DeMint Says NO

"I’m glad the President recognizes that tax increases hurt the economy. I mean, I guess that’s progress... most of us who ran this election said we were not going to vote for anything that increased the deficit. This does. It raises taxes, it raises the death tax. I don’t think we needed to negotiate that aspect of this thing away. I don’t think we need to extend unemployment any further without paying for it, and without making some modifications such as turning it into a loan at some point."
-Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) on The Hugh Hewitt Show

Our favorite Senator points out how lacking the tax compromise with Obama is. He won't vote for cloture and he won't vote for the bill should it make it past filibuster.

Miggy Comes in Second

The most dangerous hitter in the American League came in second in MVP voting.

He got better news than that, however. His team is signing a power hitting switch-hitter

to bat behind him in the lineup.

The signing of free agent relief pitching stud Joaquin Benoit last week was a major move as well.

With the loss of so many great old Tigers this past year or so: George Kell, The Bird, Mr. Harwell, and Sparky, it's good to look to the future. These are some hopeful signs in The D. Time to bounce up off that .500 season and contend. How long 'til pitchers and catchers report?

Primarily

Our primary elections are next Tuesday, June 8th, and in South Carolina we vote on every office. There is no registration by party in South Carolina. A registered voter goes in on primary day and asks for the Republican or Democrat program for the voting computer. (Every precinct in the state uses identical electronic voting machines, by the way.) Voting in the Democrat primary in statewide races is like picking the Washington Nationals to win the World Series: a pointless activity.

So, though I've never been a registered Republican in my 38 years of voting, I'll ask for the Republican ballot and vote among over 30 candidates in a dozen or so races. DeMint for Senate of course, Mulvaney for the right to knock off John Spratt this November, Loftis for State Treasurer and on and on and on.

But the race that suddenly got national attention a few weeks ago is for Governor. Two of the candidates had run and won statewide office before: McMaster the current AG, and Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer. (In SC the Lt. Gov. does NOT run with the Governor like the US President/ Vice President. I've seen some outside reports that assumed that Andre Bauer was Governor Sanford's "running mate." That's not true.) As statewide office holders McMaster and Bauer polled ahead of Gresham Barrett, a US Representative from an Upstate district, and Nikki Haley, a state representative, on name recognition if nothing else.

Then a few things happened to upset the old boy network that wanted a Bauer win at best or, at least, a McMaster/ Bauer run-off. And, when you talk about The Old Boys, in South Carolina you're talking about Sanford enemy Jake Knotts and his crew.

Jake Knotts

First a few groups started to throw support and funding behind Sanford protege Haley. That helped her a bit, but nothing like what happened when Governor Sarah Palin left the NRA convention in Charlotte and stopped in Columbia to endorse Nikki.

Polls after the Palin endorsement showed Nikki Haley leaping from 4th to 1st. McMaster was now running second and that meant ol' Jake Knotts had a problem-- his boy Andre was out of the running and wouldn't even make the June 22nd run-off. But, coincidentally I'm sure, slime started oozing out of the dark corners of the state. First a hapless blogger leveled a dirty smear without any evidence. When that seemed to go nowhere a Bauer aide leveled a similar, sad, laughable attack on Haley. Since there was no evidence for this one either the electorate seemed to be seeing through it.

So, desperate, Knotts last night played trump. He intimated, in public on an Internet radio program that Nikki Haley isn't the Methodist she claimsto be, in fact ol' Jake said that like Obama, she's a "raghead." The exact quote: “We already got one raghead in the White House. We don’t need another in the Governor’s Mansion.”

And so this is what the mighty fixer Jake Knotts has come to as he sees Andre Bauer's ascendancy in grave doubt. See, with his boy Bauer in the Governor's chair Jake and his crowd would be dippin' even deeper into the emptying trough down in Columbia. Since the office of Governor is weak by design in South Carolina (see: carpetbaggers and scalawags post- War Between The States for the reason) even a Mark Sanford or Nikki Haley can't keep the oily Knotts crew from their corruption. But the difference between a Haley vetoing their schemes and a Bauer rubber-stamping them is big. Big enough for Jake Knotts to pull out everything his ugly mind can think of-- but will the voters fall for the sleaze and insult campaign next Tuesday?

The days of guys like John Spratt and Jake Knotts are coming to an end. We hope it starts Tuesday June 8th. That would be change we can believe in.

UPDATE: Nikki Haley got 49% of the vote. Her closest competitor, who she will meet in a 6/22 runoff, was 27 percentage points behind. Jake's boy, Andre Bauer, finished dead last.

