1/31/18

Wadhams' candidate for South Dakota governor running to Billie Sutton's left on cannabis

Straight out of the Dick Wadhams playbook: Libertarian candidate for South Dakota governor CJ Abernathey has announced his run to the left of Democrat Billie Sutton on cannabis and civil liberties giving an easy win to whichever earth hater is nominated in June.

In 2014 flip-flopping Larry Pressler was enlisted by earth hater operative Wadhams to run to the left in South Dakota's US Senate race as an unaffiliated candidate and successfully eroded Democrat Rick Weiland's base of support.

Fact is: the best way to a strong two party system in South Dakota is for arch-conservatives to launch an alt-right party. South Dakota's most ardent earth haters are still looking for principled conservatives to run in statewide elections. Shad Olson, Stace Nelson, Gordon Howie, Neal Tapio and Lora Hubbel could be those candidates.


1/30/18

Tester stands up for women's rights

It's important to remember that the woman is the patient and not the foetus. Ectopic pregnancies kill women especially those without easy access to medical care like in tribal nations trapped in red states.

Murkowski, Collins reject anti-reproductive rights bill

Pro-life is simply code for white people breeding.
Polling by the Pew Research Center shows that backing for abortion is as high as it has been in two decade. As of 2017, 57 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 40 percent said it should be illegal in all or most cases.
Read the rest here.


RC Journal, SDSU Collegian blast hate speech bill

House Bill 1073 seeks to force South Dakota's college campuses to allow hate speech that could lead to violence and opens universities to lawsuits.

It's sponsored by the worst of the worst earth haters in the Legislature.
Such is the case with House Bill 1073, an onerous piece of legislation that aims to regulate free speech on college campuses by demanding policies with language influenced by lawmakers, requiring the state’s public universities to file annual progress reports to lawmakers, and encouraging individuals to sue the state if they sense an injustice. The bill is sponsored by 30 lawmakers, including Senators Phil Jensen, Terri Haverly and Alan Solano and Representatives Lynne DiSanto and Julie Frye-Mueller, all Rapid City Republicans. This legislation isn't about free speech. It's about making a political point at the expense of taxpayers and the state's universities.
Read the rest at the new and improved Rapid City Journal.
The simple fact of the matter is, freedom of speech is not under attack on South Dakota college campuses, and HB 1073 opens institutes of higher education up to frivolous litigation and imposes unnecessary standards upon them. Speech that challenges students creates a full college experience and is essential for institutions of higher education. But we don’t need this bill to protect our freedom of speech. We need students, faculty, staff, Brookings community members, South Dakotans and United States citizens to use their First Amendment rights and continue to speak freely.
Read that here.

Even the Republican state Board of Regents executive director and CEO, Mike Rush, says HB1073 is a solution in search of a problem.

Thoughts? Prayers?

Rapid City's McKie Group fires racist

The recent wildfire at Mato Paha (Bear Butte) was hardly the first and most certainly won't be the last.
A McKie Ford Lincoln employee accused of making discriminatory remarks toward Native Americans has been fired. Steve Jensen reportedly made the comments in response to this weekend's Bear Butte State Park fire during a live Facebook video. McKie took personal responsibility for the incident and made it clear that the company has zero tolerance for discrimination. He said employees will undergo further training "to prevent incidents like this from happening in the future."
Read the rest here.

It's time for the State of South Dakota to abandon Bear Butte State Park that it claimed through colonization and remand it to the tribes for governance so they can restore its name to Mato Paha and for the US Park Service to add the name Mahto Tipila to Devils Tower National Monument.


Heitkamp will bring worker advocate to Trump sermon



Bullock champions Fair Pay Act



Ellison decries corporatism



1/27/18

Black Hills beetle defying human interference in forest health



10 and 100 hour fuels are increasing the risk of wildland fire at the mouth of the Big Sioux River in eastern South Dakota providing more evidence of a massive die-off caused by poor agricultural practices; but, water supplies on the Black Hills are rebounding following the efforts of the native pine beetle and spruce beetle.

Greg Josten at South Dakota Department of Agriculture just addressed the mostly earth hater House Ag and Natural Resource Committee.
He said they would periodically return in big numbers but more diversity of forest structure could potentially reduce the damage. Josten, the state forester, said scientists don't yet understand what causes the beetles to surge into an epidemic and then eventually recede. High density habitat helps sustain epidemics, he said. "For whatever reasons, past management allowed the trees to become as dense as they were," he said. Breaking up those areas would help, he said. Ponderosa pines predominate the Black Hills terrain.
Read the rest here.

