In complete violation of her professed love of transparency, Governor Kristi Noem waits for more than a month after the deadline for submitting new bills to drop two emergency measures to quash free speech in South Dakota.
Evidently a result of the Governor’s chats with inaugural donor TransCanada, Senate Bill 189 creates a new crime, “riot boosting”:
In addition to any other liability or criminal penalty under law, a person is liable for riot boosting, jointly and severally with any other person, to the state or a political subdivision in an action for damages if the person:
- Participates in any riot and directs, advises, encourages, or solicits any other person participating in the riot to acts of force or violence;
- Does not personally participate in any riot but directs, advises, encourages, or solicits other persons participating in the riot to acts of force or violence; or
- Upon the direction, advice, encouragement, or solicitation of any other person, uses force or violence, or makes any threat to use force or violence, if accompanied by immediate power of execution, by three or more persons, acting together and without authority of law [SB 189, introduced 2019.03.04].
SB 189 also establishes a “Riot Boosting Recovery Fund”, into which shall be poured any treble damages the state can squeeze out of the protestors it prosecutes for rioting or riot boosting.
Senate Bill 189 is designed specifically to protect Noem’s campaign donor and inaugural sponsor TransCanada and its Keystone XL pipeline project. So is Senate Bill 190, which creates the Orwellianly named “Pipeline Engagement Activity Coordination Expenses Fund”—yes, Noem as the gall to call it the PEACE Fund—to take in the Riot Boosting Recovery Fund proceeds to pay the costs of sending in police to bust up protests on the Keystone XL pipeline route. SB 190 requires pipeline companies who projects may spark protest to pay a special fee to the fund, but the state can suspend that billing if it anticipates money coming from other sources, like bloggers whom the state would take to court for encouraging people to protest Keystone XL (gulp!).
Taking a page from her beloved Donald Trump, Governor Noem offers this Newspeak in defense of her fake emergency bills:
I’m a supporter of property rights, freedom of speech, and freedom of assembly. We should celebrate differences of opinion, but here in South Dakota, we will have the rule of law, because rioters do not control economic development in our state. This package creates a legal avenue, if necessary, to go after out-of-state money funding riots that go beyond expressing a viewpoint but instead aim to slowdown the pipeline build. It allows us to follow the money for riots and cut it off at the source [Governor Kristi Noem, press release, 2019.03.04].
When you get done laughing at a claim of supporting property rights in defense of a pipeline built on eminent domain, recognize that Noem’s fake-riot bills, in conjunction with Dennis Daugaard’s anti-protest law from 2017 criminalizing all sorts of potential peaceable assemblies on public land, puts those who protest Keystone XL and those who encourage such protest in serious legal and financial jeopardy.
With these two surprise bills, Governor Noem wages war on speech with the “PEACE” Fund. She will put those who exercise freedom of speech into financial slavery to pay the very police who stomp their rights. And she will count on the ignorance of the Legislature as her strength to pass these corporation fascist bills.
Governor Kristi Noem is not Barbie. She is B.B. Big Brother.
Cory,
You didn’t know they were trespassing on Corps land in ND?
The governor is really turning out to be a goofball isn’t she.
TransCanada is the trespasser, and anything done to stop that trespasser is, as far as I’m concerned, perfect. “The rule of law” is something that covers a lot of sins, especially those of the principle sinners. Slavery used to be the law. The law used to be that women and Indians couldn’t vote. Jesus died under the law in Roman times. Jews died under the law in Hitler’s times, and black children die under the law in our times. Noem can have her law and order. I’ll take justice and right any day, over “law.”
And so, in case it isn’t clear, I urge and direct people to vigorously protest TransCanda’s trespass, and urge three or more people to take such action as they deem necessary to prevent the siting, construction and operation of the TransCanada trespass pipeline along any and all routes within and outside South Dakota.
You got a problem with that, visit the First Amendment.
And take a civics course.
You had to expect that cracking down on these riot boosters would really gore Mr. Pay’s goat.
Grudz, John Brown engaged in armed insurrection in order to overturn slavery. We consider him a hero today. John Brown was a visionary whose actions led to a more rapid ending of slavery. There are those, like Grudz, who sit on the sidelines of history cheerleading for the trespassers and the slaveowners. They are considered cowards. I ain’t one of them.
Go away Murphy, don’t you have some sleazy lobbying for the Republicans to do?
