Category: Uncategorized

Noem Aims to Expand Black Hills
National Cemetery with New Legislation

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Kristi Noem today introduced the Black Hills National Cemetery Boundary Expansion Act, which would transfer nearly 200 acres of land outside Sturgis from the Bureau of Land Management’s jurisdiction to the Department of Veterans Affairs.  The transfer would give the Black Hills National Cemetery additional space to serve future veterans.

“Our men and women in uniform have made incredible sacrifices in service to our country.  The Black Hills National Cemetery is just one way our nation can serve them back,” said Noem.  “Every agency and constituency involved is in agreement on the permanent land transfer this bill would allow.  I’m hopeful we can see it move forward quickly and ensure the Black Hills National Cemetery can continue serving those who have worn our nation’s uniform.”

Opened in 1948, the Black Hills National Cemetery near Sturgis rests on around 100 acres of land.  Unfortunately, the facility requires more room to continue serving future veterans.  The Bureau of Land Management currently holds land adjacent to the Cemetery.  Rep. Noem’s legislation would transfer that land, roughly 200 acres, from the Bureau of Land Management to the Department of Veterans Affairs in order to accommodate an expansion of the Black Hills National Cemetery.

Without legislation to make the transfer permanent, federal law limits transfers like this one to a lifespan of 20 years.  Senators Thune and Rounds introduced a similar bill in the Senate earlier this year.

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Thune Statement on the President’s “Clean Power Plan” Overreach

 “… we are working on a bipartisan basis to check his executive privilege and protect American families from unnecessary hikes to their electricity costs.”

 WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) today released the following statement after he and 48 of his colleagues introduced resolutions of disapproval with bipartisan support to stop the regulatory overreach of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan rule:
“Yet again, President Obama has circumvented the role of Congress by issuing this mandate, and we are working on a bipartisan basis to check his executive privilege and protect American families from unnecessary hikes to their electricity costs. The Obama Environmental Protection Agency, composed of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, is attempting to force onto the American people regulation that comes with $479 billion in compliance costs and could lead to double-digit electricity price increases for hard-working American families who are already having to do more with less.”

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Rounds, Johnson, King, Manchin Announce New
Senate Regulations Caucus

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), Angus King (I-Maine) and Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) today announced the formation of the bipartisan Senate Regulations Caucus to address regulatory reform at the federal level. Recognizing the many movements and legislative efforts currently in existence to address regulation, the goal of the Senate Regulations Caucus is to unify and lead these efforts to advance meaningful regulatory reform in Congress.

“With more than 1 million federal regulations on the books today, the need for a common sense approach to address unneeded, outdated and unnecessary federal regulations is as important as ever,” said Rounds. “Regulatory compliance costs are not only taking money out of the pocketbooks of South Dakota families, they are stunting economic growth and innovation throughout the country. We are long overdue for an overhaul of the regulatory environment created by Washington. I’m pleased to work with Senators Johnson, King and Manchin to address federal regulation in a practical, business-like manner. I encourage all of our colleagues to join us.”

“Unfortunately, Washington is all about addition,” said Johnson. “As a result, layer upon layer of regulation has built up over the years that significantly hampers economic growth and success. Easing the burden of this regulatory burden has been one of my top priorities since coming to the Senate. I’m proud to be part of this bipartisan effort to identify commonsense regulatory reforms. For my part, I will earnestly concentrate on areas of agreement that unite us and that can lead to real results.”

“With thousands of new regulations taking effect every year, it’s far past time that Congress got a better handle on the regulatory system that impedes American businesses and hampers vital growth and innovation,” Senator King said. “The Senate Regulations Caucus can lead that effort and spearhead an overhaul of ineffective, duplicative, or outdated regulations so that businesses in Maine and across the country can do what they do best – create jobs and grow the economy.”

“In West Virginia, we’ve seen firsthand how federal regulations can stifle industry and destroys jobs. With more than one million federal regulations on the books, the system has simply gotten out of control,” Senator Manchin said. “It is past time to significantly reform the federal regulatory process and reduce unnecessary red tape for job creators. I’m truly proud to work with my colleagues from both parties to address regulatory reform and create a balance between beneficial federal regulations and a thriving job market.”

The formation of the Senate Regulations Caucus comes at a time when we have more than one million federal regulations on the books. All 100 members of the Senate are invited to join the caucus.

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Thune: IRS in Desperate Need for Top-to-Bottom Culture Change

“American taxpayers should expect, at the very least, a culture of accountability, of fairness, of impartiality. No taxpayer ever again should fear that they will be discriminated against based on their political or ideological beliefs.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), a member of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), today urged IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to institute a top-to-bottom culture change at the beleaguered tax-collecting agency. Thune’s primary recommendation was to implement the Taxpayer Bill of Rights Enhancement Act (S. 1578), a series of measures to hold the IRS accountable to American taxpayers. Thune and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced S. 1578 in June.

 

Earlier today, Thune previewed the Senate Finance Committee hearing and the Taxpayer Bill of Rights on Fox News’ “America’s Newsroom” with Bill Hemmer and Martha MacCallum.

If any of you are familiar with former State Representative Patty Miller, her husband, who had been in poor health, has passed away:  From the Sioux City Journal:

NORTH SIOUX CITY | Duane “Buck” Miller, 83, of North Sioux City died Sunday, Oct. 25, 2015, at Sanford Vermillion (S.D.) Care Center.

Services will be 10 a.m. Saturday at Cornerstone World Outreach Church, rural Sioux City. Visitation will be 4 to 8 p.m. Friday, with family present 6 to 8 p.m., at Christy-Smith Morningside Chapel in Sioux City.

Read it here.

