Happy Thanksgiving
What on earth are you doing reading a blog today? It’s thanksgiving!
(I’m quickly jotting this down during a commercial break in parade coverage.)
Enjoy your family, friends, fellowship and bounty. Give thanks, and remember those overseas who can’t be with their families this holiday.
“Happiness and misery depend not on how high up or low down you are- They depend not on these, but on the direction in which you are tending.” (Samuel Butler, 19th century writer)
I know misery loves company but pardon me for just letting our liberal friends wallow in it all by theirself. They made this bed all by their lonesome.
Economy: When promoting the stimulus package, the President said if we pass the stimulus bill unemployment wouldn’t exceed 8%. Without it, unemployment would go up to 9%. Hello!! Unemployment is 10.3%. If a CEO missed his next two quarters projections by that far, he’d be fired.
At the time the ”Obama Stimulus” (maybe “Obama Albatross” is more accurate) passed, the Congressional Budget Office said that the “stimulus” would slow long-term growth. Thanks to the “Obama Albatross”, we now have the worst of all worlds- Bad short-term economy and long-term stunted growth and recovery. Doing nothing was really a better solution. Who wouldn’t want 9% unemployment right now?
Major reasons the “Obama Albatross” is bad for the recovery it was designed to stimulate: (Read this article (“Why No One Exects a Strong Recovery”) for more information. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704431804574537490451978558.html )
- Government borrowing competing with private borrowing (especially for businesses to prosper and hire employees): Bank Lending dropped 3% in the Third Quarter which is the largest drop in over a quarter century. This follows drops in all of the previous four quarters. At the same time, banks have been buying Treasury offerings necessary to finance the deficit almost equal to the drop in Lending. We had two choices: Have China fund this boondoggle or our banks. China owning our debt is bad for our long-term. Banks owning our debt is bad for the short-term. (FYI: this reallocation from making loans to people and businesses to Treasuries is actually official Obama policy. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703932904574511243712388988.html
- No new business and small business job creation: During the past decade (prior to 2009), the American economy created 30 million jobs. During the same period, small business created 30 million jobs. The past 12 months has been the lowest number of new businesses created since the Great Depression yet small business failures continue to accelerate. Nothing in the stimulus was designed to be conducive to small business creation or conducive for small business hiring to pick up. And, the impending impact of the Health Care bill and future tax increases to pay for all this spending only diminish the attraction to risk your life savings to start a new business. Until Obama and Co. get off the class warfare and tax the rich mantra, don’t expect any new small business or job creation and expect continued stagnation most adversely affecting the poor and lower middle class.
- Economic uncertainty about the future: I can’t say it any better than the Wall Street Journal. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704779704574556002170312732.html?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion
“The panicked Democrats’ biggest problem is that Congress and the President have erected the biggest overhang of economic policy uncertainty that anyone can remember.
One big difference between Washington and private markets is that politicians think everything they do is free-standing. Markets, however, combine all the potential costs of Washington’s policies and then decide whether to invest, or not. Consider what private decision-makers see in their future:
A 2,074-page, trillion-dollar health-care bill to redesign 17% of the U.S. economy. A carbon tax—cap and trade—that remains an Obama priority ahead of the Copenhagen climate summit next month. A falling dollar and gyrating commodity prices, with no idea where those prices will go next.
Democratic liberals are talking about an income tax surcharge to pay for any commitment in Afghanistan. Card check, to expand unionization of the private economy, remains a priority. Domestic discretionary spending in fiscal 2010 is set to rise at 12.1%, with inflation near zero.
Nurturing a fragile economic recovery into a durable expansion requires policies that restore public confidence and reassure investors, risk-takers and employers. The Democratic agenda is doing precisely the opposite, which is how you get subpar growth and fewer new jobs.”
