Entries Tagged 'South Dakotans' ↓

I can’t even remember all the bat-shit crazy right-winger things she has done, but this isn’t good kids;

Heather Wilson, a Republican former member of the U.S. House of  Representatives from New Mexico, is the new president for the South Dakota  School of Mines and Technology

No doubt that Wilson has a ‘science’ resume. But her ‘political’ resume reads like a mob hitman’s;

In the lead up to that primary, Wilson  suffered a series of public relations blows for her role in the U.S. attorneys’ scandal, improperly politicized firings of U.S. prosecutors by the Bush  administration, which Democrats spent months investigating in 2007 and 2008. A  lot of information about Wilson’s role wasn’t ever really scrutinized to the  extent it could have been because she lost her first Senate bid.

Wilson always had a close race to keep her House seat, and the 2006 election  was no different. At the beginning of the U.S. attorneys  scandal, former New Mexico U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, a Republican, accused  Wilson of contacting him in mid-October 2006 while he was still in office to  pressure him to take action on a political corruption case, which Wilson was  using as political fodder against her opponent Patricia Madrid.  Anti-intimidation rules prohibit elected officials from contacting U.S.  attorneys to inquire about progress on a case.

After the Wilson call, Iglesias said her mentor, Domenici, then called him  and angrily hung up when Iglesias objected and told him the call was  inappropriate. Wilson has long refuted Iglesias’ account, arguing the calls were  aimed at checking on the status of the investigation, not influencing it.

Here is a longer version of the same story.

And I guess if you like GW Cronies running our state universities, you will like this;

On key votes in 2003 (as defined by the organizations themselves), Wilson  voted the position of the Christian Coalition 76% of the time (92% of the time  in 2002); 62% of the time shared the position of the Eagle Forum (73% in 2002); and 72% of the time for the  positions of American Conservative Union (73% in 2002).

She routinely  receives scores of 0 from the American Civil Liberties Union, Peace Action, and  the Human Rights Campaign. In 2002 she received a 9% score from the League of  Conservation Voters.

Remember when Larry Long left the AG’s office before his term was up? Just so they could appoint a FAUX Incumbent?

Are they pulling the ‘Jackley’ trick with Jarrod?

The Republicans LUST for power in SD is so bad they have to play political games to retain that power. What a sad bunch of individuals.

—————

Jarrod is from Corson / Brandon but his main contributors are the religious right from west river. His campaign finance reports show money also from Lederman.  But he has never needed much money to run or hold his offices.

From the School and Public Lands website:

Jarrod is a 5th generation cattleman from Corson, where his family homesteaded in 1874. He received a B.S. in Animal and Range Sciences from South Dakota State University in Brookings. While completing his degree, he conducted research and assisted in teaching graduate and post-graduate courses. His family operates the Split Rock Cattle Company, which extends from Aurora to Minnehaha counties, in South Dakota.

Jarrod was elected in 2006 to serve South Dakota as Commissioner of School and Public Lands, and was elected to a second term in 2010. In January 2011, he was elected by his peers to serve as President of the Western States Land Commissioners Association (WSLCA), representing 23 western states managing over 447 million acres of State Trust Lands, as well as vast oil and gas reserves, on behalf of school children. He also serves as Chairman of the Western States Land Commissioners Association Interstate Transmission Task Force and is an appointed member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission. In January of 2009, Jarrod was appointed to the United States Department of the Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee. Jarrod has also been named to the Bureau of Land Management’s Dakotas Resource Advisory Council.

Jarrod and his wife Heidi have two wonderful children; Clayton, 13 and Anna, 9. They enjoy farm and ranch life and spending time outdoors.

Public High School Students Won’t Learn About Voting In Government Class If Iowa Bill Becomes Law

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Education on Mar 9, 2013 at 3:40 pm

South Dakota Now Permits Teachers To Carry Guns In Classroom

By Igor Volsky posted from ThinkProgress Justice on Mar 9, 2013 at 2:00 pm

Kansas Republicans Want To Cut College Aid For The Poor To Pay For More Tax Breaks

Tiffany Campbell sent me her opposition testimony to HB 1237 (AUDIO LINK. HB 1237 testimony starts at 24.56, and opposition testimony starts at 1:20:41);

Testimony in Opposition to HB 1237 • Tiffany Campbell • Advocacy Director

ACLU of SD believes – and works hard to ensure – that every woman has medically accurate, unbiased information so she is able to make the best choices for her and her circumstances, without undue pressure. This bill isn’t about letting a woman consider her decision, it’s about coercing her and shaming her for a decision she’s already made.

