1/30/26

Public lands management at risk to Trump's Earth haters

In 2002 Tracy Stone-Manning lectured on the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act or NREPA at the University of Montana where she earned her Masters of Science in Environmental Studies. In 2007 she became an aide to Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) then ran the state’s Department of Environmental Quality and in 2014 became chief of staff for Montana Governor Steve Bullock. As Director of the Clark Fork Coalition she guided dam removal and river cleanup and has been co-chair of Missoula's Open Space, Rivers and Farmland. 

After serving as Director of the US Bureau of Land Management she is now president of The Wilderness Society as the Trump Organization ruins the BLM and the US Forest Service faces the collapse of morale and preparedness.
The management structure itself is a tangle. Interior manages parks, refuges, and BLM lands. The Forest Service sits in Agriculture. Marine sanctuaries fall under Commerce. Energy authority is split across agencies. This fragmentation leaves land managers trying to solve twenty-first century problems with twentieth- and even nineteenth-century machinery. That kind of gridlock still plagues decisions across the West. Layer climate change on top of all this—megafires, water scarcity, shifting wildlife corridors—and the mismatch between current laws and present realities becomes even sharper. When the smoke clears, much of the architecture underpinning public-lands management will be in ruins. [Stone-Manning, What I Learned Running the BLM]
Democratic former South Dakota lawmaker Troy Heinert is currently serving as the Chief of Bison Management at Interior focusing on tribal buffalo restoration, returning the National Mammal to the land and working with tribal leadership and conservation groups who are advancing buffalo stewardship. 

In vindictive retribution and a slap at Native America Trump has nominated New Mexico Earth hater, Steve Pearce to run the BLM but his confirmation is hung up in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee because of bipartisan concern that he's a destructive industry apparatchik.

Rewild the West.

1/29/26

One of the last LawCo Democrats Tom Blair passes

It took the lobbying of Lt. Governor Walter Dale Miller, Democrats Bill Walsh and Tom Blair to bring legal gaming to Deadwood to finance historic preservation; but, Republican greed has turned the gulch into the prostituted cultural wasteland that it is today.

Thomas Mitchell Blair passed away peacefully on Sunday, January 25, 2026, at the Good Samaritan Home in New Underwood, South Dakota. He was 81. Born January 8, 1945, to Lyle and Dawn (Darlington) Blair, Tom grew up in Groton, South Dakota, where he learned to hunt, fish, and work alongside his father at the family service station. He graduated from high school in 1963 and enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving nearly 12 years and attaining the rank of Captain in the Army Medical Corps, with deployment during the Vietnam War. 

In 1966, Tom married the love of his life, Linda Hanson. After living in several states, they settled in Deadwood in 1978, where Tom worked as a nurse anesthetist at Deadwood Hospital. Together, they raised four children. Tom played a significant role in shaping modern Deadwood, serving on the Deadwood — You Bet Committee and also as a city councilman and Mayor of Deadwood. He was also active in numerous civic organizations. After leaving medicine, he became a successful businessman in the gaming and tourism industries and dedicated several decades to growing the community. 

He is survived by his wife, Linda; his children Roberta (Bryan) Arsaga, Christopher (Kim) Blair, Matthew (Sarah) Blair, and Chad (Christine) Blair; many grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and his sisters, Kathy Rosengren and Patsy McCullough. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made in Tom’s name to Northern Hills youth activity organizations. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Deadwood on Friday, February 20 at 10a.m. Tom will be laid to rest at Black Hills National Cemetery following the service. A celebration of Tom’s life will be held this summer, with details to be announced at a later date.

Larry Rhoden a masher?

Editor's note: not so long ago the Aberdeen American's editorial board pointed fingers at other South Dakota media for lousy coverage of the Republican rape culture in Pierre. "Unsafe. Unacceptable. Hyper-masculine. Sexualized. Dirty." That's how the board and how women have described Earth haters in Pierre. The South Dakota Newspaper Association, teevee stations and local media have known about Pierre's culture of coercion for decades then demure to the twenty Republican donors who run the state. 

