Bengs calls out Rounds for being a hypocrite

Earth haters like Mike Rounds have a disproportionate influence on the farm bill and to nobody's surprise it's the usual suspects who spend an overwhelming majority of the money. Now, with Republicans driving a $40 TRILLION debt and more than even the defense lobby lavishes on politicians  the US Chamber of Commerce, Bayer, American Crystal Sugar, the American Farm Bureau Federation and the Koch cabal flood Republicans like Rounds with cash according to research compiled by the Union of Concerned Scientists. 

As a result most ag products and non-organically grown meats in the United States are contaminated with atrazine, neonicotinoids, glyphosate, dicamba, DDT, mercury, lead, PFAS, E. coli, mycotoxins, Imazalil plus other toxins and pathogens.

Reminder: Mike Rounds helped eliminate mandatory country of origin labeling as a freshman senator. Now more than a decade later, he suddenly cares about feeding Americans mystery meat. pic.twitter.com/Obx6cF4Fbx

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 30, 2026

Six months into this war, Mike Rounds has demonstrated admirable message discipline: “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and have no intention of finding out.” pic.twitter.com/WAVUufroUz

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 28, 2026

Black Hills Mushrooms booted from right wing farmers market, opens new venue

Black Hills Mushrooms was ousted from the Black Hills Farmers Market following closed-door board meetings in mid-August 2026. This decision directly involved Earth hater Heather Maude, the high-profile co-owner of Maude Hog and Cattle, who serves as the President of the Black Hills Farmers Market Board of Directors. 

Accusations of vendor favoritism and market "gatekeeping" quickly surfaced, with patrons pointing out conflicts of interest regarding how booth spaces and product rights are allocated by the board. Vendor fees for the Market range widely from $51 to $612 per season depending on the length of the agreement and the specific type of space or vendor category.

Recall that on January 6, 2021 the attack on the US Capitol was a climax of an anti-law enforcement movement emboldened by the 2014 Bundy standoff. So, it's hardly surprising that Earth haters like Cliven Bundy and Harriet Hageman are defending Charles and Heather Maude because they hate what they call the administrative state even as it benefits them. 

The US Department of Agriculture's Forest Service Supervisor Jack Isaacs (now retired), Special Agent Travis Lunders and District Ranger Julie Wheeler received death threats just for doing their jobs then were thrown under the bus by the Trump Organization's agriculture secretary. Extremists are screaming that Agent Lunders came unannounced to the Maude ranch in 2024 in full tactical gear to serve the summons to appear in district court because the Maudes blew off civil remedies after breaking federal law. The Forest Service denies the agent was outfitted with "any tactical uniform, gear or assault weapons" even though it is widely known property owners in that part of South Dakota are militantly opposed to gubmint especially those of Democratic administrations but love all that subsidized crop and livestock insurance anyway. 

The charges have been dropped but the case is not resolved after the Maudes allegedly stole access to public land by claiming it as their own then after being advised of their crime flouted its repercussions because Democrat Joe Biden was sitting in the White House. But, the blame lies with the State of South Dakota, Custer County and the lawyers who drafted the Maude Family Trust and neglected to order a survey. 

Maude Hog and Cattle has been providing product to Wall Meats which is heavily subsidized by the USDA and Charles Maude has received some $300,000 in ag subsidies since 1995. 

In a Saturday morning phone conversation with an interested party the owner of Black Hills Mushrooms, Alan Carner, revealed that Maude is hardly the only member of the extreme white wing on the Farmers Market board and has reached out to Dakota Rural Action, Rapid City Sustainability and the City of Rapid City. Mr. Carner officially established the Black Hills Producers Market whose grand opening takes place today, August 29, 2026, located on South Street in Rapid City. The new market aims to bypass board restrictions and offer an open platform for regional growers, makers, and artisans to sell directly to the public. 

Heather Hamilton Maude is a Wyoming native and her parents are Trump supporting Earth haters, too. She writes an occasional column for the right wing rag, Tri-State Livestock News.

Internal poll levels South Dakota's US Senate race

"An August 13-17 poll of 500 likely voters showed the U.S. Senate race tied at 44% each between Navy veteran Bengs and two-term Senator Rounds, with 12% undecided. When given balanced positive details on both, Bengs led 52% to 40%. The survey, conducted by Impact Research for Bengs' campaign, reveals Rounds' vulnerabilities like a -10 favorability rating and criticism from some Trump voters as too tied to corporate interests. Though forecasters see the seat as safely Republican, the results hint at a tightening contest ahead of November.

SOUTH DAKOTA POLL: Senate - Bengs (I) internal

🟨 Brian Bengs: 44%
🟥 Mike Rounds (inc): 44%

Impact Research | 8/13-17 | 500 LVhttps://t.co/v6s2PhMPwM pic.twitter.com/VgsX1LJRtu

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) August 28, 2026

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Current Polling USA Senate Model: Democrats are at 53 seats (+1) Republicans are at 47 seats (-1) (% Change With Previous Week's Model)

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— Polling USA (@usapolling.bsky.social) August 28, 2026 at 10:50 AM

Poll sez Osborn tied with Ricketts

Unaffiliated candidate for US Senate in Nebraska, Dan Osborn is facing Earth hater Pete Ricketts.

An internal poll commissioned by nonpartisan Dan Osborn's campaign shows him tied with incumbent Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts in Nebraska's U.S. Senate race.

Full story: https://t.co/Kni1srQNfB pic.twitter.com/pocd7Ycowu

— Omaha World-Herald (@OWHnews) August 26, 2026

The difference between a bad Election Night and a catastrophic one for Republicans hinges on whether the currently moribund GOP base shows up to vote.

