Today's guest article was written by John Schafer, a Pickens County resident and Vietnam-era veteran who heads us the Grandparents Rights Association of South Carolina. He is one of the most-recognized activists on Family Court and DSS reforms related to the rights of grandparents and other close relatives in South Carolina:

As a concerned grandparent and citizen, I have been working in the family rights movement for about five years, working to protect the rights of family members to play roles in the lives of their relatives. In many states, including South Carolina, grandparents have few legal rights and can be left unable to be involved in the lives of their grandchildren, in spite of considerable research which shows that involvement can make a vital difference in the lives of children. While there has been little progress in our state on these issues, the one bright spot where real progress was made was when Governor Mark Sanford signed regarding grandparents’ visitation rights bill into law back in 2010 (the full text of the law can be seen on this page: http://grasc.org/news/news.html).

Since then, we have been working to do more to strengthen Grandparents rights and give them more opportunities to make a difference - with lots of encouragement but little result until recently.

Today's guest op-ed comes from long-time Charleston politico Charlie Lybrand. He has served as Charleston County's Register of Deeds since 1994, and served on Charleston County Council for several years before that. 

We invite our readers to join in the discussion via guest op-ed submissions, so if you've got something to say, e-mail it to us.

As most of you know, from time to time, I like to pontificate. Well today is no different, so I wanted to take a second or two and give thanks for yesterday. 

The Presidential Election is over and the people have spoken. President Obama has won and he deserves our support and our prayers. For some of us, he wasn’t our first choice but that was yesterday. A new day has dawned and as a Country, we move Forward supporting this President and the awesome task that lies ahead of him. I for one, will keep him in my prayers. 

I don’t know if you’ve given any thought to this, but we are a nation of over 300 million people and if you’re eighteen or older and a citizen, you get to choose who leads this great Nation. That’s just one of the things that makes us the greatest county on earth. Someone once said, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to complain. That makes sense to me.

This guest op-ed was submitted by Lisa Pereira, a Blogland reader who lives in Goose Creek. A former journalist and paramedic who ran for State House Seat 102, she is currently active in Lowcountry GOP circles. You can air your views by emailing your op-ed to earl@earlcapps.org.

I am somewhat annoyed at the upcoming runoff between Paul Thurmond and Walter Hundley. Due to shenanigans on the part of the Democratic Party to control who they run against this November, we had a compressed primary cycle. With three candidates running, there was bound to be a runoff but no one in the party can really tell one person to drop out even if you can look at the numbers beforehand and know who is coming in third.

Now we have a runoff that will occur about a month before the general election. Again no one in party leadership can tell one of the candidates to drop out for the good of the party. I understand why party leadership can't interject into a primary between two republican candidates. However it is almost an ethical obligation on the part of each candidates consultants and/or managers to lay the numbers and facts out before their client. Few do.

This guest editorial was penned by Bill Connor, the current Chair of the Sixth Congressional District GOP, an Orangeburg attorney and security advisor as well as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. Guest op-eds are published verbatim by emailing them to earl@earlcapps.org.

Americans were privy to the inner “heart” of the Democratic Party in Charlotte and it wasn’t pretty.

Unlike previous convention platforms, this years’ initial Democratic platform deleted any reference to God or Jerusalem (as the capital of Israel). Due to overwhelming criticism by mainstream America, the convention chairman attempted to re-insert the necessary language. The resulting vote was a fiasco. By a voice vote heard by millions, the delegates of the Democratic Convention voted against God and against Jerusalem as capital of Israel. Most know of the secular-progressive shift of the Democratic Party over recent years, so the vote against God was predictable. However, the Jerusalem vote combines with the anti-Israel shift of the Obama Administration, including the recent snub of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and becomes alarming.

This guest op-ed was penned by State Rep. Tommy Stringer, who is president of a pension compliance company and represents part of Greenville County, in which he warns:

The harm resulting from Obama’s unfulfilled campaign promise cannot be overstated. By refusing to use his Democrat majority in Congress to eliminate this 401(k) penalty, Obama increased the hardship on working Americans ... Even worse, he allowed the federal government to profit from that hardship.

Here's the full editorial:

In October 2008, just 22 days before the presidential election, Barak Obama released his “Rescue Plan for the Middle Class.” The plan contained several promises designed to help middle-class workers weather the economic crisis.

One promise addressed the amounts that workers had saved in their 401(k) accounts. Obama proposed allowing workers to withdraw up to $10,000 from their 401(k) accounts without penalty. Note that current IRS rules demand a 10% penalty to be paid if the worker is under age 59 1/2. This penalty is in addition to federal income tax.

A ruling just released may have ended the long-running court battle over the outcome of the GOP primary for the Summerville-based State Senate District 38. Earlier today, the Supreme Court denied an appeal which sought to replace Sean Bennett, who won the June primary, with incumbent Senator Mike Rose, who lost to Bennett.

But these days, who really knows when these kinds of matters will really be over?

A copy of the ruling is provided below:

This guest editorial is penned by Bill Connor, the current Chair of the Sixth Congressional District GOP, an Orangeburg attorney and security advisor as well as a Lt. Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserves. This op-ed was also published in the Orangeburg Times and Democrat.

With the many problems facing the U.S. economy, particularly the 8.3 percent unemployment rate, the upcoming presidential election would normally be “in the bag” for the challenger. With that reality, the Obama administration has made huge efforts to deflect attention from the economy.

What Americans have seen over the past few months has been a desperate attempt to generate the “perception” of a Republican war on women and even a war on the elderly (in addition to the vicious attempts to destroy Mitt Romney’s reputation). All with the mission of diverting attention from the economy. The despicable aspect to this strategy comes with the attacks against Christians done for diversionary purposes.

I got involved in politics at the grassroots level because I was upset at the direction both parties were taking our country and our state, and I felt the need to speak out. I didn’t get involved to make friends, and I will probably lose the rest I have left in the grassroots, but I need to say something.

I agree with most of the S.C. Policy Council’s policies, but the group’s all-or-nothing approach does a disservice to the very reforms it is proposing. A prime example is the campaign to eliminate the Budget and Control Board.

The Senate passed a bill this year to eliminate the board, which steals power from the governor, and give most of its duties to a new Department of Administration, controlled by the governor. It wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely a step in the right direction, and it was something we could improve on in future years. It was supported by Gov. Nikki Haley, the S.C. Club for Growth, Sen. Tom Davis (considered by many to be the tea party senator) and many other conservative organizations.

But then the talking points from the Policy Council started making their way through the grassroots organizations. The council said the bill created too many new agencies, that it was akin to changing the deck chairs as the Titanic was sinking. At its insistence, the House got rid of some of those new agencies, and gave more power to the governor, and the Policy Council told us to call our legislators and demand no compromise on the House version.