The late wife of Rapid City's former mayor and legislator Ed McLaughlin was sexually assaulted by a Republican member of the South Dakota Legislature so what prevents interns and other people concerned for their safety from wearing body cams in Pierre’s predatory environment? Sexual predators in the state's capital have been a feature of South Dakota for its entire history but to Sioux Falls-area Earth hater, Deb Peters it's no big deal

It would certainly explain the crowded gubernatorial primary so Shad Olson spills the beans.

A South Dakota elected leader reveals this week that interim Governor and candidate, Larry Rhoden once described his genitals to her and talked at length about nearly zipping his penis into his pants zipper after a trip to a restaurant restroom during a dinner event in Pierre in 2023.
The woman says she was shocked and repulsed by Rhoden's words, but remained fearful to speak out because of the Rhoden's long history as a political bully and his reputation for fierce, vindictive and cruel retaliation and use of the power of elected office to punish critics and opponents.
"We sat at a table with two other lawmakers and Larry told me about a 'close call' during his stop at the men's restroom, where he didn't 'get it all tucked back inside,' and nearly "zipped my weiner into my jeans," the woman recounted.
"It was clear that he wanted me to picture the implied size of his manhood and he wanted to gauge my reaction and receptiveness to that information," the woman said.
"I was not impressed." the woman said.
"I'm well aware of this governor's long history of intimidation against lawmakers and women," the woman said.
"Larry (Rhoden) has a history of abusive speech and actions against his political opponents and a reputation as a philanderer. But I can't risk my own personal safety by attaching my name to what I know," the woman said.

1/28/26

Earth haters want to protect South Dakota utilities from liability

Hypocrisy is a Republican trait. 

The Legion Lake Fire represents strategic failures by Black Hills Energy, the State of South Dakota, Game, Fish and Plunder and the South Dakota Republican Party. The absence of prescribed burns and the persistence of invasive cheatgrass in the state park named for a war criminal are just two more examples of piss poor planning by GFP. Instead of allowing native aspen to be restored stands of doghair ponderosa pine that grew after the Galena Fire still feed current blazes. Just as the State of South Dakota sued Black Hills Power and Light after the Grizzly Gulch Fire Black Hills Energy should have sued the shit out of South Dakota for the Legion Lake Fire for not letting crews cut ladder fuels in a right of way under a power line.

Since 2013 alone at least 41 fires in the Black Hills region have been caused by trees falling on transmission lines because my home state of South Dakota is a perpetual welfare state and a permanent disaster area. Counties should be able to fine property owners who fail to create defensible space or clear dry fuels. Well-funded local and volunteer fire departments could conduct prescribed fires and burn road ditches to create buffers where contract fire specialists don’t exist; but even government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. Roughly 4 million trees stand close enough to Black Hills Electric Cooperative lines to potentially cause damage and high wind events in the region frequently fell trees so an interim governor can beg DC for bailouts for utilities.

Millions of home insurance contracts have been dropped as companies like State Farm and lobbyists like the American Property Casualty Insurance Association acknowledge humanity's role in a burning planet. Now, as utilities scramble to avoid liability for wildfires, insurance companies are bilking homeowners and denying coverage interfering with mortgages, real estate values and property ownership. 

Earth hater State Senator Steve Kolbeck is the director of business affairs for Xcel Energy and prime sponsor of Senate Bill 36 because utilities are not your friends.
Dick Tieszen identified himself as an attorney with State Farm. He called the bill a “clever shift” in legal burdens. “It transfers the large risk to the public, to the people who are right behind by those fires. I think we should leave strict liability in place. Leave the risk of loss with the party that is best able to prevent the loss in the first place. They knew the risk when they engaged in this business,” Tieszen said. “They accepted it, but today, they come to you and they ask you to change the rules. I suggest that what will really happen here is that’s going to land squarely land in your lap, in my lap and the property owners of places in the Black Hills, whether it’s homes or businesses.” [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]

1/27/26

Tables turned

I know there are ICE agents who get off on being hated as it’s the only human emotion they’ve been able to conjure amongst anyone unlucky enough to know them. But some did not anticipate the hatred, who never thought it would follow them for the rest of their sad lives like a tribal tattoo. Boo hoo.

