By FITSNews || Legendary publisher Larry Flynt takes a serious chunk out of S.C. Rep. Addison Graves “Joe” Wilson’s backside in the latest edition of Hustler magazine – a publication which we swear on a stack of Bibles we’ve never read before in our lives.

We’re not saying we’ve never looked at it before … we’re just saying we’ve never read it.

Anyway, here’s an excerpt from Flynt’s surprisingly well-researched rant …

Wilson served as an aide to Senator Strom Thurmond, a notorious segregationist and racist. In fact, Wilson was so enthralled with Thurmond’s ugly philosophy that he castigated Essie Mae Washington when she came forward to reveal she was Thurmond’s illegitimate biracial daughter. At first, Wilson said Washington was lying, but when Thurmond admitted to being the woman’s father, he called her remarks a “smear.” And, lest we forget, in 2000—as a state senator—Wilson was one of seven Republicans who voted to keep the Confederate flag flying over South Carolina’s State House. The measure was soundly defeated.

Even if Wilson were a staunch supporter of the NAACP and a member of Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and perhaps even black himself, he’d still be an Asshole. Eligible for military service during the Vietnam War, Wilson hid behind deferment after deferment. Then, after graduating from the University of South Carolina School of Law, he miraculously snagged a highly sought-after spot in the Army Reserve. No way was he going to risk his neck for his country. Since Wilson voted in support of the Iraq War, that makes him just another Republican chickenhawk.

Wilson’s hostile position toward the Obama healthcare-reform package probably has less to do with any true philosophical beliefs than it does with hard-nosed political pragmatism: The Congressman has received $414,000 from the health sector since taking his seat in 2001. That might also explain why Wilson voted against healthcare for veterans 11 times, including cuts to the Veterans Administration and TRICARE4. To an outsider looking in, it would appear that the healthcare industry owns Joe Wilson …

… What’s really disturbing is that Wilson’s kids are poised to follow in Daddy’s footsteps. His oldest son, Alan McCrory Wilson—a lawyer—has his eye on the South Carolina state attorney general’s seat. Here’s what we can do to nip this nascent dipshit dynasty in the bud: Make a donation to Rob Miller, Joe Wilson’s Democratic opponent in the 2010 elections. (Miller’s Web site is RobMillerForCongress.com.)

Finally, there’s this: Joe Wilson is not really Joe Wilson. The Asshole’s legal name is Addison Graves Wilson Sr. Perhaps it’s a small point, but it does underscore the fact that it’s Wilson who is a liar.

Wowzas!

Dipshit dynasty!?!?!  Don’t hold back, Larry!

Actually, as much as we disagree with Flynt’s support of Obamacare – and as much as we’ll give the grandstanding Wilson a modicum of credit for finally discovering his lungs when it comes to supporting limited government – it’s obvious who won this exchange.

Now, cue the SCGOP “Larry Flynt press release” in 3, 2, 1 …

By FITSNews || An effort by the University of South Carolina to create a new medical school in the Upstate has lawmakers in the Lowcountry and Midlands regions of the state up in arms.

And while USC is claiming that its partnership with the Greenville Hospital System won’t cost taxpayers a dime, that’s what the school originally said about “Innovista” – the failed research campus that has drained around $150 million from S.C. taxpayers over the last five years, with another $154 million tax dollars about to be poured down the same drain.

Wherever the funding is coming from, the proposed school has set off a major regional battle at the State House.  While Upstate legislators support the plan, numerous Lowcountry and Midlands lawmakers are rallying against the proposal – including powerful Charleston RINO Chip Limehouse, whose committee sets higher ed budgets and who aided the University last year in whitewashing its Innovista mess. Limehouse and other Lowcountry lawyers want to protect the Medical University of South Carolina from any “public-private” competition, yet another sign of just how far this state has strayed from the concept of a free market economy.

Anyway, in keeping with USC’s paranoia over the plan its board of trustees has reportedly delayed a vote on the controversial partnership until after lawmakers hold trustee elections in April.  According to several state lawmakers who spoke with FITS on condition of anonymity, this delay is designed to help two of USC’s more liberal board members, former “whites only” country club member William C. Hubbard and golden parachute recipient Mack Whittle.

Apparently, USC believes that a sizable number of lawmakers would be less inclined to support Hubbard and Whittle if they were to cast votes in support of the controversial plan.

