When a rookie legislator cranks out press releases about her one-woman statewide tour to study rural education and about her efforts to serve constituents with chatbots, casual observers may reasonably wonder, “What’s she running for?”
The senior members of her party appear to be more than wondering; they’re sending signals to the fresh District 32 Representative that she’d better not even think of challenging Senator Mike Rounds for his Senate seat. At least that’s how State Representative Borglum plays it in this press release sent out by her press contact Ashley Granby—
—but before we read that press release, let’s pause: a rookie legislator has someone to handle her press releases in a non-election year? Yeah, Borglum is running for something.
O.K., depause. Borglum’s press release, titled with who-needs-GOP-donors boldness, “South Dakota Republican Establishment Eating Its Young”:
Congressman Dusty Johnson invited Representative Borglum, and her husband, for what appeared to be a friendly chat before the Lawrence County Lincoln Day dinner Saturday evening.
But instead, it was a DC-style ambush.
Borglum found herself in a crossfire between Dusty, Will Mortenson – a Pierre Lobbyist, and Katie Murray – Dusty’s West River Director, and former Rounds’ staff member.
What started as praise for Borglum’s efforts, energy, and ambition, quickly turned into a multitude of threats from the newly elected congressman. With henchmen like gile, Dusty demanded Borglum confess whether or not she plans to primary Senator Rounds in the 2020 election.
“I feel incredibly let-down by my congressman. I haven’t confirmed or announced any run for a higher office. I’m not even thinking about that. All I am trying to do is be the best state legislator that I can be. I work hard because that is who I am. I didn’t get to where I am today, by taking the easy road, or through entitlement. When I commit to something, I push, I grind and I give it my all. I am appalled by this backroom politics that feels more like what Hillary and Pelosi would pull,” says Borglum.
Dusty told Borglum that Rounds’ team was already doing opposition research on her and would expose the “dirt” if she were to primary Rounds. He also told her that Rounds’ team was actively calling financial donors to ensure Borglum was completely boxed out and unable to run for any future office.
“This is un-American…hard work and enthusiasm should be rewarded, and empowered, not shut down and stifled. Instead of mentoring me in my efforts of being the best freshman legislator, Dusty seemed to be more concerned with the potential upsetting of the establishment’s future plans!
This is not okay. Our elected congressman shouldn’t be focused on the future election. But rather, on doing the job the voters elected him to do. We should do the right thing and work hard every day to serve South Dakotans as best as we possibly can. Threatening a state legislator, who has given no reason other than working hard, is certainly not doing the right thing,” states Borglum.
Borglum plans to publicly address this issue live on Facebook during her weekly Borglum Brief, Tuesday, April 30th at 8 PM MST! [Ashley Granby, press release for State Rep. Scyller Borglum, received by Dakota Free Press 2019.04.29]
DC-style ambush… Hillary and Pelosi (awkward non-parallelism there lessens the impact, but she couldn’t say Nancy, because half of her readers would think Reagan)… all targeting fellow Republicans… dang! Stace Nelson! Is this gal related to you?
Now when Borglum accuses Johnson of threats, I can only hope she’s not playing her neighbor Lynne DiSanto’s card of blowing some mild, perhaps plain-spoken interaction up into accusations that she can’t back up with evidence. Congressman Johnson says there were no threats, just good advice:
Johnson acknowledged that the meeting took place and that he had been told by various politicos that Borglum was considering running against Rounds. Johnson said he told Borglum he could not support her if she challenges Rounds, but Johnson denied making any threats.
“I was trying to provide her good counsel,” Johnson said by phone from Washington, D.C.
He thought the meeting went well, he said, until he saw the Monday news release.
“It was a friendly conversation,” Johnson said. “After the meeting we exchanged friendly texts. We talked later that night at the event briefly. I never got the sense that it wasn’t a friendly conversation” [Seth Tupper, “Legislator Accuses Congressman of Intimidation,” Rapid City Journal, 2019.04.29].
Yeah, well, Dusty, you thought Maria Butina had a friendly—er, pardon me, “incredible“—conversation with your Teenage Republicans and never got the sense that she was a Russian agent angling to influence your party, so your gal radar may not work as well as you think it does. (don’t feel bad, Dusty—my gal radar never worked that well, either).
But let’s not get distracted from the main course: if Borglum is angling for some big 2020 statewide run, she’s playing her own party leaders for better press than any rookie candidate could ask for. She shows a little ambition and marketing savvy, and instead of just letting her have her fun and build the GOP brand for free (oh, look! a smart young woman with advanced degrees… and she’s a Republican! See! We’re not all Trumpists!), the good old boys’ club gets shook and says things that play right into her narrative:
Rounds’ campaign spokesman, Rob Skjonsberg, expressed confusion about Borglum’s release, telling the Journal he “can’t decipher its meaning.”
Rounds has not officially declared himself a candidate for re-election, but Skjonsberg said Rounds is preparing to run.
“Anyone who challenges us is going to have to defend their own record,” Skjonsberg said. “We’re pretty proud of ours” [Tupper, 2019.04.29].
What? It’s bad enough you deign to acknowledge Borglum’s transparent ploy for publicity (complete with a Trumpy exclamation-pointed tease of a public announcement tomorrow night, designed to get free press and online buzz for a full news cycle… and there I go falling for it, too!) But you go further: you attack her ploy, portraying her statement as confusing and indecipherable, and then issue a veiled threat: “Anyone who challenges us is going to have to defend their own record.” That’s transparent code for We’ve got dirt on you and we will use it!
