The Authoritarian Right Wingers really had quite the week pushing their Wacky Radical agenda onto a majority of Americans and South Dakotans that don’t support their ideas;
JACKLEY GETS NOMINATED AS THE GOP CANDIDATE FOR SD ATTORNEY GENERAL
If there ever was a time I wish Jason Rumblestrips didn’t hit and kill Joe Boever, it is NOW. The SD Dem Party must dig deep to find someone to run against this guy. Remember, this is a person who covered up Gear Up and EB-5, and probably numerous other things, and if you think he has changed, you are mistaken. He has an axe to grind, and it won’t be pretty. Ravnsborg may have been a liar, a dope and a killer, but he isn’t a Marty.
NOEM SAYS IT IS A TRAGEDY TO ABORT A BABY CONCEIVED BY RAPE OR INCEST
In one of her more bizarre incidents, Noem said on Face the Nation that victims of rape and incest should be forced to have the child conceived in violence. It was probably one of the most despicable things I have ever heard her say. When she claims to be for Freedom and Liberty then turns around and forces raped children to have a child produced by their attacker, you have to wonder what is going on in her head. Cue the circus music.
ROE VS. WADE OVERTURNED
I even tell my single male friends that this decision will have further implications in the Supreme Court. They are coming for your contraception and partner rights. A majority of Americans support safe and legal abortion clearly showing our SCOTUS is extremely out of touch with Americans.
A TRUMPLICAN GETS NOMINATED AS THE SD GOP CANDIDATE FOR SOS
It’s one thing for this Stop the Steal supporter to get nominated as SOS, but her extremist views on voter registration, religion and all things wacky to the right should scare the Hell out of us. I BEG the SD DEM Party to find a strong candidate to run against Ms. Johnson. What is even more strange is that they booted an incumbent who has done a fairly decent job. My feelings are they booted Barnett because he was trying to make voting easier in SD by supporting online registration and voting by mail. Even the Republicans in this state hate moderate Republicans.
GUN CONTROL TAKES A STEP FORWARD AND A STEP BACK
While the President did sign a bi-partisan bill for more gun control, it was watered down by the Republicans involved in the negotiations. It also did not help that SCOTUS said it was A-OK to carry a concealed weapon Federally not allowing states to regulate the 2nd Amendment. A majority of Americans support comprehensive gun control.
PRIVATE RELIGIOUS SCHOOLS CAN RECEIVE VOUCHERS
This is only the case in states that have a voucher program. I am vehemently against vouchers. I have argued that if property tax payers can receive vouchers when choosing to send their children to private schools then I should receive a voucher for choosing NOT to have children. I especially think it is reprehensible to fund religious schools with money meant to go towards public education. The SCOTUS got this one wrong on many levels, as well as their ruling on prayer in schools. SCOTUS is virtually ignoring 1st Amendment rights and Separation of Church and state.
Before you think I’m against voting by mail, you would be mistaken. I fully support it. What I want to point out is the government waste in SOS Barnett’s plan to mail everyone an ‘application’.
Think about it.
Instead of just simply mailing every registered voter a ballot(s) to begin with, (depending on the election in your district) Barnett’s plan is going to cause all kinds of extra confusion, extra work and extra money and postage.
His application plan does this;
• By sending everyone an application instead of a ballot, you are possibly doubling your postage fees.
• You are possibly doubling your printing costs by mailing an application than a ballot to begin with.
• If just a ballot is sent, this saves county auditors time in processing applications and stuffing ballots to be mailed back.
• No one’s rights are being infringed upon. In fact, I would argue this gives you more rights because it makes the process simpler. If you choose not to use the ballot mailed to you, simply recycle it.
I use this analogy; it would be like Dominoes Pizza sending you a letter asking you if you would like to receive coupons by mail. They don’t do that, for obvious freaking reasons.
