New Minnesota governor, legislature blazing toward legal cannabis

Democrats in blue states already understand the added value of talking legal cannabis during their campaigns and Minnesota's Governor-elect Tim Walz is preparing to make good on his promise to legalize after that state's therapeutic cannabis program has shown to be effective in treating opioid use.

“I just think the time is here and we’re seeing it across the country. Minnesota has always been able to implement these things right,” said Walz, who as a congressman pushed the Department of Veterans Affairs to study medical marijuana for military veterans. If Minnesota legalized it, Walz said, nonviolent users should have their crimes expunged. Noah Johnson, who ran for attorney general as a candidate of the Grassroots-Legalize Cannabis Party, said DFL lawmakers should push for legalization if they want to win back a wing of progressive voters. [Pioneer Press]

Democrats are keenly aware that to energize millennials and a jaded base radical times call for sensible approaches to reforms of civil liberties in a responsible new green economy that seeks to keep energy-sucking Big Dope at bay.

Just like a Bordeaux wine comes exclusively from that region of France or Parmigiano-Reggiano is named after the areas of Italy where it originates, Humboldt marijuana may become a prestigious and legally protected designation of origin for marijuana products grown or produced in Humboldt County, California. It is probably inevitable that Big Marijuana will take hold in some form, but that doesn’t mean the market can’t support the small businesses that have enabled marijuana to become a uniquely local and artisanal industry. [Can artisanal weed compete with ‘Big Marijuana’? Boise law prof sees niche for farmers]

New Mexico is also poised to legalize for all adults.

Minnesota-based Xcel Energy has already tapped into Colorado's burgeoning industry selling many megawatts to grow operations but the future of value-added cannabis is grown outdoors, organic, geothermally heated indoors and powered by off-grid sources of electricity.

Howdy Doody Dusty took cannabis money

Rapid City-based Black Hills Corp is cutting a fat hog in Colorado's cannabis industry selling many megawatts of electricity to grow/ops.

Industrial Agriculture is a growing customer segment comprised primarily of cannabis-related farming activities. In contrast to the trends characterizing Black Hills’ aforementioned industrial customer class, growth in both the number and overall energy demand associated with the industrial agriculture loads has been trending upwards since early 2013. [Black Hills Energy, 2016 Electric Resource Plan]

Recall that in 2014 nerdling Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson accompanied South Dakota's lackluster-now-lame duck executive to a taxpayer-funded Western Governors Conference soiree in Colorado Springs where the pair met with industry mucky-mucks. Guess what: it paid off. Dusty hauled in at least $14,150 from those dudes last cycle. Xcel Energy is another utility reaping the green whirlwind so they gave Dusty $2500.

Pee in a cup, Dusty.

Dusty Johnson isn't a victim; he's an accomplice. #sdal #southdakota https://t.co/R64wOeQcwd

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 28, 2018

Marijuana Energy Impact Offset Fund https://t.co/OLxC1sJ3m5 #cannabis #nmpol #nmleg #GreenNewDeal

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 27, 2018

South Dakotans resisting (another) wind farm eyesore

A phallus competes for the skyline with ubiquitous wind turbines on Buffalo Ridge

Utilities are not your friends.

The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission approved a construction permit last week for the Prevailing Wind project in the southeast part of the state. The application was opposed every step of the way by people concerned about set backs, property values and health impacts. [Wind Projects Becoming More Complicated & Contentious]

$100 million spent on subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting and maintaining this wind farm bat and bird killer would take at least 200,000 Basin Power subscribers off the grid. That's right: primary power purchaser Bismarck, North Dakota-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative is an oligopoly paying Prevailing Winds, LLC to rip up land and disturb cultural resources sacred to numerous indigenous peoples for a grid that has never been more vulnerable to attack and to climate disruptions.

Last year's Legion Lake Fire in the state park named for a war criminal was caused by Black Hills Energy and Cal Fire has pinned the blame for at least 16 of last year's deadly blazes in Northern California on Pacific Gas and Electric.

