Category: Uncategorized

Johnson in Eureka & Mobridge Tomorrow

Washington, D.C. – On Thursday, U.S. Representative Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) will be in Eureka to tour Dakota Woodworking. Johnson will also tour Mobridge Regional Hospital. In the afternoon, he will host a Vietnam Veteran Commemorative Pinning Ceremony and an “Inside Scoop” town hall. South Dakotans are encouraged to attend both the Vietnam Veteran ceremony and the town hall.

What:   Dakota Woodworking Tour
When:  Thursday, August 5; 11:00 AM CT
Where: Dakota Woodworking 614 7^th Street, Eureka, SD 57437

What:   Mobridge Regional Hospital Tour
When:  Thursday, August 5; 2:10 PM CT
Where: Mobridge Regional Hospital, 1401 10^th Avenue West, Mobridge, SD 57601

What:   Vietnam Veteran Commemorative Pinning Ceremony
When:  Thursday, August 5; 3:30 PM CT
Where: Mobridge City Park, ^6th Street East & Main Street, Mobridge, SD 57601

What:   Inside Scoop Town Hall
When:  Thursday, August 5; 4:30 PM CT
Where: Dairy Queen  407 East Grand Crossing, Mobridge, SD 57601

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Within hours of her submitting the paperwork to the FEC, it looks like Dusty is already pulling Taffy.

Well, pulling the Taffy card as a reason to send out a fundraising e-mail to his supporters in anticipation of an attack strategy that will be coming against him:

“Not all officeholders and candidates focus on getting things done.  A recent TV story about my opponent noted she has a reputation for being on the attack, as opposed to delivering results.  She’s “drawn the ire” of Governor Kristi Noem and has been a “vocal opponent” of our state’s policies.”

Looks like Dusty isn’t going to be shy about pointing out his opponent’s record.

(And if you want to contribute, you can visit dustyjohnson.com. )

Looks like this poorly kept secret isn’t a secret anymore, as this afternoon State Representative Taffy Howard has filed a statement of organization with the Federal Elections Commission:

Taffy Howard for Congress by Pat Powers on Scribd

In the filing, Taffy is using the e-mail of [email protected] for the campaign, however, the howardforcongress.com website does not appear to be active as of yet.

Big indication of how this campaign is going to be run is that the campaign’s principle e-mail address on the form which is to someone at the e-mail address of [email protected] Who is that, I wonder?

If I was a betting man, I would bet that [email protected] is Zach Lautenschlager, who was last involved in the Attorney General race, passing out hit pieces at the SDGOP State convention which may have played a part in securing Jason Ravnsborg the win in 2018, and a number of fluorescent hit piece postcards in legislative races.

So Taffy Howard has made her filing, AND has her out-of-state consultant with a long history of scorched earth campaigns running the show for her.

It’s a pretty good indication that she’s in the race, and it’s game on!

Thune: Biden Backs Eco-Terrorist Affiliate, Democrats Follow Suit

“I hope my Democrat colleagues will think twice before confirming Ms. Stone-Manning as head of the Bureau of Land Management. Involvement with eco-terrorism should be a disqualifying factor for heading up this agency.”

Click here or on the picture above to watch the video.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today called out the Biden administration for nominating an individual with ties to an eco-terrorist organization to head the Bureau of Land and Management. Thune noted that the nominee was involved in a tree-spiking plot, has referred to children as an “environmental hazard,” and promoted content that expressed satisfaction with the idea of seeing homes built in forests burn down.

Don’t Hide the Hyde Amendment
by Dale Bartscher, Executive Director South Dakota Right to Life

For 45 years, members of Congress on both sides of the aisle as well as presidents from both parties, have agreed that taxpayers should not fund abortions.

But, under the pro-abortion leadership of the House and the Senate, this has changed. Instead of protecting women and their unborn children, pro-abortion Democrats are more interested in burnishing their credentials with abortion groups and their supporters.

And to do this, many Democratic Party leaders are more than willing to force taxpayers to pay for abortions on demand.

Congressman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.) introduced the Hyde Amendment in 1976, not long after the Supreme Court rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton that legalized abortion on demand. At that time, federal Medicaid statutes, written before Roe and Doe, made no reference to abortion and the federal program was paying for 300,000 abortions each year—and the number was climbing.

