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.

William Forbes a Ricketts plant: Nebraska Democratic Party

Unaffiliated candidate for US Senate in Nebraska, Dan Osborn is facing Earth hater Pete Ricketts. Similar matchups are happening in South Dakota and Montana where weak, under funded Democratic candidates are running in third place. 

Jane Kleeb is a leader who helped to kill the Keystone XL pipeline.

Nebraska Democratic Party Chair Jane Kleeb responded Wednesday to what she called a "frivolous" lawsuit from former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate William Forbes who lost the May primary. He filed a lawsuit earlier this month seeking to force the party to name a replacement for Cindy Burbank, the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate who won the primary but then dropped out. Kleeb said Wednesday that the Nebraska Democratic Party will not back down on the legal question. When asked directly about the "may" versus "shall" language in the two statutes, Kleeb pointed to the structure of the two statutes in the party's defense. "Their lawsuit really jumps to the second section. You have to get to that second section first to get to the 'shall,' which will of course be something that our lawyers are focusing on in the courtroom," she said. [Nebraska Democratic Party pushes back on lawsuit demanding replacement in U.S. Senate race]

Cancer now pushing Iowa Earth haters to tap Missouri River water

Republicans cause cancer. 

Recall that in 2015, then-Iowa governor and Earth hater Terry Branstad helped to block a federal lawsuit that could have stopped industrial agriculture from polluting the Des Moines drinking water supply. Today, there are at least 23.4 million hogs in Iowa's concentrated animal feeding operations or about 7.3 pigs for every human in the state. Iowa livestock operations generate roughly 107 million tons of manure annually and the volume of animal waste produced is dozens of times greater than the human fecal waste generated by the state's residents. 

Voluntary buffer strips and other conservation practices have simply failed desertifying parts of the state and causing the Raccoon River to be named one of the most endangered waterways in the United Snakes. And, following the release of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's latest measurements Iowa Farmers Union President Aaron Lehman said that state's Nutrient Reduction Management Strategy is proving to be ineffective in controlling hypoxia in the Gulf of Mexico. But, Lehman is concerned that without further financial incentives from the Trump Organization Republican welfare farmers will simply continue polluting waterways. 

Industrial agriculture is ecocide and for those of us who love the Earth shucks like farm subsidies are greenwashing but ironically many Republicans actually benefitting from reduced greenhouse emissions decry the sequestration of carbon as caving to the Green New Deal. 20 of Iowa's 99 counties are devoted exclusively to food that is ultimately burned for automobile fuel but according to Iowa State University some land impacted by pipelines never recovers from the disturbance. Iowa contributes some 40% of the pollution killing the Gulf of Mexico.

Welfare farmers have ruined their own wells and the Big Sioux River but South Dakota will flout Waters of the United States rulings until the cows come home unless or until downstream states cry foul. Now, that has happened as the proposed $10 billion Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System pipeline project would supply South Dakota and portions of three neighboring states, with a capacity of 195 million gallons per day. 

The planned expansion of the Lewis and Clark Rural Water System that the system’s members already project will need an additional 95 million gallons per day over the next 40 years plan to increase capacity to 60 million gallons per day by 2030 even as the US Army Corps of Engineers warns of low Missouri River levels.

Cancer rates in Iowa are the second highest in the US and public polling indicates that nearly 80% of registered Iowa voters support transition to mandatory pollution reduction requirements for large-scale agriculture. Both candidates for governor, the Democratic nominee Rob Sand and the Earth hater Zach Lahn, say more needs to be done.

"I think the Democratic Party at its best is the party for the little guy," Sand told a crowd in Corydon, Iowa, recently. "I'm also a believer that we want to have clean water to fish in and abundant public land to hunt on, and the Democratic Party is more of a supporter of those things." NPR reached out to the Iowa Farm Bureau and the Iowa Corn Growers Association for comment but did not hear back. [High cancer rates and dirty water: The crisis shaping Iowa's toss-up governor's race]

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight.