South Dakota suffers the highest breast cancer rates in America due in large part to emissions from coal-fired electricity generating plants in Montana and Wyoming but the South Dakota Public Utilities Cartel (SDPUC) is staffed by Republicans so they're pushovers for rate increases by companies who bankroll the elections to the posts they hold. Xcel Energy enjoyed a 4 percent rate hike from SDPUC but reduced its request in Colorado. Commissioner Kristie Fiegen herself is circling the drain wracked with cancer caused by Attorney General Marty Jackley's partisanship and conflicts of interest. If South Dakota had a Democratic attorney general he might be compelled to sue Montana and Wyoming for the toxic legacy created by Colstrip, Basin Electric and Black Hills Energy.

No corporate taxes, a compliant regulator and cheap labor make South Dakota the perfect dumping ground for earth killers like coal and industrial wind power. Jackley got campaign cash from NorthWestern Energy last cycle; so did a bunch of other South Dakota Republicans. In 2014, Xcel gave $10,000 to Mike Rounds, $2,500 to John Thune and $4,250 to Kristi Noem. In 2016 Black Hills Corp. gave Thune and Noem wads of cash, too. Basin Electric doled out $270,000 in 2016 alone. Oil and gas found Mike Rounds' zerk, too. Noem received at least $5,500 from electric utilities during the 2018 election cycle.

Ice storms routinely knock out electric power on American Indian reservations often resulting in lost lives and the inevitable cyber attacks on the US will take down the grid for days, even months causing food shortages and mayhem. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard.

Leaving the grid has never been easier so anyone who can afford to it should do it now and with Donald Trump still in the White House it's never been more urgent.

Nurses continue to flee South Dakota

The South Dakota Republican Party isn't about growth; it's about keeping Social Security recipients alive long enough to pay the property taxes that sustain red state failure.

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

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

According to a 2017 Georgetown University study a good job is one that pays at least $35,000 annually for those under 45 and at least $45,000 annually for workers 45 and older.

According to the American Nurses Association, South Dakota’s registered nurses have the lowest annual salary of any state and the District of Columbia, ranking 51st behind Mississippi, Alabama and Iowa. The association reports that South Dakota’s 12,530 registered nurses received an average annual salary of $57,010, or $27.41 per hour in 2017. California’s RNs posted the highest compensation at $102,700, $49.37 per hour. [Low pay complicates efforts to attract, retain nurses in South Dakota]

The mother of my daughters, the Odd Goddess of Basin and Our Lady of the Arroyo are all registered nurses.

Mobridge Care and Rehabilitation Center and Madison Care and Rehabilitation Center are expected to close early next year because they can't keep staff. It's just going to get worse under another Republican governor and an even more extremist legislature.

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

Fine, flashy fuels not forest policy driving late season wildfires

This article at KOTA is an outright, bald-faced lie. The @BlackHillsNF pine monoculture collapsed because of the lack of litigation and a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns. https://t.co/Xn4MennmtR #sdwx #sdfire https://t.co/d6j1hbn6Y1

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 21, 2018

The grassland fire danger index will reach the high and very high categories tomorrow for parts of South Dakota because there is no effective leadership at @SDWildlandFire and because #sdsen @johnthune made it virtually impossible to conduct prescribed fires. #sdgov #sdwx pic.twitter.com/5Yfjc9fIM3

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 21, 2018

Fine flashy fuels like cheatgrass are driving #firewx in most of the Mountain West because of poor ranching practices and lack of prescribed burns. Note contrast between 10 hour fuels and 1000 hour fuels. #mtpol #blackhills pic.twitter.com/XJCDx2EhhA

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 21, 2018

Hey, Montana: poor ranching practices are driving your #firewx this week, not forest policy. Republican is simply another word for earth hater. #mtpol #mtnews @SecretaryZinke pic.twitter.com/VIE9qWrDsW

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 21, 2018

South Dakota Democrats have nothing to lose by being revolutionary

The trip to Yankton for the 2014 South Dakota Democratic Party State Convention to take photos for Northern Plains News was a personal opportunity to learn directly from the delegates, legislators and candidates while lobbying them about what one interested party still believes is the future of the party.

