9/30/19

Flandreau adds Dakotah language to high school curriculum

Mixed in with the copious narratives about the horrific Republican culture of corruption, lack of student preparedness, rampant teacher flight and soul-killing Trumpist insurgencies there is a little good news coming from eastern South Dakota.
“It’s always been in my family and probably always will be,” said freshman at Flandreau High School Arianna Weston. Teacher Dustin Beaulieu says Flandreau is the first public school to teach this class in South Dakota, but Arianna believes the need for Dakota Language classes is greater than some might think. With more than 30 students signing up this fall, Beaulieu is hoping to teach more than just the language. “In this class we are able to teach values inside the language, values of how to be. We are able to push them to be the best they can, not just in this class but in these hallways and taking care of each other and outside of the school." [KDLT teevee]
In 1869 General William Henry Harrison Beadle was appointed surveyor-general of Dakota Territory.
"Tȟuŋkášilayapi, tȟawápaha kiŋháŋ." So opens the Lakota Immersion class at General Beadle Elementary School in Rapid City. Today, Lakota is considered "critically endangered." The Lakota Language Consortium in 2016 reported that 2,000 first-language speakers were alive, down two-thirds from a decade earlier. It's more than just learning the diacritics and glottal stops (which creates a popping sound), but values. [Lakota language immersion expanding at General Beadle]
The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, a tribal nation trapped in Minnesota, has bequeathed Oglala Lakota College with a grant of $25,000 to help fund the school's Lakota language immersion program.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Nation developed a Lakota language immersion curriculum.
Lakota language immersion childcare started in 2012 with the primary goal of fostering Lakota as a first language. [KOTA teevee]
Arabic, Mandarin and Spanish in South Dakota schools? Sure, that's cool; but learning where students are steeped in American Indian languages is giving the next generation of Natives opportunities to preserve their cultures.
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9/26/19

Interim BHSU president was secretly investigated while at UW

While she was secretly being investigated by University of Wyoming trustees tribes and UW cited former President Laurie Nichols' leadership for heading off a budget crisis and stanching declining enrollment.
The news of her imminent departure shocked the campus. None had expected her to leave. Nichols herself was emotional when she addressed the Faculty Senate in the days after the news broke. Nichols had come to the university amid a significant budget crisis, a situation further exacerbated by a projection that enrollment would crater. In her three years, she had steered the university through the budget fiasco and turned enrollment around completely. Her tenure was marked — and is still lauded today — for her engagement with Wyoming’s tribes and with the Black 14. The news that she would not continue “came out of a clear blue Wyoming sky,” then-Faculty Senate chair Donal O’Toole said. [Trustees quietly investigated Nichols before unexplained dismissal]
Nichols is a former South Dakota State University Provost currently serving as interim president at Black Hills State University in Spearditch.


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Neighbor Kosta Passes


Yesterday our neighbor and friend Kosta Becker died as a result of a motorcycle/cow collision on the Galisteo Dam Road. It's believed he perished upon contact with the ground or very soon afterward. About an hour and forty five minutes later I was first to arrive at the scene and alerted law enforcement.

Chef, world traveler, polyglot, retired surgeon, lifelong student and bon vivant he was preceded in death by his son Mario. He is survived by his wife Katharina, son Tullio, daughters Nicole and Sophia and his grandchildren. He was loved by our entire community and is already missed.


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9/25/19

Rapid City loser tells South Dakota Democrats how to win


Mike Sanborn began The Decorum Forum in 2009 which enjoyed a significant following for several years. Other local notables, Bill Fleming, a Democrat and Bob Newland, a Libertarian have been authors there. Sanborn is a member of the South Dakota Nazi Party and is responsible for some of the most sexist and misogynistic Deadwood and Sturgis Rally billboards littering I-90. A perennial loser, Sanborn was destroyed in Rapid City's 2015 Ward 3 runoff election that kept incumbent Jerry Wright on the City Council.
In all of Middle America, South Dakota stands out as the reddest of the red states. If Democrats are to heal their self-inflected wounds they must return to the Blue Dog sensibilities of a Herseth Sandlin. [Sanborn, Black Hills Pioneer]
It's important to remember Rep. Sandlin's reelection bid was sabotaged by a member of her own political party who threatened to run against her in the primary because she believed she was representing the majority of South Dakotans. Sam Hurst wrote a viral postmortem of her tenure: a sobering reminder of how Democrats lost the word war in the state. Hurst's Dakota Day piece about the defeat of the incumbent Sandlin to Kristi Noem defined the choice of the South Dakota Democratic Party to enable Dr. Kevin Weiland to mount a primary run against Sandlin instead of a general election run against the unopposed John Thune who now has an untapped $14+ million war chest.