Hegseth pastor says the LDS are non-christian polytheists

Pastor Doug Wilson, a christianic evangelical theologian who leads Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, explicitly states that he does not see members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints as Christians. Wilson and his close ministry associates describe LDS doctrine as an unsound hybridization of "new age mythology" and Christianity. Under Wilson's proposed Christian nationalist model for America, the LDS Church would be categorized as a minority religion. In his ideal societal framework, the state would not permit the LDS Church to publicly promote its faith, build new religious structures, or convert others. Members would only be allowed to practice their beliefs privately. 

During public and political controversies regarding his ties to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Wilson directly asserted that Mormonism is a "polytheistic" belief system. Wilson’s rhetoric and his presence as a spiritual adviser to high-ranking officials sparked heavy scrutiny, especially after the Department of Defense initially released simplified military faith codes that separated the LDS Church from mainstream Christian categories. This classification drew sharp condemnation from Latter-day Saint members of Congress before being revised by the Pentagon.

Wilson was interviewed Tuesday by Morning Edition's Leila Fadel, herself a Muslim.

South Dakota's Republicans are horrible people

It's not just South Dakota Earth haters Pat Powers, Lance Russell, Kristi Noem and her husband who are horrible pieces of shit.

State Senator Tom Pischke of Dell Rapids is charged with two counts of Offering a False or Forged Instrument for Filing, according to the Minnehaha County Sheriff’s Office. The charges relate to potentially fraudulent election forms submitted to the Minnehaha County Auditor’s office. Pischke is also a Republican precinct committeeman, and would typically be eligible to vote at the Republican party’s state convention later this week. Jim Eschenbaum is the Chair of the South Dakota Republican Party. He said Pischke told him he wouldn’t be attending the convention Monday evening, but Eschenbaum didn’t learn about the charges until Tuesday. [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]

Former Spearditch chef opens another Minneapolis restaurant

Three-time James Beard Award-winning Oglala Lakota chef, author, and activist Sean Sherman began his culinary career after moving to Spearditch from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation at age 13. He started by washing dishes, bussing tables, and prepping food at The Sluice when this interested party was still in foodservice distribution. 

While his mother attended Black Hills State University Sherman spent extensive time researching and reading at the local library which helped fuel his interest in gastronomy. Then during high school and college he worked as a field surveyor for the Black Hills National Forest and taught himself how to identify botanical species and understand native plants which later became central to his cooking philosophy. Sherman moved to Minneapolis eventually making a name for himself by strictly avoiding "colonial ingredients" like beef, pork, chicken, dairy, wheat flour, and cane sugar. He focuses entirely on pre-contact ingredients native to North America, such as bison, fowl, wild rice, cedar, and sumac. 

In 2014 he founded The Sioux Chef and in 2021, he opened the critically acclaimed restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis, which won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant. He co-founded the non-profit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS). Through this, he operates the Indigenous Food Lab to expand regional food security and education, with active plans to open a satellite location back in Rapid City, South Dakota.

Chef Sean Sherman's new downtown Minneapolis restaurant Indígena by Owamni opens Tuesday at the Guthrie Theater. The much-anticipated new restaurant is just a few blocks away from its predecessor, Owamni, the restaurant that earned Sherman and his team numerous accolades, including a James Beard award. Sherman describes his work and his team’s work as storytelling. “That’s a big core of what we’re doing. We're using food as our language. We're using food as our story and our platform. So, this for us is a stage also.” Indígena by Owamni opens for regular service Tuesday, June 23. Reservations are open through OpenTable, with walk-ins welcome after 9 p.m. A grand opening is set for July 4. [Minnesota Public Radio]

Four Corners governors move geothermal energy forward

At least as early as 2011 the Four Corners region was seen as a geothermal powerhouse where Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories assembled plans for energy development. 

Today, the governors from Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona have moved to improve and streamline the production of underground renewable energy and on 16 June the US Bureau of Land Management will begin a geothermal lease sale on 68 parcels across 197,852 acres in Doña Ana, Grant, Hidalgo, Luna and Sierra counties in New Mexico.

