Sibby Online

Rodeo Parade in Mitchell today

Today was Mitchell’s annual Rodeo Parade. John Thune showed up and is pictured shaking hands with the huge crowd.

It was nice to see Larry Diedrich back in action again.

Bill and Hillary Clinton also showed up.

Tom Daschle was no where to be found (he may have given up on Mitchell due to the Sibby factor...or maybe he didn't want to be seen in the same place with Bill and Hillary) , but Stephanie Herseth did show up. Her bodyguard (with the T-shirt and blue jeans) was giving me a strange look. Maybe it was the Dump Daschle T-shirt I was wearing.

The farm issue in South Dakota

At the very top of the front-page of today’s Argus Leader is a report instigated by Tom Johnson and Tom Daschle. They are whining about South Dakota being left out of drought relief that nine other states received (further evidence that they have little clout). Tim Johnson maybe thinking that the Taliban wing of the Republican Party is the blame:

"The fact that nine states are eligible and South Dakota is not among them, frankly, smells of politics," Johnson said.

First we should understand that if the funding did occur, the Democrats would be taking full credit (see post on broadband Internet funding). With the aid of the Argus Leader, the Democrats are shifting responsibility back to the Republicans.

Also the Argus Leader will neglect to give front-page coverage to an issue that SDP covered yesterday. Normally we see the Daschle Democrats filibuster judicial nominations based on the abortion issue. But it looks like the environmentalists will be urging the same procedure based on their cause.

In South Dakota, the environmentalists’ main mouthpiece is Tony Dean. If you go through my Tony Dean index who should gain an understanding that what is good for Tony Dean is not good for the property rights of Americans, which should be an extremely important issue for South Dakota farmers and ranchers. Tony Dean has been supporting Democrats due to the environmental issue (such as the Wind Cave issue), and this should give pause to those agriculture interests who support Democrats for the money Democrats take credit for. It would require a more balanced media coverage in South Dakota on the farm issue before those people will have a chance to wake up.

Gun group challenges John Kerry

NewsMax reports that Gun Owners of America is challenging Kerry’s uniter comments he made to the NAACP:

In a speech to the NAACP on Thursday, Sen. John Kerry said he would be a "uniter," and would meet with anyone, even those who disagree with him. Gun Owners of America is ready to take him up on his offer.

Kerry said that when you're president, "You need to talk to all the people - and that's exactly what I intend to do.

"I will be a president who truly is a uniter," Kerry said, "not one who seeks to divide our nation."

"Excellent!" said GOA Director of Communications Erich Pratt. "We're so glad to hear that you want to talk with us and help unite this nation. How about working with us to defend the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights?

Gun Owners of America notes that Kerry has not shown up for most of his Senate votes this year. However, Pratt said, "He did fly into town this March, specifically to ban several scores of semi-automatic firearms."

GOA says Kerry's voting record on gun rights issues has been "consistently poor," and the group said it "looks forward to discussing these issues with his campaign."

Gun Owners of America said it has contacted the Kerry campaign to take the candidate up on his offer.

Daschle and Herseth received union contributions

A Sibby Online reader emailed me regarding a link that I did not look into on the Lowell Ponte post:

Click here to see what SEIU as just one union among many dozens acknowledges in Federal Election Commission reports in the current election cycle that it does to bankroll Democratic members of Congress.

If you scroll down to South Dakota, you will see that Daschle received $10,000 and Herseth received $15,000 from the Service Employees International Union.

The Democratic Socialists secret plan

Neal Boortz has a long column on the secret plans of Democratic Socialists. As an accountant, I took special interest in this excerpt:

So .. now that the Democrats have opened this whole "secret plan" idea – what about the secret plans of the Democratic Socialists? Just what legislative agenda does the Democrat Party plan to pursue if and when they gain control of the Senate, the House and the presidency? Well, your Talkmaster has been watching these socialists for years, and taking notes. Here are just some of the goodies the Social Democrat Party has in store for the people of America.

Remove a majority of voters from responsibility for income taxes This is the biggie – and they've made no attempt to hide their goals here. The Democrats have been working on this plan for decades --- with no small amount of help from the cowardly Republicans. The idea is simple. Using "refundable" tax credits and deductions and such ideas as the fraudulent Earned Income Tax Credit the Democrats are working to shift the entire burden for the payment of federal income taxes onto a minority of US taxpayers. Right now the top 50 percent of taxpayers pay almost 96 percent of the taxes. The Democrats are close to their goal. When the majority of voters have no federal income tax liability it will be almost impossible to pass any meaningful tax cuts – and further tax increases will be a piece of cake, especially if the taxes only affect those to be considered to be rich. Through this ploy the Democrats plan to create a defeat-proof socialist congress.

Socialists Unions rule Democrats

I thought this was an interesting thought from Lowell Ponte (read the whole thing):

A SINGLE LABOR UNION HAS COMMITTED $65 MILLION to defeating President George. W. Bush this November, reported the July 12 BusinessWeek Magazine.

