Loss of New Mexico passenger rail is a failure of conscience

Our Lady of the Arroyo and this interested party were in Lamy yesterday and took the opportunity to have a long talk with Bob Sarr before picking up a couple who got on Amtrak's Southwest Chief at Chicago.

Amtrak said Friday it plans to close the sales window at the century-old Mission Revival-style station, a casualty of changing ticket-purchasing habits. The station itself, which functions as the Santa Fe stop on the Southwest Chief route between Chicago and Los Angeles, will remain on the line, despite some concerns to the contrary voiced recently by Santa Fe County officials. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway built the Lamy station in 1909. The ticket window is the second train-related loss to strike the small community southeast of Santa Fe in quick succession. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

The State of New Mexico bought the track bed from just north of Lamy to Behlen from the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway when the Rail Runner was built. BNSF owns virtually all the rail rights of way in New Mexico.

When it took on debt to build the Rail Runner, the state opted to shift major payments on the train until the last years of those bonds, with the money primarily coming out of the state road fund. Now linking Santa Fe to Albuquerque and points south, the Rail Runner’s declining ridership has led fiscal hawks in particular to argue the commuter rail system amounts to a boondoggle. That means the state would pay off the Rail Runner over a longer period of time — for three more years, through 2030. It also means the state would start paying off a bigger share of the debt sooner, smoothing out the big spikes in payments. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

My maternal grandfather was a career conductor for the Union Pacific Railroad. I have at least one vague memory from my toddlerhood going over the Continental Divide in Colorado while riding the California Zephyr between Omaha and Emeryville, California near Castle AFB where my dad was stationed and the place of my birth. Now, growth on the Front Range is driving planners to pick up the pace on passenger rail.

The federal Department of Transportation approved a grant request from Colfax County under the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery program, better known as TIGER. The $16 million award, combined with millions of dollars in state and corporate investments, will “fund critical repair work in New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado,” said a news release issued Wednesday from New Mexico’s congressional delegation. “The Southwest Chief is an engine of economic growth in New Mexico that connects rural communities from Raton to Gallup,” U.S. Sen. Tom Udall said in the release. U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and U.S. Reps. Ben Ray Luján and Michelle Lujan Grisham also praised the grant. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

The absence of a solution to the rail crisis in New Mexico represents a massive failure of conscience.

Legal cannabis for New Mexico's adults could help foot the bill for Positive Train Control and it's time to equip the Rail Runner to connect with Amtrak farther south in New Mexico then on to El Paso and put the Rail Runner into downtown Denver to connect with the California Zephyr, maybe into Cheyenne, Wyoming. It's time to connect the Southwest Chief to the Empire Builder at Shelby, Montana through Denver, too.

Who's with me?

Ganje: tiling case serves public interest

David Ganje is an attorney based in Rapid City who practices environmental law.

He opined on the case of a Brookings County polluter whose choices contributed to contaminated runoff into the Big Sioux River.

The defendant was charged with destroying real property of the United States because he drained and caused to be drained, without the authority and permission of the government, lands under a federal wildlife easement. The jury found the defendant guilty of "disturbing protected wetlands of the United States.” The jury did not find the defendant guilty of the indicted charge of knowingly disturbing protected wetlands of the United States. After the conviction in this case the prosecutor said that requiring the defendant to restore the wetlands sends an important message. One cannot fault a prosecutor who is attentive to environmental issues.

Read the rest here.

This morning the Big Sioux River is out of its banks contaminating everything in its path with poisonous effluent including that generated by non-point sources.

South Dakota is a perpetual welfare state, a permanent disaster area and a chemical toilet by design. Until Democrats seize power nothing will ever change.

Medical industry monopoly thumbing nose at Rapid City

Regional Health enjoys a virtual medical industry monopoly in its market.

Documents revealed this week show that Rapid City Regional Hospital was first cited for disposing medical waste at the city dump over a year ago. Despite repeated warnings, discussions and fines directed at Rapid City Regional Hospital over the past year, city officials say it's still happening today.

Read the rest here.

Rapid City is stuck. Republicans don't give a shit about medical contamination. If the city raises rates to dump Regional will simply contract somebody to haul it to Sturgis where nobody cares about anything but survival.

So, if these hospitals are monopolies like utilities are, or even oligopolies in their markets, why isn't there a public commission to regulate pricing?

Water is pork: Lewis and Clark water system a symbol of failure

We all know South Dakota is a perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area.

The death of the Missouri River ecosystem in South Dakota began with the European invasion, was accelerated by industrial agriculture and sealed with the construction of the main stem dams.

Not many South Dakotans have prospered as professional fishermen, but there was a time when you could make a living by clamming on the James, Big Sioux and Vermillion rivers. The clam industry dwindled in the 1940s due to over-harvesting, environmental changes in the rivers and, of course, the invention of plastic buttons. Huge fish were also reported by dam-builders when the reservoirs were built along the Missouri. Some divers saw fish 15 feet long floating at the bottom of the muddy river.

Read Katie Hunhoff's remembrance here.

This morning the Big Sioux River is out of its banks contaminating everything in its path with poisonous effluent.

"That is where Lewis and Clark's pipeline ends," said Scott Hain, Worthington Public Utilities general manager. "And once the water flows through that meter it belongs to Worthington and we can do with it whatever we wish." The project draws water from near the Missouri River in South Dakota, and pipes it to more than 300,000 customers in South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota. Once Lewis and Clark is completed to Worthington next fall, it'll provide the city of 13,000 with some much-needed water security. The federal government 18 years ago agreed to pay 80 percent of the project's cost.

Read the rest here.

In the above sketch the water pipeline runs nearly parallel to the Big Sioux River but in the opposite direction. South Dakota's socialized dairies are wreaking habitat havoc all along the state's border with Minnesota.

This isn't self-reliance; it's moral hazard. Instead of empowering communities to harvest snow melt and rain water rural communities continue to be dependent on politicians who exploit need.

Like most of East River South Dakota southwestern Minnesota is a Republican stronghold where dairies, swine units and other concentrated animal feeding operations have devastated water supplies by contaminating wells with nitrates. The United States Geological Survey has found elevated levels of arsenic in ground water near hog confinements.

Like much of the Midwest Minnesota is facing elevated wildfire danger because it's cheaper to give bailouts to welfare farmers than it is to equip volunteer fire departments to conduct fuel treatments.

Expect South Dakota's climate denier governor to request yet another disaster declaration while ignoring the effects of ecocide in the chemical toilet.

Aker lays blame for Legion Lake Fire at SDGOP doorstep

While ponderosa pine is not native to the Black Hills native limber and lodgepole pine have been mostly extirpated from He Sapa, The Heart of Everything That Is.

Ponderosa pine only reached the Black Hills less than four thousand years ago. The Industrial Revolution and European settlement in the New World took hardwoods for charcoal then humans allowed fast-growing conifers to replace lost forests.

Now in the Mountain West aspen has been choked out by fire suppression and the timber industry exacerbating climate change. Aspen leaves reflect sunlight in the summer and aspen communities hold snow pack into the Spring while pine needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt warming the planet.

