From the Argus Leader, State Senate President Pro Tempore Lee Schoenbeck is mincing few words on redistricting as he believes House members are trying to draw lines to protect themselves after saving their proposals for very late in process, and trying to keep a district that was drawn 10 years ago to protect incumbents:
Sen. Schoenbeck
“Ten years ago, a conurbation district didn’t exactly give us a great proposal for District 25. It’s oddly shaped,” Crabtree said last week. “I don’t think we should go back and make the same mistake we did 10 years ago.”
Schoenbeck told the Argus Leader on Friday the House’s map, drafted by Dennert, is “gerrymandered” and looks like “they gave a monkey a switchblade and said carve up South Dakota.” He accused House members of inserting self interests into the process.
“The Speaker put people on the committee who’s goal is to draw lines to protect Legislators who have, let’s say, unique worldviews,” Schoenbeck said. “It’s the House committee taking care of a few of their friends.”
(possibly Drew Dennert) from imagur
and..
Gosch pointed to a proposed district map Schoenbeck published on a conservative blog this summer and its similarity to the map the Senate Redistricting Committee is recommending.
US Senate Hopeful Bruce Whalen posted a bizarro campaign video to Social Media Site ‘Rumble’ this week from the front steps of the State Capitol where among several things, he says he sent Senator Daschle packing, and mixes a talk about what he would do in the US Senate with rambling about the end times:
“He (possibly referring to Senator Thune) should not be calling us conspiracy people… because we know the election was stolen …from President Trump.”
And
“This is really a spiritual battle. And… I intend to win this. How far down the road are we going to get? Revelation is coming. What’s been prophecized in Daniel and other books of the bible … it’s going to come. We’re going to come across hard times. What I’d like to see is some people saved out of this period now so they don’t get into them hard times. But it’s coming and so.. I’m not looking to bring a better life to people and say ‘hey look,’ guess what. It’s coming anyway because (unintelligible) But I want to say I want to see stand up and say God we are with you. We’re with you when you.. when Jesus comes for the rapture we expect to be going with you. Because tribulation is going to hit, it’s going to hit hard. So.. that’s how I feel about it. Let’s get in and let’s turn things much as around as we can. I’m not looking for a second term. I think I can get things what I want done in the first term….”
Government Overreach at Its Worst By Sen. John Thune
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) already knows how much money you make. And now, it wants to know exactly how you spend it. Washington Democrats are attempting to fund part of their reckless tax-and-spending spree through a new proposal that would increase funding to the IRS by $79 billion so they can double – yes, double – the size of the agency. Their proposal would require banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers to report to the IRS when a business or customer makes total deposits or withdrawals that exceed a certain amount – $600 if the president has his way. Essentially, anyone who has a job or has saved a bit of money could be subject to Washington bureaucrats snooping through his or her checking account.
South Dakotans want no part of this big government overreach, and I couldn’t agree more. My office has heard from thousands of concerned South Dakotans who do not want IRS agents prying into their most basic, personal information. They won’t, if I have anything to do about it.
We do not need the government monitoring every purchase law-abiding Americans make from the App Store or how many times they buy a cup of coffee or what they’re getting their kids and grandkids for Christmas. This proposal is a blatant invasion of privacy. And for anyone familiar with the IRS, it’s not at all reasonable to believe the agency has the capability to manage all of this additional information given its troubling record of already failing to protect confidential taxpayer information. Flooding the IRS with more – and I would argue highly unnecessary – data, while at the same time burdening taxpayers, financial institutions, and already overwhelmed IRS service centers with more paperwork lacks common sense.
How would a proposal this far out of the mainstream even be a serious topic of discussion in Washington? Great question. A big reason is that Democrats are looking for new ways to fund part of their multi-trillion dollar tax-and-spending spree. The Democrats’ proposal to double the size of the IRS and track taxpayers’ financial activity should never have even seen the light of day. But these days, there is pretty much no area of life that Democrats think wouldn’t be better run by the federal government. If there was a clearer difference between the two parties, I’m not sure one exists.
Rest assured, I am working hard to stop this nanny-state style monitoring of your bank account. I recently led dozens of my colleagues, including every Republican member of the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Banking Committee, to stand up to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and push back against this excessive intrusion into Americans’ private lives. I also cosponsored legislation to place necessary guardrails around the IRS and protect taxpayers’ rights. South Dakotans entrusted me to stand up for them against invasive, radical policies, and I will continue to be a tireless fighter on their behalf.