It was gratifying to be received as a credible voice at an event were everybody knew a blogger living in Santa Fe who cared enough about his home state to drive a couple thousand miles and shoot a few pictures. Frank Kloucek, Jeff Barth and the Minnehaha County people took a straggler into their ranks and pressed the caucus on strict adherence to the rules with vigorous confidence.

There were some disappointments like no representation from Lawrence County and a watered-down therapeutic cannabis plank, for instance; but, the experience of knowing these people are dedicated Democrats who are sick and tired of being bullied by the state's dominant party while tirelessly fighting for a land they love was worth every driven mile.

2016's platform was better.

in Support of Marijuana Legalization

Whereas: South Dakota law prohibits the possession and usage of marijuana, and
Whereas: The existing South Dakota marijuana laws violate the commitment to meeting every individual's basic human rights to promote respect for diverse lifestyles and viewpoints and to live in a community without fear of discrimination, and
Whereas: The medical benefits of marijuana would help countless South Dakotans who suffer from Glaucoma, Parkinson’s Disease, seizure disorders, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, various psycho-physiological disorders, and many other conditions, and
Whereas: The existing marijuana laws inhibit economic growth and opportunity, and now therefore be it
Resolved: That the South Dakota Democratic Party supports regulation and taxation of marijuana in a manner similar to that of alcohol, and be it
Further Resolved: That the South Dakota Democratic Party urges state and federal governments to implement a plan to provide for the safe and affordable distribution of marijuana to all medical marijuana patients, and be it
Further Resolved: That the South Dakota Democratic Party supports the legalization of industrial hemp which can be grown and used to produce renewable food, oil, wax, resin, rope, cloth, paper, and fuel in support of a sustainable full-employment society. [SDDP]

But, the 2018 convention platform and resolutions don't even mention cannabis embracing Roundup-ready hemp instead!

Democrats lost in South Dakota because the party abandoned legal cannabis as a campaign strategy and nominated an anti-reproductive rights candidate for governor failing to attract American Indian and younger voters.

The only reason Billie Sutton got any SDGOP crossover votes whatsoever is because Kristi Noem is hated by almost half her caucus. Vote margins in the other statewide races proved that. Stephanie Sandlin or Bernie Hunhoff would have done at least as well. After bombarding the Facebook pages of every single South Dakota media outlet that has one, blocking over 1000 bots and helping to draw out some 91,000 new Democratic voters in my home state I have unfollowed all media outlets in South Dakota on FB and Twitter.

Democrats in blue states already understand the added value of talking legal cannabis during their campaigns and some red state Democrats get it, too; but during the 2018 election cycle the US House candidate believed the state party is just too fragile for cannabis rights.

Yes, North Dakota just defeated a flawed and poorly-written constitutional amendment legalizing cannabis for all adults. Black market cannabis not tested or subject to regulation makes America and South Dakota less safe. Legalizing and regulating a product that so many people enjoy is reasonable public policy aligned with life safety concerns.

No South Dakota Democrat will get a dime from me until the county chairs are filled and unless Democrats weave cannabis into their platform at their state convention and arch-conservatives run for offices outside the Greedy Old Party it's curtains for SDDP in 2020, too.

The South Dakota Democratic Party should advocate for paying the tribes and settling the Black Hills Claim, dissolving the Black Hills National Forest, moving management of the land from the US Department of Agriculture into the Department of Interior in cooperation with Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Forestry and Wildfire Management. 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.

Rewild it and rename it He Sapa National Monument eventually becoming part of the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge connecting the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge in Montana along the Missouri River to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Canadian River through Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.

Hey, South Dakota Democrats: run on passing a corporate income tax, reducing the number of SD counties to 25, turning Dakota State or Northern State University into community colleges, ending video lootery and adopting my cannabis template.

Hoka Hey!

South Dakota makes bank on sex trafficking

Sexual predators in Pierre have been a feature of South Dakota during the legislative session for its entire history but to Sioux Falls-area legislator, Deb Peters it's no big deal.

