Free Republic

The map above is a visualization of the contiguous United States, colored by distance to the nearest McDonald’s, courtesy of Stephen Von Worley (via Felix Salmon): For maximum McSparseness, we look westward, towards the deepest, darkest holes in our map: the barren deserts of central Nevada, the arid hills of southeastern Oregon, the rugged wilderness of Idaho’s Salmon River Mountains, and the conspicuous well of blackness on the high plains of northwestern South Dakota. There, in a patch of rolling grassland, loosely hemmed in by Bismarck, Dickinson, Pierre, and the greater Rapid City-Spearfish-Sturgis metropolitan area, we find our answer....

“Boy, your winters are really dreary here,” my husband observed today as he looked out at the rain. “And it’s only September.” He is right. South Dakota has much drearier weather than a Californian is accustomed to. Here, we lack citrus trees and palms and we cannot take a day trip to the ocean side. And yet, in many ways, South Dakota is much less dreary than California. California is now bankrupt. The state is issuing IOUs to many of its creditors and employees. But according to The Wall Street Journal many banks will no longer accept them. Foreclosures are...

PIERRE, S.D. -- A 23-year-old rancher whose family has fallen behind in their taxes and recently had a mobile home repossessed has claimed a $232.1 million Powerball jackpot on Friday, one of the largest undivided jackpots in U.S. lottery history.

Secretary of State Chris Nelson plans to decide by this fall whether to make a bid for the Republican nomination for U.S. House of Representatives. He can't run for his current job again because of term limits and said publicly at the Lawrence County Lincoln Day dinner that he's looking at the congressional office. Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin said she will decide later this summer whether to run for re-election, challenge incumbent Republican Sen. John Thune or run for governor in 2010. Nelson said what Herseth Sandlin does will play into his decision but won't be the ultimate factor.

It's been said that conservatism has different meanings for different people. It may not be textbook, but without a whole lot of navel gazing, here's what it means to me and what Free Republic is all about: In a word, Freedom! In two words, Preserving Freedom. In a handful of words as stated by our Founding Fathers, to secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity! America was founded on the proposition that all men are created equal by God and that our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness are granted directly by God...

Do not believe the nattering nabobs of negativity. The Nationwide Tax Day TEA Party/Tax Revolt was a huge success!! What we need now is MORE and LOUDER!! Obama has no clue. Being confronted by millions of fed-up citizens is new to him. He never expected the otherwise docile American people to rise up against his wannabe Marxist/fascist totalitarian regime. He's now lashing out at us through the Dept of Homeland Security as if We the People are his enemy. Well, we are! And he now knows it. And he's scared witless!! And the media has been reduced to the speechless,...

Congratulations FReepers and Patriots! According to Henchster's ongoing tallies, we've surpassed 750,000 participants in our nationwide Tax Day TEA Party/Tax Revolt! Woo hoo!! All 50 states fully engaged! Over 600 cities represented and reports still coming in! Huge turnout, huge SUCCESS!! Elected officials take note: DO NOT TREAD ON ME!! Tyranny, usurpation, corruption, overreaching, big spending, high taxing will no longer be tolerated! We the people are FED-UP and we're not going to take it anymore! Ignore us at your own peril! All Congressional seats, all elected offices throughout the land at risk! Revolution is in the air!!

If the Obama administration has taken flak for suggesting that conservative groups might be home to domestic terrorists, it looks like some House Democrat leaders are willing to go even further: But in an interview on Fox TV in San Francisco, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chalked up the GOP grass-roots effort as “AstroTurf.” “This initiative is funded by the high end; we call it AstroTurf, it's not really a grass-roots movement. It's AstroTurf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class,” Pelosi said....

After the 2010 census has been held, the number of seats held by each state in the U.S. House of Representatives will change. The National Conference of State Legislatures recently estimated what the 2010 reapportionment will mean for each state. Eight states are expected to lose one seat each, in the U.S. House and in the Electoral College. They are Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. States that will gain will be Texas (3 seats), and one each for Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada and Utah. If the bill now pending in Congress to expand the...

