GOP Enabling of Trump Behavior Led to Wednesday's Events

BY STEVE PEOPLES, AP Chief Political Writer

The insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was both stunning and predictable, the result of a Republican Party that has repeatedly enabled President Donald Trump's destructive behavior.

When Trump was a presidential candidate in 2016, Republican officials ignored his call to supporters to “knock the crap out” of protesters. Less than a year after he took office, GOP leaders argued he was taken out of context when he said there were “very fine people” on both sides of a deadly white supremacist rally.

Last summer, most party leaders looked the other way when Trump had hundreds of peaceful protesters forcibly removed from a demonstration near the White House so he could pose with a Bible in front of a church.

But the violent siege on Capitol Hill offers a new, and perhaps final, moment of reckoning for the GOP. The party's usual excuses for Trump — he's not a typical politician and is uninterested in hewing to Washington's niceties — fell short against images of mobs occupying some of American democracy's most sacred spaces.

The party, which has been defined over the past four years by its loyalty to Trump, began recalibrating in the aftermath of Wednesday’s chaos.

One of Trump's closest allies in Congress, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, said “enough is enough.”

Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., said Trump’s accomplishments in office “were wiped out today.”

Trump's former acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, now a special envoy to Northern Ireland, joined a growing number of administration officials who are resigning. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney told CNBC on Thursday. "Those who choose to stay, and I have talked with some of them, are choosing to stay because they’re worried the president might put someone worse in.”

Stephanie Grisham, the first lady Melania Trump's chief of staff and a former White House press secretary, submitted her resignation. Deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger, White House social secretary Rickie Niceta and deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews also resigned, according to officials.

For the party to move forward, it will need to deal with the reality that Trump lost to President-elect Joe Biden by more than 7 million votes and a 306-232 margin in the Electoral College, a result Congress certified early Thursday when it finished accepting all the electoral votes.

Trump acknowledged his term was coming to a close, but not that he had actually lost.

“Even though I totally disagree with the outcome of the election, and the facts bear me out, nevertheless there will be an orderly transition on January 20th," he said in a statement minutes after Congress certified the vote. "I have always said we would continue our fight to ensure that only legal votes were counted. While this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it’s only the beginning of our fight to Make America Great Again!”

Former Republican President George W. Bush described the violent mob as “a sickening and heartbreaking sight." He declined to call out Trump or his allies, but the implication was clear when Bush said the siege “was undertaken by people whose passions have been inflamed by falsehoods and false hopes.”

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, a top House Republican and the daughter of Bush's vice president, was much more direct in an interview on Fox News.

“There's no question the president formed the mob. The president incited the mob," Cheney said. “He lit the flame.”

Bush and Cheney were already among a smaller group of Republican officials willing to condemn Trump's most outrageous behavior at times. The overwhelming majority of the GOP has been far more reserved, eager to keep Trump's fiery base on their side.

Still, Trump's grip on his party appeared somewhat weakened when members of Congress returned to the Capitol on Wednesday night, having spent several hours hiding in secure locations after being evacuated. Before they left, a handful of Republican senators and more than 100 Republican House members were set to oppose the vote to certify Biden's victory.

It was a move led by Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Josh Hawley of Missouri, each with his own 2024 presidential ambitions, over the objection of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who warned that that U.S. democracy “would enter a death spiral” if Congress rejected state election results.

When they resumed debate, however, much of the energy behind the extraordinary push had fizzled. Several Republicans dropped their objections altogether. Hawley and Cruz did not, but they offered scaled-back arguments.

Hawley condemned the day's violence but also called for an investigation into “irregularities and fraud.” Earlier in the day, his hometown newspaper, The Kansas City Star, released an editorial charging that Hawley “has blood on his hands" for enabling Trump's false claims.

Other Republicans were clearly more concerned about the day's violence and the events that preceded them.

“Dear MAGA- I am one of you,” former White House aide Alyssa Farah tweeted. “But I need you to hear me: the Election was NOT stolen. We lost.”

