Tapio Challenges Candidates, Elected Leaders to Speak Frankly About Refugee Resettlement, Islamic Terror

(Tuesday, February 19, 2018) With a looming showdown over the Federal Refugee Resettlement Program scheduled for Wednesday’s Senate State Affairs Committee in Pierre, congressional candidate and Watertown State Senator Neal Tapio is issuing a challenge to every elected leader and political candidate in South Dakota: Find the courage to have an open and honest dialogue about Islamic terrorism and the statistical reality of incidental violence and terrorist threat presented by Islamic refugee populations in the United States.

“The time is long past when we can allow our elected leaders to hide behind the comfortable, politically correct language that refuses to even utter the phrase, “Islamic terrorism,” Tapio said.

“I call on every candidate for Attorney General, Governor and Congress to publicly support or reject SB 200,” Tapio said.

“Tell us whether or not you think the refugee resettlement program is safe. Tell the citizens of South Dakota if you agree with Governor Daugaard that those concerned about islamic terrorism and refugee resettlements from terror prone counties are just fear mongers, as Governor Daugaard says. Be specific. Tell the people of South Dakota whether or not you think Somali violence and terrorism is a real threat that should be addressed.” Tapio said.

“We live in challenging times. This is not the time for weak politicians to run for office avoiding the real issues, offering platitudes and throwing out breath mints. Those days are over. The issues are too large and complex and the solutions are too complicated and controversial for politics as usual. We need leaders to take a stand, not politicians that take a poll. The people just want to know what you really think.”

Tapio’s bill, Senate Bill 200, would immediately end all forced refugee resettlement in South Dakota from the five nations listed in President Donald Trump’s travel ban. Proponents call it a much needed response to stemming the tide of Islamic immigration to the United States and the risk that concentrated Muslim communities become hotbeds of radicalized Islamic practice and thought and potential incubators for sleeper cell terrorism on American soil.

To underscore the necessity of decisive action to end forced refugee resettlement in America, Tapio will be joined in committee testimony by an impressive lineup of national security and policy experts who will offerstatistical analysis of the criminal activity, propensity for terrorism radicalization and social and economic costs shouldered by communities and states where large refugee populations are proving incapable of peacefully and safely assimilating into the general population. Tapio sees it as a clear line of demarcation on a crucially sensitive matter of national destiny.

“Wednesday’s hearing on my bill to end refugee resettlement in South Dakota (SB 200) will expose the fraudsters, the cowards and the pretenders in this debate, who are not only unwilling to speak openly about the threats facing our nation, but are also helping each other profit politically and corporately by their acceptance of horrible program and policy,” Tapio said.

Noem in Pierre Tuesday

Pierre, S.D. – Kristi Noem will welcome South Dakotans for coffee and cookies at the Ramkota Inn in Pierre on Tuesday, February 20. Noem will talk with attendees about her recent work and her vision for South Dakota, as well as take questions.

WHAT: Noem to Host Meet and Greet in Pierre

WHEN: Tuesday, February 20 – 3:00PM (CT)

WHERE: Ramkota Inn (920 W Sioux Ave, Pierre)

Noem to Host Campaign Kick-Off Rally TODAY

Watertown, S.D. – Kristi Noem will host a rally Monday, February 19, to officially launch her campaign to become South Dakota’s next governor. The rally will be held at Kone’s Korner in Castlewood, South Dakota, where she first launched her 2010 congressional campaign.

Noem was born and raised in rural Hamlin County, just miles from where Kone’s Korner is located. There, she farmed and ranched while also starting a hunting lodge, running an insurance agency with her husband, and helping manage her mom’s restaurant. In 2006, she was elected to represent the area in the South Dakota state legislature. She was elected to the U.S. House four years later. While there, she’s negotiated a 5-year Farm Bill as well as one of the largest tax cuts in U.S. history. Noem is now looking to put that diversity of experience to work as South Dakota’s next governor.

WHAT: Noem to Hold Rally Launching Gubernatorial Campaign

WHEN: Monday, February 19 – 5:00pm(CT)

WHERE: Kone’s Korner (18299 US Hwy 81, Castlewood)

In the midst of the election chatter of the last week, I found myself observing some of the most futile and in some cases, ridiculous antics to date coming from what many Republicans would term as the hard right.

