When I first saw this toon, I thought it was about Gene Abdallah’s fascination with urine.

Remember what the State Legislature told us last year? They had to repeal IM 22 because one circuit judge who is a partisan hack for the Republican Party said he felt parts of it were unconstitutional.

So what do our constitutional geniuses decide to do? They want to ban anyone from altering the state seal.

Libby Skarin, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of South Dakota, said the legislation is in conflict with the First Amendment, which protects freedom of expression.

“It’s not a road that’s constitutional and it’s not a road we want to go down,” Skarin said.

Peterson said she wasn’t aiming to address Mehling’s image with her bill, but advised those using the seal without express permission to reconsider.

“Anybody that is using it in a way that is not consistent with the Constitution and state law should take a look at it and not do it anymore,” Peterson said

While Peterson is concerned about how some shirt was made (maybe call the prison and have them fix it) it’s no reason to make a law that is clearly a violation of the 1st Amendment.

Over the past 12 years that I have been blogging, you can’t imagine the crap I have heard about my political cartoons. First off, you can’t make a law that stops people from altering the state seal and secondly this proposed legislation just proves, once again, how F%#@ing Stupid our (mostly Republican) state legislature is. We should pass a law that requires our legislators have a higher IQ then monkeys.

Grumpy Councilor blames it on the ‘Fake’ City Charter

Seems councilor Erpenbach had a change of heart, and decided that searching un-registered rental properties and charging them for it, probably doesn’t pass the smell test, OR the Constitution test. Seems the DRAFT ordinance has a couple of changes (DOC: rental-register). It seems the ‘Search and Destroy’ portion of the DRAFT ordinance has disappeared.

The ghost of Q-Tip is still haunting us at Sioux Falls City Council. Let’s see how many years has it been since he quit the Council to join the Boom Town mayor’s administration so he could quit there to now lead the Pavilion? Does it matter? Not really but here is the old proposal to allow the town’s code enforcers to abuse citizens and property owner’s Constitutional rights preventing unlawful searches. You know unlawful seizures get to follow, just because they can.

Have you heard our esteemed code enforcers are back searching property when no one is home just because they can sneak in? They got caught by Cameraman Bruce illegally standing on a 6′ ladder taking pictures over a 6′ privacy fence one day. The judge was none too happy by this crap. These fine upstanding quasi-legal (or are they quasi-illegal) government employees don’t care when they get slapped down in court by a judge as long as they have the city attorney’s blessing to keep do that thing they do. Oh well, just another day at the office.

Listen to the public and several Council members sink this current proposal just by asking very legitimate questions. If a property owner signs up on this list so it is easier to contact the owner, why do the enforcers ignore the information they seem to have in their own files and require owners keep up to date?

Who is the list actually compiled for and why?

Why bother being legal when we have great apologists ready to change laws to justify the bad behavior. The proposed ordinance was set aside for now in the City Council Land Use committee on April 18, 2017 because it was both illegal and stupid. It was nice Michelle Erpenbach and committee Chair Rick Kiley set aside and allowed the public to speak, another precedent knocked down.

Here we go again, the lack of Constitutional knowledge of our city legislators. The latest proposal to the city charter could be a possible violation of the 5th, 10th and 14 amendment of the US Constitution;

In order to get property owners who rent to register with the city, they are threatening inspections to those who do not comply to registration at the Land Use Committee.

Searches and seizures of private property IS legal, with a warrant and suspicion of criminal activity. This must be issued by a JUDGE, and the search conducted by law enforcement.

In other words, if you see a property that has these kind of things going on, CALL 911! Not the health department or code enforcement.

While I don’t have an issue with ASKING renters to register with the city, if they DON’T, that is no reason to treat them like criminals, as long as they are paying the appropriate taxes on revenue from the rentals.

So ridiculous! This is like Civics 101 for 1st Graders.

It doesn’t take a constitutional scholar to realize the ordinance the city is attempting to repeal is a clear violation of 1st amendment rights. Doesn’t matter what city board you may sit on, nobody can hamper your free speech rights which include giving money to a candidate. While ethically questionable in some cases, completely legal.

So why has the city decided to now repeal this unconstitutional ordinance after a recent election (Item #B)? Makes you wonder how many appointed officers violated the ordinance in the past or even in this past election? Hey good for them, they were well within their rights. It’s the timing that smells fishy.

1stamdndmen