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Novstrup Forgets Democratic Registration and Native American Day

For a savvy politico, Senator Al Novstrup (R-3/Aberdeen) is remarkably forgetful. The Senate Republican whip can’t remember for sure if he registered as a Democrat… and also can’t remember that Native American Day is an actual holiday:

Sen. Al Novstrup, R-Aberdeen, went to the county courthouse Monday to re-assess his voting record but wasn’t able to get answers as it was closed for Native American Day.

“I’m wondering if it’s accurate,” Novstrup said. “There’s a possibility I switched over if there was a primary that wanted to vote it, but it would’ve only been for about a month. And so what?” [Dana Ferguson, “Conservative Group Aims to Out Ex-Democrats Among State GOP Lawmakers,” that Sioux Falls paper, 2017.10.09]

Save the hassle this morning, Al—here’s your re-registration card from May 15, 1984:

Al Novstrup, voter registration, 1984.05.15.
Al Novstrup, voter registration, 1984.05.15.

South Dakota had Democratic primary races in 1984 for President (Mondale! Hart! Jackson! LaRouche!), U.S. Senate (Sinclair vs. Cunningham), House District 2 (Brown County: Herseth, Schaunaman, and Wyly). But we also had Republican primaries for U.S. House (Bell vs. Mangels). It’s perfectly conceivable that young Novstrup may have wanted to cast more votes and thus claimed Democratic status for that more exciting primary. I could certainly understand the impulse to get in on history and cast his vote for Jesse Jackson.

Al Novstrup clap clap
What, no one was tailgating, so how was I supposed to know there was a holiday?

Maybe official, legal party affiliation doesn’t mean anything. Maybe that’s all the more reason to have open primaries, so Al and other interested voters don’t have to establish a paper trail of fickle party status just to vote for the folks who interest them.

But I’m not sure I’d say so what? to the American Indian constituents whose holiday Al Novstrup appears to have forgotten.

34 Comments

  1. Rorschach 2017-10-10 10:13

    The GOP Party is realizing that the downside of having too much success is that they brought the zealots into the big tent. The zealots want to have a Spanish inquisition to identify and purge all of those they deem heretics. They have appointed Sen. Stacey “Torquemada” Nelson as Chief Inquisitor. Burnings at the stake to commence shortly.

  2. DR 2017-10-10 10:18

    CAH, weren’t you a registered republican once?

  3. Roger Cornelius 2017-10-10 10:57

    DR

    Cory has stated numerous times on this blog that he was once registered as a republican. All you need to do is read his posts thoroughly and you would not have to ask that question.

  4. Donald Pay 2017-10-10 11:54

    Was Novstrup a LaRouchite? That would explain his re-registration in the Democratic primary.

  5. Stace Nelson 2017-10-10 12:15

    The GOP was founded on principles that I 100% support. I belong to the GOP because of those principles. Only a moron would claim that fulfilling the promises and principles of the party they are registered with, is a bad thing. But we already garnered that before today..

  6. Rorschach 2017-10-10 12:23

    There’s that term again. “Moron.” I’d compare IQ scores with you, senator, but I already know who would win that one.

  7. Rorschach 2017-10-10 12:46

    Now don’t get your panties in a bunch, Sen. Nelson. I’m just parroting the Trump/Tillerson lines. Whatever I may accuse you of, I know you’re not a dim bulb.

  8. Stace Nelson 2017-10-10 14:38

    @Rorschach No need to compare IQ scores with someone who self identifies and answers to “Moron” on the Wechsler Ratings. :-D I self identify with the wit of Shakespeare who aptly noted: “The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool..”

  9. mike from iowa 2017-10-10 14:58

    According to the wingnut party platform of 1856, Nelson’s buddy Drumpf has violated just about every principle involved, and those few he has missed the wingnut party itself has peed on.

