lindaketner.com Blog

When you’re the CEO of a state, you CANNOT go AWOL.  PERIOD. 

AND, I’m sorry folks, but my heart hurts for the humanity and pain he showed in that rambling press conference.   Could we all take a deep breath and admit politicians are human?  They fall in love and go crazy.  They work on it, regret it, try to do the right thing if they are good people … and sometimes it just doesn’t work out like the book says. 

I’m not talking about sleezy stuff.  I’m talking about being totally committed to your ideals, your God, your family … AND, falling short of what you want to be.  Sometimes all the self discipline and religion gets flumoxed by that humanity.  

So Mark Sanford, Jenny, your young boys, Maria and your 2 children … I’m with you … and God help you all. Literally. 

That AND … you simply don’t go AWOL when you are the Governor.  It’s about us then and not you  - when you took the oath of office, you agreed to let 4 million people rely on you.  If you go a little crazy, it’s your job to make sure we’re covered.   You don’t get the choice to go that crazy.

Could we hold BOTH/AND in our heads and hearts for goodness sake?  Could we let him be human and hold him accountable?   Could we respect the pain of all of it, and say “no” to part of it.   I’d like to think we could.

Does anyone know if this is accurate?  If it is, I agree with Brown about the global bailout money, and want to know to what specific “pet projects” he refers.   Anyone got depth on this?

Representative Henry Brown Press Release

WASHINGTON- Congressman Henry E. Brown Jr. (R- SC) expressed disappointment with the $105.8 billion FY 2009 Supplemental Appropriations Act Conference Report that was passed in the House today. Citing the large amounts of nonessential spending and the reduced financial support for our troops in Iraq in Afghanistan, Brown made the following statement on the conference report after the vote:

“The Democrats are playing politics with our troops in order to provide more than $28.7 billion for their unnecessary pet projects and to further increase our national debt as a legacy for our children and grandchildren.

The War Supplemental should be just that, funding for our troops. However, after many back room meetings, Democrats tacked $9.1 billion of wasteful spending onto the once clean bill, while removing $4.1 billion from the Department of Defense, ironically the only area where the funds from this legislation were truly owed.

The money stripped from our troops protecting our security in Iraq and Afghanistan was then reallocated to provide the International Monetary Fund (IMF) with $5 billion (to provide $108 billion of loan guarantees), money that will serve as a global bailout for some of the world’s most economically irresponsible and socially reprehensible nations like Argentina, Russia, Venezuela, Sudan and Iran.

Additionally, the final conference report does not include language to prevent the release of GITMO detainee photos and lightens the language regarding the detainees’ relocation, making it easier for the Administration to transfer them to other countries or even to locations in the U.S.

When did it become a priority in this country to provide for suspect and enemy nations and to protect the rights of terrorists over the security of American citizens?

My Republican colleagues and I strongly supported the initial version of the troop funding bill when it passed the House last month. That bill was free of the global bailout money and focused on giving our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan the resources they need for success. It is a shame that these original ideals were not upheld with the final report of this legislation.”

 Dear Wonderful Friends and Supporters,

I want you to be among the first to know that I will not be running for the First District Congressional seat in 2010.   I have also told Robert Burton and Leon Stavrinakis, both of whom were nice enough to delay their decision making process until I made up my mind.     I appreciate their courtesy and regard and I know that if either decides to run, we will be well represented.  We’re in good hands!

What will I be doing?  Working (with you I hope) to: 

1.            eliminate lobbyist money to campaigns.  Among other things, it has been – and continues to be – responsible for disastrous Congressional decisions regarding our economy.

(http://lindaketner.com/blog/?p=97)

2.       develop 21st century energy technology and production here in South Carolina for a growing economy and plenty of well paying jobs.

(http://www.conservationvotersofsc.org/public/files/docs/Wind_Study-Rigas.pdf)

3.       block every dangerous way that South Carolina tries to make easy money – such as becoming a nuclear and solid waste dump; building coal plants that spew mercury and poison our rivers; using 7,000 more trucks per day (rather than rail) to move cargo from our port when we now are five times higher than the recommended levels for particulate matter in the air.  

(http://www.lindaketner.com/Energy.html)

4.       improve public education, which is the individual’s opportunity for the American Dream; AND, the state’s foundation for a strong economy.   Exceptional public education is also the most important step in eliminating the crippling poverty that exists within 5 miles of any one of us.

