From 1953 to 1987, more than 900,000 Marines, their families and civilian employees at Camp Lejeune drank water contaminated by toxic chemicals like gasoline and jet fuel that leaked into wells around the base. Across the country, 273,433 people have registered with the Marine Corps to receive notifications about the poisonous drinking water at Camp Lejeune. More than 7,600 live in South Carolina.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Keeping up the spectacle of South Carolina’s Murdaugh murder case is like riding a land rocket without steering. The rural killings of the wife and a son of a father later accused of plotting his own shooting to reap an insurance payout has more twists and turns than three television shows filmed in the Palmetto State — Southern Charm, Outer Banks and The Righteous Gemstones.
From the beginning, you’ve heard how South Carolinians are a warm and generous people with an independent spirit. On the day you were born, I wrote this to you: “You should know our people are generally good. Sometimes they stray and do bad things or forget to do what’s right. … Sometimes people forget the lessons of church to love their neighbors and, instead, love themselves too much.”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | It wasn’t too long ago that South Carolina’s congressional caucus carried a lot of clout, punching well above its weight for a state its size. Today? Not so much.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Politics has always been an occasionally nasty business. Alexander Hamilton died in an 1804 duel with Aaron Burr. A South Carolina congressman caned and nearly killed a Massachusetts senator in 1856 over slavery. A mob of zealots upset by presidential election results stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this year in an attack that led to five deaths.
Fortunately in America, these bloody internal conflicts aren’t the norm. Unfortunately, today’s polarized and charged political environment is making it harder for leaders to govern — particularly when the leaders seem to be more worried about the next election than governing.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | More than 10,000 South Carolinians have died in the last year and a half from COVID-19. With the availability of incredibly effective vaccines and the common-sense step of wearing masks in crowded places, we have the tools to win the COVID War.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | When the fox guards the henhouse, the fox pretty much can do as it pleases.
That’s what is bothersome about state lawmakers redrawing the lines of the districts they represent. Despite what’s ahead — months of tedious meetings, court challenges and complicated processes — the results are already rigged to favor the very people who are managing the whole shooting match. They don’t want the chickens in control.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | The enormity of anti-science fervor in the Republican-controlled South Carolina legislature that will keep students, most unvaccinated, from wearing masks is mind-blowingly ignorant.
As a result, too many children will get or spread coronavirus — now worse than last year at this time because of a new, more contagious strain — and more will suffer. Children and more adults may die, thanks to the lame-brained GOP General Assembly’s lockstep denial of science.
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | Red states like South Carolina face increasing pressure to fiddle with election laws. They should resist.
But expecting Republican leaders to dial back the rhetoric is hopeful at best, looney at worst. Why? Because of this: “These voter suppression efforts are based on a big lie that the election was stolen,” observed state Rep. Gilda Cobb-Hunter, D-Orangeburg. “Sadly, I have not heard one Republican elected official at the state or local level here, disavow the lie and admit that Joe Biden won the election fair and square.”
By Andy Brack, editor and publisher | South Carolina’s governor earns $106,078 a year, making him the 3,248th (*) highest paid state employee as of April.
* (Of course there’s a caveat in South Carolina. The S.C. Department of Administration’s salary search portal of the 23,328 state employees who earn more than $50,000 does not include people who work at several agencies, such as the legislature, the courts, Santee Cooper and the S.C. State Ports Authority. And we know some of those folks earn money by the bucket.)
We Can Do Better, South Carolina! (2019) by editor and publisher Andy Brack offers incisive commentaries on the American South, politics, the common good and interesting South Carolina leaders. Available exclusively for Kindle for $7.99. A paperback version will be ready soon. Learn more.
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