Attorney General Jason Ravnsborg attended a Lincoln Day Dinner in Redfield, South Dakota, on September
12, 2020.
He attended this political function in his personal capacity as a candidate and not as a duty of
his office. He consumed no alcohol that day. While he drove back to Pierre that evening, he spent
approximately 69% of his time on his cell phone. His phone was locked prior to entering the town of
Highmore, and he did not use his phone again until he called 911 after the accident on the west side of
Highmore. A forensic study of his two cell phones confirmed that Attorney General Ravnsborg was not on
a cell phone at the time or approximately 90 seconds preceding the accident. In response to questions
regarding whether Attorney General Ravnsborg was obviously distracted, prosecutor Michael Moore said,
“I guess I don’t agree with the fact that he was obviously distracted. People drive outside a lane for a
variety of different reasons and it doesn’t mean they’re distracted.”
Approximately a mile west of Highmore, South Dakota, Attorney General Ravnsborg stated he began to
accelerate in speed and looked down to set the cruise control. It appears that his vehicle may have left
his lane of travel and drifted to the right onto the shoulder where he struck and killed Joe Boever. The
South Dakota Highway Patrol concluded that all four tires of the vehicle were on the shoulder of the road,
to the right of the fog line, and the point of impact was a foot from the ditch. This conclusion was disputed
by Attorney General Ravnsborg’s statements and appeared to have been called into doubt by Mr. Boever’s
bone scrape located to the north of the fog line, but close to the lane of traffic. No sufficient explanation
has been provided to the Select Committee explaining how Mr. Boever’s bone fragments were left so
close to the lane of travel, but the Highway Patrol concluded Mr. Boever was struck nearly on the grass
line. No evidence indicated Mr. Boever’s body traveled under the vehicle, and no evidence supported
that his body was vaulted over the top of the vehicle. Rather, all evidence suggests Mr. Boever’s face
went through the windshield; and the body slid off the right side of the car, taking the passenger side-
view mirror nearly off the vehicle. Some testimony regarding the vehicle’s paint chips and other
fragments of the vehicle stated the vehicle was fully within the shoulder at the point of impact. However,
the prosecutors involved believed the evidence was disputed as to how far into the shoulder the vehicle
was at the time of impact. Tire marks previously associated with this accident by the media were
determined not to be associated with this accident by law enforcement.
After the impact, Attorney General Ravnsborg pulled his car over and called 911. (Exhibit A, No. 58, p. 35
of SD Highway Patrol Report.) Hyde County Sheriff Michael Volek responded to the call, and both Sheriff
Volek and Attorney General Ravnsborg looked in the surrounding ditches to see what had been hit. Both
indicated they did not see Mr. Boever’s body, which was in the grass a short distance from the road.
Sheriff Volek allowed Attorney General Ravnsborg to take his personal vehicle home to Pierre, and called
a tow truck to transport Attorney General Ravnsborg’s vehicle to Highmore.
The next morning, September 13, 2020, Attorney General Ravnsborg and his Chief of Staff, Tim Bormann,
returned to the accident scene before returning Sheriff Volek’s vehicle. Each began to search the area,
and Attorney General Ravnsborg found Mr. Boever’s dead body. He alerted Chief of Staff Tim Bormann
to come over to the location of the body. They then drove to Sheriff Volek’s house and reported the body.
Sheriff Volek thereafter reported the body to the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
DCI reports directly to the South Dakota Attorney General. The South Dakota Highway Patrol requested
the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) assist with the investigation due to the conflict of
having DCI involved. The South Dakota Highway Patrol reconstructed the crash, while the North Dakota
BCI collected the evidence and primarily interviewed the witnesses.
North Dakota BCI Special Agent Joe Arenz and North Dakota BCI Supervisory Special Agent Arnie Rummel
interviewed Attorney General Ravnsborg on September 14, 2020 and September 30, 2020.1 (Exhibit A,
No. 44). During the first interview, Attorney General Ravnsborg stated, “I never saw anything until the
impact.” Some have alleged that this statement suggests that Attorney General Ravnsborg saw he hit a
person at the time of impact. During the second interview, Attorney General Ravnsborg stated, “You
know I’m walking and looking to try and see that sign to make sure that’s the, and then I turn around and
I’m looking into the ditch so I don’t know exactly where I turn around and saw him. I-I didn’t see him. I
did not see him.” Some have alleged that this statement suggests Attorney General Ravnsborg saw the
body in the ditch as he walked to view the Highmore sign. Attorney General Ravnsborg also may have
simply misspoke, as he corrected his statement later in the interviews.
On September 15, 2020, Attorney General Ravnsborg spoke to DCI Special Agent Brent Gromer in Pierre
at the DCI Headquarters. (Exhibit A, No. 29). Attorney General Ravnsborg asked Special Agent Gromer
about digital forensics and what information the North Dakota BCI may be able to obtain from his cell
phones. These questions made Special Agent Gromer uncomfortable and caused him to type a statement
about the interaction.
Attorney General Ravnsborg issued a public statement regarding the accident on his official Attorney
General letterhead. (Exhibit A, No. 68).