In 2021 BLM sold a geothermal lease in Hidalgo County, New Mexico despite a 2016 blowout near a $43 million geothermal electricity plant erected by Cyrq Energy in 2013 when Republican Susana Martinez was governor. Zanskar Geothermal & Minerals, Inc. bought Cyrq in 2024 and has four working geothermal projects including Lightning Dock Geothermal Power Plant near Animas. It's a 15.3 MW binary geothermal plant with two production wells and 7 injection wells that sells power to Public Service of New Mexico (PNM) with firm baseload power. In December, 2024 BLM sold geothermal leases on seven parcels totaling 4,468 acres in Doña Ana County.

After years of underperforming and struggling to meet its original targets, Zanskar used artificial intelligence and advanced subsurface modeling to drill a highly successful new well. Commissioned in mid-2025, this well produces 340°F water—roughly 80 degrees hotter than previous wells—effectively doubling the plant's average output to 10.8 net megawatts per hour.

Using an enhanced geothermal system (EGS) at its Project Red site in northern Nevada Google-financed Fervo Energy completed a full-scale, 30-day well test able to generate 3.5 megawatts or enough electricity to power over 2,600 homes full time. Fervo employs a hydro-shearing process and believes it can deliver about 400 megawatts by 2028 or enough electricity to power 300,000 homes at once from half a dozen other sites across the western US. In 2024 BLM approved the Fervo Cape Geothermal Power Project in Beaver County, Utah which has the potential to generate up to 2 gigawatts (GW) or enough energy to supply over 2 million homes.

Colorado could tap orphaned oil and gas wells to supply hot water for electricity generation especially now that the state is falling behind on its own self-imposed emissions-reducing mandates.

Learn more at KUER public radio.

Doeden, Crabtree rocking affordability concerns

What are Trump/GOP even doing?!? Americans are in a stinking affordability crisis due to Trump/GOP’s illegal tariffs (taxes on consumers) increasing costs; a war of choice in Iran causing soaring gas prices that we’re paying for; inflation pushed from the high costs; & healthcare subsidies gutted!!!

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— Analisa Swan (she/her) (@analisaswan.bsky.social) April 17, 2026 at 9:11 AM

As far back as 2015 a company representative told WNAX radio that the state's attractions, road conditions, nightlife options, scenic byways, tourist attractions, cost of traveling, hotel affordability, gas prices and camping all suck. 

Today, a state that calls itself conservative depends on federal Social Security benefits to pay the property taxes that currently bankroll South Dakota's red state failure while video lootery drives poor residents even deeper into despair. 

And, as the Trump Organization touts deregulation and tax cuts as keys to making life affordable critics and recent economic data suggest that because of the war on Iran costs for essentials like housing, gas, and groceries remain high. Just recently while apparently thumbing their noses at Herr Trump, Toby Doeden mentioned affordability at least three times during the Earth haters' gubernatorial debate and in a Dakota Town Hall discussion State Senator Casey Crabtree did, too. Crabtree cited the dysfunction in his own party as as part of his decision to end a run for congress.

“I think without a doubt, the number one issue across the state is affordability. It is strengthening the economy,” Crabtree said during the episode. He added that the candidate who best explains how to put “more money back in people’s pockets” will likely gain the edge in the final stretch before Election Day. For western South Dakota listeners, the affordability conversation may resonate especially strongly as Rapid City continues balancing growth, housing pressure and infrastructure demands, all of which tie directly into the larger statewide tax and economic development debate now taking shape ahead of November. [Affordability Dominates Dakota Town Hall Debate]

A Clinton era housing bill is awarding funds for tribal communities so there is that.

As of post time Doeden is leading Trump lover, Dusty Johnson at Polymarket.

Learn more at South DaCola.

Today's intersection: grasslands disappearing as grazing expands

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 has begun 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, we have lost more than 50 million acres of grasslands.