There is no evidence to support the claim that logging is effective insect control so the logical conclusion is that Black Hills National Forest chief Mark Van Every is on the take.

Alan Aker is a long time campaign supporter of earth haters like John Thune, Kristi Noem and Larry Rhoden. He is a vocal critic of equal rights for women and American Indians. The GOP former lawmaker and erstwhile Meade County Commissioner has billed that county $31,000 for logging on federal ground under an unwritten agreement with the Forest Service.

Nevertheless, he blames the State of South Dakota and its Republican handlers for the Legion Lake Fire.

Rather than rely on these tried and true methods, the state squandered many thousands of dollars hiring helicopters from out of state to airlift the infected trees to highways, where it sold the wood for a loss.

Read the rest below.

A tail of two cultures: white privilege and the red road

South Dakota earth hater Marty Jackley is one of nine Republican attorneys general enjoined in a lawsuit that could undermine the Endangered Species Act by excluding private property from enforcement.

Susan Henderson has been drowning prairie dogs at a fast clip — 1,000 since December — but the Fall River County Weed & Pest Board says it's not enough and had planned to come to her Edgemont ranch on Monday to take things into their own hands. In the lawsuit, Henderson stated "there is no emergency" requiring the killing of prairie dogs until later this summer after the eagles and burrowing owls have hatched their young.

Read the rest here.

The state's GOP-owned wildlife 'management' agency allows wholesale slaughter of the keystone species on private land; but, habitats and colonies on public lands often overlap where selective killing can disrupt entire ecosystems.

Prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets are critical to sustain the reintroduction of bison in sage grouse habitat as the West is rewilded.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Prairie Management Program has received a $10,000 grant from the First Nations Development Institute of Longmont, Colorado. This award will support the efforts of the Prairie Management Program’s Black-Footed Ferret Recovery Project by providing funds that will be used to provide incentive(s) to continue with recovery activities demonstrating Lakota environmental traditions. The Tribe has been actively supportive of a national endeavor to reestablish the Black-footed Ferret throughout the ferrets native range since 1998. After studies and surveys located suitable ferret habitat and navigating federal red tape to obtain the required permits needed under the Endangered Species Act protecting North America most endangered mammal the project then requested an allocation of ferret kits from the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The Tribe had initially approved Black-footed ferret recovery efforts in the 1993 Prairie Management Program plan and subsequent to recovery planning agreed to a release of sixty-four ferret kits onto a prairie dog colony northeast of Whitehorse, South Dakota in the fall of 2000.

Get that story here.

Jackley's actions came after the step had been taken in the Cain Creek Land Exchange, a public-private land ownership swap in the Conata Basin. Led by The Nature Conservancy, a non-profit that began buying land there in 2007, sold some land in 2012 to Badlands National Park.

Conata Basin is on the top ten ecotourism sites chosen by the University of Nebraska's Great Plains Center.

Only 150 years ago, the prairies of Nebraska and South Dakota were a part of a multi-state sea of native grasses laid out below an upside-down bowl of blue sky, with antelope, songbirds, prairie dog colonies and herds of buffalo roaming miles upon miles of the expanse and not a fence in sight. Agriculture and urban development have overcome the symbolic prairie, replacing hills of grass with crop and pastureland, taming the rivers and wetlands and breaking up the remaining ecosystems with roads, fences and other features of human civilization. Land use is changing in the Great Plains,” said Dirac Twidwell, rangeland ecologist with the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. “There is considerable momentum for further conversion of our nation’s rangelands to support energy demand.” While development did not seem adverse when examined locally, he and others on the research team led by the University of Montana found that ecosystem degradation was evident when viewed from a large scale via high-resolution satellite measurements of vegetation growth. [Yankton Press & Dakotan, links added]

Sylvatic plague has been confirmed in prairie dogs in the Oglala National Grassland upstream on the White River from Conata Basin and just south of the Henderson place. The disease kills black-footed ferrets, the prairie dogs' natural enemy reintroduced by wildlife officials for prairie dog control.

Fire managers postpone prescribed burn

A ridiculous edict posed by Senator John Thune (earth hater-SD) is forcing the Rapid City Fire Department, South Dakota Wildland Fire, South Dakota Game Fish and Plunder and federal partners to put off a critical prescribed fire.

“By conducting this prescribed burn in this setting, the Adventure Trail Rx will provide an opportunity to show the benefits of prescribed fire to the public. The area in and around the Outdoor Campus West provides a safe, accessible environment to observe the firing area before and after the burn and will help introduce the concept of fire as a management tool for fire adapted ecosystems in Rapid City’s wildland/urban interface area,” the release stated.

Read the rest here.

Ellsworth Air Force Base is burning and citing the environmental benefits of good fire so are the feds at the Fort Meade Recreation Area. Managers at Angostura State Park are mopping up after a prescribed fire.

Welfare ranchers in Oklahoma have invited the Trump Organization to survey their addiction to moral hazard because bailouts and wildfire are cheaper than equipping local fire departments to do fuel treatments.

A human-caused Wednesday fire on M Hill is the latest in a string of blazes that should have been prevented by prescribed burning.

Estelline drops racist mascot

Yes, white people still misappropriate American Indian themes in Watertown, Sisseton, Estelline and in other South Dakota towns.

But under pressure, the Estelline School District has voted to drop a racist American Indian mascot and imagery.

Estelline students, alumni and patrons will choose one of six team name suggestions: The Express, the Pioneers, the Raptors, the Red Hawks and the Red Hornets. Whichever one of those names prevails, it will mark a new era in Estelline athletics as it will replace the longstanding Redmen team name.

Read the rest here.

In 2015, a group representing dwarves asked the McLaughlin High School to change the name of its mascot. Now, the school on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation has voted to discontinue the school's mascot after receiving a request from a national group representing Little People. There was little opposition in the community to removing the "Midgets" from its roster.

But the image of white students dressed in Indian regalia and carrying spears amid a backdrop of drumbeats rubbed many the wrong way. Tribal leaders are represented by a chieftain and princess, who initially wore mock headdresses and eagle feathers during a pageant that for years also included simulated scalpings, presumably to honor Native culture. [Stu Whitney]

The spectacle of thousands of hybrid buffalo being rounded up by white people at a state park named for a war criminal is Ki-Yi on VIAGRA®.

Black Hills Dems gain momentum with death of earth hater

Earth hater Sean McPherson was the senior pastor at Real Life church in Rapid City since 2010 but now he's dead.

His timely death certainly brings real life to District 32 where Democrats Susan Kelts and Angel Staley have filed for the ballot. Earth haters Ed Randazzo and Scyller J. Borglum have also filed for the D-32 House.

Custer area Democrats have a real opportunity to win a District 30 senate seat as earth haters split their votes with Libertarian Gideon Oakes in the race.

