7/31/14

Stolen cartoon: Corporate Sky-Deity Bless America

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7/28/14

High Priestess of NPR Passes

The granddaughter of renowned Viennese psychiatrist Alfred Adler, Margot was born in Little Rock, Ark., but spent most of her life in Manhattan. Margot had a long-standing interest in the occult. "Margot was not only a brilliant reporter, she was also a Wiccan priestess and a leader in the Pagan community," [Margaret Low Smith, NPR's vice president for news] notes. "That was deeply important to her, and she wrote a seminal book about that world: Drawing Down the Moon. She also wrote a memoir called Heretic's Heart." [Eider Peralta, NPR]
Adler's last report if memory serves:




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7/26/14

Images of Black Hills trip posted

Click on any of these images to make them bigger.



White River at Stamford where the only sound was that of bees working the record sweet clover.



Someone has been mowing the right of way at Stamford.





Imagine these views of Harney Peak from Slate Prairie a thousand years ago but without all the trees...or houses. This shot was taken not far where earth haters want to mine for frack sand.





Missouri Buttes and Devils Tower at sunset: yes, Herb would have been able to see the proposed mountaintop-removal mining in the Bear Lodge Mountains from his porch had he not sold the ranch.




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7/25/14

War College prick indicted for possession of child porn

A colonel at the Army War College in Pennsylvania who last year was charged in county court with possession of child pornography is now facing federal charges. A federal grand jury in Harrisburg on Wednesday indicted Col. Robert J. Rice for possession and distribution of child pornography over the Internet. The 56-year-old colonel is stationed at the Army War College in Carlisle. He was charged by in Cumberland County authorities in April 2013 with 120 counts of possession of child pornography. [Associated Press]
In a letter to the Secretary of the Air Force and to the Air Force Chief of Staff, Montana Senators Jon Tester and John Walsh have voiced their opposition to the proposed expansion of the Powder River Training Complex in southeastern Montana. Citing the potential loss of 95 Montana jobs, concerns over the safety of Montana citizens from aircraft based at South Dakota's Ellsworth AFB and outcry from residents in the area, the Senators wrote that they are unwilling to include the Little Bighorn National Battlefield within PRTC.
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Rounds, Daugaard administrations trafficked American Indian kids

Pennington County's behavior has been called shocking. South Dakota's actions are chilling effects on the rights of families' to due process.
What's more, many similar hearings in which Indian children are removed from their homes for no reasons given to the parents occur at least 100 times a year in Rapid City, South Dakota, alone. Based on the 120 transcripts, we recently filed motions asking the federal court to rule that South Dakota officials engage in a pattern and practice of denying Indian families and Indian tribes their basic rights to fairness under ICWA and the Constitution. And next month, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination will consider a report submitted by the ACLU on U.S. failure to meet its international treaty obligations to end pervasive and institutionalized discrimination, including the lack of due process in American Indian child custody proceedings in South Dakota. Ultimately, we hope to restore justice to a group of people who our legal system has repeatedly failed. [ACLU Blog of Rights]
Recall the resignation of Judge A.P. (Pete) Fuller in 2011:
Pennington County State’s Attorney Glenn Brenner, Rapid City Police Chief Steve Allender and then Pennington County Sheriff Don Holloway made the formal complaint in May that led to Fuller’s suspension and subsequent investigation by the Judicial Qualifications Commission, a seven-member body that includes 7th Circuit Court Judge Jeff Davis of Rapid City. The frustration in the State’s Attorney’s Office reached the boiling point when Judge Fuller called Rapid City police officers a “bunch of racists” while listening to an officer explain in a juvenile court hearing why he stopped a car driven by a Native American who was on probation. [Andrea Cook, Rapid City Journal]
A federal judge has compelled South Dakota state courts to comply with subpoenas in a class action lawsuit brought by families who believe that the Department of Social Services violated the Indian Child Welfare Act.

Judge Jeffrey Viken has thrown out South Dakota's Attorney General Marty Jackley's motion to dismiss lawsuits against the state's Department of Social Services.
Native American activists often accuse the Department of Social Services of seizing children unnecessarily and placing them with white foster families. A group of families sued social services in federal court last year, alleging children are taken for months, though hearings last less than five minutes and don't offer parents a chance to respond. Some child advocates say recent incidents in Aberdeen highlight a pattern of insufficient investigation and an agency more concerned with covering mistakes than correcting them. [John Hult, Secrecy cloaks foster care investigations by S.D. social services]
South Dakota: Land of Infinite Villainy.

