Janklow
Bill Janklow, noted asshole, croaked today, and USA Today decided to stake its claim on the award for Most Unfortunate Choice of Metaphor:
He served four terms as governor and was elected to Congress in 2002. But he resigned in 2003 when he was jailed for manslaughter for causing the death of a motorcyclist by running through a stop sign.
Janklow changed the face of the state’s economy, education system and tax structure. Even his enemies admitted the Republican had a talent for getting things done, even as they complained that he ran roughshod over his opponents.
Um . . . yeah.
It will be interesting to see if any of the obits mention that Janklow may very well have gotten away with raping a girl in 1967. I won’t be holding my breath, though.
A friend of mine used to say that South Dakota won the war against education. This was during Janklow’s governorship.
Well, they did turn a branch campus of USD into a prison . . .
And if that’s not changing the face of the education system, I don’t know what is.
I had a friend who went to USD Springfield then when it was turned into a prison transferred to Yankton College, which the next year was sold to the Feds and became a minimum security prison. The next school he transferred to is still in business.
While Janklow wasn’t great and was significantly worse than most of the other recent SD governors (last Dem elected was Dick Kneip in 1968), SD has been pretty good about keeping funding up for education. The current Governor just asked for a base salary increase and a 1-time bonus to partially offset the 3-years without a raise we just had.
She was an 8th grader.
CBS has a mention, but says only
it was 1967, and the BIA police investigated but the FBI declined to prosecute. An action taken in 1974 by the woman with Dennis Banks of the AIM as her attorney went nowhere (except for Janklow being disbarred on the Rosebud reservation) because the BIA had moved the files to a different reservation.
I do not believe it was proven the allegations were untrue
True. But I do not believe that in our system the accused has to prove that allegations are untrue.
but if you actually read the CBS quote you would see that they said the allegations were shown to be untrue.
Hey, if I believe anything, it’s whatever federal law enforcement had to say about Native Americans in South Dakota in the late 60s and 70s!
And the girl he raped ended up also being hit and killed by a car.
Ted Stevens is looking like a saint compared to this guy.
Her mom was also beaten to death a few years later.
He had a long string of traffic offenses before he finally killed someone. Not counting however many times the cop let him off without a ticket.
He also was accused of two different rapes.
When I read about his career I could only compare him to the worst of the worst Southern bosses.
I do not think Janklow was accused of two different rapes, but the same rape was investigated twice.
Janklow did have a long string of traffic offenses, mostly for speeding, but he had at least 1 DUI. His car was hit once when it was stopped but unoccupied in an intersection. He was evidently in a nearby field urinating
He also ignored the no smoking in State buildings ban that I believe he signed into law because he was too important to the state to leave his desk.
William “Wild Bill” Janklow is the current governor of South Dakota. In 1955, at the age of 16, he was convicted of the sexual assault of a 17-year old woman. As a juvenile offense, this conviction carried little weight under U.S. law.
However, in 1966, while working as the tribal attorney for the Rosebud Sioux, Janklow–aged 27–was accused of raping his children’s 15-year-old babysitter, Jancita Eagle Deer.
This can be Googled. Two different rapes. This source is Ward Churchill, but I’ve read this elsewhere and I’m just establishing that he’s been accused of two different rapes.
sexual assault encompasses more than rape. the story I heard from Janklow’s daughter involved inappropriate touching but then I would not be surprised if Big Bill wasn’t exactly truthful to his kids about this.
NPR gave his corpse a sloppy kiss today too.