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In addition to the J.A.I.L. Lies series, I’ve decided to embark on an additional one, both of which will run intermittently through the November election. How many parts each series will have depends on the backers of South Dakota’s Judicial Accountability Initiative Law (J.A.I.L.). We’ll call this one the “California shell game.”
The title refers to both the California influence on J.A.I.L. and the efforts of local J.A.I.L.ers to play a shell game to hide those connections and other issues. As is usually the case, it is best to begin at the beginning.
Even Bill Stegmeier, South Dakota’s J.A.I.L.er-in-Chief, admitted at the outset that the initiative came from Ron Branson’s Jail4Judges organization. Did Stegmeier see a problem in South Dakota and go looking for a solution? No, he was recruited by J.A.I.L., which “targeted the State of South Dakota” as the first place to try and put the initiative on the ballot.
It didn’t take long for the shell game to begin, though. For example, in October 2005, the “South Dakota Judicial Accountability Committee” appeared to have three officers or members: Stegmeier; Attorney Gary Zerman, “the official spokesperson” for the committee and with a phone number of 605-231-1258; and, Branson, listed as the founder of the national organization and with a phone number of 605-231-1358.
It’s rather interesting the committee told people Zerman and Branson had South Dakota telephone numbers. Branson lives in North Hollywood, Calif. Zerman is a California attorney, “Legal Counsel” for Jail4Judges, and essentially a co-founder of the movement. Why would the committee indicate Zerman and Branson had South Dakota telephone numbers unless the intent was to lead people to believe they were South Dakotans, in South Dakota, or this was a South Dakota effort?
Once some of Branson’s more extreme views became more generally known (views which, by the way, apparently coincide in large part with Stegmeier’s own), Stegmeier tried to back away from his California buddies. But even that effort continues to reflect J.A.I.L.’s shell game.
Although the FAQ on the South Dakota J.A.I.L.ers’ new website announces that J.A.I.L. is “South Dakota all the way,” the California ties remain. The new J.A.I.L. publicist is also a Californian who is waging her own war on the court system. The California publicist apparently writes what appears on the web site. The domain name is not registered in the name of the South Dakota J.A.I.L. organization and, in fact, was designed by a California firm, not any of the firms qualified to do so in South Dakota. Perhaps the fact both the web page and the publicist have to come from California is another example of how deep-rooted this movement is in South Dakota.
Stegmeier also now claims Branson only provided the “template” for the amendment on the South Dakota ballot. In point of fact, the measure was dictated by Branson. In a May 26, 2005, e-mail to Stegmeier and Zerman titled “New and final version of the South Dakota Initiative,” Branson wrote:
Bill and Gary, here is our work in its final form ready to be filed. FINALLY! It is best to use the attachment version because it has all the proper print size & style. (Use the below pasted only for verbiage.)
Thus, Branson did not prepare a “template” Stegmeier or someone else used to draft the amendment. Branson wrote it. Minor changes were made from the “New and final version” only after an exchange of letters with the Legislative Research Council.
So how is it that J.A.I.L. is “South Dakota all the way”? Only by J.A.I.L.ers continually playing a shell game with South Dakotans. And just like a shell game or three card monte, if you get suckered in, you lose. The next installment looks at the shell game J.A.I.L. plays with the issues.
A leopard does not change his spots.
Ivy Compton-Burnett, More Women Than Men
PP has launched the No on Amendment E – SD Jail-4-Judges blog. It is aptly subtitled, “One annoying blogger’s little attempt to derail South Dakota’s 2006 Amendment E – the Judicial Accountability Act.”
He won’t be alone. This blog will also continue to examine South Dakota’s Judicial Accountability Initiative Law (J.A.I.L.) amendment and its backers. In fact, a second series on J.A.I.L. starts here tomorrow.
The other thing PP says in his new blog’s first day is also true here: “And the best part? I’m not getting paid for this. I’m doing it just for fun.”
UPDATE: While I was looking at the new blog and working on this post, PP was kind enough to invite me to join him on it. I have agreed and my various J.A.I.L. post and series will appear both here and there.
The most important political office is that of private citizen.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
As I was reading Kris Saknussemm’s debut novel Zanesville, I kept wondering, “In what part of the universe does this guy’s mind reside?” I know it’s an entirely different plane then mine — but that’s a good thing.
If forced to pigeonhole Zanesville, you would probably categorize the book as science fiction. But that is an understatement — it defies categorization. How does Saknussemm describe the book? As “techno-theological post-American monster vaudeville.” Now maybe you have a glimpse of why I was wondering what universe his mind inhabits.
Zanesville, which Saknussemm plans to be the first in a proposed series he calls The Lodemania Testament, actually starts in 1838 with the birth of Lloyd Meadhorn Sitturd, “one of the most neglected geniuses in history.” As a young boy, Sitturd is whisked up into a tornado on July 4, in Dustdevil, Tex., only to be returned to the exact spot unharmed some 20 minutes later. On July 14, 1913, after a life as an inventor, businessman, recluse and cult leader, Sitturd again disappears in another tornado in Dustdevil, this time never to be heard from again.
