New Senate President Pro-Tem Lee Schoenbeck (R-5/Lake Kampeska) has assigned new chairs to every committee but Education.
Among Lee’s more laugh-riotous picks is anointed Senator Kyle Schoenfish’s gavelation of the Government Operations and Audit Committee.
Kyle Schoenfish, one of the milquetoastiest yes-men in Pierre, assigned to a committee that is supposed to vigorously root out and oppose error and corruption in the state books.
Kyle Schoenfish, who can hardly concentrate long enough to compose a coherent essay, let alone a coherent and detailed financial investigation.
Kyle Schoenfish, who personally and as part of his dad’s bookkeeping firm refused a GOAC invitation to testify in person about the GEAR UP scandal.
Kyle Schoenfish, whose auditing firm somehow failed to catch and prevent the millions of dollars of ultimately deadly malfeasance undertaken by the Mid-Central Educational Cooperative.
Kyle Schoenfish in charge of Government Operations and Audit is like putting a mangy three-legged fox in charge of the henhouse. He won’t eat the eggs himself, but he won’t limp up from his haystack to stop any of the wolves from gobbling up our public goods.
In a healthy, balanced political system, Lee Schoenbeck would be a power-player, a mover and shaker. But in South Dakota’s one-party regime, alas, Lee is just an appointer of mediocre tools, limp fish who will ensure no one rocks the boat.
Are you sure that appointment didn’t come from Kristi? The way I understand it none of the key positions are not subject to her approval —– clear down to supervisors in state government. I know one that was fired by her via e-mail for opposing something she was promoting.
The crooks and liars of the South Dakota republican legislature prove again and again their taste for corruption and the hiding of it. John Dillinger, the bank robber, was quoted with this “I rob banks for a living, what do you do? All my life I wanted to be a bank robber. Carry a gun and wear a mask. Now that it’s happened I guess I’m just about the best bank robber they ever had.” Okay, so how are John Dillinger and the South Dakota republican legislature cut from the same cloth? Exchange the word bank robber with state funding theft and we have a winner. Ol’ Kyle better be careful or they might Benda him, stay out of the cornfields fella.
Why indeed would our republican masters appoint someone adept at rooting out corruption …. oh wait.
Bcb mentioned “syncophant” elsewhere reminding me Dep AG Rod Rosenstein now works for a major law firm that represents Trump financial interests. Previously cited, Slate thinks his questionable ethics involving firing James Comey; sidetracking Mueller’s counter-intel investigation into Trump’s finances and Putin; and dressing down federal prosecutors on the border who considered age of separated children of immigrants seeking asylum, might be investigated.
Last year, the American Civil Liberties Union provided a better understanding of the scale of the abhorrent Trump administration policy of family separation at the border, when an ACLU lawsuit revealed that at least 4,300 undocumented children were separated by the Department of Homeland Security before the “zero-tolerance” order was rescinded in June 2018. The cruelty of the policy, however, is still coming to light. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/10/doj-draft-shows-grievous-details-of-migrant-child-separation.html
Stay tuned. Again, we need to weigh accountability of enablers, like Wall Street after the 2008 great recession, with the need to reunite the nation. Again.
If you’re a Republican in Pierre, life’s a bit like that song “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” A grifter’s paradise, as long as you belong to the club.
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
All the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth
And the hens lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmers’ trees are full of fruit
And the barns are full of hay
Oh I’m bound to go
Where there ain’t no snow
Where the rain don’t fall
The wind don’t blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains
GNOem is now receiving trump campaign donations for herself. Man, republicans, can you see how big of a fool she takes you for? Are you all really that stupid?
“Gov. Kristi Noem has enthusiastically taken up President Donald Trump’s efforts to contest the results of the presidential election, asking for online donations to “help us bring it home for the president,” but it appears the donations are set to flow into her own reelection account.” Rapid City Journal 11.10.20
I am guessing, in character of him as the businessman he is, President Trump is using the “court appeals” as the latest con scheme. Induce plenty of folks to donate/invest, then somehow pocket all that money on the way out without accomplishing anything near what as promised.
Why wouldn’t Governor Noem take the same 50% cut the President is taking? It’s the same con.
Lee Schoenbeck has been a boot licker since he first showed up at the Capitol building in 1995. His stock in trade has been to cozy up to power by signing onto or sponsoring legislation written by the elite. His natural inclination is to be a yes man, and so he wants people who are incompetent or don’t think creatively. Thus, you get yes men in charge of committees.