Read @amyewalter's latest column: https://t.co/YMYQ0pdllS

— Cook Political Report (@CookPolitical) August 27, 2026

Records obtained by Flatwater show an attempt last year by Dan Osborn staffers and allies to disband a political party, which could have benefited Osborn. A spokesman for Osborn’s campaign said Osborn “had nothing to do with the Legal Marijuana Now Party activities.”🔗 buff.ly/vBkYAoN

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— Flatwater Free Press (@flatwaterfreep.bsky.social) August 26, 2026 at 2:05 PM

Earth hater Noem Peters apparently a chip off her mother's block; Goss cautious

In South Dakota the Chinese ring-necked pheasant is not wildlife but it is a canary in a chemically and genetically engineered coal mine.

As for pheasants, they don’t stand a chance. Although the South Dakota Game, Fish & Parks Department claims pheasant numbers rebounded somewhat in 2014 and 2015, because of two back-to-back warm winters, the overall trend looks bleak. Why? Because urbanization and industrialization of rural Dakota isn’t slowing, it’s accelerating. Consequently, habitat is going to continue to fall under the plow, bulldozer and backhoe. And there is nothing, and no one, who is going to stop it, especially not Gov. Dennis Daugaard and his lame pheasant recovery task-force. [op-ed, Robert Schneiders]

But a shaky cease fire in the attempted extermination of native species to prop up the pheasant industry has taken effect after the state's former Republican governor put bounties on raccoons and skunks known to feed on prolific invasive zebra mussels. In South Dakota over a hundred native species are at risk to the Republican Party including the endangered pallid sturgeon, paddlefish, black footed ferret, northern long-eared bat, the black-backed woodpecker that feeds on bark beetles and a bird that actually walks underwater – the American dipper, just to name a few.

An increasing number of scientists believe the US Fish and Wildlife Service isn't doing enough to crack down on red states that flout or simply ignore protections for vulnerable species so now some 80% of original grassland ecosystems are gone. Ag producers have destroyed shelter belts to plant industrial crops that deplete aquifers and now drought is blowing toxin-laden topsoil into downwind states. Another early spring wildfire season began in Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, the panhandles of Oklahoma, Texas and other Republican-held areas where moral hazard and poor ranching practices routinely decimate the high plains. In the last 10 years alone, the US lost more than 50 million acres of grasslands.

 

In 2013 the eldest daughter of Kristi Lynn Arnold Noem (KLAN) was injured in a vehicle rollover apparently after learning to drive from her mother.

Kassidy [Noem] Peters, development officer with Pheasants Forever and Quail Forever, whose national office is based in Watertown, addressed the Brookings Rotary Club regarding the organizations’ mission and growing impact across the region. Since 1970, grasslands have declined by 53%, making them one of the most imperiled ecosystems on the planet. The program has also succeeded in opening previously landlocked public ground, creating new opportunities for hunters. Peters shared the story of a Kansas hunter who discovered the program through a podcast, made the drive to South Dakota, and has returned every year since. [Brookings Register]

The good news? Some 1.3 million invasive pheasants were put to death by hunters in the state in 2025 in addition to the intentional culling of about 30,000 farm-raised fowl at Gisi Pheasant Farm because of the H5N1 bird flu outbreak.

Creighton University's Ernie Goss follows the economies of ten midwestern states including South Dakota's where the manufacturing sector lost about 800 jobs over the last year or 1.8% of its manufacturing base, ag workers still face severe stressors and a mental health provider shortage affects at least 62 of South Dakota's 66 counties.

The state’s farm and ranchland price index fell to 47.8 from July’s 55.0. South Dakota’s August new hiring index dipped to 50.8 from 52.5 in July. According to trade data from the [International Trade Association], South Dakota exports of agriculture goods and livestock for the first half of 2026, compared to the same period in 2025, slumped by $30.1 million for a 39.8% fall. The greatest downturn in South Dakota ag exports were to Mexico with a 50.5% drop from 2025 to 2026. [Rural Mainstreet Index]

Tribal cannabis thriving as red state Montana still struggling with regulation

In the earliest years of interested party this columnist advocated for a craft cannabis industry informed by a synthesis of statutes that empower organic gardeners, microbreweries, vintners, greenhouses, banking, fiduciary and insurance participation with ways and means hammered out in committee by each state legislature to guide enforcement. Patients seeking a prescription for cannabis as medication would be seen by health care providers and be excused from paying any excise taxes.

After Montana legalized therapeutic cannabis in 2004 discussions about growing the industry on tribal lands began in 2010 with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai (CSKT). The then-purple state legalized for all adults over 21 in 2020 then opened for business in 2022 but because tribes are sovereign nations, state legalization did not automatically apply inside reservation boundaries. 

In 2025, the now-red state legislature passed a bill that included compacts that would govern tax revenue sharing, cultivation limits and how tribally-owned dispensaries would operate on or near reservations but was vetoed by the governor so each tribe chooses how to regulate the enterprise. 

The Montana Department of Revenue is authorized to issue a total of eight "Combined-Use" licenses that allows exactly one license for each of the eight federally recognized tribes in Montana or an entity majority-owned by a tribe. The state caps tribal cultivation under these specific state licenses at a Tier 1 canopy level, the smallest commercial grow size, which remains a point of regulatory friction. A combined-use license permits the tribe to run both a cultivation facility and a dispensary at a single premises and the Crow Nation passed its own independent cannabis ordinance to levy its own local taxes and regulate manufacturing while other reservations remain entirely dry or prohibit sales. 

Tribal entities can operate these facilities within a 150 air-mile radius of the exterior boundaries of their reservation, or tribal services area for the Little Shell Chippewa tribe, provided the host county allows adult-use sales. In 2026, N8V Grown is renowned as Montana’s most trusted dispensary offering premium cannabis products. Founded by an enrolled member of the Chippewa Cree Tribe the award-winning, Indigenous-owned and operated business that takes immense pride in its heritage and commitment to excellence has expanded from locations near reservations to a retail location outside of Billings because Yellowstone County is green but the city is not.

