Tapio at His Best When Borrowing from Dakota Free Press

First Neal Tapio’s Islamophobe dupes in Aberdeen cite my blog as a reliable source; now Tapio borrows my graphics for his Congressional campaign ad on YouTube:

There’s the combo of pix of Dusty Johnson and Shantel Krebs I pasted together for my April 17, 2017, blog post on Krebs’s superior out-of-the-gate fundraising.

And there’s the opening graphic of Krebs and Johnson in Tapio’s little hysteria piece.

I’m not crying copyright—heavens, no! I can’t even remember which websites I borrowed the original pictures from. But when Tapio leads with any material from Dakota Free Press, well, how can we not smile?

The video itself ties Krebs to Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore, then ties Dusty Johnson to corruption and seven dead South Dakotans. Really.

Neal Tapio’s charges against Shantel Krebs range from dubious to false:

1. “In 2011, Shantel Krebs voted to streamline Obamacare in South Dakota…”: Here Tapio adopts the tactic of his fellow right-wing gadfly Stace Nelson, who in 2014 railed against his GOP Senate primary opponent Mike Rounds for working to implement the Affordable Care Act. (Ask Senator Mike Rounds how well that attack worked.) The bills in question are 2011 Senate Bills 38 and 43, which Governor Mike Rounds dropped in the hopper on his way out the second-floor door to bring South Dakota into compliance with the Affordable Care Act. Krebs did indeed vote for both bills, along with most of her Republican colleagues in the State Senate, including Dan Lederman (now SDGOP chair), Ried Holien (who endorsed Tapio in 2016 as his successor in District 5 Senate seat), and Al Novstrup (Tapio’s best xenophobe buddy in Aberdeen). So either the entire SDGOP superstructure was in on Obamacare, or 2011 SB 38 and 43 aren’t really indictments of Krebs’s cred.

By the way, that same Session, Senator Krebs voted for HCR 1004, which declared unconstitutional “which interferes with the right of any person or entity to choose their personal physician, private health care system, or private health care coverage” or “which imposes any penalty, tax, fee, or fine, of any type, for declining to purchase health care coverage or participate in any particular health care system or plan.”

2. “…and sponsoring another bill that would have abolished the Electoral College, giving us Presidents Al Gore and Hillary Clinton”: Tapio refers here to 2011 Senate Bill 138, which then-Senator Krebs did indeed co-sponsor. 2011 SB 138 technically would not have abolished the Electoral College. Instead, 2011 SB 138 would have joined South Dakota to an agreement to bind their electors to the winner of the national popular vote. 2011 SB 138 would only have taken effect if adopted by enough states to constitute a majority of the Electoral College. The bill was pushed by a Michigan right-winger who contended that Democrats are un-American and that binding electors to the popular vote would help Republicans win the White House. Our own radical wingnuts testified against the bill, and it died in its first committee hearing.

Had SB 138 passed, it would not have given us President Al Gore, since, obviously, a 2011 law could not be retroactive to 2000. Nor would SB 138 have given us President Hillary Clinton: National Popular Vote bills have only been passed in eleven states with 165 electoral votes, short of the 270-vote majority necessary to trigger the agreement and bind electors to the winner of the popular vote in 2016.

Tapio’s attack on Dusty Johnson isn’t a complete sentence, but it is more solid:

3. “…chief of staff for Governor Dennis Daugaard, one of the most scandal-ridden administrations in state history, EB-5 and the GEAR UP program, riddled with corruption, resulting in millions of dollars missing and seven people dead.” Yup. Nothing I can rebut there, because now Neal Tapio isn’t lifting not just a couple pictures but the thesis of hundreds of blog posts on Dakota Free Press and its predecessor Madville Times. (Quick tag count: 97 on GEAR UP, 308 on EB-5.) I can only remind Tapio that his idol Donald Trump still hasn’t repealed the EB-5 visa investment program which his own family has recruited Chinese investors.

The only live shot in the video is Neal in his Carhartts, making him about as authentic as his neighbor down Highway 81, the Congresswoman he would replace, Kristi Noem. Alas, he closes with “America First,” the slogan Trump has made obsolete with his newfound focus on Chinese jobs, and “South Dakota Strong,” which can only refer to the odor of bovine manure arising from Tapio’s anti-Muslim rallies.

Give Tapio points for borrowing his best campaign content from Dakota Free Press. He and his followers are figuring out that, on the big issue of real government corruption in our own backyard, South Dakota’s true liberal media is right.