Latest from SD Political Blogs

Noem passes on signing Jackley campaign pledge.

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:24:18 +0000

From the Argus Leader, it sounds like Kristi Noem is taking a pass on signing the clean campaign pledge requested earlier today by GOP Gubernatorial Candidate Marty Jackley:

Noem said Tuesday that she’s not interested in “campaign PR stunts.” Noem says she’s pledging to residents to take on tough tasks in Pierre to improve South Dakota.

Read the entire story here.

Legislators led by Neal Tapio protesting sale of STAR Academy

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 19:08:48 +0000

A group of legislators, led by State Senator Neal Tapio, are apparently protesting the State’s sale of the now closed STAR Academy:

Lawmakers Ask Governor to Delay Public Auction of former Star Academy Property Near Custer

A group of South Dakota lawmakers is making a last minute call on Governor Dennis Dauggard to postpone the pending public auction of the former Star Academy property near Custer, scheduled for Wednesday at the Custer County Courthouse, saying they don’t believe enough time has been allowed to find the best use for a property that might still serve a valuable future purpose for the citizens of South Dakota.

The 180 acre facility was used as a youth boot camp and later a juvenile diversionary program until it closed in the Spring of 2016. In March, state legislators voted to approve a public auction of the site. After an appraisal, a public auction was set for October 18, 2017, at 11:00 am.

Senators Neal Tapio of Watertown, District 30 Representatives Tim Goodwin, Julie Frye-Mueller and Senator Lance Russell, as well as Senator Phil Jensen of Rapid City are among 30 lawmakers expressing concern about the pending private sale of a property and structural facilities that would cost the state as much as $50-million to replace. Tapio says he and others have repeatedly called for the facility to be repurposed in some way, possibly to deal with the state’s growing methamphetamine and opioid dependence problem, as a potential diversionary life skills training center.

“Privatization of unused state assets can be a good idea to exercise fiscal responsibility, but in dealing with this particular site, there may still be a number of functions and needs that might be served by repurposing it for something else.”

Tapio says the expense of dealing with methamphetamine addiction and the burden on the conventional justice system make a diversionary partnership with a private entity a very effective way to save South Dakota taxpayers substantially by giving first time meth convicts another choice. A life skills training center could be a valuable tool for drug courts judges as they confront the meth addiction issue where offenders need to be removed from a toxic home environment.

Citizens are also concerned that the condensed timeframe of the sale’s schedule left inadequate opportunity for public awareness and may even conceal an unarticulated agenda on the part of potential bidders better acquainted with the mechanics of the process from the outset.

Representative Tim Goodwin of Hill City says he is hearing from people taken completely by surprise about the scheduled public auction who are very concerned about what they see as a rushed process involving a very valuable public asset.

“A number of my constituents from district 30 have raised concerns that the details of a very short timeframe have allowed an unfair advantage on the part of political insiders in profiting from a glaring example of crony capitalism and incestuous ties between political insiders and business interests,” Goodwin said.

Representative Julie Frye-Mueller, who has opposed the sale from the very beginning says the entire process reeks of strong arm tactics and insider profiteering.

“We killed this legislation the first time around voicing these same concerns, but in that process I heard from several lawmakers who told me that they were intimidated and coerced into changing their votes when the measure came up for reconsideration.”

House Bill 1209, the legislative bill structuring the pending public sale was originally defeated by a vote of 36-31, but was approved later on the same legislative day by a vote of 46-21. Governor Dauggard signed the bill on March 13th.

“Legislators were bullied by the governor’s office into changing their votes, allowing this entire process to move forward over the strong objections of some very conscientious people.” Frye-Mueller said.

Those favoring a delay of the pending auction say sales of properties of similar value normally require many months of marketing and even national searches to locate interested buyers and to establish best market price.

Senator Tapio agreed the marketing of the property seemed less than aggressive, “It seems odd that with millions of tourists visiting the Black Hills each summer, a for sale sign with a contact number would have at least been appropriate.”

Tapio added, “no one knows the proper way to address the meth addiction issue. There are numerous calls to build jails and prisons around the state and it would be a shame if at a later date South Dakota needs a property like this, or if there’s realization that this sale was a terrible idea a few years down the road, reconstructing a similar facility anywhere in the state would cost many multiple times even the appraised value of our existing investment.” Tapio said.

“In no world will that be responsible fiscal management of tight budgets and state resources in the face of growing potential needs on a number of fronts.”

The Governor’s office has responded in the media:

In an emailed press release late Monday night, a group of South Dakota lawmakers asked Gov. Dennis Daugaard to postpone the public auction of a former-juvenile detention center near Custer that is set for 11 a.m. on Wednesday.

The press release sent by Sen. Neal Tapio, R-Watertown, said there are 30 lawmakers expressing concern about the pending sale of the former STAR Academy property because of “a very short timeframe,” for the auction.

Tony Venhuizen, Chief of Staff for Gov. Dennis Daugaard, disagreed that the there was a short timeline and said in an email that the state first solicited proposals in Dec. 2016 and the state legislature approved the sale in March. He also noted that the auction date was advertised in the newspaper for the first time on Sept. 11 in accordance with state law.

Read it here.

If you look at the legislation which was brought this past session, it’s not as if the vote in the legislature came without some controversy, as it failed in it’s first attempt to come through the State House of Representatives…

… and had to try again with a second pass…

.. flipping Bartling, Brunner, Chase, Clark, Dennert, Duvall, Glanzer, Goodwin, Gosch, Latterell, Herman Otten, Rasmussen, Schaefer, Wiese and Zikmund.

In the Senate, it fared better on the first run, but still, it only won on a vote of 20-15:

I don’t anticipate that the request from legislators are going to sway Governor Daugaard from completing the sale. Despite protests, it’s not like this should come as a shock. It has certainly been known it this was going to happen, having been signed into law on March 27th.

The allegations from legislators opposing the sale seem to be coming a bit late, given the fact that this all a done deal seven months ago when the legislation was signed. Where has all the moral outrage been in the meantime?

Maybe it’s just me, but why would we be protesting the land being returned to the tax rolls? Wouldn’t it be a good thing for someone to develop it into something that pays taxes and reduces the county tax burden?

What are your thoughts?

Jackley Fundraiser in Mitchell tonight

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 18:17:37 +0000

Gubernatorial Candidate Marty Jackley is having a fundraiser in Mitchell tonight, per Facebook:

Representative Mike Clark at Sanford Underground Lab

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 18:09:34 +0000

Stolen from Facebook, Mike checks out the important political news before he heads underground…

Now that wasn’t so bad, even though I look like a baked potato.

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 18:06:02 +0000

I thought I’d share a rare picture of me while preparing for my planned medical tests this morning looking a bit like a baked potato in my stylish hospital gown.

It was worth the picture, as my daughter at Augie returned a photo of me with sour cream and chives. I sense a future SDWC author in the making.

Just keep those forks away….

South Dakota's Motto "Under God The People Rule" Is About To Get Tested . . . Again

John Tsitrian — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:45:55 +0000

Talk about the power of a popular backlash. Tommorow's gathering in Pierre is a serious statement about the will of a lot of people in South Dakota, more than 50 thousand of whom (me

They Will.

included) signed a petition intended to bring our state's government into compliance with the state motto "Under God The People Rule." The petition will put the "Voter Protection and Anti-Corruption Amendment" to the South Dakota Constitution on next November's ballot, where I believe it has a great chance of passage.
This initiative is a direct response to the way our state's legislative and executive branches dismantled Initiated Measure 22 during last Winter's session. IM-22 was a complicated amalgam of draconian restrictions on government and electoral processes that included a provision for taxpayer funding using a system dubbed "democracy credits" for candidates seeking office. Though I was generally supportive of its goals for oversight and transparency, the taxpayer-financing of elections turned me off and I opposed the measure, which nonetheless passed with a 52-48 majority.
The political backlash in Pierre was swift and decisive. Within weeks of IM-22's passage, Governor Daugaard disdained the new law, calling it "irresponsible" and a "bad law." He also condescendingly scolded voters by claiming they were "misled" and "deceived." As expected, the law itself was immediately challenged on Constitutional grounds and began moving through the courts, where it was headed for judgement by the state's Supreme Court. In the meantime, state legislators and the Governor crafted a series of replacement acts while repealing IM-22 altogether via House Bill 1069. Neither the state's courts nor a majority of South Dakota voters were considered to be a relevant part of the process.
The subsequent pushback by voters is one that I supported right away. Like plenty of South Dakotans I was dismayed by the cavalier and presumptuous manner in which our elected officials blew off the will of the people and destroyed the measure before it was given its due process in court. "Under God The People Rule" was rendered a mockery and the resulting outrage should come as no surprise to our political class, as SD's legislative and executive branches now have to contend with a powerful, new replacement for IM-22.
This "updated" version wisely dropped the deal-killing "democracy credits" plan for taxpayer financing that turned off a lot of potential supporters. Also, unlike its predecessor this amendment is much simpler and focused on fewer concepts, possibly the most important of which is that it stops elected officials from overturning any voter-approved laws without going back to the voters themselves for permission. I also like that the proposal creates an independent citizen's ethics commission, not the state agency (I mean, the state monitoring itself? Come on.) that the legislature set up when it revoked IM-22. It also flat-out bans gifts (including food, beverages and alcohol) from lobbyists to elected officials. A provision banning "foreign" money from our elections could stand some explanation, but coming discussions and debates will clarify it. You can go to represent.us to read the full amendment. Nobody, most notably our elected officials, will be "misled" or "deceived." Some might even be enlightened.

Governor Requests Flags At Half-Staff On Thursday To Honor Fallen Firefighter

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:31:19 +0000

Governor Requests Flags At Half-Staff On Thursday To Honor Fallen Firefighter

PIERRE, S.D. – Gov. Dennis Daugaard asks that all flags in the state be flown at half-staff on Thursday, Oct. 19, from 8 a.m. until sunset, in honor of Presho Fire Chief Donald F. “Donny” Manger.

Manger died Saturday, Oct. 14, while responding to a structure fire in rural Lyman County.

“Linda and I offer our condolences to the Manger family. Donny’s service to the Presho community will not be forgotten,” Gov. Daugaard said.

Manger’s funeral service will be held Thursday at the Lyman Gardens in Presho. Visitation is scheduled for Wednesday at 5 p.m. at the Presho United Methodist Church.

-30-

Release: Jackley Challenges Noem to Sign Clean Campaign Pledge

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 13:18:03 +0000

Jackley Challenges Noem to Sign Clean Campaign Pledge

Attorney General Marty Jackley called on Congresswoman Kristi Noem Tuesday to agree to a Clean Campaign Pledge for South Dakota.

The Clean Campaign Pledge commits both candidates to conducting their campaigns for governor in a positive and factual manner that focuses on records, accomplishments, opportunities and the significant issues important to South Dakotans, rather than attacking each other.

“As I travel across our state and listen to voters, South Dakotans tell me they want a clean campaign that focuses on issues and creating opportunities to make the lives of South Dakotans even better,” Jackley said. “The congresswoman and I both love South Dakota, and I believe this campaign for governor should be about our experience and vision to move our state forward instead of mudslinging and name-calling.”

South Dakotans have endured long and negative primary campaigns in the past. The South Dakota Clean Campaign Pledge is an attempt to give voters the positive, future-focused campaign they deserve.

“I urge South Dakotans to join me and request that Congresswoman Noem sign this pledge so we can have an honest campaign for South Dakota that focuses on ideas, policy and substance,” Jackley said.

Jackley’s campaign issued the South Dakota Clean Campaign Pledge to the Noem campaign digitally and via U.S. mail on Tuesday morning.

A copy of the pledge is attached.

-30-

Erickson: Lyft Takes First Step to Operate in Sioux Falls

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:46:38 +0000

Lyft Takes First Step to Operate in Sioux Falls

Sioux Falls, South Dakota: The ride-hailing company Lyft is taking the necessary steps to operate in Sioux Falls! The company recently was issued a state sales tax license and is working with the City’s licensing office on a transportation network company license.

Lyft is a transportation networking company (TNC) that operates in more than 300 cities nationwide, completing more than 28 million rides per month. Riders must download the Lyft mobile app to their smartphone to connect with Lyft drivers.

“I am absolutely thrilled that Lyft has taken the first necessary steps to operate in our city,” says City Council Vice Chair Christine Erickson. “Having a nationally recognized ride-sharing company such as Lyft will not only benefit our citizens, but also enhance our economic development efforts.”

A team of City and State officials, as well as resident Greg LaFollette, have been working for months to attract Lyft to the city. Lyft is expected to launch operations in Sioux Falls as soon as they can recruit enough drivers. It’s possible that could be as early as spring 2018.

“This benefits Sioux Falls in so many ways. Whether it be a ride home after a concert, a trip to the doctor’s office, or a business meeting that you need to get to after flying into Sioux Falls, travel just got easier, cheaper, and safer with this quality-of-life and economic development win,” says Mayor Mike Huether.

In 2015, the Sioux Falls City Council passed an ordinance that changed licensing requirements to allow transportation network companies to operate in Sioux Falls. In 2016, the South Dakota State Legislature approved a measure that changed insurance laws to allow companies like Lyft to operate in the state.

For more information about Lyft, go to www.lyft.com.

# # #

Consumer Finance Protection Bureau released rules regarding short term loans. There’s a lot of people who don’t like them.

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:44:32 +0000

Recently, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau released their latest attempt to stifle lending in the United States via rules governing short-term loans. And it has prompted widespread opposition.