Deficit and impact on the future ability of our government to fund basic needs much less liberal spending priorities (http://blogs.investors.com/capitalhill/index.php/home/35-politics/535-the-impact-of-trillion-dollar-deficits):
- From 2008 to 2019, federal revenues are projected to grow by $1.45 trillion, but extra interest payments on the public debt of $550 billion will soak up nearly 40% of those extra tax dollars.
- Consider that in 2008, Washington spent about half as much on interest payments ($253 billion) as it did on the nondefense programs that it budgets on an annual basis ($508 billion).
- Those nondefense outlays cover homeland security, education, job training, housing assistance, veterans’ health, science, workplace safety, transportation, the environment and foreign aid.
- But by 2019, interest costs would reach $800 billion under the Obama budget compared with $720 billion in spending on nondefense discretionary programs.
- From 2008 to 2019, interest costs are projected to grow more than twice as fast as the economy, from 1.8% of GDP to 3.8%. That extra 2% of GDP is roughly equal to the projected cost of Medicaid in 2019.
- Meanwhile, spending on those discretionary programs would shrink relative to the size of the economy as interest costs consume 20 cents for every dollar in tax revenue, up from 10 cents in 2008.
- All this is before the entitlement crisis turns really ugly in the following decade. And all this is in the president’s budget, which no one has argued presents a picture that is too pessimistic.
Global warning: Liberals told us “follow the science. Greenhouse gasses are warming our planet. Armeggedon is imminent unless we do something now!!!” (read Obama’s and Gore’s speech at the Democratic Convention) Now we know the “science” has been fabricated. The earth is not warming but actually cooling. Liberals couldn’t squash capitalism with the truth so they resorted to lies. Fortunately, the liars have been exposed. By the way, what they were doing isn’t science. By definition, science uses facts to find reality. Manipulating facts to distort or hide reality is lying. Like I said in another post, “To be persuasive, we must be believable; to be believable, we must be credible, credible we must be truthful” (Edward R. Murrow). Until there is a cleaning of the entire “global warming crowd” and diligent peer review of ALL the data, “solutions” to a problem that may not exist must cease to be considered.
Afghanistan: Obama said this is where the war on terror should be fought. After three months of dithering on what to do in Afghanistan, the American people now disapprove of his handling of it by a margin of 55%-35%. Military experts are now saying the dithering has diminished our chances of success. When the American people come to understand we are losing lives at a pace comparable to the worst days in Iraq, the call to bring the troops home when there are no prospects for success will be deafening. This is the war he wanted to fight and he failed before he got started. Efficient yes but not very inspiring. LOL
By the way, why aren’t we getting a nightly update on the deaths in Afghanistan like we got during the Bush Administration?
Hope and Change: Obama promised to bring a new attitude in Washington of transparency (while Health Care was developed in room with only Democrat Leadership), no lobbyists (while his administration has broken the record for the most lobbyists in senior positions), bi-partisan discussions (where when asked why Republicans weren’t at the table on his significant proposals, Obama said “We won”), and his leadership would be decisive (See Afghanistan), thoughtful (see Gitmo), strong (see Middle East policies). Ooops. So much for hope and change we can believe in.
Guantanamo Bay: Americans by 2-1 margins disagree with the President’s decision to close Gitmo. Republicans clamored for first devising a strategy of what to do with those at Gitmo before announcing a closure. Obama said he’d take the best ideas from each side during the campaign. Mr. President, I suggest you read some of your speeches (hard copy or over the teleprompter, I don’t care). This was not very well thought out.
Kalik Sheik Muhamed: Americans significantly disagree with the decision to try the 9-11 mastermind in civilian court on US soil. This single decision will probably result in the election of Rudy Guiliani the next Senator from New York. Personally, I believe by 2012, this will be the symbolic representation of the Obama Presidency similar to how the Iranian Hostages were for Carter.
