Politics

Curtis M. Loftis Jr. and Chris Christie

What politicians will do for a little ink…

Treasurer Curtis Loftis In Hospital With Chest Pains

Click READ FULL STORY below to wish Treasurer Loftis a speedy recovery.

South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis has checked himself into a hospital after suffering chest pains.

Spokesman Brian DeRoy says Loftis underwent tests Monday and expects to be released on Tuesday. DeRoy says the Republican treasurer has been working long days recently and suspects he suffered from exhaustion.

Loftis’ fight with the commission that oversees retirees’ pension funds in the state led to a lawsuit last month that was quickly settled.

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Defending the First Amendment

The Obama administration’s attack on the First Amendment took a predictable turn recently when White House Press Secretary Jay Carney reiterated the administration’s use of national security concerns in justifying White House investigations of journalists.

In attempting to justify the Justice Department’s seizing of reporters’ phone records and emails, Carney said, “The president believes it’s important that we find the proper balance between the need—absolute need to protect our secrets and to prevent leaks that can jeopardize the lives of Americans and can jeopardize our national security interests on the one hand and the need for—to defend the First Amendment and protect the ability of reporters to pursue investigative journalism.”

The original attack on the First Amendment, with the Sedition Acts way back in 1798, made it illegal for persons to criticize the administration and/or government, even if the criticism was true. The acts were passed by the Federalist Congress in the mistaken impression that they were combating anarchy – a threat to national security.

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Carolina Southern Railroad

Carolina Southern Railroad Heist?

An unofficial committee of three local counties passed two resolutions Wednesday calling for new ownership for the Carolina Southern Railroad while acknowledging the railroad is essential for Horry and Marion counties in South Carolina and Columbus County, NC.

Grandly calling itself the “‘Interstate Railroad Committee of North and South Carolina’, this group of public officials representing several communities and three counties across two states, with no legal basis, has finally come out of the closet with its true purpose.

That purpose is to wrest ownership of the railroad from Ken Pippin and his family.

Since when, in America, is it the purpose of one government or a group of governments to decide who should own a private business?

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Trey Gowdy wants to see IRS jail time

Trey Gowdy wants to see IRS jail time

Trey Gowdy wants to see IRS jail time By ANDREA DRUSCH Rep. Trey Gowdy says he wants a “full throated outrage” from the president over the recent controversy at the IRS. “We’re not interested in retirements and forced ousters, we’re interested in people going to jail,” the South Carolina Republican […]

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We now know that at least three IRS offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Investigating the IRS partie deux

We now know that at least three IRS offices were involved in the targeting of conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status.

The Washington Post reported today the IRS Washington, D.C. headquarters sent questionnaires to conservative groups asking about their donors and other areas of their operations while the El Monte and Laguna Miguel offices in California did the same with tea party affiliated groups.

This takes the investigation of IRS activities well beyond the initial claim that some low level functionaries in the Cincinnati office were to blame.

According to the article, an employee in the Cincinnati office told a lawyer representing one of the targeted groups that its application was “under review” in Washington.

Interestingly, it was George W. Bush appointed IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman who told a Congressional committee in spring 2012 that no targeting was occurring. Shulman resigned in November 2012.

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IRS Abuse

IRS Abuse Allegations Need Real Investigation

The increasing revelations of the Internal Revenue Service targeting conservative groups for increased scrutiny are the potential political scandal that Congress should be investigating.

In addition to groups with the words “tea party,” and “patriot” being targeted for extra IRS scrutiny, we learned over the weekend groups criticizing the government and those seeking to educate people about the Constitution were also given extra scrutiny.

It is now obvious that these acts were not the isolated, random acts of a couple of low level IRS employees as they were first characterized. The head of the IRS tax-exempt division was made aware of this activity as early as June 2011.

Using the IRS for a political agenda was the second article of impeachment prepared against President Richard Nixon.

It has been written that use of the IRS against political opponents goes back at least to President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Use of the IRS or any other government agency to target political opponents by either party is absolutely unacceptable and investigations of such alleged activity and prosecution of those responsible should be pursued to the absolute maximum.

The major question to be answered is what did President Barack Obama know and when did he know it?

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Benghazi: Searching for Truth, Exposing Failure, and Saluting Heroism

Benghazi: Searching for Truth

Wednesday’s Benghazi hearing of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee gave Americans the first public eyewitness account from anyone actually on the ground in Libya on September 11, 2012.

Gregory Hicks, the former number two at the U.S. embassy in Tripoli, walked committee members through that fateful night. The testimony of the witnesses was totally gripping, extraordinary, and very emotional. Even if some of this account had already been made public, hearing it live was nothing less than tragic.

Unbelievably, it took eight months for this hearing to happen. Credit goes to the great courage of the three witnesses—Hicks, Mark Thompson, who leads State’s Foreign Emergency Support Team (FEST), and Eric Nordstrom, former regional security officer for the Middle East. And credit also goes to the persistence of committee chairman Darrell Issa (R–CA) to shine a light on the terrorist attack that took the lives of four brave Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Most impressive were the glaring contrasts contained in the testimony. Hicks’s on-the-ground testimony shows both the glaring inadequacy of Washington’s response and the heroic efforts of the embassy and CIA teams on the ground in Libya. Both aspects of this case should be explored.

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SC Public Pension Plans Dying on the Vine

The S.C. Budget and Control Board heard from S.C. Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom Wednesday that S.C. public pension plans are “dying on the vine” due to declining funding levels.

A combination of factors including investment returns, contribution levels and benefit-allocation amounts all contribute to what amounts to a train wreck waiting to happen. Eckstrom said unfunded liabilities of the various pension funds are increasing.

According to the latest numbers we have seen, the state’s pension fund assets are approximately $26 billion with unfunded future liabilities of approximately $17 billion. According to Eckstrom, the unfunded liability grew by approximately $1.5 billion in the past year.

Who is on the hook for making up the shortfall? That’s easy, the state’s taxpayers.

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Mark Sanford Returns to Washington

Republican Mark Sanford will be returning to Washington to again represent the citizens of the South Carolina 1st Congressional District after a nearly 12 ½ year break.

Sanford easily defeated Democratic opponent Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special election to fill the seat after former representative Tim Scott was elevated to the Senate earlier this year when Jim DeMint resigned to head up the Heritage Foundation.

Despite turning off some voters with his 2009 antics of disappearing for several days to visit his Argentinian mistress while serving as governor of South Carolina, Sanford was never really in danger of losing this election.

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Ethics Reform – Not So Fast

A House bill on ethics reform passed the important second reading vote Tuesday, which will allow it to pass with a majority vote in the Senate, if one can be arranged, before the end of the current legislative year.

However, before we get too excited about ethics reform occurring in South Carolina, let’s consider some of the provisions of the proposed legislation.

The bill would do away with the House and Senate Ethics Committees and replace them with a Joint Committee on Ethics to hear complaints filed against members of the General Assembly.

The committee would be made up of sixteen members, eight legislators and eight members of the public.

The makeup of the legislators would be four senators, two each elected from the majority party and the largest minority party in the body. Four house members will be elected to the committee in the same manner.

The eight public members would be elected four each by the House and Senate with two each from the majority caucus and the largest minority caucus in each body.

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