Haley Watch 3-31-11

At left: Nikki Haley's recent photo in the New York Times magazine.

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Our governor, GOP rising star, continues to bedazzle the nationwide press. Lots of local jabs about the widely-discussed NYT-magazine story (including several from your humble narrator), asking why she won't talk to South Carolina media, but prefers to go national, where she is gushed-over nonstop.

It's a little hard to take.

On the local front, Haley's interesting former gig at Lexington Medical Hospital inspires some impressive old-style investigative sleuthing by Robert Kittle of WSPA in Spartanburg:

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Gov. Nikki Haley says she was only doing the same thing every other member of the Lexington County legislative delegation was doing in pushing for a heart center at Lexington Medical Center, not doing something special for her employer.

While Haley was a state representative, she was hired as a fundraiser for the Lexington Medical Center Foundation. The hospital was trying to get state approval from the Department of Health and Environmental Control to start a heart center.

Emails between Haley and her boss, Lexington Medical CEO Mike Biediger, raise the question of whether Haley was using her position as a lawmaker to try to influence the DHEC vote.

And specifically, Haley's 2008 online job application has raised all kinds of red flags.

She also addressed questions about her application and pay for that job. Her application lists her salary at her parents' clothing store as $125,000 a year, but her tax return for that year shows she made only $22,000.

She says she never put $125,000 on the application and never told anyone that she made that much. While another part of the application has her signature, the part that has her salary history has only her typed name.

But the hospital says it would be difficult for someone else to have added that because they would have to know her work and salary history, Social Security number and other personal information to be able to access the online application. There would also be a password or security question.

Gov. Haley said Monday, "There was no password. The password was where I graduated from high school."

Lexington Medical Center's heart center was eventually approved in 2010.

Hmmmmmm.

From FitsNews, the conservative blog that still isn't having any:

Haley – or a mysterious job application “phantom” – listed her 2007 income at Exotica International (the clothing store run by her parents) at $125,000 and requested that the hospital pay her this same amount. The only problem with Haley’s alleged income declaration? According to federal tax returns – which the Republican candidate belatedly released during the 2010 gubernatorial race – she only reported earning $22,000 from Exotica in 2007.

Haley has repeatedly denied that she filled out the application or provided the $125,000 figure – which she insists is inaccurate. However, the hospital has said it did not alter the submission. In fact, the online resume service that the hospital uses only permits its staff members to view, print or forward the application information.

A hospital spokesperson also told to The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper that anyone fraudulently filling out the application “would have had to know (Haley’s) social security number, address, job history, past supervisors, job duties, education and other details.”

The plot thickens.

Will any of this lying duplicity catch up with our popular Tea Party heroine? Will that fawning national press finally turn on her when it is discovered she has never had a real job? Or will that just make her more incredibly wonderful in their eyes: Wow, she was elected governor without ever having a REAL JOB! Is that awesome or what?

As always, stay tuned, sports fans.

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Wordless Wednesday: Discovering coolness

Daisy's grandson dons sunglasses, appears momentarily confused. I'm sure he'll catch on later!

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Gut feelings

I recently spotted a local celebrity in the flesh, a woman who is a regular on the local fundamentalist religious TV station. She is something else, and her old-school bouffant hairdo is hard to miss. She was getting food and sitting down for a quick afternoon meal with her family.

The overhead music was playing, and I heard Lou Rawls' old 70s hit, "You'll never find another love like mine"... and just as I passed her, as we both gathered our napkins and silverware, I heard her singing along with Lou, "You're gonna miss my lovinnnnnnn"... and I was momentarily startled. She likes old disco, I thought, surprised. Did I think all the fundies were raised in caves or something? They share the same pop-culture as the rest of us, as separatist as they sometimes are.

As I heard the TV-evangelist sing along with Lou, I was filled with a sudden, unaccountable affection, possibly because I had previously only heard her sing bad gospel songs.

I also realized that being a professional fundie was her job, and it is possible she gets as tired of her job as the rest of us get tired of ours.

I turned and smiled at her, as she was singing the old Lou Rawls song, and she smiled warmly back at me. It was a nice moment.