At Attorney General Ravnsborg’s second interview on September 30, 2020, he was questioned regarding
his phone use the evening of the accident. (Exhibit A, No. 44).
1 There is a transcription error on Exhibit A, No. 44, which lists the date of the second interview as October 30, 2020.
Attorney General Ravnsborg was charged with three class two misdemeanors, pleading no contest to two
of them as discussed below. Prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to charge any more
serious offenses. The Select Committee considered all other possible charges. Attorney General
Ravnsborg was not charged with any crime related to obstructing or lying to law enforcement.
Chief of Staff Tim Bormann testified that there has been no disruption in the Attorney General’s Office
due to the accident. No evidence indicated Attorney General Ravnsborg abused his power of office.
Come April 12th - the Electors (the voters) will be voting to amend the City Charter on two topics. Amendment A regarding the salaries of the Mayor and City Council, and Amendment B which will allow for the City Council to basically fire the City Attorney on its own terms. While Amendment A is getting all of the media coverage, it is Amendment B which is getting overlooked, and going without notice. To better explain what it is what the council is hoping to accomplish, let's take a look at what the charter does and does not do first.
"There shall be a legal officer of the city appointed by the mayor effective with the advice and consent of a majority of the eight members of the council. Notwithstanding Charter Section 2.05(b), the legal officer may be removed by the mayor during the mayor's four-year term of office only with the consent of a majority of the eight members of the council. The consent of a majority of the council is not required for the expiration of the legal officer's term of office that occurs upon the mayor's expiration of term of office. The legal officer shall serve as chief legal advisor to the city council, the mayor and all city departments, offices and agencies, shall perform any other duties prescribed by state law, by this charter or by ordinance, and shall handle or monitor the representation of the city in legal proceedings."
Basically, the charter here is telling you who the City Attorney works for, what his responsibilities are, and what his job function shall be, and what it shall not be. It also states clearly that the 'term' of the City Attorney expires at the end of the Mayor's four year term of office, so the mayor controls whether or not the City Attorney can come back for a second term or not, considering whether or not the mayor is re-elected as well.
To better understand the role the City Council has in managing the role of the City Attorney, one now must look to Section 2.05 to better get clearity of how the process of appointing or replacing the City Attorney as it relates to the powers of the city itself.
A. Holding other office. No council member shall hold any other elected public office during the term for which the member was elected to the council. No council member shall hold any other city office or city employment during the terms for which the member was elected or appointed to the council. No former council member shall hold any compensated appointive office or employment with the city until two (2) years after the expiration of the term for which the member was elected or appointed to the council. Nothing in this section shall be construed to prohibit the council or mayor from selecting any current or former council member to represent the city on the governing board of any regional, national, or other intergovernmental agency.
B. Appointments and removal. Neither the city council nor any of its members shall in any manner control or demand the appointment or removal of any city administrative officer or employee whom the mayor or any subordinate of the mayor is empowered to appoint, but the council may express its views and fully and freely discuss with the mayor anything pertaining to appointment or removal of such officers and employees.
C. Interference with administration. Except for the purpose of inquiries and investigations under section 2.09, the council or its members shall deal with city officers and employees who are subject to the direction and supervision of the mayor solely through the mayor and neither the council nor its members shall give orders to any such officer or employee, either publicly or privately. Pursuant to Section 2.09 - The city council may make investigations into the affairs of the city and the conduct of any city department, office, or agency and for this purpose may subpoena witnesses, administer oaths, take testimony, and require the production of evidence. Failure or refusal to obey a lawful order issued in the exercise of these powers by the council shall be a violation and punishable as provided in state law.
Basically put - Section 2.05 sets in place prohibitions placed on the City Council of what it can and cannot do. Here it is saying, it cannot directly remove the City Attorney, at least not by demand. If it wishes to hold the City Attorney accountable for his opinions, public statements, to the residents, the overall interest of the city itself - it has to include the Mayor within that process. The Council cannot personally, nor publicly interfere with the duties of the mayor, who was elected at-large by the very people who elected the counselor(s), it cannot go around the mayor to speak to city staff, employees, or department manages to go behind the mayor's back in order to convince the mayor to remove his choice of the City Attorney. The 'charter' point blank gives the full power of appointing the city attorney to the mayor himself (herself). IF, and only if the City Council utilizes section 2.09 in order to conduct an official investigation, of which it must hold public hearings, calling forth subpoenas, bringing evidence, facts, and testimony into that hearing, can the City Council itself force the the City Attorney to resign, or step down without the mayor's opinion, can they remove the city attorney (or other department head) from his office.
The City Attorney is appointed by the people's choice of Mayor, the council has the ability to provide advice and consent, object to that choice up front, but once they agree to place the City Attorney in his current chair, they cannot physically remove him without first including the mayor, thus jointly discussing the city attorney together. They cannot demand, nor force his removal from public office, at least without bringing forth such investigation/trial to be held publicly, at least not during the Mayor's 4 year term itself.