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— Jesse Duquette (@jesseduquette.bsky.social) January 24, 2026 at 3:23 PM

American Prairie is the largest rewilding project in the US

Despite Montana's Earth haters and the Trump Organization's war on American Prairie its mission to rewild the West continues.

Greece has the Parthenon. North America had the American Serengeti—a wildlife spectacle so vast it rivaled anything on Earth.
In less than 100 years, it was destroyed. Tens of millions of bison, elk, pronghorn, wolves, and grizzlies were decimated. The Great Plains went from the heartland of biodiversity to fences and wall-to-wall cattle ranching.
But in central Montana, something extraordinary is happening.
American Prairie is building a 3.2-million-acre protected landscape by purchasing ranches and converting them from commodity production to wildlife restoration. They're bringing back bison, restoring natural grazing patterns, and letting ecosystems function the way they're meant to.
In Episode 217, Brooke sits down with Daniel Kinka, PhD, American Prairie's Director of Rewilding, to get the inside story on this historic project. They talk about:
🦬 American Prairie's strategy for landscape-scale restoration
🦬 The power of ecosystem processes (bison, prairie dogs, fire)
🦬 Why the area can’t sustain wolves can't yet—but grizzlies, yes
🦬 What this project means for climate, biodiversity, and hope
This is one of the most inspiring conservation stories happening right now.
🎧 Episode 217 - The Great Plains Comeback: Inside America's Largest Rewilding Project https://rewildology.com/.../the-great-plains-comeback.../

#AmericanPrairie #Rewildology #Podcast #Rewilding

1/26/26

Olson: Powers headed for cosmic comeuppance

South Dakota's Second Amendment for me but not for thee former teevee anchor Shad Olson foretells a fall for obese Earth hater Pat Powers.

Doxxing and assassination blogger Pat Powers this week makes a comical entreaty of admission to South Dakota lawmakers, expressing his predictable weepy and petulant opposition to proposed changes to the state's doxxing laws specifically aimed at making his constant online stalking, harassment and intimidation of conservative lawmakers a felony offense. As they should be.
Powers, the illiterate RINO tagteam partner of AFP-Odenbach spokes-amoeba Katie Powers, ...err, Hoffmann, has long used the constant tracking, physical address publication and invasion of prvacy of selected, and ONLY conservative legislators, as his favorite method of life disruption, in an age when leftist violence, harassment and even assassination of political opponents are a constantly articulated threat.
In July 2025, Pat Powers published the Aberdeen home address of Representative Brandei Schaefbauer just four days before the home invasion assassinations of Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses. In direct response, the South Dakota legislature quickly scrubbed lawmakers' physical location data from the state website.
In total, and counting today's inscrutable whiny additions to a record of online harassment that smacks of sexual obsession, Powers has published no fewer than eight articles that either directly mention, or contain links to previous articles publishing Brandei Schaefbauer's physical address and even the address of an AirBnB property in Lawrence County Schaefbauer purchased in August and housed under a newly formed LLC.
In 2023, Powers published Schaefbauer's private home address as part of his TMZ-style coverage of the sealed terms of her acrimonious divorce, despite the fact that Schaefbauer was at that time covered under a customary post-divorce protection order against her previous spouse. Because Pat Powers is an utter piece of reprobate shite. (In ways you don't know, but soon will.)
In today's rambling and painfully inarticulate screed justifying his need to constantly know the physical whereabouts of the conservative lawmakers Powers hopes to slander, discomfit, and smear out of office, if not out of life, Powers cloaks his egregiously invasive pattern of harassment and intimidation behind the need for "transparency," and "accountability," hilariously defending the necessity of his public doxxing habit as a matter of providing U.S. Postal Service contact information for constituents, because quote: "Not everyone has email." Right.
By giving out patriot lawmaker location data to the same woke mob tracking and assaulting ICE agents, Pat Powers is performing a vital public service, don't you know. Allowing the people who "don't have email," (but who apparently do surf the internet for obscure, badly written political blogs in South Dakota) to find address information and send physical letters to the handful of conservative South Dakota lawmakers Pat has incessantly targeted for doxxing. Right.
We never said logic was Pat's strong suit.
Beyond his comedic inability for sound pedagogy, it's rank hypocrisy from a pedestrian scandal rag curator who famously collects and traces IP addresses of his website visitors and specifically uses those IP fingerprints to block and censor future ability to comment on, or even view his articles.
You know. Because Pat Powers is such a stickler for transparency. And accountability.
Thankfully, he's about to get some of both.

