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Angry Election Liars Rebuff Rounds, Threaten Armed Violence

Well, maybe we’ll finally get some help fighting the insurrectionists from Mike Rounds, now that they are spoiling his town halls with their moonbat war on fact and democracy.

Fringe radicals surprised South Dakota’s junior Senator at a public forum in Spearfish Thursday by booing, shouting for impeachment, and threatening armed rebellion.

Senator Rounds tried to stand up for the plain fact that the 2020 election was conducted freely and fairly, but the fringe radicals whom he and his party ahve empowered were having none of it:

Rounds received his loudest and most raucous round of disapproval, when he said he thinks the outcome of the 2020 election was accurate.

“Oh, my God,” one woman was heard saying through the increased booing.

“What planet are you from, are you kidding me?” another said.

Rounds responded with an explanation for his reasoning.

“We actually went through 62 different challenges in the different states before Jan. 6,” he said. “We went through looking to try to find out where I could come back to South Dakota and say, ‘Guess what, we found the locations where the election in particular states would have changed the outcome of the election.’ If I could come back and tell you that I found it, I would, it’d be a lot easier.”

“They hid it well,” a man said.

“What we do know,” Rounds continued. “Is as in most elections, did we find some errors, yep. And did we actually find some cheating, yep. But would it have changed the outcome in any of the states…”

“Yep,” several people answered.

“The answer is no, we couldn’t find it,” Rounds finished [Alex Portal, “Tables Turn on Rounds at Round Table Talk,” Black Hills Pioneer, 2022.08.20].

Try talking fact with Trumpists, and they turn to guns. Witness the threat of violence unveiled by one audience member in response to Rounds’s call for unity:

“As a voter, I just want to ask you to bring this message back to the rest of D.C. – All the discontent, the pressure cooker we’re in right now, if they don’t do something to fix it quick, we’re runnin’ out of options here,” the man said. “We have no faith in the voting process; most of us don’t. The media’s against us, Hollywood’s against us, we get cancelled – thrown off the social media platforms. You know the four boxes of liberty?… I’m gonna get on a watch list today. We’re runnin out of options. We don’t wanna go there, I don’t wanna … go there, OK? But we’re out of options here. You take this message back to those swamp rats back in D.C., we’re frickin tired of it. Leave us alone, let us work, pay our taxes, leave us the friggin’ hell alone. This is 1860 right now, you know what I’m sayin?” [link added; Portal, 2022.08.20].

Senator Rounds seemed keenly concerned that a crowd he thought would consist of faithful Republicans would express such disdain for the election system that they might sit out and not vote for John Thune, Kristi Noem, and his other right-wing compatriots on this November’s ballot. I won’t mind if those cranky folks all exercise their right not to vote this November and let the rest of South Dakota elect Brian Bengs and Jamie Smith and finally expand Medicaid. But Senator Rounds should be condemn as loudly and forcefully as I will the fact people would threaten an elected official with armed violence over nothing more than the lies they’ve been fed by a properly defeated dictator.

Senator Rounds had the courage to look those angry people in the eye and tell them they are wrong to claim the 2020 election was stolen. He must now use his position, safe from a Cheney-esque primary ouster for another four years, to deem the election liars traitors and to denounce at every turn any suggestion from the hijackers of his party that armed violence is a proper response to a free and fair election.

66 Comments

  1. John 2022-08-21 11:27

    Fascists, bigots, and racists weren’t invented by trump; but he showed them it was okay to come out in public and walk among us.

    ““I wanna know, where’s my right to be safe,” one woman demanded. “You did nothing to secure our borders; you were in Congress when Donald Trump tried to get a wall built. I don’t feel safe walking down my own streets. Where is my right to feel safe and why didn’t you do anything about it?””
    ““I think I can speak for everyone in this room – we are afraid,” one man asserted. “We see our country, and our way of life under attack, serious attack on many fronts, economic, the IRS, the weaponization of the DOJ and the FBI.””
    Imagine how big of SNOWFLAKE one is to be living in Spearfish, or South Dakota, in fear.

  2. Vi Kingman 2022-08-21 11:34

    I’d love to run into these weekends warriors. They are the scum of the earth. You ask them for proof and the name-calling starts

  3. leslie 2022-08-21 11:45

    This is and has been the chief problem for at least the last several decades. Republicans have swallowed misinformation by Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News which the GOP uses to stay in power. Regardless of truth. EVERY TIME. Simple.

