European vacation or legitimate business? Haley's fiscal priorities under fire as summer 'jobs' trip detailed
BY RENEE DUDLEY
[email protected]
Monday, September 5, 2011

Gov. Nikki Haley's weeklong trip to Europe in June in search of "jobs, jobs, jobs" cost South Carolinians more than $127,000. But the governor and her entourage of more than two dozen returned without any finished deals to bring new employers to the Palmetto State.

Haley, who captured the governor's office preaching fiscal restraint, spent the cash so she, her husband and the rest of the state's contingent could stay in five-star hotels; sip cocktails at the Paris Ritz; dine on what an invitation touted as "delicious French cuisine" at a swanky rooftop restaurant; and rub elbows with the U.S. Ambassador to France at his official residence near the French presidential palace.

The South Carolina group also threw a soiree at the Hotel de Talleyrand, a historic Parisian townhouse where they feted foreign employers in hopes they'd set up shop in South Carolina. The Department of

Commerce billed the $25,000 event as a "networking opportunity for members of the South Carolina delegation."

"It was a great party," Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt said in an interview last week.

Expenses from the trip still are being submitted, Hitt said. The $127,000 figure represents spending only by the Commerce Department, which covered many but not all of Haley's expenses, he said.

It's unclear exactly what Haley accomplished during the taxpayer-funded excursion. Many documents released Monday to The Post and Courier in response to a July 7 Freedom of Information Act request were heavily redacted.

During a press conference -- unrelated to the trip -- Friday afternoon in Charleston, Haley told the newspaper the state "closed two deals" while abroad. She referred further questions to the Commerce Department.

BY THE NUMBERS

The S.C. Commerce Department alone spent more than $127,000 on Gov. Nikki Haley's June trip to Europe. Here are some of the cost breakdowns:

$25,412 -- South Carolina networking reception

$5,147 -- Per diem expenses charged to the state

$1,530 -- One airfare to and from Europe

$430 -- Haley's average daily hotel bill

Documents:

SC attendees

Airline receipts

Itineraries

In a follow-up interview Friday, Hitt said the state, in fact, closed no deals. Two agreements involving foreign employers are in the works, he said. He provided no details.

Spending criticized

Critics called the mid-June trip an inappropriately timed junket: It took place at the zenith of legislative debate over the tightest budget in recent history.

Benefits of the trip for South Carolinians -- who confront an unemployment rate of almost 11 percent -- are unclear, said the critics, who include a respected state senator from the governor's own party and a Columbia Tea Party organizer.

John Crangle, executive director of South Carolina Common Cause, asked, "What did they bring home from the hunt?"

Crangle, whose organization is a government ethics watchdog, then answered his own question: "They came back with an empty whiskey bottle," he said. "Or I guess since they went to the Ritz it was an empty Champagne bottle. They had a good time at the state's expense."

S.C. Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian said Haley was "channeling Marie Antoinette."

"Has the average South Carolinian ever stayed in a $650 a night hotel or spent almost $4,000 in one week on airfare?" Harpootlian said. "Her response to the people who footed the bill would be, 'Let them eat cake.' "

S.C. Sen. Tom Davis, a Beaufort Republican, called the logic of economic development trips "flawed."

"If you get the fundamental things right -- solid education and health care -- capital will come to the state," Davis said. "Those are the functions of government. Not creating jobs. ... It's a socialist state when the government's core function is to create jobs."

But Hitt, the Commerce secretary, defended the excursion as a "vital link" for attracting foreign employers to South Carolina instead of other nearby states.

"We have to go out and market ourselves," he said. "It's a tough game to play."

Following repeated requests, Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said Thursday he would "find three to five minutes" for a phone interview with the governor, but by Friday Godfrey said in an email "the governor is not available." Godfrey said in the email that the governor had offered the newspaper an "exclusive opportunity to accompany the delegation" to Europe to "cover, first hand, the productivity of the trip." The newspaper declined.

Godfrey had requested an emailed list of questions for this story, but he did not respond to them. In a statement, he said: "Governor Haley will never miss an opportunity to talk about our great state's business opportunities to companies across the world -- and that's what her trip to Europe was about."

The newspaper briefly spoke with Haley after finding her at the Charleston news conference Friday.

Video Game Targets 'Tea Party Zombies,' Fox News Personalities

A New York-based video game developer has set his virtual crosshairs on Republican and conservative political figures in a game called "Tea Party Zombies Must Die," which allows players to indiscriminately slaughter politicians like Michele Bachmann, Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin.

The gruesome game, created by StarvingEyes Advergaming, is billed as "first-person shooter" featuring "Tea Party zombies" to be targeted with an "arsenal of weapons," including multiple firearms and a crowbar. Notable politicians depicted in the game include current and previous presidential hopefuls like Palin, Bachmann, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum. Several Fox News personalities are also featured, including Huckabee, Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Brit Hume.