The Aberdeen American's editorial board is pointing fingers at other South Dakota media for lousy coverage of the Republican rape culture in Pierre. "Unsafe. Unacceptable. Hyper-masculine. Sexualized. Dirty." That's how the board and how women have described earth haters in Pierre. The South Dakota Newspaper Association, teevee stations and local media have known about Pierre's rape culture and culture of corruption for decades and simply demurred to the twenty earth hater donors who run the state.

Hells Angels, Bandidos and other gangs own property in the Black Hills area to serve as bases of operation for sex and meth trafficking much of it through what appear to be legitimate businesses.

Those motorcycle clubs and the South Dakota law enforcement industry use the Sturgis Rally as a sort of pyramid scheme clearinghouse. During pre-Rally meetings they exchange the names of individuals who will ultimately be targeted for arrest to place moles into the state's jails and prisons and to provide cops with an appearance of relevance. The Sturgis bacchanal is really all about male white privilege at any cost. Thanks to selective enforcement white thugs have carte blanche to commit flagrant criminal acts during the Rally. A long history of lawlessness can make the event highly virulent attracting common parasites who breed in the cesspools of human existence.

Gangs of armed men with mental illnesses and addictions to meth power their way into western South Dakota every year; and, an accepted outlaw biker culture routinely traffics illicit behaviors that would otherwise be subject to legal interdiction.

Polygamy and pedophilia are apparently protected religious freedoms in South Dakota as far as Republicans are concerned. Recall the mother of earth hater state legislator and former candidate for South Dakota Attorney General, Lance Russell sold property to the Fundamentalist Church of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) Church where minor girls are trafficked and raped.

For about three months of the year, from September to November, the bar and restaurant transform into a completely different establishment. But increasingly it is a commercial enterprise, one that comes with a dark side: sex trafficking and pop-up strip clubs that cater to hunters here for a good time. Asked about a rumored prostitution sting at Frank Day’s last year, a representative for the state Department of Criminal Investigation issued this statement: “The DCI does a number of operations, but we do not confirm any details. The only time operation details are released is if there are arrests.” For trafficking survivor advocates like Heth, of the Pathfinder Center, pheasant season isn’t the tradition-tinged seasonal activity that harms only birds. Trafficking ensnares South Dakota women as well. Native American women are heavily targeted. Nothing to see here. [Hunting season’s underbelly: Stripping, sex trafficking and small towns looking the other way]

But, a red moocher state like South Dakota is powered by sin: video lootery, a loan shark industry that preys on the least fortunate and a too-big-to-jail banking racket fill in the gaps created by lobbyists who enjoy the protection of single-party tyranny. Desperate to pay off those who benefit the entrenched Republican establishment criminals always have a champion sitting as attorney general. Now, the red moocher state has elected a governor who not only slept her way to the top she has never supported the Violence Against Women Act.

Despite lies from the South Dakota Republican Party video lootery, payday loan sharks, domestic violence and homelessness are inextricably linked putting children at risk to more catastrophic consequences far more often than has happened in states that have legalized or lessened penalties for casual use of cannabis. Fact is: South Dakota is far closer to legalizing prostitution than it is to cannabis reform.

The reasoning is hardly mysterious: it's all about the money policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the South Dakota Republican Party destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule.

Study fingers industrial agriculture and conifers for roles in warming climate.

Is Earth fucked?

Global warming has been accelerating since humans began setting fires to clear habitat, as a weapon or just for amusement. Evidence that we humans have eaten or burned ourselves out of habitats creating catastrophes behind us is strewn throughout the North American continent. European settlement and the Industrial Revolution in the New World took hardwoods for charcoal then humans allowed fast-growing conifers to replace lost forests. Desertification driven by agricultural practices, overgrazing, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and urban sprawl have turned much of the United States into scorched earth.

The Anthropocene is now.

Have we reached Peak Human? Should Liberals and Progressives just say: "to Hell with biodiversity" and join the earth haters in a final orgy of death, consumption and/or prayer? Coexist or kill them all and let Gaia sort 'em out?

