The law ...

Pickens County Legislature contact links…

http://www.scstatehouse.gov/countydelegationinfo/cnty39.php

Keep the above link handy for contacting Pickens County legislators.

So far ...

 

The morning review ...

This morning I sat down and reviewed a number of the items that I have sought to get the County Council and Pickens County School Board to change directions on. 

They range from willful disregard for the SC Constitution on the matters of school finances (Article 11 Section 3) - unfunded by the State of South Carolina - and refinancing of general obligation bonds they did not own and could not own

The financing of buildings at Tri-County Tech funded by issuing general obligation bonds without even telling the people what they were for is also a violation the SC Constitution (Three readings, one reading with a public hearing required / Article 10 Section 5)

There are so many violations of the South Carolina Constitution that this space is too small to recount all the violations. It seems that Board and Council members don’t care about the law or the oath that they all took to preserve, protect, and defend both the US and the State Constitutions when they were sworn in and their hands were on the Bible.

I sat with the County Attorney and Administrator and gave them at least eight (and there are more) ways in which the County, School Board, and even the State, have over collected tax money to the tune of $145 million in case of the County and School Board and $1.6 Billion in the case of the State. I sat with the Sheriff, both the County Council and School Board, the senator of this County, the Attorney General, SLED,and the Governor of this State and explained in a very easy to understand way how all this has been perpetrated and most of them agreed that if what I said was true - it needed to be stopped. Instead of them stopping all this fraud of the people, they told me I needed to spend tens of thousands of my money suing all of them.

Where are the people of Pickens County while all this is going on: Sitting with their hand folded waiting for me to do something or complaining that they don’t understand what I am talking about. All they need to do is read the SC Constitution (Articles 10 and 11) and see for themselves. 

 

 

Happy Thanksgiving...

 

What is the SC JSMC?

Great article over at The Nerve SC

http://www.thenerve.org/lawmakers-judges-cozy/

 

Worse yet ...

 

Pickens County SC School Board Contact Info 2016 Updated

The next School Board meeting will be Monday November 28.... If you would like to reach out to your school board member and tell them what your thoughts are about the direction you would like to see you can Email them at: 

Betty Bagley (Clemson): bettybagley13@gmail.com

Phillip Bowers (Central): bowers_p@bellsouth.net

Shannon Haskett (Pickens): shannon.graceland@gmail.com

Brian Swords (Liberty): 

bswords@tctc.edu

Betty Garrison (Easley): bettyfgarrison@gmail.com

Henry Wilson (Dacusville): 

hwsc1@yahoo.com  

I would encourage you to keep these emails handy and please show up at their monthly meetings!

Yet the county elected RINOs & Progressives

Election results set a record for the Pickens County Republican Party with the largest percent Republican turnout of any county at 76.2%. Pickens County is one of only 17 counties voting greater that 50% Republican, and one of only six exceeding 60%.

In the presidential race, Trump received over 73% while Clinton received about 20%; a solid rejection of the Obama agenda.

Who is George Soros ...

To the best of their ability ...

Last night I attended the Pickens County School Board's swearing in ceremony. Dr. Bagley, Mrs. Garrison, and Mr. Hasket were sworn in. All of them swore to protect, defend, and preserve both the United States and the State Constitutions and Judge Cleary threw in "to the best of your Ability". Does the best of your ability mean that the Board member will read Article 11 Section 3 and the entire 10th article about taxation and finance and ask Columbia to fund our schools properly and quit hammering the people of Pickens County? I also challenge them to personally read the state ethics law before any of them vote to increase salaries for teachers or administration.

The people have spoken for these elected folks and we should give them a chance to do what is lawful and right.

A tribute to the doubters ...

Parallel to education ...

 

Petition to electoral college ...

https://www.change.org/p/congressman-jeff-duncan-the-electoral-college-must-support-president-elect-trump

President-Elect Donald J. Trump is the duly elected 45th President of the United States. His historic performance during the 2016 Presidential Election resulted in Republican wins in key battleground states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and most likely Michigan. President-Elect Trump won these key states by winning the support of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

While people have the First Amendment right to freedom of expression, they are not entitled to their own set of facts. Donald Trump is the legitimately elected President-Elect of the United States, and to suggest otherwise or encourage the Electoral College to invalidate that result is irresponsible and Un-American. Furthermore, it is important to remind the public that 29 states and the District of Columbia have laws prohibiting members of the Electoral College from voting however they please, therefore to encourage people to do otherwise is to promote lawlessness.

