The long, turgid case of Ravnsborg in South Dakota

Jason Ravnsborg should have conversation with his maker.

Highmore SD is going to have a familiar ring for all of us, for a long time into the future. A man walking along the side of the highway was struck and killed outside the town: a sensational incident that involved the South Dakota attorney general at the wheel of the vehicle. We can presume the walking man died instantly. The car was smashed up enough that it was immobilized. 

Have you seen photos of the red Taurus? How could you be in an accident like that and not know what you hit? How could the driver not be bowled over by the sheer trauma of it all? To seek a leave of absence?

In legal trouble? That would have been a secondary concern for me. I think a normal person would have been totally overcome with feelings of grief and shame, grief primarily. Your job can wait, if in fact it is going to be waiting for you at all. My fundamental, primal emotions would take over. The AG acted with strange aplomb afterward. 

The people who follow Upper Midwest news have probably reviewed the essential facts a lot. Judgment day is nearly upon us. We're not talking actual legal punishment for the AG, instead we're seeing if the South Dakota legislature can simply get the man removed from his AG position. 

The state AG? Of all people, the one to be in focus for such a disastrous incident? "You can't make this up," an observer might muse. 

But stranger than fiction it is, so now after so much time and tedious investigative efforts, akin to pulling teeth, we'll finally get somewhere? Will we really? It's an impeachment question. Lawyers are infesting the whole matter, naturally. Nothing like those people "gumming up the works." Got any lawyer jokes handy? Ravnsborg has gotten counsel from a Republican lawmaker.

But why should the AG wish to see the matter bog down like this? He knows that the machinations of lawyers cannot conceal the matter from God's eyes. 

The AG's name is Jason Ravnsborg. He says it's pronounced "Roundsborg." We must respect that. There's nothing else about the man I would care to respect at this point. He was grilled by investigators from North Dakota in an interrogation room. The two dudes from ND were professionally sharp. The video was available for viewing. One of the guys finally said "people make mistakes." He was trying to get Ravnsborg to agree to a very credible explanation. It might have been distracted driving, a real threat in our new age. I do not ride bike on the shoulders of highways anymore. I am extra careful everywhere. But if you kill someone as the result of this, it is obviously not an "excuse." 

 

Imagine the scene

If not distracted driving, how in heck did such a horrendous thing happen? The guy who was struck, who I really should be calling a "victim," had his body lie outside overnight, undiscovered. What could be more horrifying? If the AG had not returned to the scene the next day, how would the body have been discovered? By a passer-by? 

Why did Ravnsborg return to the scene? He had already submitted a report to a law enforcement person who showed up shortly after the incident. The law enf. person, now deceased, was subsequently subjected to brickbats. However, put yourself in his position: he along with the 9-1-1 dispatcher were talking to the state's attorney general. The AG typically identifies himself as such when he has been accosted by law enf. for his driving problems, which we now learn has been often. 

If you cannot defer some, give some benefit of the doubt to the state AG, well then it's a worrisome, unacceptable situation. Which is why the SD legislature so long after the fact now considers impeachment. It's coming up this week. But why the long slog up to now? Can't see the forest for the trees? I guess lawyers can do that. Many political figures are of course lawyers by profession. 

The South Dakota governor despite her general warts of judgment has been a jewel of wisdom on this one. She has wanted the AG gone, right from early-on. Women are nurturers by nature, not destroyers. Women have empathy. The governor is Kristi Noem.

 

Can this be true?

Do I have to bring up partisanship? Maybe that's the saddest aspect of the whole matter. Noem was a jewel because she wanted Ravnsborg gone even though he's a Republican, like she is. 

In a normal world such a consideration would not even be on the periphery. When I was a kid, I would have thought you were joking, if you said it could be. But this is 2022. These are the times of MAGA, Steve Bannon et al. Times when people of that ilk would merely sniff at the idea of a Democrat being struck and killed on the side of the highway, impact so hard it renders the car immobile. Victim's glasses ended up inside the car. It has been suggested that the car's systems shut it down right there. 

The AG had to borrow a car. From the sheriff? Well, the sheriff was dealing with the attorney general. We would not wish to even consider that the AG would be a shifty, misleading or darkly calculating person, would we? 

The partisanship virus appears to have infected the South Dakota legislature. Contradicting Noem and her wisdom, some in the legislative picture are talking more like partisan animals. Which reminds me again of what our late former governor of Minnesota Rudy Perpich said about South Dakota. He said the state is "50th in everything."

These are not "talking points"

So the South Dakota Department of Public Safety wanted to supply input on the impeachment consideration process? With a statement of judgment, well supported, on why Ravnsborg should not be allowed to continue as AG? 

A partisan animal in the process i.e. a Republican said he didn't want to hear "talking points" from the agency. As if the agency would even wish to be part of the partisan cesspool, the epitome of "the swamp." 

How can any of these people sleep at night? 

Have I mentioned that the man who was run over was a Democrat? Are some of these legislators thinking on the level of a 6-year-old? The matter at hand is not some trivial thing where you simply diss or disrespect a person of the competing political stripe. It's not a matter where we can just shrug and move on. Or, to laugh about humiliating or overcoming someone from "the far left." Being on "the left" simply means you support redistributionist policies more than the political right. There has always been room in our U.S. political system for both, the give-and-take as it were. 

But today the political right is virtually on the warpath, banning books, harassing teachers in classrooms, and in D.C. even trying to overthrow the government. In the meantime, Donald Trump keeps hovering, keeps escaping justice just like Jason Ravnsborg of South Dakota. 

Look, the man might have a problem. Maybe it's neurological. Maybe he cannot grasp the gravity of what happened, what he has done. He has shown a pattern of recklessness when driving a motor vehicle. I would be scolded viciously by law enforcement if I had been pulled over in situations like he has. But he's the AG. He's in the National Guard as he loves telling people ad nauseam. 

None of this will bring Joe Boever back to life.

 

Addendum: Spencer Gosch, South Dakota House speaker, has behaved strangely. He is a high-level public servant. What is wrong with him? Something that medication might address? Paranoid delusions? What would he have to fear from his own state's Department of Public Safety? The department wanted to weigh in with some of its wisdom. Who would you trust more? Is there a fear that some of those people might be Democrats? That's how Donald Trump would approach the matter, the first question he'd ask. Look, I don't know about party affiliation. But look how people are behaving these days. Will God impose judgment? "We felt we didn't need a sales pitch," Gosch said. Gosch is similarly apprehensive about Gov. Noem, who isn't even a Democrat. Gosch is scared of the Dept. of Public Safety maybe "influencing bias." Bias? The impeachment proceedings are all about "bias," opinions, judgment. Certainly we have nothing to fear from the SD Dept. of Public Safety, do we, Mr. Gosch?

 

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com