Sibby Online

Moral and financial corruption raises its head again in Pierre as the transgender bill is pulled from the table

Even Cory Heidelberger likes abuse of money when it is used to further his cultural Neo-Marxist agenda:

Veto-promising Governor Dennis Daugaard has cited the negative economic impact writing anti-trans potty panic into law will have on our fair state. Mark Lee, Sioux Falls Chamber lobbyist, told Greg Belfrage the same thing Friday:

Remember what happened to North Carolina when it passed it’s transgender potty law?

ACC tournament pulled out. NCAA events pulled out. NBA All Star Game pulled out. PayPay decided not to expand. One study puts the economic impact on North Carolina at $680 million–and counting.

Mark Lee, the lobbyist for the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, said South Dakota and Sioux Falls in particularly could be looking at the loss of NCAA events and major corporations deciding not to expand here or even pulling out of the state if the measure is passed.

Lee says the measure is a solution looking for a problem in the state [Todd Epp, “Transgender Locker Room Law Could Cost S.D., Sioux Falls Millions ,” KELO Radio, 2017.01.27].

This morning the legislation got pulled before it was even discussed:

A bill that would have restricted which locker rooms South Dakota transgender students could use was scuttled Tuesday, for now averting another bitter fight in the Capitol over the regulation of school facilities.

Senate Education Committee Chairman Jim Bolin said right before the bill's first hearing that its author wanted it withdrawn. The sponsor, Sen. Lance Russell, didn't immediately respond to telephone calls for comment about the measure, which required public school students to use the locker rooms, shower rooms and changing facilities matching their gender at birth.

Under the bill, schools would have been allowed to provide alternative accommodations, such as single-occupancy restrooms.

The proposal was similar to one Gov. Dennis Daugaard vetoed last year, and the Republican had said he would veto this bill too if it reached his desk.

Dale Bartscher, who lobbies for a conservative group that supported the bill, said the governor's opposition was a "strong factor" in its withdrawal. Conversations are ongoing about whether another bill will be introduced this year or next year, said Bartscher, of Family Heritage Alliance Action.

Russell did not even show up to the committee in order to pull his bill. Like to know what happened behind the scenes on this one.

Money seems to be more important to South Dakota liberals than protecting children from moral and psychological harm:

The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of male and female, respectively – not genetic markers of a disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs do not constitute a third sex.¹

2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one. No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as “feeling like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.^2,3,4

3. A person’s belief that he or she is something they are not is, at best, a sign of confused thinking. When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V).⁵ The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved.^2,4,5

4. Puberty is not a disease and puberty-blocking hormones can be dangerous. Reversible or not, puberty- blocking hormones induce a state of disease – the absence of puberty – and inhibit growth and fertility in a previously biologically healthy child.⁶

5. According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.⁵

6. Children who use puberty blockers to impersonate the opposite sex will require cross-sex hormones in late adolescence. Cross-sex hormones (testosterone and estrogen) are associated with dangerous health risks including but not limited to high blood pressure, blood clots, stroke and cancer.^7,8,9,10

7. Rates of suicide are twenty times greater among adults who use cross-sex hormones and undergo sex reassignment surgery, even in Sweden which is among the most LGBTQ – affirming countries.¹¹ What compassionate and reasonable person would condemn young children to this fate knowing that after puberty as many as 88% of girls and 98% of boys will eventually accept reality and achieve a state of mental and physical health?

8. Conditioning children into believing that a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthful is child abuse. Endorsing gender discordance as normal via public education and legal policies will confuse children and parents, leading more children to present to “gender clinics” where they will be given puberty-blocking drugs. This, in turn, virtually ensures that they will “choose” a lifetime of carcinogenic and otherwise toxic cross-sex hormones, and likely consider unnecessary surgical mutilation of their healthy body parts as young adults.

Michelle A. Cretella, M.D.
President of the American College of Pediatricians

Quentin Van Meter, M.D.
Vice President of the American College of Pediatricians
Pediatric Endocrinologist

Paul McHugh, M.D.
University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital

And here we learn about the roots of the transgender agenda:

Recently, an Alaskan transgendered high school athlete won honors in a female race at Alaska’s state track meet. The female competitors, no doubt, were upset, one even saying that she doesn’t think it is fair. A normal and reasonable response. It won’t be the last, since, according to transathlete.com, thirty states allow for transgendered athletes to compete in competitions under the gender they identify with.

About two to three decades ago, it became the norm to discard sexual difference in language, e.g., no longer was there a spokesman or spokeswoman, but spokesperson was the term used; no longer are people called actors or actresses, but both men and women are called actors.

We well remember how the transformation of Caitlyn Jenner was one of the most reported-upon stories by a media that is fixated upon driving a leftist agenda. Even before Caitlyn Jenner there was Laverne Cox. And since 2014, Amazon’s "Transparent" has been a hit. As well, there is Jazz Jennings. Furthermore, beginning in the 2017-2018 academic year, kindergarten children in Washington State will be taught gender identity, with 3rd graders even being taught that they can choose their own gender. Then there is the New York City Human Rights Law which enforces the proper use of pronouns to address an individual.

Some of the roots of the current transgender rights movement can be traced back to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s when all societal norms were breached. The truth at the bottom of this sad episode was not liberation to love, but the ego wanting whatever it wanted -- full liberation from any meaningful relationships, which will require responsibility and restraints.

But the roots go even further back, and are found in post-modernism and existentialism. Politics, as is often said, is downstream from culture. But the culture is downstream from the academy, which is where bad ideas take hold and are passed down to students, and through entertainment, which influences society. To quote Scottish politician Andrew Fletcher, “Let me make the songs of a nation, I do not care who makes its laws.”

But two of the main influencers of the current Left are Herbert Marcuse and Michel Foucault. A leading member of the Frankfurt School, Marcuse’s book Eros and Civilization (1965) became the bible of the New Left. As a cultural Marxist, he saw the biggest challenge was replacing the Reality Principle with the Pleasure Principle. This was the driving force that propelled the Sexual Revolution. Happiness was the highest ideal and anything goes.

Marcuse and the Frankfurt School also urged what is now called political correctness. For them, in order to change society and culture, the transgressive must become the norm and what is accepted and tolerated -- free speech, traditional customs, etc. -- must become unacceptable and intolerable, and that they and their disciples would be the enforcers of what is tolerable and accepted.

That (pleasures over principles) explains the Wollmann sex scandal that was ignored by members of both political parties. Now with the transgender issue, we have Governor Daugaard siding with the cultural Marxists, and Cory Heidelberger promoting financial corruption as a tool to further that agenda, as he quotes a lobbyist for the Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce. It also took liberal Republicans and liberal Democrats to pass a sales tax, even though it was voted down in 2012, in order to add more funding for the cultural Neo-Marxist indoctrination centers that we call public schools. And they added an emergency clause so that it could not be referred to a vote. In promoting IM22 Heidelberger and his fellow Democrats deemed those actions corrupt. RINOs and Democrats are two peas in a liberal deceptive corrupt pod here in South Dakota. Money and fun is driving the agenda in Pierre.

