First, I saw this this morning:

Verizon providing all call records to U.S. under court order

The National Security Agency appears to be collecting the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order issued in April.

The order appears to require a Verizon subsidiary to provide the NSA with daily information on all telephone calls by its customers within the United States and from foreign locations into the United States.

The order, which was signed by a judge from the secret court that oversees domestic surveillance, was first reported on the Web site of the Guardian newspaper. The Web site reproduced a copy of the order, which two former U.S. officials told The Washington Post appears to be authentic…

Then, later, I see that much of official Washington was scrambling to defend the NSA program:

The Obama administration and key U.S. lawmakers on Thursday defended a secret National Security Agency telephone surveillance program that one congressman said had helped avert a terrorist attack in recent years.

The program apparently has collected the telephone records of tens of millions of American customers of Verizon, one of the nation’s largest phone companies, under a top-secret court order.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), who chairs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said the court order, issued in April, appears to be “the exact three-month renewal” of the program that has been underway for the past seven years. She said the program is “lawful.”…

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the court order in question is a critical tool that allows the intelligence community to know when terrorists or suspected terrorists are engaging in dangerous activities. He says that’s particularly true for people located in the U.S.

He said the order doesn’t allow the government to listen in on calls, but only includes details like telephone numbers…

Which reminds me: Have I mentioned lately that I love Big Brother? I say it in front of the telescreen frequently. I guess I need to mention it over the phone…

The Richland County Board of Elections and Voter Registration, a useless entity created by the county’s legislative delegation for its own perverse, unknowable reasons, should definitely cease to exist.

The State made that case fairly thoroughly today. An excerpt:

The board has failed repeatedly to act in the public’s best interest. While former director Lillian McBride shoulders much of the blame for the botched election, a preliminary report noted that the board had failed to ask important questions.

After the election fiasco, the board initially refused to acknowledge that it had the power to discipline the director; when the panel finally acknowledged its authority, it refused to remove Ms. McBride. Once Ms. McBride resigned, the board bent over backward — much farther than it should have — to accommodate her, creating a deputy director’s slot that pays $74,600.

When it embarked upon the single most significant task involved in rebuilding public confidence and trust — hiring a credible director — the board blew it. It created a search committee led by a member who had just joined the board. That search committee chairman caused tension by barring a fellow member of the Board of Elections from discussions with candidates; he also played a role in the committee’s refusal to release the names of the three finalists as required by law.

But The State secured the names of the finalists and, through routine checks, discovered problems in each candidate’s work history. As troubling as it is that the candidates failed to reveal the matters, it is also unacceptable that the committee didn’t conduct a thorough enough search to discover them.

When two of the finalists withdrew their names, the only prudent thing to do was to start a new search. Instead, the Board of Elections hired the remaining finalist — Howard Jackson, the Orangeburg County elections director.

Mr. Jackson failed to tell search committee members that he had been investigated in 2008 for election-law violations involving alleged absentee ballot irregularities.

The State Law Enforcement Division found no wrongdoing, but his failure to be upfront about it doesn’t engender trust, which is essential to turning the Richland County office around…

But in case you find The State‘s opprobrium to measured and calm, there’s always Mia McLeod out there to channel our rage, like Key and Peele’s “Obama’s Anger Translator.” She put this release out today:

Since the infamous Richland County Elections fiasco of 2012, the Old Guard (“OG”) has really ramped it up a few notches. Turns out…fiercely protecting and defending incompetence is only a fraction of the skills they’ve acquired during their 6-month tirade.

Who else could take a beyond-botched general election and turn it into a reality-tv scandal in a matter of days? Yeah, the OG is mega-talented, alright. Some parts scripted…some not…but clearly, no shortage of actors or creative content.
And while the OG renders Oscar-worthy performances…it’s Richland County voters who stood in line for 6-8 hours last November, only to be cast as “extras” in this dramatic mini-series.

