SC

SC Speaker Slammed For Canceling Session

IS WEATHER DELAY BEING USED AS DELAYING TACTIC IN JUDICIAL RACE? Embattled S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell – already facing a grand jury investigation into his multiple abuses of power – is now being accused of manipulating his chamber’s schedule to support his favored candidate in the state’s top judicial race….

IS WEATHER DELAY BEING USED AS DELAYING TACTIC IN JUDICIAL RACE?

Embattled S.C. House Speaker Bobby Harrell – already facing a grand jury investigation into his multiple abuses of power – is now being accused of manipulating his chamber’s schedule to support his favored candidate in the state’s top judicial race.

Harrell called off this week’s legislative session in Columbia, S.C. due to the threat of winter weather headed for the Palmetto State.

That decision prompted S.C. Rep. Todd Rutherford (D-Columbia) to call Harrell out … accusing him of using the storm as an excuse to buy time for his crony S.C. Chief Justice Jean Toal, who is locked in a furious battle with associate justice Costa Pleicones.

Lawmakers elect judges in South Carolina, an infinitely corrupt arrangement that is rearing its ugly head in this race … and then some.

According to Rutherford, Toal is losing the race … and Harrell’s cancellation of session gives him an extra week to work the phones on Toal’s behalf.

“I remember in 1998 being in the State House when there was a tornado on the front lawn and we didn’t blink an eye,” Rutherford told The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper. “Who cancels session because of snow the day before we are actually supposed to come?”

Harrell’s spokesman says the Speaker’s decision has nothing to do with politics.

If that’s true, there’s a first time for everything we suppose …

As noted previously, we don’t especially care who wins this race

Who does? J. Christian Adams, a former attorney in the S.C. Secretary of State’s office who now writes the Rule of Law blog for PJ Media.

“It’s time for South Carolina Chief Justice Toal to at last retire and let air breathe into the South Carolina judiciary,” Adams writes, reciting a litany of Toal’s abuses of power.

At one point he compares her to former Louisiana Gov. Huey P. Long, one of the most corrupt liberal politicians in American history.

“Whether the GOP in South Carolina will endorse more of the same is the question before the legislature,” Adams adds. “One thing is for sure – it’s time for Jean Toal’s long career, first as a Democrat in the Legislature, then as a Supreme Court Justice, to end in retirement.”

Pic: Travis Bell Photography

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45 comments

euwe max January 27, 2014 at 2:07 pm

You can’t embarrass an asshole by saying it stinks.

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Bill January 27, 2014 at 11:23 pm

That Todd Rutherford is against Toal makes me for her. That big mouthed, sawed off little blackster is a waste of space.

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Moses January 28, 2014 at 9:59 am

Todd has matured and is not the same Todd Rutherford of 5 years ago. He has better help in his law office. He is finally standing up to Darryl Jackson and Joel Lourie as well as the moonbeam idiot James Smith who are owned by Toal. Rutherford was embarrassed by the Lillian McBride fiasco. We need more legislators to “mature” and not just be there for themselves and the old corrupt politicos.

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Halfvast Conspirator January 27, 2014 at 2:30 pm

Bobby won’t be able to fly his plane in that weather, and make money off charging his campaign fund for the flight time. This is gonna cost him a LOT.

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Flying for taxpayer dollars January 27, 2014 at 3:27 pm

The Feds will probably be taking the plane soon anyway.

I’m sure making a motorboat sound with his lips while in the pokey will be sufficient to get his flying fix.

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Chris January 27, 2014 at 4:04 pm

Wonder if his wife will leave him when the money dries up? Who is that woman she would like to marry?

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dwb619 January 27, 2014 at 5:51 pm

Tell us more!

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Mike at the Beach January 27, 2014 at 10:47 pm

Pictures!

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Too Funny January 28, 2014 at 5:42 pm

Sex, lies, and mp3 audio …. Harrell is finished already and has no clue to what lurks in the shadows – and neither does SLED – nor can they find out with NSA is watching every single one of them.

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Torch January 28, 2014 at 9:25 am

Will he be making the sound while being the Hershey highway?

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Jay Ellington January 27, 2014 at 5:01 pm

That’s ok, he can hop on Jean’s back. She’ll flap her ears and take him anywhere he wants to go.

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venomachine January 27, 2014 at 2:43 pm

Rutherford is, as usual, full of [pebble in the shoe defense].

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You know me January 27, 2014 at 3:20 pm

Let him go. He won’t be speaker for long.