Suddenly, we are in a post-apocalyptic America, where a man we will come to know as Elijah Clearfather awakens in New York’s Central Park, not knowing who he is but believing he was deposited there by a whirlwind. This is an America far different than Sitturd’s or ours. It is run by the Vitessa Cultporation. The California coast has disappeared in an earthquake called Bigfoot and the new center of “culture” in the western U.S. is LosVegas, Nevadafornia. McDonald’s has been converted to McTavish’s, which has replaced the hamburger with haggis (“sheep stomach with your choice of filling.”) Modern technology consists of cyberneering, genetainment and neurotecture. America has survived (?) a Holy War waged by Al-Waqi’a. Much of the country is roamed by bandits, some of the Mad Max variety, with the cannibals among them distinguished by the Mickey Mouse flags they fly.
Clearfather is taken in by a group of anti-Vitessa rebels whose camp in Central Park is hidden by a “Mirror Field.” Sensing his latent abilities, they fill him with psychoactive drugs and inject mind probes. When the results they obtain leave them uncertain whether Clearfather is a messiah, a Vitessa Cultporation intelligence agent, a “weapon of mass instruction” or simply an amnesiac, the rebels set Clearfather loose. He is given a Greyhound bus pass and a map indicating places from his past they derived from the psych probes. As Clearfather searches for his past and himself, he takes us from Pittsburgh to Indianapolis to Dustdevil to LosVegas and, ultimately, to a canyon in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Along the way, he meets and travels with a variety of people, having significant effects on each and society, and sees the state of American life and culture.
Once in South Dakota, where “the speed of culture” runs slower, Clearfather learns who and what he is and what is expected of him. Yet this discovery also involves even more and deeper layers of the reality he has experienced so far. Both the varying levels of reality and the depiction of a damaged and dystopic America make Zanesville occasionally reminiscent of Philip K. Dick‘s work. Yet Saknussemm is more original than imitative. Vortices are a common theme in Zanesville. They are not only an integral part of the story but seem equally indicative of the narrative and Saknussemm’s use of styles. Ranging from satire to straight-out humor to political and religious commentary, this is one of those works that has you chuckling one minute, scratching your head the next and then pausing to think deeply. Saknussemm’s description of his book is dead on and it is the expressions of a “techno-theological” philosophy that will cause you to not only pause and ponder while reading, but keep you thinking long after you have put it down.
I’m still not quite sure what type of universe Saknussemm and Clearfather inhabit. There is, however, no doubt that Zanesville is a whirlwind of concepts and ideas that are worth a series to explore.
There’s nothing like the gentle, reassuring sound of a civilization falling down around you.
Kris Saknussemm, Zanesville
Since my brain is still a liytle frazzled from work projects, last night’s multi-tasking (listening to the Stampede game on the radio while watching the Wisconsin-Maine NCAA seminfinal on the big screen), attending the tremendous Stampede playoff win tonight and looking forward to Saturday night’s Wisconsin-Boston College NCAA championship game, there’s true variety in the links:
- PP and I get a little local love. (Which reminds me, more J.A.I.L. material coming up Monday.)
- Leading contender for best blog headline of the year comes from a post about a news story reporting that a movie director wants to “persuade Paris Hilton to play the role of Nobel laureate and prospective Catholic Saint, Mother Teresa, in an upcoming film.” The headline? “Apparently Mother Teresa was a WHORE!”
- Despite or perhaps because of my status as an irreligionist, I have always been intrigued by the history of religious canons. (Quite the segue from having Mother Teresa and whore in the same sentence.) Thus, the material coming out on the so-called Secret Gospel of Judas is pretty interesting. The National Geographic Channel is broadcasting a two-hour documentary on it Sunday night.
- If you haven’t heard already, Dan Brown won the British copyright lawsuit over his book, The Da Vinci Code.
I’m going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
“The Pretender,” Jackson Browne, The Pretender
Granted, I don’t read newspapers other than the local daily and generally don’t watch television news. I also realize the November election is months down the road so it is merely a blip on the news media’s radar. Still, the South Dakota media seem to have turned a blind eye when it comes to keeping the public informed on South Dakota’s Judicial Accountability Initiative Law (J.A.I.L.). Even the RCJ’s Mount Blogmore has been silent, despite its claim to be a political blog.
This morning, though, I saw that Dave Kranz decided to at least provide an update on events in J.A.I.L.land. While I’ve known and respected Dave for probably 30 years, his column reflects the apparent disinterest of the state media.
Dave reported that local J.A.I.L.er-in-chief Bill Stegmeier wrote the national J.A.I.L. organization and told them to go away. This turn of events was indicated here on March 16 and Stegmeier’s resignation from J.A.I.L. was reported by PP on March 22. Dave also reported that Stegmeier spoke last month at a conference that included some, shall we say, extremist views. But we learned that fact — and details — in PP’s March 22 post.
I find it most interesting that when the state’s largest daily actually mentions Stegmeier’s attendance at that event also happens to be the day Stegmeier takes down the extremist views on his personal blog, a few of which PP mentioned again today. That is the very function of the news media, something the press in this state has largely neglected to date in covering J.A.I.L.
But at least Stegmeier left a love note behind: “Hello South Dakota War College and Progressive on the Prairie!” Gee, at least he could have put up links.
From the American [media] you’d think America was populated solely by naked women and cinema stars.
Nancy Astor
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