Kansas therapeutic cannabis model likely topical for South Dakota legislature

It is the view of The Dakota Progressive that edibles should only be available to patients suffering from debilitating diseases, disorders or conditions and be dispensed by pharmacists and taxed like other prescriptions.

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.

When it comes to medical marijuana, Kansas may end up looking more like Ohio than Missouri — with edibles and topicals only, no smoking. Sedgwick County Sheriff Jeff Easter, who testified against loosening regulations around the drug last week, said the committee’s recommendations don’t address one of law enforcement officers’ main concerns — the lack of federal regulation of medical marijuana. “Let's get the FDA involved,” he said. “Let's get this stuff tested.” [Kansas City University Radio]

Every ag product, meats both wild and domestic not grown organically in South Dakota is contaminated with neonicotinoids, glyphosate, dicamba, DDT, mercury, lead, cadmium, PFOs, E. coli, Shigella and Legionella. Industrial cannabis (hemp) grown in the state would be no different. CBD products being sold in South Dakota and other states are little different from raw milk, preserves, pies or juices that are often tainted with hormones, pesticides and worse but sold at farmers markets anyway. Giving the products as gifts is one thing but selling untested product especially through interstate commerce is completely different.

Contaminated dietary supplements, vapes, ointments and edibles are unacceptable in a country with a long history of snake oil salesmen. Cannabis is a safe, effective palliative but black market cannabis not tested or subject to regulation makes America and South Dakota less safe. Legalization, state inspections and regulation of a product that so many people enjoy is reasonable public policy that would align with our life safety goals.

Even in New Mexico the absence of markets is the biggest obstacle for industrial cannabis growers. It costs at least $50,000 to plant 20 acres of genetically engineered CBD-rich hemp. South Dakota's grain harvest is being delayed due to horrible soil conditions driven by climate catastrophes so imagine how much money industrial cannabis producers would be losing after planting that experimental crop.

Spearditch hatchery still struggling with self-reliance

For at least two decades South Dakota's Republican congressional delegations have been obstructing attempts by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to streamline the agency as it weans support from a hatchery notorious for introducing invasive species to Black Hills watersheds and into the waters of the United States. These clowns won't support combating bulging jails and prisons but will wholeheartedly jump on the bandwagon to save a Spearditch tourist trap in a town where a Democrat could win a legislative seat.

It's hard to imagine the Service continuing to support the release of hybrid and non-native trout by South Dakota's Department of Game, Fish & Plunder when native species are being threatened in the Missouri River basin. Finescale dace was the only fish identified in Black Hills streams by the Custer Expedition in 1874 but the creek chub and white sucker are also native. Rainbow trout have recently been released into Lake Sharpe but the USFWS should block introduction of these fish into any part of the system.

This NPR story verbalizes the decision of one progressive to flee a town once touted as western South Dakota's destination of choice after fourteen years raising two children who escaped hours after their own high school graduations in 1991 and in 1995 for the University of Wyoming. It was good, too. Our meticulously preserved 1902 Furois-built arts and crafts on Canyon Street was adjacent to Spearditch's magical city park.

But today Spearditch has become a scary little town. Recall Mary Garrigan's piece in the Rapid City Journal that the stupid little hamlet wants to erect a Ceement Jaysus:

Rand Williams, a Spearfish real estate entrepreneur, said he is envisioning a multimillion-dollar statue along the lines of Rio de Janeiro's Christ the Redeemer, a 125-foot tall statue that draws tourists to the Brazilan city, that would sit on a two-acre parcel of city land.

Williams is a slum lord who rents to earth haters like John Dale. Dale joins fellow egomaniacs Sam Kephart, Gary Coe and others who have parachuted into Lawrence County expecting to change the good ole boy network Rand Williams actually helped to create. The 2016 Crow Peak Fire affected mostly Republican landowners who built in the wildland urban interface and begged the feds to protect their properties.

The resultant soaring median age of the retirees seeking deliverance from the cultural diversities thriving in Colorado, California, Minnesota, even Arizona and Oregon drives the exploitation of South Dakota's regressive tax structure and reinforces the racially insulated Nazi enclave that Spearditch is today. Harley owners, some of whom have ties to clubs with nefarious pasts and many of them pre-1970s graduates of Spearditch High School, cruise the streets in summer and then recuse themselves from the brutal Lawrence County winters for warmer white compounds in Sedona or Mesa. Often, there are elderly parents in one of the ubiquitous long-term care facilities and cemeteries.

