SC

South Carolina’s State Plane Flew To New Jersey To Promote Fruit

BUREAUCRATS, FARMERS LIVING LARGE … || By FITSNEWS || Earlier this week we posted an item on South Carolina’s government-funded plane – a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 turboprop – making a trip to New Jersey.  Now the mystery has been solved … According to flight information obtained by FITS, the…

BUREAUCRATS, FARMERS LIVING LARGE …

|| By FITSNEWS || Earlier this week we posted an item on South Carolina’s government-funded plane – a Beechcraft Super King Air 350 turboprop – making a trip to New Jersey.  Now the mystery has been solved …

According to flight information obtained by FITS, the purpose of the trip was the “promotion of South Carolina fruit and vegetable industry to buyers and retail representatives” in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Traveling on the plane were S.C. Department of Agriculture (SCDA) assistant commissioner Martin Eubanks, two of his underlings and three private sector Palmetto State farmers.

Wait … hold up.  So South Carolina taxpayers are now not only subsidizing agricultural marketingwe’re flying farmers all over the country to make sales? 

It gets better (or worse for those of you who believe government should restrain itself to core functions) …

Eubanks and company were in New Jersey to sponsor at event at the Eastern Produce Council (ka-ching) – specifically, a cocktail hour and dinner (ka-ching) at The Brownstone, a swanky estate (ka-ching, ka-ching) located in Paterson, New Jersey.

“The Brownstone offers unique Grand Conservatories, pairing extraordinary catering with the genuine warmth of a cozy, Craftsman-style estate,” the location’s website boasts. “It’s the ideal east coast ambiance choice for banquets … (offering) a rejuvenating blend of warmth and pleasure.”

Must … be … nice …

But hey … we don’t have enough money to fix our roads, right?  Right?

Also more to the point: Who decided which three private sector farmers got to go on this boondoggle?  And on what basis were they given the opportunity?  And what about the thousands of South Carolina farmers who didn’t get this VIP treatment?

Good questions …

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: Agricultural promotion is not a core function of government.  Never has been, never will be.

***

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45 comments

shifty henry April 22, 2015 at 4:21 pm

It’s not who ya’ know, but who ya’ …..

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SynTwist April 22, 2015 at 4:28 pm

LMAO – there is one thing I do love about SC, ok a couple things. First is the weather and second is the peaches.

I made homemade peach ice cream last year, using fresh peaches from a farm. Ohmigosh, while my idea of sweet is typically wine and very little anything else – I LOVED the ice cream. Had to throw it out before I ate all of it!

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Rocky April 22, 2015 at 4:45 pm

I’m from Jersey. They don’t eat peaches there unless they are canned with syrup. And Paterson (oh my, the city where my tonsils were removed at an old Catholic Hospital) ain’t exactly swanky. It does, however, have many lovely Peruvian chicken eateries these days and is heavily immigrant. But peaches – not really. Seems more like a jucket to me. Anyway – hey – I figured it out – Gowdy looks like Ed Grimley of SNL fame.

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willblogformoney April 22, 2015 at 8:06 pm

Are you sure they didn’t mistakenly lobotomize you in P-town?

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shifty henry April 22, 2015 at 8:27 pm

Well, he does post as “Rocky” …

Rocky April 23, 2015 at 9:33 am

P-town is in Cape Cod, not Jersey – but great town for people watching, been there many times as a straight observer.

SJ April 23, 2015 at 7:31 am

South Jersey has lots of acreage devoted to wonderful peach and blueberry farming. Can’t see why they’d need to import more peaches. And you can your peaches for winter eating in South Jersey.

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easterndumbfuckistan April 22, 2015 at 4:45 pm

Had to throw it out before I ate all of it!

Peach abuse is a felony in South Carolina. :-)

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SynTwist April 22, 2015 at 4:51 pm

Absolutely agree, but so is obesity~ LOL

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mamatiger92 April 22, 2015 at 5:29 pm

There wouldn’t be enough prisons on the planet to deal with offenders if obesity was a felony in SC.

Weight-based jails April 22, 2015 at 5:35 pm

Supermax would be reserved for the 400+ pounders, and I’m not talking about their scales.

shifty henry April 23, 2015 at 10:32 pm

Rosie O’Donnell was discussing how hard it was to be famous and also struggle with a weight problem. She was in a Baskin Robbins, just looking, and a woman
asked, “Are you Rosie O’Donnell?” She said, “Yes.” “Oh, I didn’t know you were pregnant.” Rosie looked at her and said, “Yes, four and a half months.” The woman
asked, “What are you going to name it?” “I don’t know. Either Ben or Jerry.”

shifty henry April 23, 2015 at 10:33 pm

A rather obese lady licked up the last drop of a sundae and walked over to the drugstore scale. Putting in a penny, she was aghast at the reading. She took off her coat, put another penny in the scale, and weighed herself again. Not too happy, she removed her hat and shoes. She put in another penny and still received
no reading that pleased her. A young boy who’d been watching her said, “Don’t stop now. I got a pocketful of pennies!”

shifty henry April 22, 2015 at 8:00 pm

Some folks around here are thinking you are a Peach yourself!