We cheer the reddest. We corn the hardest. And, apparently, we grin the widest. Because Nebraska is the happiest state in the U.S., a new study says. The survey — conducted by personal finance Web site MainStreet.com — ranked all 50 states and the District of Columbia from fiscally happiest to saddest based on a few factors of economic well-being. These included foreclosure numbers, unemployment rates and the ratio of average debt to average annual income. “It reflects the attitude of this state,” said Gov. Dave Heineman. “We are a positive people with a can-do attitude who are focused on...

Police say a man was shot and killed Thursday morning in Brookings when he tried to break into a home. According to police, 23-year-old Bradley Joe Odens died at the Brookings hospital after being shot inside the home of a 28-year-old man shortly before 2 a.m. Police Captain Jeff Miller says Odens may have been confused as to where he was and continued to force his way into the home after being warned by the resident. Miller says Odens broke a window in a door as he was trying to get in. He says one shot was fired, hitting Odens...

The war of words continued yesterday in the battle of the budget on Capitol Hill. Sending a very interesting message to their Democrat counterparts in the House, the Senate yesterday voted to pass -- by a whopping 89-8 margin -- an amendment by Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) that would prohibit the collection of funds from any future cap and trade proposal if that proposal would increase electricity rates and gasoline prices for American households and businesses. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 released the results of their study of a proposal similar to President Obama's cap and trade framework....

Are you ready for a FReepathon!!? Well, it's a new quarter and a new president and he's everything we knew he would be. In less than 90 days he's managed to take an economic downturn and turn it into an unmitigated disaster for good old American capitalism. Never let a good crisis go to waste! The government is now printing money as fast as they can run the presses. Our federal budget is doubling and tripling and the Fed is running with no controls or oversight whatsoever from the congress, pumping trillions more into the "economy." The government now spends...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A blizzard shut down major highways Monday in Wyoming and South Dakota, and meteorologists said one mountainous area might get as much as 40 inches of snow. Mount Rushmore National Memorial closed because of the icy, blinding weather in South Dakota's rugged Black Hills. Temperature plummeted as the storm moved eastward and wind gusted to more than 60 mph. Some residents of hard-hit northeast Wyoming said they had heeded forecasts and stocked up on groceries. "We are well prepared for a day or two of blizzard conditions,"

Even if Democrats don’t agree with Barack Obama on everything, who among them would challenge a president with a 73 percent approval rating? He’ll soon find out. Sooner or later, the bonhomie of Obama’s Inauguration will dissipate — and the novelty of having a soul mate in the Oval Office will give way to intense internal debates over the extent and substance of Democratic change. Either that, or some people will just get on Obama’s nerves. The president’s friends might not become his enemies. But here are 10 Democrats — and some runners-up — who could soon find themselves on...

By now you’ve probably heard that the Senate approved an amendment a few days ago to outlaw the “Fairness Doctrine.” Republican Senator Jim DeMint’s amendment passed by a comfortable margin of 87-to-11. Although one would think it’s important to know which senators cast their votes in favor of censorship, we can’t find a single news report that calls out their names. So we’ll do it:

HB 1278 amended into anti-gun nightmare State Affairs Committee votes to allow a host of city-level gun bans South Dakota Gun Owners Email Alert Network PO Box 3845 Rapid City, SD 57709 605.415.4299 LibertyTeeth@sdgo.org www.SDGO.org March 4, 2009 Senator Gene Abdallah (R-Sioux Falls) is at it again. Many will remember that in years past, Sen. Abdallah supported every single anti-gun bill to be introduced. In 2006, SDGO took him to task for his anti-gun record, forcing him to spend 4 times more money to win re-election. As a result, Sen. Abdallah stopped introducing anti-gun legislation and actually voted pro-gun several...