Cory Heidelberger goes off on another sexist male-hating rampage with a response to the defeat of HB 1032, but it backfired this time

Cory Heidelberger pro-feminist cultural Neo-Marxist worldview from the Frankfurt School manifested itsel with another male basing post. This one is titled, "Pischke Helps Cheapskate Divorced Dads Sabotage Needed Child Support Update Bill":

Yet a bunch of skinflint non-custodial dads led by Rep. Tom Pischke (R-25/Dell Rapids) managed to confuse enough legislators to kill HB 1032 in the House on January 18.

And...

Men, man up, and quit your griping. If you can’t make real shared parenting work (it’s called marriage) and put your children’s interests ahead of your own, 50 more dollars a month is a small price to pay for the state’s intervention on behalf of your children.

Legislature, let’s rectify this error. Show you support kids by bringing HB 1032 back. Rep. Dennert, Rep. Kaiser, vote to reconsider HB 1032. If you can’t do that, then let’s find someone to file a new bill this week (Friday is the deadline for new bills!) that follows up on the commission’s recommendation for fixing the problematic definition of full-time employment and provides updated dollar figures to keep children of divorced parents properly fed, clothed and cared for.

Cory, a promoter of killing children in abortion mills, could care less about children. Hss agenda is tied to the Educrats, as proved with an earlier post on HB1032:

The Commission on Child Support proposes House Bill 1032, which we could call the Swalve bill, or the Revising Child Support Calculations to Recognize Teaching Is a Full-Time Job Act.

Cory is using children as political pawns in order to bash fathers so that teachers can be considered full-time for working less than nine months a year. And how many teachers are receiving child support from so-called "cheapskate skinflint" men who work 12 months and make less than half as much as a $50,000 teacher? It did not take long for this comment to so up on Cory's ill-conceived post:

Wow unbelievable…moms pay child support too.. Non custodial parents have nearly the exact same expenses as custodial parents. Or perhaps the lunatic who wrote this don’t think fathers should see their children if they split with the mother.

There are so many gender stereotypes in this article. You honestly should be ashamed of yourself.

So much for equal rights and probably why liberals like you are the laughing stock of the country. Peace. Keep it up slow learner

And Cory proved the point that he is a "slow learner" with this response:

“Deadbeat”? I didn’t use that label. But Casey likes labels like “lunatic” and “slow learner”.

It’s not crazy to think that supporting my child should be a default assumption of law and morality. I was not slow to learn that obligation. And what this has to do with “liberals”, I have no idea. Casey’s just throwing insults to cover up a weak and selfish case.

Do your jobs, dads. (Sure, and moms, too. Casey, how many moms testified against HB 1032?)

I’d argue more, but I’m out working to make money to make sure my daughter gets food, clothing, shelter, and books. More later.

Even females were offended by Cory's male bashing:

Cory do you even live in South Dakota? If you do not, you really should be concerned with the laws of where you live. I have two sons who are paying child support and in no way are either “cheapskates”. I find your article offensive.

Another female called Cory a bully:

Cory, it is you that is uneducated. $50 more dollars a month means a noncustodial father might not be able to give his child a birthday gift or pay fees to a movie with his child when they visit together. We live in SD, money is tight for everyone. Inflation increases for both parents of children. For you to say the things you did about divorced dad is a form of bullying. We would never minimalize our students in our schools like you have done to divorced noncustodials. SHAME, SHAME, SHAME on you. YOU, SIR, are a bully.

Some dads provided these insights:

 Cory, this is so incredibly disappointing. The next time you are in Brookings please find 30 minutes to talk to me. I’ll show you what my financial obligations are and explain how incredibly biased custody law is. I am honestly shocked to see this from you. Blanket accusations of being ‘skinflints’ and ‘cheapskates’ and implications of immorality and failure to make a relationship work?? Your post drips with sexism. “Man up?” Who says that? Bizarre, my friend, bizarre. There is a legitimate argument to be made that says child support guidelines should be increased in correlation with other metrics such as cost of living. Make that one. In the meantime, I’ll be working so that I can afford the $1000+ 14 hour one way trip to see my kids since I failed to make true co-parenting work and clearly deserve this.

AND...

Really? It makes no sense for me to pay almost 600 a month for a child I have around one third of the time. I had to move in with my parents because I can’t afford a house payment with that large of an amount. I did the math and 150 goes to day care, 100 is the full amount of insurance for her. So you tell me why I have to pay an extra 350 a month! Pretty sad our laws put me out of a home and having to live with my mom!!

Here is another response from a female:

Wow very biased article. There are grandparents and fathers that are alienated from their children and grandchildren and yet the state does nothing to the mothers when they violate court orders . Dads usually don’t have the kind of money ir takes to keep fighting. Maybe the mother divorced the father . It takes two people to remain married. You automatically assume it was the fathers fault. This article is so offending to me and extremely prejudice against fathers.

AND...

I am really disappointed in this post for a number of reasons. First, as another comment pointed out, there are quite a few gender stereotypes in this post. You have used an elementary explanation to over-simplify a complicated situation. I am a step-mom to two boys. My husband divorced his ex-wife not because he “couldn’t make marriage work,” but because of repeated betrayal by his ex. His ex had a trust fund she could use to hire an attorney and demand full physical custody of the boys. My husband made the difficult decision to leave the marital home, and had to start out on his own, so he did not have money to hire an attorney. The court defaults to full custody for mothers in this state, so my husband went from being with his boys every day to seeing them four days a month. There is new evidence that shows that cutting one parent out of a child’s life in this fashion is extremely damaging to children of divorce.

Even after all of this comments, Cory remains stuck on stupid and continues to bash males:

Jacob, I think the sponsors of the bill made that rational case. The folks who voted against weren’t listening, because they got some biased arguments from folks who don’t like paying more for their kids. My sympathy is limited on this issue.

Look, for example, at Chris’s complaint. He’s mad that he has to pay full child support because he only sees his child a third of the time. The child doesn’t eat only one third of the time. Wherever the child is, whoever has the child, the child needs support. Chris needs to pay $600 because his child needs $600 worth of food, clothing, etc. If a parent can’t see that—if a parent thinks the amount he or she should pay to support his or her child depends on how much time he or she gets to spend with the child—then that parent needs new priorities.

Dads spending time with their children is not important to Cory. He cares more about money. And he accuses others for not listening and being biased?

