Dan Kaiser said in February that his wife’s successful lawsuit against the DCI, which retaliated against her for making waves about sexual harassment she suffered from one of Sheriff Mark Milbrandt’s deputies in 2011, was not a factor in his decision to try taking Sheriff Milbrandt’s job. Now with a month before the primary that decides whether Milbrandt remains or Kaiser becomes sheriff, Elisa Sand reports that Kaiser is telling potential donors that the lawsuit is a factor in his bid for the job:
In a four-page fundraising letter sent to Brown County Republicans, Kaiser specifically listed the lawsuit as one of the reasons for his campaign, which is contrary to what he told the American News in a previous interview [Elisa Sand, “Lawsuit Involving Kaiser’s Wife Becomes Issue in Primary Battle with Milbrandt,” Aberdeen American News, 2018.05.05].
Kaiser’s story is now more credible: sheriff’s deputy harasses your wife, and you didn’t consider it when you decided to run for sheriff? Come on.
Nonetheless, Kaiser takes to Facebook for some perception pushback. Kaiser says he hasn’t changed his story; he expected the “illegal activity” committed against his wife at the sheriff’s office to be a—a, not the—campaign issue:
The thing I’ve always said in relationship to the illegal activity that took place within the sheriff’s office and victimized my wife is that, are those illegal activities going to be pointed out and going to be an issue in this campaign? Absolutely. Because when I think about your sister, your daughters, your aunt, how are they going to be treated? Of course it’s an issue. My point has always been the same. It’s not the issue that I’m running on. We’ve got a list of things, of challenges, that need to be overcome within the sheriff’s office, things that need to change to make it more functional for you, the citizens of Brown County [Dan Kaiser for Sheriff, Facebook video, 2018.05.06].
Sand’s February “not a factor” article doesn’t have a direct quote from Kaiser, but it says, “Kaiser said a recent lawsuit involving his wife and, tangentially, the Brown County Sheriff’s Office, did not factor in to his decision to run.” Sand doesn’t use any iteration of “a not the“—only a small factor, one of many factors; she says that Kaiser said it did not factor.
Democratic and independent voters won’t have to decide whether Kaiser’s change of story on this campaign point matters; the closed Republican primary boxes us out of choosing Brown County’s next sheriff. And Republicans stopped caring about truth and clarity from politicians in 2016, so Kaiser’s story change probably won’t even register with my Republican neighbors.
But will those local Republican voters care any more about the “challenges” Kaiser says he’ll tackle? Kaiser promises a video “every night or two” to list all the ways he’ll make the sheriff’s office more “functional,” but the party of Rounds, Noem, Jackley, and Trump has made clear that the last thing it wants is government that actually performs its functions.
Who are you rooting for, Mr. H? Do you have signs in your yard or are you more of a passenger in this dark freight train of dysfunction that is hurtling across the County of Brown?
Were the jurors “mentally ill” too?
And then, nearly six years after Laura Kaiser had first sat in Marty Jackley’s office asking him to look at the facts and make it right, this happened (2017-12-18 at 23:58):
https://dakotafreepress.com/2017/12/18/legislature-to-offer-sexual-harassment-training-january-17-good-reason-to-delay-abdallah-hearing-to-january-18/#comment-93605
I’m not rooting, Grudz, since no one has persuaded me that law enforcement will be conducted any differently under either candidate. I remain open to persuasion.
This is how Democrat women handle it.
I am sure there are some Republican office holders or private sector grandees out there with similar grotesque stories (Missouri’s Republican Governor Greitens, for example), but this little detail in the story does stand out for how liberals do put politics uber alles:
After the former girlfriend ended the relationship, she told several friends about the abuse. A number of them advised her to keep the story to herself, arguing that Schneiderman was too valuable a politician for the Democrats to lose.
Another woman involved with Schneiderman has a similar reaction:
Given the woman’s prominence in the legal sphere, Schneiderman’s actions had exposed him to tremendous risk. Yet she took no official action against him. “Now that I know it’s part of a pattern, I think, God, I should have reported it,” she says. “But, back then, I believed that it was a one-time incident. And I thought, He’s a good attorney general, he’s doing good things. I didn’t want to jeopardize that.”