Habitat loss from factors such as agricultural conversion and invasive species, compounded by climate change, threaten the health of grasslands. Agricultural cultivation, development, and invasive species have led to a loss of at least 80% of these grasslands, including a loss of 99% of tallgrass prairie. Of the 20% of Great Plains grasslands that remain undisturbed, 93% of it is unprotected and at risk of conversion. Conversion of grasslands to agriculture and forests is reducing biodiversity, and invasive grass species, which account for 13-30% of the grass species in the Great Plains, further influence biodiversity loss. When native grasslands disappear, so do the benefits they provide. [Grasslands are being lost at a far faster pace than they are being conserved.]

South Dakota's governor is a committed Earth hater and the legislature is dominated by Republicans who ignore the effects of the Anthropocene so lobbyists like the American Farm Bureau Federation and Americans for Prosperity are lining up again to stuff their pockets with cash.

Geoffrey Gray-Lobe is a county commissioner and board member with the Clay County Park, a few hundred acres along the Missouri River where South Dakotans can camp, boat, picnic and hike. He has led the effort to convert about 30 acres of the park into native prairie. The site is part of 125 acres the park has been renting to farmers for years. Gray-Lobe said he did some research and found the park could more than double the rent it charges on the land. [Most American prairies are gone. These people are working to bring them back]

The reasoning is hardly mysterious: it's all about the money hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the South Dakota Republican Party depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule. South Dakota's experiment introducing an exotic species has just not been able to keep up breeding a bird unable to adapt to the state's brutal weather and climate science-denying legislature. 

In January Earth hater Doug Burgum pulled the Bureau of Land Management leases from American Prairie. In February BLM and Forest Service bumped the Animal Unit Month or AUM lease to $1.69 from $1.35 for one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month. Now, BLM and Forest Service have an app that locates unused grazing allotments.

Leaders from several government agencies and organizations joined together to discuss working together for improving cattle grazing opportunities, as U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to launch the Grazing Action Plan. [MOU Signed to Expand Federal Grazing]

Instead, the United States should rewild the high plains by connecting the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge in Montana along the Missouri River to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Canadian River through Nebraska, eastern Colorado, western Kansas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas.

Yes, the grassland fire danger index will reach the very high category again on Wednesday for most of the horrible red state of South Dakota.

AFBF: more red state farmers headed to the shitter

Ag producers have destroyed shelter belts to plant industrial crops that deplete aquifers and now drought is blowing toxin-laden topsoil into downwind states. Spring wildfire seasons have begun 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. 

And, as the Trump Organization wars against its own constituency, ends environmental protection and ag bankers enslave landowners more farmers are headed for bankruptcy. The number of farms filing for bankruptcy increased in 2025 after the relative prosperity during the Biden years according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Economists say the increase in filings is due to a combination of rising operational costs on the farm, such as fertilizer and machinery, and low crop prices that are putting pressure on farmers. Farm bankruptcy filings are typically a lagging indicator that farmers are facing financial distress. [More American farmers are filing for bankruptcy. Here’s why]

Learn more at Brownfield News.

Trump Organization ending environment protection because eugenics

In a new @newsweek.com, leaders from the @sierraclub.org, @nrdc.org, Environmental Defense Fund, and @earthjustice.org warn that the Trump administration’s latest Environmental Protection Agency pollution policy puts corporate profits ahead of public health.

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— Sierra Club (@sierraclub.org) February 15, 2026 at 8:30 AM

In past years the Trump Organization used the federal courts to punish tribal nations who built casinos Trump said were competition but in 2020 the White House deployed COVID-19 as a biological weapon in Indian Country. 

Star Trek canon describes how the Eugenics Wars cause WW3 so an episode of ST: Deep Space 9 written in 1994 and broadcast in 1995 but set in 2024 is unfolding today in Minneapolis, Chicago and in other blue cities. That war against people of color was resurrected in ST: Picard. 

Michigan ophthalmologist, John Tanton held white nationalist beliefs and wrote that to maintain American culture, “a European-American majority” is required. Today the extreme white wing of the Republican Party is driving the abolition of women’s rights because they’re wedded to the Great Replacement hypothesis.