Forcing a woman who needs an abortion to delay her procedure for non-medical reasons is callous, cruel, and dangerous. Medical experts, including the World Health Organization, recommend that states consider eliminating waiting periods that are not medically required and work to expand services so that all women may access prompt abortion care.

South Dakota already has one of the most extreme laws of its kind on the books and this bill just makes it worse. There is no medical reason to make a woman wait 72 hours before her abortion, and there’s certainly no reason to make her wait even longer if her abortion happens to be scheduled after a weekend or a holiday.

Many things can happen in pregnancy. No woman wants to hear that carrying her pregnancy to term will seriously threaten her health or endanger her life. No woman wants to hear that the baby she’s been looking forward to holding will likely not survive the pregnancy. No woman plans to have an abortion for any reason.

I am one of those women.  In 2006 I was a married mother of two wanting to add to my family.  I was thrilled to learn I was expecting identical twin boys, but the excitement didn’t last long. I was told they might be suffering from Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, a very deadly disease that left untreated has a morality rate of 100%. We were immediately sent to one of the top fetal care centers in the country. We were told that one of our boys was extremely sick and wouldn’t make it much longer.  Our five doctors told us the only way to save the healthier twin was to selectively terminate the sicker twin.  We had the procedure less than 12 hours later.   Five months later I gave birth to a healthy baby boy, and today my beautiful son, Brady, turns 6-years-old.

TTTS can progress incredibly fast.  My friend Becky Matthews’s twins also suffered from TTTS.  Becky and her husband were told of their treatment options and decided to think it over and scheduled a doctor appointment in Minneapolis for the following week.  They never made that appointment. Her girls died in utero just days after being diagnosed.

These are just two examples of what can go wrong in a pregnancy.   The definition of a medical emergency as set forth in SD Codified Law 34-23A-1 (5), only applies for abortion to save a woman’s life or if a major bodily function would be irreversibly impaired. My life was not in danger, therefore the lifesaving procedure I chose wouldn’t be covered under SD law and I might have lost both babies. In difficult situations, medical decisions should be made by a woman, her family, and her doctor, not politicians. I urge you vote no on HB 1237 and preserve the right for a woman to make her own medical decisions without government intrusion.

Thank you and I will stand by for questions.

You may know Tiffany from this TV commercial;

I am pretty sure we probably rank pretty high in other regressive categories also;

As South DaCola has reported in the past, Lawrence and Schiller has had their fair share of handouts from SD Republicans in the form of our taxdollars;

No bid contracts for campaign buddies, including the exclusive no-bid contract for $11 million to Lawrence & Schiller; (We also learned that Daugaard’s daughter worked for L&S while the public learned of the under-the-table wheeling and dealing in the Governor’s office.)

Well, it seems the gift’s keep coming (Argusleader);

Gov. Dennis Daugaard has asked a former advertising executive in Sioux Falls to lead the state Republican Party through the 2014 election cycle.

Craig Lawrence is a co-founder of the advertising firm, Lawrence & Schiller.

I guess after years of sucking off the taxpayer’s tit in the form of no-bid contracts, it is time to reward Craig with a job where he can really go out and turn the spin up a notch. Denny Doogard is going to get the ball rolling;

“Right now, our party needs to reinforce the rightness and relevancy of its principles and the record of its performance to new generations of voters,” Daugaard said in a release.

You mean the 35 year iron grip you have had on South Dakotans due to closed government and lack of transparency you have been so good at maintaining? But it doesn’t stop Lawrence from claiming something else;

Lawrence said he hopes comunicate Republican principles of smaller government in a “compelling and alluring” way to both Republicans and independents.

 . . . trying . . . to . . . catch my breath.

Lawrence was receiving some of the largest no-bid advertising contracts in the history of our state from governor Rounds during his administration. Rounds actually expanded government and paid back the people who helped get him elected (Lawrence) with numerous lucrative no-bid contracts. I’m not sure what ‘smaller government’ Lawrence is talking about, but it certainly isn’t the one ran by our state Republicans.

I can’t believe we let this CLOWN work in the Secretary of State’s office. What a ‘TRUE’ waste of taxpayer dollars. His lastest post about Dems being the root of out of control spending in Pierre is not only far-fetched, it is hypocritical. SD Republicans seem to have amnesia when it comes to corporate bail-outs, no-bid contracts to campaign supporters, increases in FTE’s, state airplanes, prisons and blatant nepotism. All under THEIR watch. Because there is one area I do agree with them on, Democrats are powerless in Pierre. But it doesn’t stop them from denying WORKING people healthcare;

These aren’t the elderly. These aren’t children. They’re able-bodied people who have the use of both hands and feet, who are actively in the workforce. And Democrats want 48,000 of them to be on “Health care welfare.”  At taxpayer expense.

It just staggers my imagination.