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7/22/14

RCJ editorial: frack sand mining less controversial than Powertech

South Dakota Proppants says it has found sand deposits about 15 miles southwest of Hill City that it says is of sufficient quality to be used in the fracking process. And because the proposed mine’s location is close to the Bakken oil fields, it would give SDP an advantage over competitors. The company has secured 1,750 acres of claims in the area it wants to mine. The company would have to get an operating permit from the state Board of Minerals and Environment and water permits from the state Water Management Board, a process that could take at least two years. The estimated jobs and annual revenues of the proposed sand mine compares favorably with the more controversial proposed Powertech in situ uranium mine near Edgemont. [Rapid City Journal editorial]
Even if the GOP-owned Board of Minerals and Environment approves this mine near Pe'Sla and Jewel Cave National Park, the most realistic way to get the sand to the Bakken is to haul over Forest Service roads to US16 then load it onto rail cars at the siding in Newcastle, Wyoming. Tourists and locals would suffer the biggest headaches.

The new Rapid City Pierre and Eastern Railroad is owned by the same multinational as the rail link handling Powder River coal with access to the siding in Newcastle, Genesee and Wyoming, but RCPE has no track going north to the frack zone.

US85 north of Belle Fourche is already crumbling and over capacity so adding more traffic is senseless.

Santa Fe County rallied to stop basalt mining on La Bajada: will enough people in Custer or Pennington Counties care enough to protect the Black Hills?

Doubtful.

More South Dakota fracking news linked here.
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7/21/14

Montana official: expanded PRTC 'airspace grab'

It costs about $42,000 an hour to fly an Ellsworth Air Force Base B1-B bomber.

Even the earth hater At-large US Representative from Montana running for US Senate opposes the expansion of the Powder River Training Complex where an increased nuisance from the aircraft based near Rapid City, South Dakota would further threaten sage grouse habitat.
But the prospect of bombers roaring over rural communities 240 days a year has drawn resistance, with one Montana official referring to the proposal as a federal government “airspace grab.” Montana Department of Transportation Aeronautics Division Administrator Debbie Alke said she’s been told by Air Force officials that a final environmental study of the proposal will be released next month. [Matthew Brown, Billings Gazette]
Flights have been added to serve the ecocide taking place in the Bakken oil fields in the news for killing a record number of non-union workers. Small airports are concerned that a proposed increase in military traffic could be even deadlier.

Sure is curious how South Dakota's junior US senator favors federal land grabs at his donors' behest and for his TransCanada sponsors while raising money protecting them from environmental protection.
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7/19/14

Lujan Grisham: immigrant girls being raped

There are 23 tribes and pueblos in New Mexico.
In an interview with The Associated Press, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham said immigration authorities will start giving migrant girls as young as 9 years old pregnancy tests in light of many reports of girls being raped on their way to the United States. “We are seeing 11-year-old girls testing positive for being pregnant, so we need to start testing them even younger now,” Lujan Grisham said, adding that she believes the children need access to doctors. Last month, agents arrested as many as 2,000 child immigrants a week. [Santa Fe New Mexican]


Rich women have full reproductive rights while women at lower income levels do not.
While the measure is only a municipal ban, not a statewide ban, it would affect women far outside of Albuquerque. Neighboring Texas enacted a 20-week ban on abortions earlier this year, so most women across Texas and New Mexico have to drive to Albuquerque for an abortion if a difficult situation arises late into her pregnancy. [Laura Bassett, Huffington Post]
Roman Catholic Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe is urging Albuquerque parishioners to vote for the ban on late-term abortions, which does not include any exceptions for things like rape, fetal anomalies or threats to the mother’s life. If the referendum passes, a legal challenge is expected. Attorney General Gary King, a Democrat, has said he believes the law is unconstitutional. [AP, Santa Fe New Mexican]
If passed, this law would have a chilling effect on the Establishment Clause, too.

King has announced his intention to run for governor, a seat now held by catholic earth hater, Susana Martinez. Martinez is considered by some to be veep material on the 2016 earth hater party presidential ticket.
The diocese of Gallup, N.M., has formally started the process of bankruptcy, citing the costs incurred by a growing number of sex-abuse claims. On Nov. 12, the diocese filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Albuquerque, N.M., Bishop James Wall said in a letter to parishioners that was posted on the diocesan website Nov. 11. [National Catholic Reporter]
How can you make this shit up?
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7/18/14

kurtz hits the big 6-0


Happy Birthday: Harriet Nelson, Nelson Mandela, John Glenn, Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Branson, Ricky Skaggs, Vin Diesel, and this interested party.

