From Italian nepotismo, from Latin nepōs (“nephew”), a reference to the practice of popes appointing relatives (most often nephews) as cardinals during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.

The Madison Chamber of Commerce doesn’t do nepotism. No. It does niece-otism:

The Madison Chamber of Commerce has appointed Michelle Ust as interim director.

Ust fills the vacancy left by Executive Director Julie Gross, who has accepted the position as executive director for the Lake Area Improvement Corportation.

Ust begins May 30 and will work for the chamber for up to two months or until a permanent director has been named. Ust, who is originally from Volga, recently moved to the Madison area. She is Gross’ niece and will oversee the day to day duties of the Chamber, attend events and will report to the Chamber Board of Directors [staff, "Madison Chamber Seeks New Executive Director," Madison Daily Leader, 2012.05.17].

Well… I… um… she… what… aaacckk! Should I even have to explain to the Madison Chamber why this looks bad?

Michelle Ust is 30 (or turns 30 this year) and leaves few identifiable traces online. My casual Web browsing offers no indication of Ust’s experience in this field. Whether she is applying for the permanent position remains to be seen… though her service in the interim position gives her an obvious edge in any interview process.

Perhaps the Chamber should revise its fluffily written Executive Director job description to include one straightforward qualification: “Must be prepared to withstand and occasionally rebut Heidelberger’s guff.” Or better yet: “Must be able to make decisions that don’t make Heidelberger’s blogging so darned easy.”

Next Chamber exec’s first official act: changing Madison’s tagline to Discover the Unexpected Hereditary Monarchy.

It’s something that’s been in his heart a long time. What he did today was show bold leadership that will be popular with some and very unpopular with others [Steve Hildebrand, quoted in staff/wire, "Democrats Praise Obama on Gay Marriage," that Sioux Falls paper, 2012.05.10].

I guess that makes this a bad week for the Matt Varilek campaign:

Democratic congressional candidate Matt Varilek said Tuesday that he does not support gay marriage, a position that puts him at odds with his competitor in the race, Jeff Barth.

It also puts him at odds with President Obama, who revealed last week that he now supports allowing same-sex couples to marry.

“I don’t agree with the president’s new position,” Varilek said, adding that he doesn’t support efforts to redefine “traditional marriage.”

Barth, meanwhile, said that although gay marriage is not his main focus, he would vote to support it if it came up in Congress [Jonathan Ellis, "Democratic Candidates Split on Gay Marriage," that Sioux Falls paper, 2012.05.16].

Rats. I already have both of my Democratic House candidates failing to distinguish themselves from Rep. Kristi Noem on the Keystone XL pipeline. Now I have Varilek tacking the wrong way on marriage and equality. And I have Barth hitting the right notes on marriage equality and perhaps larger issues.

Varilek isn’t way out in right field. He just seems hung up on the word marriage:

I support civil unions because I think any American, no matter what their orientation deserves the same legal protection when it comes to taxes and healthcare, or are visiting a sick partner in the hospital,” Varilek said. “But, when it comes to the term marriage itself, I think we should leave that to individual states and individual churches to decide for themselves [Matt Varilek, quoted in Peggy Moyer, "Gay Marriage Divides U.S. House Candidates," KELOLand.com, 2012.05.16].

Nonetheless, Varilek is taking a weaker position than Barth. Anna at Dakota Women duly upbraids Varilek for his obsolete view:

More and more people (including Varilek’s opponent in the primary) have begun to see the cruelty of denying the rights and benefits of marriage to same-sex couples. Why on earth should we as feminists support this person? Honest question. I don’t get it. And while I’m at it, any feminist should recoil at a candidate who uses a phrase like “traditional marriage” to describe a model and an understanding of marriage and sexuality that is actually pretty modern.

The longer I remain an active observer of politics, the more tired I get of being told that I need to vote for the candidate who has a chance of winning, or the candidate who is the lesser of two evils, or the candidate who is a Democrat, or the candidate who is a better fundraiser, or whatever. This is about an issue of basic civil rights, and Matt Varilek is unapologetically on the wrong side of it. And we shouldn’t stand for that [Anna, "Matt Varilek and Marriage Equality," Dakota Women, 2012.05.16].

I know that feeling, Anna. I can guarantee that I will not vote for Kristi Noem, and I will not sit by and deny her Democratic challenger my vote. Varilek has a huge edge in organization and fundraising. But his rejection of the President’s properly evolved position on marriage equality motivates me all the more to take a hard look at his positions and his opponent’s (assuming Barth ever updates that website to post an Issues page!) before I decide which man I want fighting Noem’s self-serving right-wingery.

