As I predicted early on, it seems, at this point, I may be spot on. I predicted that since Jason was an elector in the presidential race they would essentially drag this out until after the election, and since the (two time loser) orange dinkle dorf in DC still thinks he has a chance to change the elector’s votes, I predict we won’t hear about any possible charges until after December 14th when the electors officially turn in their votes.
I was ridiculed from the left and the right that what I was predicting and saying was a nothing burger, but my dissenters may get pretty full eating that burger when I turn out to be correct.
Obviously as pointed out to me, the legislature and governor could appoint other electors if Jason is hauled off to jail before December 14th, but that’s complicated and puts the ‘appearance’ that electors in our state are not on the up and up, as if Trump hasn’t already put a shroud of stink over this election.
The one thing I learned long ago about local and state government in South Dakota is that it is very predictable because their stupid tricks have worked for over 40 years foolin’ and scrooin’ the public. They literally have been playing the same deck of cards for almost 50 years and no one has figured it out.
Run over a guy at a rural intersection, blame it on a Diet Coke. A non-hunter government employee in charge of EB-5 kills himself in a grove of trees, blame it on a branch. Fraud and abuse in the Gear-Up program, house burns down, blame it on a missing safe. Every time, unbelievable and pathetic excuses that just get swept under the rug. I can’t wait to hear Jason’s pathetic defense.
As for that defense, the rumor mill going around between state’s attorney’s offices is that Jason was talking on his phone when it happened. As you may or may not know, as of July 1, 2020 it is illegal to use your phone while driving unless it is hands free. Not sure if this is what happened, but it seems to be the leading rumor.
I continue to believe it will be a miracle if we will be able to light up a joint legally in South Dakota come July 1, 2021.
As I suspected the first lawsuit cooked up against Amendment ‘A’ may be just the first in a series of suits to be drug out in court for years to come. There are also rough estimates that this first suit has already cost taxpayers around $400K in the state preparing for the legal challenge. The plan is to tie up the Amendment challenge in court so long that the other side just gives up or loses.
There are also these troubling rumors slobbering out of Pierre these days;
• Big Pharma’s sales, most likely for opiates, went down over 30% when MJ became legal in Colorado and our Governor and her family are supposed big investors in Big Pharma and other industries that would be hurt by this plant.
• Even if Amendment ‘A’ wins it’s legal battles the state plans to propose a $700K per year growing permit for those who plan to provide to dispensaries, and another $700K a year to maintain a dispensary.
• While many may take relief in the fact you are allowed to have your own Chia Mary Jane garden in your basement, the state will require you to have a personal permit for that also, which could run in the thousands of dollars. And if you are caught growing in your own home without a permit, severe penalties and possible felonies and jail time.
This fight is going to get ugly, fast.
I still believe that Brendan Johnson wrote the Amendment to be too stringent and give too much power to the legislature and state beaucrats to regulate the crap out of it. I would have made it simple and only had a couple of sentences;
‘A Vote Yes on Constitutional Amendment A would decriminalize the use, sale and distribution of marijuana for recreational or medical use. The state has the right to tax and regulate it but all provisions must be approved by a vote of the people within 1 year. Until such provisions are put into place, all citizens have a right to possess up to 3 plants and an ounce of harvested product – this provision will remain unchanged.’
I’m sure most of you have seen the infamous CBS story about South Dakota’s Covid cases spiking, in which a nurse serving in a Covid unit in Sioux Falls was about to walk into Tommy Jacks bar downtown Sioux Falls without a mask until the reporter talked her out of it.
But one of the strangest moments in the interview was when Mayor TenHaken said the reason people in South Dakota don’t want to wear masks is because of the ‘cowboy mentality’. Besides the fact a Dutch Evangelical from Worthington, Minnesota would know very little about ‘cowboy mentality’ I question how many cowboys we really have in South Dakota anymore, besides a handful in the Western part of the state.