Kristi Noem and her other white meat supporters purport to be small-government conservatives but they're really just helping themselves instead of finding a way for communities to finance rearing for private ponds and begging the feds for more moral hazard money while pretending to be self-reliant.

South Dakota will pay ACLU attorneys' fees in "riot boosting" case

As Partner Attorney at Robins Kaplan LLP, Brendan Johnson, former US Attorney for the District of South Dakota and son of retired Democratic Senator Tim Johnson, helped the South Dakota chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union win the Constitution and Libertarian Parties' lawsuit against Republican former Secretary of State Shantel Krebs.

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol today approved the settlement that says South Dakota won’t enforce current state laws that prohibit protected speech and are aimed at suppressing protests against the Keystone XL pipeline. Under the terms of the settlement, Gov. Kristi Noem and Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg will send a letter to the state’s attorneys in each county, telling them to direct law enforcement in their jurisdictions not to enforce the unconstitutional provisions of the laws. They also will compensate plaintiffs for attorneys’ fees. Brendan Johnson, partner with the Robins Kaplan law firm: “By equating peaceful organization and support of protest with ‘riot boosting’ and incitement to riot, the government stifled our clients’ abilities to speak out against the Keystone XL Pipeline. We’re happy that the state recognized that these vague and overbroad laws threatened the First Amendment rights of South Dakotans on every side of the issue and that, as a result of this settlement, no one’s voices will be silenced.” [ACLU South Dakota]

Republican Governor Kristi Noem's anti-civil rights actions are no accident. She's is a graduate of the Koch Brothers' American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC, an anti-think tank think tank that teaches how wedge issues raise campaign dollars for the extreme white wing of the Republican Party. South Dakota's GOP legislators and candidates enjoy millions in lobbyist benefits from ALEC.

Johnson wants to reform South Dakota's tyrannical cannabis laws and is representing tribes in their suit against opioid manufacturers. Catherine Piersol, wife of Clinton-appointee Judge Lawrence Piersol who also heard Libertarian Party v. Krebs, is a longtime friend of the South Dakota Democratic Party and of the Johnson family.

It's widely believed Johnson is developing the resources necessary to enter the Democratic US Senate primary then run for the seat currently held by Mike Rounds, one of the least effective members of Congress. The red moocher state's junior senator was elected with cash from ALEC-backed National Federation of Independent Business.

Noem cozies up to serial pussy grabber hoping for disaster cash

The September storms, tornadoes, and floods in Southeastern SD damaged homes, businesses, & public infrastructure. I’ve requested a presidential disaster declaration to help us with our recovery efforts. More here>>https://t.co/VKaPAvh0Fr

— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) October 28, 2019

Yes, tornadoes, flooding, habitat destruction, wildfire potential and now another eight month winter returns to the chemical toilet, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area that is South Dakota.

This is how Republicans who preach small gubmint fund crumbling infrastructure in red states. Recall Noem repeatedly voted against disaster aid after Hurricane Sandy and other climate related catastrophes. She doesn’t respect self-reliance because she’s wedded to moral hazard.

Talking about a tax package designed to Make America Great Again. 👍🏼🇺🇸 #MAGA #StrongFamilies #StrongFuture More: https://t.co/uRa98cAZzu pic.twitter.com/8jYlLhJQ3P

— Rep. Kristi Noem (@RepKristiNoem) November 2, 2017

Tupper: Heidelberger is a moron

According to journalist Seth Tupper, dry drunk assclown Cory Heidelberger is a moron for wanting to dissolve the South Dakota Democratic Party.

Liberal South Dakota blogger Cory Heidelberger has even entertained the notion of dissolving the party and redirecting its members' energy elsewhere. Judging by recent history, that would be an overreaction. [Imagining South Dakota's alternate political universe]

Fact is: the South Dakota Republican Party is splintering into two parts. Little of their agenda was passed during the 2019 legislative session so principled conservatives in South Dakota really have nothing to lose by leaving the SDGOP for a viable third party. West River could become an ideological battleground and Shad Olson could be a factor in 2020.

To finance their quixotic, selfish whims Heidelberger and Melissa Mentele of New Approach South Dakota have siphoned thousands from the hemorrhaging South Dakota Democratic Party.