Ft. Hood: Obama can’t even bring himself to call Hasan a terrorist despite the mounting irrefutable evidence. Failing to put a name on something doesn’t change reality Mr. President. “A rose by another name is still a rose” and a cowardly terrorist called “troubled” is still a terrorist. Your lack of courage and forthrightness will have long-lasting adverse effects on soldiers and their families. As Commander-in-Chief, when you sacrifice the respect of our soldiers, you don’t just hurt yourself. You hurt our nation. This will be the corollary and reinforcing to Kalik above.
Asia: The President travels to Asia for 10 days in the midst of the Health Care debate and increasingly troubled jobs situation and only embarrasses himself and our country. While many think we are better off with Obama out of the country, liberals probably preferred him here advancing their agenda. This said, you have done a good job of dooming health care so keep it up.
Cabinet: Republicans said at their confirmation hearings Geithner and Holder were not ready for prime time. Now Democrats are grumbling about both and their prospects for lasting are diminishing.
Geithner is in trouble because “Geithner’s Economic Plan” (it is really Obama’s) is failing to get results. (See Greg Craig below). He is also in trouble because we got in the financial crisis because we had too many big all-encompassing financial companies that provided systemic risk to the entire financial structure of the nation. Timmy has “solved” the problem by making the large institutions bigger and more pervasive. Really!!! I can’t make this up. Stupid is what stupid does.
Holder is in trouble for just being incompetent. When announcing the KSM decision, he claimed to have studied the KSM implications thoroughly before making his decision. When asked, “Can you give me a single example of an enemy combatant captured on the field of battle on foreign soil ever being tried in US civilian court with full American Constitutional protections,” Holder responded with “Uhhh, let me get back to you on that.” Or when asked why the terrorists who bombed the USS Cole are being tried in military court and KSM in civilian court, Holder couldn’t even give an answer. And I can’t make this up either. I think it was someone on liberal Huffington Post said Holder could be Obama’s “Rumsfield.”
Geithner made the news one day and one couldn’t imagine it getting worse. The next day, Holder announces the KSM decision. And, while this was happening, Obama was getting spun around like a top by the Chinese (Obama is lucky KSM dominate the news that day. Think about it, Obama is lucky his AG messed in his food tray and Democrats are calling for the resignation of his Treasury Secretary. Unbelievable).
On top of this, we get the news the unemployment is still going up, when one considers the total percentage of Americans unemployed it is almost 18%. These screw ups and bad news could have filled a season on the “West Wing.” With Obama, we get it all in a 48 hour period. Jack Bauer of “24” has better seasons than these two days for Obama.
Health Care Bill: Over half of Americans oppose his plan for health care despite hundreds of speeches and the full force of the Democratic Congress to pass it. The problem is made worse by the understanding of the phony numbers (The impact on the deficit over the next ten years by moving up the collection of taxes and fees and delaying implementation. When one considers the annual cost when the program is operational, the impact on the deficit will be over $300 billion a year and this assumes a 50% cut in Medicare/Medicaid).
Not to mention (OK, I’ll mention it), the health care bill only gets to be discussed because they had to bribe Landrieu with $300 million in spending for Louisiana. (See Deficit discussion above). In case you have been on a fishing trip to Canada for this past month, I swear I’m not making this up.
Taxes: Obama promised no tax increases on the middle class. I’m not sure they will give him a pass when they see their utility costs and health insurance premiums grow double digits to pay for Cap and Trade/Health Care as not a stealth tax increase.
Greg Craig: Craig was a former Clinton-ite who backed Obama early. He was thrown under the bus by Obama because he was unable to reconcile Obama’s ill-thought out plan to close Gitmo with a plan on what to do with those held at Gitmo. See Kalid Sheik Muhamed.
The Craig embarrassment gives (people, either in politics or close observers, who once held an unromantically high opinion of Obama) a new reason – not the first or only reason – to conclude that he wasn’t the person of integrity and even classiness they had thought, and, more fundamentally, that his ability to move people and actually lead a fractured and troubled country (the reason many preferred him over Hillary Clinton) is not what had been promised in the campaign.” (Liberal Elizabeth Drew)
Auto Bailout: After $50-70 billion (depends on how you count what as injected) injected into General Motors, billion’s more to bailout its lending arm, GMAC, GM still lost billions this quarter despite “cash for clunkers” and has no idea when it might be profitable. I spell “rat hole” General Motors.