I might have to get Stace to tell you to leave us alone on the DFP, Murphy I don’t know how Cory tolerates you.
Grudzilla’s idea of patriotic do gooders were the c ops in the 60’s that swore smoking pot always led to violence because the fuzz was more than happy to bust Hippie heads with night sticks because they could get away with it.
Grudz fondly remembers Tricky Dickless Nixon using hard hat workers as riot breakers against war protesters. Thems were the good ol’ days for Grudzilla and his ilk.
Just an informational question: does SD define “riot” in statute? Is this also broad enough to cover if, for example, SD teachers were ever to decide to “riot” — assemble peacefully at the State Capital — as so many of our brother and sister teachers in other states have?
GOV.NOEM is surely a corporate prostitute & it shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone!
In 1868 the ft Laramie treaty established boundaries of Indian land including cannonball river. Trespassing on that land has occurred since then. In 1890 military action killed and wounded more than 300 Indians arrested and detained at Wounded Knee (some of whom were Sitting Bull people from the Cannonball River after he was murdered) within those boundaries. In 2016 and 17 the military confronted and brutalized and arrested and detained scores of water protesters peacefully assembled and trying to stop the pipeline at cannonball. Militarization cost ND $22M or so. ND and SD then passed laws making protesting illegal. Forcing little people into courts to protect their rights chills the excercise of those constitutional rights.
Fake person grdz has never had to protect constitutional rights and like Uday and Qusay and Donnie Jr and Eric and Ivanka, family money insulates them from understanding why we fight and die to maintain our democracy. We stand with our Indian brothers and sisters against corporate billionaire tyranny, including the Koch brothers who editorialize in RCJ right now to intentionally deceive the public as they recieve the primary benefit of this tar sands pipeline under the Oahe Reservoir upstream of SRST.
Recall idiot trump tweeted, taunting Elizabeth Warren his incomprehension of trespasses at the Greasy Grass and Wounded Knee and his militarization against peaceful assembly and protest (Charlottesville and the border kidnapping children for example). Fits Kristi like a glove. SD elected another idiot into an ultimate position of power. That’s the Republican Party.
Rounds and Dusty and Kristi have voiced opposition to trump idiocy in a lukewarm way (invoking Wounded Knee, border “emergency” and tariff devastation).
Mr. O, in answer to your informational question, riot is defined in the law books numbered 22-10-1 (which is 11) and no, your brothers and sisters peacefully assembled would not constitute a riot, unless somebody egged them on in which case that would be riot boosting.
RIOT ON WOMEN WARRIOR WATER PROTECTORS OF DAPL ~ RIOT ON WATER WARRIORS – RIOT ON
What’s the deal with Big Brother Barbie inventing new offenses like “riot boosting”? Is there not already a law prohibiting incitement to riot? What does her new Orwellian phrase do except create a “new” offense that allows Kristi’s Big Government agents to seize private property via civil forfeiture laws — which, incidentally, the Supremes recently ruled were unconstitutional?
Even if it doesn’t have to do with civil forfeiture, the aim is still to financially ruin people who exercise their First Amendment rights, even against foreign corporations seizing local land. Proposing brand new laws gives the game away: if they could charge and convict people using existing laws against rioting and inciting riot, they would. The fact that they can’t shows that they don’t have a leg to stand on.
(On the other hand, maybe Big Brother Barbie’s pet legislature didn’t know about existing anti-rioting laws. So far they’ve proposed plenty other bills that got tangled up with perfectly functional laws already on the books.)
Interesting, Chris: we do have statues for attempted riot, encouraging or soliciting violence in riot, and encouraging or soliciting violence in riot without participating.
SB 189 offers three kinds of actions that will constitute this new crime of “riot boosting.”
So I wonder what happens when I say the following:
My fellow Americans, I encourage you take any and all honest, moral, and legal actions (the action must satisfy all three adjectives) to stop the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline in South Dakota. I urge you to come to South Dakota now, come to the halls of the Legislature and Governor Noem’s office, and exercise your First Amendment rights to tell South Dakota’s leaders to kill these two bad bills and to stop supporting TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline.
I have no advocated any illegal or violent action. But if people gather to take the legal actions I recommend, and if some agitators hired by TransCanada show up and start pushing people and breaking windows, have I boosted a riot? Will Kristi Noem come sue me for this blog comment? Dare any of us speak out now against construction of this foreign company’s oil-exporting project?
Chris is correct:
Noem apparently falls back on her conservative SD state legislative experience and offers another brilliant legislative solution in search of a problem.