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Philip Branton January 27, 2014 at 3:33 pm

Wil…..it would be nice if you got a picture of Harrell with his (stuck) tongue licking a flagpole. Cold weather does have its advantages.

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shifty henry January 27, 2014 at 3:37 pm

What about puckered lips? === and what happened to the spellcheck alert today? — I’m having to rread mmy oon ppossts to pproofread tthem!!

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Philip Branton January 27, 2014 at 3:57 pm

Guess the “spell checker” moderator is just out to lunch….. :)

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shifty henry January 27, 2014 at 5:48 pm

hmmm — sseems llike a llongg llunchh …..

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You know me January 27, 2014 at 4:57 pm

There are plenty of poles to lick in prison.

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shifty henry January 27, 2014 at 3:34 pm

This convinces me that he really is a whiny, cowardly shithead..!!

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The Colonel January 27, 2014 at 4:05 pm

“…“I remember in 1998 being in the State House when there was a tornado on the front lawn and we didn’t blink an eye,” Rutherford told The (Columbia, S.C.) State newspaper. “Who cancels session because of snow the day before we are actually supposed to come?…”

Rutherford may “remember” it but no one else seems too…

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/climate/sco/ClimateData/1998_tornado_stats.php

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Liar, Liar, pants on fire January 27, 2014 at 4:34 pm

Pols can’t stop lying. There simply isn’t enough time in the day to fact check every phrase that comes out of their mouths.

Best instead to assume they are lying, and 90% of the time you will be correct.

When they are caught in their lies, they simply don’t care anyway. They either give you some mealy mouthed explanation or change the subject.

Pols are cockroaches in every sense of the word.

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Paper Pusher January 27, 2014 at 7:02 pm

Exactly the same for most bureaucrat agency managers.

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Mike at the Beach January 27, 2014 at 10:49 pm

C’mon, sir…tornado, hurricane, drizzling rain…it’s all about the same. Don’t ruin the man’s story with your damned facts.

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tomstickler January 27, 2014 at 4:18 pm

Sic Willy sez that “Lawmakers elect judges in South Carolina, an infinitely corrupt arrangement. . . .”

Churchill said that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

Direct election of judges to a state Supreme Court did not work so well in West Virginia, where coal boss Don Blankenship spent $3 million funding a smear campaign against a sitting justice, Warren McGraw, who was up for re-election, helping to seat a conservative judge, Brent Benjamin, who later was the deciding vote in a $75 million case favoring Blankenship.

So, what’s the best method of selecting Supreme Curt justices? Inquiring minds wanna know!

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Radical Me January 27, 2014 at 4:26 pm

Best not to have government judges.

:)

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Roger MacBrides Ghost January 27, 2014 at 4:57 pm

Yeh,let’s have the Koch Brothers or some other “free enterprisers” appoint them.

A good illustration of why libertarianism is and will remain a fringe movement.

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Radical Me January 27, 2014 at 9:57 pm

lol…you have no idea what libertarianism is or how it would work, as illustrated by your extraordinarily stupid comment.

It’s for the best anyway, stupid people aren’t wanted right now.

Given that libertarian is doomed to be a fringe movement, you’d have to be an idiot to take your time to respond at all.

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just looking January 27, 2014 at 5:15 pm

The Missouri Plan: Legislature screens candidates and sends a list of all qualified applicants to the Governor. Governor chooses. Every four years the judge stands for a retention election. No opponent, just the people voting up or down whether the judge should stay on. If they win, they go another four years. If they lose it goes back tot he legislature to start the process again. Most states use this in some form or fashion. Not without its own problems but much less than what we have and much much less than contested elections.
Local judges get votes locally and Supreme Court gets them statewide.

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Concerned 4 SC Justice January 27, 2014 at 4:54 pm

Restore the Integrity of our Supreme Court! Elect Costa Pleicones! Tell the S.C. Senate & S.C. House here: (Change.org Petition) http://chn.ge/1et4sLF

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Anonymous January 28, 2014 at 10:43 am

Concerned 4 SC Justice: You didn’t even mention how Toal controls and dominates circuit court judges, family court judges and lawyers with her corrupt, dishonest and unethical Office of Disciplinary Counsel. She rewards her friends by not disciplining them and punishes her enemies with severe sanctions or in the case of some lawyer legislators – it is the threat of the sanction. Yes, it is that bad. How do you think Betsy Gray’s law firm makes 1.5 million a year defending lawyers at the ODC and none of their clients are ever publicly sanctioned? Betsy can get to the Queen in the ways Cam Lewis once was able to do.

