SDSU Student Association supports gender neutral bathrooms

At its March 28 meeting student senators at South Dakota State University addressed issues regarding facilities to make the campus more inclusive.

Resolution 15-22-R: Students’ Association Support of Continued Efforts to Foster an Environment of Inclusion through Campus Facilities also calls for an updated map of the restrooms on campus. In the Open Forum portion of the meeting, Chris Hartzler, a transgender student and executive member of the Gay Straight Alliance, gave a presentation to senators informing them about what transgender and non-binary are, as well as what it’s like being a transgender person. [SDSU Collegian]

Obese Republican Student Association President Caleb Finck has announced a run for the state legislature.

The University of South Dakota offers gender-neutral student housing.

Under Republican Governor Dennis Daugaard increasing rates of measles, sexually-transmitted infections, cancer and violent crimes have ravaged parts of South Dakota.

Under boycott pressure Daugaard vetoed a Republican-sponsored bill that would have discriminated against LGBTQ students.

The author of The Dakota Progressive is an alumnus of SDSU.

In 1974 ('75?), if a smoky memory serves, then-Attorney General Bill Janklow, cigarette in hand, gave a speech to a standing room-only crowd in the Volstorff Ballroom at SDSU. He was heckled throughout the address hosted by the Vets' Club.

A brash, wild-eyed sophomore (yep, me) piped up and questioned how the State of South Dakota could persecute marijuana smokers while turning a blind eye to service clubs like the VFW, Knights of Columbus, and American Legion that were running illegal games of chance with impunity. My query received rapturous applause from those in attendance. Mr. Janklow shouted over the din, "mail me their names," and then was booed off the stage.

Smoking in Rotunda D, the Student Union and anywhere else in 1976 was common-place.

On #TDOV & all days we stand w/ trans people & for #transrights. We need #morethanvisibility - we need action. pic.twitter.com/WknPY4CEQR

— ACLU National (@ACLU) March 31, 2016

Injunction lifted for industrial cannabis on South Dakota reservation

For the record, I do not support widespread growing of hemp, especially on tribal lands: it is an invasive species capable of overgrowing native grasses.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken of South Dakota said there has been a "shifting legal landscape" since the 2004 order was filed against Alex White Plume, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. That includes a change in hemp laws in the 2014 farm bill and legalization of marijuana in some states. The order does not resolve the ongoing question of whether cultivation of hemp on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in southwestern South Dakota, should be legal. [Associated Press]

Hemp is a perennial and easily migrates into adjacent lands. Why anyone would want to buy genetically engineered seed from Monsanto or some other earth hater every year remains a mystery.

But there's a big problem: This green rush is, by and large, disproportionately shutting out black Americans as a result of racial disparities in the war on drugs, leaving many unable to participate in the legal pot market, from growing to selling. In other words, systemic racism and racially disparate policies, such as the war on drugs, have had such a grave impact on black communities that even attempts to reverse those policies have left black people behind. [excerpt, Vox]

In South Dakota, American Indians are disproportionately profiled and imprisoned leaving them unable to participate in the budding industry even as the Flandreau Santee Sioux and Oglala Lakota Nations plan their cannabis futures.

Heroin and meth use is spiking in South Dakota no doubt fueled by America's most dangerous gateway drug, commercial teevee.

Former Butte County State's Attorney Heather Plunkett received a suspended jail sentence, has to undergo periodic substance evaluations, will be on probation for a year and was ordered to pay $861 in fees and fines for exercising her cannabis rights in defiance of South Dakota law. She remains on the state payroll.

Plunkett previously pled guilty to one count of possession of cannabis less than 2 ounces, possession of paraphernalia and ingesting a substance other than alcohol. Her husband Ryan pled guilty to possession of cannabis and received a suspended jail sentence.

Shrouded in subterfuge their arrests are believed to be politically motivated. She was served a warrant and arrested by the state Division of Criminal Investigation, no less, for under two ounces and a couple of pipes.

Attorney General Marty Jackley owns property in Vale, not far from Newell where sovereign citizen Wendall Hiland, a candidate for governor accused of wrongdoing in a child abuse case Plunkett was investigating, lives.

Plunkett, a Republican who serves as county vice-chair elected by the central committee of Butte County GOP per the bylaws, was appointed State's Attorney in 2010 by outgoing Governor Mike Rounds.

Plunkett is the daughter of Mike Messmer, a principal in Meade County Republican politics. The connection with Rod Woodruff and the Buffalo Chip remains a mystery.

Using a conservative estimate the number of problem drinkers in the legal profession is more than double that of the general population.

Butte County is a hotbed of anti-government foment stirred into action by Cliven Bundy sympathizer state Senator Betty Olson. A pipe bomb was found on a highway east of Belle Fourche in 2012.

If anyone has additional information about this case and wishes to remain anonymous please contact lawrence dot kurtz at yahoo dot com.

By a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court of the United States has decided not to hear a case brought by Republican attorneys general in Oklahoma and Nebraska about Colorado's sovereignty to legalize cannabis.

Legal gurus closely following state-level marijuana reforms have been also closely following the lawsuit brought directly to the Supreme Court way back in December 2014 by Nebraska and Oklahoma complaining about how Colorado reformed its state marijuana laws. Today, via this order list, the Supreme Court finally officially denied the "motion for leave to file a bill of complaint" by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado. This is huge news for state marijuana reform efforts, but not really all that surprising.

Read it here.

Resolution in this case opens the door for American Indian nations trapped in red states like South Dakota to resume grow/ops for casual enjoyment by adults.

Let’s ensure that cannabis cultivation and distribution stay out of the hands of Big Dope. It’s time to enter compacts with the tribes, let them distribute on the rez, on off-reservation properties and in Deadwood.

Injunction lifted prohibiting Alex White Plume from growing hemp! Congrats @robinskaplan @TQPurdon https://t.co/b9f93CrUea via @washtimes

— Brendan Johnson (@Brendan_SD) March 29, 2016

Injunction lifted for industrial cannabis on South Dakota reservation

For the record, I do not support widespread growing of hemp, especially on tribal lands: it is an invasive species capable of overgrowing native grasses.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Viken of South Dakota said there has been a "shifting legal landscape" since the 2004 order was filed against Alex White Plume, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. That includes a change in hemp laws in the 2014 farm bill and legalization of marijuana in some states. The order does not resolve the ongoing question of whether cultivation of hemp on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in southwestern South Dakota, should be legal. [Associated Press]

Feral hemp is a perennial and easily migrates into adjacent lands. Why anyone would want to buy genetically engineered seed from Monsanto or some other earth hater every year remains a mystery.

By a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court of the United States has decided not to hear a case brought by Republican attorneys general in Oklahoma and Nebraska about Colorado's sovereignty to legalize cannabis.

Legal gurus closely following state-level marijuana reforms have been also closely following the lawsuit brought directly to the Supreme Court way back in December 2014 by Nebraska and Oklahoma complaining about how Colorado reformed its state marijuana laws. Today, via this order list, the Supreme Court finally officially denied the "motion for leave to file a bill of complaint" by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado. This is huge news for state marijuana reform efforts, but not really all that surprising.