The committee passed HCR 1003 Thursday morning setting policy for a 'resilient forest strategy' but does not appropriate additional money. It's headed to the house floor for a full vote even though Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board entomologist Kurt Allen said the mountain pine beetle has returned to endemic, very low levels or about one tree per acre.

Ponderosa pine is not native to the Black Hills. When the Custer Expedition came through the region in 1874 bringing invasive cheatgrass for their horses stands of ponderosa pine were sparse and scattered but a century and a half of poor management practices have created an unnatural overstory best controlled by the mountain pine beetle, prescribed fires and periodic wildfires.

US Representative Kristi Noem (earth hater-SD) and South Dakota's congressional delegation routinely pressure Forest Service officials to keep Hulett, Wyoming donor Jim Neiman happy.

Today's fire danger is at the high category in all reporting stations on the Black Hills.

South Dakota's failure to sufficiently clear decades of overgrowth and understory led to the Legion Lake Fire.
According to Pheasants Forever Biologist Brian Teeter, this lack of fire has resulted in negative consequences in the health and diversity of our prairies and forests which are critical to our wildlife and agricultural economy. “You don’t have to travel very far to see that the eastern red cedar is rapidly expanding and is negatively affecting our grazing lands but there is also less obvious benefits that range from improving wildlife habitat to increasing forage quality.” Teeter noted.
Read that here.

The June, 2016 Crow Peak Fire affected mostly Republican landowners who built in the wildland urban interface begged the feds to protect their properties. These people, white retirees from somewhere else who hate gubmint, fled Minnesota, Colorado or California then parachuted into South Dakota hoping to isolate themselves from fair taxation, African-Americans and cultural diversity.

Trees on public ground are not agriculture. Republicans may have been interested in science at some point in the past but like native Douglas fir, lodgepole pine and as revenues collapse the eventual extirpation of cougars from the Black Hills looks like a given, too.

More diversity means clearing the second growth ponderosa pine, restoring aspen habitat, prescribing burns, beginning extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, engaging tribes, buying out ranchers, leasing private land for wildlife corridors, turning feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and electing Democrats to lead the way.


1/25/18

Bjorkman unveils plan to reform Congress


Bullock pledges net neutrality




Ellison talks truth to Trump

1/22/18

South Dakota voters are disgusted

Reporter Bob Mercer and this blog had a twitter conversation yesterday after he posted South Dakota voter registration numbers illustrating the decline in both major political parties.

A declining number of people registering to vote, a Republican secretary of state purging voter rolls or overwhelming disgust and hopelessness?

South Dakota has been a net inbound demographic for at least two years running. Are these people not registering or are they in the state in paper only for its lax tax structure?

Rapid City-based Chiesman Center for Democracy chronicles South Dakotans' voter fatigue and disgust plaguing democracy in the red moocher state.
We all tend to agree that we want our legislative body to be the best it can be, with the very best and brightest at the helm. We can also agree that we want our legislature to be comprised of members who reflect the very demographics of South Dakota. If that is true, then instead of retirees and the self-employed we need to create a legislature that allows for and encourages diversity.
Read that here.

Fact is: the best way to a strong two party system in South Dakota is for arch-conservatives to launch a third party. South Dakota's most ardent earth haters are still looking for principled conservatives to run in statewide elections. Stace Nelson, Neal Tapio and Lora Hubbel could be those candidates.

So, if United Van Lines is reporting upticks with little effect on the voter rolls the military might be driving part of the inbound demographic and Ellsworth is furloughing personnel because of the Trump Shutdown. How will that affect voter preferences?


Roundhouse will host Cannabis Awareness Day

Saturday, 27 January is the second annual Cannabis Awareness Day at the New Mexico State Capitol Roundhouse.
NM EMPACT invites cannabis-lovers of all stripes to come together for a day of unity and solidarity to celebrate the leaf and spread awareness about its beneficial properties. [Weekly Alibi]
New Mexico's largest therapeutic cannabis provider, Ultra Health, is building the state's largest grow/up in Tularosa.
The cutting-edge medical cannabis cultivation site is expected to open in 2019. It will initially employ 25 people when the facility opens then employ 100 people once it's at full capacity. The site should be at full capacity by 2020. The medical cannabis plants will be grown indoors on 20 acres in air-supported, wind-assisted greenhouses. The outdoor medical cannabis fields will stretch across 80 acres of land on the west side of the ultramodern greenhouses. [Alamogordo Daily News]
Last March Ultra Health and Israel-based Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. opened a facility in Bernalillo to manufacture cannabis oil, oral tablets, suppositories, pastilles, transdermal patches and topical creams.