But sometimes, “extras” stumble onto their “five minutes of fame” and this time was no different because these lucky voters not only got a chance to be disenfranchised one time…they got to experience a 6-month “Exclusion Extravaganza!” And they even get to pay for it.

Brilliant…isn’t it?

In fact, the OG was gracious enough to allow us to take an “after-the-fact” glimpse of behind-the-scenes footage, just so our palates can get a taste (never-mind the smell) of what they’ve crammed down our throats.

Okay, I think we’re ready. Open wide, now…

(Brief pause while we rewind. Please hold your applause until the end).

November 6, 2012 – The biggest voter disenfranchisement in SC history
OG advises Elections Director to “shut-up” and shut it down, while they develop their game plan
Attorney General issues Opinion: County Legislative Delegation has no authority to fire Elections Director, despite hiring her
OG launches aggressive lobbying effort to influence County Elections Commissioners and Council members to not fire Director, while“stacking the deck” with OG Elections Commissioner(s); (new) OG Commissioner appointed; begins serving “officially” the same day
OG controls delegation meetings to appease and deceive the public; stalls for time
Investigative report” reveals the obvious…Director is responsible for Election Day debacle by not deploying enough machines or staffers
OG back room negotiations continue, to protect & insulate Director
Elections Director prematurely announces resignation (through attorney) to Legislative Delegation during executive session; delegation member publicly discloses the impending resignation too soon; director reneges until OG finalizes her “deal”
OG successfully secures contractual agreement for Director, who is publicly “demoted” and privately promoted to a newly created taxpayer-funded position
OG appoints Interim Director; pays him big money to carry out “master plan”; names “Search Committee” for new Director; stacks deck with OG members to ensure desired results
OG repeatedly refuses to acknowledge or accept meeting requests by delegation members to discuss critical elections issues
Seventeen applications received and “screened” by the Search Committee; three applicants meet eligibility requirements; two of three finalists “mysteriously” withdraw their names in the final hours
OG announces to the public and delegation on May 15th, that remaining finalist is new director and proudly welcomes yet another “Jackson” into the fold; trio (Delegation Chair, Councilman, Elections Director) is complete
OG schedules first delegation meeting of 2013 for June 4th (2 days before session ends), after critical elections decisions have been made

So with all due respect to the new Richland County Elections Director, because the OG has consistently and calculatedly closed the process to the public, his hiring and everything associated with it, looks and smells… shady. Why not reopen (or open) the process to new applicants instead of choosing one by default?

Quite frankly, it’s the “stench” of the last six months that makes so many of us turn up our noses in disbelief and disgust. So even if Mr. Jackson is the best Elections Director this county has ever seen (and he very well could be…) the OG has gone out of its way to present him on a filthy garbage can lid instead of the fine China that might’ve been a much more fitting and flattering accompaniment.

And once again, Richland County residents are the forsaken, forgotten ones. But, it’s not Mr. Jackson that we loathe. It’s the process and the “platter” upon which he was presented.

Closed-door meetings. Back-room deals. Lies. Cover-ups.

What else could we possibly need to restore public trust? This scandal leaves Richland County voters with uncounted ballots and a $153,000 bill. How could we not have confidence in a process that obviously works? Bravo, OG!

Perhaps Mr. Jackson will find his role in the sequel because in 2014 and 2016, the curtain rises again. Only this time, the “extras” are gonna make their debut…center stage. And the OG’s season finale will hopefully bring its tumultuous reign to an end.

Now, that episode will be one worth watching. Stay tuned…

When I first saw this headline on my iPad this afternoon…

Amazon Is Developing Smartphone With 3-D Screen

… I thought, what on Earth would I want something like that for? I’ve seen 3D movies. I’m not impressed. Who needs that kind of cheesy distraction on a phone?

