South Dakota War College

I think this is pretty funny, although it's also pretty far fetched. At this point, it's hit viral video status.

Sibby had a nice little story this AM that's usually the type of thing I'm right on top of. I think Sibby was focusing more on the abortion angle, but what caught my attention was the headline: Adelstein organizing four Democratic campaigns which he picked up in a story as written by Judy Peres of the Chicago Tribune : "This is all the candidates are talking about, instead of worrying about education and other pressing problems," said state Sen. Stan Adelstein, a long-time legislator who — like three other moderate Republicans who voted against the ban — was beaten in the June primaries by a conservative Christian. Adelstein, who co-chairs the Campaign for Healthy Families, is organizing four Democratic Senate campaigns. "My party needs to get back to focusing on true Republican issues — keeping government out of people's lives, economic growth, education of gifted children and diversity of lifestyle and faith," said Adelstein, who is Jewish. "The...

In an AP article by Chet Brokaw , Jack Billion recently pronounced where he stands philosopically within the spectrum of the Democratic Party. And, while I'm sure some of the commenters will form their own opinions, I'm pegging them a good way towards the left: But long before he entered politics himself, Billion was inspired by George McGovern, a fellow Democrat who served three terms as a U.S. senator from South Dakota and lost the 1972 presidential race to President Nixon. "I'm an old McGovernite," Billion said. "I think probably I became inspired with George McGovern when he spoke out against the Vietnam War," Billion said. "Although I'm a veteran, I saw the war perhaps from the side of a physician. It was a tremendous loss of young people," Billion said. "You have an undying admiration for the young men and women who went over there and fought and suffered. They were a remarkable generation." Billion also said he admired form...

Lord, please forgive the judicial candidates for they don't know any better. Here's a new campaign approach from Kathleen Trandahl for Circuit Judge: ----Original Message----- From: Kathleen Trandahl [mailto:kathleen@votejudgetrandahl.com] Sent: Thursday, October 19, 2006 10:05 PM To: (an unfortunate soul who got this in his in-box - pp) Subject: Play It Forward...Kathleen Trandahl for Circuit Judge October 19, 2006 Play It Forward... Dear Friends: After being greeted by barking dogs, driving thousands of miles to go door to door and signing hundreds of letters, I have to ...

If any of you remember the disturbing period during the 1990's when the Spice Girls ran rampant, you too will cringe when you read this blurb about Stephanie Herseth using the same slogan that they did as they pranced across Europe talking about Girl Power: U.S. Rep. Stephanie Herseth will address high school girls about the importance of “girl power” in careers Saturday at South Dakota State University. Herseth will give opening remarks at the “Ready SET (Science Engineering & Technology) - You Go Girl!” workshop given by the College of Engineering and Women in Technology. Read it here . Let's just hope she doesn't start asking us to "tell her what we want. What we really, really want"

The Argus Leader, following suit with some of the other media in the state, went to District 9 for reaction over the allegations that Senator Dan Sutton sexually groped the son of 2006 Democratic gubernatorial primary candidate Dennis Wiese when the two shared a hotel room during the 2006 legislative session: Most didn't want to talk about it. Chad Weber, a chiropractor, embodied the spirit of many. "I've got my opinions, but I'm going to keep them to myself," he said. Still, several people spoke up in defense of Sutton. Val Smith chalked up the accusation against Sutton to a political hatchet job. Smith, who called Sutton "Danny," said she's been a friend for years. "I think most people support Danny," she said. "He's done so much for the school. He's done so much for the town. He volunteered hours and hours at the school. He would never do anything like that. He's not that type of person." and.. Verna Keiser, in town...

Here's what some of the blogosphere has been saying about Dan Sutton. (BTW, No relation to the Community Foundation' s Pierre's Bob Sutton. I hear his phone has been ringing off the hook asking about his brother. No. It's not Duane Sutton. It's Dan) SDP Says If Dan Sutton is innocent, there will be hell to pay. SoDa Politics says the Argus got it wrong. Tod Epp comments that if he were in charge of KSFY as he was back in the day, there'd be no release of names. Mt. Blogmore starts a discussion thread on Sutton fighting back Radioactive Chief is saying he wants to wait and see. Chad at CCK wants to know who knew what when, but with that being said, why in the hell did Sutton run again knowing he was under investigation. Joel Rosenthal is saying "It's all political. It's all political." I don't agree, I don't agree The James Lipton of the SD Blogosphere, David Newquist is noting that " Bloggers in South Dakota are having a su...

