Lawsuit against Pennington County deputy in bloody shooting going forward

Pennington County is having an awful week.

“The cop murdered my son,” Jerry Capps told Native Sun News in May of 2010 shortly after his son Christopher Capps died from five gunshot wounds fired by Pennington County Deputy David Olson. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has just confirmed the distraught father’s suspicions, that Olson used excessive force in the death of his son and violated his constitutional rights. [Native Sun News, posted at Indianz]

When Garrison Keillor opened A Prairie Home Campanion in the Rapid City Civic Center Theatre on November 20, 1999 he cited a statistic that Pennington County has the highest per capita gun ownership in the United States. A nervous chuckle rolled through the audience.

The number of experiences that i have had in gun and pawn shops in Rapid City that have taken me aback are too numerous to count. Two are vivid: a fifteen year old with mother in tow pointing at a Glock in a case saying: "that one" and a man buying five AK-47s with cash.

Christopher J. Capps, 22, who died of multiple gunshot wounds on Sunday night at Rapid City Regional Hospital, had been accepted by the University of South Dakota – Vermillion. Described as a “very outgoing” young man, Capps was well known around the neighborhood where was shot in a hail of bullets that may have ranged as high as five or six shots from Sheriff Department deputy David Olson, a nearly five-year veteran of the department. [Native Times]

The people involved in this skirmish are not the first casualties of this war; nor are they the last.

Duffy: The initial seizure of a child, the forty-eight hour hearing easy money. http://t.co/nvu5IiD9Di #sdleg @LauraSullivaNPR
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) April 1, 2015

Malkin to spotlight Bendagate scam at SDSU

Oooops.

Hey, nutball winger, Michelle Malkin is coming to South Dakota State University invited by campus Republicans but SDGOP is scared spitless of what she's going to say.

Can we stop putting America up for sale to the most politically connected bidders yet? Where is our self-respect? Created under an obscure section of the expansionist 1990 Immigration Act, EB-5 promised bountiful economic development for the U.S. in exchange for granting permanent residency (and eventual American citizenship) to foreign investors. A few years later, Congress conjured up the idea of EB-5 “regional centers” — government-sanctioned business groups and corporate entities acting as middlemen to administer the immigrant investments and facilitate the visa peddling. One underling called it “a whole new phase of yuck.” [Michelle Malkin]

As former US Attorney for the District of South Dakota Brendan Johnson moves into private practice the US Department of Justice has refused to trust the state's attorney general with sensitive information in the EB-5 scandal.

The Department of Justice is refusing to release records related to former cabinet secretary Richard Benda, who was at the heart of a state and federal investigation into the state's EB-5 program. The department declined the Argus Leader's request for Benda's FBI file, indicating the matter remains under investigation. The department's response to a Freedom of Information Act request said that releasing the records "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings." Also included in the investigation was the Department of Justice's Public Integrity unit, which investigates allegations of corruption among elected and appointed government officials.​ The attorney general's office is defending itself from a lawsuit brought by journalist Bob Mercer, who is trying to force the office to release more information about the Benda investigation. [Jonathan Ellis]

The SDGOP's culture of corruption, controlled by principals in banking and health care industries, is unravelling: with a little help from Ms. Malkin and some federal due diligence Pierre might soon be liberated.

Noem: federal government not spending enough in SD

What the...?

The backlog of maintenance work on national park properties in South Dakota is more than $47 million, according to a report by the National Park Service. Rep. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., pinned the blame on the White House for diverting more resources to buying land rather than using the finds to take care of existing National Park Service locations. "With national treasures like Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave, and the Badlands in need of repair, we have to get serious about addressing the maintenance backlog," Noem said. "We need the administration to recognize the constraints of hardworking taxpayers and reassess its priorities." [Sioux Falls Argus Leader]

Of course her Wall Drug donors are leaning on her.

Individuals working for Sanford Health gave Noem $16,750, while employees of Wall Drug — whose president, Ted Hustead, was Noem’s finance director —gave her $14,000. [Rapid City Journal]

Noem sure spends a lot of time with men who are not her husband.

Hypocrisy still greases SDGOP politics.

Letters: Thune, Rounds racist, lack respect

This letter is to express my total disappointment in the actions of our two Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds, when they signed on to the letter to the leaders of Iran. What in heaven’s name were they thinking? Rounds looks like he is playing “follow the leader.” From the minute he took the oath of office as a member of the U.S. Senate, he has shown his dislike of our president and what he is trying to do for our country. Are neither of our senators, along with most other members of the Republican party, not able to at least show some respect for the office of the presidency? [Phyllis Karolevitz]

Phyllis is the widow of South Dakota author, Bob Karolevitz and the mother of two old friends.

She's not alone in her criticism.

South Dakota citizens need to send a strong message of condemnation to Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds for signing the ill-written and poorly considered Iran letter authored by Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton.

