Author: @SoDakCampaigns

Taking a moment aside from the coronavirus pandemic, the City of Sioux Falls is rolling out a new logo for the City and some participating entities today:

DSS offers help to families in need 

PIERRE – The COVID-19 pandemic has brought uncertainty to individuals and families across South Dakota including financial hardships and the Department of Social Services (DSS) reminds the public it has programs to help.

“The mission of the Department of Social Services is to create strong families,” said DSS Cabinet Secretary Laurie Gill. “When families are struggling, there are options to help support and strengthen them.”

For families dealing with financial stress, there are economic assistance programs available through DSS that may help. Programs include assistance with nutrition, home heating, and healthcare expenses, as well as temporary financial assistance for very low-income families with children who are deprived of parental support. Eligibility varies by program. To apply, go online to dss.sd.govand click on the Economic Assistance tab or call your local DSS office. Contact information for offices across South Dakota is available by clicking on the Find Your Local Office link at dss.sd.gov.

Childcare assistance is also available to families who meet income guidelines and minimum work and/or school requirements. Additional information including application forms are available by clicking on the Child Care tab at dss.sd.gov.

“These are difficult times and the Department of Social Services is committed to helping support families through them,” Gill said. “If an individual lost their job or a family had wages significantly reduced, that can add a lot of stress to an already difficult situation. We are here to help when families need it.”

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In case you were wondering if we were trapped in an alternate reality…

From Facebook:

The Media Research Center has picked up and amplified some recent comments Governor Kristi Noem has made regarding the media not reporting all the fact, and picking and choosing things to generate headlines:

Governor Noem is showing she is up to the COVID-19 challenge and we should be grateful she is in charge.

By Troy Jones, Guest Columnist

Facts (as of today, even after the new cases at Smithfield):

Cases:
USA per million: 1,750
So. Dak. per million: 1,000
SFSD SMSA per million: 2,730
NYNY SMSA per million: 9,200

Deaths
USA per million: 67
So. Dak. per million: 7
SFSD SMSA per million: 12
NYNY SMSA per million: 290

Fortunately, the key factor regarding infections (and lower deaths) is to manage infections to our hospital capacity. South Dakota is still well within the projected capacity of needed hospital beds even after these new infections. Plus, the Governor just announced we have been approved to deploy in clinical trials one of the most promising treatments – hydroxychloroquine – which hopefully will decrease deaths and stress on our hospitals.

We don’t have evidence of broad-based substantial community spread. We have evidence of minimal community spread and a single concentrated spread. South Dakota had a similar situation in Beadle County where Governor Noem deployed Department of Health resources to contact trace, isolate those who were infected, and today they have no active cases. Doesn’t it make sense to do the same thing in Sioux Falls with a similar concentrated spread?

Unfortunately, Mayor TenHaken has panicked with his request to the Governor for Shelter-in-Place for three weeks with no real evidence shelter in place has had a discernible impact.

1) Over the last four weeks, Germany, UK, France, Italy, & Spain (total population is the same as US) have been under shelter-in-place orders and have added 575,000 in new cases. Over the same period, the US has added 537,000 cases. Further, shelter in place has not proven effective at all in protecting the elderly and vulnerable as these European nations experienced 48,000 deaths over this period while the US experienced less than 15,000.

2) Sweden without hardly any coercive action (similar to what Governor Noem has done) has virtually the same cases per capita as Denmark and Norway who issued coercive stay at home actions. More important, Sweden’s has experienced 91 deaths per million while Germany, UK, France, Italy, & Spain have experienced 208 deaths per million.

3) Over three weeks ago, the Governor of NY issued his “stay at home” order. Yet after three weeks, they are still adding cases and people are dying at a higher rate than they were when the order went into effect. Today, the Governors of NY, NJ, & Conn. are beginning the planning of opening their economies while their daily deaths per million population are 4x what SD has experienced in TOTAL deaths per million.

Reason: It is becoming increasingly evident that individual actions (wash, wipe, sanitize, wear cloth masks and isolate the elderly/vulnerable) has a much higher correlation of flat curves than coercive actions imposed over long periods of time.

4) Besides the impact on people’s financial condition and no discernible impact on preventing the spread of Covid and corresponding deaths, domestic violence surges under shelter-at-home orders. In France since their order, DV is up 35%. In the US, law enforcement has preliminarily reported a 30% increase nationwide.

Now think of this. Mayor TenHaken asked the Governor for a Stay at Home Order but couldn’t tell us how this would look beyond what is happening right now.

If he doesn’t know this detail of what this would look like, there is no way to assess if it will make any difference, whether this is the right time to do it, or how long it can stay in place. His order request is just “doing something to do something” without regard whether it will have an impact or unintended consequences. Good leaders have the capacity to play decisions out, weighing the realistic outcomes against the unintended consequences and not succumbing to a mob mentality or panicking.

