From Today’s KCCR, Attorney General Marty Jackley is weighing in on the new thorny issue of the 2018 Gubernatorial race. The issue of whether or not Hilger’s Gulch in Pierre should go back to a natural state, or continue being watered like a golf course:

Gov. Dennis Daugaard has earned his share of scorn, mainly from Pierre residents, since the Hilgers Gulch initiative announcement.

and…

An organized resistance sprung up fast. Hundreds of citizens railed against the plan, voicing their disgust during community meetings and lodging complaints directly to the Bureau of Administration and Daugaard’s office.

One elected official Attorney General Marty Jackley, whom many believe to be running for Governor in 2018, says the Hilgers Gulch initiative should be a local decision…

Read, and listen to Marty Jackley’s comments here.

Marty notes that personally, he thinks “rather than the state making that decision, the local folks should make that decision.”

Wait, what?  Isn’t this state property?  Here’s one issue where Marty and I probably will disagree. I’d say the local people can make the decision – but conditionally.

It’s easy to say you want it kept green with other people’s money. If the city and/or all the people protesting and making it an issue want the area kept lush & green in the punishing Pierre summer heat, I’d say “pony up, and bring your proposal to the table.” Offer to pay for the watering and mowing. That makes it an easily solved decision.

But otherwise, don’t tell your neighbor how he needs to design his landscaping to meet your personal preference.

 

Here’s an interesting one. I heard a complaint from the State Fair this weekend that one of the petition measures might not have had people out there being…. precise in their explanation of the ballot measure they were pushing.

Word I’m hearing is that one person out there allegedly explaining the redistricting panel petition explained their measure as something along the lines of “the people not being represented by the present system.”

Uh… yeah. That would be one person’s opinion. Not a real explanation of a ballot measure.

Larry Kurtz, who throws out nonsense in support of South Dakota Democrats has long been banned from this and other South Dakota related web sites because of a constant string of profanity, bigotry and other hate speech.

After Kurtz, who writes the ‘South Dakota Progressive‘ blog recently claimed that exposure to plastic makes people gay, it was hard to think that such a ridiculous (& offensive) statement ciuld be topped.

But somehow, he managed to say something more offensive. Especially after a recent string of incidents where police have been injured or killed in the line of duty.

Those in the law enforcement/corrections industrial complex eke out existence on the public dole, are overwhelmingly Republican, are alcohol and domestic abusers living violent lives, most are obese and usually die early after miserable careers.

Read that here.

I’m not sure what to say, except if that represents the opinion of the Democrat rank and file in South Dakota, there’s a good reason their support continues to erode in the state.

And it says more about the person throwing out offensive statements like an attention seeking child than the law enforcement officers who put their lives on the line for the public on a daily basis.

9/8/2015 Update

I notice Larry has rewritten his post 2 or 3 times, now chasing after me like a kid who just can’t admit his mistake, but still squirms in his chair.

A few are asking me why I point it out, as it probably generates 10 times the attention he’d otherwise get. Yes, I know that, and it’s a bit of a double edged sword.

My response is that whether it’s Brad Ford spouting racist commentary on Gordon Howie’s website, Kurt Evans’ anti-Catholic bigotry, or Larry Kurtz calling cops drunken wife beaters, wrong is wrong, and evil must be challenged.

Agree or disagree on issues. But there are just some things you can’t ignore.

The South Dakota Family Heritage Alliance issued the following statement via email regarding the matter of the county clerk who was me who was jailed for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple:

As most of you are very aware, the first individual to be jailed as a result of the Supreme Court’s epic overreach on same-sex marriage is now sitting behind bars. The public is safe from her for the time being. It seems that the promises of tolerance we consistently heard from those campaigning for the rights of same-sex couples were rather short lived. On top of her incarceration, County Clerk Kim Davis is now the object of a great deal of hostility and the subject of an ongoing merciless smear campaign.

The Family Heritage Alliance has prepared a simple statement which reads as follows:

Whereas the Family Heritage Alliance is gravely concerned about the health of the family and especially the cultural view of marriage, we do not consider the events in Kentucky where County Clerk Kim Davis was jailed, to be a marriage issue. We see this simply as one more in a long string of events that demonstrate the deterioration of religious freedom in our country. Religious liberty has been a birthright of every American from the very beginning of this nation. We are deeply saddened by the blatant judicial overreach and ongoing persecution of the Christian faith in this country. It is our hope that citizens everywhere, in all fifty states, can see the need for and be active in the defense of all religious freedom, regardless of the views of the person or persons in question.

