UPDATE: South Dakota Media fails to report the whole story when it comes to Noem’s anti-choice war

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UPDATE: Apparently he is not charging us . . . yeah, right.

While many of our news(?) outlets have reported Noem’s endless anti-choice battle and hiring kook-bag Trumper lawyer Sekulow no one has reported who is footing the bill. WE ARE!

South Dakotans have voted twice to keep abortion legal and safe in our state. A large majority of Americans support legal and safe abortions, and when there is only exceptions like rape and incest, those numbers are even higher. So I am wondering how Noem is justifying spending OUR money on this hypocritical UNCONSTITUTIONAL lawsuit and why the MSM isn’t telling South Dakotans about how she is throwing our tax dollars in a burn barrel. I suggest Noem finds private donors to fight her endless battle and I encourage the media to tell her the same.

This is the problem with the Media

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While many people out there want to blame the media for fake news because of right or left leanings, I have often argued that is not the problem at all, it’s the news rooms being owned by their sponsors. Back in the day of old timey news the news room separated itself from the ad room, they practically share a desk now.

We don’t have to look to Fox, CNN or MSNBC we can look locally. How many negative stories have we heard about the major healthcare providers in Sioux Falls? Not many. There was even a large car dealership fined once for fraudulent advertising practices by the Feds, and one TV station didn’t even mention their name (or is it there name)?

Even local politicians are not challenged. As I have pointed out, there are hundreds of verifiable research studies about the harm of TIFs done by some the nations leading universities economic departments, basically they never pay for themselves, but not one single media group in South Dakota has done a comprehensive story about the negative effects of TIFs.

It is, as Mr. Oliver points out, because they are owned by their sponsors. This is the problem with the media. It has little to nothing to do with politics.

Let’s play Softball with Gov. Noem

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DakotaKDLTSFYFOXNow News Brian Allen and KOTA’s Jack Caudill got a chance to interview Noem. While they did ask good initial questions (that she dodged) they never followed up when she spurted her bull crap. It’s not like this was a live interview, this was posted to the website, it could have easily gone for another 30 minutes. We all know Noem has the time to go on whacky time news like OANN and Newsmax, doesn’t she have the time to go on the Sioux Falls Foodtruck Network for at least 60 minutes? The 4th Estate needs to demand this of our elected officials, not politely ask if they can get at least 30 minutes after both journalists drove several hours to Pierre.

But let’s review the Softball Game;

One of the first questions was about mask mandates. She blabbered about how they only work in certain settings. Huh? Ironically, she doesn’t seem to mention that cities like Brookings and Sioux Falls who implemented mask mandates had cases go down, drastically. But you know, masks don’t work.

When questioned about Amendment A, at least she honestly admitted that she was personally against Marijuana. We all know this isn’t about the State Constitution this is about her radical authoritarian GOP tendencies telling the rest of us how we need to live our lives. She only believes in Freedom and Liberty if you believe in the things she does. She may claim to have a problem with socialism but fascism doesn’t seem to bother her too much.

She once again trotted out the same old excuse that Thune, Rounds and Johnson all have about how they don’t like Trump’s language but love his policies. You know, policies like, the racism surrounding immigration and religious freedom or the tax cuts to the mega rich or the ignorance of environmental and safety regulations, the war on the media or deadly viruses. Not sure which policies she likes, but yeah, he does have potty mouth and that is bad.

When asked about her National popularity she blamed it on the ‘haters’ that attack her for protecting our rights and liberties in South Dakota. You know like having one of the highest Covid death rates per capita, poor worker rights and safety regulations or that 70% of South Dakotans make under a living wage. There is so much Freedom here we can hardly pay for it.

She also bragged about our great economy in South Dakota. Sure, when you talk about the state coffers that gets millions from the Feds and hands it over in corporate welfare or farm subsidies to the corporate farms we are doing wonderful. The main reason Noem did not implement mandates, especially when it came to worker safety, is because greedy business owners told her NOT to. It had to do with their FREEDOM to crack the whip on a workforce in a right to work state that have little employee rights and very low union participation. Don’t let her Freedom and Liberty speeches fool you.

She also continues to claim that if the public wants the budget of the HI-POs that are on her security detail they need to get that from the office of the Highway Patrol while she bullies lawmakers that are trying to pass legislation that will give us those numbers. She also claimed that she didn’t know where the text message came from attacking Rep. Taffy Howard. Sure, you betcha. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that a fried fish eater and his buddy from Iowa are behind it and probably hired a couple of out-of-state schlumps with a track phone to do the dirty work. When this kind of gutter pathetic campaigning comes up, all roads usually lead to these two fat losers, but they will probably hide it like an historic flag in the trunk of a car.