Tupper is exactly right: 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. He’s simply another short guy without any trace of self-awareness.

South Dakota Democrats need to run on a corporate income tax, taxing farm implements to fix roads, 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.

Thune ready to flip on Trump -- again

31 May, 2016: John Thune (NAZI-SD) backs Trump.

8 October, 2016: Thune condemns Trump.

12 October, 2016: Thune flips again and backs Trump.

23 October, 2019:

U.S. Sen. John Thune said the picture emerging of President Donald Trump's interactions with Ukraine is "not a good one." "The picture coming out of it based on the reporting we've seen is, yeah, I would say it's not a good one," Thune said. [Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

The images of John Thune just get darker and creepier. Not just the Dan Nelson scandal, Thune had a long-time affair with Nancy Naeve formerly of KSFY teevee but who knows who he's hooked with up now. He's a sleaze who was handpicked by his fellow sleazes for "public life."

Thune can't ever seek any higher office than he has now and unless he's indicted his term doesn't end until 2023. There are no media in his home state that aren't beholden to the Republican Party and although he went to DC with little more than the shirt on his back he's got at least $14 million now.

The paper trail is clear: John Thune made Congress look the other way as Russia infiltrated Facebook. He already knew Donald Trump was a sleaze from his basketball buddy Jim Comey. That's right: the vast white wing of the Republican Party was going to beat Hillary Clinton at any cost even if it meant conspiring with a sworn enemy of the United States, destroying the presidency and taking down the republic.

When John Thune defects to the Romney camp he’ll take Lisa Murkowski, Roy Blunt, John Hoeven, Ben Sasse and Mike Enzi with him.

GOP senators calling Bill Taylor's testimony "hearsay" since he didn't hear it directly from Trump that he wanted aid withheld for probes. And today, John Thune walks back his comment from yesterday, telling me after reviewing statement, there are points that can be "disputed" pic.twitter.com/EOVCr75VPn

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 24, 2019

Town named for war criminal plans another ritual beetle burning

A South Dakota town named for a war criminal plans its seventh ritualized bark beetle burning.

Burning Beetle committee member Hank Fridell came to discuss the beetle event, saying it will take place Jan. 17-18, sponsored by the Custer Area Arts Council under the leadership of the Bark Beetle Blues Committee. Beetle construction for the burn will begin in late November and last until the day of the event. Christmas trees are once again sought to be put at Pageant Hill for the pyre. [War Criminal County Chronicle]

The event is an homage to Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises, the owner of Devils Tower Forest Products, a major contributor to the South Dakota Nazi Party. Neiman operates a sawmill in nearby Hill City. Thanks to a quid pro quo the Black Hills National Forest subsidizes Neiman because of South Dakota's socialized timber industry.

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. The mountain pine beetle is hard at work clearing centuries of overgrowth throughout the Rocky Mountain Complex, so is the western spruce budworm.

In a probably unrelated story a building in the pathetic little town partially collapsed during a wind event Sunday evening.

kurtz template gaining traction in South Dakota

There is some discussion in my home state of South Dakota about whether the earth hater party's political bludgeon could be cut down to size if there were some mechanism in place to redraw districts to make voting more equitable for Democrats. South Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin and Florida are the most earth hater-tilted states.

This is at least as much about the flight of young people and Democrats from South Dakota than anything else. Inbound white retirees from somewhere else tapping into the state's culture of federal dependence have simply displaced progressive thought leaders so there is little mystery about that.

Voter turnout is dismal in Indian Country mostly because tribal nations endure hopelessness as they compete with the stingy red moocher state government for resources.

I remember having a conversation back in the 90s with none other than Bill Janklow on SDPB when Dakota Midday was still called South Dakota Forum about consolidating counties and making two regental universities community colleges. He said he carried a "bloody shirt" for bringing a similar suggestion to the legislature and regents.

How are 65 county seats and their bureaucracies either conservative or sustainable? They're not; but, it is the way Republican cronyism and patronage built barricades to democracy by providing benefits of the public dole to those who say they deplore big gubmint in a state that hates poor people.

The Wanblee district should be in Oglala Lakota County then Jackson should be rolled into Haakon, Jones and Lyman Counties. Stanley and Sully should be rolled into Hughes. Mellette, Bennett, Todd, Gregory and Tripp should be one county. Dewey, Ziebach and Corson should be a county. Butte, Harding and Perkins should be one. Lawrence and Meade should be one, Fall River and Custer should be one.