Then I thought, now what would be cool would be a phone with holographic projection, like the Princess Leia message that R2D2 carried…

Then I actually read the story, and saw this:

One of the devices is a high-end smartphone featuring a screen that allows for three-dimensional images without glasses, these people said. Using retina-tracking technology, images on the smartphone would seem to float above the screen like a hologram and appear three-dimensional at all angles, they said. Users may be able to navigate through content using just their eyes, two of the people said…

OK, now, that’s pretty cool. I’m not promising to give up my iPhone or anything (note: second product placement in this post; why is Apple not paying me to do this?), but I’d like to see that.

But it prompts questions:

• Is the WSJ just not believing what it’s hearing? Talk about your over-attribution… “they said… they said… two of the people said…”
• What do they mean by “seem to float above the screen like a hologram?” Would it not BE a hologram? If not, then what is it? Hypnosis?
• Why have we not seen this technology in a consumer product before now? I’ve been hearing about holograms, it seems, since I was a kid. And while I’m at it, where are those flying cars that were supposed to be here before the 20th century was out?
• Why Amazon? With all sorts of other companies out there with more experience and expertise in digital imaging, how on Earth would the company that sells books (and other stuff) on the Internet beat them to it? Why not Sony? Or Canon? Or Apple? Or HP? For that matter, I would think the Internet porn industry alone would have invested billions seeking this breakthrough…

Anyway, I’d like to see one of those…

When I saw this alert on my phone last night from WLTX…

AP: Ex-wife of Fmr. Gov. Mark Sanford says he trespassed at her home.

… I supposed it meant she claimed he had sinned at her house. And I thought, well, that would have been a new low. I also thought, I don’t want to know that. The more common, property-related interpretation of “trespass” only occurred to me a moment later. Chalk it up to my being Catholic.

Here’s the relevant part of Bruce Smith’s story:

The complaint says Jenny Sanford confronted the former governor leaving her Sullivans Island home on Feb. 3 by a rear door, using his cell phone for a flashlight. Her attorney filed the complaint the next day.

The couple’s 2010 divorce settlement says neither may enter the other’s home without permission. Mark Sanford lives about a 20-minute drive away from Sullivans Island in downtown Charleston.

Jenny Sanford said the complaint, and the timing of the hearing, has nothing to do with her husband’s attempt to rebuild his political career by winning the congressional seat he held for three terms in the 1990s.

The complaint was filed in February and a family court judge last month set the May 9 hearing date where Sanford will have to show cause why he should not be held in contempt for violating the couple’s divorce settlement.

The mobile phone flashlight app of course is the most evocative detail. Sort of makes me picture one of those cartoon burglars with the little black mask and striped shirt (why do burglars always wear those striped shirts in cartoons? where did that convention come from?).

Except no one’s alleging burglary. This is in family court, not a criminal court.

I fully believe that Jenny did not leak this to damage her husband’s chances. But it’s likely to have that effect anyway. From the beginning of this process, it has occurred to me that Jenny Sanford has the power to make or break this candidacy, whether intentionally or unintentionally. Something like this resonates.

I got this from the NYT website. The video is credited to Steve Silva, a Boston Globe Web producer…

Then-PM Thatcher in 1981 greeting Strom Thurmond. Note how unremarkable everyone else’s evening attire was, compared to Strom’s.

I was very proud of myself yesterday for knowing who Lilly Pulitzer was when the news came that she’d died. Even though I only knew it because we had passed her shop while walking up King Street in Charleston on Saturday (and you couldn’t have picked a more glorious day for it), and my wife noted that she’d always found her designs appealing, and I briefly thought that at least the colors were appropriate to the day and time of year.

