Leading Without a Clue

Donald Trump thinks we have to show ID's in order to buy groceries.  Yes, that is hilarious; it is also just another example of the verbal diarrhea that is Donald Trump.  But it also points to something essential to what is wrong with our government, something we have overlooked for far too long.

The people who run our government don't have a clue who we are.

Trump is a perfect example, because he has so completely isolated himself from the real world.  When do you think was the last time he bought something on his own?  With cash?  In public?  When was the last time he even walked on a sidewalk in any city, much less down a road in a suburb.  For that matter, when was the last time he was driven through one of those towns in which any of us live other than to get to a rally where he pretends to be like us?

And no, I'm not even talking about since he became "president."  He was as closely guarded and isolated before he hunkered down in what was once the people's house.  Other than his lowly employees, Donald Trump has no friends or associates that come even close to living the life of most Americans.  And we should know by now that he only gets close enough to his employees to pick their pockets.

But what of the rest of those elected officials?  In 2012, Mitt Romney provided some comic relief when he went grocery shopping, and before that, the elder George Bush was astonished to find that supermarkets had scanners at checkout.  Nikki Haley may have known that you don't have to show ID to buy groceries, but she sure as hell doesn't have a clue what it is like to work forty hours or more at minimum wage, or even at median wage, and then go home and cook for a family.  And I wonder when was the last time Nikki walked down the street to actually get somewhere, or went out to "run errands."  Or rubbed elbows with any of us when it wasn't politically motivated.

Because that is when we see our elected officials.  They show up now and then, less so these days, in order to remind us that they are one of us, when they aren't.  They show up so we will believe they like us, and respect us, and want to help us, when all they really want is to get re-elected.  And then they want us to leave them alone, and they do the same for us in return.

The media is no different.  I heard someone (a presumed liberal) on MSNBC this week talk about tariffs and the cost of big cars, and how the added expense wouldn't matter as long as the price of gas remained at "record lows."  Obviously spoken by someone who hasn't paid for gas in awhile.  The rest of us may not realize that the price of gas began to increase the week after Donald Trump was elected, but we sure as hell know that it has gone up over $1 a gallon since he has taken charge of wrecking our economy.

It is no surprise that republicans don't have a clue what we all go through.  They are wined and dined from the moment they are deemed to be political assets.  If you have started off as a small business owner, it doesn't take long to get accustomed to the flattery, to living that better life and having others do your bidding.  In fact, it feels so good that fear of losing the privilege may begin to outweigh things like doing a good job.  And along the way, you begin to think all those people who are bugging you for government freebies are just whiners who don't deserve the handouts the way your real donors do.

That is how we end up with republicans who fight to kill healthcare, food stamps and social security, and with Democrats who will sell us out in the name of "working with the other side."  If you think wondering how to make ends meet makes you feel insecure, imagine what it feels like to work in a cushy place like Congress and know you could lose it in two years.  Poor things, living a good life that could disappear, know they need to kiss as much big corporate ass as they can for the day when they are no longer able to live off the government.

Of course, that is not how they see things.  They don't.  What they ignore won't hurt them.  Our elected officials learn quickly to listen to those with the deep pockets, who provide them with the bullet points they use to make us feel like they are working for us when they aren't.  It even helps them believe they are really, really working for us.  When they aren't.

The delusion that fattening the rich will make us all better off has never worked, and yet we keep electing people who keep selling us that fairy tale.  Apparently, we want to believe it as much as the politicians, who need to believe it so they can continue to work guilt-free to keep fattening the rich, who keep them just fat enough to stay loyal.

This is just a piece of the problem we have with elected officials who don't represent us.  Here in SC, we have two single men (I am tempted to say "white men" because Tim Scott does a great impression) as senators.  With their own great government benefits, they weigh in against health care; with no clue as to what it takes to raise children, they tell us what families need to be whole.  They don't just opine, they vote: on wages, on contraception, on education, religion, and of course, taxation.  Because they are really there to make sure that the rich don't pay taxes and the poor get nothing for free.

Trump is a buffoon, and his comment about needing ID to buy groceries was a moment of fun, but it was actually also a glimpse into where our politicians stand in relation to us:  far, far away.  From a distance, it makes it so much easier to lie, and cheat, and steal, and justify it with nonsense about what the simple folk do.

Letting Women In

Nikki Haley was no doubt appointed to be UN ambassador because the idiot who had been elected saw the UN as irrelevant.  But, as we here in South Carolina know, Nikki is smart.  And as I said after Hurricane Matthew, give her a task that isn't partisan, and she may well shine.  So here we have this woman who seems to be one of the very few decisions Trump has done right.  With the added bonus of getting her out of our hair, and out of partisan politics.

Meanwhile, with all the incredibly stupid things being said by Trump's minions, I wonder why it is only Kellyanne Conway who appears to be confined to the White House basement where she continues to carry the title of counselor to the president without actually having to be in his face.  If she were a man, like say, Sean Spicer, maybe she would continue to be welcome at all the questionable goings-on, and the dumb things she says publicly could actually be traced back to the dumb decisions being made by her boss.  And let us not forget that, after managing to step up and reign the batshit crazy candidate in to the point where he was actually elected, Trump had the nerve to offer her the position of press secretary, rather than a role with substance.

What to do with the women?  Party Democrats don't seem to be having any better time with this problem.  The party that claims to represent the American people just keep choosing what they believe is the safe option.  Elizabeth Warren scares them.  They couldn't ignore Hillary the second time around, but their lukewarm support conveyed to voters, who walked away in droves shaking their heads saying, "I don't know what it is about her, but I just don't trust her."  You could barely see the excitement from the party regulars.