2010 Electoral Prospects: Not only did Virginia and New Jersey replace Democrat Governors with Republicans, the following are not good for liberals:
- Formerly safe Democrat Senate seats would go Republican if the election were held today: Connecticut, New York, Nevada, North Dakota, Arkansas. Additional states like Pennsylvania, Missouri, Delaware, Illinois are Democrate seats in toss-up territory where just a few months ago they were considered safe. If another state (Colorado?) comes into play, you are looking at the Senate being 50 Republicans, 48 Democrats and two independents in 2011. Or California if continues to lead the country in economic morass making Obama-phyte Boxer vulnerable.
- In the Congressional Generic Vote, Republicans are now tied with Democrats. The last time it was this way was in 1994 and 2002 when Republicans increased their majorities significantly.
- Obama’s approval rating is now around 50%. No other President in 50 years except Gerald Ford had a faster and bigger drop than Obama. Ford fell because he pardoned Nixon. Obama’s rating has yet to catch up with the disapproval Americans have for his major agenda items. Americans believe the priorities should be the economy, unemployment, and the deficit. Obama’s priorities are health care, cap and trade, more government spending, more government control, and general liberal activism.
- American’s trust that government can be a positive instrument of “change” is at an all-time low (23%). Obama is all about government as an instrument of change.
- Independents were the biggest “swing vote” to elect Obama. They now oppose him 52%-30%. See approval rating above. Every Senate and Governor poll shows Independents flocking to the Republican candidate.
- Enthusiasm has shifted. During 2010, Republicans were cool to their candidates up and down the ticket while Democrats were red hot. Today, Republicans are enthused while Democrats are pondering all the things I point out above.
Friends, I pounded out the above in a couple of hours off the top of my head. (Sorry about the typos and bad grammar but I need to get home to my family) I’m sure if I’d have spent some time doing research, I could have made this post much longer. While we are enjoying our Thanksgiving Turkey, remember our liberal friends. They are not having a very good year. Maybe, they will gain some wisdom and ask us for some advice. At minimum, I hope they don’t react to this impending wholesale rejection of their ideas and become destructive like a petulent little boy sent to his room. I keep hearing rumors of this being a “Kamikaze Congress” willing to be roundly rejected in 2010 and 2012 if they can just get health care and cap and trade passed and signed into law.
Unless they do start asking for our input into solutions, in 2010, they will be looking at 2009 as “the good old days.” I just pray they don’t render too much damage in the meantime.
Tick…. Tick…. Tick….. I think the Democrats are closer to conceding every minute.
From the editorial board at the Mitchell Daily Republic:
Thune, for his part, continues to look toward a challenge. He told The Associated Press last week that he is “expecting a competitive race and a stiff challenge.”
As for the Democrats, state party chairwoman Cheryl Chapman said it’s not too late for the state’s minority party to field a candidate. “It seems to be late,” she said, “because everybody starts running for office very early.”
Both Thune and Chapman are saying the right things, and perhaps both truly mean their comments. Anyone who follows politics in South Dakota probably knows better.
and..
If the Democrats had a great candidate ready to step up to face Thune, we figure we would have heard about it by now.
I think I’d hate to be the SDDP Chair who conceded the Senate Race without a candidate, as they’ve been known to do in State Constitutional races.
(Almost as bad as Judy Olson who was raising money for Pat O’Brien while Jack Billion was running for Governor.)
An unprecedented use of unprecedented
From politico, an unprecedented story on the preced….. er, president:
Perhaps it was a sign when President Barack Obama sat down in January to record his first weekly address and announced: “We begin this year and this administration in the midst of an unprecedented crisis that calls for unprecedented action.”