In 2014 it was difficult to imagine a more formidable ticket for South Dakota Democrats had Susan Wismer picked Rep. Herseth Sandlin to run for Lt. Governor from her position as legal counsel for Raven Industries in Sioux Falls and not have to live in horrible Pierre.

Yes, it’s impossible for me to imagine either Stephanie or Max Sandlin living in a fetid pond like Pierre and if SHS has learned anything it’s that she’s over getting into any election where she could lose although her campaign would have nothing to lose by exposing Mike Rounds for the political opportunist he is.

Heather Wilson succeeded in hiding most of her nefarious past in New Mexico by becoming a president of the School of Mines and then Secretary of the Air Force under a career criminal like Donald Trump so SHS keeping her light warm under the bushel at Augustana is likely the safest place for her, too.

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 so far South Dakota Democrats believe the state party is just too fragile for cannabis rights.

The Democratic Parties in Montana and New Mexico are already formulating tactics and raising money so that we can recover. Minnehaha County is going to step up and own the South Dakota Democratic Party if county chairs don't fire up their delegates to go to the goddamned convention. If candidates want support from the party they should know what the platform is and not announce a run expecting the party to back them, especially if they don't attend the convention. The platform is crafted at the convention by delegates who are frustrated that candidates like Billie Sutton, Joe Lowe and Tim Bjorkman completely ignored what the party stands for.

Unless your Social Security pays your property taxes like it does for Sanborn you’re just another greasy, grimy grudznick groveling in the gore and grinding out every greenback you can grab. Yet, the Republican Party is gleefully and forcefully driving talent away to replace the workforce with a hateful dumbed down murder of Trumpian crows.

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

Yes, longtime blog troll grudznick is Mike Sanborn.
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Tribes will no longer sell catlinite pipes at Minnesota quarry

Catlinite is a variety of argillite found as an aggregate of Sioux Quartzite; it's named for American painter George Catlin who visited the quarries near Pipestone, Minnesota in 1835 where Indigenous peoples have worked since at least 1637.

The rock is soft enough to carve with a knife and the pipe in accompanying photo is made of catlinite. In 2015 the Pipestone National Monument Superintendent sought input from several tribes on the sale of the stone to non-Natives. The Monument is still an oasis but now it's surrounded by glyphosate-saturated cornfields and overkill CAFOs.
Faith Spotted Eagle is chairperson of the Ihanktonwan Treaty Steering Committee and a member of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. She called pipestone “the blood of our people,” and said the decision to stop selling pipes at the monument is “a generational decision” that was the answer to decades of prayer. Formal government-to-government discussions among the National Park Service and Native American tribes started in 2013. It’s a complex issue; selling the pipes carved from pipestone supports Native American craftspeople, but others argue that the sacred pipestone should not be sold. The new policy was reached by consensus; not everyone was fully satisfied. Spotted Eagle said she’d like to see the sale of all pipestone objects — not just pipes — to end at the monument. [Minnesota Public Radio]
The Fort Robinson monument in Nebraska is inlaid with precisely cut slabs of red catlinite. It commemorates the life of Crazy Horse who was assassinated there in 1877.

Today, Minnesota towns like Pipestone, Luverne, Worthington, Lake Benton, Ortonville and Hendricks near the South Dakota border could reap the coming cannabis whirlwind as Governor Tim Walz urges legalization.

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9/24/19

Fire weather returns to permanent disaster area


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.

Yes, eight month winters, tornadoes, flooding, habitat destruction and now wildfire potential returns to the chemical toilet, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area that is South Dakota.
Hazardous Weather Outlook
National Weather Service Rapid City SD
405 AM MDT Tue Sep 24 2019

 SDZ001-002-012>014-251300-
Harding-Perkins-Butte-Northern Meade Co Plains-Ziebach-
405 AM MDT Tue Sep 24 2019

 This Hazardous Weather Outlook is for portions of northwestern
South Dakota.

 .DAY ONE...Today and Tonight

 Strong northwest winds will develop across northwestern South
Dakota this afternoon. Sustained winds 25 to 35 mph, with gusts
40 to 50 mph will be possible. With strong winds and dry
conditions this afternoon there is a high fire danger across
northwest South Dakota through early evening.
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9/22/19

Bordewyk whines about lack of open government in gloomy Pierre

There is an exodus of journalists leaving the profession for public relations jobs as media in South Dakota lurch to drive the message to the extreme white. I quit following the South Dakota Newspaper Association on twitter because its feed reads like a bulletin from the South Dakota Republican Party.