One of the voices has been former GOP Presidential candidate, and Editor in Chief of Forbes Media, Steve Forbes. He noted:

“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has been the source and driver of the most aggressive, unchecked assault on American commerce in modern times. Since its inception, the CFPB has issued a mountain of rules that have done nothing but restricted consumers’ access to credit and other basic financial services, while imposing billions of dollars in unnecessary costs and creating millions of hours of compliance paperwork for small businesses.

It is no wonder that a federal appeals court last year ruled that the CFPB’s unaccountable governing structure was unconstitutional. In an ironic twist, the CFPB just released a survey which found that nearly half of U.S. adults struggle with their finances. This is all the more reason why we need to eliminate the CFPB, once and for all, so that the American people will be freed from the agency’s regulatory chokehold and be allowed to take control of their financial futures again.”

Read that here.

Were people clamoring for more government regulation on how they access credit in the United States? Not really.

What are your thoughts?

Rounds Statement on EPA Decision to End “Sue & Settle” Practices

Pat Powers — Tue, 17 Oct 2017 03:32:47 +0000

Rounds Statement on EPA Decision to End “Sue & Settle” Practices

WASHINGTON—U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works (EPW) Subcommittee on Superfund, Waste Management and Regulatory Oversight, today made the following statement on the decision of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt to end the controversial “sue and settle” practices at the EPA.

“During the previous administration, ‘sue and settle’ practices resulted in new environmental regulations drafted by special interest groups behind closed doors,” said Rounds. “I’m pleased with EPA Administrator Pruitt’s decision to end this practice and shed more transparency on the processes that federal agencies use to draft new regulations.”

Last Congress, Rounds held a subcommittee hearing on EPA’s “sue and settle” practices. In that hearing, he found that the “sue and settle” process utilized by special interest groups leads to a rushed and reckless rulemaking process that does not follow the proper regulatory process or allow for adequate public participation. He has also introduced an amendment to end “sue and settle” practices.

Both the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act contain clauses that allow citizens to file citizen suits against a regulatory agency to prompt the agency’s compliance with federal statutes. Often, these citizen suits are used to perpetuate the “sue and settle” process, which overwhelms regulatory agencies and results in rushed settlement agreements and consent decrees requiring agencies to promulgate major regulations behind closed doors within an arbitrarily imposed timeline.

###

New Mexico cannabis grower's collaboration with Israeli firm is deeply troubling

larry kurtz — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 17:06:40 +0000

In March Israel-based Panaxia Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and New Mexico-based Ultra Health opened a facility in Bernalillo to manufacture cannabis oil, oral tablets, suppositories, pastilles, transdermal patches and topical creams.

The collaboration comes on the heels of a University of New Mexico resolution demanding the school divest from corporations that profit from human rights violations both in Palestine and at the US-Mexico border. It was later rescinded.

Last year, Human Rights Watch urged that all corporations had to end all business in or with settlements in order to comply with their human rights obligations, and that governments are responsible for taking steps to discourage settlements. “Settlement businesses unavoidably contribute to Israeli policies that dispossess and harshly discriminate against Palestinians, while profiting from Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and other resources,” Arvind Ganesan, director of the group’s business and human rights division, said. There is also a growing consensus among international legal scholars that trade in settlement goods violates international law. [The Electronic Intifada]

New Mexico is struggling with its own colonial past.

When it comes to Native American history, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is out to squash every superstition, lie, and rumor. Remember, it was a papal bull that gave permission for the Portuguese to colonize Africa, for the Spanish to colonize the Americas. It was taken up by British Protestants, too — it essentially became international law — the right to colonize non-Christian peoples. Thomas Jefferson supported this doctrine, and under Andrew Jackson, it was codified into law as the U.S. sought the subjugation of Indians west of the Mississippi River. That follows us to this day,” Dunbar-Ortiz said. [Pasatiempo]

Ultra Health has just opened its ninth dispensary, this one in Silver City, inching it closer to a virtual monopoly in New Mexico's lucrative cannabis industry. Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez has praised the state for blooming sales and is showering Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Michelle Lujan Grisham with campaign dollars.

How condoning colonial brutality both in Palestine and in New Mexico looks good to Democratic voters remains a mystery.

Harvey Weinstein likes to jerk off in front of women; Trump likes to do it before the whole world

David Newquist — Sun, 15 Oct 2017 16:30:06 +0000

Anyone who has worked in the world has encountered people like Harvey Weinstein. He treats women as if they are slaves, chattel put on earth to indulge his whanker. Men who treat women that way usually treat other men the same way. Their mentality is driven by the need to exercise power, make others bow down before them in servile, humiliating obedience. They form bonds with other men who can help them in their quests for power, but they regard all others as their serfs. They derive great pleasure from fucking over people. And they make great displays of sexism, racism, and the other forms of misanthropic perversion that titillate them. Bullying is a way of life for them.

How do people like Harvey Weinstein get to be so powerful? Because so many people share the desire to fuck over other people as a badge of their social status. People flock around and support and emulate Weinstein and his kind because they want to be associated with that they regard as the power elite. That is also true of Donald Trump and what constitutes his base. There is the infamous video of Trump bragging about pussy-grabbing, and a multitude of women accusing him of sexual assault. But to Trump's apostles, those are demonstrations of his power, not offenses. Trump lies to Americans an average of 5 times a day, but to his followers that is not an offense; it is a demonstration of his power.

As the week drew to a close, Trump has put on a demonstration of his power to destroy that sends his base into orgasmic glee. Trump has found his greatest successes by appealing to and inflaming the racism and misogyny of his base. He started his campaign by repeatedly stating that Obama was not born in America, and he has since attacked everything Obama has done. At his post-election rallies, he still brings up Hillary Clinton so that his base can chant their hate anthem "Lock her up." But this week he has put a a power demonstration of destroying some of the things Obama did, despite that fact that that destruction will end up inflicting mortal damage on the country.

Destroying health care for millions. The New York Times and Washington Post describe his rampaging efforts to ruin healthcare for Americans.
Threatens to withdraw aid to Puerto Rico.
Decertifies anti-nuclear pact with Iran.
Makes demands that threaten to end NAFTA agreement with Mexico and Canada, which will cause a agricultural crisis for American farmers.
Makes demands which will effectively end DACA for the Dreamers.
Withdrew from UNESCO, relinquishing American leadership in scientific and cultural development.

Trump's exhibitionism is not directed only at subjugating women, but at hurting great masses of people. He gets off on watching people suffer. It is the ultimate expression of power. And so many people love to watch him get off.

Sioux Empire Podcast 086- The Art of Dan Bublitz Jr.

Sat, 14 Oct 2017 22:42:01 +0000

This podcast contains adult content, listener discretion advised.

This week the Sioux Empire Podcast crew (Robert Mehling, Natasha Estes, Seth Glover) gets down and dirty with Sioux Falls Comedian Dan Bublitz Jr. We cover how an unfortunate Homecoming tradition in Sturgis turned into a national embarrassment and a teachable moment. Plus some bonus discussion of Homecoming traditions in small towns. We also (master) debate if the infamous “Don’t Jerk and Drive” campaign created the current wave of public self-love terrorizing Sioux Falls parking lots. This week also marks the launch of a new bi-weekly segment on the podcast. In Sioux Empire Book Club, Seth Glover will explore a new book every two weeks. This week he’s telling us all about “Kama Sutra” by Anne Hooper. This week’s episode is brought to you by The Sioux Empire Podcast Network, specifically “The Art of Bombing” podcast with Dan Bublitz Jr. Also, Chaos Reigns podcast with Ari Show and Dominic Wieneke. The Sioux Empire Podcast is now convinced that that was definitely a swastika on that car.

Dan Bublitz Jr.

https://twitter.com/danbublitzjr?lang=en

http://www.danbublitz.com/

https://www.facebook.com/danbublitzjrcomedy/

https://www.facebook.com/bublitzedcomedy/

That’s Debateable:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1428370530613984/

The Cloud Lounge Mixed Tape Open Mic:

https://www.facebook.com/events/184567902090053/

Sioux Empire Comedy

https://www.facebook.com/siouxempirecomedy/

Ugly Sturgis

http://rapidcityjournal.com/news/local/go-back-to-the-rez-spray-painted-on-car-by/article_045d8a27-8c39-5129-95be-3f24dce27aac.html?utm_content=bufferc8e5b&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=LEEDCC

Updates

http://www.keloland.com/news/article/news/sturgis-brown-high-school-cancels-homecoming?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook_KELOLAND_News

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2017/10/12/racist-homecoming-messages-sturgis-draw-outrage/758929001/

Sports and Racism in South Dakota

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2017/10/13/perspective-when-racism-enters-realm-south-dakota-sports/761271001/

Wacking epidemic

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2017/10/13/police-man-masturbated-while-talking-woman-walking-her-dog/762771001/

Sioux Empire Book Club

Alien and Company Tattoo artist Dustin Buri

http://alienandco.com/artists.html

Lore Podcast and Amazon Prime TV show:

http://www.lorepodcast.com/

Tags and Topics:

Robert Mehling, Seth Glover, Natasha Estes, Dan Bublitz Jr., Sturgis, High School, Homecoming, Racism, The Art of Bombing, Stand Up Comedy, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Huron, Giliberto’s, Huron Tigers, Wessington, Paintball, eggs, vandalism, teenagers, Flat Earthers, swastika, John Thune, Get Small, Red Necks, Public Indecency, Window Tint, Don’t Jerk and Drive, Homelessness, Public Transportation, Storage Wars, Ted Cruz, Chin Warbles Wafting, Kama Sutra, Anne Hooper, BoJack Horseman, Hugh Hefner, Comics, The Killing Joke, Cookbooks, Vātsyāyana, Skin Day, That’s Debateable, Zach Dresch, Skyler Bolks, The Art of Bombing, Open Mic, Podcast, Baseball, Yankees, Dustin Buri

The post Sioux Empire Podcast 086- The Art of Dan Bublitz Jr. appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

A Q For SD Pubs Running For Congress: Your Thoughts, Please?

John Tsitrian — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 20:40:51 +0000

It's been at least a couple of months since Shantel Krebs and Dusty Johnson announced that they'd be running for the Republican nomination for Congress next year. So far it looks like they've been going through all the standard motions, but apparently neither of them feels the need

Krebs
Trump Toady or Independent Thinker?

to be burdened with positions on issues that matter to us South Dakotans. As you might expect their respective websites don't reveal much in the way of specifics, so I've been looking elsewhere for their thoughts on policy. Upon googlling, it looks like the closest Krebs has come is to make a broad proclamation to the Rapid City Journal last month, telling the paper that when Trump was elected she was "all in," and that her motivating force is that she "wants to help him deliver results." Her "logo" (doesn't Krebs mean "slogan?"), she explains, is, "Get it done." I admire that she rejects procrastination, but I also wonder what the "it" is that she's determined to "get done." If "it" references her complete devotion and dedication to Trump and his policies, I wouldn't give Krebs much consideration as a congressional representative. "All in" is pretty inclusive, which sounds to me like she's determined to be a rubber stamp for the administration. If elected would she have the mettle to assert some independence when White House policies may not be the best for South Dakota? For example, is she "all in" with Trump's hostility toward NAFTA? He's on the record as calling it the "worst trade deal" ever approved by the United States, yet the benefits to farm states since the treaty's inception a quarter-century ago are self-evidently positive, as our senior Senator John Thune noted in a radio interview recently.
My guess is that Krebs will be quick to reject the notion that she'd be a rubber stamp for the White House. I mean, who on earth would go on record as being a toady? But by doing so she would be repudiating her "all in" commitment to the President. Her website provides a nice bio and platitudes along the lines of making Washington "responsive" to the needs of our state, but doesn't touch specifics. So what is it, Ms. Krebs, are you all in with Trump or are you willing to consider issues on their merits and make decisions based on what you think is best for South Dakota?
Dusty Johnson, whom I've met and like, is also running a campaign that's long on self-promotion and short on policy substance. He says he's running for Congress because he's an "optimist." That's about as good a reason as any, I suppose, but given his background as a Commissioner on South Dakota's Public Utilities Commission, I'd expect him to say much about national energy policy and how it would affect South Dakota. For example, last week's repeal of the "Clean Power Plan" by the Trump administration could have significant effects on ethanol production, which depends on South Dakota's largest crop, corn, as its feedstock. Does Johnson have a position on this? I did find a comment about healthcare in the Rapid City Journal last July--Johnson thinks more control should go to the states, a not terribly earth-shaking position by a Republican. He could have given us a clue about how he stands on the measures to achieve that end

Johnson
Optimist, But What About Policy?

that have so far failed in the Republican-dominated Congress.
That programmatic response on healthcare is probably a signal that Johnson will do as expected by the GOP, but considering his long-standing status as both an appointed and elected official, I'd love to know more. In particular, given his experience as a state government insider, his opinion of how South Dakota could successfully run a federally funded program after our state's abysmal track record with EB-5 and Gear Up needs some explanation.
As with Shantel Krebs, Dusty Johnson is politically pragmatic enough to know that avoiding serious policy commitments is a way to stay out of trouble on the campaign trail. But given what seem to be equal measures of affability, experience and media appeal, it would be nice if they could find a way to differentiate themselves on the basis of something other than gender.

Sturgis proves it's the worst town in South Dakota

larry kurtz — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:17:04 +0000

“Go back to the rez!”

A South Dakota school board has voted unanimously to cancel high school homecoming activities featuring a football game between the Sturgis Scoopers and the Pine Ridge Thorpes after a car bearing hate speech and a symbol painted on it that some said resembled a swastika was smashed by Sturgis students.