No SD gubernatorial candidates have reached signature threshold

New Year's Day was the beginning of gathering signatures to appear on any ballot for South Dakota governor and so far none of the nine announced candidates have enough. 

Democratic candidates need 1,232 signatures of registered Democratic voters whether there is a primary or not; 

Libertarian candidates need 741 signatures of registered Libertarian voters whether there is a primary or not; 

Unaffiliated candidates need 3,502 signatures of registered voters of any type to get on the General Election ballot.

Earth haters need 2171 signatures from registered Earth haters for their 2 June primary.

Petitions must be filed with the Secretary of State by 31 March.

1/25/26

Fuck ICE, Border Patrol

After Dad retired from the Air Force and we arrived in Elkton in 1963 Karen's family adopted us and her twin brother Kevin became one of my best friends.

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 Jefferson warned us about. False flags, disaster capitalism, endless war: anyone who believes America is safer because of a border patrol and ICE agents filled with mercenaries is delusional. 

If it were possible and the oligarchs wouldn’t hijack a Convention of States a rewrite of the Second Amendment would be at the top of my list. 

Yes, bullying can lead to massacres and when the US ended the draft in 1973 the number of mass shootings began to rise so Congress should enact compulsory military service or police training as one way to slow gun violence. Enlistment could look like the Swiss model where soon after high school eighteen year olds would join for two or three years then re-up or enroll in the college or vocational training of ones choosing.

That Mrs. Noem and the Trump Organization would protect Iranian protestors and murder Americans is all we need to know about the End Times

Ann Telnaes art.

1/23/26

Olson brings backstory on SDGOP civil war

Governor Larry Rhoden and Speaker Jon Hansen are competing for the exact same voters and Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson has everything to gain by that fact so a cynical observer might suspect Johnson is funneling campaign cash to the Hansen camp. 

Shad Olson shared more on red state failure.

