A reader e-mailed this link to our United States Debt Clock … which he said “spins faster than a gas meter in the winter in South Dakota” …
Click on it … and while the colors are “of the season” (green/red) … it may make you smile, before you [...]
By Denise Ross
One of the ususal suspects as the potential secret $750,000 donor to the 2006 Vote Yes for Life campaign has been the Catholic Church, a notion I dismissed almost out of hand. For some reason, I thought the church wouldn’t funnel its [...]
From my e-mail box:
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-S.D., takes a break from being pummeled about the head and shoulders for her no vote on health care to file this Veteran’s Day op-ed, which provides an overview of some of the veteran-related legislation Congress is working on: Â
Honoring Our Veterans
-Rep. Stephanie [...]
By Denise Ross
From the files of stuff you couldn’t dream up, South Dakota’s own Larry Pressler has a post in the Obama administration. If that’s not awesome enough, it’s on a commision that I - at least - would not have imagined possible. It’s the Commission [...]
By Denise Ross
The growing rift in the Republican Party, highlighted by yesterday’s House election in New York’s District 23, reminds CBS’s Bob Schieffer of the Democrats in 1972 and the presidential defeat of South Dakota’s own George McGovern.
Here’s video from [...]
By Denise Ross
One has to look for the good news when it comes to the news business these days.
For the Associated Press, it might be that the Tribune Co. is dropping it only for a week (for now).
The Tribune papers (including the Chicago [...]
This weekend we are offering our electronic version of the Public Opinion newspaper for FREE … why not give our “e-Paper” electronic edition a test drive … Click here and you’ll be directed to our e-Paper edition … a complete replica of our printed newspaper, using a PDF format [...]
In the continuing see-saw battle to reduce Watertown’s unemployment rate, September’s results brought good news locally as our rate dropped to 6.5% … down almost two points from the recent historic high of 8.4% in April 2009. Full details can be found on the front page of the Weekend edition [...]
By Denise Ross
I thought of the angry, pitchfork-bearing villagers demanding that Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Tim Johnson hold town hall meetings during the August recess when I heard about the congressman who spent a summer vacation on a deserted tropical island. Â
Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., sought to test ought [...]
Oft-praised bill would cost practically nothing.
By Denise Ross
Tired of the health care debate yet? If so, too bad as it’s likely to dominate Capitol Hill news throughout the end of the year. Here’s some health care news about SD’s House member that’s not been widely reported and might even become [...]
By Denise Ross
A sleeping baby is keeping me from Dennis Daugaard’s official campaign announcement, so let’s look at one of the plethora of events in the evolution of media and journalism.
Late last week, UC Berkeley’s J school hosted a summit on new [...]
Today’s Public Opinion discusses work underway by Rep. Tim Rounds (R-Pierre) to figure out how the state can lower it’s drinking age selectively and still maintain the $17.5M in federal highway funds our state receives. Full details can be found here.
Should our state lower the drinking age as it [...]
By Denise Ross
In a national media moment that would make PP proud - of a Democrat, even - SD state Rep. Garry Moore, D-Yankton, stood up for Gov. Mike Rounds in his veto of a law that would have required young children to ride in booster seats. Read/listen to the [...]
By Denise Ross
“My name is Jim Abourezk, and I used to work for the government.” That was the opening line - and an applause generator - at a Friday night fundraiser in Rapid City. The local labor temple, a favorite of local Democrats, is a dimly lit cinder block cavern made cozy by [...]
Codington county sheriff Toby Wishard is joining the “green” movement … although his version of green is a bit different, we’d dare say!
Wednesday’s Sept. 16th Public Opinion (page 5A) discussed a proposed new program by the sheriff. At the commissioners meeting the sherif discussed how he would like to find [...]
Legislation will be introduced next January to protect the secret ballot in South Dakota. Majority Leader and District 5 (Watertown) Rep. Bob Faehn, along with SD State Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson (Sioux Falls), will introduce a constitutional amendment provision to protect the secret ballot on efforts to unionize companies [...]