What has followed is declaration after declaration of “unprecedented” milestones. Some of them are legitimate firsts, like the president’s online town hall at the White House in May.
But others the president wins merely on a technicality, and several clearly already have precedents.
and…
Obama has said he “took office amid unprecedented economic turmoil” and that the situation demanded “unprecedented international cooperation” and resulted in his signing of the “unprecedented” Recovery Act. Yet it seems the Great Depression and the New Deal might be considered precedents for the current economic crisis and the $787 billion stimulus plan.
And Obama’s promise of “an unprecedented effort to root out waste and inefficiency” sounded a lot like promises of past presidents.
“I believe the Congress and the American people approve my goals of economy and efficiency,” President Lyndon B. Johnson told Congress in 1965. “I believe they are as opposed to waste as I am. We can and will eliminate it.”
and…
“It says how very unique he feels he is,” said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who worked in the Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford and Carter administrations. Hess described Obama as “a man who sees himself as unprecedented in every way … given his background — his mother, his father, where he grew up, how he became president of the United States.”
and…
“It comes close to a certain arrogance,” Hughes said, “as if this president has done things that no other president has ever done before — except that they have done them before.”
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Quote of the Day: Heide-spin as Nixon
From the Watertown Public Opinion, 11/20/09
Enviro-nuts blaming the market for BSII’s demise is as if Jeffrey Dahmer would have blamed society….
One of the resident enviro-nuts over at Badlands Bleu seems to be playing with terminology.
In a recent post, they keep talking about “Dirty” Coal in a perjorative manner, and referring to it as if it’s the devil coming to earth. This comes after trying to shift blame from enviro-nuts like themselves over the demise of Big Stone II, which would have allowed the wind energy industry to explode in this state, instead, putting it back a decade.
Sorry, but no one is buying it.
Enviro-nuts blaming the market or anybody but themselves and the Obama administration for Big Stone II’s demise would be a comparable sentiment to Jeffrey Dahmer having blamed our society for making those men so gosh darned tasty.
Their comments are just self-serving to a naked agenda, and it rings pretty hollow.
SDSU Rolling out proposal on mega-campus expansion to include retail and hotel space?
As Brookings sits on the cusp over a fight over whether or not the city of Brookings should dump millions into the local convention center (the Swiftel Center), up pops SDSU rolling out their proposal to make a massive increase in housing at SDSU. Which in addition to dormitory space and rental homes might include …..a hotel and convention center?
Strategy refinement sessions allowed translating the strategic objectives into specific program elements to be considered for the Project.
These include:
- Apartment Complex
- Retail
- Conference Center
- Hotel
- Active Adult Community
This Study includes detailed analysis related to each of the programs above.
and…
These findings led to the conclusion that a hotel development should be evaluated in the future as a joint venture between the University and the Innovation Campus. The program of the facility should reflect possible changes in the supply in the Brookings market and the financial feasibility that will have to be evaluated at that time. A food service component, such as a restaurant or catering facility, should also be considered as part of the initiative.
and…
Although many departments place a premium on quality, the majority mentioned price sensitivity as at least a consideration in the decision-making process for scheduling events. Some downplayed the importance of proximity to campus, stressing the fact that all Brookings hotels are located within three miles of campus and do not pose commuting issues. However, this sentiment was not universal, as several indicated that a campus hotel is a different entity and part of the branding of the University. Some interviewees said that the Interstate, which separates a number of the hotels and the Swiftel Arena from campus, provides a significant mental and physical barrier, and that a comparable facility located on the campus side of the Interstate would offer a unique and desirable product.
and..
Based on the above factors, the development of a hotel and a conference center should be evaluated in the future as a joint-venture between the University and the Innovation Campus.
Not just an increase in campus dormitories, they’re proposing retail space, rental housing, a hotel (because the interstate crossing is a mental barrier), a conference center and a retirement community.
Well….. Looks like Brookings is going to get a lot bigger. BTW, Is that a man-made lake adjacent to the hotel convention center complex proposed?
