Guest post: John Thune has no honor

Editor's note: Donald Pay has a long history in South Dakota environmental politics and lived in Rapid City when career politician John Thune was elected to the US Senate by accusing Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of being a career politician. 

When the history of the Trump era is written John Thune will be considered just as many of the conservative leaders in Weimar Germany are now considered deluded by their own selfish desire for power and prestige. The Weimar conservatives placated a narcissist with extreme and crazy ideas just so they could gain power. They thought they could control this leader or guide him to be more reasonable. They were just as deluded as the man who killed millions and started World War II.

Trump is not going to be controlled by Thune, a man who has gained his own perch of power by going along and getting along. Thune has proved over his long career that he has no real core and no courage. His Christian faith is wimpy, at best. His so-called “conservative” values about the sanctity of life vanish as fast as Trump’s thugs extinguish more lives on the streets of major cities. That’s how the Holocaust started, but Thune can't summon up the courage to confront the demon. He’s gutless, if not a demon himself, just as the Weimar conservatives were.

Thune brings dishonor on his party, but maybe he knows history a bit more than I give him credit for. Hitler, after all, killed off many of the conservatives, too. And, of course, he threatened family members of politicians who gave him too much trouble. I suspect that hangs heavily on Thune, as it would with many folks. 

No, Thune will never be a hero. To find those, look to the streets of Minneapolis. That’s where you’ll find many ordinary folks confronting Trump’s thugs. They risk death to raise their voices against Trump’s Gestapo. The real heros of the Trump era are nowhere near the US Senate. They are in the streets.

Gaia targeting Black Hills towns including one named for a war criminal

Dendroctonus ponderosae or mountain pine beetle predates by thousands of years Pinus ponderosa in the Black Hills which only reached that region less than four thousand years ago. Native Douglas fir, limber and lodgepole pine have been mostly extirpated from He Sapa, The Heart of Everything That Is. And, because of Republican failures and greed the Island in the Plains has been broken for decades but the collapse of select Black Hills ecosystems has been evident since at least 2002 so after a century of subsidized livestock grazing and destructive agricultural practices invasive grasses infest most of western South Dakota. 

So, to honor Hulett, Wyoming-based Devils Tower Forest Products the South Dakota town named for a war criminal conducts a ritualized bark beetle burning—but not today.

The burning [of] the beetle has been postponed due to dry weather and forecasted wind. Organizers say the rest of the events will proceed as planned and the actual beetle burn will proceed as soon as some snow falls.

Buffalo, Camp Crook, Ladner, Ludlow, Redig, Reva, Belle Fourche, Newell, Vale, Fruitdale, Belle Fourche Reservoir, Hoover, Faith, Mud Butte, Red Owl, Howes, Opal, Folsom, Box Elder, Caputa, New Underwood, Wasta, Wall, Scenic, Quinn, Ardmore, Edgemont, Provo, Rumford, Sturgis, Piedmont, Black Hawk, Summerset, Tilford, Ellsworth AFB, Union Center, Elm Springs, Enning, White Owl, Usta, Bison, Sorum, and Zeona are all at risk to weaponized wildfire Thursday and Friday.

Guest post: SDGOP civil war nearing execution

Editor's note: South Dakota's teflon teevee anchor Shad Olson is having none of Pierre's overt culture of corruption.

On the last day of last year's South Dakota legislative session, a patriot lawmaker stood feet away from a clearly audible conversation on speakerphone between another lawmaker and a former governor, (no, not her) negotiating a lucrative "donation" to the lawmaker's not-for-profit organization on condition of purchased support for the billion dollar prison boondoggle and lobbying influence for same.

The witness immediately reported the incident to legislative leadership expecting at very least a face-to-face reckoning with the accused party and an explanation for what had every appearance of open bribery in exchange for vote switching on the prison project. The most egregious and hefty of several similar examples of alleged prison vote quid pro quo.

Three attorney lawmakers and a spouse witnessed that report. And did nothing about it except plot the trashing, primarying, disgorgement and persecution of the select disgusted few who knew the story and lost confidence and respect for the do-nothings in caucus chamber.

The public silence of that eyewitness has allowed the necessary space for the Odenbach-Hansen-Lems-Radke-Pat Powers cabal to continue their pretense of moral infallibility, and through their laughable passel of trundling special needs surrogates, a year long reign of cancel culture and defamatory terror against lawmakers and anyone else who was in Pierre and knew 2025 not as a rightful revolution in conservative majority policymaking, but as a melange of corruption, intimidation and fratricidal attacks against the likes of Phil Jensen, Dylan Jordan, Brandei Schaefbauer, etc.

By a bunch of career politicians and neoconservative lightweights who cut the nastiest of deals to secure their perches atop the Pierre slag heap. The people who rode to glory opposing a single CO2 pipeline project but who now sing the AFP hymnal supporting data centers.

As always, the inherent danger of remaining silent when an enemy knows you know their secrets is suffering their survivalist urgency to preemptively destroy, discredit, and ostracize the source before the damning truth of their misdeeds reaches daylight. When slashed tires and doctored gas tanks don't convey the message.

From the godawful HB1020, the billion dollar prison betrayal and the "Nice People" gubernatorial race where hired surrogates spit daily venom and acid at opponents and now, tell pernicious lies to law enforcement to engender new grist for their illiterate smear operations, the 2026 division in the South Dakota grassroots is intentional, pervasive and fatal to the movement. Carried by fools and justified by scripture readings.

