Justice as Retaliation; The Mette Case

by

This is an amazing report by the Lakota People’s Law Project about how the State of South Dakota is Attempting to Punish Lakota Child Welfare Advocates and Protect Child Abusers. You can read the entire story; Final Mette Case Special Report

On May 1st, The Aberdeen News of South Dakota reported that former South Dakota state attorney Brandon Taliaferro and court appointed child advocate Shirley Schwab were being charged by South Dakota State Attorney General Martin Jackley with witness tampering and subornation of perjury. Attorney General Jackley filed these charges in relation to the separate criminal prosecution of Aberdeen-based foster parents Richard and Gwendolyn Mette. Mr. Taliaferro is a well-known South Dakota Indian child advocate and, as a former Assistant State Attorney, he was in charge of prosecuting child abuse cases in Brown County. Mrs. Schwab is the widely respected court-appointed child advocate for Brown County. Richard Mette had been charged in 2011 by Mr. Taliaferro with a total of 23 felony counts of aggravated rape of a child and aggravated incest against two of four young Native American sisters who had been placed in his and his wife Gwendolyn Mette’s custody by the Department of Social Services (D.S.S.) over the protests of the children’s Lakota family. Gwendolyn Mette had been charged with 11 felony charges of aiding and abetting his crimes, and with neglect of the children.

 

Stan Adelstein asks the AG to remove Pat Powers from his state employment

by

As you may or may not know, South DaCola broke the story on Pat Powers involvement with a consulting business while serving as the SOS’s Chief of Operations. Stan left these comments today on my site;

I hate even the whiff of “Chicago Politics.” When I saw the website for Powers, and for that matter Gant – I wondered who would not purchase their campaign stuff from the office that had final say in a close race, who had final say for campaigns, or campaign committees of their expenditures, disclaimers, filing data, reporting, etc, etc. On top of that the Secy’s office has final say in close races, and between candidates on close issues. Why was this Secretary the first one to endorse the power of Speaker of the State house over an excellent seated REPUBLICAN state senator?

 

Thanks everyone on this blog site. I agree, and as to Testor 15, I have asked the Attorney General to give us all those “invesigators” that you asked for. That is the advantage of being elected by people – who even when the disagree with me – think I care about the system that I love and gave me everything that I cherish. (despite Power’s comments about my social position, supposed wealth, more than one home — and unlike rest of SD, my religious faith)

And Testor 15 — finally getting the media attention — due to this letter to our Straight Arrow Attorney General:

Dear Attorney General Jackley

I request that you investigate the office of South Dakota Secretary of State. I am concerned about allegations of impropriety, conflict of interest, and possible illegal activity.

A political commercial enterprise “Dakota Campaign Store” solicits political consulting, and sale of campaign material. It appears that it may actually be operating out of the Secretary’s office – by Mr Pat Powers, who is an apparent full time employee of that office, and has primary responsibility, in that office, for some of the same IT services that he is advertising.

Does “DakotaCampaignStore.com,” use political filings from candidates to solicit business? It is obvious that Mr. Powers is the first to see any such filing – and with the new “assistance” program offered by his office has access to private information, not available to his competition.

I am concerned about the endorsement in a primary election, of the incumbent Speaker of the House of Representatives. Does that endorsement arise out of any financial arrangements with this “consulting”service? Were any of the campaign material used in that primary race purchased through or by that enterprise?

Does the Secretary himself directly or indirectly participate in earnings of this political operation? By indirectly, I mean discounts for material, utilization of services pro bono, etc.

Has the Secretary purchased, even at market value, campaign material from that enterprise for his re-election campaign, or made use of mailing lists, etc?

Has any of the business of this commercial service utilized State computers, office space, lists, office supplies, etc. in the conduct of it’s affairs.

