Public lands management at risk to Trump's Earth haters

In 2002 Tracy Stone-Manning lectured on the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act or NREPA at the University of Montana where she earned her Masters of Science in Environmental Studies. In 2007 she became an aide to Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) then ran the state’s Department of Environmental Quality and in 2014 became chief of staff for Montana Governor Steve Bullock. As Director of the Clark Fork Coalition she guided dam removal and river cleanup and has been co-chair of Missoula's Open Space, Rivers and Farmland. 

After serving as Director of the US Bureau of Land Management she is now president of The Wilderness Society as the Trump Organization ruins the BLM and the US Forest Service faces the collapse of morale and preparedness.

The management structure itself is a tangle. Interior manages parks, refuges, and BLM lands. The Forest Service sits in Agriculture. Marine sanctuaries fall under Commerce. Energy authority is split across agencies. This fragmentation leaves land managers trying to solve twenty-first century problems with twentieth- and even nineteenth-century machinery. That kind of gridlock still plagues decisions across the West. Layer climate change on top of all this—megafires, water scarcity, shifting wildlife corridors—and the mismatch between current laws and present realities becomes even sharper. When the smoke clears, much of the architecture underpinning public-lands management will be in ruins. [Stone-Manning, What I Learned Running the BLM]

Democratic former South Dakota lawmaker Troy Heinert is currently serving as the Chief of Bison Management at Interior focusing on tribal buffalo restoration, returning the National Mammal to the land and working with tribal leadership and conservation groups who are advancing buffalo stewardship. 

In vindictive retribution and a slap at Native America Trump has nominated New Mexico Earth hater, Steve Pearce to run the BLM but his confirmation is hung up in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee because of bipartisan concern that he's a destructive industry apparatchik.

Rewild the West.

One of the last LawCo Democrats Tom Blair passes

It took the lobbying of Lt. Governor Walter Dale Miller, Democrats Bill Walsh and Tom Blair to bring legal gaming to Deadwood to finance historic preservation; but, Republican greed has turned the gulch into the prostituted cultural wasteland that it is today.

Thomas Mitchell Blair passed away peacefully on Sunday, January 25, 2026, at the Good Samaritan Home in New Underwood, South Dakota. He was 81. Born January 8, 1945, to Lyle and Dawn (Darlington) Blair, Tom grew up in Groton, South Dakota, where he learned to hunt, fish, and work alongside his father at the family service station. He graduated from high school in 1963 and enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving nearly 12 years and attaining the rank of Captain in the Army Medical Corps, with deployment during the Vietnam War. 

In 1966, Tom married the love of his life, Linda Hanson. After living in several states, they settled in Deadwood in 1978, where Tom worked as a nurse anesthetist at Deadwood Hospital. Together, they raised four children. Tom played a significant role in shaping modern Deadwood, serving on the Deadwood — You Bet Committee and also as a city councilman and Mayor of Deadwood. He was also active in numerous civic organizations. After leaving medicine, he became a successful businessman in the gaming and tourism industries and dedicated several decades to growing the community. 

He is survived by his wife, Linda; his children Roberta (Bryan) Arsaga, Christopher (Kim) Blair, Matthew (Sarah) Blair, and Chad (Christine) Blair; many grandchildren and great-grandchildren; and his sisters, Kathy Rosengren and Patsy McCullough. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorial contributions be made in Tom’s name to Northern Hills youth activity organizations. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at St. Ambrose Catholic Church in Deadwood on Friday, February 20 at 10a.m. Tom will be laid to rest at Black Hills National Cemetery following the service. A celebration of Tom’s life will be held this summer, with details to be announced at a later date.

Larry Rhoden a masher?

Editor's note: not so long ago the Aberdeen American's editorial board pointed fingers at other South Dakota media for lousy coverage of the Republican rape culture in Pierre. "Unsafe. Unacceptable. Hyper-masculine. Sexualized. Dirty." That's how the board and how women have described Earth haters in Pierre. The South Dakota Newspaper Association, teevee stations and local media have known about Pierre's culture of coercion for decades then demure to the twenty Republican donors who run the state. 

The late wife of Rapid City's former mayor and legislator Ed McLaughlin was sexually assaulted by a Republican member of the South Dakota Legislature so what prevents interns and other people concerned for their safety from wearing body cams in Pierre’s predatory environment? Sexual predators in the state's capital have been a feature of South Dakota for its entire history but to Sioux Falls-area Earth hater, Deb Peters it's no big deal. 