Under the current state regime, speech on the part of the people is getting further restricted and opaqueness of government operation is getting more dense. It is getting very difficult not to break the law by assembling to state grievances. Some people will conclude if you are going to break the law, why not go all the way? Remember Wounded Knee II and the takeover of government offices and college dorms? Perhaps we should assemble a civic luncheon club called the Riot Boosters.
Didn’t North Dakota pull new laws out of their collective rectums during DAPL disputes? Monkey see monkey do.
Dr. Newquist, I’d like to join The Riot Boosters. I think I’d be an especially valuable member because my money, meager though it is, does come from out of state.
How do I apply for membership?
Who else wants to join?
Did you say Riot Roosters?? Just wondering ‘cause grudzie calls himself El Gallo on Instagram. 😂
….. or maybe The Kristi Kritters? 😂
The Strib has covered Noem’s Big Brother bills via the AP article.
https://goo.gl/rG1MGi
Die Führa – Sieg Heil! 👊🏻
As our late friend George Carlin once said, “the United States is an oil company with an army”.
Another parallel between Kristi Noem and George Orwell’s tyrant: just as BIg Brother and The Party invoked Emmannuel Goldstein as its bogeyman to whip the masses into a frenzy of hate, Noem invokes Jewish billionaire George Soros as the threat to TransCanada peaceful abrogation of our property rights. Noem says Soros backed the DAPL protests in North Dakota; Soros’s Open Society Foundation rebuts that lie and asks why Noem is working so hard to demonzie and stifle civic participation.
NOem is as antisemitic as her neighbor to the south, the Iowa boy, Steve King. If they mated and had a love child, it would be Hannity.
Kristi Noem is citing corporate fascist PR lies to sell bills intended to chill First Amendment rights. We should be outraged. We should not riot, but we should fill the Governor’s phone lines and tell her to stop lying.
As a longtime veteran of peaceful social justice protests, beginning in my college days in the 80’s (including being a member of the May 4 Task Force at Kent State, my alma mater, all throughout my student years) I know full well the tried-and-true tactic of discrediting any and all protestors, and their cause, by invoking the word “riot” in all its varied formations, and referring to protestors as “rioters”. That is, literally, all they often had and have to do, knowing full well, as fascists and authoritarians do, the power of certain words and how to use them for propaganda purposes.
Noem is frighteningly fascist, which I’ve known for years and which is why I fought so hard for Sutton, and I knew that she would be a dictatorial disaster for this state in so many ways. I just didn’t think she’d be this bad, this blatant, quite this early. My only consolation is that a great many of my fellow state citizens recognized the same, as Sutton came the closest of any Dem since 1972. If it hadn’t been for Jackley’s supporters finally deciding to throw their lot in with NOem toward the end, we’d be breathing a lot easier right now.
And I’m tired of her yammering and gushing about how “great” the tribes are for the state and how much she “respects” them. She never did a bleeping freaking thing for them during all her years in Congress, ignored their attempts to contact and communicate with her, and did what she could to screw them over, however she could. In that way, she’s just like Jackley, whose hatred of Indians and constant going after them during his AG tenure is no secret. In fact, this is exactly the kind of thing he’d also have promoted as governor. I live on a reservation, and, while I’m not a tribal member, hubby is a tribal employee, and you’d better believe there is a huge amount of deep, strong anger against her in regards to these bills and her labeling those who attempt to protect their land and water as “rioters”, as well as her shilling for a private company over her state and ALL of its citizens. Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Chairman Harold Frazier (the reservation I live on) released a powerful, striking statement that minced no words. Tribal members and their numerous non-tribal supporters, including me, will not be cowed or intimidated by such threat tactics and will continue to resist this pipeline and any others.
If it’s this bad just two months into this nightmare, I don’t even want to think about even the near future.
Laurisa comes very close to what needs to be said about Noem. Noem isn’t talking about rioters, she is talking about the Water Protectors, or Indians. Indians were on the front lines at DAPL and they will be on the front lines when Keystone XL fires up.
Noem needs to do nothing more then replace rioters with Indians in her legislation.
I’ve been learning about fascism in a course I’m taking. Laurisa is correct about the way fascists use words to “other” people. In Noem’s case, people who use their Constitutional rights to protest are being singled out and “othered” before they even pick up a picket sign and start chanting. People have a right to protest, and people will protest.
