- County Council Resolution Opposing the proposed Travelers Rest Annexation for ‘The Inn at Altamont’
- Paris Mountain Hotel Developer Wants to Circumvent Greenville County’s Land Use Protection Laws
- USAID Funded Beginning of Ukraine War in 2014
- Proposed Hotel Complex on Paris Mountain
- Nice hotel, but the Wrong Place and the Wrong Way of Doing Things
- Why Conservative Republicans Aren’t Participating in the Greenville ReOrg
- An American Black Man’s Interpretation of the 14th Amendment
- PARIS MOUNTAIN HOTEL: The Divine Group's Traffic Study, Water Jurisdiction and Protected Species Impact Reports Dissected
- Greenville Housing Fund Representatives Address Affordable Housing at First Monday
- Record Number of Organizations Recognized for Excellence as Certified Best Christian Workplaces in 2024
- South Carolina's Hootie and the Blowfish Darius Rucker
- Birth-Right Citizenship and the Fourteenth Amendment
- Trump’s Terrific Agenda Impaired by Mistaken Ukraine Info
- Confederate Navy Commerce Raiders
- Cautionary Tales of American Tariff History
Syndicated Columnists
South Africa Question
- Details
- By Walter Williams
South Africa has been thrown into the news because of President Donald Trump's recent tweet that he instructed his secretary of state to "closely study" alleged land seizures from white farmers in South Africa.
Earlier this year, a land confiscation motion was brought by radical Marxist opposition leader Julius Malema, and it passed South Africa's Parliament by a 241-83 vote. Malema has had a long-standing commitment to land confiscation without compensation. In 2016, he told his supporters he was "not calling for the slaughter of white people -- at least for now" (https://tinyurl.com/y7mfmhco). The land-grabbing sentiment is also expressed by Lindsay Maasdorp, national spokesman for Black First Land First, a group that condones land seizures in South Africa. He says, "We are going to take back the land, and we'll do it by any means necessary." The land confiscation policy was a key factor in the platform of the new president, Cyril Ramaphosa.
Immigrants and Disease
- Details
- By Walter Williams
The Immigration and Nationality Act mandates that all immigrants and refugees undergo a medical screening examination to determine whether they have an inadmissible health condition. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has technical instructions for medical examination of prospective immigrants in their home countries before they are permitted to enter the U.S. They are screened for communicable and infectious diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, hepatitis, polio, measles, mumps and HIV. They are also tested for syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases. The CDC also has medical screening guidelines for refugees. These screenings are usually performed 30 to 90 days after refugees arrive in the United States.
Bad Men, Good Presidents
- Details
- By Walter Williams
With the continuing hysteria about Donald Trump's presidency, a few questions come to mind. The first: Can a bad man become a good president? The second: Does one's being a good man guarantee he'll be a good president? Third: Does having a good president require a good man? Is there any evidence of Lord Acton's argument that "great men are almost always bad men"?
I think former President Jimmy Carter was a good man who became a weak and bad president, both in domestic matters and in foreign affairs. President Bill Clinton was a bad man who became a reasonably good president in domestic and foreign matters. But then there was that impeachment issue that greatly tarnished his presidency.
Enough's Enough
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- By Walter Williams
During the weekend of Aug. 4-5 (and the preceding Friday night), 12 Chicagoans were shot dead, and 62 others were shot and wounded, the Chicago Tribune reported (https://tinyurl.com/yde7jb83). Before last week's mayhem, 1,718 Chicagoans had been shot since the beginning of the year, and 306 had been murdered. Adding to this tragedy is the fact that Chicago's clearance rate is less than 15 percent. That means that in more than 85 percent of Chicago's homicides, no suspect is charged. Chicago is by no means unique in this lawlessness. Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, St. Louis and some other major cities share high rates of homicides.
Colleges: A Force for Evil
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- By Walter Williams
Many of the nation's colleges have become a force for evil and a focal point for the destruction of traditional American values. The threat to our future lies in the fact that today's college students are tomorrow's teachers, professors, judges, attorneys, legislators and policymakers. A recent Brookings Institution poll suggests that nearly half of college students believe that hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Of course, it is. Fifty-one percent of students think that it's acceptable to shout down a speaker with whom they disagree. About 20 percent of students hold that it's acceptable to use violence to prevent a speaker from speaking. Over 50 percent say colleges should prohibit speech and viewpoints that might offend certain people (http://tinyurl.com/yayxt45u). Contempt for the First Amendment and other constitutional guarantees is probably shared by the students' high school teachers, as well as many college professors.
Some Ideas to Think About
- Details
- By Walter Williams
Poverty is no mystery, and it's easily avoidable. The poverty line that the Census Bureau used in 2016 for a single person was an income of $12,486 that year. For a two-person household, it was $16,072, and for a four-person household, it was $24,755. To beat those poverty thresholds is fairly simple. Here's the road map: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen.
How about some numbers? A single person taking a minimum wage job would earn an annual income of $15,080. A married couple would earn $30,160. By the way, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than 4 percent of hourly workers in 2016 were paid the minimum wage. That means that over 96 percent of workers earned more than the minimum wage. Not surprising is the fact that among both black and white married couples, the poverty rate is in the single digits. Most poverty is in female-headed households.
Can We Trust Experts?
- Details
- By Walter Williams
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers predicted that if Donald Trump were elected, there would be a protracted recession within 18 months. Heeding its experts, a month before the election, The Washington Post ran an editorial with the headline "A President Trump could destroy the world economy." Steve Rattner, a Democratic financier and former head of the National Economic Council, warned, "If the unlikely event happens and Trump wins, you will see a market crash of historic proportions." When Trump's electoral victory became apparent, Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warned that the world was "very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight." By the way, Krugman has been so wrong in so many of his economic predictions, but that doesn't stop him from making more shameless predictions.
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Henry Lamb's Column