FITSNews Exclusive - Sanford To Veto Presidential Election Bill May 31, 2007
Posted by fitsnews in : Presidential Politics, SC Politics , 25 comments
BATTLE ROYALE BETWEEN GOVERNOR, GOP PARTY CHAIRMAN EXPECTED
FITSNews - May 31, 2007 - Gov. Mark Sanford will veto a bill allocating state resources for South Carolina’s “First in the South” 2008 presidential primaries, sources tell FITSNews. The bill, S. 99, provides approximately $2 million for the S.C. Election Commission to run both the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries in accordance with federal HAVA (Help America Vote Act) standards.
Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer indicated yesterday that the governor was “undecided” on the bill, which is pending ratification and has yet to land on his desk.
Proponents of the legislation insist that having the Election Commission run the primaries ensures fairness and minimizes the threat of lawsuits from losing campaigns. Opponents of the bill, including several Republicans, say it gives the typically cash-strapped Democratic Party in South Carolina an unfair advantage in that it could reallocate scarce resources which would otherwise have to be spent putting on the primary.
S.C. Reps Ready For Vacation
Posted by fitsnews in : SC Politics , 2 comments
LIMEHOUSE, THOMPSON AND CEIPS EAGER TO BE DONE WITH SESSION
FITSNews - May 31, 2007 - We can’t ever make fun of State Rep. Chip Limehouse without him blowing the proverbial gasket, so we figured today we’d at least give him some company. Apparently, the skin of big green ogres isn’t as thick as we thought it was!
At the very least, hopefully Rep. Limehouse (pictured above with fellow State Reps. Michael Thompson and Catherine Ceips) will refrain from trying to eat us as a result of this post …
Brian Williams Sucks May 30, 2007
Posted by fitsnews in : The Press , 2 comments
NBC NEWS TOO BUSY TO COVER LATEST LOHAN-CIDENT
FITSNews - May 30, 2007 - We were there for you when the AP pulled the plug on Paris Hilton, and we’re here for you now that pompous, over-tanned NBC News anchor Brian Williams is “too busy” to cover the latest Lindsay Lohan drama. From TMZ’s coverage of the tanfastic anchor’s latest fuddy-duddery:
This weekend’s photos of Lindsay Lohan’s car crash were front page news worldwide, but when Williams was asked by the Boston Herald about LiLo’s antics being on his broadcast, the uptight news nerd said, “It does not and it won’t be NBC Nightly News … we have Justice Ginsburg reading her dissent today from the bench. We have record violence in Iraq. … We’ve got a whole lot to cover and very little time.”
We know, we know. It’s hard to imagine anything sexier than Ruth Bader Ginsberg reading a dissent from the bench. Actually, wait! There is something sexier! What about doing a story on a bunch of geriatrics sitting around in a room playing video games? Or something on the latest needlepoint craze? Because both items made the cut on yesterday’s NBC Nightly Snooze. That Brian Williams has his finger on the pulse, people!
Right Said Fred
Posted by fitsnews in : Presidential Politics , 6 comments
THOMPSON’S IN … NOW WHAT?
FITSNews - May 30, 2007 - With actor-politician Fred Thompson now all but assured of mounting a bid for the Republican Presidential nomination in 2008, political observers everywhere are scurrying to determine the impact the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee will have on the race. Washington Post reporter Chris Cillizza has an excellent analysis of the “Thompson effect” on his blog this afternoon, which essentially concludes that if you’re name isn’t Rudy Giuliani or John McCain then your chances of getting the nomination now are pretty much screwed.
The momentum for Thompson, who is already polling third nationally among GOP candidates despite the fact he hasn’t announced his candidacy yet, has been buoyed by recent polls showing him matching up favorably against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton. Here in South Carolina, he’s already received the endorsement of U.S. Rep Gresham Barrett, a potential 2010 gubernatorial candidate who is noted for his appeal to both fiscal and social conservatives - two groups less than enthralled with the current slate of GOP contenders.