Jefferson Thomas, who led Trump’s campaign in Colorado, expressed some regret about joining Trump’s team in the first place, calling Wednesday’s events “an embarrassment to our country.”

“This isn’t what I ever imagined when I signed up to #MAGA. Had I known then that this is how it would end, I never would’ve joined,” he wrote on Twitter.

While there were obvious cracks in Trump's grip on the Republican Party, his fiercest detractors came from a familiar pool of frequent critics.

Trump's former secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, who denounced the president as a threat to the Constitution last year, described the violent assault on the Capitol as “an effort to subjugate American democracy by mob rule" and "was fomented by Mr. Trump.”

“His use of the presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudo political leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice,” Mattis said.

Anthony Scaramucci, who served briefly as Trump’s White House communications director in 2017, often has harsh words for Trump. But he offered his harshest on Wednesday for Trump’s Republican enablers.

“Republican elected officials still supporting Trump need to be tried alongside of him for treason,” he tweeted.

Christmas a Time to Regain Wonder

William Blake, Illustration 1 to Milton’s “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity”: The Descent of Peace, 1814-1816., pen and watercolor.CreditCreditThe Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

By Ed Simon/Staff writer for The Millions via the New York Times

For me, few images of Christ’s nativity convey its strange, luminescent wonder as much as William Blake’s “The Descent of Peace.” Painted in the early 19th century as part of a series of illustrations for John Milton’s “On the Morning of Christ’s Nativity,” Blake imagined the scene as bathed in an otherworldly light that holds the darkness at bay while an angel somersaults in the heavens. Within the manger, the infant Christ floats in the air with arms outstretched above an exhausted Virgin Mary. 

Blake’s reality thrummed with a charged beauty — as a child he had visions of a “tree full of angels,” and when he was 4 he saw God put his head in through his family’s kitchen window. Yet it is precisely that sense of the sacred and the profane being commingled, of our prosaic reality being a site for divine wonder, which makes Blake a prophet perfectly attuned to Advent.

Christmas, according to the carol, is the “most wonderful time of the year.” Certainly it’s one of the most commercialized, where it’s hard to sense much of the sacred import between Black Friday and the perennial culture-war scuffles over the meaning of the season. How much better, then, to see the holiday through Blake’s eyes, where “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, Infinite.” One need not be a conventional Christian — I’m not — to see the significance of the nativity story. Because what the nativity story conveys is a narrative of wonder threaded through prosaic reality, where the birth of a child is an act of God’s self-creation, where a manger can be the site of the universe’s new genesis. Perhaps Blake’s seeing angels in trees and God in his kitchen is the true nature of things, and everyday appearances are the real delusions.

It is difficult to see those angels today. We live less in an “age of wonder” than we do in an age of anger, anxiety and fear; the age of the weaponized tweet and horrific push notification. I don’t believe that one can die from lack of wonder, but I’m certain that a deficit of it will ensure that one has never really lived. If that’s true, then few of us, including myself, are really totally alive in this anxious age, for anxiety is the great enemy of wonder. Anxiety implores us to retreat, wonder to expand; ignorance festers in small minds, wonder spreads out from the open one; fear demands we build walls, wonder that we tear them all down. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein claimed in his “Culture and Value” that “Man has to awaken to wonder — and so perhaps do peoples.” What would it mean here and now to cleanse the doors of perception, to reclaim this strange awareness we call wonder?

The power of the story of the nativity is its ability to transform our prosaic experience. One need not be a believer to see the value in this. What would appear to be a humble human birth is at the same time holy and miraculous, with animals laid down before the Lord, and the star of Bethlehem guiding the Magi to Christ’s cradle. 

To wonder is to dwell in amazement, surprise and the miraculous. One can experience wonder when meditating upon the magnitude of the universe, or in contemplating Blake’s poetry or art. Wonder is when we apprehend the sublime and the magnificent in what we encounter every day, with both humility and delight. The wonder in the Christmas story is that something as human as a baby could also be something as foreign as God.