The collaboration comes on the heels of a University of New Mexico resolution demanding the school divest from corporations that profit from human rights violations both in Palestine and at the US-Mexico border. It was later rescinded.

New Mexico's opioid overdose rates have been plummeting thanks to the state's therapeutic cannabis program. The state's Department of Health recently announced the therapeutic cannabis program has risen to 45,347 total patients or a 77 percent increase over the same period last year.

Researchers and pharmacologists agree: cannabis is a safe and effective treatment as a bridge to recovery from opioid addiction. University of New Mexico researchers and the Industrial Rehabilitation Clinics of Albuquerque have released findings that showed 71% of patients either ceased or reduced their use of manufactured opioids within 6 months of enrolling in that state's medical cannabis program.

State Senator Jerry Ortiz y Pino (D-Albuquerque) wants all adults in New Mexico to be able to grow, possess, and buy cannabis legally.

His resolution needs a two-thirds majority in both the Senate and the House to get the measure on the ballot for voters to decide bypassing a governor's veto.

Democrats are keenly aware that to energize millennials and a jaded base radical times call for sensible approaches to the preservation of civil liberties.

1/21/18

Sunday's writer's block brings twitter into focus



1/19/18

Friday brings quick twitter hits, stream of consciousness relativism edition


























1/18/18

Deploy body cameras to fight predators in Pierre

What prevents interns and other people concerned for their safety from wearing body cams in Pierre’s predatory environment?
The rewriting of the rules was prompted in large part due to recent allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault against lawmakers including one report that led to state representative Matthew Wollman resigning his seat last year.
Read more here.

Sexual predators in Pierre have been a feature of South Dakota for its entire history but to Sioux Falls-area legislator, Deb Peters it's no big deal.
“It’s not acceptable behavior and never should be acceptable behavior,” said Peters, a Republican from Hartford. “But I also I don’t put myself into situations where that becomes a problem,” she said.
Read the rest here.

The Aberdeen American's editorial board is pointing fingers at other South Dakota media for lousy coverage of the Republican rape culture in Pierre. "Unsafe. Unacceptable. Hyper-masculine. Sexualized. Dirty." That's how the board and how women have described earth haters in Pierre.

The South Dakota Newspaper Association, teevee stations and local media have known about Pierre's rape culture and culture of corruption for decades and simply demurred to the twenty earth hater donors who run the state.

Looks like Lt. Governor Matt Michels is out of the loop, too.
Michels says it is inaccurate to describe a “culture of harassment” around the legislative sessions. Michels says beyond laws, the legislature has ethics rules for their members. Many of the allegations came from lobbyists, who are outside the rules of the legislature. [WNAX]
Kinda makes you wanna puke, init?

So, if it isn't happening to Deb, it simply isn't happening.

Rapes in the Governor's Mansion, jokers to the right, there she is: stuck in the middle with Wild Bill Janklow.

I am sitting on a story of the sexual assault of the late wife of a former Rapid City lawmaker at a legislative event. Watch this space.

1/17/18

Lower Big Sioux River basin at very high, severe wildland fire risk

Today's Wildland Fire Assessment shows the highest risk in the US, Very High and Severe, at the mouth and on tributaries of the Big Sioux River.

That dovetails with news that the South Dakota Department of Ecocide and Natural Ruination (DENR) is out of funding.


Dick Wadhams is alive and well in South Dakota's US House race

Update, 31 January, 10:44 MDT: Hendrickson will run as a Libertarian.

............

Straight out of the Dick Wadhams playbook: unaffiliated candidate George Hendrickson has filed with the Federal Election Commission for South Dakota's lone US House seat running to the left of Democrat Tim Bjorkman on cannabis and civil liberties giving an easy win to whichever earth hater is nominated in June.

In 2014 flip-flopping Larry Pressler was enlisted by earth hater operative Wadhams to run to the left in South Dakota's US Senate race as an unaffiliated candidate and successfully eroded Democrat Rick Weiland's base of support.

Fact is: the best way to a strong two party system in South Dakota is for arch-conservatives to launch a third party. South Dakota's most ardent earth haters are still looking for principled conservatives to run in statewide elections. Neal Tapio and Lora Hubbel could be those candidates.




1/16/18

Georgetown study infers college grads fleeing South Dakota

According to a 2017 Georgetown University study a good job is one that pays at least $35,000 annually for those under 45 and at least $45,000 annually for workers 45 and older. Who knew?
Additionally, the report says South Dakota’s 95 percent growth in “non-BA” good jobs from 1991 to 2015 was the second highest in the nation, behind the 105 percent growth in Utah.
Read the rest here.

