From the Editor’s Desk: Let’s Not Let Truth Die in Darkness

 By the Editor, The South Carolina Bulletin

Every morning when I sit down at my desk, the same challenge stares me in the face, there is simply not enough time in the day to write about all the issues that demand attention here in South Carolina. Our communities are struggling under the weight of political division, economic strain, moral confusion, and institutional neglect. The headlines we don’t have room to print often trouble me the most because each unreported story is another missed opportunity to hold power accountable and to bring truth into the light.

That’s why I’m asking each of you readers, neighbors, fellow South Carolinian’s to help.

Talk to your friends, strike up a conversation with strangers, and don’t be afraid to speak candidly about what’s happening around us. We cannot afford silence anymore. This state, and indeed this country, depends on citizens who are awake, informed, and unafraid to reason together.

We need a serious and honest dialogue about the direction South Carolina and America is headed. If we lose our ability to reason with one another, to find common ground rooted in truth, then our institutions, our communities, and our freedom will collapse under their own apathy. The truth cannot survive in darkness and it surely cannot survive in silence.

So let’s bring it into the light.

Reach out to your churches, your civic groups, your local officials. Don’t wait for someone else to lead the charge be the one who asks hard questions, demands transparency, and insists on accountability. Every great movement for justice and renewal begins not in the halls of power but around kitchen tables, in community meetings, and yes, in small newspapers like this one.

South Carolina has always been a place of resilience a proud, principled state built on grit and courage. It’s time we remember that spirit. Together, we can restore integrity, bring truth back to our public life, and guide both South Carolina and this nation toward a better, more honest future.

Let’s not let truth die in darkness, not on our watch.

https://samueleburns.substack.com/

Kamala Harris: The Architecture of Power and Protection

 Kamala Harris has long been portrayed as a trailblazer the first female Vice President of the United States, a woman of firsts in nearly every office she held. But beneath the carefully managed public image lies a pattern of behavior that, according to critics and insiders alike, reveals something darker: a career built not merely on ambition, but on the weaponization of political power to protect allies, silence opponents, and cultivate influence.

When Harris served as San Francisco’s District Attorney 2004–2011, her image was that of a history making reformer. In practice, her office became infamous for selective prosecution.

Cases involving low level drug offenders and minor property crimes surged often targeting the city’s poorest residents while financial crimes and police misconduct cases went conspicuously unpunished.

Perhaps the most notorious example was her decision not to prosecute OneWest Bank, then led by Steven Mnuchin, for what her own investigators called widespread and illegal foreclosures. Internal memos reportedly recommended pursuing criminal charges, but Harris’s office despite abundant evidence of wrongful conduct dropped the investigation. Months later, Mnuchin became one of her largest individual donors.

“It wasn’t about law, it was about leverage,” recalls a former California Department of Justice analyst familiar with the case. “You didn’t go after someone like Mnuchin you courted him.”

That single decision presaged a pattern that would characterize Harris’s climb, protect those who can protect you.

As California’s Attorney General 2011–2017, Harris inherited some of the most consequential cases in state history from Big Tech antitrust matters to the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis. But instead of reforming the system, insiders say she fortified it.

Key patterns stand out:

Refusal to criminally prosecute major financial institutions for mortgage fraud despite undeniable public harm.

Blocking evidence in wrongful conviction appeals even after judges ruled that state prosecutors had engaged in misconduct.

Defending prison labor programs in court filings that argued the state needed cheap inmate labor to maintain its workforce a haunting echo of earlier, darker systems of exploitation.

To her defenders, it was procedural necessity; to her critics, it revealed her true hierarchy of values, system stability over justice, power over principle.

Investigative filings and campaign records show extensive overlap between her prosecutorial discretion and her donor base. Among major beneficiaries of Harris’s leniency.

Silicon Valley firms facing privacy or antitrust inquiries whose executives later hosted high-dollar fundraisers.

Law enforcement unions who resisted independent oversight and found a dependable ally in Harris.

Corporate developers whose environmental violations were quietly settled out of public view, later channeling campaign donations to her Senate run.

Each instance follows a familiar Washington rhythm: prosecute the powerless, protect the powerful, consolidate the narrative.

“Kamala didn’t need to break the law to bend it,” said a former San Francisco defense attorney. “She understood the system how to use it, how to trade on it, and crucially, how to avoid leaving fingerprints.”

As Vice President, Harris presided over one of the most shielded offices in modern political history. Staff turnover was notoriously high, leaks rare, transparency minimal.