    NYT this morning:

    “A Former Fox News Insider Spills the Beans”

    Chris Stirewalt took part in declaring Joe Biden the winner of Arizona in 2020. Now he says the network incites “black-helicopter-level paranoia and hatred.”
    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/19/us/politics/chris-stirewalt-fox-news.html

    say it again: black hawk level paranoia and hatred!

    “But we have a direct assault on the legitimacy of our elections. It is a problem, and you cannot placate your way out of this, Republican Party.” https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world/the-former-fox-news-editor-who-called-arizona-for-biden-says-the-cyber-ninjas-audit-was-meant-to-undermine-trust-in-elections/ar-AAORN8G

    “Death Spiral” Rounds has made the same bed Liz Cheney did and she got short sheeted. No surprise it is happening to Rounds.

  4. All Mammal 2022-08-21 12:38

    Snowflake, cupcake, crybaby, foot stompin’, Verruca Salt, punk-made fascists. I personally know and love people like this. I recently threw my 63 yo, dear long time rocking buddy out of my house after he claimed adamantly that Trump is our best president we’ve ever had and he is a hero because he donated his salary to the IRS out of his charitable, kind heart. He went on to say he has done so much for our country.

    I was initially calm and simply said how sorry I felt that a grown man could be so gullible and held the door open and said, “Bye”. Then we hollered in the street as he got into his pickup. Then I tell you what, I felt so, so hopelessly sad. I can always tell when we haven’t communicated for too long and he has been left to his own devices. I can document his change in attitude and the hateful comments that come directly from his facebook feed the algorithm bombards him with. We both watch PBS and text one another when there’s an interesting NOVA or Nature or Sir David Attenborough program on. We discuss when we are moved to tears by some heroes’ story or life struggle shown on PBS. I even registered him to vote for the first time in his sixty some years and he signed the medical cannabis expansion petition I was helping with. It breaks my heart this enemy got hold of my friend. We have made up and gone agate and fossil hunting since, but when he texted me a picture of the drag races he attended this weekend in MN and said he wished I had come along, I replied Lord how thankful I hadn’t because that crowd had way too many treasonous insurrectionists for me to handle.

    There has been a few specials on PBS covering misinformation and how to consume media responsibly. I have tried nice ways, subtle ways, every tactic I can think of to get him to see how he is being played like a game of tic-tac-toe. I love it when he is preoccupied and doesn’t pay no nevermind to his phone. He is a normal, compassionate human. He gets sucked into a rabbit abyss of hatred on that scrying device and thinks he is watching real news and there’s no logical way to steer him to the truth.

    We need to sue the FCC or something to get this poison out of our lives. It is destroying our families and our people and our country and our planet. It is my enemy #1. How do you convince a person this Cambridge Analytica stuff is so good they have no idea how they could be joining ISIS and not even know what they’re doing is wrong? They think they are the ones seeing clearly and they are the right and true Americans. They forever made me hear the word Patriot as a dog whistle.

    Sorry, I am beside myself surrounded by this everyday and it is the scariest most deadly enemy capable of ending all remnants of peace and security. And it is done at the hands of those we love. The enemy responsible is weaponizing ‘Patriots’. We need to come up with a way to defeat this monster for good. Before its too late. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated. We gotta save our feeble minded and our democracy.

  5. larry kurtz 2022-08-21 13:01

    Lawrence County is Orange County now.

    The Trumpists want something like the Spanish Civil War and christianic nationalists want Trump to declare himself emperor, dissolve the constitution then rule by executive fiat slaughtering every dissenter who resists.

  6. grudznick 2022-08-21 13:13

    Ms. Mammal, what is a “rocking buddy?” And who is Veruca Salt?

  7. Donald Pay 2022-08-21 13:38

    I’m not a fan of Rounds, but I do appreciate him trying to talk sense to the inmates of the insane asylum. He must have felt like Coulmier in the play “Marat/Sade.” You hope there are a few of the insane who might listen to someone who is sane, but I doubt reality makes sense to this crowd who follow their Lord and Master, Trump.

    The Republican leader in Wisconsin just ended the Gableman “investigation” into the nonexistent “voter fraud” that didn’t happen in the 2020 election here in Wisconsin. This investigation cost Wisconsin taxpayers $1,000,000, and found nothing. It provided some cover for Republicans legislators through the primary cycle, but, apparently, it was becoming a political liability as the campaign moved toward the general election. Now they have the problem that Gableman can’t account for much of that million bucks he spent. Chalk this investigation up to another Republican swindle.