The rally, hosted by the Custer County Democrats, will be May 5 at Rocky Knolls Golf Course in Custer beginning at 11 a.m. Tickets are available now. Headlining the program are Billie Sutton, candidate for South Dakota governor, and Tim Bjorkman, candidate for U.S. House of Representatives. District 30 candidates Ina Winter for South Dakota Senate and Whitney Raver for South Dakota House will also speak. South Dakota Democratic Party chairman, Ann Tornberg will share some remarks also. The rally is a tradition that goes back 30 years for the Custer County Democrats.

Read the rest here. Democrat Hank Whitney has also filed for D30 House.

Matt Kammerer is running for a D29 Senate seat, Jade Addison and Michael S. McManus are in for the house race.

Rock star and former chair of the Lawrence County Democrats Sherry Bea Smith will face nutball Bob Ewing in the District 31 senate race. Naveen Malik and Wyatt Osthus will take on Tim Johns and Bendagate player Chuck Turbiville in the house contests.

Democratic activist Lilias Jarding has filed for D33 House as has Ian Keegan. In D34 Democrats Brian Davis and George Nelson have filed for the House. District 35 House contenders are Mike Hanson and Bo Sistak.

Ayla Rodriguez is in the Dem D32 senate race, Ryan Ryder is running in the D35 senate race. Zach VanWyk is in for D34 Senate and Barry Muxen is in for D35 Senate.

Partial candidate list linked here..

The Constitution and Libertarian Parties will nominate their candidates at their conventions just like the South Dakota Democratic Party should be doing like they do with their attorney general candidates.

Thoughts? Prayers?

Alexandria teacher latest unaffiliated candidate filed for SD Legislature

What a beautiful day to circulate petitions (that are due on Tuesday). If you are registered to vote in District 19 and would like to see me on the ballot for the House of Representatives, come find me and I'll let you sign my petition! 😊😊 #democracy pic.twitter.com/AbfOe0tiPl

— Alison Bowers (@MrsBowers22) April 23, 2018

Kleeb: Keystone XL will never be built

Say shit and it comes sliding in on a shovel.

Nearly twice as much as originally believed or some 407,000 gallons of oil leaked last year from a faulty Keystone pipeline in Marshall County, South Dakota just days before Nebraska officials announced its decision on an alternative for an additional TransCanada route.

Jane Kleeb of Bold Nebraska says support for TransCanada's day in court is facing its final argument.

"The Keystone XL pipeline will never be built," said Kleeb. "TransCanada clearly does not have the support necessary for this project, since the company could secure just 500,000 bpd of commitments from shippers on its 830,000 bpd-capacity pipeline — and that's only with a giant subsidy gift directly from the Canadian government. What's more, the landowners' lawsuit challenging the Nebraska Public Service Commission's approval of an *illegal* pipeline route is still set to be heard."

Read it all here.

Further construction of KXL through Nebraska won't happen for at least another year.

Landowners on Monday submitted a 36-page brief to the Nebraska Supreme Court, asking the court to nullify the Public Service Commission’s approval in November of a route for the pipeline across the state.

Get the rest here.

Besides, adding pipelines makes Vladimir Putin grumpy.

The same geology that forces engineers to rebuild I-90 through West River South Dakota every year also makes construction of the Keystone XL pipeline untenable.

While East River, South Dakota has been destroyed by industrial agriculture West River remains mostly intact but that is changing.

After years of frenetic drilling, the environmental footprint on the reservation is visible in all corners. Flaring, the practice of burning off excess natural gas that’s too expensive to get to market, is evident throughout the reservation. Environmental disasters like the pipeline leak in 2014 that spilled 1 million gallons of salt water that contaminated Lake Sakakawea are not uncommon. The contaminated water, a waste byproduct of oil production, flowed through a ravine and into Bear Den Bay of Lake Sakakawea. These same problems could occur along the shores of Lake Oahe. Is the State of South Dakota prepared to handled the higher traffic rates, the environmental concerns, and the increase in crime that follow these booms?

Read the rest here.

Meade County highway superintendent Lincoln Shuck said the six-year-old road haul agreement, signed by another county road superintendent and a largely different county commission, needs to be re-examined before any use of roads by TransCanada vehicles begins. “It should be revisited whenever there is a new commission so everyone’s on board,” Shuck said.

Read more here.

After Manape LaMere renounced his citizenship, disenrolled from the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and gave up his Social Security number he joined the resistance to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline at the Wiconi Un Tipi Camp near Lower Brule.

He describes the current state of American-tribal relations as that of an apartheid government toward an oppressed minority. To break free from that dysfunctional relationship, tribes must break free from America completely in order to be treated as equals, LaMere said.

Read the Kevin Abourezk story at indianz.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has created a website to raise funding and awareness for the dispossession of treaty land, natural resources and to provide information about the nation's battles against the Dakota Excess and Keystone XL Pipelines.

Photos are of Caffeine Dreams taken in 2013 before they moved from their downtown Omaha location.

Oil patch problems still plaguing Bakken, spilling into Indian Country

While East River, South Dakota has been destroyed by industrial agriculture West River remains mostly intact but that is changing.

After years of frenetic drilling, the environmental footprint on the reservation is visible in all corners. Flaring, the practice of burning off excess natural gas that’s too expensive to get to market, is evident throughout the reservation. Environmental disasters like the pipeline leak in 2014 that spilled 1 million gallons of salt water that contaminated Lake Sakakawea are not uncommon. The contaminated water, a waste byproduct of oil production, flowed through a ravine and into Bear Den Bay of Lake Sakakawea. These same problems could occur along the shores of Lake Oahe. Is the State of South Dakota prepared to handled the higher traffic rates, the environmental concerns, and the increase in crime that follow these booms?

Read the rest here.

Meade County highway superintendent Lincoln Shuck said the six-year-old road haul agreement, signed by another county road superintendent and a largely different county commission, needs to be re-examined before any use of roads by TransCanada vehicles begins. “It should be revisited whenever there is a new commission so everyone’s on board,” Shuck said.

Read more here.

After Manape LaMere renounced his citizenship, disenrolled from the Yankton Sioux Tribe, and gave up his Social Security number he joined the resistance to the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline at the Wiconi Un Tipi Camp near Lower Brule.

He describes the current state of American-tribal relations as that of an apartheid government toward an oppressed minority. To break free from that dysfunctional relationship, tribes must break free from America completely in order to be treated as equals, LaMere said.

Read the Kevin Abourezk story at indianz.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has created a website to raise funding and awareness for the dispossession of treaty land, natural resources and to provide information about the nation's battles against the Dakota Excess and Keystone XL Pipelines.

A Historic Number of Native American Women Are Running for Office: 'We're Helping to Clear a Path' https://t.co/nzSrG7oxKw

— ELLE Magazine (US) (@ELLEmagazine) April 26, 2018

BHNF pine planting is pure GOP pork

Ridiculous, counter-productive even destructive: this is why the Black Hills National Forest is broken.

Ponderosa pine only reached the Black Hills less than four thousand years ago. The Industrial Revolution and European settlement in the New World took hardwoods for charcoal then humans allowed fast-growing conifers to replace lost forests. Aspen has been choked out by fire suppression and the timber industry exacerbating climate change. Aspen leaves reflect sunlight in the summer and aspen communities hold snow pack into the Spring while pine needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt warming the planet.