Anyone reading between the lines of the Rapid City Journal story means most graduates flee South Dakota the first chance they get. Tomi Lauren is just one who did.

Earth hater President Scott VanderWal of the South Dakota Farm Bureau says tax deform will benefit the farmers and ranchers in his group. He was just reelected to that post even as economists are saying the red moocher state's ag sector will continue to struggle.

Now, he wants South Dakota's white congressional delegation to import brown wage slaves from other countries.
"We need a stable, legal workforce that can be used for agriculture," VanderWal said. "Farm Bureau is very concerned about the number of workers in our country and South Dakota as well." South Dakota's all-Republican congressional delegation, Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds and Rep. Kristi Noem, has expressed support for changing the visa program to ensure workers can participate in other agricultural sectors. The New American Economy campaign on Thursday kicked off a 50-state effort to highlight the importance of immigrant labor on the U.S. economy.
Read it here.

So, instead of raising wages for Americans earth haters want to pay brown people less to do more.

The crony capitalism that keeps South Dakota the 8th worst state for the working class is destroying lands promised to native peoples by treaty and my home town of Elkton is struggling to find enough housing for migrant workers often living in squalor.

South Dakota is graying fast and nursing beds represent economic development. The Janklow-owned Riverside Manor in Flandreau is overwhelming staffed by Filipinos and Filipinas as are most facilities for the elderly in South Dakota.

Any registered nurse with half a brain will leave for Minnesota, Colorado or the Southwest the instant they graduate so the work force in South Dakota will just get stupider and more Republican.

Today's intersection: farmer suicides and socialized medicine

Since suicides and murders have become commonplace in South Dakota politics the toll on the SDGOP could mount.

Earth haters like Kristi Noem and Pat Powers can squawk all they want about "socialized medicine" or "government-run health care." South Dakota is already a perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area. It leads the US in breast cancer rates and is one of seven states that would be devastated by the repeal of Obamacare.
“Suicide is a pressing public health issue,” said Department of Health Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon. Rather than looking for funding, Malsam-Rysdon said the Legislature’s best role may be in helping to raise awareness. “There’s not a way to legislate our way out of this,” Malsam-Rysdon said.
Read the rest at the Brookings Register.

Brookings is home to obese blogger Powers who says he's thriving under the town's socialism.

A study recently published in the Journal of Rural Health found the suicide rate for farmers is not only the highest of any occupation in America, it's spiking because of a lack of ready access to mental health care services.
The agrarian imperative theory, as last week’s article explained, postulates that people engaged in farming have a strong urge to supply essentials for human life such as food and materials for clothing, shelter and fuel, and to hang onto their land and other resources needed to produce these goods at all costs. The theory also suggests that when agricultural producers are unable to supply these requisites, they feel they are letting down those who depend on them, foremost — their families and communities, and all consumers as well. That’s when some farmers undertake what they may feel is their last alternative: to hold themselves responsible for their failure, even if it means taking their own lives. [Yankton Press & Dakotan]
Socialized military, socialized coal, socialized timber harvest and socialized ag/livestock production are what Republicans want.
U.S. Rep. Kristi Noem is hoping to see the next iteration of the Farm Bill get kicked over to the Senate well in advance of its expiration. Aside from continuing to improve crop insurance programs, Noem expects "safety net" services like disaster relief will join conservation program expansion as the top priorities during Farm Bill discussions. [Mitchell Daily Republic]
Noem and her husband sell subsidized crop insurance and have received federal agriculture subsidies. She was just in Rapid City for a town hall defending the Trump Organization's plan to end medical insurance coverage for some 22 million Americans including thousands of farmers.

But, if the South Dakota earth haters had any integrity whatsoever and cared about food security they'd urge South Dakota's congressional delegation to work toward rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and Veterans Administration together and offer Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco, support the kurtz template and adopting a carbon tax. Reproductive freedoms should be included with conditions just like the military does under TRICARE.

1/15/18

Boycott means dreary 2018 South Dakota tourist season

After South Dakota's governor signed a bill into law that discriminates against some couples who want to adopt a California-led boycott is queering Denny Daugaard's pitch.

The 2018 South Dakota Tourism Conference is scheduled in Pierre where the dreary 2017 numbers will be announced.

Personal income growth in South Dakota was the slowest in the United States in the third quarter.
South Dakota’s disappointing performance was driven primarily by a 0.1% decline in earnings (wages and salaries, and proprietor’s income). Investment income rose 0.1%, and transfer receipts—payments under programs like Social Security—rose 0.4%. The state also experienced marginal declines in forestry, fishing and related activities (-0.54%), construction (-0.43%), retail trade (-0.23%), and arts, entertainment and recreation (-1.61%).
Read more about red state failure here.

