Rapid City Journal editorial: South Dakota's GOP congressional delegation "get small" on gun safety

The rise of companies like Amazon suggest many people are simply too afraid to go into town to shop.

To perpetuate America's culture of gun violence John Thune has received nearly $50,000 for his silence on gun carnage, Kristi Noem got $5,000 for her service to the murder industry and Mike Rounds got nearly $5,000 for his dotage to the National Reactionary Association according to one study.

South Dakota's earth haters have received far more from the arms dealers to the world. Thune has a lifetime haul of some $226,000, just for example.

In the meantime — to quote the advice Sen. John Thune gave to future potential shooting victims after the Las Vegas concert massacre — too many politicians have decided to “get small” to protect themselves from political fallout that comes with standing up to the gun lobby. Sens. Thune and Rounds and Rep. Noem have laid low during the current gun-safety debate.

Read it here.

It could happen here. It already did. That’s the sentiment Kendall Diehl says she carries with her as she helps organize a walkout for students to protest gun violence in schools in the wake of a Florida shooting last month that left 17 dead. “We’ve joked, during drills, that it could never happen here,” said Diehl, a 15-year-old sophomore at Stevens High School. “But the Florida students probably thought it would never happen there either.”

Read that here.

America has brought this on itself since radical christianity has murdered millions but you know what scares me?

Donald Trump has escalated his war on civilians and someone seeking retaliation could roll a truck bomb into Rapid City Central or Sioux Falls Lincoln High School after an Ellsworth-based drone pilot or some jock from the 114th Fighter Wing targets a wedding party or religious service.

Just say it: radical christianic terrorism.

I'll stop calling the AR-15 an "assault rifle" when you stop calling Donald Trump "president."

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) February 27, 2018

Despite Chaco oil and gas cancellation Black Hills Energy still raping Four Corners region

The sign for Black Hills Exploration and Production in Bloomfield, New Mexico was head-snapping on the drive to Chaco Wash.

U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has canceled an oil and gas lease sale near Chaco Canyon in northern New Mexico until the agency can further review the impact on cultural artifacts in the area. The Bureau of Land Management received 120 protests opposing the March sale.

Read it all here.

Even as prices plummet, Rapid City-based Black Hills Energy remains focused on its substantial oil and natural gas holdings in the Mancos Shale within the San Juan and Piceance basins. The firm is bankrolling water diversions, too.

Black Hills Energy and the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission lubricate each other regularly and after priming the election pump, achieved a May orgasm at the hands of Chris Nelson, Chairman Gary Hanson and Kristie Fiegen.

Regulators and market forces in Colorado are driving the Rapid City-based utility from coal-fired electricity generation, too.

Sick of winter? Cannabis is an effective therapy for SAD

Meth use is a symptom of South Dakota's statewide hopelessness as the state's residents stare down another punishing, relentless, and unforgiving winter.

Dr. Steve Manlove, a former Custer resident and practicing psychiatrist for 31 years, agrees that depression plays a big role in suicide, saying suicide attempts are almost always connected to depression and feelings of hopelessness.

Read more here.

A study recently published in the Journal of Rural Health found the suicide rate for farmers is not only the highest of any occupation in America, it's spiking because of a lack of ready access to mental health care services.

Cannabis is an effective treatment for Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD).

Still another study just concluded cannabis is an effective antidepressant therapy for some patients while keeping it illegal creates paranoia, anxiety and stigmatization.

Even the South Dakota State Medical Association contends that although "marijuana and dronabinol decreased pain" the fact that it is illegal makes it less effective as a therapy.

Although there are different schools of thought concerning the efficacy of marijuana to treat certain medical conditions and concerning whether its possession and use ought to be decriminalized altogether, the fact remains that it is a violation of federal law and South Dakota law to possess or distribute it for any purpose.

Read that here.

South Dakota is among the worst states for opioid abuse but even red states like Alaska are learning that cannabis works to treat that disease, too.

Dr. Nancy Babbitt: "As a primary-care physician in Rapid City, I know that many of my patients who own guns and live with a mental health disorder" https://t.co/xdm5PvG4wE #sdleg

— interested party (@larry_kurtz) February 22, 2018

Rapid City's water supply is at risk to 1872 Mining Law

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed resolutions condemning what they say are abuses of the General Mining Law of 1872 that led to the Custer Expedition's discovery of gold in the Black Hills and to pay Civil War debt.

Resolution 17-2018-CR directly opposes the company’s operations on the Black Hills. It explains the occupation of the Black Hills through unconstitutional acts by the U.S. Congress and notes that the land is managed by the U.S. Forest Service in violation of treaty agreements.

Read it here.

Tribal members have sued to stop a Canadian company from drilling exploratory holes for a mine near a sacred site in the Black Hills.

Moral hazard driving early wildfire season again

Just a hundred and fifty years ago bison would be clearing the grasses driving early wildfire seasons.

In the last week, two wildfires have scorched acreage in Oklahoma and Kansas. Thanks to an unusually wet summer in 2017, plenty of grass grew in southern Kansas and northern Oklahoma renewing those scorched acres but also growing an abundance of fuel for wildfires this winter and spring. The wind gusts so common to the High Plains can quickly turn a small fire into a large one.

Read more here.

And:

“The fires have been unprecedented in the state back to back record breaking years, in terms of large fire events,” says Battalion Chief Lane Pearman. “The fuels are changing. They are even changing here in Wichita and within Sedgwick County.”

Read that here.

John Thune (earth hater-SD) has rolled out his farm bill template for moral hazard and socialized agriculture while South Dakota's lone US House member and her fellow earth haters support it. Moral hazard is the flip side of self-reliance and the livestock industry knows emergency declarations will provide bailouts instead of burning off dry grasses minimizing losses.

Domestic livestock have contributed to catastrophic wildfire conditions and Republican welfare ranchers are the real ecoterrorists who hate subsidies unless they benefit from them.

Not talking about fuel treatments during a wildfire is the same thing as not talking about gun safety during a mass shooting.

The Wolf fire in southwest South Dakota was the largest blaze to occur during the month of March since the year 2000.

Had Sen. Tim Johnson been successful in passing S. 3310 as a part of the doomed Omnibus Wilderness Bill the land burned by the Cottonwood and Wolf fires would have been placed within the stewardship of Badlands National Park and much, if not all, of the federal land scorched by the Cottonwood Fire would have been burned off prescriptively in increments instead of being managed by some careless rancher or passing motorist.