When Nikki Became a Hero

Once again today I heard a news commentator refer to Nikki Haley's heroic stance on taking down the Confederate battle flag.  It has me worried.

You know, they say even a broken clock is right twice a day.  That makes it one more time than our governor has been on the right side of a debate.

We need to remember that while she is basking in national glory, that she will continue to oppose any attempt to regulate gun use, and that while the symbol of the Confederate flag may have fueled the fire of hate, it was the gun purchased by Dylann Roof that killed nine innocent people.  And while we may find that it was a clerical error that allowed the purchase, it is the attitude that our right to carry a gun is to be protected above all else that made the error all that likely to happen.

We also need to remember that Governor Haley has during her tenure here prevented nearly 200,000 South Carolinians from having health insurance through federal Medicaid expansion.  And that she has continued to curtail food stamp eligibility.  And that she has worked unceasingly to prevent workers from joining together to bargain for a living wage and liveable working conditions.

She has never missed an opportunity to remind us that she has brought jobs to the state, but she has given over $1 billion to Boeing, while doing little to encourage small businesses.  Her jobs program has resulted in less economic growth than all those states who do not give away the store to big corporations to win them over.

She has opposed a gas tax during a time of lower gas prices while our roads and bridges crumble, missing a jobs opportunity that would also bring much needed infrastructure improvements.

We need to keep an eye on Nikki Haley.  She is as ambitious as Lady Macbeth, and she has been handed an historic opportunity to take the national stage.  And to those in the media who don't live here with her she has become today's hero.  And she will take full advantage of that, and she will be helped along by those big corporations she has been courting, and by the most radical right-wing of her party.