#Dale Bartscher

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Sunday, June 26, 2022

Inflation sparks global wave of protests for higher pay, aid (AP) Rising food costs. Soaring fuel bills. Wages that are not keeping pace. Inflation is plundering people’s wallets, sparking a wave of protests and workers’ strikes around the world. This week alone saw protests by the political opposition in Pakistan, nurses in Zimbabwe, unionized workers in Belgium, railway workers in Britain, Indigenous people in Ecuador, hundreds of U.S. pilots and some European airline workers. Sri Lanka’s prime minister declared an economic collapse Wednesday after weeks of political turmoil. Economists say Russia’s war in Ukraine amplified inflation by further pushing up the cost of energy and prices of fertilizer, grains and cooking oils as farmers struggle to grow and export crops in one of the world’s key agricultural regions. As prices rise, inflation threatens to exacerbate inequalities and widen the gap between billions of people struggling to cover their costs and those who are able to keep spending. “We are not all in this together,” said Matt Grainger, head of inequality policy at antipoverty organization Oxfam. “How many of the richest even know what a loaf of bread costs? They don’t really, they just absorb the prices.”

The housing market squeeze pushes renters into bidding wars (NPR) Many forces have combined to create a rental market that’s setting records for a lack of vacancies and high costs. A big one is a historic shortage of housing. Jessica Lautz of the National Association of Realtors says the United States “has been underproducing both rental units and homes for purchase for more than a decade now,” since the last housing crash. The shortfall is in the millions. Meanwhile, rising mortgage rates are making it more expensive to buy a home, forcing many to stay in the rental market. And adding to all of this, the massive cohort of millennials hitting their late 20s and early 30s are eager to move out on their own. In the first quarter of this year, a time when the rental market usually cools, apartment occupancy hit another all-time high—an extraordinary 97.6%. Asking rents for new leases were up 15.2% nationally, and far more than that in many places. “There’s a severe shortage of rental housing at all price points and in essentially every city across the country,” wrote Jay Parsons, the head of economics and industry principals for RealPage.

Americans Celebrate and Mourn Abortion Decision as New Fights Loom (NYT) The overturning of Roe on Friday, stunning even as it was long predicted, set off waves of triumph and of despair, from the protesters on either side massing in front of the Supreme Court, to abortion clinics and crisis pregnancy centers, and in texts with friends and bursting social media feeds. The split-screen reaction reflected a polarized nation: jubilation and relief on one side, outrage and grief on the other. “If I had confetti I would be tossing it high,” said Dale Bartscher, the director of South Dakota Right to Life. “Today, we’re celebrating a day that we’ve long dreamed of, advocated for and worked for: the overcoming of Roe v. Wade.” On the other side, supporters of abortion rights worried for the millions of women living in the wide swath of the country where abortion will be illegal or essentially unavailable because of layers of restrictions that have added expense and delays for women seeking the procedure. The court’s ruling, which had been foreshadowed in oral arguments in December and again when a draft opinion was leaked in May, means that within a month abortion will be banned except for rare exception in 13 states. Opponents and supporters alike say it will quite likely become illegal or inaccessible in about half the states.

Latin America’s kids slid into education black hole during pandemic (Reuters) In Bolivia’s highland city La Paz, Maribel Sanchez’s children spent much of the last two years huddling over a small smartphone screen to attend online classes amid a lengthy lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The two boys, aged 11 and eight, frequently missed lessons when their timetables collided as the family had no computer. Bolivian school children only finally returned to in-person classes in March this year, many still not full time. The story is echoed around the region from Mexico to Brazil. Latin American has one of the worst records of school closures globally, according to a World Bank report, which shows children here faced almost 60 weeks of fully or partially closed schools between March 2020 and March this year. That’s behind only South Asia and twice the level of Europe, Central and East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa or the Pacific. That threatens to take a generation of children in the region back a decade, some experts say, in terms of education levels, weighing on incomes and job prospects for years to come. “With virtual classes, the little ones didn’t learn anything. They were distracted. My son, who’s in first grade, hasn’t learnt anything. Nothing!” Sanchez said.