While episodes like the one in Sturgis are not uncommon in South Dakota hate speech has intensified after Russia helped Donald Trump steal the 2016 presidential election.

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says that if Confederate monuments are taken down, there’s no telling how far America might go —Native Americans could call for the removal of statues commemorating leaders who orchestrated violence against their ancestors. [Huffington Post]

South Dakota is home to numerous sculptures that idolize genocide visited upon American Indians.

Mount Rushmore is the state's premier example of racist ideology. Its sculptor was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

US Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren drove thousands from their lands and to their deaths over the Trail of Tears.

The United States was founded on the backs of slaves as systematic genocide became a way of life for white christians quoting scripture as they slaughtered their fellow humans. After colonizers realized enslaved American Indians had no resistance to diseases brought from the Old World, Africans were imported to do the dirty work.

After numerous racially-charged episodes at the Rushmore Plaza Civic Center in Rapid City the President of the Oglala Lakota Nation came under intense pressure to urge organizers of the Lakota Nation Invitational to move the event.

In June a poll hosted by this blog voted Sturgis "worst town in South Dakota."

Right to life? Not if you're non-white in South Dakota.

Doctors: tax sugary drinks

larry kurtz — Thu, 12 Oct 2017 17:53:01 +0000

It looks like South Dakota isn't going to add new taxes on tobacco to fund red state failure; but there is plenty of other sin to tax.

The state’s most remote counties are particularly afflicted by conditions linked to inactivity such as diabetes and obesity. Ann Schwader of South Dakota State University Extension identified and trained “walk coaches” in four rural communities, who organized local walking campaigns.Schwader will offer another “Everybody Walks! SD” training next February to bring additional communities on board. [Utne Reader]

Forty percent of cancers are caused by obesity. Breast cancer rates in South Dakota are the highest in the United States and 31.4 percent of South Dakotans are obese. Raising taxes on tobacco raises rates of obesity.

New analysis has revealed that consumption of sugary drinks results in some 25,000 deaths in the United Snakes and 184,000 deaths worldwide each year.

How Coca Cola, Archer Daniels Midland, and News Corpse have fattened themselves and us on sugar water is patently offensive and criminal. Drilling for the petroleum to make containers that end up in landfills is malicious and hateful especially when exposure to plastic can cause hormone changes that can lead to gender dysphoria.

A new study published in Social Science & Medicine suggests that taxation that depends on the number of calories or amount of sugar per liter may be the best approach and could even encourage manufacturers to produce and promote healthier alternatives. Last year, Mexico became the first country to implement a nationwide sugar-sweetened drink tax when it introduced a tax of one peso (around $0.07) per liter – about 10 percent of the price. As well as being a possible approach for sugar-sweetened drinks, this dose approach to taxation could also be effective at controlling unhealthy food consumption, and even fuel consumption.

Read it here.

Mexico has slowed its consumption of beverages with added sugar by taxing the industry.

Treating patients in a surge of obesity, doctors in the United Kingdom are urging lawmakers to pass a 20 percent tax to pay the medical costs to the national health care system.

Autism is caused by faulty gut/brain connections even in nanny states like South Dakota. Genetically engineered sugar beet seed contributes to the spectrum disorder in kids.

What do these fat, white people have in common besides being far greater burdens on American health care than those who exercise regularly? They all say cannabis is dangerous to young adults while also saying efforts to reduce childhood obesity, like a sugar or soda tax, is over-regulation, government overreach or nanny-statism.

Advertising is a gateway drug; it should be subject to increased taxation, too.

From top to bottom: Jason Ravnsborg, Esq., Korndog King Pat Powers, Quorndog Queen Linda Daugaard, Emperor Corndog.

Trial set for WA man who stood his ground against SD state trooper

larry kurtz — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 19:42:27 +0000

A South Dakota state trooper spent his time profiling cars with license plates from states with legal cannabis...that is until, purportedly, Zachary Bader was nearly killed for violating a Washington man's rights.

22-18-4. Justifiable use of force to protect property--Use of deadly force--Duty to retreat. Any person is justified in the use of force or violence against another person when the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person's trespass on or other criminal interference with real property or personal property lawfully in his or her possession or in the possession of another who is a member of his or her immediate family or household or of a person whose property he or she has a legal right to protect. However, the person is justified in the use of deadly force only as provided in §§ 22-16-34 and 22-16-35. A person does not have a duty to retreat if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be. Source: SDC 1939, § 13.2402 (3); SL 2005, ch 120, § 8; SL 2006, ch 116, § 2. [South Dakota Codified Law]

Cannabis is legal in Washington but residents Jonathan Melendez, Chase Sukert and Desiree Sukert pleaded as part of a deal with prosecutors in which they agreed to testify against Donald Willingham.

For standing his ground Willingham is charged in Pennington County after Bader profiled the vehicle in which he was riding on Interstate 90. He is being held on an outrageous $5 million bail but his associates are out on bond. A mental health evaluation revealed Willingham is fit to appear for trial in December.

Recall that in 2012 short guy power hungry Bader accosted a Montana family instead of policing Sturgis Rally traffic. In 2004 Montana voters legalized cannabis for some patients.

Cops' lives suck. Little wonder they abuse their families, alcohol, drugs, food, power, detainees and occasionally murder their wives.

South Dakota voters are expected to overturn the state's repressive cannabis laws in 2018.

SD Political Time Machine: Lora Hubbel elected Chair of SD Constitution Party – July 11, 2016

Pat Powers — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 17:39:28 +0000

It’s time for the South Dakota Political Time Machine…

Constitution Party of South Dakota elects
former state representative as new chairwoman
New party officers and 5 candidates nominated for the CP of South Dakota

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Kurt Evans won the CP’s nomination for the US Senate at the Constitution Party of South Dakota’s state convention that was held on Saturday, July 9th in Sioux Falls. We are happy to have Kurt back in our party after a long hiatus. He was a delegate to our national convention back in 1996 when the party was still under the original party name of the “US Taxpayers’ Party”. Welcome back Kurt!

Presidential Nominee Darrell Castle joined the convention live via Skype with updates on his campaign and a live Q&A session with the state convention attendees.

Lori Stacey decided not to seek re-election as State Chairman. She had recently been elected as the new Regional Co-Chairman for the 12 Midwestern states at the National Convention which took place in Salt Lake City in April.

Lora Hubbel was elected as the new State Chairman of the Constitution Party of South Dakota! We also elected Joel Bergan as the new State Vice-Chairman. Lori Stacey will serve as State Party Treasurer and Secretary.

As found here, because the SD Constitutional Party removed it from their website here. But they do make reference to it here.

(Is there a point to this? Don’t worry. It’s going to get funnier….)

Trump Signs Noem’s Women, Peace and Security Act

Pat Powers — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 15:08:57 +0000

Trump Signs Noem’s Women, Peace and Security Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Donald Trump has signed the Women, Peace, and Security Act, a bill sponsored by Rep. Kristi Noem in the House that aims to increase and strengthen women’s participation in peace negotiations and conflict prevention globally. Research shows that peace agreements are 35 percent more likely to last at least 15 years when women are involved. The Women, Peace and Security Act would – for the first time – establish women’s participation as a permanent element of U.S. foreign policy under Congressional oversight. With President Trump’s signature, the legislation has been made law.

“We live in an extremely volatile and dangerous world, and our national security often relies on the success of ongoing peace negotiations,” said Noem. “Women have proven to be influential forces in producing lasting peace within communities, yet are often underrepresented at the negotiating table. I’m grateful to President Trump for signing this important legislation and hopeful that with these reforms, as well as the long-term thinking and accountability this legislation requires, we can produce more sustainable outcomes during future conflict resolution and peace negotiation processes.”

Noem first introduced the Women, Peace, and Security Act in May 2016. While it was passed by the House, the Senate didn’t act on the legislation before the end of the last Congress. As a result, Noem reintroduced the legislation in May 2017 and worked with Senate sponsors to push the legislation toward enactment.

So, maybe Heidelberger is running for Senate after all..

Pat Powers — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 14:28:24 +0000

Caught a little intel the other day after my post on Cory Heidelberger walking in NSU’s parade.

Apparently, despite there being an open House seat, I’m told that Heidelberger is looking at running for State Senate against Al Novstrup in a rematch, after suffering a beating at the Senator’s hands in 2016. Word is that Aberdeen Dems have been told that the sore loser is going for another run… and they’re not thrilled.

What was passed on to me was “County Dems don’t want him to but aren’t getting anyone new anyway…”

Now that’s a rallying cry for Democrats if I’ve ever heard one. Meh.. Well, we can’t find anything else…

Emmett Till and Philando Castile died for your sins

David Newquist — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 17:10:29 +0000

Philando Castile was shot five times while sitting with his seat belt buckled, a friend and her child in the car.

Emmett Till, 14, flirted with a white woman and was lynched

I am not a football fan. i began my journalism career on the sports desk of a morning newspaper and became aware that many athletes in contact sports suffered debilitating injuries. I realized that many football fans were attracted to the sport because they liked to see men smash together and limp or get carried off the field. The irony that we outlawed dog fights but made a thriving business out of getting humans to bash and lash each other was not lost on me or other sports writers.

The sports editor I worked under had often served as a boxing referee and had made many friends in the sport. Old boxers often dropped in on him and they would repair to the saloon that occupied a ground-floor niche of the newspaper building to talk about old times. Almost invariably, these men showed signs of being "punch drunk," which was how we referred to the brain damage they had suffered. That and the behavior and attitude of many "sports fans" focused my thinking on the role of sports in our society. I enjoy sports that emphasize the use of skill and athleticism, but disdain those sports--and their spectators--that attract those who enjoy the infliction of violent damage.

That's where you have to confront some tough facts about humanity. We are divided. The division goes far beyond political preferences. Or religion. Some people love violence, either directly or vicariously. They revel in ill will. Other people seek peace. They try to maintain a sense of good will. Some people enjoy maiming and killing. Others get pleasure from peaceable and friendly pursuits. The two groups live for opposite purposes. They have directly opposing values. This divide is the basis for the cultural divide. There is no way the two groups can reconcile their differences.

These differences underlie the silly, amazingly stupid argument about whether football players should stand during the national anthem. In July a black man in Minnesota, Philando Castile, was pulled over while driving with his girl friend and her little daughter in the car. Castile, who had a permit to carry a gun, told the officer. When Castile reached down to his pocket, presumably to extract his driver's license, the officer blasted him five times, while the girlfriend sat next to him and the child sat in the back seat. The girlfriend recorded part of the episode on her cell phone. The officer said he feared for his life, and was acquitted of any wrong doing. It was this incident which motivated Colin Kaepernick to refuse to stand for the national anthem as a protest to the unarmed or unthreatening black men being gunned down by police in the streets of America.

The NFL men who kneel during the national anthem are paying reverence to victims who have had their lives taken in acts of inequality and denials of justice that are the actual rejections of the flag and everything it is supposed to stand for. They are not showing disrespect to the flag, but are showing sorrow that the country and its flag have betrayed its people. During 2016, the police killed 258 black men. Thirty-nine of them were unarmed. They were shot down as if they were rats in the town dump. Those who kneel during the national anthem are, in fact, honoring the quest for freedom, equality, and justice that the flag symbolizes.

Those who say that the kneeling is an affront to the principles that America professes and those who fought for those principles are the ones who besmirch the national honor. The NFL football players who kneel have stated clearly and precisely that they kneel to call attention to the racist acts of violence that have besmirched the flag. When Trump and his minions say that the kneelers are dishonoring the nation and those who have served, they are indulging in one of the many malicious lies they engage in to aggravate the racist divide that they have revived and widened during Trump's reign of malice. Trump and his hate squads are fanning the lust for blood and death in the people who love and live for moments of atrocity. Watching football players deliver concussions is not enough. Trumpists defame the kneelers in the hopes that they will be fired and left to roam the streets where anxious and avid gins await them.

When Vice President Pence walked out of the Colts-49ers game Sunday, he emphasized the lie that the kneeling was disrespect to the flag and its meaning and put his support behind Trump's endorsement of the Nazis at Charlottesville and the shooting of black people in the streets.

The killing of Philando Castile was an act of the revival of the racial violence that tortured and killed Emmett Till. Instead of using the overt hatred of black people as the motive, the shooter used the currently acceptable pretext that he was afraid for his life. And that gave good reason for all black people on the streets of America to fear for their lives. The lynchers of Emmett Till were acquitted od charges against them after an hour of jury deliberation. Castile's killer was also acquitted by a jury of manslaughter and endangerment of lives.

And so the flag flies and people honor it, condemn the kneelers, and celebrate the racist renaissance of America, as it puts all people of color on notice.

When the flag has come to stand for the freedom to kill in the name of white supremacy, it may be time to take it down, fold it up, and give it a decent burial. And then people of good will may try again to build a nation of liberty, justice, and equality, and design a flag that, in fact, honors those qualities. And does so in remembrance of those killed under the old flag by those who said they were serving it.

NAFTA Could Use An Update, Not A Trump-Initiated Wrecking Ball

John Tsitrian — Tue, 10 Oct 2017 12:19:23 +0000

President Trump's long-standing beef with the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) will get aired out this week as the 4th round of scheduled renegotiationsof the

Revise And Modernize
Don't Wreck

landmark trade deal begin today, October 11, in Washington. We South Dakotans, who've been watching our agriculture-driven economy flounder for the last few years (for data wonks, SD's 2017 statewide taxable sales were down almost 2% from a year ago and our 5-year per capita GDP growth was less than 1% compared to a national increase of more than 6%), should be keeping a wary eye on the talks. Our ag sector doesn't need to take another hit.