If the mayor is up for re-election, and gets re-elected, a new term begins, and at this point, the council could request to discuss with the mayor the possibility of changing City Attorney's, but then again, it still has to be the mayor's choice to do so, they cannot force the mayor to make such decision, except by means of a legal investigation, based in South Dakota Law, this Charter, etc.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
So what does Amendment B actually do - well for that, let's take a look at what it says shall we:
AMENDMENT B- Shall Sections 2.05(b) and Section 4.03 be amended to read: Section 2.05(b) [Prohibitions] Appointments and Removal. Except as authorized by Charter Section 4.03, neither the city council nor any of its members shall in any manner control or demand the appointment or removal of any city administrative officer or employee whom the mayor or any subordinate of the mayor is empowered to appoint, but the council may express its views and fully and freely discuss with the mayor anything pertaining to appointment or removal of such officers and employees. Section 4.03 [Legal Officer] There shall be a legal officer of the city appointed by the mayor effective with the advice and consent of five (5) or more members of the council. Notwithstanding Charter Section 2.05(b), the legal officer may be removed by an affirmative vote of six (6) or more members of the council or by the mayor with the consent of five (5) or more members of the council. The consent of a majority of the council is not required for the expiration of the legal officer's term of office that occurs upon the mayor's expiration of term of office. The legal officer shall serve as chief legal advisor to the city council, the mayor, and all city departments, offices, and agencies; shall perform any other duties prescribed by state law, by this charter, or by ordinance; and shall handle or monitor the representation of the city in legal proceedings. The role of the legal officer is to provide counsel in the best interest of the city, not the interest of one inquiring source.
What the change is in fact attempting to do is impose the will of the City Council to remove the "City Attorney" without the mayor's opinion or approval. While part of the change does include the mayor, I feel it was a compromise in order to include the mayor in that decision, because now if the Mayor wants to freely remove the City Attorney, which by our own 'charter' he legally can, now the 'change' restricts the mayor to doing so. This is a power play by the City Council in order to strip the mayor of his constitutional and chartered authority.
As for the overall responsibility of the City Attorney himself - his main role is to work with the Mayor, as an elected city official to run, operate, manage the City in the best overall interest of the residents, based on the needs, wishes, and wants of the people. By electing a mayor, the people are wishing for, and supporting the current mayor's direction, promise, and agenda to manage the city government in a stated or governed right to do so, so long as all acts and agenda are within the rules put forth by the state constitution, the city charter, and all statutory rules and ordinances set forth by laws adopted within this state and city.
Are the changes necessary? No. Does the City Attorney represent the views of all members of the council? No - not directly. His main job is to provide the mayor, city staff, and the city council opinions, proclamations, and viewpoints on legislative documents, as they come before the mayor and city council. The city council has the right to request an opinion of the city attorney anytime they wish to, by current charter, the City Attorney while working for the mayor, must also represent the best interest of the people, and that alone binds him to the city council.
I do not support Amendment B - it is a power play by the City Council to over-step the mayor, giving the city council, of which the "mayor" is actually a member of a more direct authority in all legal matters of city government. While I support the councils in holding the mayor accountable, I also feel the manner of which the current charter is written in relation to appointment and removal of the City Attorney is worded in such manner, it allows for the city council to create that dialogue with the mayor in order to discuss the city attorney and his role, his duties, and the effects of his decisions.
On one hand, the charter says the city council "shall not" demand nor ask for the removal of the city attorney, but on the flip side, the "amendment" is allowing the city council to go around the mayor to remove the city attorney for any stated reason or belief. To me, the amendment poses a huge conflict with the city charter itself, and that may be cause enough to allow someone to bring forth a legal challenge to a public court.
IF we are wishing for diplomacy in the matter of appointing or removing the city attorney, the amendment at best is removing any hope of diplomacy to be had. This appears to be a huge power play by the city council itself, and with that, I urge my fellow voters to "VOTE NO" on Amendment B.
There are simply better ways to address the issue of holding the City Attorney accountable, but this style, form, and manner of which to do so, is not in my opinion, the right approach. I am all for separation of powers between the Mayor and City Council, but this is not the proper way to go about it, it will cause more divisive issues than not. My recommendation would be - to change the charter to force any mayor, elected or re-elected to go thru the process of reaffirming all Department Heads at the beginning of each 'term', in this manner, the council then has the ability to discuss publicly every four years, the ability to select a new department head, let alone the City Attorney himself.
On April 12, 2022 - you will be asked to approve or disprove of Amendment B - I simply want to help you understand what the amendment does, how it changes the city charter, and why I am choosing not to support it. End of day, you have the right to vote any which way you wish. That is your protected right. But I wanted to at least help you understand what Amendment B is hoping to do.
Current State Representative Drew Dennert announced his candidacy for a position on the Brown County Commission.
“It has been a great honor to serve District 3 and the residents of Brown County in the State Legislature and I hope to continue serving Brown County as a member of the County Commission.”
