Carolina Politics Online

Happy New Year everyone

And better times to chance

Tis a night of drunken vomiting,

And pissing in your pants.

COLUMBIA — With a bottomed-out economy and longshoremen looking for second jobs, Sen. Glenn McConnell says the State Ports Authority picked the wrong time to hand out bonuses.

The ports authority awarded $208,000 to its top managers and roughly $500,000 to the rest of its employees, and McConnell, R-Charleston and the president pro tem of the state Senate, said Tuesday he is trying to figure out a way to use legislation to change the practice in the future.

“They (SPA executives) are getting in one day what most working people in this community won’t make in six months,” McConnell said. “What kind of message does that send?”

Bernard S. Groseclose Jr., president of the ports authority, received a bonus of nearly $28,000 on top of his $264,000 salary. McConnell compared that with the average $41,000 salary for Charleston County workers in 2007.

Joe Bryant, vice president for terminal development, took in nearly $22,000. Peter Hughes, chief financial officer, and William McLean, vice president for operators, both received more than $19,000.

All the other 434 ports authority employees earned a bonus that averaged about $1,150. The money was distributed in September.

The Post and Courier

You gotta love it.  The economy is in the tank all across the country.  Americans at every income level are tightening their belts.  More people are out of work and others are working more than one job.  Meanwhile, the fat cats at the ports authority give themselves a bonus worth more money than almost half of the people in this state make in a year.

This is right on par with Congress taking it’s annual COLA this week worth over $4,000 when they have run the country into the ground.  The SPA hasn’t done much better.

“Their business is down, they are in danger of losing their biggest account; that’s the record of the port at this hour,” McConnell said. “There is no increase in economic activity for the community, but they reward themselves for a profit on a state monopoly.”

McConnell said longshoremen are losing hours while volume is down here, like elsewhere. The majority of the SPA’s business is container traffic, which dropped nearly 10 percent in the last fiscal year, and for the first five months of the current fiscal year is down by upwards of 4 percent.

You and I have to live within our means, but don’t ever have the audacity to expect government and bureaucrats to do the same.

COLUMBIA — Gov. Mark Sanford said today that he will will apply for a $146 million federal loan to keep benefits going out to 77,000 jobless residents through March.

Speaking at a late morning press conference, Sanford said he will continue to push for change but doesn’t want the unemployed to be punished.

State Rep. James Smith said earlier today that he and five other lawmakers would request a state audit of the agency that handles unemployment benefits, in light of a demand from Sanford.

The Post and Courier

I was hoping he would hold out, but perhaps Smith can make something happen in the General Assembly.

Perdue, a Democrat from New Bern, will begin her tenure with state government in a budget hole that some projections say could reach $1.6billion by the end of June. It’s an ominous figure. It took her predecessor, outgoing Democratic Gov. Mike Easley, three years to get out from under a budget shortfall he inherited after taking office in 2001 that initially totaled $850 million.

Charlotte Observer

And a new budget deficit that Sleasley helped create for 2008.

And the breadth of the nation’s recession means no one knows for sure just how accurate the projections are. If the economy doesn’t improve, the gap between the state’s expected revenues and its growing list of expenses could near $3 billion by the start of the next fiscal year in July.

The recession is only part of the problem.  When times were good and money was rolling into Raleigh on silver platters the legislature, like pretty much every other state now begging the Feds for a bailout, carelessly spent it all on pet projects and other waste.  Let’s tell the whole story here, shall we?

“I will not let it consume every breath that I take for the next year – although it could if one would let it because it is fundamentally unbalanced and there are tremendous challenges there,” Perdue, lieutenant governor since 2001, said of the state’s budget.

Perdue insists she won’t make the budget an excuse for failing to move forward with initiatives she pushed during her winning campaign.

“The first year that a new governor is in office, her policies will take precedence,” said Ran Coble, executive director of the nonpartisan North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research.

But Perdue may have to take an incremental approach to reach her goals of offering free community college tuition and expanding subsidized health care for children.

I know, living within a budget sucks and not to mention that budgeting is so yesterday anyway.  Who does that anymore?  Why make sacrifices today when you can cripple your children with your debt tomorrow?  That is the Baby Boomer way.  Why should Bev Perdue conduct state business any different?  By golly, she promised that she’ll make your next door neighbor pay for your child’s college tuition and she’s going to deliver.  Dog gone it, she said she will make the lady down the street pay your brat’s medical bills and it’s going to happen, $3 billion deficit be damned!  These are the important things, don’t you know?  Bev cannot be hindered!