Actually, some humans know how to slow planet warming, flatten the Keeling Curve and erase the carbon equivalent of every motor vehicle running in America today.

A new study published on Wednesday, however, found that better management of forests, grasslands and soils in the United States could offset as much as 21 percent of the country’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, identified a number of promising strategies, like replanting trees on degraded lands, changing logging practices to better protect existing forests and sequestering more carbon in farmland soils through new agricultural techniques. “So much of this is tied to the way we grow food.” [Part of the Answer to Climate Change May Be America’s Trees and Dirt, Scientists Say]

The leaves of aspen and other native hardwoods reflect sunlight during spring and summer and after losing them in the fall hold winter snow packs while pine needles continue to absorb heat and accelerate snow melt warming the planet. Ponderosa pine and other conifers suck billions of gallons from aquifer recharges and are rich in volatile organic compounds that are explosive during wildfires while aspen slows crown fires. New Mexico and the Rocky Mountain West have been home to much larger aspen communities in the fairly recent past.

Not talking about fuel treatments during wildfires is akin to not talking about background checks during a mass shooting. Fact is: it’s far, far cheaper to bill the feds after a wildfire than it is to conduct prescribed burns. That’s because it's less litigious to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. The solutions are simple. We must talk more about how stakeholders and policy makers interact with voters instead of reacting to an industry-driven executive branch being forged by a Zinke-powered bellows.

Clear the second growth conifers, conduct fuel treatments, restore aspen and other native hardwoods, build wildlife corridors and approximate Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids. We'll adapt or die.

It's that or legalize automatic weapons, end restrictions on the sale and possession of rocket propelled grenade launchers, let the carnage begin and get it over with.

We are not, and will not, experience a “new normal” of wildland fire behavior. A “normal” is a long term average that provides a useful guide to the future, but wildfire is responding to accelerating climate change: no one alive today will ever see a stable climate again. https://t.co/wyqnMz7AFP

— A. LeRoy Westerling (@LeroyWesterling) July 30, 2018

I put together a simple, but very sobering graph: The human-driven rise of atmospheric CO2 unimpeded by five successive warnings over the past quarter-century in the form of Assessment Reports (1990, 1995, 2001, 2007, 2014) from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. pic.twitter.com/FDR7bzv5tK

— Anthony Ricciardi (@EcoInvasions) November 7, 2018

Janet’s looper caterpillar is killing conifers, opening habitat for threatened aspen https://t.co/0MXuOvzmsy via @thenewmexican

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) November 11, 2018

New Mexico legislature poised to legalize, grow Big Dope

Speaker of the New Mexico House Brian Egolf not only supports legalization for all adults he serves as legal counsel for the state's therapeutic cannabis leader, Ultra Health.

Sen. Peter Wirth (D-Santa Fe), the Senate's majority floor leader, says his chamber is more likely to vote in favor now because Democrats picked up two seats in the 2016 election. Like Egolf, he is also a personal supporter of recreational cannabis. Current purchasers of cannabis in New Mexico's medical program pay just gross receipts tax. Whether and how the state levies additional excise tax could get complicated in a hurry. [Here Comes the Nug]

Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber said he will lobby the New Mexico Legislature to propel legalization and with Michelle Lujan Grisham elected as governor it’s looking likelier.

In an interview, Webber said there are numerous reasons for New Mexico to join the other states that have legalized marijuana for recreational use. “It is broadly supported, it is a new source of revenue and by making it legal, we will stop wasting our law enforcement resources on something that is really a victimless crime,” he said, adding that the state should still be concerned about youth using marijuana, as well as people who “overindulge.” “I think it’s an intelligent step, and the state, I think, would be well served to get in line for legalizing and regulating cannabis,” the mayor added. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

Black market cannabis not tested or subject to regulation makes America and New Mexico less safe.

Governor-elect Lujan Grisham worked with former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson to legalize cannabis for some patients but Gov. Bill Richardson, a Democrat, signed it into law.