If elected he will work to support the following issues
Maintain and improve our existing County Roads and Infrastructure
Support and create efficiencies in County Government
Support low property taxes by keeping government limited
Preserve our rural way of life by supporting Agriculture and job growth
“I look forward to the opportunity to earn the support of the people of Brown County. As a Commissioner, I will work to support creating an environment where we can fund the key functions of county government while being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
During Dennert’s time in the legislature he has been a member of the Transportation and State Affairs committees as well as House Taxation where he has served as Chairman for the past two years.
Drew Dennert is a husband, father, and a sixth generation resident of Brown County. He and his wife, Ashton have a 2-year-old son and another child due this summer. Dennert is a part owner and operator on the family farm and ranch in the Columbia area.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
--Press Release Drew Dennert for Brown County Commissioner
A South Dakota AMERICA FIRST candidate for U. S. Senate 2022
Spearfish, SD: Mark Mowry has reached the qualifying number of signatures
to be included in the U.S. Senate Republican primary election, June 7. This
completes Step #1 of our ‘SD to DC’ campaign.
What’s the next step? I intend to do the same thing that I’ve been doing all
along – talk to people everywhere about the absolute imperative to stand up
and speak out at the grotesque mannerisms and abuses of politicians and regulatory powers in our federal
system. I will continue to say that we can count on no one except ‘We the People’ to finally save this
Republic from its enemies domestic and foreign, as I believe we are in ‘The Final Showdown’ for either
maintaining a Constitutional Republic or becoming a socialist regime. Finally, I believe that our battle will
only be won as we call on the name of the LORD, the Covenant-Maker and Covenant-Keeper
acknowledged in our brilliant U.S. Constitution.
What should you do? You should decide where you are in this pitched battle for our nation’s destiny, then
get involved. This is your nation, this is your legacy, these are your generations that are being affected by
the roiling waters of anarchy and rebellion.
I’m asking everyone to fight the good fight for our democracy from your own street, porch, or coffee shop.
We certainly won’t win this primary trying to use the same procedures as our shrewd, financially
advantaged competitors.
As you are inclined, ask the Holy Spirit to show you your role in this primary election; after all, God loves this
country far beyond any of us. We are simply protecting and upholding those hard-won, stubbornly-held
freedoms bestowed upon us by those who have gone before us. It is my honor and privilege to have a part
in holding the line for Faith, Family, and Freedom!
WATERTOWN, SD Tuesday April 05, 2022—Republican challenger Colin Paulsen announces bid against Senator Lee Schoenbeck in District 5 after session's failures and diminished decorum. Paulsen is a Watertown native, veteran, and currently serves on the Watertown City Council.
Paulsen released the following statement;
"Under the failed leadership in the Senate this year, South Dakota has been left without protections for parental rights. Workforce housing was made far too political, granting the ability to expand and have more representation in Pierre to larger cities, while small rural communities were offered high interest loans. Our most vulnerable populations have been left without job protection, and our elderly with healthcare staffing deficits, just as they need care the most. Farmers and ranchers are left without certainty as energy costs skyrocket, and voters are losing confidence in the integrity of free and fair elections. These are all issues that could have been solved by good policies—common sense legislation that should have been passed by the Senate this year. Instead, these policies were either blocked or died in committee due to a lack of decorum and statesmanship.
“We have seen far too much harassment in Pierre, emboldened by the lack of accountability, and special interest funding. South Dakota deserves better leadership. We need to focus on people over profits, and taxpayers over special interest dollars. It's time the good people of District 5 had a real choice for conservative representation in the Senate. It's time to remind the people that we work for you, the voters.
"As an engineer by training and trade, I'm focused on solutions. My petitions have been certified, and I'm fired up to serve the people of Senate District 5 and this State. I will work hard to earn your trust, your vote, and to be your voice in Pierre. As of today, I’m proud to provide that choice for voters, as I announce my candidacy.
"Under God, the people rule. May God bless South Dakota"
--Press Release
The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) wants to grant Emergency Use Authorization to Pfizer’s BioNTech vaccine for babies aged 6 months and children up to 5 years old, despite the lack of safety and efficacy to support its use. The only thing standing in their way are concerned parents, grandparents and citizens. Parents are watching, and it is our duty to protect the children.
Click the TAKE ACTION button to send an email to EVERY decision maker in LESS THAN 60 SECONDS!
--Susie Olsen-Corgan is an affiliate and contributing photojournalist of The Dakota Leader
In October 2011, Occupy Wall Street ‘s webpage ran a poll to find out what sort of people were involved in their movement. The published findings might be surprising in 2022, as 70% of participants and supporters were “politically independent”.
The last call to action mentioned on www.occupywallst.org is a protest against the DNC in Philadelphia on July 2016. Their primary grievance? Hillary Clinton had stolen the nomination that “rightfully belonged to Bernie Sanders”.
By January 2021, many of the same people who had been accusing Clinton of stealing the Democratic primary condemned the ones who had concerns about the results of the 2020 presidential election. The ones who claimed that “all cops are bastards” cheered for the police when they targeted “anti-maskers” or “anti-vaxxers”. Most curiously, the ones who claimed to be against the 1% asked no questions when the largest upward transfer of wealth in all of human history happened right under their noses.
