Sunday, November 17, 2024
S. C. Attorney General Alan Wilson is reportedly moving ahead with ethics reform planning with a proposed public corruption task force for South Carolina.
Wilson met Wednesday with members of the House Republican Caucus Ethics Study Committee to outline his plans for a new Public Integrity Unit.
Wilson wants the General Assembly to pass new enabling legislation that would outline the duties, responsibilities and authority of the proposed unit.
What have you done this year? Serious question. If you have an immediate answer to that question, great! But the next (and possibly more important) step is to ask yourself, could your average supporter do the same? If not, how can you expect them to support, volunteer, or take action on behalf of your efforts and organization if they aren’t fully aware of how you’re working to benefit them, society, or an industry?
Every organization likely has its ardent supporters who read every newsletter, follow you on social media, and religiously contribute to your cause. These individuals are essential to any organization and got you to where you are today. If your goal is growth though, you need to constantly and consistently expand the population of “ardent” supporters who may be interested in your organization, but may not be aware of the details of what you actually do and accomplish.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) put himself directly in the bullseye of Tea Partiers and their Republican far right allies when he said over the weekend he would no longer be bound by the Grover Norquist pledge to not raise taxes.
Graham’s comment, “When you’re $16 trillion in debt, the only pledge we should be making to each other is to avoid becoming Greece…” will be used against him over and over during the next two years.
He did not advocate raising taxes at this point, he merely pointed out it is one of the options that should remain on the table as federal legislators attempt to avoid taking the government over the ‘fiscal cliff’ in the next month.
Economic growth continues in Asia while it stagnates in America. Even though Singapore and Hong Kong have the heavy hand of government involved in infrastructure planning, their private sector continues to boom.
I cast my ballot early because I had to be in Hong Kong and Singapore when Americans voted for president of the United States on Nov. 6. I’ve been following the election closely, but I was struck by how closely everyone in Asia paid attention, also. It seems to those in Asia that we have lost our way.
I didn’t have to look far beyond my hotel window to see the expanse of cranes erecting new buildings, too many to count, across each country.
It’s a safe assumption that American citizens, no matter their party affiliation, believe government is wasteful. Government programs never come in on budget, as the recent and predictable example of the Affordable Care Act demonstrates. The American people were told that the ACA would cost $900 billion in ten years, but the latest estimates by the CBO indicate that it will cost a staggering $2.6 trillion in its first in that same time period. This does not even begin to include the multitudes of anecdotal stories we have all heard about government agencies spending hundreds of dollars on relatively inexpensive items such as hammers. We hear these accounts and accept them as, perhaps, exaggerations of actual government waste.
The S.C. Supreme Court struck a blow against illegal gambling this week when it upheld 2006 convictions of five people who were arrested for the supposedly serious crime of playing penny ante poker in a private home in Mt. Pleasant.
Even better, the convictions were based on an 1802 law that a majority of the judges considered flawed and outdated.
Do 1802 laws still count in South Carolina? That’s 58 years before the state seceded from the Union and joined in armed rebellion against the federal government. That losing effort had to void something.
One more nail in the coffin of liberty is being prepared in Washington as Vermont Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy’s rewrite of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act is scheduled for a vote next week.
Despite the misleading name, the rewritten bill would allow 22 federal agencies unlimited access to email accounts without a search warrant and without notifying either the account owner or a judge.
This is just another example of how the federal government is solidifying its position as the ever watchful ‘Big Brother.’
The rewritten bill will not be as egregious as other federal government initiatives since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
The election mess in Richland County is another example of why Home Rule should be totally implemented throughout the state of South Carolina.
We know combining Home Rule and South Carolina in the same sentence is an oxymoron, but we’ll give it a try anyway.
Back in the days before the Supreme Court issued its “one man, one vote” ruling, one senator was elected from each of the state’s 46 counties. For all intents and purposes, the senator was county government, ruling in almost a feudal manner.
Every so often, a story breaks that demonstrates everything that is wrong with American politics. Such is the case with Cortland County (NY) district attorney Mark Suben and the manner in which he lied his way to re-election last week.
According to the Syracuse Post-Standard, Suben was re-elected to his second term as Cortland County district attorney by a 9,815 to 7,507 vote margin over opponent Keith Dayton.
Here’s the hitch, in the last weeks before the election, information surfaced that Suben had acted in pornographic movies in the early 1970’s. Suben categorically denied the information, telling a reporter, “I didn’t make porno movies, That’s a categorical ‘No.’ That’s the truth.”
Seven states have already garnered the required 25,000 signatures on their secession protest petitions and South Carolina is not numbered among them.
Texas is in the lead with over 100,000 signatures with Florida, Louisiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee reported to have over 30,000 signatures each.
Once a petition reaches 25,000 signatures, the White House will make a statement on the issue at some time.
It is distressing that South Carolina trails so miserably in this effort. Where is the fervor the state demonstrated in December 1860? Where are James Chestnut, James Hammond and William Gist when you need them?
Speak Up…