Then Cory goes political:

And please, let’s not try to distract from the main question of parental duties by (a) questioning whether I live in South Dakota (I bleed the blue of the South Dakota flag and have all my life) or (b) pretending to fly a gender critique. I won’t waste my breath defending my credentials on gender equity in marriage or any public issue, but understand that you don’t want to go there, because you will lose badly. Just focus on the policy discussion, and leave your false impressions and personal insults out of it.

I stand by every word I said. Representative Pischke needs to reset his priorities to align with the pro-child, pro-family, pro-responsibility values of his own party.

Cory's policy postions are bad for children, b ad for family, and are about being sexually permissive...not pro-responsibility. Again, his political agenda is in support of a public education system that is largely responsible for creating this environment that is harmful to children:

The single, most important organizational component of this conspiracy was a Communist thinktank called the Institute for Social Research (I.S.R.), but popularly known as the Frankfurt School.

In the heady days immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, it was widely believed that proletarian revolution would momentarily sweep out of the Urals into Europe and, ultimately, North America. It did not; the only two attempts at workers' government in the West— in Munich and Budapest—lasted only months. The Communist International (Comintern) therefore began several operations to determine why this was so. One such was headed by Georg Lukacs, a Hungarian aristocrat, son of one of the Hapsburg Empire's leading bankers. Trained in Germany and already an important literary theorist, Lukacs became a Communist during World War I, writing as he joined the party, "Who will save us from Western civilization?" Lukacs was well-suited to the Comintern task: he had been one of the Commissars of Culture during the short-lived Hungarian Soviet in Budapest in 1919; in fact, modern historians link the shortness of the Budapest experiment to Lukacs' orders mandating sex education in the schools, easy access to contraception, and the loosening of divorce laws—all of which revulsed Hungary's Roman Catholic population.

The agenda is a bigoted attack on Christians:

The task of the Frankfurt School, then, was first, to undermine the Judeo-Christian legacy through an "abolition of culture" (Aufhebung der Kultur in Lukacs' German); and, second, to determine new cultural forms which would increase the alienation of the population, thus creating a "new barbarism." To this task, there gathered in and around the Frankfurt School an incredible assortment of not only Communists, but also non-party socialists, radical phenomenologists, Zionists, renegade Freudians, and at least a few members of a self-identified "cult of Astarte." The variegated membership reflected, to a certain extent, the sponsorship: although the Institute for Social Research started with Comintern support, over the next three decades its sources of funds included various German and American universities, the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia Broadcasting System, the American Jewish Committee, several American intelligence services, the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany, the International Labour Organization, and the Hacker Institute, a posh psychiatric clinic in Beverly Hills.

And this shows how the US government became involved:

Lukacs survived to briefly take up his old post as Minister of Culture during the anti-Stalinist Imre Nagy regime in Hungary. Of the other top Institute figures, the political perambulations of Herbert Marcuse are typical. He started as a Communist; became a protégé of philosopher Martin Heidegger even as the latter was joining the Nazi Party; coming to America, he worked for the World War II Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and later became the U.S. State Department's top analyst of Soviet policy during the height of the McCarthy period; in the 1960's, he turned again, to become the most important guru of the New Left; and he ended his days helping to found the environmentalist extremist Green Party in West Germany.

I hope we can now better understand where Cory is coming from.

Cory Heidelberger admits he uses lies and tricks

Cory Heidelberger makes this argument regarding the legislative move to repeal IM22:

Supporters of IM22 and direct democracy, your calls and letters to your legislators may be working.

After three days of swift Republican action on House Bill 1069, the repeal of the Anti-Corruption Act that voters approved just eleven weeks ago, the Republican-dominated Senate said whoa, horse! and put off debate on HB 1069 until next week Wednesday.

And...

Permit me to put on my old Republican hat and make a purely Machiavellian suggestion. Republican friends, maximize your return on HB 1069. Use the long weekend to show you care. Come back Wednesday swearing that you have heard the people’s concerns. Respond to those concerns by amending HB 1069 (as Minority Leader Sutton tried yesterday in committee) to remove the emergency clause that prevents them from referring your decision.

Heidelberger supported the teacher pay bill last session that included an emergency clause that prevented the sales tax increase from being referred. In 2012 the voters rejected a sales tax increase that was to fund higher teacher pay. Cory doesn't care about democracy. So many of his arguments in support of IM22 are the exact opposite of the arguments he used on the teacher pay issue. Clearly Cory does not care about the truth as he uses lies and tricks to gain power and money for himself and his special interest cohorts. Here is a definition of Machiavellian:

using clever lies and tricks in order to get or achieve something

Sad that nost don't know the Machiavellian nature of Cory's web site. Exposing his tricks is what got me banned from commenting at what he cleverly labeled "Dakota Free Press". The last thing Cory cares about is the "will of the people".

The moral corruption in Pierre is a function of the left's agenda, that controls both political parties

Cory Heidelberger does a post on Greg Belfrage's interview with state Senator Stace Nelson:

Senate State Affairs kept the “Repeal the Will of the Voters!” train rolling today, voting 7–2 (Republicans, including my District 3 Senator Al Novstrup, all aye, Democrats Billie Sutton and Troy Heinert nay) to send House Bill 1069, repeal of the Anti-Corruption Act, to the full Senate. The Senate convenes at 1 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday); HB 1069 is scheduled for a vote tomorrow.

We knew back in November, when the Koch Brothers failed to defeat IM 22 at the polls and Republican leaders went to court, that the South Dakota Republican Party would use every tool at its disposal to erase the Anti-Corruption Act and protect themselves (again) from the scrutiny of a state ethics commission.

We did not know in November that the paucity of ethics in Pierre would be laid bare by Mathew Wollmann’s sex scandal. In a live interview with conservative KELO Radio host Greg Belfrage this morning, Republican Senator Stace Nelson laid out what he knows about Republican leaders’ efforts to cover up former Representative Mathew Wollmann’s persistent sexual misconduct with several Legislative interns during both years of his first term in office.

Note that Senator Nelson’s comments are all hearsay. But this is a sitting Senator publicly saying what he has heard from interns and legislators.

Senator Nelson said that he first learned about Wollmann’s misconduct from conservative legislators last summer, after his primary victory. Nelson said he heard from interns after the Joint Rules Committee rejected the sexual-contact prohibition he proposed two weeks ago.

So Cory is trying to make this scandal an exclusive Republican issue. Cory must of forgot what he said about the action of the joint Rules Committee:

Troy makes another important point: this is not a partisan political story. Dems don’t get to whack the GOP with this one, since Democrats Sutton and Hawley both helped kill the rule.

As an undercard, I’ll point to the Dems’ votes as a missed opportunity. They would have lost nothing in voting for Nelson’s rule. They would even have signaled to Nelson their willingness to work with him in opposition to the GOP mainstream and perhaps won a little give from Nelson to support them on some of their policy initiatives.