John Edwards

There are jackasses. Then there are super-primo jackasses. Then there are those who do things that even jackasses find repulsive. It’s about right there, with the rest of the parasites living on the underbelly of jackassery, that you’ll find John Edwards, your choice for Carolina Politics Online’s 2008 Jackass of the Year.

Congratulations readers. You have made a fine choice indeed.

Some may accuse me of partisanship-inspired hyperbole, but I believe that John Edwards is such a truly loathsome human being that I can write until tomorrow and be unable to muster the words necessary to express just how much I detest this waste of protoplasm. It’s not simply that he has no redeeming value; it’s that on the whole, he’s a net negative to society. Because John Edwards exists, politics is a little more cynical, the legal profession is less noble, a doctor’s appointment costs a little more, and even sunsets lose a little bit of their splendor. Edwards just sucks the vibrancy and joy out of life like the overgrown tic he is. You, me, your family, and America are all worse off because of John Edwards.

There are so many reasons to detest this man, the hardest part about writing this is keeping it short while still explaining why he’s such a Jackass. I suppose we should start with the fact that because of John Edwards, expectant mothers across the United States have few doctors to help them and more costs to pay.

You see, Edwards made his name (and his fortune), suing obstetricians for causing Cerebral Palsy (CP) in the babies they were delivering. Edwards claimed that CP was caused by doctors waiting too long to perform C-sections. During his first big CP trial, he “channeled” the voice of a young CP victim during his closing argument. “She speaks through me”, he told the jury, who may have confused him with John Edward, that TV guy who talks to dead people and fellow nominee for Biggest Douche in the Universe. The channeling must have worked, because despite having no actual proof that the doctors did anything wrong, the jury found in his favor and awarded his clients $6.5 million.

The only problem with this is that it was all bullsh-t. Thanks to Edwards and other tics with law degrees, many obstetricians decided to cover their butts practicing “defensive medicine”- including ordering C-sections when they weren’t needed to ensure they wouldn’t get sued for not ordering one. Well, despite the resulting rise in the number of C-sections, the CP rate remained the same. There are no medical correlations between C-sections and CP. But John Edwards will never tell that to a jury he’s trying to snooker.

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Incoming N.C. Auditor Beth Wood (D) was the recipient of some nice free advertising by the N&O. The auditor is in charge of making sure than our tax dollars aren’t wasted by the Raleigh politicians. It’s an incredibly important, if un-glamorous, job. So I’m glad we learned the following about our next taxpayer watchdog:

- She’s a talker. 
- She stands over 6 feet tall when wearing 3-inch heels.
- She’s “just a little old country girl from Cove City.”
- She used to be a dental hygienist.

Oh, and she’s really, really confident:

 ”I’m not sure there’s ever been a team this talented, starting with the state auditor,” Wood said.

Well ain’t that swell?

What you won’t learn from this article is how she plans to be a skunk at the Raleigh garden party when she’s a Democrat, along with the governor, lt. governor, attorney general, state house, and state senate. Nor will you hear her plans to be non-partisan despite being a Democrat Party hack who owes her election to the zombies who voted straight ticket Democrat last month.

Wood was hired by the last Democrat Auditor, Ralph Campbell, who found a special job for her after she didn’t get the one she originally applied for.

During the campaign, Wood criticized Merritt for what she saw as partisanship by the auditor’s office. Merritt fought well-publicized jurisdictional battles with the N.C. State Ethics Commission, and he launched a much-criticized look into the voter rolls.

“Les is a great guy in a lot of ways,” she said. “He just was out of touch with what we were doing.”

So apparently, our new government watchdog thinks that looking into waste, fraud, and corruption in all areas of state government constitutes being, “out of touch”?

Y’know… since this is Christmas and I’m still feeling jollier than usual, I’ll cut her some slack. I’ll give her an opportunity to prove herself. But fair warning- if she lacks even an ounce of the tenacity and fearlessness Les Merritt had when fighting waste and corruption from BOTH parties, I will pillory her every day from then until Election Day 2012.

What an absolute joke…

A man who was placed under a federal detainer earlier this month says he was coerced into answering questions about his immigration status by being left in a cold room for hours.

Marcelo Pimentel Bornios, 25, was arrested by the Burlington police at 2:42 a.m. on Dec. 14 and placed in the Alamance County jail on a charge of driving while impaired.