Lora Hubbel was busy being Lora, which by now qualifies for its own DSM Code. When he wasn’t attacking a long-dead Governor as being a career politician, Stace Nelson was on Facebook promoting an implausible conspiracy theory written by a guy in Iowa about a plot to deny him the US Senate seat.

It all has me asking the question – So, where have the ‘good’ strong conservative Republicans gone?

Let me start that conversation by noting that they’re still there. Conservative Republicans have long assumed the mantle of Republican leadership in this state. It’s been reflected in the party’s platform growing ever more conservative over the years.  In fact, some use the term ‘conservative’ interchangeably with ‘Republican.’

When party leadership is as conservative as it is up and down the board; strongly pro-life, pro-gun, etcetera and so on, I’d argue that the divisions in the GOP are less a matter of philosophical divisions, and more a matter that those who are not in charge are busy trying to figure out how they can become the people in charge.

It’s not a matter of philosophy as much as it is of coalitions, and if you can break them by throwing enough rocks.

Organizationally, Gordon Howie attempted to circle the wagons for the harder right conservatives back in 2010. Howie’s coalition was probably the first one in recent years in Republican circles to try to divide the GOP up by those who were ‘real Republicans’ and those who did not fit his guidelines.

Howie tried to rally the most conservative in the GOP to his cause, but could not achieve the critical mass to get over the line in the 2010 GOP Gubernatorial Primary. In fact, he didn’t come even close, and only garnered a little over 12% when the votes were totaled.

His base further eroded when he supported Stace Nelson for US Senate in the 2014 GOP Primary, only to abandon Nelson’s candidacy before the primary to run himself as an Independent, where he got 3%. By 2017, Howie’s influence was almost nil, and has seemingly reached its aphelion.

2017 also found former State Senator Dan Lederman planning a bold gambit to attempt something that had not been done in nearly 50 years – direct selection of the State Republican Party Chair. It was an unheard of and audacious move.

Helping Lederman’s cause was a movement among conservative activists in the GOP that they wanted more of a direct voice in party affairs. They had come off of a term of office from the Governor’s choice for that office, Pam Roberts, who seemed ambivalent about another term, and who may have signaled she was not going to run.

Without getting into the details, Lederman was able to successfully build a Republican coalition and capture the Chairman’s seat, and in the time since for most all concerned, he has earned positive reviews among the GOP faithful for his performance.

Did I say most all?

Another factor cropped up in 2017, the year which marked a return to elected office for the same Stace Nelson who came in third in the US Senate Race in 2014. The same Stace Nelson who I noted earlier was promoting conspiracy theories about that Senate race this week.

During the near entirety of his political career, Nelson has always seemed be involved with attacks on Republican Leadership. If not doing so directly, at the least he’s been viewed as hanging out on the periphery of attacking leadership, and trying to insinuate that they’re not true conservatives or not Republican enough.

Since returning to office in 2017, his attacks seem to be mainly directed at State Party Chair Dan Lederman, as if Nelson is on a mission. And, he might be.  That mission might be to try to derail a long-standing civil lawsuit against Nelson by Lederman’s Rushmore PAC for being involved in an illegal robocall scheme which seeks monetary damages for the unwanted phone calls.

But, the sometimes nonsensical attacks also seem to be an effort to try to break people off from the Lederman Republican party coalition. The word is Nelson may have enlisted his allies in former Howie group Citizens for Liberty to attack the party chair, at the same time he’s trying to gin up already settled nonsense over the chair of the party‘s near decades old voter registration.

But much like the Howie efforts of yore, the problem with trying to peel people away from the existing Republican coalition that Lederman has been able to assemble is that there’s unruly people bleating a lot of noise about ‘who is a true Republican.’ ….but there’s otherwise no reason to side with the people throwing rocks other than to be a rock thrower.

For most Republicans on the inside of party affairs, the truth of the matter is that they like organization, execution, cohesive planning and goals.  As conservatives, most ignore the petty horsesh*t that comes with twitter attacks and Facebook conspiracies. They aren’t there to throw barbs 140 characters at a time. They’re taking part to get Republicans elected to office.  And rock-throwing simply for the sake of rock-throwing does not appeal to them.

I think it’s safe to assume that no matter who is in charge, rock-throwers will always be there.

For the rest of the people in the GOP who are there to get the job done, the ‘real Republicans’ get the envelopes licked, go door to door, and to get their people elected.  Despite all the drama from people throwing rocks and jockeying.