Jon Hansen is a dumber version of John Thune. On a national level, the uniparty believes that with Trump off the ballot, the 2026 midterms will mean a Democrat return to power in House and Senate and a Trump impeachment and removal from office.
In "red" states like South Dakota, the Bush-Cheney-Nikki Haley AIPAC-AFP neocons are positioning to retake power and rid themselves of the Tea Party-MAGA movement and a restoration of atheist Koch Network corporatism as the controlled opposition to their indistinguishable "pals" on the left. The uniparty RINO cabal in full control in Pierre. The Hansen-Lems ticket is an AFP vehicle to ensure RINO line of succession in the executive suite. Hansen-Lems have zero pathway to victory... but they're fully capable of ensuring that either Dusty Johnson or Larry Rhoden are able to stave off Toby Doeden's self-funded campaign.
Whether by the innocence of historical and political ignorance or fully informed complicity, shallow idiots like Katie Hoffmann are being swept along in the subversion of the MAGA movement while making endless excuses for their open ties to Pat Powers, Hugh Bartels, Lee Schoenbeck, and the rest of the miniature potentates of the South Dakota swamp salivating over their return to GOP control.
Unlike Katie, I've never believed her bright enough to distinguish fish from fowl in the South Dakota political ethos, much less to engage nuanced policy debates without losing the thread, ending up on the wrong side of the issue and doing massive damage to the conservative movement. She's a moron and proves that, nearly daily.
Quick story... Jon Hansen (and SD Right to Life director Dale Bartscher) were ready, willing and eager to preemptively surrender abortion legalization exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother during the 2024 Amendment G abortion scuffle. They believed stupidly that a preemptive softening of South Dakota's abortion trigger ban would keep Amendment G off the ballot. Because surrender and compromise are their core identities. Thankfully, Hansen and Bartscher were shouted into submission by the stronger and more devout among the pro-life faithful. Preemptive compromise averted. 
Jon admitted to multiple lawmakers in the 2025 session that he never even bothered to read the Scott Odenbach-Kristi Noem-AFP "School Choice" trojan horse monstrosity HB1020 that would have given the Department of Education full curriculum control over beneficiary homeschool and private school families. He never read the bill he cosponsored. 
If this type of cowardice and betrayal are the definition of being a "true fighter," it becomes more clear why the slower members of the church choir have been so utterly deceived, misled and confused.
Beyond that... their constant willingness for slander, cancel culture lies and reputational harm are testimony to a level of both stupidity and bad faith that belongs nowhere near the reigns of power.
A "No Confidence" vote in present leadership by the House of Representatives would be a well-deserved Godsend. A care package of defamation lawsuits and a few years of litigation against their favorite mouthpieces are in order as well and under construction. More on that at a future date.

1/22/26

Guest post: Pierre is a shit hole part n

Watching the South Dakota Republican Party kicking the shit out of one another is invigoratingly therapeutic and South Dakota's favorite former teevee anchorperson Shad Olson isn't known for pulling punches.

In the age of false narratives and the desperate uniparty push to fill the looming post-MAGA power vaccuum [sic] in Pierre, South Dakota, Representative Phil Jensen is just the latest and once again whipping post for defamatory claims and bad treatment by "true fighters" legislative leadership.
In culmination reprise of the 2025 attempt to remove Jensen from his seat on the House Education Committee, Leader Scott Odenbach, through his sidekick, Jon Hansen, finally finished the task, calling Jensen "disruptive," removing him from the committee and replacing him with Representative Liz May, a Hansen for Governor supporter and a special session "YES" vote on the billion dollar prison debacle.
Pay attention to the adjectives, the history and the motivations. Jensen has publicly endorsed Aberdeen businessman Toby Doeden for Governor. He sports a perennially near perfect voting score over 18 years as a lawmaker and is a frequent target of leftists, RINOs and of course, illiterate jabberjag RINO blogger, Pat Powers.
Critical smear artists describe Jensen as "disruptive," "belligerent," "radical," "extremist," "hostile," "far right," etc. The usual list reserved for anyone who not heeled to the woke agenda and equally averse to the neoconservative corporatists who pose as "true fighters" in Pierre while overseeing continued domination of state policies by AFP and the selling off of South Dakota utility companies to BlackRock, Vanguard and the World Economic Forum.
Phil's real "sins" and the reasons for his punishment reside in his membership of the Freedom Caucus, his endorsement of the only outsider, non-career politician running for Governor and his well earned status as a gold standard of conservative voting score that exposes purported "conservative" leadership as frauds and duplicitous pretenders to the throne.
In the wake of a clearly pretextual kerfuffle over an Education Committee seating chart shakeup on the first day of session, sources say Leader Scott Odenbach's expressed threat to no less than four other conservative Education Committee members was to remove them en masse, presumably to pave the way for committee passage of his latest attempts at AFP-approved "School Choice" dictates and whatever other monstrosity RINO crank Lana Greenfield decides to inflict on her Ed Committee fiefdom.
Last year, Representative Phil Jensen was thrown off of his House Education Committee Vice-Chair after introducing a bill to temporarily defund the Huron School District as a vehicle to highlight that district's systemic nonresponsiveness to female student complaints about a male student who was using female restroom facilities at Huron High School.
Jensen's 2025 Huron school defunding bill was later withdrawn as House conservatives succeeded in passing Representative Brandei Schaefbauer's HB 1259, an outright ban on men in women's public multioccupancy bathroom, lockerroom and changing areas. After House and Senate passage, interim Governor Larry Rhoden unceremoniously signed the Schaefbauer transgender bathroom ban bill into law.
Despite demonstrated courage for hotbutton issues and the toughest of political fights earning her constant blowback of threats and intimidation from the isnanity of the political left, Schaefbauer herself has been similarly targeted and maligned by House leadership for similar motivations. Schaefbauer, like Phil Jensen, has endorsed Toby Doeden for governor. Schaefbauer, like Jensen, voted against the billion dollar prison project and has been an outspoken critic of backroom tactics and troubling reports of quid pro quo in the final prison vote tally.
So, Jensen is out. Liz May, duly supplicated to the Hansen ticket and a self-described "crazy" "YES" vote on the September 23 prison boondoggle is in, as the Odenbach-Hansen appointee to fill Jensen's Education Committee seat.
And the beatdown goes on.
Jensen, Schaefbauer, John Carley, Dylan Jordan, Logan Manhart, Josephine Garcia and others have been summarily targeted by Odenbach mouthpieces and Hansen-Lems sycophants, despite sporting more conservative voting scores than the people casting stones from voting record houses made of Tiffany glass.
Obey, [bend] the knee, shut your mouth, or stern private excoriations by Odenbach and Hansen will be followed by public defamation and distortionary destruction campaigns by the Pat Powers-Katie Hoffmann Tweedle-Twaddle tagteam.
Such is the persecution, retribution and vindictive small man treatment doled out by the Hansen-Odenbach-Lems-Beving-Pat Powers AFP consortium in these early days of the splintered and doomed 2026 legislative session that is fulfilling every easy prediction for acrimonious stench and grassroots schism beneath the scorched earth power scramble of the upcoming GOP [g]ubernatorial primary.
It's Pierre, [after all]. And the idiot RINOs are in control.