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In thinking about the meaning of the nativity today, I find its most potent and radical message to be one not just of wonder, but of wonder as means of approaching difference, of experiencing and understanding the Other. As God, Christ is supposed to be radically foreign, but as Jesus he is intimately human. The theology of incarnation explains that union’s tension, but the broader philosophical implications concern how love must be inculcated by wonder at this paradox. The philosopher Simon Critchley, describing the contours for a “faith of the faithless,” writes that “Christ is the incarnation of love as an act of imagination … the imaginative projection of love onto all creatures.”

Wonder is the antidote to hatred, for wonder is fundamentally radical. Had Herod any sense of wonder for the exquisite singularity of all people, would the massacre of the innocents have commenced? If we had wonder at the individual universe that is each fellow human, at the cosmic complexity of other people, would we put refugees in cages?

We do not have to look far into the current state of the world to realize that this time requires a return to wonder — what I would call a “politics of wonder,” predicated on both empathy and celebration of difference. Those of us, religious believers or not, who understand the profound meaning of the nativity must fight on behalf of wonder and in the service of a future society that places wonder at its very center. 

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If a “right to wonder” sounds utopian or quixotic, if it implies radical reorientation and questioning, it is seems untenable or strange, then that’s precisely the point. To put wonder at the center of our personal and political lives is not denialism, but a rebellion against the life-denying strictures of the present. To wonder is an act of resistance, and an act of love. We require this not just on Christmas, but on every day of the year, not just because it may save our lives, but also because it will remind us of why they need saving in the first place.

Ed Simon is a staff writer for The Millions, an editor at Berfrois, and an adjunct assistant professor of English and media studies at Bentley University. He is the author of “America and Other Fictions: On Radical Faith and Post-Religion.”

Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.

Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.

Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’

Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.

115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

Thanksgiving: Gratitude is Happiness Doubled by Wonder.

By Greg Wilson

Editor/Publisher, The Anderson Obsever

With less than six weeks remaining in the tulmultuous year of 2020, we take time today to celebrate Thanksgiving, our uniquely American holiday.

Historians note it's a day we have marked in various forms on this continent since the late 1500s. 

The early Pilgrims marked days of thanksgiving first with days of prayer, but our national holiday really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest.national holiday really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest.

Abraham Lincoln finally made Thanksgiving an official holiday, to be celebrated on the third Thursday of November, while in the middle of the Civil War in 1863. His proclamation both reflected the long-observed intent of those who had gone before him as he wrote the holiday would be a time to:

"Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union." 

The noble purpose of Thanksgiving Day being set aside to praise God for his provision and express our gratefulness for his "deliverances and blessings" still hold a place for many of as we gather with family and friends - in person or remotely this year - offer glimpses of what is best about us in the demonstrations of service to those who lack even the most basic of needs.

It's a wonderful day to recongnize that all across Anderson County such groups as the Haven of Rest, AIM, the Salvation Army, Meals on Wheels, Free Clinic, Clean Start, the Good Neighbor Cupboard, plus churches too many to name here are shining examples of turning away from the "national perverseness" of self interest, to express their gratitude through kindness and generosity. 

Some families will gather around their tables today, again, real or virtual, and ask each person to offer up a list of things for which they are grateful. Others serving this country in far-flung places will have a holiday meal and only memories of those back home for now. I am grateful for these men and women. I am also grateful for those in crucial jobs, keeping the electrical grid up and water flowing for example, who must delay their holiday celebrations so the rest of us are enjoying the day.

And this year there are thousands upon thousands of Americans in hospitals as a result of the pandemic, some recovering slowly, and others who will likely not come home at all. I am grateful to the medical workers who were thrown into the deep end of taking care of our families and friends, working long hours in ten often depressing and dangerous circumstances.  

The hangerover of a year of better elections should call us to join Lincoln to "fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union." We have always found ways to heal from our wounds as a nation, and for that I am grateful as well.

Meanwhile, so many in far-off lands will spend today day standing in long lines for rice or beans or a jug of clean water, while most of us here will eat from tables so full of food they can barely contain the weight. None us of chose where we were born, and I am grateful to have been born in a land of plenty.

The majority of us, though we may not have all the things we think we want, we have more than we need, and hopefully are sharing with those who do not. 

