Politics

The Case for Libertarian Candidate Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson has heard it all before.

“You can’t win.” “A vote for you is a wasted vote.” “A third choice.”

And, that sits just fine with the Libertarian candidate for President of the United States.

“I’m not the third choice, I am the only choice,” Johnson told a group of approximately 500 Thursday night on the campus of IUPUI. “A wasted vote, in my opinion, is voting for somebody you don’t believe in. The way you change the country is to vote for somebody that you do believe in. So, yes, go ahead and waste your vote because if everyone in this country wastes their vote on me, I’ll be the next president.”

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Bobby Harrell and His Campaign Funds

South Carolina House Speaker Bobby Harrell has refused to provide detailed receipts of more than $325,000 he reimbursed himself from campaign contributions, according to an ongoing series of stories by Renee Dudley, AKA “little girl” of the Charleston Post and Courier.

For nearly a month, the reporter has been requesting receipts and itemized expenses, as required by state ethics law and subject to public disclosure. S.C. Code of Laws Section 8-13-1302 enumerates requirements for maintenance of expenditure records from campaign contributions.

Disclosure reports on campaign receipts and expenditures are required to be filed quarterly with the S.C. Ethics Commission. These are supposed to include a detailed listing of to whom and for what purpose expenditures are made.

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Revelations Rock(er) Project Blue

New revelations this week about Covation LLC COO David Rocker’s criminal past brought further questions to the viability of the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation’s now infamous Project Blue.

Among other revelations, Rocker failed to file income tax returns for 14 consecutive years while participating in a Klein conspiracy to interfere with the lawful government functions of the IRS.

This new information comes to light as the EDC is lobbying for third reading approval, by county council, of an ordinance that would approve the issuance of $8 million in county general obligation debt as part of an estimated overall $24 million incentive package.

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S.C. Legal System Stacked Against Laymen

There seems to be a de facto informal system within the S. C legal system whereby officers of the court protect each other regardless of what laws, regulations and the code of conduct require.

Those of you who have served in the military, especially the Army, may be familiar with the term West Point Protection Association.

This was a term derisively used, especially during the Vietnam War, to describe an informal system whereby West Point graduates protected the records of each other regardless of rank or other considerations. One West Pointer protected another regardless of what actually happened in the field.

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Secrecy Surrounding MBREDC Projects

Secrecy continuing to surround MBREDC projects in Horry County is starting to wear thin with some council members.

Two Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation projects took up most of the time during a meeting of Horry County Council Tuesday night. Of course, most of the discussion about Project Blue and Project AF took place behind closed doors in executive session, which is standard operating procedure for the EDC.

Council member Gary Loftus and council chairman Tom Rice tried to give excuses for the secret sessions, citing such things as the need to keep information secret in order to maintain a negotiating edge and council members were elected by the public to make these kinds of decisions.

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Controversial EDC Project Blue on Hold for Now

Controversial MBREDC Project Blue on Hold

The Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation has requested the final vote by Horry County Council on Project Blue incentives be delayed from its currently scheduled September 4, 2012 regular council meeting.

Third reading approval and public review of Ordinance 53-12 is currently listed as a published agenda item for the September 4th meeting. The ordinance proposes to issue up to $8 million in county general obligation debt to help fund incentives of the project. The agenda will have to be amended to delay third reading.

According to information we have received, EDC CEO Brad Lofton notified county officials in an e-mail late Thursday afternoon that, while the project retains full support of the EDC, the agency was requesting a short delay before third reading is considered by council.

Project Blue ran into trouble earlier in the week when myhorrynews.com broke a story about the criminal history of Covation COO David L. Rocker, which includes a tax fraud conviction, jail sentence and continuing tax liens.

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Citizens Pushing Far Reaching Ethics Reform In South Carolina

Citizens Pushing Far Reaching Ethics Reform

It is well past time for true ethics reform in South Carolina. Not the reform that our ethically challenged governor and her attorney general sidekick ran around the state last week attempting to claim as their own.

That really was a performance. Gov. Nikki Haley on a taxpayer funded circuit around the state promoting ethics reform that she would have been guilty of violating when she was a state representative. Haley also promoted stiffer freedom of information laws while her current administration routinely disregards FOIA requests.

With Haley it’s not what she says, it’s what she does. The word hypocrisy is too tame to apply to her.

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David L. Rocker and The Many Faults of Project Blue

David L. Rocker and Project Blue

The real reason for the big secret called Project Blue by the Myrtle Beach Regional Economic Development Corporation may have surfaced Monday when myhorrynews.com, the website for Waccamaw Publishers, broke a story on the shady past of David L. Rocker.

According to documents provided to Horry County Council, Rocker is listed as the Chief Operating Officer of Covation Holdings, a startup Georgia company that is trying to land a call center jobs project in the Carolina Forest area. However, last night the EDC was trying to spin Rocker as merely a consultant on the project.

Whatever the truth is behind Rocker’s participation, his past difficulties should raise some eyebrows about whether the county should be risking public dollars on a project which has, so far, been much hype with very little substance.

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The Internet Sweepstakes Café Conundrum

The Internet Sweepstakes Café Conundrum

The conundrum now engulfing the internet sweepstakes cafe issue around the state has had intricate twists and turns in the last several months.

Several key legislators told us recently that SLED chief Mark Keel was lobbying General Assembly members to close the “loophole” in the state law on gambling that allows sweepstakes games at food stores and fast food restaurants. The same loophole is being used by internet sweepstakes café operators to justify their business model.

After the General Assembly failed to act on any change in the law, Keel, using an opinion by Attorney General Alan Wilson, began raiding internet sweepstakes cafes and confiscating the computers on which the games were being played.

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The Politics of the Internet Sweepstakes Raids in South Carolina

The Politics of Internet Sweepstakes Raids

Politics and intrigue too often inject themselves into what should be relatively straightforward issues in South Carolina. This has been especially true recently in government agendas related to internet sweepstakes cafes.

We have been reading recently of what is called the ‘Lexington Ring’ in blogs. Assertions have been made that this so-called cabal of law enforcement officials, magistrates and state legislators is conspiring to allow illegal video poker operations in the midlands.

“Make no mistake none of this is about video gambling. It is, all about assisting petition candidate Katrina Shealy in defeating incumbent Republican Sen. Jake Knotts in the November general election.”

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