It is not the purpose of this blog to comment on national politics.  But, you’ll recall that I recently posted about our two Dem representatives Spratt and Clyburn have been pumping up the newly minted budget.  Here and Here.

It seems that a Reuters reporter, read the budget, uncovered several taxes aimed at not only the “rich” as has been touted but indeed on every income earning American, she wrote on the the taxes, Reuters published the story and then Reuters retracted the story after the White House explained that the story had “several factual errors”.  Wonder how that phone call went.

If you search the internet, you’ll find blogs and reports on both sides claiming nefarious doin’s or poor journalistic practice in publishing the story.  By the time I heard about it, Reuters and all US news services had pulled the story, but I was able to find it on a web site in Canada.  Link to the report from Yahoo Canada is attached here.  I report, you decide.

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a 1.6 trillion shortfall this year so 1 trillion can be saved over the next ten years.

Huh?  Spend 1.6 trillion you don’t have now to save 1 trillion over the next ten years?  Maybe my banker will go for that.  Yeah.

More at Carolina Politics Online

via SC Republican DeMint backs health reform in small bites | The Herald – Rock Hill, SC.

via Clyburn: ‘We’ve got to spend our way out of this recession’ – The Hill’s Blog Briefing Room.

• Ask a question,
• Form a hypothesis,
• Design an experiment to collect data to prove your hypothesis

The beautiful part of commenting on SC politicians is that the data gathering sometimes falls into your lap.

To wit: in my previous post I hypothesized that too may SCGOP members were not Conservatives defending the population from growing, unfair, overstepping government, you know, statesmen–rather they act as fief guarding politicians.

To prove my point, I point you to Exhibits A-D below.

Rather than implement a perfectly natural preventive measure to curb voter fraud by requiring SC voters to produce a photo ID before casting their votes, these four sided with the Dem opposition to kill the bill in the Senate.

OK, here’s the question:  Why would any politician want to leave a door open to vote fraud?

Thanks to Sunlit Uplands.  I point you there for more of the story.

Technical problems leading to a huge reset in the Q&A set the tone for a lackluster debate last night between SC’s GOP rivals.  Heck, Joe Scarborough (the lone Republican in the entire MSNBC complex) had problems even getting to Charleston. 

The GOP Governor’s debate last night  spent way too much time on personalities not involved in the race.  Gov. Sanford and Senators DeMint and Graham are not running nor are they issues.  I dislike this Oprahization of politics.  Like the NBC Olympic coverage every year, why all the human interest stories–just show me the competition, dang it.  I don’t believe their was one candidate who argued or was asked their plans to lift this state out of 50th place in any meaningful comparison of the States.

The race so far can be summarized this way: two colorful contestants are gaffe prone and swerve on and off the road while checking their hair in the rearview mirror, one contestant is playing it so safe that he’s taking his half the road out of the middle, afraid to say anything incase a gaffe slips out.  The fourth candidate can’t seem to gain enough traction to get their campaign off the start line.  The problem for me in this race is that three candidates are playing stall ball while trying to polish up their Establishment Repub bonafides.  The fourth candidate is, at least, different, but has a heck of an uphill climb against the Good Old People and has a few image problems of her own.

A plea…Instead of putting on a Republican coat and telling who you are like or not like, tell who you really are, what makes you tick, tell us what you really believe.  Be a leader instead of an office seeker.

 http://www.thestate.com/politics/story/1133023.html.

“Realistically, the cap-and-trade bills in the House and the Senate are going nowhere….They’re not business-friendly enough, and they don’t lead to meaningful energy independence,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.) told the New York Times. Graham is working on a package of job-creating energy initiatives, ranging from the expansion of offshore drilling to the building of wind turbines and new nuclear power plants.”

Nope, expect a repackaged plan.

via Graham: Cap and Tax ‘Going Nowhere’ – Daniel Foster – The Corner on National Review Online.

“According North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling, Spratt leads Republicans state Sen. Mick Mulvaney 46-39 and Albert Spencer 46-37. By a 42-41 margin, more of those surveyed said they disapproved of Spratt’s job performance.”