It would certainly explain the crowded gubernatorial primary so Shad Olson spills the beans.

A South Dakota elected leader reveals this week that interim Governor and candidate, Larry Rhoden once described his genitals to her and talked at length about nearly zipping his penis into his pants zipper after a trip to a restaurant restroom during a dinner event in Pierre in 2023.

The woman says she was shocked and repulsed by Rhoden's words, but remained fearful to speak out because of the Rhoden's long history as a political bully and his reputation for fierce, vindictive and cruel retaliation and use of the power of elected office to punish critics and opponents.

"We sat at a table with two other lawmakers and Larry told me about a 'close call' during his stop at the men's restroom, where he didn't 'get it all tucked back inside,' and nearly "zipped my weiner into my jeans," the woman recounted.

"It was clear that he wanted me to picture the implied size of his manhood and he wanted to gauge my reaction and receptiveness to that information," the woman said.

"I was not impressed." the woman said.

"I'm well aware of this governor's long history of intimidation against lawmakers and women," the woman said.

"Larry (Rhoden) has a history of abusive speech and actions against his political opponents and a reputation as a philanderer. But I can't risk my own personal safety by attaching my name to what I know," the woman said.

Earth haters want to protect South Dakota utilities from liability

Hypocrisy is a Republican trait. 

The Legion Lake Fire represents strategic failures by Black Hills Energy, the State of South Dakota, Game, Fish and Plunder and the South Dakota Republican Party. The absence of prescribed burns and the persistence of invasive cheatgrass in the state park named for a war criminal are just two more examples of piss poor planning by GFP. Instead of allowing native aspen to be restored stands of doghair ponderosa pine that grew after the Galena Fire still feed current blazes. Just as the State of South Dakota sued Black Hills Power and Light after the Grizzly Gulch Fire Black Hills Energy should have sued the shit out of South Dakota for the Legion Lake Fire for not letting crews cut ladder fuels in a right of way under a power line.

Since 2013 alone at least 41 fires in the Black Hills region have been caused by trees falling on transmission lines because my home state of South Dakota is a perpetual welfare state and a permanent disaster area. Counties should be able to fine property owners who fail to create defensible space or clear dry fuels. Well-funded local and volunteer fire departments could conduct prescribed fires and burn road ditches to create buffers where contract fire specialists don’t exist; but even government can't always protect you from your own stupidity. Roughly 4 million trees stand close enough to Black Hills Electric Cooperative lines to potentially cause damage and high wind events in the region frequently fell trees so an interim governor can beg DC for bailouts for utilities.

Millions of home insurance contracts have been dropped as companies like State Farm and lobbyists like the American Property Casualty Insurance Association acknowledge humanity's role in a burning planet. Now, as utilities scramble to avoid liability for wildfires, insurance companies are bilking homeowners and denying coverage interfering with mortgages, real estate values and property ownership. 

Earth hater State Senator Steve Kolbeck is the director of business affairs for Xcel Energy and prime sponsor of Senate Bill 36 because utilities are not your friends.

Dick Tieszen identified himself as an attorney with State Farm. He called the bill a “clever shift” in legal burdens. “It transfers the large risk to the public, to the people who are right behind by those fires. I think we should leave strict liability in place. Leave the risk of loss with the party that is best able to prevent the loss in the first place. They knew the risk when they engaged in this business,” Tieszen said. “They accepted it, but today, they come to you and they ask you to change the rules. I suggest that what will really happen here is that’s going to land squarely land in your lap, in my lap and the property owners of places in the Black Hills, whether it’s homes or businesses.” [Bill Janklow's idea of public radio]

Tables turned

I know there are ICE agents who get off on being hated as it’s the only human emotion they’ve been able to conjure amongst anyone unlucky enough to know them. But some did not anticipate the hatred, who never thought it would follow them for the rest of their sad lives like a tribal tattoo. Boo hoo.

[image or embed]

— Jesse Duquette (@jesseduquette.bsky.social) January 24, 2026 at 3:23 PM

American Prairie is the largest rewilding project in the US

Despite Montana's Earth haters and the Trump Organization's war on American Prairie its mission to rewild the West continues.

Greece has the Parthenon. North America had the American Serengeti—a wildlife spectacle so vast it rivaled anything on Earth.

In less than 100 years, it was destroyed. Tens of millions of bison, elk, pronghorn, wolves, and grizzlies were decimated. The Great Plains went from the heartland of biodiversity to fences and wall-to-wall cattle ranching.