Your thoughts?

If you read the comments in the story below regarding Fred Deutsch becoming president of South Dakota Right to Life, you might’ve caught some commentary from Spencer Cody, One of the board members of the organization.

They were very telling, as Spencer minced few words in his literary dismantling of State Representative Isaac Latteral’s abortion legislation that he’s brought at various times. In this instance, Spencer took aim at the Representative’s legislation to ban beheadings in abortion:

I commend Rep. Latteral’s strong commitment to life, but there were so many things wrong with that bill that it needed to just go away. For starters, it did not actually ban dismemberment abortions to begin with. Latteral did not catch this obvious error among others because he does not vet his bills and was too busy and interested in making the connection to ISIS beheadings hence the “beheading ban bill.” Don’t worry. Abortionists prefer to rip the child apart one limb at a time anyways. The idea that a beheading ban would prevent dismemberment abortions shows one’s unwillingness to understand the very problem they seek to remedy. Meanwhile, Latteral was so busy showboating this insane bill to realize his Down Syndrome counseling bill was going down in flames even though we likely had the committee votes if he were willing to get his act together. If he brings something that silly again this session, we might just stand back and let him own it. He can explain to the AG’s office how they are going to defend it in court and work on the futility of defending one of his poorly-written bills in court while we go on with the business of saving lives. At least it will keep him busy.

Read it here.

There has often been a difference in opinion between those are aligned with South Dakota Right to Life, and those who take a more agressive approach.

RTL always has one eye on the Supreme Court when they present measures, whereas those Who might take a harder line in the life movement are well prepared to challenge all the way up to the Supreme Court, regardless of whether others view it as folly.

What do you think? Is Spencer’s scolding of Latterel an outlier which has no relation to the larger battle? Or does it represent one group who has long represented the life battle telling the more radical forces on the same side not to screw it up for all of them?

Bob Mercer posted some interesting numbers this week regarding the migration of voters in South Dakota.   While numbers of Republican voters remain steady, voters seem to be abandoning the Democrat party by the thousands:

Turning back the calendar two years, Republicans are down by 400-some, Democrats are down by 12,000-plus (yes, that number is correct), and independents / others are up by more than 11,000 (and yes, that number too is correct).

Read that here.

Whenever I read statistics such as that, I’m reminded of the 2014 election where former House Democrat Minority Leader Dale Hargens abandoned the Democrat party to run as a Republican for the state legislature, and made no bones about what prompted the switch:

Hargens was an interesting entry into the Republican primary because he is a legislator that already served for a number of years as  Democrat; and he was a Democrat Minority Whip and Democrat Minority Leader during that time. Hargens said he felt the Democrat party moved away from him in its surge to the left. He said the Democrat Party had “Turned the lights out”.

Read that here (Via SDLiberty).

When one of the recent Democrat party leaders decides that there’s no place for his views among the party faithful, it’s not surprising at all that they’re shedding voters at a mind-shattering pace. But it’s not just Hargens.

Former Democrat legislator Ryan Maher who served in the South Dakota State Senate from 2007-2014 discovered a conservative point of view wasn’t welcome in the Democrat Caucus, and found himself going GOP when he changed political party from Democrat to Republican in November 2010. As he noted in his statement at the time “since Jim Peterson and Julie Bartling have moved on, they made up the conservative wing of the Democrat party, there was really no reason for me to stay behind. ”

Senator Eldon Nygaard found himself in a similar position when he returned to the State Senate after election, with leadership that he found wasn’t aligned with mainstream South Dakota.  One article described Nygaard as having “a pretty moderate to conservative voting record.” and as a business owner his “philosophy regarding government’s role in society is more in line with the Republican Party.”

What other examples are there regarding the Democratic Party’s hard left turn? Two words: Bernie Sanders:

Free college tuition.  Doubling the minimum wage.  A single-payer, universal health care system.  Those are just a few of the campaign promises by Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who does not try to hide that he embraces a form of socialism.

and…

Despite his self-described socialist views, Sanders is experiencing an unexpected wave of popularity, and is drawing some of the largest, most electric crowds of any presidential candidate so far.