Update 07:35 MDT: Pope Benedict XVI said earlier this year that gay marriage helps “undermine the family, threaten human dignity and the future of humanity itself.” Yo, Pope, take it from someone who is actually doing the marriage thing: gay marriage doesn’t threaten my family, our dignity, or our future one bit.

Mr. Ehrisman has since updated his post to show Mr. Powers’s response. Powers has not quite shut down his DakotaCampaignStore.com website, but he has deleted most of the pages on the site. He has also redirected hits to the homepage to drag viewers through three different sham sites before finally dropping them on the infamous “Rick-Rolling” video (go ahead, click: you could use Rick Astley pop-rocking you through your day).

One of the sham sites is “DakotaOtaku.com.” Otaku is a Japanese term for someone obsessed with technology or some other pursuit to the detriment of social skills. Powers is thus suggesting that bloggers should get a life rather than spending their time looking into the business activities of government employees charged with maintaining fair and free elections. Oh, how quickly some people change….

Powers hasn’t changed in his snarkiness. Instead of a mature admission of unprofessional conduct, Powers doubles down with a standard Republican tactic familiar from his blogging days: when you do or say something wrong, you (a) try to make a big joke out of it and (b) take poke at the people who pointed out that you were wrong. Add that to the evidence of arrogance run rampant in the Secretary of State’s office.

Rep. Fred Romkema hit this question out of the park. In a room full of voters whose party seems not to like incumbents, Rep. Romkema made his experience in Pierre sound as positive as possible. He noted that when he came to Pierre in 2009, South Dakota had been running a structural deficit around $25 million for eight straight years. That deficit ballooned to over $100 million as the recession took its bite out of revenues. Rep. Romkema took credit for solving the problem, saying that thanks to his support for Governor Daugaard’s extreme, draconian 10% budget cuts last year, we have balanced the budget and restored our retirement system to full funding.

Rep. Romkema said we are now a fiscal model to other states. I find alarming the prospect of other states trying to emulate our anti-education budget. However, in front of this audience, Rep. Romkema says all the right things.

Rep. Romkema then spreads some practical jam on that just-right toast. Rejecting fiscal absolutism, Rep. Romkema says we may need to increase taxes to deal with emergencies. Things like last year’s Missouri River flooding and the Black Hills pine beetle epidemic (and fires that may arise therefrom) cost money to fight; Rep. Romkema says we must be prudent and be ready to raise more money if necessary. Romkema is George H. W. Bush, not Grover Norquist.

On this same question, challenger John Teupel gives a weak swing and a miss. He tells the Tea Party that he was part of the budget problem. When he served in the House from 2001 to 2004, Teupel says he voted for the final Janklow budget, which created the structural deficit. He says he and other legislators thought they’d be able to rein the budget overrun back the next year under the new governor. When that new governor, M. Michael Rounds, arrived, he proposed a 3% increase for education and employees which Teupel says locked us into that structural deficit. Teupel says “we’re back on track now” with conservative governor Dennis Daugaard; we just need more conservative legislators.

Note how in one question, Teupel strikes out with all sectors of the electorate. The ultra-conservatives in the audience hear Teupel saying he caused the problem that his opponent Rep. Romkema just took credit for fixing. The Rounds backers in the audience hear Teupel casting aspersions on the former governor.  Voters in general hear Teupel admit to being a big spender who lacked the political courage to pay for that spending.

Tim Johns says some safe things about how maybe it’s time to stop some of the growth in government. He waves the magic wand of economic development as a solution to revenue shortfalls.

That answer is at least more on point than Gary Coe’s. Playing the local Steve Sibson, Coe covers up his lack of knowledge and experience on a big policy question by shoehorning it into his preferred talking points on ObamaCare. Elect this man, and you’ll get nothing done.

At both Spearfish forums, we’ve heard the line that in Pierre, there are two issues: the budget, and everything else. On this major issue, Rep. Romkema shows the the most pragmatic budget approach and, at least from a conservative perspective, the best record. John Teupel admits to a failed record. Stressing what he considers his budget success is Rep. Romkema’s surest route to keeping Teupel from taking his seat in Pierre.

House candidate John Teupel, who cited his fundagelical cred at the top and bottom of the forum, said that nine hours of testimony on an abortion bill that came before his committee during his earlier service in the Legislature broke him down to tears. He suggests he might compromise on cases of rape and incest, but then he launched into the usual grandstanding about how all you women are out there having irresponsible sex. You’re housing a living being in your body, just as you would in your house, says Teupel. You can’t decide to kill a child in your house, so you can’t decide to kill a living being in your body. “I don’t see what the difference is,” Teupel declared, “other than time and nutrition when it’s born and when it’s in the mother’s womb.”

