Blogroll

On ballot explanations and statements

So the South Dakota Supreme Court affirms the prior decision that only a minor change need be made in the ballot explanation for Amendment E, the J.A.I.L. amendment. Although brief, the decision is interesting in a couple respects.

First, it appears the only issue presented was whether the explanation should talk about deliberate actions. This […]

The deliberate dodge

South Dakota’s J.A.I.L.ers recently trotted out a new theme in their continuing effort to mislead voters about Amendment E. Let’s call it the “deliberate decoy.”

It began appearing at the hearing on J.A.I.L.’s challenge to the ballot explanation for Amendment E. As Judge Gors noted in his decision, “At the hearing, [South Dakota J.A.I.L.er-in-Chief Bill] […]

Ramifications of the execution decision

Okay, everybody now knows Gov. Mike Rounds temporarily delayed Elijah Page’s execution because of concerns over the execution procedure. I will leave to political pundits the impact, if any, of that decision on his re-election bid and that of Attorney General Larry Long (who, given the ballot question decisions, doesn’t seem to be having a […]

Weekend medley

So this happens probably a mile and a half from my home and we didn’t hear, see or smell a thing until trying to drive to work. The same isn’t true for my next door neighbor, who’s in management for the pipeline company, and got a call just after 2:30 a.m. telling him “your facility […]

Those darn campaign finance reports

South Dakota’s J.A.I.L.ers have filed an amended campaign finance report, trying to fix the earlier one that wasn’t accepted for filing. Evidently, those pesky reports seem to be hard for the J.A.I.L.ers to figure out.

To start with, the cover letter says the Amendment E proponents are filing a “the year end report.” That’s odd. […]