So why is Cory now trying to use this issue to whack Republicans and give Democrats the moral high ground on IM22? In order for Cory to join true conservatives and fight the culture of corruption, he will need to reject his liberal worldview:

In conclusion, Kengor passionately and convincingly argues that by allowing the political Left to set the agenda for society and to establish their perverted paradigms which are anti-theatrical to America's Judeo-Christian traditions and institutions, "We are witnessing a watershed moment in American cultural history: the sabotaging of family and marriage. Extreme-left radicals have made their arguments and tried different tactics, from the early nineteenth century to the sexual revolution of the 1960s, but at long last they have the vehicle to make it happen: gay marriage," as the publisher's notes on Kengor's revelatory book. "Now, as the legal definition of marriage rapidly changes, the floodgates are open, and the fundamental transformation of the American family will take on new speed and new dimensions. Efforts to redefine the family structure have been long at work, and there have been some influential forces on the far left and communist left that cannot and should not be ignored in that process," the publisher contends.

Hiding behind a rogues gallery of pseudo-intellectuals most notably Marx, Freud, and the Frankfurt School, Takedown uncovers how same-sex marriage, transsexualism, transracialism and the radical, nihilist LGBT Agenda, is collectively serving as a Trojan horse for the Democrat Socialist Party to provoke the final destruction or 'takedown' of the family, marriage, morality and the vestiges of America's Judeo-Christian traditions and institutions that in modern times this atheist revolution dates back to the anti-Christian genocide of the French Revolution (1789-99) with Rousseau, Robespierre and the Jacobins.

These Cultural Marxists of the Left have coveted so badly, waited for so long for the deconstruction of America, yet hundreds of millions of everyday Americans and billions across the world are virtually ignorant to the profound, cataclysmic and evil forces working in the shadows to secure their destruction, most shamefully Jews and Christians who should know better.

Cory is as much of the problem as anyone. IM22 will not fix the problem. Cory does not really want to fix the problem as much as he wants to gain political power for the Democrats. The fight over power and money is the source of corruption. To fix Pierre we have to remove the cultural Neo-Marxist agenda from our public schools (most importantly sex education) and reduce the size of scope of government in other areas, including the economy. And that is just for starters, as this will be a very long-term process. Cory will not support such conservative policy initiatives. Whether he knows it or not, Cory is part of the agenda that seeks to destroy America in order to set up a one-world system...all controlled by Satan. I will talk about the Occult Theocracy in future posts...God willing.

Stace Nelson denies Lee Schoenbeck's allegations, and more details about what Pierre's corrupt system of crony capitalism allows are exposed

Last week Greg Belfrage made this observation:

It's been sickening to watch the reactions of some to the controversy involving Rep. Mathew Wollmann of Madison.

Wollmann this week admitted that he had consensual sex with legislative interns in 2015 and 2016.

Yesterday I shared my concern that the legislature missed a golden opportunity last week to prohibit sexual contact between lawmakers, pages and interns.

Read more: Wollmann proves need for change in legislative rules

Former representative Lee Schoenbeck of Watertown provides a sad glimpse into the twisted thinking that has kept lawmakers from doing the right thing.

Schoenbeck posted the following comment at Pat Powers'  War College blog:

Here’s an interesting question that needs to be put to senator Stace Nelson. When he served in the House, one of his friends, a House member, was aggressively chasing an intern, and there had to be about a 15 year age difference! It would be a much clearer case to complain about, if the conduct was of concern to Senator Nelson. Maybe he could explain why he didn’t raise it then, or since they now both serve in the same body, file a complaint with the senate.
This looks like it’s about Senator Nelson trying to smear a young man that he views as a political opponent.
PS A rule prohibiting legislators from having romantic with relationships with interns wouldn’t be a bad thing. It would stop that example of a 45+ year old legislator chasing a college girl, but there are two things to ponder. First, These days there are many young legislators who are in the peer group with interns – politically interested people in their 20s.
Second, given that you’re not going to install body cameras, is there actually going to be a rule drawing a line, that describes the good bad touch thing? I saw a legislator harmlessly with an intern in public Thursday at an event – is that type of social interaction (kind of like a low level date) going to be prohibited? Interaction with legislators was a great part of my intern experience, and most interns would echo that. It’s one of those deals where good judgment and wise counsel from leadership is probably the best fix. I recall Sen Bogue and I caboshing a senator wanting to have the page pizza party at the Ramkota pool with swimming by the whole group!

This is the kind of straw-man, circular thinking that makes me reach for a barf bag.

Senator Nelson's motives are absolutely irrelevant to the issue of whether lawmakers should be having sex with pages and interns.

At Madville today, Schoenbeck's allegation was brought up:

So who else is having sex with interns? I agree, Jana, if Lee Schoenbeck knows more he should tell up and who is Stace’s friend?

Stace Nelson responded with this:

Folks, let me be crystal clear. I categorically reject Lee Schoenbeck’s lies and innuendos. I shared a house with two legislators 2012-2013, Brock Greenfield & Lance Russell, with our family members staying there for weeks on end. Happy to provide a sworn affidavit to any body that wishes to review this matter officially explicitly declaring I have never observed, or heard of (till Schoenbek’s calumus accounts), of any member of the House having any type of inappropriate contact with any intern or page.

Since Lee Schoenbeck was a member of the House the last two years, how about he do the same thing and submit that document to the disciplinary hearing regarding his knowledge of the lies and misconduct of his protege.

Then comes Todd Epp with this:

According to documents obtained by The Greg Belfrage Show, legislative leaders likely knew in 2015--and certainly by 2016--that one of their own members was allegedly having or attempting to have sex with legislative interns.

The state House member serving at the time is unnamed in the exchange of emails among members and the Legislative Research Council. The member is called, however, a “sexual predator” by at least one legislator who reported conduct they witnessed or were told about from witnesses. The Greg Belfrage Show has not positively confirmed the identity of the accused legislator and the documents do not name the legislator except as noted below.

And...

Nelson wrote:

Prior to the submission of the Joint Rules change recommending an explicit prohibition of legislators having sexual contact with pages & interns, I was advised of widely known notorious misconduct of a sitting legislator’s inappropriate interactions with pages and interns. Such misconducted (sic) reputed to include sexual intercourse. I was not aware of any first hand information. Accordingly, I attempted to bring the rules change to diplomatically address and obvious unacceptable problem. . .

• 1.Yesterday (Jan. 11, 2017) afternoon a legislator reported House leadership (NFI) previously received a complaint about the suspect legislator having sexual contact with interns and pages. The legislator indicated form their personal observations that the suspect legislator was a “sexual predator.”
• 2. I was told by another legislator last night that they were aware that the suspect legislator had sexual relations with several specific past interns. I did not ask any qualifying questions. . .

My due diligence is satisfied on this matter. This is a matter under some of your obligation and responsibility.

--Jan. 12, 2017 email from Sen. Stace Nelson.