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/05/the-schneiderman-chronicles.php
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/four-women-accuse-new-yorks-attorney-general-of-physical-abuse
So your point here (because you wouldn’t try to hijack a thread with a separate national-level story, would you?) is that Milbrandt, for allowing this single instance of sexual harassment in his building, should be replaced with Kaiser?
Yes.
My posting that story goes to show some people value party over sexual harassment.
So you’re saying that Dan Kaiser values sexual harassment (or, more accurately, properly responding to sexual harassment) over party?
(I have a feeling Jason wants to turn this into another tedious pissing match about participants in the comment section rather than a discussion of the sheriff’s race.)
It’s in his playbook, Cory. Do all you can and say anything you can say that goads Americans to attack other Americans.
Kaiser doesn’t make much sense, why would he find it necessary to flip?
There certainly doesn’t seem like anything is out of order about his wife’s sexual harassment in a public workplace.
In fact, that should be a solid campaign issue, unless I’m missing something.
I think Mr. Kaiser values $1,000,000 for his mentally ill wife’s suffering above all else, and as a sheriff he will be a slackard. How many rich sheriff’s do you know running around doing their jobs with zeal, if you rule out those who do it out of a sick sense of enjoyment of sticking it to the little people? Bob? You into sheriffs? Bill? Other Bill?
Read the transcript of the trial and tell me that Milbrandt is fit to be sheriff. The lawsuit may have had something to do with Dan running, but more than anything it revealed why Milbrandt needs to be gone.
“grudznick” writes:
In defense of Dan and Laura Kaiser, I think “grudznick” is an extraordinarily awful person whose anonymity privileges here should have been revoked long ago.
Whoa, Grudz—calling somebody else “mentally ill” is out of line.
Roger, I can’t figure why Kaiser would have denied the lawsuit was a motivating factor in the first place.
Cory writes:
Is it possible that reporter Elisa Sand asked Dan whether the lawsuit was “the” motivating factor, and Dan said no, and Sand’s report that the lawsuit didn’t factor into his decision was based on a misunderstanding? I’ve had my statements misrepresented in the paper many times over the years, including in supposedly direct quotes that the reporters apparently misunderstood and tried to paraphrase.
Kurt
That could be, a reporter misquoting Kaiser, but wouldn’t Kaiser have pointed that out when he announced his flip?
I’d asked:
Roger Cornelius writes:
It didn’t really look to me like Dan meant to announce a flip, Roger. He seemed to be saying he’d always expected the illegal activities in the sheriff’s office to be one campaign issue, just not the only one.
Kaiser doesn’t live in my district nor can I vote for him or against him, my interest in the race is purely based on Cory’s information, and Kurt’s.
You call Kaiser, he’d probably like to hear from you.
Kurt
That make more sense now that you frame it that manner, one issue candidate’s can’t be trusted.
So the moral of the story is Roger C is talking about stuff he knows nothing about.
Par for the course.
Jason writes:
Wow, Jason. Roger was raising reasonable questions for discussion. People do that here sometimes.
Par for the course, nitwit doesn’t have a clue what this discussion is about.
Nitwit hasn’t made a single comment about the content of Cory’s thread, Cory should take that for the insult that it is.
Once again nitwit chooses one of Cory’s to inject himself and whatever hobby horse he is riding today.
Roger,
This discussion is about how you and and reporter are not very smart.
Kurt
Resident nitwit most likely didn’t read the original post, he just started running his mouth and trying to make this thread about him.
Thanks for the brief “adult” discussion, Kurt.
Wrong again, this discussion is about the Kaiser/Milbrandt’s sheriff contest, it is not about Jason or whatever Jason wants to rant about.
Roger writes:
You’re welcome, Roger. It’s pretty obvious that Jason is trying to provoke you. Maybe just take a deep breath and walk away for the evening.
The FACT is that this discussion is not about Democratic women, it is about the Kaiser/Milbrandt sheriff race, why can’t you comment about that? Oh, this right you didn’t bother to read the original thread Cory posted.
It is a FACT that no one on this thread said anything at all about Kurt being a republican.
Kurt’s right, you aren’t as smart as you think you are. Trump got one thing right, he loves “poorly educated” supporters.
Should I correct Jason’s poor use of grammar? Nah!
Roger,
Please do.