But even though in some ways Thanksgiving Day still holds true to the traditions, such as gratitude and demonstrations of such thankfulness through helping our neighbors, is it losing ground every year to a perverseness hardly imaginable when Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Day proclamation. It has become the time of year when America's lust for material goods expresses itself in ways far beyond simply people unleashing their minds to go on spending sprees. 

Over the past three years, more than two dozen national retail/grocery chains have changed their policies an closed their stores on Thanksgiving Day so employees can spend time with their families. I am grateful for this news. Shopping can wait.

Black Friday will likely be a little less crowded this year as well, as people shop more online and are practicing safety during the pandemic. But don't forget in the days and weeks leading up to Christmas to find ways to support our locally owned businesses. Local restaurants have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, with some estimaitng that nationally 80 percent or more will close permanently within the next six months. Gift cards from these places make excellent holiday gifts.

There is a "Shop Small" challenge every year asking communities to spend at least 40 percent of their holiday shopping budget locally. It's a fine idea, and worth the effort.

Tomorrow, still full of turkey and gravy, we face the next holiday challenge of maintaining our grateful heart in a world so full of bright, shiny objects vying for our attention and our wallet. So today is the day to reflect on the essential nature of gratitude.

It is a gift that needs no wrapping paper, ribbon or space under the Christmas tree. Research is conclusive that those who approach life with a sense of gratitude, have fewer mental and physical problems, live longer, exhibit less stress, have a stronger immune system, and even handle loss far better than those who do not live life with the recognition that they do indeed have a lot for which to be grateful.

How does a person get to that place, a place where gratitude is more than an occasional occurrence?  

The best place to start, according to one study, is to verbally acknowledge those things for which you are thankful every day. Not just today. Those in this study who wrote a daily gratitude list for one full year expressed the experience profoundly changed their lives. Stories of overcoming depression, lowered blood pressure, and even healing of relationships were common among those who finished the year-long gratitude list project.

So make your first holiday gift for 2020 one for yourself. Commit to a daily practice of gratitude, verbal or written for the next 365 days. You won't be sorry.

G.K. Chesterton once wrote:  Thanks are the highest form of thought... gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

And that is my Thanksgiving wish to all this season as you give thanks today, that you will experience happiness doubled by wonder.

County Christmas Tree Brings Holiday Joy, Savings to Taxpayers

By Greg Wilson/Publisher, The Anderson Observer 

When Anderson County Council approved the purchase the 28-foot Majestic Mountain Pine artificial Christmas tree in 2015, there were more than a few wondering if the news was good tidings of great joy.

Some argued in favor of planting another live tree, something to replace the odd non-traditional magnolia tree (once used for the holidays) which was dying on the town square after being damaged by an ice storm.

However, experts were united that the land in front of the new courthouse was not fertile soil for a live tree to flourish. 

The other option was to buy a cut live tree and haul it to the square every holiday season. The cost of buying, transporting and hauling away a comparably sidzed live tree would be roughly $6,000 a year, plus the cost of lights and decorations (which though not reoccurring, is costly to maintain).  

Added to the annual cost is a two week of labor costs to the county, since traditionally it has taken a week to set up and a week to take down a cut live tree on the square, including the time to decorate and undecorated the tree. The price tag based on needed personnel totals $7,900. 

So the annual costs of a cut live tree in the 25-30-foot range would have cost the county, assuming costs remain constant (which is unlikely), roughly $13,900 per year.  

Instead, the county purchased a 28-foot Majestic Mountain Pine, fully decorated and lighted artificial tree for $25,000 in 2015, and has added ornaments and used - in the words of Anderson County Adminstrator Rusty Burns - "electronic fertilizer" to "grow" the tree each year since. Since that year, the county has spent an additional $22,500 on the tree and ornaments, bringining the total cost of the downtown holiday icon to $47,500.

The savings come from both the now-40-foot-tall tree, which can now be built and decorated in less than three days and removed in a day, and labor costs (the live tree took 10 days to bring in, stabilize, and another week-10 days to remove and clean up).