Read it here.

Resolution in this case opens the door for American Indian nations trapped in red states like South Dakota to resume grow/ops for casual enjoyment by adults.

Let’s ensure that cannabis cultivation and distribution stay out of the hands of Big Dope. It’s time to enter compacts with the tribes, let them distribute on the rez, on off-reservation properties and in Deadwood.

Injunction lifted prohibiting Alex White Plume from growing hemp! Congrats @robinskaplan @TQPurdon https://t.co/b9f93CrUea via @washtimes

— Brendan Johnson (@Brendan_SD) March 29, 2016

Adams launches a real free press

South Dakota's so-called Free Press is neither free nor a real press. It's a rag for the dying South Dakota Democratic Party. But Montana's John S. Adams is a real journalist and is driving for real truth.

An accomplished political reporter, Adams had recently left the Great Falls Tribune amid a much-publicized Gannett restructuring. A couple of Montana’s top political journalists had just been let go by another chain when we spoke, creating a hole in the state’s media ecosystem. At the time, Adams was underemployed and eager to get back to work. But he wasn’t ready to be a media entrepreneur. They’ve just started raising money, about $5,000 in the first few weeks. But since January, Adams has placed MTFP stories in more than a dozen outlets, including the state’s major newspapers. He hopes to obtain significant grant support over the first year, and eventually to develop a broad, sustainable mix of small and large donors. [Columbia Journalism Review]

Montana Free Press is covering the corruption trial of Republican Bozeman legislator, Art Wittich.

Last year Lee Newspapers of Montana eviscerated their Capital bureau. Mike Dennison went to a Montana teevee station. Former Lee reporter, Martin Kidston recently launched the Missoula Current.

Gifted journalist, Emily Saunders, who covered Idaho politics left Boise Public Radio to work for Montana's Office of Public Instruction as communications liaison.

Tony Mangan left radio journalism in Pierre to work for South Dakota's Department of 'Public Safety' as its public voice.

Ben Dunsmoor covered Pierre during the legislative session: he left KELO teevee for public relations.

That pretty much leaves Bob Mercer to write the gloomy news from South Dakota's capital city.

If Texas leads with over fifty journalists covering Austin and South Dakota's number covering Pierre approaches zero the Reichstag has already purged the truth.

Montana is the water tower for parts of two countries, essential to reintroducing bison, and is critical habitat in efforts to rewild the western Missouri River basin. Following policy and politics there is a necessary part of understanding the Eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains.

Little Missouri watershed at risk to Australian uranium mine

Imagine pulling a clan up the Little Missouri River in dugout canoes 12,000 years ago.

At least 23 prehistoric sites near Devils Tower National Monument, some of which are archaeological sites eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, are at risk to a proposed 8000-acre expansion of Australia’s largest U.S. aquifer uranium mining operation.

Researchers noted that the Little Missouri River, traditionally called Wakpa Chan Shoka and Hehaka Ta Wakpa (River of the Elk) by Native Americans, originates within the project area. It is designated as a wild and scenic river in North Dakota where it crosses through Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Little Missouri National Grasslands. A very large prehistoric camp site is situated on a high terrace from which Mato Tipila is visible to the east. [Native Sun News]

With the Oglala Lakota Nation as an interested party Chief Arvol Looking Horse has submitted a request to the U.S. Board on Geographic Names saying the words “Devils Tower” are a malapropism.

The tower, part of the Black Hills Land Claim, is a remnant of an intrusive laccolith and has been called Mahto Tipila or Bear Lodge for centuries by the Lakota.

Sen. Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, has a family ranch at the base of the tower. “If they want to find something offensive, they ought to look at Custer, South Dakota,” he said. “Custer obviously had a problem with the Sioux, and I’ve heard nothing about renaming of Custer, South Dakota.” [Laura Hancock]

Exploiting the gap between the Cordilleran and Laurentide ice sheets during the Wisconsin Glacial Episode the Clovis People were the first humans to see the Missouri Buttes and Mato Tipila. They settled Paradise only to have their descendants watch it be destroyed by colonizers like Ogden Driskill and his ancestors.

The ancestors of all American Indians living east of the Rocky Mountains saw that peak when the Clovis Culture crossed into the Cheyenne/Belle Fourche drainage then into the Missouri/Mississippi River system. Lakota is an Algonquin-based tongue and is spoken by a majority of South Dakota’s tribal nations. After migrating into present-day North Carolina and forced westward by manifest destiny then acquiring horses from Spanish exploiters the Lakota reclaimed the Black Hills.

The divide between the Little Missouri and the Belle Fourche drainages is not very wide: less than a mile just west of the Missouri Buttes.

In January, the US Forest Service suspended the Draft Environmental Impact Study for a Wyoming Black Hills mountaintop-removal mine for rare earth minerals in the Belle Fourche watershed.

Australian miners abandoned a mountaintop-removal gold mine in the Black Hills leaving a Superfund site in its place.

In the occupied Black Hills of South Dakota descendants of European colonizers are apoplectic over the proposal to restore the state's highest point to its Lakota name, Hinhan Kaga or A Making of Owls.

Senator Lisa Murkowski and the US Park Service are doing what Alaskans are asking of Congress urging the body to approve a name change for North America's highest peak.

The Athabascan name, meaning “the high one,” has been a bone of contention between Alaska’s congressional delegation and Ohio’s, which has sought to preserve the current name honoring assassinated U.S. president William McKinley. “At home in Alaska, we just call it Denali because it’s part of our history,” Murkowski said, according to the statement. “Officially changing the name from Mount McKinley to Mount Denali will show the long-standing significance that the name Denali holds for Alaskans.” [KTUU teevee]

Restoring the dignity of endangered cultures is one tiny part of eliminating suicides and despair in South Dakota and Wyoming.

Corridors over public and private land to the Fork Peck, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne nations then into Wyoming's Thunder Basin National Grassland (where this proposed mining expansion is located) beyond to North and South Dakota would help create the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.

ip photo: Missouri Buttes and Devils Tower at sunset. Click on the image for a better look.

Northeast Wyoming and @DevilsTowerNM. Video created from merged panorama of photos during my previous flight.https://t.co/5qohCnRq27

— Jeff Williams (@Astro_Jeff) March 10, 2016

EAFB poisoning Cheyenne River watershed

General aviation is being disrupted by expanded practice-bombing in parts of Montana, Wyoming, North and South Dakota now the US Environmental Protection Agency is saying Ellsworth Air Force Base is likely polluting both Box Elder Creek and the Elk Creek drainages. Both are tributaries of the Cheyenne River.

At issue is the foam used in training military firefighters to fight fuel-based fires. The EPA believes two forms of perfluorinated compounds (PFOS and PFOA) that are part of the foam may pollute the water. [KOTA teevee]

Ellsworth is already a Superfund site.