Time may be of the essence! I went online at 12:40 mountain time, June 15 and perused in detail Mr Powers advertising on DakotaCampaignStore.com. Shortly thereafter I expressed my concern to most of my Senate Colleagues. Since my posting to them, that website has been taken down! Mr Powers, among other things, is well known as a computer Guru – and I fear that evidence of wrongdoing could be erased, revised or otherwise distorted.

If you establish apparent impropriety or misbehavior, I am also asking for your advice with regards two sections of Article XVI of the SD Constitution. Is it possible that Section 3 – “impeachment” – is something I should be seeking as a Senator or possible (and to my Engineers mind) more likely Section 4, “Removal from Office.” My education and background makes the distinction between the offences listed in each somewhat unclear.

Stanford M Adelstein State Senator, District 32

Some are crying sour grapes, ‘Troy’ who I would assume is ‘Troy Jones, a frequent contributor to Pat’s former site Dakota War College made this comment on Madville Times;

I agree Doug. In the end, this is just a personal vendetta against Pat as we all know there is no love lost between Stan and Pat.

Another commenter ‘Jane’ disagrees, and rightfully so;

Troy, I’m sure that the “Powers” that be want this to be dismissed as a personal issue between two feuding politicians. But that misses the entire point.

There are clearly two sets of rules, ethics, and professionalism in the Office of the Secretary of State. One for the favorites and one for the rest. Gant, Powers, Gosch, et al are all caught in the same web of sloppy, partisan arrogance.

One wonders if the AG and Judge Barnett might be caught in the partisan web as well.

The State Board of Elections might have a different view of the level of hackery taking place at the SOS’s office. That will be interesting to watch.

As I told someone today, ‘Would this have happened under Chris Nelson’s watch?’ Probably not. While I have my reservations about Nelson, I don’t think Nelson bungled as much as Gant has. It seems anytime Gant has to do something important (like running elections properly) he screws up. Could this be Gant or his staff.

There seems to be this attitude by some politicians in Pierre that once they get elected they can do what they want and they can ignore the public’s wishes and the rules. Sorry, but this South Dakotan as many others are fed up with this attitude. This is a democracy, elections should be fair and unencumbered.

 

 

 

Now that Republicans in SD have ransacked public education funding on all levels, what’s next?

by

The Repugs managed to succeed at all levels, governor’s office, the legislature and now our courts;

In upholding the constitutionality of the state’s school funding system, a unanimous South Dakota Supreme Court said Thursday it isn’t convinced that the money appropriated for schools is inadequate or that more money would produce higher test scores and graduation rates.

Of course, this ruling has to do with timing, they were ruling on the funding setup before the state cut education by 6.6%. Of course our governor is in a state of denial when it comes to funding education;

“I am pleased with this opinion because the appropriate place to determine school funding is the Legislature, not the courts,” Gov. Dennis Daugaard said in a written statement. “I believe we should focus on student achievement, not spending, as the best measure of educational success. That approach is very consistent with the Supreme Court’s decision.”

Yeah, let’s keep cutting education and watch those test scores soar . . . .

Abdallah thinks he’d succeed with that argument today. The Legislature balanced its budgets by freezing per-student funding last year and cutting it by 6.6 percent this year. “Although the court didn’t find that the system was unconstitutional at the time of the trial … I seriously doubt that our current system would survive this type of analysis,” Abdallah said.

But it doesn’t stop one Republican lawmaker from crying about how we need to just let him do his job;

The five-year legal battle has frustrated some observers, including Sen. Mark Johnston, R-Sioux Falls, who said he’s “very upset” that a majority of the state’s school districts would pay for a lawsuit against the state. “The Supreme Court has spoken that it’s our job as legislators to fund schools,” he said.

So Mark, when you going to start doing your job? I hardly think cutting education by 6.6% when there is $800 million sitting in an investment fund to pick up the slack is DOING YOUR JOB, in fact, you and your party should be charged with child neglect, that would be a more appropriate lawsuit.

