Spartanburg City Council gave an initial thumbs-down Monday to banning smoking in bars and restaurants in response to a state Supreme Court ruling allowing a ban in Greenville.
Council members frowned on the idea, saying - for now - they didn’t want to tell business owners how to operate and espousing fears that bars and restaurants would not locate inside city limits. Mayor Bill Barnet also questioned how police would enforce the ban inside businesses.
“I don’t think we want our public safety team chasing down a smoker in the back of Wild Wings for $25,” he said.
This is because in Spartanburg there is a City Council made up of logical common sense individuals who have respect for property rights. This is the antithesis of the Greenville City Council which is comprised of authoritarian freaks who send out the cigarette patrol to bars to ticket people because apparently the Greenville PD have too much time on their hands.
JONESVILLE - A sign in front of a local church that links Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and terrorist leader Osama bin Laden is causing a stir in this small Union County town, but the pastor who posted the question is defending the message, saying it came after prayer.
The sign is drawing criticism from some in the area who see its message as a political or race-based attack.
Roger Byrd, pastor of Jonesville Church of God, said he posted the following message in hopes of getting people to think:
Of course some are screaming racism. How dare anyone lay criticism against the black man running for President. Obamassiah is for hope and change and who on Earth would be against that??
Lame allegations aside, the sign is idiotic and only paints the pastor as an extreme right wing wacko, which perhaps he is. Who knows? Obama can easily be cut down by most of his illogical Marxist policy views. Displays like this only detract from the real issues.
The Myrtle Beach City Council this morning talked about the possibility of increasing the city’s millage rate to help support Coast Regional Transportation Authority, as well as to pay for increasing service needs within the city.
The city’s budget proposal has not called for an increase to date, but City Manager Tom Leath last week sent an e-mail to councilmembers suggesting a 3-mill hike.
Many S.C. women who back U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton say their candidate has yet to get a fair shake in her bid to become the first female president.
“Oh, God, it’s been horrible,” said Nikki Hardin of Mount Pleasant, publisher of the women’s magazine Skirt! “I just think it’s been abominable.”
Hardin and others say their candidate has been unfairly characterized by a biased, sexist punditry that overlooks slights to Clinton’s gender but pounces whenever there is a disparaging remark about U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.
Oh, give me break. Hillary Clinton is one of the hardest campaigners and aggressive politicians in Washington, male or female. Give me one solitary example of how she has faced sexism in this race. Hell, she was the front runner for months by a large margin!
Oh God! It’s horrible! It’s just abominable!. Find something productive to do with your time, lady. Go burn your bra or something.
The House will take up a bill May 7 that would eliminate the requirement that school superintendents and nurses be notified if a student has HIV/AIDS. Tuesday, the House adjourned debate until May.
Advocates of the bill say the disclosure is stigmatizing and violates privacy rights. Others argue disclosing who is HIV-positive is needed to protect students from being infected.
Schools need to have this information. Students play sport, they get into fights, they engage in contact where they can get cut and possibly bleed on someone else. I’m a big advocate of everyone having their privacy, but this is too serious a situation. AIDS kills people.
State Sen. Randy Scott “berated” Dorchester County deputies after failing three field sobriety tests, according to a Sheriff’s Office report released Monday.
The five-page incident report outlines Scott’s arrest this weekend on a driving under the influence charge. The senator allegedly threatened the arresting sergeant and the county magistrate with their jobs.
The arrest, made late Saturday in Summerville, comes just weeks before a primary election that pits Dorchester County political interests against one another.
Scott, a Summerville Republican finishing his first term in the Senate, is arguing that the arrest is politically motivated. He is running against former state Sen. Mike Rose, a Republican, in June.
It’s hard to tell from the video whether or not the Sheriff’s claims are true because the sound quality isn’t very good. He seemed to be fine on the counting part to me. The tilting his head back, however, would indicate to me he was tipsy, prosthetic leg or not. If the Sheriff’s deputy thinks he was drunk, he was probably was. I think the allegations of this arrest being politically motivated are a crock.