It's CWS Time

The NCAA College World Series Tournament begins this weekend so over Memorial Day weekend the 64 teams and the brackets were announced. Of course, while the NCAA basketball tournament gets extensive media attention, only hardcore baseball fans followthe CWS.

Around these parts we're pretty pleased that FIVE South Carolina teams made the tournament. Throw in the state to the north of us and 8 of the 64 entries are from the Carolinas. Two of the 16 first round tourney sites are in SC: Coastal Carolina U in Conway (over near Myrtle Beach), and USC in Columbia. In fact, the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers are the #4 seed in the entire tournament-- a tremendous achievement for the Chants.

Good luck to all the South Carolina teams: The Citadel Bulldogs, College of Charleston Cougars, Coastal Carolina University Chanticleers, Clemson University Tigers, and the Carolina Gamecocks.

Carolina Stadium, USC, Columbia, SC

School's Out For Summer

Looking for sandy, oil-free beaches.

Thanksgiving

Be thankful for this... the hoax of man made climate change has been exposed.

The end of this destructive scam? Now that's the kind of hope and change I can get behind.

Not So Fast There McClatchy

The McClatchy Company is the dominant newspaper group in the Carolinas. Among the papers they own are the one in the biggest metro area, The Charlotte Observer, and the two state capitals, The Raleigh News & Observer and The State in Columbia, SC. You would think that in South Carolina, a state that has just one Democrat holding a statewide office (he won by 500 votes), the capital city news outlet would at least be moderate. You would be wrong. The State is just another unreadable lib rag.

When the Joe Wilson story didn't go exactly the way The State hoped-- most people thought Joe was a hero not someone who should be run out of Congress-- they tried another tactic. While MoDowd and Jimmy Carter were hollerin' about race The State promoted on their "news" pages the speculation that Joe Wilson's calling out of President Obama for blatant fibbing would lead to tourism declines. You have to understand, South Carolina has a large tourism industry. It's not Florida large, but given the size of the state it's pretty important-- especially on the coast. So when a legacy media outlet says that something will hurt tourism they want to scare people.

Well, that didn't work out for the McClatchy gang either. Probably because the story itself was pretty much fact-free. They did find some underling in the state tourism office who said that they had received 147 e-mails from people who were never coming to SC because of Wilson's famous two words. Well, most of us figured that 100 of those were from the SEIU, 40 were from ACORN, and 7 were from the senators who voted to keep giving ACORN taxpayer dough. In other words, we yawned.

But today we have real news about South Carolina tourism. The Carnival Cruise Lines have announced that they will begin more than 70 cruises/ year from the port of Charleston next spring. It's hard to find much about this on The State's site this AM, but the Charleston Post & Courier has it front and center.

-- The 2,056-passenger Carnival Fantasy will embark from the end of Market Street for five-, six- and seven-day voyages to the Bahamas and Key West, Fla., beginning in May. As many as 70 calls per year will more than double the current number of cruises and, by some estimates, inject millions of dollars in direct local economic impact with each of them.
Top port and political leaders excitedly shared the news Thursday from a Waterfront Park pier while curious tourists observed from the nearby oversize swings. Onlookers gazed into Charleston Harbor and over at the freshly painted cruise terminal being prepared for a major overhaul.

A city-organized task force in 2004 found that a ship stopping in Charleston spends $1.7 million in supplies from local vendors and State Ports Authority fees, while a ship originating in Charleston spends $2.5 million.

Dog Days = Slow News Days

This morning my news feed gave me these three huge national stories:

--In Kentucky a state legislator is filing a bill to remove the prohibition against dueling in the oath of office. Apparently this isn't because he wants to be able to duel and then run for re-election but because he thinks dueling is too 19th Century. I wouldn't be too hasty.

--In Alaska Rat Island no longer seems to have rats. Maybe they could import some from Boston.

--And in Washington state a fellow shot himself in his leg while trying to protect his chickens from a possum. That's not really national news to me. If a possum shot a farmer or a chicken pulled a .22 on a marauding possum... now that's news!

The good news? Apparently nothing important is going on.

A Lowcountry Tale

Here's the story of how ducks, and the people who love to hunt them, saved the unique "Carolina Gold" type of rice in the Lowcountry between Savannah and Charleston, SC.

Read about it here in Guns & Gardens.

Back to Work

Weekend's over. But we still have visions of surf...

and turf....

spinning in our head.

Happy Blue Monday.

Memorial Day 2009

April 15, 2009 continued

From The State House, Columbia, South Carolina---

There were dozens and dozens of Gadsden Flags flying.

A few people brought Culpeper flags. Others had the LIBERTY flag(AKA: the Fort Moultrie flag), a precursor to our beautiful Palmetto Tree state flag.