She continues to peddle the lie that Ossoff and Warnock are ‘Marxists’ because they accept the reality of the United States being a Democratic Socialist nation, we have embraced these policies as a nation for well over a 100 years. Heck, Kristi has even padded her own pocket in millions in personal socialist farm subsidies. Kristi seems to think she lives in some other nation. She said she was surprised by the criticism? Really? When you make idiotic, bigoted remarks, guess what, people will criticize. She then calls herself an introvert and accuses the public of electing ‘Rock Stars’ instead of ‘Great Thinkers’. She is correct. Wondering when she will resign so we can trade our Governor Rodeo Rock Star in for a Great Thinker?

Jodi Schwan launches Pigeon 605

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I briefly spoke with Jodi about this new project a few weeks ago and got the impression she wanted to do something different our local magazines and local MSM was NOT doing, telling a story behind a story. Good Luck!

COVID TOURISM IS STILL ROARING

On Ms. Schwan’s other site she talks about Experience Sioux Falls and the continued ‘covid tourism’ in the middle of a pandemic;

“The website was built to be a part of a larger strategy that will complement the marketing campaigns we implement,” said Krista Orsack, director of marketing for Experience Sioux Falls. “It’s imperative that we stay up to date and continue evolving to consumer and industry expectations, especially as we recover from a tragic pandemic.”

I don’t want to be a Debbie Downer, but ‘recovery’ is months away. While I agree we shouldn’t totally shutdown as a city to visitors and should be planning events after the pandemic has calmed down, I think the reason the pandemic has dragged on so long is because of the selfishness and impatience of the public wanting to get out and party. I think right now in Sioux Falls we should concentrate on keeping our workplaces and schools safe while vaccinating as many people as quickly as possible. Oh, and to all you mask deniers, isn’t it ironic that once Sioux Falls passed a mask mandate our infection rates have been dropping. Coincidence? I think not.

We will have plenty of time to party once we gain enough immunity. Chill the F’ck out!

Is KELO News writing parodies now?

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When I have written parodies in the past, I have been warned by friends to be careful how I label them so people know for sure that it is a parody. I didn’t find a disclaimer on their latest article;

For dealing with such unprecedented problems all at once, Mayor Paul TenHaken is KELO.com News’ “Person of the Year for 2020.”

Boy, nothing like a good laugh right away in the morning. I am curious who with the news team at KELO decided this was a good choice (names please) and who were Paul’s competitors? Not sure, but they tell us why he was named (by unnamed folks) beating out (unnamed) competitors;

Sioux Falls mayors had faced civil unrest before. Sioux Falls mayors had faced great economic uncertainty. And Sioux Falls mayors had faced a pandemic. But none of them faced all three difficult situations at the same time in the same year. Under his watch, Mayor TenHaken navigated the city through the politics of the coronavirus, which also caused a bump in the city’s usually robust economy. And he had to quell a property damaging riot that sprang from a peaceful rally in response to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

First, I will state the obvious, you know I would not agree, but secondly, It kind of sounds like issues he should be dealing with as part of a job HE wanted. Notice they never mention the several times he said he was ‘sick of it’ and ‘didn’t sign up this’. Strangely they left that out of their nomination.

But let’s break down what they said;

• Economy. I may sound old fashioned but the mayor’s job, per the charter, is to be the City Manager. He basically runs the day to day operations of the city and manages the city employees. That’s all he does (or should I say his Chief of Staff). He has very little control over the overall private economy of the city. Mind you, he could have had a major impact, he could have found an early strategy to make sure places like the packing plant and nursing homes were operating safely. He did not, which brings us to the next item.

• Covid. Sure, Paul has taken some measures over the past couple of months with pressure from business owners, citizens, medical professionals and the city council but it was too late. For the first 6-7 months this was raging in Sioux Falls he hid under his desk and took the Noem/Trump view of the virus, if we just ignore it, it will go away. While he has lead better then Noem, that leadership surely wasn’t trophy worthy.

• Civil unrest. During the riot(?) at the mall (where some middle schoolers were throwing rocks) Paul was in a bunker somewhere in a city building watching it play out on a large screen TV. While I am glad that this incident did not result in massive property damage and injuries or death, I’m not sure having the National Guard on your speed dial makes you a champion of quelling civil unrest. I was in the march earlier in the day, and later watched livestreamed on FB. It was peaceful, all over town. The lights went down and some latch key kids got bored and made a rather peaceful protest look bad. If anyone should be commended it should be the people who stood in front of the officers to protect them from rocks.

Has Paul done some good things? Sure, his administration has pushed for treating the city employees better (part of his job) and he has been a big public advocate for mentorship and health and wellbeing. But I’m sure the above mentioned stuff was a bit of a stretch.

The thing that concerns me the most about Paul and his supposed leadership is his blatant disregard for open and transparent government and his efforts in the dark rooms at city hall to totally dismantle what little is left. Is it some kind of a sick joke that the media would pick someone for this honor that HATES open government? I’m not laughing anymore.