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Governor Blocks State Employees From Downloading TikTok

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South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem ordered state government employees to stop using TikTok.

Noem signed an Executive Order Tuesday to ban government officials in the state from using the Chinese social media app over growing security concerns. The order takes effect immediately, and bans all state government employees and contractors from downloading the app on government devices. TikTok has been the subject of growing concerns in recent months about data privacy and security risks it poses, particularly to government officials.

“South Dakota will have no part in the intelligence gathering operations of nations who hate us,” Noem said in a statement Tuesday. “The Chinese Communist Party uses information that it gathers on TikTok to manipulate the American people, and they gather data off the devices that access the platform.”

“Because of our serious duty to protect the private data of South Dakota citizens, we must take this action immediately,” Noem added. “I hope other states will follow South Dakota’s lead, and Congress should take broader action, as well.”

Other officials in South Dakota have previously sounded the alarm about the harm the app inflicts on American children and students. (Read more from “Governor Blocks State Employees From Downloading TikTok” HERE)

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US Marshals Defy Federal Judge Who Goes Berserk Over Vaccines, Makes Accusations of Kidnapping

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On Monday, The Washington Post reported that a federal judge in South Dakota is accusing members of the U.S. marshals Service of “kidnapping” after an incident that stemmed from the marshals refusal to disclose whether marshals had been vaccinated for COVID-19.

“U.S. District Judge Charles Kornmann, who sits in Aberdeen, tore into the U.S. Marshals Service for nearly an hour over their reaction to his decision at a hearing last month to question the deputy marshal in attendance about whether she had been vaccinated,” reported Devlin Barrett. “The deputy marshal, according to the judge, refused to answer the question, at which point he ordered her out of his courtroom. The marshals, in turn, took three of the defendants scheduled for hearings that day out of the courthouse. That infuriated the judge, who describes that act as a ‘kidnapping’ that obstructed the work of the court.” (Read more from “US Marshals Defy Federal Judge Who Goes Berserk Over Vaccines, Makes Accusations of Kidnapping” HERE)

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WATCH: Cops Drag Anti-Masker Out of State School Board Meeting

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A defiant anti-masker was dragged out of a South Dakota school board meeting by police for refusing to wear a face covering, according to footage shared on social media.

The man, identified as Reed Bender, was asked repeatedly to wear a mask at the Mitchell Board of Education meeting Monday before cops were called to the scene, local newspaper the Mitchell Republic reported.

Video shared on Facebook shows an officer explaining to Bender that he is in violation of a district-wide policy that requires wearing masks on school property — and says he doesn’t want to have to forcibly remove him from the building. . .

The father of two then tells the two Mitchell Police Division officers he will not leave willingly — and calls the incident “disgusting.”

“Force me out. You’re going to have to drag me out,” he says, according to the footage.

(Read more from “WATCH: Cops Drag Anti-Masker Out of State School Board Meeting” HERE)

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SEE IT: Is This The Worst Government Slogan Ever?

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The state of South Dakota has a new anti-drug campaign, but its slogan is raising eyebrows.

Because it is “Meth. We’re on it.” . . .

The campaign’s website makes it clear: “Meth addiction is everyone’s problem. Here’s how to fight it. South Dakota has a problem. There isn’t a single solution because meth is widespread. But we can approach it from different angles, so it doesn’t take over counties, towns, neighborhoods. Let’s work together.” . . .

But Twitter news aggregator Twitchy called it the “worst anti-meth campaign slogan possible.”

“Seriously, we’re glad that South Dakota is doing something about methamphetamine abuse. In fact, the state should be so proud of its efforts to fight drug abuse, it should post huge signs with this logo right at the border.”

(Read more from “SEE IT: Is This The Worst Government Slogan Ever?” HERE)

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Early Season Record Setting Blizzard Kills 75,000 Cows

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Ranchers are still digging out thousands of their cattle that became buried in a record-setting snowstorm in South Dakota late last week and over the weekend.

