Recent Posts

John Weaver Running for County Council?

Several reliable sources have recently mentioned that former county administrator and county attorney John Weaver is considering a run against incumbent Paul Price for the Horry County District 5 seat.

Weaver left his final position as county administrator after a majority of council refused to extend his contract and encouraged him to leave five months before the expiration date of the contract.

It would be extremely interesting to see Weaver enter the political spotlight considering some of his past positions on important county issues.

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Tea Party Posturing and Government Default

I think I finally understand the mindset of the Tea Party Republicans in the House who don’t seem to be worried about a default by the U.S. on its obligations if the government’s debt ceiling isn’t raised today.

The Tea Party group loves to talk about low taxes, limited government and going back to the historical roots of the Constitution.

After we formed our new government in 1789 and became the United States of America, at least in name, we immediately defaulted on the debts left over from the Revolutionary War. Of course, those same debts had been defaulted on many times before, but that was under the Articles of Confederation.

Yeah, we just delayed the payment of interest on the debt until 1803 because we were the United States now.

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Secrecy, Intimidation and the Obama Administration

A recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists says the Obama administration is the most aggressive administration to pursue leaks to journalists since the Nixon administration’s plumbers unit during the Watergate investigation.

This from a president that promised more openness in government while he was running for election in 2008.

Information provided from the Obama administration generally falls into the category of that which makes the administration look good.

Otherwise, it’s overclassify information, nearly unprecedented attempts to control leaks and significant surveillance on journalists to attempt to intimidate them and learn the identity of their sources.

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Myrtle Beach International Airport

WestJet End Game

Horry County Council will vote on a proposal to pay the county’s approximately $570,000 bill to WestJet Tuesday night bringing an end to the WestJet guaranteed revenue saga.

The proposal, which gained approval of the Administration Committee, last week will have the county’s current set aside portion of accommodations tax money, $250,000, paid to WestJet immediately.

The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce will pay the other $320,000 and recoup that money over the next few years from annual accommodations tax set aside funds the county receives.

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Gaming the City of Columbia Budget

Being a Child in America Today

Being able to look back on childhood with fond remembrance used to be taken for granted for most people. However, being a child in America today is getting more hazardous by the day.

Here’s a joke for you – did you hear the one about an elementary school child who was suspended for playing cops and robbers on the playground?

It turns out 8-year-old Jordan Bennett from Florida went all Tony Montana at recess and got a little carried away with the pow pow with his fingers.

Bennett’s crime was he did what children have done on playgrounds for decades – he pointed his thumb and index finger into a right angle and mimicked gunfire.

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Myrtle Beach – A Tale of Two Cities

Two neighborhood watch meetings in Myrtle Beach in recent days highlight the great divide that separates the city, according to several candidates in this year’s city election.

A meeting of the Withers Swash Neighborhood Crime Watch group was filled with complaints about three home invasions, one that included a rape of a woman with a gun, an armed robbery, drug deals in church parking lots, prostitution arrests and a shootout on Maple Street, among other incidents all in the last month.

To say the group attending the meetings was irate is to minimize the feelings in the room. However, being on the south end of the city, the neighbors are used to serious crime and minimal police presence.

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Change Needed in Federal Government

Now into our second week of a federal government shutdown with a possible default on federal government debts looming just around the corner, it’s time to admit what we have in Washington doesn’t work.

A total of $5.2 billion was spent on the 2012 elections for President and Congress. We’d have been better off burning $100 bills in the front yard.

What was the first thing many in Congress did when they got to Washington in January 2013? Start raising money for re-election in 2014!

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Gingrich, Myrtle Beach, Oil and Interstates

Horry County Nixes Reality Show

According to the latest information from inside Horry County Government, a reality show looking to film during a bike rally won’t become a reality in Horry County.

A production team from PSG Films, the group that films “Alaska State Troopers”, initially got approval to ride along with Horry County police during last week’s fall bike rally.

However, there was not enough time to sell sponsorships, so planning moved to the 2014 spring rally.

Then some Horry County officials not necessarily sympathetic to bike rallies heard about the plans. You know, ‘Take Back May’ and all that.

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Horry County and the WestJet Guarantee

Horry County has finally made public the full extent of the cost to county taxpayers for the deal the county signed with WestJet to bring the Canadian airline to Myrtle Beach International Airport.

According to a press release from Horry County Public Information Officer Lisa Bourcier, the county expects to owe WestJet $570,000 by the end of the year.
The county entered into an incentive agreement with WestJet in order to attempt to open up new markets to the airport.

It was our original understanding, from members of council, that the county was guaranteeing WestJet against loss, in the first year of these new routes, up to $1 million.

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Executive Producer Talks “Big Talk”

One month into the new politically oriented television show, “Big Talk”, Donald Smith the executive producer said the show is coming along as he expected.

“You always go through a learning cycle in the beginning getting the lighting and sound right and melding the personalities on the set,” said Smith. “We are right at the point I thought we would be after one month.”

Talking politics is considered a no-no in polite society, especially when there are three people with strong opinions doing the talking. The three, Jack Murphy, Jon Bonsignor and Paul Gable encompass most of the political spectrum between them.

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