And yet these are both incredibly smart, competent women.

Now this weekend, here in South Carolina, our state Democratic Party apparently is having their convention.  I am in the position where I tend to know more than the typical voter, but have kept a cautious distance from official political organizations.  So if I speak out of ignorance, you can imagine that most voters know even less about what is going on.  And yet they make decisions about who to vote for, and possibly even more important, whether to vote at all, based pretty much not from what they are hearing from us, but what they hear from our more powerful and ballsy opponents.

It disturbs me that the Democratic Party, state and national, keeps banging their heads against the wall hoping that this time they won't end up with a headache.  Tom Perez instead of Keith Ellison for national party chair, for example.  The result of this being the awkward pairing of Perez with Bernie Sanders in a nationwide tour that is trying to convince voters that they need to get excited about being Democrats.

Here in SC, the Democratic Party is about to begin their convention.  They will be voting for party leaders.  I am hearing of support by party members for a candidate for party chair that they are bringing back to SC from Oklahoma, where he headed the state party from 2011 to 2015.  Trav Robertson seems to be a safe candidate, with experience, who has led a center-conservative Democratic Party to very little success.  Oh, and he managed Vincent Sheheen's first unsuccessful big for governor in 2010.  And let me point out the obvious:  he is a man.

Also running is:  a woman.  Susan Yarbrough Smith has been an activist since her college days.  She has operated on the grassroots and Party level, and has the kind of brains, dedication and energy that I can only envy.  And yet, what I have heard, is that Robertson is being more seriously considered because of his experience.  And I have also heard it said that "he is originally from here."

I don't know if y'all who are supporting a man instead of an extremely qualified woman can hear yourselves, but what I am hearing is the sound of being afraid to make waves.

And just as in the upcoming primary special election in SC's fifth district, people in the party, people who should know better, are throwing their support -- and their money -- behind the shiny object that is a white, male, former senior advisor at Goldman Sachs.  Rather than a smart young woman who actually lives and works among the middle class in her community.  The reason?  You guessed it:  she is too young and inexperienced (unlike the yahoos that are running Congress into the ground on the republican side these days, but please don't get me started...).

So, as I take a deep breath and attempt to regain my composure, I would like all you Dems and liberals out there to seriously think about your commitment to moving women forward.  We aren't going to get experienced women unless you are willing to actually trust women to be in positions to get experience.  And there are plenty of smart women to choose from.  What it will take is to stop making excuses.

And here is the thing.  You can keep throwing your support behind the safe guy, and you can keep coming up with the same outcome.  Or you can get really excited about someone who is different.  Someone who talks like a Democrat and really understands the people she would be working for.  And then maybe they would actually be motivated to come out and vote.

The Thing About Health Care

First of all, let me just say that “health care” and “health insurance” are two different things.  But somewhere along the way, we have started to call health insurance, health care.

I remember the days when a health insurance plan did not necessarily provide a person with health care.  There were abominable deductibles and co-pays, and lots and lots of health care that just wasn’t covered.  Remember that?  It wasn’t so long ago.

And then, to republicans’ great consternation, Obamacare required minimum standards that were actually standards and not rip-offs.  The complaint from the right-wing was not at all about quality of care, it was about… freedom of choice.  That’s right.  The government was telling you that you would no longer be allowed to buy a sub-standard health insurance plan.

Shortly after the ACA became a real thing, I heard a guy at the optometrist’s office complaining to the receptionist about his Obamacare.  “I do get more stuff covered,” he admitted, grudgingly.

But now the good old days are coming back.  We consumers will once again have freedom of choice, by which I mean freedom to choose health insurance that you can afford even if it doesn’t really provide adequate health care, and even the freedom to be uninsured.  "Boy howdy!" as Rachel Maddow would exclaim.

And then there is the current big debate among the majority lawmakers over tax credits.  What tax credits mean is that when you pay your taxes, you will get a credit for a certain amount to go towards payment for health insurance.  So, if your health insurance costs $3,000 a year, you would have to pay $3,000 less in taxes.  Sounds good, right?

But suppose your income is so low that you only owe $1,000 in taxes?  What happens to that other $2,000 of health insurance cost?  That, friend, is what our lawmakers are bickering about.  The less evil among them believe the government should pick up the other $2,000, while the Ted Cruzes and Paul Ryans -- we know who you are -- believe we should just go suck eggs.

Until the ACA came along, Medicaid covered low-income seniors, children and the disabled.  If you were an adult working, say, at McDonald's, and you were most likely not earning a living wage, you most likely couldn't afford health insurance and you did not qualify for Medicaid.  For much of the country, Obama's Medicaid expansion changed that, providing federal dollars to cover those whose earnings put them somewhere between a rock and a hard place.

Republicans saw the injustice in providing health insurance to the working poor, however, and got the Supremes to agree that governors could decide whether or not they would take the free money.  And some of those anti-tax governors just could not go along with taking tax dollars, especially if they weren't going to benefit big corporations.  Here in South Carolina, where Nikki Haley refused to accept the Medicaid expansion, that meant you qualified if you earned less than $12,000 a year, and had less than $7,300 in savings.  So I am thinking (and this whole thing is about as clear as earwax) that if you are a low-income worker in SC, the good news is you may be no worse off after Congress and Trump get done with health insurance.

Sadly, that will be true for a whole lot more Americans.  And for those of us whose income qualified them for health insurance through the ACA, tax credits will mean a lot more of us will be falling through the cracks.  The good news about this, though, is that those fools will probably also repeal the mandate, so if you can't afford health insurance, you won't get fined for not being able to buy it.