Making a moronic (and kind of romantic) statement seems par for the course from Paul since this pandemic started. You know, like, ‘I didn’t sign up for this.’ And ‘I’m tired of it.’ So when he wanted to blame cattle ranchers for why people don’t wear masks, it didn’t surprise me. Next he will tell us the reason employers pay low wages here is because South Dakotans like to work for nothing (I’m starting to think they do).
So why do I think people don’t want to wear masks? The number one reason is because Noem, Trump and Right Wing Nutty radio told them they don’t have to. I also think most South Dakotans are ignorant of science. So ignorant, it seems they almost have a disdain for it. It’s easy to fear the unknown, and South Dakotans have ironically made a ‘science’ of it. I also think there is a lot of passive aggressive selfishness. The economy and low pay doesn’t help much either since most people live paycheck to paycheck, they don’t have a choice but to show up to work, with a mask or not. I have even witnessed people who got over Covid and didn’t have symptoms anymore return to work within a day of climbing out of bed. Yeah, a real genius move. I guess we are trying to create a herd immunity workforce. Funny, cowboys like herds.
And let’s clear up all the horse manure being spread by the supposed Constitutional scholars that have been showing up to council meetings and farting their Trumpy fartness on Facebook. Your civil rights are not being infringed upon by a private business asking you to wear a mask on their private property. It’s no different than your Grammy asking you to wipe your feet before coming into her house. Put that in your pipe and smoke it John George Jefferson Franklin.
As usual, it seems TenHaken is trying to point fingers at some mysterious phenomenon, this time called ‘cowboy mentality’ when in reality, as a leader, he should just ‘pony up’ and help inform people that not only is Rush, Trump and Noem wrong, that it is time we all ‘wear a dang mask’ whether you are shopping or wrangling cattle.
Covid seems to be sucking a lot of brain cells out of our state, that is, what’s left.
As you can see the LINK is coming soon, and something this community has needed for a very long time. But aren’t we currently triaging now? According to MCC Dean Karsky we are, but it is not a very nice place. Welcome to addiction.
Starting last summer (2019) I noticed my neighborhood became quite popular for pan handling, drinking and bridge dwellers. Everyday the same group of folks, about 6 of them, begin panhandling on the corner of 14th and Cliff. Once they get enough money for malt liquor, they go over to Get N’ Go, load up, either go under the bridge on Cliff or along the bike trail, drink until they pass out and take a nap. Like clockwork, this happens almost every day, and every day the SFPD show up and herd them away. And they are still at it, even this late in the year. I had only seen the ambulance show up once and have never seen a police take any of these people to triage or jail. They usually pour out their beers, and herd them away.
In fact just a few weeks ago, I saw an officer on an ATV literally herding a couple of them like they were cattle by the skate park. I’m not sure where he was herding them to? Well you know what the mayor says, we have a cowboy mentality so maybe this a good old fashioned homeless round up? Giddy Up!
While I look forward to the much needed new triage center opening, I hope the SFPD will start using it instead herding these folks like cattle to another bridge.
Solving our homeless issue is NOT a game of whack a mole and I am wondering when our supposed leaders in town are going to take it seriously.
Kermit died one year ago today. He was my mentor and a tireless champion for the people. Kermit always listened to the citizens and respected the input from everyone. He was a staunch defender of transparent and accountable City Government. We need more elected officials with his integrity, compassion and responsiveness…..now more than ever.
If things couldn’t get any darker at city hall, they are getting a little darker at the School District. They have decided to discontinue media briefings. Yes, I know, the SFSD has been a closed door organization for years, and they seem to be fulfilling more of their goals by ending the briefings. There of course was a lot of Beautiful Sunshine spread around by the district’s communications czar, DeAnn Konrad, but this statement really struck me;
“Media reports, some seen online as early as Sunday when exhibits are posted, have caused confusion and resulted in the work of the board being circumvented,” Konrad said. “It is the district’s intent to responsibly keep its stakeholders informed by allowing the meeting to occur, discussion to happen, with media questions answered after elected officials have voted.”
