9/21/14

Governor's Club made Rounds, Daugaard chief executives; whither Future Fund donors?



South Dakota's chief executive is for all intents and purposes an autocrat.

Recall Cory's observation at Madville Times from March:
South Dakota's governor has exclusive control over the Future Fund, a pool of economic development cash funded by a portion of every South Dakota business's unemployment taxes. Sometimes Governor Dennis Daugaard uses the Future Fund for good (if you think focusing on job skills over Shakespeare is good). Sometimes he uses it for pure corporate welfare. [Daugaard Donors Receive Future Fund Grants; First Amendment Prevents Fix? links are mine.]

Imagine a dumpster full of pheasant carcasses with just the breasts cut out. That’s what my friend found after the governor’s hunt back in October, behind the processing place in Fort Pierre that handles the birds. [Kevin Woster, Outdoors in Keloland]
You have to admit Hani Shafai has balls. Of course he was invited to Governor Daugaard's pheasant killing contest. Shafai, a Rapid City Muslim, criticized Walid Shoebat, a converted christian, after Shafai learned of a speech at a Rapid City terrorism conference:
I don’t think it is right for anyone in any organization to generalize about these types of issues,” Shafai said. “Every group of society, regardless of its religious or cultural backgrounds, has good and bad.” [David Montgomery, Al-Qaida not a fringe opinion among Muslims, speaker claims, Rapid City Journal]
Recall the slush fund called the Governors Club: Shafai appears with Doyle Estes, who donated polluted swamp land for a soccer complex. Also appearing on that list is Roger Tellinghuisen, now managing cash resources for the complex. He enjoyed a $75,000 legal services contract after being attorney general for the state.

Richard Benda, the now-dead GOP apparatchik, appears on at least one list with Shafai. Shafai, a Future Fund recipient, gave the current South Dakota governor a generous campaign contribution.

South Dakota's previous governor showered $75 million in Future Fund cash on campaign donors without disclosing who they were.

So, fast forward to Bendagate player, Jeff Sveen, also a Future Fund recipient, Daugaard donor, and lawyer for Joop Bollen, telling a legislative panel to go fuck themselves. Sveen and Shafai also appear on the Governors Hunt list and also on the invitation to the 2011 Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup. They both appear on the SD Secretary of State's list of registered state agents.

Future fund recipients, Kathryn Johnson, a member of the Board of Regents implicated in the EB-5/Bendagate scandal, and her husband, prominent Rapid City attorney, Doyle Estes, each gave South Dakota's current governor $4000 this election cycle.



How this culture of corruption scandal is not racketeering remains a mystery.

Another disgraced New Jersey governor, under federal investigation and head of the Earth Hater Governor's Association (RGA), has endorsed Dennis Daugaard for reelection.

Why, yes: Shafai DOES remind me of Gustavo Fring.


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