Strike snarls UK trains for a third day (AP) Train stations were all but deserted across Britain on Saturday, as the third day of a national strike snarled the weekend plans of millions. Train companies said only a fifth of passenger services would run, as about 40,000 cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff walked off the job in Britain’s biggest and most disruptive railway strike for 30 years. The same workers held 24-hour strikes on Tuesday and Thursday in a dispute over jobs, pay and working conditions. The Rail, Maritime and Transport Union is seeking a substantial pay raise as workers face a cost-of-living squeeze amid four decade-high inflation rates. Train companies, meanwhile, are seeking to cut costs and staffing after two years in which emergency government funding kept them afloat during the pandemic.

A Sleepy Baltic Rail Line Gets a Geopolitical Wakeup Call (NYT) As war rages in Ukraine, fueling ever-growing tensions between NATO and Russia, a sleepy Baltic railway station with no passengers and few trains this week found itself at the center of a perilous new confrontation between East and West. The station stands on the border between Lithuania, a NATO member and strong supporter of Ukraine, and Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea stuffed with nuclear-capable missiles but physically disconnected from the rest of Russia. From the Lithuanian town of Kybartai, decked with Ukrainian flags, the railway tracks extend west into Kaliningrad, bringing goods into the region, but also tracing a potentially volatile strategic fault line on the edges of Europe. This week, long dormant tensions over Kaliningrad erupted, further fraying Russia’s relations with the West, after claims by Moscow that Europe was choking off train and trucking routes bringing vital supplies to Kaliningrad—and would, as a result, face retaliation. The threat set off a frantic scramble by Washington and in European capitals to head off something they have sought to avoid since Mr. Putin invaded Ukraine four months ago: a direct confrontation between Russia and NATO. “Nobody wanted or expected any of this,” said Laurynas Kasciunas, chairman of Lithuania’s defense and security committee. “We all know how sensitive Kaliningrad is for the Russians.”

The fall of Sievierodonetsk (NYT) After months of furious street battles and a heavy death toll, Ukraine will withdraw its forces from the largely ruined city of Sievierodonetsk, according to the local governor. The fall means that only the city of Lysychansk across the river stands in the way of Russia gaining full control of the eastern Luhansk region. Once Russia has Luhansk, it could then turn its attention to the neighboring Donetsk region. Together, the two regions make up the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland. Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk region’s military administration, said that it “does not make sense” to hold on to positions in the city any longer. “The number of people killed will increase every day,” he said. The Kremlin has devoted a large portion of its forces to taking Sievierodonetsk and the 30-mile-wide pocket of land surrounding it. To take the city, Russia has had to devastate it with artillery strikes. About 90 percent of the buildings have been destroyed and only 8,000 civilians remain, according to Ukrainian officials.

Romania tries to fill the grain gap (NYT) With the war blocking Ukraine’s grain exports and famine threatening millions, the world is scrambling to find new suppliers and alternate shipping routes. Romania is one country trying to help fill the gap. In many ways, it is well positioned. Romania’s port in Constanta, on the western coast of the Black Sea, has provided a tiny but critical transit point for Ukrainian grain since the war began. During a visit to Kyiv last week, Romania’s president, Klaus Iohannis, said that since the beginning of the invasion, more than a million tons of Ukrainian grain had passed through Constanta to locations around the world. But logistical problems prevent more grain from making the journey. Ukraine’s rail gauges are wider than those elsewhere in Europe. Shipments have to be transferred at the border to Romanian trains, or each railway car has to be lifted off a Ukrainian undercarriage to one that can be used on Romanian tracks. Shipping by truck also has its challenges. Trucks entering and exiting Constanta from the highway must share a single-lane roadway. An attendant oversees the gate, which has to be lifted for each vehicle. When the bulk of the Romanian harvest begins to arrive at the terminals in the next couple of weeks, the congestion will get significantly worse.

