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There always should be one story that makes you laugh out loud. Tonight’s is about Jay Williams:

According to our KELO TV scientific poll, if the election were held today, Thune would defeat Democrat Jay Williams by a wide margin, 65% to 27%, 8% are still undecided.

Only Williams doesn’t see it that way.

“Maybe the polls are trending, because I just saw a poll yesterday where it had 58% to 38%, I had virtually the same numbers as Secretary Clinton had, which I hope is the case,” Williams said.

Read it here.

Man, is Jay Williams going to be beaten badly.   So is Paula Hawks:

According to our KELO-TV scientific poll, Noem leads her Democratic challenger Paula Hawks 59% to 35%, 6% of the voters are still undecided.

Read that here,

The National Rifle Association sent out an alert tonight to it’s South Dakota Voters, as it views the awful IM22 as a direct attack on organizations such as itself, designed to prevent them from communicating about political issues without disclosing personal and private information of their members and donors

Of course, you can read it for yourself:

Remember the big story a few weeks back when the Secretary of State clearly noted that it was illegal for outside groups to use ballot measures to raise money?

The Vote Yes on V campaign took contributions from two outside groups, Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org, that raised and collected money explicitly to back the ballot measure. While outside groups are free to donate money to ballot committees like Yes on V, state law forbids those organizations from contributing money that was “raised or collected by the organization for the purpose of influencing the ballot question.”

and..

Secretary of State Shantel Krebs said state law requires organizations like Open Primaries and TakeItBack.org to register as ballot question committees if they raise or collect money for a ballot measure.

“If they solicited specifically for a ballot question, then that is against state statute,” she said.

Read that here.

Now, remember the e-mail I posted last night? It had a PS..

It directly and clearly states that people need to send Slick Rick money to “Win these Initiatives.”

I’m not sure how many more direct statements by the “takeitback.org” group have to be for someone to take state law seriously. They are absolutely raising money under the pretense of it going towards the ballot initiatives.  And supposedly, that’s against state law.

The question is, is anyone going to do anything about it?

From the Sioux Falls Business Journal:

Argus Leader Media announced leadership and staffing changes Tuesday, in conjunction with similar moves occurring at many of parent company Gannett’s 109 local sites.

and..

An Argus Leader staff reduction Tuesday also included eight additional employees in the organization.

and…

In an unrelated move, Patrick Lalley is no longer the Argus Leader’s news director. His last day was Oct. 21.

Read it all here.

I caught wind of the firings, but it was more than interesting that they note separately and very specifically that news director Patrick Lalley, who came to his position in March, has been removed as news director… and that removal had absolutely nothing to do with “the announced leadership and staffing changes,” citing it as occurring “in an unrelated move.”

Maybe they should start handing our coconut torches at the Argus, like they do in Survivor?

Bonus – updates on people being fired left and right over there make me think it’s ran like this…

A friend clued me to this being posted on facebook, noting that there will be a big Jackley fundraiser coming up in a couple of weeks:

That’s a big list of people, many of whom I recognize. I think the race for 2016 is already afoot…

 

REPRESENTATIVE KRISTIN CONZET
ELECTED TO LEAD NATIONAL WOMEN’S LEGISLATIVE BOARD

State Representative Kristin Conzet has been elected at the President of the Executive Board of the Women’s Legislative Network of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The Women’s Legislative Network is the active, vibrant and respected organization dedicated to promoting the participation, empowerment, and leadership of women legislators in the 50 states and the U.S. territories. There are currently 1,809 women serving in state legislatures across the country. Every female legislator is a member of the Network and the organization is governed by a bipartisan, regionally-balanced board of 15 directors.

Representative Conzet was elected at the Women’s Legislative Network annual business meeting durning the NCSL Legislative Summit.

“It is a real privilege for me to lead the Women’s Legislative Network. I look forward to working with the leaders throughout the country and the world as together we face the challenges of ever-changing global economy and society.” Said Conzet.

If you were noticing (as I am) the lack of advertising for the political campaign, I noted today that US Senator John Thune is beginning some advertising for the November election. However, you may se it rolling out primarily via on-line news sources, as evidenced from this Ad at the Pierre Capitol Journal at the top of the page:

This ad leads readers to a his campaign website, and specifically this video for the campaign:

Clocking in at 30 seconds, don’t be surprised to see the on-line ad exposure complement the same ad appearing on television.

Has anyone else noticed that the Argus Leader political show “100 Eyes on Politics” has been off the air for the past 3 or 4 weeks – which is pretty unusual for a political show, given there’s a severe bout of politics going on.  Has the Argus decided to change the name to “100 blinded eyes on politics?”  The show talking about politics hasn’t been seen since much web time since September.

Just today, I’m starting to hear rumors floating about of another major newsroom upheaval. And we haven’t seen much of Argus “Content Strategist” Patrick Lalley in the paper since early October.

And there’s also this profile page for Lalley which doesn’t seem to be there anymore.

Given all the chaos at the state’s flagship newspaper, maybe they need to open a few of their eyes… and clue the public into what’s going on.

And the GOP brings us week #3 of “Heidelberger’s biggest hits.” This week’s golden oldie refers back to his recent diatribe (in July) against people saying “Blue Lives Matter.”

If you recall his anti-police rant:

If police officers constituted an aggrieved class disempowered by systematic, institutional bias, appropriating the Black Lives Matter slogan to express one’s concerns about police safety might be a valid act of protest.

It is a direct rebuke to those fighting to rectify genuine imbalances in America’s power structure.

Read that here.