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7/16/14

Santa Feans want to decriminalize cannabis

ProgressNow New Mexico and Drug Policy Action need at least 5,763 valid signatures from registered voters within city limits to force a vote on their proposal. They turned in 7,126 signatures. The proposed initiative, which mirrors an initiative that the groups also are trying to get on the ballot in the city of Albuquerque, calls for making the penalty for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana and possession of marijuana-associated paraphernalia a civil infraction punishable by a fine of no more than $25. [Santa Fe New Mexican]
Back in February Kevin Woster penned a remembrance of the SDSU Collegian from the early Janklow era: several old-timers wrote about their own memories of those days. This blog looked at it when KW put it up but it wasn't known until Herb called about his pending real estate sale that the thread had so many comments.

Getting Herb packed and loaded because he sold the ranch at Devils Tower took three days as did his exodus back to Indiana. He and his brother drove two rigs stacked to the moon. The trip from Rapid City to the ranch south of Santa Fe with a load of hay and a water tank strapped to the new trailer was long but uneventful.

Democrats fleeing red states is nothing new: for Herb it's out of the Wyoming frying pan into the Hoosier fire. For this blog it's simply a life-saving measure to flee the Nazi christofascist enclave that South Dakota and the Black Hills have become.


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7/13/14

Report: under Rounds/Daugaard SD's infrastructure among worst in US

Where to start?

South Dakota's current governor says he's a conservative; yet, he has begged for billions from the Obama administration. His predecessor's office where he was lieutenant governor and his current bureaucracy have trafficked Native kids, exploited the federal EB-5 green card scam, and is quietly expanding a Medicaid safety net for those not yet voting for his party.

Meanwhile, in South Dakota, infrastructure is crumbling and 20.6% of bridges are structurally deficient. Over the Missouri River, the US14 bridge between Ft. Pierre and the town to the east and the I-90 bridge at Chamberlain are imperiled.
The report, “Rural Connections: Challenges and Opportunities in America’s Heartland,” (pdf) was released Thursday by TRIP, a national non-profit transportation research group based in Washington, D.C. The report says that in 2013, 21 percent of South Dakota’s rural bridges were rated as structurally deficient, the fourth-highest rate in the nation. In 2012, 12 percent of South Dakota’s major rural roads were rated in poor condition. The fatality rate on South Dakota’s rural roads was 2.21 fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel, the 17th-highest rate in the nation and nearly three times higher than the fatality rate of 0.74 on all other roads. [Mitchell Daily Republic]
The crumbling bridge over the Missouri River between Fort Pierre and her neighbor, the putrid cesspool to the east, won't be replaced until at least 2025: how many more times do you want to go over it for free?
By 2100, Rapid City, South Dakota—in the vicinity of the Pine Ridge Reservation—will reach the average summer temperatures of Cedar Park, Texas, which means a rise from 81 degrees to 93 degrees, Climate Central reported. [Indian Country Today]
The South Dakota governor has turned to Matt Varilek and the Small Business Administration after the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied a disaster declaration request. The governor's political party passed a resolution at their convention to impeach President Obama.
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7/8/14

Mitchell Republic too far away from West River bison issue

Update from Native Sun News linked here.

---------

The reintroduction of American Bison to historic ranges is raising the specter of racism in Montana and South Dakota.
Some of the Yellowstone herd is infected with brucellosis, a disease that can spread to cattle and cause abortions and sterility. With careful execution, hopefully the plan to bring more bison to South Dakota can happen without also bringing an outbreak of brucellosis. [editorial, Mitchell Daily Republic]

The reality:
Brucellosis transmission risk is limited due to the combined effects of management to maintain separation between cattle and bison, the synchrony of most bison parturition events into a short period and in areas separate from cattle summer ranges, the cleaning of birth sites by female bison and the relatively quick environmental degradation of Brucella in late spring weather, and scavenger removal of potentially infectious birth tissues that makes it unlikely that viable Brucella abortus bacteria would remain for cattle to encounter. [US Park Service]
Creeks that haven’t flowed in the Black Hills for decades are running because 400 square miles of ponderosa pine have been turned by the bark beetle from transpiring millions of acre/feet of water into standing methane generators. Looks like natural selection from this 40-year observer of the Anthropocene; the Arkansas and Platte are at bank full in mid-July for the same reason.