But I didn’t have to reach at all when I got the news this morning about Margaret Thatcher. All sorts of things came to mind. Of course, being who I am, the very first thing wasn’t “Lady Thatcher, who with Ronald Reagan and Pope John Paul II helped bring down the Soviet Union.” Although it probably should have been. No, my first thought was, Now that the occasion has actually arrived, is Elvis Costello still eager to tramp the dirt down, or has he calmed and forgiven a bit? The latter, I hope. I’m a huge Elvis fan — he’s easily my favourite musician to emerge in the last 35 years — but what applies to so many in the arts and pop culture also applies to him: Enormously talented as he is, it’s probably best if he not delve into political commentary. That song was a bit… intemperate. Overwrought, even.

The newspapers, of course, immediately strove to strike the right note. Speaking of “strike,” though, the BBC seems to have committed a rather awkward typo (according to the Twitter feed “@HeardinLondon) in an early mobile version of the story, at right. But on the whole you could see the papers had done what newspapers have traditionally been relied on to do: Thought about it ahead of time. Here’s how The Guardian captured the moment:

Margaret Thatcher, the most dominant British prime minister since Winston Churchill in 1940 and a global champion of the late 20th-century free market economic revival, has died.

Her spokesman, Lord Bell, said on Monday: “It is with great sadness that Mark and Carol Thatcher announced that their mother Baroness Thatcher died peacefully following a stroke this morning. A further statement will be made later.”

That got me to thinking: Well, is that what she was? Was not, for instance, Tony Blair as “dominant” in his own time, reshaping the Labour movement, defining the Third Way, leading his nation in war in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq? Perhaps not. Perhaps that’s just me being as big a fan of Tony as I am of Elvis. I mean, it’s not like The Guardian is carrying water for the Tories. And they’re a lot closer to it than I am. So I accept their judgment.

Official Britain seems to agree as to her stature. The Times reported:

Margaret Thatcher is to have the same funeral status as the Queen Mother and Diana, Princess of Wales, Downing Street announced. They had ceremonial funerals, which have many of the trappings of a state event.

The last Prime Minister to be accorded the accolade of a full state funeral was Winston Churchill, and there has been some agonising among the authorities about whether Baroness Thatcher should receive the same honour.

Her funeral, which will have military honours, will take place at St Paul’s Cathedral, Lady Thatcher’s choice. Royalty will attend but whether the Queen will go is not yet known.

Hmmm. I should think Lady Thatcher would not have actively wished a “Diana funeral,” but she’d be happy to have one like the Queen Mum.

In any case, a solemn moment, and I agree wholeheartedly with Labour MP Tom Watson, who Tweeted, “I hope that people on the left of politics respect a family in grief today.”

Hear that, Elvis?

That’s about all I wanted to say. I guess I should have kept it to a Tweet.

It just seems to me increasingly hard to believe that an entire nation is held in subjugation by this baby-faced ranter. Yeah, I’d probably understand it better if I lived there, but from here, it’s just hard to imagine.

By comparison, Dr. Evil you could take seriously. At least, he looked like an adult, someone who had actually spent six years in evil medical school studying for the job.

Saddam Hussein looked like a bad guy you could take seriously. Osama bin Laden looked like the sort of mad desert mystic who might inspire suicide bombers, a sort of real-life Lisan al-Gaib. Back in the day, we had Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin. Proper baddies from the get-go, as you could tell at a glance. OK, so maybe Mussolini had a streak of the comic opera in him, but you had to respect the chin on the guy.

But Kim Jong Un? I suspect that he made his generals wear the ridiculous, too-big-for-their-heads hats in this posed picture just to keep people from noticing how utterly nonthreatening their leader looked.

Of course, the man has nukes. I remind myself of that. It also occurs to me that his looking so nonthreatening may have given him a complex, one that could make him more dangerous than he otherwise might me.

I hope not. That’s all I can say.

I’m right here. Bring it on./Photograph by Pierre Fidenci

Consider this a small concession to Phillip’s assertion earlier that Mankind is not the central point of the universe…

If kicking butt were the deciding factor, we’d lose.

