Did anyone else find the governor’s Feb. 2 Speakout as appalling as I did? Do South Dakotans truly want California gun manufacturers to come to our state and for our great state to become known as a Second Amendment haven?
One interesting aspect of writing a newspaper column is reader letters and emails. Lately, mine have been more supportive and friendly than not. I usually try to respond, although I’ve fallen down on the job of late. So, if you’ve sent me a fan letter and haven’t heard back, my apologies. I do read them all. Especially the ones from people who are fond of cows.
A recent article in the journal The Christian Century was titled “A Refuge in Calais.” It was about a home in Calais, France; a place where refugees could find a welcome, food and lodging, as they waited to cross the English Channel on their way to the United Kingdom.
I’ve gone though this long prelude to establish the fact that I’m familiar with the workings, or lack of work, during the first week of the legislative session. Aside from the speeches, there was plenty of chatter in the hallways. Lawmakers treated the first week like a social event, catching up on the happenings from the past year and speculating about pending legislation. In 2024, all that seems to have changed.
With its digital homage to the late Paul Harvey’s “So God Made a Farmer” soliloquy, the “God Made Trump” video drew roars of support at key Iowa rallies for Donald Trump.
No wonder Trump won’t show up on a debate stage. He’s gotten to where he can barely keep it together in front of the adoring throngs at his campaign rallies. Somewhat smaller throngs, it must be said — but, hey, it’s January, and everybody’s seen The Trump Show many times by now.
Cleaning out the boxes from the past in the cubbyhole under the eaves, has been a months long task.
One of the challenges with the city manager form of government we use in Brookings is that we lose institutional knowledge when there is turnover of long-term city staff.
Recent testimony cast a harsh light on how the bid was awarded for the Freedom Works Here marketing campaign. It seems that awarding the bid for the project had more to do with political expediency than it did with talent. Where that talent was missing, the winning bidder reportedly got to steal an idea from one of the other bidders.
Just a week ago, on Jan. 16, the RealClearPolitics average of polls for the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary showed former President Donald Trump leading former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley by 13.2 points. That was a significant lead, but then it just kept growing: 15.6 points on Jan. 19, 18.2 points on Jan. 22 and 19.3 on primary day.
As America’s second-oldest Lutheran college, Roanoke College in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley proclaims that it is “never sectarian” in outlook, while maintaining that “critical thinking and spiritual growth” are essential.
When the weather gets really awful, as it normally does in January around here, I find myself yearning for the companionship of cows. “Around here” is Arkansas, where my wife and I lived on a cattle farm in Perry County for nine years until her eyesight went bad and we had to move back to town.
It was 9 degrees on a recent morning, with a wind chill of 12 below. Apparently, we’re coming out of the worst cold so far this winter, with projections in the 20’s and even 30’s this coming week. Given our changing climate, maybe we will have spring in February this year. Wouldn’t that be a South Dakota first.
Even though it was the first time Republicans had voted in this presidential contest, there was a last-stand mentality here in Iowa among those who hoped to stop former President Donald Trump from reclaiming the Republican nomination. Their goal was to push the candidacy of Nikki Haley hard and hope that Haley, together with the fading Ron DeSantis, would not actually defeat Trump but keep him below 50% of the total vote. That way, they would argue that, in total, more GOP caucus voters had voted for someone other than Trump than voted for him.
I attended my first study session of the Brookings City Council on Jan. 16. I found it to be an interesting and bewildering experience.
Theoretically speaking, the United States will be having a presidential election in 2024. Everybody acts as if it’s a sure thing. Political “horse race” coverage dominates the news. Debates, rallies and candidate speeches take place. Newspapers and TV news outlets publish polling results every few days. Everybody’s familiar with the ritual, and everybody plays along.
Read what your neighbors are thinking — and writing — about.
I shook his hand twice, on two different occasions. I don’t recall what I might have said, but I hope it was something like, “Thank you! I’m grateful for your witness!” On both occasions, it was after the Sunday morning service at the Riverside Church in New York City. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the guest preacher, and as was the custom, greeted anyone coming forward after the benediction.
Dud was awfully quiet all through the daily dissemination of anything on page one of the Valley Weekly Miracle, which wasn’t like him at all. Just sucked down caffeine and silently shook his head now and then.
At this stage of things, most of the developments in the criminal cases against former President Trump involve this appeal or that appeal, or this hearing date or that hearing date. But in Fulton County, Georgia, where the elected Democratic district attorney, Fani Willis, has brought a massive RICO case against Trump and 18 other defendants, something truly wild is happening.