In a presentation at the District 22 Democratic Forum SDNA Executive Director Dave Bordewyk whined about the Republican opacity in Pierre.
The biggest challenge that Bordewyk predicts will be overcome at some point is access to government correspondence, such as emails, official letters and communications from government officials. Government correspondence is a public record in almost every state, but not in South Dakota. While some would argue it’s because of one-party domination in Pierre, Bordewyk thinks the bigger issue is that South Dakota too often has a “trust me” attitude. [Huron Plainsman]
Bill Janklow's idea of public broadcasting can't cover Pierre effectively because its funding is reliant on the South Dakota Republican Party, the Associated Press can't do it because they've been neutered so have the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and Rapid City Journal. Bob Mercer and South Dakota's teevee stations are bound to Republican advertisers and nobody reads college publications.
Many newspaper editors in South Dakota and North Dakota sort of shrink back into themselves when it comes to discussing the race relations between Indians and whites in their respective states. The newspaper associations are no different. Talking about race seems to be a frightening topic to the leadership of the SDNA and that is too bad because they have had the opportunity to be the media leaders in improving race relations but instead have chosen to hide in the weeds. The director of SDNA, Dave Bordewyk, is still young and he can still make it a key part of his administration to address racial prejudice and racial ignorance in a state that can never lay claim to greatness until it solves its racial issues. [excerpt, editorial, Native Sun News, posted at Indianz]
A week of sunlight can't possibly penetrate the other 25.5 fortnights of gloom in Pierre.

Fact is: in South Dakota Republicans go to Pierre for the lobbyist-provided hookers while Democrats go to Pierre because they are the hookers.

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9/21/19

Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate harvesting industrial cannabis crop


It's very brave, even progressive, of Governor Kristi Noem to veto the widespread cultivation of industrial cannabis (hemp) and empower the tribal nations trapped in South Dakota to be the sole leaders of cannabis industry growth in my home state.

A former chairman of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate is a tribal liaison for a cannabis development firm.
Tex Hall, the former chairman of the oil-rich Three Affiliated Tribes, and Robert Shepherd, former chairman of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate tribe in northeastern South Dakota and southeastern North Dakota, are trying to recruit and assist tribes in producing high-grade marijuana products. [Associated Press]
South Dakota Secretary of Tribal Relations Dave Flute is a former chairman of the SWO.

US tribes are considered the 51st State by federal agencies including the Department of the Interior.

The road to legal cannabis for all adults in South Dakota is paved with hemp and tribal nations should be the primary beneficiaries of industry growth there.

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BLM plans burns in northern Black Hills


Photo shot of 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire from '59 burn: spot fire on Pillar Peak, at least a mile downwind of main fire

In the coming days Bureau of Land Management Montana/Dakotas will try to fire grasses near Sturgis and outside Lead at Sugarloaf Mountain and Englewood.
The Fort Meade Recreation Area burn is planned for areas near the old VA Cemetery and northeast of the Alkali Creek Campground representing about 650 acres. Burning in what is known as the “Exemption Area” is planned near Englewood and Sugarloaf Mountain. Approximately 130 acres is scheduled for treatment. Burn objectives are to reduce hazardous fuels accumulations, rejuvenate native plant species and improve forage quality. Reducing plant litter and decadent grass will also lower the likelihood --or intensity-- of future wildfires in this area. [press release]
Because of Senator John Thune (NAZI-SD) costs of conducting prescribed burns are now thousands of dollars per acre instead of hundreds.

Most of the vegetation on some 274,000 surface acres in the South Dakota BLM Field Office is prairie grassland or juniper woodlands but the trees at the Fort Meade Recreation Area are mostly ponderosa pine and bur oak. Around Lead and Deadwood pine and oak are mixed with spruce, birch, and quaking aspen.

The 60th anniversary of the 1959 Deadwood Hill Fire was just recently commemorated. Much of the 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire outside Deadwood occurred on BLM ground.

Current conditions suck as fuel moisture is still quite high. Burn potential in the northern Black Hills is in the moderate category but at least somebody is trying to do something to control invasive grasses.

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9/20/19

Welfare ranchers could help slow global warming

The name has been bastardized from Cyprian to Siparyann to Slippery Ann Creek. It has become a safe refuge where elk gather as they leave summer grazing in the upper Missouri River Basin and migrate downstream to escape the winter. Managed by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the area is at the extreme west beginning of the Fort Peck Reservoir in eastern Montana.

