***Palmetto Morning Presented by Jim Dyke & Associates***
THIS FIRST — JUSTICE FOR ALL — Released inmates who violate their probation and still have time left on their suspended sentence can be returned to prison even if they have already served all of their unsuspended time, the South Carolina Supreme Court has ruled.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY — Member of Skull and Bones David McCullough, a very picky eater Ringo Starr, and public diplomacy ambassador Michelle Kwan
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NATIONAL LENS — STEELE THERE — Michael Steele will stay on as the head of the Republican National Committee amid criticism from Senate Republicans who took to the airwaves over the weekend to condemn his comments that the war in Afghanistan could not be won. Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina appeared on the Sunday talk shows to discuss the chairman’s fate as leader of the Republican Party.
BARAK ON BARACK — Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with US Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham in Jerusalem on Wednesday, where they discussed the peace process, Israel-US relations, and other topics. Barak addressed the meeting between Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama, calling it “successful.”
HOT LOVE — Temperatures reaching for triple digits have been a boon for Columbia-area air conditioning companies scrambling to help relieve customers sweltering in the heat. Between an extra-cold January and the second-hottest June on record, some heating and air companies are having record years at a time when the economy still hasn’t found solid footing following a more than two-year recession.
BANG FOR YOUR BUCK — Former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich will attend a fundraiser for 1st Congressional District hopeful Tim Scott at 3 p.m. Friday. State GOP Chair Karen Floyd also will be there.
MUSICAL CHAIRS — Republicans are poised to win more gubernatorial seats in 2010 than in any election during the past 90 years – a feat that would eclipse the 24 seats won during the “Republican Revolution” of 1994, a new study shows. The GOP also has a good chance to challenge the party’s tally of 29 seats it won in 1920, its best showing during the 20th and 21st centuries.
LEFT TO LEAK — More than 27,000 abandoned oil and gas wells lurk in the hard rock beneath the Gulf of Mexico, an environmental minefield that has been ignored for decades. No one — not industry, not government — is checking to see if they are leaking, an Associated Press investigation shows. The oldest of these wells were abandoned in the late 1940s, raising the prospect that many deteriorating sealing jobs are already failing.
DEAR SEC GATES — A group of Boeing-friendly senators has sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates yet another letter trying to tie illegal subsidies into the Air Force’s aerial refueling tanker competition. Politicians have been pressing Gates on the issue ever since a World Trade Organization released a preliminary ruling last year that European Union nations illegally subsidized Airbus programs.
OFF THE MARKET — Spartanburg-based First National Bancshares, the holding company for First National Bank of the South, will cease to be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market on Thursday. The company received a letter from the stock exchange on Dec. 29, 2009, informing First National that it was out of compliance because its common stock closed below the required minimum $1 per share bid price for the previous 30 consecutive business days.
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2010 WATCH — FROM GREENE TO GREEN — As a result of the puzzling Senate nomination of Democrat Alvin Greene in South Carolina — an unemployed veteran who won his primary despite not spending a dime campaigning— the Green Party candidate in the race says he now has a unique shot to win over Democratic voters. “I absolutely think I can get the support of disaffected Democrats,” candidate Tom Clements said. He and Greene will face incumbent Republican Sen. Jim DeMint in November.
WATCH TOM TALK — The Green Party candidate in the race for the U.S. Senate seat says he’s a major competitor. Columbia resident Tom Clements says he is the clear choice for votes who are displeased with the Democratic and Republican parties.
DUI-MPED — A top political adviser is out of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Vincent Sheheen’s campaign after an arrest last month on a DUI charge.
LOTTA CASH — Democratic attorney general candidate Matthew Richardson’s campaign says it has $325,000 in cash on hand as the run to South Carolina’s general election start. Richardson says he has raised more money in his first three months than Republican nominee Alan Wilson raised in a year.
UH-OH JOE — One of the five judges in this year’s Miss South Carolina pageant said he believes the organization’s president engaged in unethical behavior during the recent competition by trying to influence the judges’ decisions. The Miss America Organization is looking into the matter.
WELCOME TWEET — GoUpstate
Apple will open its first Upstate South Carolina retail store Saturday morning at Haywood Mall in Greenville. http://tinyurl.com/2bg4q4t
POOL PROBLEM — The Federal Emergency Management Agency decided two years ago, that it didn’t like the way Myrtle Beach hotels winterize their indoor pools. Hotel operators and the Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce have managed to hold FEMA off for two years while trying to get the agency to change its mind. But that hasn’t worked, so they asked Congressman Jim Clyburn to write a law forcing a change and that has met with more success.
SENIOR SCAM — Creative scammers have found yet another way to bilk seniors. Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer warns older people to be on the lookout for crooks who want to steal their personal information by pretending to need a Social Security number, a bank account or other information to process a $250 government check to cover the costs of prescriptions through Medicare.
IVA — Crescent High teacher honored for work in agricultural education
HORRY — Motorsports charter school gets conditional OK
ANDERSON — Anderson County gets federal money for airport upgrades
GREENVILLE — Erskine College warned by accreditation body
COLUMBIA — $300,000 to Put Homeless Veterans Back to Work
YORK — Pulcra Chemicals to Create 15 New Jobs
DILLON — Dillon County Industrial Park is now a certified site
ROCK HILL — SC woman suspects Peeping Tom, sets video trap
LANCASTER — Local parents team with NASCAR star to prevent whooping cough
AIKEN — Wilson to hold town hall meeting
LEXINGTON — More trails coming to Lexington County
CHARLESTON — Hospital faces $67,000 in sanctions
VIEWPOINT — LOONY TOONS — “If South Carolina politics were a cartoon — and you could make a good argument that, in fact, they are — then the Republicans are Bugs Bunny to the Democrats’ Daffy Duck, the Road Runner to their Coyote, the Foghorn Leghorn to their Dog.”
VIEWPOINT II — LASSOED — “Texas Sen. John Cornyn, one of the few GOP senators who can normally be counted on to stand up for conservatism, has all but agreed to buy Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan a celebratory lunch once she’s confirmed. Kagan has somehow neutered Cornyn so that he, and previously neutered Republican senators like Lindsey Graham, appear ready to concede Kagan a position on the highest court in the land even though she’s openly hostile to the Constitution of our nation.”
VIEWPOINT III — WORTH EVERY PENNY — “As South Carolina’s tax revenues have fallen and the state’s annual budget has dipped 30 percent in three years, there has been a lot of discussion about what constitutes a “need” in this state, about which services are really crucial. A story in the Charleston Post and Courier this week about one very expensive, very necessary state program provides a good illustration of the difference between things we need the government to supply and the things we want it to supply.”
FINALLY THIS — TRADER LUKE — Everybody laughed when Glenn Lucas showed them his plans to build a floating ice cream stand in the shape of a cone of soft-serve. Almost two years after he began building his dream inside borrowed space in the cavernous warehouse of Palmetto Bay Yacht Center, Lucas is ready to open what he says is Hilton Head Island’s — and the world’s — first business of its kind.
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