Duck season starts tomorrow and that means a chance to get outdoors with friends and family … and man’s best friend – your dog! One of the negative outcomes of hunting, though, is when you dog gets hurt or worse, gets killed … today’s P/O front page features a story [...]
The Watertown Public Works committee met Tuesday and a whole host of items were discussed, and a couple of the items had some differing opinions, as reported in today’s front page Public Opinion stories.
Looks like tennis fans may have to wait as the proposed new (additional) tennis courts east of [...]
By Denise Ross
State Sen. Jason Gant, R-Sioux Falls, made a swing out to the Black Hills recently in his bid to become South Dakota’s next Secretary of State. (He attended a Pennington County GOP picnic that was held during the worst picnic weather short of a blizzard, so he’s serious [...]
Today’s (9/21/2009) Public Opinion front page story outlines, now that the city is annexing property with a county liquor license, how Codington county is poised to offer a new county liquor license (to replace the one being annexed into the city) at the start of 2010, the new year. The [...]
Looks like a “preferred” site has been selected in a round-about fashion for Watertown’s new public safety building (a.k.a., police department), based on a recent land auction. Details can be found in Friday’s Public Opinion – top/banner story. After the vote by the citizens this past June, the city leaders [...]
By Denise Ross
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, D-SD, shed her usually genteel tone during a conference call with reporters Thursday when she was asked about criticism that moderate Blue Dog Dems (of which she is one) were being unduly influenced on the ongoing health care debate by campaign contributions from the [...]
By Denise Ross
I had a number of back-channel communications letting me know that Dennis Daugaard will not be the first South Dakota gubernatorial candidate to hire a Beltway media firm for his campaign.
In fact, Paul Wilson (see post below for more details) was hired by George Mickelson for both of [...]
By Denise Ross
Rounding out my interview with Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard, let’s look at his campaign team. He’s hired his son and his son-in-law, and he knows what you all think of that. He’s also hired a professional political media outfit and that tried-and-true Sioux Falls ad agency to GOP [...]
By Denise Ross
There’s a good explanation for the lull at the Hoghouse, untimely as the GOP gubernatorial candidates are making noise and health care is going hog wild on Capitol Hill. Hoghouse HQ now has a lovely new front deck, and Mr. Hoghouse is quite the taskmaster! (I’ll post a [...]
Friday afternoon the lead partner on the $1.6B Big Stone II project, Otter Tail Power Co., announced they were dropping out of the group of utilities intending to building the expansion to the Big Stone Power plant, just outside Big Stone City, SD. See the details here.
Is the [...]
By Denise Ross
Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard has been largely absent from this summer’s fairs-and-parades circuit, and it’s been by design. The GOP gubernatorial candidate isn’t interested in starting his 2010 campaign much before 2010.
And even though he’s not been shy about his intentions to seek South Dakota’s chief executive job [...]
From the World Climate Service-3 conference in Geneva, a big international meeting setting the stage for what will be a major climate change treaty to be ratified in Copenhagen in December. Judging by what we have seen here, one would suspect the nations of the world will have to make [...]
By Denise Ross
No doubt you’ve seen the ads running on SoDak news and blog sites, and they sound pretty good. South Dakota’s own John Thune wants you to help him ”Stop the bailouts.”
Personally, I would like to have a direct hand in reversing the Wall Street bonuses, but I digress. Here’s one [...]
Geneva, Switzerland, is one of the world’s great cities. It is also a little expensive.
[...]By Denise RossState Senate Majority Leader Dave Knudson, R-Sioux Falls, was in Rapid City this week, and he dialed up the Hoghouse for a chat. Knudson says he’s spending the last week of each month “out west” in preparation for the June 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.While he’s getting more comfortable [...]
By Denise RossIf you’re growing weary of screaming about health care reform, there’s another song on the political season of discontent’s hit parade: climate legislation, known by various names depending on the political leanings of who’s talking.South Dakota’s congressional delegation has as diverse a set of views as possible, considering [...]