Legislators in South Dakota have introduced House Concurrent Resolution 1013  (h/t R Rivers):“A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION,  Reasserting sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over certain powers and serving notice to the federal government to cease and desist certain mandates.”Although just introduced, this resolution seems to have quite a bit of legislative support - with nearly 43 Representatives and 17 Senators Signing on. Representatives Steele, Bolin, Brunner, Carson, Cronin, Curd, Cutler, Deadrick, Dreyer, Engels, Greenfield, Hamiel, Hoffman, Hunt, Jensen, Juhnke, Kirkeby, Kopp, Krebs, Lange, Lederman, McLaughlin, Moser, Noem, Novstrup (David), Olson (Betty), Olson (Ryan), Peters, Putnam,...

The South Dakota House says local governments should be barred from adopting ordinances restricting possession of firearms. The House voted 46-20 on Tuesday to pass HB1278, which prohibits townships, counties and cities from adopting general restrictions on firearms. Supporters said the goal is to make laws dealing with carrying firearms uniform across the state. They said people with concealed weapons permits should be able to go from one community to another without fear of violating a local law. The House killed a proposed amendment to let local governments restrict firearms if they posted areas as gun-free zones.

A bill to remove South Dakota’s restrictions against embryonic stem cell research was introduced yesterday in the state senate. SB 195 would strike from SDCL 34-14 the language prohibiting human embryos from being used for research.  The bill was sponsored by Senators Nesselhuf, Adelstein, Nelson, and Turbak Berry and Representatives Engels, Blake, Cutler, Dreyer, Hoffman, Hunhoff (Bernie), McLaughlin, and Street. We knew this was coming for some time now. Last summer the Argus Leader ran an article about Sanford Health in Sioux Falls under the heading “Sanford eyes stem cell study.”In that article we read A new donation from philanthropist T. Denny...

Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota said the bad economy prompted it to eliminate 9.5 positions, including the director of its two South Dakota clinics. Kate Looby confirmed she was laid off, and said she understands it was a financial decision. She has led the clinics since March 2003. Planned Parenthood spokeswoman Kathi Di Nicola said the organization felt it couldn't keep its public affairs staffing level and also maintain enough workers for health care services. She said the other positions cut were in Minnesota, and stressed that the Sioux Falls and Rapid City clinics both will...

Tony Dean, a nationally known outdoor enthusiast who promoted South Dakota with his radio and television shows, has died. The Hofmeister Isburg Funeral Chapel confirmed that he died Sunday morning. He was 67. Dean, whose real name was Anthony DeChandt, returned to his Pierre home last week after being hospitalized for complications from having his appendix removed. He was with immediate family members at his home, where he had been seated in the living room overlooking the Missouri River. "He could see the water; he could see the ducks," said his wife, Darlene DeChandt. "He knew he was sick, but...

“George McGovern laments that after his experience in the bed-and-breakfast business he realizes that laws and regulations pertaining to small business are actually hurting the lower-wage workers whom he had tried to help during his entire political career. With his Stratford Inn in bankruptcy, …”

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Two years after South Dakotans rejected a nearly total ban on abortion, voters on Nov. 4 will decide another sweeping but less restrictive ballot measure that would probably send a legal challenge of Roe v. Wade to the U.S. Supreme Court. The initiative would outlaw abortions but includes exceptions for rape, incest and pregnancies that threaten the life or health of the woman. Some voters said they wanted those exceptions when they rejected the tougher 2006 measure 56 percent to 44 percent. Opponents say the new measure would jeopardize the patient-doctor relationship because physicians could...

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - A Democratic state representative who lost a June primary election battle for a Senate seat has switched parties and will try again to defeat Democratic Sen. Theresa Two Bulls. Jim Bradford has served eight years in the House and is term-limited. He failed by 28 votes in the primary to beat Two Bulls. Both are from Pine Ridge. Bradford's political switch was announced Tuesday by the state Republican Party, which substituted him on the GOP Senate slate in the coming general election for a Republican who earlier dropped out of the District 27 race.