The republican congress did not show up much in the eight years of Obama's presidency.  Mostly they were there to block any proposals made by the president and congressional Democrats.  That meant filling their time with lots of votes to repeal Obamacare.  These days I have heard more than once that they are like the dog that caught the car.  And I am really proud to say that, beginning with the Woman's March on January 21, we have been a big part of their problem.

We have shown up at town halls, made phone calls, protested, marched, written letters to the editor, and pretty much kept legislators awake nights wondering how they can sneak this travesty by us while we are watching their every move.

Apparently, even the Americans who voted R have finally woken up to see that something they need badly is being snatched out of their hands.

There is a lot of crap flying these days.  We are trying to fight as much of it as we can.  There are bad things that will happen.  For awhile, corporations will be having a big party, overindulging and then throwing up all over our country.  The rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer, until those of us who have been buying the stuff that make the plutocrats fat can't afford it anymore.  It happened in 2008.

But this time we anticipated it, and we didn't just let it get reported in the news.  We took to the streets, and we are fighting it.  I don't know if the republicans are going to be able to turn health care into the tragedy it was before the ACA, or if they will just mangle it beyond recognition.  I do know that their decision will take them down.

And then we get to build it again.

Loving Boeing

Well, Valentine's Day is just around the corner.  And so is another union vote at the Boeing factory in North Charleston.  I know this because, in the way good ole employers have of helping us figure out how to think, Boeing has rolled out some shiny new ads.  Not only that, I saw them during Saturday Night Live, so I'm assuming they especially want to help all their young employees make this tough decision.  And at great expense, I might add.

Here in South Carolina, the people in charge don't want us to waste our money on unions.  Boeing explained that they are just the greatest place to work, they have good jobs with good pay and are just swell bosses.  In one of the ads a very nice looking older man named Scott Hibbs was playing the guitar, and then he told us what a great place Boeing is to work.  And at the end of that commercial, there was the following disclaimer:

VOTE NO

The appearance of any individual employee in this video is not intended to, and does not, indicate whether that individual employee supports or opposes union representation.  Nothing in this video should suggest that any individual appearing therein holds a particular opinion either way regarding union representation.

PAID FOR BY BOEING

So, in case you didn't stop the ad so you could read the fine print, Boeing wants you to know that that nice guy Scott Hibbs wasn't saying he was for or against unions.  If you didn't stop the ad, though, what you mostly saw was "VOTE NO."

I just have to ask myself why a smart employer like Boeing would decide to spend a whole lot of money just to tell its employers they shouldn't waste their money on union dues.  Of course, it did that last time the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers tried to get up a vote for the union.  With Nikki Haley's able pro-big-business, union-busting assistance, Boeing was able to generate enough animosity that the union had to postpone its vote.

Again, why?  If Boeing is such a swell employer, why would they even care if an employee was a union member?  In fact, there are some really great employers out there who are happy to have the union to mediate contracts.

It seems to me that I had heard at some point that Boeing was making employees work consecutive Saturdays.  It seemed that employees with families or even those who wanted to have a weekend off just had no choice.  Just like at McDonald's.

The other thing I heard is a bunch of those great jobs Haley bragged about when she gave Boeing all those tax incentives to come exploit our workers may not be as secure as we would have thought.  According to the Post & Courier, Boeing will be making "job and other financial cuts."  The way I think this might play out is that management might insinuate that joining a union might create an environment in which Boeing might have to let more people go.  And then after the vote they will let them go anyway.  Just sayin'.

In my many years, I've held a few union jobs, and a few non-union jobs.  Without doubt, the best pay and the best benefits came with union membership.  Which is really why Boeing is going to hard-sell their anti-union message.  Don't forget, they moved to South Carolina not just because Nikki Haley gave away the store to score political points getting them here, but also because they were able to take advantage of the absence of a union and pay lower wages than at their Seattle location.

Here in Charleston, the Chamber of Commerce and the Charleston Regional Development Alliance are spreading the anti-union word that a union at Boeing would be bad for Charleston.  Note that besides cheer-leading for Boeing and other big businesses and telling us that a "yes" vote could very well be bad for all of us, Chamber CEO Bryan Derreberry adds, "A 'no' vote doesn't guarantee continued growth in South Carolina."

So I would encourage anyone at Boeing who is wondering whether they should vote to unionize on February 15, don't ask the employer that holds all the cards whether they think you should have some of that control.  Ask a union member.

From time to time I have union members doing some work at my home:  AT&T, UPS and others.  They have all been proud union members.  They understand that whatever they pay in union dues, they get it back in job security, good wages, benefits, and working conditions.  A union means it is not each employee standing alone against management.  It means that management can't change the rules of the game without input from employees.

Boeing is spending a lot of money right now to convince its employees that they don't need to have that input.  "Trust us" may not be the argument you want to bank on. 

Nikki Haley's Next Job

I wasn't blown away by Hurricane Matthew last week.  But here's what did blow me away:

Nikki Haley was in control right from the beginning.  She spoke with authority, and did not seem to be considering anything other than the safety of the people of South Carolina.

She did not hesitate to ask for federal emergency funds.

As I headed out on Wednesday morning, ahead of the evacuation deadline, I noted rows of port-o-potties at rest areas to handle (pardon the pun) the overflow.  I saw police and other emergency vehicles out and ready.  And the next day I was not surprised to hear that the I-26 reversal went smoothly.