Afghan earthquake response (Bloomberg) Three days after Afghanistan’s 6.1-magnitude earthquake, which killed at least 1,000, injured at least 1,500 more and left thousands homeless, the humanitarian response is in trouble. Efforts have lagged in both size and speed due to the lack of pre-positioned supplies and the level of hunger and poverty that already exist in the devastated nation. Heavy rains and winds have also hampered rescue efforts.

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Rape and domestic violence bills debated Thursday

Legislative committees voted to expand several protections for victims of rape and domestic violence Thursday.

But a third bill, making it easier to convict people of rape where the victim was too intoxicated to consent, is on hold as stakeholders try to solve their disagreements.

A proposal to revise the state’s domestic violence laws, Senate Bill 147, passed unanimously in the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It says that violence between people in or formerly in a “dating relationship” qualifies as domestic violence. Currently people in a romantic relationship are only protected by domestic violence laws if they have a child together or live together.

A similar bill last year failed after running into opposition from some Republican House members. Social conservatives opposed protections for same-sex couples, while other lawmakers opposed including dating couples under domestic violence.

SB 147 includes both gender-neutral language and protection for dating. But on Thursday at least one prominent social conservative activist testified in favor of the measure.

Dale Bartscher, head of the South Dakota Family Heritage Alliance, said he helped draft the bill and had no concerns about it protecting same-sex couples.

Another measure, House Bill 1169, would have provided free rape examinations to victims even without a decision to press charges. Right now, free examinations are only given as part of a criminal investigation.

“We need to protect the victim (first),” said Dianna Miller, a lobbyist for South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Domestic Assault. “Then the decision will be made by the victim and the prosecutors and law enforcement to investigate.”

Miller said she did not believe HB 1169 would discourage women from coming forward to report rapes. She said it would have the opposite effect, by removing any financial disincentive.

No one testified against HB 1169, and no lawmakers on the committee spoke against it. It passed 11-2, with Reps. Jenna Haggar and Blaine Campbell voting no.

While both those bills will move on to the full Senate and House, respectively, a third bill dealing with rape has an uncertain future.

Senate Bill 173 would remove a defense against certain rape charges established by a 2011 South Dakota Supreme Court case.

One of the standards for rape is sex where the victim “is incapable of giving consent because of any intoxicating, narcotic, or anesthetic agent.”

In South Dakota v. Jones, the state Supreme Court ruled that law requires proof that the “the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the complainant’s intoxicated condition rendered her incapable of consenting.”

Christopher Jones, the defendant in that case, was granted a new jury trial, which convicted him despite the new defense.

South Dakota’s state’s attorneys asked the Legislature to remove that defense, specifying  “the prosecution need not prove that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known that the victim’s intoxicated condition rendered the victim incapable of consenting.”

“We don’t have to prove that the victim was incapable of giving consent because of mental incapacity,” said Paul Bachand, representing the South Dakota State’s Attorney’s Association. “The same should apply for intoxication of the victim.”

The victim in the South Dakota v. Jones rape case also gave emotional testimony, saying she was “disgusted” that the law protected “the man who admitted to raping me.”

But the state’s criminal defense lawyers and Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s office expressed concern about the bill, which would go farther than any other state.

Matt Konenkamp of Daugaard’s office said South Dakota’s rape law should attempt to punish the guilty and not people who “never intended any harm.”

“It is the line in the sand between someone who has criminal propensity, someone who is intending to victimize someone, and someone who, on the other side, may have genuinely believed that they were engaging in a consensual act,” Konenkamp said.

After testimony from both sides, the Senate Judiciary Committee deferred action on SB 173 until next week to give both sides a chance to try to reach a compromise.

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Committee keeps law allowing people to sue others for breaking up their marriage

Even a lurid, high-profile trial didn't change Sen. Stan Adelstein's luck in his long-running battle against a South Dakota law.

