South DaCola

Editorial Cartoonist from South Dakota

1st Amendment

Detroit’s Journal

l3wis 3Comments

Okay, I am taking a page from Ms. Schwan, but this column is not about her, just about my personal feelings lately. I think pride month is a perfect time to reflect on them. I love all my rainbow friends, know I love you.

For the record, I am NOT a father or intend to be, but those that are, happy ties.

Lately the right wing radio sh!t show has decided to attack ‘Woke Culture’ and we will get to that in a moment, but as I reminded friends the other night, getting rid of the ‘R’ word was a successful campaign, because it was played out well, I can’t say that for the current state of woke.

I don’t care if you are queer, had an abortion, smoked pot or ran a stop sign. The great part about America is we get to try things. Sometimes more than once.

I have to tell you that I am not confused by the ACA, BLM or the Proud Boys. I get it, but the woke culture really gets under my skin.

If you are offended maybe you should just stay home. I understand your grievances when it comes to someone saying something you are offended by, that’s life learn from it. My favorite founding father, Ben Franks said it best;

If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.

I would not want to live in that world, and you should not want to either.

Donita Trump Noem Kristi Noem Marijuana recreational

Noem’s fight against Rec Jane has nothing to do with ‘saving the children’

l3wis 6Comments

The real reason I supported decriminalizing recreational marijuana in South Dakota had nothing to do with me wanting to suck on a bong all day, my main argument besides the extra tax revenue which can be used for infrastructure and education is that it would save taxpayers millions each year in costs associated with justice and incarceration for possessing and ingesting a plant.

The real fight that our Governor has launched has very little to do with saving the kids but protecting the massive private prison contractors;

The largest private prison corporations, Core Civic and GEO Group, collectively manage over half of the private prison contracts in the United States with combined revenues of $3.5 billion as of 2015.

It is estimated that around 1 million people in this country are incarcerated for minor drug/non-violent offenses, and all that farting around with arresting pot heads is costing us;

The costs of this national obsession, in both money and time, are astonishing. Each year, enforcing laws on possession costs more than $3.6 billion, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Don’t be fooled by Noem’s message that she is trying to protect your children, this is about big money and big business. I have argued one of the main reasons employers are struggling right now to find workers is because many of these workers that are qualified can’t pass background checks due to felony drug convictions for minor possession.

I will say this, if Rec becomes legal in South Dakota (I give the Feds under 5 years to decriminalize it) I am not suggesting anyone who hasn’t tried it before to take up the hobby. Believe it or not, Mary Jane is popular because it works (gets you high) and has very few side effects. In other words, it is kind of harmless. But the major benefit from decriminalization, whether you use or not, is that it will save taxpayers a boat load of money, and the private prison contractors are not very happy about it (and neither are the lawyers).

Mayor TenHaken SF City Council SFPD Sioux Falls

Lincoln, NE Police Chief inquiry includes input from the Public, a National Search and recognizing Experience and Diversity

l3wis 24Comments

Sioux Falls is often compared to Lincoln due to similarities in size (they have about 100K more people). Recently they started a search for a new police chief. The first thing they did was engage the public before the search even started asking them in a public forum what they wanted in a new chief. They also performed a National search in which 3 of the 4 finalists come from other states, and only one candidate is internal (currently a retired Captain from the force). They also have tons of experience (Between 20-30 years) and notice that TWO are women and THREE are minority.

I’m not saying Sioux Falls should do identical to what Lincoln did, but it is obvious they put a little effort into it, instead of turning on the cruise control. Often when I am critical of our city government I will bring up openness, ethics and competency. This contrast between Lincoln and Sioux Falls blatantly shows how we have a ‘go it alone’ attitude instead of learning from other communities. One of the reasons we send our elected officials to national governing conferences is to learn from other communities (and I am NOT talking about that right-winger conference Neitzert went to) I’m talking about non-partisan events like National League of Cities.

The contrast between how Lincoln did this and how we did this is startling, and frankly pretty embarrassing.

Developers Development Mayor TenHaken Sioux Falls TIFs

Locally Owned Pork Producers building Plant without Government handouts?

l3wis 13Comments

Shocker, I guess LOCAL business folks have figured out the FREE Market system and are not asking for a handout from the City of Sioux Falls like communist foreign investors;

Wholestone Farms, an entity owned by regional pork producers, plans to build a more than $500 million pork processing facility in Sioux Falls.


