***Palmetto Morning Presented by JDA Frontline***
THIS FIRST — ON THE HOMEFRONT — About 1.9 million homes entered the foreclosure process in 2011, the lowest level since 2007 when the recession began, according to a report Thursday by the foreclosure listing firm RealtyTrac Inc. The firm cautioned that the decline does not necessarily indicate that the housing market is getting better, as many foreclosures have been delayed due to confusion over documentation and legal issues involved in the process.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — As seen on TV: Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and Christiane Amanpour – plus “Cheers” to Kirstie Alley
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NATIONAL LENS — GREEN WITH ENVY — Tensions between the rich and poor are increasing and at their most intense level in nearly a quarter-century, a new survey shows. Americans now see more social conflict over wealth inequality than over the hot-button topics of immigration, race relations and age. The survey released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center highlights U.S. perceptions of the economic divide, an issue that has moved to the forefront in the 2012 presidential campaign amid stubbornly high unemployment, increasing poverty and protests by the Occupy movement.
XL PRESSURE — The nation’s most powerful business groups are dialing up the political pressure on the White House to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. December’s payroll-tax-cut deal gives the administration 60 days to approve or reject TransCanada Corp.’s pipeline to bring oil from Alberta’s tar sands projects to Gulf Coast refineries. U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue plans to highlight the pipeline in his closely watched annual speech Thursday on the state of American business.
ON DEFENSE — Mitt Romney, already revving after winning the first two Republican contests, rolled out $24 million in fourth-quarter funds Wednesday, a dose of jet fuel with an added boost from South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint.
SECOND DOWN — GOP Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) warned Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry that their continued attacks on Mitt Romney’s business record would only aid President Obama in the 2012 race, reminding the GOP candidates that “making a profit is not an evil.”
WORKING? — Called out by a GOP primary voter at midday stop in Spartanburg, presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich on Wednesday agreed to scale back his assault on front-runner Mitt Romney’s record with an investment firm criticized for layoffs that resulted from corporate takeover deals.
ROUND OF APPLAUSE — President Barack Obama praised companies that are bringing manufacturing jobs back to the United States from abroad at a White House conference Wednesday where he met with leaders of firms investing in South Carolina and other states. Obama said the 2012 budget proposal he’ll send to Congress in a few weeks will include tax credits for businesses that repatriate overseas jobs and will eliminate subsidies for companies that ship them abroad. “You heard of outsourcing,” Obama told the business leaders, members of his Cabinet and the heads of two large unions. “Well, these companies are insourcing. These companies are choosing to invest in the one country with the most productive workers, the best universities, and the most creative and innovative entrepreneurs in the world, and that is the United States of America.”
SHELL SHOCKED — Ever since the collapse of the domestic steel industry, blue collar workers living in the mountain towns near the border of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio have struggled to find jobs. But last June, Shell Oil Co. announced it would build a huge petrochemical refinery somewhere in that Appalachian region. The plant, known in the industry as a “cracker,” could bring billions of investment dollars and thousands of jobs. Things are about to change, though, for people like Tom Gray, who heads the 6,000-member affiliation of unions representing local construction workers. All anyone wants to know is where Shell might build an ethane cracker. (AUDIO)
UP NEXT WEEK — The U.S. plans a major push next week to jump-start peace talks with the Taliban, senior Obama administration officials said, amid the first concrete signs of progress toward a negotiated end to the 10-year-old war in Afghanistan. The press comes amid the potentially embarrassing emergence of a video that appears to show U.S. troops urinating on Afghan insurgents’ corpses. Its authenticity hasn’t been confirmed. The U.S. special representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Marc Grossman, will meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul to seek his approval to resume U.S. negotiations with Taliban representatives over confidence-building measures aimed at laying the ground for direct Afghan-Taliban talks.
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2012 WATCH — CALENDAR — With the Republican presidential race now moving to South Carolina, party activists here are in the final stages of organizing a candidate forum to be held Friday evening in the conservative stronghold of Spartanburg County. The forum is being sponsored by the Greenville and Spartanburg County Republican parties, two of the largest county party organizations in the state.
MO BROUGHT JOE — South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson stumped through Huntsville Wednesday, rallying local Republicans for what will be a crucial election year. Wilson is best known for his spontaneous interruption of President Obama two years ago, shouting “You lie” at him during the 2009 State of the Union speech. But the South Carolina lawmaker is also a main power broker on Capitol Hill for military spending, one reason why north Alabama Congressman Mo Brooks brought Wilson to town.
THREE’S COMPANY — Lowcountry residents are probably familiar with U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s perennial campaign slogan, “Joe means jobs.” Well, it turns out “Tim” means “jobs,” too. U.S. Rep. Tim Scott, who will represent most of Beaufort County if he is reelected in November, pushed his plan to boost the economy during a visit Wednesday.
ROAD WARRIORS — Conservationists want major changes at South Carolina’s highway agencies — and they launched a campaign Wednesday for legislators to help. During a briefing for state senators in Columbia, environmentalists said the S.C. Department of Transportation should fix more pothole-filled roads, before building billions of dollars worth of new freeways. They will be pushing for a bill to require maintenance before new road projects, as well as other reforms.
AIKEN — Rick Perry stops in Aiken to campaign
BEAUFORT — Celebrations honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. planned throughout Beaufort County
COLUMBIA — Plan envisions 3,550 new homes
GREER — BMW set to make announcement at SC facility
VIEWPOINT — PPEOPLE ARE PEOPLE — Dowell Myers writes and op-ed in The New York Times stating, “The immigration crisis that has roiled American politics for decades has faded into history. Illegal immigration is shrinking to a trickle, if that, and will likely never return to the peak levels of 2000. Just as important, immigrants who arrived in the 1990s and settled here are assimilating in remarkable and unexpected ways. Taken together, these developments, and the demographic future they foreshadow, require bold changes in our approach to both legal and illegal immigration. Put simply, we must shift from an immigration policy, with its emphasis on keeping newcomers out, to an immigrant policy, with an emphasis on encouraging migrants and their children to integrate into our social fabric. “Show me your papers” should be replaced with “Welcome to English class.”
THAT BEING SAID — Immigration debate returns to GOP campaign in South Carolina
FINALLY THIS — UH OH — Rick Perry’s campaign, struggling to make a comeback in South Carolina, encountered another potential problem on Wednesday when it became apparent the candidate might not qualify for at least one of the upcoming GOP presidential debates.
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