Democrats attacking Secretary of State for performing regular voter list maintenance

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September 6, 2017

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION Contact Dan Lederman

This week, after regularly scheduled voter list maintenance marked a number of people as “inactive,” because they had not voted in several election cycles, an unsuccessful Democrat State Senate Candidate accused Secretary of State Shantel Krebs of selectively purging Democrats, despite there not being any evidence to back up his libelous charge.

Liberal Democrat Cory Heidelberger who was defeated for the State Senate in 2016 by Republican Al Novstrup noticed that Democrats have lost over 2% of voters and falsely intimated that one reason might be because Krebs may have had something to do with it, because she was “a Republican running for Congress,” and “it wouldn’t be hard to sort that list by party and start with the Democrats first.”  In turn, this false statement was picked up by the “Raw Story” web site, and the false story was amplified to a national level.

“Liberal groups and out of state special interests are flat out lying and should be embarrassed by their patently false attacks on our Secretary of State, Shantel Krebs.  The List Maintenance process is a federal law that requires states to keep their voter registration lists up to date. South Dakota’s 66 County Auditors perform the list maintenance process, not the Secretary of State. There are required mailings the county auditor must send to a voter prior to being moved to the inactive file and again prior to being purged from the voter file.

“As chairman of the South Dakota GOP, I would applaud Shantel, and point out that the Secretary of State carries out her duties for the people of South Dakota with integrity and does not qualify her actions on the basis of party.”

“If South Dakota’s Democrats are losing membership, they have no one to blame but themselves,” Lederman said.  And I suggest the wannabe Democrat politicians and liberal special interest groups find somewhere else to push their lies and smears.”

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(Editor’s note…  this fake news story is also out there: South Dakota Republican Rigs Upcoming Election For Herself By Personally Purging Democratic Voters)

South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Testifies at Thune-Led Hearing on the Failures of the FCC’s Lifeline Program

“I have no doubt that the Lifeline program provides a critical service for many low-income Americans, including my constituents, but I think we need an honest assessment of how best to deliver such services to those who need them the most.”

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, today led a hearing titled, “Risk of Waste, Fraud, and Abuse in the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline Program.” The Lifeline program, which subsidizes telephone and broadband service for low-income consumers, was the subject of a recent study by the independent Government Accountability Office (GAO). In its report, GAO describes recurring failures of evaluation and oversight creating persistent risk of waste, fraud, and abuse and threatening the ability of Lifeline to serve its intended purpose.

At the invitation of Thune, South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Chris Nelson testified at the hearing and emphasized that “states must remain involved in Lifeline oversight.

I was looking at one of my recent Facebook posts regarding the State Fair this past weekend, when I noticed something a bit odd.

“This Facebook post is no longer available?”  Hm. I didn’t think I’d borked up the code.  I went to the Shantel Krebs Facebook page I’d linked it from, and just a day or so later, it wasn’t there.. which was odd.  It’s her Facebook, so she can yank it down if she likes, so ok.

I really hadn’t given it much thought until I thought about the oddness this morning, and just to check, I went in with an account I use to pull Lora Hubbels’ Facebook postings, since she’s blocked my main account from pointing out her posts on sorcery and weather control. So just for the sake of looking, I checked to see if the missing posts were actually still there, and my ability to view them had been removed.

Lo and behold, the missing Krebs posts are there. Which means that apparently someone on Team Krebs pulled a Lora Hubbel, and blocked those people covering the campaign that they simply might be crabby with (as in me) from viewing updates on the campaign page.

The campaign is certainly free to prevent my effort to note that “Secretary of State Shantel Krebs is out working the crowds.” But it would certainly seem to be counterintuitive.

The blocking seems to have coincided with the announcement of the results of the party’s Straw Poll, which I really didn’t say anything about. It’s not going to prevent me from mentioning the campaign, or talking about issues or concerns that I might notice. But what it does do is remove positive campaign items that might be worth highlighting for the readers from coming to my notice so I can share them with readers.

So, Shantel Krebs has joined Lora Hubbel to hide things from public view. Not exactly a campaign strategy I ever have employed in nearly 30 years of this stuff.

And kind of an inauspicious thing for someone to do who wants to earn the GOP Nomination for Congress.

There’s a lot of people complaining about President Trump’s actions in rescinding the Obama era DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) executive order.

But have they gone past the soundbites on the news, and explored the problems with the act? Because if he’s doing anything, Trump is actually walking back what was viewed as an unconstitutional exercise of executive branch power over what should have been solely the Congress’ domain.

And he’s not the only one who thinks it was illegal:

The most obvious problem with DACA is that it is illegal. By unilaterally issuing work permits and deportation relief to a large class of illegal immigrants, President Obama effectively rewrote immigration law. Take it from a knowledgeable source:

With respect to the notion that I can just suspend deportations through executive order, that’s just not the case, because there are laws on the books that Congress has passed. . . . The executive branch’s job is to enforce and implement those laws. . . . There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as President.

That statement comes from President Obama himself, one year before he reversed course and instituted DACA. His new justification was that the executive branch would merely be exercising “prosecutorial discretion” in whom it chooses to deport, but — as Obama himself had said — there must be limits to such discretion.

Imagine that President Trump becomes frustrated that Congress will not lower the corporate income tax. In response to congressional inaction, could Trump simply announce that the IRS will no longer punish corporations for tax evasion?

Read that here.

