In case you’re a regular reader, but not a listener of Dakota Town Hall, make a point to check out the podcast that was just put up this last Friday, where Murdoc & Jake Schoenbeck were kind enough to have me in their third segment on to discuss some of the ballot measures we’ll be voting on this November.
Don’t early vote
— Joe Sneve (@DakotaScoutJoe) September 21, 2024
That was an odd tweet to pop up all of a sudden. And don’t know that I agree at all.
As a parent of a child in the Navy who may be underwater in a sub on election day, and a spouse who is working across the state who absolutely will be voting in the November election but will not be in town on election day, early voting is what allows them to participate.
Driving down turnout is not the answer.
Not sure if I can get in on this with the Ray-o-vac batteries in my drawer.. but a giant energy project is coming to Brookings County for the storage of power as part of the grid:
The Cloverleaf Battery Project, as it’s known, is being spearheaded by Miami, Florida-based Spearmint Energy. If all goes according to plan, it will be built southeast of White in the vicinity of the Deer Creek Station.
The project, which is currently pegged at 175 megawatts, is part of a trend in the energy-generating industry that’s gaining steam: The ability to store excess energy generated from multiple sources, including solar power and wind energy, so that it can be used to keep the power grid stable and avoid blackouts during times of high demand.
The batteries that allow this are the same ones that power our smartphones, laptops and other devices — just bigger. Much bigger.
and..
“There’s a number of existing, high-voltage transmission lines that come together and connect to one another at this location. There’s a gas generating plant, the Deer Creek Station, there … and a couple of other facilities that come together.”
Read the entire story here in the Brookings Register.
I’m guessing the protests of the never-builders will begin in 3.. 2.. 1..
South Dakota’s senior US Senator John Thune continues to barnstorm across the country raising money for the Trump presidential campaign as well as to inject funding into the Republican contests for US Senate, according to a story this morning from Dakota Scout:
Last week, Thune raised $2 million for Donald Trump’s campaign at events that raised a total of $4 million for the Republican presidential nominee and Republican Senate candidates.
and..
Much of that disparity is because of Thune and his drive to shake the trees for the committee and Republican Senate candidates. By mid-September, Thune had raised nearly $30 million, most of it for candidates looking to pick up Democratic seats in battleground states that Trump won in 2020.
and..
Thune joined Ohio Sen. JD Vance to headline last week’s fundraiser in Washington, D.C. Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, would be the tie-breaking vote in a scenario in which the GOP won 50 Senate seats and the presidency.
As he always has in supporting other Republican candidates, Senator Thune is out pushing hard to make sure there’s a Republican Senate come November.
South Dakota Democrats are reaping the benefits of running federal presidential campaigns through their coffers, as they capture some of the cash as it goes by:
Sept 2024 Sddp Fec by Pat Powers on Scribd
$994,150.26 flowed into the Democratic Party’s federal account, and $986,136.92 went right back out the door, leaving them an additional $8,000 on top of existing cash on hand, which now totals $135,177.99 to put into campaigns and salaries after the campaign funds flowed by.
Where on earth is North Carolina Lt. Governor Mark Robinson? Don’t ask Toby Doeden, because our dumpster-fire of a momentary Congressional candidate seems to have forgotten his name almost overnight.
Remember last week when Toby’s group was sending text-blasts out and looking for people to go to his $250-500 a head event at the District in Sioux Falls with Keynote Speaker Mark Robinson?
Please notice that was “Keynote Speaker” Mark Robinson.
And then, there was that news story about that whole “black Nazi” thing..
Which blew up.. well across the planet, since there’s not a lot of people who claim they would be happy to own slaves and that they’d “take Hitler over any of the sh*t that’s in Washington.”
If you remember that, then you might find it interesting that Toby Doeden who controls the Dakota First PAC seems to have developed amnesia, and forgotten his keynote speaker’s name:
“Keynote Speaker Mark Robinson” suddenly seems to have been demoted into a somewhat amorphous group of “National & State speakers.” Despite the person who invited him in the first place has expressed views that aren’t that far off of Robinson’s.
There has been no information provided that they disavow Robinson’s views, or have canceled him as a speaker because he expressed a desire to “bring [slavery] back” and “buy a few” slaves (never mind the stuff that’s so outrageous and pornographic that most websites won’t print it).
They’re just changing the graphic they’re using to promote the event. Leaving it entirely possible that he’s still coming. And they just don’t want to talk about their favorite candidate this cycle who is so offensive that he may cost Trump his state’s electoral votes, and the entire presidential election.
But, lacking any disavowal, as far as we know he’s still Toby’s guy. Despite his sudden onset of amnesia.
Democrats Can’t Outrun Their Record on the Border
By Sen. John Thune
Four years ago, President Biden and Vice President Harris campaigned against the border security policies of then-President Trump. Soon after taking office, they set about dismantling these effective policies despite their team being warned that doing so could result in a surge of illegal immigration. That surge came, and it was Vice President Harris who was put in charge of handling the administration’s response. But it wasn’t much of a response.
Now President Biden and Vice President Harris are trying to claim they have been strong on border security all along, but the data tells a much different story. This administration has overseen three record-breaking years of illegal immigration at the southern border. Ten million illegal immigrants have crossed the border illegally during this administration. Included in that number are suspected terrorists, gang members, criminals, and 1.9 million known “gotaways” who have entered the country without being apprehended, which the chief of Border Patrol has called a “national security threat.”