Read all the materials on it here.
Volesky to tap his child to run his campaign.
Well, I have to say that this is probably a first.
Ron Volesky, a Democratic candidate for governor, will have his son serve as campaign manager.
Tucker Volesky is a sophomore in high school. He has participated in debate and varsity basketball and track.
No New Taxes. Maybe new taxes later. No new taxes. What was the question?
From the Rapid City Journal, a brand new set of flip flops from the Democratic candidate for Governor:
In response to an audience question, Knuppe, Heidepriem and Munsterman pledged not to raise taxes if elected governor. Knudson, a Sioux Falls lawyer and Republican leader in the state Senate, wouldn’t take the pledge.
and….
Knuppe, a Buffalo Gap rancher, and Munsterman, a chiropractor and former Brookings mayor, took the no-tax pledge without qualification. So did Heidepriem, a Sioux Falls lawyer and Senate Democratic leader, although he said after the forum he thought it was in reference to his first year as governor, not an indefinite pledge.
After further consideration, he made it absolute.
“No, I’m not going to sign any bill that raises taxes,” he said.
So is he telling us in this article that up until now, all his no new taxes talk has been “in reference to his first year as governor, not an indefinite pledge?”
When Scott Heidepreim makes promises this election season, do we need to start checking to see if his fingers are crossed behind his back from here on out?
Argus: Herseth Sandlin getting pounded by both sides
From today’s argus leader, comes a tale of Congresswoman Herseth Sandlin besieged by her critics in the Republican party, and those in her own party:
The political world for South Dakota Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin might be a lonely place these days.
For years, liberals have guarded her left flank while she carved out a position as a moderate Democrat in the U.S. House. Liberals might have been annoyed with some of her votes, but those votes were understood in the context of a Democrat representing a red state.
But some on the left have lost patience with Herseth Sandlin following her opposition to a health insurance reform bill in the House earlier this month.
At the same time, she faces what could be her toughest election since winning the state’s only House seat in 2004. Two of the potential Republican challengers in next November’s general election already have proved they can win elections. Secretary of State Chris Nelson has won two statewide elections. State Rep. Blake Curd is a Sioux Falls surgeon who was elected to the Legislature in 2008.
Herseth Sandlin’s health care bill vote didn’t win her any love from Republicans, either. She said she voted against the bill because it was bad for South Dakota. But Tom Erickson, the spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, called that reason a “fairy tale.”
and…
Green’s organization exists to promote progressive candidates. Herseth Sandlin is one of 10 “bad Democrats” the group is running Web ads against. Of the 10 “targets,” Green said, the largest response to those ads has come from people in South Dakota.
Mercer post on Abourezk Staff Spy
Bob Mercer has a post on the staff member from former Democratic US Senator Jim Abourezk who ended up spying on the United States and passing the information to the communist regime of Fidel Castro:
The Washington Post reports this morning that Walter Myers and Gwendolyn Steingraber Myers pleaded guilty in federal court Friday “that they spied for Cuba over the past three decades, receiving coded instructions over a shortwave radio and passing along information to intelligence operatives in ‘dead drops’ and ‘hand to hand’ passes.” (See the full story by reporter Del Quinten Weber at www.washingtonpost.com.) Myers, age 72, gets life in prison, his wife, age 71, six to seven-plus years. The story says they agreed to become spies for Cuba while living in South Dakota.
According to a long piece reported by Toby Harnden and published earlier this fall by Washingtonian magazine, the couple met in Washington, D.C., while she worked on the staff of then-U.S. Sen. Jim Abourezk, a Democrat from South Dakota. The Harnden story notes, “Among her colleagues were Tom Daschle, later Senate majority leader, and Pete Rouse, now a senior adviser to President Obama.” She had married during high school in Yankton, according to Harnden’s account, and later lived in Aberdeen with her first husband, Chuck Trebilcock, and their four children. She divorced in 1973 at the age of 37 and moved with the children to Colorado, where she married a second time to a man 13 years younger. Harnden wrote that she was working on Abourezk’s staff in Washington, D.C., within two years, the marriage dissolved. While there, she met Myers. The couple in turn met their initial Cuban contact at a gathering at the home of Wendy Greider, who was Abourezk’s staff member for foreign affairs.
