The S.C. Judicial Department – supposedly strapped for cash – has hired two additional taxpayer-funded lobbyists to represent its interests at the S.C. State House.
According to the latest lobbyist disclosure forms published by the S.C. State Ethics Commission, the Court has hired former Columbia, S.C. mayor Bob Coble – a longtime friend of Chief Justice [...]
Court Hires Ex-Mayor
Mayor Bob Is Kinda Petty
By FITSNews || Former Columbia S.C. Mayor Bob Coble’s last official act this week was to take a slap at two of his longtime political rivals, local ad executive Kevin Fisher and electronics store owner Joe Azar.
Coble’s parting shots came in the form of a letter to the editor of The Free Times, Columbia’s popular [...]
Benjamin’s Transparency Doesn’t Extend To Budget
By FITSNews || City of Columbia, S.C. mayoral candidate Steve Benjamin has built much of his “hope and change”-themed campaign around the notion of government transparency, but some are beginning to wonder whether his promised “sunlight” will reach into what has become the city’s “heart of darkness” – its budget.
On the one hand, Benjamin has [...]
How Your Money Gets Shredded
By FITSNews || With an outgoing mayor and a glorified taxpayer thief among the deciding votes, the City of Columbia S.C. approved a $154 million bailout of the University of South Carolina’s failed Innovista “research campus” on Wednesday.
“Inept-o-vista” – as we call it – has already burned through $150 million worth of South Carolinians’ tax [...]
City Hall Graffiti: Nobody Saw Nuttin’
By FITSNews || The curious case of Columbia, South Carolina’s elusive, anonymous (and racist) vandal just keeps gettin’ weirder, folks …
In addition to absolutely no one witnessing the spray-painting of racist graffiti onto Columbia’s City Hall last month (or at least no one who has come forward yet), security cameras appear to have failed to [...]
Columbia To Approve $154 Million “Innovista Bailout”
By FITSNews || The University of South Carolina’s failed “Innovista” research campus – which has already blown through $150 million in tax dollars with nothing but empty buildings (and emptier political promises) to show for it – is set to receive another $154 million of your money when the Columbia (S.C.) City Council approves a [...]
The Curious Case Of The City Hall Vandal
By FITSNews || A month after an anonymous vandal spray painted racist graffiti on City Hall in Columbia, S.C., the trail leading to the elusive perpetrator appears to have grown cold … assuming anyone’s following it, that is.
In fact the crime – which prompted a flood of press conferences, national media coverage and racial introspection [...]
Columbia City Hall Vandalized
An as-yet unidentified vandal has spray-painted a racial slur on the side of City Hall in Columbia, S.C. – another embarrassing incident for a city and state that can’t seem to escape reminders of its racist past. The graffiti – which was discovered on the Laurel Street side of the building Wednesday morning – was [...]
Steve Morrison’s “Smoking Gun?”
As part of our ongoing effort to expose the hypocrisies and double standards of South Carolina’s mainstream media, FITS posted an item a few weeks ago about Warren Bolton, editorial writer at La Socialista (a.k.a. The State).
Bolton, it seems, has a bit of a liberal ideological “bro-mance” going with Columbia, S.C. mayoral candidate Steve Morrison [...]
There Are No Keys To Columbia, S.C.
Columbia, S.C. – a.k.a. the “Face of the Recession” – is so broke that it has run out of “keys to the city,” you know, those big ceremonial keys that get handed out to bureaucrats and other politically-connected types as a way of honoring their years of boondoggling.
“We are currently out of keys to the [...]
City To Pour Another $153.9 Million Down Innovista Drain
Just when you thought the government-run economic development crowd in South Carolina couldn’t possibly be any dumber, along comes a hair-brained scheme to dump another $150 million into a failed “research campus” – one that has already sucked up $150 million in taxpayer dollars with absolutely nothing to show for it but empty government buildings [...]
Mayor Bob Is Out
Bowing to a reality that we felt was self-evident from the moment Steve Benjamin announced his candidacy, longtime Columbia S.C. mayor Bob Coble announced Monday that he will not seek a sixth term as Mayor of the Palmetto State’s Capital City. That means that come April of 2010, Columbia will have a new mayor for [...]