We like Thompson - and we don’t even watch Law & Order. We liked him a whole lot in Days of Thunder, though, the 1990 film in which he played no-nonsense NASCAR commissioner “Big John.” In fact, we’ve been known to imitate Thompson whenever our two miniature NASCAR racers get out of line, sitting them down and reminding them they’re a nothing but a “couple of monkeys” running around our racetrack and that if they “so much as trade paint one more time” we’re going to “black flag them both.”
Playing The Triangle Isn’t Easy
Posted by fitsnews in : SC Politics , 11 comments
GOVERNOR’S STRATEGY OF ISOLATING S.C. SENATE HITS A SNAG
FITSNews - May 30, 2007 - For the past few months, Gov. Mark Sanford’s game plan has been to beat up on the ultra-liberal South Carolina Senate while holding his tongue when it comes to the slightly-less-liberal S.C. House of Representatives. It’s called “triangulation,” a political application of the old Arabian proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
By laying off the House and focusing his bully pulpit’s … um … “fire and brimstone” on the Senate, Sanford had been hoping to gain an ally in the budget battle currently raging in the General Assembly.
Sanford’s plan hit its first major snag yesterday, however, when House Speaker Bobby Harrell took the governor to task for joining some State Senators who had gathered to rail on the issue du jour, illegal immigration. (more…)
Flipper Is Doing Tricks Again
Posted by fitsnews in : Presidential Politics , 3 comments
ROMNEY JUMPS THROUGH CAMPAIGN 101 HOOP IN SAYING HE WON’T TAKE PRESIDENTIAL SALARY
FITSNews - May 30, 2007 - Here we go again. It seems in every election cycle, you can count on at least one candidate to make a big deal about the fact he or she is refusing to take a salary. It’s a nice idea in theory, but all it usually ends up doing is reminding the average voter that the candidate in question is richer than God. Plus, it goes against one of America’s most basic ideals - getting an honest wage for a hard day’s work. But since it’s a quick and easy (albeit token and meaningless) gimmick that’s destined to grab some free media, campaigns frequently trot it out. Like Mitt Romney’s campaign did yesterday.
As fiscal conservatives, we appreciate any effort to spare the taxpayers some of their hard-earned bucks. Of course, Romney’s technically not saying that he would refuse his $400,000 annual Presidential salary, he’s talking about donating it to an unspecified charity (probably something to do with cuddly puppies).
We’ve got a better idea. Instead of refusing a salary, what would happen if a presidential candidate agreed to a pay scale that was tied to the nation’s per capita income - currently about $42,000 a year? He or she would still be “saving” the taxpayers $358,000 annually and would actually have (or at least be perceived as having) a direct stake in raising income levels for the rest of us. Most Americans like knowing that their elected officials are working to save them money, and they don’t mind compensating them a fair amount to do so. In most cases such a declaration would still amount to little more than a “millionaire’s gimmick,” but at least this gimmick offers something people can get their brains around instead of serving as yet another reminder of how distant American politicians have become from the people they lead.
S.C. General Assembly Testing “Infinite Monkey Theorem?” May 29, 2007
Posted by fitsnews in : SC Politics , 6 comments
ACCUSATIONS OF PRIMAL DESIGN FLY AS TRANSPORTATION REFORM BILL DEBABTED
FITSNews - May 29, 2007 - We remain convinced that the average South Carolinian doesn’t give a monkey’s rear end about reforming the State Department of Transportation - nor are they especially concerned with deciphering the nuances between competing DOT reform bills offered by the S.C. House and Senate. We’ve written about DOT reform just once, and that was only because it gave us yet another opportunity to speculate about whether or not State Sen. Hugh Leatherman (Marxist-Leninist - Florence) plays with tiny communist figurines at his desk when no one is looking. Of course when people start calling each other monkeys, things do tend to get a bit more interesting.
“This is the worst bill I’ve ever seen,” a key Senate staffer told FITSNews today, referring to the DOT reform bill drafted by the S.C. House of Representatives. “An infinite number of monkeys working on an infinite number of typewriters couldn’t have drafted something this bad.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the Infinite Monkey Theorem, it basically holds that if you give an infinite number of monkeys an infinite amount of time behind a typewriter, they’ll end up writing Shakespeare. And yes, the author of the theorem (like our source on the quote above) was probably only a notch or two below us on the sarcastic smart ass scale. (more…)