CNN co-anchor Don Lemon, during a brief report on Tuesday’s Newsroom program about a pro-life measure on the ballot in South Dakota that would greatly restrict abortion, gave only the pro-choice side of the debate over the proposed law. He also oversimplified Barack Obama’s stance on the abortion issue. Lemon stated how the Great Plains state "is becoming a new focal point in the abortion debate" due to the measure, which is called Initiated Measure 11. He then introduced the sole sound bite from a Planned Parenthood official: "Opponents say it would be one of the most rigid and inflexible...

A Watertown pastor suspected tonight of having sexual contact with a child. KSFY obtained these court documents which lays out the case against Dennis Hayes. In documents released by Watertown Police, we're told the suspected contact happened last Friday when Hayes took a juvenile boy he had been mentoring from the "Southwest Youth Services Center" in Magnolia, Minnesota to a library in Luverne, Minnesota. The boy claims during the drive to Luverne, Hayes held his hand and told him he loved him. While at the Luverne library, he claims Hayes rubbed his back outside his shirt. During the drive back...

Over at S.D. Watch, Todd Epp has reported a truly breath-taking story that has the potential to derail Barack Obama’s and Hillary Clinton’s big Unity push just as it’s beginning. … the Clinton campaign offered a major fundraiser to the state (SD Dem) party in exchange for two superdelegate votes … Todd promises more details, and I, for one, am waiting at the edge of my seat. Given what he’s reported so far, this seems to be an ongoing offer from Clinton rather than something that faded away after the June 3 primary. An intra-party dispute erupted Thursday during the...

The idea is to keep it as close as possible. If she keeps it close in both states she wins the popular vote nationwide. Then when the left brings up 2000 we can say 2008 and you did it to your own party voters.

Obama: Actually, I can quit you Pittsburgh Tribune-Review By Salena Zito WASHINGTON -- After the second Academy Award-winning performance by a pastor at his family's church, Trinity United in Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama quit his parish. Robert Gibbs, Obama's campaign communications director said Obama had resigned from the church "over the last few days."

What would Michelle Obama do if she were called sweetie? WWMD? TRIBUNE-REVIEW By Salena Zito A tip of the hat to Ben Smith over at Politico for reporting that Sen. Barack Obama referred to a female reporter in Detroit as "sweetie" when answering her question. Actually, when not answering her question. Kind of makes you wonder how wife Michelle would feel if she were referred to as "sweetie"?

In a campaign of unfamiliar names, South Dakota voters probably know the least about Republican U.S. Senate candidate Charles Lyonel Gonyo of Trent. That's saying something, too, since the "big names" in the Republican Senate primary are Joel Dykstra, Sam Kephart and Bert Tollefson. Gonyo has been missed entirely by most South Dakota reporters covering a primary campaign that so far has captured little public attention and inspired few news stories. But he was the first of the four GOP candidates to get the necessary 2,070 valid nominating-petition signatures confirmed by the South Dakota secretary of state. Secretary of State...

PINAL COUNTY, Ariz. — The government of this fiefdom south of Phoenix claims that when it approved Dale Bell's blueprint for his Western-theme restaurant with an outdoor stage in an enclosed courtyard, it assumed the stage would be used for mimes or poetry readings. Mimes in Arizona scrubland? Poetry at the San Tan Flat Steakhouse and Saloon? The authorities were, they insist, shocked when country music broke out, and they are scandalized because some customers, not content to tap their feet to the Western beat while they eat, get up and dance.

Bakken and Torquay Formations - A Saudi Arabia of oil under Saskatchewan, North Dakota, South Datkota, Montana and Manitoba The Bakken oil formation is possibly the largest conventional oil discovery in Canada since 1957. If this oil formation plays out toward the higher end of size and recoverability then it will change the geopolitics of oil and the economies of the United States and Canada. If a lot of the oil proves difficult to recover now, new technologies could still drastically improve the percent recoverable. The motivation to pull out another 100 billion barrels would be $9 trillion at todays...