5.       help women get elected to South Carolina government.  We’re 50th in the nation for women in elected office (the only state with no women in the State Senate;  we have the fewest number of women in the State House; none in Congess; none in statewide office).

Will I ever run again and if so for what?  

I probably will run again and will look carefully at the environment in 2012 for an opportunity where I might be able to serve and make a difference.  In the meantime, I’m going to be working– with you – to build a better South Carolina!  

As always, I thank you for who you are and the difference that you make!

Very best,

Linda

I’ve always been resolute about never outing anyone, believing strongly that every person gets to decide when or if he or she comes out.

I let myself and others down in a recent off-the-record chat with a reporter.  I obviously don’t have knowledge of the sexual orientation of any individuals mentioned.  What I do have is respect and appreciation for their service to this state.

My sincerest apologies to any of you rightfully upset with me.

Linda

1.  First Letter:

Dear Senators DeMint, Graham and Representative Brown (or your Congressman),

As I hope that you know, those protections were put in place by the Roosevelt Administration to make sure that a Great Depression never happened again.   The Act put walls between commercial banking, investment banking and the insurance industry because - does this sound familiar? - immediately prior to the Great Depression, banks had been using and losing depositors’ money in risky  investments.

Dear Gentlemen,

ONE example, sirs - one with which I hope that you are familiar.  It’s the deal Treasury and the Federal Reserve made with Citigroup.  A deal where $301 Billion TAXPAYER dollars bought 90% of Citigroup’s LOSSES.  And when Citigroup is profitable again?   Well THEY get 100% of  the profits.    Heads they win, tails we lose!   

Gentlemen,

From Energy there was money from Chevron, Exxon, National Fuel Gas Assctn., Edison Electric, Propane Gas Assctn., Nuclear Fuel Services, Energy Future Holdings Corporation and many, MANY more!  

     Patrick Caddell (right in photo) was born in Charleston,  moved away as a child, and returned to the lowcountry several years ago.  He has written an incredible piece on how South Carolinians can reclaim state government, and why we must.

If you don’t know Pat, whom I am lucky enough to call friend, the New York Times says he probably has more experience in presidential politics than anyone in the United States.  He has worked on five presidential campaigns as pollster and strategist; was consultant, writer and producer to West Wing; and, frequently spars with  Hannity, Coulter, etc. on Fox News.

Patrick sought me out during the Congressional Campaign because we shared similar thoughts about the Glass Stegall Act and its impact on America’s economic disaster.   In finding our campaign, he reunited with long time friend Bill Romjue, my Campaign Manager, who is also a legend in Presidential politics.

Bottom-line, Patrick is brilliant and his article is brilliant.  Please read and comment!  Click here for Patrick’s article.

Best,
Linda

Congressman Brown sent a letter to the Georgetown Times thanking those who helped extinguish the devestating fires in Horry County.   In it however, he didn’t mention his plans for defending the constituent who started the fire.  Hmmmm.

Brown fought for years to defend himself against the exact same charge leveled against the originator of the fire in Horry County: burning on a no-burn, red-flag day.  He even spent $100,000 of tax-payer money to beat the $4,000 fine.   We would expect him to do no less for a constituent … unless of course, it was about his expectation of special treatment as alleged in the whistleblower complaint.

If you want (and lots of us DO want), you can hear/see/learn only that which reinforces your view of the world.   There’s a television channel for people who think just like you.  There’s a blog.  There’s a website.  There’s a radio channel.  There are even specific churches full of people who think JUST LIKE YOU.

I hate that.

I long for the days when Walter Cronkite, David Brinkley, Chet Huntley REPORTED the news as opposed to opining on it!  I long for the days when journalism was a profession with very strict professional ethics rather than the entertainment and sensational dregs much of it is today.

I long for the time when broadcast media didn’t spend huge chunks of time going over the emails and twitters of the very-opinionated-but-not-so-well-informed, Everyman. 

Blogs that cater to the anonymous loony, angry clientele are the worst - and the crazy ones are the most popular.   I believe they can actually harm the psyche, spirit, and be a catalyst for violence.

What I want?  Someone to give me facts and information … and let ME make up my mind.   Is that too much to ask?

Let me even SEEK OUT different viewpoints, study and learn other perspectives on issues.  It seems to me that by seeing an issue from a number of different vantage points, I’ll have a fuller picture and understanding of it.   Remember the elephant and the blind men story on perspectives?   Same applies!

