10/12/26

Why doesn't Reich Mike fly into Pierre from Denver?

Pierre Regional Airport (PIR) does not currently have direct Essential Air Service (EAS) flights to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport (MSP).  

Recall that in 1997 South Dakota got $23 million for going without Amtrak service so then-Governor Bill Janklow funneled much of that money into the Governor's Club and in 2007 Earth hating Gov. Mike Rounds spent some of it on an airplane for his personal use. But, in a state that says it hates big government money essential air service into South Dakota's capital city has always looked like a bridge to nowhere.

However, flights from the Washington, DC area (Reagan, Dulles or Thurgood Marshall) to Denver International Airport (DEN) are highly accessible, with nonstop options averaging around 4 hours. Main carriers like United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, and Frontier Airlines operate frequent daily nonstop flights and SkyWest Airlines, operating as United Express, provides twelve weekly round-trip EAS flights between PIR and DEN. SkyWest's winning bid requested a $5.4 million subsidy for the first year and $5.6 million for the second year with years three and four projected at $5.8 million and $5.99 million respectively until 2029.
Only a United States Senator who travels on the taxpayer dollar would think it’s acceptable to have a private plane ferry him to his home on return trips to South Dakota. That’s exactly the life of royalty (or corruption) that Career Politician Mike Rounds leads. From 2022 to 2025, the taxpayers paid over $1.3 million just to fly him to and from the Minneapolis airport in a private, convenience plane to his Fort Pierre home. This happened over 110 times during this four year period. Let me give you one example from the 110 plus trips to the state. On Friday, September 12, 2025, Career Politician Mike Rounds flew on a commercial flight from Washington to Minneapolis, where a private plane was standing by. The taxpayers were billed $5,879.08 for that private plane. Then, on Monday, September 15, 2025, that private, convenience plane, costing taxpayers another $5,879.08, returned him to Minneapolis, where he boarded a commercial flight bound for Washington. [Brian Bengs]
Image: Earth haters Mike Rounds before he became morbidly obese and Pat Powers, who has always been fat.

Scrub-a-dub-dub! The latest Republican to remove Donald Trump references from their website is...Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota! How bad must things look for the GOP if Trump is toxic in SD, too? #SDSen via @washingtonsun.com

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— TrumpsTaxes (@trumpstaxes.com) October 12, 2026 at 8:13 AM
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10/10/26

Dems on track to throw Trump from office

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10/9/26

Red counties under red flag warnings again

URGENT - FIRE WEATHER MESSAGE National Weather Service Rapid City SD 1212 AM MDT Fri Oct 9 2026 ...RED FLAG WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 11 AM THIS MORNING TO 8 PM MDT THIS EVENING DUE TO GUSTY WINDS AND LOW RELATIVE HUMIDITY FOR CENTRAL BLACK HILLS, SOUTHERN BLACK HILLS, FALL RIVER COUNTY AREA, NORTHERN FOOT HILLS, EASTERN FOOT HILLS, CUSTER COUNTY PLAINS, PINE RIDGE AREA, BUTTE COUNTY AREA, WEST CENTRAL PLAINS, BADLANDS AREA, NORTHERN CAMPBELL, SOUTHERN CAMPBELL, CROOK COUNTY PLAINS, WESTON COUNTY PLAINS, AND WYOMING BLACK HILLS...

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10/8/26

Two more Republican-owned sawmills to close

Koch Industries owns Georgia-Pacific LLC, one of the largest forest products ravagers in the United States. 

Interfor is another huge timber multi-national that sold a sawmill to Neiman Enterprises who then shipped salvage logs from California to Wyoming. 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. Neiman purchased Colorado's Montrose Forest Products in 2012 but recently announced it will close, too.
Bearlodge Forest Products will close its sawmill and pallet operations, ending a nearly five-decade run in a community with deep ties to Wyoming’s timber industry. The company cited a number of factors in a Facebook post about the closure, including high input costs, a limited labor pool, scarce housing, and sustained downward pricing trends. Wyoming’s timber industry has also been struggling for years. The business is connected to the Neiman family, which has long played a role in Hulett’s forest-products history. [Cowboy State Daily]
Sawmills in Montana that rely on ponderosa pine are closing in part because of low lumber prices driven by salvage sales after record wildfire seasons caused by human influences on global climate patterns.
“This has been a really hard decision,” 67-year-old Steve Marks, a fourth-generation Clancy rancher, third-generation logger and the founder of Marks Lumber, said last week during an interview in his office, referring to his plan to end operations in early 2027. “These environmentalists are killing us,” Marks said, recalling his company’s planned purchase of nearly a year’s worth of logs, a million board feet, from the USFS in Larabee Hat early this summer. [Jefferson County Monitor]
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10/7/26

Unaffiliated candidate Bengs gaining on incumbent Earth hater

NPR also reported this on Wednesday. "Major super PACs and investment-backed groups have injected close to $1 million into South Dakota’s 2026 U.S. Senate race, significantly outspending the contributions from local residents. According to a report by WIRED, Rounds has received roughly $600,000 in outside backing. The majority of this funding originated from Defend American Jobs, a super PAC that receives financial backing from a separate super PAC funded by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz."

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