  10. Stace Nelson 2017-10-10 15:20

    @MFI Maybe that Nazi propaganda crap works in your circles (for decades), not with the rest of us who walk in the sunshine. I had my reservations about President Trump and expressed them. He was elected POTUS and like President Obama, I support him when I can, oppose policies I disagree with, and pray for him and the nation. For those unaware or baffled with MFI’s male bovine excrement:

    “This Convention of Delegates, assembled in pursuance of a call addressed to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who are opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise; to the policy of the present Administration; to the extension of Slavery into Free Territory; in favor of the admission of Kansas as a Free State; of restoring the action of the Federal Government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson; and for the purpose of presenting candidates for the offices of President and Vice-President, do

    Resolved: That the maintenance of the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and embodied in the Federal Constitution are essential to the preservation of our Republican institutions, and that the Federal Constitution, the rights of the States, and the union of the States, must and shall be preserved.

    Resolved: That, with our Republican fathers, we hold it to be a self-evident truth, that all men are endowed with the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that the primary object and ulterior design of our Federal Government were to secure these rights to all persons under its exclusive jurisdiction; that, as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished Slavery in all our National Territory, ordained that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, it becomes our duty to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it for the purpose of establishing Slavery in the Territories of the United States by positive legislation, prohibiting its existence or extension therein. That we deny the authority of Congress, of a Territorial Legislation, of any individual, or association of individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States, while the present Constitution shall be maintained.

    Resolved: That the Constitution confers upon Congress sovereign powers over the Territories of the United States for their government; and that in the exercise of this power, it is both the right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism–Polygamy, and Slavery.

    Resolved: That while the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established by the people, in order to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” and contain ample provision for the protection of the life, liberty, and property of every citizen, the dearest Constitutional rights of the people of Kansas have been fraudulently and violently taken from them.

    Their Territory has been invaded by an armed force;
    Spurious and pretended legislative, judicial, and executive officers have been set over them, by whose usurped authority, sustained by the military power of the government, tyrannical and unconstitutional laws have been enacted and enforced;

    The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been infringed.
    Test oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have been imposed as a condition of exercising the right of suffrage and holding office.
    The right of an accused person to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury has been denied;
    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, has been violated;

    They have been deprived of life, liberty, and property without due process of law;

    That the freedom of speech and of the press has been abridged;

    The right to choose their representatives has been made of no effect;

    Murders, robberies, and arsons have been instigated and encouraged, and the offenders have been allowed to go unpunished;

    That all these things have been done with the knowledge, sanction, and procurement of the present National Administration; and that for this high crime against the Constitution, the Union, and humanity, we arraign that Administration, the President, his advisers, agents, supporters, apologists, and accessories, either before or after the fact, before the country and before the world; and that it is our fixed purpose to bring the actual perpetrators of these atrocious outrages and their accomplices to a sure and condign punishment thereafter.
    Resolved, That Kansas should be immediately admitted as a state of this Union, with her present Free Constitution, as at once the most effectual way of securing to her citizens the enjoyment of the rights and privileges to which they are entitled, and of ending the civil strife now raging in her territory.
    Resolved, That the highwayman’s plea, that “might makes right,” embodied in the Ostend Circular, was in every respect unworthy of American diplomacy, and would bring shame and dishonor upon any Government or people that gave it their sanction.
    Resolved, That a railroad to the Pacific Ocean by the most central and practicable route is imperatively demanded by the interests of the whole country, and that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction, and as an auxiliary thereto, to the immediate construction of an emigrant road on the line of the railroad.
    Resolved, That appropriations by Congress for the improvement of rivers and harbors, of a national character, required for the accommodation and security of our existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution, and justified by the obligation of the Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.
    Resolved, That we invite the affiliation and cooperation of the men of all parties, however differing from us in other respects, in support of the principles herein declared; and believing that the spirit of our institutions as well as the Constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all legislation impairing their security.”