Earth hater Deibert votes against increase in gold severance

Morbidly obese Spearditch Earth hater Randy Deibert is a surveyor whose conflicts of interest compelled him to vote against the Black Hills environment and for his miner clients. According to a source within the South Dakota Legislature Deibert also has contracts with the LawCo lab named for a usurious pedophile.

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight.

1/21/26

Noem's racism on full display in Minneapolis

Her father, who smothered in a 1994 grain bin incident and likely modeled extramarital proclivities, hated American Indians, she hates Indians and Donald Trump hates Indians.

 

1/20/26

Earth haters being smacked with 'Capitol Crud'

With House Bill 1068 South Dakota Earth hating Republican Representative Bobbi Andera seeks to give pharmacists broad immunity to hand out ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine accelerating the chances that Republicans in the state will die off making America better again.

SD Freedom Caucus exposing Howdy Doody Dusty

As they expose Howdy Doody Dusty Johnson for paying off Speaker Jon Hansen to stay in the Earth hater gubernatorial primary the South Dakota Freedom Caucus is having an event in early February in Sioux Falls featuring former legislator Steve Haugaard. Yes, the grassland fire danger index will reach the very high and extreme categories again Tuesday and Wednesday for much of the horrible red state of South Dakota.

Crabtree: South Dakota in recession, Pierre a shit hole

Editor's note: Madison, South Dakota is being considered to host an intelligence gathering facility despite the fact that would cost millions and isn't needed. Four current and former officials familiar with the planning were granted anonymity for their insights due to fear of retribution from Kristi Noem so officials at Dakota State University did not respond to requests for comment either according to POLITICO.

