Charleston Currents

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FOCUS, Palm: I-526 extension is a zombie highway project

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The S.C. State Infrastructure Bank (SIB) last week voted no (4-3) again on continuing the contract for completing the I-526 extension (I-526X) in Charleston County. On Friday, the county threatened a lawsuit, claiming the SIB couldn’t pull out of the project that would connect West Ashley to Johns Island and end on James Island, traversing the Stono River over the adjacent swamp-wetlands.

While the final costs of this addition have not been nailed down, it would be the most expensive highway expansion ever built in South Carolina. This is a big deal.

by Andy Brack · 07/02/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Common Good, Views

BRACK: Age, Trump will drive fall gubernatorial election

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | In more ways than one, South Carolina’s fall gubernatorial election will hinge on age.

Republican Gov. Henry McMaster, who nabbed a primary runoff victory in an election much closer than expected, is 71. His Democratic opponent, longtime state Rep. James Smith of Columbia, is a generation younger at age 50.

In the months ahead, expect to hear both talking about experienced leadership, but in different ways.

by Andy Brack · 07/02/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Don’t be gullible and let your freedoms slip away

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Americans shouldn’t have to be reminded about core values. But with all that’s roiling in Washington, let’s go back to the beginning.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Those were Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence of July 4, 1776. They’re filled with a courage found just days earlier on June 28 as South Carolina patriots defended a fort on Sullivan’s Island at the mouth of Charleston harbor from a massive land and sea attack by the British. It was the first major patriot victory of the Revolutionary War. Word spread quickly and gave colonists the courage to declare independence.

by Andy Brack · 06/25/2018 · 1 comment · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Is S.C. ready for a political pig in a poke?

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | More than 100,000 South Carolinians may have bought a pig in a poke in the recent GOP primary. They voted for Greenville businessman John Warren, a political neophyte who joined the state’s gubernatorial race just a few months back and who reportedly has pumped $3 million of his own money into winning.

He is, if you didn’t know, a Marine. That’s about all we really know about him, as he repeatedly says in television ads.

The term “pig in a poke” is an English idiom from the Middle Ages, a time when meat often was scarce. Tricksters would offer suckling pig in a closed bag to customers. Many times, however, the bag contained the meat of some other animal.

by Andy Brack · 06/17/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

MORRIS: Prepaid tuition 529 plans offer flexibility over 529 savings plans

By Kyra Morris, contributing editor | 529 education saving plans are not all savings plans, as we discussed recently in this space, and all of them are not all are run by the state. There is another alternative: prepaid 529 tuition plans.
As the name implies, you lock in future tuition costs at today’s prices.

by Kyra Morris · 06/17/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Money, Views

FOCUS, Palm: Local business leaders need to step up now

By Fred Palm, contributing editor | The Lowcountry is a dysfunctional area because in many situations, the business community organizes “business councils” that serve as sounding boards and advocates for enlightened public policy for the common good to achieve a turnaround. Unfortunately, they’ve been mostly dormant and now is the time for our business leaders to step forward to contribute community service for the common good. Here is why.

The fiction that ‘growth is good’ and that ‘growth pays for itself’ is exposed in Summerville for the shams that they are. All elected politicians know them to be big lies. Only some have the courage to give voice to truth and the reality of numbers – and to come up with workable solutions.

by Fred Palm · 06/11/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Common Good, Focus, Good news

BRACK: Governor’s races pit establishment versus grenade-throwers

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Don’t look for too many surprises Tuesday in what’s been a pretty lame set of gubernatorial primaries.

Unless something surprising happens before the June 12 Republican and Democratic primaries, incumbent Gov. Henry McMaster will lead four challengers and be forced into a runoff while Democratic state Rep. James Smith of Columbia may just muster enough votes to win the party’s nomination outright.

by Andy Brack · 06/11/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

The floor of the S.C. House of Representatives.

BRACK: 2018 brings more House contests, but not a lot more women candidates

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | It may be the Year of the Woman in politics around the nation, but not in South Carolina – at least not in races for the S.C. House of Representatives

In 2018, just over 20 percent of major party candidates in the 124 House races are women, according to a Statehouse Report analysis of state election data. Four years ago, there were nine fewer women candidates as 38 women (19.4 percent of candidates) ran for House seats.

by Andy Brack · 06/04/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: Is the Southern accent fading or here to stay?

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | My Southern daughters have been making fun of my Southern accent.

They giggle when they hear me say words like yellow, mosquito, potato, pillow or can’t.

Of course, the right way to pronounce these words, despite what these ungrateful children say, is YELL-ah, muh-SKEE-tah, pu-TAY-tuh, PILL-ah and KAINT.

They go into a full-blown tizzy, though, with one word – water, which is correctly pronounced “WART-err.”

by Andy Brack · 05/28/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views

BRACK: South Carolina not so polite to immigrants

By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolina has long been a home for immigrants — from the English, enslaved Africans and French Huguenots to Germans, Irish and, most recently, people from Latin America.

But these days, we shamefully ignore our rich immigrant soup, caught in the guttersnipe of national politics about “those people” who want to come to the United States, just like our forefathers moved here. And just like the grandfather of the forgetful current president, who has embarrassingly branded undocumented immigrants as “animals.”

by Andy Brack · 05/21/2018 · Comments are Disabled · Andy Brack, Views