I really enjoyed this little item on Quora, written by a Portland woman named Arkadia Moon (I’ll bet there are a lot of people in Portland with names like that). I seemed like the kind of question that Gareth Keenan would have posed on the original, British version of “The Office:” “Could a professional fighter survive an encounter with a fully grown healthy gorilla determined to kill him, without feigning death?”

Ms. Moon answered thusly:

Unless the gorilla is somehow hobbled (drugged, lamed, &c.), or the human fighter is armed (especially with something like a spear that can hold the gorilla off at a distance), the gorilla will kill the human and then be vaguely dejected that the human wasn’t able to put up enough of a challenge to be interesting.  Consider:

• A male gorilla significantly outweighs most professional fighters.
• His centre of gravity is closer to the ground.  Wrestlers will appreciate the huge advantage involved; erect bipedality is a serious liability here.
• One word: fangs.
• Being a wild animal, the gorilla will throw 100% of his available resources into the fight from the word go.  Humans — even professional fighters or soldiers — never do this, unless they are in such a state of psychosis that they might as well be wild animals.  (I have seen a 5’0″ woman in such a state, at fifty kilos, require five humans at double her weight each to take her down and hold her down.)
• Because the gorilla’s fighting responses are instinctual, not trained, they will be faster than the human’s.
• The gorilla’s musculature and skeleton are considerably more robust than the human’s, which means that the gorilla will soak up much more punishment before being seriously injured.  This makes the human’s fighter’s main hope of winning — almost immediately incapacitating the gorilla — very problematic.

What will happen is that the gorilla will close with the human and knock him off his feet.  At that point, all — all — of the human’s possible advantages are out the window, and it’s all over but the screaming, bleeding, and dying.

Of course, the matter hasn’t been tested under laboratory conditions. But Ms. Moon seems to have really thought this out, and I’m quite sure she’s right.

This release moved just a little while ago:

Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter asks for Advisory Opinion from House Ethics Commission on State Plane Usage

Columbia, SC – State Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter (D-Orangeburg) filed a letter with the House Ethics Committee on Wednesday asking for an advisory opinion on whether or not it is appropriate for a member of the South Carolina General Assembly to access the state plane to transport subcommittee witnesses, and if it is appropriate to receive compensation to provide testimony to a legislative subcommittee without registering as a lobbyist. The questions were prompted by the news of Representative Bill Chumley authorizing the use of the state plane to transport a well-known Tea Party radio host from Washington, DC for testimony in favor of the Obamacare Nullification bill…

####

Following up on the Kris Crawford saga, I see from an editorial in the Sun-News that Tracy Edge, as conservative a representative as you’re likely to find, has also been frank about the House’s reasoning for rejecting Medicaid expansion:

Was the vote’s outcome because that was the best decision for the state? Did it make good financial sense? No.

“It was more political than it was financial reality,” said Rep. Tracy Edge of North Myrtle Beach, who voted against the expansion with all of his GOP colleagues…

Edge, a former chairman of the health care subcommittee that oversaw the state’s Medicaid spending, said this week that he doesn’t necessarily oppose the expansion and in fact thinks it would probably be better than the $83 million alternative that Republicans offered – money that would insure no new patients but would pay hospitals to encourage poor residents to get more care at free health care clinics rather than emergency rooms. Both parties agree that that money would be well spent on worthy programs, but that wasn’t really the point, Edge said. Those voting for the money are “spending $83 million just so you can say you’re not doing Obamacare.”…

Let’s see… expand Medicaid, and the federal government picks up the whole tab for three years, and 90 percent of it thereafter.

Or… waste $83 million trying to pay the hospitals to go away and stop agitating for expansion. Just so you can say you’re not doing Obamacare.

Anyone who doesn’t understand the irrational dislike that SC Republicans have for the president would be shocked that the “conservative” party chose the latter course.

AMC alone would practically give me half of what I’d want.

The WSJ says we may be moving in that direction:

What happens when the “bundle” begins to unravel?