While ponderosa pine is not native to the Black Hills native limber and lodgepole pine have been mostly extirpated from He Sapa, The Heart of Everything That Is.

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

DENR denies Black Hills water permit for Canadian miner

Area residents say Vancouver-based Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. and its Rapid City consultant have destroyed Black Hills National Forest Service Road 184A.

According to GOP apparatchiks at the South Dakota Department of Ecocide and Natural Ruination (DENR) the Canadians filed for three consecutive 1.8-million-gallon water permits on April 5.

Flandreau Santee Sioux exploring alternate energy

Cannabis grow-ops tend to use loads of dirty fossil fuels and defying the status quo is nothing new to the Flandreau Santee Sioux.

No contracts have been signed, and the tribe has not made a decision on whether it will pursue a solar project, said Lacy End-Of-Horn, a lawyer with the tribe. “In an effort to utilize sustainable energy and to invest in the community, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe is exploring options to develop renewable solar power to contribute to energy conservation efforts,” she said in a written statement. Statues under law don’t bar utility customers from supplying their own power, but they don’t allow out-of-territory electric utilities from providing service, the letter from Derek Bertsch with the company’s legal department said.

Read the rest here.

Flandreau has a long history of racism and a crooked law enforcement industry. Recall officials of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Nation advanced their cannabis initiative after an Iowa casino on the border cut into the tribe's gaming business. Iowa's earth hater governor signed a therapeutic cannabis bill into law.

Because Republicans hate American Indian sovereignty ice storms routinely knock out electric power on reservations sometimes resulting in lost lives but the Obama administration is still reaching out to Indian Country. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty and free communities from monopolistic utilities.

Tapio complains that nobody cares, still runs as an earth hater

With the petitions filed for an unaffiliated candidate, a Libertarian and the Constitution Party expected to field a contender South Dakota's lone US House seat has moved from safe Republican to a toss-up!

We can't thank Betty Olson enough for allowing me to recruit principled conservatives as third party and unaffiliated candidates from her Facebook page!

Neal Tapio told an interested party via Facebook Messenger yesterday that he was urged by the chair of the South Dakota Republican Party to get into the earth hater primary and siphon votes from Shantel Krebs so Dusty Johnson has smooth sailing to the nomination.

He said there was no quid pro quo but also told WNAX nobody in South Dakota gives a shit about politics and that it's hard to gain traction. Tapio's frustration with the process could end after he leaves the earth hater party and joins the Constitution Party then accepts their nomination for that contest. He has been successful in shutting down some negative press by buying off pernicious pig, Pat Powers.

Krebs has been thrown under the bus because she gave an interested party the interview exposing Kristi Noem as a philanderer and Noem has been thrown under the bus because she got caught being a philanderer.

If his petition is validated the entry of Ron Wieczorek as an unaffiliated candidate into the US House donnybrook could blow the race wide open.

Rounds continues to blame military for potential flooding

Senator Mike Rounds (earth hater-SD) loves the United States Air Force but hates the US Army.

No stranger to swamps the former governor, after having built a house in a swamp that flooded in 2011, received a generous self-reimbursement from insurance coverage underwritten by his own company knowing Lake Sharpe is filling with silt then blamed the military for it.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of flooding plaintiffs for each year except for 2011. The silt filling the Missouri River main stem dams has significantly reduced the storage for runoff in the upper basin. Snow pack above Ft. Peck is holding at 139% of average, down from 140% to 137% above Garrison.

The entire main stem system can hold about 74 million acre feet of water. Right now the reservoir system is holding 60 million acre feet.

Read or listen to the rest here.

The US Army Corps of Engineers are saying Lewis & Clark Lake is filling with sediment rapidly and estimating the lake could lose most of its capacity by 2050.

EPA lowers the boom on DENR

The US Environmental Protection Agency has released its 2018 water impairment report for the chemical toilet that is South Dakota and laid it at the feet of the Republican-controlled Department of Ecocide and Natural Ruination (DENR).

The report contains an assessment of the surface water quality of South Dakota’s waters and a list of impaired waters that require total maximum daily load development. The report also provides information about the state’s water quality monitoring and pollution control programs, a list of pollutants causing violations of water quality standards and a description of the process South Dakota uses to prioritize total maximum daily load development under the National 303(d) Program Vision.

Read the rest here.

Trump declares war on Indian Country

Hopkins: Trump is gunning for tribal sovereignty. https://t.co/jwUjeOEvMJ via @TeenVogue

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) April 25, 2018

Gaia continues to punish South Dakota

Flooding, high fire danger and a six month winter: welcome to South Dakota.

Upper Big Sioux River Watershed Project Coordinator Roger Foote reported that Lake Kampeska stood 31.2 inches over full, the highest level since 2011. Take a look at more photos: https://t.co/ZUD7rR5yZk pic.twitter.com/vTrmGOaLBc

— The Public Opinion (@PublicOpinionSD) April 24, 2018

Noem lays spike in South Dakota crime at feet of SDGOP

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

SD’s crime rate nearly doubled between 2005 & 2015. To better enable law enforcement success in the field, improvements in our approach to mental health & criminal justice are needed. See my plan to make communities safer & families stronger >>https://t.co/N3M5bbmdJM pic.twitter.com/vXknjcDxZD

— Kristi Noem (@KristiNoem) April 24, 2018

More unaffiliated candidates filing at SDSOS deadline

This post will be updated throughout the day.

A source close to Neal Tapio's campaign has told The Dakota Progressive he is in the primary race to siphon support from Shantel Krebs to create smooth sailing for Dusty Johnson's nomination.

The Libertarian Party is revisiting their choice for governor in Pierre on 9 June and will nominate additional candidates. The Constitution Party is expected to name a full slate in July.

Delegates at party state conventions will pick candidates for other statewide races.

Lieutenant Governor - 4 year term
Public Utilities Commissioner - 6 year term
Attorney General - 4 year term
Secretary of State - 4 year term
State Auditor - 4 year term
State Treasurer - 4 year term
Commissioner of School and Public Lands - 4 year term

Today is the final day for unaffiliated (nobody is independent) candidates to submit petitions to South Dakota's secretary of state. Most petitions have been for county contests and one person filed for a statewide race today. Ron Wieczorek submitted around 4,000 signatures late for an unaffiliated run for the US House.

Roger Hofer of Bridgewater is running for D-19 House.
Peter Klebanoff of Baltic is in for D-25 Senate
Mary Perpich of Brookings is in for D-7 Senate.

BHNF Moon Walk schedule begins with importance of fire

Logging slash in Custer State Park turned the Legion Lake Fire into a wildfire according to South Dakota School of Mines meteorologist Darren Clabo so the Black Hills National Forest will begin its Moon Walk series with talk about good fire.

May 26 – The Importance of Fire in the Ponderosa Pine Ecosystem - This walk is located west of Rapid City. Join Black Hills National Forest personnel as they guide you through portions of the Silver Mountain Prescribed Fire area. They will discuss the local fire history, and the importance of fire to plants and animals in the ponderosa pine ecosystem.