Internal discontent from aides citing a toxic work culture to senior advisors departing months into their tenure went dismissed by corporate media as personality clashes, but insiders saw something structural: a long standing impulse toward secrecy and image control.

When Harris was assigned to address the root causes of migration, billions of dollars flowed through opaque initiatives and NGO networks with minimal oversight and dubious effectiveness. Similarly, investigations into her role in Justice Department decision-making during the early 2020s vanished into bureaucratic fog.

By 2023, critics openly asked whether Harris had become the institutional firewall for Democratic Party liability a political undertaker ensuring certain scandals never reached daylight.

When charted chronologically, the through line of Harris’s career becomes impossible to ignore.

As District Attorney: selective prosecution and protection of donors like Mnuchin.

As Attorney General: systemic suppression of evidence, refusal to take on financial elites.

As Vice President: bureaucratic obfuscation, staff suppression, and strategic narrative control.

Each stage reinforces the same conclusion Harris’s leadership is not defined by justice, but by loyalty to a network of entrenched power.

Fairness demands recognizing a crucial nuance: Harris didn’t invent this system. She mastered it.

Her career reflects a broader institutional pathology one where prosecutorial discretion, campaign finance, and bureaucratic opacity intersect to insulate the politically connected.

She is, in essence, the embodiment of the modern American political organism: fluent in virtue rhetoric, adept in power preservation, and immune from meaningful accountability.

Kamala Harris’s biography will likely be written as a triumph of representation the ascent of a woman who broke barriers.

But beneath those historic headlines lies a ledger filled with unanswered prosecutions, vanished investigations, and institutional protectionism.

“The question isn’t why Kamala Harris behaved this way,” Chapman might say if asked. “The question is why the system kept rewarding it.”

Harris’s career offers a mirror to the American system itself polished on the surface, corroded underneath. And until those deeper structures of political protectionism are laid bare, her story will not be an anomaly it will be the template.

Most Corrupt Series: Kamala Harris | Forgotten History

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XabvsEt9kI

Fulton County Under Federal Scrutiny: What the FBI’s 700-Box Raid Really Means

 When federal agents executed a surprise raid on Fulton County’s election offices on January 29, 2026, few expected the operation to involve the seizure of more than 700 boxes of election records. Now, according to federal filings reviewed by Off Air host Attorney Ron Chapman, the implications extend far beyond Fulton County straight into the heart of America’s ongoing debate over electoral integrity, transparency, and accountability.

Chapman, a seasoned federal defense attorney known for dissecting prosecutorial overreach, explained that the FBI’s warrant was not politically motivated but rather legally surgical.

“You don’t move 700 boxes by mistake,” Chapman stated. “A federal judge had to see strong probable cause that these records were material to an ongoing obstruction or chain-of-custody investigation. The scale of this operation points to a structured, multi-jurisdictional probe.”

The warrant, according to court insiders, authorized agents to seize chain-of-custody logs, ballot transfer manifests, storage access logs, and digital metadata tied to election record retention policies. The investigation allegedly centers on obstruction of justice statutes related to election documents — potentially implicating county officials who ordered or permitted irregular document destruction, mislabeling, or removal.

Seven hundred boxes are not merely paperwork. In legal context, they represent years of evidence preservation failure or mismanagement.

What federal investigators are believed to be examining:

Incomplete custody logs: Ballots and envelopes without matching hand off documentation.

Missing digital signatures: Electronic chain-of-custody systems showing gaps or false confirm records.

Improper ballot transport: Violations of Georgia Code 21-2-500 regarding secure transit of election materials.

Retrospective destruction orders: County directives to discard or overwrite digital backups outside federal retention schedules.

The warrant reportedly includes language citing possible obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. §1519 a statute commonly used when evidence relevant to a federal proceeding is intentionally concealed or destroyed.

Mail in voting has long carried heightened chain-of-custody burdens. Fulton County processed over 315,000 absentee and mail-in votes in 2020 roughly 48% of total ballots cast but Chapman notes that observers were denied meaningful access for critical verification steps.

“The public was told everything was secure and verified, yet no independent observer could confirm the hand offs. In legal terms, that’s not verification it’s certification by faith,” he remarked.

These procedural vulnerabilities have resurfaced in multiple states, especially those relying on third-party ballot handling without real-time audit trails. The Fulton probe’s significance, Chapman explained, lies in whether the federal government now recognizes those procedural failures as potential violations not just best practice errors.