January 17, 2017, Nelson wrote an email to nearly all state legislators and Attorney General Marty Jackley noting what he had pieced together regarding complaints about the legislator. Nelson is a retired Naval Criminal Investigative Services agent. Nelson wrote:

First, I would like to personally acknowledge and express y utmost respect and admiration to Senator Brock Greenfield and Mr. Dusty Johnson. When Senator Greenfield became aware (a year+/- (sic) ago NFI) that a legislator was preying on pages and interns, he confirmed to House leadership that complaints they acknowledged they already received, were factual to what he was aware of. When Senator Greenfield and Mr (sic) Johnson consulted together about this problem, Mr. Johnson reportedly removed the offending legislator from having any official contact with the Teenage Republicans as a counselor. That, is leadership. Well done gentlemen.

--Jan. 17, 2017 email from Sen. Stace Nelson.

“NFI” means no further information (available). Teenage Republicans is TAR, a longstanding state Republican youth organization.

And...

January 19, 2017, Nelson sent another email to legislative leaders, AG Jackley, and Jason Hancock, director of the LRC. Nelson wrote:

For the attention of the AG and for the record with House leadership, the following information is provided as written documentation of information already passed to several of you in person which I received from former interns who served in the House in 2015.

Two former interns reported the suspect legislator in fact knowingly gave alcoholic beverages to a known minor in 2015 on at least one occasion. One intern reported that he allegedly engaged in kissing and fondling of an intern, allegedly in front of at least one other, who was so intoxicated the intern opined the young intern may not have been sober enough to consent to the contact. To be clear, interns identified 2 interns he (the legislator) had consensual sexual intercourse with in 2015, another different one he groped while she was extremely intoxicated, and another one that he sexually harassed and outraged when he was caught trying to “get with” multiple pages. The interns indicated he was texting them constantly through out (sic) the day trying to “get with” the female interns.

Several House leadership members confirmed that written complaints were received by House leadership members, last year, allegedly alluding to the sexual contact with interns and pages , (sic) and when the one intern was extremely intoxicated. . .

This is provided to the AG as suspected matters under his primary jurisdiction and it compliance with my understanding of my obligations under the Joint Rules and any potential SDCL statutes.

--Jan. 19, 2017 email from Sen. Stace Nelson.

As of late Tuesday morning, the House Select Committee on Discipline and Expulsion was still scheduled to meet today (Tuesday) at 3 p.m. The LRC also sent a letter to former interns who served in 2015 or 2016, asking them to testify.

In a system of cronyism, certain people are allowed to have their fun. Those who do not go along with the establishment have every little pimple on their butt exposed for the world to see. Expect more establishment attacks on Stace Nelson, because that is how the system of corruption works in Pierre. It is not a good place to mentor young people, unless they are shielded from the games that are running in the background.

Cory Heidelberger takes a misogynistic shot at the new First Lady

Cory Heidelberger uses a Simpson's parody that mocks the new First Lady:

So what do you think of your new first lady? I picked Moronia— what’s your name, honey? Melania, right. Great name. I just picked Melania here from a very wide selection of possibilities— not just because the sex is incredible but because this nation wants and deserves a trophy first lady. When everyone sees our first lady standing next to some other first lady of another country, the wife of a premier or whatever, they’ll want to go to bed with our first lady, not the other one.

And this is suppose to be funny?

Troy Jones calls Cory Heidelberger a puritan as the kettle calls Pat Powers the pot partisan

Cory Heidelberger goes after Pat Powers for being a hypocrite:

But the erupting sex scandal in Pierre gives us a remarkably real turntable on which to dissect the hypocrisy of morally vacuous Republican spin blogger Pat Powers. Let’s compare Powers’s response to Republican Representative Mathew Wollmann’s sex with interns to Powers’s coverage of allegations of sexual misconduct by Democratic then-Senator-Elect, now Senator Reynold Nesiba.

Mathew Wollmann has admitted to having sex with Legislative interns during both years of his first term in Pierre. He met interns on the job, asked them out, and had sex with them. One former intern says his sexual conduct was “common knowledge,” but legislators took no action until their decision yesterday to convene an investigatory committee (see 8:20 in SDPB’s video of yesterday’s House Session—and note that the voice vote includes a couple of nays). Wollmann has admitted his actions were embarrassing and “unacceptable.”

Reynold Nesiba was accused of and arrested in November for non-consensual sexual contact. The alleged activity took place before Nesiba took office, outside of work. Nesiba denied wrongdoing.

Cory saying Nesbida denied wrongdoing is not exactly correct. He admits to inappropriate sexual contact, as it was outside marriage (puritan based argument), but he says this to police:

But before the victim invited Nesiba over that night, she texted him saying it wouldn’t be sexual.

The victim told police that she also verbally said “no” to Nesiba multiple times.

At one point, the victim found Nesiba naked in her bed.

When she got mad, he put her (SIC?) clothes back on.

However, on September 30th, Nesiba told police “there seemed to be ambiguity in terms of what the victim did or did not want”, later stating she was playing “hard to get.”

He said he was greeted at the door with a kiss that night, and they continued to kiss once he was inside.

He also admitted to unhooking the victim’s bra, but he stated the victim seemed to like it.

Nesiba said “he did not use any sort of force or cause any harm that he knew of.”

However, an arrest warrant was filed on November 9^th, and Nesiba was arrested Monday afternoon.

Nesida did not deny have sexual contact, he only denies that it was wrong.

Troy Jones left a comment pointing out Cory's own hypocrisy:

I can’t help but notice the irony that your very next thread opens with mention of “sex scandal” on an issue about ballot initiatives while you argued for “let the facts come out” on Nesiba before judging.

For different reasons, I am not pleased with either situation but there is only one where there was ever a question of consent which is a difference worth noting.

And don’t get me wrong. As this has progressed, I support the rule proposed. But, the fact two young twenty-year olds with common interests (politics at least) did this is not a scandal unless one is a puritan. Whether a governmental entity or business, such private behavior would not be monitored or regulated. in fact because it would be so prevalent, enforcement is effectively arbitrary and capricious.

As usual Cory refuses to be held accountable and instead deflects that reality by continuing to blame Powers for what Cory himself is also guilty of:

Troy, the sex scandal is real. The facts are out, straight from the person who pursued the sex. No irony there. We have more more substantial facts on the record in the Wollmann case than in the Nesiba case, far more public interest in the violations, and Powers chooses to downplay the Wollmann case. Unacceptable, indefensible, and significantly refutatory to any claim that Powers is a reliable journalist.

Age does not matter. If you’re mature enough to legislate, you’re mature enough not to boink legislative staff. Oh, the sacrifices of public service….

