Painting by Peter Max

Three Dog Night is coming to the Birdcage. I’m sure Smylie will be in front row drinking his Bud Light Lime and singing along.

This whole flap over who has the best military experience to be president really has been bothering me. So let’s go over 3 presidential candidates experience and see who has the best,

Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired General of the United States Army. Clark was valedictorian of his class at West Point, was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford where he obtained a degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics), and later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master’s degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the Army and the Department of Defense, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Clark commanded Operation Allied Force in the Kosovo War during his term as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe of NATO from 1997 to 2000.

George Stanley McGovern volunteered for the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and served as a B-24 Liberator bomber pilot in the Fifteenth Air Force, flying 35 missions over enemy territory from bases in North Africa and later Italy, often against heavy anti-aircraft artillery, earning the Distinguished Flying Cross for saving his crew by landing his damaged bomber on a British airfield on Vis, a small island off the Yugoslav coast controlled by Tito’s Partisans. McGovern’s wartime story, including his island landing, is at the center of Stephen Ambrose’s profile of the men who flew B-24s over Germany in World War II, The Wild Blue.^[2]

John Sidney McCain III  graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1958 (194th in his class out of 199) and became a naval aviator, flying ground-attack aircraft from aircraft carriers. During the Vietnam War, he nearly lost his life in the 1967 USS Forrestal fire. Later that year while on a bombing mission over North Vietnam, he was shot down, badly injured, and captured as a prisoner of war by the North Vietnamese. He was held from 1967 to 1973, experiencing episodes of torture and refusing an out-of-sequence early repatriation offer; his war wounds would leave him with lifelong physical limitations. He retired from the Navy as a captain in 1981 and, moving to Arizona

So when Wesley Clark says McCain’s military service doesn’t qualify him to be president, I think he hits the nail on the head. Because if you think about it, the first two candidates lost their presidential bids and McCain’s miltary service PALES in comparison to theirs.

Janks thinks 12 juror’s should decide the meaning of the First Amendment:.

“The Argus Leader’s day in court is a long time coming, but it will soon be here and they will have to do what everybody else has had to do when it’s been their turn to stand before the bar of justice. They will be seated in front of a jury of 12 citizens who will decide if they libeled Dan Scott and how much they damaged him,” said Janklow, who also served as South Dakota’s governor for 16 years.

I think that has already been clarified by our founding fathers. This case is a waste of time and taxpayer money. I hope you and crybaby Dan Scott lose, and lose big.

 I decided to look at Initiated Measure #10 to see what all the hoopla is about. I had read it about a month ago and found nothing in it that I disagree with. So I decided to take a second look to see if I was missing something, since both parties oppose it. Which doesn’t surprise me. Like I have said in the past, parties oppose open government laws because they don’t want the public to know where their campaigns get money. Read the Measure here, with explanations.

http://cleanupsd.com/read-the-sd-open-and-clean-government-act/

My analysis:

I agree with Section 1. It should be against the law to use taxpayer’s money to lobby. We have seen this in the past with the city of Sioux Falls hiring lobbyists.

I agree with Section 2. This basically charges you with a crime if you violate Section 1. Makes sense, because then their is accountability.

I think Section 3 is really unnecessary because those rights are already granted to an elected official under the First Amendment. But it does not take away anything from the measure by keeping it in there.

I strongly agree with Section 4. It basically says your tax dollars cannot be used to buy supposed ‘neutral’ studies that support one position or another. It is up to voters to do their own research when it comes to candidates and ballot issues.

Section 5 is wishy-washy. On one hand I agree with limiting golden parachute jobs, but I also wonder if this will hamper the right for someone to provide for themselves? I think this section needs more clarification.

I strongly agree with Section 6. This has been going on way to long. Awarding contracts to campaign contributors will become illegal under Section 6.

Section 7 goes into more detail about Section 6 and reiterates it. These two sections should have been combined.

Section 8 allows citizens to file complaints in court about violators of Section 7 if state attorney’s choose to ignore complaints. This is good, because it gives citizens the power to hold government officials accountable when state employees fail us.

Section 9 is long overdue. Governor Rounds has been promising a state contract website for a longtime, and he will NEVER deliver it on his own, he has too much at stake to do so. I have also believed this section of  the measure should be on the ballot by itself. As a Pierre insider told me once, “If the citizens of South Dakota knew the enormous waste state contracts are, they would overthrow the government in Pierre.”

Section 10 clarifies what state contracts will apply to Section 9.

I think this measure is long overdue, and I can see why state Republicans and Democrats oppose the measure, it’s all about campaign contributions, favors and PAC money, that’s all it seems they live for these days. If we publicly funded campaigns in the state, there would be no need for this measure, but that’s a whole other debate in itself.

I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me this measure is very solid and constitutional. Of course anyone can challenge it in court if it becomes law, BUT I wonder if any politicians would want to go through that embarrassment? It’s time we tell politicians they work for us, not lobbyists or contractors.

These are the signs I submitted to the UnConvention project. Voting is up and running. They will print the top 50 winners. I think there is about 300 entries so far. The signs will be put around the Republican National Convention in MPLS. You can vote for as many as you want, just not more than once. Go vote!