Now is the time to pray for our country and come together as a united people, not riot in the streets because you may not have gotten your way. Please join me in supporting our next President, and reminding the Electoral College that they must fulfill their legal obligation to follow the process set up in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers.

Blessings & Liberty

Congressman Jeff Duncan SC-3

The two lines ...

 

❤️

"I'm just glad I'm seein' friends I haven't seen in a while ... You gotta watch what you say nowadays because there's a lot of people with love in their heart that'll kill ya if you don't have as much love in your heart as they do."

Dennis Miller on his reaction to the election.

 

Veterans Day ...

 

Businesses honoring Vets ...

Chicken Salad Chick – Free meal valued at $9-10

Chipotle – Buy one get one free for a small burrito, bowl or salad from 3 p.m. to close on Veterans Day. The deal applies to Veterans, military and military spouses.

Cracker Barrel Old Country Store – Complimentary double chocolate fudge coca-cola cake dessert to veterans and guests who make purchases to support the United Service Organization (USO)'

IHOP – Free red, white and blue pancakes to veterans and active duty military from 7PM to 7PM

K&W Cafeterias – Free dinner including entrée, two vegetables, bread and a beverage for veterans and active military. The offer applies to dine-in or take-out from 4PM to closing.

LongHorn Steakhouse – Free appetizer or dessert (no purchase required, no restrictions) to anyone showing proof of military service. In addition, LongHorn Steakhouse will offer 10% off for guests that dine with Veterans on November 11.

Menchie's – Free 6oz frozen yogurt all day for veterans and military personnel with a valid ID or dressed in uniform.

O'Charley's – Veterans and active duty service members can get a free meal at any location on Nov. 11.

Olive Garden – Free entrée from a special menu (six feature items) to active duty military and veterans. The meal includes unlimited soup or salad and breadsticks

Red Lobster – Free appetizer or dessert from a select Veterans Day menu for veterans, active duty military and reservists

Red Robin – FREE Red’s Tavern Double burger with Bottomless Steak Fries on Veterans Day for all Veterans and active duty military. Red Robin is also donating $10,000 to the United Service Organizations (USO) to provide assistance to military service members and their families worldwide.

Wayback Burgers – Free Wayback Classic Cheeseburger at participating restaurants nationwide to all active and former military personnel in honor of Veterans Day on Friday, November 11. The deal is good with the purchase of any side and any drink.

Yardhouse  – Veterans and active duty military receive a complimentary appetizer. Offier is only valid for dine-in.

Stores & Services

Cabela's –  10% off all items, 5% off firearms offer for military, retired military, first responders, law enforcement.

Fred's – Active and retired military personnel, reservists and their immediate family members receive a 15 percent discount off their entire purchase

Great Clips – the salon is offering a free haircut card to all active, inactive and retired military members of any branch. Those can be used on Veterans Day or saved for later.

Electoral College Outdated?

 

November Meeting ...

There will be a meeting of the Conservatives of the Upstate Thursday November 10, 2016 at 6:30 pm at the Blue Ridge Bible church at 769 Belle Shoals Rd., just outside Pickens. 

We will be talking about strategies for the future operations of the organization. Please come and bring a conservative friend.

Junius Smith 

President, COTU 

You needed this ...

Here's some humor to break up your day ....

Saitta Loses School Board Bid ...

From Alex Saitta on Facebook:

I lost the school board race by 3%. It was close. We ran a positive campaign focusing on raising the graduation rate, keeping the public informed, targeting the money to the classroom, living within our means and keeping the public informed. In particular, I strongly opposed and voted against the school closing and eliminating teaching positions/ raising class sizes. 

I thank all of you who helped and supported me, and a special thanks to my wife and my two children Scarlett and Amber who waved signs, helped me knock on doors and making the videos and all. 

Generally, there was an anti-incumbent movement that we got caught up in that often doesn’t have a lot of discretion. As the economy gets better and as time has passed people want their government to spend more, tax more and borrow more. That’s not me, who believes in living within your needs. 

There also was a good amount of smearing going on by my some affiliated with and supporting my opponent. For instance, everyone in Holly Springs and AR Lewis did not want the schools to close. I voted not to close them and was strongly opposed it. That was easy to prove by my voting record and the numerous public statements I made in the paper, in the newspaper and on TV. Naturally, I should have won those precincts by large margins given everyone didn’t want the schools closed. I lost one precinct and won the other, but not by a large amount.