The Helena National Forest piece and this post at A New Century of Forest Planning are inextricably linked in that the sheer number of trees have sucked so much water from recharges that they leave the most contaminated water for the humans and other species to sustain ourselves.

In the Black Hills, Weyerhaeuser analogue, Neiman Enterprises is taking the last of the old growth ponderosa pine in the name of insect control and taking federal dollars to do it while the small diameter trees are left standing. Massive piles of slash littering the forest preside over skidder trails that slice up hillsides.

Multiple mycology surveys reveal disrupted, cattle-infested tree farms where humanity has destroyed whatever remains of the preceding 11,000 years of indigenous and ungulate management. Multiply that by the countless watersheds that European immigration destroyed in the United States and Canada by the number of those exploited in the name of disaster capitalism.

The Mitchell Republic editors could be saying get cattle the hell out of bison habitat and that it's time for President Obama to rewild the West.

Is that right, Seth?

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7/7/14

Washington's inaugural legal cannabis expected to smoke supplies

This blog lobbied the Minnehaha County Dems about legal cannabis in Deadwood and decriminalization for the rest of the state of South Dakota.
The Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) today issued the state’s first 24 marijuana retailer licenses. The 24 applicants were notified via email early this morning that they were approved for a retail license. Once approved for a license, producers and/or processors are able to file a required manifest for transporting to retail locations. Following a 24 hour quarantine period, they may begin transporting products to retail stores. Marijuana retailers may begin selling marijuana at their discretion following receipt of product and entering it in to the traceability system. [Seattle PI's The Pot Blog]
According to NPR:
The store openings are expected to be accompanied by high prices, shortages and celebration.
Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson recently joined a cannabis firm and sent stock in Cannabis Sativa Inc. soaring.
A Nevada-based startup that plans to sell medical and recreational marijuana products named former New Mexico governor and U.S. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as its CEO and president, the company announced Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped to expand Cannabis Sativa into a major marijuana business and intends to work out of New Mexico to help develop products that are legal in states like Colorado and Washington. [Russell Contreras, Santa Fe New Mexican]
Why not, Deadwood?

You can read Lee Fang's piece in The Nation on the anti-cannabis lobby linked here.





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7/5/14

Western Watersheds: public lands ranching hurts communities

Update, 2200 MDT:
U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials say they agree with a Nevada sheriff's position that rancher Cliven Bundy must be held accountable for his role in an April standoff between his supporters and the federal agency. Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Bundy crossed the line when he allowed states' rights supporters, including self-proclaimed militia members, onto his property to aim guns at police. [Martin Griffith, AP]
Update, 5 July, 0630 MDT: South Dakota earth hater legislator Betty Olson is defending a Hutterite colony caught in a wetlands dispute with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Story by John Hult in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader linked here.
Public lands ranching is the most widespread commercial use of public lands in the United States. Ranching is one of the primary causes of native species endangerment in the American West; it is also the most significant cause of non-point source water pollution and desertification. Hobby ranchers and corporate-entities hold the lion’s share of grazing permits on hundreds of millions of acres of public lands. Most of the rest of public land ranchers rely on service jobs in small towns as their primary source of income. Rural communities support public land ranchers not the other way around. BLM and Forest Service staff and conservationists continue to be subjected to psychological and physical intimidation in the field. [Western Watersheds Project]

Cowspiracy Official Trailer from First Spark Media on Vimeo.

A mycological survey of once-prolific bolete habitat on Minnesota Ridge in the Black Hills revealed that most of the land is either covered by standing dead pine or it's been logged into the dirt.

In the last several decades domestic cattle have spread antibiotic-laced manure throughout the area killing the fungi that break down organic material and strengthen the trees' resistance to bark beetles in mixed pine/aspen forests. Perhaps needless to say, no mushrooms were to be had.

The good news? Aspen is coming in everywhere and water is either running or standing throughout the central and northern Hills. Spring Creek, south of Rapid City is running at bank full; and, more rain is on the way.

As the Department of Interior identifies several states where bison can be reintroduced to historic ranges, some cattle producers in South Dakota are resisting overtures from tribes and the US Park Service to begin rewilding portions of the state.
Ranchers who rely on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Oglala Sioux Tribe grazing permits were recently notified that their leases will expire in October 2015. The plan would reintroduce buffalo into the South Unit by carving the Stronghold Buffalo Grazing Unit out of private land and leased lands within the South Unit of Badlands National Park. It was approved in June by the tribal council. The tribe is currently working with the National Park Service to create the nation's first tribal national park that would encompass the 133,000-acre South Unit. The plan includes the return of bison to the park and the end of cattle grazing. "The National Park Service and the tribe are working to resolve issues that will result in legislation that could be introduced," Perry Plumart, Sen. Tim Johnson's press secretary, told the Journal on Wednesday. Plumart said the senator is impressed by their cooperation. [Andrea Cook, Rapid City Journal]


Cattle shitting in a sensitive watershed on the BHNF: note bug kill. Antimicrobials in manure kill fungal communities necessary for healthy forests.