John Lydon of the Sex Pistols has even commented on this phenomenon, saying, “I never thought I'd live to see the day when the right wing would become to cool ones giving the middle finger to the establishment, and the left wing become the sniveling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone.”
How did this shift happen? How did Occupy get absorbed by the mainstream left, and how did the mainstream left begin to engage in behavior that the leftists of the 2000s would have considered authoritarian and pro-war?
According to one of the Occupy movement’s funders, Michael Pella, who now runs a tour in New York City specific to the Occupy movement and working-class history, “understanding that shift requires analyzing the events that began in 1997.”
In 1997, William Kristol formed the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a neoconservative think tank which heavily influenced George W Bush’s presidency, especially his foreign policy. PNAC encouraged more defense spending to prevent nations such as Russia and China from challenging America’s global dominance. This resulted in the ostracization of citizens who did not support such forms of American Imperialism.
Questioning or opposing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in those early naughts was considered unpatriotic and cowardly–eerily similar to today’s treatment of the COVID-19 vaccine hesitant.
Pella theorizes that the mentality of “you’re with us or against us” shifted from being about terrorists to being about Trump supporters. Straw man political reasoning used to be “if you don’t want the US to invade Iraq you’re enabling Terrorism.,” now it’s, “if you don’t get the vaccine, you’re anti-science and must have voted for Trump, and since Trump is a fascist, that means you’re also a fascist.” It’s a string of illogic reminiscent of the classic Monty Python and the Holy Grail sketch about witches– witches burn because they’re made of wood, wood floats and so do ducks, so if she weighs as much as a duck, then she’s a witch.
Pella described Bush as “the worst president of (his) lifetime”. His reasons? “Bush used 9/11 to propagandize America to go along with the program relative to regime changes worldwide. Regime change wars cost American taxpayers 8 - 12 trillion dollars, killing some 9 million people who were brown and black in the Middle East and Africa. Hurricane Katrina happened, and he didn’t ride in. He just let people die there. He deregulated the financial industry. Bear Stearns collapsed, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac issued subprime, and predatory lending to first-time buyers. The market collapsed when the bubble eventually burst in 2008.
“Too Big to Fail” banking C.E.Os flew to D.C in private jets, begging for taxpayer funded bail-outs, while still receiving multi-million dollar salaries. Bush bailed his friends out, while average people lost their jobs and homes. Our country witnessed one of the largest upward transfers of wealth, and no one said or did anything about it.
Pella, who shares that he’s been “canceled” by former friends and allies, says “when Occupy Wall Street started, we were upset about an $eight-billion dollar transfer of wealth, upwards. That $eight-billion was nothing compared to the $2,000,000,000,000 that transferred upwards during the lockdowns of 2020-2021 and approximately $3,000,000,000,000 trillion lost in business closures, yet most ex-Occupiers supported the lockdowns.”
Obama had already been in office for about three years when Occupy Wall Street began, and many liberals who had been vigilant about what Bush did while in office were complacent when Obama failed to reverse the economic damage or end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama was sold as a progressive who would make life easier, while the reality for most people struggling through the Great Recession was that their day-to-day lives were not improving with him in office.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Occupy Wall Street was a reaction against the neoconservativism of the Bush administration, but threw an equal amount of criticism against Obama. Campers in Washington DC’s McPherson Park would frequently march to the white house at night to vent their rage towards Obama. On December 31st, 2011 Occupiers, gathered in New York City’s Zuccotti Park, shouted angrily about Obama approving the NDAA, which allowed for indefinite detention of American citizens. The rage manifested into tearing down the police barricades that surrounded the park and piling them into “Barricade Mountain”. Lights were later torn off the trees, and eventually that night evolved into drunken marching through the streets. Several arrests were made that night, but NDAA protests continued into 2012.
Occupy Wall Street took the streets of Chicago for a week in July 2012 to protest against NATO. They camped at both the RNC and DNC.
“We are the 99%” included everyone, regardless of ethnicity, age, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or even political affiliation. The 99% was everyone not in the ruling class, and included the majority of the people who would support Trump in 2016.
In 2011, one of Occupy’s chants was: “Left wing, right wing, cut that chatter! Corporations own the government. Your votes don’t matter!”
Only four years later, in 2016, there was almost no discussion about that kind of unity among ex-Occupiers on social media, but there was endless re-hashing about how, “Trump is bad, Republicans are bad, don’t vote Republican, Hillary is the lesser of two evils, you better vote for her”.
Ironically enough, Trump had some policies that aligned with what Occupy Wall Street had been asking for. He withdrew the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership in January 2017– a move that would have been applauded under Obama, if this “break the TPP” video from 2015 is any indication
If ex-Occupiers could criticize Obama, despite many of them having voted for him, why couldn’t they approach Trump’s presidency with the same level of independent thought?
