5th Wheel For Sale-2012 34 ft. 3 slides. Been in Az for 9 weeks last 6 years. Numerous upgrades. $15,000. Daniel Benkert. 605 431-6060. For Sale- Tika T3 25-O6, excellent condition 605-595-5950.
Mobile Home Lot For RentAvailable June 1st, $200/ month plus deposit. 605-786-4644
Unique antique dresser, very good condition; gorgeous set of dishes,call or text 605-391-5420 for more info.
Poodle Pups For sale-Toys, miniatures, ready now, red, apricots & black $500-$850. Call 605-347-1504.
Acrosonic Baldwin Console Piano-with bench, great condition, $1000 OBO Call or text 605-209-9505.
Musician Wanted-Genesis Lutheran Church, PiedmontPerson to play music at 10am sunday service. Call 605-209-3285.
605-209-3285.
Riding Mower for sale, 30” Troy-Built, Briggs & Stratton motor, excellent condition, must sell health reasons $500. 605-342-0933
Guitar Trio-Davison electric guitar plus blonde and black acoustics, amplifier, cord, strap & metronome, $200 OBO. Please call 605-631-0957.
FREE Queen Bed, good condition. With Frame $35, Sturgis. 605-347-1504.
Gentle Eagle Ministries - Sturgis Everyone is Welcome! Come as you are! Stay for Lunch! Gathering for Biblical Truth Every Saturday at 10:30am www.gentleeagle.com
605-423-9912
FB @GentleEagle Ministries
QQ wants to help make your non-profit event more successful with free advertising. We will publish your non-profit event in the QQ for up to 2 weeks in our classified section. Please submit your information to ads@michelscom.com
EASTMAN & SONS AUCTION COMPANY, ONLINE ONLY
AUCTION #1, Dennis Fischer Estate, 580 E. Commercial St., Mitchell, IA, Thurs. May 23, 2024. to Weds., June 12, 2024. HiBid.com. For info: 641-220-6124. (mcn)
ESSAY ON CHOOSING A PRESIDENT Part Two of a Two Part Series
Paid for and submitted by: James
A. Schmitendorf,
Lt Col USAF Retired, Rapid City SD
BASIC CHARACTERISTICS: Health/Age, Knowledge, Experience, Team Member, Work Ethic, Speaking Skills, Charisma.
BASIC TASK AREAS: Security, Economy, Foreign Policy, Budget, Politics, Platform Plan, Assistants/Staff.
FINDING YOUR LEADER: Biographies, The Media, Personal Acquaintances.
Voters should look for these qualities in candidates well before voting. Can you write in a candidate? Yes, in seven states, no problem. Yes, with paperwork in 34 states. Pre-election registration times are reasonable in some of these states but vary up to 78 days. Write-ins are prohibited in nine states. This is crazy, why can’t the two main parties and the third largest-one all get together and recommend to Congress a standardized set of wide-open democratic rules for write in candidates? We are in the 21st century with electronic ballot reading of printed names or even cursory written names. Unless the parties bury the hatchet and decide to help unify our nation, we are going to end up choosing leaders for their rhetorical skills or charisma only, instead of knowledge and experience. Maybe state leaders will wake up before November and join the seven states allowing write in voting on election day without question.
The DNC and RNC have a duty to work together, help conduct honest elections, and find potential leaders of suitable age, knowledge, and experience for key positions. Let’s hope we don’t have to go through another four years like the present cycle.
FOREIGN POLICY: Nice guys finish last. The United Nations (UN) has been a dramatic failure from a peacekeeping standpoint and only mediocre in humanitarian operations while trying to be agreeable to all nations. Somalia, Bosnia, and Rwanda are prime examples of the difficulties in keeping the peace between old time tribes and rivals where millions died, and UN forces were withdrawn. The UN just can’t perform these operations without a lot more resources and serious quantities of armed manpower with modern weapons.
The original organizational form of the UN with its large bureaucracy and the veto power given to the Security Council does not function acceptably, e.g. the current Ukraine and Israeli crises. History has many other examples.
Benjamin Franklin was successful in getting a secret treaty with the French to support our Revolution with 44,000 troops. Times have changed. Now, our State Depart ment and UN Ambassador have a near impossible job in understanding leaders and populations from nearly 200 different countries. The foreign policy of Germany in the late 1930’s got us into WW II while the U.S. government sat on its hands until the situation in Europe was out of control. It’s important now that we don’t let overseas conditions deteriorate further with China, Russia, or the Mid-East.
For sure, appointed ambassadors to foreign countries should not be rewards of political favors like the civil service patronage jobs in the old spoils system days. The best solution here is probably better education and timely foreign experience for State Department employees plus close coordination with, or cross assignment with, well versed Defense Department officers. Some combination of these two departments may be in order.
Admittedly, foreign policy positions are very important, especially when world affairs are threatening war or civil unrest with terrorism. The Africa and the Middle East post Colonialism period are full of examples. And Hati crops up almost annually.