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My second recent realization is one that I need to chew on awhile... but I will share it with all of you nonetheless. You can help me nail it down, so to speak. To wit:

I live in a very conservative area, and as someone with radical politics and personal style, this means I have to possess a pretty strong personality to go against the grain of the majority.

If someone lives in a very liberal area, and has very conservative politics and personal style, they will also have to possess a strong personality to go against the grain of the majority.

My realization: I may be temperamentally more similar to the minority-conservative-in-liberal-area, than I am similar to the liberals around them. In a majority-liberal area, people can easily take liberalism for granted and don't often get very spirited about it. Thus, the liberals may be lukewarm liberals that in a conservative locale, would be lukewarm conservatives.

When conservatives emigrate to the upstate (and yes, they do, as if there weren't enough of them here already), they are excitable and revved up, like new converts. You can spot them. They take nothing for granted. They have arrived at Ground Zero of Tea Party Central--the Promised Land--and they are raring to go.

They remind me of myself, back in the day, when I got to Berserkley and thought I knew everything.

It's an unnerving realization that I first got whacked with upon reading Eric Hoffer's brilliant book, The True Believer (that all fanatics and extremists are more alike than different). But I never made the connection about geography before, and the concurrent personality types.

In a place where 'everyone' is liberal (Seattle, San Francisco), then an individual's liberalism will mean something very different that it does in a place like upstate South Carolina, where they will try to run you over for having pro-Obama/vegetarian bumper stickers on your car. Thus, the individual's response to political challenges will be very different. There is no need to be defensive when you are in the majority. It is interesting (and telling) to note how this political defensiveness is exhibited. What happens in one place, as standard and typical, would never happen in the other.

Example: During a recent group-conversation, I used the word "evolved." (Correctly, as in, "We evolved to crave fat and carbs"--this may have been, in fact, my exact phrase.) I used the word in a dietary context a number of times, and in each instance, two people in the room corrected my word choice, "created." We were not evolved to crave fat and carbs, we were created that way, by God Almighty. (Well, if we were indeed CREATED that way, why bother to fight it?)

I did not want to start a fight over Darwin at that particular juncture and in that social setting, so I allowed them to correct me, but kept right on using the word, too. And I realized, that kind of shit annoys me, and it's the type of thing that people living in liberal areas don't realize we have to put up with. And the conservatives don't realize it either. (I always wondered what William F Buckley thought of the dopey-fundie brand of right-winger, which he surely knew existed? Or did he believe all conservatives were yacht-club members in good standing?) In the same social situation, would the radical atheist from San Francisco just drop everything and jump in whole hog, and start preaching the Darwin gospel? I only know a couple of radical atheists here in the upstate, and neither behave in this fashion; I think the new arrivals might let a few things slide, the way the rest of us have learned to do.

And how does this influence us and our approach to what we do? Our politics? Our writing? The way we frame the issues?

Can you tell when a blog is written in a conservative or liberal area? How can you tell?

Just some ideas. Discuss amongst yourselves!



~*~


And of course you know I have been earwormed with the damn thing ever since, right?


You'll never find another love like mine - Lou Rawls



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I heard the first two minutes of this old Devo song on the Weather Channel (!) of all places, played over and over during the weekend whilst announcing rain, and now I am earwormed to death with this, too.

And so, it magically becomes our blog post title for today.

Gut Feeling - Devo

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Some more good news

So much is going on in the world, I hardly know where to begin. Alternative medicine suppliers have had an unexpected nationwide-run on all types of iodine, in anticipation of radiation poisoning. The failure of Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuke took us totally by surprise and has freaked everyone out. This has been the unexpected catalyst of the sudden requests; we never expected it and didn't plan for it. For my part, I've been reminding everyone of how right I was in opposing nuclear power back in the wayward 70s, and loading up on nori. I figure it can't hurt.

And I've been talking to my customers, as always.

I guess you all know that the Left Behinders are out in force, what with wars and revolutions and rebellions all over the Mideast, as well as probable-meltdowns and the infamous year 2012 approaching. It's the end of the world as we know it.

