By Paul Gable
Former Sen. Robert Ford has said he will start calling names if S. C. lawmakers don’t stop the practice of using their public positions to grab millions of taxpayer dollars for personal gain.
In an article by Corey Hutchins of the Charleston City Paper, Ford is quoted as saying this will ‘make the tea party movement look like a beer drinking contest.’
Ford resigned his longtime senate seat during S.C. Senate Ethics Committee hearings into alleged misuse by Ford of his campaign funds.
South Carolina recently was ranked as the least corrupt state in the nation for public corruption, based on the number of convictions of public officials per capita.
Notice, the key word is conviction. We all know that South Carolina is a cesspool of public corruption that goes uncorrected due to the lax ethics laws in the state and even less desire, especially by the Senate and House ethics committees, to enforce them.
Ford intimates he knows of many ethics violations by his former colleagues totaling millions of dollars and he called on them to stop these actions immediately or he would go public with his knowledge.
Ford is making a mistake here. His only proper action is to go public with what he knows right now and let the chips fall where they may.
Any other action seems to be some type of justification by Ford for his previous actions and is just blowing smoke!
Link to Hutchins article: http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/TheBattery/archives/2013/09/09/ex-charleston-sen-robert-ford-is-threatening-to-expose-sitting-lawmakers-for-unspecified-ethical-conflicts
Hey Robert, have a Coke and a smile and STFU. What makes you think that simply exposing’ this type of influence peddling will matter one iota? We have known about Leatherneck for years with the concrete concessions. And the ‘hundreds of thousands in sequentially numbered cashier’s checks called Chambergate’ has been written about and even admitted to in the paper for four years. The very officeholders that admitted to receiving this ‘payola’ are about to be reelected in Myrtle Beach. Hell, they are all running together as a ticket and the Chamber’s minions are at it again. No shame by the Chamber, no repercussions for the elected officials, nothing to see here, just move along.
Great post and 100% correct. The entire reason for the GSBA backing the MB City Hall incumbents as as a group is that keeping them together and happy assures that the the “Inner Cabinet” of the local machine known as the “MB Mafia” has total control of business and politics on the Grand Strand into perpetuity. And the public be damned! We know that the corruption in Columbia and the corruption in Florence connects up in many ways with the corruption here in Horry. So tell us something we don’t know and we will be impressed.
Money talks, BS walks, Robert Ford! Show us what you know of the money trail or hit the bye-bye trail yourself and stay out of our faces. If you don’t back up your jabber-jawin’ with names, dates and numbers, ain’t nobody got time for you!