Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:03 pm
Clever, those Romneys. Knowing that women think he’s a himbo empty suit who would bring nothing but harm to any legitimate cause involving jobs, wages, education, the environment, reproductive rights ad nauseum, the Romney camp cynically announces their possible female vice-presidential picks through Ann, as if she’s anything other than Mitt light.
She was sitting next to Mr. Offshore during a July 5th CBS New interview when she listed the possible lady running mates for Mitt. The names include a virtually unknown New Hampshire Republican, U.S. Senator, Kelly Ayotte. The 44 year old you’ve never heard of is in her first term after a controversial stint as New Hampshire Attorney General. Ayotte became best known as AG for refusing to even investigate an alleged $100 million Ponzi scheme by a mortgage investment firm. Even fellow republicans gave her hell. She ended up resigning from the office to run for the senate. She opposes Dodd-Frank or anything else that smells of regulation. As Judge Judy would say, PERFECT!
Also on the list is New Mexico Governor, Susana Martinez of Mexican descent and conversion to the Republican Party. She certainly belongs. Two of the top officials of the New Mexico Department of Health were forced to resign earlier this year by the governor for the unforgivable sin of promoting birth control “in public”. And she can get even further right than that. PERFECT!
HP honcho Meg Whitman is in the mix. Let’s see, this one-time candidate for governor of California recently announced the elimination of 30,000 American jobs while leaving the overseas workforce intact. PERFECT!
But I’ve saved the best (worst?) for last. My very own Governor, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley. I’ve written about Ms. Haley before. She’s a trip, even by radical right-wing standards. Where to start? Let it be understood that she’s a Mitt
wit all the way. She supported and endorsed his first run for the presidency back in 2008, when McCain got the nod. She was still a state rep at the time. Romney responded in kind, dropping 56 grand on her campaign for governor (Charles Koch and Donald Trump were prominent among other contributors). He was rewarded with yet another endorsement for his 2012 presidential effort. It was a wasted endorsement as Newt Gingrich creamed the professional tax avoider by 12 percentage points.
Haley would be a grotesque choice for VP even by current extremist standards. Here’s Haley in headlines – not necessarily in order. Haley has long talked of eliminating funding for the South Carolina Arts Commission (for the occasional progressive sensibility). The Commission gets modest dollars from the feds, but relies mainly on state support. News flash! In a late Thursday (July 5) list of 81 vetoes she included the elimination of the commission. Haley also cut money for teacher raises and refused to fund prescription drugs for AIDS patients or a nonprofit that served sexual assault victims among numerous heartless vetoes. Selective overrides are possible.
Moving on. Haley’s prior salary claim in a job application was five times that declared on that year’s tax return. Haley did virtually nothing for a six-figure ‘consultants’ salary to push a heart center for a certain hospital. She eventually negotiated a $35,210 severance settlement for her cheered departure. Publicly, she said she wanted to leave to concentrate on running for governor. Privately, Associated Press uncovered emails that showed Haley begging to stay. Her earlier inflated salary came from her work as bookkeeper for her parents retail store where she was responsible for the store being penalized for three liens that averaged 19 months past due. One of the liens was for not turning over money withheld from employee checks. That’s vintage Haley.
She’s hard-ass anti-immigrant, even though her parents were both…wait for it…immigrants from India!
In signing the disgusting (and apparently well outside federal law) state Voter ID Act, she exclaimed “It’s another great day in the state of South Carolina.” More like another typical day in the enormously bigoted, still fighting the civil war, low-information state of South Carolina.
Haley has refused to accept federal millions to help set up health insurance exchanges as per the recently Supreme Court validated Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Her alternate plan, as explained by one of her toadies, is to “provide our state with the most health at the least cost.” Translation: Let’s see how we can make Blue Cross rich and screw the public. Speaking of government aid and health care, Haley and a few other brainless governors are threatening to turn down Medicaid expansion money from the feds.
She gets lots of her marching orders from the South Carolina Policy Council which is tied in with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). The SCPC President Ashley Landess, long a BFF of the governor, was appointed to a five-member state budget panel and the SCPC itself has long been highly influential within the state legislature.
Considering Haley is Indian-American, her diversity record is certainly not reflective of that fact. Nor is it reflective that she gives one little damn about diversity. Of 13 of her initial cabinet appointments, no black women or men. Out of 16 executive staff members, ZERO blacks. One of her early moves was to replace the only black member on the Medical University of South Carolina’s board with a white dude. The black population constitutes 28% of the South Carolina citizenry. Racist? I report, you decide.
I’m not even going to bother going into the details of Haley’s purported extra-marital affairs. Those allegedly included a state representative, a lobbyist and a political blogger who was supposedly going to write a tell-all book on the subject. One of the individuals who claimed to have had a tryst (or 2) with the governor was actually given a polygraph test paid for by a local Fox News Outlet. He passed. As for actual infidelity, it hasn’t been proven. It’s what the legal community calls circumstantial evidence.
Oh, did I mention that Haley just beat an ethics charge last week dating back to her legislative days? She was charged with using her seat to lobby for former employers and a foundation. The laughably named ‘House Ethics Committee” (5 republicans, 1 democrat) found her ‘innocent’. That’s the second ethics go around for Haley.
There’s even more Haley hanky-panky where all the above comes from. But surely there’s sufficient sleaze to qualify her for Romney’s Vice President/bookkeeper!
PERFECT!
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