That NAFTA has been a very good deal for South Dakota is self-evident. On a national scale, the numbers are eye-popping. In 1993, when NAFTA came into being, the U.S. exported about $9 billion worth of corn and soybeans to Canada and Mexico. Thanks to NAFTA, that number jumped to nearly $40 billion. About 30% of U.S. ag sales go to our North American partners, with the top three products being corn, soybeans and pork. Even one of Trump's most consistent friends in Congress, our Senator John Thune, has weighed in on the importance of NAFTA to the nation's farm sector, telling KSOO radio last Summer that "open markets, lower tariffs and uniform regulation means more money in the pockets of South Dakota farmers, particularly from livestock." Thune singled out NAFTA as being particularly "positive for South Dakota."
And then there's the rest of the country. Considering that Trump's well-known hatred of NAFTA is hanging over these negotiations, South Dakotans do indeed have every reason for concern about the future of the deal. But what's interesting is that "the worst trade deal ever signed," as Trump often puts it, has important supporters in parts of the country where the President thinks his protectionist agenda would be most helpful. A piece last Summer in the Detroit Free Press notes that Michigan would be at risk in a drastically revised or entirely ditched NAFTA. DFP says that "Michigan has more to lose than any other state" if NAFTA's terms are changed according to Trump's wishes. Credit scoring giant Fitch Ratings says Michigan would be the most affected state in the country because "its economy is the most interconnected" with our NAFTA partners.
As it turns out, the uniformity of regulations and the openness of our markets have created those "interconnected" supply and distribution chains that have helped advance both the ag and industrial sectors of all three trading partners. A 2016 study from President Trump's alma mater The Wharton School of Business notes that NAFTA-driven advances in the U.S. economy have been steady, if modest, and that job re-distribution, not net job loss, has been the result of the agreement over the past quarter-century. A study in the Washington Post last August reinforced that conclusion.
Trump's politically shrewd tirades against NAFTA played well in the industrial belt around the Great Lakes, where job losses and shuttered factories affected enough voters to give him the wafer-thin electoral victories that took him to the White House. But the rest of the country, South Dakota (and now Michigan) in particular, stands to lose much as the President continues to focus on that relatively narrow base of support.

Sioux Empire Podcast 085 – All About Chris Biewer

Sun, 08 Oct 2017 17:00:04 +0000

This podcast contains adult content, listener discretion advised.

In this week’s episode of the Sioux Empire Podcast host Robert “We’ll fix it in post” Mehling and Seth “Stop ret-conning episodes” Glover welcome Chris “Cosmic Rage” Biewer. We talk about animation in a by the books interview that… Oh who are we kidding? Tangents ahead. But seriously, we do talk a lot about the creative process and modern independent animation. This episode is also sponsored by Superstitions – A Psychological Spectacle. From the mind games of Zac Tenneboe (@zstonish) comes his new show, “Superstitions.” It’s more than just a magic show, but a stunning one-man performance weaving mystery and theater. No rabbits. No top hats. No smoke and mirrors. Witness a different way to experience illusion. The first 50 people to use promo code “siouxempire” will receive $1 off each ticket purchased online. Don’t miss out on this discount deal before it’s too late! Will Robert finally learn to love and appreciate cliff hangers? Tune in to The Sioux Empire Podcast next week to find out.

Chris Biewer from Cosmic Rage

https://www.facebook.com/officialcosmicrage/

Bump Underground (Sioux Falls Events)

https://bump.ug/

Studio Ghibli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Studio_Ghibli

The Orville vs Star Trek Discovery

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/09/orville-star-trek-discovery-ratings-watch-week-ending-september-24-1201882187/

Dan Harmon Story Structure

http://channel101.wikia.com/wiki/Story_Structure_101:_Super_Basic_Shit

South Park Writing Season 20, What went wrong?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8KUTZUqyzk

Billie Sutton for South Dakota Governor

https://www.suttonforsd.com/

Washington Pavilion Kinky Boots

https://www.washingtonpavilion.org/online/default.asp?doWork::WScontent::loadArticle=Load&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::article_id=39E9077F-7828-450D-BFFE-EB2A32047A97

Rick and Morty

http://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/

Tags and Topics:

Robert Mehling, Chris Biewer, Seth Glover, Animation, Conventions, Storyboard, Cosplay, Writing, Story Structure, Film, The Walking Dead, Robert Kirkman, Death Note, Netflix, Anime, Adult Swim, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Modest Mouse, Bump Underground, Icon, The District, Studio Ghibli, Rick and Morty, Seth MacFarlane, Disney, Dan Harmon, Justin Roiland, Futurama, The Orville, On Cue, VHS, Akira, Flash, Arby’s, Wendy’s, Billie Sutton

The post Sioux Empire Podcast 085 – All About Chris Biewer appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

With the political will Lead, Deadwood's downturns easy to reverse

larry kurtz — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 14:16:10 +0000

Well, it's that time of year again.

Not long after Homestake Mining Company announced its intent to close operations in Lead, we were listening to this NPR story about an ice climbing park in Ouray, Colorado, a former mining town that has remade itself by farming ice. My daughters' mother turned to me and said: "Wow, they should do that in the Open Cut."

It was if she had spoken with the Voice of God. The very next day I made an appointment and met with Bruce Breid, the general manager charged with the mine's mothballing, an aerial photo of the pit displayed on the wall behind his desk.

"What a brilliant idea, Mr. Kurtz, we have water here, here, and here," Mr. Breid said, pointing to locations at the rim near the Homestake Visitor Center. "Can you provide a legal instrument holding Homestake harmless?"

Right. There was that.

Though not a climber myself, more research led me to locals, some of whom had actually climbed some of the natural seeps deep in the pit while working for subcontract miners.

The horseshoe-shaped bowl directly under the Visitors Center is geologically sound, anchors for top roping easy to place. I have spoken to every Lead mayor since; the desired property is in the city limits. Barrick, the current owner has resisted any discussion of the concept. The Authority governing development of the Lab looks at me like deer in headlights.

The Open Cut contributes about 11% of the water to the mine being pumped for the Lab, the ice climbing park would add another 5000 gallons or so. If a clay liner would be applied to the floor of the pit, the resulting reservoir (yes, acidic mine runoff mostly) could be tapped for emergency fire-fighting or diverted to the treatment facility for water from Sawpit Gulch in Central City: some of that is already happening.

A couple of points: the Open Cut is comprised of very porous rock; filling the pit with water would only succeed in filling the emerging lab. But, the portion of the pit where ice would be farmed is very sound. Barrick wants the wall of the pit to "spall," ie. move loose material from the walls to the floor. Accelerating this process would serve the purpose.

Ice climbing is driving the economies of several former mining towns like Bozeman, Montana; Durango and Ouray, Colorado; and Cody, Wyoming.

Lead should take some advice from Hill City and Hot Springs. Coordination with the Grateful Deadwood High Cannabusiness Institute could bring new life to some old towns.

Morons are US: Running the country into the ground like a business

David Newquist — Sat, 07 Oct 2017 19:47:15 +0000

The Trump administration has given the country--and the world--a detailed illustration of how many businesses are run. For those who want government and public life run like a business, Trump has demonstrated how badly businesses can be run. While there are benign businesses and malignant businesses, his have been a detriment to society.

Business corporations are not democracies. They are feudal states presided over by those who regard themselves as a privileged royalty that dictates the terms of life for the serfs over whom they rule. Liberty, equality, and justice are not even in the business vocabulary. The only word that matters in business is profit. It is the god to which human life is sacrificed, and which justifies destruction of habitat and moral life.

That is not to say that there are not good businesses which contribute essentially to the human community by providing necessary and beneficial goods and services. And there are corporations that do run themselves in ways commensurate with democratic principles. But they are rare. Most businesses regard the public as a gigantic herd of sheep to be fleeced, after which they are disposable.

Most people who voted for Trump say they did so for his business acumen. His business acumen is expressed through the constant stream of lies which are usually exposed, his stiffing of contractors, his fraudulent scams such as Trump University, his insult and abuse of others, his bankruptcies, and his unceasing malevolence. The one thing Trump excels at is stupidity, which sells well among the greedy and malevolent. It's what makes many people think "he's one of us."

Trump is a typical rather than an atypical CEO. While people do question the wildly exorbitant salaries paid to corporate CEOs, they seldom ask exactly what they do in their jobs. As I found out during the years I was a business editor, a great many CEOs are posturing narcissists like Trump. They are appointed by boards of directors who want a puppet as lead executive who will simply carry out their wishes, not work actively to make and keep the business vital. They in turn choose sub-executives who will blindly obey orders and suck up to the CEO. The power of the CEOs is in creating the image of an all-powerful drama queen whose lavish lifestyle is the envy of those driven by the lust for money and power. That image is built upon lies, vicious infighting, suppression of facts, intimidation, and fraud. Much of American corporate business is run just like the Trump Organization and what we see daily going on in the White House. Trump has in word and deed made the country a subsidiary of the Trump organization.

Many huge corporations make profits in spite of, not because of their CEOs and upper echelon executives. People who are enamored of running government like a business seem unaware that 8 out of 10 business fail in their first 18 months. Or that big business slumps and failures are usually attributed to their CEO. The fascination of so many Americans with flagrant and ostentatious lifestyles is the most vulnerable weakness in American democracy. But there are other aspects of the CEO character that undercut democracy. In carrying out their CEO duties to corporations, many CEOs do things and practice policies that are overtly anti-democratic.

Trump's quarrel with his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson shows CEO mindsets and egos a work. Because Trump has undercut Tillerson's announced policies with his tweets, the press has sided with Tillerson as the victim of Trump's nefarious ways. But focusing on the squabbling misdirects attention from Tillerson's performance.

An expert on international diplomacy has called for Tillerson's resignation. He says Tillerson has been an "unmitigated disaster at every facet of his job." A comprehensive profile of Tillerson in The New Yorker details how his business experience gives him disqualifying experience for his role as the nation's lead diplomat. At a speech at the University of Texas, when asked how he regarded American policies when doing business as Exxon Mobil CEO, he said, “I’m not here to represent the United States government’s interest. I’m not here to defend it, nor am I here to criticize it. That’s not what I do. I’m a businessman.” That statement makes clear that he won't let national interests interfere with the corporate agenda.

The first reason international relations experts give for claiming that Tillerson has not the vaguest notion of what he is supposed to is that instead of filling key positions with competent people, he eliminates the positions:

Tillerson’s proposed budget cuts would considerably reduce the number of American diplomats working abroad, possibly by thousands. In addition, Tillerson suspended the hiring of new Foreign Service officers, including many who had accepted fellowships in the expectation of a job. (He has since allowed two Foreign Service classes to move forward.) “These cuts will decimate the Foreign Service,” Nick Burns, a former Under-Secretary of State, told me. “The Foreign Service is a jewel of the United States. There is no other institution in our government with such deep knowledge of the history, culture, language, and politics of the rest of the world.”[Dexter Filkins,The New Yorker]

The second factor is that as a business executive, he surrounded himself with a small clique of lackeys who carried out orders without question. When he first was in a situation someone obviously disagreed with him, a witness said. "“He got red-faced angry. He lifted out of his chair in anger. My impression was that he was not used to people with different views.”

Like most business executives, Tillerson is trained in and is a devout practitioner of the totalitarian power that executives. To him working with people of vast knowledge and drop, analytic intelligence is like dealing with aliens from another planet. It seems against Tillerson's sense of politics to allow and encourage abundant knowledge and vigorous discussion. Reporter Filkens writes:

Some observers believe that Tillerson is overwhelmed by the volume of decisions that he and his team have to make. According to current and former diplomats, Tillerson has centralized decision-making so aggressively that he is unable to keep up. A senior Trump Administration official told me, “Where things fall in the cracks is in the area of management and leadership of the organization, and in leveraging the immense amount of expertise in that building.” Why isn’t Tillerson making better use of his people? “I can’t explain it,” the official told me. “I cannot frickin’ explain it.” [Dexter Filkins,The New Yorker]

People who want government and its agencies to be run like a business do not understand that the authoritarian principles of business are anti-democratic. Business executives such as Trump and Tillerson are not equipped by training, mindset, or personal political preference to operate in a democracy. They know only how to give orders and sacrifice all principles of liberty, equality, and justice to the attainment of a 'winning" goal.

Business executives and business oriented people are unfit to be in democratic government because they are fundamentally against democracy.

And we can seen the destruction of democracy in the daily words and actions of the Trumps and Tillersons.

Ultra Health crosses $1M NM cannabis threshold

larry kurtz — Thu, 05 Oct 2017 12:51:51 +0000

Through its eight dispensaries New Mexico producer Ultra Health has announced it crossed the million dollar threshold providing $1.1 million in therapeutic cannabis last month to some of the state's 47,000 patients.

Ultra Health CEO Duke Rodriguez has praised the state for blooming sales.

"You know, even in the short time that we've advocated for medical cannabis, the program has rocketed from nonexistent to – next year we should, 2018, we should probably be at $150 million," he points out. Rodriguez notes that New Mexico's heavy reliance on the oil and gas industry benefits only some parts of the state, primarily counties in the northwestern and southeastern corners. He maintains total legalization would level the playing field. [Public News Service]

Ultra Health is part of an agreement with the Paiute Tribe in Las Vegas, Nevada and with New Mexico tribes to provide equipment for their facilities.

U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of Albuquerque, the leading fund raiser in the New Mexico gubernatorial Democratic primary, sees a green future for the state.

