America has changed. How many can face up to it?

South Dakota dwells at the bottom of most statistical measurements of quality of life, such as average salaries, affordability of education, health care, etc.  But it seems to be the bellwether for the U.S. retreat into antebellum conservatism.   By antebellum conservatism, I am referring to the revival of pre-Civil War conditions of human life as a social objective.  A racism which advocates the denigration and oppression of minorities is a constant.   South Dakota often competes with Mississippi for first place in financial, cultural, and social impoverishment.

Liberty, equality, and justice, which includes freedom from corruption, have been voted down in the Dakotas.  Ten years ago, the U. S. congressional delegations from North and South Dakota seem to offer equal chances for both Republicans and Democrats to hold offices.  In fact,15 years ago the congressional seats in both states were held by Democrats.  Today, the election of a Democrat in a statewide race in either of the Dakota's seems impossible.  Heidi Heitkamp may have been the last person in the Dakotas to run as a Democrat in a statewide election and get elected.  But this month, she was not re-eledted.  As Stephanie Herseth Sandlin did in South Dakota before her, she  adopted a "moderate" political stance to appease the conservative streak that Dakotans cling to.  The problem, as they both found out, is that conservatives won't settle for a tepid conservatism, and the liberal base doesn't see any difference between such a candidate and a conservative one.  Many liberals feel betrayed by such a stance.  A liberal candidate has little statistical chance in the Dakotas.  The Republican voter registrations far outnumber the Democrats.

Alleged political strategists keep coming up with a bit of advice to Democrats if they wish to be viable in the Dakotas. That advice is to offer more appeal to the voters, which means aping the GOP, offering more of what the Republicans appeal to.  As the winning GOP campaigns in the 2018 elections have demonstrated, what has appealed to the majority of voters in the Dakotas is tolerance for corruption (it can make you rich),  voter suppression of the tribal nations, and politicians who make blatantly dishonest  and malicious statements about their opponents.  Dakotans really like that kind of behavior in their preferred leaders.  A large number of Americans do, too.  That is why Trump is president.  It is not credible that the people who voted for him did not know what kind of person he is.

In North Dakota, a law was passed by the GOP legislature that voters had to show a photo id with their residential address on it.  As the reservations where Native Americans are not laid out in a grid  numbered and named streets and roads, their ids do not list a street address.  So, they were not considered qualified to vote.  Although, the native nations took measures to address the problem, the logistics for doing so were formidable, and many were unable to vote.

South Dakota enacts its oppression by refusing to establish polling places that make it easier for those Native Americans who live in remote locations to vote.

In justifying their refusals to accommodate the indigenous populations, both states repeat the Trumpian lie about voter fraud.   People accept these lies.  They prefer them to the actual facts, which refute them.  Trump lies and makes accusations that have no basis in fact.  His voice speaks to and for the 63 million people who voted for him.  They make up falsehoods to justify their prejudices and hatreds.  And they act upon them as if they were facts.

It is hard for even those who oppose bigotry and fascism that America is being dominated by those who engage in the very kind of thoughts and deeds we fought against in World War II.  With its prophets such as Limbaugh and Trump and their political agents in the U. S. House and Senate, the advocates of malice toward all but themselves represent what America has become.

Hate crimes have increased by 17 percent since 2016.  We have a mass shooting almost every week in America.  But there are those who call for moderation, who say we should not see the political opposition as enemies, but should regard them as neighbors who just have different political opinions.  In a nation led by a man whose every utterance is an expression of  malice, and whose minions connive to suppress the vote, defame people of color and shoot unarmed people down in the streets, it is like saying we should accept with grace any invitations we get to the gas oven.  The world has been here before.

The first problem is to face up to what, in fact, America has become.   The 2018 elections have provided a chance to change the direction of the country.  But now, we are warned against investigating Trump and his disciples too aggressively.  We might offend and cause a backlash from our neighbors.  That is a denial of what and who is in possession of America. The Trumpets are not going to be influenced by extensions of good will, by facts, or reason.