Fine. Stanley might be happier being in with Lyman and the others.

East River is a dead zone: smarter people than i can figure out how to sort out that mess. Everything east of the Missouri River is Cleveland anyway.

Let’s face it: the only worse place than Pierre or Aberdeen to live is DC.

It's obvious this phenomenon is no accident: it has been manufactured to make the state a corporatist tax haven for an exclusive set of Republicans while over $3 trillion languish in South Dakota banks.

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.

Environmental activists drive Badlands bison expansion

Bison clear invasive grasses at Wind Cave National Park.

Back in 2010 then-Democratic Senator Tim Johnson tried to make a portion of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland adjacent to Badlands National Park part of the Tony Dean Wilderness Area. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) tried to revive it in 2011.

Environmental activist and rewilding advocate George Wuerthner wrote about it.

America has very little of its native prairie in any protected status. Most of the plains have been carved up by till farming, and the rest is grazed by livestock. Tony Dean Cheyenne River Valley Conservation Act would correct this by designating 48,000 acres as wilderness in the Indian Creek, Red Shirt and Chalk Hills areas of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland on the borders of Badlands NP. Walking these vast open breathing spaces reminds me of being on the vastness of tundra in Alaska. It’s a sense of freedom that is more difficult to experience in more forested terrain. As with any designated wilderness, livestock grazing will continue. This is particularly ironic since Tony Dean, who was an outdoor writer in South Dakota, railed against welfare ranchers and their impact on the state for decades.

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.

The World Wildlife Fund, Defenders of Wildlife and the Nature Conservancy teamed up with the National Park Foundation, Badlands Natural History Association, Badlands National Park Conservancy and the National Park Service Centennial Challenge fund to expand the bison range at Badlands National Park by nearly 35 square miles.

Bison have long roamed the wilder, western part of the park’s North Unit. But the park’s rugged topography allowed no convenient place for the park’s 1,200 bison to migrate toward the central part of the North Unit, where most of the park’s visitors are concentrated on the Badlands Loop Road. [Bison charge into bigger Badlands range]

Had Sen. Johnson been successful in passing S. 3310 as a part of the doomed Omnibus Wilderness Bill the land burned by the Cottonwood and Wolf fires would have been placed within the stewardship of Badlands National Park and much, if not all, of the federal land scorched by the Cottonwood Fire would have been burned off prescriptively in increments instead of being managed by some careless rancher or passing motorist.

Patrick Springer wrote about the Last Great Hunt on the Standing Rock Reservation as part of his series published at the Inforum news service.

Dakota Wind Goodhouse, who teaches history at United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck and is a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, said the sudden disappearance of the buffalo came as a surprise to the Lakota. "The people, they probably felt a sense of elation, excitement," he said. "Reliving the old days. There isn't a sense of dramatic despair that it was going to be the last. They couldn't have known." [The great northern buffalo herd came to an end during the ‘Last Great Hunt’ at Standing Rock]

A South Dakota state park named for a war criminal keeps a drove of allegorical mooching donkeys as a slap in the face to the South Dakota Democratic Party and stages an annual mock bison roundup appropriated from the hunting practices of some indigenous peoples.

Sure, the Lakota acquired horses around 1742 then used them as weapons of mass destruction conquering most of the northern plains and the Black Hills region. But, likely with help from dogs for some ten thousand years before that the ancestors of the Crow, Arikara and others drove bison over cliffs and into sinkholes like the Vore site near Beulah, Wyoming.

It's difficult to imagine a spectacle like that before a herd of gawking tourists.

Rewild the West!

Today we celebrated something that you, our supporters, helped make possible: Badlands National Park is opening up 22,000 acres of new bison range! Here's what happened: https://t.co/5kGu7azNwb pic.twitter.com/OCyte974kj

— World Wildlife Fund (@World_Wildlife) October 11, 2019

Cheatgrass is gradually taking over rangeland across the West. Researchers say this invasive species of grass that's spreading across states like Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada could make wildfires worse.@Abigail_KRCC reports: https://t.co/pccwIpv9EZ #mtnwestnews pic.twitter.com/xeKrXABX6h

— KUNC Colorado (@KUNC) October 7, 2019

Jackley: okay for law enforcement industry to do rapes

South Dakota has the most draconian cannabis laws in the US and the law enforcement industry can even force catheters into urethras to test possession by ingestion.