Patty has noted on facebook for friends:

If you have time to stop by the Christy-Smith Funeral Home in Morningside, we will have some great memorabilia about Buck to share with you. If you would like to attend the service on Saturday, you will find it to be positive and joyful; just like Buck. Thank you for your thoughts and prayers.   God Bless all of you and Don’t Worry; Be Happy!

 

From Newser:

The World Health Organization delivered bad news to bacon lovers Monday morning, declaring that the breakfast staple causes cancer. In fact, the report by a WHO research arm found that all processed meats, including sausages, ham, and hot dogs, are carcinogens, reports the Guardian. Specifically, the report says that 50 grams a day—about two slices of bacon—raises the risk of colorectal cancer by 18%, reports the BBC.

Read it here.

I’m thinking it’s just a bunch of liberal silliness from people with an agenda of removing red meat from our diets.  But that’s just me.

Your thoughts?

From the Daily Kos Morning Digest, it appears that national Democrats have already written off Paula Hawks as a nonstarter.

• SD-AL: Democrats landed state Rep. Paula Hawks for a longshot bid against Republican Kristi Noem, but we can probably take our eyes off this seat. Hawks raised only $62,000 for the quarter, and she trails Noem $1,345,000 to $65,000 in cash on hand. Noem hasn’t done much to anger her conservative constituents, and it’s very tough to see this district going blue again anytime soon.

Read it here.

On KELOland radio, today we’re apparently being treated to a blast from the past from the sort-of/former Republicans who managed to alienate the rest of the GOP.  Today’s topic? That nobody but ‘them’ are acceptable to ‘them,’ as ‘they’ now think that apparently John Thune isn’t conservative enough:

One likely candidate, arch-conservative Gordon Howie says he’s thought about it, but it would be a “monumental challenge” due to the time and money involved.

Former U.S. Senate Candidate, Stace Nelson, says he hopes someone will take on Thune in a primary next year, but says it won’t be him.

Read it here.

Uh, say what?  John Thune isn’t conservative enough? That would be laughable, if it wasn’t…  No, in any situation it is laughable.   And for a moment, consider the conservative ‘credentials’ of the people making the statement.

This last election, the “Many True Conservatives” PAC exclusively supporting Gordon Howie didn’t really live up to their mantra. Because they weren’t so many, nor true conservatives. Unless you consider soliciting and spending Soros family money, Labor Union Money, and money from a PAC devoted to elect House Democrats as “truly conservative.”

And you would have thought Stace would have learned from his last election that the “Hell no” attitude just doesn’t work among Republicans. In fact, it works about as much as cozying up to Slick Rick Weiland.

If either Howie or Stace ever want to have a future in the GOP, they probably need to work on their people skills, as well as recognizing who is conservative, and who is not. George Soros and Rick Weiland are not conservative. John Thune is.

If they can’t figure that out, maybe it’s a good thing they’re on the outside of the GOP.

Bonus hate from another former Republican:

Jeez. Someone better alert Planters. They’re missing another one of their nuts.

Apparently, Rep. Jason Frerichs doesn’t like it when someone calls into questions legislation he supported to create another level of bureaucracy. And he really doesn’t like it when it’s done with wit:

In his comments last week Schoenbeck said if a committee were trying to create a thoroughbred racehorse this is what the committee would have got and it would look to the rest of the state like  a three-legged, blind, mangy dog and would run as well.

Frerichs says Schoenbeck is playing Washington DC politics using nasty words.  He says the new districts were created under state law in the last legislative session.

Read it here.

Schoenbeck offered his comments on the legislation, but if you listen to Frerich’s comments, they’re not much more than a series of dismissive cliché’s that are a bit more personal. “playing Washington DC politics using nasty words.” “What Schoenbeck is trying to do is to work up some ground after crops have been planted…… the ships is sailing.”

It seems like Lee hit a nerve, and Frerichs didn’t like it.

I’m sure this is only getting started.

So, if you have a twitter account for your campaign, but it shows almost no activity whatsoever, does that mean you don’t have a campaign?

I’m wondering, because so far this month the Hawks for House twitter account has been holding steady at 2 tweets, with one on the 7th, and one on the 14th.

I was thinking it was a weekly thing on days divisible by 7, but gosh darn it, they went and fooled us all by skipping the 21st.

By this post. I’m probably jinxing their natural tendency towards twitter entropy, where they did 4 last month, 2 this month, then 1, and heading towards 0 by January, at which time she would withdraw from the race, citing complete disinterest by a vast majority of South Dakota citizens.

Or I could be wrong, and by next year, she’ll build herself up to an earth shattering (for the Hawks campaign) *5 tweets.*    Holy crap! 5 tweets! She would have to divert her staffer from trying to shake out couch cushions for fundraising over to social media to prove that the campaign possibly has a pulse!

Seriously, the thing with her twitter account seems to be plaguing her entire campaign.  It was amateur hour at her campaign rollout, which was the most botched thing I’ve seen in over 25 years in politics. As a supposed political insider for Democrats, her first quarter fundraising only beat the gal who moved here, and only managed about 2/3 of what a junior staffer for Tim Johnson managed to draw in a comparable time period.

In a limited time period to try to gain attention, she’s managed to be almost invisible. The past weekend in Brookings was an opportunity to see tens of thousands of people in Brookings… And yet, crickets from the Hawks campaign.

In less than a month, South Dakota will have moved fully into holiday mode, with anything political going into complete shutdown until the week between Christmas and New Years’, because frankly, no one will care.  And that’s all the time left this year for Hawks to try to prove to her party that she’s worthy of carrying their banner.

Although, given their lack of recruiting for any other office, especially in the Thune race, “yeah, I guess I’ll do it” is probably an acceptable level of effort for South Dakota Democrats.

Like I said, 5 tweets.