Wow. Teupel seems to wholly dismiss the woman’s unique nine-month role as the only viable shelter for that fetus, as well as the unique and inviolable autonomy each of us holds over our own bodies.

Non-FDA-certified medical expert Gary Coe shows his true Tea Party stripes by always looking under the bed for monsters. He claims Planned Parenthood promotes abortion to make money. He manages to tie in local Tea Party bugaboo Senate Bill 38, claiming that by deeming pregnancy an emergency condition, that ObamaCare-enacting legislation somehow promotes abortion. He then contends that Planned Parenthood does nothing to counsel women and only kills babies and sells birth control.

Again, wow: haven’t we heard and debunked lies like this before?

Tim Johns probably lost every vote in the room by speaking sanely. He said the Legislature can’t overrule the Supreme Court and that we must deal with the law of the land as it is. At best, he said, change takes time. He did hint toward the fallacy of equating the rights of blacks with the rights of fetuses. But he at least made it sound like relegating women to second-class citizenship is not his first priority.

Incumbents Rep. Fred Romkema and Sen. Tom Nelson sounded similarly sane. Romkema reminded folks that he voted against South Dakota’s challenged 72-hour waiting period for abortions and concluded with a simple “I struggle with this issue.” Nelson said South Dakota already has pretty restrictive laws.

On abortion rights, Lawrence County voters have three out of five candidates who at least sound sane on abortion… and two candidates who will likely waste more time insulting women and chasing bogeymen instead of balancing the budget.

Sioux Nation Shopping Center screencap, 2012.05.16

Maybe I’m just racist, but I get the feeling there might be a disconnect between the Sioux Nation Shopping Center’s marketing images and its actual market in Pine Ridge.

The Sioux Nation Shopping Center has also been selling some pretty stale meat. The Indian Health Service shut down the grocery store’s meat department on May 4 after several tribal members complained of getting sick from eating the store’s meat. Pine Ridge activist Debra White Plume, whose granddaughter is among those who went to the hospital after eating Sioux Nation Shopping Center meat, says the store has been repackaging old meat with new meat and labeling the mixes with new expiration dates.

The store made an effort to restock the meat department with fresh meat last week in time for “food stamp day” on May 10. However, Oglala Sioux Tribe officials shut down the whole store on Friday. The tribe is seeking a restraining order against the store’s management, but a hearing scheduled yesterday was cancelled, leaving Pine Ridge residents stuck for a fourth day having to drive to Whiteclay or Rapid City to stock their kitchens.

Cohn Wholesale Fruit and Grocery of San Diego operates the Sioux Nation Shopping Center, which it leases from the tribe. Native News Network reporter and commentator Levi Rikert shouts fraud and wants Cohn out:

The company deserves an “F” for FAILURE.

It has failed a group of consumers, many with limited access to cars, depend on them to buy their monthly food to put on their families’ tables. Cohn Wholesale Fruit and Grocery Inc. deserves an F for failure.

Mixing outdated meat with new meat to make hamburger to sell to the Lakota people can be likened to unscrupulous predatory lenders who trap disenfranchised into high interest rates loans with high penalties.

It is nothing short of fraud.

In both cases it is clearly taking advantage of those already disadvantaged. In both cases, it is fraud.

One has to wonder if the operators of the Sioux Nation Shopping Center take the stance:

“They are just a bunch of Indians, so it does not matter what we sell them” [Levi Rickert, "New Operators of Sioux Nation Grocery Store Needed," Native News Network, 2012.05.14].

The pictures on the store website suggest the owners are insensitive to the demographic they serve. The labels on the stale meat they were selling suggest much worse.

As the only grocery store on the reservation, Sioux Nation Shopping Center has a unique responsibility to its extensive community. Sneaking old meat into new packages violates that responsibility. If the charges are borne out, the Oglala Sioux Tribe should strip Cohn Wholesale of its lease and replace store management swiftly to keep Pine Ridge from becoming a complete food desert.

Update 21:48 MDT: KELO’s Derek Olson visits Mission and hears good things about the Rosebud Reservation’s tribally owned Turtle Creek Crossing. Opened in 2009, the grocery store is succeeding at providing jobs and turning dollars over in the local economy. Hey, Pine Ridge, can you import this business model?

Here’s the full playlist, fourteen videos capturing the statements of Senator Tom Nelson, Rep. Fred Romkema, Tim Johns, Gary Coe, and John Teupel. (Senate challenger Bob Ewing was unable to attend, but had a message read on his behalf.)

Analysis coming up later! Spread the word to your Lawrence County friends, and stay tuned!