So rookie State Representative Scyller Borglum wins Monday, getting free press that almost no rookie legislator deserves with a press release that should earn her immediate exile from the Republican Party and getting U.S. Senator Mike Rounds to sound as scared of a mostly unknown first-year state legislator as Borglum says he is. (Come on, Mike—insurance salesmen are supposed to be smoother than that.)
Of course, Borglum may win some extra attention for her live Facebook event Tuesday evening, but now, whatever she’s running for (and she tells Tupper she’s not planning to run against either Rounds or Johnson), she’s got to figure out how she stays relevant after blowing this giant raspberry at the Republican establishment that controls the fate of all conservative climbers in South Dakota.
She stays relevant by dropping the Party of Trump and going unaffiliated. Her rising star is gaining popularity and exposure, month after month.
If anybody should be worried about being primaried in 2020 it should be Dusty.
Dusty ruffled more then a few republican feathers by voting against key Trump legislation for the Mexican wall.
South Dakota republicans want to maintain their 60% favorability rating for Trump and it seems that Dusty may be a problem for them.
Porter, she could be an ideal independent candidate. She could appeal to the young voters to whom Drew Dennert was trying to appeal with his measure to let independents vote in primaries, a measure the GOP elites quite vehemently opposed. She could appeal to the Stace Nelson conservatives who hate Rounds. She could appeal to the inattentive masses who buy into the Fox “News” fog of anti-Democratic propaganda but who would be more than happy to replace an aging, pudgy, unimpressive Washington politician with a photogenic and enthusiastic young woman who sounds like a fighter.
And she’s laying the groundwork of a lengthy insurgent campaign that raises her profile and gives her a fighting chance of winning Pressler’s 17.1% and then some.
But what if, instead of independent, she offers herself as the new face of the Libertarian Party?
She also tweets a lot about coffee on her FB page. I find that annoying, but it wins her another percentage of the electorate with her personability.
If Ms. Borglum were to primary either Rounds or Johnson would she do so from the right? I haven’t paid enough attention to know whether she is from the wingnut caucus or if she is more mainstream. Given her base in Rapid City I suspect wingnut, possibly the “you got to be kidding me” wingnut wing of the GOP.
Is she related to Gutzom and Lincoln Borglum?
Nick, I think she’s peeing in the primary pool. Her blast yesterday is way too Stace Nelson to allow her to win the primary. We talk about how its the wingnuttiest voters who dominate the outcome of the GOP primary, but Daugaard 2010, Rounds 2014, and Johnson 2018 show that’s not reliably the case here: the party establishment is more organized and dedicated to voting in the primary than the Howie/Nelson/Tapio fringe.
Borglum isn’t Howie, Nelson, or Tapio. I haven’t heard any rabid anti-immigrant stuff or heavy holy-roller jive from her. She’s doing a statewide tour on rural education, not immigrants or Islamophobia or abortion or any other Fox News/Dale Bartscher/Ron Branstner attention-grabbing mouth-frothing fake issue. She’s plying a route to win a larger collection of diverse voters, including the groups I suggest above.
She also tells Tupper she is not related to the sculptor, but hey: why should she spend any time dispelling a faint background impression aroused in the minds of voters who see her name on billboards all along I-90?
My, my! Check out those pink panties on Marion! It certainly makes Marion look weak, having Dusty serving as his consigliere/soldier.
But maybe this is even more devious. Is this a conspiracy by Dusty/Scyller to move Marion aside? Then Dusty could be Senator and Scyller could inherit the House seat.
Exposing Marion “digging up dirt” on a freshman legislator shows that he’s a gutless coward. If a two term governor and one term Senator can’t run on his record, it must be something to be ashamed of.
Dusty. What a great name name for a little boy who doesn’t mind being blown around.
“Anyone who challenges us is going to have to defend their own record,” Skjonsberg said. “We’re pretty proud of ours” [Tupper, 2019.04.29].
Someone double check my math. Pretty prowd X nothing = nothing. Pretty prowd X not much = not much.
Colorado’s new election law allows everyone to vote in any primary they so choose. (Only one. No double dipping.) We also all receive a mail-in ballot; if we choose to vote with that method. The state now has three political groups with equal membership. Democrat – Republican and Unaffiliated Past election results have shown this system favors none of the three groups.
I love the specter of a Republican willing to run as a Republican yet not as a dupe of Trump. Put the president’s popularity to the test within the SD party loyalists. Is the President’s apologist really that popular when the “other option” is not a Democrat but a Republican as well?
I also think that Rounds is susceptible to the “gone DC” attack that brought down McGovern and Daschle.
sometime ago i visited with sculler & her 2 associates from district 27 at the racing magpies at the old bays feed store.i think all 3 0f them promise more than our scruffy legislature is capable of mastering with the dark cloud of corporate power & money controlling it & our congressional crowd.i would’t trade scyller or her or her two associates for a train load of thunes,dusty, rounds, or most of the rest of our stagnate legislature. principal, quality and guts is aways better for the seed bed of the future!
@CAH I don’t know of anyone who hates Mike Rounds. Plenty who hate his disingenuous tax and spend ways while claiming to be conservative to fool voters.
If she runs and starts to catch any wind, it will be with the far left side of the GOP which is highly unlikely as Rounds already owns that section. If they perceive her as a viable threat, they will recruit more primary candidates.
If faced between RINO Rounds and another RINO on the ballot, option “C’ is the preferred alternative.
@Nick Hard to primary someone from the right, from the left.. It is hilarious that Rounds’ people cite records, but it shows they know her record is as bad as Rounds’ was in SD, but is more recent and already published by so many organizations. Rounds is vulnerable from the right, the problem is the special interests pour money into tax and spenders campaigns like Rounds, not in campaigns of those who want to actually cut government and spending.
