Free Republic

A new Gov. Noem campaign ad emerged Wednesday claiming she heroically stands for fairness in women’s sports. The ad falsely claims that she “never backed down” from protecting women’s sports here in South Dakota. As proof, it alluded to her ensuring boys and girls competed separately in 4-H rodeo. This ad is incredibly disingenuous at best and gaslighting at worst. Let’s unpack these fabricated claims that the Governor desperately wishes were true. First, let’s start with last year’s women’s sports bill that promoted fairness in women's sports. The South Dakota legislature put this strong bill on Gov. Noem’s desk prohibiting...

Burial of Native American dead at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, 1891.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. (reproduction no. LC-USZ62-44458) When people are disarmed, they are at the mercy of those who have disarmed them. History is full of instances where mercy was in short supply.The desperate fight, which became a massacre at Wounded Knee, on December 29, 1890, was one of the better recorded of such events. From Britannica.com:Forsyth was clear in his terms: the Miniconjou must surrender all their weapons. Big Foot was hesitant, but he surrendered a few guns as a token of peace. Forsyth was not satisfied and...

You often hear people wonder why the GOP doesn’t push-back against the Democrats. The reason is simple, the GOP are the right wing of the UniParty bird, the Democrats are the left wing. They are both attached to the body of big corrupt government. In this food supply chain issue, the Republican wing sees an opportunity. In this food supply chain issue, the Democrat wing sees an opportunity. Governor Kristi Noem is the Koch Brothers version of Nikki Haley. A Wall Street donor favorite and open border immigration advocate who has been positioned to be a potential Republican candidate for...

Perhaps the Right was a little hasty with its condemnations of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem. Early in 2021, Noem proposed legislation that would require all athletic contests in the state to be designated as male, female, and both, and that only those born female would be allowed to compete in girls’ sports. The proposal ran into some headwinds — the NCAA was making noises about canceling all events in any state that enacted such a ban, and others raised concerns about the reporting requirements and how it would be determined whether or not athletes had taken anabolic steroids in...

Republican Sen. Mike Rounds rejected claims of mass voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election. "The election was fair — as fair as we've seen," he said during an interview on ABC's "This Week." Rounds said that the GOP must "refocus" on a winning strategy to win the back the White House. Sen. Mike Rounds on Sunday rejected former President Donald Trump's debunked election claims, expressing confidence that the 2020 election was "as fair as we've seen." The South Dakota Republican — who was easily reelected to a second term in the Senate in 2020 — said during an interview...

Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) said Sunday Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that former President Donald Trump’s fraud claims in the 2020 presidential election are unfounded. Anchor George Stephanopoulos said, “You voted to certify the election last year, and you condemned the protests as an insurrection. What do you say to all those Republicans, all those veterans who believe the election was stolen and bought the falsehoods coming from former President Trump?”

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said on Sunday that while he has previously stated he will support the next Republican presidential nominee, he would take a "hard look" at supporting former President Trump if he runs again in 2024. ABC "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos asked Rounds, who has shot back at GOP assertions that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, if he could support Trump if he ran for office again. "I will take a hard look at it," said Rounds

For a potential presidential candidate who had built up a good amount of conservative goodwill, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem is projecting the wrong message to keep her name circulating in the hat. Admittedly, I was hopeful for her just a few months ago, but her actions since then have been made me back away. The latest example of embracing Republican Establishment corporatism is abysmal. What’s worse is that she demonstrated her embrace of one of the most hated industries today among MAGA conservatives: Big Pharma. “Workers whose employers are mandating a vaccine for continued employment have the power to...

resident Joe Biden claimed there is no "federal solution" to the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. He then jetted off to Delaware for the rest of the week. Today, he called a lid at 10:13 am. ... The admission has prompted calls from lawmakers on Capitol Hill and around the country to end federal vaccine mandates, which are destroying the economy. ... Joe Biden, who ran for President on the promise of ending the COVID-19 pandemic: "There is no federal solution. This gets solved at a state level. ... If there’s no federal Covid solution, why is there a federal vaccine mandate?...

A federal judge in Missouri has issued a temporary hold on the Biden administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in 10 U.S. states while litigation plays out.“We just beat the Biden Administration in court again,” Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced on Twitter late Monday. “This afternoon, we obtained a preliminary injunction against the vaccine mandate on federal contractors, halting enforcement of that mandate in Missouri and the other states in our coalition.”The preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. Magistrate Judge David Noce, applies to Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming. Schmitt...