Read the rest here.

The human-caused Legion Lake Fire represents strategic failures by Black Hills Energy, the State of South Dakota, South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder and the South Dakota Republican Party. The absence of prescribed burns and the persistence of invasive cheatgrass in the park are just two more examples of piss-poor planning by Game, Fish and Plunder.

South Dakota's failure to sufficiently clear decades of overgrowth and understory led to the Legion Lake Fire. After a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest and surrounding grasslands remain at risk to more blazes like the Legion Lake Fire. But according to one wildfire boss it's far cheaper to fight wildfires than to burn prescriptively.

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

Rapid City woman joins anti-NRA protest

“Hey! Hey! NRA! How many kids have you killed today?”

That’s. My. Sister. I couldn’t be more proud. pic.twitter.com/m4UDit39rk

— 🌻 Madi K. 🌻 (@Lovely_Hooligan) April 20, 2018

Cash settlement with New Mexico hospital group likely powering Tatewin Means' AG run

According to the journalist who covered the case for the Santa Fe New Mexican, court records in a lawsuit brought by Russell Means' widow state it was dismissed some time ago with mutual agreement from all the parties likely signaling a settlement.

The defendants named in the suit are the Endoscopy Center of Santa Fe, Dr. Fenimore Sartorius, Rodeo Family Medicine, Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center, Northern New Mexico Gastroenterology Associates, Dr. Cornelius Dooley and physician assistant Bonnie Giachetti.

Read the rest here.

interested party wrote about it in 2014.

Pearl Means' ties to her stepkids were not known at post time.

The author of interested party attended South Dakota State University with Peggy Phelps: third wife of the late American Indian activist Russell Means and Tatewin Means' mother.

Means has challenged Randy Seiler for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. She is currently the attorney general for the Oglala Lakota Oyate and lives in Rapid City.

Thank you National Indian Gaming Association and Chairman Ernie Stevens Jr & NIGA board members for the 2018 Entertainer of the Year award pic.twitter.com/otfVY5hcTy

— Tatanka Means (@TatankaMeans) April 21, 2018

Coming from San Juan straight to Seattle is climate and culture shock lmao.

— Naát'áaníí Nez Means (@Nataanii_Means) April 21, 2018

Brendan Johnson representing family of Sioux Falls drowning victim

The former US Attorney for the District of South Dakota and son of retired Democratic Senator Tim Johnson has been staying busy.

As Partner Attorney at Robins Kaplan LLP, Brendan Johnson helped the South Dakota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union win the Constitution and Libertarian Parties' lawsuit against Secretary of State Shantel Krebs allowing more access to the ballot and is representing tribes in their suit against opioid manufacturers.

The mother of the little girl who drowned in the foamy river at Falls Park may sue the City of Sioux Falls. Johnson tells KELO.com News that he is investigating a potential lawsuit, and has so informed the city in writing. He's made several requests of the city, but would not specify what he's looking to get.

Read the rest here.

Catherine Piersol, wife of Clinton-appointee Judge Lawrence Piersol who heard Libertarian Party v. Krebs, is a longtime friend of the South Dakota Democratic Party and of the Johnson family.

Now that he's softened up the field it's widely believed Johnson is developing the resources necessary to mount a run for public office.

Proud to announce the new Robins Kaplan Office in Sioux Falls and two new awesome colleagues, Erica Ramsey and Tim Billion. pic.twitter.com/HJZuMa2A17

— Brendan Johnson (@Brendan_SD) April 4, 2018

Hickey backs Tatewin Means for SDAG

The author of The Dakota Progressive attended South Dakota State University with Peggy Phelps: third wife of the late American Indian activist Russell Means and Tatewin Means' mother.

Means has challenged Randy Seiler for the Democratic nomination for attorney general. She is Deputy State’s Attorney of Oglala Lakota County and Graduate Studies chair at Oglala Lakota College.

Dear Democrats, Please nominate Tatewin Means for AG. Probably not a great chance of a general election win but I’d sure support her loudly. No one on the GOP side cares about the things we should be caring about. This would be a welcome change in the right direction. [blog comment, Steve Hickey]

Hickey has condemned SDGOP for its historic failures on American Indian issues.

Principled conservatives in the Libertarian and Constitution Parties have yet to nominate candidates for SDAG. Lance Russell is the presumed earth hater nominee.

According to one observer Randy Seiler blew off the investigation of the beating death of Adolf Plenty Horses in Winner.

Abernathey not legitimate LP gubernatorial candidate

As expected, pedantic porker Pat Powers is painting Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate CJ Abernathey as a lunatic pot head; and, because of his lurid Alt-Right bent and over the top agitprop the LP offering would pull more Republican earth hater voters than Democratic.

But, Abernathey is not the legitimate candidate because he didn't get a majority of votes. The South Dakota LP is having another convention on 9 June at Pierre to fix their roster.

In Montana Libertarians have historically taken five votes from earth haters to three Democratic. Abernathey is no threat to Democrat Billie Sutton and if principled conservatives have enough signatures to get on the 2018 ballot as a third party or unaffiliated candidates Sutton could pull off a squeaker.

The more The Dakota Progressive condemns Abernathey the more attractive he will become to Marty Jackley's voters but the harder Cory Heidelberger at Dakota "Free Press" tackles him the more it makes his campaign less attractive to Billie Sutton's voters. If TDP supports the LP candidate Sutton loses for sure.

A combination of unaffiliated, Libertarian and Constitution Party candidates will round to put a deep hurt on the South Dakota Republicans for years to come.

Bring it on.

The decision is a victory for the Libertarian and Constitution parties of South Dakota, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented them in their lawsuit against South Dakota Secretary of State Shantel Krebs. https://t.co/1cxcPeGz9a

— ACLU of South Dakota (@ACLUSouthDakota) February 24, 2018

Muslim would donate land seized from tribes for Indian hospital

You have to admit: Hani Shafai has balls.

Tribal nations trapped in western South Dakota want to take over management of Sioux San Hospital in Rapid City because the GOP and the state's earth hater governor loathe American Indians.

Local developer Hani Shafai previously confirmed to the Journal that he has offered to donate some east-side land for the project, in an area between Menards and Western Dakota Technical Institute. Federal law allows tribes to assume control of Indian Health Service facilities through an arrangement known as a 638 contract (the number is derived from the enabling federal law).

Read it here.

The land Shafai would give back to the tribes was seized from them after the Fort Laramie Treaty was abrogated by Congress and gold discovered in the Black Hills. A Palestinian Muslim and Future Fund recipient, Shafai has plucked myriad cushy plums in Pennington County and has showered the current South Dakota governor with generous campaign contributions.

While the Palestinian homeland looks like holes in the slice of Swiss cheese analogous to the illegal Israeli state, progress toward resolutions of Native trust disputes would have far more political traction after tribes secede from the States in which they reside and then be ratified to form one State, the 51st, sans contiguous borders with two Senators and two House members as there are an estimated 2.5 million indigenous living on reservations.

