Is that all Joel Sawyer can come up with?
Seriously?
“No matter the situation, a comparison like that is absolutely uncalled for and we think he owes South Carolina’s Jewish community an apology,” Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said.
Yeah Joel, but its perfectly okay for your people to compare good Representatives like Bill Cotty to pedophile Mark Foley? That’s right. We remember at least two mailers last cycle from SCRG that compared Cotty to Foley. We think you, the Governor, and all your little out-of-state donors should apologize to the molested children in South Carolina.
McConnell’s right on this one. The propaganda pumps are pumping at full speed and Sanford is flip-flopping like a good ‘ole boy politician. McConnell ain’t playing games anymore. Give ‘em Hell Glenn!
SC Senate leader says gov using Nazi-style propaganda tactic
By JIM DAVENPORT - Associated Press WriterCOLUMBIA, S.C. –
The leader of the South Carolina Senate accused Republican Gov. Mark Sanford on Thursday of using Nazi-style propaganda tactics in opposing lawmakers attempts to pass an illegal immigration measure.After spending much of the session countering Sanford’s criticism about the Senate’s version of an illegal immigration bill, Senate President Pro Tem Glenn McConnell was asked why his colleagues get pilloried for holding up immigration legislation.
McConnell blamed that on “propaganda pumps” in the governor’s office. “I mean it’s almost like Goebbels-style journalism. If you repeat a misstatement often enough, people will begin to believe it,” the Charleston Republican said.
Josef Goebbels was Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister.
A spokesman for the governor said no one should throw around insults comparing anyone to Nazi-era figures.
“No matter the situation, a comparison like that is absolutely uncalled for and we think he owes South Carolina’s Jewish community an apology,” Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said.
Sanford lashed out at the Senate, saying the tougher penalties it passed Wednesday aren’t enforceable and rely on an ineffective worker verification system.
McConnell said the governor is wrong.
“I’m just saying that there was a lesson back in propaganda that if you repeat a misstatement often enough, people will begin to believe it. And that’s what they’ve done,” McConnell said. “It’s an old lesson out of how to issue propaganda and make people think something other than what it is.”
May 4th, 2008 at 11:58 pm
Gee, all this Glenn McConnell advertising on this website and yet you can still be impartial.
/sarcasm
Straight shooting from the South Carolina Senate?
Seriously, you’re really funny.
May 5th, 2008 at 12:28 am
The Senate bill was spun by McConnell as the “toughest in the Nation” on Thursday morning, when in fact, it was giving an option to employers to use either E-Verify, or the State’s version of the Federal I-9 form which has failed since it’s inception. The penalties included in the bill are unenforcible by the State, according to Federal law and all was passed by a “gutless” voice vote. Is there any wonder that the taxpayers question the effectiveness of the Senate?
May 5th, 2008 at 12:44 am
When you work for a Governor like Sanford you don’t have a lot of options in defending him.
Sanford is the worst…and Sawyer is doing his best.
May 5th, 2008 at 2:44 am
Mike - we are proud to have Senator McConnell’s website advertised on our blog because he’s one of the best leaders this state has. Unlike the Governor, he knows how to treat people like people and reach across the aisle and lobby to get things done for SC.
Vince - has failed since it’s inception? Do you have any clue of what you’re talking about? This is the same program the Governor advocated just weeks ago.
Deb - good point.
May 5th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Shot-
The Federal I-9 forms do have some serious problems; below, I linked to a loooong article from the libertarian website Reason about the effects of greater immigration enforcement on innocent (read: legal) people. Here’s a quote from an employer they talk to:
“There are about 30 types of documents they can use to satisfy the I-9, and then there are subsets of those types that include dozens and dozens of other documents,” Jauregui notes. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you that we have a litmus test for each one, that we can authenticate each one. There’s no way.”
The documents the business owner refers to are as varied as a “Kentucky driver’s license… a South Dakota voter registration card… Hopi Indian tribal document… U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner card… Virgin Islands birth certificate… Tucumcari, New Mexico, school district ID card… patient record from the Norton Sound Health Corporation hospital in Nome, Alaska”. How are SC employers supposed to know what any of these look like?
The article also talks about the folly of E-Verify, but alas, I think I’ve already rambled enough here.
None of these immigration bills will increase our security, economic development, or freedom. They only increase the size of our government while helping people win elections.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/29748.html
May 6th, 2008 at 11:01 am
The Shot- The Governor has supported the E-Verify as the way to Immigration status. To give employers the option of using the I-9 style verification is nothing more than a vote for maintaining the status quo. Why should South Carolina, at the taxpayers expense, have to duplicate what the Feds already do with the I-9? Unless Sen. McConnell and his cronies “see the light” this session, I’m afraid he won’t recognize the Senate next session! Hopefully the House will, in fact, ammend the Bill and make it the “toughest in the nation”.
May 6th, 2008 at 11:06 am
Deb-I would suggest that your opinion of Gov.Sanford is in the minority among the voters of South Carolina.
May 6th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Vince- not to be a smartass, but I would definitely vote to maintain the status quo over a “tough” immigration bill. The state numbers play differently, but nationally we have about 7-8 million unemployed people and around 12 million illegal immigrants, probably most of whom do some sort of job (official or not). That means if we got really “tough” and made sure no one could hire these people, we’d have 2 or 3 million jobs unfilled, which would decimate our economy (let’s not even think about what it would do to already-high food prices). We would also have about 12 million people, many of them young men with little money, sitting around pissed off with nothing to do. That’s bad news.
I acknowledge that there are some social, fiscal and security problems that come along with illegal immigration, even though illegals typically pay more in taxes than they get in services (check out either Reason or Cato for this). But I really fail to see how a tough immigration policy layered in bureaucracy could make us more secure, give us more freedom, help the economy, limit government spending, and reduce crime. It’s more likely the opposite would happen.
I have trouble understanding why so-called “free-market” and “small-government” Republicans champion such invasive reforms, and the party’s abandonment of these principles was a big reason for my personal change in party affiliation and in the 2006 election losses. If Republicans wanted to be the pro-business, limited government, “party of ideas” types they say they are, tougher immigration reforms would not be the way to go. Even Reagan thought so.
May 6th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
Rob- You may be correct, but then let the employers who hire these illegals pay for their Healthcare, Education, etc. Why should the taxpayers subsidize these workers, and the employers reap all of the benefits of “cheap” labor?
May 7th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
I entirely agree that the government shouldn’t have to bear the burden of people who don’t pay in to the system (the exception, I believe, is kids, who have zero control over their economic or immigration status). But if we’re talking about employers who mostly play by the book but are willing to hire people without really checking them out, then those employers (and employees) are paying a good deal into Medicare, Social Security, Unemployment insurance, income tax withholding, and probably disability, most of which they won’t ever see again.
If we’re talking about employers who pay their workers under the table and off the books, “tough” laws wouldn’t change a thing; in fact, they would add incentive to operate off the books.
Our immigration system here is all kinds of ridiculous, and I acknowledge that state and local governments sometimes end up shouldering the weight of some of these immigrants. I don’t know what the solution is; I would imagine greatly expanding legal immigration and streamlining the immigration process would allow us to fill all those jobs we need filled. It would increase security (since customs is a better place to screen than an open desert border) and would be better for workers, who currently have no way to protect themselves from an unsafe workplace. I’m open to some different ideas about this; I just think that the tough guy approach will lead us to disaster.