February 2019

Sioux Falls City Council Agenda, Feb 26-27, 2019

City Council Informational Meeting, 3:30 PM (Carnegie), 2/26

Besides an update on of Fire Codes, we will finally get to hear what is going on with the collapsed wall by Sherman Park. There seems to be some ‘missing pieces’ behind the scenes. You know like that ‘missing’ NO mow list the Parks department had. They seem to missing a lot of things these days . . . like how the fire got started at Elmwood. It’s been a couple of months and we still have NO IDEA how a ‘shed’ caught on fire?

City Council/Minnehaha County Joint Meeting, 5 PM (Carnegie), 2/26

Another wedding barn looking for approval in the quasi-judicial-no-mans-land-of-joint-jurisdiction. Or is it a Funeral Barn? This should involve some interesting testimony, the neighbors are not happy about wedding bands and DJ’s. Maybe if we allow them to make requests they can come to an agreement?

City Council Working Session, 1 PM (Carnegie), 2/27

The council will discuss the 2020 city budget. I’m sure a lot will be solved in an hour and a half.

There is also some interesting topics that will be proposed and discussed in March by the city council. I don’t have all the details right now, but it has to do with MORE open government and MORE transparency. And it ain’t coming from the Mayor’s office.

Drinking Liberally weighs in . . .

In Politics: Nationally, Trump relented and signed the Legislation needed to keep the Government open. Then, as if unable to tolerate the calm, he created another Constitutional Crisis by declaring a National Emergency and announcing he would use money Congress had appropriated elsewhere to build his wall. Trump’s drama and his attacks on the institutions that have given us a stable government for almost 250 years, which, in turn, underlies the very foundation of our prosperity and leadership in the World, has to stop. Unfortunately, only Republicans, including our own Republican Senators Thune and Rounds and Representative Johnson can mitigate the damage Trump inflicts daily on our Country. As Adam Schiff, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee said yesterday……:

“To my Republican colleagues: When the president attacked the independence of the Justice Department by intervening in a case in which he is implicated, you did not speak out. When he attacked the press as the enemy of the people, you again were silent. When he targeted the judiciary, labeling judges and decisions he didn’t like as illegitimate, we heard not a word. And now he comes for Congress, the first branch of government, seeking to strip it of its greatest power, that of the purse.”
“Many of you have acknowledged your deep misgivings about the president in quiet conversations over the past two years. You have bemoaned his lack of decency, character and integrity. You have deplored his fundamental inability to tell the truth. But for reasons that are all too easy to comprehend, you have chosen to keep your misgivings and your rising alarm private.”
“That must end. The time for silent disagreement is over. You must speak out.”

Here is our link to this week’s summary of national progressive news, political cartoons, and opinion:
http://www.directzine4dems.com/1068.htm

Back in South Dakota, a friend noted an article from Jan. 29 in my hometown paper, the Huron Daily Plainsman, entitled “Nepotism bill defeated in committee.”

My friend wrote, “Seems like an outrage considering, as the paper noted, Kristi Noem hired her daughter a recent SDSU grad as a policy adviser in her office, Daugaard’s chief of staff was his son in law, Gov. Rounds hired his brothers, sisters in law and children. Republicans feeding their families at the teat of government. Welfare for them. Thought they were opposed to that.”

Republican hypocrisy, it is never ending.

Pre-K education is part of the ‘socialist’ agenda?

Not only would PRE-K education save families millions in daycare it would also better prepare young students for K-12. One of the complaints I have heard from kindergarten and even 1st grade teachers in Sioux Falls is they spend half their time teaching life skills (like wiping kids behinds) that the parents ‘should have’ thought these kids before enrolling them in regular school. All the other arguments aside, I had to laugh about the ‘socialist’ agenda argument.

In case you haven’t noticed our fore fathers based our Republic on a socialist platform. Besides regular public education (K-12) being a socialist program, the US Military is one of the biggest socialist programs we have. Add to that the interstate highway system, the VA, Social Security, Medicare, SNAP, Public Libraries and even locally snow removal and our parks system, the list goes on. We all pay taxes to promote the social welfare of the majority while protecting the rights of the minority, I know that is hard to swallow, but that’s socialism folks.

I had to laugh when recently I heard a local radio host say he was shocked about openly Socialist lawmakers in Washington like Bernie Sanders. Those lawmakers get it, we have been a socialist democracy since almost day one. This is not something NEW that would be ‘snuck’ in on Pre-K education. Let’s admit it, most lawmakers in Pierre hate public education, that’s why they try to starve it every year. They believe only the wealthy deserve to be educated. These same lawmakers also don’t want an educated work force, because they will demand higher pay. We are only shooting ourselves in the foot when we refuse to fund these programs, it hurts the state economically. Who knew that our ‘socialism’ actually benefits our ‘capitalism’.