Tag: Russell Fry

SC General Assembly Committees Attempt End Run Around Affected Electrical Cooperatives

Sub-committees of the SC House Labor Commerce and Industry Committee and the SC Senate Judiciary Committee published notice Monday that hearings would be held this week for the companion bills to amend the rules by which electrical cooperatives may contract for power.
It is extremely unusual for sub-committee hearings to be announced on Monday and held on Wednesday and Thursday of the same week of announcement.
It is not surprising in this case, however, as officials and directors of the state’s electric cooperatives are currently in Nashville, Tennessee for the annual conference of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association,. The Senate sub-committee hearing for the bill sponsored by Horry County Sen. Luke Rankin is scheduled for Wednesday March 8, 2023 with House sub-committee hearing for the companion bill sponsored by Horry County Rep. Heather Crawford scheduled for Thursday March 9, 2023. The national conference is scheduled to run through March 8, 2023.
The general consensus among electric cooperative officials and their customers is the purpose of these bills is to force the co-ops to purchase their power from state owned Santee Cooper regardless of price. The bills require the co-ops to submit any proposed contracts for the purchase of power for approval from the Joint Bond Review Committee, the Public Utilities Review Committee and the Public Service Commission.

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Bills Sponsored by Rankin and Crawford Expected to Increase Electricity Bills

Companion bills filed by Rep. Heather Crawford and Sen. Luke Rankin, in the two houses of the SC General Assembly, appear to have a goal of requiring electrical cooperatives to purchase electricity from Santee Cooper regardless of the cost.
The bills, introduced by Rankin in the Senate on February 9, 2023 and by Crawford in the House on February 28, 2023, read as follows: “A BILL TO AMEND THE SOUTH CAROLINA CODE OF LAWS BY AMENDING SECTION 58-37-40, RELATING TO INTEGRATED RESOURCE PLANS, SO AS TO PROVIDE THAT CENTRAL ELECTRIC POWER COOPERATIVE MUST SUBMIT ALL PROPOSED CONTRACTS OR OTHER PLANS FOR THE PROCUREMENT OF ELECTRIC GENERATION TO THE JOINT BOND REVIEW COMMITTEE, THE STATE REGULATION OF PUBLIC UTILITIES REVIEW COMMITTEE, AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE COMMISSION OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRIOR TO EXECUTION.”
Central Electric Power Cooperative provides wholesale electric service to South Carolinas electric cooperatives such as Horry Electric Cooperative and Pee Dee Electric Cooperative. It obtains most of its power through long term purchase agreements with Santee Cooper, Duke Energy Carolinas, and the Southeastern Power Administration.

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Russell Fry Has Some ‘Splainin to do”

Russell Fry has now been in Congress for a month representing (I use the term loosely) those of us in the 7th Congressional District.
The Chinese spy balloon, which was shot just off the Grand Strand coast Saturday, provided Fry to get out some of his best sound bites so far. Fry joined a chorus of Republicans criticizing the Biden administration for waiting so long to shoot down the balloon. Fry went so far as to say he didn’t understand why the balloon wasn’t shot down over Montana or Kansas “where there is a lot of open space.”
It is no secret I did not support Fry’s election to the Congressional seat and, as a very rookie Congressman, I suggest Fry would be better off letting the generals decide when and where to exercise such duties while he sticks to the process of getting his feet wet before he runs off at the mouth.
However, there is one area I would like Fry to address further – his appointment of Heather Ammons Crawford as District Director for his Congressional district.
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Is Fry Already Turning His Back on the MAGA Voters Responsible for His Election?

A month ago, GSD published an article which said newly elected Congressman Russell Fry will have to make a sticky choice between being a Donald Trump MAGA Republican in Washington or joining the Swamp Republicans in Congress with their rising tide of dissatisfaction about Trump.
Fry only won the nomination for the seat after his SCGOP cohorts like Gov. Henry McMaster, SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick and some Trump advisers convinced Trump to endorse Fry before ever actually meeting him. Fry defeated all comers, including incumbent Tom Rice, in the primary and went on to win the general election despite never really telling Seventh Congressional District voters how he would represent them.
Fry never voiced his thoughts on whether Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election and had the victory stolen from him. Fry only started to criticize incumbent Rep. Tom Rice, for voting to impeach Trump, after he decided to challenge Rice in the Congressional race. To this day, that one vote to impeach is the only thing that separates Fry and Rice. They are both members of ‘The Swamp’.

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As Trump Runneth Again, Whither Goest Fry?

The Red Wave that was expected to bring the Republican Party a 40 or so seat majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and control of the U.S. Senate failed to materialize.
The Republicans will wind up with a very small majority in the House, but control of the Senate is gone for at least another two years.
Donald Trump planned to ride atop the red wave to an announcement of his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination gloating over victories by his endorsed candidates for House, Senate and governorships. Most of those, especially the ones in swing states, lost, drawing into question whether Trump can win the upcoming 2024 presidential contest.
Questioned about his candidates before last week’s election, Trump said, “If they win, I should get all the credit. If they lose, I should not be blamed at all.” The statement comes as no surprise as Trump always wants all the credit, but doesn’t take the blame for anything including his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The losses among many of Trump’s endorsed candidates, the failure to gain control of the Senate and the probability of only a small majority in the House have caused some Republican officeholders, party officials, strategists and conservative pundits to question whether they should support a Trump candidacy again.