It takes a village to raise a child, and that village starts here,” said Aiken County First Steps executive director Marcia Nash as she led the group of speakers at Aiken County First Steps for Fathers Fatherhood Summit on Monday.
I would respectfully disagree, madame. It takes a family.
Along with representatives from the First Steps for Fathers program, many local representatives also took part in the discussion which focused on the ways the absence of a father affects a child in terms of physical health, sexual activity, crime, child abuse, academic performance, behavioral problems, substance abuse and emotional problems.
It’s been proven that the absence of a father is a major factor in children that get into trouble. That is why families need to be planned and a baby not to be taken lightly. Too many people today are having children out of wedlock and the role of dad has been replaced with the state. That has had a detrimental effect on American society. A stable family unit will likely turn out a stable adult. The proof is in the pudding.
After weeks of posturing over debates in their high-profile race, the two leading Democratic candidates for governor agreed to another television debate Monday, giving themselves just a day to prepare.
Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore will meet at 8 p.m. Tuesday for an hourlong debate at the WRAL studios in Raleigh, station general manager Jim Hefner said. It will air live and be simulcast on stations in Wilmington, Charlotte and possibly elsewhere.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Urban drivers are stuck in traffic. Rural residents are waiting for their local highway to get a needed widening. By one estimate, North Carolina is $65 billion short of the money it needs to fix those road woes and the many others that will pop up in the next 20 years.
But none of the major-party candidates for governor are eager to impose new taxes or fees to make up the difference. Instead, in recent surveys and interviews with The Associated Press, they said their demands of accountability and improvements in bureaucratic efficiency will be enough to start North Carolina down the path to reclaiming its place as the “Good Roads State.”
“Before we start talking about any more holes to fill, I want to get that thing running as lean as possible, where people can trust that the money that’s going there is being spent wisely,” said State Treasurer Richard Moore, one of the Democratic candidates. “I don’t think people think that today.”
They have good reason to not think that way today. The state Department of Transportation has been rife with wasted tax dollars and misplaced priorities. There is more political influence involved rather than where the actual needs are. The board members need to be replaced. Lyndo Tippett needs to be replaced and politics need to be removed from the system.
RALEIGH - A court hearing was delayed Monday for a Durham probation officer singled out for not meeting with one of the two men charged with killing two college students.
A state trooper arrested the probation officer, Chalita Thomas, 26, in December in Raleigh on a charge of driving while under the influence. She was scheduled to be in Wake County Courthouse Monday but her case was delayed until May.
Remember, this is the probation officer who never bothered to meet with Lovette, the man who eventually murdered UNC Student Body President Eve Carson last month. Clearly she doesn’t even have her own life together, let alone possessing the skills to manage someone else’s. How does someone like this even get hired as a probation officer? Is there really any question that the legal system in North Carolina is a sad joke? I hope voters are keeping this in mind when they are electing a new governor this year and deciding whether or not to keep their state legislators.
WASHINGTON — An N.C. congressman has threatened legal action against his Republican primary challenger over a television ad he claims is defamatory.
The 30-second ad about Rep. Patrick McHenry’s recent trip to Iraq — being aired on Charlotte-area cable channels and the Internet by attorney Lance Sigmon of Newton — accuses the Republican from Cherryville of “revealing troop positions, and just two days later, two Americans died.”
The ad also says McHenry could face 10 years in prison, citing an espionage act that prohibits aiding the enemy.
The controversy began last month when McHenry, a two-term lawmaker, returned from his first trip to Iraq.
So is the ad fair or slanderous? The ad clearly infers that McHenry is responsible for the deaths of two soldiers following the airing of his video in Iraq, however a chief investigator for the House has said that it is implausible that McHenry’s video could have anything to do with that. Personally, I feel the ad goes overboard and is misleading, but here it is for you to decide:
State Sen. Walter Dalton plans to appear in Asheville Wednesday with Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan and Rutherford County Sheriff Jack Connor to promote his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for lieutenant governor.
Dalton’s campaign said he plans to announce endorsements of more than 50 North Carolina sheriffs at the event at 11:30 a.m. at the Buncombe County Courthouse. The press conference follows a three-day meeting of the N.C. Sheriff’s Association in Asheville.