  8. All Mammal 2022-08-21 13:39

    Mr. G- I usually call it going to church. It is when you go to places like the Cheyenne River or Red Shirt or Fairburn, SD to find Fairburn Agates. They are South Dakota’s state gemstone. Some folks like to gamble. Rocking can be just as lucrative, yet it is free. Seriously, anyone can pull a beautiful gem straight out of the dirt. I don’t buy or sell them. I have traded for things with them. I actually got a very nice double barrel shotgun from just one rock before. They are made into jewelry and make fine gifts and are a spiffy way of going out into nature aka church. I also find ammonite and turtle fossils, as well as other neat stuff. They are named for the town of Fairburn, where the most famous agate beds are found along French Creek. Rock hounds are geology geeks and nature lovers. Some are in it for the money and it has gained popularity with tweakers. But that’s just for them to make money to go gamble or trade for tweak, I guess.

    Verruca Salt is the spoiled little brat in the book Willy Wonka’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Reminds me of Wizard of Oz, which I also loathe.
    Verruca is always demanding things of her rich father. “I want it now, Daddy!”
    I remember thinking in grade school while being forced to read it, “Will someone shut her the hell up?”

  9. P. Aitch 2022-08-21 14:22

    One NYTIMES researcher has found that 15 to 20 million Americans think violence would be justified to return Trump to office.

  10. Loren 2022-08-21 14:28

    I don’t fell one bit sorry for Rounds, or then, for that matter, but I feel sorry for the nation and a bit embarrassed that they citizenry is so gullible. These two senators have been riding the tiger and now they are afraid to get off. They had multiple opportunities to flush this orange menace, from pussy-gate and Mueller’s 10-count list of obstruction to abuse of power (a.k.a. Impeachment #1) and inciting an insurrection (a.k.a. Impeachment #2). The Big Lie continues and is now a prerequisite to club membership. Well, Mikey, you created it and now we all live with it, stupidity, conspiracies, and plain bull roar. Thanks! @#$%^&*!

  11. Arlo Blundt 2022-08-21 15:07

    Well, a feather in the cap of our correspondent, the out of state refugee living in Spearfish, with a blog site and time on his hands, John Dale. You cannot espouse a political position in South Dakota that is “too far right”. There is no such thing as “Too far right”. Plenty of folks, many of them refugees from other states, here at the invitation of Mrs. Noem, inhabit the nether regions of the conspiracy rich, Infowars influenced, Trump worshipping, extreme Right. Rounds has encouraged them for political career purposes, now he has to pay the price.

  12. larry kurtz 2022-08-21 15:23

    Spearditch has has her share of extreme white wing protoTrumpers like Jim Seward the Elder and Dale Bell replaced now by the likes of Scott Odenbach and Sam Kephart. Nothing they say surprises me anymore because much it it is simple bluster intended for effect or to raise campaign dollars.

    It’s nothing ten feet of ash from an erupting Yellowstone caldera won’t fix.

  13. O 2022-08-21 15:53

    This is where the crazy rubber hits the road. So Sen. Rounds has to spend the whole time trying to convince the crowd that they need to stop hating President Biden and the Democrats for the crazy made-up political reasons they have in their heads from MAGA Central and instead hate President Biden and the Democrats for the made-up political reasons HE wants to put in their heads. And we want to rush to pat him on the back for “setting the record straight” and “standing up to the crowd” and “having courage?” Rounds had the opportunity — TWICE — to actually do those things with impeachment votes in the Senate and twice cowered to party allegiance.

    How about some questions about delaying Veterans health care to the point that two veterans committed suicide? How about answering questions about votes against infrastructure to help SD? How about questions about votes against reducing insulin prices? I’m willing to bet that group avails themselves of infrastructure, there were a few veterans, a few diabetics, and VERY few actually have encountered roaming bands of undocumented terrorist immigrants roaming the streets of Spearfish.

  14. 96Tears 2022-08-21 16:50

    No wonder AWOL Governor Kristi Noem keeps riding that fast horse and takes jets to stay out of South Dakota. These people are her base voters who’ll take time to fly the flag at a Republican town meeting. The thought leaders of today’s South Dakota Republican Party. Loud, angry, entitled, dumb and dangerous.

  15. larry kurtz 2022-08-21 17:18

    Large portions of the Republican Party, including leadership in Wyoming and at the national level, are “very sick,” Rep. Liz Cheney said Sunday. “I think it also tells you that large portions of our party, including the leadership of our party, both at a state level in Wyoming, as well as on a national level with the RNC, is very sick,” she continued. “And that you know, we really have got to decide whether or not we’re going to be a party based on substance and policy or whether we’re going to remain, as so many of our party are today, in the grips of a dangerous former president.”

    https://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/cheney-large-parts-of-gop-are-very-sick/article_16e39eac-2196-11ed-b2c1-670c918010aa.html

  16. buckobear 2022-08-21 19:48

    … and these peolpe are willing to die for donold turmp ……?

