State Legislature

Ellis, Okerlund and Megan ‘Patron’ Luther bring the Triple Argue Endorser threat down!

Here’s to Megan! Salut!

I was going to do 3 separate posts, but hey, each story has a moral to it, and the contributors are from my favorite daily local newspaper (of course, there really isn’t another choice).

Let’s first start with Patron‘s lovely piece on the city paying out claims. While I enjoyed the information, two conflicting comments by Michelle Erpenbach struck me a bit;

“I come back to the idea that I feel the city has some responsibility for taking care of the people who live here,” she said.

I would agree with Michelle, 100%. But I find it odd that she feels a responsibility to take care of people (after all we all pay sales taxes) then turns around and expects us to pay more for it;

Erpenbach expects to vote for the (sewer rate) increase.

“To me, that’s part of living in a community,” she said. “In order to have the services that we want, at the level we want, it’s going to cost us money.”

While I can already hear the arguments, I will say this, if you want something to work and to be ‘nice’ it does cost extra, BUT, as I have said 100 x before, our sewer system was neglected while we squandered tax dollars on other stuff. It’s time to cut the apron strings from all the non-profits and extra-playland bullshit we are funding in Sioux Falls and target that money at the sewer system and streets instead jacking up our rates every freaking time we turn around.

Enough talk about turds.

Ellis had an interesting story about our mayor, and how he likes to edit his videos (as DaCola reported earlier this week). This quote by Huether was classic smilin’ Mike:

“There are folks that will do whatever they can to create partisanship, to stimulate divide versus progress and the people. And this is probably just another example,” he said.

Hey Mike? Wanna know what creates negativity, division, distrust in government and partisanship?

LIARS!

And now to Matt. I have to be honest with you, I don’t even know his job title at the AL but I always enjoy his columns. This week he points out the hypocrisy of the supporters of HB 1217;

Even though it almost certainly will be challenged in court as an unconstitutional invasion of privacy, Gov. Dennis Daugaard says he probably will sign the bill the South Dakota Legislature has passed requiring a woman to wait 72 hours and to receive counseling before she can have an abortion in the state.

If the legislation lands in court, Daugaard and others have suggested there are private donors willing to put up the money to defend it.

Which seems to beg the question: Why stop there?

If there are people in this nation so bent on ending abortion they’ll pay us to do their bidding, what other civil liberties could we attack to make some dough?

You’ll have to read the whole thing, good stuff.

While everyone is busy talking abortion and education, Mike Rounds in-laws are preparing to mine some uranium

As I understand it, Mike Rounds’ brother-in-law (Randy Brich?) works for one of the companies that wants to mine uranium in our state. While I am not opposed to mining uranium, certain safety procedures have to be put in place so water and land is not contaminated, which I doubt SB 158 would do. Also, I often shake my head when politicos say our state is broke when we could be tapping into wind, solar, and now even uranium to make up for the budget shortfall instead of letting private companies come here and rape us of our natural resources. In Alaska, every resident gets a dividend check from the oil, South Dakotans should be swimming in money. But hey, we keep voting in the greedy GOP bastards, and we get what we deserve – not a gawd damn thing.

SB 158 passed. It now moves to the House.

Senate Bill 158 was introduced amidst a flurry of last-minute in the South Dakota Legislature last week. This is apparently an attempt to sneak a very bad bill past the public.

Bottom line: the bill would stop enforcement of state regulations on in situ leach uranium mining. Two types of regulation by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources—water management and minerals mining regulation—would be stopped.

Companies could still be issued permits to mine. But the state would not have any control over any of these mining operations. For example, there would be no state requirements for public notice, proper construction, safe operation, accident reports, or clean-up after the mining ended.

Forget the debate, HB 1217 isn’t really needed

We can yell and scream all we want at each other about whether abortion is ethical or not, but the facts are simple, the 72-hour forced counseling legislature isn’t really needed;

He (Dr. Buehner) said he goes through 25 pages of paperwork with a woman seeking an abortion, including a section requiring her signature on each of 13 pages.

I have to tell them they’re terminating the life of a whole, unique, separate human being. I have to tell them they’re terminating a constitutional relationship with an unborn child. I have to tell them about suicide risk,” Buehner said.

Like I have said before, women don’t just walk into an abortion clinic, get an abortion, and walk out 10 minutes later. HB 1217 is an attempt to limit abortions in our state by making them more difficult to attain, that’s it. It doesn’t help the women seeking an abortion, it only complicates their lives even more, and it certainly doesn’t help the unborn.

Roger, you really need to get a hobby.