Medical and law enforcement industries are cutting a fat hog at a record pace!
8/4/26
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!
8/3/26
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?
8/2/26
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]
8/1/26
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.
7/31/26
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.
7/28/26
Plunge in Rural Mainstreet Index reflecting GOP failures ... again
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]
7/27/26
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.
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.
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.
7/25/26
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.
7/23/26
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]
7/22/26
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]
7/20/26
Republican ranchers are pushing back on Trump Organization well drilling in southern NM
But of course Republicans like Yvette Herrell and the Earth hating American Farm Bureau Federation are leading opposition to the plan. AFBF is notorious for conflicts of interest and denying the human effects on a warming climate while lobbying extensively for crop insurance in the federal farm bill and against Waters of the United States or WOTUS rules.
However, public land designations face heavy scrutiny under the current administration, which has prioritized rolling back federal protections and downsizing monuments. While supported by a collaborative local coalition of business owners, conservationists, and a Luna County Commissioner, the proposal faces opposition from neighboring conservative county boards (such as Roosevelt and Lea counties) that view the Antiquities Act as an overreach.
The Roosevelt Act of 1907 provided for reservation of a 60-mile-wide tract along the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent smuggling and enforce immigration laws. It came at the tail end of the 1906 Antiquities Act. Unhappy with one aspect of the Trump administration’s implementation of that law, a group of concerned ranchers and farmers met Thursday to voice their opposition to what they called “illegal drilling” along the border. “They’re drilling on my land right now,” said Bill Johnson, a multi-generational farmer and rancher along the border who said water is key to his family’s livelihood — and has been for more than a century of farming and ranching in Luna County. “If my well dries up, my land will be worth nothing, and my cattle and crops won’t have water.”New Mexico law requires a drilling permit for such projects. The Office of the State Engineer became aware of the drilling, and attempted to stop the company which began work near Hachita and is now drilling in Luna County. Catron County rancher Tom Paterson, the president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, urged citizens to reach out to state and federal lawmakers to voice their concerns about the well drilling along the border. [Border ranchers raise concerns about federal well drilling]
Trump's reckless behavior is exactly what Democrats hope will keep Republicans away from the polls in November.
7/19/26
Anderson cartoon implicates SD governor
Larry Rhoden is a criminal.
ICE Shootings Follow my cartoons and accompanying written commentary on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com
— Nick Anderson - political cartoonist (@andertoon.bsky.social) July 16, 2026 at 12:48 PM
[image or embed]
7/18/26
Erase Denny Sanford, too
New Mexico is erasing Cesar Chavez' name because of his predatory past so South Dakota should do the right thing, too.
7/17/26
Blogger's home town to host solar farm as wind power blows out
The cost of subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting, maintaining then removing and disposing of just one wind turbine eyesore bat and bird killer would take about six hundred subscribers to energy self-reliance. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard.
No corporate taxes, a compliant regulator, a dearth of environmental protection and cheap labor make South Dakota the perfect dumping ground for Earth killers like coal and eyesores like wind farms.
Nevertheless, according to Earth hating Public Utilities Cartel Commissioner Chris Nelson the amount of wind power generation may have reached its plateau. In a 2019 interview with WNAX Radio Nelson said he believes there will be rapid development of solar power production facilities instead. But, the predicted shift toward solar, wind energy didn't stop entirely; major projects like the $400 million Crowned Ridge Wind Farm still moved forward around that timeframe. However, his prediction accurately foreshadowed a broader regional and national trend of diversifying renewable portfolios with rapid solar deployment to balance out the grid.
Walworth County has a population of about 5,300 souls; it's rural, backwards and overwhelmingly Republican so Doral Renewables targeted slightly less primitive Brookings County for a solar farm instead.
Doral Renewables has much of the land it needs for a proposed 1,000-megawatt solar farm near Elkton in Richland and Elkton townships. “We’re at an endpoint regarding acquiring enough acreage to host the construction of the entire project,” Curtis Nordick, a senior development manager with Doral, told The Brookings Register in a recent interview. The proposed project has a lot of hoops to jump through at the state and local levels, including permitting processes, before it can even hope to break ground. But if it does, it’ll provide jobs for 200 to 300 workers during its multi-year construction phase that would start in early 2029 and continue into at least 2031. “We’re not taking the land out of production, necessarily; we’re just changing the use to be kind of an accommodation regarding the solar project,” Nordick said. [Proposed solar farm near Elkton reaches land milestone]Utilities are not your friends so don’t tie your photovoltaic system to the grid but if you use it as a backup keep your own electricity completely separate from the utility that reads your meter.
7/16/26
South Dakota still hemorrhaging talent
In 2025 WalletHub's surveys revealed South Dakota was 40th in innovation but 50th in its share of technology companies and 48th in R&D spending per capita. Today, the horrible red state is 41st in innovation, 45th in human capital rank, 47th in innovation environment and 50th in share of technology companies.
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