While Bill Napoli shouted down our Lieutenant Governor and insulted the Governor he’d invited to speak, Wingnut Representative Tim Goodwin (R-30/Rapid City) circulated among his fellow extremists a hard copy of his latest blog post, in which he invokes a Trumpian fake majority to declare Kristi Noem’s corporate-fascist anti-protest bills “some of the best legislation passed in recent memory”:
Chief Julian Bear Runner of the Oglala Sioux Tribe bans Governor Noem from Pine Ridge reservation.
What’s this all about? It stems from what most believe was some of the best legislation passed in recent memory. What I’m referring to are Senate bills 189 and 190. Basically, these bills address the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline is going to pass through western South Dakota [links added, because Goodwin thinks hyperlinks are truck-stop sausages with sriracha sauce; Rep. Tim Goodwin, “Oglala Sioux Tribe Bans Governor Noem,” Goodwin’s legislative blog, 2019.05.06].
Goodwin suggests that the Oglala Sioux and other American Indians can have no beef with Keystone XL because it doesn’t cross any of their reservations. He also says none of us can have a beef with Noem’s new law against “riot boosting”, because they still allow “peaceful protest and assembly” and simply “put the hammer down” on lawbreakers. (Quietly note the potentially circular reasoning of saying a new law is good because it will punish people who break the law… which they wouldn’t be breaking if the new law didn’t exist.)
Perhaps helpfully, the Rapid City legislator offers his definition of “riot boosting”:
It has language called riot boosting, meaning that if you hired paid protestors, who riot and break our laws, you, the person or organization who hired these individuals, are also liable, not just the individuals who broke the law [Goodwin, 2019.05.06].
Ah! What a relief! A lot of us who want to see the Keystone XL pipeline stopped by any legal means possible were worried that Noem’s new bills actually put us in legal peril just for saying things like, “We want to see the Keystone XL Pipeline stopped by any legal means possible.” We stayed worried when Governor Noem’s high-priced lawyer/lobbyist/string-puller Matt McCaulley refused to dispel concerns about such possible legal ramifications in committee and the Legislature went, “O.K., great!” and rushed to pass those unclear laws for their dear Kristi.
And while I appreciate Rep. Goodwin’s attempted at clarification (and when you see Goodwin and clarification in the same sentence, you know there’s trouble ahead), we should stay worried, because the definition of “riot boosting” in Noem’s new law is most definitely not the narrow definition of “riot boosting” for which Rep. Goodwin thinks he was voting:
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, signed into law 2019.03.29].
I don’t have to pay any money to incur legal penalty under Noem’s anti-protest law. I just need to “direct, advise, encourage, or solicit” actions that result in Noem’s Gestapo arresting people for alleged violence.
Sorry, Tim, I still have my beef… and as a conservative defender of the Constitution, you ought to, too.
Mr. Goodwin is indeed from the District numbered 30, but he is not from Rapid City. Like most of the insanest to ever represent that fine country in the legislatures, Mr. Goodwin is from the hinterlands.
Wonder what it will cost goofy wingnuts to sue George Soros for riot boosting, because as soon as a protest breaks out so do the rumors Soros is bankrolling the protesters.
Suppose some water protectors ask me to make a financial donation for them to protest as opposed to hiring them on my behalf to go to a protest site and raise some hell and break things up?
How would Kristi know the financial arrangement?
MFI, I think you’re right on Kristi wanting to snare George Soros in her political trap.
Rioting is not the same as protesting.
I am surprised that needs to be explained to anybody, but as the saying goes, you can’t fix stupid.
Anne … We apologize for being so stupid. Thanks for the help.
Anne, we understand the difference between rioting and protesting. Kristi’s corporate-fascist law does not make that distinction clear. Why wouldn’t Kristi’s lawyer state that there is a clear difference in committee? What guarantee do I have that if I say here on the blog, “Hey, everybody! Come to West River and protest the Keystone XL pipeline!” and if a bunch of people who read my blog go to the pipeline build site, break no laws, but get swept up in a riot caused by some Trumpist brownshirts, that the state won’t send me a bill for the law enforcement costs of hauling people away in paddywagons?
What is rioting, Anne?
According to SD statute rioting is “Any use of force or violence or 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, is riot. Riot is a Class 4 felony.”
I’d hazard a guess that you will find a riot at any high school or bar once or twice a month, maybe more, yet it is never charged. South Dakota saves charges of “riot” for Indians.
Now, isn’t “riot” what the thugs hired by the Dakota Access Pipeline did? Security staff do not have “authority of law.” It seems to me, this would apply to vigilante and security staff, and “boosting a riot” would apply to CEOs who use security forces to confront protestors, rather than to wait for law enforcement.
How embarrasing for a sitting Governor to be banished from parts of the State.
Protesting is when you don’t scare any white people.