The Flathead Indian Reservation spans parts of Lake, Sanders, Missoula, and Flathead counties and the CSKT operates as a sovereign entity with its own codified laws regarding possession and distribution. 

But white people are struggling how to regulate the industry in the Flathead Valley. Local county commissioners faced fierce public pushback over how to manage the market so in 2022 they attempted to host a public vote to completely opt out of "recreational" cannabis sales sparking protests at the downtown Kalispell courthouse before the county ultimately backed down.

Today, zoning laws vary statewide as jurisdictions navigate the recreational cannabis industry under the Department of Revenue, which had previously been housed under the Department of Health and Human Services. City and county officials over the last four years have been directing dispensary owners where to cultivate, process and dispense cannabis to allow their businesses to operate while avoiding community conflict. Flathead County in 2023 limited cultivation and manufacturing to agricultural and residential zones, meaning some owners could not grow their plants in business zones where their product is sold. This requires many business owners to operate separate facilities in multiple locations to cultivate, manufacture and dispense their products. [Flathead Beacon]

Wage slaves sustain South Dakota's economy

Today’s intersection? Diversity, equity, and inclusion: Trump state economies are in the toilet according to Creighton University's Ernie Goss but it's not about laziness, it's about Maria shrugged, if you will. 

In 2022 an interested party phoned the son of an old friend who took over his dad's successful painting business based in Spearditch and asked him whether Spanish speakers still do much of the work in the trades. He said many drive back and forth from Gillette, Wyoming after the collapse of the coal industry and Lawrence County's property crimes and violence among rival workers peaked in 2018 but now Rapid City sees the bulk of the construction site thefts, drunken brawls and housing overcrowding. He told me that in Hill City Spanish speakers became the only applicants for employment at the sawmill so after Donald Trump was forced from office Jim Neiman shuttered it. 

South Dakota is home to about 39,900 recent immigrants or about 4.3% of the state's population and more than 280 refugees resettled in South Dakota during the fiscal year 2024 compared to 206 in all of 2023. So, the extreme white wing in South Dakota is losing it not because nearly half of students qualify for free or reduced lunches and some 3,500 students receive special education support but because new residents in South Dakota are migrants from Muslim countries like Afghanistan, South Sudan and Ethiopia. 

Nebraska and Iowa are also seeing surges in immigration but Brookings and Moody Counties in South Dakota are homes to more people from Guatemala and other Central American nations.

Working-age adults between 18 and 64 have represented the largest share of people moving into South Dakota from other states every year from 2021 through 2024, according to an analysis of Census Bureau migration estimates. During that period, an average of about 21,000 working-age adults moved into South Dakota each year, compared with about 5,000 children and 2,000 retirees. [SD News Watch]

Religionism is what these climate refugees and migrant workers have in common with their Midwest counterparts and "pro-life" is simply code for white people breeding because African-Americans terminate pregnancies at about the same per capita rate as white people do but don’t take their jobs. Latinas, however, have fewer abortions per capita and the extreme white wing of the Republican Party knows it's hemorrhaging jobs to Latinos.

South Dakota is the hardest-working state, in part because 6.5% of workers have multiple jobs, the 11th-highest percentage in the country. Although this may not be an ideal situation, indicating that people’s main jobs are not paying them enough, it’s still a testament to how hard South Dakota residents are willing to work. In addition, South Dakota has the fifth-lowest share of “idle youth” – people ages 18 to 24 who are not in school, are not working and have no school experience beyond a high school diploma. [WalletHub]

They're eating the horses!

Some horses sold by the Bureau of Land Management move through livestock dealers and toward slaughter despite the Trump Organization's insistence that it does not sell free-roaming horses for meat.

Image h/t: @thesandboxchannel.bsky.social

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— David Waldman (@kagrox.bsky.social) August 23, 2026 at 11:34 AM

 

Reich Mike Rounds moves to the middle as Bengs advances

Rotund reprobate rescuer Reich Mike Rounds is rattled.

With Brian Bengs forcing the South Dakota US Senate race to the center career politician Rounds says he and Democratic Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar want to return some cropland to grasslands. In my home state of South Dakota some eight million acres are salt-impacted due to seawater intrusion, fertilizer and other soil amendments, irrigation with saline water and roadway deicer applications. But, Minnesota is struggling with nitrate pollution, too.

Soils are worn out from decades of pesticides, poor farming practices and manufactured fertilizers. Aquifer sources are not considered high quality for irrigation because of their salinity levels and fossil water from limestone contains the minerals that made us human but shallow wells and waterways suffer impairment from nitrate pollution making water less available especially where aquifer levels are dwindling. 

Traditional deep-rooted prairie grasses and diverse small-grain rotations have largely been replaced by heavy corn and soybean rotations allowing the water table to rise and deposit more salt at the surface. Expanding white and brown saline patches force farmers into a loop of spending money on seeds that fail to emerge exposing the trade-off between short-term financial profitability and long-term soil health. 

Farmers would sign 10- to 15-year contracts and establish and maintain perennial grasses or non-woody vegetation like wildflowers, buckwheat or radishes. The program has additional incentives for beginning farmers and ranchers, and would prioritize contracts for poorly performing and highly erodible cropland. It would also pay landowners at a rate based on the land’s cropland value, rather than its pastureland value, which would amount to larger payments. [South Dakota Searchlight]

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, socialized water systems, a socialized internet and socialized infrastructure are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.

Big Money Mike Rounds has sat by and let the national debt more than DOUBLE in his time as a senator.