The Hyde Amendment is estimated to have saved over 2.4 million lives— National Right to Life considers it the greatest abortion-reduction measure ever enacted by Congress.

It is time to save Hyde and tell Congress – “Don’t Hide the Hyde Amendment.”

Each year, the Hyde Amendment is added to the annual Health and Human Services appropriations bill to prevent taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions. The measure has enjoyed bipartisan support since its introduction in 1976 and has been in effect ever since.

But to be continually in effect, the Hyde Amendment must be added to the appropriations budget every year.

For the first time since 1976, the proposed budget by the majority party has no Hyde Amendment language—a deliberate omission.

Until recently, the Hyde Amendment enjoyed support from both Republican and Democratic presidents. However, in 2019, the-candidate Joe Biden reversed his position on the Amendment and announced that he supported taxpayer-funding of abortion.

In fact, President Biden’s proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2022 omitted the Hyde Amendment and clearly showed that President Biden has endorsed the extremism of pro-abortion groups who would like to see abortion on demand paid for with tax dollars.

Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer want to eliminate the Hyde Amendment and have repeatedly defended the decision to do so. Leading Democrats in both the House and the Senate are determined to fund abortions using taxpayer money.

What used to be a bipartisan consensus—that taxpayer funds should not be used to pay for abortions—has now become part of an overall campaign to see abortion available at anytime, anywhere, and for any reason—and paid for with tax dollars.

The abortion industry is powerful. Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, brings in over 1 billion dollars annually. This powerful organization, along with its allies, sees tax dollars as another revenue source and the elimination of Hyde will increase their share of those moneys significantly.

This is a money grab, plain and simple, and Democratic leadership is part of this campaign to pour more money into the abortion industry contrary to the wishes of the American people.

Most Americans oppose using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. In a January 2021 Marist poll, 58 percent said they “oppose using tax dollars to pay for a woman’s abortion,” and a November 2020 McLaughlin poll put the number of those opposed at 64 percent.

But the will of the people doesn’t matter to Democrat leaders when they are fully engaged in a scorched earth campaign against the unborn and wanting to use our tax dollars to pay for it.

South Dakota Right to Life asks you to partner with us in encouraging our Congressional Delegation – Senator Thune, Senator Rounds and Representative Johnson – to stand firm and to stand up in their insistence that the Hyde Amendment be added to this year’s appropriations budget.  In other words – Don’t HIDE the HYDE AMENDMENT.

After nearly being derailed by Allegiant airlines (as I arrived to the hotel at daybreak on Friday instead of Thursday evening), thankfully I had an uneventful and on-time arrival as I returned home last evening from the National Convention of Political Item Collectors.

Except I find that I have a problem. I have to completely rework my State & Local candidate frame to accommodate this monster of a South Dakota political button that I was unaware existed until my eagle-eyed wife pointed it out:

Either copied from or made directly from a newspaper ad, I don’t know that this political button has ever been seen among South Dakota collectors before. I almost missed it, and two other collectors of South Dakota pins who were at the show passed by it before I found it. Gary Widmann and former South Dakota LRC Director Terry Anderson must have missed it, as they would have certainly snapped up this gem for $20.

What else did I find? By far it was presidential fare, because local items tended to be for much larger states than ours. I did pick up a couple of Larry Pressler items that I did not have on the cheap. Which is the only way I would buy Pressler items. There was a unique Pressler for Congress pin for $85 that I could not bring myself to buy just on general principles.

That wasn’t the only item I passed on, as there was a beautiful “South Dakota for Ike” pin was priced a little too strongly for my cheapness.  My wife told me I should have just bought it, but sometimes most of the fun comes in the hunt, and finally tracking it down at a palatable cost.

There are a couple of other pins I’d like to add to my collection like the Ike one – the S. Dakota First Voters Taft League pin is a tough one to find, and there’s another one or two running around.  I couldn’t even find that to purchase.

I did find a Dougherty fo Governor pin I hadn’t seen before that I came home with, as well as several items I just liked, including a unique Ford pin with a depiction of “punchy” the elephant, mascot of Young Republicans and later Teenage Republicans that I hadn’t seen before.

I’ll have more on the show later – but well worth the travel to Nashville.