Arguing that governmental offices and business are rife with individuals in the highest positions of power seeking sex from individuals in their organizations in the lowest positions of power does not excuse Powers’s effort to downplay this serious scandal, nor does it say there is no scandal. It says this scandal is only an ugly public manifestation of scandalous practices that riddle our society and should be stopped.

No arguments from me on that position, but again, Cory is not being consistent with his policy position. He doesn't apply the same standard to Democrats. As with Nesiba, Wollman also denied wrongdoing:

They were what I would say is long standing friendships that maybe turned into more. I could pick up the phone today and still call these individuals and have a good conversation and really there’s no question in my mind that I didn’t hurt them. No question in mind that I didn’t hurt them….

To which Cory responded with this:

As neither a lawyer nor a public relations consultant, I say, Good grief, Mat! Pick a lane… and stop talking about yourself in the third person. You don’t have a strong enough hand to play moral arbiter and pretend to speak in the voice of “many” who think young legislators get to boink interns but older ones don’t. You win no chips by playing that hand. You admitted you did wrong; now hush.

So Cory is now playing the role of a puritan, as he hammers Wollman for arguing that he caused no harm. And what is with the "now hush"? If you try and tell Cory something he doesn't want to hear, he gets mad and starts to bully.

So the question I propose is if the interns claim Wollman's advances were not welcome, would Nesiba's argument, that he thought they were just "playing hard to get", cause concern? For Cory yes, but for Pat Powers? Probably not. But when a Democrat makes that argument, Cory is alright with it. Keep this "playing hard to get" in mind when the legislature distinguishes (or not) sexual harassment and sexual contact.

Sexual harassment does involve positions of power within an organization and subordinates. And Cory has been confronted with the fact that Monica Lewinsky was an intern regarding that sex scandal that Clinton tried to cover up with denying it happened.. Here is Cory's hypocritical response to that fact:

Whoa—enough about Clinton. He did his business before there even was a South Dakota blogosphere, so that example doesn’t help us understand what’s happening here.

My point on this post is less about Wollmann or Nesiba and very squarely about Pat Powers and his hypocritical treatment of the two affairs. So far, I haven’t seen anyone disagree with my assessment of how Pat’s coverage of these two affairs demonstrates a gross bias and unreliability.

So now the truth comes out, Cory does not care about the sexual immoral aspect, he is only trying to make Pat Powers look bad. Cory cannot argue that this is a sex scandal, if he considers sexual immoral conduct is not wrong. Yes I know Pat Powers is bias toward the agenda of the SDGOP establishment, but Cory Heidelberger also carries a huge political bias. From a puritan worldview, all of these cases involve sex outside of marriage and therefore have moral issues. A rational person would see problems with them all, and leave political allegiance out of it . But in partisan political blogs, right and wrong is defined by whether or not the person in the cross hairs is a member of your party, not on principles. Both Pat and Cory are guilty of that, and should not be considered reliable journalists. With that said, I still believe they both provide important information, you just have to take it with a grain of salt.

Second, Cory is arguing that people in power should not have sex with those below them in authority, including interns, yet he gives Bill Clinton a pass. Unlike Wollman, Clinton was married. And by the way, the reason I left the Democratic party was because Democrats like Tom Daschle refused to hold Clinton accountable. For Cory sexual immoral acts are rights, unless you happen to be a Republican politician who he wants replaced with a Democrat. So much for his policy position on "equality" and social "justice". Party trumps policy, and for Cory policy is not based on principles. It is based on what he thinks, and if anybody tries to explain why he is wrong, he gets very upset,

 

SDGOP Establishment uses campaign finance laws to retaliate against SDGO for pushing Daugaard on Constitutional carry

Yesterday I posted on how the two partisan blogs were reacting to the South Dakota Gun Owners pushing citizens to confront Governor Daugaard on his opposition to Constitutional carry. In 2012, Daugaard vetoed the bill and the House could not get enough votes to override the veto. Last September, Missouri Republicans did override the veto of a Democratic governor:

The Missouri House and Senate voted to override Democrat Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of Senate Bill 656 yesterday, making Missouri the 11th state to reassert the right of citizens to carry a firearm for self-defense without a permission slip from the government. The votes to institute so-called “constitutional carry” were not even close.

So what is wrong with South Dakota Republicans? Yesterday SDGOP Establishment blogger Pat Powers decided to use technicalities of campaign finance laws to retalitate against the SDGO for holding Governor Daugaard accountable on his liberal position regarding Constitutional carry:

You ever get a problem or question in your head you just have to solve?  Courtesy of my insomnia, I had one of those. A 4am mystery that was picking at my brain, which I started to talk about in the previous post, more specifically the SD Taxpayers PAC.

The most likely scenario was some SDGOP Establishment types provided Powers with this:

If you start looking closely at the reports, the numbers, and where the money comes from, you’re left scratching your head over a bit of the mess. And that brings us to where we are today. At least on the surface, it appears that the organization(s) may have some issues to address.

Issue #1: So in what form did the June 2 donation take, and how was it applied? $4004.40 was counted as a donation from a sole entity on June 2, but in the report, $4410 was counted as coming from 2 entities (SDGO PAC and SDGO). And obviously, none of the numbers seem to add up.

Issue #2: South Dakota Gun Owners (Organization and PAC) are noted on the report as having paid for both the printing and the postage on mailings, which went out under SD Taxpayers. Here’s an example of at least one:

So, how exactly did they accomplish this? South Dakota Gun Owners Organization (they claim to be a non-profit) allegedly spent $3030 on a communication coming from SD Taxpayers, which were all candidate advocacy.  It was counted as an in-kind contribution, but where’s the independent expenditure disclosure form for SD Gun Owners?

Independent Expenditures Statement – SDCL 12-27-16 states that any PERSON or ORGANIZATION that makes a payment or promise of payment totaling $100.00 or more, including an in-kind contribution, for a communication which expressly advocates for or against a candidate, public office holder, ballot question, or political party.

I don’t see SDGO on this list:

So, I have to do a form when I support Larry Tidemann on a postcard I send out for myself, but SDGO didn’t do one for a postcard that they bought and entirely financed for another PAC which seems to solely advocate against a candidate?

It all depends on your definition of advocacy.  And there might be a problem with that.

Issue #2.5 – Can one PAC legally pay to print and mail materials for another PAC with no disclaimer of the first PAC, simply by calling it an in-kind donation? If so, that’s a new loophole I hadn’t heard about.

How many South Dakotans understand the above details? I would argue not many. Here is Pat's conclusion:

I’m sure I’m only scratching the surface, but it looks to me as if there’s a messy campaign finance report, two organizations entangled with each other, with both attacking Republicans, and some things on report form that aren’t all as they seem to be.

Campaign finance laws are suppose to provide the common citizen with transparency. Sadly the laws themselves are not all that transparent. It takes a team of lawyers and accountants to make sure everything is in order. That leaves the average citizen out of the equation. What the campaign finance laws do is provide the Establishment with ways to retaliate against conservatives for holding liberal Republicans accountable for their votes and vetoes by exposing technical errors in their attempts to comply with a very complicated series of campaign finance statutes.