@Senator Nelson, I wold take issue with calling “tax and spend” liberal. I know that is a common trope, but I would argue HOW that taxing occurs and HOW that money is spent goes as far — if not further — in the determination of left/right or conservative/liberal.
Just because you traditional GOP/Conservatives don’t want him, doesn’t mean “liberals” have to take him either.
In your view, what puts Representative Borglum in the RINO camp?
Doc M-this sounds like the real “moon shot” we’ve briefly discussed. The famous “Indy Jones” of climate science, Dr James Hansen has called the real moon shot, the GREEN NEW DEAL that young people are energizing and reverse-engineering to grapple with the Republican-ignored world-wide disaster of box-office barn-burner implications that global warming threatens,…has called the GND “nonsense”, shockingly.
Of much less tragic import, Mike Rounds, political newbie on the national/world stage, has always been in over his head, underwater, and flooded-out, of his own doing. The other Republican newbie, Dusty, the animal house president, according to the he-said/she-said from the ‘sculptors Montanan granddaughter Scyller (Folks,too many consonants!)’ (and, always including the gratuitous brain-washed Republican attack on Democratic leaders):
“…like what Hillary and Pelosi would pull, …. Dusty told Borglum that [the] Rounds’ team was already doing opposition research on her and would expose the ‘dirt’ if she were to primary Rounds.— He also told her that Rounds’ team was actively calling financial donors to ensure Borglum was completely boxed out and unable to run for any future office.”
(Buh-bye, first-career-out-of-grad-school, Scyller!)
“Johnson said he told Borglum he could not support her if she challenges Rounds, but Johnson denied making any threats.”
Welcome to South Dakota Republican blood politics.
But that GREEN NEW DEAL, it really is the next ‘moon shot’ opportunity to save more of the planet’s innocent human passengers.
Looks like she stole the Stace Nelson (R-Fulton) political handbook; name calling, conspiracy charges & bridge burning. Hasn’t worked for any one yet, maybe it’s like socialism just hasn’t been applied correctly.
Trying to uncover, unsuccessfully, her roots i came across this interesting blog post that speaks for young people liberally:
https://2014crosscountryroadtrip.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-last-leg.html?m=1
@leslie … Screw the Republicans. A Green New Deal? L.A. Now Has One. (from NYTimes Daily California Report) “A kind of “virtual power grid” for L.A., where solar panels on homes replace fossil fuels.
Experts told me that although it may sound far out if you’re not immersed in this stuff, it’s likely to happen eventually.
– Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles unveiled an ambitious, wide-ranging “Green New Deal” for the nation’s second largest city.
He framed L.A.’s ability to achieve the sweeping goals as standing in contrast with Washington’s difficulties moving forward on a broad climate plan.
“Who cares about potholes if Venice is under water?” he said. “Politicians don’t need to look across the aisle to find the answers — they need to look across the country.”
Mr. Garcetti’s plan calls for making every skyscraper and house “emissions-free” by 2050. It calls for building a zero-emissions transportation network that would get Angelenos out of their cars and onto trains, buses, bikes and scooters. (Though, as Curbed Los Angeles reported, that will be difficult.)
The huge port of Los Angeles would be carbon-free, too.
It calls for an end to the era of plastic straws and single-use takeout containers by 2028. By 2050, Mr. Garcetti said, “we won’t send a single piece of waste to landfills.”
Wastewater, according to the plan, will all be recycled. And doing all of this, Mr. Garcetti said, will create hundreds of thousands of green jobs.
One area in which Mr. Garcetti has already laid out major climate goals — he estimated that the plan released Monday was about half new and half a mix of past targets — was energy production. The new plan still said the city would be powered by all renewable energy by 2045.
Earlier this month, I wrote about a report by the residential solar energy company Sunrun, which proposed a kind of “virtual power grid” for L.A., where solar panels on homes replace fossil fuels.
Experts told me that although it may sound far out if you’re not immersed in this stuff, it’s likely to happen eventually.
So I asked Mr. Garcetti how he saw residential solar power fitting into his New Deal.
“It’s definitely part of the mix,” he said. That day, Mr. Garcetti added, he had asked the L.A. Department of Water and Power to ask private-sector solar providers to pitch their ideas for making a cost-effective transition.
The key, he said, will be ensuring that energy jobs that pay well aren’t replaced by low-wage work.
“We don’t want to become the next West Virginia,” he said.
Like that “Skylar” got wrong about the Oglala, correct information was available at the Federal museum at Badlands Ntl Park, this “Scyller” swallowed the Republican myth about strong Democratic women. She will NEVER get the truth from her party’s propaganda machine Rupert Murdoch owns.
I yet hold out hope for these two young, educated, paradigm-shifting republican politicians: Dusty and Scyller.
“Nuclear power finds odd bedfellow in 2020 Dems as voters look for climate change solutions”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2019/04/30/climate-change-elevates-carbon-free-nuclear-power-2020-election/3496524002/
With regard to nuclear power among the Democratic candidates…
Yes, particularly for advanced nuclear
———————————————-
Cory Booker — Yes
John Delaney — Yes
Amy Klobuchar — Yes
Open to the Idea
————————
John Hickenlooper
Tim Ryan
Elizabeth Warren
Jay Inslee
No or “Hell No”
————————
Bernie Sanders
Tulsi Gabbard
Kirsten Gillibrand
Kamala Harris
Hell yeah, Porter! If we keep our eyes on the Boulder CO/Black Hills Energy tussle, and Cali as you cite, we will see the Green New Deal assume the mantle of, our next “moon shot”, as the good Doctor M and i agree! :)
We need highly educated potential scientists like Scyller and Dr McT to succeed in amelioration of anthropomorphic global warming and disasterous climate change. In a decade!
