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 propaganda 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