Germany of the 1930s gives us a social map of what happens when good people accommodate evil.  How many Americans have the intellectual honesty and the courage to face up to what America has become?  Because if there is anything in America worth saving, they are the ones who must do it.

Or will we follow South Dakota into the gas oven?

Screwing the pooch and other Brown County priorities

Brown County, South Dakota, the proud home of an EB-5 scandal in which millions of dollars disappeared and were never accounted for and for which a state economic development official allegedly committed suicide, is not going to give up its reputation for SNAFUing without a struggle.  Last month the County Commission expressed concern over $9,000 in late fees the county was charged for making late deposits in regard to the county payroll.  At the time, the commissioners said they were going to have a state auditor define what the problem was.  This month the state auditor told them:

The first fee was $686 for a late remittance to the U.S. Department of Treasury by the auditor’s office, Russ Olson, a state auditor, told commissioners last week. 

The other two penalties were for $4,525 and $4,193 for failing to make payments to the state retirement system on time, Olson said. He added that somebody involved in the process probably wasn’t told about the consequences of missing payment deadlines.

In other words, he said that somebody screwed the pooch.

The question is, who?  The answer is in the county commission which is now dominated by the GOP members whose party has had a long dedication to screwing up government.

The current county auditor and treasurer are elected officials who have been running their departments for years and years without any occasions in which they have made serious errors or late payments for which they had to pay penalties.  With the long, competent experience of the auditor and treasurer,  they would certainly know "the consequences of missing payment deadlines."  Who was involved in that process of missing payment deadlines has not been revealed, but it is not hard to guess given the past of highly competent performance of the relevant offices.  What has changed?

The problem occurred when the commission decided, according to GOP doctrine, that when possible government functions should be farmed out to some private business rather than retain it as function of government, no matter how efficiently and responsibly it has been done in the past.  The principle of privatizing is a myth, like Santa Claus and the Eater Bunny, that is dear to the GOP belief system.  The Republican doctrine maintains that private businesses are always more competent, efficient, and honest than government.  They devoutly assert this belief despite the fact that 90 percent of businesses fail within their first year.  And they refuse to acknowledge that the reason there are so many regulations placed on business is to protect the people from gross incompetence, criminal practices, and destruction of the world.  

So, Commission Chair Fjeldheim said some payroll functions were contracted out to RAM Housing Specialists, Inc.,  at about $5,000 a year to save $25,000 a year in payroll processing costs.  That savings, if there is any, is now down to $16,000 when the $9,000 in penalties is deducted.  No mention is made of where the alleged savings were derived or how the procedures were changed. Fjeldheim said, "The payroll didn’t go too badly. Some people didn’t get their sick leave and some didn’t get vacation, some odds and ends, not reporting some things. The next pay period is sitting pretty well."  The mistakes and their losses to employees were, of course, not included in calculating the overall loss.

The Brown County Commission  previously expressed its devout belief in the supremacy of business and the resoluteness of government in 2015 when it proposed combining the county offices of treasurer, auditor, and recorder of deeds.  Those are elected offices which give the holders certain independent authority to do their jobs well.  The commission realized that such a move should have citizen support, so it had an employee organize a citizen's committee to study the proposal.  After the committee submitted its report, the commission quickly dropped the proposal.  Two members of the citizens  committee told civic groups that the proposal was a naked power grab to take control of those offices from the voters and make them political appointments of the commission.  And, there was no evidence of inefficiency or corruption in the offices.  The idea seemed to have come up because the GOP-dominated commission had to work with three elected Democratic officials who did not go along with the GOP agenda.  The citizens report was put online on the county website.  

There is a strange circumstance regarding that report.  It is no longer on the website.  All the minutes of commission meetings  since 1915 have been digitalized and made available on the Brown County web site, except for the minutes from January 2014 through November 2017.  That is the period during which the Brown County Commission was at its busiest looking for ways to intrude itself into the way county business is conducted.  During that time, a man whose company had provided computer services to the county  and a crony of his put on a demonstration of how cronyism works in local government.  The commission had hired the man to do some computer work for the county.  Then it decided to hire the man as the county's information technology director.

