A teachable moment?

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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.

So where were the missing files Shantel?

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Maybe he was hiding the files in his cheeks?

While I appreciate SOS Shantel Krebs cleaning up the disaster called Gantless & Pitty, there is one tiny little question remaining, WHERE or WHO had the files?

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.

If only conflict of interest laws existed when Gant and Powers were in office

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gant-gate-photo

Oh the irony of Pitty Patt Postting this story;

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: SuFuStu shuts off chat(?) during his interview of SOS Krebs

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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.