The Opinion Blog

If We Want a Port, We Need a Plan



We’ve been talking about the need to dredge Georgetown’s port for years. Sunday’s editorial suggests now it’s time to get past the talking stage.

Imagine yourself as a visitor at the baseball diamond at Georgetown’s Morgan Park, the Florida-shaped peninsula that makes up the city’s southeastern point. It is a cool fall afternoon. The sun is shining, a fresh breeze comes off the nearby water, and at some point during the afternoon you gaze across the channel.

If you look west from your perch on Bay Street, you’ll see the houses in the distance across the way, or at least their docks jutting into the water. In between will be the final leg of the Sampit River, the home stretch for boats headed to the Port of Georgetown. At this section, the river is about 1,000 feet wide and sedate (most days) as it joins the Great Pee Dee, Black and Waccamaw Rivers just over your shoulder on their collective way to Winyah Bay and then the ocean.

The scene will look familiar to many in Georgetown, and on the surface, not much has changed in recent years. But underneath, the river’s bottom has gotten steadily closer to the surface. As silt has worked its way down the Sampit, it has settled in the channel, particularly in the curve of the island Lafayette Park, where the Sampit makes a sharp turn south toward the ocean.

The Union Assault on Free Speech



Saturday’s editorial comes from The State, and addresses the spurious complaint filed against Gov. Nikki Haley by the machinists union.

U.S. District Judge Weston Houck exercised a tremendous amount of judicial restraint last week when he avoided writing what he so clearly was thinking as he dismissed a union lawsuit against Gov. Nikki Haley: “I can’t believe you wasted my time on this.”

The primary time-wasters were the machinists union and the state AFL-CIO, who filed the insulting and frivolous lawsuit attacking the governor’s right to express her opinion about them. But Ms. Haley wasn’t spared a gentle rebuke – nor should she have been: Unlike the unions, she has a responsibility to the public, and her role in this ridiculous dispute shouldn’t be overlooked.

Cue the Orchestra Music



Thursday’s first editorial wishes our state’s leaders would stop beating a dead duck, in this case the Boeing-NLRB fight.

Pardon us, but we’re getting a bit weary of all the hot air being dedicated to Boeing’s fight with the National Labor Relations Board. Do our politicians not have other things to dedicate their time to?

Don’t get us wrong, the complaint is certainly spurious and worth opposing. As others have pointed out, if the suit against Boeing is upheld, companies will be loath to relocate to South Carolina and other right-to-work states for fear of being sued by their unions, and companies will be loath to relocate to union states for fear of never being able to leave.

Fighting the Union



Thursday’s editorial weighs in on the Boeing/NLRB controversy and increasing volume of the protests against the complaint. It also urges Gov. Haley to turn down any offers to run on a presidential ticket in 2012.

State leaders pulled no punches Tuesday when it came to defending Boeing’s right to open its new 787 plant this summer in North Charleston. The gaggle of GOP of leaders assembled in Washington pulled out words and phrases like “thuggery,” “unprecedented legal action” and “an attack on millions of workers.” Gov. Nikki Haley, Attorney General Alan Wilson, Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham and Rep. Joe Wilson took turns blasting the complaint by the National Labor Relations Board and what they termed either the president’s inaction or complicity in the action.

Employee 'free' choice would kill American jobs

Ripped from the wires ... A Florida writer exposes the hypocrisy in the card-check bill aimed at unionizing more American workers:

By Glenn Garvin

If consistency is really the hobgoblin of little minds, then Hilda Solis and George Miller must be America's top ghostbusters. They think the secret ballot is the cornerstone of democracy, except for American workers deciding whether to join a labor union.