Nuclear power scandal: High time South Carolinians march on the State House

"Bankruptcy isn't out of the question, (analysts) say, but it may not be the inevitable outcome (SCANA) has suggested." - article, The Post and Courier

South Carolinians are being set up for another shellacking by SCANA and its bought and paid for stooges in the legislature. The gall of a gang of paid-off jerks - charged with representing the public interest - to quietly arrange for customers to underwrite the financial risk of a private corporation. To pay in advance for an unnecessary project and to keep paying even if the project fails.

Those in power couldn't care less what people want, or what's in the people's interest. The behavior of Senate Minority Leader Nikki Setzler epitomizes the shameful state of affairs. Setzler co-sponsored the bill that got us into this mess, supports a deal with Dominion Energy that would leave ratepayers ripped off, and has a profound conflict of interest via his probate-dealing law firm when it comes to South Carolina's probate racket. He's a sadistic, high-handed little jerk who refuses to acknowledge the latest e-mail I sent him (via SC Legislature Online) way back on 12/5/2017 asking what he plans to do this legislative session to eliminate time limits on wills and simplify the probate process.

It all points to one thing: America is a dictatorship.

The few timid expressions of public displeasure with the nuclear fiasco have nonetheless been enough to throw South Carolina's corrupt power structure into a panic, prompting outcries of concern for SCANA, a crooked, 9 billion dollar holding company that now claims - is anyone surprised? - that if it's forced to give back all the money stolen from utility customers, it will go bankrupt, prompting unbearable agony for utility customers. To hear the state's power brokers and their mainstream media stooges tell it, the only "reasonable" thing to do is for utility customers to settle for way less than they're entitled to, way less than they lost, and continue to pay for a boondoggle that will never produce any energy.

The SCANA and legislative gang's Johnny-come-lately concern for utility customers is aptly summed up by the proposed sale of SCE&G to Virginia-based Dominion Energy: "Just offer the suckers a few up-front dollars along with a nominal decrease in rates, and they're sure to bite."  

Here's the kinda propaganda we're being bombarded with:

"Hey, we could get ripped off even worse, and something is better than nothing" blabbers Keven Cohen, chief honcho of Columbia's Miss the Point radio. I recently blogged about the antics of Cohen and his friend Ashley Landess, president of the South Carolina Policy Council. Cohen has since been running Dominion Energy ads, spotlighting Dominion big shots as guests, and airing the opinion of Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, who "ever so sadly" intoned that "there just isn't any way" that ratepayers can be made whole.

Then there's the State newspaper's Cindi Ross Scoppi - another would-be investigative reporter who balks at exposing South Carolina's probate racket. Scoppe downplays anything short of ratepayers being taken to the cleaners in the current ripoff proposed by Dominion. I quit subscribing to the State's biased rag years ago, haven't bought one since, and noticed Scoppe's blabber via the Internet.

It's not that the paid-off creeps that got us into this mess deserve to be voted out of office. It's that they deserve to be tarred, feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. Nor do I buy the claim that there are "some good legislators." I'll make exceptions if someone can gimme the names of anyone who warned the public about what was going on when the oh-so-cleverly-named "Base Load Review Act" was originally proposed.

Point is, if South Carolinians are dumb enough to settle for anything less than a full refund from SCANA, they richly deserve the fleecing it looks like they're gonna get.

1/26/2018 updates 
>  Protested SC's probate racket for a little over 2.5 hours yesterday in front of Williams, Stitely, and Brink law firm across from the probate court in Lexington.
>  Sent a link to this post to all SC legislators and Ethics and Judiciary committees and e-mailed a link to Nikki Setzler's sidekick, Alisa Painter.

Mountain America Federal Credit Union: In cahoots with the telephone industry

4/10/2019 update: The much ballyhooed Credit Karma has also apparently joined ranks with the telephone industry. Credit Karma advertises a free filing of tax returns, but can't "understand your message" when someone dares to not have a phone. Below is a copy of their reply, arriving days after I contacted Member Support as their free-file website indicated for people without phones. Meanwhile, I found a free tax-filing service via South Carolina Dept of Revenue. Read the reviews: Credit Karma's so-called Member Support is lousy for anyone, whether Credit Karma's victims have a phone or not. AVOID 'em like the plague. 

##- Please type your reply above this line -##

Help Center

Credit Karma Member Support, Apr 11, 7:08 AM PDT: Hi Parris, I apologize for the confusion but I do not understand your message. Please clarify your issue and I'd be happy to help you. Thank you for your patience and looking forward to hearing back from you! Credit Karma Member Support

4/5/2018 update: For the latest, see 4/3/18 post, "BEWARE of Consumers Union's campaign to end robocalls"

3/8/2018 update: Re 2/8 update, a minor health issue delayed things, but more info is planned re Consumers Union. 

2/8/2018 update: Consumers Union has been in touch. Earlier today, I replied to an e-mail from one of their employees who works on robocall issues. Stay tuned. 

2/5/2018 update: Still no word from Consumers Union (see 1/10 and 1/13 updates), even though I've asked. Here's a copy of the tweet they sent me, and it still looks to me like my reply was removed:

Consumers Union‏ @ConsumersUnion Jan 10

Hi Parris, your reply wasn't removed. We've shared it with the appropriate staff person to investigate. We'll be in touch!

