Haley Watch: Watch out Canada, Queen Nikki is on the way

Photo of Governor Haley comes from her ex-boyfriend Will Folks' website, FITSnews.





I used to do most of my Haleyating on the radio.

During our broadcast-hiatus, I've greatly missed my regular chance to dump all over our hyper-conservative (but nonetheless pretty randy) governor. So, making up for that today.

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Last month, Queen Nikki made a royal fool of herself by telling employers to stay out of South Carolina.

Wait, what?!? Stay OUT, you ask?

Yes, she told them to stay out... IF they bring those dreaded, scary unionized employees with them, that is:

GREENVILLE, S.C. — South Carolina loves its manufacturing jobs from BMW, Michelin and Boeing and wants more.

But Gov. Nikki Haley says they're not welcome if they're bringing a unionized workforce.

"It's not something we want to see happen," she said after an appearance at an automotive conference in downtown. "We discourage any companies that have unions from wanting to come to South Carolina because we don't want to taint the water."

In a recent vote at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., the company remained neutral about bringing in the United Auto Workers. VW had said it favors the creation of a German-style "works council," which gives workers a voice on a variety of products and other decisions.

U.S. law requires a union to represent employees for a company to form a works council.

State Sen. Vincent Sheheen, Haley's Democratic opponent in this year's gubernatorial race, said he thinks South Carolina should remain a right-to-work state where workers are free to decide whether to join unions.

"But I also think that if Ford Motor Co. wanted to bring 10,000 jobs to South Carolina, we would welcome them with open arms," Sheheen said.

"We need good, high-paying jobs in South Carolina," he said. "Part of leadership is putting ideology and partisanship to the side when there's something that could be good for South Carolina."

Haley isn't the first South Carolina Republican to reflect the South's traditional anti-union bias, but she's been especially outspoken against unions inserting themselves as mediators between workers and their employers.

GOP animosity toward unions grew red-hot in South Carolina during Haley's first year as governor after the National Labor Relations Board went to court to block the Boeing Co. from making its Dreamliner jet at a new factory in North Charleston.

The NLRB argued that Boeing had built the plant in right-to-work South Carolina in retaliation for past union strikes at the company's Puget Sound operations but ultimately dropped the complaint.

Haley has continued to remind voters of what the agency tried to do and did it again Wednesday while appearing here at the South Carolina Automotive Summit, an annual conference for the state's auto industry.

The governor urged more than 200 people at the conference, many of them auto industry executives, to keep up their guard against unions.

"They're coming into South Carolina. They're trying," Haley warned. "We're hearing it. The good news is it's not working."

Haley promised to keep fighting against union penetration.

"You've heard me say many times I wear heels. It's not for a fashion statement," she said. "It's because we're kicking them every day, and we'll continue to kick them."

State Secretary of Commerce Bobby Hitt said he couldn't recall the last time a company with a unionized workforce approached his agency about establishing a new plant in South Carolina.

"Companies that are traditional union companies don't seem to come looking for an operation in South Carolina," said Hitt, a former BMW executive whom Haley appointed. "I think our brand and our image precedes us in that regard."

Commerce officials inquire about an economic development prospect's labor traditions, he said.

"But we've never told someone outright no," Hitt said. "I think we've never gotten to that."

President Lewis Gossett of the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance, which has organized the automotive conference here the past three years, said he thinks Haley is "dead on" about unions.

"Organized labor has no place down here," Gossett said. "We don't need them. We don't need them to replicate what they've done in the Midwest and the Northeast. The governor gets that. And she's taken some very strong stands about it, and we love it."

However, Erin McKee, president of the South Carolina chapter of the AFL-CIO, said she doesn't think Haley is helping.

South Carolinians "have the right to have good jobs, and if those are union jobs, they're union jobs," McKee said. "And to keep jobs from coming here because they're union, I don't think she's representing the people."

Well, at least the unions can recognize a direct insult when they hear one. Any word from the Dems, besides that rather lackluster, lame-ass reply from Sheheen?

Hello, but are you kidding? (Welcome to South Carolina!) The Democrats here are busy pretending to be Republicans, so they do not criticize Governor Haley. The Democrats here, with extremely few exceptions, do not say BOO to Queen Nikki. They are terrified they might actually get elected and have to do something.