Had county council chosen to to with a live tree, the cost for the years 2015-2020 would have been approximately $83,400.

Over 20 years, the warranteed life of the artificial tree, at the current spending level, the county will save more than $200,000 of taxpayer money.

The current Christmas tree has been wildly popular with citizens and vistors. There have been school group visits, family Christmas card photos taken, weddings performed and warm clothing placed on the branches for our friends and neighbors in need. 

It generates holiday foot traffic downtown and brings visitors who stay to eat downtown or visit Carolina Wren Park to ice skate. 

But perhaps best of all, it is a beautiful Christmas tree which really dresses Anderson up for the holidays.

Think of it as a yearly Christmas gift from the leadership of Anderson County who saw a way to make the holidays better downtown and save taxpayers money at the same time. So if you see you council representative, thank them. And thank Anderson County Administrator Rusty Burns, who loves Christmas perhaps as much as I do, and I start listening to holiday tunes in late summer. It was his vision and research that led to the path to purchase the tree.

If you need a bump this year getting in the holiday spirit, drive by later this week after dark and check it out. (And if you want to shoot the family photo in front of the tree downtown, you still have plenty of time to do so.)

Closing out a difficut 2020, let's all take a deep breath under our face masks and find as many ways as we can to enjoy a Merry Christmas and be grateful for those who are helping our community do so.

Opinion: Undermoderated Debate Drifted into Talking Point Session

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Final thoughts on last night's vice-presidential debate.

Anyone supporting either party who thought last night's debate was a slam dunk must have started their drinking games early.

Talking points and partisan mantras were the rule of the day, with both candidates often ignoring the question to repeat a talking point. And the moderator was too timid to push for answers.

Pence did what he needed to do to play to his base, and Harris did not lose her cool and played to hers.

Neither candidate likely influenced undecided voters very much.

Glad theirs was a one and out.

Next year might be a good time for both parties to re-evaluate their long-term strategies and find ways to foster more diverse opinions within the ranks. This was once the norm in both parties, elected officials of broad approaches to governing the American people.

The starting point would be campaign finance reform. Resurrect the bill put forth by Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson back in the 1970s which essentially stated that if you can't cast a direct for for the candidate, you cannot donate a single dime to that campaign.

I would add a 5-year prohibition of presidential candidates' family members taking jobs with any group which has government contracts of any kind.

But whatever happens, the sky in not falling. The country has survived greater challenges and poor leadership in all branches. It's been a hallmark of this nation, the ability to recover from self-inflicted wounds, and just because many (myself included) lose patience sometimes with the current state of affairs, the great experiment rolls on.

So take a deep breath and relax. And vote. And do something good for your community.

Time to Celebrate National Hunting and Fishing Day

S.C. Rep. Brian White

America’s hunters and anglers are our nation’s original conservationists, a title that we wear proudly. On Saturday, South Carolina celebrates our nation’s 48^th Annual National Hunting and Fishing Day (NHFD), a day set aside to recognize and celebrate the historical and ongoing contributions of the Palmetto State sportsmen and women.

As Co-Chair of the South Carolina Legislative Sportsmen’s Caucus and a member of the 49-state National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses, I am proud to celebrate the time-honored traditions of hunting and angling, and I encourage all South Carolinians to use National Hunting and Fishing Day to take advantage of the inherently socially distant activities of hunting and fishing that are available to us.

Hunters and anglers provide the foundation of conservation funding through the purchase of licenses, tags and stamps, and by paying self-imposed excise taxes on the equipment that we use. Adding these contributions together, hunters and anglers generated $29.21 million to fund the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources through the “user-pays, public-benefits” American System of Conservation Funding. This funding, in addition the overall economic contributions of hunters, provides benefits for all South Carolinians.  

Equally as important, hunting and angling provide South Carolinians an opportunity to explore the natural world around them while taking advantage of the many well-documented physical and mental health benefits associated with spending time outdoors. Through hunting and angling, one can truly appreciate the importance of conservation. This is why sportsmen and women dedicate much of their time and resources to improve conditions for fish and wildlife, which has ripple effects throughout the ecosystem and benefits all species and the people that enjoy them. Similarly, sportsmen and women are among the strongest supporters of legislation to increase public access opportunities for all Americans and provide additional funding for wildlife management. 