Sadly, Powers considers such accountability by conservatives...attacks. And the media will help them out during the election cycles by calling such efforts "negative campaigning". This is how Pierre's system of legalized corruption is protected. The real impact of campaign finance laws is it's use as a means by crony capitalists to find out the identity of those who are a threat to their ability to use the power of government to fund certain special interests. And that goes with both parties.

Party politics, where party and personality is over policy

Cory Heidelberger goes after Pat Powers for going after the SDGO for going after Governor Daugaard on the issue of Constitutional carry:

Powers shows that for SDGOP climbers, personality outweighs policy. Gun rights are central to Republican campaigning, but when advocates critique the boss, the propaganda machine shows how bread is buttered.

Funny that Cory also puts the Democratic party over policy when it comes to sexual immoral acts by politicians. Once one sees that both party establishments are wrong, politics becomes much more understandable. In order to fight for your party, too many use personal attacks against members of the other party.

Unfortunately, when you hold liberal Republicans to the same standard as liberal Democrats, you get this:

Steve, we are all tired of your rhetorical game playing. You remind me of a kid who was kicked out of high school debate and is still pissed off about it 40 years later. Time to grow up.

That was the anonymous response I got for asking this over at the War College:

“it puts good common sense legislators in a bad position”

Would you equate those legislators with “legislators who staunchly defend the 2nd amendment”?

Common sense is how liberal Democrats justify their gun control agenda. And liberal Republican politicians do the same in South Dakota. Getting kicked out of the SDGOP Establishment for holding liberal Republicans accountable was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

UPDATE: Back in September, Missouri Republicans overturned the Democratic Governor's veto of Constitutional carry. 

Cory Heidelberger uses an unrepentant convicted drug dealer to argue against Rep. Elisabeth May's proposed legislation to drug test welfare recipients, as he helps turn the reservations into concentration camps

Cory Heidelberger uses an Op-Ed from journalist Brandon Ecoffey to make an argument that meth users on the reservations should receive subsidized carrots instead of being held accountable with a post titled, "Give Poor Carrots, Not Sticks":

Grocer and Representative Elizabeth May (R-27/Kyle) wants to test her SNAP customers and other neighbors who need our help for drug use.

Journalist Brandon Ecoffey agrees with me that such tests are unconstitutional (searches without reasonable suspicion) and show conservatives’ “common practice to attempt to subject poor people to an entirely different set of rules.”

A reader provided me a tip on Ecoffey's recent past:

United States Attorney Brendan V. Johnson announced that a man charged with Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine was sentenced on November 17, 2009, by Chief United States District Judge Karen E. Schreier. Brandon Ecoffey, age 26, of Pine Ridge, was sentenced to 60 months' imprisonment, four years of supervised release, and ordered to pay a $500 fine and $100 to the Victims Assistance Fund. Ecoffey was indicted by superseding indictment for Conspiracy to Distribute Cocaine and Possession with Intent to Distribute Cocaine and Marijuana by a federal grand jury on May 22, 2008.

Here are more details:

By all accounts, Brandon Ecoffey led a double life after he graduated from Dartmouth College and returned to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

By day, Ecoffey worked for the Pine Ridge Area Chamber of Commerce. He mentored and tutored reservation youth, taught classes and was assistant basketball coach at Red Cloud High School.

But by night, he ran with a crowd that was dealing cocaine and marijuana. He developed a gambling problem and a serious cocaine addiction, eventually distributing drugs himself.

 Although U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier acknowledged that Ecoffey –- who comes from a prominent family -– has “huge potential” to be a positive influence on his community, she said Monday that the message he sent to young people by dealing drugs was anything but.

“These are kids that look at you and think … ‘I can be just like Brandon,’” she said before sentencing Ecoffey to five years in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute cocaine. “After you graduated from college, you were somebody that everybody looked up to.”

Ecoffey does not fit the definition of someone who was poor, and therefore supposedly has a good reason to be using illegal drugs. Ecoffey was "from a prominent family", so the Neo-Marxist argument used against May's legislation does not hold up. He was also a member of the Chamber of Commerce, which is a bunch of bourgeois, not proletariat.

Here is Ecoffey's response to his getting into trouble with the law:

In no way am I advocating one way or another for the use of drugs, I am simply asking people to allow themselves to consider the possibility that the drug laws in this country are not doing anything to advance Native communities. Sometimes people lie, but statistics don’t. Native people are not beneficiaries of the Drug War. We are victims of it.

And...

The tragedy is that there are often ill-informed and racist prosecutors in states like South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana who hand out years like change at a gas station; a nickel here, a dime there, and off to church they go.

That confirms why Heidelberger chose Ecoffey to support his argument. Ecoffey has adopted the cultural Neo-Marxist victimhood argument, that you see often at Madville.  The problem is not the drug use, it instead are with those who are to enforce the law.

And Ecoffey is too busy making racist statements to appreciate he was given an undeserved break:

The day before he was to go to trial last June, Ecoffey pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in federal prison; however, there is a “safety valve” that allows judges to drop below that in cases that meet five requirements.

In Ecoffey’s case, the first four were simple: he had no criminal history, there were no firearms involved in the crime, no one died and he was not a leader or organizer of the conspiracy.

The fifth requirement was tougher. It states that a defendant must truthfully provide the government with all information he has relevant to the offense.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Mara Kohn said Ecoffey failed to meet the fifth requirement. She said he lied repeatedly to investigators, minimized his role in the operation, and neglected to mention that he had gotten Vigil a new drug supplier when his old connection stopped selling.

Even though Ecoffey got his mandatory sentence cut in half (from 10 years to 5), he does not seem to appreciate the break as he continues his victimhood thinking due to the color of his skin.

And instead of being repentant, Ecoffey takes this position:

An additional way for tribes to address the impacts that America’s War on Drugs has had on our communities is to partner with organizations like Families Against Mandatory Minimums, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and other like-minded organizations who are lobbying for a move away from mass incarceration and towards more fair and appropriate sentencing mandates for non-violent drug offenders. This includes the use of therapeutic interventions as alternatives to incarceration. For Native peoples, alternative sentencing could include the use of traditional Native American spirituality and ceremonies to rid our people of the disease of addiction.

In March 2016, Ecoffey continued to push the idea that drugs on the reservation are OK:

The willingness of our people to stand on top of our sovereign rights has cleared the pathway for many other Indigenous peoples in America to capitalize and improve the status of assert their own nations. One of these watershed moments may be approaching as the Oglala Sioux Tribal council will soon decide if they want to poll the Oglala on their interest in marijuana legalization.

And...

