Haley Watch 3-31-11

At left: Nikki Haley's recent photo in the New York Times magazine.

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Our governor, GOP rising star, continues to bedazzle the nationwide press. Lots of local jabs about the widely-discussed NYT-magazine story (including several from your humble narrator), asking why she won't talk to South Carolina media, but prefers to go national, where she is gushed-over nonstop.

It's a little hard to take.

On the local front, Haley's interesting former gig at Lexington Medical Hospital inspires some impressive old-style investigative sleuthing by Robert Kittle of WSPA in Spartanburg:

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Gov. Nikki Haley says she was only doing the same thing every other member of the Lexington County legislative delegation was doing in pushing for a heart center at Lexington Medical Center, not doing something special for her employer.

While Haley was a state representative, she was hired as a fundraiser for the Lexington Medical Center Foundation. The hospital was trying to get state approval from the Department of Health and Environmental Control to start a heart center.

Emails between Haley and her boss, Lexington Medical CEO Mike Biediger, raise the question of whether Haley was using her position as a lawmaker to try to influence the DHEC vote.

And specifically, Haley's 2008 online job application has raised all kinds of red flags.

She also addressed questions about her application and pay for that job. Her application lists her salary at her parents' clothing store as $125,000 a year, but her tax return for that year shows she made only $22,000.

She says she never put $125,000 on the application and never told anyone that she made that much. While another part of the application has her signature, the part that has her salary history has only her typed name.

But the hospital says it would be difficult for someone else to have added that because they would have to know her work and salary history, Social Security number and other personal information to be able to access the online application. There would also be a password or security question.

Gov. Haley said Monday, "There was no password. The password was where I graduated from high school."

Lexington Medical Center's heart center was eventually approved in 2010.

Hmmmmmm.

From FitsNews, the conservative blog that still isn't having any:

Haley – or a mysterious job application “phantom” – listed her 2007 income at Exotica International (the clothing store run by her parents) at $125,000 and requested that the hospital pay her this same amount. The only problem with Haley’s alleged income declaration? According to federal tax returns – which the Republican candidate belatedly released during the 2010 gubernatorial race – she only reported earning $22,000 from Exotica in 2007.

Haley has repeatedly denied that she filled out the application or provided the $125,000 figure – which she insists is inaccurate. However, the hospital has said it did not alter the submission. In fact, the online resume service that the hospital uses only permits its staff members to view, print or forward the application information.

A hospital spokesperson also told to The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper that anyone fraudulently filling out the application “would have had to know (Haley’s) social security number, address, job history, past supervisors, job duties, education and other details.”

The plot thickens.

Will any of this lying duplicity catch up with our popular Tea Party heroine? Will that fawning national press finally turn on her when it is discovered she has never had a real job? Or will that just make her more incredibly wonderful in their eyes: Wow, she was elected governor without ever having a REAL JOB! Is that awesome or what?

As always, stay tuned, sports fans.

Haley Watch

Introducing a new, regular DEAD AIR feature, the dreaded HALEY WATCH! Under this title, I will be posting regular updates on the Republican shakedown headed up by South Carolina's new governor. (These posts will be appropriately tagged "Haley Watch" for easy indexing.)

First up, Governor Nikki Haley recently vowed to take away health care from as many people as she can. She's proud of it! This is the official statement her office released at the end of January:

“We have long argued that, among its many other flaws, the national health care law is unconstitutional, something that is now increasingly clear to all. South Carolina must take steps to avoid this unconstitutional infringement – one we do not want and cannot afford. We can improve health care in our state without this massive mandate from Washington, and that’s what our Administration, working with the General Assembly, will do.”

Uh-huh. I posted here with details about how she is enthusiastically looting all public health care systems in the state. So, let us be clear: Haley doesn't intend to "improve" shit.

But wait, what's this?!? From FITSNews, I find the following buried news that I haven't seen anywhere else:

With her state facing an estimated $1 billion budget shortfall, S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley handed out huge salary increases to top gubernatorial staffers on her first full day in office. She also doled out big salaries to newly-created positions within the governor’s office.

Paying attention, Tea Partiers?

Haley started things off by giving her new chief of staff, Tim Pearson, a 27.5 percent pay raise. Pearson will make $125,000 a year – or $27,000 more than Scott English made while serving as chief of staff to former Gov. Mark Sanford.

Pearson will also have a full-time assistant who makes $60,000 a year.

Haley’s deputy chief of staff for communications and legislative affairs – Trey Walker – will be paid $122,775 a year. That’s a 42.3 percent increase over the second-highest paid staffer in the Sanford administration.

Haley’s top lawyer, Swati Patel, will be paid $102,000 a year – which is a 36 percent increase over the $75,000 a year that Sanford paid his top lawyer.

And we haven't heard one word about this in mainstream South Carolina news outlets. Why not?

It gets better:

Lawmakers appropriated $1.8 million to the governor’s office for the fiscal year beginning on July 1, 2010. It is unclear exactly how much of that money has been spent, although Haley has committed to paying 17 people a total of $1.2 million over the next year.

Whereas Sanford’s office had eight employees making $50,000 a year or more, Haley’s office has twelve – and all of them are being paid more than their predecessors.

Ironically, Haley claimed on Tuesday that she had “streamlined” the governor’s office.

And let me add... FITSNews is a CONSERVATIVE blog, people. A conservative blog.

And let me underline the fact: they ain't happy over there.

Giving her stated advocacy for limited government, the fact that Haley would create new staff positions and dole out these sorts of salary increases in any budget environment is startling. Given the current budget situation in South Carolina, it’s absolutely galling.

These new expenses are totally unnecessary – and totally inconsistent with what Haley campaigned on.

If the Left can't get rid of her, maybe the Right will? How ironic would that be?

I can dream, can't I?