He’s rubber stamped runaway spending, tax cuts for Wall Street, and is sticking America’s children with the bill. pic.twitter.com/anqxKftXwV

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 19, 2026

White people in South Dakota still too stupid to manage cannabis industry

With tribes in Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming showing white people how to cultivate, inspect and market cannabis South Dakota is still dragging behind. Nevertheless, the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s cannabis industry brings in about $700,000 annually through fees and taxes and currently there are 11 dispensaries, 11 processors and nine cultivators across that tribal nation. 

Even as home growing surged a thousand percent in the horrible red state with a reactionary Earth hater as attorney general advocates know South Dakota is leaving money on the table. But if the neanderthal South Dakota Legislature had any integrity or ethics (they don’t) they would empower the tribal nations trapped in South Dakota to be the sole cannabis producers, inspectors and distributors in the state (they won't).

Nicole Ezeh, law and public safety legislative director for the National Conference of State Legislatures, spoke to the state’s [therapeutic] cannabis board Monday. “The recreational states will still be in a bifurcated system where half of the regulatory scheme that deals with [therapeutic] cannabis products will be under schedule three, but adult use products will still be under schedule one still,” Ezeh said. [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight.

Earth haters increasingly fearful of Bengs

Morbidly obese Earth hater, Pat Powers is wringing his unctuous little hands over Brian Bengs' appeal to South Dakota voters as short guy Reich Mike Rounds shrinks from his oath of office.

Data centers are making Mike Rounds’ Big Tech donors richer. But you?

Higher utility bills
Water drying up
… and a buzzing sound in your backyard for years to come. pic.twitter.com/w3GkdDPCjC

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 13, 2026

I spent 26 years in the armed forces. My job as a JAG was to root out corruption and make sure our government acted ethically. With the corruption rampant, we need more watchdogs in Washington. And fewer lapdogs. pic.twitter.com/UqU6RHhXW8

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 15, 2026

I’m uniting South Dakotans from the right, left and center to retire Big Money Mike Rounds, who believes South Dakota’s senate seat should be up at auction to the highest bidder. pic.twitter.com/7r2a1qgPKA

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) August 16, 2026

South Dakota still failing women

In 2018 South Dakota ranked 50th in women's workplace environment and 38th overall in WalletHub's Best & Worst States. The red moocher state climbed to 32nd in 2019 but sank again in 2020 to surf the bottom for women’s equality at 38th and 41st in empowerment. 

In 2022, of the 25 best states for women 22 of them were blue according to rankings from WalletHub. My home state of South Dakota held 51st place for the number of women who own businesses, 49th in percentage of women who voted in 2020 but tied for 1st with North Dakota for lowest unemployment among women. The bottom 8 states for women's well-being were red. 

In 2023 20 of the 25 best states for women were blue but 17 of the worse states for women were red. North and South Dakota were still tied for first place in rates of employed women while New Mexico is still too high in rates of women living in poverty. South Dakota was 50th in women-owned businesses and 41st in women's health care and safety. 

In 2025 South Dakota was 51st in the percentage of women-owned businesses. The best 20 states for women were all blue while the 20 worst states for women were all red. In 2024 South Dakota dropped to 49th in financial literacy and 50th in financial knowledge and education. The state was the 43rd best economy in the US, 51st in percentage of businesses owned by women and 50th in innovation potential. 

Today, South Dakota is 36th in women's equality behind even Mississippi, 35th in political empowerment and 30th in workplace environment, has dropped to 50th in financial literacy is 51st in financial knowledge and education rank, 41st in innovation, 45th in human capital rank, 47th in innovation environment and 50th in share of technology companies. 

Read it all at WalletHub.

Tribes leading as Wyoming hints at loosening cannabis restrictions

A 2020 University of Wyoming survey showed 54% of the state's residents supported legalizing for adults over 21 while 85% supported legalizing therapeutic cannabis.

In 2021 the Northern Arapaho voted to decriminalize and the Eastern Shoshone General Council passed a binding resolution to operate tribally-owned cultivation and extraction facilities for cannabis-based products. Rooted in the tribe's internal legislative authority based on the Fort Bridger Treaties of 1863 and 1868 the body asserted that their exclusive land-use rights, self-governance and immunity bypass the jurisdiction of the state of Wyoming and serve as a major step toward tribal self-reliance and economic diversification. 

With the Wyoming governor's tribal liaison in attendance the Eastern Shoshone Cannabis Commission hosted a public education meeting last December to explore how a majority women and Native-owned industry could be developed on the Wind River Reservation. But just recently the state’s attorney general objected to the Trump Organization’s rescheduling of the herb.

“I think for as long as I’ve been in the legislature, [therapeutic cannabis] has been supported by a majority of Wyomingites,” Senator Chris Rothfuss, D-Laramie, said. “It’s gotten to the point where general legislation is supported by a majority, and even a majority of republicans support legalization.” Representative Karlee Provenza, D-Laramie, said the attorney general’s objection seems “out of step” with the people of Wyoming. “I think we should have aligned with federal law on this,” Provenza said. “But also we need to go further than that. We’ve just heard too many benefits from people like veterans who use it for PTSD and people who use it for chronic pain.” [Jackson Hole News & Guide]

interested party remembers Stan Adelstein

The late Republican former South Dakota State Senator Stan Adelstein's ancestors owned a store in Kadoka adjacent to the Pine Ridge Reservation and was vested in mining interests from gold to gravel on stolen treaty lands. But Stan Adelstein became ten times the man Denny Sanford was and screwed way fewer people. 

In 1997, I performed my first of six seasons as Mother Ginger in the Black Hills Dance Theater’s production of the Nutcracker; Vanessa Short Bull danced the Sugar Plum Fairy. One of her inspirations was Maria Tallchief, America’s first major prima ballerina who was an Osage Tribal member and danced the Sugar Plum Fairy. Stan Adelstein was always at our productions even sometimes backstage.