By just simply mailing you a ballot(s) to begin with, it gives you an opportunity to make the decision at that moment. No one is forcing you to fill out that ballot. You can either throw it away or vote in person.
Make no mistake, this is about making it as complicated as possible so it encourages voter suppression and the worst part it is wasting our tax dollars. Something the majority party in this state thrives at.
Why do the people in Pierre work so hard to make our lives more difficult?
The SD State Legislature decided to meet electronically for veto day, which is a good. It is also more proof that the municipal and school board elections across the state should be postponed, or at least give communities the option to decide. That is what Minnehaha County Auditor said during yesterday’s County Commission meeting. Basically if the Legislature makes a decision on the election, they would pass a bill that would allow communities to decide for themselves if they wanted to hold the election on April 14th, which I think is a great idea. There are roughly 70 communities that are planning a April 14th election across the state. Litz basically said in smaller, less populated cities, they would probably be okay with holding an election, but bigger cities like Sioux Falls may have issues with it. Bob also said that he could easily combine the city/school election ballot with a 2-sided primary ballot.
I’m still on the fence about it. I think we need to see where we are at with the Corona Virus in couple of weeks before we decide. We also don’t know what it will be like in June. I think if communities are given the option to decide for themselves, they should do it on April 6th.
Well, I have known for a long time that SOS Shantel Krebs has no clue how to run her office, except she did it better than that last guy and his knuckle-head friend. Yeah, I know, that bar wasn’t real high.
But I would think Shantel and her campaign crew would know it is pointless to leave lit in the door of a registered Independent (over a decade – and never a Republican).
If Tapio or Johnson did this, I wouldn’t have blinked an eye, BUT THE SECRETARY OF THE STATE!
Shantel best find a new source for a clean list besides her front drawer. Hilarious.
Shantel, I know a guy, but he charges a pretty penny.
The question came up recently with a group of politico friends. We had our guesses but we came to the conclusion we didn’t know.
Well apparently he showed up in jeans and a t-shirt to the Charles Mix County Commission looking for a job in February. Apparently he moved back to Platte to run the family farm, or something like that, and needed another job.
The Charles Mix County auditor resigned, and the deputy auditor was filling in, so Jason saw an opportunity.
I guess the job interview didn’t go well. Happy farming Jason. I heard there is a guy in Brookings that could use some help blogging. Probably doesn’t pay well, but I heard the ad sales are good.
I never expected SOS Shantel Krebs to take down the photo of a Mobridge student sporting a traitor’s shirt or another student sporting gang symbols. But she did, good for her. Even though she said it was ‘out of respect to the faculty and students’. Not even sure what heck that means, but nice try Shantel.
What worries me more about this situation is that schools don’t teach government or civics anymore. Some would say this is a 1st Amendment issue, I would agree. So let’s have that important discussion. What if the shirt was a Swastica or a image of Satan? What if it was of a nude girl? History tells us that we fought a bloody civil war to defeat the traitors of the South, just like we fought another bloody war to defeat facism in WWII. While I will defend anyone’s right to express themselves, there is a fine line when you are doing it on school time funded by taxpayers. I got into this same debate with the SF school district when teachers were advocating for the school start date on the taxpayers time and dime. Or when a private HS painted Christian religious symbols on taxpayer funded snowplows. There is a time and place (even legally) when it is appropriate to express your 1st amendment rights. Disrupting other students when taxpayers are paying to educate these kids is not appropriate, Mobridge faculty should have known better. Placing this photo on a taxpayer funded website for over a year is also not appropriate. Krebs and her staff should have known better, and should apologize out of respect to her fellow taxpayers who fund her salary and office.
Free speech is a wonderful thing, but when you are using my tax dollars to force your opinion on me, I take issue with this. If you want to look or talk or act like a jackass, you have that right under the 1st Amendment, you lose those rights when you use my taxdollars to do so. Maybe if schools would get back to teaching history and civics we wouldn’t have to see this stupidity anymore. It makes you wonder if our elected government officials understand the government they are in charge of running.
