Free Republic

The only barrier standing in the way of another shameful broken treaty with our Native Americans is the U.S. Congress. The federal government is planning to take the South Unit of Badlands National Park and turn it over to the Department of the Interior, to have it administered by the National Park Service. The NPS was in the news last year when they barricaded our national monuments and prevented elderly WWII veterans from seeing their memorial during the sequester. The NPS put up barriers along scenic look-outs so drivers couldnÂ’t see Mt. Rushmore, and closed park entrances across the country....

Tax-paying, hard-working families aren’t letting White House shutdown politics stop them from enjoying America’s beauty. They’re defying the orange cones at Mount Rushmore. They’re breaching the barrycades at Zion National Park. And now, the Badlands of South Dakota. Noelle Bruno tweets that she and her family made it through Mount Rushmore despite the White House obstacles:

Last month I had a couple of blog posts about the contest sponsored by the North Dakota National Guard that is offering 540 free trips (10 from each state and US territory), to North Dakota. Yes, FREE trips. In mid-February, only about 30 entries for this contest were received. The deadline to enter was February 28, but that has been extended to April 2. Medora, which is adjacent to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, is one of the destinations for winners of the contest; the contest is open to students who will be high school juniors or seniors in the upcoming...

Badlands National Park Go to the article above to see the full-size (3.7 MB) version of this image: Mt. Rainier, Washington The image below is the full-size version, but you can read the full article at the link above.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) The owner of a gay bar accused of racial discrimination agreed Sunday to mediation to settle the dispute. Les Natali, owner of the S.F. Badlands bar in the Castro district, has said all the allegations stem from misperceptions and misunderstandings. The city's Human Rights Commission determined 13 complaints were valid from eight complainants who said they had been barred from patronizing or working at the bar because they are African American. Natali has agreed to allow former mayor Willie Brown and attorney Scott Emblidge to mediate the dispute. Julius Turman, lawyer for the complainants, said Sunday he...

They are among the most maligned groups in society, but when it comes to discrimination, many say, gays can give as good as they get. A city investigation of S.F. Badlands, one of the largest and most popular bars in the heart of the Castro neighborhood, has added evidence to that argument. In April, the San Francisco Human Rights Commission found that the bar discriminated against African American customers and job applicants. That finding, which is vigorously disputed by the bar's owner, is elevating the murmurs of racism in the gay community to a national discussion. National gay media have...

San Francisco -- The city's Board of Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution urging city and state agencies to penalize a gay nightclub that a city commission said discriminated against blacks. The decision comes a little more than a month after San Francisco's Human Rights Commission found that Les Natali, the owner of a popular gay nightclub called "Badlands," violated local civil rights codes. "The city has taken a strong stand against discrimination," said John Newsome with And Castro For All, the organization that pursued the case. In the resolution, the board urged the city attorney, the California Department...

A small rodent could hold the key to the Senate THE black-tailed prairie dog has never been a political animal. For centuries, on South Dakota’s vast and mysterious plains, it has played no part in the state’s momentous events. You will find no reference to it in accounts of how General George Custer’s troops were massacred at the Battle of Little Bighorn, or of the US Army’s bloody revenge on the Sioux at Wounded Knee. But in a graphic demonstration of the axiom that all politics is local, South Dakota’s prairie dog, a fluffy, slightly gormless rodent, has suddenly landed...