Echo Chamber – This Is La Socialista

SOUTH CAROLINA’S LEFT-LEANING RAG LETS IT ALL HANG OUT

FITSNews – February 3, 2008 – In addition to being a lot funnier, far better informed and much more intelligent than all the Streisand ticket holders who work over at La Socialista, we’re also honest about the irreverent brand of journalism we practice here at FITSNews. We admit that we’re biased – and could really care less what you think about that. As a matter of fact, the only time our website has ever been wrong (about anything) happened when we thought we were wrong about something one time, but ended up being right. Ta-da! Seriously, we’re like a compass. The truth is just how we roll.

Anyway, the same can’t be said for South Carolina’s largest untapped source of toilet paper, which went out of its way today to earn the “La Socialista” nickname we’ve so ingeniously bestowed upon it. In this article about South Carolina’s workers’ comp debate and this editorial about the payday lending industry, La Socialista proves once again that its coverage is slightly to the left of Pravda or Izvestia, or for that matter The People’s Daily in Beijing.

First of all, FITSNews broke the workers’ comp lawsuit story that La Socialista “covers” today over a month ago. And a few days after that, we revealed a clear conflict of interest on the part of the federal judge that’s hearing the case.

Basically, the workers’ comp showdown breaks down like this – a bunch of wealthy ambulance chasers who’ve been reaping huge settlement awards on the backs of South Carolina’s small businesses for years don’t like the fact that Gov. Mark Sanford (in a rare show of testicular fortitude) smacked them back a little bit. So they’re doing what ambulance chasers do, they’re suing. And doing so in front of a very, very (editor’s note: very) friendly judge.

And as if Judge G. Ross Anderson‘s especially cozy relationship with Ambulance-Chaser-In-Chief Kathryn Williams wasn’t enough, this morning’s La Socialista quotes him bashing the governor over a totally unrelated issue, one that could very well leave our state’s small businesses up the creek without a paddle … in the midst of a recession, no less.

Sanford, as it turns out, was actually dumb enough to call another judge recently over an unrelated annexation case down in his adopted home of Beaufort County, where from time to time he likes to flex his gubernatorial muscle in an effort to influence local issues. The governor, who you’d think would be an expert on the whole “seperation of powers” concept at this point in his political career, obviously missed the lesson about trying to improperly influence judicial outcomes. Which, of course, left Judge Anderson aghast:

“That’s hard for me to believe that a governor would assume he had the authority to call a presiding judge … ,” Anderson said during the Jan. 14 Workers’ Compensation Commission hearing. “I’m just in shock, disbelief that that could happen.”

So are we, Judge. So are we. Believe it or not, though, Sanford is monumentally boneheaded at times – although this certainly ranks among his most boneheaded moves ever.

But just out of curiosity, what the hell does any of that have to do with workers’ comp? And specifically, what the hell does any of that have to do with an executive order that simply instructs our state’s workers’ comp commissioners to follow the law?

Furthermore, Judge, how on earth is anybody supposed to believe that you’re either willing or able to rule impartially in this matter given your close ties to the ambulance chaser lobby and the obvious disdain you’ve now expressed toward the governor?

Isn’t justice supposed to be blind?

And here’s the biggest question of all … while Judge Anderson is watching out for his former law clerk and her ambulance-chasing buddies (and Sanford is looking up “improper judicial contact” in a Government 101 textbook), who the hell is looking out for South Carolina’s small businesses, which have shelled out $277 million in workers’ comp premium increases over the last four years?

Speaking of improper contact, though, nothing epitomizes that concept any better than the for-profit legislative jihad currently being waged against the payday lending industry, which basically amounts to a high profile “jury-shopping” operation by thirteen lawyer-legislators looking to strike it rich in class action lawsuits against the industry.

Today, La Socialista effectively endorsed these unsavory tactics by calling for “a complete ban” of the industry in South Carolina.

We agree that payday lending needs stiffer regulation, but allowing an ambitious clique of lawmakers to game the system in a transparent effort to pad their pocketbooks isn’t regulation, it’s extortion.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again, these elected officials have no business whatsoever suing an industry that they regulate – in front of judges they appoint and jurors they’re seeking to improperly influence, no less.

After all, what’s to stop them from using those tactics against your business next?

Of course waging jihad against businesses – whether payday lending or workers’ comp-related – is what La Socialista is all about, people. Which is why they’ve never met a tax hike they didn’t like, or a tax cut they didn’t loathe.

Bravo again, La Socialista. Bravo.