Guest Column: The Meaning of Native American Day from the Perspective of a Lakota Woman By Shawnee Red Bear October 8, 2021
This guest column is written by Shawnee Red Bear, who works in Congressman Johnson’s Washington DC office
This Monday, October 11th, marks the 31st year South Dakota will celebrate “Native American Day”. South Dakota is one of just 14 states that observes Native American Day instead of Columbus Day.
South Dakota is home to the 9 tribes of Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota speaking Natives. As a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and Lakota woman, Native American Day is about more than just honoring Native American history and culture.
My entire upbringing revolved around being “Indian”. In fact, I always assumed “Indians” were everywhere. My summers were filled with native traditions like attending powwows, an event filled with dance, song, and socializing; chokecherry picking, a fruit indigenous to much of North America; and hanging out with my Unci (Lakota for grandma). As a child, I paid little attention to life outside the reservation.
As I got older, I began to learn about the dark history that plagued my people. Forced assimilation and western religions attempted to strip our ancestors of their cultural identity.
Outside of states like South Dakota, the stories of the thousands of Native children who were taken from their families against their will and shipped off to boarding schools to be “civilized” are not often told. Hundreds of those children never made it home and tribes are still working to get their remains back.
“Celebrating” Native American Day doesn’t come with flag waving and parades, it is more solemn than that. As a 30-year-old single mother residing on the Pine Indian Reservation, I am only a few generations removed from these atrocities that attempted to eradicate my people and my culture.
But this isn’t the end of our story. Across the country, native people have begun to reclaim our cultural identity, revitalize our native languages, and bring awareness to our tragic history.
I am excited to see Lakota language preservation programs being funded and offered in our communities. I am proud of the work that the Murdered Missing Indigenous Women movement has done to bring justice to families. I am grateful that the remains of Native children who died at Carlisle Indian School are being returned home to Rosebud Sioux Tribe here in South Dakota. These are all steps in the right direction to reconcile the past.
For me, Native American Day means knowing that it is no longer discouraged to be a strong Lakota Winyan (woman). I am proud of how far my people have come.
Shawnee Red Bear is the Fall 2021 Ben Reifel Fellow in Rep. Dusty Johnson’s Office, a member of the Oglala Lakota Tribe, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe Veteran Service Officer & Director of Veteran Services. She served in the United States Marine Corps from 2009-2013 and currently resides in Pine Ridge.
Don’t wait till Monday to celebrate Native American heritage
By Governor Kristi Noem
October 8, 2021
The second Monday in October has been recognized as a federal holiday since 1968. In 1990, South Dakota was the first state to do things a little differently than the rest of the nation. In South Dakota, we recognize Monday, October 11th, as Native Americans’ Day. We recognize that the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota people and their culture is part of who we are collectively as South Dakotans. We recognize them traditionally as the O’ceti Sakowin meaning the Seven Council Fires — more commonly known throughout the world as the Great Sioux Nation.
In 1990, Governor George S. Mickelson lead the “Year of Reconciliation.” It’s been my goal in public office to continue that mission of recognizing and respecting the nine tribal nations that share our geography. It is my goal to come to the table with tribal leaders to support tribal communities, businesses, and families.
One of the people who is instrumental in my work with Native Americans is Dave Flute, Secretary of Tribal Relations. As a veteran with the 235th Military Police Company and a proud Native American leader across the Great Plains, Dave has spent his life in service to his people and his country. He’s taught me a lot about what is important to the Native Americans in South Dakota and how to strengthen the relationship between our communities.
My vision for South Dakota is strongly based in family values. This is common ground I share with every tribal leader. I have learned a lot about the Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota values through this lens. Providing strong support systems for youth, families, and elders are missions I share as a mother, caregiver, and as a South Dakotan. Strong families are what make South Dakota special. “Tiwahe wasagyapi wicawake’ye.” (I believe in strong families.)
Through the Department of Social Service’s Foster One and Stronger Families Together program, I have supported and urged Native families to open their homes, to adoption and foster care. We need more Native families to open their hearts and homes to children. Much like tribal communities, South Dakota was built by families supporting families. “Oyate kin na tiwahe tawapi okciyapo.” (Communities and families need to help each other.)
This holiday weekend, I encourage every South Dakotan to reach into their own community to support Native-owned businesses, learn more about the local Native American culture, and recognize the shared values we have as South Dakotans. Don’t wait until Monday to celebrate Native American heritage.
For information about resources, events, and other Tribal initiatives, go to sdtribalrelations.sd.gov.
The Pandora Papers: Puff and Point
by Thomas E. Simmons
A tenured professor at the University of South Dakota School of Law, Thomas Simmons concentrates on trusts, estate administration, and the estate tax. Prior to joining the legal academy, he was a partner with the law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP
Since Monday, there has been a buzz – to put it mildly – relating to the trust administration industry in South Dakota. The leaking of 11.9 million private financial records was very big news and it’s reverberating around the globe.