So, legalization initiatives have a clear Democratic benefit. Democratic-leaning voters, who otherwise might have stayed home, could turn out to vote on marijuana reform. Some may leave other parts of the ballot blank, but Democrats could see a meaningful benefit overall. In a race that is close, a few thousand votes here or there could force an incumbent Republican Senator to pack up his office or shift a state’s electoral votes from red to blue. [Brookings Institution]

New Mexico's Republican governor is appealing a state court's ruling that overturned some of her vetoes of legislative bills one of which legalizes industrial cannabis.

This blog sees little value in the widespread cultivation of hemp especially on tribal lands: it is an invasive species capable of overgrowing native grasses and easily migrates into adjacent lands. Why anyone would want to buy genetically engineered seed from Monsanto or some other earth hater every year remains a mystery.

It's also the view of this blog that Colorado shafted her medical growers to expand the industry there and that local control is essential to keeping profits from legal cannabis out of the hands of Big Dope and working for the states' stakeholders. Tight control of the industry is the only way most state legislatures will legalize for all adults.

Tester wants to explore single-payer; Baucus flips

larry kurtz — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 18:44:11 +0000

On Wednesday during a bipartisan hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) said Congress should take a “solid look” at a single-payer health care system.

Tester, who has been listening to various options including some intense lobbying from this blog, asked the panel of experts how to finance the health care system while controlling the costs.

Recall former Montana Sen. Max Baucus threw President Barack Obama's pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, former Senate Majority Leader and fellow Democrat Tom Daschle, under the bus during a pre-confirmation quarrel in 2009.

Daschle was widely expected to push Congress toward a Medicaid-for-all health care plan in the weeks before Big Pharma-backed Baucus soundly rejected single-payer medical insurance and guided the passing of what would become the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Baucus spoke Thursday night at Montana State University and publicly reversed course on single payer.

It was a startling turnaround for Baucus, who eight years ago was chairman of the powerful Senate Finance Committee and a key Democratic leader in the political battles that ultimately passed the Affordable Care Act. [Bozeman Daily Chronicle]

Obama later admitted he "screwed up" by pushing Timothy Geithner's confirmation as Treasury Secretary first in a effort to reverse the economic catastrophe left by the previous administration. Daschle withdrew after Obama put off his confirmation hearing and after Baucus stabbed Daschle, the American people and the new president in the back.

In 2013 Obama appointed Baucus, a Democrat who had been a royal pain in the ass, Ambassador to China.

Because of the way hospital networks and private insurers independently negotiate prices with each other in most of the country, rural hospitals are often de facto monopolies with massive leverage. As a result, only insurers that are also effectively monopolies can hope to negotiate for decent prices to drive out competition. Even increasing insurer competition in these concentrated hospital markets could actually make the cost problem worse. [The ACA is Failing Because It Didn’t Account For Hospital Monopolies in Rural Areas]

The Billings Clinic, Benefis, Sanford, Avera and Rapid City Regional enjoy virtual medical industry monopolies in their markets.

Kinda makes ya sick, init?

I like the idea of rolling the funding for Obamacare, TRICARE, Medicare, the IHS and the VA together then offering Medicaid for all by increasing the estate tax, raising taxes on tobacco and adopting a carbon tax. Reproductive freedoms should be included with conditions just like the military does under TRICARE.

Republican senator says Las Vegas victims needed to 'take precautions' and 'get small'

rss@dailykos.com (Walter Einenkel) — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 20:06:02 +0000

The massacre at Mandalay Bay’s outdoor country music concert in Las Vegas, where 59 people died and hundreds of others were seriously injured, is a clear manifestation of how much damage automatic and semi-automatic guns can do. Republicans have tried, once again, to go to their NRA crisis script: Step one, tell everybody that you have “thoughts and prayers.” Step two, tell everybody they shouldn’t talk about gun safety and legislation because we should all be telling everybody about our “thoughts and prayers.” Step three, say totally insane things after you’ve made sure the NRA’s checks have passed. Raw Story brings us news that Senator John Thune (R-SD)—who many may know as an opponent of net neutrality and affordable health care as well as just being a complete imbecile—had this to say about the events in Las Vegas.

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But Thune shied away from the topic of gun control, arguing, “[I]t’s an open society and it’s hard to prevent anything.”

Instead, the Republican senator offered advice to potential victims.

“I think people are going to have to take steps in their own lives to take precautions,” he opined. “To protect themselves. And in situations like that, you know, try to stay safe. As somebody said — get small.”

Domestic terrorist and mass murderer Stephen Paddock shot all of those people from a 32nd floor window in the Mandalay Bay hotel. The people he was shooting at could have been no “smaller,” to him at that moment. Maybe Sen. Thune can make himself so small he disappears from all of our consciousnesses forever?

Maybe we should just have a national kill-a-bunch-of-people day

David Newquist — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 16:04:56 +0000

The U.S. Constitution is a monument to America's passionate love of hypocrisy. It says in its Preamble that its purpose is to:

establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity...

Then it nullifies all that with its Second Amendment. Our experts on Constitutional law have decreed that the Second Amendment is the sacred word that guarantees the right of any American to shoot the shit out of anyone and all if he/she feels like it. The official interpretation of the Second Amendment is fuck justice, fuck domestic tranquillity, fuck the common defense, and fuck, fuck, fuck all that general welfare because it sounds socialist, and fuck other people's liberty. The Constitutional experts saw that the Founding Fuckers made a huge mistake in the Preamble and put a potential obstacle in the way of people exercising the divine right to kill other people.

If we didn't have occasions during which people blow away other people, think how dull life would be. Well, thanks to the celebrants of our divine right to kill, out of the last 477 days we had 521 mass shootings to keep the true meaning of America alive. The shooting over the weekend at Mandalay Bay is said to be the most successful of all with 59 kills and 520 maims, if you don't include slaughters of black people and Indians, such as at Wounded Knee. That record won't stand long, because this is America.

The national pride fills our hearts when we get to see a picture of some woman in cowboy boots trying to push some old dude wearing a cowboy hat in a wheel chair out of the line of fire.

Or a couple of chicks lying either dead or scared shitless with a beautiful pattern of blood splatter on the legs of one wearing cut-offs. Makes one rise up in patriotic pride.

We can't help but reminisce about some of our finer moments. Although it had only half the kill-count, we fondly think of Sandy Hook. What is more American than blasting away a a bunch of public school kids and school teachers? What a demonstration of our basic values! We thrill at a line of cowering kids and their teachers trying to lead them to safety, which a good, old AR-15 can blast away with the flick of a trigger finger.

There are some liberal types who threaten our true freedom with the thought that the Preamble to the Constitution means something. What we need is a day to show that the Second Amendment is the only constitution we need. Let Congress make the first Tuesday of November a national holiday when we can have the time off to honor and worship our freedom to see how many people we can terrorize, and see how much we can set new kill-count records every year. That ought to melt those libby snowflake asses and show them what American values really are.

Constitutional Rights Do Not Equal Constitutional Insanity

John Tsitrian — Tue, 03 Oct 2017 11:57:19 +0000

There are Constitutional rights and there are Constitutional absurdities, the latter having been played out during the horror show in Las Vegas last weekend. Adhering to the rights

A Right
Not A License For Craziness

guaranteed by the country's founding documents doesn't mean extending them to a point somewhere far beyond the reaches of common sense. For example, the 1st Amendment to the Constitution has some limitations on freedom of speech, most famously its inherently sensible denial of the right to yell "fire!" in a crowded theater when no such emergency exists.
Why that principle hasn't been applied to the 2nd Amendment seems to me a failure of logic, experience and good judgement. Having toted and used the most lethal weapons of my generation during my 13-month hitch as a Marine in Vietnam, I'm no stranger to the genre of firearms. Nor am I a stranger to their purposes and value in civilian life. Gun ownership is an embedded part of our lives in this country, a principle that I have no trouble supporting. I recall a close relative of mine in who began carrying a handgun after a woman was raped in the underground parking garage of his upscale condominium. Who can't condone the sense of security that comes with a decision like that? I also appreciate that a lot of people simply enjoy the sport of shooting, along with the history, the mechanics and the aesthetics of guns and rifles. And of course there are those who hunt with firearms, a sturdy community of good citizens who also happen to support many of our wildlife conservation programs through their hunting license fees. They're also damn good for business, as I and my peers in the lodging industry will be quick to affirm.
Then along came Las Vegas, which reminds us that a fondness for that guaranteed right to bear arms has occasionally morphed into a bloody and violent freak show. The Vegas madman Stephen Paddock had an arsenal far above and beyond the needs of any rational gun owner. News reports say that police found 43 firearms and several thousand rounds of ammunition in searches of his home and the hotel room where he went berserk. They were all obtained legally and some were apparently modified to make them simulate automatic gunfire. The crowning absurdity is that all of this was in keeping with laws in the books in Nevada.
The framers of the Constitution couldn't possibly have had this in mind when they guaranteed Americans their right to bear arms, but we've gotten to this place and there's no turning back. Mass killings are impossible to prevent. Just the same, gun rights can co-exist with gun control that's designed to make things more difficult for determined and deranged people to obtain weapons in the quantities that Paddock possessed. Constitutional rights are one thing, Constitutionally sanctioned insanity is another.

West River, Black Hills habitats are controlled from out of state; Republicans refuse local contral

larry kurtz — Sat, 30 Sep 2017 14:48:19 +0000

Jim Neiman of Hulett, Wyoming controls the Black Hills National Forest, decisions for the Sioux Ranger District on the Custer Gallatin National Forest are made in Bozeman, Montana, most of national grasslands in South Dakota are operated from Nebraska and the Republican delegation cut fat hogs bringing home the bacon for the timber and livestock industries.

John Thune (earth hater-SD) says the solution is "project level decisions through litigation relief.” That's code for ending lawsuits that protect habitat and letting Republican Party donor Jim Neiman run roughshod over public lands.

That's not local control: it's ramrodding bills through Congress that end public comment.

More timber is logged out off the BHNF than on any other national forest and Republicans want more.

The collapse of the Black Hills ponderosa pine monoculture was forecast as early as 2002 but now bug counters at the Black Hills National Forest are saying its bark beetle outbreak has peaked although dry grasses still plague the region.

In New Mexico local public collaboration drives fuel treatments on ponderosa pine and piñón-juniper forests.

The Santa National Forest gets it.

Prescribed fires are one of the most effective tools available to resource managers for restoring fire-adapted ecosystems. These fires mimic natural fires by reducing forest fuels, recycling nutrients and increasing habitat diversity. Prescribed fires are managed with firefighter and public safety as the first priority. [Los Alamos Daily Post]

Ponderosa pine evolved in the American Southwest and only reached the Black Hills and central Montana about a thousand years ago.

Lodgepole pine and Douglas Fir have been extirpated from the Black Hills for nearly a century: the oldest aspen was virtually logged out during European settlement; yet, tiny stands of old-growth ponderosa pine can still be found in the Hills.

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.

The mountain pine beetle is hard at work clearing centuries of overgrowth throughout the Rocky Mountain Complex, so is the western spruce budworm and the spruce beetle. But leaving dead or dying conifers on the forest produces methane, an even more dangerous greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide is.

Voters can expect South Dakota's earth hater congressional delegation to do the bidding of their donors and put lots of pork in the next farm bill.

Water supplies are critical this year as human-caused climate disruptions reduced snowpack in the Black Hills. Insects and fire are critical to reversing the ravages of conifer overgrowth on the Rocky Mountain West.

Restoration means all the above: fire, bark beetle, and the thinning critical for water supplies that ultimately help conifers defend themselves against anthropogenic climate disruptions while stimulating the growth of hardwoods like aspen. It can all be done with aerial techniques without building new roads.

The above map is not of grassland fire danger or red flag warnings: it's of historic bison range.

Black Hills area economic development stakeholders are apoplectic about keeping young people in the area.

Too bad they're clueless about how to do it.

Want to reduce wildfire effects in the greater Missouri River basin?

Rewild the West.

In Spearditch pork tastes like fish

larry kurtz — Wed, 27 Sep 2017 14:23:26 +0000

South Dakota's Republican congressional delegation has been obstructing attempts by the US Fish and Wildlife Service to streamline the agency by weaning support from a hatchery known for introducing invasive species in Black Hills watersheds and into the waters of the United States.

These clowns won't support the combating of bulging jails and prisons but will wholeheartedly jump on the bandwagon to save a Spearditch tourist trap.

A letter recently sent by the delegation to the US Secretary of the Interior and the US Fish and Wildlife Service has requested pork for an administrative officer, park ranger, and an archivist historian.

The DC Booth hatchery was recently fingered for allowing non-native Snake River cutthroat trout to escape into Spearditch Creek and other tributaries of the Belle Fourche/Cheyenne River estuary.

There is no evidence of native trout in the Little Missouri flowing north out of the Wyoming sage steppe, either. As the Black Hills has never been glaciated, the continual use of fire on the Black Hills by human inhabitants for the last ten thousand years may have rendered ancient fisheries unable to sustain salmonids.

It's hard to imagine the Service continuing to support the release of hybrid and non-native trout by South Dakota's Department of Game, Fish & Plunder when native species are being threatened in the Missouri River basin. Rainbow trout have recently been released into Lake Sharpe. Stocking fish without a permit is a Class 2 misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and/or a $500 fine.

Kristi Noem purports to be a small-government conservative and helping the community to find a way to finance rearing for private ponds without tapping federal funds should be her mission.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service should block releases of these fish into any part of the system.

How a GOP-owned agency like SDGF&P is enabled instead of being sued by the Service remains a mystery.