This is an excellent article from the “State” about Tax Credits for Private Schools. 

I’m sitll waiting for someone to tell me where the $1billion in scholarship money will come from for our state’s 191,000 children living in poverty.  Their parents won’t get a tax credit because they don’t make enough to pay income tax. 

And how many scholarships do you think will be available to the best local private schools whose tuition and fees are $10,000-$20,000?   

There’s a reason that the Chamber of Commerce is against this sham.  We will never be able to compete globally - much less nationally - with an undereducated population.

School choice gets push
Slow economy could impact bill revisited this week
By GINA SMITH
gnsmith@thestate.com

Small private schools that charge tuition of $2,000 to $3,000 a year could be setting the stage for one of the most aggressive “school choice” pushes yet in South Carolina.

After three failed school choice bills in the past four years, the schools — increasingly racially diverse, organized and outspoken — are backing the latest tax credit plan for parents who send their children to private schools.

Their fight will take center stage Thursday when a panel of senators considers the Education Opportunity Act. That proposal would give tax credits to parents who send their students to private schools, or a different public school or who home-school.

A decade of slipping enrollment and the economic recession are lighting a fire under the smaller private schools, those with enrollments of about 200 students and less and tuition of $2,000 to $3,000 a year.
The schools say they have space for more students and, they add, the proposed tax credits would cover tuition for most students.

“We have capacity, and we welcome new students,” said Huey Mills, president of the S.C. Association of Christian Schools, which represents between 12,000 and 13,000 students, down from 16,000 a decade ago.
The tax credit plan could drive up enrollment.

“We’re all holding our breath,” said Mills, who is advising his 85 member schools to prepare two budgets for next year — one with their current enrollment and one with a 10 percent cut due to hard economic times.

Public schools, reeling from state budget cuts, say the bill will siphon off money they desperately need. They anticipate eliminating about 1,600 jobs to offset state budget cuts, according to a recent survey.
“It’s unconscionable, in my view, to cut money from public schools when we’re already being cut to the bone,” said Frank Morgan, superintendent of the Kershaw County School district, which will eliminate more than 30 jobs and cut programs before next school year.

THE NEW FACE OF SCHOOL CHOICE?
Critics of the tax credit plan say it will benefit primarily parents who already have their children in private school, partially offsetting tuition, which can soar past $15,000 a year.

They also question whether private schools — some started as whites-only segregation academies — truly are accepting of diversity and would admit many public school students or operate in depressed areas.   The state Department of Education also says it’s unlikely that many S.C. families who live in poverty will be able to use the tax credits.

“South Carolina’s struggling public schools are nearly all in high-poverty communities,” said Jim Foster, Education Department spokesman. “The kids get free transportation to and from school. They get free breakfasts and free lunches at school. Their fees are waived. Their field trip costs are waived.

“Tax credits won’t help these kids attend private school, even if they meet the admission requirements. And if they somehow get a scholarship that pays every dime of their tuition, how do they get to school? Who pays for their breakfast and lunch? How do they get home in the afternoon? Who pays the additional costs that public schools currently pick up?”

Shonda Simpkins, who runs a private Christian school for girls on 45 acres in rural Edgefield, says poor families will take advantage of the credits.

Most of the students at ShadeTree Academy for Girls are African-American, as Simpkins is.

They come from poor homes. Some have been abused or abandoned or are struggling with other problems in their lives, said Simpkins, who said she too grew up in a troubled home.

Corporate and private donations pay for her school. Students can’t afford the $5,500-a-year tuition.
Simpkins said she’s part of a growing group of people of color who back the bill. State Sen. Robert Ford, an African-American Democrat from Charleston, is one of the bill’s lead sponsors.

“We don’t know how long we can depend on private investors and corporations because of the state of the economy,” said Simpkins, who says her Christian-based approach helps her students in ways public schools cannot. “We’re giving hope and investing in South Carolina. I think our parents should be supported in that (with tax credits).”

THE MONEY QUESTION
Many of these smaller private schools contend the bill is a financial win-win for private and public schools.
“How can it hurt the public schools when they are left with money even after children leave?” said Chad Connelly, board chairman of Newberry Academy, a private school with 249 students but space for about 100 more. Tuition is about $3,000 per year. “Both sides will win if this passes.”