Ryan Brunner, executive Director of the South Dakota Student Federation just dropped me a note. And it's a great example of how you can comptete with anyone in the world with an SDSU Education. (And the other schools are pretty good too). The South Dakota Student Federation, representing nearly 31,000 South Dakota students unanimously passed a resolution urging South Dakota voters to reject Amendment E. AND it's on the SD Regent's agenda tomorrow as well. Here's the resolution introduced at SDSU, and carried forth to the federation where it was passed by all: Title of Resolution: Opposition to Amendment E; the Judicial Accountability Initiated Law. Text of Resolution: WHEREAS, a constitutional amendment (Judicial Accountability Initiated Law) will be submitted to South Dakota voters in November 2006, designated Amendment E; and WHEREAS, if approved by the voters, Amendment E would allow lawsuits against all South Dakota judges, jurors, prosecutors, citizen boards, incl...

Joel Rosenthal over at SD Straight Talk has a post asserting that Ron Volesky may have had a screw loose, which fell out on the campaign trail. It's kind of funny, but I don't know if it was meant that way: Consider this unreal statement: “ If 9-11 hadn’t happened, I would have been elected attorney general in 2002 ” Larry Long was elected in 2002 because of his legal and prosecutorial ability not political ability. While 9-11 was an issue nationally, it never came up in 2002 AGs race. Ron is being revisionist on this one. The other report that makes question if Ron should be checking his meds follows: "Volesky made a notable slip-up when asked about his position on Amendment E, a proposal that would make judges and other public officials vulnerable to private lawsuits over their official actions. Volesky apparently thought that Amendment E was the title of the proposed abortion ban, and he launched into a speech about his opposition to that ballot issue, which is actuall...

They'll have it on line soon enough, but I wanted to test out my new toy. So here's Rounds and Gerber (not in that order) talking about "elders."

I got a new toy tonight. My computer card for watching and recording TV on my computer got here. How did installation and everything go? Let me sum it up in one word. Sweet . It works slicker than snot. The best $20 I can remember spending in a long time. As I experiment with it, hopefully you'll be seeing more clips and commericals on the website. Oh, it's the Leadtek "Wintek TV2000XP Deluxe with remote" from newegg.com in case you want one for yourself. Speaking of spending money on toys, there's someone else out there spending money on neat things like commericals and mailers. Except despite being required to do so, he's not telling people where he got the money to buy them. Daniel Brendtro of Forward South Dakota just filed his mid-year report with the Secretary of State's office . And to answer the question that's been on the tip of politicos tongues - Who was the big contributor who provided all of their cash? $56,200 all donated by "The...

Check out the new radio advertising from State Senator Dick Kelly in his re-election efforts. The first one talks about how it would be goofy to have a change in the state senate . The second? An endorsement by Governor Rounds for returning Kelly to Pierre .

You thought you needed a campaign website, but no one is looking at it? My website traffic is through the roof with the election quickly approaching. So why not drive some of my traffic to your campaign website? I've got ad space left up at the top ($50 mo) and in the banners at the side ($100/week). I had 18,000 visitors clicking though pages to total 40,000+ hits last month. And this month is on track to be much higher. Interested? E-mail me here , and I can get your campaign or other ad up right away!

If you haven't seen it yet, here's a no on 6 commercial that's been running.

The Associated Press is reporting this morning on the allegations against Democratic State Senator Dan Sutton. And while they might be behind the curve, it's the AP. So, that means the story will soon go national: The attorney general and state Senate leaders are investigating allegations of possible sexual misconduct involving a state lawmaker and an 18-year-old legislative page. The father of the former page, believed to be a male, has accused Sen. Dan Sutton, D-Flandreau, of misconduct during the last legislative session, said Senate Democratic Leader Garry Moore of Yankton. Moore and other officials would not discuss specifics of the allegation. Sutton, who served one term in the state House and is finishing a third term in the Senate, did not return messages left Wednesday at his work and home. His attorney, Mike Butler of Sioux Falls, said at a news conference that the accusations are an attempt to publicly destroy Sutton. Butler said an investigator for the state Divisio...