First of all, let’s address the merits of this ridiculous proposal.  South Carolina already has two medical schools – one at the aforementioned Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C. and the other at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.  That’s already one too many medical schools for a state of four million people, if you ask us, and neither one of those institutions has shown much in the way of fiscal discipline.  Furthermore, this is precisely the sort of duplication that our state can’t afford to perpetuate given the abnormally high percentage of our state budget that already goes toward higher ed.

According to the latest data available from the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), South Carolina currently spends 17.8 percent of its budget on a bloated, wasteful, duplicative and inefficient system of higher education. The average state spends only 10.1 percent of its budget on higher ed.

Also, Hubbard and Whittle – along with Gov. Mark Sanford’s appointment, Darla Moore – have a proven record of supporting precisely the sort of wasteful projects (i.e. Innovista) that have taxpayers seeing red and parents paying through the nose for college tuition.

That’s why we plan on calling out any lawmaker who votes for either one of them come April …

By FITSNews || State Senator Shane Massey (R-Aiken) will drop out of the race for South Carolina’s Third Congressional District seat, acknowledging that he is trailing two better-known opponents in the race for money and votes.  Reports regarding Massey’s departure from the race to replace Gresham Barrett first surfaced Tuesday on the local blog, The Garnet Spy, and have since been confirmed by sources close to the Senator’s campaign.

The official word should be coming soon.

Massey’s departure leaves the battle for the GOP nomination to two polar opposites – longtime big government backer Rex Rice, a RINO State Representative from Pickens County, and Jeff Duncan, a State Representative from Laurens, S.C. who is one of the few genuine fiscal conservatives in Columbia.

Obviously, we’ve been very supportive of Duncan’s bid and very critical of Rex’s – a trend which will continue.  What can we say? You gotta “walk the walk” (not just “talk the talk”) to earn our support.  Either that or pay us obscene amounts of money.

Speaking of “walking the walk,” we’ve actually been very impressed of late with Shane Massey’s voting record.  Among other tough, principled votes, Massey has stood his ground in opposition to a controversial incentives package for a wealthy, out-of-state GOP developer despite tremendous pressure being exerted on him.

We’ve been tough on Massey in the past, but he seems to have gotten his act together lately.

We hope he continues voting with the Senate’s core group of fiscal conservatives, and wish that default RINOs like Thomas Alexander, Paul Campbell, Ronnie Cromer, Mike Fair, Wes Hayes, Shane Martin, David Thomas and others would get with the program, too, and stop sucking up to the RINO leadership.

Assuming they started acting like Republicans (not socialists), those seven votes could completely alter the ideological direction of the State Senate …

By FITSNews || Unethical behavior by Columbia S.C. mayoral candidate Steve Morrison led to a Supreme Court ruling a decade ago that has shaped how attorneys in South Carolina must handle pretrial discovery and witness depositions ever since.

That’s probably not the sort of distinction that this decorated “humanitarian” covets, but it certainly puts him in the pantheon of the Palmetto State’s sleaziest lawyers.

“It’s the ultimate badge of dishonor,” one Columbia attorney familiar with the case told FITS. “They had to rewrite the rule book because of his unethical conduct.”

Generally regarded as one of the worst-kept secrets in the South Carolina legal community, Morrison’s identity as the “anonymous respondent” in the famous ruling – which is known as “In Re: Anonymous” – has never been published.

The case involves glaring abuses of attorney conduct, though, alleged to include the withholding of documents and witness tampering.

Another attorney was disbarred as a result of the scandal, but Morrison was allowed to keep his position due to the fact that he was a partner at Nelson Mullins, the state’s largest and most powerful law firm.  In fact, sources tell FITS that the firm’s founding partner, Dick Riley, intervened personally with S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal to keep Morrison from being disbarred.

Frankly, this doesn’t surprise us in the least given everything we’ve heard about Morrison.

In fact, he was busted just a few months ago for lying about his connection to the payday lending industry.

Who knows … perhaps Morrison and Charleston attorney Larry Richter could get together and have a “sleaze-off?”

WEB EXTRA
In the Matter of Anonymous Member of the South Carolina Bar, Respondent

By FITSNews || It’s hard to imagine a bigger “mega-bag-o-douche” running for public office (anywhere) than Gresham Barrett.