Trump was sold to the Occupy movement as the ultimate symbol of everything that is evil. Somehow the focus shifted from the 1 percent to middle class America. The mainstream media reacted to Trump’s presidency with a relentless monomania. Social media amplified the hysterical yellow journalism ad-nauseum, until it felt as if the entire population was constantly distracted by someone screaming in their ears and banging pots and pans around the clock. This bombardment resulted, not only in less questioning and investigation from ex-Occupiers, but it also had an almost amnestic effect on a massive scale.
The fear of Trump turned into a fear of anyone associated with him. It spread even to people who considered themselves moderate or neutral. Gone was the solidarity between Libertarians and Marxists that had existed in 2011 and 2012–the fear of Trump flattened and simplified the left’s worldview into trying to eliminate Trump support in all forms. If that meant excluding people socially, cutting off family members, old friends, and getting people fired from their jobs, so be it. Trump was portrayed as so evil that “canceling” people associated with him was seen as a necessity. Cancel culture became so pervasive after 2016 that in 2019, one of Pella’s friends killed himself over the isolation that resulted from it: “he felt lost without his people, and he was losing all of them. He got ‘canceled’ by the very people he’d been defending. There was a big mindfuck happening for years to divide everyone after Occupy because they were realizing the 1% was their enemy.”
The “America First” veneer of PNAC’s emphasis on the flag and the cross has been replaced by a woke, intersectional rebranding that focuses on tearing down statues, canceling people, and turning anarchists against normal working-class white people instead of the 1%.
In 2011, the conversation about police brutality was tied in with the larger class struggle and took place among small working groups in the park or unplanned marches in the street. By summer 2020, BLM was represented by the major corporations that had profited immensely from the same lockdowns that thrust countless black families into poverty when those corporations displayed flashy signs in a mostly abandoned Times Square.
The war hawk mentality has also moved from right to left, and the weaponization of social justice fervor plays out in scenarios like Robert Grodt dying in Syria. Grodt was a medic at Occupy Wall Street who helped the women who were kettled and pepper sprayed early in the movement. One of the women he met that day struck up a relationship with him, and they had a child together in 2012. Over the following years, Grodt became more radical with his views, and Pella believes that when Grodt died in 2017, “he did it thinking he was defending an intersectional Kurdish lesbian commune from Assad and Isis, when really he died for Dick Cheney. People are shipping themselves off to Ukraine for the same reasons now. It’s the weaponization of the left.”
When asked what can be done to reverse the radicalization and polarization of the ex-Occupiers and move forward, Pella’s suggested plan of action is simple in theory, difficult in reality: “The Left needs to stop calling everyone ‘conspiracy theorists’ and listen to them. I go on these alternative social media platforms like “Minds” that are filled with so-called ‘right-wingers’, and they’re critiquing the very same corporations we were fighting against 10 years ago. Qanon and Trumpers call them the ‘Globalists’, but these are the same one percenters we were fighting. The Deep state is the CIA, military-industrial complex, and Wall Street. It’s not a conspiracy theory. The left needs to get over themselves and stop listening to this mainstream media BS. We were opposed to both Fox News AND MSNBC! All the mainstream media blurred our message and minimized us so that people on the right wouldn’t listen and people on the left didn’t understand us at all. Then the Democrats thought we were on their side because we were protesting Republicans– when really we protested both parties! Ignore Occupy Democrats– they have nothing to do with Occupy Wall Street. And as for the right, they need to study Occupy and learn from it– talk to people who can tell them the truth about our movement instead of relying on Qanon. There were many Communists and Anarchists involved, but there were also Libertarians!”
Both social media and mainstream media have evolved rapidly in the last decade, and the resulting twin echo chambers resulted in more wealth, power, and control for the people at the top, along with fractured friendships and family bonds. The skeptical, independent spirit that initially launched the Occupy movement over a decade ago is well worth revisiting, even if it means working to look past the current form of the mainstream left it morphed into.
Please help support Ms Anna Cole, donate today and buy her a cup of coffee. --Anna Cole- Arts and Entertainment Columnist for The Dakota Leader
Anyone who has been reading the Brookings Register over the past two years knows that Bonny Specker, candidate for the Brookings City Council, has shown strong support for mask mandates for Brookings businesses and for our K-12 school children, teachers, and support staff.
In one of her most recent letters to the editor, Register, January 12, 2022, “What is the Brookings School District thinking?’, Specker slammed Brookings School Board members and Superintendent Willert for not imposing the CDC mandate for “universal indoor masking by all students and staff, regardless of vaccination status. Universal masking would make masking for cases and close contacts, part of the new guidelines for isolation and quarantine, easier to enforce.”
Specker went on to state, “I’m disappointed by the lack of leadership by school officials and some of the school board members.”
Our Brookings School Board wisely chose to stay with their Phase Two policy (masks strongly recommended, but not required), and Brookings School District’s Covid-19case counts have been in a pronounced downtrend since Specker’s condemnation ofour “school officials and board members.”
Covid-19 case counts have also plummeted, down now to negligible levels, for both Brookings County and the state of South Dakota since Specker’s 5-alarm warning.