That comment about West Virginia tells me that all of the economic benefits for the green new deal will not occur in states like West Virginia and similar states. Not a good electoral strategy at all.
But I doubt that the power they actually use will be all renewables. If renewables are not available and energy storage isn’t there, a 100% renewable energy grid means people go without power at times they want to use it. That is also not a good electoral strategy.
If the other two moon shots occur for energy storage and carbon capture, then everything will cost less to do and the whole grid will work better. So I am not opposed at all to research across the board to pursue them.
But we shouldn’t have to wait several decades or a century for them to mature. We can get this done politically and actually with nuclear and renewables in the near term. Let’s walk and chew gum at the same time, do the research while avoiding unnecessary carbon.
Comma should follow Scyller, Doc!
McTaggart is stricken with paralyzing negativity bias. His thinking is why South Dakota is ranked 48th in overall innovation. First of all, it’s not an election strategy. It’s about California not a paradigm for the skeptical. The mayor of LA just got elected, overwhelmingly. Second of all, West Virginia is infamous for exploiting coal miners and making the overlords of coal mega-rich on the health and economies of the workers. California and The West operate under the premise that once we get started, we’re fully convinced we can innovate and create along the way. While McTaggart is compiling his mental list of why things won’t work, CA is well down the path to progress.
As we say out West. “No one is sure where America will end up but it’s assured that California will get there first.” Putting the storage within every home is the plan. The rest of you can deal with your outdated grid with it’s backward thinking. Same with carbon capture. Trump has isolated us here in the West and we’re just fine with doing new things ourselves.
Why should anyone from West Virginia then vote for a candidate from California if they are not going to be part of the winning team?
California has yet to power itself ONLY on renewables. They have to push the excess onto other states instead of storing it.
I am for nuclear AND renewables. Nuclear can manufacture carbon-free back-up energy for your renewables. You would rather throw your hat over the wall and hope for a solution, instead of solving it first before going over the wall.
Solve climate change first, then we can make things better as energy storage or carbon capture improve (if they improve).
One will build more renewables at the end of the day if the plan for delivering clean energy is agreed to by more voters. Which means they get to participate in those green energy jobs, and the energy is delivered when they want it, not when you say they can have it.
Let me recap. Los Angeles has initiated it’s own Green New Deal plan. The article mentions West Virginia because the LA Mayor wants to emphasize that the hundreds of thousands of new jobs won’t be staffed by low paid and exploited workers, the way WV energy is created. The plan has nothing to do with the rest of USA other than the template it will create should other states decide to do it.
California has a hundred times more nuclear experts than anywhere else. The people who live there have rejected nuclear. You take if from there, McTaggart.
But they haven’t rejected natural gas. They love their carbon in California!
And good news for California, now that they are shutting down nuclear plants, they will emit even more carbon from natural gas. Hooray!
Nukes kill, always have and always will.
What plan is South Dakota starting on? Making a list of what won’t work? 48th in innovation? Enough said.
The gurus of the green new deal can find a way for Appalachia to benefit. If they cannot, then don’t be surprised about who gets elected.
And by the way, Bernie Sanders himself has complained about livable wages at Disneyland…that’s in California by the way.
South Dakota gets a lot of its electricity these days from hydro and wind. Sioux Falls does get some of its energy from nuclear energy generated in Minnesota (about 25% or so). So it is a true statement that South Dakotans benefit from clean nuclear energy.
I will agree with you that we should innovate and use the wind energy we produce here for various applications prior to sending it elsewhere. Economic development requires a lot of energy.
Tax and spend nutcases. Here ya go Doc, nuclear energy, at the end of a barrel.
“Guess what? “The Good Ol Days” never left us! Just think of the new “cold war” with Russia and China and the U.S. military’s call for a $1.7 trillion “investment” in new nukes!”
With us in bed with Putin and playing silly games with China, who need worry about war? War is a racket and we’re too damn dumb to realize it…at least some of us are smart enough to figure it out. That bearded feller in the desert still gives us the finger and tells ISIS that there doing one helluva job. I thought we killed him with our multi million dollar war machines, nope, dude is like Freddy Kruger and we are foolish enough to move to Elm Street.
Earlier today I posted that Trump will be re-elected but it has nothing to do with how responsibly the West deals with our pollution. The Green New Deal has been villainized and distorted by people with no idea of what to do. You can kick it around like a political football while we develop pollution solutions for our Western situation. You McTaggart, live where pollution has little meaning. I don’t and I support throwing my hat over the wall because there’s never been a problem we in the West haven’t been able to solve or mitigate.
Yes, the solution to intermittent renewables in California is to pass that problem on to other states…and import fossil fuel energy made outside its borders.
Exactly. Glad we found common ground. The solution to develop intermittent renewables and to put solar and individual storage on every home, business and building. Then, to use natural gas until it’s no longer needed and to tweak the plan as we go along. People like you can try ad nauseum to convince the world that nukes are better. It’s balance, which you seem to lack a working comprehension of.
The EIA reports that South Dakota generated 70% of its energy from renewable sources…46% from hydro, 24% from wind.
The EIA reports that California is second nationally in hydro, and first in electricity from solar, geothermal, and biomass.
Nevertheless, natural gas is by far the largest source of electricity generation in the state, about twice as much as all the non-hydro renewables combined. It is the 4th largest producer of crude oil and the top consumer of jet fuel. So much for keeping it in the ground.