Koch SD office? Sioux Falls global tax haven offices? Small red state politicians? Coincidence? https://www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/jasonleopold/fincen-files-financial-scandal-criminal-networks?ref=bfnsplash&__twitter_impression=true
I don’t suppose shady Lee asked his queen about the distribution of the vaccine when it becomes available. To difficult for a knot head like this putz to do anything right for South Dakota. Probably doesn’t know that there are two stages to this. Too busy scheming on ways to find loose change in the cushions in Pierre.
Surely young Mr. Schoenfish can lead a GOAC no more inept than the GOACs of the past, and since it is said the Legislatures hired many other of the players in the Gear-Ups perhaps they are gearing up to really root that rot from the source, this time using inside knowledge.
Or perhaps all these players have been proven vindicated and this is all water under the bridges. Who among you can even really remember the details of the Gear-Ups besides that poor family that the crook murdered?
SDSlim, who? Supervisor of what department? For opposing what? Show us the email.
(I hate tease and rumor.)
Lee goes on the SDPB to say the 2021 Legislature is “just loaded with talent.”
This Session will be full of hilarity.
Mr. H, I have never agreed with you more.
Sdslim, I’d like to think the SdLeg leaders can still exercise some autonomy in their selection of committee chairs. But given that the Legislature has surrendered its status as a separate and equal branch in most issues, it is possible Noem could lend her voice to certain committee choices. But she doesn’t have to work that hard. No Republican in the 2021 Legislature is a true and effective maverick… and where the party may still have the occasional boatrocker, Lee already has them on his radar for backbenching this term and primary challenge in 2022.
What a stupid thing to say. grdz:
“Who among you can even really remember the details of the Gear-Ups besides that poor family that the crook murdered?”
I’m sorry you feel that way, Ms. leslie.
Cory, thanks for the expose. Schoenbeck had many better candidates in the almost entirely rubber-stamp legislature, yet he apparently chose the most spineless option. Schoenbeck could have chosen retired judges, attorneys, others with a facade of integrity and a history of integrity in public spirit.
Schoenbeck threw away his former legacy as a public servant to a legacy of infamy.
To answer your question, Ms. Grudz, I remember.
GEAR-UP was a good idea which was hijacked and pilfered for extravagant personal profit by criminals like those at Mid-Central Coop. I remember that GEAR-UP is an acronym which stands for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (you could look it up). I remember when people who worked in government did so with honor and integrity. I remember that the purpose of GEAR-UP was to provide opportunities for low-income middle school and high school students to be challenged to excel at higher academic levels than their family members ever had. I remember that GEAR-UP was destroyed by the tragedy in Platte. I also remember that good people worked hard to make that program succeed and some of its graduates continue to do good work in their communities and throughout the country.
I have forgotten many things, Ms Grudz – but GEAR-UP is not among them.
Good remembering, Mr. Curt. The Platte tragedy destroyed it, not the legislatures or government.
The problem with GEAR-UP was that it was not run by school districts. The co-ops are far less accountable. They were designed that way to be more amenable to top down political pressure and less controlled by the public. So I disagree with Grudz. The problem is how the co-ops operate, which is controlled by the governor and the legislature.
I can’t get over how the Dems have shrunk in Pierre – only three in the Senate? This is disturbing. My gosh, why can’t more Dems run – it’s not like they have anything to lose. Conservative Dems are all that’s left in SD. It is just so incredibly dysfunctional, I am just glad I don’t have to live in a Republican-take over state. How can the few Dem left in SD stand it?
Cory, would SD have the most lopsided one party state government ? I would bet on that, seriously.
I remember GEAR-UP and how neither Daugaard or any of the Republicans in Pierre EXCEPT for Stace Nelson stood up to fight for more government oversight in runaway coruption.
Thanks Stace, I wish you was still in Pierre.
He’s the only Republican that truly felt disgusted about it.
Of course, that’s why State government loves their co-ops in SD, Donald. Less accountability, less regulation – right out of their Republican playbook.
I doubt Mr. Schoenfish will allow slack oversight of the co-ops.
Corruption not ‘coruption’ and I wish you ‘were’ still in Pierre not ‘was’ (my goodness, bad grammer)