At the outset, there was a problem.  An audit showed that the man being hired as the IT director, Paul Sivertsen, had double-billed the county for a computer he sold to it.  His main advocate and defender on the Commission, Duane Sutton, insisted it was an honest mistake, so the Commission hired him.  

Then began a series of problems with County business involving the IT department.  Tickets sales for the grandstand shows at the Brown County Fair were messed up.  For a time, county offices were not receiving correspondence through Gmail.  Cory Heidelberger's Dakota Free Press covers those instances.  Sivertsen came under quite a bit of criticism, but Commission members defended his work.

In the latest matter involving the pay roll penalties, Sivertsen is barely mentioned, but if the County's charge to his department is taken seriously, he is involved.   The County website says his job is to "develop and maintain software systems to insure statutory compliance as well as the proper flow of County information."  According to a news account, the "commissioners asked their information technology director to automate and integrate the county payroll and benefits systems.

Some of that payroll information which in the past was routinely handled seemed not to have flowed properly.  So, the Commission has relieved its assistant of all his human resources for the rest of the year to concentrate on pay roll matters.  

The problem does not seem to be with County officials and employees who have have a record of doing their jobs efficiently and error-free.  It comes from a County Commission which is obsessed with that GOP scripture that government is in inherently bad and must be demeaned and meddled with by imposing cronies on the work force to interfere with the routine, especially if things are running smoothly.

Those minutes and reports missing from the County website have probably been withheld because they portray the obscenity of the commissioners avidly screwing the pooch.  Ultimately, no one cares what they do, if they'd just leave the competent workers alone so they can do their jobs.

The Trump Derangement Syndrome

Trump's political cohorts have taken to referring to his critics as haters possessed by the Trump Derangement Syndrome. That phrase is borrowed from the term Obama Derangement Syndrome,  which referred to quite a different circumstance.

As Obama's presidency progressed, it became apparent that he had a segment of people who hated him on the basis of racial resentment.  They were replaying a syndrome from the freeing of the slaves and, a hundred years later, from the civil rights era.  Some white people deeply resented it when blacks were treated equal to them.  If a black person achieved a position of power or authority over them, it was more than they could handle.  They went into a deranged rage.  The same kind of rage was inspired when women achieved power and authority over some men.  Some of those men quit their jobs rather than work under a woman boss, others contrived defamation campaigns against the women, and some just spent the rest of their lives stewing.  Equality is not something many people are comfortable with, and there are those who will extract a cost from it.

Obama opponents created images that made Barack and Michelle look like chimpanzees or African primitives, and the verbal assaults against them followed the same pattern.  A racism that became somewhat dormant after the civil rights push was reactivated when a black man became president.  Many could no longer repress themselves, and their seething racism erupted with a fury.  A man they thought  should be a houseboy ended up presiding over the White House.  That unleashed a pent up rage that has swept the nation and led to the election of Donald Trump, who began his campaign with the racist appeal of denying Obama's American birth.

That demonstrated racism is a major reason that people oppose Trump.  He has continued it by publicly insulting black people such as Maxine Waters, LeBron James, and Don Lemon as having low intelligence.

From people I know who have encountered Donald Trump, I have never heard a good word about him.  I knew of him, but in the mid-1980s when I met a retired commercial banker and officer of many Chicago civic organizations when we were both house guests at a mutual friend's, I received an full account of Trump.  I had been the business editor of an Illinois newspaper.  The ex-banker and I got into a conversation about crooked business executives we had run across.  He told me about Donald Trump and why he was despised by honest businessmen in Chicago.  At the time Trump's incessant lying, bilking of contractors by refusing to pay his bills, and his swindles in business deals had formed his reputation among the legitimate business people.  He has never been welcome in Chicago because any business venture with which he is associated is suspected of fraud.

