In their snarky, sarcastic way (we we love):

We’re pretty sure that Warren Bolton, editorial writer at La Socialista (a.k.a The State newspaper) has a bit of a “bro-mance” going on with left-leaning Columbia, S.C. mayoral candidate Steve Morrison.

Or a “bro-mance” of ideas, anyway.

After all, in administering near-daily journalistic HJ’s to Morrison, Bolton seems to be neglecting the attorney’s connections to an industry that La Socialista loves to hate – payday lending.

The whole thing is funny and informative.

Warren Bolton, the State (S.C.) newspaper columnist who–how shall we say this?–is obsessed with the payday lending industry, wrote this in a column today:

Free enterprise didn’t create payday lending; the Legislature did.

How absurd.  The legislature put up the money to open stores?  The legislature came up with the business model?  The legislature pays employees, pays rent and taxes?  Even for Warren Bolton, this is crazy.

Whenever we go too long without a Warren Bolton column, it just doesn’t feel right.   From his 283rd anti-payday lending screed:

WITH THE S.C. House having capitulated and passed a bill feigning to regulate payday lending, and many in the Senate eager to do the same, possibly even this week, some lawmakers who want strict rules might be willing to allow the legalized loan sharks to continue their predatory ways.

Oh, Warren.  You’re not even trying.  You can do better than that.  You’re getting hackneyed, trite, boring.

Well, the radical columnist at the State (S.C.) Newspaper calls himself one, but we prefer to think of him merely as a misguided ideologue.   You can read his column and judge for yourself.

Honestly, where’s Warren Bolton been?   His ideological, strident screeds against payday lenders in The State newspaper of South Carolina are always as entertaining as they are elitist.   We believe today’s rant puts Warren well into the 40s for the number of columns he’s written about the industry:

Now, more than ever, state lawmakers must tighten up on payday lending. Congress and federal regulators, while working to reassemble the credit markets, are stressing the need to implement stronger regulations to protect borrowers — and the economy — against bad lending practices.

So Bolton advocates more credit through tighter rules? The Payday Pundit doesn’t get it.  Regardless, Bolton can’t see the forest through the trees.  Payday lenders, unlike banks or investment firms, lend their own money, not money borrowed from the Treasury.  And payday lenders, as experts are coming around to acknowledging, price risk better than banks.  So the economy actually benefits from the payday lending business model.      

The windbag would be Warren Bolton, the obsessive compulsive payday lending foe who has written his 4,374th column on payday lending in today’s State Newspaper.  Compare Mr. Bolton’s smugness and self-righteousness to the sincerity of Ms. Linton’s column below.  The contrast is stark.

That would be Warren Bolton of the State Newspaper in South Carolina.  By far, Warren Bolton has written more anti-payday lending stories of anyone in the country: almost 40 over the past few years.   Like many “progressive” elitists, Bolton believes that citizens aren’t wise enough to make their own personal choices, but need guidance from their betters.   And any legislator who doesn’t take direction from Bolton is opposing the will of the people, which only Bolton knows. 

As an editor and columnist, Bolton is expected to offer opinions on issues affecting the paper’s readership.  But his personal jihad against the payday industry is unique; it’s obsessive, vehement, and scary.   That’s why we think of him as a ”stalker.” 

And we’re not the only ones who have problems with Bolton.   Check out this this old link  on “Warrin” Warren.