This biggest union in the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) which by year’s end will have 1.8 million members, at its June convention in San Francisco agreed to spend $40 million for more than 2,000 organizers to work full-time against President Bush in 17 key battleground states. It also plans to supply 50,000 “volunteers” from its members just prior to and on election day. And SEIU will spend an additional $25 million on voter registration, “education” and getting out the vote.

Why is SEIU so bent on defeating President Bush? Let us count the ways:

SEIU is one of America’s two biggest government unions, the other being AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees. The nightmare for such unions is not a weak economy, as it would be for private sector workers. Government workers get their money not from a free marketplace but from coerced taxes. And many SEIU workers not employed directly by government are hospital and nursing home staffers paid indirectly by government dollars for Medicare, Medicaid and welfare patients. For this reason the government unions are the party of American socialism.

Public Enemy Number One for these socialist vanguards are Republicans who want to reduce the size and spending of government, and to contract out millions of existing government tasks to money-saving, non-unionized private companies. The wealth, power and future of these unions depend on replacing a Republican President with Democratic advocates of government expansion like the team of Kerry and Edwards.

I would also add Tom Daschle to that team of government expansion.

SD Democrats using farmers as political pawns

The Aberdeen News is reporting that the three South Dakota Democratic congressional delegation sent a letter to President Bush’s Secretary of Ag Ann Veneman:

Rep. Stephanie Herseth and Sens. Tom Daschle and Tim Johnson this week sent a letter to Veneman inviting her to South Dakota. In their letter, they told Veneman agriculture is the state's top industry and they hope traveling to the state would help her better understand issues important to producers here.

Previously I provided a post on the three Democrats siding against the agriculture interests regarding the Wind Cave issue. Perhaps this has something to do with the following comment from the report:

The whole delegation has been at odds with Veneman and the USDA recently. And this being an election year, Daschle has made the most of opportunities to criticize the USDA for policies he feels don't benefit South Dakota.

Perhaps Daschle should take a look at Tim Johnson’s glee when farm bill funding goes to Internet providers instead of drought stricken ranchers.

John Thune releases campaign finances

John Thune issued a press release on his campaign finances:

SIOUX FALLS - The John Thune for U.S. Senate campaign raised $2.48 million from May 13 to June 30 and ended the period with nearly $4 million in the bank.

According to the report filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) today, Thune raised $2,485,554 and spent $1,090,585 during the period of May 13 through June 30 and had $3,951,884 cash on hand as of July 1.

Due to the South Dakota primary election on June 1, the FEC required South Dakota candidates for the U.S. Senate to file two reports for the second quarter of 2004, a pre-primary report for April 1 through May 12 and a post-primary report for May 13 through June 30.

Thune raised a total of $3,855,853 during the second quarter, April 1 through June 30, having raised $1,369,299 from April 1 through May 12 and $2,485,554 from May 13 through June 30.

When Thune announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate against Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle on January 5, 2004, Daschle had $4 million in the bank. The Daschle campaign scoffed at the possibility Thune could raise $32,000 a day to be competitive with Daschle's fundraising goal of $10 million (Sioux Falls Argus Leader, January 19, 2004).

Having raised an overall total of $6,111,039 since January 5, Thune has raised an average of more than $1 million a month and more than $33,000 per day from January through June. During the most recent reporting period of May 13 through June 30, Thune raised an average of more than $51,700 per day.

Despite spending more than $8.5 million as of May 12 and airing television ads since July of 2003, Daschle led Thune by only 2 points according to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader/KELO-TV poll conducted in May 2004. Thune started airing television and radio ads for the first time since entering the race in January this past week.

As Quentin Riggins disclosed earlier, much of Thune’s contributions come from South Dakota, but Daschle only receives about 10% of his contributions from South Dakota. This doesn’t stop Daschle from whining about out of state conservatives who help South Dakotans understand Daschle’s liberal voting record.

Trouble in South Dakota

Today is an example of why I spend so much time with this web site without compensation. The reason why I do is because for the first time, I have the right of free speech.

Back in 2000, I started to right letters to the Argus Leader thinking that I am exercising my right of free speech. My post earlier today is the latest episode I have experienced that demonstrates why one will not find free speech via the Argus Leader.

Here is the content of an email I sent Randell Beck, the executive editor of the Argus Leader, regarding today's censorship of my letter's content:

Randell, You have been critical of us bloogers[SIC], but I have finally found free speech. See the link:

http://sibbyonline.blogs.com/sibbyonline/2004/week29/index.html#a0001779194

For the record, why did you not correct in the Argus what you corrected online?

Now mislead partisan Demorats[SIC] are repeating false allegations on your editorial pages, while you censor my attempts to expose it.

Steve Sibson

PS I may be in Sioux Falls today or tomorrow, so I am willing to discuss this face to face.