Dakota Posts is taking on Gubernatorial Candidate Lora Hubbel this AM. But I think something on how Hubbel has said “Pharmacy is Sorcery” or “Alcohol Consumption will allow you to be possessed by spirits” would be funnier. (maybe next time)

From Facebook:

I’m hearing that Lora Hubbel is not a happy tin-foil wearing candidate today, as per Facebook:

So…Her complaint is that apparently the State GOP Chairman did not contact her and personally send her a list of all the Republican Dinners in the state? Really?

Apparently she’s running for snowflake-in-chief instead of Governor. The problem with Lora’s latest attempt to be a professional victim? It’s a bucket that just doesn’t hold the nonsense she’s trying to fill it with.

The State Republican Party has NEVER sent information out to candidates about when the Republican dinners are. The South Dakota Republican Party maintains a calendar – which can pretty easily be found on the Internet here – but they don’t call candidates up to see if they’re attending.  Maybe that’s how Hubbel ran the Constitution party when she was chair of the opposing party last year, but they didn’t have so many people to worry about.

In South Dakota at least, Republicans are responsible for themselves.

Just like when Lora ran for Governor as a Republican in 2014, the same is true in 2018. Each candidate is responsible for their own schedule. (In addition, each county party is responsible unto themselves for how they choose to run their annual fundraising event, and each county schedules them individually.)

If Hubbel has a complaint of somehow being uninformed and apparently incapable of typing www.southdakotagop.com, that would seem to be on her for being an unorganized candidate.  Especially considering this is her second time around at the rodeo running for Governor.

But then again, that might explain a lot.

Update: At least Terry LaFleur isn’t claiming a conspiracy and trying to portray himself as a victim when faced with the same situation:

I see that Neal Tapio’s Statement of Candidacy has now been filed with the Federal Election Commission as of last week:

After being signed on 1/30, it was mailed to the FEC on 2/12.

Next filing due for Tapio should be the Financial Disclosure Statement due to the Clerk of the US House, due within 30 days of becoming a candidate.

As the sharing on the communication platform Facebook has turned into a love/hate relationship over the stream of clickbait and fake news we tend to see in our news feeds, we’re hearing that the Thune letter to Facebook before the 2016 election over the platform’s liberal bias and suppression of conservative news apparently got their attention:

But the bad press wasn’t what really rattled Facebook—it was the letter from John Thune, a Republican US senator from South Dakota, that followed the story’s publication. Thune chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, which in turn oversees the Federal Trade Commission, an agency that has been especially active in investigating Facebook. The senator wanted Facebook’s answers to the allegations of bias, and he wanted them promptly.

The Thune letter put Facebook on high alert. The company promptly dispatched senior Washington staffers to meet with Thune’s team. Then it sent him a 12-page single-spaced letter explaining that it had conducted a thorough review of Trending Topics and determined that the allegations in the Gizmodo story were largely false.

And..

According to a Facebook employee involved in planning the meeting, part of the goal was to bring in a group of conservatives who were certain to fight with one another. They made sure to have libertarians who wouldn’t want to regulate the platform and partisans who would. Another goal, according to the employee, was to make sure the attendees were “bored to death” by a technical presentation after Zuckerberg and Sandberg had addressed the group.

The power went out, and the room got uncomfortably hot. But otherwise the meeting went according to plan. The guests did indeed fight, and they failed to unify in a way that was either threatening or coherent.

Read the entire story here.

Bigger Paychecks and More Opportunities on the Way
By Sen. John Thune

Exactly two weeks after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was signed into law, which represents the first major successful tax reform effort in a generation, business after business was lining up to announce they were awarding bonuses to more than 1 million workers around the country. More take-home pay for American workers means more opportunities for them and their families to succeed.

Now, just a few weeks later, less than two months after our pro-growth bill became law, more than 350 companies from all corners of the country, including South Dakota, have announced that more than 4.2 million American workers are receiving bonuses, higher wages, or expanded benefits thanks to tax reform.

The list of companies seems to grow by the day: Charter Communications, Inc., Walmart, Cigna Corporation, Capital One, Webster Financial Corporation, Humana, and of course, Great Western Bancorp and Aaladin Industries, Inc., right here in South Dakota, just to name a few.

And then there are all of the companies that are deciding to invest or reinvest in the United States as a result of tax reform becoming the law of the land.