There is perhaps no better example of this than the recent passage of the Great American Outdoors Act. This historic piece of legislation fully and permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and appropriates $9.5 billion to take neglected infrastructure projects off the backburner, including $3 billion to support hunting, fishing and recreational shooting activities on federally owned public lands and waters. Thanks to a bipartisan effort in Congress and the support of sportsmen and women, the Great American Outdoors Act will ensure we are leaving our country in a better place for the next generation.

We hope that you will use National Hunting and Fishing Day to celebrate our time-honored traditions and perhaps introduce someone new to our outdoor pursuits so that they, too, can enjoy the physical and mental health benefits of hunting and fishing. Given the renewed desire for safe outdoor recreational opportunities brought about by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, as well as a growing desire among the populace for a self-sufficient lifestyle that includes food security, there is perhaps no better time to introduce beginners to the outdoors for the first time. Along the way, they will learn more about the natural world around them, procure organic, locally-sourced food for the entire family, and carry forward the proud conservation legacy of South Carolina’s original conservationists.

S.C. Rep. Brian White, has served the sixth district of South Carolina House of Representatives since 2001.

Help is available for customers who need assistance with utility bills

By Mike Callahan/Duke Energy

In the early days of the pandemic, Duke Energy took swift action to help customers knowing the financial burdens that would result for many due to the health crisis. We suspended electric service disconnections for unpaid bills. We also hit the pause button on charges for late payments and returned checks.

We made these sweeping changes so our customers, from families to factories, could focus on what matters most and continue to help their neighbors and communities weather this unprecedented chapter in everyone’s lives.  

Thousands of families, businesses and others across South Carolina have directly benefited from our freeze on disconnections since it took effect more than six months ago. As we plan our return to standard billing and payment practices in October, we have expanded options for these customers and others so they can continue receiving safe and reliable service. 

We encourage customers who are having a hard time paying their energy bills to get in touch with us as soon as possible, even if they’re unable to pay anything right now. We’re also proactively contacting some customers in an effort to better understand their needs. 

Customers should also know we have flexible and manageable payment plans so they can avoid a service disruption once our standard billing practices resume in the month ahead. This ranges from giving customers a few extra days to pay their current bills to offering extended, interest-free arrangements for them to pay over many months. Disconnecting a customer’s service is the very last step in a lengthy process, and it’s a step we will work to avoid. 

Some customers may also qualify for assistance from various government and nonprofit programs for utility bills and other household expenses. 211.org is a free service to help customers find local community agencies that can help meet a wide range of needs, including utility bills, housing, food and other essentials, child and elder care, medical expenses and health counseling. 

If you are facing financial hardship, we are here to help. Our team is prepared to support customers through these challenging times and provide manageable solutions so customers can keep their lights on. Customers can learn more about available payment arrangements and assistance programs by visiting duke-energy.com/extratime. 

Finally, we urge customers to watch out for scam calls with impostors posing as Duke Energy representatives attempting to steal your money and personal information. Scammers have added a new tactic, which promises to mail customers refund checks for overpayments on their accounts if they can confirm their personal data, including birthdays and, in some cases, Social Security numbers.

We are committed to doing what we can to help all customers avoid service disconnections while still providing a critical service during this ongoing crisis.

Mike Callahan is president of Duke Energy’s utility operations in South Carolina.

Opinion: Critics of Football Players Calls for Justice Miss the Point

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

The advent of a new football season, which kicked off over the weekend, featured a much more widespread, if not new, display of players and teams acknowledging the racial strife that has engulfed the United States in recent months and years.

From Clemson to Los Angeles, teams and players put their calls for racial justice front and center before each game.

Some teams, both college and professional, chose to stay in the locker room during the “National Anthem” and the National Football League’s playing of what is being called the playing of the hymn "Lift Every Voice and Sing," known as the Black National Anthem. Others locked arms as a show of unity, some took a knee during the playing of the “National Anthem,” and others wore various messages on their helmets or shoes.

