, and confidence in, fair elections?

Friedman, who covered the collapse in Lebanon, doesn’t use the term “civil war” either “lightly or accidentally.” He saw a civilized country fall apart, which is “what happens when democratically elected politicians think that they can endlessly abuse their institutions, cross redlines, weaken their judiciary and buy reporters and television stations — so that there is no truth, only versions, of every story.”

Dismiss it as alarmism if you like. Bask in the warmth of having an honest, decent, qualified president who is doing his best to serve to the betterment of his country, and enjoys high approval ratings as a result.

But keep in mind that the people who ousted Liz Cheney today have something very different in mind. They are eager to pull us all into the darkness…