Along these lines, I thought yall might like to see the First of the Four Horsemen, spotted in Egypt (on European television), whilst bored newsreaders jabbered on. I guess they didn't see it? (One wonders how anyone could miss video of the imminent apocalypse.)

Go to 1:25; they helpfully rerun it in slow-mo a few times, for your edification.



Now, see, if it hadn't been a WHITE horse, nobody would have noticed.

There are many explanations of this video, with copious details about glare and lens-reflection, etc... but of course, many people have their own explanations. And I get to hear all about it. But you know what?

I feel fine. :)

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Elizabeth Taylor 1932-2011

The most beautiful woman in the history of the world (and the subject of Daisy's major lifelong celebrity crush!) has passed on... I simply can't talk about it. :(

Below, some of my favorite photos of Elizabeth, from an older post.

Old Hollywood is officially over. Goodbye, dearest Elizabeth.

PS: You know you're getting old when your icons start dropping like flies...

~*~

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Dead Air: Now with more warfare

I haven't been too sure about what I should write.

Except for this: My apologies to the rest of the world for American interventionism run berserk, once again. We are now at war with THREE countries simultaneously! President Hopey-Changey seems intent upon rivaling Ronald Reagan with his imperialist war credentials. Nobel peace prize, HA HA HA!

I am sick over our newest military adventure in Libya and just wanted to go on record as officially saying so.

Alas, as poor children die of no transplanted kidneys and various curable cancers at home, The United States of Amurrica spends big bucks bombing... who? Why? What for? Huh?

As I said, I am sick over it.

Your opinions?

PS: President Hopey-Changey (PHC for short) comes courtesy of Larry at LOTUS.

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Wordless Wednesday: Photo of the year

My favorite posters from Saturday's rally.

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Goodbye, Bear

Chemist of the Stratosphere, Owsley Stanley, inventor of the Stealie (without which I would have no blog logo!) has died. I can personally attest that his infamous product rocked the house, featuring (borrowing a line from Hunter Thompson) "the Universal Symphony with God singing solo and the Holy Ghost on drums"... he was also the actual "Dancing Bear" in Grateful Dead iconography, for those who didn't know. He was the subject of the Steely Dan song, Kid Charlemagne. (I wrote about him in part, here.) He died in a car crash, of all things.

Rest in peace, Bear. There is a special place in heaven with your name on it, where the music never stops.

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The near-total blackout of TV-coverage about Saturday's big rally here in South Carolina has depressed me. If a thousand people rally and nobody covers it, did it make a noise?

Wait, what am I saying, near-total? I think it was, in fact, total. The print media covered the rally in a somewhat cursory fashion, and at least one TV-station announced the rally in advance. There was some sporadic coverage, which I suppose is better than none. But several of us agreed that we saw NO TV-cameras at all, throughout the event.

I noted that there were a few radio-reporters present, God bless them. In particular, I saw hip-hop radio stations and black Gospel radio stations... are these the only two factions left in the state who will people tell the truth?

Apparently.

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My sincere apologies for lack of brilliance. I have simply had NO TIME to write or even get my laundry done. And my Farmville crops keep dying! :( But I must admit, I love that T-shirt at the HOT TOPIC, Nobody Cares About Your Farm, and feel strangely compelled to buy it.

I hope to provide some pithy commentary by the weekend, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here is a very cool song about a great chemist. :)

Kid Charlemagne - Steely Dan

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Rally for a Moral Budget, South Carolina Statehouse

Photos of the Rally for a Moral Budget, today at the South Carolina Statehouse in Columbia.

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Friday nights in northern Ohio...

Children all over northern Ohio used to stay up late on Friday nights to watch Ghoulardi, who hosted horror movies and other fun stuff. We loved him! Apparently there is now a whole book out about him and his Cleveland-based show (see link), which I must read.