Keeping it in the ground is the goal. The goal is a work in progress. Letting the goal dictate the process is ineffective.
Yes, I will keep trying to convince you that our energy mix is better with nuclear energy than without it.
I will take what energy storage can provide, but as long as folks oppose mining the lithium and the rare earths, you will have a problem making all of those batteries that people want to use.
And there is no plan to recycle all the solar panels and dead batteries after their 15-20 year lifecycle. Gee, if only there was a clean energy source that could be used to help that recycling occur……
Getting rid of nuclear means using more natural gas, which means you emit more carbon while you are waiting for your solution to develop.
What are the specifics of your plan to remove the fear factor from nuclear powerplants?
Is it to guilt people into allowing nuclear?
Is it to tell people they don’t understand how safe nuclear really is?
Is it to appeal to the cheaper cost of nuclear?
Is it to elect Republicans who’ll just do it?
I’ll try to walk you through this…
We don’t have a problem with intermittency today. We just burn natural gas to make up the difference.
But we want to reduce our carbon, so that will eventually mean using less natural gas.
Energy storage isn’t ready. Carbon capture isn’t ready.
So you have three alternatives. The first is to keep burning more gas and coal as our energy levels increase. This will mean a lot more carbon than today from the backup of our renewables.
Another is to just deal with not having timely nor plentiful and abundant energy whenever you want it. I do not think you want to run for office on that platform.
The other is to backup renewables with nuclear energy. I think this one is the most feasible at the moment. You and jerry will disagree of course, but that is the truth as I see it.
That does not say “don’t do renewables”, that says until energy storage or carbon capture works, it is still imperative to emit less carbon.
Fire, wind and sunlight aren’t scary. Exhaust from fire isn’t scary. It’s intolerable but it’s not scary. Cancer is scary even if the risk is lower than we think. We think nuclear causes cancer because in the past people that worked around nuclear have contracted cancer. That’s very very scary. Got a plan?
I’ll take the first choice. So will America. But you’re leaving out that as storage increases burning gas will decrease. It’s the path America chooses.
Imperative is a wrong adverb. Preferable is the proper word. The problem isn’t that “imperative” that we can’t take a measured approach.
Is it to guilt people into allowing nuclear?
————————————————–
If you can provide the energy that people demand, when they want it, without emitting carbon, at the lowest long-term cost, while using the least amount of land, go ahead and do it.
Is it to tell people they don’t understand how safe nuclear really is?
———————————————————————————-
That is a good point…the public indeed does not appreciate that. Workforce death rates at nuclear plants are below all of the other forms of energy generation.
Is it to appeal to the cheaper cost of nuclear?
———————————————————
Today nuclear has a low cost of operation once it is built. It is getting the thing built that is the problem. But even then if you compare costs of upgrading and maintaining a nuclear plant with doing the same for several wind and solar farms over 40, 60, 80, 100 years, nuclear does great.
That is why there is so much interest in building the smaller plants to reduce the upfront cost and get some of those manufacturing costs down.
Is it to elect Republicans who’ll just do it?
—————————————————-
No, there are Democrats who support nuclear too. Clean energy is bipartisan. Renewable-only is very partisan.
The goal of emitting less carbon is negated by the fear of cancer. “Nuclear isn’t worth the risk”, say the American people.
Should the gov’t do a test where a hundred thousand homes have personal nuclear powerplants installed free?
As I have said in another thread, the sun causes cancer. But we don’t have a problem using solar energy. Likewise, you can use nuclear energy and not get cancer.
If you are exposed to very high doses of radiation, then your probability of getting cancer increases linearly with the dose. But that is based off of large statistical samples. You can get a high dose and still not get cancer. Doses that are possible for nuclear workers are not considered high, and the public gets more of a dose from flying in an airplane…and yet we still fly.
Imperative is the word that the green new deal would use :^).
Storage requires physical material that ultimately is mined. If you do not have enough and you are not recycling enough, you cannot deliver what is required to fulfill your vision.
Do you think acceptance of nuclear by the public is increasing? I don’t.
Solar panels contain naturally occurring radioactivity. Should we stop using solar energy because of that? After all, all radiation doses supposedly matter. Shouldn’t they have to be regulated for their radioactivity, or the radioactivity released when fracking to backup renewables?
Or do low amounts not contribute enough risk? Do not nuclear plants substantially reduce that risk via shielding and tons of concrete?
No need for individual power plants, we can generate nuclear power at a central location that is shielded and then transmit the power to them. That is what happens in the real world. #4Science.
Yes! Shake up how our good ole boys play the game. Underhanded and mean hide scared and vulnerable. Mean boys and smart girls. I know who I root for!
You’re unconvincing, Doctor. I believe the solution to your goal is to utilize soft science over hard science. You know every answer about nuclear yet have no answers to the psychology of changing peoples perspectives. Perhaps a melding of the hard and soft sciences will gain some ground toward America’s acceptance of something that really isn’t as scary and it’s portrayed. Psychological Fission, if you will.
Adios
Vox just did a poll recently. 55% were in favor of a renewable-only approach. 65% were in favor of a clean energy approach (which includes carbon capture, nuclear, wind, and solar). The latter had fewer Democrats, but more Republicans and Independents.
It’s official….nuclear energy is Mother Approved!
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/nuclear-energy-its-mother-approved
I will agree with you that we do need the sociologists and the psychologists to make the case. But public education is needed also.
