TweetMy favorite Jim Davenport story won’t make much sense to most people, but it always makes me smile. Jim, whom we called “Dav” because that was his login on the Atex mainframe system we used at The State back then, first came to work for the paper on a sort of unofficial basis while he […]
Tweet This is my favorite official reaction, so far, to Nikki Haley announcing she had chosen Tim Scott to replace Jim DeMint. Oh, but wait! If you click on the link in the bottom left-hand corner, the one that says “View entire message,” you see the rest of it: Wilson stated, “Governor Nikki Haley’s decision […]
TweetI don’t really have anything to say at this time about this fully expected development: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) announced Monday that she will appoint Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) to the Senate. Scott will replace Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who is leaving the chamber in January to head up the conservative Heritage Foundation. “It is […]
TweetRick Quinn has an idea that sounds good — especially under circumstances that empower Nikki Haley to make the decision unilaterally — but I can’t go for it: S.C. Rep. Rick Quinn (R-Lexington) today submitted legislation for pre-filing to change the way vacancies are filled for the office of United States Senator. If enacted, the […]
TweetWhile I was out with the flu, we had a good-news-bad-news situation arise here in South Carolina. The good news was that Jim DeMint was leaving the Senate. The bad news was that, incredible as it still seems every time I’m reminded of the fact, Nikki Haley is actually the governor of our state. But […]
TweetJuan Williams (isn’t he a TV guy?) wrote a piece that appeared in The Wall Street Journal today about what has led to the irrelevance of Republicans in the U.S. Senate. After noting that John McCain and Lindsey Graham can huff and puff all they like, but won’t be able to blow Susan Rice down, […]
TweetA little early in the day, here is the news at this hour: Hamas and Israel Agree to Cease-Fire in Gaza Conflict (NYT) — Good job by Hillary Clinton. Let’s see how long this holds now. SC justices: Organized poker illegal, even in private homes (AP) — So the key, apparently, is to keep the […]
TweetAfter the 2008 election, Jim DeMint and others cried that the reason Republicans lost is that they just weren’t right-wing enough, and they should never have nominated an iconoclast like John McCain. It was patent nonsense, but the GOP listened, and so we got the Tea Party madness, and Nikki Haley, and Sarah Palin as […]
TweetLast night was the annual Cardinal Bernardin lecture over at USC, and on my way in to hear Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta speak, Florence attorney and longtime USC Trustee Mark Buyck asked me what was going to happen in the presidential race. I told him what I said in this post, that it […]
Tweet Democrat Beth Bernstein is running hard against Republican Rep. Joan Brady, and that means comparing herself a lot to the incumbent. In short, the comparison adds up to this: While Rep. Brady agrees with a lot of things that Democrats and independents believe in, the challenger says she would be a more effective, committed […]
Tweet Joan Brady is the kind of Republican (a traditional one) that a certain other kind of Republican (the Johnny-Come-Lately extremist variety) likes to call a RINO. She serves her swing district in much the same pragmatic way Sen. John Courson does his — serving Democratic and Republican constituents equally, and keeping the ideology to […]
Tweet Vincent Sheheen came to town and held a presser this afternoon for Beth Bernstein, who’s challenging Joan Brady in SC House district 78. Now on the one hand there’s nothing remarkable about one Democrat endorsing another. On the other hand, one of the many ways that Sheheen is unlike Nikki Haley is that he […]
TweetSeveral Democratic lawmakers sent this letter to the head of the Department of Revenue today: October 29, 2012 Mr. James Etter South Carolina Department of Revenue 301 Gervais Street Columbia, S.C. 29214 Dear Mr. Etter, As you know, many citizens of our state have questions about the recent breach of security at the SC Department […]
TweetBack in my fire-breathing days when I thought it was possible to completely transform South Carolina right NOW — say, the year that I spent directing the “Power Failure” project, 1991 — I used to rail against the politeness that characterized public life in our state. Not that politeness per se was a bad thing. […]
TweetNow we have the news that Newsweek will cease publication as of Dec. 31. (Yeah, I know technically, they’re going to continue to publish on the Web, but yet another light content provider on the Web is ho-hum news compared to the end of a print institution. Get back to me when a major, serious […]
Tweet And here I thought the Democratic ticket (what is this problem that Republicans have discerning the difference between a noun and an adjective?) was Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I was also thinking that Tony Barwick was running against Thomas McElveen for the Sumter-based seat being vacated by Sen. Phil Leventis. I had no […]
TweetThis happened about the time I was going to lunch today: A federal court in Washington, D.C., has upheld the constitutionality of South Carolina’s new voter ID law. However, the law — which requires voters to present a state-approved ID with their picture at the polls before casting a ballot — will not take effect […]
Tweet Actually, he’s not the only one who thinks so. But Vincent is the one I had lunch with yesterday, and the one who told me about this article that he and Tom Davis co-wrote for the Charleston Law Review (starts on page 439). By the way, in case you wonder: He doesn’t know whether […]
TweetThere’s a rather brutal piece of satire on the website of The New Yorker this week headlined “A Conservative History of the United States.” Brutal because it uses actual historical malapropisms by actual latter-day “conservatives.” An excerpt: 1500s: The American Revolutionary War begins: “The reason we fought the revolution in the sixteenth century was to get […]
TweetTaegan Goddard brings our attention to the following: Author of Voter ID Law Admits to Racist Email South Carolina state Rep. Alan Clemmons (R), the author of a voter ID law considered discriminatory by the Justice Department, testified in federal court that, “while crafting the bill, he had responded favorably to a friend’s racist email […]