The recent meth epidemic is further example that this outdated model of policing banned substances simply doesn’t work and that it is time for a drastic new approach to curbing addiction in our communities by finding a way to heal from our shared trauma. Of course there are pockets of hope all across our reservation but everything must be done to coddle and nurture these movements. To do this we need our people to be healthy and securing funding for this type of initiative will require a steady stream of funding. The economic and social implications of legalizing marijuana and/or hemp are monumental if accompanied by a new approach to community health. Imagine if we used the profits from legalization to create a new economy based in healing.

Later, in April 2016, Ecoffey argues that "Addiction Is Not A Sin":

On the reservation limited resources and understaffed facilities have been stretched to the capacity by a full blown meth epidemic that is impacting communities like nothing we have seen before. I've spent my fair share of time running the streets and to be completely honest, I have never seen a drug make people so insatiably thirsty for its high. Alcohol and Drugs have been part of the Pine Ridge Reservation for decades but the actions that our people are committing while on the drug are far more brazen and violent than what they used to be before the arrival of meth.

Ecoffey, along with Daugaard, fail to understand that the purpose of incarceration is for protecting society from those who will does us harm. The idea of allowing violent and unstable drug and alcohol abusers to stay within society has caused troubles:

A Pine Ridge woman facing criminal charges after two emaciated toddlers were found in her home on Nov. 11 has asked the U.S. District Court in Rapid City to throw out statements she made to law enforcement.

Roberta Featherman, 50, is charged with double counts of assault resulting in serious bodily injury and felony child abuse and neglect in relation to the children’s condition. She could face up to life in prison if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty.

A pediatrician who examined the girls, ages 2 and 3, said they would have died had they not been found. The doctor compared their level of starvation to that of World War II concentration camp prisoners.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Featherman admitted to FBI agents that she noticed the toddlers were not in good condition, yet did not seek medical help; that she fed them just a couple of times; and that she knew they and other children in her home had head lice.

 

And...

 

Poppen’s response also provided previously undisclosed details about the case. It said Featherman was found by tribal police under the basement stairs of her Potato Creek home, passed out and hiding.

The victims’ father was identified as Isaac White Crane, 31, who is serving time in federal prison. He was convicted in 2015 of assault with a dangerous weapon after hitting the girls’ mother, Darcel Featherman, with the handle and nonserrated edge of a knife, then punching and kicking her while she was four months pregnant.

Darcel Featherman reportedly left her 3-year-old daughter in the care of her mother, Roberta Featherman, and the younger one with her sister Darshan Featherman.

Darshan Featherman and a man who lived with Roberta Featherman are facing the same charges as Roberta Featherman. Four other people, who authorities say witnessed the children’s condition but did nothing, are charged with felony child abuse and neglect.

All have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

So we have seven adults living in a home where children go hungry? I am fully aware that there are adults who qualify for governmental assistance, but are too busy having fun to apply for it. Instead they whine to family members and friends about not having what they need to survive. And when they come to the attention of governmental authorities they whine about being picked on because they have brown skin and/or are poor. Heidelberger and Ecoffay will scream racist and fascist for anyone who argues there is a need for personal accountability.

Putting citizens, including children, at risk by not holding alcohol and drug abusers accountable is not good policy. And this irresponsible approach is not limited to reservations, but is also what drove Daugaard's prison reform agenda with the so-called drug courts.

I am concerned about drug testing without probable cause. At the same time I understand the need to prevent welfare funding from becoming a source of drug money. There are always strings attached to government money.

Second, children are the victims when meth moms are not confronted. This is from Iowa:

Mothers working through substance abuse treatment and navigating the child welfare system face a series of medical evaluations, counseling sessions, court dates and testing that can seem overwhelming while dragging on longer than desired.

“It is almost setting them up from the beginning to say ‘This is hopeless.’ It feels hopeless. It feels overwhelming and very lonely,” said Judy Murphy, former meth specialist at the Iowa Department of Human Services and co-founder of the Moms Off Meth support group.

In interviews with IowaWatch over the past six months, health care and social workers said failing to seek treatment increases the likelihood of drug use continuing after the child is born, putting the child at risk of abuse and neglect. Many children raised by drug-addicted parents start using drugs as well.

Methamphetamine has a history of abuse in Iowa, and other drugs, such as prescription pain medications, are starting to raise concerns. In 2011, 62 Iowans died from overdoses of pain medications, which has surpassed traffic accidents as the leading cause of injury death in the United States.

Both meth and prescription pain medications can undermine a baby’s health and create complications at the time of delivery.

And attempts to hold meth users accountable failed politically:

During the past state legislative session, Rep. Clel Baudler, R-Greenfield, sponsored a bill that would have made it a Class D felony under child endangerment if a newborn is found to have traces of an illegal drug within the first three days of birth. The charge could have sent mothers to prison for up to five years or a fine of up to $7,500.

“I would hope it would open their eyes enough that they would get treatment,” Baudler said in an interview with IowaWatch earlier this year.

“I don’t care about their social stigma. I want them to get treatment so their kids don’t grow up in a home with drugs that will continue to spiral society on down.”

The bill didn’t pass, but it raised concerns among health care and social workers, who said they feared criminalizing drug use by pregnant women could be dangerous for the health of the baby if it prevents women from coming into the hospital.

“Once word gets out that women are going to be charged, what are they going to do? They are not going to stop taking drugs. They are going to stop going to the hospital,” Oral, of the UI Children’s Hospital, said.

A mother can kill the child before its born, and also addict them to dangerous drugs. So jail is not the solution for the mothers, and Ecoffey is saying it is not for everyone. Sadly, it is the children who are suffering, as the party from the 60s continue in America. And what most don't know is that this is all by design:

There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears so to speak. Producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel - by propaganda, or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.

Aldous Huxley, 1961 / lecture to California Medical School in San Francisco

Heidelberger and Ecoffey are helping the crony capitalists turn the Indian reservations into concentration camps. They seem to not know what they are doing. Or perhaps Ecoffey does. earlier in this post I quoted Ecoffey, "For Native peoples, alternative sentencing could include the use of traditional Native American spirituality and ceremonies to rid our people of the disease of addiction." And in the report regarding his 5 year jail sentence we find this:

Spiritual leader Jerome LeBeau said Ecoffey has started sundancing and found a spiritual foundation from which to help his people.

So I find this very interesting:

As Paganism is an alternate culture, we have different experiences and responses to the use of drugs and alcohol. As many on the path are seeking enlightening experiences, drugs are sometimes used to elicit a mind-expanding opportunity. Alcohol was used by Dionysians to commune with their God. Many native and shamanistic cultures use a variety of hallucinogenic drugs in their rituals. They may use peyote, hallucinogenic mushrooms, LSD, marijuana, etc.

A while back I also discussed Cory's pagan ties. And here is more a pagan sun worship.