The event started at 12:30 and by 1PM the crowd was at its peak, jammed between Gervais Street and the steps of the State Capitol. There was only one vocal lefty (within my earshot) among the thousands and he gave up on his delirium after a loud chant of U-S-A.

Senator Jim DeMint, a champion of liberty, freedom, and small government got a roaring ovation.

Next up was Governor Mark Sanford. It's hard to imagine any politician getting a louder, more positive reception than the one accorded our Governor.

Oh, by the way, it was about 72 degrees and the skies were clear. A beautiful day for one and all.

April 15, 2009 Columbia, SC

At The State House in Columbia, SC an estimated 3,000 plus citizens gathered this afternoon for a rally. The "Tea Party" was to demand smaller government, less spending, an end to bailouts, and real tax reform. It was just one of over a dozen such gatherings in SC this week. Others were scheduled for Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Aiken, Florence, York, Fort Mill, Florence, Georgetown, Isle of Palms, Lancaster, Pickens, and Simpsonville today. On Thursday Spartanburg will have an event and Friday night in Greenville there will be a big rally at the Bi-Lo center.

Most "Tea Parties" around the country didn't allow politicians to address the crowd but at the Capitol building in Columbia both Senator DeMint and Governor Sanford spoke. To say they were warmly received by the assembled thousands is a huge understatement-- they are seen as two of the few fiscal heroes in government anywhere in the country and the crowd greeted them as heroes.

Some attendees were young-- and on the hook for trillions of dollars.

Some made signs lookin' all 60's groovy.

The founding fathers were quoted about Liberty...

...while for others the day was mainly about taxes.

More to follow.

Have A Blessed Easter...

... from all of us hereabouts.

We're All Behind Our Baseball Team

And so it begins. A solid lineup, a greatly improved defense, added speed and left side pop with Anderson and Larish, bounceback years for Verlander, Rodney, and Bonderman plus two rookie phenoms Porcello and Perry... hope springs eternal.



But, most of all, let's avoid the injuries that plagued the last two seasons.
Bless You Boys!

Can Gold Tarnish?

Over the past few months I've met quite a few new people. Well, they aren't really new, they're just new to me. Sitting around talking to these folks it usually comes out that I've lived in 9 states including about 18 years in California-- pretty evenly split between Contra Costa County in the Bay Area and Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara.

Then the question always comes up, "Why did you leave California?" I have no problem coming up with a long list of answers despite the fact that I love the place, but now I think I'll just hand them this column from VDH.

Don't All Move At Once

This article from USA Today says that about half the people in the country want to move away from where they live and about half don't. Pretty Earth shattering stuff! 50/50. Mediocre. Average.

When I saw the headline my first thought was, "now that the New Socialists are in full control I want to move to a beachfront shack in Belize." But they were really asking about people's desire to move around inside the United States. Well, in that regard, I live exactly where I want to live-- and it doesn't look like this:

Animals Don't Worry Much About Recessions

State bird of SC, the Carolina Wren, visits on Christmas Day.

Squirrel (AKA: fluff rat) enjoying the ice and snow in the Midwest.

Sorry. No Gas.

Eleven days ago we pointed out how hurricane Ike could cause gasoline shortages in our corner of the world. In the last 24 hours it came to pass. All over the Charlotte, NC metro area there are now gas stations without fuel. As the day rolled on Wednesday reports were being broadcast locally about people following tank trucks to stations, of lines of 50 or so cars at some locations, and general distress over a lack of gasoline.

Our own search for gasoline yesterday found the following along the trail away from our driveway. Shell: NO GAS, Texaco: NO GAS, Texaco: NO GAS, The Gate: NO GAS, Sunoco: NO GAS, Texaco: NO GAS, BP: NO GAS, Country Grocery Store with 2 pumps: BAGGING PUMPS AS WE DRIVE BY, Shell: GAS! with 2 dozen cars waiting. We drive by and try one more stop, a Kangaroo convenience store that has two pump islands. They had regular. We bought 15 and a half gallons.

Similar supply problems are happening from Charlotte west to Asheville. Nashville and Atlanta are apparently having some shortages too. Here in South Carolina we actually aren't having much trouble statewide, but in our county we get lots of folks crossing the border from NC to buy gas here because our taxes are 15 cents a gallon lower. What we learned is that the farther away we go from the NC border the easier it is to find fuel.

Roger That, Governor

“I might add that in small towns, we don’t quite know what to make of a candidate who lavishes praise on working people when they are listening, and then talks about how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns when those people aren’t listening. We tend to prefer candidates who don’t talk about us one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco.”

-Gov. Sarah Palin, September 3, 2008