  11. Rorschach 2017-10-10 15:46

    The GOP Party platform of 1856 is all well and good. Sounds like I might have joined the party then. The GOP Party was the liberal party in 1856 while the Democratic Party was the conservative party.

    Now, that once-great party is all about gerrymandering the country so that they can win more political seats with fewer votes, suppressing voting rights to slow down the Democratic Party’s emerging demographic advantage, pandering to people’s worst instincts and prejudices to sow hate and discontent, and propagandizing a false reality where fiction is fact; fact is nonexistent, all toward the goal of doing the bidding of the monied special interests at the expense of everybody else. Those statesmen of 1856 would turn over in their graves if they could see what their party has become today. Now all of the old southern Democrats – the racists, the misogynists have joined the GOP Party along with the wealthy corporatists and exploiters who have always been there. And those factions are at war with each other as much as with the Democrats – who I’ll mention again have driven their deplorables to the GOP Party.

  12. Stace Nelson 2017-10-10 16:00

    @Rorschach “propagandizing a false reality where fiction is fact” sums up perfectly your post.
    Claiming the old racists Democrats joined the GOP is as idiotic a statement as ever made for propaganda. The GOP only made in roads in the South AFTER the GOP defeated every institutional racist agenda of Democrats. After the teeth was broken on the Democrats racist machine of 200 years, new age Southerners of the ’80’s-’90s joined the GOP because of the DNC’s war on Christianity and long after the GOP defeated the institutional racism of the Democrats. But who am I to bust your propaganda bubbles.. Carry on, lets see if you can break 2,000:

    http://observer.com/2017/09/democrats-dont-understand-the-economy-why-they-are-losing/

  13. Rorschach 2017-10-10 16:27

    Your fake news doesn’t fly on this blog Sen. Nelson. Take your propaganda to the press release blog.

  14. mike from iowa 2017-10-10 16:39

    Nazis in 1856? You know, Nelson, yer problem is you believe Drumpf actually was elected in accordance to rules set forth. Nuh-uh. Too much help from Russia for it to have been considered legitimate. Too much hanky panky between Drumpf’s entire campaign/cabinet for that election to have ever been considered legitimate. Get prepared to start saying Madame Hillz as the legal and rightful heir to Obama’s legacy.

    Hope yer keeping track of all the tenets of that platform Drumpf and you wingnuts have trashed. There’s a gawd’s plenty of them.

  15. Roger Cornelius 2017-10-10 16:44

    The days of the good and decent GOP are over and have been for a number of years, if not decades.
    Donald Trump who thinks Nazi’s are fine people and refuses to denounce him is now the epitome of the republican party.

  16. Jenny 2017-10-10 16:48

    Did you take your medicine today, Stace? (Sorry, I couldn’t resist. You’re so fun to tease. ;)

  17. Roger Cornelius 2017-10-10 16:50

    trump said today that he would challenge his own Secretary of State to take an IQ test to see who was smarter.
    The Hill reported that Mensa would gladly host the test.
    The scary part is that trump just might be a genius, many lunatics have high IQ’s

  18. grudznick 2017-10-10 16:59

    It’s a fact, reported by the media, that Mr. Nelson edits his own Wikipedia page to increase the pompousness. This is a fact, reported by the media. When did you stop editing your own Wikipedia page in direct violation of their terms of service, Mr. Nelson?

  19. Jenny 2017-10-10 17:01

    Remember it was the Republican Party of Lincoln that ordered the hanging of three dozen starving Native Americans in Mankato MN. The largest mass execution to this day in the US, all under a president that is considered a hero by many. This execution is mentioned (just barely)in nothing but a tiny paragraph in today’s American History books.

    Nothing to be proud of, Stace.

  20. grudznick 2017-10-10 17:10

    Mr. C, my good friend, may I gently remind you that Mr. Trump does not speak for or act in accordance with the wishes of many kind, benevolent, conservatives, and the Conservatives with Common Sense have issued a stern chastisement to this president. I realize you know this but just didn’t want it construed that you were throwing all Republicans under the same train tire.