Let me say that again: eleven-point-nine-million financial records. How much data is that?
Simmons is a professor at the University of South Dakota’s Knudson School of Law and concentrates on trusts, estate administration, and the estate tax. Prior to becoming an academic, he was a partner with the Rapid City law firm of Gunderson, Palmer, Nelson & Ashmore, LLP.
I think it’s fair to guess that some financial records are more than just one page long. Let’s say on average – conservatively – a financial record comprises three pages. (The records include a variety of documents; emails, spreadsheets, contracts, etc.) At three-pages each, that amounts to 35 million pages.
A full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica is about 32,000 pages. So, that’s 1,093 sets of encyclopedias worth of leaked documents.
I don’t know about you, but – despite my ambitions as a young person – I never finished reading our family’s encyclopedia set. (We had the World Books at our home, which are a slightly easier read than the Encyclopedia Britannica.)
I never completed even a single volume, although I made it partway through “L” if I recall correctly. If a person could finish reading a full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica at the near-maniac speed of six months, at that rate, it would still take over 500 years to sift through the entire Pandora Papers. Maybe you delegate the task to 100 persons; that way it would only take five years.
The project to bring the Pandora Papers to light reportedly engaged 150 news organizations, and you would need that kind of workforce to make even a small dent within a reasonable period of time – otherwise the information would be too stale to be newsworthy. And some of the information is too stale to be of much interest as it goes back to as early as the 1970s.
My point is this: It’s a lot of documents. An almost unmanageable volume of documents. The Washington Post refers to it as a “massive trove.” They’re not kidding.
Nevertheless, journalists have somehow managed to summarize them for the public. What do they show?
Thus far, the Pandora Papers journalism has identified several bad actors who have utilized trusts. There are, for example, indications that a Cambodian antiquities dealer named Douglas Latchford used trusts to traffic in looted cultural artifacts. The Department of Justice caught up to him and he hadn’t utilized a South Dakota trustee but rather a trust company in Jersey (one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France). Latchford died last August.
For trusts administered in South Dakota, there are accusations, too. The journalists list 30 South Dakota trusts holding shares in companies which have been accused of “corruption, human rights abuses or other wrongdoing.” That’s a concern, and one which should be taken seriously by professional trustees and government regulators of trust companies alike. But it’s also important to note what the allegation says – and what it doesn’t say.
The allegation is that some trusts administered in South Dakota hold shares in companies which have been accused of wrongdoing.
My friend owns shares in Volkswagen AG, a Germany company not just accused of wrongdoing, but guilty of violating the Clean Air Act by fraudulently manipulating emissions test results (the “diesel dupe”).
I personally used to hold some shares in Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., an American company not just accused of wrongdoing, but actually guilty of an account fraud scandal of such staggering proportions that it generated a $3 billion dollar fine. (That’s billion – with a “b.”)
Those are examples of some pretty serious corporate wrongdoing and not mere allegations. Now, I could just as well own some Wells Fargo shares in trust, let’s say a college-savings trust I’m managing for my children’s future college costs. I’m pretty sure that would not make the front-page news.
There are some points in the Pandora Papers journalism which are emerging as concerns that deserve attention and perhaps even regulatory reforms. But, at least so far, there’s also quite a bit of puff. With such an enormous stack of documents, perhaps there are more serious concerns to come.
Or perhaps not.
—
These are the views and opinions of the writer and not those of the University of South Dakota, its Knudson School of Law, or the South Dakota Board of Regents.
From the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Facebook page, it looks like state Democrat Party Chair Randy Seiler has lost his second election in the last six months this week after the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe has voted him out as an Associate Justice of the Standing Rock Tribal Supreme Court:
Taffy Howard’s other website (taffyhoward.com) apparently went live this afternoon.. including photos where they haven’t bothered to buy them yet to remove the watermarking from shutterstock:
Guessing it’s still under construction, as I don’t see the required federal disclaimer up on the site, and none of the links work.
In case any other candidates want your website to look kind of authentically westernish…
From the Federal Elections Commission, Taffy Howard filed her Statement of Candidacy today, as opposed to her statement of organization, which was filed a couple of months ago.
From the Argus Leader comes a story on a Sanford Health employee candidate challenging Janet Brekke in the Sioux Falls City Council race:
A Sioux Falls businesswoman and Sanford Health employee has filed paperwork to run for city council, seeking the seat currently held by Councilor Janet Brekke.
Bobbi Andera filed a statement of organization late Tuesday afternoon, declaring her intent to run for the seat in the April 12, 2022 election.
