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DOUBLE STANDARDS
A 13-year-old Anderson boy has been suspended from school twice for
wearing a jacket with a Confederate flag on it. The principal and district
trustees for Lakeside Middle School consider the symbol "disruptive," and
ordered James Kingley to take the flag off his jacket.
Perhaps James' jacket could be flown from the State House. According
to the magnolia-sniffing lunatics who run that asylum, there is nothing
disruptive about displaying the banner over our seat of government.
THE WHOLE WORLD IS LAUGHING
Gov. Beasley professes to be "absolutely livid" about the Department
of Energy's plans to store more foreign spent nuclear fuel at the Savannah
River Site, and may once again sue the Feds. Beasley is threatening court
action in spite of the fact that he lost the same fight last year.
To those uninitiated in Republican nuclear politics, it may seem that
Beasley has been born once again as an environmentalist. Actually, his
"outraged" posturing is really part of a Republican jobs program to keep
the aging bomb plant's payroll the biggest in the state.
While Beasley terrifies the public over the prospect of 19 metric tons
of used foreign fuel coming to SRS, he and Sen. Strom Thurmond are working
behind the scenes to get the Feds to agree that SRS is a great place to
send 40,000 metric tons of spent fuel from America's commercial nuclear
power plants.
Beasley and Thurmond are willing to sell out the Nonproliferation
Treaty (requiring the U.S. to take back used nuclear fuel we sold to
foreign countries to prevent it from falling into "the wrong hands") to
pressure the Feds to keep pouring money and jobs into SRS. (Beasley,
et. al., didn't notice that shipping spent fuel to SRS is an
environmental hazard until there was no money in it.)
The amount of foreign nuclear waste being shipped to SRS is a drop in
the atomic bucket there. The real environmental threat is the Republican's
backdoor scam to bring commercial waste to SRS for reprocessing.
Beasley claims to oppose foreign fuel rods coming to South Carolina
because "there is no responsible long-term management plan for their
ultimate storage."
Real environmentalists remember that it was Beasley who
single-handedly trashed a responsible long-term management plan for
low-level radioactive waste when he pulled South Carolina out of the
compact and kept America's nuclear waste rolling into Barnwell.
Real environmentalists don't expect anything different from political
opportunists who make a career of selling our state out to corporate
polluters, but they are livid that The State newspaper and other
mainstream media don't have enough sense, or guts, to reveal the
governor's atomic hypocrisy.
ANOTHER HELPING OF CROW, MR. KNOTTS?
Rep. Jakie Knotts (R-Lexington), that defender of all things local,
owes Judy Clarke an apology. Clarke, a USC law school graduate, was
working as a public defender in Oregon when her old friend David Bruck
asked Judge William Howard to appoint her to help him with the Susan Smith
trial.
Knotts is a former Golden Gloves boxer who suffers from an extreme
form of xenophobia that leaves him unable to trust anyone outside of West
Columbia.
Because of Clarke's appointment, Knotts introduced legislation that
resulted in South Carolina being the only state in the nation that
prohibits judges from appointing out-of-state lawyers to defend indigents.
In a display of selflessness that should cause Knotts his greatest
case of heartburn since his last triple helping of bar-b-que, Clarke
donated the $83,000 she earned on the Smith case to the state's
Post-Conviction Defenders Organization.
TOALGATE?
The governor may have pledged his forgiveness, but David's Dad is
holding on to a grudge against Supreme Court Justice Jean Toal. Toal voted
with the majority of the court to overturn a $13 million award to Dick
Beasley's car dealership in a case against Toyota.
The court was not amused when Beasley's lawyers used charts that
depicted squinty-eyed caricatures of orientals to represent Toyota.
As long as we let the legislature choose judges from their own ranks,
the process is clearly political. Toal had the misfortune of being the
first Democratic justice to come up for reelection since the Beasley
administration took control.
The most serious accusations to surface during the most lengthy
judicial hearings in history, and the first this century for a sitting
justice, was that Toal swore, smoked cigars and tended to be bossy.
Critics of the process noted that this describes most of the judges in
the state. Toal is the only female among nine Supreme and 40 Circuit Court
judges.
When papa Beasley was digging around for muck to sling at Toal, they
discovered that the official audiotape of Beasley's day in court was
blank.
The anti-Toal forces have been trying to get the FBI to check the tape
to see if it has been erased or whether the machine malfunctioned as the
court claims. Rumor has it that the FBI has asked for the tape.
Folks in Darlington County learned not to mess with Dick Beasley long
ago.
BETTER THAN DAYTIME TV
Faithful Lips readers know about the deal worked out in 1994 between
Carroll Campbell and David Beasley.
Campbell agreed to support Beasley for governor. In return, Beasley
would appoint Campbell to Strom Thurmond's Senate seat after Strom sets
the longevity record in 1997 and retires (or completely ceases to
function).
Under this plan, Campbell gets to pick up another couple of million
bucks from the private sector (he gets a million annually from his
insurance industry job and picks up spare change from service on corporate
boards) and Thurmond gets to set the record.
Beasley, with Campbell's support, would then take Fritz Holling's
Senate seat in 1998 and the dynamic duo would serve the Great State of
South Carolina well into the next millennium.
The wild card in this well-stacked deck is our own whacky Sec. of
State  the man who would do away with his own job Jim Miles.
Miles tells Thurmond supporters he's running against Fritz. To
Republicans who think that Strom's big stick is getting limp, Miles admits
he's going to run against Thurmond.
If Miles gets into the primary against Thurmond the carefully crafted
Campbell/Beasley/Thurmond deal goes to hell and all bets are off. Campbell
may then be forced into a primary against both Miles and Thurmond. Smart
money would be on Campbell in this contest, and place side bets on him as
the Republican that could beat Democrat Elliott Close.