The banker told me a story--I don't know if he witnessed it or was told about it--about a man bringing Trump to an exclusive men's club for lunch.  Most of the members got up and left when Trump walked in.  They wanted to demonstrate that they would never associate with a person as unscrupulous as Trump in their business or their social lives. His business reputation was despicable to them.  Established business men warned others not to do business with him.

Trump finally did business in Chicago when he built a hotel there in the early 2000s.  The family that owned the Sun-Times newspaper sold him the land.  Trump further financed the hotel by selling individual rooms to investors who would receive a percentage of the revenue from their rental.  Trump reneged on his contracts and was sued by a number of condo tenants and investors, including the Sun-Times family.

Trump is a shyster through and through.  His record of swindles, fraud, and theft are a matter of public record.  He is the deranged one.  Even the conservative newspapers have published his misdeeds to show he is unfit for the presidency or any other office of trust.  People hate the proven and often flaunted crookedness of Trump.  Their repulsion is not based upon political differences, but on the total decay of his character.  People with a sense of decency and a respect for honesty detest what Trump does and therefore despise him as a person.

Trump is a criminal.  He escapes prosecution because h
the cases against him end up in civil courts through which victims of his fraudulent schemes try to get their money back.

The derangement syndrome is in Trump himself.  He does nothing that is truthful or honest.  Therefore, it is also in his supporters who either cannot acknowledge his nefarious character or openly  approve of his criminality as an enterprise.

There is a Trump Derangement Syndrome, but it is not in the decent people who think a fraudster should not be president of the United States.  It is in those who have accepted criminality as the American way.

Hate had a really good week. America joined the Holocaust. What's next?

The killers were unleashed.  

First, one went after the Democrats.  He mailed Donald Trump's favorite targets, which Trump has been careful to name, each a bomb, 16 by last count.  His bombs did not explode.  No one has explained why, as of now.  At least, he tried.  I think.

While the bomb search was going on Wednesday, a man walked up to a black church near Louisville, KY, tried the doors, but couldn't get in.  So then he went to a nearby Kroger grocery store and shot a black grandfather shopping with his grandson in back of the head, and then shot a black woman in the parking lot.

On Saturday, a guy with handguns and a Colt AR-15 went into a Pittsburgh synagogue during worship services and killed 11 Jewish people and wounded another six.  The attack is said to be the worst against Jewish people in American history.  America joined the Holocaust.

All three of the alleged perpetrators were captured alive.  Two of them had histories of mental problems.  The Jew killer did nothing to concern people who met him.  He just posted a lot of anti-semitic stuff on the anti-social media.

Meanwhile, the alleged president warned that the migration caravan that was making its way through Mexico to the U.S. border was actually an invading army of ruthless criminals.  He said he would call out the troops to resist the invasion.

Hate-driven rage keeps breaking out in America.  We were, up until about three years ago, considered the world's leading democracy.  Except that the propensity for violence we demonstrate gave many observers of the nation cause to question if our reputation was deserved.  Gun violence and mass shootings are so frequent that America appears at war with itself with a degree of violence and instability usually attributed to undeveloped countries. 

This is the country that elected Donald Trump as its president.  For some, he represents precisely what they want the country to be.  George W. Bush's ex-press secretary, Ari Fleischer, states the case in a New York Times article on Trump's behavior: "It’s misleading to compare Trump’s behavior to his predecessors because he was elected to be different from his predecessors.”

Most of us thought Trump was elected to be president as defined by the 240-year history of the office.  By comparing Trump to Obama, Fleischer explains the difference:

“Trump often sounds bad but he acts well, while President Obama always knew what to say but he didn’t do things well, he didn’t do things right.  He had soothing words and comforting nonthreatening language, and that didn’t improve our standing anywhere, including domestically.”

Fleischer talks in defense of Trump and condemnation of Obama  in that accusative jabberwocky that serves as discourse on the part of a large segment of the GOP.  His words, like Trump's, have no factual reference.  Specifically, what has Trump done well that Obama did not?  Is he actually contending that Obama reduced U.S. stature in the world and Trump raised it?  What world is Fleischer living in? 