Rioting is when grudznick is so scared he puts all his goats in his basement and says things like this …..
grudznick on 2016-10-29 at 10:51
People who illegally protest on private land, threaten public safety, block public roads and steal and destroy private property need to have the army come in there and start cracking skulls. Period.
Noem’s and the SDGOP’s “riot boosting” is the dumbest, most childish phrasing I think I’ve ever heard outside of a grade school.
It sounds like a bunch of children gathered around a table tapping their foreheads, wiggling in their chairs, trying to come up with a name. All at once one of them jumps up, stretching her hand as high into the air as she can.
“I know! I got it, I got it! Let’s call it boosting, like the parents’ Tiger Pride Booster Club!”
And thus the stupidest law gets the stupidest name and as a bonus, it violates the 1st amendment.
Who’s on first, What’s on second, and I Don’t Know is the real name of the SDGOP leadership. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
22-10-1. Riot–Felony. Any use of force or violence or 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, is riot. Riot is a Class 4 felony. https://sdlegislature.gov/Statutes/Codified_Laws/DisplayStatute.aspx?Type=Statute&Statute=22-10-1
If 3 of you go on to your neighbors property without permission, carrying clubs and signs protesting the pipeline, and refuse to leave? That is a riot.
If you hire those people to go there and encourage them to riot and get arrested, under the new law? You can and should be prosecuted.
You have NO freedom of speech rights to occupy someone else’s property and impede, obstruct, or stop their legal activities. In SD? Such actions could legally get you shot.
Senator Russell and I poured over the bills looking for any reason, any scintilla of it violating free speech rights. There was none. What the bill did do was enforce private property rights.
A riot is an illegal act. This statute holds those legally responsible who intentionally recruit and pay others to riot.
Wrong. If 3 of you go on to your neighbors property without permission, carrying clubs and signs protesting the pipeline, and refuse to leave? That’s trespassing.
Wrong. If you hire those people to go there and encourage them to riot and get arrested, under the new law? You must, in court, prove that encouragement not just assert it.
Wrong. Such actions could only illegally get you shot. Stace. An elected Senator that advises in a public forum that it’s in any way legal to shoot people, not in self defense, is an illegal action. You’re committing a felony by posting that. “Lock him up!!”
Sorry, Stace, you know nothing about this. This is far, far above your expertise. As I said, anything can be called a “riot,” including a little bar fisticuffs. The statutory definition is ridiculous. Calling a sit-in, a riot is nonsense. Sit-ins are a part of American protest, and have been for a century. Civil disobedience is as old as the Tea Party, the one in Boston.
Protests with non-violent civil disobedience are routine in my city. Law enforcement in Madison, WI. would never charge college students who sit in anywhere with riot. We sat-in in the State Capitol Building. No one was charged with riot, and the charges that were brought were mostly dismissed. If you want to boost a riot, have police coordinating with goon squads and manhandling people who are engaging in non-violent, but civilly disobedient protest.
When our local sheriff saw how badly the ND police and goon squads were mishandling the Dakota Pipeline protests, he withdrew his folks from assisting that effort. Many others left as well.
There are plenty of ways law enforcement can deal with such protests, but being a big a-hole about it is not productive, and only encourages violence. I’d advise Stace to shut up and read up. He’s definitely no expert on this.
The Hennepin (Minneapolis) County sheriff sent deputies to the DAPL protest and fully supported the police riot there. The citizens of the county saw what was happening and elected a different sheriff last November.
Citizens know the difference between a nonviolent protest and a riot. They can also see who the aggressors are.
This law is a prime example of the blatant hypocrisy that the populist right wing legislators perpetrated during 2019. They backed a permitless concealed carry because most of them believe that they will need weapons to fight against an oppressive government at some point in the future. Then they pass this law to criminalize civil disobedience and create a chilling effect on citizens’ First Amendment rights with vague terms such as “riot boosting.”
It seems that Noem did not think this one up all by herself. This article discusses Doe v Mckesson in which the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided that Mckesson is guilty of “negligent protest” event though “[t]here can be no liability, civil or criminal, for speech that “incites” violence unless the defendant can be shown to have intentionally urged violence, knowing that listeners would likely respond immediately with violent behavior.” There are likely several think tanks behind efforts such as this.
I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that the Doe v Mckesson case involves an African American and the “riot boosting” statutes were aimed at Native Americans.
Doe v Mckesson fits exactly what Drumpf does at his rallies, sics supporters on protesters with the intent to injure them.
I used to pass by a Planned Parenthood clinic on my way to work. There were often 3 or more people standing on the sidewalk carrying picket signs. They were peacefully protesting, but just standing there. A few decades ago I was part of a strike, and our picket line had to walk in circle on the sidewalk, or we could be cited for loitering. I guess the case law on loitering changed between 1980 and now, probably because such laws are usually enforced on black people, not on white people. So the anti-abortion protestors could just stand there. I would consider it a “stand-in” on public property, but they did allow folks on the sidewalk to walk by. Were these folks, though, guilty of riot? I never saw them threaten anyone, but just their presence along with shaking the bloody images on their signs might be considered a threat by some. What people like Stace consider “riot” changes with who is doing the” rioting,” as with “loitering.”
