A Slate satirist provides us with a copy of the new Bill of Rights. Please don’t let the South Dakota Legislature see this. It might get ideas.
Can any of you seriously say the Bill of Rights could get through Congress today? It wouldn’t even get out of committee.
F. Lee Bailey, Newsweek, April [...]
Within the last hour or so, Gov. Mike Rounds signed the restrictive abortion bill into law. Rounds issued a statementt on signing the bill.
Let the litigation and petition circulating begin.
Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of predilection.
Majority opinion, Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113, [...]
The Strib notes there is talk of referring the new abortion law to a public vote. (Via Proud Liberal Journal). As the story notes, a referral would stop the law from taking effect until the vote, thereby producing the same result as a lawsuit seeking to block it.
The state Constitution guarantees the right [...]
If the hits to this blog are any indication, Kate Looby sure has become a popular figure in cyberspace. Looby, the lobbyist for and director of Planned Parenthood for South Dakota, shows up in an ever-increasing number of the internet searches that bring people here. Thus, the interest is being generated by [...]
Like many, I’m kind of scratching my head about views of free speech in Europe.
First, a variety of the European press republished the Danish cartoons about Muhammad as a statement about free expression. Now, we have revisionist historian David Irving sentenced to three years in prison (with the prosecutor asking for more) for violating [...]
A combination of the doldrums and plain weariness for much of it has kept political musings to a minimum despite the fact there’s a lot going on. In fact, I have yet to actually look for or at any list of bills introduced in the state legislature this year. Still, here’s some ruminations [...]
The story of the U Mass-Darmouth student who claimed to have been visited by Homeland Security after requesting Mao’s “Little Red Book” via interlibrary loan turns out to have been a hoax.
People do not believe lies because they have to, but because they want to.
Malcolm Muggeridge
So what does John Thune say about Bush authorizing domestic spying? “I will not fault them for exercising the steps they thought necessary to protect the American people.” Apparently, the question of whether those steps tread on federal law or the Constitution is irrelevant.
By the way, Thune’s rationale also works quite well to justify [...]
A big thumbs down on the votes cast by Stephanie Herseth and Tim Johnson this week on the renewal of the so-called Patriot Act. Herseth voted Wednesday to reauthorize and extend various controversial provisions. Johnson was one of two Democrats to vote today to end a filibuster on the measure in the [...]
Surprise, surprise. The South Dakota Task Force to Study Abortion is recommending more restrictions on abortion with the goal of a total ban. You shouldn’t be surprised. This was a done deal from the outset. While there were advocates on both sides, the anti-abortion forces dominated and there were few appointees [...]
Unlike the building that needed to go down for the events center that was eventually to be its partner, the proposed rec center for Sioux Falls was decimated Tuesday. Voters rejected it about 2-to-1 in a voter turnout of about 23 percent. Seems like quite a slap in the face to city government, the Chamber [...]
It’s been there since Bush took office. We’ve seen some of its virulence in the last couple days with the attacks on Congressman John Murtha. Yet this week also offered insight into the level of pettiness to which Republican leadership will go in their malice for and hostility toward anyone who might dare think [...]
It appears the naming rights wars have begun locally. First, Sioux Valley Hospital announced it was going to pay $3.2 million over 20 years for a “corporate sponsorship” of the new athletic field being built by the University of Sioux Falls. (Being a Baptist school, USF refers to the stadium as a “faith-based athletic [...]
There are a few political goings on that I can’t keep from commenting on.
First, I see John Thune voted for and Tim Johnson voted against an amendment to the defense authorization act that would “strip captured ‘enemy combatants’ at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, of the principal legal tool given to them last year by the Supreme [...]
It appears the JAILers have presented enough signatures to get their measure on the 2006 ballot. South Dakota War College guesstimates the paid signature collection effort cost about $75,000. Even if it’s half or one-quater of that, it still begs the question of from where or whom the money is coming.
No earthquake or [...]
White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov
Album of the Damned: Snapshots from the Third Reich by Paul Garson