Mitt Romney, Sergeant Bluff, Iowa Event (After Action report) This is a first hand account of a campaign event. A few weeks ago I looked online and realized South Dakota is the last state to Caucus/Vote (yes we are last) on June 3rd so I better get on down to Iowa to show my support. We get many radio and TV channels across the border from Iowa so I have been following the Presidential race from a closer perspective than some. Disclaimer, I supported Romney here on FR since before he declared. My posting history will show I supported him...

At a time when some voters are asking how the religious views of candidates will shape their policies, a professor’s discovery of how little tax the biggest landowners in her state paid to finance the government has prompted some other legal scholars to scour religious texts to explore the moral basis of tax and spending policies. The professor, Susan Pace Hamill, is an expert at tax avoidance for small businesses and teaches at the University of Alabama Law School. She also holds a degree in divinity from a conservative evangelical seminary, where her master’s thesis explored how Alabama’s tax-and-spend policies...

The Rev. David Baer is out to save the town of Whitewood’s honor from the shame of a street named Hooker. Baer, a Lutheran pastor in the small northern Hills town, asked the Whitewood city council to rename the street that honors the Civil War general, Joseph Hooker. Baer finds it offensive because of the word’s connotation with prostitution. We heard from many readers who found Baer’s sign-change campaign humorous, sad, silly and maybe even a little dirty-minded. One man, who happens to be named John W. Hooker Jr., thinks it is Baer, not his family name, that’s offensive. “I...

FORT PIERRE, S.D. (AP) State Senator Dan Sutton of Flandreau has been sued for $250,000 in damages by former legislative page Austin Wiese (WEES), who alleges Sutton groped him in a motel room in Fort Pierre. Wiese's lawsuit alleges two counts of sexual battery and one count of sexual assault. It's a civil lawsuit no criminal charges have been filed. The suit claims Sutton invited Wiese to stay with him at the motel during the 2006 session. Court documents say they shared the one bed in the room and that on three nights in a row, Sutton inappropriately touched and...

Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson of South Dakota is still recovering from a December brain hemorrhage, but his office appears to be beefing up his staff for a 2008 re-election campaign. Drey Samuelson, Johnson's chief of staff, said Wednesday that the office has hired Steve Jarding as deputy chief of staff. Jarding, who will work for the senator's congressional office in Rapid City, S.D., is a veteran political consultant who served as a top strategist for James Webb, the Virginia Democrat who upset Republican Sen. George Allen last November.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — A 25-year-old man awaited a lethal injection Wednesday for the torture and slaying of a teenager who was forced to drink hydrochloric acid during a robbery of his home. It was to be the state's first execution in 60 years. Elijah Page, 25, gave up his appeals and asked to die for the 2000 murder of Chester Allan Poage, who was also stabbed, kicked and bashed with large rocks in a torture session that lasted two to three hours. Page was scheduled to be put to death at 10 p.m.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - A blaze in southwestern South Dakota killed one person and destroyed 20 homes Sunday, and hundreds of people have evacuated homes in the paths of fires in Nevada and Washington state. Residents of about 50 homes had fled the wildfire burning near Hot Springs that also had injured two firefighters, state and federal officials said. Roughly 8 square miles had burned since the fire started Saturday. The 8,000-acre wildfire in northern Nevada was threating up to eight blocks of homes in the town of Winnemucca, about 170 miles east of Reno. "It's right up to the...

For much of the past month, the Senate has been considering a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The debate has been a contentious one, and this week the Senate decided that it would not move ahead with the bill in its current form by a bipartisan vote of 46-53. I opposed the bill because it would have provided nearly immediate legal status to between 12 and 20 million illegal immigrants. I believe that, before we deal with those illegal immigrants already here, we must first secure the borders of our country to effectively cut off the flood of illegal immigrants. Otherwise,...

WASHINGTON — Attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund have helped to secure exoneration by the Internal Revenue Service for two non-profit organizations targeted by a leftwing special interest group in Washington. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington sent a complaint to the IRS, demanding that it open an investigation to revoke the tax-exempt status of a crisis pregnancy center and an abstinence information clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, S.D. “Pro-life and pro-abstinence viewpoints should not be treated as second-class perspectives. This is just another attempt by political special interests to silence these viewpoints in the great debates of the day,”...