“I believe that the South Dakota legislature has given prosecutors across the state the tools to really protect the public when individuals are possessing methamphetamine or ingesting it.” That’s former Attorney General Marty Jackley. Now he’s the state’s attorney for Jones County. He says it’s common sense that if an individual has meth in their system they possess it. “Those laws here in South Dakota are really geared to give prosecutors a couple of tools or choices in ultimately charging those cases where an individuals may have the actual substance on or near their person, or those that have already ingested the substance and maybe are driving down our interstate or doing other things that are dangerous to the public and children,” Jackley says. [Bill Janklow's idea of public broadcasting]

Forcing a catheter into someone's urethra without consent is rape.

Most, if not all, meth in South Dakota is trafficked by white Trump-worshiping motorcycle gangs. These hordes are essentially domestic terrorists operating with the blessings of the prison/industrial complex.

Policing for Profit has allowed the Division of Criminal Investigation to provide military armaments for the law enforcement industry throughout South Dakota.

South Dakota and New Mexico both suffer the worst liver disease rates in the US mostly because of poor lifestyle choices but also because of easy access to pharmaceuticals metabolized by the liver. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association opiate-related deaths have decreased some 33 percent in 13 states after therapeutic and casual cannabis were legalized. Cannabis is a safe, effective palliative but 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 that would align with our life safety goals.

Trump, GOP headed for dustbin of history

This country's founders never expected the US Constitution as written to last more than ten years and most predicted it would be rewritten every generation. Thomas Jefferson wrote that a standing army would lead to military adventurism, would ultimately turn on its own citizens and that has happened. Now, we've become the Hamiltonian Empire Thomas Jefferson warned us about.

It is impossible the Obama Administration didn’t know Donald Trump was being installed by a hostile government. The Deep State wanted Trump in the White House because they're the Mob, too and he’s leveling the other guys’ poppy fields and heroin distribution with bombers from South Dakota while leaving the friendly opiate trade to flourish. The Trump Organization is an equal opportunity money launderer doing it for CIA and other Deep State actors for decades. Trump hasn’t released his financials because they show the paper trail leading to every White House since probably Eisenhower. Fred Trump is a JFK assassination conspirator hence those dox are being held up, too.

John Thune's rejection of Trump was a ruse. He already knew Donald Trump was a sleaze from his basketball buddy Jim Comey. That's right: the vast white wing of the Republican Party was going to beat Hillary Clinton at any cost even if it meant colluding with a sworn enemy of the United States, destroying the presidency and taking down the republic. So Thune made Congress look the other way as Russia and Cambridge Analytica conspired with Facebook to hack the election.

And, had former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton been elected in 2016 Paul Ryan would be president today. Her campaign knew that if Hillary won the rabid Republican House would have impeached her, the Senate would have removed her before midterms and Trump would be on the sidelines egging them on. Somebody (Robert Mercer and Cambridge Analytica) promised Paul Ryan the presidency had Clinton been removed and Tim Kaine met an unfortunate end but that all crashed when Trump was installed. There’s no way in Hell the GOP would have given a President Kaine the time to choose a Veep.

41% of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a member of Congress if he or she voted in favor of @realDonaldTrump's impeachment. 35% said they’d be less likely to do so.

More new impeachment data, courtesy of @eyokley: https://t.co/VohsyUNYyg pic.twitter.com/vEwTzBpsc3

— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) October 9, 2019

Clinton sat in with the most sophisticated intelligence community on the planet, ferfucksake! She and her campaign knew the Russians, the Trump campaign, Mike Pence and the Republican Party were hacking the election and the battle over her private emails proves it. The tarmac meeting between Bill Clinton and Attorney General Loretta Lynch was to deliver a thumb drive containing the Steele Dossier to the Justice Department. It was likely an open secret Trump was already under the microscope. Hillary's campaign was phoned in at best so they gave Trump and the GOP all the rope they're using right now to hang themselves.

Thomas Jefferson was quirky, mired in the Enlightenment and sided with Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison establishing the principle of judicial review in the United States. Marbury affirmed that courts have the power to strike down laws, statutes, and some government actions that contravene the U.S. Constitution. Jefferson would be horrified to learn that the US is operating with a 230 year old manual and would say we are long overdue for a Constitutional Convention.