The whole point of presenting exhibits before a meeting is so the public knows what is being discussed at that meeting. Not only is it the right thing to do, IT’S THE LAW! When Konrad uses the word ‘circumvented’ it reminds of something former school board president Alberty said to another elected official about ‘making decisions privately before the public meeting’ to avoid controversy at the public meetings.
Asking the elected board members questions about an agenda item AFTER a controversial item passes is kind of pointless. Board members should have to explain their votes in advance. I’ve never read such an anti-open government statement in my life, but no surprise coming from Konrad.
I also wonder who has the authority to close out the media? Was this Konrad’s decision? Super Stavem’s decision? Or the Board’s Decision? Since technically the Board is Stavem’s boss, it would be their decision. I wonder if anyone from the School Board will tell us who’s bright idea this was? Oh, that’s right, they don’t have to talk to the media anymore, it gets folks too worked up.
This is also more egregious considering we are in the middle of a pandemic, and if taxpayers and parents needed more help and information from their schools it is right now.
I have noticed for awhile local governments have been using this pandemic as an excuse to further withhold information from us, and the crap needs to end.
Before posting this, I vowed to several community citizen advocates today, once Covid clears, we are going to engage in a full on war against the HATERS in local government of openness and transparency. It’s time we put out these fires before the whole damn forrest burns down.
Kelby Krabbenhoft and Sanford Health have agreed to part ways, Sanford announced in a news release at about 5:45 p.m. today.
This is no surprise, I have been hearing for months from Sanford employees that Kelby actually partially retired last Fall but was staying on basically for consulting for the transition to Intermountain Health. Not sure how much of that is true, but you will remember last Fall was when a lot of executives were leaving and an investigation into Denny Sanford was being done. No charges have been filed.
But as I was watching the Sioux Falls City Council Informational meeting tonight, I found it ironic that one of the city councilors who voted against a mask mandate and has admitted to having covid couldn’t even figure out how to wear a mask (you need to cover you mouth AND nose.)
Masks! We don’t need no stinking masks!
While she did pull it up a few times she kept pulling it down while talking. Scientists have said that masks actually do work, BUT you need to wear them properly and you have to have 100% compliance. Maybe Christine felt like Kelby that now that she has some kind of magical immunity she didn’t have to wear the mask?
Argus reporter Ellis said it best when talking about Sioux Falls City Government, “Amateur Hour.”
As I suspected after Christine brought this up in the council meeting Tuesday night, there really is no effort to pause the program called ‘Sioux Falls Alive’. Not only is the website still chugging away but I saw an electronic billboard today (you know the kind you can turn off like a light switch) promoting the program. I have also heard from DaCola Foot Soldiers that still blow their money on cable TV the ads are still playing.
To be fair, though it grinds me, Erickson said they wouldn’t pause the program until AFTER Thanksgiving (which just seems pointless).
So while we are flat out lying to the citizens about pausing this ungodly $250K taxpayer expenditure that got funneled to Mayor TenHaken’s former(?) ad agency Click Rain we are throwing $20K towards the health department to educate the public about what we shouldn’t be doing during this pandemic. Maybe they will wait to educate us after Thanksgiving so couple 100 more people could die first.
As suspected, it probably wasn’t that easy to turn off the faucet because contracts were signed. And I suspect even after turkey day, the website will still be rolling and the ads will still be running like gravy down your uncle’s mouth (or Rudy’s sideburns).
But this should have NEVER happened to begin with. This was just a Hail Mary to the CVB and it’s subsequent contractors and had little to do about doing the right thing. Once again, like most leadership from City Hall and Carnegie these days, it’s all about the Benjamins and little else.
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) -- South Dakota surpassed 80,000 coronavirus cases as three new COVID-19 deaths were reported in Monday's update from the South Dakota Department of Health. The death toll is now at 946. There have been 531 deaths reported in November. The new deaths were two men and one women with two in the 70-79 […]
PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) -- South Dakota laws on marijuana must be stronger and more specific now that voters have approved its use, according to an incoming member of the Legislature.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of retirees rallied in the Belarusian capital on Monday against the country's authoritarian leader, as security forces moved in to break up the traditional weekly march.