Wholestone has exercised an option to purchase 170 acres in northeast Sioux Falls near Benson Road and Interstate 229, near the new Gage Brothers Concrete Materials location.

Yes, that’s right folks, they didn’t buy the land in Flopdation Park and they are not asking for any TIFs or other handouts from the city, which got a very strange response from Mayor Stoneless;

The city, however, voiced reservations about the project.


“To be frank, we are facing historic housing challenges right now,” Mayor Paul TenHaken said in a statement provided to SiouxFalls.Business.

“In this unique environment, our employers are also facing critical hiring challenges as we have strategically added thousands of new jobs in recent months. Under normal circumstances, the addition of 1,000 more jobs would be an enormous win for the city of Sioux Falls, yet these are not normal circumstances. While I have been and continue to be supportive of value-added agriculture investments in our region, I have a duty to note the challenges currently being faced within our community at this time.”

Instead trying to help this plant find workers, it seems Paul is trying to defend his welfare queens from Communist China, international companies like Amazon (who pay no federal taxes) and South Korean investors. What is Paul afraid of? That this locally owned business will pay better than his foreign welfare friends? Or that more immigrants will come to town to work there? How can you brag about growth then poo poo it when local producers are doing it and not asking for handouts?

Because the plant is still years from opening, Wholestone has not set wages but said they will be competitive and include a full benefits package.


“All the robotic technology that’s available will be employed,” Webb said. “There will be some traditional knife work because there are no robots to do that, but the ergonomically difficult jobs will be done by robots.”

Imagine that, they actually care about the working conditions of their employees, don’t want any government handouts, and are locally owned and Paul is concerned?!! Isn’t this the kind of business we want in Sioux Falls? While I am not wild about another packing plant, at least it isn’t stinking up our namesake. I have told the council and mayor on several occasions that handing out all this candy would eventually bite us in the ass. Plenty of taxpayer subsidized jobs, nobody to work them.

Heck the company even wants to help with housing;

How might Wholestone Farms support community housing initiatives?


Wholestone Farms will be a significant, new employer. We’re sensitive to the housing needs of the community and our future employees. With a minimum of three years to plan for our project, we’re prepared to help the community leverage the increased tax base that will be realized as a result of our project to help provide for additional housing support. There are a multitude of ways to support the housing needs in the community, and our team is open to those ways as determined best by the Sioux Falls community. We want to be part of the solution and would challenge other major employers in Sioux Falls and the region to join us in this effort.

While having another packing plant in Sioux Falls may not be ideal, it just might be so successful it will close down the communist owned stinkhole downtown. Still baffled by Paul’s resistance. Maybe it has something to do with his mysterious trip to China a couple of years ago? Things that make you go Hmmmm . . . .

Downtown Sioux Falls Railroads Redistricting Sioux Falls Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls Districting Commission ask about the expansion of Central District

l3wis 10Comments

I’m really not going to take sides, (FF 42:00) but some of the members of the board brought up some good points about expanding the Central District. Jeff Schmidt, who basically has been drawing these maps for years and getting the rubberstamps from the commission really did quite the Mexican Hat Dance. I do think though the Commission is going to push on this once the actual census numbers come out (late August) and I agree that Central District should encompass most of the Central part of Sioux Falls. In the 29 years I have lived in Sioux Falls I have only lived out of the Central District a few times and it truly is the best part of our city, once we can get rid of the trains.

Speaking of the trains, City Hall moles have been telling me there is a push by the administration and downtown developers to move the trains out of Downtown! Bravo! While I totally support this you have to keep some things in mind;

• You should really involve the public so they help put the pressure on the Railroads and Feds. Trying to secretly negotiate with the RR’s will get the same result as the RR Redevelopment project . . .

• This should have been negotiated to begin with when the last mayor gave $26 million to the RR for $2 million in dirty land that the Federal Taxpayers probably owned anyway, but he failed, one of the biggest failures in negotiating in the history of the city, but what do expect from a low life credit card peddler?

• Which brings us to the most important part, this is Federal Easement land which means Thune, Rounds and Dusty will have to get involved, as well as the transportation secretary Pete and possibly even Congress itself, or even a signature from Sleepy Joe. Moving RR tracks is kind of like pulling King Arthur’s sword from the stone. I wish them luck, but I have a feeling I will be sleeping in my basement for years to come.

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