So, watching the entire GOP circling the drain while they drown their comrades trying to flounder from the maelstrom is the schadenfreude we Democrats need right now. Trump's installation and downfall is the biggest political sting in the history of the United States. Trump and the GOP were set up by superior forces then were given enough rope to hang the entire cabal. He knows he’s caught and will do anything to save his ass. In poker they say, “you can keep the cheese if you just let me out of the trap.”

Simply brilliant gambit conducted by the Obama White House and Clinton campaign to throw the election and let Trump and the GOP commit political suicide!

Our new poll in North Carolina- a state Trump won by 4 points- finds that there are more voters who want to impeach him (48%) than there are who approve of him (46%):https://t.co/NgtXWkpSsH

— PublicPolicyPolling (@ppppolls) October 9, 2019

Horsemen cometh? pic.twitter.com/unuvdmOt48

— Fred Knapp (@fredmknapp) October 1, 2019

Nelson strokes biased South Dakota Newspaper Ass.

Fake news falling over itself to cobble “racism” into his retorts to anti-Semitic USA hating Communists, while ignoring @POTUS @realDonaldTrump highlighting USA made products.

Better USA does? The better newspapers, advertising, Americans do.. Their hate Trump comes first. 😡 https://t.co/Yu27Sxcdfm

— Stace Nelson (@SenStaceNelson) July 16, 2019

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.

Complaints of journalistic malpractice, at the national level, have become commonplace. Meanwhile, here in South Dakota, we have been blessed as a norm with local newspapers that have collectively attempted to persevere in reporting the most important aspects of local Americana while competing against the Goliath national news media overshadowing their diligent efforts. Because, as President Thomas Jefferson noted in 1786, “Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.” [column, State Senator Stace Nelson]

Yes, it never ceases to amuse how Republicans paint Democrats as the party of slavery then praise the slaveowners who penned not just the Bill of Rights but the Declaration of Independence, too.

What Sen. Nelson has done in disrespectful rants to his detractors on Twitter, Facebook Faceberg, Dakota "Free Press" and at Dakota War College, the quasi-official mouthpiece of the South Dakota Republican Party, is nothing short of cyber bullying.

His anger and controlling personality are pathologies, contraindications of the power drug he uses to fog a world that doesn’t conform to his delusions. He shoves his creation superstitions down the throats of his virtual victims and crams the hose of his coerced military patriotism into any orifice that his captives leave unprotected. The glaring difference between Nelson, a former military police investigator, and Ted Klaudt is that Nelson offended legally under the auspices of the Marine Corps.

The fact that Mr. Nelson has been a CASA participant as he taints the very clients for whom he purports to advocate should frighten every social worker to the core. How a morbidly obese man, who models an unhealthy body image that often eclipses the ample shadow cast by convicted sex offender Klaudt, a former GOP South Dakota legislator now serving time for his crimes, has intimate contact with rudderless young people frankly scares me beyond terror.

Nelson wasn't drafted: he solicited for and was hired to do a job then was paid for it along with associated benefits. That looks more like self serving than public service to a cynical observer.

Which part of race-driven hate speech escapes you, people? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like duck it's most likely a duck. Trump is a racist who paddles in the swamp of racism!

Little wonder Stace fears his creator. Unless and until the electorate stands up to Stace Nelson's brand of Republican dystopianism, We the People are doomed to endure Patriot Act after Patriot Act where freedom from tyranny dies a slow, whimpering death.

SDBOR hopes socialism will reverse enrollment woes

Socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, a socialized internet and now socialized education is the next step for South Dakota Republicans.

A politically motivated acting US Attorney for the District of South Dakota named Kevin Schieffer upended local control in 1992 and seized a T-Rex fossil named Sue from Pete Larson and the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City. In 2013 then-Governor Denny Daugaard appointed the disgraced Schieffer to the South Dakota Board of Regents.

SDBOR is on full freakout about declining enrollments and the red moocher state's cascading brain drain.