My only personal interaction with Mr. Adelstein was in 2005 after he bought the Black Hills Fort Pierre Roundhouse in Lead. After losing the Ross Compressor Building bid to the now-defunct outfit that was casting the giant presidential heads my business partners and I turned our attention to rehabilitating the roundhouse. I made an appointment with Stan at his office in Rapid City and met with him after spraying texture so I was coated from head to toe. But after tracking drywall mud all over the carpet he sold it to Dr. Duane and Phyllis Sander of Brookings in 2007. 

Fast forward to 2010 in response to journalist Kevin Woster showing sunlight on the hiring of South Dakota War College poo peddler Pat Powers to the office of incoming Republican Secretary of State Jason Gant, Sen. Adelstein, also a Republican, exposed the War College blog as likely defamatory and called for an investigation of Gant and the SOS's alleged collusion with former employee, Pat Powers to engineer an ALEC-inspired red map strategy. 

In June 2012, Sen. Stan Adelstein formally asked Attorney General Marty Jackley to investigate the arrangement. Adelstein and critical journalists highlighted that Powers was running a private political vendor business, the Dakota Campaign Store, while drawing a $65,000 taxpayer salary to run the state's neutral election systems. Adelstein openly blasted the partisan weaponization of the office and went so far as to ask the Attorney General if impeachment or gubernatorial removal was warranted. Amid the mounting legal pressure and scrutiny over potential conflicts of interest, Powers resigned from his state post in July 2012.

Stan Adelstein gave generously to every cause, paid countless school lunch arrears and his estate probably still will. 

Loomer: Thune a Judas, daughter a leftist sympathizer

The Orange Julius is running out of patience with career socialist US Senator John Thune and so is Laura Loomer.

John Thune’s daughter, Brittany Thune-Lindberg, worked for the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC, which donated to multiple anti-Trump radical Democrats from February 2013 to June 2021. Elected Democrats who received donations from the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC during Brittany Thune-Lindberg’s tenure include Nancy Pelosi, Mikie Sherrill, Hakeem Jeffries, Jamie Raskin, Jon Tester, Katherine Clark, and Sherrod Brown. 

The Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC’s donations to Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown are telling as they occurred in 2019 and 2020, meaning that the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers PAC money donated to Tester and Brown was used in their recent election races.

Senator John "Judas" Thune of South Dakota, the Republican Senate Leader and career politician voted to confirm these six Biden cabinet nominations: Merrick Brian Garland, of Maryland, attorney general Gina Marie Raimondo, of Rhode Island, secretary of commerce; Lloyd James Austin, of Georgia, secretary of defense Antony John Blinken, of New York, secretary of state; Peter Paul Montgomery Buttigieg, of Indiana, secretary of transportation; Janet Louise Yellen, of California, secretary of treasury. [Laura Loomer]

In an apparent conflict of interest Mr. Thune voted to confirm Luke Lindberg in 2025 as undersecretary for trade and foreign agricultural affairs at the US Department of Agriculture. The executive director and chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said Senate rules don’t overtly bar senators from voting on the confirmation of a family member but the rules do bar members of Congress from using their office in a way that benefits family members.

After nepo baby Thune-Lindberg left the PAC she transitioned to roles in the private wealth hoarding and corporate greed sectors but today she's a christianic musician. 

Drunkard Hegseth a coke head, too?

Addictive personality disease?

Ok. I had a cocaine problem, 22 years in recovery. Pete Hegseth is high. I remember that fidgeting, that sweating, all of it. He needs drug tested. https://t.co/dr3tDcMqa3

— Chef Joe Gera 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇮🇹 (@redhotnerd) August 12, 2026

Burns: Medicare for all seems reasonable

Editor's note: there is a growing movement among Democrats and others to fund Medicare for all but this interested party likes the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TriCare, Medicare, the Indian Health Service and the Veterans Health Administration together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. 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, socialized water systems and now a socialized internet are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.

Robert Burns is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Dean Emeritus of the Honors College at South Dakota State University. His column appears in the Brookings Beacon.

Much is being made of a progressive proposal for “Medicare for all” as we approach the 2026 midterm elections. 

There are variations of exactly what the proposal entails but agreement exists among supporters that healthcare would continue to be delivered as a combination of private and public providers — but a single public payer system would be created to pay for the healthcare goods and services provided.

Critics argue the proposal is far too radical and expensive. Proponents argue it is a reasonable proposal in response to the healthcare issue which the American public identifies as the third-leading public issue in American politics.The American healthcare issue is identified by the public and policy makers as a multipart issue involving high cost, limited access and poor results. 

Annual healthcare spending in the U.S. is nearly $5.3 trillion and accounts for approximately 18.5% of our nation’s GDP. The per capita spending is approximately $15,600.

Both the total spending and the per capita spending levels are nearly twice that of all other democratic industrialized nations, all of which provide some version of public, universal and comprehensive healthcare for the citizenry. 

The high cost of healthcare in the U.S. is traceable to multiple factors including the fact that the industry employees state of the art expensive technology and high-salaried professionals. Other factors accounting for high costs include the lack of price visibility and regulations for drugs, devices and procedures, the fee for service practice and the high administrative costs associated with administering a tangled web of scores of private and public health insurance plans.

Our highest level of global healthcare spending fails to provide the highest level of access and the best healthcare results. Access is limited by several obstacles including lack of personal funds and insurance, rural medical provider shortages, insurance restrictions on care, and lingering social and racial disparities.

The most recent government reports identify nearly 9% of the American public or approximately 28 million persons lack healthcare insurance of any type and that number is expected to increase by nearly 3.5 million during this calendar year because of Affordable Care Act insurance premium subsides being eliminated and federal funding for Medicaid being reduced by $800 million due to the One Big Beautiful Bill. 