While Trump lies constantly, insults, and abuses people, he is  advised to tone down the rhetoric.  That remonstrance is an evasion of what Trump is.  He has nothing to do with rhetoric.  He is not trying to engage people with verbal reasoning.  His verbal repertoire is to tell lies, call names, insult, abuse, and self adore.  

Everything Trump says and does exudes malice.  He was not elected by his supporters to be president.  He was elected by that class of perpetual seventh-grade bullies to lead them in their exercise of ill will.  Trump has all the intellectual capacity of a pit viper.  So do his disciples.  That's why America has come to resemble a snake pit rather than a democratic community.  Their idea of greatness is to strike out at whatever they choose to.  Their life-motive is to find a hate object and assault it.  It gives them pleasure.  It makes them feel powerful.

Hate can take many forms of expression:  anti-semitism, racism, anti-LBGT, misogyny, misandry, or any other social or political category into which people can be classified and designated for hatred.  And includes just being a presence that someone wishes to hate for personal reasons.  Hate is an attitude which looks for objects on which to fix.  It is a pre-existing condition within the human character.  Some haters are selective about whom to inflict with their hatred, but the defect of character is the telling aspect.  The admonition to "love your neighbor" is a recognition that hatred is the destroyer of human potential.  Any expression of hatred is an admission of that character defect, the particular mode of its expression, such as race or politics, not as important as the fact of its presence in an individual.

The fact is that the people whose ambition it is to inflict their ill will on people within their own country and the rest of the world are in control.   The constant news accounts of mass shootings, local and national politicians telling racial lies, and the bitter divisions in the country portray a nation that is not basking in liberty, equality, and justice.  It is a country bubbling in hatred.

Perhaps, an election can turn down the hate speech and forestall an eruption into open warfare.  But people think the violence in America is an anomaly.  It, and the words which drive it, are a constant.  Before any viable corrective action can be taken, the people need to understand what America has, in fact, become.

Protecting kids from a political party that runs on nothing but malice

A few weeks ago we received a post card from the  South Dakota GOP in behalf of the Al Novstrup campaign that was malicious, dishonest, and utterly debased in its defamation of Novstrup's opponent.  Novstrup is the incumbent senator for South Dakota District 3 running against challenger Cory Heidelberger.. 

Among Cory's many activities is his teaching of math, French, and language arts.  His most recent full-time teaching job was in Spearfish.  When his spouse, a Lutheran pastor, accepted a call to Zion Lutheran Church in Aberdeen, the family moved here.  Cory has been an active presence in civic and political affairs in Aberdeen, and writes and edits the most literate and intelligent political blog in South Dakota, the Dakota Free Press.   He is also on the Aberdeen School District roster of substitute teachers, which can often be full time work.  He has been a debate coach and is a strong advocate for that activity in building informed, critical minds.  He backs up his political beliefs by running for political office as the Democratic candidate for the District 3 seat in the State Senate. 

Novstrup's post card tactic was to make a strident and malicious defamation of Cory's background.  It screamed: “PROTECT KIDS NOW! VOTE NO TO CORY HEIDELBERGER ON NOV. 6.”
Its premise is that Heidelberger poses a danger to kids.
It is suggesting that he has been a menace to students in his work and would extend the danger as a state senator.

The postcard is an unmitigated libel clearly intended to damage Heidelberger's reputation.  It attempts to use an incident from Cory's past teaching and amplify into a definitive statement of character.

Cory has been open and honest about the incident cited in the postcard.  When he was a teacher at  Madison High School, he encountered a bullying situation.  He did what a responsible teacher does and accosted the misbehaver.  He used a mild expletive in remonstrating the kid about his behavior.  When the offender tried to walk away from the confrontation about his behavior, Cory grabbed him by the collar to stop him.  The Madison school districted fired Cory.