Can South Dakota Handle The GOP's Healthcare Plan?

John Tsitrian — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 13:57:27 +0000

At this point it's a matter of trust. My native Republican instincts tell me that the latest GOP effort to replace Obamacare (Affordable Care Act, or ACA) is one I could
Probably.
But It'll Resurface.
support. Though likely to fail on this try, it’s bound to come up again. I can certainly understand our Governor Daugaard enthusiastically getting behind it. For one thing, the current bill renders moot South Dakota's stubbornly irrational rejection of Medicaid expansion, an offer under ACA that would provide a couple of billion bucks to our state over the next few years. Heck, the status quo is such a good deal that then-Governor Mike Pence figured out a way to expand Medicaid into Indiana, making him one of eleven Republican governors who understood the value of insuring a sizable portion of their state populations who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but not enough to afford conventional insurance. Adding in the economic gains from the rollover of those billions of dollars only reinforces the fiscal sanity of saying yes to expansion built into ACA.

Daugaard himself had even come up with a plan to bring it into South Dakota, an effort he abandoned after he apparently was convinced that a Trump administration could easily overturn ACA. Trump's vision has of course been exposed as a hallucination, but Governor Daugaard is dutifully following up on his responsibilities and political affiliations by giving Republican leadership the attention and lip service it merits. His Chief of Staff and son-in-law Tony Venhuizen was quick to address the Medicaid expansion funding issue a few days ago, when he told the Mitchell Daily Republic that one of the main reasons Daugaard supports the latest GOP plan is that it brings "funding parity" between expansion and non-expansion states.

This is actually a back-door way of acknowledging what has been obvious for years: states like South Dakota, stubborn as they've been in their resistance to Medicaid expansion, have really been getting the short-end of the stick when it comes to federal healthcare spending. But by going along with this concept of federal block granting, South Dakota effectively gains what it has been giving up by disdaining expansion. Block grant money would amount to a yearly gain of nearly $1 thousand per resident (almost a billion dollars) to South Dakota according to a New York Times analysis. That would more than make up for the money we've been leaving on the table up to now.

And, as a business-type who sees the value of money pouring into the state, regardless of whether the source is named Obamacare or Trumpcare, I love the idea. The only caveat now is the matter of trust that began this missive. We've seen what's happened to federally-supported and sanctioned programs in this state during the past decade or so, and it hasn't been pretty. EB-5 and Gear-Up have set pretty poor examples of our current leadership's ability to manage Washington-sanctioned programs. Before the Daugaard administration gets totally wound up in its enthusiasm for this block grant or the next one that’s likely to be proposed, some assurances that another fiasco won’t materialize are in order.

Thune made Congress look the other way as Russia infiltrated Facebook

larry kurtz — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 02:38:29 +0000

9 May, 2016: former Facebook workers allegedly told Gizmodo they routinely suppressed news from conservative sources.

10 May, 2016: Thune writes a letter to Facebook then he, other earth haters and Republican National Committee chair Reince Priebus teamed up to threaten Facebook. "Senator Thune (R) once opposed the FCC's Fairness Doctrine now wants Q&A with Facebook about its trending topics."

11 May, 2016: John Thune accused Facebook of bias.

13 May, 2016: Thune asked Facebook to make space for all viewpoints.

18 May, 2016: Thune met with Mark Zuckerberg and a bank of lawyers. "Just about nobody, Sen. Thune included, wants the feds to police how Facebook displays news."

19 May, 2016: "The first step forward is for Facebook, and anyone who uses algorithms in subjective decision making, to drop the pretense that they are neutral. If I am reading their letter to Thune right, Facebook's response is to gut a perfectly defensible part of the process. Why? PR concerns atm (at the moment)."

23 May, 2016, in the name of "net neutrality" Thune and the Senate GOP said they won't regulate Facebook.

24 May, 2016: Facebook's 12 page response to Thune.

31 May, 2016: Thune backs Trump.

3 June, 2016: Trump bots began urging then-Senator Jeff Sessions to investigate censorship.

Nine days after Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg dismissed as “crazy” the idea that fake news on his company’s social network played a key role in the U.S. election, President Barack Obama pulled the youthful tech billionaire aside and delivered what he hoped would be a wake-up call. [Washington Post]

27 July, 2016: "dezinformatsiya," "Russian internet trolls were being hired to pose as pro-Trump Americans."

8 October, 2016: Thune condemns Trump.

12 October, 2016: Thune flips again and backs Trump.

8 November, 2016: the end of the world as we know it.

18 November, 2016: Thune: "Russia is constantly looking for ways to undermine and disrupt our democratic systems." Thune knows this because he plays basketball with James Comey. Comey and Obama didn't play basketball together nor did Obama and Thune.

Thune's rejection of Trump was a ruse. He already knew Donald Trump was a sleaze from his basketball buddy Jim Comey.

That's right: the vast wrong-wing conspiracy was going to beat Hillary Clinton at any cost. Even if it meant colluding with a sworn enemy of the United States, destroying the presidency and taking down the republic.

Thune can't ever seek any higher office than he has now and unless he's indicted his term doesn't end until 2023. There are no media in his home state that aren't beholden to the Republican Party and although he went to DC without much money he's got at least $12 million now.

Facebook is malware.

The paper trail is clear: John Thune made Congress look the other way as Russia infiltrated Facebook.

He's the perfect stooge to pull this off.

There are several tells in the above Thune photo: can you name them?

Kurt Evans announces run for Governor of South Dakota

South Dakota — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 04:49:49 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

The Constitution Party of South Dakota has its first declared statewide candidate for 2018.

Former US Senate candidate Kurt Evans of Wessington Springs announced his intent to seek the Constitution Party's nomination for Governor of South Dakota on September 23, 2017.

His campaign email address is Kurt.Evans@live.com.

Kurt Evans' Bio

Evans is a native of Wessington Springs and the elder son of the late country musician Kyle Evans, who was named the official troubadour of South Dakota's 1989 centennial celebration and inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame.

Kurt Evans studied mathematics and science education at South Dakota State University, graduating with academic honors in the class of 1993. He became a high school teacher and basketball coach and was eventually certified as a highly qualified teacher for more than a hundred core content assignments.

In 1996, Evans served as a South Dakota delegate to the national convention that nominated the late Howard Phillips as the Constitution Party's candidate for President.

Evans joined the Libertarian Party in 2002 and received just over 3,000 votes as its 2002 U.S. Senate candidate. He received just over 48,000 votes (20.1 percent) as the Libertarian candidate for South Dakota State Auditor in 2014.

Evans rejoined the Constitution Party in 2016. He was nominated for the U.S. Senate contingent on the state party's pending ballot-access lawsuit, but the party's motions to place a 2016 U.S. Senate candidate on the ballot were rejected.

Evans says he believes he's uniquely qualified to help his fellow South Dakotans understand the principles of the United States Constitution, apply those principles to government at both the federal and state levels, and recognize the tragic long-term consequences of abandoning them.

Kurt Evans' campaign email address is Kurt.Evans@live.com.

Trump is nuts and a danger to the world

David Newquist — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 17:30:28 +0000

This year a panel of psychiatrists broke a professional standard and decided that they had to warn the public that Donald Trump is nuts enough to make him a danger to the country. Before he was elected, an Oxford doctor pointed out that Trump scored worse than Hitler on a test for psychopathology. The Washington Post reviews three books that study the dangers of Trump;s insanity: "Now, some psychiatrists and other mental-health professionals are shedding long-held norms to argue that Trump’s condition presents risks to the nation and the world."

The major symptom is Trump's obsessive need to destroy other people's accomplishments. His mode of operation is not to excel at anything he does, but to dominate by disparaging and destroying anything achieved by others. His entire campaign was based upon that practice. The motto Make America Great Again was based upon the contention that the United States, which had successfully climbed out of The Great Recession had lost its status as strong economy and a bastion pf democracy and freedom. America had, in fact, retained its leadership until Trump became president, and he led a slump into puny-minded malice and destruction of any claim America has to intellectual leadership and moral competence.

Trump has proven himself to be an inveterate liar. Little he says is backed up by facts. For him facts, especially those based on scientific proof, don't exist. He uses lies to destroy. He began his political run by circulating the lie the Obama was not born in America, a lie contrived by racists. Obama is a a favorite target of his malice. He extended it when he claimed that Obama wire-tapped Trump Towers, Even though it has been denied after investigations by his own administration, he repeats it because his only motive is to damage those things that stand in his way or dim the reputations of those who have achieved positive things. And he sees Obama as an enemy who he would like to take out, if he could. His lies about Obama reveal a man motivated by malice. They consist of the defamations that are defined as slander and libel. He practices total dishonesty and malice in violation of the basic decency that our democracy tries to hold as its purpose.

Trump is the epitome of a vandal. He is like the child who breaks into someone's house and destroys anything he can find so that other people cannot enjoy their lives. He is driven by raging resentment. Where his insane rage is most dangerous is in the effect it has on foreign policy. His push toward nuclear war with North Korea and Iran is the primitive rage of a petulant child or mental deficient at finding he is not the center of the universe. People like Trump are usually under custodial care so that they cannot harm themselves or other people. in Trump's case, his daily rages become headlines in the news along with hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria, and the Mexico City earthquakes. That all destroy human lives and parts of the planet.

Trump's threats against the Iran nuclear agreement define the ignorance and dishonesty that makes up a large part of his character. As one who represents himself as the world's premier deal-maker, he has denounced the Iran agreement as horrendous. Most people who realize the dangers of nuclear weapons in potentially destroying the earth and the living things on it. So, while the agreement with Iran only delays their development of a nuclear weapon, it is an achievement which opens up diplomacy as a way of meeting the challenge of nuclear threats.

But what Trump and the other critics of the deal fail to acknowledge is that the agreement is not just between the U.S. and Iran. The treaty also includes the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, Germany and the European Union. The U.S took the lead in negotiating the agreement and succeeded in getting Russia and China to participate in the negotiations and in carrying out the terms of the agreement. Their inclusion is a amor diplomatic achievement and forms the basis for further nuclear controls. If Trump were to withdraw from the deal, he would demonstrate to the rest of the world that the U.S. is untrustworthy and incapable of sustaining leadership in addressing the control of armaments. Iran, as it has threatened, would resume its development of nuclear weapons, and we'd be back to where we were before negotiations. Trump''s idea is to threaten countries like North Korea and Iran with the very kind of open warfare that the negotiations are intended to avoid.

The Iran nuclear agreement was never claimed to be a solution. It was created to remove an immediate threat so that more comprehensive negotiations could address the nuclear problem in general. The Iran agreement was a first step by the big players in the matter of nuclear control. Trump is vandalizing the one step the world has taken to resume work on the only solution we have for avoiding nuclear war.

He is mentally incapable of engaging in constructive work with the people, congress, or other nations. But he has the backing and complicity of the Republican Party, and it cannot escape blame for the deterioration of peaceful relationships. Countries like Russia are always looking for ways to extend power and exercise dominance, and it has been agreements based upon mutual survival that have kept eat power-hungry in check.

Trump is a merely a vandal run amok. And the GOP shares that power obsession and is willing to risk the nation rather than serve it to hold power. With Trump and the GOP, the leadership we once exercised has been abandoned. For people who revere the work that the U.S. has pursued for civil rights and the peace to be free, the U.S. has failed. Now were have to look to other countries for intellectual and moral leadership.

One of the recent books on Trump's mental state makes the case that the people who have made the Trump craziness possible are the insane ones. And if one reads the political dialogue on the Internet, one cannot escape the fact that many people have lost the ability to discern facts and exercise reason.

The fact is that the nation is divided between those trying to cling to some decency and reason and those who have given up sanity to the lust for totalitarian power. The rest of the world regards us as dangerous as North Korea. When we declare allegiance to Trump's flag, we renounce all that America has stood for. That is insanity.

Sioux Empire Podcast 083 – All About Sioux Falls City Council Member Greg Neitzert

Sun, 24 Sep 2017 16:13:07 +0000

Greg Neitzert is back this week to talk to the podcast crew (Robert Mehling and Natasha Estes) about his first term on the Sioux Falls City Council. We get into Greg Neitzert’s background and things that have surprised him about being on the Council. We also talk about work-life balance, citizen feedback, and Greg explains what a TIF (Tax Increment Financing) is and why it matters in city government. This episode is sponsored by The DakotaBall Podcast, ‘Life, Love & basketball in a small town’ is an explorative journey into small town living and midwestern dreams of big-time high school basketball. Much more than just sports this podcast explores life in small and tiny towns. This episode is also sponsored by Superstitions – A Psychological Spectacle. From the mind games of Zac Tenneboe (@zstonish) comes his new show, “Superstitions.” It’s more than just a magic show, but a stunning one-man performance weaving mystery and theater. No rabbits. No top hats. No smoke and mirrors. Witness a different way to experience illusion. The first 50 people to use promo code “siouxempire” will receive $1 off each ticket purchased online. Don’t miss out on this discount deal before it’s too late! The Sioux Empire Podcast will do whatever it takes to impress Pickle Rick.