Lesser-known targets include "factory made blonde Fox News Barbie who has never had a problem in her life zombie" or the "Koch industries Koch Whore lobbyist pig zombie." Fox News logos and a recreation of its studios can be seen in blood-spattered screengrabs posted on the company's website.

Attention to the game's release has heightened after violent rhetoric from Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, who in a speech over the weekend told President Obama that his supporters would "take out the son-of-a-bitches" in the Tea Party who were waging "war" against unions.

"The liberal media have been preaching for years that conservatives are the ones who invoke violent imagery and rhetoric. Yet in the space of two days, the radical, pro-Obama left calls us 'son-of-a-bitches' and says they want to 'take us out.' And they follow that with a hideously violent game where they do just that -- depicting ways of shooting prominent conservatives, presidential candidates and journalists," said Brent Bozell, president of the Media Research Center. "The news media would be in an uproar if violence had been incited against liberals. Their silence disgusts me."

The game's developer, Jason Oda, of Brooklyn, N.Y., did not respond to FoxNews.com requests for comment. But the 32-year-old Connecticut native is no stranger to violent, politically-themed video games.

In 2008, he created "Kung-Fu election," which invited players to choose their favorite candidate to take them into battle against a political adversary. Democrats like Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards and Bill Richardson were pitted against Republican counterparts like Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain.

"The would-be presidents duke it out with an array of special weapons and Kung-Fu moves that will leave only one man -- er, person -- standing," reads a press release about the game. "If you thought that McCain was too old for the rigors of a grueling election, wait until you see what he can do with a bo staff in his hands!"

In 2004, Oda also created "Bushgame.com," in which 1980s television characters waged war against monstrous versions of officials in the Bush administration. At the end of each level, players would receive a text critique that blasted the president's position on Iraq, the economy, taxes and Social Security, according to The Associated Press.

"I just hoped that people can go beyond the obvious little soundbites you hear all the time and have better ammunition and better understanding of the reasons why Bush should be out of the White House," Oda told The Associated Press at the time.

Oda, according to Connecticut's Darien Times, earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in 2001. Two years earlier, he was awarded best in show at the Darien Art Show. In 2002, he produced an online game based on popular "emo" rock groups that was featured on MTV and was later cited by the New York Times and Spin Magazine.

Oda's list of clients, according to his website, include high-profile firms like Pepsi, Hasbro, Sears, UPS and many others.

Huckabee, who discussed the game during his weekday radio commentary called "The Huckabee Report," questioned whether corporate supporters would stand by while the video game projects violence toward real people.

"Will Pepsi, Motorola, and NASCAR among others cease to advertise on the website that promotes this violent and hate-filled bigotry or will there be the usual double standard?" Huckabee asked.

"I'm personally flattered to be included in this young game-makers efforts to be funny, and I even support his First Amendment rights to produce things that are in poor taste or unseemly to rational people, but I do not support the hypocrisy of the left who scream at all offenses they can manufacture toward conservatives, but turn their backs on the same standards when applied to someone of their own political ilk," he told FoxNews.com.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...personalities/

"Will Pepsi, Motorola, and NASCAR among others cease to advertise on the website that promotes this violent and hate-filled bigotry or will there be the usual double standard?" Huckabee asked.

IRS apologizes for targeting conservative groups
By Mark Murray, Senior Political Editor, NBC News
5/10/2013

The Associated Press reports that the Internal Revenue Service says it gave extra scrutiny to organizations with the names "Tea Party" or "Patriot" seeking tax-exempt status.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Internal Revenue Service is apologizing for inappropriately flagging conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS unit that oversees tax-exempt groups, said organizations that included the words "tea party" or "patriot" in their applications for tax-exempt status were singled out for additional reviews.

Lerner said the practice, initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati, was wrong and she apologized while speaking at a conference in Washington.

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They said the agency asked them an inordinate number of questions to justify their tax-exempt status.

Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.

UPDATE: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell released a statement calling for the Obama administration to conduct a review of "these thuggish practices":

“Today’s acknowledgement by the Obama administration that the IRS did in fact target conservative groups in the heat of last year’s national election is not enough. Today, I call on the White House to conduct a transparent, government-wide review aimed at assuring the American people that these thuggish practices are not underway at the IRS or elsewhere in the administration against anyone, regardless of their political views.

Last year, amid reports that the Obama administration was using the levers of executive power to harass conservative political groups in Kentucky and elsewhere, I issued a very public warning to the administration that the targeting of private citizens on the basis of their political views would not be tolerated. Today’s apology by the IRS is proof that those concerns were well founded. But make no mistake, an apology won’t put this issue to rest. Now more than ever we need to send a clear message to the Obama Administration that the First Amendment is non-negotiable, and that apologies after an election year are not an sufficient response to what we now know took place at the IRS. This kind of political thuggery has absolutely no place in our politics.”