Shortly after being processed by the officer and jail personnel, and after telling the officer that he was born outside the United States, Pimentel-Bornios was interviewed by a locally based Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

Pimentel-Bornios said the ICE officer asked him if he was in the country illegally or if he had paid someone to bring him to the country illegally. According to Pimentel-Bornios, when he did not answer those questions, the officer left him in the room and told him he was going to stay there until “he was ready to talk.”

The room only had a small bench and was so cold that he started shaking, Pimentel-Bornios said in Spanish during an interview with the Times-News. In all, he said, he was kept in that room for six to seven hours without a blanket. He was only wearing his jail suit at the time, he added.

From time to time, he said, the officer would come into the room to check if he had changed his mind. He said he was given a meal during that time and was told that he had the right to get an attorney and that he could contact his consulate, though he was not given information on how to do that.

Pimentel-Bornios said he eventually got so tired that he agreed to answer the questions.

“I wanted to get out of there; I was so cold,” he said, adding that at one point he laid on the floor to get some rest.

The Times News

Well gee, it sounds to me like he could have gotten out of there whenever the hell he wanted if he would have simply answered the damn question!  Are you here illegally?  Yes or no?  He didn’t answer because he obviously isn’t supposed to be here!

FOR ATTORNEY Ehber Rossi, cases like these are violations of a person’s civil rights.

“These allegations are troubling,” Rossi said. “There seems to be a pattern of possible abuse that seems to be affecting one specific group in the county.”

He added that though it’s convenient to say that the only group being targeted by the 287(g) program is the illegal population, these cases show that the common denominator is not immigration status but rather race.

“No matter what way you look at it, these are troubling allegations that should be looked into,” he said.

What needs to be looked into?  Him being a little chilly??  Oh, boo hoo hoo!  Oh, it was so cold!  Well maybe if you didn’t sneak across our border and then careen down the road drunk as a skunk where you could have almost killed somebody you wouldn’t have been sitting in that cold, stone room.  You know what your country does to illegal aliens they catch?

As for this Rossi guy, he is just another scum lapping puss bag lawyer exploiting our legal system trying to make a buck with this frivolous complaint.  Troubling my ass.  The guy made the decision to stay in the cell on his own.  Period!

A spokesman for South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says a request for federal aid to pay benefits to out-of-work residents will be signed as soon as unemployment officials agree to certain conditions.

Employment Security Commission board members and staff were meeting Monday to discuss the governor’s demands.

Sanford has some things he wants first before he signs the request, such as an independent, third-party audit to review operations and performance of the commission.

Among other things, Sanford wants to have unemployment insurance data collected, Details like reasons for getting unemployment and dates of employment benefits, and quarterly employment numbers and wages.

Additionally the Governor wants information about companies that close, like when they shut down and where they’re located.

WIS News 10

Sanford is correct to demand better oversight of the Employment Security Commission in order to identify potential inefficiencies and waste and streamline the organization to save the taxpayers of South Carolina money.  Why is the commission objecting to the stipulations of a third party audit?  What are they afraid an audit will uncover?

Sanford’s office says they will not budge on this condition and unless the Governor signs off on the Federal funds the unemployment trust fund could be out of money by tomorrow.

Elizabeth Dole

Excuse me if I’m a little reluctant to do this. There’s just something about casting stones at a matronly old lady, deserved or not, that makes me squirm. So I’ll be a little nicer to “Liddy” than I otherwise would.

Soon to be Ex.-Sen. Elizabeth Dole probably isn’t a “jackass” in the truest sense of the word. Especially if we compare her to the previous three entries, and especially to the next one. Here’s what she is: a failed U.S. Senator, a semi-carpetbagger, and the owner of one of the worst re-election campaigns I have ever seen, replete with one of the most shoddy, brain-dead, miscalculated campaign ads in political history.

This campaign was so bad, that what started off as a near certain re-election (so certain to that most big-name Dems passed on challenging her) ended up as a rout, with Dole losing big to woman most North Carolinians hadn’t even heard of 8 months ago. Part of this blame falls at the feet of her campaign team, who should do the decent thing and give her a full refund. Part of the blame also falls on Barack Obama, whose concerted efforts in N.C. certainly helped Hagan win. And still more of the blame falls on George W. Bush and his God-awful Presidency for nearly destroying the Republican brand name.