The lack of coverage is not spread evenly across the public. Nearly 30% of households with incomes below $25,000 per year lack health insurance which explains in part why our low-income public suffer disproportionately worse health conditions. Children have a high level of health insurance coverage with approximately 5.6% being uninsured while nearly 12% of the adult public between 18 and 64 years old have no health insurance.

Our nation’s public, 65 years old and older, enjoy the highest level of coverage due to Medicare. 

High costs and an inability to afford the high costs limits access to quality care which leads to poor healthcare results in the U.S. Our life expectancy, infant mortality rates, chronic illness rates and the number of avoidable deaths all compare unfavorably with statistics and rates found in other democratic industrialized nations. The American lifestyle and a lack of emphasis on preventive health along with limited access discussed above all contribute to our poor healthcare results. 

Nothing discussed above is new to our list of public issues. We have been faced with these same healthcare realities for decades, yet our policy makers bring us only incremental change. We find some satisfaction in Medicaid and Medicare approved in the mid-1960s, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program that followed and the 2010 Affordable Care Act but the healthcare issues outlined in this essay persist. Under the current Trump Administration and the Republican controlled Congress, funding and regulation regression has been the direction of policy change in healthcare giving us even higher costs, more limited access and poorer results. Perhaps it is the right time for a leap beyond incremental change in the form of Medicare for all. 

A single integrated, regulated and funded healthcare payer system promises universal access, more efficient spending of our healthcare dollars and results competitive with the rest of our democratic industrialized cohort nations. Over 30 modern democracies have proven public funded and regulated universal and comprehensive healthcare is a more efficient and effective use of healthcare spending. 

Those who insist the proposal is a radical version of socialized medicine are invited to advance a better alternative model of healthcare that will address our current challenges of high cost, restricted access and poor results. 

The status quo promises more of the same.

Rally tally looking up!

Two bikers died in separate crashes that occurred about 15 minutes apart on Monday. C'mon, South Dakota, you can send even more Republicans home to Jesus so just try harder!

Fire up the spit!

Minnesota's off-reservation cannabis compacts a model for other states

Tribal sovereignty binds the hands of states competing for federal resources. Under the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act the Tohono O'odham Nation won its lawsuit with the State of Arizona and in 2017 it opened a casino in Glendale outside its established boundaries. 

In 2018 the Oglala Lakota Oyate bought fifty acres just off I-90 outside their Nation then legalized cannabis for all adults in 2020. According to the Lakota Times Oglala Lakota College has the equipment to test cannabis but so far the cost of constructing a lab in Pine Ridge has proved to be prohibitive.

A year ago Legacy Cannabis in Duluth was the first non-tribal retail shop to open and in February a Minneapolis building housing a Pizza Hut became one of more than a dozen non-tribal dispensaries operating in Minnesota. Customers packed into the Brooklyn Park location of RISE dispensaries on its first day of cannabis sales, one of the first privately owned facilities to open about two years after the Legislature fully legalized the herb. 

Several Tribal Nations have signed compacts with Minnesota and lead retail cannabis growth where the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe is becoming a billion dollar enterprise after completing construction of a 50,000-square-foot cultivation facility that dwarfs any non-tribal operations which are capped at 30,000 square feet. The White Earth Nation was the first of Minnesota’s eleven Nations to open an off-reservation dispensary and compacts include how Minnesota taxes Tribal Nations on the sale of cannabis products to a licensed wholesaler or dispensary off-reservation.

Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) said other states and tribal nations are looking to mirror its approach — including Virginia, Wisconsin, New York, Connecticut and California, where tribal cannabis is restricted to reservation lands. Waabigwan Mashkiki, translating to “flower medicine” in Ojibwe, can barely keep up with demand as it expands operations in Mahnomen and opens retail stores across the state. Now seven tribally owned stores have opened outside of tribal land. The compacts allow each tribe to operate up to eight. [Minnesota Star-Tribune]

The closest dispensaries to the horrible red state of South Dakota are in Pipestone and Luverne, Minnesota.

Rally carnage at record pace!

Sturgis has already killed twelve Republicans as the medical and law enforcement industries are cutting fat hogs!

Beaudion suspends his campaign for US Senate

Julian Beaudion became a statesman today so odds are the US Senate race in South Dakota just pegged from safe Earth hater to toss-up!

Extreme fire weather returns to permanent disaster area

It looks like South Dakota's Earth hating governor will get another opportunity to beg the Trump Organization for more federal moola with the Bigly Fire is burning near Pactola Lake. 

Yep, so what’s not to like about six or seven month winters, a year-round wildfire season, rampant racism, chilling effects on civil rights, an extremist legislature, a repressive law enforcement industry, living in a chemical toilet, sacrifice zone, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area?

Black bears killed on I-25 were out of food and looking for water

In 2023 there was black bear scat at the horse water tank and the trail cam didn't catch its maker but an interested party did see one at the top of Morning Sun Road about two years ago. A beekeeper in Cerrillos shot one after it broke into his honey operation and our backhoe operator saw one out here between Baja Waldo and Red Rock Roads. 

At least a dozen have been seen in suburban Albuquerque and hikers have been alerted to bear activity near water sources in Santa Fe. Our excessively dry year means there is little for them to eat even in the mountains so as they move into human spaces they've become at risk to collisions with vehicles just a few miles from where this is being typed.

Two adult black bears and two cubs were found dead Wednesday morning along Interstate 25 about five miles south of Santa Fe on Alamo Creek. A New Mexico Department of Wildlife conservation officer was dispatched to a site between La Cienega and La Bajada following a report to New Mexico State Police about the dead bears. The Los Alamos-based newsletter Boomtown documented 72 calls to county officials reporting nuisance bears in the first six months of 2026 before reporting bear break-ins earlier this month. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

Trump Organization now threatening Prairie Pothole Region

The number of acres in 'agroecosystems' has tripled since the 1940s so poor ag practices like tiling have made soils unable to absorb rainfall creating toxic runoff and flooding. 

