Sibby Online

Quentin Riggins is looking for a spanking

Quentin Riggins has laid out a case that questions whether Linda Daschle should have voted in South Dakota. Tom Daschle might be sending out his goons to find Quentin and take him to the wood shed.

CBS News affiliate on the attack

First CBS News and Dan Rather attacked bloggers for being partisan political operatives in pajamas, and now their Sioux Falls affiliate, KELOTV, attacks bloggers and specifically Jason at South Dakota Politics:

"This is just a long internet blog. It is not an official mainstream media site."

Jason takes this as a compliment and he should. I watched them scroll down his site and noticed his coverage of Mansiongate report from yesterday’s Mitchell paper. Where is KELOTV at on this? When it comes to in depth coverage, KELOTV cannot touch Jason.

Let’s not forget they are also in bed with the proven pro-Democrat newspaper the Argus Leader as they allowed David Kranz to moderate the debate that the Argus and KELO co-sponsored. Here is a letter to the Argus Letter:

Shame on you.

The Argus Leader and KELO were sponsoring a state Senate debate. It was in the Oct. 11 paper. But it had to be canceled; and so you stamped a big black "cancelled" on it, but only across John Thune's face.

How obvious.

How childish.

Your actions are about as mature as a kid drawing a black mustache on an Abraham Lincoln picture. You should be ashamed of your little selves.

They are not ashamed, this is what they are hired to do.

Rapid City Journal endorses John Thune

The Rapid City Journal, the State’s second largest newspaper endorses John Thune:

Those footsteps Sen. Tom Daschle is hearing are from his own record catching up with him.

For the first time since he was elected to Congress in 1978, Daschle is facing a candidate who is using his own words and voting record against him. Former Congressman John Thune is doing such a good job of defining - accurately - who Tom Daschle really is, we'll leave that to him.

…

Daschle claims he can do more for South Dakota as minority leader and points to all the federal spending he brings home. But home-state projects are funded for all senators, including first-timers. We wouldn't be $7.4 trillion in debt if only party leaders could bring home the pork.

Finally, we don't believe that Sen. Daschle can use his minority leader position to fix the nonpartisan base closure commission. Ellsworth Air Force Base will remain open or will close based on national defense needs and regardless of who is senator.

Daschle puts his own party ahead of what's best for South Dakota and the nation. That's not what we expect from a senator.

It's time for a change. We recommend that voters elect John Thune as South Dakota's next U.S. senator.

The Other Side of Tom Daschle

Talmage Ekanger will be signing copies of his book "The Other Side of Tom Daschle" tonight (Friday) from 6-8PM at the Sioux Falls Barnes and Noble. The other side is the side the South Dakota “old media” (KELOTV & Argus Leader) does not cover. That’s not my opinion, it’s the truth. If everybody would read this before they vote, Thune would win by 30 plus points.

Doctors’ Widows vs. the Daschles

SDP and DVT have mentioned a new book called “The Other Side of Tom Daschle" by Talmage Ekanger. Both have provided links to a free PDF of the book.

Chapter 14 is called “The Doctors’ Widows vs Tom and Linda Daschle”. In 1994 three doctors were killed in a plane crash. The plane was operated by B&L Aviation, who was owned by Tom Daschle’s friend Murl Bellow.

There were many safety problems found with B&L prior to the crash. Since B&L operated over the Black Hills, the U.S Forest Service was responsible for certifying the flights for safety. Ekanger provides this from a 2/5/95 New York Times report:

Senator Daschle began working to remove the Forest Service’s authority over air safety after its inspectors had consistently complained that a carrier in Rapid City, S.D., B&L Aviation, was shoddily run and should be barred from obtaining government contracts.

Daschle also tried to pass legislation giving the responsibility of inspecting B&L over to the FAA, whose deputy director was Linda Daschle. Ekanger provides this excerpt from a 5/8/95 The Hotline report:

Government officials have obtained evidence that Linda Daschle, wife of Senate Min. Leader Tom Daschle (SD), “may have used her position” as second in command of the FAA, to help her husband “reduce safety inspections of an air-charter company owned by a family friend.”

Ekanger also included this from a 4/13/95 AP report:

Early this year, an official alleged that the manager of the FAA’s Rapid City office was ordered to destroy documents concerning Daschle’s intervention because they would made the agency “look bad”.