  17. Richard Schriever 2022-08-21 20:24

    Bucko – As they have demonstrated by voluntarily dying of the Covid “hoax”.

  18. Loti 2022-08-21 23:05

    Wonder if more talk of Trump only gives him more power in a sense. Never knew the attraction that guy had on Republicans, esp. KN…. If one of them becomes president, it all goes downhill from here. God help us all.

  19. jerry 2022-08-22 07:03

    Very good points O. There seems to be a shortage of veterans, the sick, the disabled and the insulin dependent diabetics in these South Dakota town hall meetings. Only the anti American black shirt fascists, along with their angry, frustrated, menopausal camp followers, seem to be showing up talking all tuff.

  20. John 2022-08-22 08:43

    It’s doubtful that the low information voters that accosted Sen Rounds have links to Russia.
    Yet, it’s highly likely, almost assured that those low information voters are indirectly acquiring their viewpoints spoon-fed by the Kremlin, via Fox Entertainment and other propaganda sources.

    Email intercepts and diligent tracking reveal that far right parties in Europe receive their talking points and coordinate directly with Moscow. Think of that when one hears or reads of Senators Hawley (voting against Finland and Sweden in NATO), Hawley, Cruz, Johnson (QAN-WI), Paul, Blackburn, etc., urging to cut funding to Ukraine.
    https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/exclusive-russia-backs-europes-far-right/

    Unfortunately, since at least FDR’s New Deal, the US has an often violent, fascist right. Mr. Katz gives a good accounting with the added benefits of projecting forward in our politics. https://www.amazon.com/Gangsters-Capitalism-Smedley-Breaking-Americas/dp/1250135583/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QFAJR6G3VDX5&keywords=smedley+butler+gangsters+of+capitalism&qid=1661175685&sprefix=smedley%2Caps%2C249&sr=8-1

  21. Bonnie B Fairbank 2022-08-22 09:04

    Well, I’m almost positive someone will point out to me how wrong my reaction is to this article, but this is just pure gold from the title to all the comments and links.
    Go ahead, ya dumb *ss tree toads, cannibalize each other. Threaten the very wankers YOU voted for because they have an (R) behind their names and you didn’t do your research. So Trump is and was a loser and all of you are doubly so. LOSERS.
    If gullibility, stupidity, ignorance, nastiness, supremely wretched educations, and misinformation WOULD kill you Trumptards, South Dakota might become a tolerable state. I’d blithely sign up for burial detail; I’ve already buried too many good, compassionate, and thoughtful people in my life, so your dirt nap would be a party. And a blessing to all of America.

  22. jerry 2022-08-22 10:13

    EB5 Rounds should’ve reminded the fascist crowd that had there actually been a “deep state” involved, why would they have let trump live this long. It seems Putin’s brain in Russia, just had a big FSB bomb go off under his fascist daughter’s Toyota. “Deep State” in Putin land means deep crater.

  23. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2022-08-22 10:40

    Not outraged enough, Larry? Good catch at the end of that article about Thune’s visit with the Black Hills whack-a-doodles. They sound like the same folks booing Rounds because he wouldn’t affirm their lies about the 2020 election.

    As Bonnie suggests, there is some pleasure to be had in watching Rounds and Thune face these howlers. If the Trumpist cranks keep crashing town halls that are meant to be GOP praise-fests, maybe Rounds, Thune, and the other GOP leaders will realize they’ve got to rein in these crazies, for their own safety as well as the safety of the Union.

  24. bearcreekbat 2022-08-22 10:56

    Although I no longer live there, I actually grew up in Spearfish and have spent virtually every summer of my long life in or very near Spearfish working, visiting, or just staying there. During this time I cannot recall ever personally encountering (or hearing or reading a news story or some personal anecdote from someone else encountering) a threatening immigrant. My time there includes several years when the Belle Fourche area had a sugar beet factory and large sheep sheering enterprises both employing numerous immigrants. Indeed for several years I interacted with the the Minnesota Migrant Council, which had a physical presence in the area, and numerous individual immigrants. This history makes one wonder what personal experiences, if any at all, caused the purported current Spearfish resident to tell Rounds:

    “I wanna know, where’s my right to be safe,” one woman demanded. “You did nothing to secure our borders; you were in Congress when Donald Trump tried to get a wall built. I don’t feel safe walking down my own streets. Where is my right to feel safe and why didn’t you do anything about it?”