He did a memorable spoof on the immensely-popular 60s nighttime soap opera "Peyton Place", which he called Parma Place. It began with polka music, unlike the respectable New Englandish music that signaled the beginning of "Peyton Place"... In addition, the "drama" consisted of finding new places to put plastic pink flamingos in the yard, as Ghoulardi frequently complained to his long-suffering wife (curlers forever in her hair) that he couldn't find his Cheez Whiz. It was so OHIO... I don't think the jokes translate well to these modern times, but we loved it to death.

I loved all the wonderfully-shlocky horror movies I saw during that time, and have included some old trailers below.





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Children of the Damned (1964)



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Check out the question mark on the wall behind William Castle's head. Not sure of the significance.

13 Ghosts (1960)



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Caution: major sexism, as a woman's brain/head survives and her scientist boyfriend scouts out other sexy bodies to sew onto her head. (Really, and we GREW UP on this stuff!)

The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1960)



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Ashes to Ashes

Today, Ash Wednesday, I sat through the evening Mass thinking I really should figure out what religion I am.

Then again, I thought, I've gone this long, so what exactly is the hurry?

I love the unchanging nature of the Christian liturgical year. I also love the ritual of having ashes rubbed on my forehead, reminding me of the facts: that I came from dust and to dust I shall return. (Ashes to ashes and dust to dust.)

I like the Season of Lent (and the attendant concept of denial, fasting and spiritual spring-cleaning) to properly prepare for the feast, happiness and celebrations that late spring and summer often bring, with so many weddings and graduations and vacations and religious holidays. We can't have one without the other. Our culture attempts to deny us the truth of Lent and deferred gratification, since modern consumerist capitalism demands it. We are constantly exhorted to buy and consume more and more STUFF. The state of "perpetual Easter" (lots of hoopla) is forced on us... then everyone wonders why everything is so emotionally out of whack. Mass depression has been the mass result of our estrangement from the yearly-rhythms of the ages.

These are the religious traditions I come from, understand and know best. On some level, revisiting them is always like visiting home. For those of us old enough to have lost our families and childhood homes, the church becomes the default home. This tends to be true whether we want it to be true or not. It just is.

Hope you had a happy Ash Wednesday!

~*~


Ashes to Ashes - David Bowie

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Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

... and my favorite movie Mardi Gras comes courtesy of Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda, Toni Basil and Karen Black... who I guess really did take acid at the Mardi Gras and decide to put it all in the movie.

Hey, why not?

Note: Peter (and Jane) Fonda's mother committed suicide when they were young, and that appears to be what he is talking about, whilst sitting in the lap of the Blessed Mother statue: "Why did you leave like that?" (approx 4:47 to the end of the segment.) Although you don't need to know that to enjoy the movie, it suddenly becomes a very intense scene if you do know. (Karen Black seems to be having the worst trip of the four of them, and several of her remarks are fairly harrowing, as well.)

My favorite movie acid trip! Probably because it's genuine, and I think you can easily differentiate this one from all the fakers.

Don't eat too much King Cake! We will be discussing penance and Ash Wednesday tomorrow, but today, you can indulge.

Warning, nudity, possibly NSFW.


Mardi Gras - Easy Rider (1969)

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Haley the Comet

Nikki Haley photo is from the NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE. (Too bad she won't talk to any press in the state where she is actually the GOVERNOR, huh?)

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The New York Times magazine has just named our governor Nikki Haley, "The Comet"--now is that cute or what?

The State newspaper in Columbia writes:

Haley, South Carolina’s Republican governor of one month and a GOP rising star, is the interview subject in today’s New York Times Magazine. (Last week, ABC’s “This Week.” This week, the NYT. Who knows, maybe after she runs out of national mainstream media, which she loves to rip, the governor might speak to the S.C. press that serves her constituents.)

I guess me and Michael Ulmer aren't the only people who have noticed that.

Since everyone is so bedazzled by her on a national scale, maybe she will do a Palin... serve a scant couple of years and GO AWAY. Certainly, I wouldn't argue.

Here is the NYT-mag softball-interview. My favorite quotes:

NYT: You’re said to be incredibly competitive. Outside politics, how does this manifest itself?