Both South Dakota senators, along with 45 other Republican senators in Washington, disgraced our state and our nation by taking part in a seriously questionable tactic to disrupt nuclear negotiations with Iran. Expressing a short-circuited message to Tehran equates to nonfunctional U.S. policy.

Whether one agrees or disagrees with the negotiations, it is important to realize that the actions taken by this now infamous "47" are inappropriate and dangerous. Had they truly considered the best needs of our country, they would have created a congressional bipartisan conference committee to meet with the president and form a cogent U.S. strategy. Instead, they resorted to a clumsy and offensive betrayal of U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy by trying to wrestle away executive branch purview not unlike toddlers.

This participation in unilateral debauchery, Thune and Rounds have displayed an alarming lack of diplomacy, discernment and knowledge of our nation's governmental process, and the Constitution which they are pledged to uphold.

I call on South Dakotans to strongly admonish our senators' conduct and give them the message we will accept no more. [Mary Claus]

How We Know AIPAC Wrote The GOP's "Treason" Letter To Iran

Both the White House and Congressional Democrats aren’t happy with 47 Republican Senators who sent a letter to Iranian leaders. The 47 Republican senators, including South Dakota’s John Thune and Mike Rounds, said in the letter that an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program that isn’t ratified by Congress would only be an executive agreement. This would run the risk of cancelation [sic] should the next President wish to do so. Democrats say these 47 senators are bypassing and weakening the President’s push to reach a deal to limit the Iranian nuclear program. [KELO]

Couldn't have said better myself.

From Geoffrey Cowley writing at MSNBC:

Experts estimate that Israel now has 60 to 80 nuclear bombs, ranging from 20 kilotons to one megaton (1,000 kilotons) in destructive power. By the end of this decade, Israel could have 200 nukes in its arsenal, and Iran could have 20 smaller devices. Suppose, as the authors do, that Iran could hit three Israeli cities with 15-kiloton bombs—one reaching Haifa, one reaching Beer Sheva and two reaching Tel Aviv. Roughly 400,000 people would die in the initial blasts, the simulations show, and 230,000 would survive with burns and traumatic injuries. Tel Aviv alone would lose a quarter-million people (about 17% of its population), and 147,000 of its survivors would desperately need medical care.

Zionists, terrorists, war criminals, mutineers: just a few truths being spoken to power.

Republican Tom Cotton thinks gays in America should just be happy to be alive pic.twitter.com/YP3uh9jG5G
— Gregory McKelvey (@GMcKelv) April 2, 2015

Misguided GOP whining over bat protection

South Dakota's earth hater blog pans the Rapid City Journal except when an editorial serves up a political dish it likes.

While it won't win any cutest animal contests, the northern long-eared bat deserves the same chance as any critter to continue to exist. We urge anyone who shares that concern to use the official commenting process. And if such a listing does occur — we certainly support trying to save the bats and preserve them as a species — we hope wildlife officials will use common sense while balancing the protection that would be offered against the potentially devastating economic impacts that could result. [editorial, Rapid City Journal, hyperlinks mine.]

In some caves in the Northeast, northern long-eared bat populations have declined by up to 99%.

A step toward preserving some Black Hills habitat has been taken.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced today it is protecting the northern long-eared bat as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), primarily due to the threat posed by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease that has devastated many bat populations. The Service, states, federal agencies, tribes, conservation organizations and scientific institutions are working together on a national response team to address white-nose syndrome through disease monitoring and management, conservation and outreach. For areas of the country affected by white-nose syndrome, the measures provided in the interim 4(d) rule exempt “take” (a term under the ESA that includes harming, harassing or killing a listed species) resulting from certain activities. In parts of the country not affected by white-nose syndrome, the 4(d) rule recognizes that activities that result in incidental take of bats are not imperiling the species. These activities will be exempt from the Act’s prohibitions. Purposeful take, however, other than removal of bats from dwellings, is prohibited. [excerpt, press release, USFWS]

GOP donors being subsidized by the federal government to log in the Black Hills are putting pressure on the state's congressional delegation to resist habitat protection for the black-backed woodpecker, too. The American Dipper has been all but extirpated from the Black Hills.

South Dakota U.S. Sen. John Thune recently introduced a bill to prevent the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) from listing the northern long-eared bat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In 2011, the FWS reached a secret sue-and-settle agreement with two radical environmental groups to require listing determinations on more than 250 species across the United States, including the northern long-eared bat. On October 14, 2014, Thune sent a letter to the FWS with Rep. Kristi Noem encouraging the agency to withdraw its proposed listing of the northern long-eared bat as endangered and to refocus its attention on combating white-nose syndrome. [KCSR]

#USFWS now protecting the northern long-eared bat as a threatened species under the #ESA: http://t.co/2QtF5sowBw pic.twitter.com/c0TlYdJjLG
— US Fish and Wildlife (@USFWSMtnPrairie) April 1, 2015