For example, Apple announced it will bring home and invest nearly $250 billion – that’s billion with a “b” – in cash it has been keeping overseas because of our uncompetitive tax system. It also announced that it will create 20,000 new jobs, too. Fiat Chrysler announced that it will be adding 2,500 jobs in the United States to produce pickups that it has been making in Mexico. And JP Morgan Chase is adding 4,000 new jobs and opening 400 new branches.

In addition, companies are finding other ways to channel the benefits they are seeing from tax reform back into the economy. For instance, utility companies, like Black Hills Energy in South Dakota, are working with utility regulators to pass along tax savings to customers through rate reductions.

All of these examples, which only begin to scratch the surface of the positive tax reform stories that have been reported lately, are good news for the U.S. economy, but they’re even better news for the American workers and consumers who help support it.

One of my top priorities during the tax reform debate was to help create a system that made it easier for businesses to increase investments here in the United States, hire new workers, and increase wages and benefits. At least in the short term, as evidenced by the growing list of companies that are citing tax reform as their reason to boost worker compensation or expand their operation, it’s working.

It’s working because we lowered tax rates across the board for owners of small and medium-sized businesses, farms, and ranches. We expanded business owners’ ability to recover investments they make in their businesses, which will free up cash that can be reinvested in their operations and their workers. We lowered our nation’s massive corporate tax rate, which up until January 1 was the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. And we finally brought our international tax system into the 21st century.

Aside from the bonuses, higher wages, and expanded benefits, a majority of American workers will soon see an additional boost in their paycheck thanks to lower individual tax rates, too, which is why I’m confident the good news we’re hearing today is just the beginning.

At the end of the day, tax reform is really about giving the American taxpayer greater control over the money they work so hard to earn. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act returned a lot of that control to taxpayers, which means they are the real winners here, and that is exactly the way it should be.

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With Border Security, I’m Focused on Results
By U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.)

When I was elected to represent you, I focused on getting results. South Dakotans, like many Americans, are tired of the same-old Washington politics that is more focused on political grandstanding than making lives better for the citizens we represent. I’m proud of the successes we’ve had lately – enacting historic tax reform, rebalancing the court system, undoing over 1600 burdensome regulations and repealing some of Obamacare’s most egregious mandates, just to name a few. But we still have work to do.

Most recently, we’ve been working on bipartisan legislation to enhance border security and provide a permanent solution to DACA recipients, paving the way for broader reforms on a fairer immigration system that is merit-based. Recognizing that strong bipartisan support is needed to pass anything out of the Senate, I have spent the past month meeting with a broad, bipartisan group of senators to find a solution to adequately address these vital issues.  At times, upward of 30 members of the Senate– from all sides of the political spectrum – participated in these lively, spirited conversations. At the end of these discussions, after incorporating many ideas from a number of our colleagues, we introduced a bill with 16 original cosponsors, eight from each side of the aisle.

What became the Rounds-King bill included $25 billion in new funding for border security – a historic investment in our nation’s borders that would greatly strengthen our ability to keep bad actors out of the country and keep Americans safe. Additionally, we permanently and fairly addressed DACA recipients, so these young people – brought here through no fault of their own – can stop living in fear of being deported. These two issues have long enjoyed broad, bipartisan support from both sides of the aisle, the White House and the American people we represent.

We also for the first time began to undo what is known in D.C. as “chain migration,” in which citizens and legal residents can sponsor green cards for their families. Our bill breaks the chain by preventing DACA children from sponsoring their parents for legal status in the U.S. It also prohibits lawful permanent residents from sponsoring unmarried children over 21 years of age for family-sponsored immigrant visas. Another huge break in the chain.

Our proposal is a significant improvement from the status quo and likely the only framework capable of passing the Senate so that we can actually move the ball forward on comprehensive border security and immigration reform. Ultimately, our bill was not able to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. This is disappointing because opening debate on our bill would have allowed us to continue the dialogue as we seek to keep our borders safe and reform our immigration system to one that is merit-based.

But, that does not mean we give up in our efforts. The two issues of DACA and the president’s campaign promise to fund a border wall system still linger. When Congress returns to session toward the end of the month, I will continue to work with my colleagues to get results on pragmatic reforms to our border security and immigration systems, using our bill as the base, or another one if it can accomplish the same thing. Getting results is what you sent me here to do, and that’s what I intend to do.

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