The most recent review concluded that groundwater remedies are in place and operating, and that they protect human health and the environment because contaminated groundwater is contained at the base boundary, high concentration source areas have been identified and are being treated, and land use controls and alternate water supplies prevent groundwater use. [EPA]

FE Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming is another installation with pollution concerns. Airmen from that base dropped a nuclear-tipped missile in NE Colorado after fun with cocaine.

As if it isn't bad enough that Senator John Thune is a tool of the military/industrial complex where Ellsworth Air Force Base aids and abets pilots who kill children and practice-bombs parts of four states he wants to bring a doomed fighter to Sioux Falls.

Nearly a century of residue from Black Hills Mining District affected millions of cubic yards of riparian habitat all the way to the Gulf of Mexico until the Oahe Dam was completed in 1962. The soils of the Belle Fourche and Cheyenne Rivers are inculcated with arsenic at levels that have killed cattle. Catfish and most other organisms cope with lethal levels of mercury.

In related news, the Little Missouri watershed at risk to an Australian uranium mine in Wyoming's Thunder Basin National Grassland.

Rapid City sez: fuck you, Mr. President; but, thanks for the dough.

Law enforcement corruption part of just another day in Pierre

South Dakota's Division of Criminal Investigation has revealed multiple unlawful practices and questionable activity throughout the Flandreau Police Department.

The reports outline an investigation that began with missing drug money, but that one case led to an investigation of the entire department. Stephan Nelson was the only officer ever prosecuted for stealing, others within the department found to be taking items from evidence for personal use. The investigation also revealed a practice of ‘sneak peeks,’ where officers went looking for evidence on property they didn’t legally have access to. [Moody County Enterprise]

South Dakota would rather spend money on bad cops than on good teachers.

But Flandreau officers routinely drank beer and alcohol they confiscated. A Wii video game console seized during a theft investigation was hooked up in the police station where officers used it to play video games and watch movies during work shifts. Eventually one of them took it home. Several firearms were also taken by officers. Under questioning by DCI agents, some of the officers claimed they used a couple of .22-caliber pistols from the evidence room to shoot stray animals. [Jonathan Ellis]

Cops' lives suck. Little wonder cops abuse their families, alcohol, drugs, food, power, detainees and even occasionally murder their wives.

Policing for Profit through asset forfeiture bolsters the law enforcement/corrections industry. Get a load of the list of law enforcement agencies in South Dakota.

Since 2003, about $100 million in homeland security grants were given to South Dakota agencies and entities, making The Rushmore State sixth in the nation in homeland security spending on a per-capita basis. The South Dakota Office of Homeland Security, which has a staff of two, administers the millions of dollars in grant money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to state government and local agencies across the state [Rapid City Journal]

As hypocrisy reigns supreme at the highest levels of power in South Dakota residents endure Policing for Profit and civil forfeiture so the sitting governor can crow about his leadership and self-reliance while moral hazards pay the bills.

Attorney General Marty Jackley is not only a partisan twerp he's as dirty as the police forces he oversees. Jackley says he believes conflict of interest laws are too lax yet he is hoarding information on Bendagate that could put his political party in the legal cross hairs. He's struggling to raise enough campaign cash to run for governor.

On Monday's 100 Eyes, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader's flagship interactive web broadcast, a question was asked about the South Dakota attorney general's purported frustration with the state's lack of ethics oversight. Journalist Jonathan Ellis called Jackley's hypocrisy "definitely a moral hazard."

The panel also said that the Flandreau Santee Sioux Nation is preparing to resurrect its cannabis grow operation despite Jackley's saber-rattling and unfolding corruption within the Flandreau Police Department. Recall that FSST withdrew from a partnership with FPD.

It's been reported that Jackley is considering a run for governor in 2018...that is, unless the US Department of Justice doesn't indict him for conflicts of interest and for covering up crimes committed with his blessings.

In last Monday's episode Ellis called for an investigation of South Dakota's Essential Air Service subsidy. Huron's subsidy has recently been exposed as another bridge to nowhere and Brookings is likely to be next.

Another Republican threatening to run for governor is sleaze ball, Mark Mickelson. He appeared on a Sioux Falls Argus Leader interactive webcast Tuesday. Mickelson, a pale shadow of his father, the late Governor George Mickelson, said prosperity is more important than environmental protection and that Medicaid expansion for the state's least fortunate is inconsistent with South Dakota values. Mickelson has rejected any strengthening of South Dakota's ethics laws.

In a past broadcast the panel conceded that the ethics-free South Dakota's Lottery Commission, stacked with SDGOP crony capitalists like Rapid City shyster, Doyle Estes and Deadwood Mayor Chuck Turbiville mulling another run for the legislature, is also a moral hazard.

If Democratic US Senate candidate Jay Williams was really serious about holding South Dakota accountable for federal pork and its corrupting influence in the state he should start with the law enforcement/corrections industry.

Mother seeks federal probe into son's death https://t.co/dyTht6hUBV via @argusleader

— Jonathan Ellis (@argusjellis) March 22, 2016

Gonzalez: settlement of Black Hills Claim a 'sacred obligation'

It’s been 36 years since attorney Mario Gonzalez filed the federal court case stopping payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Lakota Nation. He recently spoke with Rapid City-based Native Sun News.

President Richard Nixon in his July 8, 1970 message to Congress supported the return of federally held lands in the Kit Carson National Forest in New Mexico to the Taos Indians. Congress subsequently returned 50,000 acres to the Taos Indians. There is no reason why federally held lands in the Black Hills cannot likewise be returned to the Sioux tribes. In May, 2008, the Obama Campaign issued a policy statement that the Sioux tribes should not be forced to accept the $102 million Black Hills award, and that President Obama supported government-to-government collaborative talks between the parties to explore innovative solutions to resolve the Black Hills Claim. There will eventually be a bill drafted by the BIA that is introduced in Congress to distribute the Black Hills Claim money if the Sioux tribes fail to act. It’s a sacred obligation. [excerpt, Gonzalez]

Gonzales contends that the commission charged to make peace with tribes inserted language into the document signed in 1868 that Red Cloud had neither seen nor agreed to in negotiations.

A federal appeals court has revived an effort by a Native American community in northern New Mexico to reclaim the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Jemez Pueblo considers the nearly 140-square-mile swath of federally-managed public land as a spiritual sanctuary and part of its traditional homeland. The ruling comes as the National Park Service works to take over management of the preserve under legislation approved last December. While the agency hasn’t commented on the litigation, it says it has a good relationship with the pueblo. [Albuquerque Journal]

Ernestine Chasing Hawk sent this story to the Missoula-based Buffalo Post:

In 2008, during a campaign stop in Sioux Falls then Sen. Barak [sic] Obama gave Great Plains Indian tribes a ray of hope on the outcome of the century’s long legal battle over “theft of 48 million acres of their homeland.” However one of the key elements to resolving the issue is “bringing together all the different parties” and with each passing day their “window of opportunity” shrinks as time ticks away for the Obama-Biden administration.