In red states like South Dakota freedom equals the right to pollute and agriculture is the leading source of pollution in the waters of the United States. Most East River lakes are already eutrophic shit holes filled with toxic algae and unable to even support fish populations so the Prairie Pothole Region is becoming increasingly threatened by the encroachment of industrial agriculture but more irrigation means pumping from depleted aquifers mainly recharged by the Prairie Pothole Region. 

And, after massive failures of state agencies like South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder invasive species like zebra and quagga mussels are taking over waterbodies as diving ducks like the Canvasback, Redhead, Bufflehead, Lesser Scaup, Common Goldeneye that feed on the pesky bivalves are being eliminated. 

Yes, the US Environmental Protection Agency and US Fish and Wildlife Service are within the Executive Branch and as Commander in Chief the president could simply order the Army Corps of Engineers and all to stand down.

On July 24, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opened an unusually brief, 14-day public-comment period seeking information about how it manages agricultural drainage pipes—a type of perforated pipe called drain tile—installed near federally protected wetlands. Comments are due August 7. But the information request appears to be the opening move in a process that could weaken protections for more than 28,000 conservation easements covering over 1.5 million acres in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. Simply put: drain tile installed too close to a prairie pothole would effectively drain that wetland and eliminate waterfowl and wildlife habitat. 

If the government now permits drainage systems close enough to starve them of water, the easements may survive on paper while the wetlands themselves quietly vanish—and much of America’s migratory ducks, geese, and other water birds along with them. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering repealing the rule that protects the integrity of the Duck Stamp easements that have been purchased for generations.” [A Quiet Rule Review Could Drain the Prairie Pothole Region, America’s “Duck Factory”]

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight.

Leo and Smith on the ocean

The Order of the Presentation opened St. Mary’s in Elkton where I attended grade school but the nuns were from the Dominican and Benedictine Orders, too. They were Commies who taught us Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie and Puff, the Magic Dragon.

Plunge in Rural Mainstreet Index reflecting GOP failures ... again

Creighton University's Ernie Goss follows the economies of ten midwestern states including South Dakota's where the manufacturing sector lost about 800 jobs over the last year or 1.8% of its manufacturing base, ag workers still face severe stressors and a mental health provider shortage affects 62 of South Dakota's 66 counties. 

July's Index dropped below growth neutral for the fifth time in the past six months, bankster confidence plummeted to 42.1 or well below 50.0 growth neutral and the economic confidence index slumped to 34.2 from June's 42.1. Goss says low commodity prices, high diesel and fertilizer costs and a worldwide economic slowdown are also driving lousy numbers and because of the continuing trade-tariff volatility farm equipment sales continue to lag to a very weak 27.8 down from June's 28.9. 

Hot and dry conditions are degrading pastures nationwide but South Dakota is facing some of the worst ratings.

The July RMI for South Dakota declined to 43.4 from 54.7 in June. The state’s farm and ranchland price index decreased to 55.0 from June’s 57.7. [Rural Mainstreet Index Plummets for July]

SoDak Dems might nominate a candidate for AG after all!

This interested party asked Taneeza Islam, Clint Sargent, Tim Rensch and Alison Ramsdell to run for South Dakota Attorney General. I also asked the Libertarian Party of South Dakota to reconvene and nominate Matt Kinney for SDAG. They have until 11 August to run someone against Earth hater Lance Russell.

Piper's death row conversion unlikely to change catholic Jackley's compulsion to kill

Catholicism is hope like gonorrhea is charity.

In 2001 Briley Piper pleaded guilty to five crimes including first-degree felony murder in the kidnapping, robbery, torture and killing of 19-year-old Chester Allan Poage near Spearditch, South Dakota. 

Unsurprisingly, catholic Attorney General Marty Jackley says death row cases like Piper's take up too much time in the legal system. High financial burdens led Nebraska lawmakers to repeal capital punishment but voters reinstated the practice.

Bob Gruss is Jackley's fellow member of the Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers. In 2018 Gruss wrote an essay on capital punishment in the Rapid City Journal.

The death penalty is always an inhumane and inappropriate punishment. I pray that South Dakota joins the many other states that respect the dignity of life by ending the death penalty — in particular for those with severe mental illnesses. [YOURS: Death row no place for mentally ill]

A state-ordered lethal injection isn't criminal justice; it's suicide by cop but Hell is life in the South Dakota State Penitentiary. 

In the autumn of 2007, Piper was teaching himself Spanish and asked the priest who was doing prison ministry at the South Dakota State Penitentiary, where Piper was serving his sentence, if he knew anyone willing to practice the language with him by phone. The priest called Caminando Juntos, a ministry serving immigrants in Sioux Falls, and Presentation Sr. Gabriella Crowley volunteered. Court records show that Piper had sought to introduce new expert evidence concerning possible brain damage, extensive childhood trauma and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, which he argued could have affected his reasoning, impulse control and ability to form intentions at the time of the crime, when he was 19. No execution date has been set yet, although South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley said after the May ruling that an execution could take place in late 2026. [He pleaded guilty to murder. As he awaits execution, Catholic supporters say he's changed.]

A federal judge in Minnesota just sentenced murderer Vance Boelter to two life sentences plus forty years for the assassinations of Melissa and Mark Hortman.

No doubt philandering Earth hater US House candidate Jackley will force the postponement of Piper's execution until after the November general election.

Today in red state failure: Casey Tibbs Foundation on shaky foundation

In 2011 an earthquake that occurred ten miles under the sinkholes that developed in the Pierre Shale in Stanley County, South Dakota was large enough to be felt by humans who live there. 