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Anonymous,II January 28, 2014 at 12:33 pm

Nor does it mention how Toal’s top vote getter, Jenny Horne, is suing the state for millions! Horne needs Toal. We need to vote out every RHINO in the legislature!!!!

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Watch Your Back January 28, 2014 at 5:40 pm

I could tell you stories about complaints presented to the Disciplinary Counsel that would make your jaw drop. But no action was taken against the attorney who were on the wrong end of those complaints. That little clique? Entwined in collusion? Uh-huh ~~

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Anonymous January 28, 2014 at 9:10 pm

This is probably Toal’s most blatant area of corruption. Lawyers and Judges are afraid to say anything for they could be next to receive her wrath for any perceived slight. She controls and dominates with the power she has with this group.

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Dude, seriously January 27, 2014 at 9:26 pm

FITS, you should care. Philosophy aside, these candidates present a stark choice: a good guy who tenaciously tries to do the right thing vs a uuber corrupt drunk.

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Give them all the boot January 28, 2014 at 4:50 pm

Refresh my memory: Did Pleicones try to do the right thing in the bar exam fiasco a few years ago? Because I don’t recall that.

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Anonymous January 28, 2014 at 6:09 pm

Pleicones was lied to by Toal and Shearouse. Toal went into a meeting of the justices and said, yeah, there was a problem and she had fixed it. The other 4 were clueless until it hit the papers. Ask some of the former clerks who were there at the time. You’ll get the rest of the story.

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what about January 27, 2014 at 9:31 pm

This might be one of the dumber things I’ve heard this week. Both houses shuttered as is much of Columbia. In fact, reports had the Senate closing for the week first.

If the Speaker is twisting arms…he may, I don’t know…isn’t easier to do in Columbia?

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Lloyd January 28, 2014 at 10:04 am

I heard a great conversation this past weekend in Charleston during a happy hour in which 4 or 5 lawyers were arguing of whether there has ever been a chief justice as corrupt and politically involved as Jean Toal. One person compared Toal’s use of her disciplinary system for judges and lawyers to Governor Cole Blease selling pardons and paroles when he left office before World War I. She sells passes of unethical behavior committed by lawyers and judges for political power. She has inherited old money, but it is POWER she is addicted to. It is funny to have lawyers who were history majors.

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Low Country Lawyer January 28, 2014 at 10:06 am

Hmmm. You were not supposed to repeat what you heard at the bar at Hall’s Chop House,”Lloyd.” Toal is going down was the general consensus at the convention.

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Arlen Cooper January 28, 2014 at 12:09 pm

Probably had to get his hair fixed.

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Saw it myself January 28, 2014 at 12:52 pm

Somebody please tell me why is that little rude, arrogant Sanford friend Sen. Chip Campsen supporting Jean Toal? And why in God’s name (he’s big on claiming how close he is to God) was he walking around with Bobby Harrell at the SC BAR convention begging people to come over and talk with Jean Toal? This little entitled asshole needs to be put out to pasture. What have Toal and Harrell got on Campsen?

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Rhett, XXIII January 28, 2014 at 2:12 pm

Campsen is McConnell’s bitch. He’s doing this for McConnell who is in a trade off with Toal trying to help him get the C of C presidency. Campsen is ready to move on to some fat appointed position in Charleston. However, I believe he has thrown his allegiances in the wrong pools. Maybe McConnell has promised Toal and Campsen some trumped up professorship positions.

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Give them all the boot January 28, 2014 at 4:48 pm

Adams is full of shit. Needless to say, so is Rutherford.

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gville January 29, 2014 at 12:24 am

Anyone voting for Toal is ethically challenged and full of sh*#. Get her out and put in a conservative with some integrity. I for one will be watching closely how the upstate GOP votes. It might be time to get rid of some of those RHINOs if they vote for 10 more years of Toal.

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Lobbyist January 30, 2014 at 11:26 am

We lobbyists hear all sorts of stuff “off the cuff.” This morning I heard a state senator laughing that this website had posted that Harrell took this vacation week to give Toal extra time to twist arms and blackmail more legislators to vote for her. It’s working just the opposite. Due to this website, he said that senators are hearing from “constituents” who are telling their senators NOT to vote for Toal. He said he has heard 10-1 for Pleicones over Toal and that integrity is the issue. His hovering secretary asked, “when did you get 1 for Toal? I haven’t heard of any.” They both laughed and told me they were not supporting my bill. But they were supporting Pleicones.

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