Campbell played a key role in the campaign to stop the last major abortion ban to face a statewide vote in South Dakota. Back in 2008, she sacrificed her medical privacy and spoke out about her 2006 pregnancy. Her doctors told her that the twins she was carrying shared one heart and could not both survive. To ensure one child could live, Campbell chose to abort the other. Her son Brady is alive and well. Children like Brady would not be if South Dakota enacted an abortion ban like that Campbell helped defeat in 2008.

Campbell is deeply concerned about the encroachment on women’s rights that we thought Roe v. Wade established in 1973. She is also concerned about the polarization of the issue that keeps fellow citizens from finding common understanding and practical solutions. To perhaps restore some sens eof common purpose in the national discussion of abortion, Campbell is now working with director Juan Reinoso to put together a documentary on abortion battles nationwide:

…this film will branch out into the national debate, discussing legislation for and against abortion and how the greatest court in the land made a decision for women that is somehow continually undermined on local levels.  By delving into the reasoning and belief of crusaders on BOTH sides of the issue, this film will ultimately attempt to bridge the gap between hatred and understanding so that both sides may learn how to TALK about the issue instead of ATTACK it [publicity material, abortion documentary proposal, downloaded 2012.05.15].

Campbell is raising money for the development phase of this project. With her proposed fundraising goal of $10,000, Campbell will be able to line up a line producer and research assistant and get the ball rolling.

If you think this project has merit, Campbell welcomes your contributions. Click on the documentary website to find out how you can help.

Where’s Kristi? Tied for 61st in her class with a meager 60% score. In my Spearfish classroom, 60% is the absolute lowest D-minus.

Dragging down Noem’s Tea Party score are her continued support for energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies, and federally subsidized flood insurance. She also gets dinged for voting for last summer’s debt ceiling deal.

Attentive readers find no surprise in Rep. Noem’s betrayal of the Tea Party. Wingnut Shad Olson ripped Rep. Noem last year for the debt ceiling vote. Talk radio host Mark Levin pegged Rep. Noem as an Establishment phony last summer.

Now whither Ed Randazzo’s hopes that Rep. Noem will join the Tea Party Caucus? With a 60%, she may not have good enough “grades” to get in.

And how does this confound challenger Matt Varilek’s effort to portray Rep. Noem as a die-hard Tea Party politician heck-bent on wrecking the federal government for the sake of anarcho-capitalism? The Club for Growth seems to know its Tea Party, and it knows Kristi Noem is struggling to make the grade.

Update 20:40 MDT: Reporter David Montgomery banged those keys and hit “Publish” on Noem’s poor Tea grade 25 minutes before I did. Darned full-time job! ;-)

Noem spokesman Tom Erickson tells Montgomery that Noem considers such Tea Party advocacy “noise coming from Washington” that she prefers to ignore. Oh my: did a Noem staffer just speak sense?

Overall, we Americans don’t stack up well compared to other countries in policies that help parents take care of their newest family members:

The United States distinguishes itself from much of the rest of the world by failing to provide adequate supports and protections for parents and children. The absence of paid leave protections for new parents is in striking contrast to the 178 nations that guarantee paid leave for new mothers and the 54 nations that guarantee paid leave for new fathers. The United States guarantees neither ["Expecting Better: A State-by-State Analysis of Laws That Help New Parents," National Partnership for Women and Families, May 2012, p. 5].

Paid leave saves money and saves lives:

Paid leave gives new parents time to establish and build a strong bond with a new child during the first months of life, which results in long-term health benefits for both children and parents. Parental leave can decrease maternal depression and infant mortality. And children whose mothers take leave longer after giving birth and before returning to work full time are more likely to be taken to pediatricians for regular checkups, with clear health benefits and likely cost savings down the road. In an international study of paid family leave, a 10-week extension in paid leave was predicted to decrease infant mortality by as much as four percent ["Expecting Better...," p. 13].

NPWF map of state scores on family-friendly policy 2012

The report also cites a number of research-attested improvements in job security and decreased reliance on public assistance. Paid family leave sounds like it does a lot more to value families than Mitt Romney’s family-value tropes at Liberty University Saturday.

So how does family-friendly South Dakota rank in the NPWF’s scoring of family-friendly policies like paid leave for new moms and dads? We get an F, a big fat zero. We do the minimum of what federal law requires, and we go no further. Whacky liberal states like California, Illinois, and New York do much more to protect the rights of new parents with policies on parental leave and breastfeeding rights.

Please spare me your family-values bromides about marriage and abortion. If you really value families, you enact policies that help moms and dads take care of their kids and keep their jobs.