We’re Here to Help
By Sen. John Thune

When it comes to legislating, it’s my job to be a voice for you in Washington. What you might not realize, though, is that I can also help you interact with federal agencies and overcome certain challenges you might be experiencing – from working through concerns with a Department of Agriculture rule that could affect your farm to helping you receive a payment you’re owed from a government agency. I know how frustrating it can be when you feel like the person on the other end of the phone isn’t listening, and that’s where I can help.

I’ve recently been hearing from an increasing number of South Dakotans who are experiencing tremendous delays in processing their passport applications. If you’ve wondered if it was normal to take 15-plus weeks to complete the process, the answer is no. In cases like this, when folks are struggling to get their passport in a timely manner, or if they need one expedited because of unforeseen travel or other unique circumstances, my office can step in and try to solve the problem. At the very least, we can help work the phones for you.

The passport backlog has ballooned to an unprecedented level, with more than 2 million Americans expecting 12-to-18-week delays – nearly three times longer than the typical processing time of four to six weeks. My office is doing everything we can to help South Dakotans get their passports renewed in time. We are talking with these agencies daily to help speed the process along, and I’m keeping pressure on the responsible agencies in Washington to get this corrected.

My office can help with far more than passports. Whatever roadblocks you’re facing with federal government agencies, we can be a resource to help you navigate the federal bureaucracy and even act as liaison on your behalf, if necessary.

We’ve helped South Dakota veterans resolve issues with health benefits, long-overdue medals or awards, or other benefits they’re due for their brave service to our country. For a small fee, you can request to have a flag flown over the U.S. Capitol building on a specific date in honor of a milestone event, like a birthday or an anniversary, and after it’s flown, we’ll mail it to you with a certificate commemorating its flight. We can help seniors who are having trouble receiving their Social Security benefits, students who are trying to enter one of the military academies, and the list goes on.

Bottom line, if you need help with a federal agency or any of the other services I can provide, please reach out. You can call, email, or write any of my offices in Sioux Falls, Aberdeen, Rapid City, or Washington, D.C. Or stop by in person to say hello. We’re here to help.

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Mental Health Matters
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
July 30, 2021

In a country where every year there are more than forty thousand suicides and sixty thousand drug overdose deaths, mental health matters.

Our nation has overlooked mental health for too long. Suicide is one of the leading causes of death for South Dakotans, which is heartbreaking, unacceptable, and why we must do more.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed and exacerbated the underinvestment in mental healthcare in our country. According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control, during the height of the pandemic, anxiety and depression symptoms were three to four times higher than the year prior.

Every time our nation faces a tragedy, debate starts over about the need to invest in mental health in order to prevent future tragedy – but action has yet to come at a federal level.

That’s why this week, I introduced the Supporting Underserved Populations by Placing Our Resources in Trusts (SUPPORT) for Mental Health Act along with Representative Kim Schrier, M.D. Our bipartisan bill will allow states to utilize already appropriated unused COVID-19 relief funds to create trusts to support state-based mental and behavioral health services.

Recently, I visited the Link, a new community triage center in Sioux Falls. The Link offers free support services for people living with mental health and substance abuse challenges. I saw firsthand how crucial of an asset this center is to Sioux Falls and surrounding communities.

The trust established by the state through the SUPPORT for Mental Health Act would be able to provide financial support to the Link and similar facilities across South Dakota.

Additionally, these trusts could be used to help fund services such as suicide prevention, crisis counseling, inpatient and outpatient programs.

With an estimated $1 trillion in COVID-19 relief still left unspent, this straightforward, common-sense approach will begin a serious investment in mental health resources for people across South Dakota and the United States.

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A Border in Crisis Needs Solutions and Action
By: Governor Kristi Noem
July 30, 2021 

America is the land of opportunity. We’re a nation where anyone can make anything of themselves if they work hard and play by the rules. But when those rules are abandoned – when we lose respect for our Constitution and the rule of law – that’s when the system breaks. And that’s exactly what is taking place at our Southern border. Rule of law has collapsed, putting our border in crisis and risking our national security.

I recently sent 48 South Dakota National Guard troops – all volunteers – to support Texas in its efforts to secure our Southern border. This past week, I visited those troops and surveyed their observation posts. I got a briefing from them and from Border Patrol. I saw what they’re seeing, and they told me what they need. And I gained a greater understanding of how unsustainable the situation is at the US-Mexico border.

