Haley opts for cant in her vanity project

"Cant" is defined at Dictionary.com thusly:noun
1. insincere, especially conventional expressions of enthusiasm for high ideals, goodness, or piety.
2. the private language of the underworld.
3. the phraseology peculiar to a particular class, party, profession, etc.
4. whining or singsong speech, especially of beggars.

verb (used without object)
5. to talk hypocritically.
6. to speak in the

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Brack, Free Times react to House voucher bill

Two sources I consult regular for clear-eyed reporting and commentary on the goings-on in Columbia are Statehouse Report, published by Andy Brack of Charleston, and the Free Times of Columbia.

Neither has disappointed in covering last week's passage of a voucher bill by the House.

From Statehouse Report comes this headline: "Back-door voucher bill defies logic."
If you ever thought the folks at

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Will primary candidates visit Scott's Branch High School?

Statehouse Report editor Andy Brack offered a great suggestion for our hifalutin' guests arriving from New Hampshire this week. Among a list of places he recommends they visit while pressing the flesh and sipping sweet tea for the cameras is Scott's Branch High School. Writes Brack:Scott’s Branch High School. An Upstate professor encouraged GOP candidates to visit Scott’s Branch High School in

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Public schools are no budget priority in South Carolina

I appreciate reading Bill Davis's columns in Statehouse Report, as they're usually quite cogent and pertinent analyses of the state's unncessary misfortunes. His item in the August 5 edition was no different, titled "State avoids fully funding education."Comprehensive and sensible public education reform could benefit, or be the victim of, competing political agendas in the days ahead.

South

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What is South Carolina's story?

Yesterday, I posted a note about an unfortunate letter written by a Charlestonian and published in Andy Brack's Statehouse Report. While the correspondent proposed sweeping the seamier facts and figures reflecting South Carolina's reality under the old rug, I suggested that we might be more authentic if we addressed those bad outcomes and changed our ways to make future reports better.

Brack

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Disproportionate poor not to blame for South Carolina's ills

Readers of Andy Brack's Statehouse Report will recognize below a letter to the editor published in the most recent edition of that newsletter. (Those who do not subscribe are encouraged to do so.)

Since the young man signed his letter, it's revealing no secret to repost that information here:To Statehouse Report:

I took note of your recent post ["The numbers tell a story of challenges," 6/25]

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Will Haley veto a plan to grant public schoolchildren more funds?

The Aiken Standard published a note today optimistic that our schools may get $56 million out of a conference committee agreement that irons out differences in the House and Senate budget plans. But the Standard is well aware that Governor Nikki Haley issued a declaration last week that public schools should get none of the late spring's windfall tax revenues.

It happens that Aiken County stands

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Will state employees have retirement security or not?

Bill Davis, editor of the Statehouse Report, published an item on the state's retirement plan more than a week ago, and I'm curious about how his analysis squares with that of Sam Griswold, whose judgment on retirement system questions is impeccable. Griswold wrote, here, about the competing legislation to make changes to the retirement system, especially for new state employees' benefits, and

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