South Dakota War College

Check out the breaking news at Sibby as related from the Mitchell Daily Republic : Sen. Ed Olson may face a primary challengein June from former House Rep. Dan Matthews. If it materializes, the race between the two Mitchell Republicans illustrates a growing tension in the party over the creation of the Mainstream Coalition, formed last spring by Olson, Rapid City GOP Sen. Stan Adelstein, who helped underwrite the launching of the group, and other state lawmakers. AND as related in the Mitchell Daily (my favorite daily in the state), even bigger news: Adelstein, who eked out a primary win two years ago by 122 votes against GOP activist Ellie Schwiesow, also may face opposition. Napoli expects her to try again. That hotly contested June 2004 primary saw Adelstein focus on his experience and his "mainstream Republican" values. Schwiesow, according to the Rapid City Journal , highlighted her Christian, anti-abortion beliefs, as well as support for gun ownership, property tax...

From the SDRTL blog : Executive Director Kate Looby of South Dakota's primary abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, expressed that some people just don't do babies and that's their choice. She continued that she has four children and she's bonded with them, but "I don't do babies." Response from the SDWC pre-preschool of Republican thought? "Kate Looby doesn't do me? I don't do Kate Looby." ( DP, South Dakota's fattest baby) It's been an interesting few months since State Senator Brock Greenfield has taken over as executive director of SDRTL. Brock is known for taking stances in the legislature, popular or not, because he thinks it's the right thing to do. And when he's set, he's not budging an inch. Right now, he's not budging against Kate Looby, and he's giving as good as he gets. Agree or disagree, monitor the SDRTL weblog for their take on the results of the SD Task Force to Study Abortion. footnote - ...

Ditty Bops at the top of the SDWC charts I have to give a big hat tip to Jerry Hinkle over at the Holabird Advocate . The Ditty Bops have taken over residence in my political sign hauling pickup truck as the CD I listen to over and over. This dubious honor had been filled for a while with Liz Phair's last album, but when it came down to a choice between The Ditty Bops and Liz Phair's new album, (sorry, Liz) there was no contest - the Ditty Bops blew it away. ------------ SDP hijacked by the Argus? I was doing a little search engine posting for the SDWC, trying to raise my profile just a little, and came across this - South Dakota Politics (SDP) - the name has been hijacked by their arch-nemeses over at the Argus Leader. The link points to the Argus Leader as so: South Dakota Politics - news and editorials on South Dakota politics and elections. A service of the Argus Leader. Are you kidding me? ---------------------------- Capitol Journal watching a storm front develop Big ha...

The e-mail today announced a new innovation at the Great Plains Public Policy Institute - the Spend -o- meter. This meter supposedly tracks how fast state government is spending our tax dollars. Click here to view it in action . OK. There is is. Whee. Am I missing an inportant statement in all of this? What is it supposed to mean? The e-mail set forth: “With a budget of over $3 billion, the state spends $97 per second,” says GPPPI President Ron Williamson. The budget number does not include the additional $20 million appropriated by the Special Legislative Session. “The Spend-O-Meter shows how quickly the state consumes the hard earned South Dakota taxpayer’s dollars,” Williamson stated. I'm not sure why this is anything other than an exercise in calculations and programming. Is this an attack on State Government? Are they saying State Government is spending money too fast? Is it not spending it fast enough? Imagine a Doctoral thesis being presented for committee review, ...

I noticed that the legislative research council is doing their yearly intern hiring . I think it might be late this year, but if they open it up again as they sometimes do, don't hesitate. If you're a collegiate reader of SDWC - no matter what your major is, I would advise you to run and sign up. You will not regret it. Out of my intern class back in 1988, one was a student body president after that, one ran a congressional campaign, one is a county level official, Rich Sattgast is now a state official, and many of the others remain politically active to this day. I myself went from inactive in politics, to intern, and straight to working for the State GOP (and the rest is a long slide down into the pits of history). I can name so many people involved in politics at a high level who were college legislative interns - including the Governor who interned for Mary McClure - that if you have even a passing interest in politics, it's mandatory. Speaking to the more, ah, socially...