Adelstein tried for the third time in the past 11 years Tuesday to repeal South Dakota's "alienation of affection" law, which allows individuals to sue a third party for breaking up their marriage.

Such a measure, Adelstein said, was archaic and offensive in how it placed a monetary figure on love and affection.

"I doubt very much that love is dependent on the wallet of the man who may be considered an interloper," Adelstein said.

But an array of socially conservative groups defended the law as a tool to help hold families together.

Dale Bartscher of the South Dakota Family Heritage Alliance described a case in which a threat by a husband to sue another man for alienation of affection caused the other man to abandon his affair with the husband's wife.

"This statute is not about the married couple, but about the person outside the marriage who maliciously attempts to disrupt the marriage," Bartscher said.

This was at least the fourth time since 2002 that the Legislature has considered repealing the alienation of affection law. Only six other states have such a statute, which has its roots in English common law.

But this year was the first legislative session after the conclusion of an alienation of affection suit involving the then-state's attorney of Pennington County, Glenn Brenner.

That lawsuit, in which Brenner was sued by his wife's ex-husband, went all the way to the Supreme Court and was extensively covered in the media. Testimony at the trial included specific and intimate details of the relationships involved.

A jury ultimately rejected the alienation of affection lawsuit against Brenner, who ultimately lost his bid for a fifth term as state's attorney and has since moved to Texas.

Sen. Craig Tieszen, R-Rapid City, said that case convinced him the alienation of affection law had to go.

"There was I think tremendous damage done to innocent people, and particularly to children," Tieszen said. "I believe that this statute causes more damage than the value that it has."

But a majority of the Senate Judiciary Committee disagreed.

"People take a vow to each other. Others shouldn't try to break that vow," said Sen. Mike Vehle, R-Mitchell.

Sen. Jeff Monroe, R-Pierre, said focusing on instances where someone was sued for alienation of affection miss the point. The value of the law, he said, is as a preventative — discouraging people from pursuing affairs because they know they could be sued.

Vehle and Monroe were joined by Sens. Jean Hunhoff and Tim Begalka in defeating Adelstein's bill, Senate Bill 108. Tieszen, Sen. Mark Kirkeby and Sen. Jim Bradford voted for the measure.

After the vote, Adelstein said he was surprised and disappointed. He believed he had four or even five votes in favor of his bill in the committee, rather than the three he got. Adelstein said he'd consider trying to revive SB 108 on the floor of the Senate.

Sen. Stan Adelstein, R-Rapid City. Photo by David Montgomery.

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Another skirmish over video lottery

South Dakota voters may have approved video lottery more than once, but a vocal minority still reviles the gambling machines as an illicit addiction that isn't worth the benefit to the state coffers.

That ongoing battle reared up again today, when the Senate Commerce committee approved a bill that, along with some language cleanup, legalized penny-denomination bets.

Critics, such as Dale Bartscher of the socially conservative Family Heritage Alliance, said the lower denomination would make it easier for people to become addicted.

It "only encourages a person to play longer and more repetitively as he or she plays the penny credits," Bartscher said.

Norm Lingle, executive director of the state lottery, objected to Bartscher's characterization of the bill as expanding gambling. The one-cent bets, Lingle said, simply make things more efficient and bring South Dakota in line with national trends. Many video lottery games, he said, are made with one-penny bets in mind.

The bill, SB52, will "allow manufacturers to keep the games fresh on the video lottery terminals," he said.

Sen. Phil Jensen tried to amend SB52 to strike the penny-bet clause, but only Sen. Tim Begalka joined with him out of seven senators. Angie Buhl, Ried Holien, Mark Johnston, Dan Lederman and Ryan Maher voted to kill the amendment 5-2. Then the full committee passed the measure 6-1, with Begalka voting yes and Jensen still in opposition.

The measure now moves to the Senate floor.