I mean, nothing they have done "works" (gets them elected)--so you figure they might try something different, right? Like actually going after Queen Nikki before she totally bankrupts the state? If Haley is re-elected, we can count on four more years of total neglect of this state's roads, agencies, fire departments and schools... which is apparently acceptable to the Democratic party, since none of the Democrats seem too awful worried about it.

Governor Haley was also recently bragging about another junket, another fun new vacation for the Queen, on our dime. But looking at her web page, I can't find it. Hm. Her last weekly schedule was posted on March 10th. I guess she finally remembered she was running for re-election, and decided to shut up about the junkets.

Oh wait, here it is (and why isn't this posted on the governor's official news site?):

COLUMBIA, SC — Gov. Nikki Haley is heading to Canada to recruit jobs [in March], her office said Tuesday.

She will join three S.C. Department of Commerce officials and former U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins on the three-day trip that starts March 31 in Toronto before she heads to Ottawa and Montreal.

Wilkins, now an attorney in private practice in Greenville, is paying for his portion of the trip, the governor's office said.

Haley will meet with companies already in the state as well as new prospects. She also will speak to business groups.

She is going to Canada for "jobs"--uh huh. Just like she went to Germany and France (page down HERE for the gory details) to the tune of $127,000--also supposedly for "jobs"--and um, where ARE those jobs, Governor?

(((crickets)))

I'm sure this Canadian trip will be just as successful as that one was.

At least it's cheaper and she isn't taking a delegation of two dozen with her this time. At least she isn't just flushing a million dollars of our taxes down the toilet. Then again, if there are no immediate results for South Carolina, she HAS flushed more of our money down the drain, she just isn't telling us HOW MUCH this time.

Please, get rid of this woman. Please, please, please...

Random worries over the future of online social justice

VINTAGE CAR OF THE MONTH! Any guesses on the year? I will take a wild guess and say 1975. (Can Volkswagens last that long?)

I took this shot at Greenville County Square on Saturday, right before the March Against Monsanto.


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My wee Tumblr blog doesn't get much attention... not sure why I started it, except that now I can officially "like" other people's entries. Still no comments allowed though! Such a weird system; I still find the 'nesting' thoroughly confusing and I frequently can't decipher who has said what.

I recently posted THIS on Tumblr... to me, some of the most shocking content I could ever have posted. (Then again, that statement probably just shows my age.) It's a photo I took at the Fort Sumter museum in Charleston, of a slave tag. Lots of people don't realize that enslaved African-Americans wore identifying tags (like animals), so I thought I would share the photo. I also included a slavery-era poster warning northern blacks (in Boston) against approaching police, who were then-empowered as bounty hunters (aka "slave catchers"). These two displays in aforesaid museum had the cumulative effect of shooting me right through the heart. I may even have shed some tears. But on Tumblr? Not a big deal--I got one "like" and one reblog. And that's it.

History is bunk, as Henry Ford schooled us.

I recently read a Wiki about a Tumblr blogger I have been following for some time. I consider this individual little more than an amusing hysteric/abusive psycho-nuisance, but when she has emotional meltdowns (often, as psycho-nuisances usually do), she unwittingly provides us with some first-class comedy relief. I was startled to read that this person is regarded as "serious social-justice" (is "social-justice" now a noun for a certain type of radical poseur on Tumblr?). And I am wondering--how is that possible? Serious social-justice?!? Saints preserve us.

This person has done nothing but vent endlessly (several times a day, usually) in a self-righteous, pseudo-political fashion, using all the trendy lefty buzzwords of the day. She has never done ANY political organizing or actual community-work in real life. At least, if she has, she has never mentioned it. And since every single wayward hypochondriacal symptom and every meal eaten and every DVD viewed is carefully cataloged and shared with her legions of fans, I think we would have heard all about any ACTUAL SOCIAL JUSTICE work by now. In excruciating detail.

