Mitchell Republic too far away from West River bison issue

Update from Native Sun News linked here.

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The reintroduction of American Bison to historic ranges is raising the specter of racism in Montana and South Dakota.

Some of the Yellowstone herd is infected with brucellosis, a disease that can spread to cattle and cause abortions and sterility. With careful execution, hopefully the plan to bring more bison to South Dakota can happen without also bringing an outbreak of brucellosis. [editorial, Mitchell Daily Republic]

Tupper: this is pure bullshit: you can do better. 'Don't bring brucellosis with bison' http://t.co/OXEoskT3Qt via @dailyrepublic
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) July 8, 2014

The reality:

Brucellosis transmission risk is limited due to the combined effects of management to maintain separation between cattle and bison, the synchrony of most bison parturition events into a short period and in areas separate from cattle summer ranges, the cleaning of birth sites by female bison and the relatively quick environmental degradation of Brucella in late spring weather, and scavenger removal of potentially infectious birth tissues that makes it unlikely that viable Brucella abortus bacteria would remain for cattle to encounter. [US Park Service]

Creeks that haven’t flowed in the Black Hills for decades are running because 400 square miles of ponderosa pine have been turned by the bark beetle from transpiring millions of acre/feet of water into standing methane generators. Looks like natural selection from this 40-year observer of the Anthropocene; the Arkansas and Platte are at bank full in mid-July for the same reason.

The Helena National Forest piece and this post at A New Century of Forest Planning are inextricably linked in that the sheer number of trees have sucked so much water from recharges that they leave the most contaminated water for the humans and other species to sustain ourselves.

In the Black Hills, Weyerhaeuser analogue, Neiman Enterprises is taking the last of the old growth ponderosa pine in the name of insect control and taking federal dollars to do it while the small diameter trees are left standing. Massive piles of slash littering the forest preside over skidder trails that slice up hillsides.

Multiple mycology surveys reveal disrupted, cattle-infested tree farms where humanity has destroyed whatever remains of the preceding 11,000 years of indigenous and ungulate management. Multiply that by the countless watersheds that European immigration destroyed in the United States and Canada by the number of those exploited in the name of disaster capitalism.

The Mitchell Republic editors could be saying get cattle the hell out of bison habitat and that it's time for President Obama to rewild the West.

Is that right, Seth?

Forest health crisis ends with a whimper http://t.co/o92n9pYkCU via @bberwyn cc: @DianaSix1 #copolitics #mtpol #sdsen
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) July 8, 2014

Washington's inaugural legal cannabis expected to smoke supplies

This blog lobbied the Minnehaha County Dems about legal cannabis in Deadwood and decriminalization for the rest of the state of South Dakota.

The Washington State Liquor Control Board (WSLCB) today issued the state’s first 24 marijuana retailer licenses. The 24 applicants were notified via email early this morning that they were approved for a retail license. Once approved for a license, producers and/or processors are able to file a required manifest for transporting to retail locations. Following a 24 hour quarantine period, they may begin transporting products to retail stores. Marijuana retailers may begin selling marijuana at their discretion following receipt of product and entering it in to the traceability system. [Seattle PI's The Pot Blog]

According to NPR:

The store openings are expected to be accompanied by high prices, shortages and celebration.

Former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson recently joined a cannabis firm and sent stock in Cannabis Sativa Inc. soaring.

A Nevada-based startup that plans to sell medical and recreational marijuana products named former New Mexico governor and U.S. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as its CEO and president, the company announced Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped to expand Cannabis Sativa into a major marijuana business and intends to work out of New Mexico to help develop products that are legal in states like Colorado and Washington. [Russell Contreras, Santa Fe New Mexican]

Why not, Deadwood?

You can read Lee Fang's piece in The Nation on the anti-cannabis lobby linked here.

MAP: WA state's licensed pot shops, and which ones plan to open this week http://t.co/sIRHpeKjsZ pic.twitter.com/LIiSUH73dE
— KPLU Public Radio (@KPLU) July 7, 2014

Western Watersheds: public lands ranching hurts communities

Update, 2200 MDT:

U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials say they agree with a Nevada sheriff's position that rancher Cliven Bundy must be held accountable for his role in an April standoff between his supporters and the federal agency. Clark County Sheriff Doug Gillespie said Bundy crossed the line when he allowed states' rights supporters, including self-proclaimed militia members, onto his property to aim guns at police. [Martin Griffith, AP]

Update, 5 July, 0630 MDT: South Dakota earth hater legislator Betty Olson is defending a Hutterite colony caught in a wetlands dispute with the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Story by John Hult in the Sioux Falls Argus Leader linked here.

Public lands ranching is the most widespread commercial use of public lands in the United States. Ranching is one of the primary causes of native species endangerment in the American West; it is also the most significant cause of non-point source water pollution and desertification. Hobby ranchers and corporate-entities hold the lion’s share of grazing permits on hundreds of millions of acres of public lands. Most of the rest of public land ranchers rely on service jobs in small towns as their primary source of income. Rural communities support public land ranchers not the other way around. BLM and Forest Service staff and conservationists continue to be subjected to psychological and physical intimidation in the field. [Western Watersheds Project]

Cowspiracy Official Trailer from First Spark Media on Vimeo.

A mycological survey of once-prolific bolete habitat on Minnesota Ridge in the Black Hills revealed that most of the land is either covered by standing dead pine or it's been logged into the dirt.