South Dakota's previous governor showered $75 million in Future Fund cash on campaign donors without disclosing who they were.

Not expanding Medicaid biting South Dakota in the ass

The Dakota Progressive likes the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Administration together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. Reproductive freedoms should be included with conditions just like the military does under TRICARE.

The ongoing payment dispute between the State of South Dakota and the Indian Health Service is not close to resolution. The state has been trying to recover Medicaid dollars spent on IHS eligible patients in non – IHS facilities. Governor Dennis Daugaard says they continue to talk to federal officials about those payments. Daugaard says the tab for the state continues to increase. Daugaard says they tried to get a bill through Congress to make those changes. Daugaard says he is not optimistic of changes anytime soon. [WNAX]

Sanford, Avera and Rapid City Regional enjoy virtual medical industry monopolies in their markets making South Dakota the best state to practice medicine.

During a bipartisan hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) said Congress should take a “solid look” at a single-payer health care system. Tester, who has been listening to various options including some intense lobbying from this blog, asked the panel of experts how to finance the health care system while controlling the costs.

Because of the way hospital networks and private insurers independently negotiate prices with each other in most of the country, rural hospitals are often de facto monopolies with massive leverage. As a result, only insurers that are also effectively monopolies can hope to negotiate for decent prices to drive out competition. Even increasing insurer competition in these concentrated hospital markets could actually make the cost problem worse. [The ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas]

Recall former Montana Sen. Max Baucus threw President Barack Obama's pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, former Senate Majority Leader and fellow Democrat Tom Daschle, under the bus during a pre-confirmation quarrel in 2009.

Daschle was widely expected to push Congress toward a universal health care plan in the weeks before Big Pharma-backed Baucus soundly rejected single-payer medical insurance and guided the passing of what would become the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Obama later admitted he "screwed up" by pushing Timothy Geithner's confirmation as Treasury Secretary first in a effort to reverse the economic catastrophe left by the previous administration. Daschle withdrew after Obama put off his confirmation hearing and after Baucus stabbed Daschle, the American people and the new president in the back.

In 2013 Obama appointed Baucus, a Democrat who had been a royal pain in the ass, Ambassador to China. Baucus has publicly reversed course and now supports a single payer system.

So, Denny: if these hospitals are monopolies like utilities are, or even oligopolies in their markets, why isn't there a public commission to regulate pricing?

Hertz: Trump not Janklow

Divining an alternate universe where Randy Scott is still cruising the Moody County back roads while a Hellbent Bill Janklow is lurking at every intersection in South Dakota's ideological landscape is easier than imagining the decriminalization of Citibank's prospectus.

Donald Trump has liberals making apologies for Nikki Haley. It’s the end of the world as we know it.

I encountered it again a couple weeks ago: Someone compared Trump with Bill Janklow, the late South Dakota governor and congressman whose career was turbocharged by an aggressive personality that, admittedly, might bring to mind Trump’s tough-talking, tough-tweeting image. But any comparison made between the two is really an insult to Janklow. Today, any similarities between these two men are far outweighed by their differences, which are stark and, to be frank, somewhat troubling.

Read it all here.

Because of lax banking rules forty percent of US assets and some $4 TRILLION languish in South Dakota banks where a career in usury gets your name on a football stadium.

GOP abandons self-reliance, embraces moral hazard

A farm bill laden with subsidies and ecocide has passed from a house committee.

In an audio statement, Rep. Kristi Noem (R-S.D.) said, "I know a lot of you are calving right now, and these calves and cows are in danger. There are two farm programs available as a safety net for you. The first is the Livestock Indemnity Program (LIP), and it's there to help mitigate the cost of some of those losses. That program will reimburse you for 75 percent of the market value of livestock that are lost due to a storm like we see here this weekend. The second is Emergency Assistance for Livestock, Honey Bees, and Farm-raised Fish (ELAP), which is there to help with secondary losses. Both programs are administered by your local Farm Service Agency (FSA) office, so please stay in touch with them if losses were to occur.

Read that here.

A Vale ranch pair lied to the Farm Service Agency after a blizzard buried parts of western South Dakota.

The offense carries maximum penalties of five years in prison and/or a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release. In a Journal interview following the storm, Karl Knutson said he had been checking cattle and fences on the ranch of his father, Dale, east of Sturgis.

Read the rest of that here.

South Dakota writer, Tom Lawrence calls it part of the "insanity of the Farm Bill."

Senator John Thune (earth hater-SD) is already notorious for encouraging moral hazard and adding a layer of government overreach bureaupublicanism on fighting wildfires.

Kristi Noem and Marty Jackley have both panicked outlining radical steps to preserve habitat for the Chinese Ring-necked Pheasant, an invasive species that crowds out native wild turkeys.

“Get the youth involved, that’s a big part of it. This is the year my daughter shot her first pheasant at age 11; we should do everything we can to get our youth involved in this tradition,” Jackley said. [KSFY teevee]

They're just employing magical thinking.

Last year, South Dakota landowners applied to enroll more than 42,000 acres during the regular sign-up for CRP, but only two landowners and 101 acres were accepted. That’s right, only two landowners.

Read the rest here.

Which part of ecocide don't you understand?

“Even the good habitat is lacking in birds,” said Eric Rasmussen, a soil conservationist for the National Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) office in Ipswich. “It’s one of the first years when guys like Tony Julik are seeing it.” Signs of distress are everywhere: dried-out swamps, a sickly corn crop, cattle grazing on the thinnest of stubble and baby pheasant hens so small they look like doves.

Read the rest here.

As this species is wiped out by industrial agriculture revenues in South Dakota continue to slide.

So far this year, about 4,600 fewer people have purchased South Dakota non-resident, small- game hunting licenses, which allow people to hunt ring-necked pheasants in the state. That represents a roughly 9 percent decline in non-resident license sales in the state. It also means a $556,000 revenue shortfall for the state’s Game, Fish and Parks Department. That’s a big deal because the department largely is funded by the sale of hunting and fishing licenses.

Read more about red state collapse here.

Real conservatives at the Heritage Foundation have called for subsidy reform for years. Both Kristi Noem and Mike Rounds have taken handouts. Noem frequently calls for a socialized Black Hills timber industry to placate Hulett, Wyoming-based donor, Neiman Enterprises.

South Dakota owns loads of the means of production: part of the very definition of socialism.

Heidelberger continues to lift ideas from TDP

Fake progressive Cory Heidelberger is stealing ideas from The Dakota Progressive.

Virtually every blog post at Dakota "Free Press" has roots at TDP. I have no regrets exposing Heidelberger and the South Dakota Democratic Party as the flaccid political novices they are. Without any leadership the entire group is doomed to ignominy.

The only prayer atheist Heidelberger has of influencing thought leaders in South Dakota is the one his pastor wife says to get him the hell out of the house and out of her hair.

Tapio silences Powers, buys advert at DWC

Candidate for the earth hater South Dakota US House primary, Neal Tapio has purchased a spot at Dakota Wart College effectively shutting up the obese Brookings blogger.