Telling public truth about secret corruption is a matter of survival as much as whatever courage is required to defuse a bomb before it detonates. Doing or saying nothing about deadly secrets guarantees the outcome as surely as failure to snip the wire before the timer reaches zero.

Silence by whistleblowers is always more dangerous than disclosure.

Always.

Gaia taking aim at chemical toilet...again

A High Wind Watch has been issued for counties west of Brown and Spink from 6 PM CST Thursday through 6 PM CST Friday. Winds of 35-45 mph gusting to 60 mph will be possible, with the highest gusts over central South Dakota. High winds may move loose debris, damage property and cause power outages. Travel could be difficult, especially for high profile vehicles.

Guest post: "Libertyland’s Lies are Wrapped in an Advertising Campaign"

Editor's note: Rapid City, South Dakota barker, Mike Sanborn began The Decorum Forum in 2009 which enjoyed a significant following for several years. Other local notables, Bill Fleming, a Democrat and Bob Newland, a Libertarian have been authors there. Mr. Sanborn is responsible for some of the most sexist and misogynistic Deadwood and Sturgis Rally billboards littering I-90 but perennial loser, Sanborn was destroyed in Rapid City's 2015 Ward 3 runoff election that kept incumbent Jerry Wright on the City Council. 

Today, Earth hater Sanborn writes an occasional column for the Spearditch-based Black Hills Pioneer and like Pat Powers' Faceberg page Mike's is plastered with his own image likely signs of deep insecurity but hey—any issue that divides their party is progress.

The proposed Rapid City Destination District (Libertyland) tax increment financing district (TIF) has, due to its epochal $125 million price tag, generated news stories from around the region and nearby states. Certainly, no adult resident of Rapid City — and no Black Hills television viewer or radio listener — has been able to avoid seeing or hearing campaign advertising in favor of this gargantuan project, which has been sold as a necessity to make the unchallenged sports complex (Catalyst) TIF work.

The Catalyst District TIF will receive a whopping $84 million in financing. According to a Sept. 19 summary article in Government Market News, Libertyland USA will include a theme park, restaurants, retail shops, a Western-themed resort hotel, an interactive living history attraction, a water park, a campground, a residential district with 400 homes, a conference center and event spaces.

Proponents of the Libertyland TIF have sought to tie its fate to the sports complex. Among them is an organization called Team Rapid City, which tells Rapid City voters the Libertyland TIF is needed or infrastructure costs for the sports complex could rise as much as $10 million. If you find it odd that infrastructure couldn’t have been included in the Catalyst District TIF, you are not alone.

Sports complex visitors need Libertyland parking, they say. They need the restaurants. They need the hotel.

But what about Rapid City’s existing restaurants? What about existing hotels? And remember those of us who said there wasn’t enough parking for the Monument expansion? Parking would take care of itself, we were told. Doesn’t the same apply to the sports complex? Voters might ask: Why not?

Libertyland.com tells us there will be no cost to the taxpayer. They tell us there is no risk. Both statements are admirably confident. Both are false.

On Libertyland’s website, proponents say Libertyland funds essential public infrastructure. But according to the city’s own TIF project plan, the city is a partner in the TIF, and city taxpayers will fund the very infrastructure upgrades Libertyland claims it is on the hook for. It isn’t. You are.

Libertyland proponents also tell us Rapid City has had multiple TIF successes. They list a number of projects they say “prove that TIFs are a smart, effective tool for growth.” They would have been more accurate to say “prove that TIFs can be effective tools for growth.” Some don’t work as planned. Some do.

They also claim TIFs pay for themselves by using the new sales tax revenue they generate, thereby reducing property taxes. Have you noticed a reduction in your property taxes as a result of the successful TIFs Libertyland lists on its website? ...Neither have I.

Out of the eight “facts” Libertyland lists on its website, the most egregiously deceptive is the claim that the $47 million grant for discretionary funding included in the Libertyland TIF must be used for the “public good” and cannot be used to develop housing.

What the project plan actually says:

“$46,517,513 of the request is structured as a grant. This is in compliance with SDCL 11-9-15 under item (8):

‘( Payments and grants made, at the discretion of the governing body, that are found to be necessary or convenient to the creation of a district, the implementation of project plans, or to stimulate and develop the general economic welfare and prosperity of the state. No payment or grant may be used for any residential structure pursuant to §11-9-42.

‘Discretionary Costs and Grants will be used for the development of the Commercial and Entertainment Zone and amenities of the Resort Village. These funds will also be used for professional service costs, including costs incurred for architectural, planning, engineering and legal advice and services. Grant funds cannot be used to developed (sic) residential structures.’”

In other words, if the governing body — the City Council — wants to grant (give, not loan) Libertyland a large sum of cash to build a pool at its resort village, or a tavern or retail store in the commercial and entertainment zone, it will be free to do so, and taxpayers will be powerless to stop it. And it will have a $47 million slush fund of taxpayer dollars to play with.

Personally, I doubt Libertyland can succeed. The idea is as full of flaws as a feasibility study written on a cocktail napkin. If it were my money — and under this TIF, it is — I would euthanize the idea. Libertyland investors have the right to lose their money. When they’re risking mine, we part ways.

Voters have the power on Jan. 20 to mercifully put this one to sleep.