Senator Phil Jensen (R-33/Rapid City) was having a bad enough day Friday. The conservative lawmaker saw the Legislature rubber-stamping the Executive Branch’s proposals. He watched his Republican leadership collaborate with three willing Democrats to expand government with a state debt collection agency.
And then some darned liberal blogger comes up to talk to him. Hence, his heavy heart in discussing the results of the 2015 Legislative Session:
Senator Jensen’s heartburn over education comes in part from the defeat of two measures he sponsored: House Bill 1093, which would have protected parents’ right to opt their children out of mandatory testing, and House Bill 1223, which would have erased Common Core standards from South Dakota schools. We can debate whether either of those measures addressed “federalization,” but Senator Jensen could at least take heart with House Bill 1101, which explicitly denies the state Board of Education any authority “to require the use of specifically designated curriculum or methods of instruction.”
Senator Jensen may be disappointed that the Legislature isn’t giving teachers or kids much honey, but at least South Dakotans can enjoy more milk:
Senator Jensen refers here to the raw milk regulations formalized in Senate Bill 45 and the protection of women’s right to breastfeed that Senator Jensen brought to the Legislature in Senate Bill 77.
After our conversation, Senator Jensen’s day only got worse. Over his opposition, the Senate passed increased taxes in the road bill and increased spending in the general appropriations bill. We progressives get little satisfaction from the South Dakota Legislature, but neither do members of the extreme right wing like Senator Jensen.
Jensen is an ignorant religionist and misogynist, typical of Rapid Citians; but, as every journalist learns, after being trashed in a blog post, Phil is unlikely to ever give Cory another interview: just another reason why journos end up in public relations.
Cory: you may be a liberal but you’re no progressive.
Uh, Larry, your brush is a little BROAD! I happen to live in Rapid City, gave up on religion a long time ago and my wife won’t let me be a misogynist! :-)
Larry, I don’t think I trashed Jensen in this blog post. Was that your intention, to prevent further communication?
Cory, you’re losing your edge: and and your crash to the center is damned frustrating.
So I give Phil Jensen some air time and I’m losing my edge?
And at peril of making this post about me instead of about Phil Jensen, can you please plot the trajectory of my “crash to the center”? Can you list the leftist positions that I have abandoned that would demonstrate this movement?
How can you ask the really hard questions of Jensen, like what he is asking of Pierre to investigate Rapid City and its police force, then write a piece that is complimentary to his christianic, white supremacist views?
Yeah, you’re right, Larry. I guess I should have stood up in the press box of the Senate and made fart sounds with my armpit until everyone just bowed down and Lt. Gov. Michels handed me the gavel.
Oh, the ole fart sound from the armpit. Now that is a cue for civil disobedience. I can hear the gavel coming down hard on this with the Speaker saying that this is an outrage from the gallery while the legislators are being outrageous on the floor. Good idea Cory, now there needs to be an audition on how to make a chorus of sounds that will do the job.
You know, Jerry, I really did think about it. I imagined shouting or farting from the gallery (House gallery in particular has some really interesting acoustics, what with those arches to bounce and focus sounds like whisper shells). But I held my tongue. Losing my edge, you know. ;-)
LOL, that’s giving “Code Pink” a one-up Cory… or maybe it’s just the meat-head masculine iteration of like sensibility and subsequent civil disobedience.
If it’s not been proposed already, I’m thinking you could call your fart-noise attention attraction movement (oops.. umm… okay… “method” maybe?) “Code Stink.” ;-)
(p.s. I could never get the hang of doing that arm pit thing, so I’d be useless in your “choir” but what an image, man! Made my day.)
Larry,
You’re a noted blogger and Twitter user with a great following, why don’t you go to Pierre and ask Phil Jensen the questions you want answered?
Shifting your wants and responsibilities to your readers is like Cory’s analogy on shoveling snow.
Roger, the only GOP legislator who doesn’t block me on twitter is Steve Hickey and it’s probably because he and i see our paths crossing all the time while the other members of his caucus are hopeless sociopathic psychopaths. I confess to great solace walking into a room and having people scatter.