But there was one small victory from this lawsuit;

While the lawsuit was pending, the state threatened to audit the coalition of school districts, taking the position that it’s illegal for them to finance a lawsuit against the state. When school officials asked for a judge’s declaration that they can sue, Wilbur agreed with the state; but in that case, a unanimous Supreme Court overturned Wilbur’s decision.

Of course, Repugs bring back the tired old argument;

House Republican leader David Lust of Rapid City said Thursday that most people think school funding should be up to the governor and the Legislature. If the public disapproves of the way the Legislature pays school districts, he said, voters can make a change by electing new legislators.

Good luck with that, your party has a stranglehold on the public because of your bullshit ‘lower taxes’ campaign slogans, and the fact that most (but not all) Democrats in the legislature are a bit timid, except one;

House Democratic leader Bernie Hunhoff of Yankton, a supporter of increased state aid to schools, said he agrees that funding decisions must be made in the Legislature. The lawsuit was filed only because parents and school district officials are frustrated with lawmakers, he said.

Exactly. They sit around and talk about guns and vaginas. Instead of legislating how life may begin or end, why not legislate what happens in between, part of that is providing a good education and investing in our youth. But hey, that reality makes sense, and reality is something Repugs in this state can’t grasp.

 

 

AG Jackboots gets his ass handed to him. It’s too bad he wasn’t handed the State’s constitution.

by

Okay, I know this episode of Inside Stormland TV is over a week old, but I have been doing some catching up. This is actually a pretty good show, compared to Jon Wilson’s BJ episode of Rounds. Both sides of the school funding case gave great arguments, but I would have to agree with Scott that school funding is a SD constitutional obligation, and Scott let’s AG Jackboots have it over it. He uses the analogy of the state suing over ‘Obamacare’. Jackboots hangs his head so low in his lap, you thought at one point he was going to fall out of his chair.

Worth the watch.

Imagine that, now that the election is over the Dems are found not guilty

by

I saw this as a political football from the beginning. Funny how no one found a (Extreme Right Wing Conservative) Republican Attorney General, who was running for office, was playing politics with the food for votes fiasco;

“I think this was a clearly partisan charge from the beginning. The Republicans know you can make a charge five or six weeks before election day and the investigation is going to take several months. They can make a charge, make it seem like fact regardless of the fact that no laws were broken. They pretend that it was and use that allegation to scare voters.”

Nesselhuf said there is history of these kinds of “bogus charges,” and it probably will be seen again in elections.

While I don’t agree with the food exchange, I doubt a donut, a hot dog or a bowl of chili is going to convince people to vote for a certain candidate. In fact that assumption is freaking absurd and as Michael Jackson would say, “Ignorant.”

Lucas Lentsch, executive director of the state Republican Party, said he expects the Legislature to weigh in when next year’s session begins.

“Vote-buying or food-for-votes will more than likely be a policy discussion of the 2011 South Dakota state Legislature,” Lentsch said Tuesday. “I fully anticipated that there would be an investigation of some sort, the attorney general and U.S. attorney have rendered their decisions, I just expect it to continue to evolve and be a policy discussion.”

It seems Lucas just can’t let it go. While I agree there should be some legislative intervention, Lucas seems to think there should be an investigation. I guess it wasn’t good enough that his party beat the living daylights out of the Dems, he seems hellbent on punishing them even more. Bring it on, your party was participating in the practice also, and that is why the charges were probably dropped.

“My goal is to make sure that the integrity of our elections is not jeopardized by any activities of different groups or individuals for that matter,” Gant said. “We’re going to look at the language, we’re going to look at reports from the attorney general and the U.S. attorney and I want to do everything I can to provide the legislature with information on how we can best ensure that we have fair and legal elections.”

This coming from a guy who created a fake issue during the election about the Feds taking over state elections. This was clearly about sticking it to the Dems right before an election. Maybe there should be laws enacted that prevent political parties from creating controversies about the opposite party right before an election. I’m sure that would make Kermit Staggers very happy.