In her same letter, Specker also warned, "This new Omicron variant will put significant strain on our health care systems over the next couple of months." I have witnessed no significant strain, whatsoever, on the Brookings Health System during February and March, as Specker predicted, in regard to admissions with Covid as the primary diagnosis.
Nor have I witnessed any significant new strains from the Omicron variant on health care systems across South Dakota.
If you love mask mandates for schools and businesses, and/or school and business shut-downs, you will love Bonny Specker.
For everyone else, please vote for common sense candidates who respect the ideals of individual freedom and liberty for our Brookings area citizens.
To all Brookings Republicans - your vote is critical for our upcoming April 12th election for our three open City Council seats. Please get out and vote for Andrew Rasmussen (1-year term), Jeremiah Nelson (2-year term), and Leah Brink (3-year term).
Also, please vote for our two conservative School Board candidates, Jason Bowes and Rhonda May.
Did South Dakota’s Department of Health Engage in Propagandizing Vaccine Uptake, As Part of a Paid Experiment?
A recent disclosure from the NIH and HHS have many wondering, if they too, were part of a mass human experimentation for COVID-19 vaccine uptake messaging. Ten studies were conducted by various entities across the country, many without participant knowledge or consent.
According to public records, the South Dakota Rural Hospital System was awarded nearly 9 million dollars in funding for "testing and mitigation" in 2021, which specifies messages to increase vaccination rates.
The South Dakota Department of Health was awarded a $359,000 grant for messaging which emphasized- ending the pandemic, familial duty, and national pride.
Directly after, the South Dakota Department of Health launched its "Trusted Voices" campaign. Trusted voices chosen were of a Latina, Dayana D. Maita MD, Yankton Sioux Tribal Chairman Robert Flying Hawk, Rosebud Tribal President Rodney M. Bordeaux and RN Jen Stearns. Jen Stearns appears in the video with her new infant in arm, telling other mothers to get the vaccine during pregnancy. However, Stearns's video aired on June 30, 2021, prior to the CDC's published study results on August 11, 2021 for safety in pregnancy.
In August of 2021, Dr Porismita Borah of Washington State University released her messaging study results.
For this study, Borah tested four messages on equal sized groups of about 100 participants each. Participants were "crowdsourced" through Amazon, with 47.5% of the study group identifying politically as conservative. Over 66.7% of the study group were Women with an average age of 37 years old.
Jeanette Gibbons of Brookings, SD reached out to The Dakota Leader with a copy of the "messaging studies". Gibbons asked "do you think South Dakota's Department of Health was part of this study? Do you think we might have been experimented upon without our knowledge?
"Isn't this technically government propaganda on behalf of private companies?" Gibbons concluded.
PIERRE, S.D. – Today, Governor Kristi Noem announced that she is appointing Joan Adam to serve as Secretary of the Department of Health (DOH), effective immediately. Joan has been serving in this role in an interim capacity since January.
“Joan has done an excellent job serving the people of South Dakota in her many years at the Department of Health,” said Governor Kristi Noem. “The Department has continued to run smoothly during her time as Interim Secretary, and I look forward to continuing to work with her to keep our state healthy.”
Joan has served the people of South Dakota at DOH for a combined 20 years. Before taking on the role of Interim Secretary, she served as Division Director for Administration, where she oversaw the SD Public Health Laboratory, Correctional Healthcare Services, the Offices of Vital Records and Health Statistics, and Health Information Technology. Prior to that, she worked as a program administrator in health promotion and disease prevention, including as a Division Director.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
“I am honored that Governor Noem has put her trust in me to lead the Department of Health,” said Secretary Joan Adam. “It is a privilege to work alongside our state’s dedicated public health professionals. I look forward to continuing the important mission of the department which is to protect and improve the health of every South Dakotan.”
Joan and her husband Karl live in Pierre, SD, where they have raised their five children. Their family also includes a son-in-law, daughter-in-law, and one grandson. You can find a picture of Joan here.
###
Adam will step into her role immediately, while Michael Houdyshell, Noem's appointment as the Secretary of Revenue, will begin April 1. Adam has been filling in for former state department health secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon in an interim capacity since January.
EV owners lack transparency of the environmental degradation and human atrocities occurring in developing countries that are mining for battery materials
The worldwide movement towards the electrification of everything, from more electric vehicles (EV’s) to more intermittent, battery stored electricity by wind turbines and solar panels, fail to disclose to consumers that there is a darker side of green technology, associated with environmental degradation, human atrocities, and other embedded costs for the exploitation of rare earth materials.
It should concern everyone that there are toxic components which come from mining for the exotic minerals and metals required to manufacture EV batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels. This mining is predominately occurring in less-developed countries where people of color are exploited for their cheap labor, in locations without regulations or child labor laws. Global consumers might feel good about "going green", but they lack the transparency, and facts regarding human rights' abuses, environmental degradation, and the true costs associated with "green" technologies.
In an attempt to make the embedded costs of going “green” transparent to the world, the Pulitzer Prize nominated book, Clean Energy Exploitations - Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy, highlights how Asians and Africans, many of them children from the poorer and less healthy countries, are being enslaved and are dying in mines and factories to obtain the exotic minerals and metals required for green energy technologies like the construction of EV batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, and utility-scale storage batteries.