Ms. Chasing Hawk goes on to say:

The 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty gave the Sioux 60 million acres of land west of the Missouri. Gonzalez points out that the Sioux were never militarily defeated by the U.S. and would never have signed the 1868 Treaty had they thought they were ceding any land to the U.S. Arriving at Fort Laramie via Cheyenne in November, the Commission under General W. T. Sherman was dismayed to find no Sioux to parley with as planned. Red Cloud refused to come in until the garrisons at Forts Reno, Phil Kearny and C. F. Smith were withdrawn. The Commission acceded and in March, 1868 the President ordered their abandonment.

The legal battle over what has been referred to as Docket 74-A which began in 1922 is based on the argument that the Sioux never gave up any land and that the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty was treaty of peace, not a treaty of cession. In 1980 Supreme Court said the Sioux were entitled to a mere $40 million dollars (Docket 74-A) for the “ceded land’ and na-cu (using a Lakota lexicon, na is and, cu is dew) the government wanted money back for the rations and other annuities they gave the Sioux in the 1800’s. This government action attests to the origin of the cliché, “Indian givers.” In 1980, the Supreme Court also awarded the tribe $106 million dollars (Docket 74-B) on the ground the U.S. had taken the Black Hills and paid no just compensation in violation of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment. As a result, the tribe realized almost none of the vast mineral wealth yielded by their stolen land.

One paragraph really caught my eye:

And according to Edward Lazarus during his last days in office, Democratic “Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle did a neat little favor for one of his corporate constituents. As a rider to the defense appropriation bill, he attached a provision granting absolute immunity to the Barrick Gold Company of Toronto for any liability arising from the 125-year operation of its Homestake Mine, a gold-bearing gash in the Black Hills of South Dakota.”

Pe'Sla has been put into trust.

Of course, the South Dakota Democratic Party should urge President Obama to dissolve the Black Hills National Forest, move management of the land from the US Department of Agriculture into the Department of Interior; and, in cooperation with Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Forestry and Wildfire Management, rename it Okawita Paha National Monument eventually becoming part of the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge. Mato Paha (Bear Butte), the associated national grasslands and the Sioux Ranger District of the Custer/Gallatin National Forest should be included in the move.

Daugaard appoints Future Fund recipient, campaign donor to BOR

The Future Fund was established in 1987 by then-Governor George S. Mickelson. The only restraint says the money “shall be used for purposes related to research and economic development for the state.”

Pam Roberts gave a thousand simoleons to Dennis Daugaard during the 2014 election cycle so in turn she got cash from the Future Fund and now has been been appointed to the scandal-plagued Board of Regents.

Roberts currently is chairwoman of the South Dakota Republican Party. She retired as state secretary of labor in the Daugaard cabinet two years ago. Among her previous roles in state government, she was chief of operations for then-Gov. Bill Janklow. She also served in Cabinet-level posts for the Mickelson, Walter Dale Miller and Rounds administrations. [Mitchell Daily Republic]

Gov. Daugaard gave out $26.5 million in Future Fund grants just during his first three years in office.

In 2013 Daugaard appointed disgraced former US Attorney Kevin Schieffer to the board. In a fit of partisan government overreach Schieffer upended local control by seizing a T-Rex fossil in 1992 from the Black Hills Institute of Geology.

Governors Janklow, Mickelson and Miller are dead as are Patrick Duffy, Richard Benda and the Westerhuis family.

On advice of counsel Mike Rounds won't release the names of his Future Fund cronies because he's shielded by South Dakota's lack of ethics oversight.

Kinda makes me wanna puke.

Noem's caucus pushing Bundy-driven anti-government legislation

One of the hate-filled white supremacist commenters at South Dakota's Drunkards Without Cannabis blog is railing against the Black Lives Matter movement but where are Republicans on the other BLM: the Bureau of Land Management?

With dozens of anti-government extremists facing criminal charges over their roles in the two high-profile Bundy showdowns over public lands, Republicans in Congress have rolled out proposed legislation that would diminish the authority of federal agencies to enforce federal public lands law. The bill, the Local Enforcement for Local Lands Act of 2016, was introduced last week by Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) along with the rest of Utah's Republican delegation: Reps. Mia Love, Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart. It would strip officials in the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) of their authority to enforce laws regulating federal land. Rather, local and state authorities would be provided with a block grant to enforce the laws instead. Even before the tensions between local activists and federal officials erupted into headline-making showdowns, BLM workers have been the target of harassment by anti-government extremists, according to criminal complaints and outside reports. [After Bundy Clashes, House GOPers Push Bill To Kneecap Feds On Public Lands]

There is a straight line from Kristi Noem's American Legislative Exchange Council brainwashing to the American Lands Council: both are Koch-driven special interest groups seeking to open federal lands to private development bypassing environmental protections.

Noem's former colleague in the South Dakota Legislature, state Senator Betty Olson, has repeatedly sworn allegiance to the domestic terrorists led by Cliven Bundy and Noem herself has yet to condemn their seditious conspiracy but she certainly supports federal welfare for ranchers.

@Easy1_76 The infighting, booze, drugs, and near-violence that took place behind the scenes in the militia camp at Bundy Ranch was stunning.

— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) March 17, 2016

Dirty cops running roughshod over Flandreau

If US Senate candidate Jay Williams was really serious about holding South Dakota accountable for federal pork and its corrupting influence in the state he should start with the law enforcement/corrections industry.

South Dakota's Division of Criminal Investigation has revealed multiple unlawful practices and questionable activity throughout the Flandreau Police Department.

The reports outline an investigation that began with missing drug money, but that one case led to an investigation of the entire department. Stephan Nelson was the only officer ever prosecuted for stealing, others within the department found to be taking items from evidence for personal use. The investigation also revealed a practice of ‘sneak peeks,’ where officers went looking for evidence on property they didn’t legally have access to. [Moody County Enterprise]

South Dakota would rather spend money on bad cops than on good teachers.

But Flandreau officers routinely drank beer and alcohol they confiscated. A Wii video game console seized during a theft investigation was hooked up in the police station where officers used it to play video games and watch movies during work shifts. Eventually one of them took it home. Several firearms were also taken by officers. Under questioning by DCI agents, some of the officers claimed they used a couple of .22-caliber pistols from the evidence room to shoot stray animals. [Jonathan Ellis]

Policing for Profit through asset forfeiture bolsters the law enforcement/corrections industry. Get a load of the list of law enforcement agencies in South Dakota.

Since 2003, about $100 million in homeland security grants were given to South Dakota agencies and entities, making The Rushmore State sixth in the nation in homeland security spending on a per-capita basis. The South Dakota Office of Homeland Security, which has a staff of two, administers the millions of dollars in grant money from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to state government and local agencies across the state [Rapid City Journal]

As hypocrisy reigns supreme at the highest levels of power in South Dakota residents endure Policing for Profit and civil forfeiture so the sitting governor can crow about his leadership and self-reliance while moral hazards pay the bills.

Attorney General Marty Jackley is not only a partisan twerp he's as dirty as the police forces he oversees. Jackley says he believes conflict of interest laws are too lax yet he is hoarding information on Bendagate that could put his political party in the legal cross hairs. He's struggling to raise enough campaign cash to run for governor.