Or, if he does know the detail of what his request would mean, he isn’t being forthright. For what it is worth, when Mayor TenHaken was asking for greater powers from the Legislature, he was asked for an example of what he action he was thinking about and under what condition. He evaded the question from the Legislature and then closed the parks the very next day, which doesn’t indicate an attitude of forthrightness or transparency.

But, in his press conference he seemed to be ready for National Guard enforcement of whatever was included in the Order? Really? Martial Law? Must be pretty draconian to think it would need the National Guard. After watching his press conference today, I want to applaud our legislature for denying expanded powers to Mayors. Authority is to be given only if one is confident they are capable of exercising that authority with Wisdom, Justice, Prudence and Temperance.

Mayor TenHaken presents a demeanor of panic and not of true leadership when presented with the decisions facing our city with huge consequences making a comparison to Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer appropriate. True leadership appeals to our better nature to inspire our best efforts to protect ourselves and others each and every minute. Edicts by fiat exhibit an attitude the people of Sioux Falls have to be forced to do the right thing. We are better than that and deserve leadership who inspires and not dictates.

Governor Noem is showing she is up to the challenge and we should be grateful she is in charge.

Welcome to a new series of posts I’m doing about candidates that I just can’t get behind.  And the inaugural story is regarding a candidate that started out as kind of just “meh, I don’t know anything about them,” but as I looked it just got… well, pretty bad.

And in this instance, I’m talking about Kevin Quick, Republican Candidate for District 35 State Senate.

Nevermind he was the west river coordinator for one of the pot petitions on the ballot this year. While that might be reason enough to say no to him, there are flaws that go far, far deeper.  And the deeper you get in the rabbit hole, the more you seem to find.  So anyway, Kevin Quick for District 35 Senate.

Yes, the pot petition coordinator position is out there. Otherwise, the only other thing you generally see on the surface is that he owns a vape shop in Rapid City. So I started doing some basic digging.. And I tried to find out some basic voter registration information, but I hit a roadblock.  Tried looking up his voter registration and voter history.. and there was nothing there. No voter registration appeared to exist prior to him being a candidate.

In fact, I had to go to the live data on the Secretary of State’s website to find him.  He literally just appeared on voter rolls in the past month or two.

And I started digging further. Here’s where things kind of go Tiger King on us.  A bit of a deeper web search brought up a picture Kevin might want to forget, From Mugshots.com dated about 2012:

Granted, it’s 7 or 8 years old, and they’re some fairly petty crimes, but typically candidates don’t end up with mugshots. But it led me down another path that I had to check… and I came up with things that are kind of hard to unsee. Given that it appears Kevin Quick has had some run-ins with John Law in at least one other state, I checked South Dakota. And here’s where it goes off the rails:

District 35 Senate Candidate Kevin Quick and his South Dakota Rap Sheet by Pat Powers on Scribd

Getting a bench warrant for failure to appear on an illegal lane change is kind of embarrassing. I mean he actually pled Nolo Contendre to a traffic violation (2020)?

And while that might have been embarrassing, being arrested for multiple counts of failure to pay sales tax in 2018 (and getting 2-days jail time for it) is worse. In addition to the fact that as a business owner, he used a taxpayer-paid public defender to get his bacon out of the fire.

If we’re going to continue to go down this path we have the 2017 felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance that Quick pled guilty to.  And nevermind that 2017 arrest for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon that he pled down to “simple assault to put another in fear of bodily harm” when they rolled up all his charges together. (Again, taxpayer funded public defender)

Need another sharp turn?  If you look at the UJS record search report…

Quick was granted suspended imposition of sentence for his felony drug conviction, and all the other charges on 3/25/20 (which resulted in him being sentenced to 4 years in the State Pen, which were suspended).  And what happens after that?

If you go to the Secretary of State’s website, you can see when he filed his petitions for office:

Literally, on the heels of being given a suspended imposition of sentence for a number of bad acts, 5 days later, Quick files petitions to run for State Senate?

I’m noping out of this one.  Drugs, assault, and not paying your taxes?  Sorry, but District 35 Republican State Senate Candidate Kevin Quick is a candidate I just can’t get behind.

New organization Elevate Rapid City, the merged organization of Economic Development, Chamber of Commerce, Ascent Innovation, and SD Ellsworth Development Authority, was active up at this past  legislative session with pro-business advocacy.

As part of those efforts, the group recently issued their pro-business legislative scorecard for legislators representing the greater Rapid City Area:

Of the candidates with primary elections this year, Senator Jessica Castleberry and State Representative Jess Olson were scored at the highest level for the group, with State Rep Dave Johnson who is running for Senate recognized as a business advocate.

Who didn’t make the grade?  Of candidates in primary elections, State Rep. Taffy Howard had the lowest score with the group, who indicated she voted with business 22% of the time. She was closely followed by District 30 Senate hopeful Julie Frye-Mueller, who voted with business only 25% of the time, and Sen Phil Jensen, who the group cited as voting with business 38% of the time.