It’s like this guy stumbled out of the 1890’s or something, glad-handing, back-slapping and spitting out all of the same old “heard it all before” crap that every candidate for governor in South Carolina has spit out for decades.  Just look at him, for crying out loud.  He’s the “Seersucker Proxy.”  Believe it or not, though, there is actually one candidate in the 2010 S.C. gubernatorial race that makes Barrett look positively 1960’s by comparison: S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster (a.k.a. Foghorn Leghorn).

Anyway, McMaster’s campaign (and other Barrett opponents) are displeased at the moment because Barrett is tapping hundreds of thousands of dollars from his Congressional campaign account – an office he is resigning in January 2011 – to respond to a recent ad attacking his Congressional record.

Obviously, Barrett is using the money to further his gubernatorial ambitions, critics say.  And he’s doing it against the expressed wishes of these donors, many of whom supported Barrett for Congress but are supporting other candidates for governor.

Good points, to be sure, but this is all much ado about nothing if you ask us …

Last time we checked, someone who was (deservedly) attacked for being a complete and total flip-flopping hypocrite had the right to defend themselves, and since Barrett is responding to an attack on his Congressional record, he seems justified in using these funds.

At least he’s not using our money to pay for his propaganda this time …

By FITSNews || Columbia lawyer Leighton Lord is the first S.C. Attorney General candidate to cut a television commercial – an introductory spot that seeks to establish his credentials as a crime fighter who will crack down on corruption (which there’s plenty of in this state).

In our opinion, it’s a little early for TV commercials in a down ballot race, but Lord’s team has put together a slick, well-produced spot – and Lord gets credit for delivering his message personally (i.e. face to camera), something voters like.

There’s just one on-screen reference from Lord’s ad that we found funny:

Leighton Lord zeroes in on Asian organized crime.

Wait … Asian? Is somebody cooking?

Seriously, people … South Carolina’s Asian population is 1.2 percent.  Do we have an Asian gang problem that no one has told us about?

Anyway, the reference reminded us of the infamous Sam Sweet 9-1-1 call from the movie Cable Guy … specifically the “I think it was an Asian gang or something” clip.

Enjoy …

Lord is one of three candidates running to replace current S.C. Attorney General Henry McMaster, who is running for governor.

Also in the race are former prosecutor Robert Bolchoz and Alan Wilson, son of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson.

WEB EXTRA
Leighton Lord Ad

By FITSNews || We understand that leveraging new media tools like Facebook and Twitter has become an important part of modern campaigning.

After all, politicians like to maximize the ways they can load you up with their rhetorical spam, don’t they?

That’s why every day you probably get an email from Facebook that goes like this: “Loser Politician suggested you become a fan of Loser Politician.” Yeah … “de … lete.”

We can’t put our finger on it (well we can … “de … lete”), but there’s something that strikes us as incredibly sophomoric about the whole thing … like this email that went out Wednesday from Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen’s “New Media Director,” Lauren Manning (emphasis original):

In campaigns today, the “Facebook Election” can be one of the best measures of grassroots support.

We’ve already far outpaced our primary opposition: we have over seven times as many declared public supporters on Facebook as any of the other Democratic candidates for governor.

So we’ve decided to aim higher: we want Vincent Sheheen to have more Facebook supporters than ANY of the candidates running for governor! Right now we’re trailing Congressman Gresham Barrett by just a handful of supporters. Both Sheheen and Barrett are on the brink of reaching 5,000 Facebook fans.

I’ve challenged Barrett Communications Director B.J. Boling to a little contest — a race to 5,000 supporters — and we need your help to win!
Will you become a supporter of Vincent Sheheen on Facebook and then invite your friends to support him as well? Let’s beat Barrett to 5,000!

Come on everybody …

“Two, four, six, eight, who do we appreciate! Vincent! Sheheen!”

“Vincent!”

“Sheheen!”

You know what? It’s not that this state is so retarded that bothers us … it’s that we’re so “rah-rah” about being retarded.

Also, it’s not a stretch to say that we’d take two middle schools over Gresham Barrett or Vincent Sheheen any day of the week.

Particularly since both have now received (here and here) the status quo commie stamp of approval.

UPDATE: Oh yeah …”de … lete.”

By FITSNews ||  Multiple S.C. lawmakers applied intense pressure on the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees in an effort to have “Republican” consultant Richard Quinn hired to promote the school’s botched “Innovista” research campus.

Ultimately, that effort was unsuccessful – although the University will be benefiting from Quinn’s talents anyway.

As reported on FITS last week, the veteran GOP message man has been hired to promote the failed “Innovista” project, but he’ll be getting paid (we’re told) with private funds, not public dollars.