Some of South Dakota's candidates for governor are expected to attend.

Fire danger is already happening on the Missouri River basin


South Dakota's failure to sufficiently clear decades of overgrowth and understory led to the Legion Lake Fire.
According to Pheasants Forever Biologist Brian Teeter, this lack of fire has resulted in negative consequences in the health and diversity of our prairies and forests which are critical to our wildlife and agricultural economy. “You don’t have to travel very far to see that the eastern red cedar is rapidly expanding and is negatively affecting our grazing lands but there is also less obvious benefits that range from improving wildlife habitat to increasing forage quality.” Teeter noted.
Read the rest here.

Clear the second growth Pinus ponderosa and restore aspen habitat, prescribe burns, begin extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, enlist tribes and buy out ranchers or lease private land for wildlife corridors, turn feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and elect Democrats to lead the way.

Parts of kurtz agenda slowly unfolding

In the years after my 1997 vision at Orman Dam, a quest for redemption overtook me.

I pursued numerous concepts nearly simultaneously. A recycling initiative that would look much like Rapid City's Material Recovery Facility does today would have been based in Lead where the mining infrastructure vacated by Homestake's closure would be adapted. Metals, paper, plastics, glass, the whole schmear.

The Janklow administration, right?

But this morning's trip through South Dakota's media shithole reveals that the Black Hills region is still struggling with the same challenges.
Currently, the curbside recycling program does not accept paper, cardboard and plastic bags, for example. While the city does provide a few drop-off sites for paper and cardboard, it does not recycle plastic bags at all. Also, recycling bins are not available at apartment complexes, which are popping up at a greater rate lately.
Read more at the Rapid City Journal.
Where recycling falls in terms of priorities for the city is among the topics the Spearfish City Council plans to discuss during an upcoming strategic planning session Wednesday. “We’re looking at a variety of ways to increase recycling efforts in Spearfish,” City Administrator Mike Harmon said Jan. 4. “We haven’t found a good solution yet, but that doesn’t mean we’ve stopped looking.”
Read that at the Black Hills Pioneer.

I've preached this for going on forty years.

It takes trucks, tub grinders and balers dedicated to specific materials on a regional scale.

There should be a kitchen appliance that turns plastic packaging back into petroleum for use as a stove fuel. The US has thousands of mountains of glass cullet from the municipal waste stream just waiting to be repurposed: Japan recycles nearly 100% of her glass.

We sell millions of tons of salvage material to India and Asia to be recycled while tearing up our own ground mining for virgin minerals while steel and plastics, that could be petroleum, are buried in landfills.

1/13/18

Standing Rock hosting Obama energy expert

The Obama administration is still reaching out to Indian Country.

Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty and free communities from monopolistic utilities.
Speakers will address topics related to solar, wind, sun, electricity, water, fusion, hydropower and currency energies. Former US Chief Technology Officer for the Obama administration, Megan Smith, headlines a group of high-level experts set to address the conference.Activist and co-founder of Women of All Red Nations (WARN) Phyllis Young organized this first-of-its-kind summit, which is co-hosted by Sitting Bull College, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SOLVE.
Get the story here.

Because Republicans hate American Indian sovereignty ice storms routinely knock out electric power on reservations sometimes resulting in lost lives.


Twitter flaying Tomi Lahren for fleeing shithole Rapid City, chemical toilet South Dakota








Watertown moving to keep Lake Kampeska from looking like Lake Mitchell

Speaking of shitholes.

Tara Volesky has been riding her husband's coattails for years.
Taxpayers of Mitchell, please do some researching before buying into the propaganda the mayor, media, Fyra and special interest groups are trying to sell us concerning Lake Mitchell. It's time to drain the swamp, and I am not talking about the one north of town.
Read the rest here.

Tara should get away from the computer, stay home baking cookies and leave the environment to professionals.
If all goes according to plan, 2018 could be a pivotal year for the development of Lake Kampeska. That not only may include cleaning the lake of pollutants and sediments, but also develop the lake’s shores with recreation and commercial opportunities as well as implementing some lake specific zoning ordinances. Expected to be made up of city staff and elected officials, Watertown Municipal Utilities officials and county commissioners, among others, the steering committee will spend the next couple of months discussing everything from marinas and sediment traps to dredging the lake itself.
Read the rest here.

Actually, draining Lake Mitchell then dredging the contaminated soils is the best course for every eutrophic lake in eastern South Dakota.

