Tag Archives: Bill Janklow

To Prove How MAGA I Am, I’m Going to Shoot This Dog

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[Update: Because of a serious lapse by WWP’s over-paid copy desk, the original version of this screed included several unforgivable typos. We apologize. The staffer responsible has been fired, flogged and given a referral to Power Line.]

Every time I read one of those “Neighbor from hell” stories, where, you know, the guy next door demands a survey crew come in because he’s convinced your hostas are three inches over the property line, or the hoarder lady hauls in and drops an eighth garage sale Barcalounger on her front lawn, I think of what we here Minnesota have to put up with. And by that I mean … South Dakota.

I’ll spare you the tale of my long-running interaction with SoDak’s unique concept of law enforcement. (Short version: Stopped and searched on an Interstate for transporting a half-ounce sample jar of CBD-infused foot cream.) Except to relay what a former reporter for the Sioux Falls Argus Leader offered by way of explanation: “This place is really stupid.”

In case anyone ever forgot that, we now have the head-slapping story of the state’s current governor taking out a gun and killing her “playful” puppie because she didn’t want to bother training it not to chase chickens. That and because her dream job is becoming Vice-President to a flabby 77 year-old playboy who very well might keel over on a golf course some day making her — who I refer to as Governor Barbie — Queen of All She Sees.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem sees nothing wrong in Donald Trump paying hush money to pornstar

I am of course responding to the story, told by Kristi Noem herself in her new autobiography, of how in the context of making the kind of tough choices self-infatuated, gun-fetishizing right-wing politicians have to make to gain cred with their people, she gunned downed her puppy and a goat and tossed them in a gravel pit. It’s the kind of story most politicians would pay serious money to cover up, but Noem, reading the winds of MAGA … brags about it in a book she … had written for her.

This is the same South Dakota prairie princess who:

Kristi Noem-Corey Lewandowski affair shakes up Trump running mate stakes
  • Is currently banned from fully 10% of her state thanks to pissing off tribal leaders of the place’s sprawling reservations … that she proudly does little to nothing to improve and insinuates are league with drug cartels. Quite possibly the kind hooking kids and puppies on CBD-infused foot cream.

And all this while allegedly governing a state where:

*A distracted Congressman/ex-Governor traveling 75 in a 55 blew a stop sign, killed a constituent on a motorcycle (minor irony there) and in his defense claimed he was having a diabetic reaction.

*A distracted (South Dakota) Attorney General swerved off a highway and killed a guy walking on the shoulder, told (South Dakota) law enforcement he might have hit a deer, despite clear evidence the dead man’s head came through the windshield depositing his glasses on the front passenger seat.

And * A state where, as we learned from the Pandora Papers expose, banking regulations are so opaque the place could well be and probably is happily serving as safe haven for billions of dollars in highly suspicious deposits. According to the Washington Post story, South Dakota is protecting $360 billion in very murky assets while, if you’re scoring along at home, producing only $50 billion in GDP, via ranchin’ and bikin’ and shootin’ puppies.

I could on for another eight hours it’s so lunatic over there. But if there’s a bottom line to this “shoot the puppy” story (and so many others) its that, as The Atlantic’s Adam Serwer put it so succinctly, when it it comes to understanding what MAGA leaders and cult members are thinking, “Cruelty is the point.”

Cruelty is what they’re selling … and buying.

Put another way, when you’re asserting your MAGA bona fides by telling a story of how you shot your puppy, you are appealing to MAGA’s insatiable, bottomless appetite for transgression. The desire for sound and fury against the prissy, “politically correct” norms of “urban elites” and every other adversary who doesn’t respect the agrarian American freedom to … ignore pandemics, protect the assets of international criminals, play grab ass and shoot puppies.

You want to put up a wall? I got a border that needs a wall.

Dear South Dakota: Lighten Up

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5_reasons_to_still_get_excited_for_Paul_McCartney__besides_the_obvious__-_StarTribune_comSouth Dakota is feeling under-loved, again. A South Dakota state senator wrote a commentary in today’s Star Tribune complaining about the newspaper’s preview of Paul McCartney’s two Target Center concerts. The forlorn headline says it all: “Gee, did you have to slam South Dakota again?”