Randell’s response, “very fascinating, steve. i don't have time.” So, I would like to go back to April 21, 2004…the last time Randell Beck appeared on Straight Talk. I was in California, but fortunately there is a transcript. Here is part of what Randell Beck said when Greg Belfrage brought up Kranz’s involvement with the Abourezk office when he was managing editor of the Mitchell Daily Republic:

“You and I have been to a certain extent down this road before. There is somewhere out there in internet-land a small cabal I call them—and they’re small—and they’re a cabal of folks whose hatred of a certain political affiliation is so strong and so violent that they’ll stoop to any level to muddy the waters and confuse the issue. And employing one of the time-worn tactics they shoot the messenger, in this case the largest newspaper in the state and more specifically Dave Kranz, the best political reporter in the region, and to a certain level myself.

After bad mouthing the Internet, Beck made this comment:

I haven’t seen them—not one of them has had the guts to come to my office and say here’s what I think is going on, here’s what I think is wrong with the Argus Leader blah, blah, blah. They don’t have that kind of courage because they hide behind rocks and they malign people’s character and not just David’s, mine, and other’s. They don’t sign their own names. They spread stuff and don’t stand behind it.

Later Randell Beck spoke about me:

Nobody in this group will come to me and politely knock on the door and respectfully say I have a problem with your guy here. And here are the facts as I see them. Not one of them. Now what kind of credibility is that? Now there’s a guy who lives in Mitchell who I’ve developed quite a relationship with who is a very conservative man. And Steve you’re out there and you know who you are. Steve had the guts to drive over here and he had a problem with my operation and we sat down man to man and we talked about it. Now Steve and I are never going to see eye to eye but we have a relationship of mutual respect now that I think is valuable. And he had the courage to walk into my office and say I have a problem.”

Steve: says nothing

Randell: “Let me finish! The rest of these folks don’t have the guts to do that. Instead you call in over talk radio, we don’t know if your name is Chip or Harry, and you send out on the blogs and send out an email and say you are but we don’t really know who you are. There’s no credibility there… And that’s the weakness of the internet. There’s no backup there…You get the guts to come in and talk to me man to man and I’ll talk to you anytime.”

Today, Beck does not have the time to deal with a problem I have with his operation. Today’s lack of action by Beck proves that the above comments he made on April 21 was not straight talk, but nothing but a bunch of BS.

I offered to come to his office today and discuss a problem I have, and he doesn’t have the time. That does not sound like “mutual respect” to me…not to mention waking up and reading my hacked letter on an opinion page that is full of hate-filled attacks, mostly toward conservatives, based on crap they read in the news section of this Gannett owned paper.

Randell Beck dumped the “Argus on Air” segment of Straight Talk, perhaps due to dealing with those like myself who are informed enough to debate the issues. I believe Belfrage went out of his way to give Randell Beck a fair and honest forum to defend the positions the Argus Leader has presented. If you go back to the transcript, you should understand that Beck did not address the issue (Kranz involvement with the Democrat Party), and instead attacked the messengers.

Randell Beck seems to have difficulty being the watchdog that is being watch dogged. He can no longer do the job of putting a happy face on the institutional bias of the State’s largest newspaper, because he is held accountable. He can no longer allow issues to be ignored to the degree he has in the past, because the Dakota Alliance of Bloggers is bringing them forward.

There is a culture war in America. South Dakota is now the front line. For the first time, the conservatives of this State have utilized air power in this war. The impact of cyberspace may now be over powering the barrels of ink the media used to control the battle ground. This is not to say the war is over. We must fight on. We must present the Emperor of South Dakota without his clothes…and that just happens to be the Minority Leader of the U.S. Senate.

Argus Leader censors Sibby

Today my latest letter to the editor was published in the Argus Leader. I am posting what I originally sent with the censored words underlined in bold:

A 6/22/04 letter from Keiza M. Daggitt, regarding Tim Johnson reference to the Taliban wing of the Republican party, made the same false allegation that appeared in the 5/25/04 issue of this paper, “The reference was to an ad in the 2002 race against then-Rep. John Thune. A television ad compared Johnson to Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein”.

The Argus Leader online version of that paragraph was corrected to, “The reference was to an ad in the 2002 race against then-Rep. John Thune. A television ad showed a picture of Saddam Hussein and criticized Johnson for votes in Congress against a missile defense system.” Yes, the ad was incorrectly described as a negative attack ad, when in fact it provided the voting record of Tim Johnson.

When Johnson tried to provide a false apology by blaming John Thune, David Kranz provided cover in a 5/26/04 Argus Leader report, “Johnson staff members were not able to identify the specific ad to which he was referring”. How convenient.

This is a prime example of how the Democrats attempt to stifle the presentation of their liberal voting record by using intimidation and calling the ads on their voting record negative. But it was a Democrat who resorted to negative name-calling. Nice try by the Argus Leader to cover it all up.

I have emailed Randell Beck and asked for an explanation.

UPDATE: Randell Beck doesn't have the time to deal with this.