There is a real problem with laws, like SDCL 22-10-1, and this new “riot boosting” bill. Riot is not charged in ordinary bar fights in cowboy establishments or high school fisticuffs, but only when there is a particular favored industry or corporation that is being protected, or Indians to be charged. Then they drag out the “riot” gear and since they have done that, they have to charge “riot,” because the outfit that law enforcement wears determines the charge.
Courtesy of The Daily Beast:
Ranting about the recent influx of asylum-seeking migrants before a crowd in Panama City, the president complained about how “crazy” it is that those seeking asylum in the U.S. get to see judges before claiming there are only “two or three border security people who are brave” that are forced to deal with “15,000 people marching up.”
“Don’t forget, we don’t let them and we can’t let them use weapons,” Trump continued. “We can’t. Other countries do. We can’t. I would never do that.”
Asking how to “stop these people,” a rallygoer close to the stage shouted: “Shoot ‘em!”
The crowd erupted in laughter as the president grinned and shook his head. Without condemning or condoning the suggestion, Trump attempted to brush it off with a joke.
“That’s only in the panhandle you can get away with that, folks,” he exclaimed. “Only in the panhandle!”
Trump supporters will defend this by suggesting that Trump was clearly joking, but it is jokes like this that get people killed.
Keep in mind that Trump made this joke in Florida, which is already the “Shoot’em first and ask questions later” state.
We have seen multiple incidents of violence perpetrated by Trump supporters including a few mass shootings.
This is NOT a joke.
You’re right Mike. There’s no bigger “riot booster” in this country than Bloviating Bigot. But he’s white so . . . . . . . . .
Nebby has a panhandle. Chokelahoma has a panhandle. Technically so does Idaho. So shooting immigrants is okay in those states as well, Drumpfy?
MFI … Look at a map. Oklahoma has a panhandle because Colorado refused to share a border with Texas. Those goat ropers sneak attacked us in the Civil War and we’ll never forget it.
Last stop the name calling. When we resort to names such as ‘wingnut’, and ‘corporate Fascist’, we are resorting to third grade playground tactics. Let’s reply with a well thought out and scholarly response and leave the name calling to the children.
Alaska also has a panhandle.
Minnesota has something no other state possesses, a Northwest Angle. Look closely at our northern border.
We need to recall a speech Hillary Clinton made to German Bankers when she was a candidate for President. She said that Russia and oligarchs were funding USA organizations opposed to the pipeline and fracking.
The Dakota protest against the pipeline was well organized and very reminiscent and in the mold of the old Soviet style nuclear protests. The protest had leadership, communications, PR and logistics. This was long lasting and well organized.
We then Observed in horror how the protesters poisoned the land with human and animal waste, leaving their debris and making their clams of environmental protection very moot.
That NW angle makes TinySota the most attractive state. :0)
I am disappointed that Senator Nelson is joining Representative Goodwin in misrepresenting the scope of Noem’s protest-suppression bill by pretending it only applies to the hired protestors that Noem has lied about. Surely Nelson and Goodwin read the bill before they voted for it. Surely they can read SB 189’s definition of “riot-boosting,” which I posted above. Surely they can acknowledge that that broad language targets far more behavior than “hiring” people to “riot”.
Mr. Camp, the majority of the blogging here is by Out-of-State Name-Callers, indeed. That is just the way it is. It wrecks Mr. H’s future political ambitions, and exposes some clergy as being similar in maturity to the junior high girls that used to baby sit my granddaughter 20 years ago.
It’s harmless, and it solidifies people’s opinions of Iowegians and Clergy and locks in the reddening in the voting habits of Aberdeenites. It’s all OK.
Hey, just a challenge to word usage, Grudz. I do the blogging here. Commenters do the commenting. There’s a difference. All of the blogging here is done by a lifelong South Dakota resident.
As for percentage of comment section content from out of state, you should distinguish ex-pats from folks who’ve never lived here. To characterize most of the content as name-calling is also patently false. You try to create facts from wishes, but you do not reflect what’s actually happening here.
Apparently I’m not missing a thing by ignoring Grudz[…]’s comments. That makes me very happy. 😁😁😁😁😁
Jemar Tisby is completing his Ph.D in History. He focuses on Christianity, especially white evangelicals.
“Racism is not a ‘blind spot’ within white evangelicalism. It is part of that tradition’s DNA.”
“History demonstrates that racism never goes away; it just adapts.”
Tisby’s book, “The Color of Compromise,” was just published in January. While his focus is not American Indians, I’m sure they can relate. The entire Sojo article is here:
https://short1.link/OW8Qeq
It’s entirely worth your time.