Lujan Grisham said if she is elected governor she would sign a recreational cannabis bill into law if it included certain conditions. One of the conditions she would require is that the bill provides protection for medical cannabis, which often has lower levels of THC than recreational cannabis. She said the bill would need to include regulation of edibles. [Farmington Daily Times]

Legalizing and regulating a product that so many people enjoy is reasonable public policy aligned with life safety concerns but giving a monopoly to Ultra Health only feeds Big Dope.

Calling itself "New Mexico's No. 1 cannabis company" Ultra Health has broken ground in Clayton near the borders with Texas and Oklahoma. Big Dope Ultra has nine dispensaries in New Mexico and plans to at least double that next year.

Last year Israel-based Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Ultra Health opened a facility in Bernalillo to manufacture cannabis oil, oral tablets, suppositories, pastilles, transdermal patches and topical creams. The collaboration came on the heels of a University of New Mexico resolution demanding the school divest from corporations that profit from human rights violations both in Palestine and at the US-Mexico border. It was later rescinded.

New Mexico is struggling with its own colonial past.

When it comes to Native American history, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is out to squash every superstition, lie, and rumor. Remember, it was a papal bull that gave permission for the Portuguese to colonize Africa, for the Spanish to colonize the Americas. It was taken up by British Protestants, too — it essentially became international law — the right to colonize non-Christian peoples. Thomas Jefferson supported this doctrine, and under Andrew Jackson, it was codified into law as the U.S. sought the subjugation of Indians west of the Mississippi River. That follows us to this day,” Dunbar-Ortiz said. [Pasatiempo]

Arizona-based Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez has praised the state for blooming sales and showered Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Lujan Grisham with campaign dollars.

How condoning the loss of local control and colonial brutality both in Palestine and in New Mexico looks good to Democratic voters remains a mystery.

My preference is craft growers would also be marketers like vineyards and brewers subject to state inspections. Revenue debate needs to be done in committee in concert with tribal officials interested in forging compacts.

Noem lifts blogger's concept, would socialize Hot Springs

@larry_kurtz Thanks for sharing! I've passed this along to the Chamber director & city leaders!

— Hot Springs, SD (@hotspringssd) December 29, 2014

In 2014 an interested party passed a Black Hills State University article on community organizing to a Hot Springs official.

Governor-elect Kristi Noem wants to make Hot Springs a vacation destination for veterans from across the United States, she said during a post-election rally Monday at the Holiday Inn Rapid City-Rushmore Plaza. Noem said she has already spoken to the mayor and city council members in Hot Springs about the idea, and she said it will require cooperation from the state’s tourism and economic development officials to put the city on the map as a vacation spot geared toward veterans. [Rapid City Journal]

Hot Springs could be something someday if it wanted to be. The town has recently expanded its social media platform and the Mammoth Site is at the focus of scientific research on a 9300-year-old mummified bison uncovered there.

Nearby Wind Cave National Park is a perennial favorite destination for ecotourists and is within biking distance of the Mickelson Trail. There is a movement to bring a mountain bike race to the area that would rival the Black Hills Fat Tire Festival. Real estate is affordable and historic properties abound.

Fall River County Commissioners took advantage of an Obama-era initiative and approved a 700-acre parcel in the Minnekahta Valley between Hot Springs and Edgemont paving the way for a new utility scale solar energy project.

Most South Dakota schools could be feeding food waste to chickens and hogs maybe composting for community gardens. Hot Springs, Philip and Midland enjoy hydrothermal water to heat greenhouses.

A new way of growing food is coming to Fall River County. The Southern Hills Economic Development Corporation was recently awarded a $42,435 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture to develop a hydrothermal greenhouse in the county. The project will be known as “Hydrothermal Applications for Sustainable Agriculture,” otherwise known as HASA. [Hydrothermal coming to Fall River County]

Progress has been made under current school lunch rules but as industrial agriculture lines Republican pockets South Dakota's children still suffer from elevated risks to obesity.

In 1921 my maternal grandparents rode the train from Humphrey, Nebraska and honeymooned in Hot Springs where Evans Plunge became the Black Hills' first commercial tourist attraction and if passenger rail ever happens again nearby Maverick Junction will no doubt be a stop.

I like the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, Tricare, Medicare, the IHS and the VA 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.