Madison Earth hater Casey Crabtree wants to live in DC because South Dakota is a failed state

The 2026 Legislative kicked off in Pierre last week, and improving South Dakota’s economy needs to be the top issue for my colleagues and I, otherwise our economy will fall behind our neighbors, our kids will leave the state, and everyday South Dakotans will hurt. Getting South Dakota back on track requires bold leadership and vision, because the time is now to make an impact.
Moody’s has flagged South Dakota as a state in or near a recession. At home, sales tax revenue fell 0.6% last fiscal year—only the third time in 30 years for South Dakota. Families feel it. Roughly one in five South Dakotans is delinquent on a credit card payment. People are buying fewer groceries and cutting back. When South Dakotans are asked what matters most, inflation and affordability top the list.
That’s the backdrop for every debate in Pierre. Serious problems demand serious legislators and serious solutions.
Driving home through whiteout conditions Friday, I kept thinking about my kids and their future. I don’t want a South Dakota where the next generation has to leave to build a life because they can’t find opportunities here. We like to say we’re “open for opportunity” in South Dakota, but it can’t be just a slogan. It has to be a commitment shared by the governor, the Legislature, local leaders, and every South Dakotan. The status quo won’t keep our towns alive. Closing our doors won’t either.
That’s why I’ve been in the middle of the big fights—housing and infrastructure funding to keep housing costs low, standing up for biofuels so our farm families can compete globally, and pushing for opportunities that make a real impact across our state. I don’t shy away from a fight because it’s hard. I’d rather stand strong with courage on a hill than be found hiding in a bunker in fear.
The big fight of 2026 is economic development and data centers. South Dakota needs to strengthen its economy, and we can do so in a thoughtful way that benefits hard-working South Dakotans and carefully balances concerns. Data centers play a pivotal role in our national security, provide new high-paying jobs, generate a steady stream of property and sales tax revenue, diversify our economy, and give the state and local communities a more reliable, predictable revenue base. This will increase property tax revenue that can fund our schools and roads in the future and keep more money in your pockets. This discussion is taking place at the federal level as well, with President Trump championing these data centers, while folks like Bernie Sanders lead the opposition.
America First means securing our energy, building critical infrastructure here, and competing to win. South Dakota Always means doing it with clear rules, strong oversight, and built-in local benefits—no blank checks, no sweetheart deals, and no cost-shifting onto local families. If we get it right, we bring investment, expand the tax base, and create high-paying jobs for electricians, plumbers, HVAC workers, and cybersecurity grads who can live in places like Agar, Toronto, Sioux Falls, Rapid City, and communities across the entire state.
As I always say: the best solutions aren’t found in Pierre, they come from folks at home that tackle real challenges every day. So, reach out with your ideas and solutions. If you’ll be in Pierre, let me know, I’d love to visit and recognize you on the Senate floor. Thank you. It’s an honor to serve District 8.

1/19/26

AI on Thune

John Thune is simply another career politician who uses projection to avoid the Dan Nelson and MetaBank scandals.

Here are the details regarding the allegations mentioned:
  • MetaBank/Dan Nelson Scandal Context: Reports indicate that in 2005, Thune, while in the private sector between campaigns, served on the board of MetaBank. Critics alleged he was on the audit committee when a significant loan was made to Dan Nelson, a former staffer for Thune, which was later described as a problematic, high-risk, or large loan. At the time, representatives for Thune stated he did not use his position to influence bank decisions.
  • "Career Politician" Criticism: Critics in 2026 have characterized Thune as a "rino" (Republican in Name Only) or "spineless" for being part of the Washington establishment, with some commentators arguing he has not held a "true" private-sector job.
  • Projection Accusation: Recent political commentary has accused Thune of using "projection"—blaming others for behaviors he is accused of—to deflect from his past, specifically regarding the 2005 MetaBank issues.
  • 2025/2026 Controversies: In his capacity as Senate Majority Leader, Thune faced recent scrutiny in November 2025 for a provision he supported that could have provided $500,000 in payouts to senators whose records were seized, drawing bipartisan backlash.

As a Senator, Thune has held a complex relationship with the tech giant. He has chaired hearings questioning Mark Zuckerberg on issues such as data privacy and political bias, while also being noted as a significant recipient of campaign donations from the company.