Haley: Ask my kids. When we have basketball tournaments, I am the basketball queen. When we play the Wii, I am the bowling queen. And I will forever say that I am the Putt-Putt queen.

NYT: How do you react when you lose?

Haley: I don’t lose, so I don’t have to worry about that.



Them big-city slickers can hardly contain themselves, people. ((rolls eyes)))

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Oxygen or Anthrax?

Is love like Oxygen or Anthrax? I suppose that depends on what day it is.

Warning: This isn't the top-40 version, but the album-version with the art-rock interlude in the middle. I like it, but lots of people really hated it.

Love is like Oxygen - Sweet



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Love like Anthrax - Gang of Four

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Your Friday Blogdonia Soap Opera

You know you've needed one.

I really, really, did not want to address this nonsense here. Really. But when people write entire posts about me, calling me out for my transgressions, well, whatcha gonna do.

What is really funny is that I responded. Like, 12 times, and I was moderated. And they keep asking questions. I answer...incredibly long-ass, intricate replies, and the answer is moderated.

No other choice, but to come here and settle it. (sigh) Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days in Feminist Blogdonia.

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The brawl, we see, starts here and here. (Trigger warning, transphobia)

Background: The so-called radical feminist blog AROOO, aka "A Room of Our Own" (I say "so-called" because they always seemed rather ignorant of Second Wave feminist history, all while claiming it as their own), has a history of extremely nasty transphobia. I was banned from the blog after I objected to (trigger warning, viciousness and bullying) a post in which they (seriously) posted a photo of what they claimed was the genitalia (!) of a trans woman, and made fun of how weird it looks. To me, this was over the top, even more over the top than usual. As regular readers know, I react strongly to making fun of people's appearance, for whatever reason.

I also found it pornographic and deranged, but that's probably quibbling.

Margaret Jamison, the (apparently former) blogger in charge of AROOO, seemed to become more and more obsessed with trans women over time. There was less and less posting about feminism and racism (subjects she was keenly insightful about) and more and more hate speech directed at "tyrannies" (her word for "tranny") that she claimed sent her all manner of threats. This posting-genitalia nervous-breakdown was virtually inevitable. I had believed the general hate speech and turning trans women's attempted-replies into monkey-photos was bad enough, but the genitalia-photo, to me, was the real turning point. I objected, was banned in due course, and went away.

The End. (Or possibly one of those American International horror movies from the 60s: The End?)

Nah, you gotta be kiddin.

Joan Kelly, whom I love, recently met Margaret Jamison in the flesh and became unaccountably besotted with her wonderfulness. Perhaps Margaret is utterly fabulous in person, despite her increasing obsession with trans women, accompanying hate speech and photos of monkeys and genitals, I don't know. I suppose it's possible.

And rather suddenly, Joan has started running all kinds of anti-trans nastiness on her blog (see links above), when she did not used to hold this position. I assume it's to impress Margaret or in solidarity with Margaret, something like that. Unfortunately, these posts are becoming as embarrassingly obsessive and frequent as Margaret's posting at AROOO, which by the way, has ended. Now her co-blogger, Kitty Glendower, has taken over, posting about movies. (?) Huh? What the hell happened?

What happened is that some of Margaret's wack-ass transphobe "friends" (gotta watch those hater-friends, they tend not to be such stable personalities) turned against her (nah, say it isn't so) and posted her private business on the net. I haven't seen any of this private business, but I am assured it exists. (Paranoia will destroya) In fact, I have not seen much discussion AT ALL about Margaret, frankly, except for what I linked above by Suzan Cooke, which is from almost a YEAR AND A HALF AGO (and that tells you how long Margaret has been fulminating non-stop over the evilll trans people, Jesus H Christ).

In one of my offhand snipes in one of the many unpublished posts to the many rants Joan has published over the last few days (including threats to hunt down and shoot whoever outed her dear Margaret... I TOLD you it was bad, people), I mentioned something I've known about Margaret for a long time: the elite school she attended. As regular DEAD AIR readers know, I never forget stuff like that, and if you are going to get all self-righteous with me about 'oppression' -- you'd better not have a major privilege like that stashed away somewhere, or Daisy will drag it out of your privilege-closet and wave it right in your fucking face. Which I did.