Hot Springs listened. BHSU students get real-life experience with Hill City tourism planning: http://t.co/GjSowJi2ZH http://t.co/oZ0Qi1ph3J

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) January 15, 2015

South Dakota should move its capital to Hot Springs.

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) May 4, 2013

Hot Springs VA could treat PTSD http://t.co/PnN0BMLCGU http://t.co/wx988CBviy #sdsen #sdhouse

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) October 27, 2014

Investor alert! A town on the edge: Worry the emotion of the day in Hot Springs: http://t.co/WST0FenF via @rcjournal #southdakota

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) February 17, 2013

Hot Springs' "next battle for the Save the VA will be either an Administrative Review or a judicial review" https://t.co/UjqUoiDR0x #sdleg

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) May 3, 2016

Geothermal study part of Hot Springs' sustainable future https://t.co/c8nOHfOjC2 #blackhills #hifromsd

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) September 24, 2016

Montana judge sends KXL to Hell

Running a bomb train through white towns won't fly when you can build a leaky pipeline through stolen treaty ground so it's hard to imagine projects like the Keystone XL and Dakota Excess Pipelines going through cemeteries where people of European descent are buried.

And, attorneys for the Trump Organization will stop at nothing to erase Barack Obama's legacy including accelerating the construction of the KXL Pipeline, a warming climate and an eventual American Indian rebellion to protect treaty lands. But, citing recent spills in South Dakota Obama-appointed Judge Brian Morris in Great Falls, Montana has condemned the KXL to Hell and ordered the US State Department to conduct a new environmental review of the proposed pipeline route.

In his decision, Morris said the government's analysis fell short on:

» The effects of the current oil prices on the viability of the pipeline.

» The cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions.

» A survey of potential Native American resources.

» And updated modeling of potential oil spills and recommended mitigation measures.

"The Department must supplement new and relevant information regarding the risk of spills," Morris wrote.

In 2015 the US Department of Transportation swatted ExxonMobil with a million dollar penalty after the Environmental Protection Agency released an overview of cleanup efforts in the aftermath of the 2011 breach of the Silvertip pipeline that spilled 63,000 gallons of crude oil into the Yellowstone River upstream of Billings, Montana.

The same geology that thwarts railroads and forces engineers to rebuild I-90 between Reliance and Rapid City, South Dakota and I-94 between Mandan, North Dakota and Billings, Montana every year also makes construction of the Keystone XL pipeline untenable.

Rockies Today: Judge cites #climatechange in halting #KeystoneXL, #Zinke prepares to leave Interior, wolves help #Yellowstone streams recover, scenery drives rural population upturn, @TiyaMilesTAM on faith in #Montana and the notion of ‘we,' and much more https://t.co/kgZ1uE2xar

— Mountain West News (@MtnWestNews) November 9, 2018

Dec.4, 2016 (Obama's DAPL Easement Denial) was no victory against DAPL, it was a trick to get every1 to leave, it worked. KXL isnt dead. Celebrate as you will but liberty flows from the frontline just as poison from a pipeline. Action may be our only vote for a regenerative world

— Chase Iron Eyes (@ChaseIronEyes) November 9, 2018

Off-reservation OST casino would test South Dakota law

An American Indian tribe trapped in South Dakota is expected to test state law after buying fifty off-reservation acres on I-90 according to Oglala Lakota Oyate officials.

The tribe closed on the parcel at the Exit 133 entrance to the Badlands National Park. It was the first time in the tribe's history that it purchased land outside the reservation boundaries, tribal leaders said. [KEVN teevee]

The Oyate actually helped buy an off-reservation property in the Black Hills in 2012 now home to an Oglala Sioux Tribe-donated bison herd.