Another Republican threatening to run for governor is sleaze ball, Mark Mickelson. He appeared on a Sioux Falls Argus Leader interactive webcast Tuesday. Mickelson, a pale shadow of his father, the late Governor George Mickelson, said prosperity is more important than environmental protection and that Medicaid expansion for the state's least fortunate is inconsistent with South Dakota values.

Cops' lives suck. Little wonder cops abuse their families, alcohol, drugs, food, power, detainees and even occasionally murder their wives.

Ellis: Jackley's hypocrisy on conflict of interest is "definitely a moral hazard"

Melody Schopp plays Skyler White in Pierre's version of Breaking Bad.

On Monday's 100 Eyes, the Sioux Falls Argus Leader's flagship interactive web broadcast, a question was asked about the South Dakota attorney general's purported frustration with the state's lack of ethics oversight. Marty Jackley says he believes conflict of interest laws are too lax yet he is hoarding information on Bendagate that could put his political party in the legal cross hairs.

Journalist Jonathan Ellis called Jackley's hypocrisy "definitely a moral hazard."

The panel also said that the Flandreau Santee Sioux Nation is preparing to resurrect its cannabis grow operation despite Jackley's saber-rattling and unfolding corruption within the Flandreau Police Department. Recall that FSST withdrew from a partnership with FPD.

It's been reported that Jackley is considering a run for governor in 2018...that is, unless the US Department of Justice doesn't indict him for conflicts of interest and for covering up crimes committed with his blessings.

Another Republican gubernatorial hopeful, state Representative Mark Mickelson, has rejected any strengthening of South Dakota's ethics laws.

In a past broadcast the panel conceded that the ethics-free South Dakota's Lottery Commission, stacked with SDGOP crony capitalists like Rapid City shyster, Doyle Estes and Deadwood Mayor Chuck Turbiville mulling another run for the legislature, is also a moral hazard.

In last Monday's episode Ellis called for an investigation of South Dakota's Essential Air Service subsidy. Huron's subsidy has recently been exposed as another bridge to nowhere and Brookings is likely to be next.

Watch the telecast here.

Mother seeks federal probe into son's death https://t.co/dyTht6hUBV via @argusleader

— Jonathan Ellis (@argusjellis) March 22, 2016

SCOTUS drops red state cannabis case

Here is one more reason why Democrats need to control the federal bench.

By a 6-2 vote the Supreme Court of the United States has decided not to hear a case brought by Republican attorneys general in Oklahoma and Nebraska about Colorado's sovereignty to legalize cannabis.

Legal gurus closely following state-level marijuana reforms have been also closely following the lawsuit brought directly to the Supreme Court way back in December 2014 by Nebraska and Oklahoma complaining about how Colorado reformed its state marijuana laws. Today, via this order list, the Supreme Court finally officially denied the "motion for leave to file a bill of complaint" by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado. This is huge news for state marijuana reform efforts, but not really all that surprising.

Read it here.

Resolution in this case opens the door for American Indian nations trapped in red states like South Dakota to resume grow/ops.

Travel with Rick Steves airs on Bill Janklow's idea of public radio on Sunday mornings. He lives in Edmonds, Washington.

After four years of legalization, I look out my window here and marijuana's legal and it looks just like it did before it was legal. It just means we arrest 8,000 people fewer a year, it means money is being taken away from organized crime and our government is enjoying tens of millions of dollars of tax revenue that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And mature adults have the civil liberty of going home and smoking a little pot if they want to. I mean, I've got my bong right out on my shelf at home, and it's just great to have it there right next to the wine glasses. [PBS Host Rick Steves Discusses His First Trip, Breaking Marijuana Stereotypes And Being An Advocate]

Cannabis is a safe, effective palliative.

Colorado sold $88 million of cannabis in Jan. 2016; Retail sales were up 55% from last year. https://t.co/sxurFjW5fR pic.twitter.com/Qj5vc5p8y5

— Ricardo Baca (@bruvs) March 20, 2016

SCOTUS drops red state cannabis case

By a 6-2 decision the Supreme Court of the United States has decided not to hear a case brought by Republican attorneys general in Oklahoma and Nebraska about Colorado's sovereignty to legalize cannabis.

Legal gurus closely following state-level marijuana reforms have been also closely following the lawsuit brought directly to the Supreme Court way back in December 2014 by Nebraska and Oklahoma complaining about how Colorado reformed its state marijuana laws. Today, via this order list, the Supreme Court finally officially denied the "motion for leave to file a bill of complaint" by Nebraska and Oklahoma against Colorado. This is huge news for state marijuana reform efforts, but not really all that surprising.

Read it here.

Resolution in this case opens the door for American Indian nations trapped in red states like South Dakota to resume grow/ops.

Pat Powers is right; SDDP is toast

Update, 21 March, 0921: hey, Cory thanks for the traffic!

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

South Dakota's porcine prevaricator is exactly right: the South Dakota Democratic Party, with less than 7k in the bank, is circling the drain without any chance of survival even as the national Republican Party is splintering. SDDP has nothing to lose by being revolutionary yet blanches at the perception that the party is run by pussies.

It is fun to watch the leadership of the Republican Party wrestle with the reality of Donald Trump and the Beast they created. The thought their Party might implode brings me a great deal of pleasure. But then I think, "Perhaps, contrary to their leadership's belief, Republicans have played with their Beast so long they have become it." As Kurt Vonnegut said, "We are all what we pretend to be." Maybe the Republican Party is no longer a Conservative Party and instead it is about to become an overtly "Fascist" Party. [Sheldon Osborn]

Apparently Dakota Free Press is being graymailed by someone forcing the deletion of my comments.

Few have ever thought Pat Powers was right about anything but he sure is spot on when it comes to Paula Hawks and Jay Williams.

Hawks' sputtering campaign has been trolling me for money but she has said exactly zero about what most Democrats and young voters want to hear. Unless she says at least something about getting cannabis off Schedule 1 or says something new or refreshing her campaign is doomed.

If she had had any brains she would have focused on the Statehouse instead of jousting at a well-funded actress/whore like Krusti Noem.

Whining about Republicans while offering no alternatives is evidence of stupidity not leadership. As my dad would have said, "she's dead from the ass both ways."

The South Dakota Democratic Party should abandon the primary process and nominate their candidates at the state convention.

Shit or get off the pot, Paula.

Hey, Bernie Hunhoff, don't bother turning off the lights.

"A week to go and Dems still have just a handful of candidates running." read it all here.

2016: No way will Trump win the election
2017: No way will President Trump fire all those nukes
2018: No way we're doing what those Apes say

— tom jamieson (@jamiesont) February 29, 2016

Rick Steves: grow your own to keep cannabis from Big Dope

Travel with Rick Steves airs on Bill Janklow's idea of public radio on Sunday mornings. He lives in Edmonds, Washington.

