TweetI missed this a couple of days ago — a freelance piece, apparently, by Corey Hutchins of the Free Times. It elaborates on a piece about Nikki Haley’s secretive out-of-state fundraising that ran in The State Oct. 11. An excerpt: Texas Insurance Commissioner Eleanor Kitzman has been on the job less than three months, but […]
TweetOn Tuesday, while still eating breakfast, I sent Cindi Scoppe an email telling her what a good column she had written about Nikki Haley’s ridiculous claim (later retracted) that half the job applicants at SRS had failed drug tests. I was proud of the fine job she had done. I was also proud of myself, […]
TweetThe worst thing about the “It’s a great day in South Carolina!” order isn’t the fact that it is so grating and insulting to the caller. Callers can shrug that off; if they really need to do business with the state, they’ll take a breath and go ahead (even while filing a mental note that […]
TweetAll hail the good news: Bridgestone to spend $1.2 billion, build new facility in Aiken Bridgestone Americas Inc. announced today it plans to build a 1.5 million-square-foot manufacturing plant for off-road radial tires and make a 474,000-square-foot expansion to the existing passenger and light truck tire plant in Aiken County. The $1.2 billion investment — […]
TweetDon’t know whether you’ll be able to actually read this Greenville News editorial online (they make it hard), but here are excerpts: Stop bashing state’s unemployed The state’s more than 236,000 unemployed workers deserve better treatment than they have gotten in recent days from Gov. Nikki Haley. In her rush to score points with voters […]
TweetIf you’ll recall, Nikki Haley got into trouble for sorta, kinda, trying to do the right thing: Save girls’ lives by getting them vaccinated against the papillomavirus that causes most cervical cancers. Until she realized it might not be a popular move with political extremists. Here’s CNN’s recap: Columbia, South Carolina (CNN) — As the […]
TweetThe best historical marker in the world is on the Madison County courthouse square in Jackson, TN. It tells what Davy Crockett told a group of voters, standing in that spot, after being defeated for re-election to Congress: You can go to hell, but I am going to Texas! Today, we have a similar case […]
TweetAt least, not on this point. Assuming that Nikki Haley actually does sign the ATV safety bill today, she deserves a huge “Huzzah” from rational South Carolinians everywhere. His repeated vetoes of this bill stand as the most malicious, harmful instances of his bloodless application of ideological abstractions to governance. His stance shocked the sensibilities […]
TweetDown in this story about how Jim DeMint is putting hurting Barack Obama ahead of good health care or saving millions of dollars (and is it supposed to be news that DeMint places ideology over sound policy?), was this bit: S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has shared DeMint’s national spotlight in opposing health care reform, challenging […]
TweetFirst and foremost, a thing where you go online and click “yes” or “no” to a current-events question is not a POLL, in any meaningful sense. It has no statistical significance. If you don’t have a properly constructed sample, with the right elements of randomness and screening questions (“are you the head of household, etc.”), […]
Tweet I started my career in a state with a real Sunshine Law… Tennessee. The expectation was clear there, back in the heady post-Watergate 1970s, that the people’s business would be done in public, and that government documents belonged to the people as well. This led to a lot of awkwardness. For instance… I well […]
TweetOK, I still haven’t run down every detail of this, but I’m about to run to lunch and I don’t want this correction to wait another minute. Cindi Scoppe brought to my attention this morning a serious error in what I all-too-hastily wrote last night about Nikki Haley’s State of the State speech. More about […]
TweetJust read this item over at thestate.com: Gov. Nikki Haley and higher education leaders said today they are working together on ways to objectively measure the performance of South Carolina’s public colleges and universities. School officials said Tuesday they will provide the governor with data including class sizes, the number of in-state and out-of-state students, […]
Tweet I missed the announcement of Nikki Haley’s new senior staff yesterday, but I went looking for it after a friend (NOT a professional political observer, but a communications pro) at lunch today mentioned how… lackluster the announcement was. My friend said it really looked like Nikki was saying, “Well, since I went and won […]
TweetA colleague pointed out to me where I could send my suggestions to Nikki’s “Fiscal Crisis Task Force.” So I went there, and right above the form, I saw this quote: “This movement was never meant to be about a person. It was never meant to be about an election. This movement was about how […]
TweetThe state Democratic Party is giving Nikki Haley a hard time for choosing David Wilkins to head her transition: Columbia, SC – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Carol Fowler released the following statement today in response to Gov.-elect Nikki Haley’s announcement that GOP insider David Wilkins will head her transition team. Wilkins is a former […]
TweetY’all know how fed up I was during the campaign with all the breathless Identity Politics hoopla, especially in the national media, over Nikki Haley being an Indian-American (gasp!) woman (oh, joy! oh, rapture!). I don’t like all that IP stuff in the best of times, but to watch the way it boosted Nikki over […]
TweetOn Sunday I had too much going on to read the paper, but I didn’t feel like I was missing much, because the lede headline was, “How Haley beat Sheheen.” That would have to be shortest analysis story yet, since the entire explanation can be expressed thusly: “She ran as a Republican in 2010.” It’s […]
Tweet Kathryn Fenner, apparently in no mood for nuance at this point in the election, complained that I have posted a couple of videos of Nikki Haley that she (Kathryn) believed cast her in a positive light. Well, perhaps they did, if you are someone who was likely to vote for Nikki anyway, and are […]
TweetJust noticed something on the S.C. legislative website. On the page with links to House members’ bios, there is an interesting difference in the way distaff members are listed: Jeff D. Duncan Tracy R. Edge Shannon S. Erickson (Mrs. Kendall F.) P. Michael “Mike” Forrester Marion B. Frye Laurie Slade Funderburk (Mrs. Harold Williams) Michael […]