Noem is being very unwise, and is herself encouraging the violence she says she wants to avoid. Purposely escalating a situation to make it seem that protestors are breaking the law is a fascist tactic. The Italian squadristi (which donned black shirts) did this all the time. People who deal with protests, which happens a lot in my city, know what North Dakota did and what Noem appears to be trying is the wrong way to approach protests. If she continues down this path, It’s going to be a bloody path. She needs to re-think her approach, and fast.
The sheriff in my county pulled all the people he sent to North Dakota because the law enforcement and company goons up there were instigating rioting by treating people as if they didn’t have the right to protest. Noem shouldn’t treat people like an “other” who have no rights. Rather, she should be meeting with people, learning what they want out of a protest. If there are people who want to do civil disobedience and go to jail, she ought to have people trained to handle civil disobedience in a peaceful way. The state should welcome protests and go out of their way to facilitate them to keep them peaceful. They can be peaceful or they can be a riot, but if they are peaceful or a riot depends more on how the authorities handle it than the protestors.
Donald,
They didn’t have the right to protest on land they were trespassing on.
Why didn’t they camp out at the Casino and protest there?
Who is “they” that Jason is talking about?
That would be the trespassers Roger.
Maybe you didn’t know this Roger, but the Casino is on tribal land, not Corps land.
Jason, I did know that the “tribal” casino is on tribal land, thank you. What is your point?
My point is the protesters could have protested legally on the casino land if the Tribe would have let them.
I watched the Democracy Now! live video of the DAPL protests and saw how the mercenaries attacked the Indians with dogs and chemicals. It was very much a Bull Conner scene.
The sheriff of Hennepin County (Minneapolis) sent deputies to the law enforcement riot and the citizens were so displeased they voted him out last November. People recognize the difference between “protests” and “riots”, between “participants” and “instigators.”
Noem is really letting her antisemitism and racism show, typical SDGOP. Jerry, your comment about her and S King was perfect. 😆😆😆
From the AP article in the Strib I linked to earlier:
“Rebecca Terk, a lobbyist for conservation and family agriculture group Dakota Rural Action, said the legislation is an ‘incredible overreach’ and the bills conflate protest with rioting.”
What she said.
Dakota Rural Action has what to do with protesters?
I thought Dakota Rural Action is for family farms who need oil for their tractors so they can feed their children?
Jason, I think DRA (please read for a change) is more concerned about TransCanada stealing land and contaminating water (like we see, way too often, along the existing Keystone).
You are trolling, please stop.
Thank goodness the oil glut and low price of natural gas (and cheaper renewables every day) are making the tar sands mining and pipeline less viable.
It’s not complicated Jason. It’s their land TC wants to take. It’s their land TC’s pipes will leak onto and foul. It’s their land the protesters were also fighting to protect. It’s their freedom to protest, along with everyone else’s, even yours, that Noem/Koch is trying to end.
It’s really pretty simple. Just engage your brain first and maybe you won’t write a dumb comment.
Allowing crazy people to conceal carry is promoting rioting in my opinion.
That’s another great question for the civics test.
What is eminent domain and is it stealing?
Debbo and Robbinsdale would have failed that question.
I haven’t read the bill. Is this bill going after Soros and his money that was used to fund the riots in ND?
https://www.heraldnews.com/opinion/20190131/opinion-eminent-domain-and-stealing-american-dream
Here you can read how a single judge can give a foreign owned, foreign profiting corporation the right to steal your property even before appeals Are done. Take yer pick, Troll, you might be next in line to lose the Dream.”
https://www.google.com/search?q=is+transcanada+a+common+carrier&oq=is+transcanada+a+common+carrier&aqs=chrome..69i57.10199j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I don’t understand why people here insist on feeding the troll.
All who have worked to protest, know that walking the fine line of protesting at the intensity needed to demonstrate the seriousness of the offense while still keeping focus on the offense and not letting the protest become the story is tough. Laurisa and Cory both speak to making the protesters “the other” and “criminals” — both tactical ways of shifting the focus from the offense being protested.
Ironically, troll Jason, by trying to shift focus off this legislation, has focused on the issues of Keystone and Tribal lands.
Clearly this legislation is another distraction to remove the discussion of the offense of government intrusion for the wealthy as the government uses brute force to suppress citizen’s rights so it can promote corporate interests above all.
David, I would also join the “riot boosters”; will we have club (resistant) jackets?