Read it here.

20 years ago…  possibly even 10 years ago, no one could have predicted that there was a real possibility a registered socialist could top the Democrat ticket for President.

When a self-described socialist is surging among Democrat voters, it’s a sure sign that business-owners and those with conservative views are going to continue to find the environment within the Democrat party less and less hospitable of a place to reside.

It’s evidenced by the continuing trend of impossibly strong Republican showings in elections, and it’s evidenced by the trend of people choosing to be independent, rather than put a D behind their names on that voter registration card.

 

A South Dakota Summer
By Senator John Thune

I spent the busy August work period crisscrossing South Dakota, meeting with South Dakotans and taking in the sights and sounds of everything that our great state has to offer in the summertime. I attended fairs from Butte-Lawrence County to Brown County to Turner County and this year’s state fair in Huron; held town hall meetings in Lemmon and Buffalo; wished Godspeed to the 155th Engineering Company; and summer wouldn’t be complete without spending a day on Lake Oahe and checking out the sunset over the Missouri River.

As I traveled the state, I shared news of the good work the Republican-led Senate has accomplished in Washington in just the first few months of the new Congress, and while much was accomplished, there is much more work yet to do. I also shared with South Dakotans the many challenges we face in Washington with a president who is determined to fight us nearly every step of the way. As the old adage goes, “it takes two to tango,” and as long as this president is in the White House, Republicans are going to be left to dance alone. That doesn’t mean we’re giving up the fight, though.

The Obama EPA, for example, is out of control. We will continue to work to stop the EPA’s burdensome overreach, like the so-called “Clean Power Plan” rule, which can be more accurately described as a backdoor national energy tax. This EPA rule will have a devastating impact on small businesses and American families – particularly those who can afford it the least. In fact, this national energy tax will make it harder for families to make ends meet and more costly for businesses to survive – exactly the opposite kind of policy we need from leaders in Washington.

Then there’s the Obama IRS. The American people have never held the IRS in high regard, and after D.C. bureaucrats used their power to target conservative groups for purely political reasons, what little respect remained was lost. The IRS has a long way to go in order to restore the trust and confidence the American people expect and deserve, and I’m glad that Congress will continue to use its oversight ability to investigate this agency and hold bureaucrats accountable.

The work doesn’t end there either. We will continue to vote to repeal Obamacare, fight President Obama’s illegal amnesty, secure our borders, work to redirect federal funding from Planned Parenthood, and make sure the American people’s voices are heard on the president’s flawed Iran nuclear agreement. Where President Obama opposes us, we’ll continue to fight until we have a new president who is willing to work with Republicans to meet the challenges we face.

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Responsible Spending Starts with a Budget Process
By Senator Mike Rounds
September 4, 2015

With the elections far behind us and so many pressing issues before us – the Iran deal, the rise of ISIS and “lone wolf” terrorists, a national highway bill and cyber security – the need to address our budgetary crisis has fallen out of the limelight recently. But failing to make front-page news doesn’t change the fact that our national debt has more than doubled in the last decade and irresponsible, reckless spending continues to threaten our economy and national security. When you elected me to the United States Senate last fall, I pledged to work to rein in federal spending, address the massive national debt and make government more effective and efficient for the American people. I believe this can best be achieved through enacting a normal budget process.  After all, that’s how it works in South Dakota.

The regular budget process begins when the President submits his budget request to Congress, outlining his ideas for spending priorities for the following fiscal year. Congress then crafts its own budget, a comprehensive road map to be used in the appropriations process. I applaud my colleagues in the Senate for debating and passing a budget for fiscal year 2016 – a rarity under previous Democrat leadership. The budget we passed in the spring sets forth a fiscal path that will rein in spending, grow the economy, repeal Obamacare and protect Americans from new tax burdens. It is the first step that under normal circumstances allows Congress to get to work on the appropriations process and enact meaningful changes to spending and policy.