When we were talking to people up there, some would say, Alex voted to close the schools, or Alex really didn’t mean it when he voted to keep them open or he made a deal and just voted that way. We would ask, how do you know that is true? They’d say they just heard it. It was all made-up, and had nothing to support it and you saw this written on Facebook as well. It was a smear -- what I did and said on that issue was totally spun on its head by design.  

For example, I was greeting at the AR Lewis poll and Lori Durham (a teacher at Pickens Elementary) was greeting for my opponent too. I kid you not, she told this to scores of voters this: I’m Lori Durham and I was a teacher displaced by the closing of Holly Springs and we need to replace the school board that closed my school. We need to elect a new board member Shannon Haskett for a positive change. The same was said at other polls. 

The voters naturally thought his opponent (me), voted to close the schools when in fact I voted not to close them and argued strongly the closures. It was a scripted smear designed to mislead voters just before they walked in to vote. We heard this was going on, but it was stunning to hear someone doing this firsthand.  

Throughout the campaign I always had a choice to turn around and start making similar misleading statements about my opponent like most campaigns do. Then it turns into a food fight of false claims like we so often see in elections. I chose not to do that and focused on my record and any one helping me did the same. This put me at a disadvantage.   

I served on the school board 12 years. I enjoyed it and will land on my feet; I always have. We'll see what happens in the future. Thank you all again. I'll catch up with you in a few days. Plenty of signs to pick up and paperwork to fill out.

Trump wins U.S. Presidential Election but let's address the other elephant in the room ...

School board teacher and taxpayer champion Alex Saitta was defeated in his re-election bid for school board.

This is a huge loss to the community.

The Pickens County Election Commission failed to report proper (or accurate) election results and may present a protest vote opportunity during certification.

Congratulations to Donald Trump for a hard fought race and win.

2 Chronicles 7:14

if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Summary of November 2016 Pickens County Council Meeting ...

Last night's County Council meeting was a real lively one. The big issue was the third reading of a $7.8 million dollar spending bond for general expenses I believe this to be questionable for capital expenses.. 

Article 10 section 5 says..... Any tax which shall be levied shall distinctly state the public purpose to which the proceeds of the tax shall be applied. I read this verbatim to the Council. They called on the Bond Attorney to clarify my position. He immediately said that there was no constitutional problem with what the Council was trying to do. Then he poured over their syllogism by saying that the money derived from the bonds could not be spent on anything but capital items which is not what the Council intended to spend the money on. This is a constitutional problem if I ever heard one. The Bond Attorney then lapsed into another "article of law" and that is the 8% limitation rule on general obligation bonds which allows the County to borrow some $35-37 million without going to the public for approval. The point that I think he missed was that the School Board has already borrowed all the authorized money for Pickens County and if the County Council wants to borrow more, they must have the people to vote on these bonds. When the Council realized that the Bond Attorney had misinformed them or at the very least had not explained the situation clearly, they tabled the third reading of this ordinance until they could "figure it all out."

I also explained to the council that the $23,000,000 reserved for the new jail did not belong to their jurisdiction because this money had been derived from over-collections using all of the 9 or 10 procedures that I had gone over with the County Attorney. My whole point in all of this is to show the County Council that we need to operate on the Constitutional authority when using the people's money. Millions of dollars have become as nothing to politicians and they rely on lawyers to tell them they are ok in their actions. Bond attorneys can make mistakes in procedure and council members need to read the law for themselves as well and not let folks who have ulterior motives make their decisions.

There has been at least &145 million dollars over collected in Pickens County for County, School operations and buildings, and maintenance. This is the people's money and should be returned to them or at the very least let them vote on the use of it. (Article 10 and 11, SC Law 12-43-285,SC Act 388)

I warned the county council about the contamination of the "Doodle Trail " and the potential for cancer victims in the future to sue for damages.

The next thing I noticed on the agenda was item 14 which was the resolution to let the State know we did not want any approval of refugees without our consent. It passed unanimously.

I want to thank all those Conservatives of the Upstate that took their valuable time to come to the meeting. They were Carol Smith, AP Laws, Steve Haynie, and Junius Smith. There might have been others and if so, I apologize.

Junius Smith

President of The Conservatives of the Upstate

Vote ...

 

November 2016 Pickens County Council Meeting...

The Pickens County Council will meet tonight at 6:30PM. Why don't you come and help fight the $7.8 million in general obligation bonds that are up for approval to be spent on current expenses. The money should come from the over-collected fund of more than $23,000,000 rather than make the people responsible for paying all this money back. This transaction violates Article 10 section 5 of the Constitution.

Junius Smith

President, COTU 

One vote ...

 

What is a crowd except a group of individuals?

One vote, your vote, matters and is important.

