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This issue may seem trivial to most, if not all readers of our continuing SOS / Gant series but I must bring it to the headlines.  While doing more research for our series, a new addition to the SOS website showed up. My security settings now block examination of ballot issues. As a computer security analyst, I must admit my computer settings are stronger than most. In my work we must know what is happening when we visit sites. This is how we found PP’s shenanigans last May. Like I said this may seem trivial but let me explain.
In today’s computer based world, every time we access a website and we ask for data, data is collected on us. It’s not cookies, it can be far worse.  Most commercial websites find ways to look at what data is important to the viewing public so it can be better highlighted or presented. Usually this tracking information is kept inside the domain you chose to visit. This is mostly done for marketing purposes. These businesses are SELLING something, and they want to know as much about you to optimize their sales.
In this case we have a government involved. (What does the government sell?) We citizens should expect a certain amount of anonymity when researching the SOS site on an issue or candidate. In Gant’s redo of the site, we now have a private company, once again, controlling access to our documents.  ISSUU.comis a data aggregator.  ISSUU.com collects information on everyone who asks for  documents or data. This data is collected and cross referenced for their web tracking-data selling service.  ISSUU.com and the SOS office now will have better ways to look at who wants the data and possibly why.
ISSUU.com appears to be owned by ASCIO TECHNOLOGIES, INC., headquartered in Munich Germany. So when we South Dakotans want data, we have to go to a German company to get it back? How much more versions of wrong do we need? And why are we paying a service with our taxdollars to basically SPY on us?
After the millions of dollars the State of South Dakota has spent on information technology, Gant now has contracted with a questionable data collector so he can now have better tools to understand what we want from his site. The ability to download from state servers the Adobe PDF files to view was very sufficient for the public’s use. The state has the web power and bandwidth to give us our documents, so why do we have to contract with a data collector and how much is it going to cost? Remember the cost is not just financial it is to our privacy as citizens to research our public officials actions. This data can be used for many private / political needs of the collector.
We had an aggressive partisan data collector as an operations manager who left to spend more time with his family, now our SOS office has contracted with a website data collector on steroids.
Without trying to sound paranoid, is Gant trying to figure out where and who is gathering information on him and ALEC’s incompetence? If you respect our right to search public records without partisan retribution, demand this data be returned to state servers without tracking!
By now you have heard many GOP speeches and TV talking heads extolling the virtues of giveaway programs to the rich and powerful while stripping the rest of us of the few remaining morsels available to keep us going. The ‘religious’ based prosperity gospels promoted would have had both the atheist Ayn Rand and St. Ronald Reagan excommunicated from today’s GOP. Even the Randian disciple, Paul Ryan, only uses Ayn Rand like a Perkin’s menu, “I’ll take a little of this with a bit of that, but make it look like a dessert so it will go down easier.â€
Every person I have known who claims to be a Libertarian has no idea what the term ‘Libertarian’ means. To sum up it up a true Libertarian society think in terms of these current Libertarian societies, Haiti and Rwanda. These governments are in place to only protect property rights. Having a government with any more power than protecting who owns what, only gets in the way of raping the land and people.  Is this what we as a society want for America? None of these fake Libertarians understand they would not be allowed to vote or own property in the land of their Randian dreams. If you do not own property in Randian land, you have no rights to anything. We have a land of returning to the middle ages of privileged landed aristocracies. The landed aristocracy will dole out to the serfs the leftovers.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26ItndGwZo&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
Former President Clinton has been asking many questions during recent speeches. The most important one has been this, “Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to vote if they’re people of color, poor people or first generation immigrants?” The Clinton question could not even be allowed in a Randian controlled society much less addressed. We are expanding this question to include South Dakota.
We are asked why we are exposing the Koch Brothers, John Birchers, ALEC, RSLC, TeaBaggers and more. This massive campaign money question now has the Bubba Answer:
“Do you really want to live in a country where one party is so desperate to win the White House that they go around trying to make it harder for people to voteâ€.
The massive money flowing into the special piggy banks of Gant, Jackley, Nelson, Fiegen, Daugaard and more, must be exposed. This allows us see who owns our pretend Libertarians and powerbrokers masquerading as GOP officials.
Just to let you know, a state like South Dakota is where elective offices can be bought ‘cheaply’. They who gain office through this money, is bought and owned by the givers of the money. We all know many of our local money changers who have ‘owned’ offices in Pierre. The demise of Bill Janklow has caused a power vacuum in South Dakota. We now have ‘out of state’ groups filling the money pool in order to own Pierre. Much of this money is given through covert methods and through PACs giving to candidates who in turn give to other candidates.
The givers of the money want to make this state another incubator for their ideas of ownership because you know, ownership has advantages.
AND if you don’t think the voting tabulation companies, such as ES&S are not concerned about keeping us as clients, consider this.
Last year Minnehaha county paid $9,000 for 100,000 BLANK ballots. What are ‘Blank’ ballots? See, you have to use a certain type of ballot when using a certain type of vote tabulation machine. These companies print millions of them. They simply have a special corner cut and a barcode on them. The local auditor is responsible for the final ballot. 9 cents for a blank piece of card stock is highway robbery, and that is why these companies give so dearly to campaigns.
While Whopper Jr. cries about the Peter Norbeck PAC donating money to same candidates as the Rushmore PAC (which I heard the Norbeck PAC is giving individual candidates about 10x more money then Lederman’s PAC) I was wondering why Lederman was using ‘official’ state letterhead for his PAC?
Yes, he admits to this at the bottom;
But isn’t the official letterhead a bit deceptive? Is the money coming from Lederman or his PAC? These guys have no shame. If I received a check from the Rushmore PAC, I would wipe my ass with it and send it back to them.
We’ve noticed this job advancement on David Montgomery’s blog:
Former South Dakota Attorney General Larry Long, currently a South Dakota judge, is moving up a step to be the presiding judge for Minnehaha and Lincoln counties.
It reminds us of something we have been wondering about. When Larry Long was running for re-election to the SD Attorney General position in 2006 he received a very large contribution from a curious contributor (page 7 of PDF) Republican State Leadership Committee 2006 Oct 31 2006 3177 Larry Long.
Why would the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) give $25,000.00 to an already sitting SD Attorney General who could have been elected without it even dressed in a clown suit.
South Dacola highlighted the slimy Koch Brothers, John Birch Society, ALEC based RSLC recently and their money giving ways. We know he accumulated thousands of dollars from other ALEC PACs to run for office so why the RLSC donation?
This is also the same AG Larry Long who ‘returned’ $1,950.00 to Sioux Falls used car salesman Dan Nelson in 2005, about the same time he offered his positive opinion of Nelson’s business operations.
In 2009 as a term limited AG and Republican, he curiously left / resigned the AG office to accept an appointment by Gov. Mike Rounds to a judgeship in the state’s Second Judicial District. We now have Marty Jackley as our AG.
Most of us don’t usually worry about such mundane positions as Presiding Judge. This little job decides which Judge gets to preside or be your Judge, if you go to state circuit court for any reason. If a local citizen or group of citizens do not like an action the city, county or state undertakes, we citizens can take them to court. If we are harmed by a corporation or neighbor, we have the right to have our gripe heard in open court. It is the Presiding Judge who determines which circuit courtroom / judge hears – decides the case.
Now he is being appointed to be ‘presiding’ judge for the state’s busiest circuit.
Food for thought.