A three percent dip in fall enrollment at South Dakota’s public universities will force a reaction from the Board of Regents. Board President Kevin Schieffer says they believe they can manage the drop in revenue for at least one year without major changes. Schieffer says if that trend doesn’t change soon, they will have to make other plans. Schieffer says too much budget pressure is being put on student tuition. The Regents will pursue the Dakota’s Promise scholarship as their top legislative priority next year. [WNAX radio, link added]

Few dispute the reasons educated people continue to flee my home state of South Dakota. The state is struggling to keep white workers, infrastructure is crumbling, industrial agriculture is failing, South Dakota churches are girding for gun violence, meth is replacing alcohol as the state’s drug of choice, Pierre’s culture of corruption and rape violence threaten open government, socialism is quietly replacing free enterprise, pheasant numbers are dwindling, environmental degradation is increasing, wildlife are being exterminated to make way for disease-ridden domestic livestock and exotic fowl, jails far outnumber colleges, ag bankers continue to enslave landowners and the state’s medical industry triopoly operates without scrutiny.

Any registered nurse 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 stupider and more Republican.

What’s not to like about 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? Unless your Social Security pays your property taxes you’re just another poor grudznick eking out a living and bleeding out every penny you can scrabble.

Sturgis proves it's the worst town in South Dakota...again

Welcome to the age of toxic masculinity in Donald Trump's America.

A 17-year-old boy will face adult charges after the body of a teenage girl from Wyoming, who was believed to be missing, was found in the basement of his Sturgis home. No cause of death has been officially released. An autopsy is scheduled for later this week. [Rapid City Journal]

“Go back to the rez!”

A South Dakota school board voted unanimously to cancel homecoming activities that would have featured a football game between the Sturgis Scoopers and the Pine Ridge Thorpes after a car bearing hate speech and a symbol painted on it that some said resembled a swastika was smashed by Sturgis students.

Sturgis is home to Fort Meade: one of the last outposts supporting the US Army's war against Native forces.

While incidents like this one in Meade County are not uncommon in South Dakota white nationalist incitements have intensified because of Trump's history of sexual violence, hateful lies and propaganda.

Blizzard forecast for permanent disaster area

Mild to start the week, then winter pays a visit to the region. #wywx #sdwx pic.twitter.com/MaUd7KG6lD

— NWS Rapid City (@NWSRapidCity) October 7, 2019

Yes, tornadoes, flooding, habitat destruction, wildfire potential and now another eight month winter returns to the chemical toilet, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area that is South Dakota.

Ash and soot from wildfires in the Siberian taiga are accelerating the loss of Arctic sea ice driving more frequent and deeper polar vortexes. Very soon the Yellowstone supervolcano will finally put South Dakota out of its misery.

1000s of cattle that perished in #southdakota blizzard were on contract from Texas and #NewMexico http://t.co/J2UEvIMqTb #nmpol #sdsen
— larry kurtz (@larry_kurtz) October 15, 2013

Charlie Hoffman announces for legislature, now supports socialism

Charlie Hoffman has announced yet another run for South Dakota's extremist legislature from District 23. Once a principled conservative he has reversed course and now favors government determining winners and losers.

Anon 4:03 PM what the previous poster pointed out is something every Government provides dollars for in hopes of continued success in the marketplace. And I agree that whatever Gov subsidizes increases in value and usage and what Gov taxes decreases in overall usage. Quite simple micro-economics actually. Big Gov did not take total control over any of aforementioned businesses. Single Payer would do to our Health Care what every Federal Program taken over from the Private Sector has done. Guaranteed if Doctors were forced to take only Medicaid approved pay scales America would not have any American born Doctors in 40 years. But then maybe it doesn’t really matter to people who keep believing the world is going to end in 12 years every 12 years. [blog comment, Charlie Hoffman]

In 2018 while taking a shot at Senator John Thune (NAZI-SD) at Betty Olson's Facebook page South Dakota earth hater, Hoffman implied Thune has been in DC for far too long. And, at the Rapid City Journal readers can see why. Thune advocates for socialized ag and livestock production.

More than 90 percent of South Dakota’s farms are enrolled in one or more conservation, safety net, or loan program that’s been authorized by the farm bill. And I’m no stranger to farm bills, as I’ve already written three of them during my time in Congress. The 2018 farm bill will be my fourth. Most recently, I introduced my ninth farm bill proposal. This legislation, the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) Improvement and Rural Water System Access Act, would make important changes to the conservation program that provides critical habitat to the state’s pheasant population and delivers a large infusion of cash to local economies each year. Rapid City Journal

South Dakota writer, Tom Lawrence calls it part of the "insanity of the Farm Bill." Real conservatives at the Heritage Foundation have called for subsidy reform for years. Both Kristi Noem and Mike Rounds have taken handouts. South Dakota owns loads of the means of production: part of the very definition of socialism.

Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry and now a socialized internet are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.

Hoffman, whose operation has received ag subsidies said back in 2013, "Obama just does not get it. Cut Sir Cut, not Tax!"

Tired of ignominy Charlie must be bored being trapped in his wife's shadow.

SDGF&P to step up cougar extermination

The ferocious face of a baby mountain lion.. pic.twitter.com/QnaRbn2NKO

— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) October 4, 2019

South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder (GF&P) may have been interested in science at some point in its past but like Douglas fir, lodgepole pine and as revenues collapse the eventual extirpation of mountain lions from the Black Hills looks like a given. Under pressure from the Humane Society of the United States the GF&P Commission did reverse itself on hunting cougars with weaponized dogs.

During one season a white christian trophy hunter illegally slew a three-month old, fourteen pound cougar kitten in the Black Hills. The idiot was cited for a class one misdemeanor improper tagging, which carries a penalty of fines to $1,000, one year in jail and loss of hunting privileges for a year. That particular incident is par for the course in Lawrence County where firearms and alcohol mixed with meth chasers are as common as sibling marriages.

The state Game, Fish and Parks Commission made some changes Thursday that might nudge the harvest a little higher for the 2019-2020 season that starts December 26. Commissioners added a month to the Black Hills season, so it would close next spring on April 30, rather than March 31. [KELO teevee]

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

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 the Republican Party.

Kill off apex predators like wolves and cougars; spray glyphosate and POEA on everything then wonder why cervids contract a prion disease like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD).

Not wolves, cougars or even coyotes: golden eagles levied a 53% mortality rate on domestic sheep on one ranch in Wyoming.

The South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks (GFP) Commission proposed a change to the way hunters would be allowed to transport deer, elk, or moose carcasses from areas that have been identified as Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) endemic areas. https://t.co/D9Kgh3ZDPi

— Capital Journal (@capitaljournal) July 17, 2019

SDFU, industrial cannabis group to meet in Pierre

The never ending wall of hemp I am tasked with cutting down to make way for prairie grass #helpme ;) pic.twitter.com/0cEyqQYjaY

— Jane Fleming Kleeb (@janekleeb) June 27, 2015

The road to legal cannabis for all adults in South Dakota is paved with hemp but tribal nations trapped in the state should be the primary beneficiaries of industry growth there. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has admitted white people are too stupid to grow cannabis, industrial or otherwise and gave the tribes free rein on the path to economic growth but South Dakota Hemp Day will be held in Pierre Oct. 7 anyway.

“South Dakota farmers and our rural economy could benefit from this new crop and the in-state processing opportunities it provides,” said Doug Sombke, SDFU President and a fourth-generation farmer from Conde. [KEVN teevee]

Democrats living on the tribal nations trapped in South Dakota can't afford to flee the state but the Yankton Sioux Tribe has beaten casino competition. Solar power is liberating the Standing Rock and Pine Ridge Reservations from predatory utilities. A 1986 amendment to federal law allows tribes to acquire off-reservation land to serve the needs of its peoples. President Tony Reider and 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 but reportedly destroyed their crop after threats from federal party-poopers.

The Northern Cheyenne Tribe of Montana and the Arapahoe Tribe of Oklahoma teamed up and bought 1,020 acres of ranchland north and east of Mato Paha (Bear Butte) adding significantly to their holdings West River. Last year the Oglala Oyate bought off-reservation property on I-90 just outside Badlands National Park. The Fort Peck Tribes in occupied Montana have legalized therapeutic cannabis and the Northern Cheyenne have been mulling the concept. 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. Lower Brule has struggled with synthetic cannabinoids but that community has off-reservation property in Fort Pierre to test their sovereignty.

In 2018 the South Dakota Democratic Party made no mention of cannabis at their state convention but they did adopt language that explores the cultivation of dicamba-resistant and Roundup-Ready hemp but why anyone would want to buy genetically modified hemp seed from Bayer CropScience/Monsanto or some other earth hater every year remains a mystery.