But most of the blame falls on Dole herself. Despite have universal name recognition across North Carolina, she was never as strong as she presumed herself to be when this campaign started. Most North Carolinians seemed to think of her more as a creature of Washington (with the occasional commute to N.C.), than as a real North Carolinian. If she was surprised by this, she shouldn’t have been. She faced the same criticism in 2002, when she faced a tougher than anticipated challenge from Erskine Bowels and won an uninspiring victory after running a lackadaisical campaign. For a better politician, such a close call would have been a wake-up call to spend as much time as possible in the Tar Heel State. But Dole isn’t a very good politician.

If you need further proof of her poor political skills, I refer you to The Worst Ad of the Decade. An ad that was so bad it may have torpedoed her AND filtered down to hurt Pat McCrory and John McCain. It was so bad, Elizabeth Dole could have put up a 30 second ad showing her horking loogies on the state flag, and it would have done less damage. It was such a miscalculated blunder of epic proportions that everyone who had anything to do with it should be exiled from North Carolina and never be allowed near another campaign again. Ever. EVER.

Let me tell you a true story. It’s not widely known at in addition to The Ad, Dole also made a mailer that hit Hagan on the Godless Americans issue. Well, myself and two Republican mercenary staffers on loan from the RNC were in a certain county’s GOP campaign HQ’s when we saw the mailers. The ad hadn’t come out yet, and we read through the mailers wearing quizzical expressions upon our faces. All three of us, I swear, honestly believed that these mailers were a poorly done 3rd Party hit piece that had been erroneously dropped off at GOP HQ’s. None of us could believe that a professional U.S. Senate campaign had produced something that looked like a bad student government election flyer. And yet… those mailers were better than that TV ad.

And so for being a lousy politician, for not paying more attention to the home front, for running a terrible campaign, and for being responsible for one of the worst ads in political history- all of which helped saddle N.C. with an inexperienced liberal senator who’ll be little more than Harry Reid’s marionette for 6 years, Elizabeth Dole is number two on this list.

Tomorrow- your choice for the BIGGEST Jackass of 2008.

Gov. Assclown thinks the big bad media is being unfair to him:

“There’s a 24/7 press cycle now,” he said. “People calling all night long. They want access to the governor all the time … So that’s created a lot of competition, especially on the print side the pressure has been downsizing and original content. Original content is gotcha stories.”

Easley said the Charlotte Observer and the Raleigh News & Observer had been hardest on him of state media because his administration would not release e-mails relating to personnel matters and corporate recruiting.

He said a recent series on problems with the probation system was a “hatchet job” on Correction Secretary Theodis Beck, though he argued that probationers killings are better than they used to be said the death of Eve Carson was being unfairly blamed on the system.

The N&O

If Easley thinks the N&O and the Observer, which are pretty liberal papers and haven’t been nearly as tough as his incompetence has warranted were hard on him, I shudder to think what some of the other state papers have been doing.

And how totally clueless can this guy get? 580 North Carolinians are murdered by parolees under his government’s watch, and when someone writes a critical report on that tragedy, he calls it a “hatchet job”. My God…

Here’s two more Easleyisms from the article:

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Bobby Jindal will speak in Raleigh on Feb. 4.

The Louisiana governor, a rising star in Republican circles, will be the keynote speaker at the John Locke Foundation’s 19th anniversary celebration.

Jindal was touted as a possible vice presidential candidate during the recent election and is considered to be a potential presidential candidate in 2012.

Tickets are available online or by calling 919-828-3876. Individual tickets cost $60.

The N&O

Oh oh oh oh oh… I SOOOOO wanna see this! Being a political consultant, money’s a little tight for me right now, the political “off-season”. I’ll see if I can scrape together $60 before it’s sold out.

And for someone who says he’s not running for President in 2012, Jindal sure is getting around, ain’t he?

Two insiders are considering moving up. Dannie Montgomery, currently the first vice chair and a longtime Anson County activist, is reportedly interested in the position, as is Luke Hyde of Bryson City, currently the 11th Congressional District chair.

In addition, Clinton fundraiser Richard Sullivan may be interested in either the chairmanship or a finance position.

As previously reported, Statesville attorney David Parker and state Rep. Grier Martin may also be candidates.

The N&O

News flash- Republicans won Election Day!

Great, so that means that Pat McCrory is the real governor-elect, right?

Not quite.

The S.C. Department of Education will hold a free workshop on Jan. 15 for anyone interested in opening a charter school.