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SynTwist April 22, 2015 at 9:06 pm

Now that was sweet and out of the blue ;) Thank you.

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shifty henry April 23, 2015 at 10:34 pm

An old guy hobbles into an ice cream shop. He has a hard time walking and is hunched over. He goes up to the counter and says: “Banana Split, please.” The lady at the counter replies: “Crushed nuts?” “No,” the old man says: “arthritis.”

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nitrat April 22, 2015 at 4:23 pm

Name the farmers.

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Philip Branton April 22, 2015 at 4:42 pm

***….

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No diatribe? Must be your meds April 22, 2015 at 11:26 pm

Welcome back non-sequitur bro.

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Philip Branton April 24, 2015 at 10:18 am

Thanks for your awareness…..! I never ever left, I have been right here between Fitsnews (Iraq) and the Post and Courier (Iran) the whole time.

…..after all……. I am informationally DOMINANT.

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CNSYD April 22, 2015 at 4:33 pm

Will Folks’ ignorance of agriculture knows no bounds.

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Dan April 22, 2015 at 5:06 pm

The State plane is a great asset. But it should not be used by midlevel staffers and private individuals to attend a planned event. They could have punched airline tickets in advance and saved a lot of money.

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GrandTango April 22, 2015 at 5:09 pm

Liberals have strengthened government. ..so its your fault…change the law or STFU….

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Daniel Boome April 22, 2015 at 7:35 pm

This is true. However, you are a menace who is effective at nothing more than making a mockery of yourself by your disconnected diatribes and and having incoherent arguments with liberals. So, either change and learn how to be effective or STFU .

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GrandTango April 22, 2015 at 7:50 pm

I’m very effective…I bet every F*#king liberal – like you- who reads this forum, goes to bed with the echoes of what I told you about yourself resounding….

And you have to wonder who else has figured out you’re a f*#king lair…

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Daniel Boome April 22, 2015 at 8:26 pm

I’ve already had this discussion with you numerous times. So, if you’re really effective you wouldn’t start out a response by lying and calling me a liberal. I’ve called you out multiple times (citing specific examples) of your propensity for the tactics of street thugs, FTP protesters, etc. Not only do you not deny it, you confirm it each time with your menacing response. Guess which party those types of people vote for? Yeah, you know which one. You can pretend to be something else, you can pretend that you’re effective, and you can pretend to not be a liberal. But your words, tactics, and methodoly reveal who and what you are.

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GrandTango April 22, 2015 at 8:41 pm

If you’re not a liberal, you over-think (and over-talk) yourself into ignorance and stupidity like they do…

A lot of you say-nothing F*#ks resent me, because I begin from MY premises, not the ideology the Dumb@$$ liberals feed y’all…and I don’t make apologies, or beg to be understood.

Bottom line: Be logical and intelligent, tell the truth, and don’t take $#!t off of idiots and liars…and you might be compelling and interesting….

But always back-peddling – like you – asking low-brow scum to please acknowledge you…is why no one gives a s#!t about what you post….(unless it’s about me)….

Daniel Boome April 22, 2015 at 8:55 pm

And if you’re not a liberal, tell me where I’m wrong about you. You once again confirm by silence and refusal to engage in the real point, veering off instead to blabbering and presumptuous nonsense. You then lie some by pretending I’m doing something that I’m not. Your attempt to try and put me in the defensive about “back-peddling” (sic, it’s back-pedaling) is another defense mechanism on your part. It’s why you’re nothing more than a menace. How do you even know that people don’t care about what I post? How do you know that they care about what you post? You don’t, but it doesn’t even really matter. If nobody cares about what Limbaugh says on the radio, does that mean he’s wrong? No, because the fact that he’s right isn’t dependent on whether people “care”. He’s right because he’s right, not because he has20 million listeners. It’s another stupid liberal argument on your part.

Quit telling yourself that you are effective. It doesn’t matter how many times you say it. It’s not going to be true until you learn how to properly engage the opposition and quit being a profane little menace. Someone in their 60s ought to have better communication skills.

GrandTango April 23, 2015 at 8:38 am

Sounds like you are in desperate need of self validation.