Emails recently unearthed from the 

Jeffrey Epstein files have sparked intense controversy by linking his views on climate change to a radical solution for overpopulation. 

Epstein’s Views: Climate Change as "Culling"

New documents reveal that Epstein viewed environmental destruction as a potential remedy for a growing global population. 

• "Earth's Forest Fire": In a 2016 email exchange with AI researcher Joscha Bach, Epstein referred to climate change as the "earth's forest fire" and suggested it could be a "good thing for the species" by eliminating the "elderly and infirm".
• Eugenics Connections: These emails have been characterized by critics and scientists, such as climatologist Michael Mann, as part of a disturbing "eugenicist" ideology where mass death under climate stress is seen as "existential optimization". 

Trump Administration Actions (Feb 2026)

Simultaneously, President Donald Trump has significantly shifted U.S. climate policy, which critics connect to the broader "Epstein class" of indifferent elites. 

• Revoking the Endangerment Finding: In February 2026, the Trump administration and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin revoked the 2009 "endangerment finding," which legally established greenhouse gases as a threat to public health.
• "Scam" Rhetoric: Trump has labeled climate change a "giant scam" and a "con job," arguing that federal regulations based on it were "overreach" without a basis in fact.
• Focus on Fossil Fuels: The administration maintains that fossil fuels have lifted billions out of poverty and that environmental regulations are "hidden taxes" on American families. 

The Intersection of Overpopulation and Climate 

The debate over overpopulation is increasingly viewed as a "third rail" issue: 

• Wealth as an Insulator: Critics argue that ultra-wealthy individuals may welcome climate impacts because their wealth insulates them from the consequences while the poor suffer most.
• Shifting Blame: Some experts suggest that blaming "overpopulation" for climate change is a tactic to shift responsibility away from high-consumption nations and fossil fuel companies toward the global poor.

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]

South Dakota counties suffering wildfire risk in January

Yes, the grassland fire danger index will be in the high and very high categories again Sunday and Monday for much of the horrible red state of South Dakota.

I mean, like most people in this country, growing up, I really had little or no contact with the prairie because it was gone. I mean, I grew up in Michigan, I grew up in a suburb of Detroit, and the prairie was something I read about in books like Laura Ingalls Wilder, but not something that I had experienced. So it was only when I started exploring the prairie that was left and understanding what we had lost that inspired me to write, not only about agriculture, but about what we were losing by expanding agriculture in the Midwest. So you can sell a piece of land that has been plowed for much higher price than you can sell it if it hasn't been plowed. So prairies are vanishing largely due to commercial agriculture replacing grasslands with monoculture crops. But all of the outdoors is under threat, either from agriculture or development or from pollution, and the way to really protect all of them is for people to get outside and understand what they have and what they can do to stop whatever destruction is going on. [Sea of Grass and the Disappearing Prairie]

This interested party gets the feeling that Pat Powers has never stepped foot on the prairie and knows less about it than every Earth hating Republican running for office in South Dakota.

It IS happening here. Philip Roth predicted Emperor Trump: Beatty

State capitalism. MAGA Marxism. Crony capitalism: NPR analyst, Jack Beatty compares the Trump era to Philip Roth's 2004 novel The Plot Against America in which Roth imagines a world where aviator and isolationist Charles Lindbergh defeats Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1940 US presidential election as Lindbergh negotiates with Hitler. Learn more here.

Nuno Loureiro, the late director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Plasma Science and Fusion Center, was a renowned physicist whose recent murder has been connected in news reports to speculation surrounding a nuclear fusion merger deal involving Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). There is no evidence of a direct, formal working relationship between Loureiro and Donald Trump, but recent events have drawn the two names together in public discussion. The suspect, who later died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was a former acquaintance from Loureiro's time in Portugal. The timing of the murder, just days before the TMTG announcement, led to a significant amount of online speculation and conspiracy theories suggesting a link between his death and the financial interests of fusion companies, including those merging with Trump Media. [Google AI]

Guest post: farmers need markets not bribes

South Dakotan Julian Beaudion is the Democratic candidate for US Senate. He heard the frustration with the Trump Organization at the SD Farmers Union annual meeting in Huron.