South Dakota earth haters refuse to respond to Trump's shithole reference

There are reports that 45 actually said shithouse countries but it matters little.
KSFY News reached out to South Dakota's Republican Party multiple times for comment and never heard back. KSFY also contacted Senator Thune, Rounds and Congresswoman Noem. None of South Dakota’s congressional leaders responded to the request for comment.
Read the rest here.

Anyone who is surprised by Trump's antics is simply as treasonous as he is.

Earth hater Jensen calls out Pierre's culture of corruption

Rapid City is represented in the Legislature by a gaggle of misanthropes, philanderers and earth haters.

Nutbag Lynne DiSanto posted an 'all lives splatter' expletive to her Facebook page, Mike Diedrich is South Dakota's Callista Gingrich and Phil Jensen calls all LGBTQ people paedophiles.

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a miniature slay and a Phil Jensen smear.
The Republican Chair of the Government Operations and Accountability Committee (GOAC), Sen. Deb Peters, stymied another opportunity to get answers in the GEAR UP money mystery when she also refused to issue subpoenas or place witnesses under oath. It’s no wonder that South Dakota ranks fourth in state government corruption. Stay tuned for more on this story.
Read the rest here.

I love the smell of earth hater on earth hater napalm in the morning.

1/12/18

Trump Organization Snubs Montana Republicans


The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could have prevented a load of bad press by paying Montana to set prescribed burns before the 2017 fire season.
Democratic Senator Jon Tester says another reason FEMA likely turned down Montana’s request is because the agency doesn't have the money. “I think it puts Montana's budget in even more perilous situation," Tester says. "And you know, the fact is that fire is a natural disaster. And I know that FEMA's been pounded a lot by floods, and hurricanes and all sorts of national disasters, but the truth is that fire also creates havoc.”
Read the rest here.

Montana's Democratic governor declared a state of emergency after fires cleared a century of conifer and cheatgrass infestation even as the state's GOP earth haters went off on the environmental community blaming groups for litigation they say blocks logging in parts of the state.

But, 2017's wildland fires on private ranch land in southeastern Montana dwarfed those on public ground in the western part of the state. The 270,000-acre Lodgepole Complex, the Sartin Draw Fire near Broadus and the Battle Complex near Birney burned at least 100,000 and 185,000 acres respectively, decades of invasive grasses and poor stewardship to blame.

County commissions are infamous for rubber-stamping new homebuilding in the wildland-urban interface and like Greg Gianforte's donors they are among the first blaming environmentalists for bringing science-based decision-making to forest policy.

Volunteer fire departments are irreplaceable as first responders to unexpected blazes and if the Federal Emergency Management Agency survives a Trump presidency it should convince Congress to make sure the resources are there to sustain rural fire departments. VFDs should be empowered and paid to conduct prescribed fires along rights of way to reduce the likelihood of range fires but most say they don't have the assets or incentive to conduct fuel treatments. If counties and the state just burned off their road and highway rights of way every year that creates substantial fire breaks.

Republicans are guilty of whitewashing the Trump White House responses to the needs in eastern Montana where Trump won overwhelmingly.

Ponderosa pine isn't native to Montana. Clear the second growth Pinus ponderosa and restore aspen habitat, prescribe burns, begin extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, enlist tribes and buy out ranchers or lease private land for wildlife corridors, turn feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and elect Democrats to lead the way.

Vermillion will celebrate diversity in the wake of racist comments

Earth haters Neal Tapio and Lora Hubbel have been dominating South Dakota's news after he said he wants to jail more teens, deny more Muslims freedom of religion and she painted an American Indian legislator with a racist smear.
Celebrating the diversity found right here within the Vermillion community will be the focus of a special event held next Monday, Jan. 15, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, at the Washington Street Arts Center. Families and individuals young and old are invited to attend the free event, entitled “The Art of American Diversity,” from 5 until 8 p.m. at the art center, located at 202 N. Washington Street. Monday’s event will feature many diverse voices. At 5 p.m., the Oyate Singers, a Native American singing group, will open the event.
Read the rest here.

In an effort to cover up the crimes committed by the State of South Dakota at a now-shuttered stigmatized property earth hater Neal Tapio of Watertown is saying too few adolescents are being imprisoned.

Hubbel has taken a page from the Trump playbook and said exactly what Republicans in the state believe: anyone who has American Indian heritage should not be serving in a legislature reserved for white people. Instead of calling Gene Abdallah, Mohammad or Stan Adelstein, Hymie she called State Senator Troy Heinert South Dakota's Pocahontas parroting the derision 45 has for US Senator Elizabeth Warren.