Not just a sneak peek promo anymore, SDWC-VB #1 is an interview with our newest Public Utilities Commissioner, Dusty Johnson. You'll hear his views on up-and-comers in politics, who he thinks might be running for Governor in 2010, his influences, the GOP big tent, bloggers and more. Click on Dusty's picture for the interview (Reduce the window size for better clarity). I'll warn you right now that it's a 16 megabyte file. You even get to see me live in the flesh.

The Mountain Lion (With Apologies to William Blake ) Mountain Lion, in my land As your numbers just expand, What lucky lion chance or twist Kept you off the hunting list? Underground your home lies Peering out with lion eyes. Our itchy trigger fingers would slow If your population did not grow. Your pointy teeth are what I fear Will bite and bite me in the rear. Why are you in town? To me it’s clear. Boobs in their yard who feed the deer. Chase with dog! Shoot with gun! This is sounding kind of fun. When California environmentalists lament I wonder how many Lions they’d like sent? A report of lions really kills My urge to camp in the blackened hills. The dilemma churning through my brain? I’m the food atop the chain. Mountain Lion, in the hills For which we’re allowed twenty-five kills, Even though you’re kind of nifty I wish we could harvest another fifty. My apologies to the affecianados of written verse. I gave my best effort. I could have done worse. My hunting urge it would quick...

Lots of stuff going on today. Before work, I penned an ode to the mountain lion that I'll now have to save for later, because this stuff is too good. According to the Argus Leader , Dave Kranz's column notes that Former State Treasurer, Former South Dakota Secretary of Commerce and Regulation and Former State Director for Congressman Bill Janklow wants to add another title to his resume' - City Councilman: Open seats on government bodies generally bring quick interest in the job. That's the case with the at-large position held by Sioux Falls City Councilor Andy Howes, who has said he won't seek re-election. Three men have filed papers in the city clerk's office indicating their intent to run for Howes' seat. Bob Litz, a contractor, was the first to announce his intent and recently has declared his candidacy. David Volk, who was state director for former Rep. Bill Janklow, and Matthew Antonitis, a KELO-TV employee, also want the seat. Out of courtesy, I'd...

As others, I'm noticing I'm still having trouble with the feeds on the right. Don't ask me why several feeds keep showing up at the top with new times - I have no idea. I'm tweaking my software, and hopefully they'll filter to the bottom. I'm dropping a few on a temporary basis while I try to figure this out. The only multiple feed offender I've left for the moment is Thune Watch, and we'll see how that works out. I'm not sure if it's a problem with the site reloading after their website tweaks, if the RSS feed is stuck, or if it's reloading after I tweak the feed. But I'll be monitoring and working on it.

Up on Mt. Blogmore , I am just getting around to listening to the Steve Hildebrand interview. You know, the one where he rails on the Governor, and says he and Daschle are going to be active in the 2006 SDDP races. I was told today that it was an interesting listen, and it was good insight into the thoughts of one of the more successful Democrat activists, so I gave it a gander. But what really caught my attention was under the comments for the post where a commenter (Slim Buttes) on that board noted the following: I saw in the Argus Leader that former Republican State Senator and former chairman of the senate judiciary committee Scott Heidepriem is thinking about a run for Governor. Although he is now a democrat, he could capture a great deal of the moderate republicans and maybe the Sioux Falls area. (Read it all here - Comment #4) Clearly, I disagree with Slim Buttes. Because I think if Scott gave it a run, he'd very likely face dim prospects. What are a couple of reasons behin...

From http://www.tiscali.co.uk - Press Gang - Method used to recruit soldiers and sailors into the British armed forces in the 18th and early 19th centuries. I had a conversation with a couple of good Republicans shortly after lunch, and it really got me thinking. At this point, you can add me to the list of Republicans who are starting to wonder “Are we going to run someone against Herseth?” This is the same lament that Democrats have for…. well, the same lament that they have for almost all other partisan offices aside from School and Lands. But the difference here is that the GOP is supposedly large and in charge in South Dakota. We have lots of candidates for other offices. We have lots of activists – good ones in fact. Won’t anyone take on the challenge? I’d advocate for a GOP recruitment group of sorts to go out and find our best challenger. I think the time for taking a laissez faire approach to recruiting of this nature has passed. As a party, we can’t afford to sit around and...