Yesterday, I attended the 110th Annual South Dakota Farmers Union Convention and spent time with farmers and ranchers from every corner of our state. I heard the same message I have been hearing all across South Dakota. Rural communities need leaders who listen, show up, and deliver.

We talked about rising input costs, tight margins, and the uncertainty many producers are facing right now. We also talked about the urgent need to pass a strong farm bill that works for producers and rural towns, not just corporate interests. While the current farm bailout may provide short-term relief, it is not a long-term plan. South Dakota farmers need solutions that bring stability and certainty so families can plan for next season and the next generation.

I also joined the Farmers Union policy discussion, where producers spoke directly about what is working, what is not, and where the system is falling short. The conversations were honest, practical, and rooted in real life.

Across this campaign, I have heard the same priorities again and again. Farmers want fair cattle markets with real competition and clear pricing. They want strong enforcement of competition laws so that consolidation does not squeeze family operations. Many also raised the right to repair, so producers can fix their own equipment and control costs when time matters most.

There was also strong concern about foreign ownership in key parts of our food system. I heard broad support for moving toward mandatory country-of-origin labeling. These steps protect producers, strengthen our supply chain, and help consumers know where their food comes from.

Farmers also talked about raising families in rural South Dakota. Rural childcare and after-school programs matter so that farm families can work, hire help, and keep small towns growing. At the same time, we should protect SNAP for kids and seniors, stop EBT theft, and make sure these programs are run with integrity.

South Dakota’s farmers, ranchers, and rural communities deserve leadership that focuses on real solutions, not short-term fixes. If you believe in standing up for family farms and small towns, I invite you to join this campaign and help us build a stronger future for South Dakota.

South Dakota farmers warned of collapse

Yes, the grassland fire danger index will reach the very high category again Thursday for much of the chemical toilet, sacrifice zone, perpetual welfare state and permanent disaster area that South Dakota is today. 

Learn more at Bill Janklow's idea of public radio.

Page One in Sioux Falls, S.D.:

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— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) December 11, 2025 at 4:23 AM

Old Montana stomping grounds featured in BBC report

Brud Smith is a proud Montana Democrat ranching near the Boulder River in Jefferson County but he also leases property from the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. He was recently interviewed by the BBC's Ellie House for a segment on the federal lands sell-off debate. Also interviewed was former BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning who sees the urban sprawl changing Montana as a destructive trend. 

The above image is posted at Xitter. 

Learn more at Grist.

Rewilding + fewer children = happier Earth

Ocean acidification is the seventh of nine planetary boundaries that Earth has crossed. Urban sprawl, accelerated global warming and drought are reducing productivity on the remaining grasslands of the High Plains and Mountain West so if some Republicans are angry about rewilding that means it's the right thing to do.

None of the advocates for lower population interviewed by NPR favor efforts that force people to have fewer kids, like China's infamous "One Child" policy, which ended in 2016. Instead they support access to reproductive freedom, family planning information, and contraception. [Could smaller families 'rewild' the planet — and make humans happier?]

Learn more at the Rewilding Institute.

Self-proclaimed christian nationalist torpedoed CPB

ProPublica journalist Andy Kroll was interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air where he exposed Russell Vought as the christianic monster behind the rescission of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Bible thumping radio stations have been crowding local NPR broadcasts on the lower FM bands for decades. But how to dismantle the administrative state?

Here is a snip from “Put Them in Trauma:" Inside a Key MAGA Leader’s Plans for a New Trump Agenda.

Vought does not hide his agenda or shy away from using extreme rhetoric in public. But the apocalyptic tone and hard-line policy prescriptions in the two private speeches go further than his earlier pronouncements. Vought referred to the people detained for alleged crimes committed on Jan. 6, 2021, as “political prisoners” and defended the lawyers Jeffrey Clark and John Eastman, who have both faced criminal charges for their role in Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Federal law enforcement agencies, he added, “are keeping political opponents in jail, and I think we need to be honest about that.” [Kroll]

NPR is suing CPB for yanking "a planned three-year contract worth $36 million in the face of intense pressure from the White House."