    Likewise, another purported Spoearfish resident told Rounds:

    “I think I can speak for everyone in this room – we are afraid,” one man asserted. “We see our country, and our way of life under attack, serious attack on many fronts, economic, the IRS, the weaponization of the DOJ and the FBI. We are in trouble here in this country.. . .”

    My only recollection of publicized DOJ/FBI/IRS action in the area was back in the 1980’s when the federal government officials closed Deadwood’s prostitution houses and charged the owner of Pam’s Purple Door with tax evasion. Otherwise, to the best of my knowledge all police action has been local. Occasionally the state passes drug interdiction prosecutions off to the FBI and US Attorneys Office, but none of that is new. So exactly what is “everyone in the room” so “afraid” of anyway?

  25. bearcreekbat 2022-08-22 11:03

    As for the man that responded to Round’s comments about how investigating the election didn’t not uncover any reason to set it asde with the comment “They hid it well,” that raises the question: If election officials hid it so well how in the world did this man, and those sources relies on, discover the hidden evidence of this election fraud? And why haven’t he and his sources come forward to reveal what actual evidence they have found?

  26. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2022-08-22 11:05

    Great point, BCB. I lived in Spearfish for two years and have visited on a variety of occasions since. I’ve never felt unsafe in Spearfish. If there is ever any danger to Spearfish residents from migrants, it would be from the hundreds of thousands of migrants who roll through town on their two-wheelers in August, and no one in Spearfish is proposing building a wall to keep those folks out.

    The fantasists booing Mike Rounds appear to be living entirely in their TV sets and online echo chambers, not in their actual community. They all need to unplug for awhile and walk around outside.

  27. mike from iowa 2022-08-22 11:39

    Person from Spearfish doesn;’t feel safe becuse he/she/it was told by Fake Noize they aren’t safe. Pure magat BS on a stick.

  28. larry kurtz 2022-08-22 11:52

    The 2002 Homestake closure sealed the exodus of union miners to Nevada and Arizona erasing the Democratic base from the northern Black Hills and much of Rapid City.

    One reason I left the Hills in 2006 after over twenty years was the competitive Mexican nationals who underbid nearly every trade including the logging business. Last I was in Spearditch in 2015 violence between rival families had already shaken every Black Hills community and I blame the realtors for nearly all of it.

  29. bearcreekbat 2022-08-22 13:36

    larry, do you have links to your statement about “violence between rival families” in 2015? Since your post mention Mexicans as a reason you left Spearfish, can youi provide a link indicating there was any violence in Spearfish involving Mexicans or other immigrants?

    I did a Google search using the phrase “violence between rival families in Spearfish, SD in 2015 but found no stories or refernces to such an event. I did see a claim on one website that the violent crime rate in Spearfish actually dropped over 16% from 2014 to 2015. It then increased substantially in both 2016 and 2017, then dropped 39% again in 2018 according to the website:

    Interactive chart of the Spearfish, South Dakota violent crime rate and statistics by year from 2005 to 2018. In the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program, violent crime statistics are composed of four offenses: murder/homicide and nonnegligent manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Violent crimes are defined in the UCR Program as those offenses which involve force or threat of force.

    The Spearfish SD crime rate for 2018 was 212.53 per 100,000 population, a 39.37% decline from 2017.
    The Spearfish SD crime rate for 2017 was 350.52 per 100,000 population, a 43.08% increase from 2016.
    The Spearfish SD crime rate for 2016 was 244.99 per 100,000 population, a 37.5% increase from 2015.
    The Spearfish SD crime rate for 2015 was 178.17 per 100,000 population, a 16.51% decline from 2014.

    https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/sd/spearfish/crime-rate-statistics

    I found no source suggesting that the reported increases in violent crime involved Mexicans or other immigrants, I saw another interesting report that “In 2012, the Hells Angels held their USA run in Spearfish with several hundred club members. Police bolstered their presence near the campground where the Hells Angels were staying and no incidents were reported.” But I found no mention at all of violence or any other problems in Spearfish involving either Mexicans or other immigrants.

  30. larry kurtz 2022-08-22 13:51

    Hi bat. An old friend and his son still operate a painting business based in Spearfish. He and his wife came through Santa Fe a couple years ago. He talked about slashed tires, construction site thefts and brawls. I’m away from the computer but will dig up some arrest records when I can.

  31. larry kurtz 2022-08-22 13:53

    White grievance exists, people. And it’s very scary.

  32. John Dale 2022-08-22 13:58

    The fraud denier herd is really thinning-out.

