Sibby Online

Cindy Sheehan unhinged

From NewsMax:

Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq who reinvigorated the anti-war movement, was taken into custody by police in the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush's State of the Union address.

Police escorted Sheehan from the visitors' gallery above the House chamber after causing a disruption, said a Capitol Police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident were sketchy.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., had invited Sheehan to the address as her guest.

The Daschle factor

The Democrat’s filibuster attempt on Samuel Alito vote failed:

Senate Democrats led by the party's former presidential nominee John Kerry failed as expected Monday to block Judge Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, exposing deep divisions within their party and prompting warnings from Republicans that the maneuver would come back to haunt a Democratic president.

Perhaps it was the Daschle factor:

Three Senate Democrats on the ballot this year, Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted to cut off debate and have announced their support for Alito. Democratic Sen Tim Johnson of South Dakota, who does not face re-election but hails from a state where Republican John Thune campaigned on judicial nominations to unseat former Democratic leader Tom Daschle, also voted to cut off debate and announced his backing of Alito.

Faster than a speeding bullet

Far-left gun control advocates must think we can run faster than a speeding bullet. Here is what happened in California, one of the most anti-gun states in the country:

A female ex-postal worker opened fire at a mail processing plant, killing six people before committing suicide, authorities said early Tuesday.

Here is your only option if you can not use your Second Amendment rights:

Postal employee Charles Kronick told KEYT-TV in Santa Barbara that he was inside the building when shots rang out. Some 50 to 60 employees were seen running from the plant.

And HB1134 is trying to change that by allowing South Dakotans to defend themselves with justifiable force. But there are some you don’t agree. Bill Harlan of the Rapid City Journal addressed HB1134 on Mount Blogmore with a post he titled, "Badges? We don’t need no stinkin’ badges". There you will find comments from some far-left anti-property right extremists who value the right to life of criminals over the rights of the law-abiding. Some of them are the same who against providing the right to life to the unborn. Shame.

Ultrasound shows life

Ending to a Barbara Simpson column (read the whole thing):

I know one woman who had already had an abortion, who'd had other children out of wedlock and was pregnant again. She decided to abort – until she saw the ultrasound picture. She couldn't go through with it – she couldn't kill her baby. And she didn't.

She gave birth and gave her perfect child in adoption to a couple who couldn't have children of their own.

Her courage and generosity were heroic. She saved an innocent life and helped create a family.

This did not happen in the United States.

It's not too farfetched to think that if ultrasounds were a U.S. requirement before an abortion, innocent lives would be saved and millions of people desiring to adopt would have their prayers answered in our own country. And more women would be heroic instead of child killers.

Abortion, on its way out

From Reuters:

Wichita, Kansas, abortion rights supporters held a "chili for choice" fund-raising dinner. In Pierre, South Dakota, they plotted strategy in the "Back Alley" meeting hall. And in Minneapolis, volunteers led women past protesters into an abortion clinic.

It was just a typical week in Middle America where the decades-old debate over abortion rights has become a full-blown battle. But even as they continue to raise money and march around state capitols, the view from the pro-choice side is this is a fight they are losing.

The expected Senate confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court of conservative jurist Samuel Alito, who is favored by anti-abortion advocates, is seen as a key turning point. Yet it is only the latest in a series of blows to abortion rights advocates.

The pro-choice groups find themselves facing a virtual avalanche of state legislation that ranges from laws banning abortions in almost all circumstances to laws limiting the disbursement of birth control and restricting sex education.

Legislative update

From the South Dakota Family Policy Council:

* HB 1198, which imposes regulations on abortion facilities passed the House Health and Human Services Committee this Monday morning, 11-2. It now goes to the floor of the House for a full vote.

A companion bill, SB 185, is also scheduled to be considered in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee today. Both these bills require the Department of Health to license abortion clinics and provide for inspections. The SDFPC supports both bills.

* SB 175 would force health care professionals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. It passed the Senate Health and Human Services Committee today 4-3. It now moves to a full Senate vote. The SDFPC opposes.