Under the bill, when a child leaves a public school and opts for a private one, half of state education dollars would continue to go to the public school district — even though the child no longer attends that district.
But public school advocates say the proposal would hurt.

“Say four kids leave a public school (to attend a private one),” said Debbie Elmore, spokeswoman for the S.C. School Boards Association. “You haven’t eliminated the need for a teacher and principal, the buses to transport students. You haven’t eliminated the lights and the heat that have to be cut on.

“All of the overhead costs are still there. You haven’t reduced your costs. What you have done is eliminated some of the revenue the school would have received for those four students.”

Reach Smith at (803) 771-8658.

Susan Boyle

If you never get anything more from this blog, you will have gotten the best today … click on picture of Ms. Susan Boyle above.  You’ll never forget her.  And next time it feels undoable, remember Susan who has never been kissed and lives only with her cat, Piddles.

Lyrics:

I dreamed a dream in times gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung
No wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we’ll live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So much different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed
The dream I dreamed.

QUESTION:  If and when do you think that South Carolina will accept civil (not religious) marriage for same-sex partners?

For an update on the Vermont legislature over-ride of the Governor’s veto on same-sex marriage, see Madeleine Kunan’s article (Ms. Kunan was the first woman Governor of Vermont) click here.

Iowa and Vermont join Massachusetts and Connecticut as the four states with full marriage rights for same-sex couples.  Click here for an article by the Wall Street Journal; and here for a discussion on movement toward marriage equality in New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and California. 

The Iowa Supreme Court today became the first US. state supreme court in history to strike down a state statute barring gay marriage. 

Do you think this was the right decision?

Click here to read the full Washington Post article.

This makes incredible sense to me.  How about you?
From Thomas Friedman, NYT, April 2, 2009

“The old system, which has reached its financial and environmental limits, worked like this: We built more and more stores in America to sell more and more stuff, which was made in more and more Chinese factories powered by more and more coal that earned more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills that got recycled back to America in the form of cheap credit to build more and more stores and more and more houses that gave rise to more and more Chinese factories. …

This system was a powerful engine of wealth creation and lifted millions out of poverty, but it relied upon the risks to the Market and to Mother Nature being underpriced and to profits being privatized in good times and losses socialized in bad times. This capitalist engine doesn’t need to be discarded; it needs some fixes. For starters, we need to get back to basics — accountable lending, prudent saving, reasonable leverage and, most important, more engineering of goods than just financial products.”   

The EPA, after more than a decade of snoozing and supporting the groups they were obligated to be protecting us against, is testing air quality around our schools.  And, South Carolina school property is no exception.  If you’re a parent and know about school pollution problems, let us know.  From the campaign, I know that you’re out there so let us hear from you!
Linda

Regardless how you personally might feel about our Governor, budgetary matters in Columbia are coming to a critical juncture over the next few days and he is right at the center of the storm.  Key legislators are leading an effort to convince Governor Mark Sanford to seek South Carolina’s portion of all available federal stimulus funds. The governor has sought certain funds, e.g., energy, but thus far has declined to request others, including the key state stabilization funds designated for K-12 and higher education.  According to the House-adopted version of the budget, these federal funds would bring about $350  million to the state this year.

Because there are now Constitutional questions regarding a provision of the federal stimulus bill that gives the General Assembly the right to seek the funds if the governor doesn’t, Senate leaders this morning indicated they will begin on Monday to craft two versions of the budget – one using the stimulus funds, and one not using them.  If the governor fails to request the stimulus funds by the federal deadline of midnight on April 3, the state budget that will continue in the legislative process in Columbia will be one without stimulus funds, with the House having to revise its already adopted version to deal with the absence of stimulus funds as well.  I do not have to tell you the magnitude of the disaster this portends for our state, our schools, and our children.

If there ever were a time for members of the community to make their feelings on this matter known to Governor Sanford, it is now. School District employees should keep in mind that any views expressed, for or against requesting the stimulus funds,  should be set forth as private citizens, using personal communications media on personal time.

Please do not hesitate to make this critical communication to Governor Sanford and your legislators.

John Butzon

Charleston County Legislative Delegation

Governor Sanford

Mailing Address:
Governor Mark Sanford
Office of the Governor
P.O. Box 12267
Columbia, SC 29211
Fax: 803-734-5167

You may also contact the Governor’s Office at 803-734-2100.

You can send the Governor an e-mail by clicking this link.