John Thune’s Senate career began with a thunder when he defeated Democratic Leader Tom Daschle in 2004. Now, it may end with a whimper. There is growing speculation that Thune might not run for re-election in 2022. Even if he does run again, the thought of Thune retiring at some point in the future is a wake-up call for the South Dakota Republican Party, which has enjoyed an era of peace and prosperity since Thune won his seat in 2004. More on that in a moment. For some, talk of Thune retiring is akin to a poker player folding when...

Fifteen state financial officers sent a letter to U.S. banks last week noting $600 billion in assets they pledge to take elsewhere if the financial institutions embrace corporate wokeism and prohibit financing to the fossil fuel industry. Led by West Virginia Republican Treasurer Riley Moore, the group promised “collective action” in the form of an “economic boycott.” “Just as each state represented in this letter is unique in its governing laws and economy, our actions will take different forms,” they wrote in the letter obtained by The Federalist. “However, the overarching objective of our actions will be the same –...

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) has advanced a bill in the state legislature that would codify her executive orders limiting transgender athletes to competing only in categories that correspond to their birth gender. Noem filed the bill on Tuesday to limit K-12 girl’s school sports and state-funded colleges to allowing only natural-born girls to compete in girl’s categories, according to the Argus Leader.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) proposed to spend $1 billion on infrastructure and state employee raises in a budget address to state lawmakers on Tuesday. Noem wants to use the billions of dollars given to South Dakota by the federal government to give a six percent wage increase to state employees, such as teachers and government employees, The Associated Press reported. She also wants to allocate money for housing, emergency responders, daycare facilities and water infrastructure.

Senator tells Pioneer his wife wants him to quit; decision coming this month Sen. John Thune is at the peak of his career. He’s in his third term in the Senate, is the No. 2 Republican in the chamber, is wildly popular in his home state and the heavy favorite to win a fourth term next year. So why he is considering retirement? Thune, in an exclusive interview with the Black Hills Pioneer on Saturday, said he is still undecided about running in 2022. “We’ll make that decision by the end of the month,” he said. Twice this year, he...

In response to the recent tragedy in Oakland County, Michigan, what did the anti-gunners do? Following their standard course of action, they are politicizing the deaths of four high school teens in an attempt to undermine your constitutionally-protected rights. In fact, bowing to the will of their far-Left overlords, anti-gun senators are bringing H.R. 8 to the Senate floor—which is a bill to institute Universal Background Registration Checks (UBCs). And to make matters worse, they are trying to do this by unanimous consent—without an actual vote. Please, contact your Senators and make sure they know you’re opposed to H.R. 8...

Judge Matthew Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri issued an injunction halting President Joe Biden's Wuhan coronavirus vaccine mandate for Medicare and Medicaid workers in ten states Monday, citing a lack of approval from Congress. "The mandate requires nearly every employee, volunteer, and third-party contractor working at fifteen catogires of healthcare facilities to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2 (“COVID”) and to have received at least a first dose of the vaccine prior to December 6, 2021," court documents show. "Congress did not grant CMS authority to mandate the vaccine. Plaintiffs are likely to succeed in their argument that Congress has...

When reporters Will Fitzgibbon and Debbie Cenziper began digging into the Pandora Papers — nearly 12 million confidential files leaked to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists whose contents would go on to reverberate across the world — they noticed something curious. In the trove of documents, which expose a secretive financial system that shields the deals and assets of some of the world’s richest and most powerful people, one U.S. state, South Dakota, stood out. “We early on found a document in the leaked records that showed that there were a number of trusts established in South Dakota, and...

Republicans primarying Republicans has become the norm in the past few years. Conservatives support the idea of primarying candidates who have deviated from core Republican principles, yet there are some who have jumped into races for all the wrong reasons. The South Dakota race for Governor is a case study in an upstart candidate trying to take down a nationally recognized Republican leader who has been a great governor by nitpicking at her record. South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has had a stellar conservative record as governor. When governors, both Republicans and Democrats, throughout the nation were implementing mandates to...

In a fascinating development, a group of Republicans in the South Dakota House banded together with Democrats on Wednesday to pass a new legislative redistricting plan over the objections of a sizable bloc of conservative GOP dissenters. All seven Democrats present (one was excused) voted in favor of the map, along with 30 Republicans, while 31 Republicans were opposed, meaning Democrats provided the winning majority. The plan, which originated in the Senate, easily passed the upper chamber 30-2, with all three Democrats likewise in favor. The Republican objectors complained that the map would double-bunk some of their members and undermine...