Additionally, the Biden-Harris administration’s lax implementation of our asylum system is undoubtedly a “pull factor” for many migrants. In many cases, individuals who show up at the border claiming asylum are simply released into the country with court dates as far as a decade into the future. As we learned in June, this administration also gave de facto amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants whose cases were closed without resolution. Then there are the government-funded flights to cities around the country, guaranteed shelter in a number of cities, and, in California, illegal immigrants can get taxpayer-funded health care.
The effects of this crisis are not limited to the southern border alone. In fact, every state has virtually become a border state in one way or another. Here in South Dakota, law enforcement can trace illegal drugs in our communities to the southern border. Police in New York City recently revealed that illegal immigrants make up 75 percent of arrests in midtown Manhattan as the city deals with an influx of illegal immigrants. And many of us have seen the tragic stories of Americans killed by illegal immigrants who should have never been in our country in the first place.
A crisis has raged at the southern border for much of the Biden-Harris administration. On more than one occasion, the Biden-Harris administration has turned its back on border security, and their Democrat allies in Congress have voted against meaningful border security policies time and again. Try as the Democrats might to change their tune in an election year, the American people can see what’s happening with their own eyes, and they know that this administration’s disastrous record on the border is to blame.
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Safe Streets, Smarter Policies
By Rep. Dusty Johnson
September 20, 2024
BIG Update
For years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has said that sanctuary cities create a public safety threat and are one of the biggest impediments to ICE’s public safety efforts. A sanctuary city’s refusal to cooperate with ICE puts local law enforcement officers in danger.
After four years of the Biden border crisis, sanctuary cities have received tens of thousands of illegal immigrants. Biden’s soft-on-crime and open border policies have made these communities, and others around them, less safe.
These cities have used taxpayer dollars to solve problems their own bad policies have made. This should not be the case. I voted to pass the No Bailout for Sanctuary Cities Act to ensure no taxpayer dollars are used to fund housing, food, and healthcare costs for illegal immigrants.
BIG Idea
The South Dakota Auto Dealers Association knows how difficult it would be to limit vehicle emissions to meet the EPA’s overly burdensome rule. This rule would effectively require two-thirds of all new cars to be electric vehicles by 2032. Not only do we not have the infrastructure to support this EV adoption, but it outpaces consumer demand and severely limits your options when purchasing a vehicle. This week I voted to end this unreasonable EPA rule.
BIG News
I voted to keep our government funded and require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections. We must ensure election integrity. Showing a photo ID is a commonsense way to do that. Recently, Oregon discovered hundreds of noncitizens were mistakenly registered to vote, compromising our election security.
Keeping the government funded and operating and safeguarding our voting process are essential tasks of my job in Congress.
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Big 8.5 x 11 mail piece from the Open Primary group in mailboxes across the state today, just in time for early voting:
Harvesting Our Own Food Supply
By: Gov. Kristi Noem
September 20, 2024
Growing up on our family farm and ranch, there were two time periods that were busiest: calving season in the spring and harvest in the fall. The time has come for farmers to harvest most of their crops. It’s the fruit of their labor after a long growing season.
If farmers see good rainfall and fair weather, hopefully they have a strong harvest. If not, they pray for a better year next year. Unfortunately, many estimates show that 2024 will be one of the biggest drops in farm income on record due to drought in some parts of the country, severe storms in others (including here in South Dakota), and low commodity prices. I have worked on ag policy for 30 years – but this has been a hard year.
To make matters harder, that decline in farm income comes as prices remain persistently high for the basic necessities in life, like food, gasoline, and electricity. Farmers have to take care of their own families, too. And when farmers have smaller harvests, that means that the cost of those crops goes up at the grocery store.
Now more than ever, we need to thank our farmers for the work that they do, and we need to support them. They grow our food – we would be lost without them.
For that reason, I have made taking care of our ag producers a top priority as Governor of South Dakota. We’ve worked on numerous new laws and other actions to preserve agriculture for our next generation. We celebrate all our family farms, especially when they reach 100 years or more of ownership in the same family.
This past year, South Dakota passed the best bill in the nation to keep the Chinese Communist Party and other Evil Foreign Governments from owning our state’s precious farm land. China would never allow us to buy land in their country – they don’t even let their own people buy their land. We should not allow our enemies to become our neighbors.
I hope that other states follow our example. After all, South Dakota is just one state out of 50. Since passing that legislation, we just received our first report from my Department of Revenue, and there were no attempted purchases of ag land by Evil Foreign Governments in South Dakota. But we know that it is happening in other places. China’s ownership of American ag land grew by more than 5,300% in just a 10-year period.
And this threat is taking on emerging forms. Water rights have increasingly become an issue as foreign countries have attempted to lease American farmland as a means of stealing our water. And Russia has been buying American cattle to bolster its own beef production with our superior cattle genetics. They want to be competitive with our own beef industry. If they succeed, they will make it much tougher for us to maintain control of our own food supply. As I have said many times, our enemies – especially China – are attempting to infiltrate every aspect of our way of life
As long as America can feed itself, we control our own destiny. Food security is a matter of national security. We need a strong and diversified food supply, and we must not rely on other nations – much less nations that hate us – to provide our food.
So we need our farmers. We need them to do well, to keep their farms in business, and to continue growing and raising the food that we enjoy on our dinner tables every night. I pray that our farmers enjoy a fantastic harvest. And I will keep doing everything in my power to guarantee their ability to grow our food for years to come.
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