Most urban centers have a long history of dealing with protests. They expect and plan for protests, often contacting the leaders of the protests to ask how the police can help, how the people in the protest can be protected and kept safe, how to deal with violence from any side and iron out problems, etc. The goal is to allow people to have their Constitutional rights while keeping the community safe. I know that many protests in Madison, WI, have volunteer security folks to make sure incidents don;t escalate.
I don’t understand the approach being taken in South Dakota. It runs counter to everything they teach in Policing 101. It’s as if Noem is boosting a riot herself.
Jason,
Did the occupiers of the Malheur Wildlife Refuge have a right to do so? Should they have paid for damages including the loss of business to the local towns and costs incurred by state and local government?
More fascist winning…We’re tapped out folks, trump/NOem et.al. have shown us how to lose an economy with stupidity.
“The Commerce Department said Wednesday that — despite more than two years of President Trump’s “America First” policies — the United States last year posted a $891.2 billion merchandise trade deficit, the largest in the nation’s 243-year history.
The trade gap with China also hit a record $419 billion, underscoring the stakes for the president’s bid to reach a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping as soon as this month.
The department’s final 2018 trade report, which was delayed by the partial government shutdown, showed that the United States bought far more in foreign goods than it sold to customers in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. The shortfall topped the 2006 record of $838.3 billion, set as the housing bubble was peaking, and marked the third consecutive year of rising deficits.” Washington Post 03/06/2019
Nothing left to fleece with this failed government, both state and national. Only corruption keeps this leaky, worm eaten, fraud afloat.
Chris S has the correct idea.
Oil prices are tanking due to domestic overproduction and lack of demand. Many places are going more and more towards electric. I love the way we stay ahead of future demands. Winning.
But, the “riot-boosting” definition literally reads like a description of Trump’s behavior at his own rallies. Has Noem really thought this one through?
Jerry…it sounds like any such protest would be an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the efficacy of going 100% electric, particularly if the intent is to stop the use of fossil fuels altogether.
But driving a gas-powered SUV to a protest is not a good way to convince others to get off of fossil fuels. Better to show that it can be done….no need to wait for a protest for that to occur.
Wanting to keep water sources clean during the transport of fossil fuels is different. You can drive your SUV back and forth and still want the delivery of the fuel you use to be as safe as possible.
Horseback will be a better way…as we shall see.
Horses help the sustainability of the cause, unless you drive the horse to the protest in a trailer pulled by a diesel truck that gets 8 mpg. And while somebody else is riding the horse you keep the truck running in the cold so the fuel doesn’t gel.
And everybody worries about emissions from cows, and nobody talks about horse farts. Well, dag nab it I’m going to welcome horses to that big stinky party ;^).
I can’t wait, Chris, for the chance to sue Donald Trump to pay for some violence committed by thugs at an Aberdeen hate rally inspired by Trump’s hateful exhortations.
But wait—Noem’s bills don’t see any need to take action against violence committed anywhere but in the vicinity of a pipeline construction project with the intent to stop that construction. If a bunch of pipeline workers go to town, get drunk, and start smashing windows and raping waitresses, SB 189 and SB 190 say nothing about holding TransCanada or the out-of-state contractors who brought those doers of force and violence here accountable. But if we go out on Highway 79 and raise our voices against those workers’ rape of our land, Noem will send the HP out to disperse the crowd, declare them rioters, and starter suing anyone who expresses support for the protestors or posts bail for folks arrested on the scene.
There are Kristi Noem’s priorities. Protect the corporations; screw the people who didn’t vote for her, a fair number who did, the First Amendment, and any semblance of honest government.
This lady speaks about what could happen when you stand your ground. Are we really willing to accept NOem and her fascism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=366&v=Lbi9JcNS4PY
But, responsible adults have guns guns guns. What could go wrong? How about this old dumbarse?
“A 74-year-old substitute teacher is behind bars after a gun in his pocket discharged inside a first-grade classroom Friday.
The incident happened midday at Blountsville Elementary School, said Blount County Sheriff Mark Moon. Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey said one student was struck by a fragment and checked out by the school nurse.
Moon said the teacher – Henry Rex Weaver – had the gun in his pocket when it discharged. There were students in the classroom at the time.” https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2019/03/gun-in-pocket-of-72-year-old-substitute-teacher-discharges-in-1st-grade-alabama-classroom.html
What a disciplinarian, nothing more threatening that a classroom full of 1st graders, little tyrants.