    When the story is told, the covid plandemic will be identified as the lead-up to mail-in ballots, which were the beachhead for the fraud.

    I have more respect for Rounds, now that he endured my pretties.

    :)

  33. larry kurtz 2022-08-22 14:06

    Wow, say sh¥t and it comes sliding in on a shovel.

  34. Arlo Blundt 2022-08-22 15:32

    Read a short article yesterday in the Argus that John Thune was confronted by Trumpists in New Underwood, I believe, who alleged that he was not sufficiently upset and angry about their Donald’s humble Florida abode being visited by the traitorous FBI. Thune responded that National Security concerns are serious concerns, and that he would wait and see the outcome of the investigation. He was pilloried.

  35. Bonnie B Fairbank 2022-08-22 16:57

    So juvenile of me, but tee hee.
    Eat sh*t and die, Reptilian mofos.

  36. All Mammal 2022-08-22 18:20

    You can get your daily nutritional value of the inbred, ignorant, numbskull buffoonery by reading the comments on the RCPD FB. Rest assured, you don’t have to have a facebook account just to read the 1/2 hilarious, 1/2 infuriating public comments. The racist and crack-headed things people are willing to spout on a law enforcement forum are outrageous. It is 100% disturbing and deflating.

    After a handful of shooting murders in Rapid City alone just this past weekend is all the proof needed we have an infestation of these trump bums and guns. They were popping rounds at the Central States Fair even. And the police came on the tv to say the public wasn’t in danger. On the same day they had a whole neighborhood on lockdown with SWAT running around!

    Not a single mention from our (R) mayor or gov, (R) or from a law maker, not a single (R) leader had anything to say to their people living in a war zone. I’m not exaggerating. Double homicides, juveniles killing and on the loose, kids laying shot in the street, unknown victim found shot dead in a trailer, all in 2-3 days. I couldn’t even sleep on my hammock in my backyard from hearing so many gunshots.

    And fools in Spearbitch are threatened!? Too many liberal college students coming back for their education? Throw a Twinkie to distract them so you can get away.

  37. All Mammal 2022-08-23 00:52

    In addition to all the recent shootings endangering people for real in RC- I wonder if our blank-face governor even knows about the 100 firearms stolen from a gun store in Isabel, SD last week. No suspects. ATF has zilch to go on. Would she give a whoop if she did know? Clearly fear has inspired her to have that monstrosity of a fortification built around her mansion. But just like her orange paper tiger with tiny paws, she doesn’t worry when her countrymen are the victims.

    The fraidy-cats in Spearbitch are afraid of open southern borders that actually aren’t open while not one raised eyebrow over 100 of their precious vicarious wieners are loose in the hands of criminals in SD.

    I’ll take bus loads of refugees from Central America seeking safety and employment over a shooting homicide every other day and hundreds of guns available to kids and crazies. ….angry white people in the whitest towns are on the brink of radical domestic terrorism and we are left to deal with actual ramifications. Must be nice to check out of reality and blame President Biden and immigrants for fake fear induced frenzy.

  38. larry kurtz 2022-08-23 07:29

    Good morning, bat. The arrest trail in the Black Hills Pioneer and Rapid City Journal is very long and wide, indeed. Meth related incidents still top the list and the link you provided shows property crime in Spearfish even topped Rapid City and Sioux Falls in 2018. Among the most notable busts is Operation Say Uncle where Mexican nationalists figured prominently in meth trafficking that led to a raid on the Bandidos compound in Rapid Valley earlier this year.

    https://www.justice.gov/usao-sd/pr/us-attorney-s-office-announces-37-people-indicted-large-scale-meth-trafficking-network-0

  39. bearcreekbat 2022-08-23 09:07

    Thanks for that link larry. I did see that of the over 40 people listed as charged with this crime there was indeed one name associated with Spearfish, but this defendant’s listed name (“John Thornberry (23, Spearfish, SD)”) didn’t seem to indicate whether he was a Mexican or other immigrant. I did note 3 of the individuals charged were reported as being from Mexico but I didn;t see anything that connected these 3 defendants to Spearfish in any way.

    Since the bust in your link took place in 2021, not 2015, it seems reasonable to conclude the 3 named Mexicans were not among the “competitive Mexican nationals” that you mentioned in your earlier comment, in which you wrote that you left Spearfish in 2015 due to “violence between rival families [that] had already shaken every Black Hills community. . . .” And you stating that there is a long “arrest trail in the Black Hills Pioneer and Rapid City Journal” is a bit confusing since my Googlre search did not turn up any links to stories from the RC Journal nor Black Hills Pioneer that stated Mexicans or other immigrants were engaged in violent criminal activity in the Spearfish area during the period you mentioned around 2015. Is this “long arrest record” from these two newspapers you mention available to the public online anywhere?