In recounting the situation, Cory says, "When I found I was not getting through to the bully, instead of trying to play cowboy, I should have called for assistance and escorted the bully to the principal’s office for proper punishment."  Al Novstrup and his GOP goons try to portray Cory as a menace while he was in fact protecting students against some bad behavior on the part of another student.

The Madison High School administration and school board sent a strong message to students and teachers that bad behavior by students is protected and woe be to any teacher who interferes with it.  Cory's response to the situation might have needed some corrective comment, but the Madison administration reacted with incredible stupidity and cowardice.  This kind of action in which a teacher is condemned for trying to deal with a misbehaving student is what Al Novstrup endorses.  Although Novstrup's dishonest representation of the facts of the matter exposes his own malicious character.

When Cory says he should have called for assistance, the question arises, who would he call and how would such a call be made?

Aberdeen had a similar case come up.  When a student acted out during a middle school science class, the teacher grasped him in a bear hug and hauled him out of class.  The teacher was fired, but the teacher and the union took the case to court.  The court ordered the teacher to be reinstated.  The teacher's lawyers brought the testimony of students in the class into court, and they testified that the teacher took the drastic action with the student to prevent him from harming the other students.  The court faulted the administration and the school board for failing to investigate and gather accurate information about the incident and for acting without knowledge of what, in fact, had taken place.

This is the kind of situation that Al Novstrup contorts into a lie about the experience and character of Cory Heidelberger.  In this age of Donald Trump and the constant outpouring of lies and malice coming out of the White House, GOP voters seem to think this is the way political business gets done. GOP operatives in South Dakota were using malice and false accusations before Trump entered politics.  The successful campaigns of John Thune and Kristi Noem were largely devoted to false and deleterious portrayals of their opponents.  Both of those candidates have earned reputations as feckless purveyors of party lines with puny legislative accomplishments.

Al Novstrup's own legislative record shows that he has a peculiar obsession with the sexual orientation of students.  In his claims to be concerned about the welfare of children, he exhibits a menacing desire to inflict punishment on some.  He has been particularly obsessed with where transgender kids may go to the bathroom.  Vote Smart has compiled his legislative record on the matter:

Feb. 22, 2017

SB 149

Authorizes Child-Placement Agencies to Deny Services Based on Religion

Bill Passed - Senate (22 - 12)

Yea

March 8, 2016

SB 171

Authorizes Medical Marijuana

Bill Failed - House (25 - 43)

Nay

March 3, 2016

HB 1008

Prohibits Students from Using School Restrooms Designated for the Opposite Biological Sex

Veto Override Failed - House (36 - 29)

Yea

Feb. 9, 2016

HB 1112

Repeals Transgender Policies Adopted by High School Sports Associations

Bill Passed - House (45 - 23)

Yea

Jan. 27, 2016

HB 1008

Prohibits Students from Using School Restrooms Designated for the Opposite Biological Sex

Bill Passed - House (58 - 10)

Yea

Jan. 26, 2016

HB 1112

Repeals Transgender Policies Adopted by High School Sports Associations

House

Co-sponsor

Jan. 12, 2016

HB 1008

Prohibits Students from Using School Restrooms Designated for the Opposite Biological Sex

House

Co-sponsor

March 3, 2015

SB 89

Requires School Safety Plans and Lockdown Drills

Bill Failed - House (30 - 37)

Nay

^{Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity}

2016	Equality South Dakota - Positions	20%
2015	Equality South Dakota - Positions	0%

His record shows an obsession with how kids may relieve themselves or who may participate in sports, but does not care if the schools have safety plans in place to protect students from active shooters or similar menaces.  

The Novstrup family operates amusement parks for children for its livelihood.  In Aberdeen, their Thunder Road is operated in conjunction with the city's Wylie Park.  Some of us who know of Novstrup's perverse obsession with gender issues and his malicious streak of character in maligning other people simply do not chance exposing children in our charge to it.  