With regard to nuclear, it is a subject that is not often discussed at all during science in K-12. There is a lot to get through and this is the one object that tends to get cut out. But you can do a lot of hands-on data collection and analysis with labs like the inverse square law, radiation shielding, radioactive half-life, etc. For teachers struggling to find experiential learning opportunities, the basic nuclear labs are good ones to do.
So how do you deliver the energy you actually use if energy development does not occur? This is more problematic if the public is not familiar with how it works and why it is useful.
No it isn’t. Not hardly. Nuclear/Cancer is one of the scariest things in modern life. You need to find a way to change that or you’ll just continue to blow smoke to a windy reception.
Just A Hint … In the Dark Ages, when all science was as scary as nukes are today, the solution was religion. Getting people to have faith in a power greater than science is what moved the world out of the Dark times.
You work on it.
I find the arguments against nuclear due to radioactivity are weak if the other sources of energy do not have to follow the same rules, and the risk from nuclear is reduced to what the other sources generate.
And then we ignore chemical risks and risks from heavy metals that have nothing to do with radioactivity.
No thanks to a Dark Ages approach. I’ll just generate as much clean energy as I can whenever the public demands it.
From the Mothers for Nuclear article…
“It didn’t take long for Matteson and Zaitz to uncover the truth about nuclear—it’s clean, it’s reliable and it produces a lot of power on a relatively small footprint compared to other energy sources.
That aligned perfectly with their passion for the environment.
“What I thought was so bad was actually doing one of the most important things that we should be doing, which is keeping our air clean and saving our land for our kids’ kids to enjoy in the future,” said Zaitz. “
Scyller should run on Medicare for all against Rounds. Scyller could use this as her lead in. 24 hours of treatment costing $142,938.00 for a snakebite! Damn, that is some big money. With the flooding, those big ol rattlesnakes in South Dakota have probably moved around some.
“Emergency treatment for a copperhead bite in a 9-year-old Indiana girl last summer cost a jaw-dropping $142,938, according to a report by Kaiser Health News. The bill includes $67,957 for four vials of antivenin. That works out to $16,989.25 for each vial—more than five times the average list price of $3,198. The bill also included $55,577.64 for air-ambulance transportation.
The girl, now 10, was away at summer camp last July, hiking in Illinois. When she went to step over a cluster of rocks on the trail, she got a bite on a toe on her right foot. Her camp counselors suspected it was a copperhead snake that bit her and rushed to get her medical treatment. She arrived at St. Vincent Evansville hospital in Indiana by air ambulance where doctors gave her four vials of an antivenin called CroFab. She was then transferred to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis for recovery. All in all, she was released within 24 hours of the bite.”
I like Ms. Borglum only because she’s got the good ole boys worried. What’s not to like about that? I’ll keep an eye on her, see what her policy positions are. It may be that the first thing I like will turn out to be the only thing that i like.
Senator Nelson appears to confirm that’s she’s not going to run as a Nelson radical… but maybe as Olympia Snowe… or Stephanie Herseth Sandlin?
Borglum could argue for Medicare for All from a Republican standpoint, making health care more efficient, saving Americans money, strengthening Medicare by bringing in younger and healthier rate-payers and thus forestalling more debt.
She’s intelligent: maybe we can get her to make that intelligent argument.
If she and Dusty are secretly teaming up, they’re doing a really good job of keeping it secret. But then Dusty would have to keep it secret: he had to get power, get his Congressional connections first, before he could turn and start playing king/queenmaker
Grrr—and the Borglum’s speech on Facebook tonight was a zero: no new facts, no new allegations, no elaboration on the details of the blast above, no statement of what she’s going to do about these alleged threats. She recited all the keywords from the press release above—threats, un-American, Pelosi. She picked on Dusty much harder than on Rounds. She made the good point that all of her communicating and fact-finding is the kind of work we should expect of legislators (good point!), but the video tonight added nothing to our understanding of the situation and gave the papers nothing to justify a second story to pull her name through to a second news cycle. Opportunity lost.
Sounds more like Karl Rove to me.
Maybe Scyller will knock the scales off the voters eyes on Rounds and his blind support for the would be king, trump. Catch this bit of stupid that his followers believe…where weather is always life or death.
“Trump held another of his Nuremberg rallies in Green Bay, Wisconsin this weekend. It was the usual mishmash of lies, bigotry and stupidity. For some bizarre reason, he decided to ridicule weather forecasters for predicting a big snowstorm for Green Bay during his rally. The only problem is that they predicted no such thing.”
I would vote for her if she ran on a ticket of exposure to the madness that surrounds us all to help save our state and union.
Maybe Scyller Borglum will show how Rounds is a failure in his job of protecting our infrastructure to the point that we are in catastrophic flood stages on the Missouri River. The national emergency is not our southern border any more than it is in our new war playground, Venezuela, it is here. Right now. We need a helluva lot more than a couple of trillion to fix this mess.
From Iowa:
“As you may be hearing on the news, our Levee broke in Davenport. Also known as the HESCO temporary barrier. Our mayor may be telling Trump that it’s just a couple of blocks. We in Davenport know that those couple of blocks are in addition to the multiple other blocks that have been affected for the last month. Not to mention that they tested the water and it is contaminated with e-coli. Emergency services are working on evacuating people and are warning that the remaining barriers are under stress. The Arsenal bridge is closed, they’re considering closing the Centennial Bridge and the I-74 bridge is under construction. Many people in our area travel across Bridges everyday for work, including me. Bus service affected and low-income people can’t travel the extra 40 minutes it would add to the commute to take the I 280 Bridge. The Farmers Market, where people in this downtown food desert can get fresh food with their food stamps has already been pushed back. Now the alternative location is only one block away from flooding. Community Health Care, where low income and underinsured people get medical care and discounted prescriptions is affected.
