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Columns

  • Column: Muennich: Why you should vote ‘Yes’ on referendum

    The upcoming school bond referendum has created a lot of questions. As a current member of the Buford Community and raised in the AJ/Buford area, and as a member of the Financial Needs Committee, here are the reasons I am choosing to support this bond.

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  • Column: County chamber urges ‘yes’ vote for our future

    Vote Yes!
    The Lancaster County Chamber of Commerce is encouraging all county residents to vote “yes” for our children on Tuesday, March 22.
    The chamber’s vision is to make Lancaster County a better place to live, work and do business, and we believe this vision is a basic concept that everyone desires for our county.
    To achieve this goal requires a number of key building blocks, and the cornerstone block is education. Our county will prosper if we succeed in three areas:
    ◆ Continue to recruit businesses from outside our area.

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  • Column: We all need fast, easy, cheap access to public information

    It’s not so much a celebration as it is an awareness campaign.
    Throughout the state and all across the country, this week – March 13-19 – is Sunshine Week. The week has nothing to do with weather conditions but everything to do with how the country is weathering a constant chipping away of its rights to be served by a transparent government in which public information flows readily into the hands of the people served by those they elect and appoint. This applies to the grassroots level, the state level and, certainly, the federal level.

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  • Column: We must never stop push for transparent government

    Transparency.
    I use this word every time I am in a meeting with an S.C. lawmaker here in Columbia. I can’t avoid it.
    When I’m lobbying on behalf of the S.C. Press Association, these legislators will nod their heads when I mention that transparency is vital to democracy.

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  • Column: 5 great ideas to make S.C. a better place

    One of the most interesting things about writing this column is all the feedback I get from folks. I especially like the good ideas to improve our state that people send me.
    Here are five of those ideas – in no particular order – that could make South Carolina a better place.
    ◆ Lifelong scholarships for college athletes – Most every college and university in the state gives athletic scholarships. For many of these student athletes, dreams of professional success propel them every day and not dreams of good grades or graduating on time.

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  • Column: America’s foundation of morals has eroded

    Foundation integrity is essential for the strength and stability of whatever is built upon it. A building might appear to be sound structurally, but if the foundation is faulty, the building will eventually deteriorate.
    The United States was built on a foundation of Christian principles. Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French statesman and philosopher, traveled to America in the 1830s and observed:
    “Religion in America…must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country….

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  • Column: Sweep out Congress, end political careers focused on reelection

    We are destroying ourselves. As long as we stay as divided as we are and only think about our partys’ political agendas, we will stay weak and vulnerable.
    To those of you that say, “I’m not like that,” I say you are fooling yourself.
    We must be Americans first, not political parties. Where did we lose ourselves and become so split that we can’t even have a civil dialogue between Republicans and Democrats? When did we develop this “us or them” mentality? And why?

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  • Column: Gun-control arguments should stick to the facts

    At Sunday’s Democratic presidential debate in Flint, Mich., Hillary Clinton played fast and loose with the facts.
    “Giving immunity to gunmakers and sellers was a terrible mistake,“  she said. “No other industry in America has absolute immunity.”
    The firearms industry, of which Hillary is not a fan, does not have absolute immunity. However, the vaccine industry, of which she is a fan, does have absolute immunity.

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  • Column: Trump-mania not so hard to understand

    The Trump phenomenon has been the biggest story in this election cycle, and there are so many who shake their heads in disbelief and can’t understand how he is still in the running.

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  • Column: Exit polls show party differences across our state

    Unlike a lot of other states, in South Carolina we don’t have voter registration by party affiliation, so the only way to really know who is a Democrat and who is a Republican is to either ask them or look at primary elections.
    This month, we have had the rare circumstance of having both a Democratic and Republican presidential primary one week apart. And because they were primary elections and far fewer people vote than in a general election, we get a look at who are the most hard-core partisan voters.

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