We can eliminate Novstrup's pernicious influence in the State Senate by voting for Cory Heidelberger.  And we can keep our children away from Thunder Road in Wylie Park.  

That is how children can best be protected.

Brown County: the proud incubator of EB-5 and the latest CFU (commission f***-up)

It was emblazoned as the headline story Tuesday of the Aberdeen American News:

     $9000 in late fees concern officials

The "officials" are members of the Brown County Commission, some of whom are up for re-election.  The money concerns penalty fees for screwing up the routine tasks of processing the compensation and benefits of county employees.  The article says:

Brown County commissioners have enlisted the help of the South Dakota Department of Legislative Audit to resolve problems with the county’s payroll and benefits system that have resulted in more than $9,000 in penalties in the past month. 

It’s not clear exactly what went wrong. 

Commission Chairman Doug Fjeldheim said the county had to pay late fees to the Internal Revenue Service and the South Dakota Retirement System for late payments and missing payroll reports.

The processing of payrolls is a constant routine.  County employees have been getting it done for decades.  They know the requirements and the schedules to be met.  So what happened?  The commission chairman said:

“Basically, what it all stems from is we’re trying to outsource our payroll, but the issues started a little before that,” Fjeldheim said.

He said that by outsourcing the commission had hoped to save $25,000.  In that statement is a clue.  It reveals the intrusion of politics into the running of county business.  The county commission in recent years has become dominated by the GOP. Whereas once its members worked hard at making a limited budget do the work of maintaining the county, the GOP in good old South Dakota brought petty politics and cronyism to the county.  The GOPers like to limit government and turn it over to outside businesses to see if they can make money.  They claim businesses can run government more efficiently than government can.  They do not acknowledge how badly many businesses are run or that the most incompetent bureaucracies are in corporations.

Brown County commissioners at work

Fjeldheim said, “Everybody is pointing fingers at everybody else. So we’re going to let (Legislative Audit) figure out where the problem lies. We kind of know what happened, but we can’t undo it."


Employees of the county know who the screw ups are.  They could tell without equivocation who did not do their job.  Even from the outside, it is not difficult to figure out what probably happened.  When the GOP took over the commission, it had a crony who needed a job.  They fired an an employee and made the guy the information technology director.

The guy has made quite a history if problems.  When he imposed his systems on the county, the Brown County Fair had to deal with confusion and tongued-off patrons in its ticket sales.  That was something new for the Fair.

Earlier this year, it was revealed that some county officials had not been receiving G-mail messages to them.  An explanation was offered that made no sense whatever to people who work with and administer e-mail programs.

And now, the county suddenly has problems with its payroll and benefit system.  As the information technology
 director is specifically charged with the responsibility to "develop and maintain software systems to insure statutory compliance as well as the proper flow of County information,"  the obvious question is to ask why the systems and procedures for the payroll and benefits suddenly had a problem.  

Asking the state Department of Legislative Audit to examine the problem will simply obfuscate it with the usual political jabberwocky.  

The best way to solve the problem is to vote for county commission members and officials who can do the straightforward job of running the county, not imposing two-bit politics and cronies on the people.

Actually, what divides us is not political

What divides the country has political ramifications, but is not at root political.  The differences go far beyond and into matters more basic than political policies  and preferences.

The dividing factors are between the honest and the criminal.  
Between the intelligent and the stupid.  Between the benign and the malign.  Between the courageous and the fearful. Those differences cannot be reconciled at the ballot box.

The situation is one that involved the settlement of America, but that is often not acknowledged in the immigrant experience.

It is undeniable that immigrants came to America for better economic and social lives.  But what kind of people actually undertook the journey.  There is a body of literature which portrays the coming of Scandinavian immigrants to America. It includes Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rølvaag and The Emigrants by Vilhelm Moberg, from which an excellent film was made.  But they portray the struggles of families to establish themselves on the frontier and they are faithful to what occurred, but there are other stories of emigration that represent quite different circumstances.

