SC GOP: ‘My party, right or wrong’

Whether South Carolina Republicans are any more or less forgiving of divergent points of view than conservatives elsewhere is debatable, but there’s little question that many of the Palmetto State’s right-wing movers and shakers are poisonously partisan.

A couple of weeks back, this blog called out House Speaker Bobby Harrell on a press release he issued in which he practically dislocated his arm patting himself, and his Republican colleagues, on the back for supposed fiscal conservatism.

That Harrell would resort to such twaddle is hardly surprising; the Speaker’s fiscal foolishness has put him in hot water with an increasing number of Republican voters over the past couple years and he’s doing all he can to make himself look good, even if it means bending the truth beyond all recognizable form.

What was more surprising, though, was that US Senator Jim DeMint allowed himself to sucked into Harrell’s little charade: 

Georgia cotton prices hit all-time high

Georgia cotton farmers are riding high, enjoying record cotton prices that could last well into next year, according to University of Georgia farm economists.

Cotton prices for the 2010 crop are currently around $1.20 per pound, the highest ever in 134 years of record keeping, Don Shurley, a UGA Cooperative Extension cotton economist, told Southeast Farm Press.

The reasons behind sky-high cotton prices include:

• A decrease in world cotton acreage over the last three years, reducing production;
• Uncertainty in the status of the 2010 crops in China, India and Pakistan; and
• Increased global demand for cotton-made items related to improving economic conditions.