There were shelters open, lots of them, and frequent announcements made as to where to go for shelter, what to bring, how to deal with pets.  There were phone numbers for people who needed answers or encountered problems, for anything from finding shelter to price gouging.

While I was hiding out, Nikki Haley was making frequent announcements that were broadcast on TV and radio, with her department heads addressing status and progress.  She never failed to thank those who were working hard to protect us.  She took as long as was needed to keep us informed.  And I believed that the efforts to restore us to normalcy would proceed efficiently.

On the way home on Sunday I saw that road crews had indeed been out taking trees and debris off the roads.  There were police at stop lights that were not working.

To sum it all up, Nikki Haley can kick butt when it comes to emergencies.

Unfortunately, when she is able to slow down, she begins to make all those political decisions that hurt the people of South Carolina.  She puts money in the pockets of the rich, individuals and corporations, as she fights to deny the poor medical insurance and food stamps.  She sticks her government nose into the business of legislating women's reproductive rights and wastes taxpayer dollars to create hurdles to voting rights.  Despite the tragic numbers of gun fatalities, she stands firmly against any gun legislation that might save an innocent life.

In other words, when Nikki Haley has the opportunity to philosophize she makes big mistakes that hurt many people.  She shadows the politics of power.  She aligns herself with the wealthy and convinces herself that her reasons are solid.

So, exactly a year after the 2015 floods, the road to Johns Island was again flooded, as I am sure many other roads were flooded, because no action had been taken after the crisis to prevent the problem from repeating itself.  We still have not raised the gasoline tax in order to repair roads and bridges, even though corporations who have been given sweet deals to move here are pulling the plug, quite possibly because of the disgraceful infrastructure.  And then there are corporations who won't come here because of the low standard of education.

But Nikki sees herself a future national treasure, much as Jim duh-Mint did, and just as Tim Scott imagines.  When she is able, she will always align herself with the right-wing, because that is where the money and power lie.

What is to be done about this waste of Nikki's talent?  I propose that she be given a job in the Clinton administration where she doesn't have to profess a philosophy of government, but just simply has a well-defined job to do.  Something where she has already proven her skills.  I am thinking head of FEMA.

Using Children

One would have thought that when Carly Fiorina herded children on a field trip into an anti-abortion rally the fallout would have been enough to convince the most rabid anti-abortionist that using children was a line that should not be crossed.

But yesterday, in a move so offensive it has moved the bar even lower, our own governor Nikki Haley signed the 20-week abortion ban into law surrounded by children.

In this extremely clever and contrived photo op, Haley is surrounded by adorable children, the older ones as well as an infant held by one assumes its mother in the background.  The picture was taken at Hidden Treasure Christian School, a school for special needs children.

What I would like to know is:  where did they hide the severely disabled children?  You know, the ones who aren't beautiful, or who might not want to look on attentively at the governor as she smirks for the camera.  I assume they have a few kids enrolled who don't look like they were delivered from the womb on an angel's wings.  Could it be that the message might not have been so irresistible if the children did not look so delectable?

And what is the message?  Here, too, is the evil genius of today's media smart anti-abortion movement.  By posing with these children as she signs the anti-abortion ban, the message is that these wonderful children might not be there if their equally wonderful mothers had chosen to have an abortion.  Haley is demonstrating that those aborted "babies" in fact do have a place in God's world, where people like her and the good folks at Hidden Treasure would love them like their own.

Damn liar.

Just how many children with severe disabilities are born because their mothers had inadequate health care thanks to Nikki Haley refusing to accept federal Medicaid funding?  And how many women have gotten inadequate treatment because there are too few clinics -- don't let's forget, Nikki Haley spent our tax dollars to investigate Planned Parenthood for bogus complaints, and would have these clinics closed, making it even harder for uninsured or inadequately insured pregnant women to have the care they need.  And even more tragically, how many wanted babies do not survive because of South Carolina's refusal to provide adequate health care -- and food and housing -- to all pregnant women?

And, for the record, many, many women choose to bring at-risk pregnancies to term.  The decision to have a late-term abortion is rare.  Without the intrusion of the state of South Carolina, many women weigh their ability to care for a disabled child against the cost to their families, financial means and stresses, and their own emotional resources and supports.  It is obscene to continue to promote the myth that women who decide to have a late-term abortion based on fetal risk factors are callous and selfish.  It is obscene to paint such women as murderers.  And it is a damned lie to imply that this decision is made frivolously, or frequently. 

I would like very much to know how this special needs school selects their students.  Where do the children who are unable to communicate, who cannot learn toileting skills, who need to be fed and moved from place to place?  And what other support does Haley provide for mothers who are unable to work in order to stay with their severely disabled children?  The assumption -- the lie -- is that the decision to have a late-term abortion is frivolous, and what a smug and self-satisfied attitude.  When a woman makes that choice, it is a hard one.  And when a disabled child is born to a woman with little to no support system, here in South Carolina you can bet that rarely are those kids in attendance at Hidden Treasure Christian School.

And then there is the matter of having this photo op and signing this law at a Christian school.  A school that by law and by the tenets of the constitution, is not a government funded or sponsored institution.  Of course, it could be that, were Nikki Haley to try to find such a pleasing picture in a public school, she would have to settle for the actual real-life tough cases of disability, the ones that the Christian school can screen out.  The kids that go to schools that are inadequately funded, with teachers that are underpaid in schools that are understaffed.