Coyotes are smuggling people into our country. They know that if their group has a child under 7, they will be let into this country, turned over to a non-governmental organization, and relocated to someplace within our nation. They’re smuggling people into our nation – and they’re using these migrants as pawns to distract from the cartel’s aggressive drug smuggling operation. That is fundamentally contrary to everything for which this nation stands.

Here are some alarming numbers from the Border Patrol’s most recent dispatches:

• More than 20,000 immigrants were stopped in a single week just in the Rio Grande Valley zone where our National Guard is deployed;
• Fentanyl seizures are up 455% compared to last year; and
• Meth seizures are up 85%.

And that’s just what Border Patrol is catching; imagine how much more is slipping through.

Those drugs don’t stop at the border. They’re being sent to our communities throughout the country. In South Dakota, the cartels bring these drugs to our cities, towns, and to some of our tribal reservations.

South Dakota has worked diligently to fight the drug epidemic in our state, and as a result, we were one of only two states in America to reduce the number of deaths from drug overdose last year. New Hampshire saw a small decline; South Dakota’s overdose deaths decreased by almost 16 percent. I’m not going to let the tremendous progress we’ve made collapse because the Biden Administration refuses to secure our border.

What’s worse is the bureaucracy of DC politics is stalled while more and more of these migrants die while attempting to cross the border. We can and should do better. Unfortunately, the reports I received this week indicate the politics of DC are likely to make this border crisis worse.

If President Biden won’t step up and do his job, then Republican governors will continue to do what they can to address the border crisis. We’re evaluating options to extend the deployment of the troops already at the border and asking Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to fund those extended engagements. We’ll be sending an additional 125 troops there later this year as part of a 9-12 month federal deployment. And we will continue to evaluate how else we can help in this important effort.

Our nation is one of opportunity. We welcome people to come into our country, but they have to do it legally. We are a nation of laws. If we lose respect for those laws, we lose the foundation of our country. And I refuse to let that happen.

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Governor Noem Joins Amicus Brief in SCOTUS Abortion Case  

PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem and 240 women scholars, professionals, and pro-life feminist organizations filed an amicus brief in the most important pro-life case to be argued at the Supreme Court of the United States in at least a generation.

“For my entire life, women have been told that pregnancy is a barrier to a successful career. This lie has led to millions of abortions, despite women like me and countless others proving that successful careers and motherhood are not mutually exclusive,” Governor Kristi Noem said. “I was born a little over a year before the U.S. Supreme Court decided that abortion is necessary for women to succeed. I was eight months pregnant when I first took over our family ranch following my father’s tragic death. Today, as a former state legislator, congresswoman, and South Dakota’s first female governor, I stand in defiance of the lies perpetrated by the Roe decision.”

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court will decide on the constitutionality of prohibiting abortion before the “viability” of the unborn child outside the womb. The Court has the opportunity to go further and recognize that the Constitution does not protect the so-called right to terminate unborn life, which would overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey altogether. 

The friend-of-the-court brief rejects the notion, set out in the Roe and Casey decisions, that the ability of women to achieve economic and social equality depends on abortion. For that reason and others, the High Court should overturn Roe and Casey.

The amicus brief cites empirical evidence pointing to the sustained economic and social achievements of American women regardless of abortion access. The brief notes that American women continued to make progress towards economic equality in the 90’s and 2000’s, even as abortion rates plummeted across the country.

“As a mother, I have led by example to show my daughters a life that balances family, education, and career. As a new grandmother, I want to ensure the next generation is reared in a country that cherishes life and an equal pursuit of happiness for all Americans,” continued Governor Noem. 

The Women Scholars and Professionals amicus brief is supported by hundreds of pro-life women, along with pro-life feminist organizations including Feminists Choosing Life of New York, Feminists for Nonviolent Choices, New Wave Feminists, Pro-Life San Francisco, Secular Pro-Life, Siena Symposium, and Women Affirming Life. The brief is co-authored by Professors Helen Alvaré of Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University in Virginia and Teresa Collett of University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minnesota, the Director of that school’s Pro-Life Center.

A copy of the amicus brief may be downloaded here.

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