An Odd Goddess and an interested party counted a hundred wapiti in the meadow while another hundred browsed and bugled concealed by the cottonwood and willow stands on the riverbanks. The waxing gibbous moon extended our viewing time well beyond twilight and long after the line of humans in cars and trucks on the road below us had dispersed. Then, coyotes harmonized in a chorus that continued until dawn. Spring flooding sustained stands of grass that still hid elk calves and cows while they lazed about.
Undeterred by its local unpopularity, last year the nonprofit bought an old storefront in downtown Lewistown for an office. [American Prairie Reserve]’s Laura Huggins said the building will eventually become a “gateway” to the APR, much like the community of West Yellowstone welcomes visitors to neighboring Yellowstone National Park. [Rural heart of Montana confronts change at Lewistown conference]
Wildlife corridors over public and private land to the Fork Peck, Crow, and Northern Cheyenne nations then into Wyoming's Thunder Basin National Grassland and beyond to North and South Dakota would help create the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.
The Great Dying of the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas resulted in a human-driven global impact on the Earth System in the two centuries prior to the Industrial Revolution. [Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492]
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.
“Changes need to be made in our industry,” R-CALF USA CEO Bill Bullard told a crowd of about 200 ranchers and farm/ranch-related individuals at a meeting Thursday night, Sept. 12, at the Moose Club in Mobridge. “If we don’t make these changes, we will end up just like all the other vertically-integrated livestock and poultry industries.” Bullard also noted that packers are making record margins of over $300 per head, which is about $150 per head higher than the 10 year average margin. “We all thought Pres. Trump understood, and he did for some industries, such as auto, truck and textile, but not for beef,” Bullard added. “For beef USMCA does absolutely nothing. Because we are not as big as NCBA, they listened to them rather than to us.” [Mobridge Tribune]
Federal ag subsidies aren't self-reliance; they're moral hazard. Desertification driven by agricultural practices, overgrazing, concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) and urban sprawl have turned much of the United States into scorched earth.

Restoring and rewilding American ecosystems are parts of the Green New Deal.

The Anthropocene is now and time to rewild some of the American West eventually becoming part of a Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge connecting the CM Russell in Montana along the Missouri River through North Dakota to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Canadian River through eastern Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Clear the second growth conifers and restore aspen habitat, prescribe burns, begin extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, empower tribes and buy out ranchers or lease private land for wildlife corridors, turn feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and elect Democrats to lead the way.
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9/19/19

Tapio exposes SDGOP as the white cult it is

Just say it: radical christianic terrorism.

It would be easy to blame earth haters like Stace Nelson, talk radio hosts like Sioux Falls shouter, Greg Belfrage and Rapid City's Shad Olson, who get paid to condemn the people fleeing the theaters of American aggression. These are the same people who vote for abominations like Marsy's Law and are now trying to end the initiative and referendum process. Such is the disposition of the South Dakota Republican Party and the earth haters nationwide under Trump.

So it's very brave of Neal Tapio to expose the South Dakota Republican Party as the white extremist cult it is. A plank of the Southern Strategy seeking to assuage poor white people in the wake of the civil rights movement, the so-called 'War on Drugs' declared by the Nixon White House then institutionalized by the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, redefined caste in the United States becoming a policy tool for the mass incarceration of non-white men.

America has brought this on itself since radical christianity has murdered millions but you know what scares me?

Donald Trump has escalated his war on civilians and someone from Yemen, Somalia or some other shit hole country seeking retaliation could simply roll a truck bomb into Rapid City Central or Sioux Falls Lincoln High School after an Ellsworth-based drone pilot or some jock from the 114th Fighter Wing targets a wedding party or religious service.

Tapio can't beat Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson in a primary fixed against him but if he runs in the general election as an unaffiliated candidate it would not only be revolutionary, he might even win.
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9/18/19

As NMGOP falters Gov. Lujan Grisham proposes free college

Earth hating Nazis in South Dakota and Alabama are chortling that Democratic Party organizations in those states are struggling but in blue New Mexico where GOP former Governor Susana Martinez is being investigated for corruption the opposite is true.
After a midterm election in which Democrats wrested back control of the Governor’s Office and expanded their majority in the state House of Representatives, Kelly Fajardo feels almost invisible at the Roundhouse this year. Fajardo, you see, is a Republican representative in a Democrat-dominated House, where members of the GOP are now outnumbered by the largest margin in two decades. “It just feels like we don’t matter,” said Fajardo, R-Los Lunas. [‘It’s frustrating being a Republican this year’]
The New Mexico Republican Party is hurting so badly they brought in the Cheeto-dusted Führer to rouse the rabble.

Democratic leaders in the Land of Enchantment are preparing another session that is the virtual inverse of the extremist and xenophobic dreck being concocted by the earth haters in the capital of my home state of South Dakota. Just for instance, New Mexico's Democratic governor and unpaid legislators will not just legalize cannabis they are expected to pass legislation making a death with dignity legal for people with terminal illnesses and will solidify women's reproductive rights.
Free college for all New Mexicans. That’s what Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is expected to propose later this morning at a higher education summit at Central New Mexico Community College. The New Mexico Opportunity Scholarship would cover the tuition gap left after a student receives financial aid, grants and scholarships, including the New Mexico Lottery Scholarship. [Albuquerque Journal]
In a related story the University of New Mexico will offer a Spring course in cannabis communication.