The question is taking on intense importance for the cable-TV business, which for decades has forced customers to subscribe to groups, or bundles, of channels—whether they wanted them or not.

Attacks on the bundle approach have escalated, most recently with Cablevision Systems Corp.’s lawsuit this week against Viacom Inc., accusing it of antitrust violations for forcing it to carry and pay for more than a dozen “lesser-watched” channels in order to offer the popular ones like Nickelodeon and MTV. Viacom disputes the allegation.

Now pay-TV executives—as well as its customers—are openly pondering a world where the bundle no longer reigns, even though such a scenario could be years away.

“People should be able to build what they want and get what they want,” said Bartees Cox, a spokesman for consumer group Public Knowledge.

“Without the ‘take it or leave it’ requirements of bundled programming packages at a wholesale level, cable companies could tailor smaller and lower-priced packages that could offer flexibility and have great appeal to specific interests and audiences,” said Charlie Schueler, spokesman for Cablevision…

… although the piece said that real “a la carte” TV probably won’t be here in the foreseeable future.

If it ever did come, what would you choose? Here’s my list of preferred channels:

1. AMC — for “The Walking Dead,” “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men,” “Hell on Wheels”
2. Turner Classic Movies
3. NickJr — For when my grandchildren are at the house.
4. Local broadcast channels (mainly for PBS)
5. Showtime (but only when new episodes of “Homeland” are available)
6. TBS, TNT — Sometimes for movies, but mostly for sitcom reruns, which are a good length for watching while working out on my elliptical trainer
7. CSPAN — Although its just not the same these days, since I no longer get to see Tony Blair doing Question Time

That’s really about it. There’s another tier of channels I occasionally watch — FX, SciFi, BBC America, Comedy Central, and on rare occasions one of the sports channels. But I can do without them.

So basically, an even dozen channels would do it for me. No more than would have fit on an old VHF dial…

DANG!

Don’t you just hate it when you write a whole post, and then go to get the embed code to the video that the whole post is about, and you see “Embedding disabled by request?” Well, I do. Like Barry in “High Fidelity,” I wanted to give y’all a fun Monday morning pick-me-up, and was prevented. Almost. I can still send you to the link, which is here. Enjoy the best you can…

First, you have to be familiar with the original Gotye video, “Somebody That I Used to Know.” You should be, but I realize not everyone follows these trends.

It’s my youngest granddaughter’s favorite video, or at least it was last year, when she was 2. I was a bit shocked at that when I first saw it, since it shows naked people, but I can see how she would like it — people with paint all over them. And may I add that I think it shows an exceptional creative judgment in one so young.

The video has sparked a host of parodies, but the one above is the best I’ve seen. [Actually, not the one above. This is the one that was the best, which I wanted to share, but there was no embed code. The Obama one is second-best.] Enjoy.

Oh, and for those of you who haven’t seen the original, it is below [Why the original allows embedding, but the parody does not, is beyond me.]…

I’m quite serious, you know. I’ve always liked this sort of weather. Chilly and drizzly, no sun glare in my eyes. Must be something encoded deep in my English, Irish and Welsh genes. I was so pleased, on my one visit to England, that the weather was just like this every day. Of course, it was December and January. But I’d have been quite disappointed had it been unseasonably sunny and warm.

I wrote of my exchange with Professor Elemental the other day. Searching for links caused me to run across this video I hadn’t seen. I especially like the bits where he calls for enthusiasm, then tails off into typical national diffidence:

So if you’re down with the Brits, then make some noise!
But if you’d rather not… that’s… fine…

Hip, hip, huzzah. If it’s not too much trouble…

Left to right, that’s me, Mike Miller, R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Clo Cammarata, Tony Tallent, Valerie Rowe Jackson and Mayor Steve Benjamin.

If you’ll recall, back during last year’s city council race, I had to deal with a lot of confusion as to my identity.