Clemson University Quarterback Trevor Lawrence, considered by many the finest at his position in the nation, wore a sticker on his helmet reading: “Black Lives Matter; We Are One Human Race; No Justice, No Peace; and Put a Stop to Racism.” Lawrence, who in June led a Black Lives Matter event on the Clemson campus wrote in a Twitter: "There has to be a shift in the way of thinking. Rational must outweigh irrational. Justice must outweigh injustice. Love must outweigh hate. If you put yourself in someone else's shoes and you don't like how it feels -- that's when you know things need to change.” 

Anderson’s own Darien Rencher, who played at T.L. Hanna, was a major influence on his close friend Lawrence.  

And Rencher's Zoom video meetings with college superstars, including Lawrence and fellow Heisman Trophy favorites in Ohio State Quarterback Justin Fields and Oklahoma State Running Back Chuba Hubbard, is credited with sparking the #WeWantToPlay movement, which some credit with helping save the college football season. 

“I’m kind of using my platform, my voice,” Lawrence said of Rencher. “He’s (Rencher) good at rallying people together. We make a pretty good team.”

The pair also helped move Clemson Head Coach Dabo Swinney, who admitted he needed to be educated on the issues, to join the June BLM event.

“I’m embarrassed to say that there’s things on this campus I didn’t really understand. I knew the basics but not the details,” Swinney said. “But I’ve learned and I’ve listened. It has to be everybody’s responsible to be more aware, to learn more and to speak out against racial inequality.”

Lawrence, who will likely be the top draft pick in the 2021 NFL draft, will find strong kindred spirits on whatever team chooses him. 

Steve Bisciotti, the owner of the Baltimore Ravens, said that demonstrations by some players who kneel during the National Anthem before their game against the Cleveland Browns were “not a protest against our country.” 

“We respect and support our players’ right to protest peacefully,” Bisciotti wrote in a message to fans. “This was a demonstration for justice and equality for all Americans. These are core values we can all support, This was not a protest against our country, the military or the flag. Our players remain dedicated to uplifting their communities and making America better. They have proven this through substantive action. They are committed to using their platform to drive positive change, and we support their efforts.” 

But while team owners, players and coaches seemed unified in their message, fans remain deeply divided. 

At the NFL opener Thursday, the reigning league champion Kansas City Chiefs were met with jeers as they locked arms midfield with the visiting Houston Texans in as the announcer called for “a moment of silence dedicated to the ongoing fight for equality in our country.”

Many fans of Clemson and other college and professional teams have voiced opposition to players’ making political statements on the field, with calls of “taking politics out of sports” and threats to boycott or ignore football. 

Since attendance was either limited or prohibited over the first football weekend, along with the absence of games in the Southeast Conference, which begins their 10-game schedule at the end of the month, it’s hard to gauge if the on-field calls for social justice would have had much impact.

Television ratings are up after the first full weekend, and advertisers are lining up for football in near-record numbers, seeing near-empty stadiums as an opportunity. 

Meanwhile, fans on social media continue to hammer athletes across the board.

Some see it as disprespectful of the American Flag, the county in general or the miliitary. Those charges have been roundly denied across the board by athletes, coaches and team owners

“Nobody cares about the opinions of athletes, just shut up and play ball,” others cry, in the most common retort to players’ calls for social justice.

The irony of such comments is obvious. Those expressing such opinions on social media fail to recognize they are using their various social media platforms to express their own political/social justice opinions just as players are using their own.

Attacking the young men on football fields for using their celebrity to call for justice and equality rings more of jealousy than conviction, often forgetting that with the high level of visibility comes a high level of accountability.

Critics know thier own limited platform means less visibility for their own political opinions, which leads to raw an uniformed comments. 

Few of these critics, if any, choose to acknowledge the history of racism in the sport, and that even the NFL’s best players were not allowed to stay in team hotels or eat at some restaurants on the road only 50 years ago. They also have forgotten African-American quarterbacks were almost never given starting positions until the past decade or so.