But in central Montana, something extraordinary is happening.

American Prairie is building a 3.2-million-acre protected landscape by purchasing ranches and converting them from commodity production to wildlife restoration. They're bringing back bison, restoring natural grazing patterns, and letting ecosystems function the way they're meant to.

In Episode 217, Brooke sits down with Daniel Kinka, PhD, American Prairie's Director of Rewilding, to get the inside story on this historic project. They talk about:

American Prairie's strategy for landscape-scale restoration

The power of ecosystem processes (bison, prairie dogs, fire)

Why the area can’t sustain wolves can't yet—but grizzlies, yes

What this project means for climate, biodiversity, and hope

This is one of the most inspiring conservation stories happening right now.

Episode 217 - The Great Plains Comeback: Inside America's Largest Rewilding Project https://rewildology.com/.../the-great-plains-comeback.../

#AmericanPrairie #Rewildology #Podcast #Rewilding

Olson: Powers headed for cosmic comeuppance

South Dakota's Second Amendment for me but not for thee former teevee anchor Shad Olson foretells a fall for obese Earth hater Pat Powers.

Doxxing and assassination blogger Pat Powers this week makes a comical entreaty of admission to South Dakota lawmakers, expressing his predictable weepy and petulant opposition to proposed changes to the state's doxxing laws specifically aimed at making his constant online stalking, harassment and intimidation of conservative lawmakers a felony offense. As they should be.

Powers, the illiterate RINO tagteam partner of AFP-Odenbach spokes-amoeba Katie Powers, ...err, Hoffmann, has long used the constant tracking, physical address publication and invasion of prvacy of selected, and ONLY conservative legislators, as his favorite method of life disruption, in an age when leftist violence, harassment and even assassination of political opponents are a constantly articulated threat.

In July 2025, Pat Powers published the Aberdeen home address of Representative Brandei Schaefbauer just four days before the home invasion assassinations of Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses. In direct response, the South Dakota legislature quickly scrubbed lawmakers' physical location data from the state website.

In total, and counting today's inscrutable whiny additions to a record of online harassment that smacks of sexual obsession, Powers has published no fewer than eight articles that either directly mention, or contain links to previous articles publishing Brandei Schaefbauer's physical address and even the address of an AirBnB property in Lawrence County Schaefbauer purchased in August and housed under a newly formed LLC.

In 2023, Powers published Schaefbauer's private home address as part of his TMZ-style coverage of the sealed terms of her acrimonious divorce, despite the fact that Schaefbauer was at that time covered under a customary post-divorce protection order against her previous spouse. Because Pat Powers is an utter piece of reprobate shite. (In ways you don't know, but soon will.)

In today's rambling and painfully inarticulate screed justifying his need to constantly know the physical whereabouts of the conservative lawmakers Powers hopes to slander, discomfit, and smear out of office, if not out of life, Powers cloaks his egregiously invasive pattern of harassment and intimidation behind the need for "transparency," and "accountability," hilariously defending the necessity of his public doxxing habit as a matter of providing U.S. Postal Service contact information for constituents, because quote: "Not everyone has email." Right.

By giving out patriot lawmaker location data to the same woke mob tracking and assaulting ICE agents, Pat Powers is performing a vital public service, don't you know. Allowing the people who "don't have email," (but who apparently do surf the internet for obscure, badly written political blogs in South Dakota) to find address information and send physical letters to the handful of conservative South Dakota lawmakers Pat has incessantly targeted for doxxing. Right.

We never said logic was Pat's strong suit.

Beyond his comedic inability for sound pedagogy, it's rank hypocrisy from a pedestrian scandal rag curator who famously collects and traces IP addresses of his website visitors and specifically uses those IP fingerprints to block and censor future ability to comment on, or even view his articles.

You know. Because Pat Powers is such a stickler for transparency. And accountability.

Thankfully, he's about to get some of both.

No SD gubernatorial candidates have reached signature threshold

New Year's Day was the beginning of gathering signatures to appear on any ballot for South Dakota governor and so far none of the nine announced candidates have enough. 

Democratic candidates need 1,232 signatures of registered Democratic voters whether there is a primary or not; 

Libertarian candidates need 741 signatures of registered Libertarian voters whether there is a primary or not; 

Unaffiliated candidates need 3,502 signatures of registered voters of any type to get on the General Election ballot.

Earth haters need 2171 signatures from registered Earth haters for their 2 June primary.

Petitions must be filed with the Secretary of State by 31 March.