As expected, pedantic porker Pat Powers is painting the Libertarian Party gubernatorial candidate CJ Abernathey as a lunatic pot head; but, because of his lurid Alt-Right bent and over the top agitprop the LP offering will pull more Republican earth hater voters than Democratic.

Powers and the voices in his head at DWC bullied Melissa Mentele into abandoning her run for the South Dakota statehouse.

Rather than joining the Constitution Party Tapio has apparently abandoned his run as a principled conservative and embraced SDGOP's culture of corruption.

Pervert Powers, who makes a stopped clock look like a well-greased machine, salts his comment section with a seemingly infinite variety of aliases that threaten or jeer his political enemies. He has long been banned from this and other South Dakota related sites because of a constant stream of bigotry, misogyny and other hate speech.

Pierre residents blaming GOP for flooding potential

Yesterday's report: pic.twitter.com/MfFCiuGgmx

— Senator Mike Rounds (@SenatorRounds) April 19, 2018

The silt filling the Missouri River main stem dams has significantly reduced the storage for runoff in the upper basin.

A planned US Army Corps of Engineers real-time network of snow pack and precipitation monitors has not been funded by Congress leaving Senator Mike Rounds (earth hater-SD) wondering whether he'll be sandbagging his property again. The river/reservoir system had 64 million acre-feet stored at this point in 2011.

A crew of five from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwest Division from headquarters in Omaha flew up Tuesday in a federal twin turboprop which they used to follow the river to Bismarck after noon Wednesday for a similar meeting. They were joined in Pierre by a handful of Army Corps river managers stationed at Lake Oahe, the second biggest dam in the system. Late Wednesday, The Associated Press reported out of Helena, Montana, on new flooding in that region caused by runoff after a winter that approached or exceeded record snowfall across much of Montana. Water was washing out roads, flooding fields and spilling rivers and streams over their banks much of the northern part of the state. Montana Gov. Steve Bullock declared a flooding emergency Wednesday in seven counties, the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation and the town of Chester.

Read the rest here.

According to a source close to the Rounds family Mike had been considering resigning from the US Senate but has now settled nicely into the Trump swamp. No stranger to swamps the former governor, after having built a house in a swamp that flooded in 2011, received a generous self-reimbursement from insurance coverage underwritten by his own company knowing Lake Sharpe is filling with silt. A federal judge has ruled in favor of flooding plaintiffs for each year except for 2011.

The poisoned Big Sioux River is out of its banks at Dakota Dunes where part-time resident earth hater Dan Lederman is likely preparing another frivolous lawsuit even though litigation costs to federal agencies are straining budgets. Sloppy record keeping continues to plague counties prone to flooding.

The death of the Missouri River ecosystem in South Dakota began with the European invasion, was accelerated by the Homestake Mining Company and sealed with the construction of the main stem dams.

South Dakota threatening to sink RCPE railroad

Yep, nothing ever happens in South Dakota without federal money.

The State of South Dakota is sending a signal to Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad that Dakota Southern is its preferred rail system.

A federal program has $978,200 available for South Dakota. The application deadline is June 21, said Joel Jundt, state Department of Transportation deputy secretary. The meeting was the first time Jack Parliament said he heard of the $978,200. Parliament is president and general manager for the Dakota and Iowa Railroad that operates on a state-owned line in southeastern South Dakota. Jundt re-emphasized to Parliament and others they should focus on $8.2 million of rail grants available to South Dakota from another federal program.

Read the rest here.

Jerry Vest with Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad, says some rural communities could be in trouble if Congress doesn’t come through. “The real problem is we can’t improve the railroads fast enough to serve our customers the best we can,” said Vest. They are turning to their Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) to help them out. The tax credit being in the hands of a preoccupied Congress means it could get lost in the shuffle.

Read the rest here.

The railroad is apparently fed up trying to move product at ten miles an hour between Wall and Fort Pierre where Cretaceous shale buckles track bed every year. Last year crews welding and grinding on RCPE track caused the 291 acre Dry Creek Fire near Fairburn.

Recall TEApublican former governor Mike Rounds squandered Amtrak money on an airplane for his personal use. In 1997 the red moocher state received $23 million from taxpayers for going without Amtrak service.

Pierre continues to suffer Essential Air Service woes and low boarding numbers even while the legislature is in session.

Building two east-west rail systems exclusively for freight in South Dakota is lunacy especially over Pierre Shale geology. That same geology forces engineers to rebuild I-90 every year and also makes construction of the Keystone XL pipeline untenable.

This blog spoke to a RCPE executive in 2015. She said that the line between Crawford and Dakota Junction, Nebraska connecting to Rapid City is active and hauling bentonite south to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and to Union Pacific.

She said that although there is virtually no westbound shipping over the line between Wolsey and Rapid City, South Dakota or Colony, Wyoming the State of South Dakota subsidizes enough siding development, money that the state receives from the federal government through the transportation bill, that shipments of one-way freight allow the railroad to cash flow. The state owns the right of way.

She also said that at this time RCPE has no intention to secure leases for new rail bed from Colony to the Powder River Basin coal fields and that the railroad won't transport coal across South Dakota.

When asked she could not say whether the company's parent, Genesee & Wyoming is talking to that state or its residents about leasing the relatively short distance from Colony to its rights on the BNSF Railway main line near Gillette.

RCPE employees voted to join the International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) in 2014.

Water crossings where ice floes bash moorings and flooding causes scouring of fill from river bottoms are particularly vulnerable to failures.

Yes, overcoming the task of building a bridge at Chamberlain across (under?) the Missouri River and over the Pierre Shale should lead to passenger service being built on the abandoned Milwaukee bed between Sioux Falls and Rapid City including access for rural communities then connect with a future line built to Colorado's rail line.

Seiler helping Fort Pierre make history

As three earth haters battle one another for press Democratic South Dakota attorney general candidate Randy Seiler is actually doing something for his community.

Seiler told the council on Monday the museum board was prepared to pay $100,000 towards the rehabilitation – but added the sum was the extent of the commitment the board was able to make. He also urged that the issue be handled in a memorandum of understanding (MOU), separately from the lease agreement. And that’s the path the council is following. But a Deadwood Grant the city received was awarded for just half the requested amount. Instead of $25,000 from the Deadwood Grant, the city received $12,500. The museum's $100,000 is significant, but Seiler put the total cost of the renovations at somewhere between $400,000 and $700,000, based on some previous conversations.

Read it all here.

It's the view of The Dakota Progressive that since the earth haters will nominate extremist nutcase and FLDS dupe, Lance Russell as their candidate, Seiler has a better chance of winning statewide office than any other announced Democrat.

The Constitution Party will nominate an attorney general candidate likely to siphon votes from a Republican base disgusted with Pierre's culture of corruption and secure the win for Seiler.

Canadian miners destroying Forest Service road, demanding more Black Hills water

According to GOP apparatchiks at the South Dakota Department of Ecocide and Natural Ruination (DENR) the Canadians filed for three consecutive 1.8-million-gallon water permits on April 5.

