Celebrating South Dakota’s Unofficial State Holiday
By Sen. John Thune

As the crisp fall temperatures begin to break through, an unmistakable anticipation builds in the air for our state’s unofficial holiday. The days and nights get cooler, the leaves change colors, and South Dakotans start counting down the days to the third Saturday in October: the start of pheasant season.

Growing up in Murdo, my family and I always looked forward to getting out in the fields and bagging some roosters. My dad passed this tradition on to us, hunting with us into his nineties. We have proudly passed it down to our kids, and I look forward to sharing this heritage with my grandkids someday, too.

A morning in the field is made better with good bird dogs and good company, and coming together at the end of a long day offers a perfect opportunity to thank God for His many blessings and hopefully enjoy a plate full of pheasant. One of the things I cherish most are these moments with friends and family in our great outdoors.

In food plots, sloughs, and shelterbelts across our state, shouts of “rooster!” can be heard all season as locals and visitors alike take part in our famed pastime. For more than a century since that first hunting season commenced, generations of South Dakotans have taken up the mantle of providing suitable habitat for ringnecks and other wildlife, and it’s this spirit of conservation that has sustained our state’s proud tradition for so long and made South Dakota the “pheasant capital of the world.”

In Washington, I’m working to preserve and modernize the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), a historic program that has helped keep our pheasant population bountiful. I’ve introduced bipartisan legislation to strengthen CRP, and I will continue fighting to support this and other land conservation efforts in the U.S. Senate.

This season, I hope you enjoy some quality time with family and friends, take in the rich beauty of our wonderful state, and, of course, bag a limit of birds. To hunters across South Dakota, here’s to a safe and successful hunt.

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Growing and Improving
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
October 25, 2024

BIG News

It’s pheasant season in South Dakota! I’ve been able to break out the orange vest (my favorite color) and enjoy the crisp fall air and golden prairie. It’s one of my favorite traditions each year, spending time with family and friends in the hopes of a successful hunt.

We’re blessed to have the world’s best pheasant hunting in South Dakota. In 2023 alone, we harvested 1.2 million birds – more than every surrounding state combined. I’m hopeful for another bountiful harvest this season and for visitors and South Dakotans to enjoy the incredible landscape of our state.

BIG Idea

Xiomara came to LifeScape as a young girl only able to move her toe to control her electric wheelchair, but now, she is able to stand on her own! The incredible work of both patients and providers at LifeScape has transformed and is transforming lives, like Xiomara.

LifeScape provides services for more than 4,000 children and adults with disabilities and medical rehabilitation needs. Their facilities include a specialty hospital, school, residential services, and outpatient therapies. This year, they began construction of a new campus in Sioux Falls to serve even more patients, and hopefully the 500 families on their waitlist.

It was a privilege to meet those who are a part of this facility.

BIG Update

When you go to the grocery store, everything has a higher price tag – bread, milk, eggs, meat, flour, chips, and more. Over the past nearly four years, inflation has risen more than 20%, and we’re losing hope that these prices will return to what they were pre-pandemic. Families across America are struggling to scrounge together the additional $13,300 they need to buy the basics that they could buy three years ago.

Unnecessary bureaucratic red tape, reckless progressive spending, and high interest rates have slowed growth and skyrocketed prices. I’ve opposed more than $13 trillion in unnecessary spending and the Biden Administration’s regulations that make it harder for companies to invest and develop in America. We must encourage new and old businesses to grow and expand, improving the lives of individuals, families, and communities. America is the number one economy in the world, but we must take steps to ensure it stays that way.

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Passing Along Freedom
By: Gov. Kristi Noem  
October 25, 2024  

Next year, we will celebrate the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence – America’s 250^th birthday! When our Founding Fathers wrote that incredible document, they were in a war for their Freedom against Great Britain, the strongest military in the world at the time. They didn’t know that they would win – in fact, they knew that they might lose. So at the end of the document, they pledged “their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” to support the principles that the Declaration stood for.

At that signing, Benjamin Franklin famously said, “we must all hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately.” Our Founding Fathers knew how far they were willing to go to establish a constitutional republic built on Freedom and independence.

Every November, we as Americans have the opportunity to vote as part of this constitutional republic. We vote for local, state, and federal officials – we often vote on ballot measures that impact our lives and the lives of those around us. As the Declaration of Independence says, these votes provide the “consent of the governed” on which our entire government is built.

I think our South Dakota motto says it best: “Under God, the People Rule.”

And that system is only possible if we vote. We cannot take it for granted that those around us will vote for us. We have been blessed with Freedom, and the flip side of that coin is personal responsibility to participate in our government.

Election Day is coming up on November 5, and early voting has been open for a couple weeks already. I am asking all of you to get out, do your part, and vote.

As President Reagan famously said, “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

We all have an opportunity to pass down Freedom to our kids and grandkids – but only if we participate and vote. We aren’t being asked to pledge “our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor,” but we should be willing to do our part to defend this great nation that we are so blessed to live in.

Get out and VOTE!

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Speaking of Dusty Johnson, I went to the Dusty Johnson fundraiser in Brookings a few days ago where they were handing out Dusty Johnson for Congress signs.  And there’s something different about the newest batch.