It seems the mulleted Beatle began his Midwest tour in Sioux Falls, which prompted the Strib’s music critic to do what music critics do for a living, get snarky. “For once, you may envy the folks who live in Sioux Falls,” wrote the Strib’s Chris Riemenschneider.  This prompted South Dakota State Senator Bernie Hunhoff to do what South Dakota politicians do for a living, get defensive.

Actually, Hunhoff’s piece was pretty light-hearted and fun, a welcome change from much of what we often hear in these tiresome “border battles.”  But along with the humor, there was hurt.  Oh yes, there was hurt.

We midwesterners as a group tend to be mighty sensitive when we feel someone has disrespected us. For instance, remember all of the rage a while back about Minnesota’s Red Lake County being named the Ugliest County in America? Judging from the heated reactions, one might have thought the Washington Post and the evil authors of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Amenities Index had launched nuclear weaponry at poor little Minnesota.

But when it comes to sensitivity, South Dakota is in a league of its own.  As a South Dakota expat, and Wry Wing’s South Dakota Correspondent, I would make this observation: Among easily offended Midwesterners, South Dakotans are among the most easily aggrieved. Perhaps it’s because South Dakota is one of the most flown over portions of Flyover Country.  Perhaps it’s because former Governor South Dakota Bill Janklow long ago popularized the art of promoting himself by continually creating new platforms where he could defend South Dakota’s honor.  Whatever the reasons, many South Dakotans still spend their lives looking for ways that outsiders are not sufficiently appreciating South Dakota’s awesomeness.

To be certain, there is awesomeness to be had there. Like most states, parts of South Dakota have great natural beauty. Like most states, there are fun and interesting places to eat, drink and see. Like most states, there are friendly, diligent and kind people.  I loves me some South Dakota.

South_Dakota_low_taxes_-_Google_SearchIn fact, now that retirement is a decade or so away, it wouldn’t be the craziest thing in the world for my South Dakota-born wife and I to take our thousandaire fortune and retire closer to our South Dakota family and friends. After all, lots of old folks retire there to shield their income from taxes, since South Dakota has no income tax.

But actually, that is precisely why I won’t be retiring in South Dakota, and will be staying in Minnesota. As a committed liberal, I realize that the seamy side of scarce taxes is scarce community services.

I don’t want to live in a place with the lowest paid teachers in the nation, and one of the region’s lower rates of health coverage. I don’t want to live in a place populated with so many taxophobes that bitter community civil wars break out every time someone proposes addressing a community need or creating a community amenity. I love South Dakota, but I don’t love the short-sighted taxophobic culture that has come to limit the place.

But back to McCartneygate. First, let me apologize for Mr. Riemenschneider’s snark. I’m sorry he showed disrespect to South Dakota. Though truthfully it didn’t strike me as much of a diss, particularly considering he is a music critic, rest assured that most Minnesotans like and respect South Dakota.  They really do.

Second, I would urge my home state to lighten up a bit. Shrug things off.  Have thicker skins.  Be confident enough in what you have to offer the world that you don’t feel the need to be constantly in grievance mode. Realize that you have enough to offer that you don’t have to engage in a fiscal race-to-the-bottom with the Mississippi’s of the world.  You also don’t have to run desperate Tokyo Rose-like ad campaigns on Minnesota conservative talk radio stations recruiting taxophobic businesses and individuals to relocate there.

South Dakota doesn’t need more civic paranoia. It doesn’t need to recruit more selfish taxophobes. It’s a terrific state populated by wonderful people who love the place deeply. As Sir Paul told South Dakotans a few days ago, “with a love like that, you know you should be glad.” Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Note:  This post also was published as part of MinnPost’s weekly Blog Cabin feature.

Really, Pioneer Press?

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When South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow and Minnesota Governor Rudy Perpich were taking verbal shots at each other in the early 1980s about business climate, that was news, mostly because Janklow and Perpich were the highest ranking elected officials of their respective states, and because in those days neighboring Governors  were typically genteel with each other.  This was something new.

But today the St. Paul Pioneer Press ran a breathless piece on its front page, above the fold, about a relatively obscure Tea Party-backed state legislator, Wisconsin State Rep. Erik Serverson (R-Osceola), who wrote a little letter taking a shot at Minnesota about taxes.

A Tea Partier griping about taxes.  Gee, I’ve never heard that before.  Seriously, this is news, Pioneer Press?  It would have been news if this Tea Partier wasn’t opposing Dayton’s tax reform plan. Continue reading →