Secretary of Education Melody Schopp to Retire

PIERRE, S.D. – Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that Dr. Melody Schopp, Secretary of Education, will retire in December.

Schopp has served as Secretary of Education since 2011 and has been with the Department of Education since 2000.

“Melody Schopp cares about kids, and that has motivated her throughout her entire career,” said Gov. Daugaard. “She has served in a difficult and high-profile job, and I’ve appreciated her leadership, from higher teacher salaries to more work-based opportunities for young people. I wish Melody the very best in the future.”

Schopp’s retirement ends a 40-year career in public education in South Dakota. After teaching for one year in North Dakota, Schopp taught for 23 years in the Lemmon School District, where she was a pioneer of bringing the internet into the classroom.

Gov. Bill Janklow invited Schopp to join the Department of Education in 2000 as a technology integrationist, and she was subsequently promoted to director of teacher certification and accountability, and then to deputy secretary. In 2011, Gov. Daugaard appointed her to be Secretary of Education. Schopp is completing a one-year term as national president of the Council of Chief State School Officers.

“It has been an honor to serve in Gov. Daugaard’s administration and to work on behalf of the young people in our state,” said Secretary Schopp. “I am most proud of the work we did to increase teacher pay in South Dakota.”

Schopp’s last day as Secretary will be Dec. 15.

-30-

I was just remarking to a fellow Republican this AM that I’ve probably spent entirely too much time this week on a candidate who won’t make the ballot in 2018, so it was about high time that we spent more attention to candidates who will.

And along those lines, I received a survey/fundraising letter in today’s mail from Congresswoman Kristi Noem, which I’m bringing to you:

Kristi Survey by Pat Powers on Scribd

(If you haven’t received one, I believe you can sound off on the issues she raises by clicking her ad on the right, which was updated this week to link to the on-line version of the survey.)

Tonight the Argus Leader has printed South Dakota GOP Chairman Dan Lederman’s long form response to Lora Hubbel & Stace Nelson’s concerns over his having started out his adulthood as a Democrat, as Lederman responds that it’s “OK to change political parties in America:

I have a confession to make, which might be difficult for some people to accept. I was raised by Iowa Democrats.

My mom and my dad were lifelong Democrats in Iowa, and in fact, my father was chairman of the Democrat Party in Black Hawk County for a number of years. My family actually raised me to be a Democrat and early on in my adult life, that’s how I was registered.

I, Dan Lederman, chairman of the S.D. Republican Party started out my adulthood as an Iowa Democrat.

and..

I’ve always been taught that the party of Ronald Reagan – another former Democrat – is a party with a big tent, supported by both those who chose the party from the onset and those who were drawn to it as they examined the values that were important to them.

The Republican Party will always value the contributions and candidacies of those who have chosen to identify with it and true Republicans are not critical of any former party affiliation of those who have invested the time and effort to represent the GOP in the public eye.

and…

And no matter how you are registered today, I’ll be there to welcome you into the GOP with an open hand and an open heart and to support you should you ever choose to serve the public as a representative of your community and the Republican Party.

Read it here.

I couldn’t say it better. Tired of being a Democrat (or a member of the Constitution Party)? Get those registration forms out, and join the Party – the Republican Party!

Stolen from facebook:

Shoot selfies, not animals…. tasty, tasty animals.

Brought to you by South Dakota – the land of bounty where we hunt our State Bird!

In a follow-up to my post of a couple days ago, I was doing a little checking on the continued history of the edits being made to the Wikipedia page of State Senator Stace Nelson, as there appeared to be many of them made by Stace himself.

If you recall…

There were a number of them from a user using his e-mail handle, as well as a number of them being identified as coming from a certain or similar IP addresses.  Predictably, there was a flurry of edits yesterday, as well as a connected post to Wikipedia, where on the latest IP Address, Senator Nelson outed himself as editing his own page, lamenting that “there were claims that have been proven false, or were never officially alleged.”

While it didn’t earn sympathy, it did earn him a scolding from Wikipedia editors about editing his own page:

After he’d outed himself as editing his page from 216.106.247.105, as he complains about “political opponents attempting to use Wiki to slander him” what did Senator Nelson kept himself busy with after that?

Since the time he’s been called out on editing his own page, he’s started editing SDGOP Chairman Dan Lederman’s wikipedia page. Which, considering his edits…

…it seems an awful lot like he’s using wikipedia to attack “his political opponents.”