The workshop is funded with federal grant money intended to help increase the number of charter schools. The state can also use the money to provide “financial assistance for groups in planning, program design and implementation of successful programs,” according to a news release.

The Herald

Charter schools have made incredible progress in educating children.  In my opinion, it’s all due to their entrepreneurial style of teaching.  They are not bound within the confines of the state and have the ability to teach in new and innovative ways.  They are a remarkable success and I am happy that there is such a strong level of support for them here in South Carolina.

The workshop will be held on January 15th at New Futures Lab at Heyward Career & Technology Center at 3560 Lynhaven Drive in Columbia. Participants must register by January 12th and may contact Rebecca Cupstid via email at rcupstid@ed.sc.gov or call 803-734-8266.

Chris Cillizza who writes The Fix, a blog owned by the Washington Post, has declared Senator-Elect Kay Hagan’s Senate campaign as the best Senate campaign of 2008.

H/T to Under the Dome

And the best Senate campaign of 2008 is:

Kay Hagan of North Carolina — Hagan, a state senator, got into the race against Sen. Elizabeth Dole after a number of better known candidates including Gov. Mike Easley and Rep. Brad Miller took a pass on the contest.

Hagan got into the race as a virtually unknown candidate both in North Carolina and nationally, but quickly showed a capacity to raise money that opened the eyes of many people in Washington. On her first trips to the nation’s capital, she wowed even the most cynical of party operatives with a charisma about campaigning and a no-nonsense approach to what needed to be done to beat Dole.

Hagan got a major boost in her efforts by a significant amount of spending by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s independent expenditure arm — including an ad featuring two men on rocking chairs debating Dole’s effectiveness and closeness to President George W. Bush.

But, she proved a strong — and on-message — candidate in her own right. When Dole went after Hagan in an ad for attending a fundraiser with the Godless Americans political action committee, Hagan was quick to respond with an effective (and cutting) response.

In the end, the race wasn’t close. Hagan beat the seemingly unbeatable Dole 53 percent to 44 percent.

When you think about it, Hagan’s race is similar to a “Cinderella story.”  She basically rose out of obscurity to beat a very well known incumbent by a sizable margin.  Sure, she was a state senator, but she had little name recognition outside of Greensboro where she represented.  She wasn’t expected to mount a credible challenge to Dole, but several things turned in her favor.

One, she was able to run a highly successful fund raising operation and as mentioned above she received lots of outside help from 527 groups that relentlessly hammered Dole almost daily.  She also benefited from the Obama momentum that streamed across the state and the turning economy for which the public held the Republicans responsible.  Lastly, Dole screwed up with her “Godless” ad against Hagan.  That was the gift that kept on giving right up until Election Day.

We await to see what kind of Senator Kay Hagan will be, but I predict she’ll be viewed as an effective legislator by the voters of North Carolina.  Mind you, that doesn’t mean she’ll be a good one, but I’m not inferring she’ll be had either, just effective.  We’ll see in just a few weeks how she handles the tough issues facing the nation right now.

Mike Nifong

And then there was Mike Nifong. This joker’s jackassery was so awful and destructive, that even though most of the important stuff took place two years ago, in 2006, he STILL placed third in this contest, and was the early odds-on favorite to win. Had this contest been held in either 2006 or 2007, we’d be calling the Jackass trophy the Mike Nifong Memorial Cup.

I’m comtemptuous of straight ticket voters, and just plain don’t like Easley because I think he’s an incompetent clown. But Mike Nifong is a whole new critter. This guy set about using the criminal justice system to ruin innocent people’s lives in order to win an election. In so doing he personified what civil libertarians like myself fear most- government run amok. Usually, a tale of some rouge government bureaucrat with nearly unlimited power to destroy your life is a recycled plot out of a lousy movie. But Nifong made it real. What’s truly scary though, is the near certainly that there are more Nifong’s out there. Nifong’s who don’t pick on rich kids with $3 million to spend for defense lawyers and who don’t get caught abusing their power in a headline-making case.

In 2007, after the case has been pried from his grasp and the three Duke lacrosse players were exonerated, Nifong was subjected to disbarment hearings. With the parents of the three college students whose lives he tried to ruin in the room, Nifong still said that he believed “something” took place, and gave a trite and empty apology for his actions. Not surprisingly, the State Bar Disciplinary Committee was not impressed, and he became the first sitting district attorney in the history of North Carolina to be disbarred. Nifong called the process, “fundamentally unfair”. Well, he would know.

