Editorial Cartoonist Don Stroot weighs in on the Sutton matter.
Oooo. I'm not sure what's worse. The sarcasm, or the snake/reptile reference. (from the Black Hills Pioneer)
A note from Benedict Ar... Sorry. A note from Stan Adelstein why he thinks you should vote Democrat this year.
(Click on letter to enlarge) And while it may not be printed at taxpayer expense, I don't see a disclaimer, either. When they hold the special session (supposedly at the end of November) , since he's left them already, I think his colleagues should expel him from the caucus. Sure. At that point it's only going to be symbolic. But since he's already said he's running again in the near future, sometimes symbolism is enough.
Comments
Unless there's information that shows a criminal investigation is ongoing (which I'm not aware of), any criminality is done with, as well as the senate hearing.
And BTW, anon 12:16, I'm not from the Wiese family. I've never even met any of them. And I think Sutton is guilty.
And if you're so eager to "out" anyone who disagrees with you, why don't you identify yourself? You're hiding behind the anon label just like everyone else.
PP-- I don't know what kind of posts you expect to be put up when you have a editorial cartoon like that on your site. I think you are just fueling the fire with stories and cartoons such as this, so to say you are going to shut down comments, I guess I just don't understand why you would even put something like that cartoon on your site if you didn't want controversial posts. There has to be better news out there than that, one would think!!
"I've never even met any of them. And I think Sutton is guilty"
Why the distain for the folks that voted for Dan Sutton? They knew all about this long before the election and know ALL of the folks involved. I think that in itself is rather telling...
If you'd bothered to read the entire thread you might have noticed I was addressing Bewildered's comments at 12:28 and included his quote at the top...
And there were plenty of us who did not vote for him this time around; actually didn't vote for him before either. But I can only speculate that a lot of those who voted for Sutton this year would now change their vote based on the shenanigans he and his fancy lawyers pulled and the testimony itself. Remember all this happened after the election itself.
As far as criminal investigation, I don't claim to know anything there, but assume since there were no direct witnesses and no proof other than he said/he said, that criminal charges would be hard to prove.
There can still be a crime even if no criminal charges are ever able to be proven. I just don't see how any group of people could concoct a story such as this and manage to have it hang together this long and thru all their various testimonies. So therefore I believe there has to be some truth to what Weise said happened.
It will be interesting to see if Sutton has enough Teflon on himself for this to not stick when the next election cycle comes along. It might be a whole different story then.
I would add that one has to wonder where Mr. Sutton's loyalty to his district was when he resigned his elected post last year, in a very obvious attempt to dodge the tough questions. Not the actions of an innocent man, in my opinion.
No, I'm afraid you can't. This is South Dakota we're talking about, the laughing stock of the nation, or at least the part of it that's not Alabama, Mississippi, or Kansas.
The Sutton/Weise affair is par for the course here. This blog, and its comments, represent the highest caliber thinking available in the state. That pretty much tells you all you need to know.
As to Sutton's guilt, I think most people in his district thought that it got swept under the rug by the Sutton family or that a settlement got made by the Sutton family.
And what if the Brandon Carr issue had been brought up in advance of all of this as seems to have been a possibility. Too many families have been hurt and will always be hurt to see this just go away with a slap on the hand.
To be sure, this is not going away for the next year. Apparently, Long and his DCI crew must be gathering more information or he wouldn't keep saying "It's an ongoing investigation and I can''t comment on it."
This is real life, folks. These investigations can take years, especially IF they involve multiple victims. Look at the investigations into sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.
I too have heard Larry Long state that he can't comment on an ongoing investigation. That says it all.
PERIOD!
Guilty of more or not the Senate should have booted him.
And I like him--and I like the way he votes--and I am sorry for his family--but come on people--we fire coaches, teachers, even volunteer Scouting Leaders for less than this.
We deserve to be a laughing stock over this--sad.
Are there other cases he was aware of relating to Sutton or other pages in general that have been hurt? Male and female? Other legislators that were left to continue doing this sort of thing because it was handled out of the public view?
I think when your guy resigned it told the public the truth. I wonder why he didn't resign before the election and be honest with his intention with those 57 percent of voters? Oh,did I just ask Sutton to be honest?
By the way, it is reported that Austin Wiese also said he went to the Catholic Church to tell the priest. He said he also went to the Flandreau School. He didn't send a parent to do his talking.
Apparently they had reason to believe something inappropriate happened if they removed Sutton from being around young people. Perhaps they had warnings before or indications of inappropriate behavior about Sutton.
Pretty soon you will be blaming Brandon Carr's father or all the parents of the other victims. Don't blame Austin's father or anyone else for this nightmare, but rather look in your families house before you cast any more stones.
As for the rest of us, we are simply confused by the defense of Sutton by his remainging supporters. Didn't he get enough of a hand slapping in Pierre to be told to stay away from this issue and all its victims? Didn't you?
You want to talk about "pathetic individuals"? Okay, let's:
The most pathetic one of all in this fiasco is the MARRIED ADULT MAN who climbed into bed with a young man who was essentially his employee.
I say hats off to whomever warned the community of Flandreau about this situation.
I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt until he pulled these stunts. If he was truly innocent, he should have reported the incident right away and faced up to it. He didn't. But I think he would have come away from this thing in a whole better light if he had.
You always blame the parent or someone else. There is no pattern of behaviour for victims.
Civility certainly was the wrong direction taken by teh Wieses early on. That lesson was learned.
Your right, it is just your opinion. Seems to be a lonely one though!
Have a safe trip to Pierre!
And when that doesn't work, bring them out into the light of day.
So you're saying that Dennis didn't show enough outrage over the alleged incident in the hotel room, but that accompanying his son to speak with the Catholic Priest was out of line?
You sure can change your argument easily when you need to.