(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Looks Like Senator Tim Scott of SC Thinks He Can Get The Republican Nomination for President. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-13 The Guardian has a report from The Wall Street Journal that Republican Senator Tim Scott of SC is going to throw his hat into the presidential ring for 2024. Once again, we will have the spectacle of the GOP trying to fool the American public into thinking that a black Republican has a chance of becoming the Republican nominee for president. The only question I have is did Scott get permission to run from his boss Senator Lindsey Graham? I know that sounds extremely racist, but it’s the truth. Do I need to show all the videos where Graham did all the talking for Herschel Walker during his run against Senator Raphael Warnock in 2022? And you might say, “Yes, Graham doing all the talking for a clearly unqualified Walker was racist, but Tim Scott is not like Walker.” Scott was given one assignment from his fellow Republicans after George Floyd was murdered: come up with some kind of police reform bill. Senator Booker and Scott were working on a “bipartisan” police reform bill to deal with the police killing unarmed black men. However, the biggest impediment is the qualified immunity for police officers. When that came up for discussion between Booker and Scott, Senator Lindsey Graham chimed in to nix any deal that addressed qualified immunity. Despite months of negotiation, lawmakers still appear far apart on a deal on police reform legislation, with major disagreements over how to punish law enforcement officers for misconduct. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the lawmakers engaged in negotiations led by Senators Tim Scott and Cory Booker and Congresswoman Karen Bass, told CBS News that he had reviewed a draft proposal that he thought "was pretty bad." "It's exposing police officers to federal criminal prosecution for, beyond 242. It's not consistent with the conversations we've been having," Graham said, referring to Section 242 of the U.S. Code. Democrats have advocated for changing Section 242 to require a jury to decide whether a law enforcement officer acted with reckless disregard in order to convict, rather than the current standard of "willfulness." "I think I've been very clear — I'm willing to expand liability to police departments to individual officers, hold individual officers accountable under regular tort law in cases involving death and grievous bodily harm," Graham said, but he was "not going there" on Section 242. "That's not a problem, people being prosecuted. I'm not going to create a federal infrastructure that cops are subject to being prosecuted by the most progressive U.S. Attorney out there," said the South Carolina senator. He said it appeared they a deal was close earlier this week, "then I saw the paper." "Scott is very concerned too," Graham said. "So what we're going to do is draft up what we think the conversation has been about, and see where we go from there." I don’t know about you, but it sounds like Graham was telling Scott what to do. And because Graham objected, the “negotiations” dragged on. And nothing came from all that talking between Booker and Scott. The only other accomplishment from Scott was the “Opportunity Zones” that was part of the 2017 tax cut that Republicans passed. For those not familiar with opportunity zones, they are tax breaks that investors can take if they invest in poor areas defined by the U.S. Census Bureau as part of a government program to direct investments to poverty stricken areas. When I read this, all I could think was, “Isn’t this more of that Enterprise Zone crap that Jack Kemp pushed back in the 1990’s?” And the answer is, “Yes.” And as with the Enterprise Zones, the results so far are “mixed at best” if you are a conservative who thinks this is great to “this is a boondoggle” if you are a progressive. I’m not going to link to all the “this could be working. Maybe?” research because I’ve seen this movie before. And given this was done under Trump, you can bet that the program was corrupt. And if you want to see where Scott is going with all this, here is a link to Scott’s biography page. It is typical Republican BS. A poor black kid who pulled himself up by his bootstraps using nothing but his drive and our free enterprise system. I seem to recall this was Clarence Thomas’s story, except it’s without all the bitterness and self-loathing we see in Thomas. The “lane” that Scott is going for is — wait for it — bipartisanship. Independents might fall for that shit, but I’m confident in stating that Republican primary voters don’t give a rat’s ass about bipartisanship. In fact, bipartisanship is the last thing Republican voters want. They want DOMINATION not compromise. Besides, the one bipartisan thing he was assigned to do never came to fruition. And if you are wondering, Scott voted against the bipartisan infrastructure bill. Easiest bipartisan thing to vote for, but Scott doesn’t believe in spending money on infrastructure. Anyway, back to my original question. Did Scott get permission from his boss Graham to run for president? I think it is possible that he did. The cynic in me can see that Scott entering the race will hurt dear old Nikki Haley and help Trump out when it comes to the SC Republican Primary. If the SC political establishment is split three ways instead of two, this is to the benefit of Trump. Graham is all for Trump, and the more competitors in the race means that Trump’s 35-40% of the primary electorate could make him the winner of the SC primary. And I think that may be the so called highlight of Scott’s ride to the White House. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/13/2152802/-Looks-Like-Senator-Tim-Scott-of-SC-Thinks-He-Can-Get-The-Republican-Nomination-for-President Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/