After four years of legalization, I look out my window here and marijuana's legal and it looks just like it did before it was legal. It just means we arrest 8,000 people fewer a year, it means money is being taken away from organized crime and our government is enjoying tens of millions of dollars of tax revenue that they wouldn't have had otherwise. And mature adults have the civil liberty of going home and smoking a little pot if they want to. I mean, I've got my bong right out on my shelf at home, and it's just great to have it there right next to the wine glasses. [PBS Host Rick Steves Discusses His First Trip, Breaking Marijuana Stereotypes And Being An Advocate]

Cannabis is a safe, effective palliative.

Colorado sold $88 million of cannabis in Jan. 2016; Retail sales were up 55% from last year. https://t.co/sxurFjW5fR pic.twitter.com/Qj5vc5p8y5

— Ricardo Baca (@bruvs) March 20, 2016

Tribal nations leading resistance to Dakota Access ecocide/land grab

As the Bakken man camps are being deserted American Indian activists have launched a wave of resistance to a Texas land grab in the northern plains states.

The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe is trying to stop the pipeline—and might be the only entity with the ability to actually prevent the project from moving forward. Final approval lies in the hands of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for taking environmental and safety concerns into consideration before issuing a federal permit. While the pipeline would not technically run directly through the Standing Rock Reservation, it would cross the Missouri River only a few hundred feet upstream from Standing Rock’s border, less than a mile from the community of Cannon Ball. The Army Corps has stated that it will make a decision about issuing a federal permit to Dakota Access by the first week in May. Until then, the tribe and other entities will continue to fight the pipeline. They are urging any and all interested parties to send letters to all relevant federal agencies and submit statements in support of the cause by any means possible. [Indian Country Today]

Check out how many retweets and likes i got on this:

Lakota and Dakota Nations Prepare to Battle Another Oil Pipeline https://t.co/2wrpdiWHBq via @lastrealindians #sdleg #ecocide

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) March 15, 2016

Plunkett will serve no jail time

Update, 19 March, 0700 MDT: she was set up. Milo Dailey's story linked here.

.......

Sentencing for former Butte County State's Attorney Heather Plunkett took place today at 1300 MDT.

She received a suspended jail sentence, has to undergo periodic substance evaluations, will be on probation for a year and was ordered to pay $861 in fees and fines for exercising her cannabis rights in defiance of South Dakota law. She remains on the state payroll.

The Dakota Progressive spoke by phone with the Butte County Clerk of Courts.

Plunkett previously pled guilty to one count of possession of cannabis less than 2 ounces, possession of paraphernalia and ingesting a substance other than alcohol. Her husband Ryan pled guilty to possession of cannabis and received a suspended jail sentence.

Shrouded in subterfuge their arrests are believed to be politically motivated. She was served a warrant and arrested by the state Division of Criminal Investigation, no less, for under two ounces and a couple of pipes.

Attorney General Marty Jackley owns property in Vale, not far from Newell where sovereign citizen Wendel Hiland, a candidate for governor accused of wrongdoing in a child abuse case Plunkett was investigating, lives.

Plunkett, a Republican who serves as county vice-chair elected by the central committee of Butte County GOP per the bylaws, was appointed State's Attorney in 2010 by outgoing Governor Mike Rounds.

Plunkett is the daughter of Mike Messmer, a principal in Meade County Republican politics. The connection with Rod Woodruff and the Buffalo Chip remains a mystery.

Using a conservative estimate the number of problem drinkers in the legal profession is more than double that of the general population.

Butte County is a hotbed of anti-government foment stirred into action by Cliven Bundy sympathizer state Senator Betty Olson. A pipe bomb was found on a highway east of Belle Fourche in 2012.

If anyone has additional information about this case and wishes to remain anonymous please contact lawrence dot kurtz at yahoo dot com.

Krebs: Bernie Sanders has yet to file in South Dakota

The Associated Press has called Missouri for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as President Barack Obama called on supporters to back her.

Today on Viewpoint University South Dakota Sec. of State Shantel Krebs mentioned that Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has yet to contact her office to be included on the Democratic Party primary ballot.

Failed Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Pres. Obama was raised white.

Mike Rounds and GOP leadership: "see? Obama isn't colored: let's block his black ass!"

Just before lunchtime Tuesday, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that, during a closed-door huddle with Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, they had reached a consensus not to hold hearings on any Supreme Court nominee that President Obama might put forward this year. As Larry Sabato, head of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, notes, the alternative was a full-blown confirmation battle, in which individual GOP members would have needed to take positions, and ultimately cast votes, on a flesh-and-blood nominee. “McConnell recognized, This can only divide us—‘us’ being Republicans,” says Sabato. [The Atlantic]

Ezra Klein says the national GOP is broken.

The GOP is already holding on by a string when it comes to their control of the Senate this year, given the number of seats they have to defend in states won by President Obama and the increasing likelihood of the party putting forth an incredibly unpopular Presidential candidate in Donald Trump. [Public Policy Polling]

A Democratic Senate confirmed Anthony Kennedy, Ronald Reagan's nominee to the Court in his last year in office and failing to confirm an Obama nominee could significantly increase voter turnout, which historically works against GOP.

Hearing that Rep. Cole is from the Chickasaw Nation, Scalia said: “Don't forget you belong to a conquered race.” [Indian Country Today]

4-4 decisions affirm the lower benches and an equally divided Court would uphold affirmative action, union rights and abortion protection.

Scalia's death is just one more teaching moment about why Democrats need to control the judiciary and should be a clarion call for Tom Daschle to get in South Dakota's US Senate race but he is all to cognizant that the state is a 77,184 square mile institution for the criminally unwell.

Catholic Rounds, rumored to be considering an exit from the US Senate, has colluded with his church to obstruct justice in prosecution of clergy crimes.

With hopes that Donald Trump will be elected president South Dakota's Republican US Senators are sandbagging Pres. Obama's choice for Associate Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States.

So, who is a President Donald Trump's nominee to the highest court in the land: Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Ted Cruz or Tom Cruise?

Legal cannabis industry dominated by white people

Former Butte County State's Attorney Heather Plunkett is scheduled to be sentenced tomorrow after she exercised her cannabis rights in defiance of South Dakota law.

But there's a big problem: This green rush is, by and large, disproportionately shutting out black Americans as a result of racial disparities in the war on drugs, leaving many unable to participate in the legal pot market, from growing to selling. In other words, systemic racism and racially disparate policies, such as the war on drugs, have had such a grave impact on black communities that even attempts to reverse those policies have left black people behind. [excerpt, Vox]

Here's a little more green for St. Patrick's Day: Indianz used my photo again! Pe'Sla has been put into trust.

In South Dakota, American Indians are disproportionately profiled and imprisoned leaving them unable to participate in the budding industry even as the Flandreau Santee Sioux and Oglala Lakota Nations plan their cannabis futures.

Saturday morning is when Bill Janklow's idea of public radio airs The People's Pharmacy.

Our guest, David Casarett, MD, certainly doubted that there was much evidence to support medical applications of marijuana. But as a palliative care physician, he was curious. The evidence he found convinced his that there is a case to be made in some situations.

Listen to a podcast here.