Daschle vs his own campaign Part 2

DVT has a post regarding the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee buying TV air time in South Dakota that contained this quote”

“Senator Daschle has asked all third-party groups to stay out and he stands by that request,” said Daschle deputy campaign manager Dan Pfeiffer. “As Thune has said all along, we don’t have direct control over these groups.”

Note what Tom Daschle said on September 19, 2004 during the Meet the Press debate:

[Tim Russert] There is an ad, Senator Daschle, that you are running criticizing an ad that you say is by John Thune. Let's watch.

(Videotape):
Announcer: John Thune is running another negative misleading ad. Tom Daschle does not support any increase in gas taxes. Daschle's fought to lower energy prices.
(End videotape)

MR. RUSSERT: The ad is actually run and paid for by the National Republican Senate Campaign Committee, so it's not a John Thune ad, and yet you say it is.

SEN. DASCHLE: Well, I do, Tim, because John has the ability to pull those ads.

Even Dan Pfeiffer, Daschle’s deputy campaign manager, admits Daschle was wrong.

Mitchell's coverage vs Sioux Falls

Based on my recent post, the people of Mitchell are getting much more coverage of Mansiongate than those in Sioux Falls. The blogs are proving this and our impact can be understood with an email DVT received:

we are cancelling our subscription to the argus on Nov. 2nd. I would do it earlier but I love seeing the Thune ads. Pass the word for people to cancel on the 2nd and we will give the reason being that they ignored the 66 stories and they felt they had to cover the Linda victim press conference and ignore the Ave Maria pc.

Daschle receives the most from lobbyists

From The Center for Public Integrity (More at SDP, he was up later than I):

Senate Minority Leader Thomas Daschle, Democrat of South Dakota, received $260,000 from lobbyists, the most of any senator seeking re-election this year. Daschle was followed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) with $225,000; Dodd with $190,000; Reid with $188,000; and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) with $151,000.

Hat tip to ranchers.net:

Similarly, Sen. Daschle's campaign received more money—$13,650—from lobbyists associated with Patton Boggs than from lobbyists at any other firm. Patton Boggs' second largest client during the last six years was the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, which over that period paid the high-powered lobbying firm $5.8 million. One of ATLA's top priorities was to ward off limits on awards in medical malpractice suits. In July 2003, Daschle spearheaded a successful effort to block such proposed limits.

UPDATE: DVT has more.

Anybody thinks the Argus Leader will cover this?

Check this out

www.daschlemansion.com

(EDITOR"S NOTE: The Mitchell paper did not put the following report online, so here is the PDF file:
Download house.pdf)

(Thanks to DVT for the pictures)
Today's Mitchell Daily Republic has a front-page report on the mansion. It also points out that Daschle is taking a tax deduction on the Aberdeen house as owner-occupied property. This seems to be a problem with his Washington DC house being Daschle’s primary residence. But the report quoted Dan Pfeiffer, “…by virtue of the fact that South Dakota law gives the owner-occupied status in a situation where a parent lives in a home owned by the child, qualifies for the Aberdeen owner-occupied rate”.

Looks like Tom Daschle will use every loophole to take a tax deduction. By using the Democrats own definition of “middle-class” (under $200,000 in revenue), these loopholes do not seem to fit into the middle-class tax cuts that Daschle falsely claims to support. The Daschle’s made well over $200,000.

The report included pictures of both the front and the back of the DC mansion.

The Mitchell paper also issued the results of the Daily Republic/KSFY poll that shows John Thune leading:

If the election were held today, the U.S. Senate race would be a tight one. 48 percent of polled voters say they would vote for Republican John Thune. 45.5 percent say Democrat Tom Daschle would get their vote.

The poll also shows Larry Diedrich leading:

Republican Larry Diedrich has a slight lead with 47.2 percent of voters saying they would cast their ballots for him. 46.1 percent of voters say they support Democrat Stephanie Herseth.

UPDATE: For the latest on Mansiongate, see this.

Here is another poll showing both Thune and Diedrich leading.

Daschle vs his own campaign

At the Rapid City Journal’s blog, Bill Harlan reports this:

Dan Pfeiffer of the Daschle camp told me they never said Thune was a lobbyist for drug companies – only that he joined a firm that has drug companies for clients.

But Minnesota Public Radio has this quote from Tom Daschle:

Daschle says. "The fact is, John's made about a half a million dollars a year lobbying for pharmaceutical companies and others.”

I think the Daschle camp doesn't have it’s act together. The melt down is well underway.