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Last Minute Swamp Tricks in 7th Congressional District Race

Three months ago, 7th Congressional District candidate Mark McBride claimed that Myrtle Beach SC publisher David Hucks offered a bribe to McBride on behalf of candidate Ken Richardson.
According to McBride’s subsequent Facebook rant, McBride was asked to drop out of the 7th Congressional District race and throw his support to Richardson for the promise of some type of job.
Grand Strand Daily has learned that SLED will issue a press release shortly, which will state after an investigation McBride’s claims were found to be totally without merit.
The fact that there was no basis for McBride’s rant is not surprising. He was never going to be a factor in this race whether he stayed in or got out. Tomorrow’s voting will demonstrate that statement.
But, there is quite possibly a darker side to this entire affair. Richardson was an early candidate in the race building momentum against incumbent Tom Rice.
Then, Gov. Henry McMaster and SCGOP Chairman Drew McKissick worked hard to get an endorsement candidate Russell Fry by Donald Trump.
According to information received by Grand Strand Daily, SLED completed its investigation of the false claim within several weeks and the report of the investigation lay untouched in the office of Attorney General Alan Wilson for at least eight weeks.
Now, in the late afternoon of the day before polls open and after the two-week period for early voting has ended, the announcement will be made that there is no wrongdoing on Richardson’s part.

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Cabal Flooding Dollars to Defeat People’s Candidates in Tuesday Primary Elections

There are reasons hundreds of thousands of dollars are being spent by candidates hand-picked by the development and tourism cabal for county council and other races in Tuesday’s primary elections.
Those reasons are not to improve Hwy 90 or 905, improve flood mitigation efforts or increase public safety resources.
Those reasons are to control enough votes on county council to pass cabal favored issues such as local funding for Interstate 73 and several upcoming development schemes that will net cabal players tens of millions of dollars in their pockets.
The old saying ‘you have to spend money to make money’ is in play – spend money on the campaigns of certain candidates to make money when the votes go in the right direction.
The last time I remember this level of spending, especially on county council races, was in the elections prior to the push for approval of the Burroughs and Chapin Multi County Business Park development concept over 20 years ago. Some of the same players involved with campaign funding of preferred candidates then are back again in this round of campaign financing.
The most contributions to individual campaigns are those of Mark Lazarus for Horry County Council Chairman and Jenna Dukes for Horry County Council District 1.
The belief is Horry County Council Chairman Johnny Gardner and Horry County Council District 1 member Harold Worley have to be removed from office for cabal plans to go forward.

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Local Veterans Dump Fry to Support Richardson

A group of local disabled veterans who initially supported Russell Fry for the 7th Congressional District Republican nomination because of the Trump endorsement, have decided to switch candidates and now say they will vote for Ken Richardson.
Several of these veterans were included in the veterans’ coalition helping the Fry campaign.
The reason for the switch, simply put, is Fry wouldn’t listen to concerns of the veterans. Richardson did listen.
“The veterans coalition was a way for Fry to get vets together to give him talking points,” said former coalition member Keith Brooks. “Russell never gave us more than a minute or two to hear our story. You can’t tell Russell anything,”
“Russell is trying to be just another career politician,” said Brooks. “The last thing we need is another self-absorbed ladder climber.”
The story the veterans wanted to tell was the personal difficulties they have experienced in trying to obtain medical care at the Myrtle Beach VA Outpatient Clinic at Market Common.

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Fry Releases Cahaly Poll to Sow More Chaos and Confusion into 7th Congressional District Race

The Russell Fry campaign released poll results from Robert Cahaly’s Trafalgar Group purporting to show Fry leads in the race for the SC 7th Congressional District Republican nomination with 42% of voters preferring him.
The poll should come with many caveats.
Cahaly has consistently denied revealing his polling methodology in numerous interviews other than to say everyone lies, especially conservatives.
Cahaly blamed this tendency to lie on what is called social desirability bias. He was quoted as telling a New York Times reporter, “I just think people are not what they say they are, ever.”
Does that mean the supposed 42 percent who allegedly chose Fry in this supposed poll actually chose someone else but were put in the Fry column for some spurious reason?
How do you determine the correct answers to a poll if going in you believe the answers you will receive are lies? No wonder Cahaly does not reveal his polling methodology.
It must be noted that Cahaly correctly predicted the Donald Trump victory in the 2016 Presidential election.
However, Cahaly again predicted a Trump victory in 2020 with the opposite result.
But, that’s not the only reason I question this poll.

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Fry’s Campaign Becomes More Unhinged

We are in the middle of the ‘silly season’ of campaigning and no campaign has been sillier than Russell Fry’s.
His campaign ads and constant pleas for donations have to be the most pathetic I have experienced in many years of covering politics.
I have said before that his campaign is filled with terminological inexactitudes about his history and voting record. That’s the nice way of saying he’s lying.
Of course, political ethics require the only thing to be true in any political ad, mailer or other solicitation is who paid for it.
From his opening cartoon character ad through his tale of growing up in a house with no heat to his most recent tale of having nothing for dinner but a can of peas to share with his father, he called it “splitting pees” when he posted it, the Fry ad campaign has been bad, bad, BAD!
I have had a number of people ask what is the purpose of Fry’s ads. The answer remains unclear. One speculated Fry was trying to gain some kind of rapport with voters of humble origin.
Maybe Fry believes this story of growing up in a home with no heat and having nothing but half a can of peas for dinner gives him a Lincolnesque stature.
Students of American history are certainly aware that Abraham Lincoln grew up poor. But even Lincoln, whose childhood was nearly 200 years before Fry’s, had heat in his humble cabin. We know that because of the stories of Lincoln studying by the light of fire in the fireplace.

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