Check out KELO : The old governor's mansion in Pierre will be getting a new home. A committee that was given the chore of donating the mansion for a public use has decided to give the building to a Pierre couple for use as a museum. The old mansion will be located next to the municipal golf course and adjacent to a restaurant that the couple plan to open next spring on the eastern edge of the capital city. Pending final details of the transfer, the mansion's new owners will be Dwane Clodfelter and his wife Patti de Hueck Clodfelter; de Hueck is a former state legislator. Read the whole article here. So, a former legislator has bought the old Governor's Mansion. I understand it's to be placed behind the old Elks Club in Pierre, which has sat vacant for years. (and I mean YEARS). It could be a nice little boost to the eastern outskirts of town.

Check out the The Best of South Dakota - a new blog, and End Standards , formerly known as I Make Sense. I've added them to the RSS Feeds, and the blogroll. I'm not sure what has changed, but Black Marks on Wood Pulp seems to be working again!! At least the feed validates. No such luck for Radioactive chief. There is another one out there at http://www.blackhills.tv , but everytime I go to it, it crashes out my browser(s) BAD. So, I might try them again later. So, at this moment, No RSS for you! I'm also giving a few other blogs a tryout to see if they are worthwhile to include. Several are in the feeds, and a couple appear to be politically related, so you may see them in the blogroll soon. Otherwise, I did omit one I found - a SD blog on kittens and knitting. They lost me at kittens..... They lost me at kittens.

I've only shared this with a select few at this point, but in order to get more input on it, I'm throwing it open to the masses. If you click above, you'll get a brief promo for the SD War College Video Blog. (Reduce the window size for better viewing after it opens) There's a couple of scenes that are going to be a little confusing without a setup, such as the world's messiest desk (Actually, tonight it's worse than pictured in the clip), and the 3AM interview, which is a gag with me rousing elected officials at 3AM for an interview. The little bug up in the corner is because I'm using the free version of the turbine video encoder - a really neat tool to convert video into Macromedia Flash. This is what I've been working towards, and if all goes well, I'm going to do a full blown version of the show in the next few weeks. Because THIS is the future of South Dakota Political Blogging.

From the Rapid City Journal this AM (my bolding): South Dakotans circulating petitions to force a public vote on whether tobacco taxes should go up say they are more than halfway to their goal. Jennifer Stalley of the American Cancer Society said the groups supporting a tax increase hope to gather 17,000 signatures to get the issue on the November 2006 ballot. And as reported before, S.T.O.P. is over the hump for their constitutional measure, now are making efforts to buffer the inevitable petition problems and challenges that arise from any petition circulated. The Judicial Accountability group claims about 14-15,000 signatures on their constitutional initiative, if I'm reading their thermometer graphic correctly. Which places them a little less than halfway there. In a prior post, under comments, I had asked Bob Newland where they were on the Medical Marijuana measure . But since I won't agree with him, and one of the anonymous commenters was taking a few shots at him, ...

From today's Argus Leader (Randall Beck's Column): In our electronic age, when anybody with an Internet connection and an ax to grind can distribute baloney disguised as news, a good newspaper with high ethical standards plays a critically important role in any community or state. Read it all here I'm not sure whether to be irritated with Randall Beck and the Argus, or to pity them. It was all well and good for the Argus to blog with the rest of the SDBlogOSphere during a prior election. At least, until it completely flopped, because it was simply a regurgitation of what was printed. What is even more galling about that quote, is the number of times that I've read things in the Argus that come from blog sources. Recently, I noted a news item coming from CCK's blog, and there was another item that originally appeared on my blog that "found" its way to the Argus about a week after either of us noted it. Uncredited, of course. I've said it before (and it...