By Denise Ross
As Sen. John Thune, R-SD, adds town hall meetings on health care to his August recess schedule, I offer the newspaper column I wrote recently about his position on the pending reform.
Thune has long been for some specific flavors of health care reform, but at the moment and [...]
By Denise Ross
Of course when the crowd heard it, it seemed obvious. Tom Hennies wanted his final farewell, the last hymn sung at his funeral, to be God Bless America. And so it was.
Besides the size of the crowd -Â the [...]
Sounds like lots of confused answers coming out of Rep. Herseth Sandlin’s office and Sen. Johnson’s office on the national healthcare debate making it to Watertown. In Saturday’s print edition*, our front page story discusses that neither elected representative will be holding any town hall meetings soon on this topic, [...]
By Denise Ross
When Sen. Tim Johnson penned a column earlier this week touting the good things the “climate change legislation” would mean for South Dakota, one might have gotten the impression he was referring to what’s come to be known as the cap-and-trade bill that’s been passed by the US [...]
By Denise Ross
Tom Hennies had an infectious personality. I don’t know any reporter who covered him who didn’t appreciate his straightforward answers to questions and his penchant for corny jokes. Apparently his no-nonsense approach was popular among constituents, too, as he routinely won election to the Legislature by wide margins.
And [...]
By Denise Ross
From my e-mail box, this column by Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., says that the cap-and-trade bill would mean more jobs in South Dakota. This after the Argus Leader reported a week or more ago that our electric bills would go up.  (Read his entire column on the jump.)
Writes Johnson:
Soon the Senate will [...]
By Denise Ross
It’s a blue, blue, blue, blue world on Capitol Hill these days, and I’m not talking about Democrats. Or at least not most of them. It’s the Blue Dogs, a group that’s most likely crossed into overexposure as some sort of health care reform careens through a tension-filled [...]
By Denise Ross
Reliably red? Not any more, according to Gallup, which last year had South Dakota as “competitive.” Now, we’re blue. (I swear it’s true.)
There’s nary a red state left, with our neighbor Wyoming holding fast. After polling from [...]
By Denise Ross
From my e-mail box, a press release from Sen. Tim Johnson’s office about his work on the Senate Banking Committee, specifically ongoing work to try to infuse some sense of common courtesy into the Wall Street culture. (Read the entire release on the jump.)
Says Johnson:
The regulatory structure overseeing [...]
By Denise Ross
Since I panned the Health Freedom Blog recently launched by Sen. John Thune’s campaign staff, I ought to point out where there is some actual information about how Thune stands on health care. It’s his official Senate website:
We need [...]
By Denise Ross
South Dakota’s own John Thune has launched the Health Freedom blog, and, frankly, it’s killing me.
C’mon guys, you can do better than giving in to the reflexive GOP urge to name everything “freedom.” You know how some things become [...]
By Denise Ross
South Dakota’s congresswoman, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, told reporters Thursday that she can’t support any of the various versions of health care reform legislation now being worked on in the US House.
I’m not able to support the bill in its current form, she said on a conference call.
SHS said [...]
By Denise Ross
As one political observer put it to me, The Blue Dogs have never been so en vogue. I’m guessing they’re not so popular around 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, however.
The US House’s Blue Dog coalition of moderate/conservative Dems is now mentioned in most stories about the ongoing Capitol Hill healthcare [...]
By Denise Ross
I won’t be redundant, but the fracas that’s erupted over Dem Scott Heidepriem’s entry into the 2010 gubernatorial race is getting good - and it’s only been a day.
First, the SD War College has the state GOP’s, um, missive titled The phoniest man [...]
By Denise Ross
In a word, the answer is Zachary. So the very reason I predicted Stephanie Herseth Sandlin would run for governor turns out to be the reason she won’t. (I think I’m going to start predicting that I won’t win the Powerball.)
Earlier this month, South Dakota’s lone US House member ended [...]
