Two more Republican-owned sawmills to close

Koch Industries owns Georgia-Pacific LLC, one of the largest forest products ravagers in the United States. 

Interfor is another huge timber multi-national that sold a sawmill to Neiman Enterprises who then shipped salvage logs from California to Wyoming. In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Neiman closed its Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch announcing layoffs and production cutbacks while blaming the US Forest Service. Neiman purchased Colorado's Montrose Forest Products in 2012 but recently announced it will close, too.

Bearlodge Forest Products will close its sawmill and pallet operations, ending a nearly five-decade run in a community with deep ties to Wyoming’s timber industry. The company cited a number of factors in a Facebook post about the closure, including high input costs, a limited labor pool, scarce housing, and sustained downward pricing trends. Wyoming’s timber industry has also been struggling for years. The business is connected to the Neiman family, which has long played a role in Hulett’s forest-products history. [Cowboy State Daily]

Sawmills in Montana that rely on ponderosa pine are closing in part because of low lumber prices driven by salvage sales after record wildfire seasons caused by human influences on global climate patterns.

“This has been a really hard decision,” 67-year-old Steve Marks, a fourth-generation Clancy rancher, third-generation logger and the founder of Marks Lumber, said last week during an interview in his office, referring to his plan to end operations in early 2027. “These environmentalists are killing us,” Marks said, recalling his company’s planned purchase of nearly a year’s worth of logs, a million board feet, from the USFS in Larabee Hat early this summer. [Jefferson County Monitor]

Unaffiliated candidate Bengs gaining on incumbent Earth hater

NPR also reported this on Wednesday. "Major super PACs and investment-backed groups have injected close to $1 million into South Dakota’s 2026 U.S. Senate race, significantly outspending the contributions from local residents. According to a report by WIRED, Rounds has received roughly $600,000 in outside backing. The majority of this funding originated from Defend American Jobs, a super PAC that receives financial backing from a separate super PAC funded by the prominent venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz."

Only four individuals funded Mike Rounds’ Super PAC this cycle. One of them appears in the Epstein files hundreds of times, years after Epstein was a convicted sex offender. https://t.co/Q8P4cRDm5w

— Brian Bengs (@BrianBengs) October 7, 2026

VoteHub ratings change US Senate South Dakota Safe R—>Likely R https://t.co/dek82LMCxW

— Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) October 4, 2026

Warming climate unleashing waves of pine beetles in Colorado

Global warming has been accelerating since humans began setting fires to clear habitat, as a weapon or just for amusement. Evidence that we humans have eaten or burned ourselves out of habitats creating catastrophes behind us is strewn throughout the North American continent. 

The 2012 Waldo Canyon Fire was Colorado's costliest at nearly half a billion dollars until the Black Forest Fire the next year surpassed that. In October, 2020 the East Troublesome Fire incinerated nearly 200,000 acres of mixed timber and grass becoming the second largest wildfire ever recorded in Colorado. It was believed early that downed power lines caused the Marshall Fire in Boulder County, today the state's most destructive blaze, with claims for damage north of two billion dollars. That firestorm forced the evacuation of tens of thousands and evaporated over a thousand homes. 

Today, extracting oil and gas from public lands releases about 20 percent of energy-related US greenhouse gas emissions.

William R. Cotton is Professor Emeritus of Meteorology at Colorado State University. He says cloud seeding can produce minimal results in winter and the practice during summertime is probably fruitless but now there are eight state-permitted cloud seeding generators across Colorado.

The Aspen Acres Fire is a human-caused wildfire in southern Colorado that has burned 102,007 acres and some 850 structures have been damaged or destroyed, including 319 confirmed homes. Investigators of the seventh largest fire in Colorado history identified two distinct ignition sites directly under San Isabel power lines near Highway 165 leading to allegations of negligence and trespassing. 

Ponderosa pine contains a much higher level of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) than many other cone-bearing trees and tends to be more explosive in wildfire conditions especially when under drought stress. Beetle-affected trees are pockmarked with ‘pitchouts’ that burst into flames during wildfires and torch more readily.

Across the country, climate change is ravaging ecosystems, bringing more robust storms, rising sea levels, record-setting conflagrations and fatal heat waves. In Colorado, the staggering die-off of the majestic pines is difficult to stomach. [Capital & Main]

In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises closed their Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch. Neiman purchased Colorado's Montrose Forest Products in 2012 but will likely cease operations there, too.

South Dakota's economy is failing under Rhoden

The Trump Organization is propping up Larry Rhoden's flaccid campaign with another $7.2 million in federal funding following continued Republican failures in South Dakota.

Creighton University's Ernie Goss follows the economies of ten midwestern states including South Dakota's where the manufacturing sector lost about 800 jobs over the last year or 1.8% of its manufacturing base, ag workers still face severe stressors and a mental health provider shortage affects at least 62 of South Dakota's 66 counties. 

Goss noted that in September the overall reading fell below growth neutral for the fourth time in the past six months and 79.0% of banksters reported that the Trump tariffs levied a negative impact on the agriculture and livestock economies where persisting pessimism is dooming Republican candidates even in red states.

50.0 is growth neutral.

Approximately 41.7% of supply managers reported that tariffs were having a negative impact on profits and elevated inflation at the wholesale level points to at least one more Federal Reserve interest rate hike before the end of 2026. Some 58% of supply managers reported that the Iran conflict has made the supply chain less reliable. 

The September Business Conditions Index for South Dakota dipped to 56.0 from August’s 56.4. However, 2026 state manufacturing exports, compared to the same period in 2024, are down by $154.4 million or -13.1%.

Read that here.

The September [Rural Mainstreet Index] for South Dakota declined to 45.1 from 50.0 in August. South Dakota’s September new hiring index dipped to 49.9 from 50.8 in August. According to trade data from the [International Trade Index], South Dakota exports of agriculture goods and livestock for the first seven months of 2026, compared to the same period in 2025, slumped by $47.4 million for a 46.7% fall. The greatest downturn in South Dakota ag exports was to Mexico with a 58.5% drop from 2025 to 2026.

Read that here.

it's his time https://t.co/mfnM8Yww8Q

— SD Democratic Party (@SoDakDems) October 1, 2026

Study: christians aren't that smart

A recent study titled, Cognitive Ability and Christian Nationalism, authored by sociologist Samuel L. Perry and published in the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, provides key empirical insights into how vocabulary and individual cognitive resources interact with religio-political ideologies in the United States.

The statistical analysis demonstrates a consistent inverse relationship between verbal intelligence and Christian nationalist ideology. As vocabulary test scores increased, individuals were significantly less likely to endorse these beliefs. Sociologists note that this research builds on existing academic literature connecting lower cognitive ability metrics to rigid ideological frameworks, religious fundamentalism, and reactionary political views. 

Because the data relies on observational surveys taken at single points in time, the study establishes a strong link but cannot definitively prove that cognitive capacity directly causes or shapes these complex societal beliefs. This negative association remained robust even when researchers controlled for formal educational attainment, as well as other factors such as household income, political ideology, demographic variables, and religious habits. This indicates the trend relates specifically to underlying cognitive resources rather than simply differences in schooling.

Read it all here.