BAD DOGS at 727 Hook Ave. in W. Cola., SC strike again - goon thug cops refuse to take action

I previously blogged about the bad dogs attacking me when I ride my bicycle by the property, and so-called law enforcement refusing to cite the owner. This morning one of the dogs came after me again, which is what anyone would expect when the W. Columbia police department, W. Columbia animal control, and the Lexington County Sheriff's Department refuse to do their jobs.

Law enforcement in Amerika has become a sham. Cops are goons and thugs, not at all interested in keeping the public safe. Time for the Amerikan Police State to clean up its act.

I know better than to waste my time filing more complaints.

Update 12/3/2018 - Law enforcement has convinced the dogs' owner(s) that they are above the law, so one of the dogs is always unrestrained. It barks at me, but so far hasn't attacked. 

Updates 9/14/2018 - 
> Yesterday's encounter caused a couple of very minor yet bloody scratches as I tried to defend myself and scraped against part of my bicycle. Apparently, law enforcement is trying to force me to kill one or more of the dogs (they were both loose), endangering everyone in the vicinity as I discharge a firearm in self defense. That's just how STUPID the jerks are. 
> Twitter blocked my tweet with a link to this post from appearing on my profile page. Thank the Amerikan Police State.

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.

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. 

BAD DOGS at 727 Hook Avenue in W. Columbia, South Carolina

8/21/2017 update - I've now confirmed that at least one other person had witnessed the dogs chase people and had informed W. Columbia police.

8/19/2017 update: Animal control officer Emily Alford "forgot" to take video of the dog attack but filed a report, #1717914. And just for the record, the name of the W. Cola. police officer I emailed complaints to for several months is David Myers. TOTALLY INEXCUSABLE THAT THE DOG OWNER HASN'T BEEN FINED. Law enforcement's latest song n dance is that the attack animal control witnessed only counts as the first offense and therefore doesn't warrant a citation. Ms. Alford also suggested that the dogs may have been upset because of high frequency noises generated by spinning bicycle wheels. In other words, the dog attacks were somehow my fault.

6/28/2017 update - Spoke with someone yesterday who used to walk by the property and was attacked by the same one of the dogs that came after me. The guy said he was armed, had started to draw his weapon on one occasion, but didn't want to shoot the dog, so he had decided to change his walking route. Real shame that W. Columbia refuses to protect people from vicious dogs.

6/5/2017 and 6/16/2017 updates - On 6/5, W. Columbia animal control officer and two other people WITNESSED the largest of the dogs attack me - getting my foot in its mouth - as I bicycled by the property. I had to kick at the dog and dismount in the oncoming traffic lane. Almost fell. 6/16 - W. Columbia STILL refuses to issue a citation to the dog's owner, claiming this latest incident only counts as the first complaint since it's the only attack they've witnessed. I won't belabor the mind-numbing stupidity of W. Columbia's response.

I bicycle by this property, and the dogs first attacked me in December of 2016, coming into the road, teeth bared, getting within inches of my foot. I complained to animal control, and an employee came by my house, listened to my complaint, and said she would speak with the dogs' owner. I thought it kinda strange that I wasn't asked to sign anything, but I figured a warning would be sufficient for a first time

Another attack happened in January 2017, at which time W. Columbia no longer had an animal control department, and I was advised (via Lexington County animal control) to contact W. Columbia police, which I did. They assured me that they had spoken with the "elderly lady" who lives in the house, said the dogs belonged to her children who were out of town, and extra precautions would be taken to make sure the dogs were restrained.

In March 2017, one of the largest, most aggressive dogs came after me again, and I kicked and yelled at the dog while simultaneously riding my bicycle. So I complained to the police, informing them that this was my third complaint since December, but they refused to issue a citation to the dog's owner.

So I consulted an attorney who advised me to complain to Lexington County Sheriff's department, which I did via their website, but I didn't even receive a reply. Then I exposed the situation on Twitter and Facebook, which resulted in an ambiguous reply from W. Cola.

Then I sent an email to Lexington County Councilman Ned Tolar. His "method" of handling my complaint was to ask me to contact him by phone (I had emphasized that I didn't have a phone), and he refused to reply further by email. Perhaps Mr. Tolar doesn't wanna state things in writing. Then again, maybe that was just his lamebrained way of avoiding the matter. Or maybe there's some part of "I don't have a phone" that ol' Ned just can't figure out. Whatever, the jerk is one sorry excuse for a councilman. With the likes of Ned Tolar and Nikki Setzler in office, it's no wonder that government is unresponsive to people's needs.

At this point, it's anyone's guess what will happen next. Meanwhile, if you're in the vicinity of 727 Hook Avenue, YOU'VE BEEN WARNED.

6/4/2017 update - Found a Ned Tolar unstamped flyer on my mailbox yesterday encouraging people to email him about anything. Distributing flyers in such a manner is illegal, and of course ol' Ned didn't say he would email ya back... Probably won't do any good, but I filed a complaint.

5/26/2017 update - another attack by the largest dog coming into the road, teeth bared. Had to yell and kick at the dog while riding my bicycle. On my way back home, I saw a Lexington sheriff's deputy parked alongside the road, and explained the situation to him. He rode by the property and called W. Columbia animal control (apparently they now have one - maybe my tweets got someone's attention), and one of their vehicles showed up at the property. I told their employee what had happened (FOURTH complaint) but they continue to refuse to issue a citation to the dog(s) owner. Something is terribly wrong with this picture.

5/12/2017 update - A reliable source says the problem revolves around W. Columbia relying in the past on Lexington County animal control, but deciding the cost of county service was too high, and pulling out of the deal. Sounds like W. Columbia and quite a few other entities need to be named in a lawsuit if someone winds up with serious injuries or gets killed due to animal attacks.

5/11/2017 update - My pleasure to tweet links to this post to the City of W. Columbia, the W. Columbia police department, the Lexington County Sheriff, and Ned Tolar. In Tolar's case, to make sure he got the message, I also sent him a link via email.

Probate in South Carolina is a racket

Some topics warrant a separate blog, and I published a new one today: Here's a link to my first post, "10 year limit on probating wills is one of many horrors facing heirs"

Update 4/29/2017 - It's now confirmed that South Carolina Senator Nikki Setzler - a "legislator" from my district in Lexington County - has had a decades-long CONFLICT OF INTEREST, deriving income from his probate-dealing law firm.