And in so doing, I caused Joan and Margaret and the whole Hee Haw gang to have apoplexy. That is PRIVATE INFO!!!! WHO OUTED MARGIE AS A RICH KID!!!???!!! Heads will roll, baby.

Another blog informs me that this so-called "private" info was posted right on Margaret's Facebook page, so I think this is just another excuse to clutch one's pearls, squeal and holler, that the evilll trannies are at it again. I don't remember where I read it, but it didn't seem private... actually, I think Margaret was bragging about it herself when I first read it. (NOTE: people who went to rich, important schools can usually NEVER keep this to themselves for long.)

Anyway (cut to the chase; I am SO SORRY it takes awhile for soap-opera catch-up!), I stand accused of being a racist for comparing the use of the n-word to the use of anti-trans insults (see first link above). I was read the riot act, probably by someone who lives in an all-white neighborhood and never once helped beat up a klansman. Figures.

And I replied, for what, the 12th time? One part of my comment was allowed, the rest was edited. I told Joan, I would print it here if she censored me again. It is really unconscionable to call people out for racism and then not allow them to reply WITHOUT CENSORSHIP to your accusations. I am a lifelong activist who takes such accusations very seriously, not some dilettante who throws words and posts around recklessly. So, here is my complete, unedited reply, which Joan would not publish:



I should be very clear about one thing.

I do think racism and transphobia are analogous. You betcha. Amen. I believe is transphobia/racism are horrific, mindless, oppressive, repressive, evil hatreds of whole groups of people around the world, throughout history, that the haters have NOT EVEN MET. (That’s the part that I find so bizarre and even psychotic.) I grew up with this mindless, obsessive hatred of entire groups of people… and in my piece about my father, I made the analogy between racism and transphobia; I’ve done it before. This isn’t new.

http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2008/09/brute-heart-of-brute-like-you.html

My point was badly made, n-word and ‘transgendered males’–I should not have compared these words, but the hatred they represent. This is what I meant to say, which I only now realize. (my real excuse: exhaustion, lack of education, no time to read over what I type in a hurry, which is almost everything these days. As I have said over and over, I do not have internet access to blogs, email, etc at work.)

A crucial aspect of hating people you have never met, is letting them know, so they will stay away from you. Haters proudly announce hate, by using insulting terms that will hurt. Example: N-word, misgendering. I think the intent to insult is the same. The. Same. And of course, the overall hatred and obsession is VIRTUALLY IDENTICAL in advanced cases like my father and Margie and m_Andrea. And that is what I meant to say, or should have said.

This is what I find analogous, the intent that would cause anyone to say these words after being nicely asked to stop. Words that have prefaced lynching, rape, murder, and thus, deliberately push buttons. NO, by God, you will not spare their feelings.

Neither would my dad, in fact, like Margie, it just made him worse.

Hate is hate and I will never countenance it. Sorry, Joan. But this is what you are trafficking in.

Now, if you cannot post this, as I suspect you can’t, please do your readers the courtesy of letting them know I have responded and delivered the sought-after mea-culpa.

I really hate the ‘putting words in my mouth’ and (I feel you have) incorrectly paraphrased me in this post and find it a hostile act. You can make this up to me by printing this comment. (I guess that will happen after the second Tuesday after the third Wednesday hell freezes over, yeah?)

But you asked, and you got.

~*~

Comments welcome, but rudeness and anti-trans bigotry will get the trap door, as well as a dose of redneck justice, which makes Margaret's [rich school] games, look like a tea party. Be advised, boyz and girlz.

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Haley Watch 3-2-11

Eager to prove that she is not a big-spending politician in the traditional GOP mold, Governor Nikki Haley skipped the National Governors Association meeting at the end of February. She has claimed a savings of $100,000 on annual dues to the organization. (This will undoubtedly put heat on other governors to do likewise.) Haley also claims that she has saved taxpayers all kinds of money in hotel and travel costs, etc.