If you are reading this blog, you know me, and you know that when I saw the photo and the article yesterday, I was spitting mad.  After I posted the link on Facebook, I wrote a letter to The State.  I would have written one to the Post & Courier but could not because of their 30-day rule.  So I would like to share my letter with you here, and, if you too agree that Haley's message is as inappropriate, cruel and self-serving as the law itself, please join me in sharing with social media, contacting the governor's office, and in writing letters to the editor.

This is what I wrote:

Governor Haley's photo op commemorating her signing of the 20-week abortion ban is abhorrent in so many ways.  First of all, it makes apparent that this has been a religious cause, and not based on science, as its supporters falsely claimed.  And using special needs children in such a way is the lowest kind of publicity stunt, featuring religious indoctrination and coercion of those who are not yet able to make their own decisions, and about a very adult issue.  Signing the bill at a Christian school makes it clear that in South Carolina, there is no separation of church and state:  if you do not believe in the God of Nikki Haley and our legislators, your beliefs will not be honored as reflected by our laws.

I hope that the flagrant misuse of the power of government as represented by this bill signing, makes it that much easier for the Supreme Court to find this law unconstitutional.

Those who are celebrating their victory with the passage of this law have already indicated that this is just the start.  Because this was about extremist religion and misogyny, and never about science, they are not only posing for pictures in a Christian setting, they are planning for further attacks on women's reproductive rights.  Let's let them know that this is a Pyrrhic victory, and the battle is nowhere near over.

Nikki Does the State of the Union... Rebuttal

Gods help us, she is seen by those who don't have to live with her as a rising star.  She is attractive and personable, more flirty than Fiorino, but she can turn ugly when she feels the need to slap someone around.  She's our own Governor Nikki Haley.  And the powers that be in the republican party have awarded her the rebuttal to the State of the Union.

We can be sure that she is already trying out her lines.  We know what she is going to say before President Obama has even put pen to paper.  It won't be any different than anything any other republican would say, but she's got the charm and charisma lacking in so many in the GOP (as we say in the South, "she cleans up real nice").

And we can assume this is a tryout for the larger stage.  Maybe VP?  The republicans can take a bow over appearing to have a party open to women, although what Nikki is to women is pretty much what Tim Scott is to blacks, which is, bad news.  With friends like Nikki Haley, we women don't need enemies.

So, since we know what she is going to say, and when she is going to say it, I think the Democratic Party of South Carolina (and all us non-official Democrats) should be armed and ready to rebut the rebuttal.  We need to fire on social media, with tweets at #nikkihaleydoesntspeakforus and posts on Facebook -- and for you young people and techies, all those other social media sites I don't have time to learn.  When you post on Facebook, include @nikkihaley and send a tweet to her twitter page (I think that may be possible...).  And share.  And retweet.  Spread the word, Nikki Haley doesn't speak for us.

My guess is she is likely to talk about guns.  She will talk about Obamacare.  She will talk about fighting ISIS.  It will be about FREEDOM, because it is always about freedom.  And government spending and overreach.

Now freedom and government spending and overreach play right into our hands, because her government wants to control women's health care, and invade the privacy of those of us who look like they aren't... well, white, and prevent the poor from being able to earn a living wage by making unions illegal.

Oh, my, so much to tweet about.

I wish I knew more about social media.  What I do know is that it is a very powerful tool for countering tyranny.  So we here in South Carolina don't have to let @nikkihaley pretend to represent us.

The President's State of the Union will be on Tuesday, January 12, at 9 p.m.  It tends to run an hour or slightly longer.  The rebuttal is thankfully shorter, but in 2015 there were a whole bunch of them.  So far, we only have Nikki.

Let us all know your ideas and let's be ready to roll on January 12.  Because...

#nikkihaleydoesntspeakforus 

The Other Nikki

Here are some words that I have never strung together, even during the Confederate flag business:  kudos Nikki Haley.

I just watched a news conference in which she described the catastrophic damage of the past few days and the steps that are being taken to get us up and running again.  She was pretty amazing (again, words I have never used to describe our governor -- unbelievable, yes, but amazing, never).  She covered all the important points, had a clear understanding of what the issues were, and a good sense of priority.  She had a plan that appeared pretty comprehensive.  She nailed problems from roads caving in to lack of drinking water.

It occurred to me that during this event, Nikki Haley was not being political.  Because of that, she was clear headed about what needed to be done.  She did not hesitate to ask for emergency relief from "the feds" as she calls them, and appreciative and gracious toward our president and first lady.  She was unconcerned about balancing the cost versus the worth of the people who needed help.  If a person needed help, it sounded like they would get help.

This may be illusion.  It may be just the first response.  It may be that as time goes on, certain people will be expected to get back on their feet sooner than others, and will get far less aid than they need.

But for right now, it felt like I could call 911 and get taken to a shelter, or a hospital, and no one would be looking to find out if I could afford a hotel or had health insurance.

Imagine if Nikki could govern like that when we were not in a state of emergency.  If she did not dole out food stamps as though her pocket was being picked or graciously accepted Medicaid dollars for the uninsured the way she is accepting emergency funds.

Here's another thing.  Nikki isn't talking about praying for help.  She is doing what needs to be done.  From road repairs to bottled water, she is not resorting to ideology to determine if the government should be spending that money.

If only she governed that way the rest of the time, what a fine place South Carolina might be.

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.

Safer to Debate the Flag

Yesterday I posted to a Facebook group in response to a comment about "the flag."  I commented about a concern that I have these days, that is, that while we're all worked up about the Confederate flag, the even more important debate about gun control has gotten left behind -- just the way the NRA wants it.