Many assumed the statute of limitations on 2020 election record retention issues would have expired. But according to Chapman, federal obstruction statutes start the clock not when the act occurred, but when concealment is discovered.

“If evidence shows deliberate obstruction occurred and was concealed, the timeline resets. Chain-of-custody fraud can be a continuing offense,” he said.

This interpretation may open the door to additional indictments for official misconduct or conspiracy to hinder a federal investigation, especially if similar conduct extended into the 2022 or 2024 cycles.

Federal prosecutors reportedly invoked RICO-style frameworks the same statutes previously used by state prosecutors in 2023 but now repurposed. The shift indicates the possibility of organized coordination to alter, misrepresent, or conceal election records across jurisdictions.

This makes Fulton County ground zero for a wider examination of systemic election management failures, not merely isolated misconduct.

Since former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s surprise appointment as Director of National Intelligence, her task force has consolidated election security oversight across multiple agencies. Insiders suggest Gabbard has prioritized foreign-linked funding in domestic election administration, information systems vulnerabilities, and data-sharing between private election vendors and federal agencies.

Chapman indicated that Gabbard’s intelligence access could integrate state-level probes into the broader federal case, ensuring parallel investigations share evidence. If accurate, this would mark the first time in U.S. history that a domestic election integrity probe is directly overseen by the Office of the DNI.

Chapman recounted firsthand experiences during the 2020 Detroit counting process, describing sealed ballot rooms, denied observation requests, and judicial refusals to hear factual evidence:

“The problem wasn’t that courts found no evidence they refused to examine it. That’s a fundamental breakdown in due process,” he said.

The Fulton County raid reopens that question: if courts avoided reviewing evidence then, will the federal probe now force it into the light?

The Fulton County investigation may redefine the legal boundaries of election accountability:

For state officials: Whether election officers are liable for negligent or intentional record mishandling.

For federal courts: Whether previous refusals to hear evidence can be revisited under obstruction statutes.

For the public: Whether election integrity can ever again be treated as a partisan issue rather than a constitutional duty.

The Republic doesn’t collapse because of fraud; it collapses when truth becomes untouchable. What happens in Fulton County will decide whether America still consents to be governed by evidence or by narrative.

This raid executed by federal authorities but triggered by mounting inconsistencies marks a pivotal moment in American jurisprudence. The real story isn’t partisan at all: it’s about whether law enforcement will finally enforce record keeping transparency, the foundation upon which electoral legitimacy rests.

If the chain-of-custody system fails in one county, the rule of law must not fail with it.

The Walls Are Closing In on Fulton County

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QphLEoQ1u0Y

Chicago’s $600 Million Migrant Bill: How Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Budget Gamble Crushed Working Families

 Chicago, a city once synonymous with grit, labor, and civic pride, is now drowning under the weight of its own political contradictions. Facing a $1.02 billion budget shortfall, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration has quietly chosen a path that exposes the moral theater of modern politics, tax the poor to fund elite virtue.

At the center of the storm roughly $600 million allocated to migrant housing, medical care, and social services. The same mayor who promised no new property taxes has implemented an array of backdoor levies that hit hardest where it hurts most: Chicago’s middle and working class.

This isn’t ideology. It’s arithmetic and it doesn’t lie.

According to the City Budget Office, Chicago entered 2024 with a projected $538 million deficit. But as migrant costs ballooned beyond the administration’s forecasts, expenditures exploded:

Migrant shelter operations: $280 million

Healthcare and support contracts: $175 million

Hotel and temporary leasing costs: $105 million

Outside consultants, logistics, and NGOs: $40 million

That’s a total north of $600 million, largely covered through emergency real locations from city departments, federal COVID funds never meant for migration, and short term bond borrowing at rates rivaling PayDay loans.

The irony? Illinois has one of the heaviest effective state and local tax burdens in the country between 12% and 15% for an average middle-income household. Yet somehow, ordinary residents are now subsidizing a migrant program that directly competes for finite housing and social service resources.

During his campaign, Johnson vowed: “Chicago families have paid enough. We won’t balance the budget on the backs of working people.”

That statement aged about as well as the municipal debt charts.

Though he technically avoided an explicit property tax hike, his administration embraced what can only be described as policy sleight of hand taxation:

Ride share fee hikes on services like Uber and Lyft, raising costs disproportionately in South and West Side neighborhoods where car ownership rates are low.

Grocery bag tax increases, punishing residents in areas already suffering from food deserts.

Parking and traffic fine escalations, weaponized against lower-income communities unable to pay on time.