At one campaign event for Daniel Coble, one of his supporters came up to me and thanked me profusely and gracefully for having endorsed the former mayor’s son. Finally, I figured it out — she thought I was Mike Miller, my fellow alumnus of The State who had been a candidate for the council seat, but had dropped out in Coble’s favor.

This happened on two other occasions. Once, a Coble supporter was determined to get me to line up with other backers for a group portrait, but I finally convinced her I wasn’t Mike. (In her defense, we’re both from the Pee Dee, we’re about the same age, and we were both wearing khaki jackets that day.)

I am sure there are skeptics out there who still doubt that we are separate people, citing the lack of any published photo of Mike and me together.

Well, that was rectified last night, at Mayor Benjamin’s One Book, One Columbia townhall discussion. I was the moderator, and Mike was one of those who turned out to talk about A.J. Mayhew’s The Dry Grass of August.

And someone got a picture of us together.

Of course, longtime readers of Superman comics will insist that the guy on the left is a Mike Miller robot, knowing that the Man of Steel kept a slew of Clark Kent robots at the Fortress of Solitude just so he could fool Lois and the gang. All I can say is that I don’t think I’m a Mike Miller robot.

This is to invite y’all to come out for some bookish talk at Richland Library tomorrow night:

Join us for lively discussion surrounding The Dry Grass of August by A. J. Mayhew. Our moderator is Brad Warthen, journalist and Director of Communication/Public Relations for ADCO. He will guide us through discussion of the novel and social issues addressed. Our community panelists include: Dr. Bobby Donaldson, Associate Professor of History and African American Studies at USC; Dr. R. Blakeslee Gilpin, Assistant Professor of History at USC; and Ms. Martha Cunningham Monteith, who organized the first speech pathology program in South Carolina’s public schools and was one of the 2013 inductees into the Richland 1 Hall of Fame.

6:00 – 7:00pm, Richland Library, Bostick Auditorium

I finished reading the book last night, which means I was extra conscientious on this one. When I moderated a Salman Rushdie panel at USC several years ago, I had never read any of his books. I tried — I think I checked out Satanic Verses — but quit after about a chapter. Just couldn’t get into it. I enjoyed his lecture, though.

The Dry Grass of August was not the sort of thing I would normally seek out to read — it’s told from the perspective of a 13-year-old girl living in Charlotte in 1954 — but it was pretty good. It’s about a vacation trip that her white family takes along with their black maid through the South in the summer after the Brown v. Board decision. The trip turns horribly tragic very suddenly, and there’s a lot of misery, but a lot of learning about life, too.

My daughter shared the above cartoon with me via Facebook.

I don’t know where it came from originally, but it certainly sums up the appalling third season of “Downton Abbey”…

SC House Republicans yesterday killed the first attempt to expand Medicaid in keeping with Obamacare, promising that today they would unveil a Plan B that addresses South Carolina’s “core problem.”

Hey, I’ll tell you what South Carolina’s “core problem” is, at least with regard to this issue and ones like it: We keep trying to secede from the union again. Or, to spell it out more specifically, we keep pretending that decisions already made on the national level haven’t been made, and that we have rational options when we really don’t.

There is a plan in place, a national plan. It will proceed. It is a fact. And trying to come up with a separate SC approach is duplicative and wasteful at best, and smacks of nullification at worst.

Actually, that’s not the worst thing. Yeah, the fact that some prominent SC Republicans, in the 21st century, unabashedly embrace nullification, by that name — no euphemisms — is pretty appalling. But what’s worse is that lawmakers would throw down roadblocks to citizens in SC getting any benefit from Obamacare, which with all its warts is the only game going in healthcare reform.

The House GOP can come up with a Plan B that is brilliant, and has everything in it you would want a health care plan to have. I’d be shocked if they did that, but let’s suppose they do. It doesn’t change the fact that Obamacare is, and that it’s crazy not to take the federal money that would help us extend coverage to more South Carolinians who need it.