New Mexico is home to Democrat Valerie Plame. Imagine any candidate in South Dakota producing a campaign spot like hers. 👇


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Woster coopts kurtz concept

Wishy-washy dry drunk veteran reporter Kevin Woster has stolen a kurtz concept.
And if those re-registered Democrats show up at GOP conventions and other functions, pay their dues in money and service, are they not really Republicans with all the rights and influence and standing the name implies? I think so. [Woster]
To divide Republicans in my home state this interested party has been herding fellow Democrats into the SDGOP since at least 2012 but here is a quote from 2014:
Cory, unless Dems can recruit people to run in primaries registering anything other than earth hater is ridiculous. Eliminate primaries and nominate candidates at conventions: Montana, too. [kurtz]
And from 2015:
Every South Dakota Democrat not holding office, isn’t a candidate or a delegate should be registered as a Republican. [kurtz]
Unlike Woster i have evolved.

How frustrating it must be for principled conservatives to have establishment Republicans in the South Dakota legislature encouraging intellectual diversity on campus while ridiculing and stifling it in the statehouse. Little of their agenda was passed during the 2019 legislative session so the extreme white wing of that party in South Dakota really has nothing to lose by leaving the SDGOP for a viable third party.
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9/12/19

Deadwood Jam means snow!


How do you know it’s time for the Deadwood Jam? Snow flurries are possible starting tonight for the northern Black Hills!
Reminder! Thursday, September 12th - Sunday, September 15th, Main Street from Wall Street to Deadwood Street will be closed to traffic from 2pm-2am, for the 29th Annual Deadwood Jam!
Which parts of six (seven? eight?) month winters, rampant racism, chilling effects on civil rights, an extremist legislature, living in a chemical toilet, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area escape you people?
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9/10/19

NMGOP struggling to remain relevant

Earth hating Nazis in South Dakota and Alabama are chortling that Democratic Party organizations in those states are struggling but in blue New Mexico where GOP former Governor Susana Martinez is being investigated for corruption the opposite is true.
After a midterm election in which Democrats wrested back control of the Governor’s Office and expanded their majority in the state House of Representatives, Kelly Fajardo feels almost invisible at the Roundhouse this year. Fajardo, you see, is a Republican representative in a Democrat-dominated House, where members of the GOP are now outnumbered by the largest margin in two decades. “It just feels like we don’t matter,” said Fajardo, R-Los Lunas. [‘It’s frustrating being a Republican this year’]
The New Mexico Republican Party is hurting so badly they're bringing in the Cheeto-dusted Führer to rouse the rabble.

Democratic leaders in the Land of Enchantment are preparing another session that is the virtual inverse of the extremist and xenophobic dreck being concocted by the earth haters in the capital of my home state of South Dakota. Just for instance, New Mexico's Democratic governor and unpaid legislators will not just legalize cannabis they are expected to pass legislation making a death with dignity legal for people with terminal illnesses and will solidify women's reproductive rights.

In a related story the University of New Mexico will offer a Spring course in cannabis communication.

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. My advice to the people forced to cover predator-plagued Pierre? Everybody with business in Hughes and Stanley Counties should wear a body cam for their own protection.

New Mexico is home to Democrat Valerie Plame. Imagine any candidate in South Dakota producing a campaign spot like hers. 👇



Santa Fe resident and former Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame Wilson is taking some heat for sharing a piece written by fellow CIA officer but conservative commentator, Philip Giraldi.
Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad. We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need it. [America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars]
It's not like Giraldi is wrong but as much as I believe Israel should be a county in Utah or Nevada the Israeli model of compelling military service and universal gun tolerance should be the future for the United States, too. Restore the draft and reduce military adventurism.

In 2017, Plame Wilson launched a gofundme campaign to raise $1 billion to buy a major stake in Twitter and kick Trump off the platform.

Wilson deleted below tweets.

PS: her biggest mistake so far was apologizing.


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9/9/19

Bernie runs away with South Dakota Democratic poll


Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders was the big winner in an informal presidential preference poll at the South Dakota State Fair in Huron.
Sanders received 42% of the vote to 19% for former Vice President Joe Biden and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren was third with 13%. Also receiving support were South Bend, Ind. Mayor Pete Buttigieg with 9%; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar with 5%; California Sen. Kamala Harris and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock both with 3% and businessman Andrew Yang came in with 2%. Beadle County Democratic party state committeeman Dennis Olson coordinated the poll. [Huron Plainsman]
That South Dakota Democrats prefer a radical alternative to the Nazi nominee in 2020 should come as little surprise to voters. South Dakota's late primary means the state will have little voice in choosing the Democratic nominee and since it's highly unlikely Donald Trump will be the choice of the former Republican Party now the American Nazi Party Sanders would face Mitt Romney or some other earth hater in 2020.