Since drilling commenced Feb. 13, the operation used just under 463,000 gallons of water, according to the self-reporting to the DENR from the subsidiary on April 4. The prospectors told the state that exploration could resume in May. With their current temporary water use permit set to expire at the end of April, they applied for the next one to run from May 1 through Jan 1, 2019. Located 15 miles north of the Rochford Gold Project, Homestake polluted Whitewood Creek, and Brohm Mining Co.’s nearby Gilt Edge Mine polluted Strawberry Creek, with both large-scale gold mines leaving taxpayers to foot the bill for multi-million-dollar Superfund toxic cleanup sites.

Read that here. Link from The Dakota Progressive.

In a unanimous vote, the Pennington County Commission passed a resolution Tuesday that will ask the South Dakota State Water Management Board to hold public hearings before the issue of any permanent water use permits to mining interests.

Read that here.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed resolutions condemning what they say are abuses of the General Mining Law of 1872 that led to the Custer Expedition's discovery of gold in the Black Hills and to pay Civil War debt.

Resolution 17-2018-CR directly opposes the company’s operations on the Black Hills. It explains the occupation of the Black Hills through unconstitutional acts by the U.S. Congress and notes that the land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service in violation of treaty agreements.

Read it here.

Tribal members have sued to stop the foreign company from mining near a sacred site in the Black Hills.

Slimeball Mickelson fleeing public life

Another earth hater says he wants to spend more time with his money.

House Speaker G. Mark Mickelson said Tuesday he doesn’t have any plans to campaign again for elected office. On Tuesday he gave a deeper explanation: "The realization that the pursuit of the office was not something that I wanted bad enough to make all the sacrifices necessary -- family, schedule, business, moving -- but was something that I felt an obligation to pursue given my family lineage.”

Read it all here.

Mickelson is known for his self-interest and attempts to restrict the political speech of progressives who have increasingly turned to the ballot box to curb Pierre's culture of corruption. He wants to make East River one big concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) and wants to end the rights of state employees to bargain collectively.

Anyone who believes Mickelson has been faithful to his wife is delusional.

Farm Runoff Causing Widespread Drinking Water Pollution in Midwest https://t.co/lb10ulQwLa #tapwater #agmag

— EWG (@ewg) April 18, 2018

Constitution Party sets date for nominating convention

Another set of principled conservatives has told the South Dakota Republican Party to shove it.

The date of our state nominating convention has been set for Saturday, July 14, 2018. The location will be a venue in either Mitchell or Sioux Falls and is still to be determined. We greatly encourage early convention registration which will help us to better plan this year's exciting and historic Constitution Party of South Dakota State Convention!

Read the rest here.

Primaries are expensive and allow far too much mischief. Since turnout is so pathetic especially during midterms the recovering South Dakota Democratic Party should end them and choose candidates at their state convention, too.

SDSU Collegian editor: it's time to legalize

South Dakota's secretary of state is fighting for her political life.

Under pressure from her party boss earth hater Shantel Krebs has willfully and capriciously rejected the petition for a ballot initiative that would have allowed voters to decide whether some patients should have legal access to therapeutic cannabis. She is running for her party's nomination for US Congress and in 2010 exposed the state's current At-large Representative Kristi Noem as a philanderer.

But, a red moocher state like South Dakota is powered by sin: video lootery, a loan shark industry that preys on the least fortunate, a massive gambling addiction and a too-big-to-jail banking racket fill in the gaps created by lobbyists who enjoy the protection of single-party tyranny. That South Dakota Republicans prop up illegal drug use and project an ethics black hole while ignoring a potential revenue source is just more evidence of red state collapse.

It’s safer than alcohol, it’s safer than cigarettes, legalization doesn’t result in increased usage from teens and it doesn’t lead to violent crime. It just sounds like a way for Attorney General Marty Jackley to pass the buck off on the federal government rather than passing a measure traditionally supported by Democrats. It’s time for the state of South Dakota to skip medicinal use and just legalize it already.

Read it all here.

The Democrat running for Congress believes South Dakota is too fragile for legal cannabis.

Initiated law is a blunt instrument: cannabis statutes need to be hammered out in committee then ground into legislative sausage.

South Dakota's legislature can write a bill that would adopt legislation similar to Minnesota's medical cannabis law but worthy of Federal Drug Administration scrutiny where real medicine could be sold by pharmacies. Legalize for adults then allow Deadwood and the tribes to grow under California organic standards then distribute on reservation and off-reservation properties under a compact putting the gaming commission as the administrative body to tax and regulate. “The Indian casinos are basically small little banks,” according to Bloomberg News.

Because cannabis is illegal under federal law, and use of the term "organic" is regulated by the US Department of Agriculture, a licensed cannabis business cannot be certified as USDA organic.

In my view edibles should only be available to patients suffering from debilitating diseases, disorders or conditions and be dispensed by pharmacists and taxed like other prescriptions.

Home growing for personal enjoyment should look like South Dakota's beer home brewing and wine making laws.

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

Pass a corporate income tax, end video lootery, reduce the number of South Dakota counties to 25, turn Dakota State University into a community college, and adopt my cannabis template: the kurtz solution painted on a thumbnail.

Rampelberg: South Dakota can't afford principled conservatives

The Dakota Progressive has been seeking out and recruiting principled South Dakota conservatives to run for statewide office as third party and unaffiliated (independent) candidates.

Black Hills Republican, Bruce Rampelberg is running against Sen. Lance Russell who is running simultaneously for District 30 and for their earth hater party's nomination for state attorney general. Rampelberg attended the University of Montana and is an owner of the American State Bank. In 2005 as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission (BRAC) Rampelberg helped to make Ellsworth Air Force Base a target for retaliatory attacks.

The following question or some form of it has been posed to at least a hundred potential candidates of varying conservatism at their Facebook pages including at Russell's page. Gideon Oakes, a Libertarian also seeking the District 30 Senate post, has also been contacted.

Rampelberg's response follows.

Are there any principled conservatives in the Black Hills area with the political courage to mount third party and unaffiliated runs for statewide office?

Hi Larry - Interesting question. This is my opinion. In Rapid City and the Southern Black Hills, the tea party people have managed to insult everyone who does not agree with their positions. Words like RINO and Liberal are spoken with vitriol. People who want to look at the big picture and find solutions to serious problems are verbally intimidated. Frankly, people who can think do not care for these tactics and tend to avoid situations where opinions and debate are shut down.

Continuing on, again in my opinion, many of us are dissatisfied with the lack of forward movement at the federal level and would like to see some changes in South Dakota as well. But the divisiveness resulting from the extremes versus the moderates leads to lack of trust and being unwilling to work together. And I do not see this changing anytime soon.

To your question, getting sufficient traction to make a difference as a member of a different party would be extremely difficult. Finding a leader with the resources and charisma to engage and challenge people into action while setting up a statewide organization is not easy. So our state's best leaders who are proven and acknowledged will continue to avoid getting into the morass of politics. And the ones making the most noise will continue to ensure atrophy keeping our state at the bottom of any measurement of the 50 states. [Bruce Rampelberg Facebook comment]