Good Gosh. Between scorecards and wikipedia pages this week with Stace Nelson and Lora Hubbel, it would be nice if some Republicans decided to just worry about themselves, and to actually support other Republicans, instead of trying to create faux bragging rights over who the bestest Republican is.

Yeesh. Why can’t we all get along?

According to KELO Radio, Governor Dennis Daugaard has some words for the Government Operations and Audit Committee, specifically regarding members who are trying to be investigators instead of legislators:

Governor Dennis Daugaard is responding to remarks made recently by State Senator Stace Nelson, who has been critical of the Government Operations and Audit Committee and the Governor’s handling of the GEAR UP program investigation.

The Governor says he’s glad the committee has moved on and is now looking at legislation to shore up the state’s auditing procedures.

He is critical though of some committee members, including Nelson, who want to be criminal investigators. He says that job belongs to the Attorney General and States Attorneys. He says the legislators should be focused on policy rather than trying to find and assign blame.

and…

Without naming Nelson specifically, Daugaard said there are some committee members who just like attention.

Read it here.

If State Representative Mark Mickelson has his way, the Victims Rights measure commonly known as Marsy’s Law may be headed back to the ballot to strip it out of the State Constitution:

State Rep. Mark Mickelson wants to repeal the Marsy’s Law amendment that voters approved in 2016. It put victims’ rights in the South Dakota Constitution.

Mickelson, R-Sioux Falls, said the constitutional amendment duplicated state laws in a variety of instances. “Our constitution is pretty sacred,” he told South Dakota Public Radio on Tuesday.

Mickelson said the first step for the Legislature in the 2018 session would be passing laws to cover gaps in victims’ rights.

Next would be a resolution asking legislators to put the constitutional repeal on the 2018 ballot. A majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate would be needed.

and…

Glodt, in running the Marsy’s Law campaign, said he wanted the constitutional amendment in part to prevent the Legislature from directly overturning it. He is executive director for GSG Strategies, a political consulting group.

Read it all here.

What are your thoughts? An initiated measure that was declared unconstitutional was one thing, but do you think the legislature would try to strip a victims rights measure out of the constitution?

Attorney General Jackley Calls on Credit Bureaus to Halt Fees for Consumers Impacted by Equifax Breach

PIERRE, S.D. – Attorney General Marty Jackley has joined a coalition of 37 attorneys general to urge consumer reporting agencies Experian and TransUnion to immediately stop charging fees to consumers who want to put in place credit freezes on their accounts in light of the massive data breach at the consumer reporting agency Equifax.

The attorneys general sent a letter to the consumer reporting agencies (CRAs) urging them to stop charging fees for credit freezes and fees to lift or temporarily lift credit freezes on consumers’ accounts. The Equifax data breach reported last month has so far affected over 145 million Americans.

“The entire process of placing a credit freeze on one’s credit has been painful enough, but then to ask consumers to pay $10 to each CRA to place a credit freeze and another $10 every time they want to apply for credit and temporarily lift the freeze is just not right,” said Jackley. “All the CRAs have a responsibility to protect personal identifying information and the least they can do is allow consumers to freeze their credit without additional charges.”

Currently, some of the CRAs are offering what they call a credit lock, which is similar to a credit freeze, but in some cases they also charge a monthly fee for the lock and combine it with other services, such as credit monitoring. In other cases, the CRAs offer a credit freeze free of charge, but the terms and conditions indicate that consumers’ information will be shared with affiliates and third party marketers.
Consumers should be able to receive the credit freezes provided for by law without fees and without being subjected to marketing from unknown third parties.

In addition to placing a credit freeze on all of your credit reports the following tips consumers can take to safeguard against identity theft:

• Regularly request your free credit reports, inspect them closely, and promptly dispute any unauthorized accounts;
• Inspect all financial account statements closely and promptly dispute any unauthorized charges;
• Consider placing alerts on your financial accounts so your financial institution alerts you when money above a pre-designated amount is withdrawn;
• Beware of potential phishing emails; don’t open any email messages or attachments from unknown senders and do not click on any unknown links. Fraudsters will frequently send coercive and misleading emails threatening account suspension or worse if sensitive information is not provided. Remember, businesses will never ask customers to verify account information via email. If in doubt, contact the business in question directly for verification and to report phishing emails; and
• Be on the lookout for spoofed email addresses. Spoofed email addresses are those that make minor changes in the domain name, frequently changing the letter O to the number zero, or the lowercase letter l to the number one. Scrutinize all incoming email addresses to ensure that the sender is truly legitimate.

-30-