There are eight grazing allotments on the Northern Hills district that can no longer support livestock.
There are four federal land management groups that allow grazing: the National Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the National Park Service. Tom Smith, range staff officer for the Northern Hills Ranger District of the Black Hills National Forest said there are 36 allotments in his district, eight of which are vacant. The allotments add up to 304,387 total acres and each allotment ranges from 1,223-20,479 acres in size. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has 504 grazing allotments in Western South Dakota said Carmen Drieling, the group’s rangeland management specialist. “It’s a rate based on a formula that we have nothing to do with,” Smith said. “Congress set up the formula during the Regan [sic] administration and has done nothing to change it.” Currently that rate is $1.35 per grazing pair, per month. “It’s ridiculously cheap,” he said. “If you were to lease private land to do the same thing, you’re looking at $30. $20 would be cheap.” [Mark Watson, Black Hills Pioneer]
Betty Olson is an earth hater state legislator defending the Bundyists in Nevada. Writing in the Black Hills Pioneer she says:
The federal government shouldn’t be allowed to own any land within a state’s boundaries unless it is granted permission by the legislature of that state, and so far, no state has given that permission to the federal government.
President Obama, it's time to rewild the West: tear out the main stem dams, extend the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge to Oacoma, South Dakota along the Missouri River and to Yellowstone then to the Yukon.

It’s time for cougars to enjoy Endangered Species protection and for you, Mr. President, to dissolve the Black Hills National Forest; and, in cooperation with BIA Forestry and Wildfire Management and the US Park Service, rename it Okawita Paha National Monument then make it part of the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
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7/3/14

Krebs Deep Throat for Noem Tryst Post

Anyone believing Shantel Krebs is an innocent bystander is an idiot. She is the source for this 2010 post about Kristi Noem's extramarital love life. Krebs and this blog had a twenty minute phone conversation the day before the post went up. In a phone interview with interested party, Steve Cutler would not go on the record about being a witness to intimacy between Noem and Jim Meidinger.

It's common knowledge that Krebs, Joni Cutler and other South Dakota legislators loathe Noem.

Shantel was giddy about spilling her guts during our phone conversation and provided me with eyewitnesses to the affair that nobody wanted to go on the record about. What really stuck in Krebs' craw was that KELO teevee buried the story replete with first person accounts of public intimate contact between Noem and her paramour.

Krebs supported Chris Nelson, hated Noem and gleefully gave me names of people to call who also hated Noem which I did.

She told me because I promised to protect her secret and I would have had Pat Powers not attacked Angelia Schultz.

Until Shantel admits her phone conversation with me and/or the tipster comes forward this is all on me and from the viral traffic at ip about this, my credibility is obviously more feared than doubted.

Democrats=safe sex. Republicans=cheap sex.
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7/2/14

Former NM governor named to cannabis post

A Nevada-based startup that plans to sell medical and recreational marijuana products named former New Mexico governor and U.S. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as its CEO and president, the company announced Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped to expand Cannabis Sativa into a major marijuana business and intends to work out of New Mexico to help develop products that are legal in states like Colorado and Washington. [Russell Contreras, Santa Fe New Mexican]
In a Politico interview about the Veep rumors swirling around current NM Gov. Susana Martinez:
"This is a Sarah Palin-esque kind of choice. She’s served as governor of New Mexico for about the same amount of time,” Johnson said. “I think there were lessons learned [from 2008.]"
He tweeted: "And the Feds are cracking down on #MMJ? Sheer idiocy."

USA Today:
The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
Deaths from cannabis overdose? nearly zero. Deaths from the "War on Drugs?"

Pfizer is one interested party in the outcome of the SCOTUS review of ACA. From Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News:
On March 13, 2012, though, the Arthritis Advisory Committee to the FDA unanimously concluded that the potential benefits of anti-NGF drugs outweighed the risks associated with their use. They voted 21 to 0 to allow Pfizer and other developers to resume testing, despite cases of joint destruction and osteonecrosis associated with their use.
WTF?
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