Free Republic

wind turbines only last for twenty years, and after that time the turbines must be torn down .. wind turbine blades cannot be recycled ... more than 100 wind turbine blades measuring 120 ft long have been dumped in a Sioux Falls, South Dakota, landfill, but there’s a problem: the massive blades are taking up too much room ... A wind farm near Albert Lea, Minn., brought dozens of their old turbine blades to the Sioux Falls dump this summer. But City Hall says it won’t take anymore unless owners take more steps to make the massive fiberglass pieces less...

The South Dakota Democratic Party will be closing the doors at both of its offices due to financial troubles, leaving the state with no Democratic Party offices. The state party will be closing offices in Sioux Falls and Rapid City at the end of September, the Argus Leader reported. No layoffs for party staff have been announced, and employees will begin working remotely due to the party’s budget problems, according to state party Chairwoman Paula Hawks. Hawks told the Argus Leader the party is setting fundraising goals and meeting with party donors and Founders Club members. "We are feeling very...

Diversity officials at the University of South Dakota are asking white students to consider if they are “taking up” too much “space” on campus. According to a report by Campus Reform, programming created by diversity office officials at the University of South Dakota asks white students to consider if they are “taking” too much “space” away from minority students. “Are you taking up space or contributing to a space?” the graphic reads. The flowchart asks white students to answer a series of questions that determine whether or not they are contributing to the “diversity” of the campus. In practice, the...

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — Building on a 2016 ban on city-funded travel to states with anti-LGBT laws, San Francisco officials Tuesday voted unanimously to extend that ban to states with restrictive abortion laws. “It will expand the existing ordinance to states that have waged war on our constitutionally protected right to an abortion,” San Francisco Supervisor Vallie Brown, who introduced the proposal, said at a board meeting Tuesday. Five states — Georgia, Louisiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Mississippi — passed laws this year that ban abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. Missouri also enacted a law banning abortions after eight weeks,...

Joe Biden is being portrayed as the Democrats’ safest potential presidential nominee, despite his obvious flaws as a candidate. But one wonders how Biden’s history of swamp corruption will play if he actually faces the scrutiny of a national run. Biden’s family has gotten wealthy, like those of so many low-paid “public servants”–Tom Daschle and Harry Reid are obvious examples. How does that happen? Politico headlines: “Biden Inc. Over his decades in office, ‘Middle-Class Joe’s’ family fortunes have closely tracked his political career.” It begins:

The rise of so-called “abortion reversal” bills has alarmed leading medical groups that say such legislation forces physicians to give misleading, unscientific and potentially dangerous advice to women, undermining the trusted doctor-patient relationship. So far this year, five states ― North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arkansas — have passed legislation mandating that physicians counsel women that a medication abortion, a safe and common method for ending a pregnancy before 10 weeks, can be reversed. Similar laws are already on the books in South Dakota, Utah and Idaho. Arkansas expanded an existing law.

The celebration of Highmore's 50th annual Settler's Day was a success. "It's just a wonderful time to get together and come back home," said Vikki Day, the Mayor of Highmore. But one parade float did get people talking. "I had to think about it with the mask of Obama, coming out as racist," said Jeff Damer, the creator of the controversial float. The float portrays former President Barack Obama in a cage with Hillary Clinton, while current President Donald Trump stands on the outside. "I just wanted to put it out there, it was just my view that I feel...

The illegal alien population has boomed in at least three red states won by President Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, new analysis reveals. Pew Research Center analysis finds that in Louisiana, North Dakota, and South Dakota — three states that went overwhelmingly for Trump over failed Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election — the illegal alien population has increased over the last ten years. Between 2007 and 2017, Louisiana — which went nearly 60 percent for Trump in the 2016 election — has an illegal alien population that has grown by 15,000. In North Dakota, where...

Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD) spoke at the final day of Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit Sunday and criticized unnamed leaders across the country for embracing a feelings-based governing approach. The South Dakota governor gave the crowd of young women a little background on her initial entry into the political sphere. She took over her family’s farm after her father passed away, but about a month after his untimely death, she received a letter from the IRS, notifying her of owed “death taxes.” “It was devastating for us,” she told the crowd. “You can imagine as farmers you have...

Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” host Chris Matthews offered his take on the Democratic Party’s drift to the far-left, which he warned could have an impact on the 2020 presidential election. Matthews reminded voters of the 1972 presidential election between incumbent President Richard Nixon and then-Democratic presidential nominee Sen. George McGovern (D-SD). Nixon won in a landslide, taking 49 states and 60% of the popular vote. He suggested such a scenario could be possible in 2020 if Democrats nominated a far-left candidate to go up against President Donald Trump in 2020. ~snip~ “What’s hard is to identify a leading candidate that...

From far away it looked as if a bottle of red wine had been spilled along the icy gravel, an image Lee Litz would not soon forget. He was test-driving a Jeep near a cornfield on the outskirts of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, when he saw it: a deep red blanket protruding from a ditch. It struck Litz as peculiar that afternoon, Feb. 28, 1981, and so he pulled the car over and stepped out into the dirt and the cold. He knelt down to see what it was, as he later recounted to the Argus Leader. In the blanket,...

House Democratic leaders are delaying a vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism that had been slated to take place on Wednesday, a senior Democratic aide confirmed Tuesday. "We could consider something as early as Thursday," the source told The Hill. House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.D.) told Fox News Tuesday evening they were “still drafting” the resolution, but feels it should be "anti-hate." The measure is expected to be updated to include language condemning anti-Muslim bias. The resolution comes in the wake of Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D-Minn.) most recent controversial comments on Israel. "I want to talk about the political...

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Rep. Ilhan Omar has come under fresh criticism for remarks critics call anti-Semitic. The Minnesota Democrat was appearing at a forum in Washington with Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan when she said she fears everything they say about Israel is construed as anti-Semitic because they’re Muslim. But some Jewish leaders say Omar then revived an old trope about divided loyalties among Jewish-Americans when she criticized the idea that it’s “OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.” Steve Hunegs of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas says he’s...

A decade ago, folks in northern states such as Minnesota, South and North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Idaho were watching large swaths of their pine forests die off due to invasive pine beetles. The pine beetles bored beneath the bark of pine trees and introduced a fungus and larvae which weakened and then killed the trees.

President Barack Obama is coming to Rapid City, at least a bronze likeness of the 44th president. The City of Presidents announced the statue will be completed and unveiled in July 2019. We now know the Obama statue will be standing and waving, but co-founder for the City of Presidents, Dallerie Davis said the statue will be more interesting. "We found out that a standing guy who is waving is rather boring and the one thing we don't want to do is have a boring statue on the street, particularly someone like President Obama. He deserves a statue that isn't...

The South Dakota legislature has passed a bill allowing residents to carry concealed handguns without a permit, sending the measure to Gov. Kristi Noem (R) for a signature. The state House passed the Senate legislation in a 47-23 vote on Tuesday to allow for the so-called “constitutional carry,” The Argus Leader reported. Noem has vocalized support for the measure before but said she will consider the language in the bill before signing it into law. "We are pleased to see constitutional carry pass the state Senate and House of Representatives. Hopefully Gov. Noem will see the benefit in providing law-abiding...

A newly discovered species of ancient shark has been named after a 1980s arcade game. The shark swam in the rivers of what is now South Dakota, US, about 67 million years ago, living alongside iconic dinosaur species such as T. rex. It's been named Galagadon, after the 1981 Japanese-US game Galaga, because its teeth resemble the spaceships in the game. The specimen is described in the Journal of Paleontology. "It may seem odd today, but about 67 million years ago, what is now South Dakota was covered in forests, swamps and winding rivers," said co-author Terry Gates, from North...

Five Republican Senators reintroduced the WALL Act Tuesday, a bill to fully fund a wall along the U.S. southern border. “Their legislation, first introduced last December, is also the first bill that will fund the wall by identifying specific funding sources,” read a Tuesday announcement from the five senators. The five are Senators are Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Mike Rounds (R-SD), John Kennedy (R-LA), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA)

She’s not a senator, but Cynthia Nance plays an enormous role in shaping the debate over some of President Trump’s judicial picks. Ms. Nance, former dean of the University of Arkansas School of Law, handles the American Bar Association’s judicial ratings for nominees to federal courts in North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas, which make up the federal 8th Circuit. The ABA’s role is one the more opaque parts of the process, but Republicans are pushing it into the light, accusing her of allowing personal bias, particularly a fealty to abortion rights, to color her ratings....