While Bernie is a far better choice than Joe Biden my dream ticket is still Amy Klobuchar/Julián Castro as Texas will be critical to a presidential win.

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9/8/19

Howdy Doody Dusty becomes Jim Neiman's little wooden boy


The first project to receive a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) exclusion in the Black Hills National Forest is the Tepee Canyon project approved last month.

The Trump Organization and Neiman Enterprises want to log and slash some 2,669 acres of forest on public land between Jewel Cave National Monument and the Custer Highlands residential area. Mechanical treatments will include clearcuts or in silviculture parlance: overstory removal. Hulett, Wyoming's Jim Neiman is a member of the American Nazi Party and Neiman Enterprises is pretty much the last logger standing in the Black Hills. Now he has turned living boy Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson into his own little wooden puppet.
Representatives of Neiman Enterprises gave Johnson a tour of the company’s Spearfish Forest Products sawmill, where 193 employees spread across two shifts produce up to 60,000 pieces of wood per shift. The sawmill converts ponderosa pine trees logged in the Black Hills National Forest into heating pellets and 1-by-4, 1-by-6 and 1-by-8-inch boards used in tongue-and-groove paneling. After the tour, Johnson spoke with company officials and a timber-industry representative about issues including the proposed rule changes, which are intended to streamline the Forest Service’s National Environmental Policy Act regulations. [Rapid City Journal]
Fuel treatments followed by prescribed fire are critical to the success of the Tepee Canyon project and burning before mechanical logging exposes soils to undue risk but Trump and Neiman don't want to burn at all.

Dendroctonus ponderosae or mountain pine beetle predates by millions of years Pinus ponderosa in the Black Hills which only reached that region less than four thousand years ago. Native Douglas fir, limber and lodgepole pine have been mostly extirpated from He Sapa, The Heart of Everything That Is and after a century of destructive agricultural practices invasive grasses infest most of western South Dakota. The Island in the Plains has been broken for decades but the collapse of select Black Hills ecosystems has been evident since at least 2002.

Add the very high number of private inholdings within the Black Hills National Forest that make the wildland urban interface (WUI) very large to one of the highest road densities in the entire national forest system and Region 2 to lots of logging, hardrock mining and pesticides like Carbaryl then understand why over a hundred species in South Dakota alone and a million worldwide are at risk to Dusty Johnson, Jim Neiman and the former Republican Party now the American Nazi Party.


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9/7/19

SD Cattlemens prez admits he's an ass

Meth use is a symptom of South Dakota's statewide hopelessness as residents fret over another punishing, relentless, and unforgiving seven-month winter.

Since suicides and murders have become commonplace in South Dakota politics the toll on the SDGOP could mount. Earth haters like Kristi Noem and Pat Powers can squawk all they want about "socialized medicine" or "government-run health care." South Dakota is already a perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area. It leads the US in breast cancer rates and is one of seven states that would be devastated by the repeal of Obamacare.

Yes, Republican is not just another word for earth hater; it's another word for Nazi.



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9/6/19

FSST lawyer to talk cannabis, tax disputes at Indigenous Law Conference

It's pretty clear why Republican former Governor Denny Daugaard supported more gambling at the casino owned and operated by the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe. The State of South Dakota receives revenue from FSST through a compact with the Isanti Dakota Oyate. Disputes over cannabis, liquor and gaming have been ongoing for decades so Seth Pearman, the tribe's lawyer will talk about the challenges during the 2019 Indigenous Law Conference.


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9/5/19

Former death camp in county named for a war criminal behind in payment

Brady Folkens died in state custody after a botched diagnosis at the former STAR Academy on December 21, 2013 then the State of South Dakota's Office of Risk Management helped to bury the evidence.

After a public outcry the death camp was shuttered and the sprawling property south of the town named for a war criminal sold at auction for the minimum bid of $2.34 million. The buyers were a group of investors represented at the sale by real estate agent and former mayor Jared Carson.
The company that purchased a former juvenile detention campus near Custer from state government is more than three months behind on a payment and could suffer repossession if it does not pay nearly $116,000 by 5 p.m. today. Jared Carson, of Custer, is president of SLIC-e Holdings and has spoken publicly for it in the past, but he said Wednesday that he and the company have parted ways, and his further involvement is only on paper until the company appoints a replacement for him. [Custer company behind on $116K payment to state]
An activist judge with deep ties to the South Dakota Republican Party is continuing the cover up of Brady Folkens' death at the hands of the state. Born without a chin and having lost his spine soon after joining the GOP Lawrence E. (Larry) Long was appointed to the Second Judicial Circuit by Governor Mike Rounds in 2009. Long has been a South Dakota Attorney General.