  21. Rorschach 2017-10-10 17:11

    Yes Grudz. Sen. Nelson is just like Trump. “Ve must tell ze people vaht to think about us. Ve must create ze fake news.”

  22. Rorschach 2017-10-10 17:19

    Also like Trump, Sen. Nelson has narcissistic personality disorder.

  23. Donald Pay 2017-10-10 17:24

    The myths Republicans believe about how they took over the South neglects to consider empirical data. I suppose it makes them feel better about themselves, but it stands in the way of them cleansing the party of their highly effective, but largely racist base. They really have a problem. After cultivating these deplorables, they are stuck with them, or they lose. Making up a fake history, and believing it, is an indication of mental illness. So, not only has the party become racist, but they are also mentally ill. The party needs to come to terms with its history, and cast out the racists, as the Democrats did in the 1960s. Ignoring it ain’t helping, and making up a false story that no one that is sane believes is living in an hallucinatory world.

    I am old enough to remember the Southern Strategy of Richard Nixon, which was employed to try to pull votes from the George Wallace-ites, a racist Southern wing of the Democratic Party, which was following Strom Thurmond on the way out the door of the Democratic Party.

    Then there are the words of Lee Atwater, a Reagan acolyte who brought racist campaigning to its greatest heights. One can’t listen to his interview on the matter and not miss the obvious fact: the Republican Party apparatchiks were cultivating the racists from 1968 onward. Let’s also not mistake that many of the original self-described “Christians” in the so-called “Moral Majority” had racist backgrounds, including Rev. Jerry Falwell, who was a well-know segregationist before he pretended to be “moral” and “a majority.”

    https://www.thenation.com/article/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

  24. Rorschach 2017-10-10 17:45

    Yes, all of the warring factions are invested in the false reality the GOP Party is trying to propagandize. Even as Sen. “Torquemada” Nelson is leading his Spanish Inquisition to identify the heretics and burn them at the stake – and micromanaging every comma on his own wikipedia page, some of his heretics are on the press release blog trying to burn Sen. Corker at the stake for telling the truth about Trump and tearing a hole in the red wall of silence they are trying to perpetuate to preserve the GOP Party’s propaganda narrative.

    How dare Sen. Corker tel the truth about the reckless maniac in the White House, or about the giant deficit the GOP Party is pretending its tax plan won’t create? He’s supposed to shut up like the rest of the GOP Party and let the propagandists keep a lid on the truth.

    How dare Sen. Collins, or Sen. Murkowski or Sen. McCain tell the truth about the GOP Party billionaire tax cuts masquerading as health plans? They were supposed to just shut up and go along with the party propagandists’ lies like good soldiers. Heretics all!

    Once again, I’m still eating popcorn and enjoying the show.

  25. Rorschach 2017-10-10 18:03

    Yes, Sen. Corker has breached the red wall of silence, and the party hacks revile him for it. The GOP Party expects its members follow the unwritten rule of either actively dissembling and propagandizing or to remain silent while others dissemble and propagandize. Will others in the GOP Party breach the red wall of silence with the hammer of truth?

    Shout out to The Constant Commoner for writing what you will never see on the press release blog.

  26. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-10-10 18:41

    DR: Yes! I was a Republican until Mike Rounds made me realize he and his party didn’t mean what they said about liberty and government. But unlike Al, I can remember and explain why I changed parties.

    If anyone from within my party goes headhunting after members who changed their party affiliation, I will be happy to debate my bona fides as a member of my current party.

  27. DR 2017-10-11 16:43

    I don’t understand why Stace or anyone for that matter goes after anyone for switching parties. This is America, we are allowed to do that. I mean Mrs Clinton worked for Nixon in the 60s

  28. mike from iowa 2017-10-11 17:29

    Nelson posts a link to Jarhead Kushner’s failing NYObserver. Here is what it says- It wasn’t just Hillary who lost in 2016. Democrats lost the House, the Senate, and now the Supreme Court as well. On top of this, they also lost badly at the state level.