My maternal grandmother and two of her sisters came to America as single women.  Their parents and brothers remained in Sweden.   I have only fragments of their stories, but have been able to learn quite a bit about the social history that motivated them to move.  I attended a college that was formed by Swedish Lutherans and took courses in the Swedish culture.  Some of the faculty were experts on the migration from the Scandinavian countries and the experience f the immigrants in America.

My grandmother did not like to be questioned about her life in 
Sweden.  She would give us grandchildren cursory answers to our questions and then dismiss us by saying there were some matters that she left Sweden to get away from.

At the time she and her sisters left, Sweden was operating according to the centuries of European feudalism.  There was little future for any young people, and the brochures flooding the Scandinavian countries about the opportunities in America were powerfully enticing. For young women in in Scandinavia, the future was hopeless.  Marriage seemed like the only option for a better life.  Emigration was vigorously denounced as a betrayal by the dominant conservative society in Sweden.  For young women to leave the country was an act of defiance.  In his book A Folk Divided, H. Arnold Barton writes of the prevalence of young women making the
 journey:

"More characteristic among the newer arrivals, however, was the young, unmarried woman ... As domestic servants in America, they ... were treated as members of the families they worked for and like 'ladies' by American men, who showed them a courtesy and consideration to which they were quite unaccustomed at home.”

My grandmother and her sisters did not come from a rural family in Sweden, but from the merchant class. But like their rural sisters, they found jobs as domestics in Chicago and Minneapolis.  They had a feminist streak in rejecting their subservient roles.  I remember my grandmother and her sisters (Hulda, Amanda, and Tekla) as always dignified.  My two great aunts married men in Minneapolis who forced construction companies.  My grandmother married an alcoholic charmer who floated from one place to another.  She had 16 children with him, 8 of whom survived into adulthood.  He eventually abandoned her, his seven sons and one daughter on the Nebraska frontier, from where they eventually worked their way back to Illinois where, as a Wisconsin friend puts it, the soil is so rich it's vulgar.  With all that, my grandmother never forgot why she left Sweden.  One of the history professors I worked with explained that Swedish society at that time was something people strove to get away from.  The revulsion among many of the people overrule any patriotic or family loyalties.  It was not a nation they wanted to be a part of.  While America offered them opportunities, the power that drove them was an intense disaffection with their homeland.

Oddly, that history professor and Arnold Barton, the history professor who wrote the book I quoted from, both went to Sweden to live when they retired.  The emigration of millions of people, the breaking away of so many families, impelled a social and political change in the Scandinavian countries.

Many Americans have reached the point where they think the U.S.is no longer their nation.  With the election of Trump and the values and behaviors he so stridently displays, America has asserted itself as a socially depraved society.  Trump followers are more interested in nurturing their hatreds  than in developing liberty, equality, and justice.  While many entertain the possibility of voting Trump and the Trumpists out of power, the fact is that they have shown a strong anti-democratic and anti-decency strain in American society which will remain no matter who wins the election.  A growing number of people I encounter would simply like to leave them behind.

The problem is that there is no longer an America of opportunity and open spaces to go to.  A segment of the country has undergone a social and cultural decay that pervades the nation as a whole.  It has regressed us to the bigoted factions of the pre-Civil War era, and with a vengeance.  It leaves many people in a dilemma.  Stupidity cannot be fixed.  Benignity cannot change dedicated malice.  The fearful will cower before the force of malice.  The belief in human integrity that powered the Greatest Generation has been displaced by an admiration for the dishonest, the avaricious, the mendacious. As Proverbs point out, consorting with the evils of society makes one part of them. But how do you separate yourself from them?  You avoid them and oppose them when you must.  But the important thing is the avoidance.  That is what is going on in the nation.That is what divides us.  

Politics cannot cure the disease that has infected America.  It can only spread the infection.  The solution is for people of good will and good purpose to form enclaves in which the ideals of democracy can be preserved and practiced within a group, at least.  

The division of he people of America is not a bad thing.  The survival of decency depends on it.