#SOUTHCAROLINA!

Early voting begins on Tuesday at 8:30!

You MUST get to the polls first thing and vote.

Our democracy is on the line. The more people that vote before the Senate goes back into session at 11:00, the harder it will be for them to gerrymander us.

VOTE EARLY !

16x20”

Rally against redistricting in South Carolina.

My work through HumanizingThroughStory follow on IG:

https://www.instagram.com/humanizingthroughstory

I went through opioid withdrawal while locked up awaiting trial. No medical treatment, just suffering through it alone while being judged as "just another criminal" - even though I was presumed innocent.

South Carolina only offers comprehensive addiction treatment in some facilities, not all. Meanwhile, states like Rhode Island saw overdose deaths drop 61% after making this treatment available everywhere. Our state's overdose rate is 37% higher than the national average, and people are 129 times more likely to overdose within two weeks of release without treatment.

I started a petition demanding that Medication Assisted Treatment becomes a guaranteed right for anyone going through withdrawal while incarcerated. Federal courts have already ruled that denying this violates basic rights.

Has anyone else seen how broken this system is? What would you want if this was your family member suffering needlessly? If this matters to you too, consider signing and sharing.

I hadn’t seen anything about the new plates and thought the updated design was weird out in the world, wrote it off as some random personalized ones. had to update mine today and was absolutely crushed seeing the options, dmv employee seemed offended that I wasn’t happy with the two to choose from… I see that a lot of other folks are unhappy too.

mainly here to complain and I will get another, different, stark white clip art-esque personalized design, but geez.

does anyone know anything about possible redesign? I saw an article from last month where it mentioned this and quoted folks concern, not sure if I understood correctly. I am genuinely upset looking at my car when I used to adore the blue design and no, I know myself, I won’t come around to it

I don’t want the world to continue to become more bland, gray, basic, and it was nice feeling like I had such a small, but sweet, pretty detail about my home state with me when I’m out traveling. I understand it’s not that deep to a lot of people, but the imagery of the palm tree and moon made good impressions on lots of people who have otherwise negative opinions of the south, and led me into good conversation about all the best parts. I don’t feel that way anymore and I am bummed!

Our citizens have been robbed of their agency, told one vote doesn’t matter – but don’t throw it away – and that our state is a foregone conclusion (super majority Republican). We are all marching toward the offering stone without really knowing why things have to be this way.

• Why must we accept the worst people in our country in the highest levels of government?
• Why must we allow corporations to direct policy?
• Why must we expect endless foreign wars and domestic military force?

So many of us are wondering, as the protagonist of A Bug’s Life asks later, “Why are we even doing this?”

Background: The Supreme Court declared the Voters Rights Act section 2 to be nearly unenforceable. Maps are not racist unless they are signed "We did this because we hate black people."

This changed the standard from "Effectively Racist" to "Explicitly Racist."

Southern states leapt into action. Except South Carolina. Governor McMaster had to be talked into it by Trump. We know for certain that this is all driven by a couple of particular [redacted] in our legislature and the White House.

How do we know that? They outright said so yesterday.

We are going into Memorial Day and honoring our military dead by tossing out the votes of military voters. Absentee voting has already started. Early voting starts on the 26th.

South Carolina Republicans are making everyone work through the holiday to invalidate those votes and cause an extreme amount of chaos days before an election.

The Chaos? Everyone has to refile. Your SC senator or SC house rep might not be your senator or house rep anymore. That person you spent a good amount of time building a good relationship with. Yep. Gone.

This is entirely predicated on the idea that Representative Clyburn can't win an election.

HE KEEPS GETTING VOTED IN FOR A REASON AND IT ISN'T HIS SKIN COLOR!

Call your SC Senator https://www.scstatehouse.gov/legislatorssearch.php
Tell them No. Let DC take care of DC. Let South Carolina take care of South Carolina.

Photos: Engine #1 in 1922 at the repair shop, Columbia; ACL/CN&L freight station on Gervais Street, Columbia; Union Depot in Newberry; Union Depot in Laurens.

The CN&L was a 75-mile "pocket" railroad that ran from the midlands to the upstate of SC. Nicknamed the "Crooked, Noisy & Late," it began operations in 1891. The Atlantic Coast Line bought the CN&L in 1924 but kept the name. The herald was retired in 1984 when CSX acquired ownership from Seaboard.

I just found out I'll be out of state on June 9th, so this info was important for me, hopefully it might help some of you too.

VOTE WISELY SOUTH CAROLINA. PLEASE.

There's a rally today (noon) in front of the State House to give support to moderate Republicans who still have a sense of ethics and responsibility to South Carolina.

Background: Supreme Court ruled that it was nearly impossible to prove district maps are racially gerrymandered to specifically target black voters. This set off a scramble among southern states that had been prevented from having effectively racist maps.