Guest post: Buche slams Thune shutdown

Editor's note: according to WalletHub, gambling has become a leading source of anguish and despair in South Dakota with a high suicide rate and few avenues for treatment. The state is tied for first in the number of casinos and machines and second in overall addiction to the poison. The reasoning is hardly mysterious. It’s all about the money video lootery, a too big to jail banking racket, a medical industry triopoly, prostitution, the Sturgis Rally, policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the SDGOP destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule. 

The following column was penned by RF Buche.

I’ve spent my entire life in grocery stores. I am a fourth-generation grocer and President & CEO of GF Buche Co., serving rural and tribal communities in South Dakota for 120 years. Some of our customers are the poorest people in the United States and live in the most remote areas of South Dakota. I know exactly what role local grocers play, and right now, that role has never been more critical.

The government shutdown has thrown SNAP benefits into uncertainty. Families are anxious, wondering if and when they’ll be able to put food on the table. Children should not feel the stress of parents deciding whether to skip meals. And even if benefits land this month, the scheduled cuts coming in 2026 keep me up at night. I know who will pay the price: parents working multiple jobs, children whose school lunches may be their only full meal, elders choosing between food and medicine, and veterans who served their country but now struggle just to eat.

When Washington plays politics, real families go hungry.

Midnight on SNAP Day

On SNAP disbursement days, we keep our stores open late. If you stand inside at midnight, you’ll see a parent pushing two carts, one for groceries and one with a sleeping child wrapped in a blanket. Hunger. Exhaustion. Relief. For many, it’s the first real food in days.

This isn’t hypothetical. It happens every month in South Dakota.Rural Hunger Looks Different

In places like Pine Ridge, Mission, Marty, and Lower Brule, hunger isn’t about poor choices, it’s about barriers built into geography and economy: long distances, limited transportation, fewer jobs. More than *113,000 South Dakotans, including 1 in 5 children, struggle with food insecurity. *https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/news/south-dakota/how-nonprofits-are-teaming-up-to-fight-hunger-in-south-dakota These aren’t statistics in my stores. They are customers.

This Isn’t Political. It’s Personal. 

I’m not here to point fingers. I’m here to say that kids shouldn’t go to bed hungry while Congress argues over shutdown leverage. Treating food access as a bargaining chip is a moral failure.

South Dakotans take care of each other. When one neighbor struggles, the rest of us step up. That’s not charity, that’s who we are. But right now, decisions made thousands of miles away are pushing families to the edge.

SNAP Works, And Cuts Will Hurt 

SNAP is not a luxury. It is the backbone of food access for:

• Working parents

• Seniors stretching limited income• Kids who deserve nourishment to learn and grow

• Veterans deserving more than survival mode

SNAP dollars spent in a rural store support the entire community, keeping doors open, jobs local, and shelves full. Cutting this support is not responsible governance. 

We’re Stepping Up – Washington Must Too

Through our nonprofit Team Buche Cares teambuchecares.org, we aim to provide 50,000 meals at Thanksgiving and another 50,000 at Christmas. We respond to urgent needs when families reach out. But philanthropy cannot replace federal responsibility. Donors help thousands. SNAP helps tens of thousands.

Hungry Children Can’t Wait 

This isn’t a policy debate. It’s dinner. Stability. Survival.

Here’s what I’m asking Congress to do:

• End the shutdown• Fully fund SNAP for November

• Reverse the cuts planned for 2026

• Remember the families living with the consequencesMy family built our grocery stores on one belief: food is love, food is dignity, and food is hope. In the United States of America, in the heart of South Dakota, no child should have to worry about eating.

South Dakotans take care of each other. Caring for our neighbors, sharing in times of plenty and ensuring no one is forgotten, those are the values that make our state strong.

It’s time for Washington to do the same.

Learn more at South Dakota Searchlight and at ICTNews and at Bill Janklow's idea of public radio.