The Tesla EV e.g has a one-thousand-pound battery that contains 25 pounds of lithium, 60 pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, 400 pounds of aluminum, steel, and plastic. Inside the Tesla battery are 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells.
The environmental impact of battery production is significant. The production of lithium is either carbon dioxide polluting or wasteful of water — up to 500,000 gallons per ton of the mineral. Cobalt mining produces radioactive contaminants, including uranium. About 80 percent of the weight of a Tesla battery –requires mined materials. In practice, that means mining about 50 tons of raw ore per vehicle. If 10 million U.S.-based electric cars are sold in 2030 (about half of sales), that would translate to 500 million tons of new mining with all the accompanying emissions from mining equipment and the accompanying pollution.
All those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each auto battery, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just - one – Tesla EV battery.
There was already a huge challenge in just making enough EV batteries. As physicist Mark Mills pointed out in the Wall Street Journal: "The International Energy Agency (IEA) finds that with a global energy transition like the one President Biden envisions, demand for key minerals such as lithium, graphite, nickel and rare-earth metals would explode, rising by 4,200 percent, 2,500 percent, 1,900 percent and 700 percent, respectively, by 2040”.
Amnesty International has documented children and adults mining cobalt in narrow man-made tunnels), and the exposure to the dangerous gasses emitted during the procurement of these rare minerals, not to mention the destruction of the local ecosystems when the wastewater and other unusable ores are let loose onto the environments they have no choice but to live in because their wages are so infinitesimally small, it should cause us to take a step back and examine our moral obligations to humanity.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Not only might the planet not have the capacity to meet this demand, but many of these materials come from places that are hostile or that we do not control – such as China/Mongolia, the Congo, and Bolivia – leading to an unpredictable supply.
Most electric vehicles in use today are yet to reach the end of their cycle. The first all-electric car to be powered by lithium-ion batteries, the Tesla Roadster, made its market debut in 2008. This means the first generation of electric vehicle batteries have yet to reach the recycling stage. An estimated 11 million tons of spent lithium-ion batteries will flood our markets by 2025, without systems in place to handle them.
The actions of society are currently supportive of jumping onto the EV train, knowing that EV’s have a very dark side of environmental atrocities, and the non-existing transparency of human rights abuses occurring in other countries, both of which are directly connected to the mining for the exotic minerals and metals that are required to manufacture wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries.
America could promote sustainable mining in those developing countries to restoring the land to a healthy ecosystem after the mine closes and by leaving surrounding communities with more wealth, education, health care, and infrastructure that they had before the mine went into production. Like the mining in America, the mining in developing countries must be the objective of corporate social responsibilities and the outcome of the successful ecological restoration of landscapes.
America’s passion for EV vehicles to reduce emissions must be ethical and should not thrive off human rights and environmental abuses in the foreign countries providing the exotic minerals and metals to support America’s green passion.
This Article Was a Commissioned Piece By The Dakota Leader. Your generous donations help us to pay experts in their field to educate policy makers, as well as consumers on topics, they just won't hear elsewhere. The Dakota Leader is committed to fact based clean energy, science, and a better future for all. Help support our mission today by considering a monthly donation.
--By Ronald Stein Ambassador for Energy and Infrastructure, Irvine, California
Advertising Her Administration Ahead of An Election...
South Dakota under Republican Governor Kristi Noem, a likely candidate for her party’s presidential nomination in 2024, used the services of a Beijing public relations and marketing agency to place at least 267 propaganda stories in Chinese media outlets.
The propaganda was developed between the South Dakota Department of Tourism and East West Marketing, according to the department’s yearly report and a contract on the state website.
One of the propaganda stories in state-owned China Daily described South Dakota as “one of the best places in North America.”
Domestic media in China is owned or otherwise controlled by the ruling Chinese Communist Party. There is no free and independent press in China. Even international outlets with foreign correspondents based in the country are regularly censored by Beijing.
In addition to placing the propaganda stories, East West Marketing “participated in industry/media activities and event on behalf of South Dakota to gain publicity for the state,” according to the Department of Tourism yearly report (Pg. 27).
The agency also organized junkets for so-called Chinese journalists to visit South Dakota, according to a report by the Argus Leader.
East West Marketing is run by Alina Xiang, the agency’s president and CEO. Her official biography claims she has “a strong network of Chinese trade partners, media, influencers, airline partners and government officials.”
Xiang, originally from Beijing, lives in Irvine, California, according to her Facebook account. She is not registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act with the U.S. Department of Justice, according to a review of federal records.
Amnesty International has documented children and adults mining cobalt in narrow man-made tunnels), and the exposure to the dangerous gasses emitted during the procurement of these rare minerals, not to mention the destruction of the local ecosystems when the wastewater and other unusable ores are let loose onto the environments they have no choice but to live in because their wages are so infinitesimally small, it should cause us to take a step back and examine our moral obligations to humanity.