A 1986 amendment to federal law that allows tribes to acquire off-reservation land to serve the needs of its peoples has been affirmed by an appeals court. The Fort Peck Tribes in occupied Montana have legalized therapeutic cannabis and the Northern Cheyenne have been mulling the concept. The Northern Cheyenne own land near Mato Paha (Bear Butte) in western South Dakota considered "non-contiguous" reservation land. As co-owners of Pe'Sla the Minnesota-based Shakopee Mdewakanton Nation could bring that state's medical cannabis and reproductive rights freedoms to the Black Hills. Tribes won their case that allows Pe'Sla to go into federal trust which will doom a cannabis grow-op there until the newly-elected US House Democrats legalize for tribes.

Recall South Dakota lost its case after charging non-Natives with providing the means for a cannabis resort within the Flandreau Santee Sioux Nation and its extremist legislature passed an anti-civil rights law restricting the number of abortions performed in the state by imposing a waiting period and a prior consult with a non-medical religious organization.

Even if the OST doesn't build a casino at the entrance to Badlands National Park it's time to test South Dakota's jurisdiction over nations where cannabis is legal and for tribal medical professionals to establish clinics that perform abortions on these non-contiguous parcels as islands of health care that supersede state law.

Democrats just lost big in South Dakota's mid-term elections after abandoning legal cannabis as a campaign strategy and ran an anti-reproductive rights gubernatorial candidate failing to attract American Indian and younger voters. Oglala Lakota County had the lowest voter turnout in the state with 39%.

New Mexico wins!

Congratulations, New Mexico for leading America to the light!

A constitutional amendment that establishes an independent ethics commission was well on its way to passing overwhelmingly Tuesday night, with a nearly three-quarters majority. It’s a move proponents say will help rebuild trust in a state government that has experienced intermittent storms of corruption through the years. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

Our art director’s take on last night for Democrats in New Mexico. “I don’t get to do a lot of wave illustrations here.” pic.twitter.com/RqXZBW97xL

— Matt Grubs (@MattGrubs) November 7, 2018

TDP will go on hiatus

Democrats lost in South Dakota because the party abandoned legal cannabis as a campaign strategy and nominated an anti-reproductive rights candidate for governor failing to attract American Indian and younger voters.

The only reason Billie Sutton got any SDGOP crossover votes whatsoever is because Kristi Noem is hated by almost half her caucus. Vote margins in the other statewide races proved that. Stephanie Sandlin or Bernie Hunhoff would have done at least as well. After bombarding the Facebook pages of every single South Dakota media outlet that has one, blocking over 1000 bots and helping to draw out some 91,000 new Democratic voters in my home state I have unfollowed all media outlets in South Dakota on FB and Twitter. Thanks to my FB friends for your patience amid the tsunami of notifications.

The Dakota Progressive will go inactive until the 2020 election cycle begins in earnest. Follow interested party until then.

Daugaard's leadership failures drive wildland fire danger

Thanks to John Thune and Denny Daugaard the grassland fire danger index will reach the high and very high categories today and tomorrow for parts of the red moocher state, chemical toilet and permanent disaster that is South Dakota.

Just a hundred and fifty years ago bison and cervids would be clearing the grasses that drive prairie fires.

But, 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 yet poor ranching practices continue to add fuels to an already dangerous West River drought bringing with it moderate fire danger today to all reporting stations on the Black Hills.

Want to slow planet warming and flatten the Keeling Curve?

The Rocky Mountain Complex and the Black Hills have been home to a much larger aspen community in the fairly recent past. Ponderosa pine sucks millions of gallons from aquifer recharges, needles absorb heat and accelerate snow melt. Clear the second growth ponderosa pine, conduct fuel treatments, restore aspen and other native hardwoods, build wildlife corridors and approximate Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids.

Today and tomorrow are perfect days for West River emergency managers to be burning road ditches adding to buffers for later in the developing wildfire season but that won't happen because South Dakota has no effective leadership or commitment to environmental protection, it’s cheaper to bill the feds after a wildfire than it is to conduct fuel treatments and more expeditious to litigate forgiveness than to ask for permission.

If you live in the wildland-urban interface government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. Volunteer fire departments are irreplaceable as first responders to unexpected blazes and if the Federal Emergency Management Agency survives a Trump presidency it should convince Congress to make sure the resources are there to sustain rural firefighters.

Governor Daugaard describes Melody Schopp's breast implants