Governor Dennis Daugaard, Attorney General Marty Jackley, and other members of state government could not make it to Rapid City for this week's three-day summit of South Dakota's nine tribes to discuss South Dakota's non-compliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act.
But now that those pesky Indians are done complaining and heading back to the rez, it's all clear for the Governor, AG, and friends to come to Rapid City to raise money and rub elbows with national GOP chair Reince Priebus:
Pennington County Lincoln Day Dinner
May 18, 2013 @ 5:00pm
- 5:00--Social; 6:00--Dinner $50 per plate for steak dinner; $15 for kids up to age 12 (chicken strips)
- Ramkota Convention Center (Off-I-90), Rapid City, SD
- Featured Speaker: National RNC Chairman Reince Priebus
- Also scheduled to speak are Craig Lawrence, John Thune, Kristi Noem, Dennis Daugaard, and Marty Jackley.
- For more information, contact Pat Johnson, Pennington County Republican Chairman 605-348-8396 (PO Box 1306, Rapid City, SD 57709)
Public policy discussion with aggrieved constituents, or $50 steak. Ah, priorities.
The state GOP have ignored the Indians in South Dakota and keep getting elected. If it's not broken, don't fix it.
Shameful.
Somehow this does not surprise me at all.
If the Native situation isn't broken, you are not looking. Jesus said, "what you do to the least of these you have done to me." It would be offensive to tell an Indian that they are the least, but if you think of them as the least, then that is who Jesus is talking about.
There is this attitude in South Dakota that if it makes money it is worthwhile. The gov will go to Rapid City to make money or to the mall of America to get workers to make money. He has appointed a position for working with the Natives so he has not totally ignored the problem, or he has just delagated it to someone else.
Here in Sioux Falls we just had the Sheriff and his wife appoved to start a bar at Falls Park a few months after two people drowned at the falls. But the reason was so that the cafe could make money.
We have legislators who agree that payday loans are not good but let them stay because they make money.
So as a state we want to make money as a high priority and help people as a low priority. That is conservative politics, but it is also South Dakota attitudes and values or the lack thereof.
So if our priority is money rather than people, why does not God bless this state with more money.
Roger, politics should operate under the assumption that God doesn't give a rip. She might dish out some rewards or punishment on an individual level in the afterlife, but Her rip will never show up as better policy outcomes or oil miraculously gushing from Faith and Wasta.
Add to the list of money-über-alles policies our approval of every oil and mining project submitted to the DENR.
If they were capable of shame, and if I were Gov. Dennis Daugaard, I’d be lacing up a pair of thick-soled, size 13, brown Ralph Lauren wingtips and tying them extra tight for a WTF ass-kicking session with the cabinet and particularly the staff in Social Services after reading their ridiculous excuse for evading this three-day conference. Here’s the link to today’s embarrassing Argus Leader story:
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20130518/NEWS/305180014/State-defends-its-interest-Indian-child-care?nclick_check=1
Social Services Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon said NOBODY representing state government in Pierre – just a 2.5 hour drive from Rapid City (I've driven it countless times) – was available to attend this three-day national hearing on an extremely sensitive and politically explosive subject. NOBODY. Why?
The meeting date was changed from April, Malsom-Rysdon said, to this past Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and there was only a week’s notice, so “with that kind of notice, we weren’t able to participate.”
Yet 250 people could make it. Where did they come from? National Public Radio could make it. Poor families from reservations and their tribal officers could make it. Kevin Washburn, assistant U.S. secretary of Indian affairs, from Washington, D.C., could make it.
As Gov. Daugaard in my WTF ass-kicking session this morning, I would be wondering how many employees is the state bankrolling at Social Services. I’d wonder what Malsam-Rysdon was so busy with that she couldn’t attend one day – just pick one, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday – and make an appearance. You don’t have to say anything, except “we’re here to listen,” and we wouldn’t be reading in today’s newspapers that NOBODY from state government bothered to attend a national hearing on what NPR won awards exposing as a national disgrace.
If Malsam-Rysdon wasn’t available, how about an Assistant Secretary? How about an administrative assistant or a janitor from Social Services? Just jump in the car, drive 2.5 hours west, tell them you’re hear to listen, take notes and say nothing dumb, and voila! No horrible news story.
Excellent points, Rick. Does DSS need more than a week's notice to send someone to handle a child welfare situation?
Great post, Roger. Of course though it assumes that Daugaard is competent - which is questionable. He's the leader of a party that cuts education, favors about anything reducing workers' wages, then has the moxie to make a media-event out of parading in Minneapolis to recruit educated workers. He must think other people are stupid.
Cory's right, the SD republican party could care less about the Indians, their money, and their votes. The SD party's arrogant hubris someday will bite them as their national party's hubris over non-whites is sealing it out of the White House.
John, this administration's attitude toward the tribes seems to match its view of teachers: "They're not going to vote for us anyway, so why listen to them?"
Cory, I've talked with several people about this article today and all of them found the department secretary's dismissiveness and insistance that the department-talks-with-Indians-all-the-time as racist. I thought that was a bit strong, but I agree that the secretary's quotes made her seem arrogant and dismissive. If I were Daugaard, I'd be scrambling to reboot Gov. George S. Mickelson's Year of Reconciliation programs and make it a sincere, lasting effort to change attitudes and correct the state's stubborn and shameful noncompliance with the Indian Child Welfare Act.
The state should just wash their hands of all Native American child abuse and let them take care of it themselves. See how long it takes them to turn all the money into job sitters doing nothing.