Many are wondering why Shantel keeps this photo up on a taxpayer funded website of a student proudly wearing the ‘losing’ teams shirt. Funny, I don’t see any Minnesota Vikings shirts in the crowd, at least some of the students had a little common sense.
Now, a year and a half later, Krebs says all the documents are back on a brand new site, on a secure State server.
Remember when Pitty was playing the musical servers with his website, traveling all over the country on a little farewell tour? Makes you wonder if these files (owned by the state and taxpayers) were sitting on private servers for anyone in the private sector could view AND/OR use for business purposes?
Of course we will never know, now that Shantel cleaned it all up. And as much as her faction of the SD GOP may hate Gantless & Pitty, they will always have their backs in the coverup.
Prohibiting and criminalizing direct conflicts of interests and self-dealings resulting in personal financial benefit from taxpayer monies
Under current South Dakota law, it is only a misdemeanor to engage in self-dealings of taxpayer monies for personal benefit or gain. See SDCL 5-18A-17.4.
“A public official, who misappropriates taxpayer monies that have been entrusted to them, violates the public trust and should be held responsible for such actions.  When  a public official uses taxpayer monies for personal benefit or gain, it should be treated as any other criminal theft,†said  Jackley.
The Attorney General’s proposed legislation narrowly defines a direct criminal conflict of interest to occur when “any public official who knowingly misappropriates funds or property which has been entrusted to the public official in violation of the public trust and which results in a direct financial benefit to the public official, commits a criminal conflict of interest.†A public official who commits a criminal conflict of interest would be guilty of theft under existing law. Under current theft law it is a Class 6 felony carrying a maximum penalty of two years imprisonment when the value of the theft is in excess of $1,000, a Class 5 felony, punishable up to five years, when the value is more than $2,500 but less than or equal to $5,000, and a Class 4 felony, punishable up to 10 years, if the value is more than $5,000. The bill also requests employee whistleblower protections.
Legislation being introduced by others will require notice to the Attorney General of conflict violations.
That was our main claim against Gant & Powers. Pat was still running a campaign consulting company while working as deputy SOS. A conflict of interest, especially if he was using information attained from the SOS to further his business. Not only did Jackley at the time not investigate him for that, they found them not guilty on stealing (something they were never accused of). But I guess, even if they were found to have a conflict of interest, not much could have been done until the law changes. PAThetic quit anyway claiming he had to get back to his litter of spawn.
UPDATE: After watching the beginning of this interview, and seeing how it was back up against the sports show, and how quickly Shantel was sweeped in, it would seem to me this was a pre-recorded show, and that is why the live chat was not used. Not sure if that is true, but if it is, what’s the point in lying about it? Why not just say it was pre-recorded? Weird.
During the beginning of the interview, they claimed it was a ‘technical’ issue, yet neither host had an electronic device in their hands. Not saying this was on purpose since it has happened before, but seems strange that you have a state constitutional officer as a guest and there is NO online chat, or an attempt to get it to work.
Hmmm.
I had a question for Shantel;
Why are there still issues with the voting lists?
I also was skeptical of her comment about Jason Gant during wordplay. She said when asked ‘Jason Gant’
Unaware.
Oh, I think he was well aware of what he was doing, and to give him a pass for being ignorant or just stupid isn’t fair to SD taxpayers and voters. I’m not calling him a genius, but I am not expecting him to have integrity either.
I think the SD GOP including Krebs dropped the ball on Gant, and a public shaming on Stormland-TV doesn’t cut the mustard for the due punishment he deserved.
The day to day stress of being a police officer can be difficult to manage. Which is why the Sioux Falls Police Department is developing a new program to help officers with their mental health.
It's an exciting time at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls. Not only is it celebrating its 60th anniversary, the zoo is also celebrating the births of six new red wolf puppies.