Well, that's true as far as it goes. But Haley's action was widely regarded as a snub of bipartisanship, rather than as a strictly cost-cutting measure. Particularly since she attended a Republican Governors conference instead, which she claimed was "privately funded" and not paid for by taxpayers.

Am I the only one who wonders--privately funded by WHOM, exactly?

From the Charleston Post and Courier:

WASHINGTON — While most other governors huddle with their counterparts in Washington this weekend regardless of party affiliation, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley planned to meet only with Republican state executives.

Haley is skipping the winter meeting of the bipartisan National Governors Association because of her decision not to pay $100,000 for South Carolina’s annual dues to the main policy and lobbying group for the 50 state chiefs.

...

Haley will meet with the other 28 GOP state heads in concurrent sessions of the Republican Governors Association, a partisan group previously led by former Gov. Mark Sanford and whose members use campaign funds and other private contributions to finance its activities.

“The RGA is covering the costs of the governor’s lodging,” Godfrey said. “A donor has been generous enough to provide transportation, which we will disclose via the governor’s voluntary plane log.”

"A donor" has been generous. Well isn't that NICE?!?

Who is the donor, and what do they expect to get out of this?

The Columbia State newspaper has given me some ideas, though. It's probably the usual suspects:

$900,000 spent on Haley
Most of the money from GOP governors bought advertising during S.C. gubernatorial race
By JOHN O’CONNOR

A national Republican group spent $900,000 to ensure Gov. Nikki Haley’s election, soliciting donations from tobacco manufacturers, oil companies, health care and pharmaceutical businesses, construction firms and trade groups.

The money was spent by two S.C. political action committees set up by the Republican Governors Association.

The State newspaper and others previously have reported the GOP group was running ads on Haley’s behalf. But campaign reports filed last month, which include donors, show the group spent more than previously thought.

The state-based PACs are part of a new strategy of the Republican Governors Association to influence governors’ races across the country.

Most of the money was spent on advertising during the contest’s final weeks, according to campaign finance reports, including a television ad that declared Democratic opponent Vincent Sheheen to be an “Obama liberal in our own backyard.”

The Republican Governors group prominently has featured Haley, and other newly minted Republican winners, in Web advertising.

Haley’s office declined to comment for this story. However, a Greenville-based Republican political consultant said the ad was the GOP’s way of supporting a possible future star.

“They certainly see her as a rising star,” said Chip Felkel, of Haley’s possible national profile. “They see she has a lot of potential.”

This translates to: At some point, she will be foisted on the rest of you. Be advised.

And finally, a bright-eyed young fella at USC, writes an optimistically titled editorial in the DAILY GAMECOCK: Haley must consider others’ views to solve problems. Funny title! (Clearly, this well-meaning student does not yet understand that the definition of conservative rules out such activities.)

Michael Ulmer writes:

Former Gov. Mark Sanford, Haley’s notoriously frugal predecessor, regularly attended the association’s meetings during his time in office and was even open to heading policy panel discussions during his trips to the meetings in Washington. According to an article by James Rosen in The State, Sanford viewed the organization as a very useful group that represented states’ interests to members of Congress and provided in-depth research for governors.

During her Washington trip, Gov. Haley did step away from her Republican cronies and chat with TV host Jake Tapper on “This Week,” ABC’s national political show. During her visit to the program, she joined a round table of fellow governors to talk about issues facing the states. She used most of her time to criticize Wisconsin Democrats for avoiding a vote on a budget bill aimed at stripping labor union bargaining rights for public employees. We need our governor to be looking out for the people of the Palmetto State and leave Wisconsin politics to the people of Wisconsin.

Boo-yah governor! Excellent shot, Michael.

~*~

And the Haley reign revs up... stay tuned for our next installment.

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Ask me about Neem

The Neem lady took my photo and gave me samples of soap.

Now I ask you, what more could you want in life?

PS: How do I look? I got my skin through NEEM!!

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What is Neem?

The Neem Foundation ("Greening India with Neem")

Neem Benefits: Make Neem Your Safety Net (American Chronicle)

Neem in Ayurveda

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