Produced at WUNC in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, The People's Pharmacy has aired numerous programs of its 1027 broadcasts on the therapeutic and casual ingestion of cannabis.

As a disgraced boot camp near Custer nears closure the county wants the place to be a community college. My suggestion for a new name? The Bill Janklow School for the Criminally Conservative.

Heroin and meth use is spiking in South Dakota no doubt fueled by America's most dangerous gateway drug, commercial teevee.

Black Hills cougars fighting back

As the extermination of cougars in the Black Hills continues some of the big cats are defending their territory against domestic invaders.

Hey, move bighorn sheep to Deadwood then wonder why cougars come into town.

A white christian trophy hunter has illegally slain a three-month old, fourteen pound cougar kitten in the Black Hills. The incident is par for the course in Lawrence County where alcohol with meth chasers and firearms are as common as sibling marriages.

The idiot was cited for a class one misdemeanor improper tagging, which carries a penalty of fines to $1,000, one year in jail and loss of hunting privileges for a year. If the judge is pissed off enough the perp could face additional charges once the investigation is complete.

Here is the name and number of the sportsman asshole who used dogs to slaughter a treed cougar in South Dakota's Disneyland: Justin Deutsch, (605) 493-6598.

This year South Dakota's Republican-owned wildlife killing department lowered its sights from seventy five dead to sixty. Cougars and the American Dipper have been all but extirpated from the Black Hills, so have the threatened northern long eared bat and black backed woodpecker.

With Gaia's mercy the killing derby ends on March 31st without further loss of life.

Why is South Dakota's weather so brutal and unforgiving? Because South Dakotans deserve it.

Rail traffic could shift from coal to passenger trains

Coal drives rail traffic between the Southwest Chief depot in Trinidad and Denver, Colorado also through Edgemont, South Dakota, Gillette, Wyoming and Laurel, Montana.

Up til now it's been easy money for Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

Rumors circulating around the community about Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF) possibly eliminating its current Edgemont stop appear to be true, according to a statement from BNSF, issued Monday, March 14. One report listed 2,000 railroad job cuts during 2015 as railroad companies, including BNSF, Union Pacific and the Canadian National Railway, tried to cushion earnings slumps thanks to declining amounts of grain, oil and coal being shipped. [Hot Springs Star]

There is a rich history of rail travel between Denver and Cheyenne, Wyoming even on to Deadwood.

Wyoming highway 59 between Douglas and Gillette is killing people and strangling traffic: passenger rail would bring some order to that chaos. BNSF Railway's Burlington Route connects Cheyenne with Laurel, Montana just west of Billings where it intersects with Montana Rail Link.

BNSF Railway is proposing changes to its operations in Sheridan in response to the declining demand for coal. Company officials indicated in a statement that the changes will likely include shifting Sheridan crew jobs to Gillette over time. The proposed changes also include having Gillette replace Sheridan as the home terminal for trains that run between Gillette and Laurel, Montana. [Casper Star]

The Burlington Northern Santa Fe has strong rail connecting Laurel and Great Falls with Amtrak's Empire Builder at Shelby, Montana.

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) wants to restore the Hiawatha Line and a Montana legislator wants BNSF to rebuild that track, too.

Imagine a time when portions or all track is elevated for wildlife egress through a future corridor between the Canadian River in New Mexico and the Amtrak station in Shelby then on to the Yukon River in Alaska intersecting with a tunnel under the Bering Strait connecting South and North America to Russia and the rest of Eurasia.

As coal dies and more commodities are being shipped by trucks burning cheaper fuel flowing through pipelines the timing for increased passenger rail is at hand. Curious why the Postal Service and Amtrak have not formed a strategic partnership.

It's time for Amtrak to connect the Empire Builder with the Southwest Chief through Denver perhaps integrating New Mexico's Rail Runner in the interim.

Who's with me?

SDNA is a tool of SDGOP

I quit following the South Dakota Newspaper Association on twitter because its feed reads like a bulletin from the South Dakota Republican Party.

This week is Sunshine Week, a national observance to spotlight the importance of openness and transparency in government at all levels. For example, South Dakota's open records laws contain several broad exceptions that allow certain records to be kept confidential. Specifically, almost all official correspondence (including email) of public officials can be kept secret. And, it usually is. Another exception in the open records law allows public officials to keep secret wide swaths of documents and records used by government to make policy. Let's make the sun shine brightly in the halls of government at all levels in South Dakota. Good government depends on it. [Dave Bordewyk]

There is an exodus of journalists leaving the profession for public relations jobs as the media lurch to drive the message to the extreme right.

Talking about race seems to be a frightening topic to the leadership of the SDNA and that is too bad because they have had the opportunity to be the media leaders in improving race relations but instead have chosen to hide in the weeds. The director of SDNA, Dave Bordewyk, is still young and he can still make it a key part of his administration to address racial prejudice and racial ignorance in a state that can never lay claim to greatness until it solves its racial issues. [excerpt, editorial, Native Sun News, posted at Indianz]

Flouting the Indian Child Welfare Act South Dakota has been seizing thousands of American Indian children then placing them in the white foster care industry while reaping billions from the federal government.

When was the last time a South Dakota media outlet even talked about it?

A week of sunlight can't possibly penetrate the other 25.5 fortnights of gloom in Pierre.

NM charter schools suffering weak oversight

If a state with a robust two party system suffers from weak oversight imagine how a one party state like South Dakota will fare.

Of nearly 100 charter schools in New Mexico, 67 are chartered by the state. Many are chartered through individual school districts, including Santa Fe Public Schools, but those are not included in the state audits. Last December, the League of Women Voters of New Mexico asked the Legislative Finance Committee to back a moratorium on opening any new charters, arguing that they are drawing money away from traditional public schools. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

In South Dakota where corruption drives the Republican Party expect public money to be funneled to private parochial schools like the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) uses Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) dollars to bleed the beast.

Nutcase running for mayor of Lead

Betty Olson has a new buddy.

Gary Coe believes LaVoy Finicum was murdered by Oregon State Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Coe is from somewhere else having parachuted into Lead just recently. Profits from his ministries allowed him to buy the Homestake Mansion now he's running for mayor after Jerry (Apeshit) Apa announced he wouldn't seek reelection.

So-called 'sovereign citizen' Coe is a Rush Limbaugh fan and white supremacist who derides an African-American president.

Lead is where if two people get divorced they're still father and daughter.

Unfortunately (or not), Lead doesn't have a pot to piss in because the bulk of its taxpayers are lining up with their walkers or lying on gurneys awaiting their turns for the various cemeteries splattered throughout town.

The residents are obese, white retirees from somewhere else who fled cultural diversity in their own states taking advantage of South Dakota's regressive tax structure and are now returning in their RVs after the strings below-zero days.

Too many Lead residents are local high school dropouts who married their sisters, are strung out on meth somewhere and are only paying taxes through video loottery, Mickey's malt liquor, cigarettes and fuel.

South Dakota is the Israel of North America.