Retired Yankton surgeon Lars Aanning says, "We believe that besides Jeff Haier, the other participants in this cover-up include Denny Kaemingk, head of Corrections, and John Porter, CEO of Avera Health." Former Lt. Governor Matt Michels, an Avera lawyer, and the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation have also been implicated in a conspiracy to hide evidence in the Folkens case.

The state of South Dakota and Sioux Valley Hospital (now Avera) split the burden of a $1.25 Million settlement after the death of Gina Score.

STAR Academy's predecessors, South Dakota Tuberculosis Sanatorium and Custer State Hospital at Sanator have macabre histories of their own.
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9/4/19

SDGOP continues to blame victims of endocrine disruptors instead of learning the science


Republicans are evil.

Wondering why some people want to cut off their testicles, change genders or why your kids are autistic and obese? No serious discussion of issues associated with gender identity can be undertaken without the studying the effects of phthalates and other plasticizers on human genetics. Aluminum, propylene glycol (steareths), Triclosan, parabens and phthalates are endocrine disruptors that wreak havoc in children and adolescents.

About 1 in a 1000 babies are born with ambiguous genitalia or intersex. South Dakota Republicans are attacking kids and don't want schools to talk about the causes of gender dysphoria. Why? Because their campaign dollars come from white christianists like the Family Heritage Alliance and the very industries that manufacture the products causing it.

I have been chronicling gender bending chemicals in the environment for three decades and have learned it’s all related: a medical industry oligopoly, gender dysphoria, polluted waterways, subsidized agriculture, absence of medical insurance, cancer and Republican legislatures on the dole.
An international team of scientists tested single-use diapers and sanitary pads for toxic chemicals, and has discovered phthalates and volatile organic compounds in every brand tested. These chemicals are known to cause a variety of health complications, including birth defects and endocrine disruption. "So we looked at phthalates because phthalates, in many studies now, have been shown to be reproductive toxicants. In both animals and humans phthalates can alter hormone levels, they can reduce fertility, they can cause some problems with the ovaries and the uterus. So, endocrine disrupting chemicals are chemicals that can interfere with any aspect of hormones, either the production of hormones, the action of hormones, the function of hormones in the body. And some of these chemicals can interfere with the nervous system, and can lead to potentially cognitive and behavioral problems." [Living on Earth: Toxicants in Diapers and Sanitary Pads]
It sure is curious how some can tout the benefits of surgical genital mutilation as a treatment for gender dysphoria while condemning other therapies like cannabis and denying others death with dignity.


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9/3/19

The indigenous resistance is far from futile

Although the term “socialist” wasn’t widely used until the nineteenth century it's of little consequence as it has existed in its purest form for nearly all of human history. Indigenous cultures lived in collectivist economies long before migrating to this hemisphere.
It’s easy to see how seafaring people might have reached Cooper’s Ferry, says Loren Davis, an archaeologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis who led the excavations. Although the site is more than 500 kilometers from the coast, the Salmon, Snake, and Columbia rivers link it to the sea. [First people in the Americas came by sea, ancient tools unearthed by Idaho river suggest]




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Minnesota governor: legal cannabis simply a matter of time

Minnesota towns like Pipestone, Luverne, Worthington, Lake Benton, Ortonville and Hendricks near the South Dakota border could reap the coming cannabis whirlwind as Governor Tim Walz urges legalization.
“My agencies have been tasked to put all of the building blocks in place, from Revenue to the Department of Public Safety to the Department of Health. We will have everything ready to go, and we will be able to implement it in Minnesota the minute the Legislature moves this.” [Walz wants state to be ready to roll on legal marijuana]
According to a report released in July by the Minnesota Department of Health over 70 percent of survey respondents said therapeutic cannabis was helping to ease their post-traumatic stress and most showed “clinically meaningful” reductions in the severity of their symptoms.
“Better sleep, better appetite, I’m not so angry all the time,” said one respondent. “My memories don’t seem to bother me like they used to. This has been a life-changer for me!” [StarTribune]
Corey Day, a former executive director of the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party has formed Cannabis for Economic Growth and will make the dollars and cents case for legalizing for all adults in Minnesota.
Day said he would like to see special efforts made in Minnesota to make sure that low-income people and communities of color share in the economic advantages of legalization. [MinnPost]
A New Mexico task force is drafting legislation using two bills from last session as templates. One member of the legal team is a graduate of Lyman (South Dakota) High School. Enrollment in New Mexico's therapeutic cannabis program is over 76,000 patients and the state has decriminalized possession of small amounts.
Just two other states – Illinois and Vermont – have legalized marijuana legislatively. The other nine states that have legalized recreational cannabis use have done so through voter petition or referendum efforts, which are not allowed in New Mexico. [Albuquerque Journal]
Despite Democratic Governor Steve Bullock's reticence therapeutic cannabis is flowering in Montana.
The Marijuana Regulation Act, or Ballot Issue No. 5, as it is currently titled with the Secretary of State's Office, would legalize recreational marijuana use, establish the state's duties in facilitating the industry, and establish tax revenue policies. "You look across all the states" that have passed recreational measures, said Pepper Peterson of Coalition 406. "Those who are willing to work with the national groups are usually the ones who rise to the top." Boiled down to their basics, both groups' measures have similarities: tax recreational marijuana about 15%, and lower or eliminate the tax on medicinal marijuana; build from the medical marijuana program and protect those providers from the large-scale retail shops that would flood the state if recreational passed; and maintain the state's tracking system to ensure [cannabis] isn't flowing in from or out to the black market. [Missoulian]
In May red state North Dakota quietly decriminalized possession of small amounts and a dispensary just opened in Williston to better serve therapeutic cannabis patients. An interim legislative committee is currently researching legalization for all adults and an initiative that provides for the Legislature to set up regulatory and licensing systems for growing and sales has been resubmitted after its sponsor made some changes.