Lloyd TIF Uptown Project

http://kwsn.com/news/articles/2017/sep/14/new-tif-tif-in-sioux-falls/

Rick and Morty (Robert’s Shameless Plug)

http://www.adultswim.com/videos/rick-and-morty/

Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup (Natasha’s Shameless Plug)

https://gfp.sd.gov/state-parks/directory/custer/events/buffalo-roundup/

Holly Cross Trunk-Or-Treat (Greg’s Shameless Plug)

https://www.facebook.com/events/124165728043170/

The post Sioux Empire Podcast 083 – All About Sioux Falls City Council Member Greg Neitzert appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

Betty Olson fingers neighbor for violations of Clean Water Act

larry kurtz — Sun, 24 Sep 2017 11:12:40 +0000

This blog trolls earth hater former South Dakota legislator Betty Olson and her Facebook page pretty relentlessly. Nearly all of her FB friends are off the wall sovereign citizen rancher types and she normally posts her Grand River Roundup column there before it goes to the Rapid City Journal.

She's actually a pretty good recorder of history of the extreme wrong wing of the Republican Party in the northwestern part of the state.

But, this week marks a time when she actually comes out as a whistle-blower.

Daryl Thompson called me from over by Mobridge to tell me that the site of another town of Moreau is under Lake Oahe. Daryl runs cows right next to where the Moreau River runs into the Missouri River on the Cheyenne River Reservation and during one of the dry years he rescued a highway sign that had been submerged along a road under Lake Oahe. The sign placed the town of Moreau two miles west of the river. [Betty Olson]

Most grazing land in South Dakota is privately owned or managed by the US Forest Service. Water quality within the Moreau basin is already marginal to poor due largely to livestock-caused E. coli contamination but development and prioritization for the watershed are affected by unique jurisdictional issues.

It turns out the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has a letter (pdf) sitting before US Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt pursuant to their appeal of a denied injunction the tribe believes violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The letter reminds EPA that the Waters of the United States rule cites upstream polluters with violations of the Clean Water Act and even casual reading suggests Daryl Thompson is breaking the law thumbing his nose at indigenous religious freedoms grazing livestock depositing antibiotic-laden manure upstream of a sovereign tribal nation.

US Bureau of Land Management officials announced Friday they are loosening grazing restrictions originally put in place to protect land from possible over-grazing and to conserve the quality of native grasses.

Sorry, not sorry: Plame Wilson dinged for sharing piece on Israel's war culture

larry kurtz — Fri, 22 Sep 2017 16:39:42 +0000

It's no secret this interested party would like to see Israel rolled back to 1917 borders and its inhabitants moved to Utah or Nevada.

Santa Fe resident and former Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame Wilson is taking some heat for sharing a piece written by fellow CIA officer but conservative commentator, Philip Giraldi.

Call it like it is. And if someone’s feelings are hurt, too bad. We don’t need a war with Iran because Israel wants one and some rich and powerful American Jews are happy to deliver. Seriously, we don’t need it. [America's Jews Are Driving America's Wars]

It's not like Giraldi is wrong.

Recall former South Dakota state senator Dan Lederman, now chairman of the earth hater party in the state, along with fellow Jewish-American Joel Arends teamed up with Islamophobe and a whackjob of the nth order, Frank Gaffney, for an event in Sioux Falls.

President Harry Truman failed the United States by recognizing the illegal creation of Israel.

No Middle East leader is more unstable than Bibi Netanyahu.

Even Donald Trump believes Israel is guilty of war crimes and would use nuclear weapons in the Middle East with Israel as collateral damage.

In July, Plame Wilson launched an online fundraising campaign to raise $1 billion to buy a major stake in Twitter and kick Trump off the platform.

Dan Lederman, Frank Gaffney, Tom Trento, Joel Arends https://t.co/OhdpFaprr9 #aipac #sdsen #sdleg #RWNJ
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) April 18, 2014

DiSanto steps in dog shit, could smear SDGOP with it

larry kurtz — Thu, 21 Sep 2017 14:31:16 +0000

Earth hater Lynne DiSanto has just shown her true colors to her Rapid City constituents.

Recall DiSanto supported the actions of the sleeper cell of armed christianic militants who held a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. While she is representative of Republicans throughout West River the South Dakota Republican Party won't tolerate losing the seat to a Democrat.

Expect her to vacate the District 35 state house seat she holds and for Denny Daugaard to appoint a replacement who is at least as offensive to appeal to lowest common denominators.

Air Force schedules another round of albedo modification over PRTC

larry kurtz — Wed, 20 Sep 2017 13:54:39 +0000

As South Dakota's senior US Senator expresses glee over the Trump Organization's plan to spend $500,000,000 on each new B-21 bomber and nearly three quarters of a $TRILLION on a proposed Defense Department budget US Air Force officials have scheduled another round of aerial exercises over the Powder River Training Complex.

Included in the war games are sprayers that disperse chemicals formulated to reduce the effects of climate warming.

In the name of albedo modification the Air Force sprays a cocktail of silver iodide, lead iodide, aluminum oxide, barium, frozen carbon dioxide, common salt, water and soot from burning hazardous waste in pits at US Air Force bases including those at Ellsworth AFB near Rapid City, South Dakota.

General aviation, private pilots, climate watchers, even some Republican landowners and ranchers are concerned the exercises could exacerbate drought conditions that persist in a region where dried grasses are causing extreme fire danger.

Ellsworth AFB is home to a Superfund site so are Malmstrom AFB, Montana; Minot Air Force Base, North Dakota and FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. These installations are participants at the Powder River Training Complex. Chemtrails have been observed by the public and by general aviation pilots in the expanded practice bombing range.

The photo above features a C-130H sprayer based at Mountain Home AFB, Idaho. These aerial sprayers are also being used in low-income areas of Houston after Hurricane Harvey.

South Dakota Republican whip shares meme supporting vehicular attacks on protesters

rss@dailykos.com (Walter Einenkel) — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 22:03:02 +0000

Republican Rep. Lynne DiSanto (R-SD) is in hot water after she shared a meme on her Facebook page that supported vehicular assault. Classy, dangerous, and dumb. The Argus Leader was able to get a screen shot of her post where she wrote: “I think this is a movement we can all support,” before she pulled down the post.

Comments from friends and constituents on the post were initially supportive of the image. After the post was more widely circulated the tone of comments turned against DiSanto until she deleted the post Tuesday afternoon.

A spokesman for the South Dakota Republican Party and GOP leaders in the House of Representatives didn't respond to calls requesting comment Tuesday afternoon.

Cockroaches coming out into the light. Every day.

Democrats in New Mexico and elsewhere blazing toward legalization

larry kurtz — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:37:32 +0000

U.S. Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham of Albuquerque, the leading fund raiser in the New Mexico gubernatorial Democratic primary, sees a green future for the state.

“I am committed to working with the Legislature to move towards legalizing recreational cannabis in a way that improves public safety, boosts state revenues, and allows for New Mexico businesses to grow into this new market.” Lujan Grisham, a former state health secretary, said, “I am proud to have presided over and supported the successful roll out of New Mexico’s medical cannabis program.” [Santa Fe New Mexican]

Democrats are saying as much as $400 million a year could be going for education and transportation fixes.

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson lives in Taos and has said he buys cannabis in Trinidad, Colorado.

Under term-limited earth hater Governor Susana Martinez New Mexico unemployment rates are the worst in the United States while enrollment in New Mexico's therapeutic cannabis program has soared above the 40,000 member threshold.

So, legalization initiatives have a clear Democratic benefit. Democratic-leaning voters, who otherwise might have stayed home, could turn out to vote on marijuana reform. Some may leave other parts of the ballot blank, but Democrats could see a meaningful benefit overall. In a race that is close, a few thousand votes here or there could force an incumbent Republican Senator to pack up his office or shift a state’s electoral votes from red to blue. [Brookings Institution]

Democrats Lujan Grisham, Jeff Apodaca, Peter DeBenedittis, Joseph Cervantes are expected to run in next year's primary to replace Martinez. They all laud the state's cannabis initiative.

Apodaca’s father, former governor Jerry Apodaca, was governor when New Mexico became the first state to legislate the medical use of cannabis in 1978 through Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act. But Apodaca says cannabis could be more than a driver of jobs: It could also be an area where New Mexico’s universities lead other states in research and development. “If they can create 34 different strains of green chiles, are you telling me we can’t lead the world, the country, in [cannabis] research from our university?” [Santa Fe Reporter]

Revenues from therapeutic cannabis in New Mexico during the first quarter of 2017 reached $19 million, an 86 percent increase over the first quarter of 2016. Total receipts for 2017 are projected to exceed $83.5 million.

Legal cannabis has become a favorite in Minnesota's Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party gubernatorial primary, too. Even so-called 'moderate Democrats' are on board.

Democrats in Montana's legislature want better testing for that state's 18,953 registered therapeutic cannabis patients and 616 providers.

In Nevada, Tribal Cannabis Consulting has established cannabis compacts with Gov. Brian Sandoval’s office and the Yerington Paiute, Ely Shoshone and Pyramid Lake Paiute tribes.

And in California tribal nations want compacts with the state.

“Just like gaming, it’s our sovereign right to get into this industry without compromising our rights,” said Blue Quisquis, President of Emerald Enterprise and Sapphire MJ Solutions, who has an extensive background in gaming operations and is now helping tribes enter into the cannabis market. “We organized C-NACA to build tribal support and to educate our fellow tribes about all aspects of the industry." [Indian Country Today]

Democrats are keenly aware that to energize millennials and a jaded base radical times call for sensible approaches to reforms of civil liberties for all adults even if it means enduring some feces-throwing from the earth hater Big Food, Big Booze, Big Pharma, NFL set.

Rapid City (SD) Area Pubs Go Secret

John Tsitrian — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 14:07:04 +0000

Last week's "invitation only" gathering organized by seven local Republican state legislators was a bizarre and embarrassing attempt at exclusion and avoidance of reality. It was also a microcosm of what is probably a growing divide in the GOP on all levels, from local to national. The seven local Pubs--Senators Haverly, Solano and Partridge and Representatives Johnson, McPherson, Tieszen and Conzet--took it on themselves to hold a public gathering that was limited to 107 invitees, of whom 40 showed up, meant to "hear nonpartisan ideas from local leaders about community and economic development." In a show of secrecy that would evoke admiring nods from autocratic societies everywhere, organizers wouldn't make the invitation list public, apparently taking it on themselves to covertly pick and choose who among their constituents in this area are capable of delivering nonpartisan ideas about public affairs.
I get that the elected officials who staged this exercise in exclusion are (like me, on many an occasion) fed up with legislative time and resources devoted to controversial social issues. Transgender bathroom use and gun rights were singled out in the RCJ article about the meeting, but I have no doubt that other issues, like reproductive and religious rights, were probably considered off limits by organizer Johnson, who told the Journal that "we didn't want those controversial social issues to override the economic and community development issues that we wanted to talk about at this event."
Well, doggone those "controversial social issues" anyway. Imagine the temerity of voters and taxpayers who think they should have a place at the table of an invitation-only gathering of elected officials and their hand-picked constituents. Just who do those social issue-oriented citizens think they are? Sarcasm aside, much as I empathize with the organizers of this event, their planning and execution of it are for the birds. I suppose that this is what you can expect from a party that has split.  Like Republicans everywhere, the local GOP seems to be struggling with a collective identity crisis focused on its commitment to conservative values. The pragmatists like Johnson and his cohorts just can not insulate themselves against party ideologues (of whom Reps Lynn DiSanto and Taffy Howard were mentioned in the RCJ piece) who are identified with the "social issues" that this meeting sought to avoid.
This is a rupture that Republicans have to contend with now that a sizable wing of the party claims its conservative values entitle the government to meddle in the private affairs of Americans, denying rights on the basis of personal behavior. I don't much care for that segment of the GOP myself, considering that public policy matters of some immense importance need all the time and attention that our elected officials can give to them. Many of these so-called "social issues" are a distraction, an annoyance and a pain for some of us, but the true believers who support them have their rights.  Specifically excluding them or any voters from a public gathering of elected officials is about as un-American as anything I can think of. As to limiting invitees to a secret list of supportive voters? How elitist can these Republicans get? Democracy makes a lot of noise. Putting your hands over your ears is no way to make it go away.

Regents and the undermining of education

David Newquist — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 14:42:17 +0000

Begin with the fact that South Dakota state government has been defiled by two major scandals involving millions of dollars, suicides, murder, and the total evasion of responsibility by the people who were in charge and supposed to be exercising oversight of government affairs. I speak, of course, of the EB-5 and Gear-Up scandals. A number of officials and government agencies were involved in those affairs, but the most troubling aspect is that the state's educational agencies were involved from the inception of those scandals. When organizations that are responsible for providing the intellectual and character-building resources for young people are involved in nefarious scheming, the probity of the entire state is called into question.

What brings this to mind is a recent story in the local newspaper about the state Democratic Party complaining that the South Dakota government was not following the law in appointing regents. The law states that of the nine members, no more than six can be members of the same political party. The complaint is that the student regent, who has voting rights on the board, makes seven Republicans on the board. The regents' attorney says the rule doesn't apply to the student regent. But that is beside the point. The point is that regents are appointed on a political basis, and that subjects the universities to political control and agendas.

At one time, the political makeup of the board was incidental to other qualifications, as it was assumed that the board should be made up primarily of people who had some knowledge of and experience in education. This changed when Bill Janklow became governor. He disparaged the Regents' staff by calling them idiots. However, the Board of Regents seemed to be in turmoil when he took office. When Carl Opgaard became president of Dakota State shortly before Janklow became governor, he noted that "The Board of Regents treated all presidents very shabbily.” He characterized Janklow as " the sort of governor who wanted to have his hand in everything, including higher education, despite the legal authority granted the Board of Regents.”