Among the bills the group took a position on, Taffy Howard’s and Julie Frye-Mueller’s scores took a hit by voting against such measures as House Bill 1100, to begin the research and development of a new bioprocessing facility as a joint venture of the School of Mines and SDSU,  as well as HCR 6017, to create an interim legislative study to address infrastructure and funding support related to the expansion of Ellsworth Air Force Base.

Governor Noem Announces South Dakota will Be First State with a Hydroxychloroquine Statewide Clinical Trial to Help Fight COVID-19

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem announced that South Dakota, with Sanford Health leading the effort, will be the first state with a comprehensive, statewide clinical trial to determine the effectiveness of hydroxychloroquine in treating and preventing COVID-19.

“From day one, I’ve said we’re going to let the science, facts, and data drive our decision-making in South Dakota,” said Noem. “Throughout last week, I communicated with White House officials to let them know that South Dakota’s medical community was ready to step up and lead the way on research efforts. I made direct requests to President Trump and Vice President Pence to supply us with enough hydroxychloroquine so that it could be made available for every hospitalized person the state may have as well as for those healthcare workers on the frontlines and those in the most vulnerable populations.

“Today, I’m pleased to report we have received the initial doses we need, and thanks to the leadership of Sanford Health and the assistance of the medical teams at Avera and Monument Health, we’re going to be the first state in the nation to do a comprehensive clinical trial to assess whether hydroxychloroquine can treat and perhaps even prevent COVID-19.”

“I want to thank the Sanford Health team for bringing their expertise and innovation to the table to help drive new and better treatments for this virus. Our state’s health care leaders have collaborated with my administration throughout this fight, and I’m so proud that they are willing to respond to this unprecedented challenge by leading the national research efforts as well.”

“The healthcare community in South Dakota consistently works together with the state for the benefit of all our patients,” said Kim Malsam-Rysdon, South Dakota’s Secretary of Health. “I am excited patients across the state will have access to this drug, and we will learn more about its benefits in treating and even preventing COVID-19.”

Sanford Health, the largest provider of rural healthcare in the country, aided by Avera and Monument Health will treat up to 100,000 people including outpatient and hospitalized patients with COVID-19, in addition to frontline healthcare workers, and high-risk individuals who have been exposed to the virus.

To learn more about South Dakota’s fight against COVID-19, visit COVID.sd.gov.

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Heroes Come In Unlikely Forms
By Sen. John Thune

I’ve written this sentence too many times over the last few years, but South Dakota’s agriculture community is hurting. It has been for a long time. While farmers and ranchers are all too familiar with adversity, the most frustrating part about what they’ve been facing is that it has all been out of their control. Between Mother Nature, multiple trade disputes, and poor commodity prices, things were bad enough. Once a global pandemic struck, things quickly went from bad to worse.

Don’t get me wrong, everyone is hurting right now. We’re all living through what seems like a twisted movie plot. No one is spared from the effects of this pandemic. Tasks as simple as running to the grocery store have been upended. Social distancing has become the new, albeit temporary, normal.

Everyone deserves to see brighter days – and they will soon enough – but I’m fighting particularly hard to ensure our farming and ranching community isn’t left behind in Congress’ coronavirus response. We’ve already passed legislation to replenish the Commodity Credit Corporation, plus provide nearly $10 billion in emergency funding for producers who have been affected by the pandemic, but more needs to be done.

These last few weeks, all Americans have learned just how important agriculture is in our day-to-day lives. People outside of farm country often take a fully stocked grocery store shelf for granted. Not anymore. As South Dakotans know, those items don’t just appear out of thin air. Someone grows the grain. Someone raises the livestock. Someone runs the operation. Someone ships the food. Together, they all help feed our nation and the world. They have been for generations.

Cattle producers, in particular, have been facing an uphill battle lately. Last month, I spoke directly to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue about the concerns I had been hearing about market volatility from producers in South Dakota. I’ve been keeping pressure on USDA and recently urged them to investigate these matters, which the secretary has agreed to do.

I’ve also formally requested that Attorney General William Barr and the Department of Justice investigate price manipulation and other anticompetitive activities in the beef market. As I told the attorney general in early April, the cattle industry has experienced similar market volatility before, but the widening profit margin gap between cattle producers and packers raises serious concerns about potential instances of price manipulation and other unfair practices within the beef industry. They need to look into this – now.

I’ve found myself wishing, now more than ever, that there was a simple solution to make things better. Unfortunately, there isn’t one at hand, but I can continue to put in the hard work to ensure I am doing everything possible to help defend and support the agriculture community during this crisis – the same goes for my teams in South Dakota and Washington. We’re here to help. If you’re looking for more information, you can call one of my offices or visit www.thune.senate.gov/COVID19.

America has discovered that heroes come in unlikely forms these days, and I’m reminded of what Paul Harvey once said about what God needed on the eighth day: “A caretaker … Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when his son says he wants to spend his life ‘doing what dad does.’ So God made a farmer.” They’re all heroes in my book.

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