Cleveland Brown great Jim Brown, perhaps the greatest running back in league history, was never a popular player because he was a vocal and active participant in pushing for civil rights and equality.

"It was told to me that I could be loved and popular if I could bow down and do a little dance,” Brown said. “I don't know if y'all know what that means. But I said, I don't really dance,” adding that he’d rather be remembered for doing the right thing than his exploits on the field.

Today’s athletes stand on Brown’s shoulders in as the nation continues to seek ways to work toward equality and justice for all Americans, regardless their race or economic status. 

Again, this is nothing new.

Recent events, including the horrific George Floyd killing which was caught on video, only shined a bright light on the challenges presented by race that many of these young men have experienced their entire lives.

Many grew up without financial means, without a voice for justice in their schools or neighborhoods, others met barriers only there because of the color of their skin. They are now finding that voice, and like Rencher and Lawrence, building bridges of understanding to those who have not seen first hand the shadow of racism hanging over their lives. 

These bridges are important. These bridges will offer paths to a better future. 

Those who attack such efforts are only perpetuating the gaps in understanding and progress, and instead of calling for silencing or boycotts, should at the very least recognize the rights of those who see things differently to use whatever platform at their disposal to express their viewpoints. 

Time is Now for Dist. 5 to Name Playhouse after Chadwick Boseman

Greg Wilson/Anderson Observer

Anderson native Chadwick Boseman’s recent and untimely passing has brought a slew of suggestions about how to honor his accomplishments. 

These ideas include a statue downtown to replace the Confederate memorial and a variety of other naming opportunities around town. Many of these are worthy of discussion.

But the first move, and potentially the swiftest, would be to rename Anderson School District 5’s Project Challenge Playhouse the Chadwick Boseman Playhouse.

First, the current name has often been confusing to outsiders, and does not suggest theatrical performance. Boseman, who attended T.L. Hanna performed on stage in his early acting career in the district, and adding his name to the marquis could serve as a fine inspiration for those who hope to move their dreams of acting to the next level. 

T.L. Hanna has already put in motion a scholarship in Boseman’s name, and this would be a logical addition to honor him.

In his short life, Boseman exemplified the characteristics to which we hope all of our students will inspire. I won’t list his credits here, but many of his biopics of Jackie Robinson and Thurgood Marshall offered glimpses of men who were calm under fire, men who changed the world. 

Boseman’s charity work, especially visits to children suffering from cancer, remains an example of how a person can use fame to help others. 

“Whatever you choose for a career path, remember the struggles along the way are only meant to shape you for your purpose,” he said. “As you commence to your paths, press on with pride and press on with purpose.”

Anderson School Dist. 5 should press on with such pride and purpose to honor one its most famous alumni. 

In the days since his death, tributes from around the world have praised Boseman’s 

The district policy of naming a building or portion of a building was established in 1969 and revised in 1983. 1988 and 2017, and would require a minor revision to quickly honor Boseman. Let's hope that revision comes quickly.

Current policy allows for the naming of a building or section of a building in the district for a person “has made an outstanding contribution to the school or school system and has been deceased for more than three years.”

The three-year waiting period is generally wise. But this is not a major renaming of a school or changing the beloved name of a program. I have asked three dozen people in the district, many of whom are or have been involved in theater, and none are attached to the current name (most don’t even like it).

Any group making the request for a change “must agree to provide appropriate recognition such as a plaque, portrait or marker for the school.” 

So it can be done. 

The Anderson Observer is willing to do what it can to help make that happen. 

The Dist. 5 superintendent and the board of trustees have the authority to honor Boseman quickly in the most appropriate of locations to honor his legacy which inspiring students.

If you live in the district, contact your board member and the superintendent asking they move ahead with the Chadwick Boseman Playhouse project.  

Currently, the only building in the district named in honor of an African American is the gymnasium at Westside High School, which named to honor the legendary coach William Roberts. 

Naming the district’s primary theater in honor of native son Chadwick Boseman is a natural move to honor Boseman’s legacy, and would be a welcome tribute to show the world how we feel about the loss of one of Anderson's brightest and best.