Deaf lesbian chainsaw murder shocks US April 09, 2007 THE trial in South Dakota of a deaf, black lesbian accused of murdering a rival and dismembering her with a chainsaw has shocked the rural midwestern US state. Daphne Wright, 43, could become the first woman sent to death row in South Dakota, which has not executed a prisoner in more than 60 years. Wright is accused of kidnapping and murdering a heterosexual deaf woman, Darlene VanderGiesen, 42, whom she thought was spending too much time with her girlfriend. Emotional testimony and gruesome exhibits filled the first week of her trial,...

WASHINGTON, April 8, 2007 – TV cooking-show icon Emeril Lagasse offered a culinary salute to the military Friday when he filmed two episodes of “Emeril Live” featuring servicemembers and their winning recipes. “Emeril’s Army-Navy Cookoff” and “Emeril’s Military Contest,” filmed at the Food Network studios in the Chelsea Market building, will air on June 29 and 30, respectively Lagasse went looking for a few good recipes last fall and found them through a military-only cooking contest. “I was so impressed with the creativity from all ranks, from every branch of the service,” Lagasse said of the hundreds of recipes...

Drops more than 1 foot of snow on Wisconsin A large, fast-moving snowstorm closed sections of major highways on the Plains on Saturday and dumped more than a foot of snow on the Upper Midwest. Seven deaths were blamed on the weather, all in traffic accidents on slippery Wisconsin roads. Interstate 70, a major cross-country route, was closed for about 200 miles in both directions from just east of Denver to Colby, Kan., because of blowing snow and slippery pavement, according to Colorado and Kansas highway officials. Between Denver and the beginning of the highway closure, about 35 cars collided...

PIERRE--An abortion ban with exceptions for rape, incest and health of the mother was rejected Wednesday morning by legislative committee in Pierre. The Senate State Affairs Committee just voted 8 to 1 to kill HB1293 without a vote of the full Senate. Supporters of the bill can still force the bill out of committee with a one-third vote of the full Senate, but even key supporters of last year’s ban spoke against the measure. Sen. Brock Greenfield, R-Clark, called abortion “a scourge on South Dakota,” and he called HB1293 a “noble effort.” But he also said the bill would not...

Pam Spaulding, a self-described lesbian activist, admitted a blog, which she administers, titled "Pam's House Blend," posted a death threat against a popular conservative activist. Spaulding, who lives in Durham, North Carolina, oversees the website which promotes the homosexual lifestyle. The blog, originally posted by Barry Wick of Rapid City, South Dakota, was on "Pam's House Blend" from mid-January until February 7, 2007. The target of the death threat was Peter LaBarbera, founder and president of Americans For Truth (AFT) [www.americansfortruth.org], a non-profit organization, headquartered in a suburb of Chicago. LaBarbera was previously employed by Accuracy In Media (AIM), Concerned...

South Dakota State Senator in Sex Scandal, Guess Which Party He's In? Posted by nkviking75 on January 25, 2007 - 00:34. In this AP story which I spotted on FoxNews.com, the wire's reporter Chet Brokaw sums up the story of South Dakota state senator Dan Sutton of Flandreau, who's mired in allegations of improper behavior with an 18-year-old male page. You can read the story for all the details if you're interested, but what I wanted to point out was the party affiliation of the Senator. Care to guess? If you said "Democrat", you're right. And where does that information...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Tim Johnson (news, bio, voting record) is taking part in three hours of physical, occupational and speech therapy every day, and his tracheotomy tube has been removed from his throat, doctors said Friday. Johnson, who suffered a brain hemorrhage over a month ago, has been working with parallel bars and participating in speech therapy, including naming objects, his office said in a statement. That includes strengthening exercises to gain mobility on his right side, said Dr. Philip Marion, head of rehabilitation at George Washington University Hospital. Johnson's right side was weak when he arrived at the hospital...