He also served a one day stint in jail. If there was any justice the world, he would have spent a year in general population with a bunch of dudes he put in jail. Dudes who thought he had a “pretty mouth”.

Just about the only time this jackass was in the news in 2008 was when he tried desperately to avoid having to pay restitution to the lacrosse players he railroaded. In January of this year he declared bankruptcy with liabilities of over $180 million. Luckily, he appears to be as incompetent as he is corrupt- the bankruptcy claim was thrown out and the civil suit against him will continue. This jackass should live in a Maytag box in some ally in Durham, and spend the rest of his life paying for what he did.

A special mini-jackass trophy goes to Crystal Gail Magnum, the waste of space stripper who instigated this whole mess by falsely accusing the Duke lacrosse team of rape. First, she said 20 people raped her. Eventually, she modified it down to three. Then, she decided that maybe she wasn’t raped at all. Then we found out that she had sex that night with two other people who weren’t even on the team.

Well, after helping almost ruin the lives of three people, she decided to write a book about it this year! She, and everyone who buys that book, are jackasses.

Finally, another special trophy goes to the members of the Duke faculty who automatically presumed the players guilty, and to the jackasses who distributed Wanted posters around campus with the faces and names of the lacrosse team members- even those who hadn’t been accused of anything. These people have yet to apologize for their actions. Geez, even Nifong sort of apologized. Jackasses all.

Tomorrow, your choice for the second biggest Jackass of 2008

State Representative Olin Phillips (D-Gaffney) passed away early yesterday morning of a heart attack.  The State is reporting that there will be a funeral tomorrow at 3 p.m. at the East Gaffney Baptist Church

The N&O’s political guru Rob Christensen came out with his predictions today. Among them:

-Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker will win re-election to a fifth two-year term.
-Attorney General Roy Cooper, a Democrat, will take steps to challenge Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr in 2010.
-Organized labor will gain a major foothold among public employees in North Carolina.

Ugh. Don’t take this personally Rob, but I really hope you’re wrong about that last one.

Anyways, since we’re only a few days away from 2009, does anyone have any predictions they’d like to make? Post ‘em in the comments section, and if they come true, you win a prize*.

*= Promise of prize is non-binding and will not be honored.

No, not ACORN, than socialist criminal voter fraud enterprise that the President-elect said (lied) that he had nothing to do with.

I’m talking about the giant acorn that drops every New Year’s Eve in Raleigh.

This month, the travel Web site www.tripadvisor.com named Raleigh’s New Year’s Eve acorn drop No. 10 on its list of America’s quirkiest New Year’s Eve events.

Raleigh has already been named to more than 20 “Best Of” lists this year, including the Best American City for Singles by Every Day with Rachael Ray, and the Healthiest City for Men by Men’s Health magazine. TripAdvisor’s list was compiled using the sort of subjective judgments behind most “Best Of” lists. The list is based on different New Year’s Eve events’ popularity among TripAdvisor users and the Web site editors.

The news that there are nine other New Year’s Eve events in America more quirky than the acorn drop is likely to shock and disappoint many. Look up “quirky” in the dictionary, and you should see a picture of an acorn dropping. Many of the events deemed more quirky involved the dropping of other strange objects: a glowing pickle in Mount Olive, a giant piece of cheese in Plymouth, Wis., a giant sausage in Elmore, Ohio, and a giant edible bologna in Lebanon, Pa.

The N&O

Best city for singles? I need to get out more.

I think this is the answer to the auto industry’s woes.  The “Big Three” should just start packing up things in Michigan and begin heading down here to South Carolina.  The UAW is breaking the backs of the automotive industry up north, but down here in the south where are all “right to work” states which do not permit compulsory unionism the foreign auto makers invested in our part of the country are performing phenomenally better.  Sure, the market is taking its toll on them too, but they are on a firm financial standing while Detroit was the recipient of another wasteful government bailout.

Look at this map below.  The blue states are right-to-work states and the yellow compulsory unionism states.  The blue states are growing and the yellow states are crumbling.

Legislators in Columbia should strongly consider courting Chrysler, Ford, and GM to seek out a long term solution here in South Carolina.  The bailout money will only go so far.  It is a band-aid on a gaping wound.  The symptoms of the overall disease have not been cured and will continue to hurt them in the long run.  Let’s bring tens of thousands of good paying jobs to our state and give back a thriving American auto industry!