    As to “meth related incidents,” I am aware that many times violent acts are attributed to meth use, yet there are also a significant number of meth arrests and prosecutions that do not involve any violence, such as arrests for mere possession and/or distribution. Normally when violent crimes occur and meth is alleged to be involved, the violent crimes will be listed as seperate crimes for statistical purposes. Thus, mere reports of meth arrests or “meth related incidents” don’t really provide much, if any, useful information about violent crimes.

    Incidently, the listed crimes included in the report I linked did not purport to include “property crimes” in 2018 as part of the stats it reported, so that report doesn’t support the statement that “property crime in Spearfish even topped Rapid City and Sioux Falls in 2018.” While such a statemnt certainly could be correct, the report I linked doesn’t make such a claim and I have seen no other evidence to support such a statement.

  40. larry kurtz 2022-08-23 09:51

    I’ll keep digging and put up a blog post since the grievances aired at the Spearfish town hall are based largely on perceived failures of Democratic Party border policies.

  41. leslie 2022-08-24 12:21

    AM- great posts! Wow

    “inbred, ignorant, numbskull buffoonery by reading the comments on the RCPD FB.”

    “hundreds of guns available to kids and crazies. ….angry white people in the whitest towns are on the brink of radical domestic terrorism and we are left to deal with actual ramifications. Must be nice to check out of reality and blame President Biden and immigrants for fake fear induced frenzy.”

  42. Donald Pay 2022-08-24 13:34

    Loren is absolutely correct. We all knew what Donald J. Trump was decades ago. Certainly we knew it as he was making his racist birther claims against Obama. The Republicans could have flushed Trump at multiple points, but they were “good Germans.” Rounds and Thune resemble the conservative politicians during the Weimar Republic, as Hitler rose gradually into power. They made a bargain with the devil, and found out the devil got the better of them.

  43. P. Aitch 2022-08-24 13:43

    I’m confident @John Dale read my challenge since he has no job and lives off his wife and disability.
    One more time Mr. Dale.
    Provide valid evidence that this assertion by you is anything other than just laughable foolishness.

    “When the story is told, the covid pandemic will be identified as the lead-up to mail-in ballots, which were the beachhead for the fraud. – John Dale

  44. Donald Pay 2022-08-24 15:01

    Well, the fact in Wisconsin is that, after $1,000,000 of taxpayer dollars spent a man Trump suggested to lead the Wisconsin Republican “investigation” of fraud in the 2020 election came up with no fraud. He came up with a lot of conspiracy theories, similar to the one John Dale suggests, but found nothing.

    Just a suggestion for Mr. Dale. We don’t need “stories.” The data in Wisconsin shows that it wasn’t the Democratic stronghold counties that voted differently in 2020. There was a slight increase in voter turnout, but that was all around the state. It was the Republican counties, especially the collar counties around Milwaukee, that tipped the scale for Biden, voting less for Trump than they did for other Republicans on the ballot. The Republicans either didn’t vote for President, voted for a third party candidate, or voted for Biden. White middle class suburban Republicans (probably mostly women) had had enough of the Trump circus. The only fraud in the election was Donald J. Trump, and enough people realized it that he lost the election.

    As far as mail-in ballots, yeah, Covid had a lot to do with the increase in this form of voting. That was true in Republican and Democratic counties. But as far as “lead-up,” you are way off base. Wisconsin has had mail-in ballots for a while now. Until 2020, the use of mail-in absentee voting had been dominated by Republicans.

  45. larry kurtz 2022-08-25 09:00

    Okay, bat. I phoned the son of an old friend who took over his dad’s successful painting business based in Spearditch and asked him whether Spanish speakers still do much of the work in the trades. He said many drive back and forth from Gillette, Wyoming after collapse of the coal industry and Lawrence County’s property crimes and violence among rival workers peaked in 2018 now Rapid City sees the bulk of the construction site thefts, drunken brawls and housing overcrowding. He told me that in Hill City Spanish speakers became the only applicants for employment at the Neiman-owned sawmill so after Donald Trump was forced from office he shuttered it. The old Homestake mill in Spearditch, now also a Neiman property, is experiencing a similar phenomenon.