Heather Wilson joins Raven board; stock plummets

The President of South Dakota School of Mines is a crook. After sitting on Peabody Coal's board and watching it go bankrupt she's setting her sights on a South Dakota company.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D., Feb. 23, 2016 — Raven Industries (NASDAQ:RAVN) announced today that Heather Wilson has joined the Company’s Board of Directors. The appointment is effective immediately. Dr. Wilson currently serves as the President of South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City, SD. Prior to being named President in 2013, Dr. Wilson served in the U.S. House of Representatives representing New Mexico’s first district from 1998-2009 where she was a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Dr. Wilson also previously worked as a senior advisor to several large scientific and defense companies. [press release]

Raven stock is taking a beating after missing estimated earnings.

Wilson wants to bury radioactive waste in South Dakota.

To clinch the contract extension, Sandia labs officials hired high-priced consultants — including Heather A. Wilson, the former New Mexico congresswoman, who allegedly was paid $226,000 — to write up a “contract extension strategy.” Among the tactics allegedly suggested by Wilson was “working key influencers” by targeting then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s staff, his relatives and friends, and his former colleagues at another federal lab — all with the goal of keeping Lockheed Martin in charge of Albuquerque-based Sandia. Lockheed “engaged in deep and systemic corruption, including paying Congresswoman Heather Wilson $10,000 a month starting the day after she left office for so-called consulting services that had no written work requirements.” [Washington Post]

Volcanic clays like bentonite mined near Belle Fourche make radioactive waste repositories such as the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico possible. Bonus: the railroad from Belle goes right into Brookings, brought to you by Kristi Noem!

Huh, one of Heather Wilson's favorite benefactors, Albuquerque-based Valero Energy, gave Tike Mike Rounds $10,000 last cycle.

Heather Wilson is the Lydia Rodarte-Quayle of SDGOP fixerhood.

When Black Hills Corp. greases candidates like Heather Wilson while South Dakota's Board of Minerals and Environment makes conflicts of interest harder to find and the Public Utilities Commission is stacked with Republicans, the blur of the revolving door is vertiginous.

Colluding with Communist China in 2013 Raven sent a representative to accompany Governor Dennis Daugaard.

A federal helium shortage is contributing to Raven's poor performance.

It turns out that shale gas, where most of the new drilling is happening, contains virtually no helium. And the glut created by the boom has driven down natural gas prices so much that it's been uneconomical to tap the lower-grade, impure natural gas pockets that do contain helium. [High Country News]

Raven has ties to New Mexico. and lost stock momentum manufacturing Aerostats for surveillance instead of diversifying into ships for timber harvest.

Blaming the Obama administration for Raven's problems is just simply ridiculous but white supremacists like Troy Jones would rather blame the black guy.

Ellis reads Jackley the riot act on death of Brady Folkens

In a surprise to nearly everyone Jonathan Ellis of the Sioux Falls Argus Leader has finally grown a pair and called out the State of South Dakota.

A boy who died while in state custody was likely killed by a reaction to a medication that the state gave him, a finding that contradicts the state’s death investigation, according to a doctor who studied the autopsy. Brady Folkens died in December of 2013 after being flown to Sioux Falls from Custer, where Folkens had been incarcerated at the State Treatment and Rehabilitation Academy. Dawn Van Ballegooyen, Brady’s mother, alleges that the state put him on minocycline, even though Folkens had a bad reaction to the medicine a year earlier. It’s unclear if the report will help Van Ballegooyen in her efforts to bring a lawsuit against the state. [Ellis]

This case stank from the very beginning.

The Division of Criminal Investigation is apparently still reviewing procedures at a Black Hills 'boot camp' after another child died while in the custody of South Dakota 'Corrections.' Brady Folkens of Brookings was 17.

Folkens’ mother, Dawn Van Ballegooyen, said she went to Custer to visit him Saturday and was told he was ill when she arrived. She talked to her son, who said he had been sick for a few days and had thrown up. Medical staff told her he had liver blockage. “He was awake, and he was a little yellow,” she said. “But he was my same Brady.” Corrections spokesman Michael Winder said Folkens said he felt ill beginning Thursday. Shortly after his mother’s visit, Folkens was flown to Sioux Falls. Van Ballegooyen followed in a vehicle, and had her sister meet Brady at the hospital. But by the time she arrived at the hospital in Sioux Falls, her son had died, and staff were working to revive him. [Beth Wischmeyer, Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

Flown from the Custer Airport to Sioux Falls, about 350 miles: a flight of at least two hours in a state plane?

Brady's mother has been billed for the fateful plane ride and believes the state may have have infected her son with Hepatitis C possibly during a forced hair cutting incident, his immune system weakened from a potent acne medication contraindicated for use with other medicines with which Folkens was being treated.

In a phone interview Ms. Van Ballegooyen told this blog Brady never had a previous acne condition. After being urged to by the Brookings Police Department she signed off on Brady's admission as a child in need of supervision (CHINS) in response to Folkens' experimentation with cannabis. She is distraught with grief and is ready to fight for the truth but has yet been able to find a lawyer who wants to go up against Attorney General Marty Jackley.

She said she has been poring over documents and doing extensive readings on the legal ramifications of criminal neglect leading to wrongful death and the window for an argument before a judge is closing.

Brady's official death certificate shows the 17-year-old died from lymphocytic myocarditis associated with Parvovirus B19: Dawn Van Ballegooyen believes that the state is covering up key evidence.

Why was he not helicoptered to Rapid City about fifteen minutes away for dialysis? Why was Brady admitted to the State Treatment and Rehabilitation (STAR) Academy without any symptoms of Hepatitis C but then was later diagnosed with it?

The state has a history of poor choices made by state employees: fourteen year old Gina Score died after a forced run in 1999. The state settled with Score's family for an undisclosed amount of money without accepting guilt for her death.

This might be as close to an admission of guilt by the State as we'll see without a trial or lawsuit:

Jim Seward, general counsel for Gov. Dennis Daugaard, said the group is tasked with finding ways to divert youth away from commitments at the state's juvenile facilities in Custer, Plankinton and Sioux Falls. If the juvenile justice system were a pool, Seward said, with the shallow end being county probation and monitoring, DOC commitments would represent "the deep end." It's also clear that regardless of the divergent definitions and programs, South Dakota commits more juveniles per capita than almost any other state. More populated parts of the state are more likely to have options for troubled youth beyond a trip to the STAR Academy. Judges, prosecutors and probation officers from smaller areas have told work group members that they'd like to see more ways to avoid commitments. [John Hult, Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

This is a good example why PAs or CNPs assigned to medical cases is questionable: as i suspected, whoever diagnosed Hep C profiled Brady as a user and chose to do nothing about it.

Conceding South Dakota's bleak history of incarcerating adolescents and young adults Marty Jackley's School to Prison Pipeline is getting the shaft. The press release from the state on the closing of the so-called STAR Academy is linked here.

Another state camp was closed in November.

DCI investigating itself means a criminal trial will probably never happen even though many associated with this tragedy believe crimes were committed. The best Brady Folkens' family can hope for is a wrongful death lawsuit.