New Approach South Dakota announces event speakers


Ellison blasts Trump's racism



South Dakota school districts smarting from GOP rule

More evidence of Daugaard tyranny: a third of qualified teaching grads leave South Dakota while the remainder struggle with certification.
Mike Hanson, superintendent of Hill City school district, said the new funding formula in 2016 was based on lowering taxes and increasing teacher salaries. They are looking at every code in the budget to ensure efficiencies, create exemplary opportunities for students and to be within budget, a budget in which taxpayers will be confident in. The first source of revenue for these school districts is property taxes. Levies have dropped significantly and the school district is receiving less tax revenue than what they had been receiving. The school district saw a loss of $330,000 recently due to a focus on property tax relief that came in 2016. Last year’s general fund budget for the school district was around $4.8 million.
Read the rest here.

As teachers flee South Dakota for blue states Sioux Falls is recruiting cheaper brown skinned educators.

K-12 Achievement: D (65.2), Status: D- (62.5), Change: F (57.6), School Finance: D (66.3), Spending: F (48.6). Read it all at Education Week.

How 65 county seats and their bureaucracies are either conservative or sustainable remains a mystery.

Volunteer fire departments exhausting resources


Volunteer fire departments are irreplaceable as first responders to unexpected blazes and if the Federal Emergency Management Agency survives a Trump presidency it should convince Congress to make sure the resources are there to sustain rural fire departments.

After a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest and surrounding grasslands remain at risk to more blazes like the Legion Lake Fire.
In South Dakota, 92 percent of fire protection is accomplished by volunteers. Many of the volunteer departments surrounding Rapid City broke records in call volume, including Rapid Valley, Rockerville, Box Elder, Hill City, and Black Hawk. Box Elder saw an increase of 3 percent over 2016, while Rockerville saw an increase of 40 percent.
Read more here.

Wildland fire expert Joe Lowe has called South Dakota's current GOP governor, Dennis Daugaard, incompetent and uninterested in governing. Lowe obviously believes that South Dakota's governor is not taking the ecological collapse taking place on the Black Hills seriously enough.

Poor ranching practices continue to add fuels to an already dangerous West River drought bringing with it a moderate fire danger to all reporting stations in the Black Hills.

South Dakota, legislature driving tribal members, veterans to end their lives

Genocide visited upon the American Indian community is a planned development strategy.
Native American suicide rates stood 1.8 times higher than rates for whites in South Dakota between 2004 and 2015. Veterans of the armed forces killed themselves at more than twice the rate for the general population in South Dakota from 2000 through 2016. The five worst counties for suicides from 2004 through 2016 were Todd, Buffalo, Corson, Oglala Lakota and Dewey. All have significant tribal populations.
Read the rest here.

White earth hater legislator, quack Fred Deutsch, has been raising campaign cash gallivanting around South Dakota with a crusade calling Death with Dignity "Don't Eat Grandma" or something but won't spend a dime for mental health.

Groups like Four Directions have recorded voting rights abuses against Native Americans including in South Dakota.

South Dakota's autocratic governor has appointed Meade County School Superintendent Don Kirkegaard to take over the post vacated by the governor's longtime squeeze, Melody Schopp, who is 'retiring' after a murder/suicide marred her career.

Kirkegaard reluctantly canceled homecoming activities that would have featured a football game between the Sturgis Scoopers and the Pine Ridge Thorpes after a car bearing hate speech and a symbol painted on it that some said resembled a swastika was smashed by Sturgis students.

Red state failure is like wiping your ass with a hula hoop: it's endless.


Heinert responds to Hubbel racism

Lora Hubbel is a candidate for South Dakota's 2018 earth hater gubernatorial primary.

She has taken a page from the Trump playbook and said exactly what Republicans in the state believe: anyone who has American Indian heritage should not be serving in a legislature reserved for white people. Instead of calling Gene Abdallah, Mohammad or Stan Adelstein, Hymie she called State Senator Troy Heinert South Dakota's Pocahontas parroting the derision 45 has for US Senator Elizabeth Warren.
In the days leading up to the Christmas break, Heinert was the subject of a tone-deaf social media post from republican gubernatorial candidate Loral [sic] Hubbel, who implied that conflicts of interest were the reasons why Heinert blocked the subpoenas. Hubbel was lambasted by Native Americans who took offense to the tone and implication of Hubbel’s post. Hubbel did not seem to understand the offensive nature of her Pocahontas comment. Heinert condemned the comments. “What is offensive are the efforts to discredit reservation based lawmakers. She has no understanding of our culture, our language, or how we pray. I think I do a pretty good job of representing the interests of our people and our communities. There is no place for comments like this,” he added.
Read the rest here.