Phone utility and amusement tax extensions, hitting digital streaming and basic mobile plans.

This fiscal alchemy gave officials plausible deniability Johnson could say he hadn’t raised property taxes, even as Chicago quietly became one of the most regressive taxed cities in the nation.

Chicago’s migrant crisis policy wasn’t inherently doomed but its financial model was. The city’s Department of Family and Support Services signed contracts with private NGOs and hotel chains at rates exceeding $200 per person per day. Thousands of migrants were housed in hotels better than the buildings many taxpayers live in.

Meanwhile, city shelters for the homeless were over capacity and underfunded.

Infrastructure maintenance was deferred. Youth programs were cut.

Even internal audits flagged the spending trajectory as unstable and unsustainable by Q3 2025. Johnson’s team brushed it off, framing critics as fearmongering about compassion. But compassion without math is collapse in slow motion.

And by late fall 2025, collapse was precisely what arrived.

Once those emergency funds evaporated, the dominos started falling.

Short term municipal borrowing ballooned to nearly $900 million, much of it at interest rates above 7%, making Chicago’s debt profile resemble that of an insolvent business.

Pension obligations, already at a crisis point, were partially deferred again another time bomb for future retirees.

City credit ratings dipped, increasing borrowing costs further.

To plug the hole, Johnson’s aides flirted with taxing vacant property, gig work income, and even new environmental surcharges on retail deliveries. That’s how financial desperation turns into bureaucratic predation.

“They call it progressive policy,” remarked one city finance employee who requested anonymity. “But progressive for who? The consultants? The bondholders? Because it sure isn’t for the people paying $17 an hour to live here.”

Polls conducted in late January show Brandon Johnson’s approval rating below 30%, dropping fastest among union households and Black working class residents his former electoral base.

Neighborhood associations from Englewood to Jefferson Park now openly accuse City Hall of bait-and switch governance, running on empathy, governing by austerity.

Rising grocery prices, crime resurgence, and service cuts have ignited what some call a grassroots fiscal rebellion. Chicagoan’s increasingly echo the question: “How long can a city run on illusion?”

This isn’t about party lines or race. It’s about governance divorced from reality.

When a city prioritizes political optics over its fiscal solvency, the poor always pay first and the powerful never pay at all.

Chicago’s financial collapse wasn’t the result of bad luck, it was the result of political theater replacing arithmetic.

Mayor Johnson’s administration tried to turn compassion into currency, but in doing so, mortgaged the city’s future.

Leadership isn’t defined by how loudly one preaches empathy, but by how meticulously one manages consequence.

The $600 million migrant spending package wasn’t a moral act it was a political gamble paid for by those least able to afford it.

As one alderman privately put it: “We didn’t run out of money. We ran out of honesty.”

The deeper story, however, is systemic. America’s major cities New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, now Chicago are each living proof that when virtue signaling replaces fiscal responsibility, the inevitable result is public betrayal disguised as progress.

Chicago Mayor Taxes Poor Residents To Pay $600M Migrants Bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDtGnPqoWw0

No Basis for Judge Schiltz's Clickbaity Allegations of ICE Insubordination

Judge Patrick Schiltz of the District of Minnesota recently made strong allegations against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency, claiming it has repeatedly violated court orders. This summary reviews these claims and the findings related to the cases cited by the judge.

• Judge's Allegations: In a January 28 order, Judge Schiltz stated, "ICE is not a law unto itself," and indicated that the agency has likely violated more court orders in a short time than many federal agencies have historically.

• Media Reporting: The judge's comments were widely reported, with outlets like The New York Times and Politico framing them as significant condemnations of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

• Examination of Cases: Upon reviewing the first ten cases Schiltz cited, the analysis revealed:

• No actual evidence was found to demonstrate that ICE violated any court orders.

• One claimed order was nonexistent, as it referenced a case from December 2025, not January 2026.

• Another order was counted twice in the list, raising questions about the accuracy of the judge's claims.

• Several cases involved sealed orders or were simply granting habeas petitions, which do not demonstrate wrongdoing by ICE.

• Potential Missteps by Judge Schiltz: The analysis pointed out that the judge might not have fully understood the cases he cited, as they primarily listed orders without showing that ICE willfully disobeyed any rulings.