* HB 1184 is scheduled to be heard on Tuesday, January 31, in the House Commerce Committee. This conscience clause bill protects the right of medical providers to refuse to participate in health care services that violate their moral convictions, which is especially important in light of the passage of SB 175. The SDFPC supports.

Contact the members of the Commerce Committee and ask them to pass HB 1184.
Go to http://legis.state.sd.us/sessions/2006 and click on "Chamber or Committee." Click on "Commerce" under the "House" heading. Click on the individual members of the committee to contact them.

FISA too slow

There goes another myth created by the Democrats and their MSM up in smoke:

Bush administration critics continue to insist that the president could have gotten all the wiretap authority he needed from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to intercept terrorist communications as they plotted the next 9/11 attack.

But it turns out, the 9/11 Commission strongly disagreed.

As noted on yesterday's "Meet the Press" by National Review Online reporter Byron York, 9/11 Commission Report clearly states:

"The FISA application process continues to be long and slow. Requests for approvals are overwhelming the ability of the system to process them and to conduct a surveillance."

In a passage not noted by Mr. York, the Commission blasts the FISA process even more harshly, complaining:

"The 'wall' between criminal and intelligence investigations apparently caused agents to be less aggressive than they might otherwise have been in pursuing Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance powers in counterterrorism investigations.

"Moreover, the FISA approval process involved multiple levels of review, which also discouraged agents from using such surveillance. Many agents also told us that the process for getting FISA packages approved at FBI Headquarters and the Department of Justice was incredibly lengthy and inefficient.

"Several FBI agents added that, prior to 9/11, FISA-derived intelligence information was not fully exploited but was collected primarily to justify continuing the surveillance."

Since the media generally regards the 9/11 Commission as the ultimate authority on such matters, we trust reporters will now stop insisting that the FISA process was wholly adequate to keep America safe from terrorists.

SD MSM bias on Sex Ed

Today’s Mitchell Daily Republic has a report on issues discussed at a public forum with our three State representatives held Saturday in Mitchell. Here is the introduction:

Mitchell Mayor Alice Claggett assured those attending a weekend legislative event that the city has no plans to rush into the restaurant business at the Corn Palace.

The matter was an unexpected side issue in a morning crackerbarrel session Saturday at Mitchell Technical Institute’s main campus, where state Sen. Ed Olson, R-Mitchell, and Reps. Lou Sebert, R-Mitchell, and Mike Vehle, R-Mitchell, gathered to speak to constituents and answer questions on pending legislation.

About 50 attended, tossing out opinions and questions on eminent domain, a new Sioux Falls-based college and cuts to school social worker programs across the state.

No where in the report is the Sex Ed issue I raised at the beginning of the meeting. I referred SB196 and this requirement of Sex Ed teachers of grades six through eight:

Stress the value of abstinence while not devaluing those young people who have had or are having sexual intercourse.

I asked whether or not it was mainstream thinking that teachers were required to condone the sexual activities of eleven through thirteen year-old children.

Senator Ed Olson, member of the Mainstream Coalition, argued that "not devalue" was not condoning. I stated that I thought that it did, and he said that was one opinion.

Then a couple got up and backed me up. Olson got visibly upset and stated that if parents did their jobs, they wouldn’t need to consider the legislation. Certainly this fits right into the anti-parent agenda of Planned Parenthood.

After the meeting I was approached by the Daily Republic reporter who wanted the spelling of my name. He then stated I opposed the bill because it promoted immoral behavior. I corrected the reporter by stating that I objected to the bill based in criminal reasons. I then pointed him to South Dakota State Statute 22-22-7.3 which says:

Any person, younger than sixteen years of age, who knowingly engages in sexual contact with another person, other than his spouse, when such other person is younger than sixteen years of age, is guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

I wonder why the reporter did not report on those facts.

Then in today’s Argus Leader is a front-page report on the Sex Ed bills that was entirely from the perspective of public education and was titled, "Health a big part of sex education". Hardly fair and balanced. I would like to note this excerpt:

The state curriculum was approved in March 2000 after a statewide committee of teachers and department of education employees looked at what was needed. It is modeled after the National Health Education Standards.