Go Read the entire post here at Pure Pierre politics.
KELO profiles Gov. race
KELO did an “Eye on Keloland” bit Thursday night about the Governor’s race and their thoughts on trying to cut/contain the state budget. They profiled each candidate and gave them the opportunity to say why they would be best, a fairly typical news piece. So, I thought I’d comment and give my opinion on how things looked.
Daugaard sounds interesting and I think he makes the perfectly valid point that as director of the Children’s Home Society that he was able to turn things around and give the organization $30 mil in reserves. Given the way the economy is right now, that helps his point, any experience in helping to save any money is a plus in my book right now. But, that being said, what is he going to do in the state government to actually help cut costs?
Knuppe makes a valid point that he’s got small business experience… but that’s about it. I know he hasn’t had a political career up to this point, but I think that does put a serious handicap on his ability to prop himself up and make himself a legitimate candidate.
Knudson does basically the exact opposite of Daugaard, and emphasizes his past experiences in the legislature, and makes a valid point that we do need to make across the board spending cuts, but one thing that I just don’t feel comfortable enough about yet is that he hasn’t really done/had any small business experience, which does bother me a little.
Overall, I think it was a good piece by KELO, and I hope they will ramp up the political coverage. See the piece on KELO here
While the Enviro-nuts don’t get it, the wind companies know how bad Big Stone II’s loss hurts them
From the Watertown Public Opinion:
And….
And…
Read the entire article at the Watertown Public Opinion.
What have I been saying? The Wind Companies are now literally left twisting in the wind with all this generating capacity, and no way to get it to market. Plus – even worse for them, they’re left footing the bill to redesign the entire power grid and to provide lines to get it to market to the tune of 1 to 2 BILLION dollars.
Middle Border Sun suggests that Dems take their bad blue dog to the Humane Society.
Todd Epp over at Middle Border Sun (AKA SD Watch) suggests that his party takes it’s bad, bad blue dog out and give it a swat on the nose with a newspaper:
My former colleagues at South Dakota Public Radio give our poor, maligned sole United States Representative a bully pulpit at our expense, where Princess Stephanie Herseth Sandlin calls those of us Democrats who actually believe and act like Democrats and think Americans deserve health care “extremists.”
and..
You are a bad, bad Blue Dog. And like a dog that cannot be trusted not to bite the kids and not to pee on the furniture and not to chase the letter carrier, it is time for you to find a new home. You may be a Blue Dog Democrat but you are not a Democrat. It is time you go down the street and live with that nice Republican family you always run off to when the gate to the backyard fence gets left open. But I hear they smack their bad dogs with more than a newspaper when they don’t behave.
This “extremist” is going to get a new dog, maybe that honest, well behaved Chris Nelson dog from Pierre or that kind of exotic dog, B.T. Marking, from Custer. At least I know I’ll have a dog I can trust.
Bad dog Stephanie. Bad, bad dog.
Thune to get Award from National Guard Association of the United States.
From the Argus:
Sen. John Thune will receive the Charles Dick Medal of Merit by the National Guard Association of the United States.
and…
The Charles Dick Medal of Merit recognizes public servants at the state and federal level who demonstrate support for the National Guard.
Vote on the Republican Congressional candidate
(For Republicans only!)
(For Republicans only!)What’s your read on the Congressional Race? Do you like Blake Curd’s position on Obamacare? Do you appreciate Chris Nelson’s track record as SOS? Or do you want to send Pork Bellies to North Korea? Take a moment, and give us the pulse of popular opinion.
I’m starting to wonder if he’s a plant. Wasson proposes embracing N. Korea and Iran.