I’m not sure how to address that other than telling you it’s a personal journey that no one else can endure for you…

I do know this: IGNORANTLY accusing me of being a liberal will not get you there. In fact it just makes you look more lost and less intelligent.

Even if you could prove the myths you cling to, in order to hate me, it still will not change you from seeking to cower behind the protection of corrupt people, in hopes that they will join you in your absurd attack against me, and all the other truth-tellers that your so fear.

Daniel Boome April 23, 2015 at 10:09 am

Hahaha, this is nothing more than your go-to line when you’ve lost the argument. It’s what liberals do. Lose the argument, then accuse the opposition of some vague charge (“Sounds like you are in desperate need of self validation”). You’ve tried to use this same weak-minded response before. Try something new for a change.

The issue is real simple: Either you effectively engage liberals and refute their BS or you make menacing responses and don’t. It’s not even a close call that it’s the latter. Going on deranged and profane rants is menacing behavior, only making YOU “look more lost and less intelligent” (funny how you can always count on the things you say to unintentionally expose you). You are twice my age, yet engaging you is like engaging a 14 year old juvenile delinquent. REFUTE THAT!

Bible Thumper April 22, 2015 at 6:05 pm

I’m not buying it. Maybe some farmers were stored in cargo.

Volvo Cars-North America Llc
Corporate Campus
1 Volvo Dr, Rockleigh, NJ 07647
33 min. (23 miles) from Teterboro, Airport.

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shifty henry April 22, 2015 at 8:32 pm

Is it true that Nikki wants to have a special model called The Vulva?

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Bible Thumper April 22, 2015 at 8:39 pm

No. That would be too obvious. They are developing the Punos hybrid. It will be “stiff” competition against Prius.

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sparklecity April 22, 2015 at 6:06 pm

I hope that they pointed out that Upstate peach farmers grow a peach called the “Jersey Queen”.
It’s a late peach, almost as big as a softball and is what a perfect peach should look and taste like. When it is ripe it is DAMN good!!!!!
I got no problem with promoting produce grown in SC.

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willblogformoney April 22, 2015 at 6:59 pm

James after former Governor Jim McGreevy.

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sparklecity April 23, 2015 at 8:42 am

Really?
I did not know that but I do know that the “Jersey Queen” is one tasty peach and is my favorite. I can literally go a mile down the road and pick one when they are in season.
South Carolina has the best peaches and the orchards in the upstate produce the finest peaches in the state.
Not a thing wrong with promoting that!!!!!!

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william April 22, 2015 at 6:39 pm

Did they take that kid from the upstate that won the lawsuit against the DMV?

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Fruity Pebbles April 22, 2015 at 6:45 pm

This is about the other kind of fruits.

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Squishy123 April 22, 2015 at 10:02 pm

You have to wonder how the hell that he-she makes it through the day in high school. In my day he’d be in for a daily ass beating. I wonder how he works out gym class, in the one picture today it looks like he a B-Cup. It’s without saying that I doubt his old man is in the picture and his mother is more fucked up than he/she is.

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You Know My Name April 23, 2015 at 2:54 am

I believe in equality, not superiority. That case is making that boy/girl/other superior to everyone else.

DMV had it right the first time regarding changing appearences to mis-represent who or what you are.

While it never happened to me, I have friends who have picked up “women” who they found out later in the evening, were NOT women. Sad that if one has doubts about the gender of their date, the SCDL is no longer a way to settle that question before ot gets to a more uncomfortable and embarassing level.

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Nikiloveswill April 22, 2015 at 6:58 pm

The Brownstone is that the place owned by one of the Real House wife’s of NJ spouse. I think it is .

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You Know My Name April 22, 2015 at 9:10 pm

When I saw the headline for this article, I thought itvwas something to do with Lindsey Graham’s Presidential ambitions.

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SynTwist April 22, 2015 at 9:29 pm

LOL

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Brent Brewer April 23, 2015 at 1:24 am

What Will Folks, a.k.a.Willie Wonka fails to understand about SC Agriculture would fill a damn small size country.

In South Carolina, agribusiness is the leading industry with an economic impact over $34 billion per year. Give SCDA a break with their State plane use.

With that being said, Willie boy, take your FITS NEWS and give it it’s proper name SHITS LOSE. OH and that bow tie you wear…2 types of people wear bow ties, a college professor and a cock sucker. You sure don’t look like a college professor. Bahaaaaaa!!!

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Dan Ruck April 23, 2015 at 10:37 am

I know some SC farmers who were not on the plane. They grow organic produce. There’s no doubt at all the three on the plane were corporate farmers who own their own planes. All this is is another taxpayer handout to NIKKI contributors.

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