North Dakota's failed poorly-written Amendment 3 that would have legalized for all adults also included language that would have forced the expungement of the records for some cannabis convictions yet in its repressive nanny state neighbor to the south if you're even suspected of ingesting cannabis members of the law enforcement industry will force a catheter into your urethra and seize your assets.
A new class available at the University of Minnesota this fall aims to teach students about an often-controversial topic: cannabis. An undergraduate course in the Department of Agronomy and Plant Genetics, the class covers issues around cannabis such as its biological makeup, uses and impact on society and regulations at the state and federal level. [Minnesota Daily]
Yes, South Dakota is among the worst states for opioid abuse yet even Democrats in that red state believe residents are too fragile for legal cannabis and the South Dakota State Medical Association contends that although "marijuana and dronabinol decreased pain" the fact that it is illegal makes it less effective as a therapy.


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9/1/19

Sacred Black Hills now a sacrifice zone


South Dakota is no stranger to ecocide because it's a way of life in the chemical toilet. Under the General Mining Act of 1872 even foreign miners have carte blanche to rape the Black Hills, so they are.

The Board of Minerals and Environment is an arm of the South Dakota Republican Party that ceded regulatory authority to the US Environmental Protection Agency for uranium mining after the legislature realized there is no competent oversight from state agencies. Acknowledging there will always be acid mine drainage in the Black Hills the board recently met in Pierre to announce its plans to continue the war on the Black Hills Gilt Edge Superfund site as EPA becomes a tool of the extraction industry.
With the Oglala Sioux Tribe set to argue Aug. 28-30 for its kind of protection of cultural resources from unprecedented uranium mining in the southern Black Hills, the tribal government and local groups urged members of the public to attend proceedings here and participate in a simultaneous outdoor cultural event to raise awareness about the issue. A panel of administrative judges from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) is supposed to be in town on these dates to hear from the tribe, the commission staff and intervenors in the case, which is focusing on the “reasonableness” of their divergent approaches to surveying tribal cultural, religious, and historical properties at the proposed 10,000-acre Dewey-Burdock in situ leach mine and mill. The slated project site is located on 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty land in Custer and Fall River counties adjacent to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and upstream on Cheyenne River tributaries, a factor that motivates appellants who have joined together as the Consolidated Intervenors. [OST ‘fighting back’ to protect Black Hills from uranium mine]
It’s been 38 years since attorney Mario Gonzalez filed the federal court case stopping payment of the Black Hills Claim award to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Gonzales contends that the commission charged to make peace with tribes inserted language into the Fort Laramie Treaty signed in 1868 that Red Cloud had neither seen nor agreed to in negotiations. The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has 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.
The remaining life of the only large-scale, active gold mine in the Black Hills is estimated to be seven years, so its owner plans to drill 125 holes in search of more gold around the edges of a nearby mine that was closed for polluting water. The Wharf Resources project is one of several exploratory gold-drilling projects that are either ongoing or planned in the Black Hills. Canada-based Mineral Mountain Resources drilled in the Rochford area last year and hopes to do more drilling there; Minneapolis-based F3 Gold is working on the terms of an environmental assessment that could allow it to drill near Silver City; and Reno, Nev.-based Dakota Territory Resources Corporation has said it hopes to conduct drilling in the Lead area. [Rapid City Journal]
Rochford area residents say Vancouver-based Mineral Mountain Resources destroyed Black Hills National Forest Service Road 184A during their drilling of some 7,500 acres in the Homestake Gold Belt on public lands and at a private site known as the Standby Mine Target.

At least 23 prehistoric sites near Devils Tower National Monument in the Wyoming Black Hills, some of which are archaeological treasures eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, are also at risk to an 8000-acre expansion of Australia’s largest US aquifer uranium mining operation.
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