We’ve already broken the record for longest amount of days in major flood stage. They’re saying that we will likely be in major flood stage until early June at this point. Please reach out to your friends and family in Davenport and see how you can help. We will be holding onto each other and seeing how we can support at-risk businesses, Community Resources, and the community health care Clinic. Below are a couple of pictures I took why would a standstill on the Centennial Bridge. A bridge that was rated among the most dangerous in the country. Imagine it’s safety while affected by this flooding.” https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/4/30/1854465/-The-levee-broke-in-Davenport-today?utm_campaign=trending
I’m starting to believe in the Anti-Christ in the white house, this bozo head qualifies for it in all shapes and colors.
Oh, that’s bad. Mike, what can you tell us?
If Borglum is going to knock any scales off the eyes, she’s going to have to move beyond trying to paint them with Stace Nelson-style rhetoric (remember, challengers, that tack got Stace third place behind Rounds and Rhoden in 2014) and early-mover marketing (marketing is never enough for real change) and connect with a real anti-Trumpist critique of Rounds’s weakness and hypocrisy on policies that hurt South Dakota interests. Her Facebook message last night didn’t do that:
Saw a clip of Dusty’s retort on the whole thing. I have no doubt that he did the “you have a nice career there Ms Borglum. Sure would be a shame if something happened to it” dialogue with her. He is trying to gussy up how the conversation went, but……. Sorry Dusty, not buying it.
Dusty loves to come across with that “aw shucks, who me?” type approach. But yeah. This is more of the same with SD GOP’ers. Good ole boys club.
and still? South Dakotans will continue to vote against their own best interests and sit back and complain, “how could this have happened?”
Some South Dakotan’s have got the “got mine” attitude and it’s not likely to change until the bottom falls out and that shouldn’t be too much longer.
Stace, I don’t hate Smilin’ Mike. That would imply he’s significant enough to give a thought to. Kinda in your category.
Scyller lost me at “This is UnAmerican.”
Nothing is more American than attaining political office (high ground) then defending it against all comers, including, if necessary, “friendly fire” on your own troops.
What’s interesting is that we all seem to be hoping someone from the Republican party challenges Mikee. Any word on who or if there will be a Democrat or will Kurt come back from the dead?
I hope she puts out a similar vid that addresses substantive issues for those who are more policy- than process-focused.
I like her video as an exposé. Of course the SDGOP leadership doesn’t like it because they fully hate any light shone on their dark and dirty deeds. Those good ole boys, and perhaps a few women trying to be one (Looking at you, Lana Greenfield), consider SD their private little fiefdom and don’t care for uppity serfs. After Borglum’s video, they undoubtedly regard her as a serf and perhaps, SDGOP enemy #1. I wish her the best of luck. She’s certainly gonna need it.
Nervous only to the degree she is wholly untrustworthy with whom to have a private conversation without witnesses taking notes.
You only get one chance to betray one’s trust. I’ve been around politics 40 years and I’ve never seen such a thing. Cory, how many private conversations have we had? Are you worried I’d break the confidence? Would you trust her as you trust me?
And, this is a lesson I don’t have to learn by personal experience. No way would I ever, ever be anywhere in private with her.
Troy you are funny. NOTES (ala McGann), our VP’s MO among women (can’t remember his name), and threats to her with 40 years of character assassination. All in one post. Must need a Republican state contract?
Careful. Her resume already out-achieves yours. Yet trusting Republicans is dangerous and perhaps she has learned early what the Republican party really is, as was on full display with Bill Barr’s lying cheating behavior in hearing before the Senate Republican led/poisoned committee. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/18/burr-mueller-probe-white-house-1282098
She should have just told Dusty and the good ole boys it’s none of their business whether she chooses to run or not.
The Pierre Club sometimes forgets that there are independent people in S.D. that choose not to pledge to them.
Politics is like a corporate culture. Dusty is trying to get information from her so he can run to tell Rounds. Scyller, being new to the culture was probably caught off guard by this, thinks about it later, wondering what the heck just happened. Why is Dusty asking all these questions about my future? Rounds want to keep his cushy corporate job so has his boy Dusty being the detective and Dusty wants brownie points because he wants Mikes powerful job someday if Rounds ever retires.
I liked her movie too. I wonder what she was reading from behind the camera as she kept looking to the upper right.
She is very young and very pretty, but I like her better with her glasses on like in most of her pictures. I suppose the movie camera light would have glared off them.
And so it’s obvious that Skyller is a threat to the Rounds machine. Skyller, after talking it over with her friends and family decides to take it to the media. I can play with the big boys too, she’s thinking. She knows it might backlash on her but she is certain she wants to do this. She’s ready for any negativity that comes her way but she also knows that South Dakotans have an independent streak and that they get sick of the notorious Boys Club.
Troy has started with the republican smear of Scyller.
Troy is a fool if he really thinks this never happens in the political world. Being a boys club member, he was also caught off guard by a woman doing this to a Club so sacred for its members.
Don’t you just love people who stand up to bullies? It’s about time someone exposed the intimidation for what it really is. Bullying! If she was a male Johnson would have a Rhoden in the gut.
Smear indeed! Troy says Scyller broke trust? But the good ole boys’ threats and intimidation are not a problem? Give me a break.
Hey Troy! Don’t run away with your tail between your legs. We have some questions for you. Come back and show us you can be as brave as Ms. Borglum.
This kind of behavior is why it’s so difficult to have any respect for the SDGOP.