  46. cibvet 2022-08-25 10:35

    larry–Perhaps your friend in Spearfish is a minion of john dale. As a resident of Lawrence county, your friend is repeating redneck bull**it.
    Yes , there are many Spanish speakers in the area doing the “trades” work that requires physical labor and they are quite good at it.
    My minimal association with them is that they put in very long hours working for local contractors.
    One Spanish criminal does not represent all as one black criminal does not represent all and one Indian criminal does not represent all, just as one white criminal does not represent all.

  47. larry kurtz 2022-08-25 11:04

    That Lawrence County has become a Nazi enclave is lost on no one, for sure.

  48. larry kurtz 2022-08-25 11:10

    I haven’t finished combing the arrest records for the Hills and the number of Spanish surnames is quite high but I’ve yet to determine whether that’s selective enforcement or something else.

  49. bearcreekbat 2022-08-25 12:47

    larry, my personal and professional experience supports most of what cibvet states in his comment about Spanish immigrants. I have yet to see a factually accurate basis to fear or discriminate against immigrants as a group, especially the Spanish immigrants that have for most of my long life and working career provided a primarily positive impact and contribution to Spearfish and the Black Hills community.

    And just to clarify, my earlier questions to you relate to your comments about Spearfish in 2015, so more recent anecdotes, opinions and news stories from outside of Spearfish are not helpful in answering my questions.

  50. larry kurtz 2022-08-25 12:58

    Okay, bat. Have an ICE day.

  51. larry kurtz 2022-08-25 13:02

    FWIW, the City of Spearfish Public Information Officer told me during a phone call this morning that comments by Senator Round’s’ constituents that city streets aren’t safe are not supported by the facts.

  52. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2022-08-25 14:24

    To cibvet’s point, I suspect our Latin American friends are working too hard to go out and make trouble… unlike the aging angry white folks who have time to go to town halls with Senator Rounds and fabricate claims of danger posed by immigrants while they themselves threaten to start a civil war.

  53. mike from iowa 2022-08-25 14:41

    Aging wasicu magats are always the victims of one damn thing or another. drumpf and Fake Noize constantly remind them to keep them angry and voting against their best interests.

  54. leslie 2022-08-28 15:18

    the prevalence of slavery in a given county correlates closely to the prevalence of firearms owned by its residents. https://www.salon.com/2022/08/25/ownership-historical-study/

    psychology professor Dr. Nicholas Buttrick of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, hypothesize that this correlation exists because of the Reconstruction period in American history, which occurred immediately after the Civil War — “a moment when a massive upsurge in the availability of firearms co-occurred with a worldview threat from the emancipation and the political empowerment of Black Southerners.”

  55. leslie 2022-08-28 15:30

    Buttrick said: “For the rest of the country, we find almost no relationship between safety and gun ownership.”

    Rounds, like the NRA, has taken decades to figure out where it’s “marketing” ploy would lead! Mass shootings. Idiot zealots with guns.

  56. leslie 2022-08-28 15:34

    “Joe, come and take it” (C) Sen Rounds

    pffsszt!!

  57. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2022-08-29 20:04

    Noem’s on meth again? She really wants to remind everyone how silly she sounds?

    No matter—her supporters will say that her words can mean whatever they need them to mean whenever they need to change meanings. I’m hearing secondhand that folks at the Rounds meeting who said the things Alex Portal reported are now saying they didn’t really mean the things they said, or maybe that they said no such things. I’m actually not clear: my source insisted that no one at the meeting threatened violence and to interpret their comments in that fashion constitutes lying, but when I pressed my source to tell me which if any of Alex Portal’s quotations in the original BHP article were incorrect, my source refused to give a straight answer.

    Typical Trumpists, and typical bullies: make a threat, then pretend you never made the threat. They want to enjoy the power of making threats but they never want to be held accountable for exerting that power.

  58. Mark Anderson 2022-09-16 17:05

    You know it would only take a few minutes to heat the barrel of the Round’s bronze shotgun to point at his face. I could do a nice even curve.. The bronze dog wouldn’t mind.

  59. P. Aitch 2022-09-16 19:27

    Welcome back, Mark. #smile

  60. Arlo Blundt 2022-09-16 22:15

    Mark–nice to see you back on the board…I missed you.

  61. larry kurtz 2023-02-07 14:43

    Howdy bat. Many updates to this story intersect with major arrests in Butte, Montana of a Sinaloa operation and Howdy Doody Dusty taking a Pennington County law enforcement industry official to the SOTU to blame Uncle Joe for the fentanyl outbreak and border politics.

    The people at that Spearditch town hall and people in Billings and Butte are saying it, too.

    https://www.atf.gov/news/pr/obregon-mexico-man-sentenced-drug-trafficking

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