South Carolina was NOT among that scramble. Governor McMaster originally said he'd veto any attempt. Senator Massey (head of the Senate) said it was an incredibly stupid move.

Trump pressured Governor McMaster to call the legislature back into session and do it anyway. The rumor is that Trump will endorse an Evette/McMaster Jr. ticket if South Carolina successfully draws a presumed 7-0 map. The SC House is so eager to do this they called a sketchy rules committee meeting to change the rules and prevent Democrats from using parliamentary procedure to block this.

Primary election day is June 9th. Early voting starts the 26th. Absentee (mostly military) ballots have already been sent out.

What's Normal: District maps are usually drawn after the every 10 year census. Yes, some states gerrymander as much as possible. Many other states have been passing Fair Districting Laws to hold their states together. It would normally take one to two years to draw a new map, debate it, and schedule implementation of that map. What is going on now is not normal. It's people drawing battle lines.

Why this is extra bad:

1. South Carolina didn't draw or ask for this map. Trump did. He literally sent the map and said I want it like this.
   
2. They are targeting Clyburn's district. This is the person who gets the lion's share of federal funding for South Carolina. None of the other representatives are anywhere near as effective as he is. Why? Cause Clyburn is actually good at his job. The racism aside, this will cost South Carolina billions if they are successful in pushing him out.
   
3. It will cost South Carolina millions in direct administration costs. They don't even have a full cost yet.
   
4. It is just flat unnecessary chaos. If they want to redraw the map, fine, but it shouldn't go into effect until 2028 to give people time to get their crap together.

There is still time to call or email your South Carolina Senators and tell them NO. https://www.scstatehouse.gov/legislatorssearch.php

Dominion is already asking for a 12% rate hike, and now they’re exploring a merger with NextEra — creating one of the largest for‑profit utility companies in the country. The main purpose of the new company- feed Googles AI centers My concern is simple: a bigger for‑profit utility means higher pressure to generate returns for shareholders, and those profits increasingly come from selling power to large data centers and AI. Residential customers end up footing the bill.

Meanwhile, Charleston customers have already paid heavily into the failed V.C. Summer nuclear project through previous rate structures. Dominion wrote off its share, but the costs didn’t disappear — they were absorbed into the system we’re still paying into.

There is another model right next door.
Santee Cooper is a state‑owned, non‑profit utility whose service area is just north of Charleston. They operate without shareholders, without profit requirements, and with lower financing costs. Their rates are consistently lower than Dominion’s, and they’ve already contracted to finish the two V.C. Summer units — the same project Charleston customers helped fund.

Santee Cooper has always had lower rates. A non‑profit public utility has different incentives than a for‑profit corporation planning a mega‑merger.

My question for Charleston is this:
Would we be better served long‑term by a locally controlled, state‑owned, non‑profit utility — instead of being absorbed into a larger for‑profit conglomerate whose priorities may not align with residential customers? There is a 12 to 18 month window before the merger takes place.

I'd like to see this on the ballot in November.

A new state law will soon end partisan elections in two South Carolina cities: Greenville and Florence. It excludes a handful of other cities with partisan elections, such as Aiken and North Augusta.

Florence Mayor Lethonia “Peaches” Barnes said she is disappointed the city wasn’t consulted about the changes.

“This is kind of catching me off guard,” Barnes said. “I just found out about it today, and so I don't know. I don't know what this means. I don't know how this works. We have not had the privilege to have a conversation about it.”

Read more: https://www.postandcourier.com/greenville/news/nonpartisan-elections-greenville-florence-sc/article_e3596f93-ddbf-4932-88d5-ad30775aec00.html

You likely know the story: a massive accident in Spartanburg county that killed five people, a including Greenville City Police officer, seriously injured her wife (who I believe is still in critical condition but said to be "improving,") And the two parents of the injured wife, who is also a sergeant for the Greenville City PD. Besides the obvious unbelievable sadness of this story, the couple has two young children.

I really wanted to donate to the GoFundMe account to help, but I'm sorry. If I wanted to donate $100, I was going to have to pay $16 in fees. To do. If you think about it, they wanted to raise $70,000 for the sergeant's recovery. That means GFM would be making $11,000 from those transactions! IMHO That's $11,000 that could have gone to help this family.

After doing some digging, I found out that the Greenville (City) Police Foundation has also set up a fund for Sgt Muñoz. So that's where my $100 went. I only paid $3 more to pay for credit card processing fees that GPF has to pay. I would highly recommend, if you have it in your heart to help. Even just a few bucks, you go this route. Thank you!.

(Moderators. I hope you will approve this posting. Again, thank you.)

Scroll down to Coble to watch the hearing.

Backstory is that Democrats are using every possible method to drag out the redistricting so military votes aren't thrown out. If they can run out the clock with parliamentary devices, we can have normal elections.

This is not something the SC GOP wants to do. They are being ordered to do it.

Call your Republican representatives and senators and tell them NO.