TEAMWORK: The United States of America is not a single leader dictatorship despite some thoughts in our major parties. Running a large organization such as a govern ment or corporation requires teamwork of staff on a large scale. Not by committees of fifty or sixty but by groups of less than ten according to many management books.
A candidate for president should have his short cabinet list in mind and selected on paper with resumes. All these persons’ biographies should be available electronically to the voters well before party conventions or elections. The ratio of leader expertise between security and economy will vary with time and world conditions but generally should be weighted on the safety/security side as the Constitution indicates. This is essential until treaties among freedom loving nations can far outnumber belligerent authoritarian ones, and until the UN is properly fixed. Recently retired military officers from all branches of service with nuclear weapon knowledge representing the triad are important on all such teams.
FINDING YOUR BEST CANDIDATE: A good first place to look is CSPAN’s current U.S. Congressional Directory published for each Congressional Session. In it you will find lots of useful information including a short bio of all Governors and Congressional members with listings of assignments to committees, etc. The mini biogra phies also include: current term number, date of birth, religion, education, profession, military service, wife’s first name, et cetera. With this information it’s easy to then proceed to Wikipedia or other Web sites for a full personal history.
We find ourselves in a dilemma with two ‘too old’ candidates with at least three strikes each. Neither has any military experience, nor can understand, or care, how to han dle classified documents. One has a name calling egotistic loud rhetoric and slanders the military. The other lies to the public incisively and can’t resist a monetary bribe through a relative with foreign nations.
America can do better. With 336 million people and even a minute percentage of our CEOs, PhD Professors, retired military officers, experienced Congresspersons, etc., we have an abundance of qualified national leaders. So, what’s the problem?
Three major drawbacks, being President is tough job, the opposing party is always trying to put you in jail, and who wants to live in the DC area (even the White House)? A partial solution to item three is to move the U.S. Capitol to a central mid-west location such as Omaha, NE, Colorado Springs, or Rapid City, SD as mentioned in my 2011 book about the Constitution, Lex Ferenda. The operational center of the government needs to be moved anyhow for security reasons.
Another solution is to choose leaders by lot. For example, let each state’s legislature select about four qualified leaders, place them in a hat and draw out how many senior leaders are needed, and then vote on them if necessary. This sort of occurs at party conventions but not in earnest. How could a similar method possibly be any worse than our present predicament?
We need a real Presidential contest: like Mike Pompeo (Republican) against Mark Kelly (Democrat) for example. Mike has all the proper credentials: Military, business/ econ., education, congress, and swamp experience. [41Wiki bio pgs] Mark is an ex-astronaut and Navy Captain. He flew multiple space flights and combat missions in the Gulf War. He is presently an Arizona Senator with several engineering degrees serving on the Armed Services committee. [21 bio pgs]
If you prefer a female for Vice President; what’s wrong with Amy Bauernschmidt, now a Navy admiral and recently the ‘Captain’ of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lin coln, a Naval Academy and War College graduate, and an experienced helicopter pilot. It is hard to dream of a better resume. Senator Joni Ernst has military experience as well and Representative Kat Commack attended War College. Also qualified in this area as a possible Democrat VP is Chrissy Houlahan a Representative in the House who has Air Force and engineering experience. Senator Tammy Duckworth has both military and far-east foreign knowledge.
For either party Nikki Haley would certainly be an excellent choice for Secretary of State given her executive and UN previous jobs plus her enthusiastic desire to serve our country. We have seven State Governors who have military experience including: Ron DeSantis (R) and Wes Moore (D) to name just two.
Finding the biographies of 20 year retired armed forces officers with econ or business experience is a little difficult, but not impossible. Each of our military services and several others have biography web sites with numerous different senior officers and NCOs. Some Generals and Admirals might be too political but not many. The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) is also a good place to investigate plus their local organizations in most larger cities.
Again, I’ve emphasized military experience since we now have several potential threatening enemies. Russia and Iran may be hopeless cases. But China might have some peaceful possibilities. During WW II our help in the survival of China with the Flying Tigers, allied pilots flying over the Hump to support their army, and our lend lease program supplying millions of dollars’ worth of military and humanitarian goods may have not been forgotten by their elders since the Chinese have a ‘save-face’ culture. This would also apply to our tariff leniency in the 1970s and 1980s allowing sales in the U.S. that increased their economy significantly. If their shame and guilt is suffi cient to turn their leaders and air force pilots back into our ally again, it might save Taiwan and turn the terrorist world upside down in our favor. Or, even if psychology doesn’t work the facts are true and honest, so it may be worth a shot.
During the Roman Empire leaders such as Caesar and Cicero made history convincing the human multitudes with their orations and a couple of Europeans were equally successful during the 1930s and 1940s. We should all remember that charisma does not trump knowledge and experience (no pun intended). American has a history of solving our national problems however slow and tedious it may be. Let’s hope the election of 2024 turns out better than 2020.