Comparing the new signs to the ones from last election, notice anything different?

The newest signs don’t have an office on them.

Maybe so thrifty South Dakotans can use them in the next election and they’re keeping options open at the moment?

Stay tuned.

We are the Republican Main Street Caucus.

Watch 👇👇 pic.twitter.com/2vJJjHe9OT

— Republican Main Street Caucus (@CaucusMain) October 25, 2024

The Amendment H – SD Open Primaries group has a new ad up, tagging off of Saturday’s SDSU Game where that team from Vermillion is going to make an appearance:

From Facebook:

The Campaign Finance Filing for Toby Doeden’s Political Action Committee , Dakota First Action PAC, has been posted at the Secretary of State’s website.  In case you were wondering who paid money to support the biggest debacle of a political event in South Dakota history – the Mark Robinson Rally – here’s exhibit #1.

Since the primary election, it appears that the largest donor to the political action committee is not Doeden, who gave his PAC another loan for 5k, but  State Representative Brandei Schaefbauer is the committee’s largest donor, having given not just $750 out of her pocket for Doeden PAC, but she shifted $4000 out of her own campaign coffers to Toby Doeden for his use.

Dakota First Pac Campaign Finance Disclosure by Pat Powers on Scribd

So, of the $7800 in donations from individuals and PAC’s she reported since the primary,.. she tithed 60% of it directly back to Toby’s Political Action Committee, so he could try to bring Mark Robinson to South Dakota. 

And there are a lot of other names on the list you’ll recognize, in case you were curious who wanted a seat at the Mark Robinson Rally:

Besides Brandei being all in, Brown County Commissioner Drew Dennert was a $250 donor. Dave “move to Wakanda” Roetman is on the list. The crackpot who lost for D7 Senate in 2022, Julie Erickson sent in her $250. D4 House Candidate Dylan Jordan is on the list. Senate Candidate”California” John Carley paid $500.

Taffy Howard was there with her $250 check in hand. (Try not to be shocked).  Conference room gun-slinger & State Rep Julie Auch was in $250. Free-dumb caucus member and State Rep. Tina Mulally came with a big $1250 check, as did former District 24 House Hopeful Mary Weinheimer. Minnehaha County Commission Candidate Cole Heisey made sure he was there. Julie Frye Mueller’s buddy Anthony Mirzayants paid his toll, as did State Rep. Karla Lems.  D14 Candidate Tony Kayser thought it was a good idea to send a $500 check as well, as did the South Dakota Young Republicans.  (SDYR’s sent $500 for this shady crap? Ugh. Don’t send them any more money if that’s the way they’re going to spend it.)  Also disappointed to see Joni Tschetter shifting campaign funds over to this, but Brandei for House is the real shocker, as Schaefbauer put more into it than anyone.

A few takeaways.. I’m sure not all of these attended. But even so, it’s not a long list for a group touting themselves as some sort of conservative answer to the Republican party. We can be thankful for that, because the event itself hurt the Republican cause. Does anyone think this attracted new voters to the Republican Party? No. Did it cause fewer people to look at the GOP and say – “I like the way they think?”  Of course it did.

Because this was a complete sh*t-show and attracted no one to become a Republican, unless there were some people wearing pointy bedsheets who were registered independents.

By encouraging and fanning the flames of the worst in the GOP, this is the way Republicans are going to lose elections in South Dakota.

After the pile of postcards and invoices I needed to be reimbursed for were spilling off my desk today, I cleaned up and submitted, and dug out.. and I came across my certificate of election for Precinct Committeeman from the June Primary:

Apparently the Brookings County Auditor laminated it. I mean, it’s a nice gesture, but it’s heavy duty lamination, like a 3 year old’s place mat. This thing will outlast my future grandchildren.

So, I can use it to prove my claim to the office, and to help keep my desk clean when I’m eating lunch at my computer.

Next election, I’m wondering if I can get my certificate of election with the solar system on the other side?

 

 

If I ever needed a reason to avoid work, my daughter and her husband showing up with a pile of campaign ribbons I bought last week was one of the best excuses I’ve had. Especially considering there’s not a single one I already have.

The Auction house who sold them was closer to her in Vermillion where she’s in her last semester of law school than me in Brookings, and she was nice enough to run them up after class for me.  And there’s some great stuff.

6 GOP State Convention ribbons, a previously undiscovered Pierre for Capital Ribbon, 3 campaign ribbons from 1906, a national creamery buttermaker’s convention ribbon from 1899, an 1899 Corn Belt exposition ribbon, and just a pile of neat stuff.

Emrick did run for Congress in 1906, but lost at convention to Col. Parker, according to news stories at the time:

Interestingly, this story is similar to others in South Dakota politics.

There are 2 great ribbons for the man who was our State’s 6th State Treasurer, C. H. Cassill, noting how he’s “Lincoln County’s Choice,” invoking the image of Abe Lincoln:

Lots of great stuff in there.

Half of them are definitely going into my personal collection, and maybe I might be able to make back what I spent on the auction off of the rest. (maybe)