In the last several decades domestic cattle have spread antibiotic-laced manure throughout the area killing the fungi that break down organic material and strengthen the trees' resistance to bark beetles in mixed pine/aspen forests. Perhaps needless to say, no mushrooms were to be had.

The good news? Aspen is coming in everywhere and water is either running or standing throughout the central and northern Hills. Spring Creek, south of Rapid City is running at bank full; and, more rain is on the way.

As the Department of Interior identifies several states where bison can be reintroduced to historic ranges, some cattle producers in South Dakota are resisting overtures from tribes and the US Park Service to begin rewilding portions of the state.

Ranchers who rely on the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Oglala Sioux Tribe grazing permits were recently notified that their leases will expire in October 2015. The plan would reintroduce buffalo into the South Unit by carving the Stronghold Buffalo Grazing Unit out of private land and leased lands within the South Unit of Badlands National Park. It was approved in June by the tribal council. The tribe is currently working with the National Park Service to create the nation's first tribal national park that would encompass the 133,000-acre South Unit. The plan includes the return of bison to the park and the end of cattle grazing. "The National Park Service and the tribe are working to resolve issues that will result in legislation that could be introduced," Perry Plumart, Sen. Tim Johnson's press secretary, told the Journal on Wednesday. Plumart said the senator is impressed by their cooperation. [Andrea Cook, Rapid City Journal]

Cattle shitting in a sensitive watershed on the BHNF: note bug kill. Antimicrobials in manure kill fungal communities necessary for healthy forests.

There are eight grazing allotments on the Northern Hills district that can no longer support livestock.

There are four federal land management groups that allow grazing: the National Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the National Park Service. Tom Smith, range staff officer for the Northern Hills Ranger District of the Black Hills National Forest said there are 36 allotments in his district, eight of which are vacant. The allotments add up to 304,387 total acres and each allotment ranges from 1,223-20,479 acres in size. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has 504 grazing allotments in Western South Dakota said Carmen Drieling, the group’s rangeland management specialist. “It’s a rate based on a formula that we have nothing to do with,” Smith said. “Congress set up the formula during the Regan [sic] administration and has done nothing to change it.” Currently that rate is $1.35 per grazing pair, per month. “It’s ridiculously cheap,” he said. “If you were to lease private land to do the same thing, you’re looking at $30. $20 would be cheap.” [Mark Watson, Black Hills Pioneer]

Betty Olson is an earth hater state legislator defending the Bundyists in Nevada. Writing in the Black Hills Pioneer she says:

The federal government shouldn’t be allowed to own any land within a state’s boundaries unless it is granted permission by the legislature of that state, and so far, no state has given that permission to the federal government.

President Obama, it's time to rewild the West: tear out the main stem dams, extend the CM Russell Wildlife Refuge to Oacoma, South Dakota along the Missouri River and to Yellowstone then to the Yukon.

It’s time for cougars to enjoy Endangered Species protection and for you, Mr. President, to dissolve the Black Hills National Forest; and, in cooperation with BIA Forestry and Wildfire Management and the US Park Service, rename it Okawita Paha National Monument then make it part of the Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge.

Krebs Deep Throat for Noem Tryst Post

Anyone believing Shantel Krebs is an innocent bystander is an idiot. She is the source for this 2010 post about Kristi Noem's extramarital love life. Krebs and this blog had a twenty minute phone conversation the day before the post went up. In a phone interview with interested party, Steve Cutler would not go on the record about being a witness to intimacy between Noem and Jim Meidinger.

It's common knowledge that Krebs, Joni Cutler and other South Dakota legislators loathe Noem.

Shantel was giddy about spilling her guts during our phone conversation and provided me with eyewitnesses to the affair that nobody wanted to go on the record about. What really stuck in Krebs' craw was that KELO teevee buried the story replete with first person accounts of public intimate contact between Noem and her paramour.

Krebs supported Chris Nelson, hated Noem and gleefully gave me names of people to call who also hated Noem which I did.

She told me because I promised to protect her secret and I would have had Pat Powers not attacked Angelia Schultz.

Until Shantel admits her phone conversation with me and/or the tipster comes forward this is all on me and from the viral traffic at ip about this, my credibility is obviously more feared than doubted.

Democrats=safe sex. Republicans=cheap sex.

Former NM governor named to cannabis post

A Nevada-based startup that plans to sell medical and recreational marijuana products named former New Mexico governor and U.S. Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson as its CEO and president, the company announced Tuesday. Johnson said he hoped to expand Cannabis Sativa into a major marijuana business and intends to work out of New Mexico to help develop products that are legal in states like Colorado and Washington. [Russell Contreras, Santa Fe New Mexican]

In a Politico interview about the Veep rumors swirling around current NM Gov. Susana Martinez:

"This is a Sarah Palin-esque kind of choice. She’s served as governor of New Mexico for about the same amount of time,” Johnson said. “I think there were lessons learned [from 2008.]"

He tweeted: "And the Feds are cracking down on #MMJ? Sheer idiocy."

USA Today:

The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.

Deaths from cannabis overdose? nearly zero. Deaths from the "War on Drugs?"

Pfizer is one interested party in the outcome of the SCOTUS review of ACA. From Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News:

On March 13, 2012, though, the Arthritis Advisory Committee to the FDA unanimously concluded that the potential benefits of anti-NGF drugs outweighed the risks associated with their use. They voted 21 to 0 to allow Pfizer and other developers to resume testing, despite cases of joint destruction and osteonecrosis associated with their use.

WTF?