The allegations made by Judge Schiltz against ICE appear unsubstantiated based on the review of the cases he cited. The findings call for a reevaluation of Schiltz's claims, suggesting that the Department of Justice should ask him to clarify his list and provide concrete examples of ICE's supposed violations of court orders. Misleading statements can damage reputations, and accountability within the judicial process remains crucial. 

https://www.declassified.live/p/no-basis-for-judge-schiltzs-clickbaity

Anti-ICE Activism Represents The Suicide Of Western Civilization

Casey Chalk discusses the rise of anti-ICE (U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) activism, particularly in Minnesota, where over 34,000 residents have engaged in observing federal immigration enforcement. He connects this movement to the broader ideology of liberalism as described by James Burnham in his book "Suicide of the West," arguing that such activism reflects a self-destructive tendency within Western civilization.

1. Understanding Anti-ICE Activism:

• Anti-ICE activists confront federal law enforcement, risking their safety and contributing to social unrest. Their motivations stem from a belief that society can be reformed through addressing perceived injustices rather than accepting the complexities of human nature and historical context.

2. James Burnham's Perspective:

• Burnham argued that liberalism leads to self-hatred and a denial of the realities of human nature. He critiqued those who undermine their civilization, highlighting a disconnect between activists' intentions and the consequences of their actions.

3. Contrasting Norality and Ideology:

• Burnham posited that traditional conservatives view human nature as fundamentally flawed due to Original Sin, while liberals believe in the possibility of human perfection. This ideological split influences education and governance, with liberals seeking to “fix” society through reform, often disregarding individual accountability.

4. Guilt and Civic Responsibility:

• Liberal activists often harbor feelings of guilt related to their identity and seek to atone for perceived societal wrongs. This leads them to support marginalized groups, prioritizing protection over legal enforcement, thus complicating the law enforcement landscape.

5. Implications of Activism:

• Anti-ICE protests continue despite issues such as welfare fraud associated with some migrant groups. Activists often see themselves as morally superior, ignoring the potential harm their actions may cause to law enforcement efficacy, community safety, and societal stability.

6. Cultural Self-sabotage:

• Burnham's assertion that “liberalism is the ideology of Western suicide” suggests that the motivations behind these activist movements may ultimately contribute to the decline of Western civilization. Their actions stem from a misguided sense of moral obligation, leading them to disrupt lawful processes.

Casey Chalk reflects on contemporary activism against ICE as a manifestation of deep ideological beliefs rooted in liberalism. The article positions these actions within the debate on human nature and the consequences of rejecting tradition for progressive ideals. Chalk urges recognition of the harm such movements may inflict on society, emphasizing the need for reflection on motivations and their wider impacts on civil order and cultural integrity. 

https://thefederalist.com/2026/02/04/anti-ice-activism-represents-the-suicide-of-western-civilization/

How Trump's MAHA movement unexpectedly took a bite out of food price inflation

The collaboration between Donald Trump's MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) movement and his MAGA (Make America Great Again) initiative has significantly influenced food prices in the U. S. since late 2024. This report explores how these efforts have reshaped the food market, leading to price reductions and new health-focused policies.

• Price Reductions: PepsiCo recently announced price cuts on popular snacks like Lay's and Doritos, illustrating the impact of the MAHA initiative. Overall, grocery prices rose only 2.4% over the past year, a stark contrast to a 24% increase during the Biden administration.

• Food Market Changes: The MAHA movement has led to notable shifts in food policies, including organizing dietary guidelines toward healthier options, reducing processed food consumption, and reforming the childhood vaccine schedule.

• SNAP Restrictions: Efforts have been made to limit sugary and unhealthy foods in federal assistance programs such as SNAP and WIC. The USDA now permits states to implement restrictions on these items, with 18 states already pursuing this approach.

• Industry Response: Major food companies, including General Mills and Coca-Cola, are reducing prices in response to consumer demand for healthier options and to counteract previous price hikes driven by inflation.

• Political Opposition: While many Republican-led states are adopting SNAP restrictions, some Democratic governors have opposed similar legislation. For example, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a 2025 bill aimed at limiting unhealthy food options in SNAP, arguing it could stigmatize recipients.

• Health Promotion: Despite opposition, Colorado’s Democratic governor supports efforts to impose restrictions on soft drinks, highlighting a divergence in health initiatives among political lines.

The MAHA movement has reshaped the U. S. food market by introducing health-centered policies and resulting in lower prices on some foods. The initiative's effects are seen in ongoing debates over SNAP regulations and the response from food manufacturers to emerging consumer preferences for healthier options. This movement continues to transform dietary habits while navigating political landscapes and industry pushback. 

https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/how-maha-movement-unexpectedly-lowered-food-price-inflation