Cindi Scoppe, as usual, put it well in a recent column.She said Tony Keck, Nikki Haley’s director of Health and Human Services, had some good ideas for alternative ways to deal with Medicaid, ideas that make more sense than what the feds want to do. But in the end, she said, SC has to deal with reality:

if I could redesign our health-care system, I’d do it Mr. Keck’s way.

But here’s the thing: I don’t have that power. And neither does he. Or the governor. Or anyone else in South Carolina….

Tony Keck

The problem is the way Medicaid in general, and the Medicaid expansion in particular, is funded. The federal government will pay $9 for every $1 South Carolina spends to expand Medicaid to cover more of the working poor; it will pick up 100 percent of the cost for the first three years.

What this means is that South Carolina and other states do not have the luxury of behaving logically, of considering merely where we get the best health per dollar spent….

We can argue all day about whether the rules under which states must operate Medicaid make sense (and I think many of them do not), or whether creating the Medicaid expansion program was something the federal government should have done.

But it won’t make a difference, because it’s done, and South Carolinians are going to help pay for the Medicaid expansion throughout the country. The only choice we have — the only choice — is whether or not we will allow the federal government to send any of our money back to us.

Railing against Obamacare, and pursuing alternatives that ignore reality, will get South Carolina nowhere. This is reminiscent of Mark Sanford’s stubborn refusal to accept stimulus money that was either going to come to South Carolina or go to some other state. Sanford had no say over whether the money would be spent. And SC has no alternatives that make sense in this case.

Hey, I can come up with a better plan than Obamacare, too. That doesn’t mean it’s going to happen. The decision, after generations of national hemming and hawing, has been made. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise.

This just in from Corey over at the Free Times:

Attorney General Will Refer Complaint Against House Speaker to SLED

by Corey Hutchins, February 14th 04:36pm

South Carolina’s Republican attorney general, Alan Wilson, suggested a SLED agent be assigned to investigate the state’s most powerful politician, GOP House Speaker Bobby Harrell.

“We met today with Ashley Landess, who delivered information to this office alleging possible criminal violations by Speaker Bobby Harrell,” Chief Deputy Attorney General John McIntosh said in a statement. “Consistent with our long-standing policy, we are requesting that SLED assign an agent to conduct this inquiry.”

Landess is the president of the limited government South Carolina Policy Council. SLED is the State Law Enforcement Division.

The information Landess delivered asks these questions: Did Harrell use his public office for personal financial gain and break any laws in the process? Did he violate the law by using campaign funds for personal purposes, and did he maintain records in accordance to the law and itemize reimbursements properly?…

This was called to my attention by a release from House Ethics Committee Chairman Kenny Bingham:

STATEMENT ON STATUS OF ASHLEY LANDESS COMPLAINT

 

In response to calls about whether Ms. Ashley Landess had discussed her complaint about the Speaker of the House with the Chairman of the House Ethics Committee, Rep. Kenny Bingham issued the following statement:

 

“Earlier this week, Ms. Ashley Landess and Senator Tom Davis, her legal council, came to see me to discuss the process the House Ethics Committee follows when a complaint is registered with our Committee.  I gave them an overview of our process and procedures.

 

“Ms. Landess did not file a complaint with our Committee, nor did she discuss the specific nature of her complaint with me.  She told me she had concerns about our process and the supervisory role the Speaker of the House might have over committee staff. Because of those concerns, she said she would rather take her complaint directly to the attorney general.  I told her that was certainly her right under the law.

 

“This afternoon, Attorney General Alan Wilson called and informed me that his office has decided to refer the matter to SLED and ask them to conduct a preliminary review.

 

“I have every confidence the attorney general will conduct a fair and complete investigation.  Because this matter is now under review by SLED and the Attorney General’s Office, it would be inappropriate for me to make any additional comments.”

 

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This broke about an hour ago. That’s all I know so far…