Swanson wants to go to Pierre

Editor's note: in South Dakota House District 30 the two Earth haters who advance from the primary will face Democrat Bret Swanson from the Hermosa area in the general election. He was interviewed by a newspaper that covers a Black Hills county named for a war criminal.

Swanson is a college instructor who served on the board of the Humane Society of the Black Hills for three years and the Rapid City Area Schools Board of Education for five years.

Swanson said he is running for a seat in the state house because he wants the constituents of District 30 to know there is viable choice between those who are servile to the ruling party and someone who wants to help them. He said he would bring open-mindedness, honesty and creativity to the position.

As for the biggest issues facing District 30 over the next few years, Swanson said the western part of the state is facing an historic drought, which is directly related to protection of our watershed. 

“The state needs to raise the minimum wage, offer childcare assistance and protect people with exorbitant medical bills from bankruptcy,” he said. “There needs to be a comprehensive approach to addressing educational deficiencies; mandatory early childhood education should be part of that.”

Swanson said for context, the largest publicly funded project in the state’s history is a penitentiary—$350 million for a “big, fat, ugly jail. Not a school, not a museum, not a power plant, not even a sports arena,” he said. “A monument to a failed system. This is a symbol of how shortsighted and backwards the state is and has been. Basically, most people want practical solutions to the problems they face not empty talk about who is or is not allowed to play sports.”

Swanson said relying on sales tax for property tax relief is regressive and wrong, and in the end it doesn’t solve the problem.

“The state agricultural production tax is fair,” he said. “That should be expanded.”

He also said there is a serious threat to Black Hills water quality from large out-of-state mining interests and there is a need for strong legislation to protect the watershed.

Swanson said only half the state’s voters are Republican and yet 89 percent of the legislature is Republican. In District 30, Republicans have long dominated.

“Has the district benefitted from this dominance? If you like the status quo with the rich and powerful always calling the shots, taking advantage of a gamed system, you can continue to send those who support the unfair, exploitive establishment to Pierre,” he said. “Or you can choose an alternative that puts middle- and working-class people first.”    

Read the rest here.

Olson and the war among SD Earth haters

South Dakota's favorite handicapper, Shad Olson brings more truth to the war within the SDGOP.

So, a brief description. and timeline of the power struggle inside the SDGOP.

Once MAGA patriots claimed the reins of key positions in the statewide Republican organization, the RINO donor class put the word out to stop ALL corporate and lucrative personal donations to the state party and redirected those deep pocketed donors to "South Dakota Strong," "Rushmore Principles," "Sensible South Dakota," and the mushroom-sprouted and fertilizer filled establishment PACs in order to support RINO-establocrat candidates in primary races across the state.

This discontinuation of corporate support was of course immediately and handily taken up as narrative fodder against the MAGA patriot leadership of the SDGOP by conjoined idiot twins, Katie Hoffmann and Pat Powers, who both produce dozens of badly written and painfully composed screeds, railing against the "incompetence" of, and "lack of support" for, present SDGOP leadership and the importance of having their equally stupid and politically compromised quantities returned to the throne in every county and precinct in South Dakota.

"Put the RINOs back in control and the money will flow once again."

Of course it will. Because the corporatist spigots will be cranked back to full.

This manufactured drought of dried up corporate support creates the illusion of a lack of statewide party loyalty, seized upon by the tittering twits and out-of-joint establishment hacks who were displaced in the MAGA wave, 2018-2024. The same wave that resulted in Pat Powers expulsion and exile from his previous SDGOP "official blogger" perch in same timeframe. An $85,000 gig for the news judgment of a TMZ tabloid artist and the writing skills of a toddler.

Of equal import and simultaneous to his present run for South Dakota Governor, Dusty Johnson has waged nearly a one-man ground war over the past two years to groom, boost and restore precinct and county SDGOP leadership to RINO hands... all backed and capitalized with Dusty warchest dollars and the supplicant narrative retardation of the Hoffmann-Powers paste eating TBI brigade.

Don't be fooled by the phony smear. As with everything else in their echo chamber of lies and fabrication, it's coming directly out of their leaky diapers. Size XXXL.

South Dakota is flunking high school

Source: WalletHub

Daily Digest and the latest in South Dakota's red state failure: 50th in financial education performance and access, 49th in financial education growth, 49th in high school financial literacy, 48th in high schools ranked in top 10% and 48th in projected high school financial literacy grade by 2028.

Recall Earth hating former South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds won election to the US Senate for advocating the dissolution of the US Department of Education so he is currently sponsoring a bill that would eradicate the DoEd, curtail federal funding for kids and South Dakota still hates teachers. Students in South Dakota are fifth in overall rank of those in debt and suffer that load at the highest proportion in the US. The Bendagate state is 37th in grant and work opportunities rank and is tied for 42nd in student work opportunities.

Daily Digest: Trumpistan still struggling

Straight off my bingo card, here's the latest in South Dakota politics!

Creighton University's Ernie Goss has been warning that the Trump Organization is bad for American agriculture and follows the economies of several breadbasket states including South Dakota's—one of the slowest growing in the US.

April's employment index slipped in Trumpland, supply managers expect input prices to spike by more than five percent in the next six months and South Dakota’s manufacturing sector lost 400 jobs in the last year, losing nearly one percent of its manufacturing base. 50.0 is growth neutral.

Goss notes the survey's trade indicators are still negative. The new export orders index rose to a weak 49.9 from 48.9 in March. Goss attributes recent retaliation from higher U.S. tariffs and trade restrictions as the culprit. "That's still an issue with President Trump and his volatile policies on tariffs," he said. "I consider this volatility to be a self-inflicted wound. The president doesn't see it that way, but most economists see it that way. Trade and imports, not good." He adds supply managers indicate the Iran war is having an impact on manufacturing. "One in three of the supply managers indicated the Iran war was causing supply chain disruptions," said Goss, "stockouts, stock reallocations--this is, your company can only buy this amount of inputs. We're seeing that--that's certainly an issue. We saw supply chain disruptions as a measure that rose significantly for the month, with significantly higher prices on inputs." [source]