1 reply2 retweets2 likes

1/30/2018 update: Here's a copy of the message I received from Mountain America Federal Credit Union:

Mr. Boyd,

In order for us to move forward, I need to speak with you over the phone. I am not allowed to open an account without having verbal conformation.  I tried the number on the application (803) 796-3357 but it’s not a working number. Please call me on my direct line, (801) XXX-XXXX.

1/10/2018 update: Recent efforts to tweet a link to this post resulted in a blocked link. My apologies for that. Apparently, the only link that currently works on Twitter and Facebook is a general link to this blog. Thanks for your interest. As of 1/31/18, specific link is once again blocked.

Regarding phone companies trying to force people to have home phones or cell phones, I decided to expose an unpleasant experience I had last year with Mountain America Federal Credit Union in West Jordan, Utah.

Tried to open a CD, and they express-mailed me some forms to be notarized. I complied and express-mailed the forms back in the envelope they included.

Then they e-mailed me that I would have to call them for "phone verification." Never mind that I'm in South Carolina and it was not an 800 number. (see 1/30 update, top of post, for an exact copy of the message)

So I never opened the account, and got a higher interest rate elsewhere. Sometimes it pays to look around. Searching reviews, I found one that claimed Mountain America required wire transfers if you opened an account from out of state. Fortunately, I never got that far with 'em.

I strongly recommend avoiding Mountain America.

I'm sick and tired of businesses helping telephone companies try ti force consumers to use phones, fax machines, wire services - anything but e-mail.  I posted a complaint about another financial institution last year. Adding insult to injury is the telephone industry orchestrating the disappearance of pay phones. 

The phone company "connection" to financial institutions reared its head long ago when I opened a reward checking account with Bank First in Macon, Mississippi, the deal being that in order to get higher interest on your account, you had to have home phone and Internet. I blogged about the stunt they pulled (third paragraph) when I cancelled my home phone and Internet.

Time for politicians who sell out to telephone industry lobbyists to clean up their act.

1/5/2018 update: SUCH A PLEASURE to expose all of these jerks on Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter. If Americans are DUMB enough to tolerate efforts to force 'em to pay big bucks to communicate, so be it. I'm not about to.

Ashley Landess paid over $100,000 a year just to say SC's legislature is corrupt? SHAME on the SC Policy Council.

According to the South Carolina Secretary of State, make that a whoppin' $104,681 for 2016. Perhaps President Landess got a raise for 2017. I e-mailed a request to the Secretary of State after I couldn't find Landess' salary on the Council's website.

Landess is a regular commentator on Columbia's Make the Point radio station. She's a longtime friend of station founder Keven Cohen, who started his operation several years ago after being fired from his longtime job at WVOC, supposedly because WVOC wanted to go in a "different direction."

Talk about a cozy relationship.

Cohen is quick to encourage listeners to donate to the SC Policy Council, though I've never heard him mention his friend's six-figure salary. From what I've heard, a better name for Cohen's radio station would be "Miss the Point."

The trick seems to be to conjure up as many ways as possible to break the earth-shattering news to South Carolinians that their state legislature (gasp) is corrupt. Nonetheless, Cohen and Landess have yet to breathe a word about South Carolina's probate racket. That glaring omission by both of these self-proclaimed government watchdogs - I've tweeted blog links to both businesses - gets stranger by the day.

Searching the Council's website, I noticed that the Council was founded in 1986, the same year attorneys in the legislature turned probate into a money-makin' racket designed to pad their own greedy pockets. Is the public expected to believe that a bonafide government watchdog organization, present from the get-go, has never seen fit to publicize what was going on?

Kinda makes ya wonder what guidelines Landess and Cohen follow when deciding where they want to focus the public's attention. Or, more to the point, what they want to focus the public's attention away from. Lately, the nuclear power scandal has taken front and center in their blabberings.

Landess' commentary last week was downright alarming.

She cooed ever so sweetly into Cohen's microphone that based on the Council's recent "research," legislators may now have no alternative but to allow power companies to continue charging customers for the boondoggle. In other words, the gang who got us into this mess may not now be able to get us out, an opinion at odds with late-breaking news regarding the proposed sale of South Carolina Electric and Gas.

Cohen's behavior has also been enough to raise eyebrows. For example, instead of interviewing a culprit like Nikki Setzler, who co-sponsored the bill that got the mess started, Cohen "grilled" a relatively unknown House member who wasn't even around when the nuclear power scandal quietly got underway. Notice in the news article linked to above that Nikki Setzler has nothing but praise for the proposed sale of SCE&G, which would leave rate-payers badly ripped off.

At this point, nobody can be blamed for wondering exactly who bankrolls the South Carolina Policy Council, or, to make the point even clearer, who's interests Cohen and Landess are looking out for. But alas. In that regard, the Council's professed dedication to "transparency" has again faltered.

I BELIEVE Landess when she declares that keeping the South Carolina Policy Council's donors anonymous is designed to protect them from reprisal.

Now that I'm more familiar with how the Council operates, I better understand why, when I first e-mailed the Council (in February of 2016) about South Carolina's probate racket, their response was "Unfortunately, we don't have the resources to pursue a topic like that." Right. When "resources" are spent on six-figure salaries, ya gotta cut somewhere.

Methinks Cohen and Landess protesteth too much. Actions speak louder than words.

Update 1/18/2018 - Cohen is now running Dominion Energy ads (for which he's paid) and featuring fast talking Dominion big shots as guests. How long are South Carolinians gonna put up with being ripped off by self-serving jerks in the legislature?

Update 1/5/18 - Truly a pleasure to send a link to this post to all SC legislators and the Senate and House Judiciary Committees.