And obese Brookings blog bully, Pat Powers responded by putting up a number of posts decrying Hubbel as unfit to serve. He's been adding anonymous comments at his blog to gin up hated of Jews, Muslims and American Indians for its entire history. He certainly hasn't called for Donald Trump to resign for using racist and vulgar language.

Former State Senator Stan Adelstein has threatened to sue Powers who resigned in disgrace from the South Dakota Secretary of State's office.

1/11/18

Wismer stands for reproductive rights

Pro-life is simply code for white people breeding.

Even the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says evidence suggests there is no foetal pain until the third trimester begins at 27 weeks.

South Dakota State Representative Susan Wismer has signed on to the newly-created Reproductive Freedom Leadership Council just launched by the State Innovation Exchange.
The council’s objective is to put reproductive rights at the forefront of progressives’ — and the country’s — agenda. SiX categorically decries progressives who claim reproductive rights aren’t a necessary component to membership in the Democratic party. “Reproductive freedom is a central and necessary component of an inclusive progressive agenda,” reads the new council’s platform.
Read it all here.

Hyperpartisan morbidly obese Brookings earth hater and hack, Pat Powers lives in a town shaped and guided by socialism created long before he moved there to enjoy its fruits.

He is using his blog space this morning to contradict a respected legislator for supporting women's rights.

Industrial chemicals from Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta abort foetuses all the time but few will hold their feet to the fire about it. Contact with the Big Sioux River as it flows outside Brookings can cause spontaneous abortions.

South Dakota Republicans love the foetus but hate actual non-white, non-christian children discarding them as collateral damage in the so-called War on Terror being prosecuted by South Dakota’s outposts for the military/industrial complex.

Rich women have full reproductive freedom while women at middle and lower income levels experience chilling effects on their rights. Women in South Dakota who can afford it simply jump on a plane and fly to Santa Fe, Minneapolis or Denver for their procedures. Imagine a woman on the Standing Rock or Pine Ridge doing that. South Dakota’s repeated attempts to restrict access to medical care are not only mean-spirited, they're discriminatory anti-choice extremism.

But, applaud the nutball Republican efforts diverting attention from the party’s culture of corruption where murders and their covers up are commonplace by clogging the legislative session with christianic religionist argle-bargle.

Jackley freaked out by white nationalists in Brandon

A 50 year old white nationalist Brandon woman and her teenage son are in jail facing multiple charges after an arsenal of guns and ammunition were found in a reinforced basement room of her home.
South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley says the large number of guns that were found is a concern. Jackley says police may have stopped something more serious from happening.
Get the story at WNAX.

Events like these are hardly surprising given the racist diatribes of legislators like Neal Tapio, the bigotry of Steve Sibson, the extremism of Shad Olson, Betty Olson's Bundyism and hatred for multiculturalism by countless other South Dakotans.

In 2014 among 382 law enforcement agencies 74 percent reported anti-government extremism as one of the top three terrorist threats in their jurisdictions, according to the New York Times.

According to court documents a Dallas, South Dakota man made several comments about blowing up a Veterans Affairs hospital.
The Black Hills State University Honors Program will kick off the first three weeks of the 2018 Geek Speak lecture series with an ongoing panel discussion about religious diversity. The first week’s panel will serve as an introduction to the religions represented, giving each panel member 15 minutes to introduce themselves and a background about their religion. In the following weeks, discussion will center on what it is like for religious minorities to practice in this area, in a space far from a larger religious community, and what it is like to be perceived as a standard bearer for that religion.
Read that here.

christianity is a disease.

The American Left poses no violent threat to the United States while the hate-filled right wing of the Republican Party always will.

Beetle returning to normal levels after clearing Black Hills pine overgrowth


During a recent meeting of the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board entomologist Kurt Allen said the mountain pine beetle has returned to endemic, very low levels or about one tree per acre.

Ponderosa pine is not native to the Black Hills. When the Custer Expedition came through the region bringing invasive cheatgrass for their horses stands of ponderosa pine were sparse and scattered but a century and a half of poor management practices have created an unnatural overstory best controlled by the mountain pine beetle, prescribed fires and periodic wildfires.

The southern Black Hills are greener and vistas more spectacular after the mountain pine beetle opened view sheds and increased water supplies. Wind Cave National Park is greenest in its history after a prescribed burn took even more invasive grasses than was planned. Most areas affected by the recent Legion Lake Fire are expected to recover to pre-settlement conditions.

For several decade spruce beetles have been working to restore aspen habitat and helping to recharge water supplies in the northern Black Hills likely moving on logging equipment from other western states.