Minutes later, someone replied in a rage.  She posted something to the effect that first we got her flag and now we want to take away her guns, and added "don't you people ever have enough?"  I thought about ignoring the rant, and then I thought about being intimidated by crazy people with guns.  So I replied that I wondered what was wrong with a debate about guns, and also, who "you people" are.  My first thought was that my picture was on my post and I am very obviously not an African American.  But no, her reply (which I merely scanned as she was getting more wild and long-winded) indicated that the group of "you people" to which I belonged was liberals.

Two days after her press conference about the flag, I heard an MSNBC commentator ask, "Nikki Haley being considered for vice president?"  This was after I had been stewing about what a shrewd political move this was on Haley's part.  Of course, the question at this point is idiotic, but her goals of being on the national stage are evident.

What makes me want to pull my hair out is just how clever her move was.  It may be time to take the flag down, she said, but let's not forget all those people who truly see the flag as a proud representation of their southern heritage.  Really, she repeated, let's not forget those people who love them their confederate flag.  And said it a couple more times.  She pretty nearly said the flag should come down, but she also made it quite clear that it wouldn't be up to her. 

While in Alabama for-goodness-sake the republican governor ordered all four flags removed from the capitol grounds, Nikki is letting us all know that her greatest concern is following the letter of the law.   Wink, wink.  That's the Nikki Haley that has never let the letter of the law get in the way of doing what she wants where her own self interest is concerned.

And as if Alabama hadn't had our heads spinning enough, Paul Thurmond, son of that old racist Strom, spoke eloquently and unequivocally calling for the end to the waving of the flag that represented racism and slavery.

So while Bentley of Alabama and our own Paul Thurmond are proving themselves to be on the right side of history on this one, I'm thinking that this is still a win-win for Haley.  She gets to sound like a reformer while making it clear that her heart is also with her redneck base.  She's going to let idiot senator Lee Bright take up the call for the paranoid and delusional.  As he is quoted in the New York Times:

“There are those of us who have ancestors that fought and spilled blood on the side of the South when they were fighting for states’ rights, and we don’t want our ancestors relegated to the ash heaps of history,” he said. “Through the years, the heroes of the South have been slandered, maligned and misrepresented, and this is a further activity in that.”

I am aware of just how quickly a pleasant southerner can turn rabid when certain trigger words come up.  It once was "Clinton" as in Bill, and then it became "Obama."  I imagine that over the coming months people will start to foam at the mouth over "Hillary."  But there are words like "confederate flag" and "gun control," "taxes" and "unions" that accomplish that same effect.  And republican politicians here in South Carolina have trained their followers well.

I don't think Dylann Roof created the firestorm that is brewing in our state.  It has always been close to the surface.  If we are truly going to "debate" the flag, we are going to see the crazies coming out of the woodwork.  And that leads me to my main point.

Nikki Haley lept at the chance to take her stand with the confederate flag.  She got to sound strong, and she got to move the debate away from gun control.  You may have heard that at a church vigil last week, a call for gun control was met by a roar of approval and a standing ovation -- except for Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, conspicuously seated in the front row.

It is clear that while Haley may shed a few crocodile tears for these victims of gun violence, she is able to pull herself together for the NRA.  Tim Scott, who pretends to be one with the African American community, is on the side of money and power -- as usual -- in this case, feet firmly planted on the same side as wacko Lee Bright, for the freedom to wield weapons.  Scott and Haley made a striking pair, sitting at the vigil for nine dead who would be alive but for the ease with which Dylann Roof could get a gun.

And that's the thing.  While we all fight one important battle -- to take down that flag that represents the enslavement and subsequent fear and hatred for free and equal African Americans, the issue of guns in the hands of the haters is left on the back burner.  Those bills promoting guns in schools and shops and on the street, open carry, lessening of training requirements, Second Amendment Awareness Day, tax free holidays for guns, they aren't going anywhere.  And how do we fight it anyway?  If the angry rednecks are getting ready for a showdown over the confederate flag, what will they do if they think the issue is taking away their guns?

I was unnerved by the strange Facebook attack yesterday.  But I am going to continue to talk about the need for gun control.  You can see, though, how much easier it would be to go after the flag and once again let the whole gun thing go away, until next time.

Still Too Soon...

Since the church massacre in Charleston, committed by a paranoid psychotic young man with a weapon he should never have had, I have been stunned, and then disgusted, and now enraged.  In attempting to do some cursory research for this post, I found that there is absolutely nothing I can say that hasn't already been said.  The same clowns and NRA puppets are coming out and saying the same things they said after the movie theater shooting in Aurora, after the massacre of children in Newtown, after each and every obscene mass murder in our country since Columbine.

When that asshole Mark Sanford was asked about gun control on MSNBC on Thursday, he said, "I think it's premature.  I think that advocates on both sides of the gun debate will use this tragedy to make their case."  He called it a "tug-of-war, if you will, that goes with the world of politics."

I wish I could just say what I am thinking, but the string of obscenities that come to mind just don't advance my position on this, so I won't.  Although obscenity would certainly be warranted in response to the obscenity of Sanford's bullshit.

Fact is, as usual, Sanford is not saying anything new.  I am sure that since Wednesday the NRA has been in high gear, reaching out to all its politicians in South Carolina and the rest of the country, soothing raw nerves, giving Nikki Haley a figurative tissue to dry her eyes.  I'm not sure she was choked up over the tragedy, or over "the humility" she was seeing.  A normal human being might consider that she had been wrong about her staunch advocacy over gun rights; after her all too recent prayer day, she might even wonder if God was trying to tell her something.  But what will come out of this, after she congratulates herself on being there for the families of the victims, is more certainty that what we need is more law and order, as well as more guns.  Just like her buddies at the NRA want her to believe.