Congressman Jeff Duncan vows to pursue Clinton on charges ...

FBI Director Comey just sent a letter to Congress informing us that their initial review of the new Hillary Clinton e-mails taken from Anthony Weiner's computer has not caused them to change their prosecution recommendation. However, I want to make it unmistakably clear to everyone that this situation is far from resolved. In fact, from my perspective this is only the beginning. Every day, Congress and the American people learn more alarming details regarding Secretary Clinton's mishandling of classified information and unethical behavior connected with the Clinton Foundation. For months, I have been calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to oversee this investigation. The appointment of such a prosecutor is needed now more than ever to assure the American people that this investigation is being handled fairly and impartially. The FBI's refusal to recuse agents with major conflicts of interest, highly questionable immunity deals for Clinton staff members, and the DOJ's refusal to allow the FBI to open an investigation on the Clinton Foundation all raise legitimate red flags for the American people.

Jeff Duncan

SC 3rd District Representative, U.S. House

If a democrat says it, it's ok ...

Currently appearing in your 6th grader's classroom ...

This is 6th grade social studies book being used in SC ...

 It is revisionist /indoctrination history...they want students to think we are in a democracy and it is NOT accidental. 

 

Our government is  a Constitutional Republic not a Democracy!

 

Clinton Supporters Agree With Her If They Think She Said It ...

Double standard?

It truly is sick that people will vote for Hillary Clinton because Trump said something off camera negative about women, but when Hillary purposely invites rappers with horrific expletive laden lyrics about abusing women (and calling them "hos") - her base loves her? Double standard?

 

See full video here:

(WARNING: Explicit Lyrics)

http://youtu.be/Xxebphd7F4g

You could put this into local context too ...

I want to tell those of you still on the fence: The reason Hillary Clinton set up that private server was to make sure that any Freedom of Information Act request of the State Department would not reveal what she's doing, because the real news is that she and her husband were selling U.S. foreign policy.  Foreign entities, foreign governments, foreign wealthy individuals were paying big money for that.  That's what she was hiding; that's what's being investigated.

~ Rush Limbaugh 

Clinton Would Extend AHA To Illegals ...

Division ...

 

Talk growing on social media for Bowers resignation...

Phillip Bowers, Pickens County school board member and County GOP leader has faced a lot of criticism over the past year as he's made a 180° turn on issues and voted with the liberal members of the school board on most issues.

Now Bowers is attacking the most inarguably conservative school board member, Alex Saitta right before Saitta's election. 

Saitta, a republican who has attended many monthly GOP meetings, and has supported conservative republicans all over the county for more than a decade, has been getting blasted by Bowers all over social media. Meanwhile, Bowers, who has dual hat as the director of The Pickens County GOP, promotes the most liberal candidates running for office in Pickens County - like Gary Clary. (Reminder: Clary supported a 7th seat on the school board, a move that the Pickens County Election Commission verified would cost upwards of $35,000 and that Senator Larry Martin stated would be illegal.)

From Facebook:

When asked who the "new" conservatives are on the school board who closed two rural schools against the WILL of the people... he replied ...

 "I did the other day, but here's a summary.  Basically everyone but Saitta. He has done nothing but talk incessantly for 12 years and accomplished almost nothing but chaos and a first class financial and educational mess of our schools system. For example, he neglected to work effectively with others and put a maintenance plan in place 12 years ago. That philosophy of neglect and short sightedness begot the Greenville Plan. Had your buddy Saitta worked with others to put real conservative policies and plans in place like I have the last two years, we potentially could have avoided all the debt his philosophy has left the taxpayers with. His legacy is the Greenville Plan and the MASSIVE amount of DEBT he hung us with....I am very very very happy with the progress we've made the last two years with a new conservative majority on the board. And I am also very very very happy the electorate agrees with me and the overall direction of the board. Not even one person ran to really change the direction the board has traveled the last two years, at a time when fully half the board is on the ballot . Very Very very happy am I."

To correct Bowers comments:

Alex OPPOSED each step of funding the building plan. If he had not been on the board. The debt total would most likely have been hundreds of millions MORE.

Just so you know, it's not a protest vote ...

In an interview Tuesday on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," Mr. Weld expressed support for, though not an endorsement of, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. The candidate also acknowledged the near-impossibility of a Libertarian victory in a highly unusual move for a third-party campaign that was always unlikely to get a real shot at the White House.

Weld, Libertarian VP, says he "vouches" for Clinton in MSNBC interview ...

Watch the video here:

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show

Who is Huma Abedin?