Unfortunately, the people affected – “Dreamers”  – are the ones caught between a rock and a hard place after being used as a pawn in the Obama administration’s abuse of executive order.

It’s not like we can easily deport people to a country they’ve never really known, and it remains to be seen if we should. Which is why Congress needs to come up with a solution to the mess created by the Obama administration’s abuse of authority. Because we’re a nation of laws, not whim.

And it might just serve as an abject lesson as to why they should never permit such an abuse of power by the executive branch ever again.

In the never ending soap opera that represents Senator Stace Nelson’s tenure on the Government Operations and Audit (GOAC) Committee, a letter came out yesterday where Senator Nelson noted to the chair that the events of the prior meeting “did not register until after the hearing was adjourned.”

Of course, it took a full week for Nelson to gather his thoughts.

And as of yesterday, he’s now written a letter to the chair opposing the committee questioning the credibility of his star witness, a person whose story changed.

Go Ac Sep Letter Wer Del by Pat Powers on Scribd

PUC’s Nelson to testify at U.S. Senate hearing about telecommunications program

PIERRE, S.D. – South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner Chris Nelson will testify before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation in Washington, tomorrow, Sept. 6, 2017. Senator John Thune, chairman of the committee, invited Nelson to offer remarks about the Federal Communications Commission’s Lifeline Program.

The Lifeline Program provides support to telecommunications companies that offer discounts on telecommunications services to eligible low-income households. According to its 2016 annual report, the Universal Service Administrative Co. distributed an estimated $1.5 billion in Lifeline support to telecommunications companies in 2016. The USAC delivers funding for the Lifeline program under the guidance of the FCC.

Wednesday’s hearing is titled, “Persistent Risk of Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in the FCC’s Lifeline Program.” Hearing participants will also address a report issued this summer by the Government Accountability Office about action needed to address risks in the Lifeline Program.

“My overarching message to the committee will be that the federal government must work closely with the states to cooperatively manage and oversee the Lifeline program in order for it to effectively reach the low-income customers who truly need assistance,” Nelson said.

Telecommunications companies must be designated as an eligible telecommunications carrier in order to participate in the Lifeline program. In most states, including South Dakota, the designation is evaluated and determined annually by the PUC. In 2016, the South Dakota PUC designated 34 telecommunications carriers as eligible to participate in the Lifeline program.

Nelson will advocate that states maintain a strong role in the eligibility designation process. “State regulator involvement provides oversight by the hands and eyes closest to where the companies operate,” Nelson stated in his written testimony.

The committee is expected to hear testimony about the national Lifeline eligibility verifier, a new plan designed to determine subscriber eligibility, conduct annual recertification and maintain an eligibility database. Nelson lauded the concept. He suggested the development and implementation of the complex plan will require organizational acuity and coordination. “It is imperative that the FCC and USAC continue to push hard to complete this task,” he said.

View a live webcast of the hearing at 10 a.m. EDT (9 a.m. CDT/8 a.m. MDT) on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at www.commerce.senate.gov.

Nelson is serving his seventh year on the PUC. He has vast experience in telecommunications issues including serving on the FCC’s Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service and as past chairman of the National Association of Utility Regulator’s Committee on Telecommunications.

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We’ve moved past the summer, and into the beginnings of the fall before the election season begins in earnest. So, where does the GOP sit with statewide political races?

It’s time to revisit the tale of the tape – the semi-official chart of 2018 Republican Candidates!

Bob mercer completes his trio of interviews with candidates for Congress and has a story on Democrat Tim Bjorkman who spent time at the State fair promoting an agenda of weaker punishment for criminals, artificially raising wages, and spending a lot more money on public assistance:

Bjorkman noted that South Dakota’s prison population grew nearly 10 times larger since 1978 and 30 times faster than South Dakota’s overall population.

He said South Dakota has double the number of people in prison that North Dakota does. “We should be asking ourselves why that is,” he said.

and..

Raising South Dakota’s minimum to $11 per hour from the current $8.65 would restore the wage to where it stood 50 years ago, he said.

Bjorkman said he has “no confidence” South Dakota’s elected leaders would adapt Medicaid expansion. A majority of states have, including North Dakota.

For North Dakota, that’s $270 million more annually than South Dakota. He said South Dakota is doing “an enormous disservice” to its citizens. “It’s big time money,” he said.

Read it all here.

Aren’t most of these state level issues? I’m not sure what running for Congress has to do with any of it, unless he’s promising to federalize prisons, mandate medicaid for all, and raise the federal minimum wage.

Moving on….

In another story, reporter Bob Mercer interviewed Dusty Johnson as to his reasons for running for South Dakota’s lone Congressional seat:

Why he’s running: “This is a job interview, right? It’s fun,” Johnson said. He recalled growing up in a working-class family of seven from Pierre and Fort Pierre. “Even at a young age I figured out good jobs can make a difference for a family,” he said. “The reality is what most people want is the opportunity to earn a living.”

Johnson said “even the Republicans” in Congress don’t understand all the ways Washington, D.C., makes it harder to create jobs. “I’m not sure they understand what I’m talking about,” he said.

and…

He said South Dakota needs someone who is ready when Congress is ready to accomplish something larger. “I’ve got the political courage that’s going to be required to make tough decisions,” he said.

Johnson said a mix of selflessness and selfishness is required. “A great majority of my motivation to be in public service is selflessness,” he said.

Read it all here.