It's appalling -- appalling doesn't even approach the word I am trying to convey -- that these protectors of the weapons can pretend to be protectors of the people.  The NRA bullshit spouted by Lindsey Graham about a mother needing a high capacity gun to defend her children, the bullshit by Wayne LaPierre that has been parroted by all our gun-totin', NRA worshipping officials:

This morning The Onion did an angry and ironic spoof, not of the violence, but of the NRA's Charles Cotton who was front and center telling us why we should not cause this tragedy to infringe on our constitutional rights.  In the words of The Onion:

“While we mourn those killed, we should never let an incident like this distract from our defense of [the fact that I myself am a pile of human waste who is fundamentally incapable of responding to the deaths of innocent people without raw, putrid sewage gushing from my mouth].”

And keep your eyes on Lindsey Graham, who is now saying that the reason this happened is the failure of the national background check system.  I wonder why the system failed... maybe it's because the last time it was up for debate in Congress people like Lindsey Graham played politics with it, hoping to slip in some nasty amendments and maybe water down the language.  It seems to me that basically what Graham wanted to do was track people who were mentally ill, and under no circumstances allow universal background checks.

If there was money involved here, I would say keep your hand on your wallet.

But it's only about money for the NRA.  They are again twisting this tragedy around to promote the kind of fear that actually armed people like the young man who committed this horrendous crime.  After Aurora, it took the NRA about a week to come up with the line that it is too soon after the tragedy to debate gun control.  By the time of the Newtown massacre, they were armed and ready, successfully convincing politicians and too many of the fearful public that what was needed was more guns, not less.

And the taste of success was green and gold.  Billions of dollars were made by the arms industry from the blood of innocent and fearful Americans.

So now the lines are well rehearsed.  The NRA has actually, as spoofed by The Onion, assigned blame to pastor and state senator Clementa Pinckney for failing to support bills that would allow people to carry guns in churches.  While Charleston mourns the tragedy, Nikki Haley has come out armed and ready for revenge, saying that the gunman deserves the death penalty.  I don't know what god she prayed to last weekend, but it was not the one that was being studied at the Emanuel AME Church on Wednesday.

Praying for 2016

Nikki Haley is finally reaching across the aisle.  On Saturday she will be praying for all of us.  It's apparently called "The Response," and while they want you to think they're waiting to hear what God has to say, it really is just another snow job by the right wing in an attempt to divert us from the fact that they are the cause of a lot of our problems.  The web page for Saturday's event is interesting, given that presumably the most important thing about this event is that it is not supposed to be about politics or government, at all.

Call me a cynic, but after all Nikki Haley has done to keep black people from voting or their children from getting a good education, it is interesting that the home page of this event sandwiches her in between two black men, ministers if you will.  I guess buddying up with Tim Scott worked so well she figured it was time to hunt up some more conservative African Americans.

From what I can see, Zoe Warren appears to be an actual non-political religious person.  But Samuel Rivers, Jr., representative from Goose Creek, is not just political, but so political that he can't quite get the dirt off him.  Not only does his Facebook page sing the praises of the Bush family business (the presidency), but his right wing positions include high marks from conservative business groups and the NRA.  He wrote a a guest column in the Post & Courier (that has since been withdrawn) opposing EPA regulations on water bottles that appeared to have been cribbed from the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.  At least he toes Haley's line politically, which I'm sure makes her happy to have him standing next to her, prayer-wise, even though he has lied about having an actual Doctorate of Theology.

While we're scratching our heads over this big event, I have to ask myself who is paying for it.  After all, free admission at the North Charleston Performing Arts Center isn't like crowding into a church hall or a school cafetorium.  Well, hold on to your hats, folks, because the sponsor is the American Family Association, the group that is so rabidly anti-gay that it is currently asking followers to stop doing business with WellsFargo because of its support of LGBT rights.

Not a political gathering.  At all.

According to David Lane, president and founder of the American Renewal Project, this will be a day of fasting and prayer.  But wait.  David Lane is the guy that is going to wage war for Christianity.  He is going to fight for prayer in schools and to get rid of gays.  He is going to bring back those good old family values, the kind you can find in the Bible, but I think he means more Old Testament than what Jesus preached.

And non-political?  From the American Renewal Project website, his mission:

"...to make evangelical Christians a power in the Republican Party."

And in Lane's own words:  "An army.  That's the goal...."

So what are they going to be praying for?  Nikki says she wants to "pray to remember that we're not in charge."  But would like to be?

There will be lots of proselytizing, lots of pretending to care about the poor and the sick.  But the bottom line under all this hypocrisy is that they actually have the power to change that.  And as far as I recall, God never said to turn to Him when you can fix a problem yourself.  Are they asking for a miracle, in the sense of pray and you will be made well?  Maybe.  Because the alternative would be to pray for health care, and ain't no one on that stage that's going to be praying for that.

And one last thing.  The people on that stage aren't really going to be the ones that are praying.  Or, they may be "praying" but they aren't going to be listening for an answer.

The Threat of a Union

Why, we wonder, do people vote against their own interests?  Why are we so vulnerable to the attacks on unions by right-wing politicians?

One of the greatest fears we have in this country is loss of our livelihood.  There may have been a time in your life -- there have been a few in mine -- where I was looking at losing a job, or not being able to find a job, alongside a nearly empty bank account.  Terrifying.