The South Dakota MSM has not covered the details of the National Health Education Standards and specifically the Comprehensive Sex Education Standards that were created with the help of Planned Parenthood. This just another issue that the MSM has sided with the far-left on.

Beck, Schuldt, and black helicopters

SDP has pointed out that Chad Schuldt, paid Daschle thug and slimer for Steve Hildebrand, has come to the defense of Dave Kranz in regard to the debate I am having with Kevin Woster at Mount Blogmore regarding the bias of the Argus Leader:

Of course, Schuldt doesn't discuss Kranz's long association with Daschle and his association with Democrats, which Kranz has never disclosed. It is one thing for blogs to be biased, since they never claim to be objective. It's another to have the state's largest newspaper and the so-called dean of South Dakota politics doing the same. As lieutenant governor Lowell Hansen wrote of Kranz in 1986, "Everybody is entitled to have a preference. But, when that someone has access to thousands of readers, the public deserves to know where he's coming from."

Maybe Schuldt should actually address the facts and evidence that have been uncovered.

In my previous post I responded to Argus Leader Executive Editor Randell Beck’s use of the "Black Helicopters" to refer to those he disagrees with. Not surprisingly, Schuldt also refers to Black Helicopters in his attack at those he disagrees with. I guess like minds think alike.

As SDP points out, Schuldt the Clear Cut Kidder, is not good at using facts and evidence. Just because those media outlets that also cover the conservative side of the issues are more popular than those that only cover the left, doesn’t mean anything other than fair and balanced is more popular than far-left propaganda.

What Schuldt can't handle is that when both sides are farily presented, far-left advocates such as Tom Daschle end up losing elections.

Randell Beck attacks pro-gun legislators

Today, Argus Leader Executive Editor Randell Beck again shows his anti-gun bias by attacking legislators, who unanimously voted to prevent the paper from publishing concealed carry permit applicants, for siding with what he refers to as extremists:

House Bill 1099, sponsored in part by Reps. Margaret Gillespie, D-Hudson, and Mike Buckingham, R-Rapid City, would ensure none of us ever know who has a pistol permit. It's an outgrowth of a bill passed last year that prohibits sheriffs and police from maintaining a list or registry of gun owners.

Beyond affording our Legislature the exhilarating opportunity to close yet another public record, the bill appears to play to the "Black Helicopter" crowd that has convinced itself that a global conspiracy is afoot to seize our guns and plant chips in our necks.

Which means it ought to sail right through the Legislature.

Built that bunker yet?

First note that Randell Beck is factually incorrect when he refers to "House Bill 1099". It is House Bill 1199. And his reference to the "Black Helicopter" crowd is straight out of the Tony Dean book on anti-NRA propaganda. The Argus Leader used Tony Dean’s propaganda as a smoke and mirrors tool in 2002 to prevent the public from learning about public information regarding his coffee drinking buddy, Senator Tim Johnson, who was seeking re-election that was considered important for Tom Daschle to retain his Majority position in the Senate. And that would be Johnson’s anti-gun votes in the U.S. Senate during 1999 and 2000 when Bill Clinton unsuccessfully attempted to shut down gun shows in the wake of the Columbine school shootings.

It should be understood that the South Dakota legislators, who Beck considers radical, rejected the view of some that citizens have a right to pack heat without a government issued permit. Yet when gun owners compromise that position and simply ask that such information not to be considered public information, Beck attacks by calling that radical. Common sense should tell you that carrying a concealed weapon is by definition meant to be a secret. A secret that is intended to prevent criminals from having an upper hand by knowing who is packing heat and who is not. So why should we consider a secret, public information?

If you carefully review my Argus Leader Bias category, you will find a lot of public information that the Argus Leader refuses to publish. Randell Beck should be the last person whining about his paper not being able to print stuff. What is clear is that he has no problem publishing anti-conservative reports, but has a problem when the story is not kind to Democrats, except when a Democrat joins with conservatives. And that includes today's David Kranz column regarding Tim Johnson's support for Samuel Alito.