Another reason Campbell wants to keep the scheme alive and not be
forced into a race against Miles is his hopes for a Dole victory in 1996.
Campbell figures that a Dole presidency should provide him with a nice
Cabinet seat. Hell, he can always be Senator, Secretary of Something would
look good on the résumé.
Miles, to our triumvirate's chagrin, is in no hurry to declare against
Thurmond. He has until April 30 to file for the office, and if the battle
over reapportionment isn't resolved, the filing date could be pushed back
until June.
Bill Crystal, a Republican opinion-maker who helped craft the Contract
with America, recently predicted that Thurmond has two choices: run and
lose or retire.
Thurmond's Republican colleagues are also pressuring Strom to retire.
If he runs and wins, rumor has it that he will be asked to resign as
chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee.
Another scenario has Campbell content with his current position in
life. "Some people with money went into politics to get power," noted one
Democrat. "Campbell went into politics to get the power to make money. For
a guy who ran a pool hall and parking lots, knocking down well over a
million a year is more alluring than being a public servant."
THURMOND'S LAST STAND?
Most South Carolinians didn't hear about Sen. Strom Thurmond's lonely
battle to protect us from a ballistic missile attack. The mainstream
failed to report that Thurmond was the only hold out in the entire Senate
refusing to vote for the START II agreement limiting nuclear weapons.
Thurmond threatened to filibuster against passage of the treaty
because Clinton's defense budget didn't provide for the Star Wars defense
system that Thurmond still supports.
In January, Thurmond was finally convinced that Nikita Kruschev had
removed his missiles from Cuba, and START II passed the Senate.
RENDERED ASUNDER
Though same sex marriages are not legal in any state in the Union, Rep
Gary Simrill (R-York) has introduced legislation that would make such
unions illegal in South Carolina just in case.
It will be interesting to see if Simrill and the other members of the
government off our backs and into our bedrooms caucus will support House
bill 4071.
This bill, introduced by black caucus members Inabinett, Neal, J.
Brown and Kennedy, is a joint resolution proposing an amendment to Article
III, Section 33 of the state constitution. If the bill passes the
legislature, voters this November will have an opportunity to delete the
law that states, "The marriage of a white person with a Negro or mulatto,
or person who shall have one-eighth or more of Negro blood, shall be
unlawful and void."
MEASURING MILES
Oblivious to the fact that his party's leadership isn't really
interested in doing anything to further Jim Mile's political career, Rep.
Doug Smith (R-Spartanburg) has presented legislation to do away with the
office of the Sec. of State.
Miles, in a show of ultimate obeisance to the Republican mantra of
Less Government, recently proposed that his office could be dissolved.
According to the Miles, his most important functions, keeping track of
notary publics, corporations and the registered subversive, could be done
by other state agencies for less money.
While Smith's bill seems to be perfect ammo for the Republican assault
on unnecessary government, House Speaker David Wilkins and other
Beasley/Campbell faithfuls don't want to support anything that could make
Miles into a populist hero.
Smith's bill may be a referendum on the Sec. of State's political
future. If the bill dies in committee, it reflects that the Beasley boys
consider Miles a threat.
LIMBAUGH SHOWS HIS BUTT
We just hope there weren't any children watching the obnoxious
behavior of the Republican legislator's doing lunch at Valerie's in
Columbia the other day.
"They were loud, and demanding," according to one witness, "and they
didn't leave a tip."
Reps. Ron Fulmer (R-Charleston), Doug Smith (R-Spartanburg) and Hunter
Limbaugh (R-Florence), known in some circles as the "Nazi Caucus," were
joined by Rep. Johnny Tucker (D-Anderson). You remember Tucker, the
Democrat who was rejected when he tried to switch parties because he was
pro-choice.
When the foursome left the restaurant and passed in front of the
state Democratic office Limbaugh, in what was apparently a subtle critique
of the Clinton administration's attempts to regulate tobacco sales,
flipped his cigarette butt at the enemy headquarters.
CHAIN GANG CAUCUS
"The time has come to bring chain gangs back to South Carolina," said
Atty. Gen. Charlie Condon in January. Condon wants to change the state law
that requires people sentenced to more than three months to stay in their
own county and serve on convict labor crews.
"We're talking about deadbeat types who need to be punished," Condon
said. "It's mostly people convicted of traffic offenses and fraud."
Since statistics indicate that our legislators have a much greater
chance of being busted for traffic offenses than the general population,
it is unlikely they will support Condon's attempts to change the law.
REDEFINING ETHICS
Lips revealed several months ago that there were ethical
considerations in the prevalent practice of Republican legislators sending
fundraising solicitations to registered lobbyists.
It was noted that many registered environmental lobbyist routinely
received invitations to Republican fundraisers because they were on the
lobbyists list.
The state Ethics Commission released a statement last month that said
lobbyists who "inadvertently" get invited to contribute to political
fund-raisers can pass those invitations on to their clients.
Lobbyists are barred from making campaign donations but the
solicitations can be "forwarded" to clients who have a financial interest
in affecting the political process, as long as the lobbyists don't
recommend that their clients make a contribution.
This is an advanced Republican concept referred to in the trade as
"surgical ethics."
SLEAZEBALL OF THE MONTH
This month's Sleazeball Award goes to the state employee who has filed
the most suits against the federal government since taking office. This
sleazeball has no regard for the Constitution and would have been a hero
during the Tillman administration. He has compared his opposition to voter
registration to the battle for the Alamo.
Be the first caller to identify this month's sleasebag and win a free
trial subscription to POINT.
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