And yet, this person is considered "serious social-justice"; its enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

This might go a long way towards explaining why this current generation faces endless wars (plural) they seem disinclined to stop, much less actually protest against. After all, it's been left to their poor and immigrant peers (along with computers and drones) to actually fight these wars, so what is the harm? They have far bigger fish to fry, like picking apart other bloggers for using the wrong trendy words and/or having the wrong opinions. (And even though they loooove to see racism and ethnic bias under every rock, they don't see their blatant disregard for the people their country is bombing, as racism and/or xenophobia, as it certainly is.) This explains why there are all these "social justice warriors" on Tumblr, and yet they have had no impact at all, ZERO INFLUENCE, in the public square. None. Zip. Tumblr is like a fantasy-land, a computer game, and "social justice" is one of the colorful environments chosen as background, just like choices of locations in Farmville.

Very, very few Tumblrites have even commented on the current government shutdown, so it seems obvious none are receiving WIC (as I once did, which I mentioned on the air last week) or utilizing HEAD START or are immediately affected by government in any other way. In fact, very few mentioned the long-awaited roll-out of Obamacare. I have not seen any of them discuss the pros and cons of Obamacare... in fact, its all fulminating, with little mention of real life events or the ramifications of various political policies.

It's disheartening, even frightening. I hope this is not the future. If it's only one FRAGMENT of the future, I can handle it. But I hope this is not what "social justice" eventually devolves to: SOCIAL JUSTICE FARMVILLE! GET COOL CARTOON IMPLEMENTS FOR VIRTUAL COMPOSTING! BUY CHICKENS THAT LAY ONLY FREE RANGE VIRTUAL EGGS! And don't forget to put down the people with the ordinary chickens for not being cool. Otherwise, where's the fun in that?

(War? What war?)

Volkswagen sucks

Volkswagen is using Ted Nugent's misogynist "Stranglehold" in a commercial. The major controversy online seems to be why the Motor City Madman (as he is known), would endorse a German car, which is some major Detroit heresy. Nobody cares about the woman-killing in the song.

This isn't the first time the song has been used in ads (the instrumental parts of the song are great), but it IS the first time the lyrics, "I got you in a stranglehold, babbehhhh!" have been included.

It makes me furious enough never to buy a VW for as long as I live, and yes, I AM poor and I WAS considering it, so your loss, Volkswagen!!!

Time for some pertinent questions to all the 'men's rights' folks (anti-feminists, mostly) I have currently been arguing with online:

When is the last time a woman's song about strangling a man was in a TV commercial? For a major world corporation?

Further, when did any woman even RECORD one?

Has a woman ever strangled a man in the history of the WORLD, who wasn't safely drugged or ASLEEP? (The song is obviously about the sheer delight of violent struggle; if she was asleep, he never would have written it, too boring.)

If a woman did indeed write and record such a song, would it be a big million-selling heavy-metal album? Would the woman who recorded it be accepted as a rich Republican donor in good standing (as Nugent is) and given a steady gig at the Washington Times (as Nugent is), or would she be considered a major loony-tune man-killer?

Totally laughable, isn't it?

There simply isn't any equivalent, and that is why I use the word PATRIARCHY: because we live in one.

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Blogger is currently all screwed up and has been for about a month now. It will not allow me (and lots of other bloggers) to update the blog-links list. So if you think your blog belongs on it, and it's not, you are probably right.

Blogs I have tried to add to my illustrious list:

Cheap Signals (Hi Gretchen!)

Shuffle (Carolina's indie music scene)

The Good Men Project (sometimes I can post there, and sometimes I can't, for mysterious reasons)

ClarenceGrad72 (Hi Becky!)

Consider this a consolation prize for not being able to update my link list.

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A little fun on the website titled your past life diagnosis. Here is mine:

I don't know how you feel about it, but you were male in your last earthly incarnation. You were born somewhere in the territory of modern USA South-West around the year 800. Your profession was that of a map maker, astrologer, astronomer.

Your brief psychological profile in your past life:

Timid, constrained, quiet person. You had creative talents, which waited until this life to be liberated. Sometimes your environment considered you strange.

The lesson that your last past life brought to your present incarnation:

Your main task is to make the world more beautiful. Physical and spiritual deserts are just waiting for your touch. Keep smiling!

Do you remember now?

Well, okay, that is a random computer program and relatively dopey... but... do you remember my Groundhog Day post here and how I described feeling unaccountably drawn to Chaco Canyon? That would be the place and time-frame described above, the time of the Anasazi, and now I am a bit spooked. (I love maps AND astrology.)

Probably just a coincidence, she muttered, reaching for her Tarot.