Quinn has been hired by local businesswoman Cathy Novinger of the firm Novinger QTR Consulting.  His tab will be picked up by what Novinger refers to as the “Midlands Business Leadership Group,” an assemblage of “local CEOs” who are supporting the project, which has drained millions of taxpayer dollars while failing to achieve any of its objectives.

“Innovista is our Boeing,” Novinger told FITS.

Really?

Innovista received a $154 million taxpayer-funded bailout from the City of Columbia, S.C. last month– which of course is on top of the $150 million tax dollars it has already wasted.

(For the latest on this ongoing taxpayer disaster, click here).

Novinger declined to disclose how much Quinn was being paid – or who was paying him – although she said that none of the firms involved in her business coalition were being paid with public money.

Obviously, it’s sort of hard to verify that without being told the members of the coalition, but oh well …

By FITSNews || Literally hundreds of Republican politicians in South Carolina will tell you they’re “pro-business” or that they support “lower taxes and less government,” but you can count on one hand the number of elected officials who actually vote that way.

Alright, maybe not on one hand … but it’s pretty close.  In fact, with only one member of South Carolina’s Congressional delegation (Sen. Jim DeMint) and only fifteen out of 170 state lawmakers consistently “walking the walk” when it comes to their votes on behalf of the taxpayers, you can see pretty quickly what we’re talking about.

One of the few true fiscal conservatives is Mick Mulvaney, who is currently running against fourteen-term incumbent Rep. John Spratt (Nancy Pelosi’s budget chairman) for South Carolina’s Fifth Congressional District seat.

Obviously, we are strongly (and unapologetically) supporting Mulvaney in that race, in no small part because Spratt has gone from a middle-of-the-road “centrist” to a rubber stamp for the socialist agenda of President Barack Obama.

But we’re also supporting Mulvaney because of quotes like the one below, which he gave in an interview with RedState.com.

Here’s what Mulvaney said:

In just a generation Washington has gone from ‘Ask not what your country can do for you …’ to ‘We will guarantee your GM warranty.’

That, in a nutshell is “it.”

It’s precisely what’s wrong with this country today – in one nifty sentence.

A half century ago, the liberal standard-bearer in American politics – President John F. Kennedy – was pushing income tax cuts and a trip to the moon.  And in assuming office, he reminded us that America was not built by people sitting on their asses waiting for the next government handout, but by people standing up and building something with their own two hands.

Today?

We have no liberal standard-bearer, we have a socialist standard-bearer – one who is pushing massive tax hikes to pay for skyrocketing deficits and unprecedented government intrusions into the free market.  Oh, and a retreat from the moon.

Heck, just a decade-and-a-half ago, the nation’s liberal standard-bearer – President Bill Clinton- was pushing a welfare reform bill that incentivized states according to the number of people they subtracted from, not added to, the welfare rolls.

Of course Obama undid all of that a year ago in passing his so-called “stimulus,” which reversed fourteen years of reform by re-instituting the “bounty system” of paying states to put people on welfare.

“Ask not …” right?

It’s not just America’s limited government tradition Obama is trampling on … it’s the great “liberal” tradition of Kennedy and Clinton, too.

And it’s why this country is heading toward Roman Empire status faster than you can say “hope and change …”

WEB EXTRA
Mulvaney Red State Interview

By FITSNews || City of Columbia (S.C.)  Councilman E.W. Cromartie has agreed to plead guilty to federal income tax evasion, multiple local media outlets are reporting.

Cromartie – one of South Carolina’s legendary “poverty pimp” politicians – failed to pay more than $25,000 in taxes in 2004, and also made numerous “small cash deposits” in an effort to avoid IRS minimums on transaction reporting requirements.  He’s facing up to 25 years behind bars and $1 million in fines, although it appears obvious that he’s got a deal of some sort in the works with prosecutors.

It hasn’t been the a good year so far for Cromartie – whose liquor store in an “underprivileged” part of the city was busted selling alcohol to minors two weeks ago.

A week earlier, Cromartie voted in favor of the city’s $154 million bailout of a failed downtown University of South Carolina “research campus.”

Incidentally, a local website – The Pulse of Columbia – is reporting that Columbia mayoral front-runner Steve Benjamin was meeting with Cromartie on Monday.

UPDATE: Cromartie’s plea will give him a year (and a day) in jail … hmmmm … stay tuned.