    Dems haven’t controlled either house since 2014 and they didn’t lose the Scotus- it, like the election was stolen from them. The Scotus and the Potus are illegitimate and I fully expect both will be restored to their rightful owners anyday now.

    Observer claims Dems don’t understand the economy. Which partyof morons believes massive taxcuts increase tax revenues and have been proven wrong time and again? Hint- it ain’t the Dems. Cutting taxes does nothing for job growth, either. Wingnuts are at strike two and the game hasn’t officially started.

  29. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-10-11 18:21

    DR, thanks for pointing us back to something like the original topic. Since you and I appear to agree, I’ll direct your question to Senator Nelson:

    Senator Nelson, do lay out for us exactly how Senator Novstrup’s past registration as a Democrat bears on his fitness for office and for the Republican caucus. Does the fact that a politician once belonged to Political Party A disqualify that politician from subsequent membership or leadership in Political Party B?

    And in an attempt to tie together the original topic and Senator Nelson’s historical diversion, Democrats may have facilitated slavery way back when, but Al Novstrup forgot Native American Day two days ago. I say dealing Al’s current failings takes priority over rehashing long-past, long-rectified historical errors.

  30. Stace Nelson 2017-10-11 19:39

    @CAH I 100% agree with Tonchi Weaver’s statement on the matter. You are adopting assertions projected by DR, as my own, and they are not. The “R” is not magical. It is not that “R” that makes a Republican. Its how one votes on the issues. The point the good folks at Citizens for Liberty are making is don’t judge a politician by the letter they chose to put behind their name, or the election year rhetoric they cite to fool voters.. Look to their record to see where they actually are on the ideological scale http://sdcitizensforliberty.com/ I care not one wit whether someone is a former Democrat, I do care if someone steals the “R” to get elected claiming to be a conservative Republican and then does everything possible to defeat conservative issues. Looking back, Lederman was once such RINO https://sdrepublicanreportcard.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/sdgop-2012-senate.pdf

  31. owen reitzel 2017-10-11 19:59

    So South Dakota is a blue state. In your words Stace that’s “asinine.”

  32. grudznick 2017-10-11 20:25

    That report card Mr. Torquemada Nelson puts a blue link to got a 12% in the scoring accuracy for scorecards that year of 2012. I have a scorecard right here that says Mr. Al Novstrup was incredibly effective in preventing liberal attacks against the GOP. One of the most effective, in fact. Far, far more effective than Mr. Nelson who is the least effective of the sitting in the legislatures. The only person less effective is the fellow pulling Mr. Nelson’s puppet strings right now.

  33. Stace Nelson 2017-10-11 20:42

    @Owen On conservative issues that conservatives were most concerned with this last session, conservative Republicans were in the minority. The letter “R” and the color red are not magical. If someone has them as their Republican political identifier and they vote against Republican issues, then what the hell good are they as a “Republican?”

    @Grud for me being so ineffective, you sure do spend a heckuva lot of time whining and obsessing over me… Rent free in that head of yours..

  34. John W. 2017-10-12 22:46

    Ya gotta love the Republican banter that attempts to confirm who is the better, more bona fide conservative. Such disagreement simply proves that none of them understand what they are or what they should be. Citizens for Liberty is nothing but an incoherent collection of reactionaries that know only that they hate government, they hate taxes, and endorse totalitarianism and feudal nationalism. If there isn’t a social or economic crisis to belly ache about, they’ll create one and then find fault where none belongs. They are a far cry from any ideology save for that of John Birch and less famous conspiracy theorists. Tonchi Weaver (Citizens for liberty) ran for school board and lost miserably. People are starting to wake up to the fiction and fallacy of political spite that that organization represents. It’s a hapless insurgency that needs to disappear like the Whig party.

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