• HOLIDAY CHEER DEPT.: In case you’ve missed it, Gov. Nikki “Transparency” Haley has been turning a cold shoulder to reporter Renee “Little Girl” Dudley of The Post and Courier, refusing to answer questions about how she influenced an independent state medical panel and why her office neglected to include e-mails from the governor in a May public-records request. On Thursday, Dudley tried to catch the governor on her way out of a Budget and Control Board meeting, but to no avail. The governor’s only response? “Merry Christmas” (skip to 00:47 in the video).
• RUNNING MATE DEPT.: In other gubernatorial news, Gov. Haley endorsed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the GOP presidential nomination on Friday. S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian, always ready to give a snarky comment, said in an e-mail, “We also found out today that Nikki Haley is supporting a candidate that, like her, will say anything to get elected. Let’s just hope their name doesn’t end up on the same ballot.” In a recent poll conducted by Winthrop University, Haley had an overall approval rating of 35 percent.
• REDUCTIO AD KIM DEPT.: In the wake of the news that North Korea’s weather-controlling, hole-in-one-scoring, all-around egomaniacal despot Kim Jong Il had died, Charleston-based commentator Jeff Schreiber — who manages the conservative America’s Right blog — took a halfhearted stab at comparing President Barack Obama to the Great Leader Monday morning:
• SAMUEL L. JACKSON DEPT.: The Humane Society of the United States is pushing Congress to take action on what it calls a multimillion-dollar problem: snakes on a plane. To be more specific, they want to outlaw the importation and interstate movement of nine species of potentially deadly snakes, including pythons, anacondas, and boa constrictors. “Pythons have killed a two-year-old toddler in Florida, swallowed alligators, and gulped down a deer,” said Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society. “It’s only a matter of time before Florida officials discover that a python has killed a Florida panther or some other endangered animal.” No, you are not reading The Onion.
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