Debbo,
In the last 40+ years, the only major politician of either party who had an intimidating personality and style was Bill Janklow. If this person considers a private conversation with Dusty Johnson (whose personal demeanor is most similar to the other Johnson) to be intimidation (no matter what is said), this person is a snowflake and unfit to handle the day-to-day realities of life in politics.
But, unfit to handle the rough-and-tumble of politics is a trait many people have, of whom many I have deep respect and affection. However, there are only a few I would not have a private conversation with and she is one of them.
The concept of a “snowflake” as a derisive term first entered the cultural zeitgeist in Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk (the irony of staunch conservatives using language popularized by an openly gay author who writes shock-value stories about debauched sexual experiences is overlooked.) “You are not special,” Palahniuk’s protagonist, Tyler Durden, told his herd of anarchists, “You’re not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.”
….. The term “snowflake” did have another slang application: according to Merriam Webster, “In Missouri in the early 1860s, a ‘snowflake’ was a person who was opposed to the abolition of slavery—the implication of the name being that such people valued white people over black people. Troy???
https://www.gq.com/story/why-trump-supporters-love-calling-people-snowflakes
Troy doesn’t seem to understand that it’s none of Dusty’s business what Skyller’s thoughts are about running. Dusty and Rounds just need to do their jobs and not worry about the next elections and who’s running or not.
This whole thing takes me back to when a young Larry Pressler decided to run for the first time. The Republicans had their pecking order of reliable ciphers lined up to lose to Franck Denholm, but Pressler came along offered a new perspective. My mother worked for the Republican Party in Minnehaha County then, and it was clear they were concerned about this Pressler guy spoiling the pecking order. My Mom was always kind of a rebel, so she secretly supported him, and it turned out a lot of other Republicans did, too. He won the primary and then, in the post-Watergate election that was an absolute disaster for Republicans, he was the only Republican to unseat a sitting Democratic Representative. There were a lot of reasons why he won, but he certainly made it known that he was breaking with the corrupt Republican machine.
The upcoming election may be setting up to be similar. Trump is a corrupt, mentally ill crook, yet the Republican crowd in DC ignores the fact that the Emperor is nude. If Rounds made even minimal attempts to put the mad President in a straight jacket, he might show himself to be something other than a waste of protoplasm. And let’s not forget Dusty, who I like, showed himself to be a dupe for the Russian corruption machine. I’m not sure if people are sick of the corruption yet in South Dakota, but I think Scyller, like Pressler, could be saving the Republican Party in South Dakota.
“If Rounds made even minimal attempts to put the mad President in a straight jacket…”
Instead Roundy said Demented Donny’s paying hush $ to another woman was based on his love of his family. OMG.
Troy, sorry to be running around and not responding to your comment sooner.
I have basis for trusting you in our conversations. I have no similar personal interaction with Rep. Borglum yet.
You know, actually, I’m willing to say it is some of Dusty’s business as to whether he’s going to face a primary challenge.
Let me imagine a different scenario. Suppose I had run for Congress and run. Suppose back home that rookie Rep. Kelly Sullivan was sending out press releases and making a statewide tour on some particular Legislative issue. Suppose my aides were saying the same about her as I’ve been suggesting about Borglum, that a freshman legislator from a small urban district driving around the state to all the Democratic events (humor me) and taking upon herself to have policy conversations with the 97% of South Dakotans who don’t live in her district looks a lot like someone laying the groundwork for a statewide campaign. I would almost certainly look for an opportunity to talk with Rep. Sullivan at the next convenient opportunity we’d have to talk. I’d ask what she’s learning, whether she’s finding any resources that could help the party… and whether she’s setting herself up for any kind of statewide campaign. If she had a plan that was going to help the party, I as one of the party’s powerful statewide leaders would want to know about it and see if there’s a way I can help. If she was planning to challenge some Republican for another statewide seat, I’d want to offer my assistance to her campaign as well as to finding someone to replace her in her Legislative seat. But if she were saying she wanted to run for statewide office, and if all the statewide seats were already held by experienced fellow Democrats, I’d want to have a serious conversation with her about whether her campaign was in the best interest of the party. If I had the sense that it wasn’t, I would try to divert her useful energy to a better goal. And if (and we’re many ifs deep here, beyond anything we know for sure about the Borglum/Johnson conversation) I got the sense that she would no be diverted and was committed to a course that looked harmful to our chances of maintaining and increasing our seats in the next election, I’d say so and say, “Don’t do it, or I will have to work to stop you, for the greater good.”
In any situation, I’d try to give a fellow party member good counsel, just as Dusty says he did. For a fellow party member to come out and describe my counsel as “threats”, my people as “henchmen”, and my tactics as those of Trump and Steve King and ugly DC politics would most likely be a sign that she’s ready to tear down the party, or at least tear down its leaders, for her own gain. Even if I had made a political threat, like “If you primary me, I will scoop up all the donors and crush you at the polls,” the recipient of that threat shouldn’t be surprised… and the only useful reason for the recipient of that pretty normalizable threat to go public with it is to gain attention for herself and go to war in a primary (or some other statewide base-building pursuit of power).
I don’t see enough on the flow here to say Dusty is the villain. If things are what they seem most likely to be, he’s saying what most leaders in any party would say, warning the newcomer that if she tries to upset the power structure in a way that might give the opposition a better chance of beating us, she’d better rethink her course (and we’ll be willing to help her rethink that course).
Of course, if the leaders told her to quit doing her statewide tour, quit sending out press releases, and be quiet, then the leaders aren’t taking advantage of the brand-building Borglum offers… assuming she’s offering her efforts in good faith.