South Dakota War College

It sounds like the cheesy tag line from a 1960’s futuristic or post-apocalyptic tale. But as the close to my series of articles this week taking a look back at the prior year and a preview of what’s to come, it’s really fitting. I hadn’t intended to do one on this until this morning. And the credit for prompting me to write it goes to reifelman, one of the SDWC readers. I got up this AM, and in my e-mail box I noticed a comment had been placed under the topic where I note Joel Rosenthal talks about possible Herseth contenders. (And no, despite just resigning his position with State Government, I don’t believe Jim Hagen is going to take her on.) Anyway, reifelman made the statement “I would like to see someone give Billie Jo Waara more of a push. She is the GOP's answer to Stephanie. This might not be the right time for her, but she definitely has a future in this state.” And my reply is “reifelman, right you are.” In fact, there are a great number of Republicans out there whom I th...

Hey - anybody from Pierre want to go to this? This looks like it could beat the pants off of the Pierre Crackerbarrel any day of the week. NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Senator Bill Napoli, District 35 is announcing that a special meeting will be held Wednesday January 4th, 6:30 PM at the New Rapid Valley School on Homestead street. This meeting will be held in the library and is open to the public. Also participating will be District 35 State Representative Jeff Haverly, and special guest, Senator Jerry Apa, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Some of the topics to be discussed will be the South Dakota state budget, the State Fair, the Governor's Lap Top program for high school students, and other budget issues. Here is your chance to find out where your Tax Dollars are being spent. The South Dakota Legislature begins January 10th, and runs through February 28th. I'll have to ask if they'd allow filming. You know, what's missing from this meeting? Hm...

From KELOland.com : One frustrated South Dakota lawmaker isn't surprised by the “smurfing” incident in Sioux Falls . State senator Stanford Adelstien hopes to make South Dakota 's current law on pseudoephedrine tougher. Adelstein says cracking down on how often and how much pseudoephedrine people can buy could help with South Dakota 's meth problem. He says results of a law passed in Oklahoma are proof. and... In addition to limiting the amount of drugs with pseudoephedrine a person can buy, Adelstein would also like the law to include tougher regulations, similar to what stores in Oklahoma follow. Adelstein said, "That requires each person to take anything that has ephedrine in it to register, give their name, identification, and a number and some proof of their ID would be much more effective." Read the entire story here . Let's just start out by stating for the fact I'm against drugs. Probably more than many people. With that said, let me also state ...

Just shy of two dozen measures have been pre-filed with the Legislative Research Council, and can be viewed here . The lions' share are committee bills, although there is a measure filed by Senator Kloucek "to establish certain air quality standards for hydrogen sulfide and to provide for their application to livestock facilities." Probably the best part of that, is that it's being primed in the House by Representative Gassman . (Get it? Cow poop stench, Gassman... Okay, it was bad) Senate bill 1 is An Act to provide for the mandatory withdrawal of blood or other bodily substances subsequent to arrest for driving while under influence, and it's sponsored by Senators Schoenbeck , Abdallah , Bogue , Koskan , and McCracken and Representatives Hennies , Cutler , Deadrick , Dykstra , Kraus , McCoy , McLaughlin , Michels , Murschel , O'Brien , Rhoden , Roberts , Rounds , Tornow , and Willadsen. Most of the legislation at this point is either related to the Secreta...

This is the third in a series of posts designed to allow me maximum family time over the holidays, meaning I'm emphasizing quality over quantity of postings. It's meant to generate discussion, comments and general buzz. Anyway, now that we've visited the ghosts of the year's political past, what is the future year going to hold? We're electing our Congressional seat, our Constututional offices, a Public Utilities Commissioner, the entire legislature, and a whole bunch of county and local offices. As an election year, it's going to be a big one. Election time is Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years' Eve and my birthday all rolled into one. That's how pumped I get about this stuff. So what does my leaky magic 8 ball predict we'll see in the coming year? 1. A Republican Congressional Candidate will be recruited. Nothing against Mr. Bixler, but a lack of activity on his part increases the likelihood that another will be recruited. Republicans aren't lo...

Damn, this was a tough list to come up with . I’m not just talking a little tough. I’m talking major league, going back and forth, and questioning if I should bring in outside experts. How does one decide who the top ten political personalities are for a given year? What is the quality that makes someone the “it person for a moment?” Is it doing your job? Is it not doing your job? Is it garnering media attention? Is it flying under the radar? Is it that intangible quality that the French would refer to as “ Je ne sais quoi ” which literally translated means “I don’t know what.” It’s all of that. And in the end, it’s the value judgement of the author where he or she ends up conveying what’s important to them through their selections. To have it be meaningful, it also involves setting personal preferences aside. There are those who are on the list who do things I don’t care for, but they are on the list because in their own way they stood out more than others. Heck, I might be helping to...

I see the AP listed their top ten stories of 2005 . Curiously enough, I had already begun to compile my top ten list of politically related stories for the year, and was much of the way through this when theirs came out. This had been my Christmas weekend project so I had a big long article to drop on my website, allowing me to slack off this week and enjoy the company of the other seven members of my family who joined me in Pierre over the Christmas break. Originally, I was thinking it would be neat to drop it to five issues, and do a panel discussion video, but there’s never enough time in the day to get people together to do such a thing. And there’s a distinct lack of politically active Democrats in the area that I’m acquainted with who might be willing to participate in such a discussion. It’s not that I’m not willing; it’s that if I was to do it, dark-sided me would want at least some representation from the “lite” side of things to counterbalance my conservative Republican point...

SDWC classes are slowly getting back up to speed after the christmas holidays, as students register for Spring semester classes... okay, the college comparisons are a little lame. I'm back from the holiday, and I did get a cool Swiss-Tech USB drive/pliers little tool on a keyring from Santa. Otherwise the only thing politically interesting that caught my eye enough to write about was that Joel Rosenthal over at SD Straight talk is lamenting once again that the SD GOP does not have a candidate to take on Stephanie Herseth. As a former State GOP Chairman, Joel offers his advice. Although, I don't know if I'd concur with all of his choices. He's pushing Carol Pitts and Dave Knudson whom I'm fairly ambivalent on. I don't know that they've faced really tough races, so I can't say whether or not I had an opinion that they'd be able to campaign at the level that would be required. As far as I'm concerned, It's not so much about the person, as m...