Governor Daugaard’s address today pointed out that “because of the uncertainties we need to be conservative to committing to future ongoing expenses.” And, hence, the optional expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare was not recommended.

Ironically, they point out the very reason why these people deserve healthcare, they are working, which means they pay payroll taxes to the Federal government. Governor Doo-bad calls it welfare. Last I checked, people receiving welfare are not working.

What amazes me is how hard these same jackasses fought single-payer (using our taxdollars and resources to fight it), but if it would have been implemented it would have saved states billions of dollars in Medicaid costs, because it would have been funded through payroll taxes. But the insurance companies (who profit from sick and dying people) cried they would go out of business. Good. Now if we can just put Republicans out of business in Pierre.

Some SD Legislators get it

UPDATE: from my email box;

I wrote this a couple weeks ago when this was a headline in the Argus.  I didn’t send it, but it p’d me off just the same and it still does. And today you wrote about it.  SD has the largest number of women who work 2 and 3 jobs to support their family. They all can’t afford healthcare.

The headline for this story in the Argus is totally wrong.  SD did not opt out, it was the governor who chose to opt out of the health exchange even though there are so many people in the state who need these health benefits and the gov’t. is paying for him.  All these stupid republican states opting out is disgusting, they are only doing it because they don’t like President Obama.  Plus the gov’t. pays for the healthcare for the first 2 years. 

And then once again the people on Dailykos are coming to the aid of people on the reservation in South Dakota so they will have Thanksgiving dinner and heat.  They did the same thing a year ago.  And where is/are the governor and past governors……no where to be seen. But you can bet your bottom dollar they are stealing money that is suppose to go to the people on the reservations.  I know the funds to make it easier for them to vote has been used else where. And they could certainly use a clinic and healthcare along with a lot of people who are barely making it in wonderful South Dakota.

It’s pathetic.  

This is a new lobbying organization one of my friends is helping out with. Check them out!

sdfamiliesfirst.org

Here is a letter to the editor, explaining the group‘s mission.

Sheriff Mike Milstead recently announced the Department of Justice will visit our county jail in December to review the growing inmate population. Meanwhile, a work group has completed a review of our state’s prison population at the governor’s request — launching a discussion around many needed reforms.

The magnitude of this issue is truly alarming. I am very concerned about the over-incarceration crisis because we arrest twice as many people as our neighboring states, despite having a similar crime rate. The arrest rate has increased by 400 percent for women since the early ’80s, about the same time we embraced the “war on drugs” and started locking up a record numbers of nonviolent drug users. Although well-intended, this approach actually fuels the cycle of crime, poverty and addiction and makes the public less safe.

The clear connection between our punitive drug laws and skyrocketing arrest rates should prompt a serious discussion about how we handle drugs. I urge our community leaders to consider decriminalization and treating problematic drug use as a health care issue for the family and community, not the police and courts.

Here is a list of SD Legislators that need to go!

Oh the joys of SOS Gant’s elections website during the finance filing season. We still maintain this website is an example of how not to setup a public access ‘open’ data records system.  It takes a bit of effort to get to this list.  When your query is exported out, the data is almost unusable to the regular person trying to gain an understanding.  Here is a preliminary estimation of which SD State Senator is either owned or being ‘rented’ by ALEC this year.

We all remember the PAC setup up by our esteemed SOS Jason “BK” Gant to sway past elections for ALEC, Republican Senate Campaign Committee (RSCC). This year BK transferred the committee to Senators Russell Olson and Corey Brown to run.   Why is this important to us?  If elected, the listed 19 candidates plus the 2 Senator officers are going to force ALEC model legislation on our citizens.  There is no If, And, or But: the 21 senators will have to vote for any John Birch Society based measure sent to them by the Koch Brothers, Altira, Pfizer, Eli Lilly and any number of other anti-citizen financers.  This is the way the GOP runs to keep the money flowing to them.   Pay particular attention to who is not on the list and add your comments.  Note Dan Lederman is not on the list, his Rushmore PAC is also an extension of ALEC through the donations received and given to members of the following list.

According to SOS Gant’s website, just for this general election, $72,000 is being invested.  This does not include the additional $2,500.00 invested for the June primary.  Where do you think the poorly written and executed Ballot measures came from?  These anti-citizen ALEC model legislation sessions our state government paid members to attend to learn how to screw us.

Of this $72,000.00 investment, the national ALEC organization through their subsidiary Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) directly sent $15,000.00.  We now have Mike Rounds and Todd Schlekeway using their campaign funds to team up and assist this ALEC organization.  Very brazen, very bad we now have our former governor showing how shallow he is by teaming up with the rest at the feeding trough of corrupt money.

Cory Madville also covered this today, but missed a few things.