Janklow appointed business people and political cronies to the Regents during his governship, a practice that has continued with his successors. One of his early appointments was a law school buddy, William Srtska, who became chair of the BOR, and later a circuit judge. Some manipulations became evident when the Janklow-allied BOR did not inform one member, a former teacher, of meetings. She resigned. Janklow appointed a successor more to his purpose. However, there has usually been at least one regent on the board identified with education, but they have never held leadership positions on the board. In fact, they have rarely been heard from. Srtska ruled over the Board with an a sledge hammer for a gavel, carrying out the wishes of Janklow, who made it easy by stacking the BOR with his surrogates.

Janklow did not get along well with university personnel. Opgaard writes, "Janklow, who took office in 1979, also kept a hand in higher education, and met with considerable opposition from university leaders. At one point, he issued what was termed a "gag order" prohibiting university officials from speaking to the press without permission." When Janklow came into office, each president made the case for the funding of their institutions directly with the legislature. Over time, Janklow placed that task with the Regents, so the presidents made their cases for funding with the BOR, who represented higher education to the legislature. This arrangement made it more efficient for higher education to operate as a system, but it displaced the presidents and their staffs as the academic decision-makers for their campuses and put that authority in the hands of the regents.

Opgaard recalled that as President of DSU, "The most stressful and unrewarding part of the job was working with the South Dakota Board of Regents and the Commissioner of Higher Education." He said:

"The Board meddled in internal administrative matters and loved to show their power. They had to control. We were unable to change them--I can recall Dick Schleuesner, President of the School of Mines, asserting that we must not blame ourselves because "You can't teach a horse to fly." We kept the colleges going despite them."

And that has been a truth about the South Dakota Higher Education System since that time. The colleges delivered education to the students through the work of professors despite the intrusions of the Board of Regents. Over time, the faculty distanced itself from the Board to the point that professors had little idea or interest in what the Board was doing. And that explains how the EB-5 scandal developed.

Professors kept a low profile and a distant relationship to the regents for fear that they might attract their intervention and meddling if they were noticed. The real business of education was carried on as a subversive activity as far as the faculty was concerned. When the South Dakota BOR conceived the South Dakota International Business Institute which Joop Bollen was hired to run, the Regents placed the Institute on the NSU campus, which surprised the faculty because no one knew about anyone from the campus proposing the idea. Local faculty questioned how the program came about and members of business departments on other campuses raised issues. One issue was that the curriculum for a degree in international business did not even require a foreign language. But as the program developed, it was clear that the SDIBI had little to do with the academic mission. The faculty chose to ignore it as kind of a sacrificial lamb. If the Regents occupied themselves with the SDIBI, they might leave the academic program to those qualified to run it.

As was made clear during the litigation arising from the EB-5 scandal, Joop Bollen and the SDIBI were not accountable to the university administration. It had been made clear to the business department chair that Bollen was responsible to the Governor's Office of Economic Development and the department's role was to cooperate, not exercise any academic authority over the program. The Governor's Office, of course, claimed that it assumed Bollen was under Board of Regents supervision. A whole series of University presidents obediently supported Bollen's operation without question ( John Hutchinson: 1993-97; John Hilpert (interim 1997-98): 1998-03; Don Cozzetto (interim): 2003-04; Patrick Schloss: 2004-08; Laurie Stenberg Nichols (interim): 2008-09). Then, in 2009 when President James Smith received notice that NSU needed to cut its budget, he reviewed the role of the SDIBI and could not reconcile the Institute with the academic mission of the University. So, he eliminated the SDIBI from the Northern program and evicted it from the campus. It took up residency in the offices of the Aberdeen Development Corporation and incorporated under the name South Dakota Regional Center.

The amorphous mess that is the founding of the SDIBI is stated in depositions generated through the litigation:

DEPOSITION: John Meyer, Northern State University attorney

DEPOSITION James Shekleton, Board of Regents General Counsel

DEPOSITION: Joop Bollen, EB5 program director

Harvey Jewett ending 20 years as Regent

From the testimony, it is clear that the Regents created the SDIBI and imposed it on the campus. Just where it originated is implied strongly in the testimony surrounding the EB-5 scandal. There is one constant connection that has hovered in the background since Janklow became governor. That connection is with the Aberdeen law firm Siegal Barnett and Schutz. A principal in the firm, Joseph H. Barnett, was a Republican power figure in the state legislature, serving as majority leader and speaker of the house during his 19 years as a member. Barnett, for whom Northern's physical education center is named, led the effort to provide the new facility for Northern. He died in office two years before it was completed in 1987. In June 1988, Janklow appointed the spouse of a law firm member, Cathy Hall, to the Board of Regents. She was reappointed in March 1993 for a term that was to expire in 1999. However, she resigned in 1997, and Janklow appointed law firm member Harvey Jewett to succeed her. Jewett retired from the Board this year.

The building of a physical education center was important for the development of Northern as a four-year institution. Its sister institutions, in competition for funding and status, often recommended that it be made a junior college. Janklow closed a state campus in Springfield and turned it into a prison, and he had plans for Dakota State which he turned into a computer-centered school. The rivalries of state institutions of higher education in South Dakota have been detrimental to its higher education system as some faculty and administrators engaged in petty treacheries which invited meddling by the regents and governor. Northern shared the civic center arena with the high school for its b basketball games, and scheduling was difficult. The building of the Barnett Center was a boost for Northern, not only in terms of providing an essential physical education and sports center, but in providing a community and regional facility that is extensively used by people in the area. It consistently ranks high nationally for the number of people who attend its athletic events.

Reservations about the building came under discussion during some faculty development sessions with visiting academic leaders, however. Some of the more astute Northern faculty and the visiting experts discussed a problem that the naming of the Barnett Center indicates. The building was not named for professors and coaches who built the programs of the school, but for a politician whose support, although needed and appreciated, did not necessarily contribute to strengthening the academic stature of the college. As the professors noted, universities are often the places where political figures like to build monuments to their power. When Joe Barnett arranged for the building of the physical education center, he and the college administration understood that a tacit quid pro quo was involved. Not only would his name be memorialized in the building, but he and his surrogates would would have an executive voice in the running of the university. So, a member of Siegal, Barnett, and Schutz has sat on the Board of Regents and overseeing the affairs of Northern State University from the mid-1980s until this June, when Harvey Jewett retired.

NSU held a retirement reception for Jewett at the Johnson Fine Arts Center, when it was revealed that the main theater in the Center will be renamed the Harvey and Cynthia Jewett Theater. With the help of some multi-million dollar bequeathals to Northern, it is making significant additions to its physical campus under the regental guardianship of Jewett. Construction on a new science building will begin in the spring. Jewett received credit for pushing this addition through the Regents and the legislature in the face of resistance by some in the higher education community. In addition to many improvements made to campus facilities, Northern opened a new dorm this fall with more scheduled for construction.

The Sioux Empire Podcast crew (Robert Mehling and Natasha Estes) welcomes Sioux Falls City Council Member Greg Neitzert without making him do a run-off election to be this week’s guest. We talk about 50 Percent Threshold in city elections, right turn on red, no mow policies, and more. This episode is sponsored by The DakotaBall Podcast, ‘Life, Love & basketball in a small town’ is an explorative journey into small town living and midwestern dreams of big-time high school basketball. Much more than just sports this podcast explores life in small and tiny towns. This episode is also sponsored by Superstitions – A Psychological Spectacle. From the mind games of Zac Tenneboe (@zstonish) comes his new show, “Superstitions.” It’s more than just a magic show, but a stunning one-man performance weaving mystery and theater. No rabbits. No top hats. No smoke and mirrors. Witness a different way to experience illusion. The first 50 people to use promo code “siouxempire” will receive $1 off each ticket purchased online. Don’t miss out on this discount deal before it’s too late! The Sioux Empire Podcast always yields to pedestrians.

50 Percent Threshold/Elections next year

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/city/2017/09/12/council-candidates-critical-proposal-raise-election-bar/658789001/

Right turn on red downtown

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/city/2017/09/13/cyclists-slam-mayor-huethers-right-turns-red-changes-downtown/662667001/

No Mow Policies

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2017/09/11/after-city-denied-its-existence-parks-no-mow-list-leaked-councilor/655444001/

Bishop Dudley Hospitality House (Greg Shameless Plug)

https://www.bdhh.org/

The Compass Center (Greg Shameless Plug)

http://www.abusecounselingsiouxfalls.com/

A Good American (Film from Robert’s Shameless Plug)

http://agoodamerican.org/

Halloween Store (Natasha Shameless Plug)

https://stores.spirithalloween.com/sd/siouxfalls/halloween-store-65060.html

The post Sioux Empire Podcast 082- Sioux Falls City Council Member Greg Neitzert appeared first on TheSiouxEmpire.com.

Mercer suffering lapses in judgement

larry kurtz — Sun, 17 Sep 2017 14:41:35 +0000

South Dakota has only one full-time reporter covering state government.

For some reason Bob Mercer felt compelled to tell readers in an op/ed that he's an objective journalist but in a bizarre reference completely contradicts himself.

I purposely don’t register to vote, because I don’t want to be tempted to vote, at least not while I’m still a newspaper reporter. The affair Bill Clinton later had, as president, in the White House, sealed that question. I never trusted [Hillary Clinton] again. [Bob Mercer]

Mercer is a member of the Church of the Holy Roman Kiddie Diddlers.

The history of the Roman Church in the New World is fraught with crimes committed by clergy from Columbus in 1492 to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2017.

The standards of Jesus Christ, to treat others with respect and dignity and to care for one another as Christ has loved us. I'm not exactly sure what you want me to say, other than we expect appropriate behavior by all priests, all employees of the church, all lay people who act in the name of the church. [Sioux Falls cleric, Paul Swain, How The Diocese Handled Sexual Harassment Allegations]

Jesus of Nazareth cavorted with prostitutes and had multiple dalliances with other men.

In a step toward accountability long demanded by survivors of sexual abuse at the of hands Roman Catholic clergy, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe on Tuesday released a list of 74 priests, deacons and brothers who it says have been credibly accused of sexual misconduct over the last several decades. [Santa Fe New Mexican]

The sale of Blue Cloud Abbey near Watertown sought to pay for years of sex abuse at the hands of catholic clergy covered up by South Dakota's legislature while taking millions in federal dollars violating the Indian Child Welfare Act and the Bad Man Clause.

A Google search found exactly zero articles where Bob Mercer covered clergy crimes or the Church's lobbying power in Pierre and the legislature. He can't come right out and say the town is awash in corruption because he's been told he and his family are in danger if he does. If he implicates a player he knows he will lose his access.

Mercer is in his late fifties and suffering from multiple health issues that have not only curtailed his coverage of the news but have apparently clouded his judgement.

Maybe it's time he leaves the news business, admits he's part of the vast wrong-wing conspiracy, go pray the Rosary and simply forget the truth about his church.

Urban bighorn sheep climbing to nuisance peak in Deadwood

larry kurtz — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 17:32:56 +0000

After the 2002 Grizzly Gulch Fire opened nearly 13,000 acres of overgrown and beetle-killed ponderosa pine invasive weeds and cheatgrass moved in because cars and hunters have killed off most of the native elk, white-tailed and mule deer.

GF&P released 26 head of bighorns trapped and transferred from the Hinton, Alberta, Canada area, somewhere east of Jasper National Park, then hauled them down for release at a high-country place near Deadwood left open by the burn in 2002. Sheep like open country more than dense forest. The project was helped along by the $82,000 raised last year by the auction of one of three bighorn hunting tags authorized by the state Game, Fish & Parks Commission. To say nothing of mountain lions, which of course they would have known up in Canada. They’ll know them here, too. And depending on who you talk to, lions could be a major or relatively minor threat to the well being and growth of the new herd. [Kevin Woster, KELO]

Now, a herd of disease-prone bighorn sheep have descended on Deadwood causing traffic snarls and wreaking havoc on gardens and lawns.

The below video has been lifted from Bob Reiling.

Yes, South Dakota Game, Fish and Plunder have forced wildlife management on someone else again after losing control of another self-created crisis.

The stills below have been lifted from Sandy Smith Bittner.

During the Sturgis Rally riders loop through Aladdin to Hulett and Devils Tower then back through Sundance. Highways are often crowded to capacity and drunken bikers can be seen weaving over every roadway in the Black Hills. Deer and now bighorn sheep regularly injure and kill motorcyclists.

Tribes want name changes in Yellowstone

larry kurtz — Thu, 14 Sep 2017 14:22:30 +0000

After successes by tribal nations renaming geographical features in Alaska and South Dakota Yellowstone National Park could see at least two name changes.

Hayden Valley memorializes Ferdinand V. Hayden who advocated for “extermination” of tribal people and Mount Doane is named for Lieutenant Gustavus Doane who led a massacre of the Piikani, part of the Blackfoot Confederacy.

According to US Geological Survey officials the Board on Geographic Names has received no official proposal to change the names to Buffalo Nations Valley and First People's Mountain.

Senator Lisa Murkowski and the US Park Service are doing what Alaskans are asking of Congress urging the body to approve a name change for North America's highest peak to Denali, an Athabascan name meaning “the high one.”

This blogger has been arguing for Lakota names on South Dakota's geological features for at least twenty years. It is the opinion of this blog now that the mountain is named for Black Elk, named for a holy man who rejected the Roman Church, it should be in the Lakota language: loosely translated as Paha Heȟáka Sápa.

Tribal nations and pueblos in New Mexico are also mulling changes to events and geographical places that glorify Spanish colonizers.

It's time for the State of South Dakota to abandon Bear Butte State Park that it claimed through colonization and remand it to the tribes for governance so they can restore its name to Mato Paha and for the US Park Service to add the name Mahto Tipila to Devils Tower National Monument.