Poor Bonnie Russell. She can't catch a break, as it would appear that the NPR interview didn't go as well as she might have hoped: By and large the rest of media in search of better ratings, decided to favor "shriek journalism" favored by FOX. NPR and Nina Totenberg abandoned all journalistic standards when featuring Amendment E. Instead of interviewing the South Dakota sponsor, NPR interviewed an opponent, who runs a blog he describes as "a bunch of rambling nonsense from a smart aleck Republican" (Believe him, it is). Then NPR interviewed an attorney opposed to Amendment E. But the actual sponsor of Amendment E was not interviewed. Instead, NPR did an out-of-context, cut and paste cuts from earlier interviews and lumped that with a California man (also cut and pasted) not affiliated with Amendent E. At no time were questions posed to Stegmeier himself. Thus, NPR is the latest convert to ethics-free "Journalism." It turns out the "watch dog...

I heard about this one a couple of days ago, and I was fortunate enough to snag some video. In an Aberdeen League of Women Voters forum, a question was posed to the candidates about how they would protect people from sex offenders. Hundstad's opponent, Brian Johnson got in a zinger about how in 2003 (the same year he tried to impose a new type of property tax ) Hundstad voted against HB 1033 , an act which required sex offenders to report information to police. What intrusive information did Hundstad not want child molesters to provide to officials charged with making sure they don't try to have sex with kids again? Oh, intrusive stuff like where they work and/or go to school. So, if a child moilester committed another act like that, he didn't want police to know where to find them . Catch Brian zinging him for it, and Hundstad's explanation for yourself: Might that explanation seem plausible? Maybe. But he's leaving out one fact. Hundstad's horse-poop excuse f...

KSFY TV is reporting on their website the identity of the family involved: On Thursday afternoon Mike Butler, the lawyer for state Senator Dan Sutton, said his client has done nothing wrong. He says it all started during this year's lesgisaltive session when rumors circulated about Sutton. But nothing came from the rumors until this month when former Democratic candidate for governor Dennis Wiese sent a letter to Senate leadership. "Now Mr. Wiese has decided that he would apparently contact Senator Schoenbeck," Butler says, "and attempt to accomplish by public accusation what he couldn't get accomplished by a criminal investigation." In that letter Wiese says his son, who was a page at the time, was groped by Senator Sutton. Butler says he doesn't know who made that those letters public, but the timing is political according to the attorney, as Washington, D.C. Reacts to the Congressman Mark Foley page scandal. Read it all here . Holy crap. I'm s...

The Argus Leader comes out with it's version of the latest on Dan Sutton where he says he's staying in a story similar to the one that KELO just ran. And it's just about as lurid: State Sen. Dan Sutton, who is the subject of an investigation involving a teenage legislative page, did nothing inappropriate and has no intention of stepping down, his attorney said today. Sioux Falls attorney Michael J. Butler came out swinging in defense of Sutton. He ripped Senate President Lee Schoenbeck and Senate Minority Leader Garry Moore for letters they sent Sutton last week. Schoenbeck’s letter suggested that Sutton should resign, and both letters called for a legislative investigation into the accusation. “This is very heavy-handed, and, in my opinion, an abuse of power,” Butler said. And Butler said that Sutton would continue his bid to seek a fourth term in the state Senate. “Mr. Sutton is a candidate, and will remain a candidate, for the state Senate,” Butler said. and.. Schoenb...

Good gosh. Kelo-land might have to become a "for-pay" adult service with the amount of detail that they're providing on the Sutton page accusations. In their latest, they use the term "sexually groped." Which is probably not going to help the furor over this thing die down. In the same story where we finally get to hear Sutton's denials, KELO uses terms with a sexual connotation three or four times : Sutton Denies Page's Accusation He is on the ballot for re-election in three weeks, but a South Dakota state senator's career is in jeopardy because of an accusation that's been brewing for eight months. The father of an 18-year-old male page says democrat Dan Sutton sexually groped the young man while the two roomed together during the legislative session. and.. Sutton was the youngest man in the legislature when we interviewed him in 2000. Now alleged sexual contact with a page could end his young political career. "Dan Sutton now is all but ...