Recall that the US Army Corps of Engineers touted the construction of the Oahe Dam on the geological formation known as Pierre Shale. Engineers faced fierce pushback and technical headaches due to the high risk of slope failure, which could easily bend, stress, or rupture buried pipelines. The topic was covered at the conference of the United States Society on Dams in 2009: Slope Stability Concerns on Pierre Shale, Oahe Dam - Pierre, South Dakota...655, Robert J. Worden and Michael T. Kelly, USACE. 

That same shale accounts for the systematic breakup of roadways and railbeds in South Dakota likewise confounding KeystoneXL pipeline engineers. Pierre Shale-associated mining or void failures continue to plague development in the state, famously triggering massive evacuations and lawsuits from neighborhood sinkholes in areas like those between Piedmont and Black Hawk.

Due to the shifting ground, the Casey Tibbs Foundation says areas outside of designated pathways may present safety hazards. Public safety is their highest priority, so they ask that all visitors stay on designated sidewalks and walkways while on the property and visit only during normal business hours. Conditions are being monitored around the clock. [Sliding hillside poses potential problem to Casey Tibbs South Dakota Rodeo Center in Fort Pierre; Foundation Board says it’s not an imminent threat at this time]

Stretches of I-94 in North Dakota crossing directly through Pierre Shale subgrades routinely encounter severe buckling, specifically around Bismarck, Mandan, and Menoken.

In a related story extreme wildfire potential has returned to the horrible red states on the northern Plains.

Ya think?

In 2018 KSA Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the murder of Jamal Khashoggi who was investigating the Trump Organization and Jared Kushner's blood money infusions.

Brookings continuing socialist trend

The People's Republic of Brookings is not just home to South Dakota's fattest blogger. 

Brookings owns a research park, the hospital, a nursing home, the liquor store, the water, the sewer system, the garbage collection, the phone company, the power company, an entertainment venue, the golf course, a new rec center and is host to South Dakota's largest public university, a federally subsidized cheese and dairy industry and a rebranded medical products manufacturer that poisoned parts of town with forever chemicals. 

Daktronics is a thriving progressive technocracy while Brookings Utilities and the town's administration is a right wing mob so go figure. Recall that from the state that controls much of the means of production one of South Dakota's Earth hating former governors called Georgia's two Democratic US Senators, Communists.

So, today there is much jubilation about Target opening on the outskirts of Brookings but also significant sadness about the fire that took the 145 year-old Brost Building, several businesses and apartments downtown.

A unanimous Brookings City Council vote to buy downtown land at 210 Front St. for $450,000 drew public skepticism during the council’s July 14 meeting, even as city leaders defended the purchase as a critical piece of a larger economic puzzle. The land in question is just southwest of the facility shared by the Brookings fire and police departments and is situated near the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern railroad tracks. A grain elevator is housed on the property and the city owns the land east of 210 Front St. as well. [City’s land purchase draws pushback in Brookings]

Norbeck Society pushing back on Neiman influence in LawCo

After a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest has been broken for decades. The collapse of the Black Hills hydrologic region was forecast in 2002 even as the mountain pine beetle raced to save Paha Sapa water supplies. Nevertheless, Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises bought the former Homestake mill in Spearditch in 2008 after logging most of the Black Hills National Forest into the dirt. 

In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Neiman closed its Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch announcing layoffs and production cutbacks while blaming the US Forest Service. Earth hating US Senators John Thune and John Barrasso introduced the Save Jim Neiman's Ass Black Hills Forest Protection and Jobs Preservation Act of 2022 but it died in committee. The downsizing came despite Neiman's successful operations in blue states while enjoying the fruits of socialism as Republicans found a way to funnel taxpayer dollars to the Black Hills timber mogul under a partnership between the US Forest Service and the National Wild Turkey Federation. 

 

In June, 2023 an interested party asked former acting Black Hills National Forest Supervisor Jim Zornes to comment on an article appearing in South Dakota Searchlight about the heinous state of affairs on the Forest then the publication followed up on that piece with another describing the unheard of turnover of supervisors so an interested party asked Dave Mertz to comment on it. Mertz is a retired natural resource officer for the BHNF who attended a roundtable discussion in Spearditch hosted by South Dakota's lone US Representative Dusty Johnson when he sicced two fellow Earth haters on Regional Forester Frank Beum and BHNF Supervisor Shawn Cochran. 

Historian Paul Horsted, the Norbeck Society, People for Sustainable Logging in the Black Hills and the Black Hills Environmental Coalition joined the condemnation of Rep. Johnson's attack on the Forest Service.

The subtext: 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺.

Until recently the Lawrence County “Natural Resources Committee” was called the “timber committee”. To the best of our knowledge, since the name change a few years ago, they have not addressed any resource except timber.

Since 2011, science has repeatedly shown that logging on the Black Hills National Forest is unsustainable.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙬𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 "𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩". In addition to the widely available information about the depletion trend of saw logs, the committee has disregarded the resulting consequences to aesthetics, habitat, wildfire risk, and how the pressure they exert on the Forest Service to cut down big trees will run the timber industry out of business for lack of suitable trees for logging.

By our calculations, within 6 years at the current pace of logging, the Lawrence County Natural Resources Committee will likely have no more “expertise” to offer to the Forest Service. Maybe at that time they will move on to other resources.

Concerned residents might consider a visit with Lawrence County Commissioners and/or Committee members about the influence the County is exerting on the Forest Service and management of the national forest lands within the county. [Norbeck Society]

Lumber prices are depressed as wildfire salvage floods mills.

In a request for comment on the status of the cooperative agency status and what it means for the Forest Service and the private timber industry, Cochran’s office said they felt the issue had been resolved and refused further comment. [Lawrence Co. regains cooperative agency status with Forest Service]