Add to that financial disasters, like that of the mid-70's, with gas lines and prices doubling, tripling and quadrupling.  Employers squeezing unions, forcing them to choose between cuts in benefits and layoffs.  We hear about how Obamacare has forced employers to cut staff from full-time to part-time, but that has been going on (check with your elders) since the seventies.

All it takes is an economic pinch for corporations to take advantage of our fears.  And since the seventies, it has worked.

The other strategy that has worked quite well for corporations is painting the union itself as the bad guy.  Politicians and lobbyists have no problem twisting the truth to make it appear that unions will cause us to lose our job security.  That unions are corrupt, pocketing your dues to benefit themselves.

It is the same argument, ironically, that is used against taxation.  If not for taxation, we would have higher employment, better wages, more job security and -- my favorite -- better government services.

It's all nonsense.  But if you say it often enough to people in insecure times it is going to work.

In Little Accidents, a 2014 movie recently released on DVD, there are fierce pressures by members of a mining community on the only surviving witness to a deadly accident caused by negligence to cover up the company's responsibility.  The palpable fear is that the government will force the closure of the mine and loss of work.  People willing to risk their lives in order to earn a living.

Loss of work is the fear of any whistleblower.  Edward Snowden had to weigh the consequences of what he knew would be a major attack on the government's credibility, with major fallout.  But in smaller ways, most of us reach points in our lives when we could complain about something that is wrong, or close our eyes, even participate.  And most of us rationalize why we should just do as we're told.  Because otherwise we would lose our jobs, our homes, our friends, our families.  It is not so easy to take a stand.

And when Nikki Haley builds her right-wing creds by union bashing, she is touching that same nerve.  Fear that leads to isolation, that leads to rage, that turns the fear around from being afraid your employer will let you go to anger at the union rep that has shaken your faith in the security of your life and livelihood.

Haley has used the union issue to garner fame and a future from her corporate handlers.  She has done it by creating fear in people who just want to make a living.  She knows that if unions were to get a fair hearing, employees would listen, and just might consider letting them in.  And Boeing, despite their pretense of being open to unions, would lose the power to make the demands on its employees that it currently holds.

Good for Boeing to be able to sound reasonable and let people like Nikki Haley do their dirty work.  Which she does happily.

Meanwhile, though, we need to provide a platform for workers to tell their stories, to tell us what they would want from union membership.  We need to hear the things they are afraid to say in public while they are not protected by a union.  As long as South Carolina's workers live in an atmosphere of fear, the information vacuum will work both ways, and Nikki Haley will continue to thrive from the power she holds.  

...and If You Hate Obamacare...

I am one of those South Carolinians waiting with bated breath for the U.S. less-than-Supreme Court to rule on the Affordable Care Act.  It infuriates me that in this country, so many who are fortunate enough to have health care security will continue to rant and obstruct the program that has given so many of the rest of us the same.  The what's-in-it-for-me crowd is so blinded by greed and rage that they are unable to see how, in fact, making health care a right instead of a privilege has been a major factor in the dramatic upswing in our economy.

We have gone in a short time from an economy crippled by high unemployment, in which the younger job-seekers were shut out because we older folk had to hang on till we were eligible for Medicare.  We stayed with jobs we hated, jobs that hurt our aging bodies, jobs that often did not pay a living wage, so that we could cling to that health insurance that each year cost more and covered less.  Employers called the shots because they knew they had something we needed -- and it wasn't that barely living wage.

The health insurance industry, with a strong house advantage, never lost the insurance gamble.  They took in the young and healthy and priced out of the game anyone who actually might cause them to have to pay out.  The cost of people growing sicker and dying because of lack of adequate health care never showed up on the health insurance industry bottom line.

It is true that the health insurance industry made sure to take care of its own when reform became inevitable.  They made promises in exchange for the ability to make even more money.  They did this by allowing our government to subsidize those fat premiums.  And their lobbyists made sure the public saw the government as the enemy and not the industry itself.

So for pretty much the entirety of President Obama's terms in office, we have been listening to the uninformed parroting the vitriol against health care reform.  I've heard people complain about Obamacare in the same breath that they admitted they were now paying less for coverage.  They rage against "Obamacare" as though it is responsible for the global warming they deny and pretty much everything else (Melissa McCarthy as Tammy:  "Four dollars a gallon.  Thanks, Obamacare.").

It is also true that the ACA has only slowed the rise of health care costs.  Well, if Democrats had spines and Republicans had consciences, we just might be able to tackle the greed of the insurance industry.  I'll bet they could have enough profit without raping the all-too-willing government.  It might even be that regulation of the industry would result in a better product.

But we were left with the worst of capitalism, that bit that decries government involvement, unless of course, it is writing the checks.  If you look closely at your "affordable" health insurance, you will see that the government is picking up the tab for most of what continues to be a ginormous premium.  And yet you still have to pay all those cleverly named additional amounts when you actually need health care.

Yet people like me do have affordable health insurance.  For now.  Because even though all those idiotic votes to repeal in the US House, and despite states with governors with Tea Party dreams like ours, the federal government passed a law that has stood up.  Democracy, right?

But now that libertarian Koch darling, the Cato Institute (support with "the Gift of Stock") is leading the challenge to the ACA in the Supreme Court.  And the hook this time is four words in the law, which may eliminate federal exchanges in states like South Carolina, where we insist that the best way to help people without health insurance is to deny them health insurance.

I only just today learned that argument will be heard on Wednesday.  Most of us, happily insured, are totally uninformed on this fight for our very health and well-being.  I worry that while we look away, we will lose our health care security once again.  And ironically, a lot of those who are going to lose are the Obamacare haters.  Imagine that.