The process then moves to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees. These committees use the budget blueprint – which sets overall spending caps – to consider and vote on 12 appropriations bills which write the specific funding levels for individual programs within the federal government. Once the appropriations bills are passed by both houses of Congress, they then head to the President’s desk and the federal government is funded until the next budget cycle. Until recently, this was the norm in Washington. The perpetual threat of a government shutdown and the uncertainty that temporary funding patches brought were not annual threats.  Unfortunately, this continual threat of a “government shutdown” is simply the newest byproduct of the dysfunction in Washington.

Reviving and staying committed to this process is important for a number of reasons. Enacting a budget through regular order allows elected representatives to affect policy and make certain Congress is being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars. It is also the most effective way to rein in spending and tackle our out-of-control debt that recently surpassed $18 trillion.

Finally, a regular budget process prevents us from having to rely on a series of temporary funding patches known as “continuing resolutions” that have plagued our system for too long. For the most part, a continuing resolution continues the status quo and fails to bring about any meaningful discussions about how to best spend your hard-earned taxpayer dollars. It fails to provide long-term certainty and stability to government and by extension the American people it is meant to benefit.

Unfortunately so far this year, Senate Democrats have refused to allow a single appropriations bill to come to the Senate floor for debate. Because it takes a supermajority of 60 senators to proceed to a bill and Republicans currently hold 54 seats, it would require a minimum of 6 Democrats to vote with Republicans in order to consider any appropriations bills on the full Senate floor. Democrats would prefer to filibuster these bills and maintain the status quo on spending and policy – hence discussions of a continuing resolution for fiscal year 2016.  I wholeheartedly disagree with the idea of kicking the can down the road through continuing resolutions – especially when the important policy matters that we face go unaddressed.

I know this common sense approach may not be shared by many in Washington – but for too long, runaway spending has been the norm. We owe it to every American to be responsible stewards of their hard-earned dollars. I believe this is best achieved through a regular budgetary process that brings about serious, thoughtful debate to how and where that money is spent.

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Opening Hearts and Homes
By Rep. Kristi Noem
September 4, 2015

Bryon and I have always tried to teach our kids that family is more about what is in your heart than in your bloodstream.  Over five years ago, we came to realize just how true that was when my brother Rob and his wife opened their hearts and their home to Ruby, who was just an infant when they adopted her from Ethiopia.  I know the process wasn’t easy and it came with so much stress, but I couldn’t imagine our family without this sweet and spunky little girl and her sister, who they adopted a few years later.

It truly warms my heart to know that this is a story shared by many families in South Dakota and I’m honored each year to be able to nominate one special South Dakota family as “Angels in Adoption.”  This year’s “Angels” nominee and award recipient is a very inspiring family from Rapid City.

Paul and Dotty Enos have 14 children, four of which are adopted.  In 2007, they chose to extend their family by adopting twins, an infant boy and girl. As if that didn’t make their family busy enough, they opened their home to foster children the following year.  In 2009, they took in their first foster child, who they adopted two years later.  Over the next six years, they fostered more than a dozen children.

A few years after they first became foster parents, a close friend of their daughter’s lost both her parents.  Once again, they opened their home and invited this young woman into their family where she was welcomed with love.  Without a doubt, the Enos family has earned the distinction of being called “Angels in Adoption.”  Of course, if you ask them, they’ll tell you the true angels are the children out there looking for a home.

There are, of course, financial challenges that come any time a family is expanded – whether through adoption, foster care, or otherwise.  And while the Enos family has said that when you do the right thing, the finances take care of themselves, I want to do all I can to make adoption more affordable for good families like this.

Since 1997, the federal government has offered a tax credit to help offset adoption fees, attorney fees, court costs, travel expenses, and re-adoption expenses for intercountry adoptions.  This is a great credit that has helped many families, but I’d like to improve it further.  Currently, families can only apply the benefit if they have an income tax liability, meaning they owe the federal government money at the end of the year.  That doesn’t benefit many middle-class families.  That’s why I’d like to see the tax credit fully refundable, meaning they’ll receive the benefit regardless of how much they owe on Tax Day.

As a member of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, I have helped sponsor legislation to accomplish this and am committed to moving it through the legislative process.  After all, adoption fees should never stand in the way of finding a child a home.

Hanging in the Enos’ home is a sign that reads: “A hundred years from now… it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove … but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”  What a testament to their family’s values.

Thank you to all of those who have opened your hearts, your homes, and even your families to a child.  The love that is shown to them can and will change our world.

The Enos Family

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