I’m starting to wonder if there’s any Republican political philosophy behind GOP Congressional candidate Thad Wasson other than throwing stuff against the wall and seeing if anything sticks.
I love an underdog, but there’s a difference between being an underdog, and barking at the moon.
Recently on the candidate blog he’s set up for himself, he’s been spouting a few things that leave me wondering if he’s a member of another party besides the GOP:
I am calling on our world community to police themselves. There is no reason for us to still be in Kosovo, Italy, Japan and Korea.
I also believe that we can solve our problems with North Korea and Iran by engaging in agricultural trading.
and…
We can still have a lean and mean military by spending half what we do now on our Department of Defense.
Okay, so let me understand this. He’s for a diminished military, and becoming trading partners with the unstable and often hostile dictatorships?
Sorry, but Thad sounds a lot more like Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan.
Don’t you hate those politicians who say one thing in Washington Pierre and another back home?
Don’t you hate those politicians who say one thing in Washington Pierre and another back home?
The leading Democrat in the state Senate said Wednesday that South Dakota’s budget shortfall is so extreme that across-the-board cuts in services could be the only way to balance the budget.
Sen. Scott Heidepriem blamed years of irresponsible spending for the current hole in the state budget, saying South Dakota has not been governed by fiscal conservatives in the last seven years.
But, wasn’t the Democrat’s choir boy singing another tune back in FEBRUARY??
“……typically we would increase the amount we make available to take care of those needs. But not this year. Why? Because we’re facing a budget crisis? No. We aren’t.”
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- Scott Heidepriem, debate on HB 1300, 39th legislative day.
Okay, so let me try to understand this. Back in February, 80 million in the hole wasn’t a fiscal crisis, and he was complaining because we weren’t spending more money? And only now we’re in a crisis?
The only difference is that Heidepriem had ambitions to spend more money then, and now his ambitions are directed towards running for governor.
Senator Heidepriem is complaining that South Dakota has not been governed by fiscal conservatives in the last seven years? He’d better cast that first stone at the big government spending figure in his mirror.
Gov: Demise of Big Stone II hurts wind development. (Where have I heard that before…?)
From the Mitchell Daily Republic, via the Rapid City Journal, it sounds like I’m not the only one waving the “shame on you” sign at the environmental nuts:
South Dakota’s wind industry may be “sidetracked” by the recent termination of plans to build a coal-fired power plant in the northeastern part of the state, according to a spokesman for the governor.
When Gov. Mike Rounds spoke to The Daily Republic two years ago about the proposed Big Stone II power plant near Milbank, he said the state was “really counting on that to get our wind power over to larger population centers.” Transmission lines that were proposed to be built with the plant would have contained extra capacity for wind-energy transmission.
Following news of the project’s failure, Rounds’ press secretary, Joe Kafka, issued a written statement last week to The Daily Republic.
“The governor feels it’s a setback to development of the wind-energy sector in the state, because enhanced transmission capacity was tied to the project,” Kafka wrote. “Without the ability to move larger amounts of wind energy to markets in large cities to the east, plans for future wind-energy projects may be sidetracked.”
Big Stone II’s fate was sealed recently when Otter Tail Power, of Fergus Falls, Minn., pulled out of the $1.6 billion project partnership. Otter Tail cited concerns about pending “cap and trade” legislation, which would require air polluters such as power plants to obtain permits and buy pollution allowances. The rest of the project partners pulled out when no replacement for Otter Tail could be recruited to invest.
and….
South Dakota is now left without a way to transmit large amounts of its potential wind power to places that need it. The state is ranked No. 4 nationally in potential wind-energy capacity, but only No. 20 in actual capacity from existing wind turbines.
It’s what I’ve been saying all along.
Obama and the rest of the looney left who are demanding wind only to the detriment of modernizing existing traditional sources of power have only cut off their noses to spite their face.
And we can thank them for setting back South Dakota’s wind energy export production 10 years.