One would think the death of 75,000 cows by upwards of five feet of snow might get some national attention, but as one blogger observed, it has taken some time for the news of the precipitation massacre to reach outside of local media.

“I searched the national news for more information. Nothing. Not a single report on any of major news sources that I found. Not CNN, not the NY Times, not MSNBC,” Dawn Wink wrote Tuesday. “I thought, ‘Well, it is early and the state remains without power and encased in snow, perhaps tomorrow.’ So I checked again the next day. Nothing. It has now been four days and no national news coverage.”

Wink dubbed it “The Blizzard that Never Was.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Geography Fail: Sen. Landrieu Says South Dakota Borders Canada in Anti-Border Fence Speech

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Photo Credit: John Orrell

On Thursday, South Dakota Republican Sen. John Thune proposed an amendment that would require 350 miles of double-layer fencing before any legalization illegal immigrants can begin. That double-layer fencing in his proposal was part of the 700 miles already required by a 2006 law, where only 36 miles have been completed.

Then, according to the amendment, the other 350 miles must be completed before any green cards could be issued to those in the country illegally. But that amendment offered by the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, the third-highest ranking position in the Senate GOP caucus, had one vociferous opponent in Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Immediately after Thune spoke on his amendment on the Senate floor, Landrieu took to the floor, but had a misstep with the facts in speech, particularly with regards to geography.

Read more from this story HERE.

Teachers Get Permission To Carry Guns In Class

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Photo Credit: WND

It’s the law. Teachers in South Dakota can carry guns in the classroom. Republican Gov. Dennis Daugaard signed the bill today.

It appears to be the first state law in the nation that specifically allows teachers to carry firearms. Other states have gun laws that could make it possible for teachers to carry arms, but the South Dakota law is apparently the first to directly allow it.

The law does not force teachers to carry guns, and it does not require school districts to arm teachers. The South Dakota law also does not specify that guns carried by teachers must be concealed, but it does require a valid permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Similar bills introduced in about two dozen states since the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings in Newton, Conn., have stalled. Supporters of the South Dakota law say it is particularly important in a rural state where emergency responders may be many miles away from schools.

The bill’s main sponsor, Rep. Scott Craig, R-Rapid City, says rural districts do not have the money to hire full-time law officers, so they want to arm teachers or volunteers.

Read more from this story HERE.

Huge Win for Life: Appeals Court Upholds South Dakota’s Strict Informed Consent Law

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A federal appeals court has upheld a provision of a South Dakota law requiring the states lone abortion business, operated by Planned Parenthood, that it has to inform women of the validity of the link between abortion and suicide. With women facing a host of mental health issues following an abortion, Planned Parenthood can no longer keep women in the dark about them.

An en banc panel of the court declared that South Dakota’s statute that requires abortion doctors to disclose to pregnant mothers that an abortion places the mother at increased risk for suicide ideation and suicide constitutional because the disclosure is truthful, non-misleading, and relevant to the pregnant mother’s decision of whether or not to consent to an abortion.

Harold J. Cassidy, a pro-life attorney who represented Leslee Unruh, president of the Alpha Center of Sioux Falls, and Stacy Wollman, president of Care Net of Rapid City — two pregnancy centers that provide abortion alternatives — sent LifeNews details about the decision.

He called the decision “a fabulous victory for the women of the State of South Dakota.”

“The Court ruled that the women will now be given additional important information before they consent to an abortion: that the abortion places a woman at increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide,” he said. “This victory represents the fourth separate decision of the Eighth Circuit reversing the District Court in this one case, two decisions issued by en banc Courts four years apart – a rare occurrence that underscores the importance of the issues presented by the case.”

Read more from this story HERE, detailing the requirements of the upheld South Dakota law including informing mothers:

(1) that “an abortion terminates the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being;”
(2) that the mother’s “relationship with that second human being enjoys protection under the Constitution of the United States and the Laws of South Dakota;”
(3) that relationship and all rights attached to it will be terminated; and
(4) the abortion places the mother “at increased risk for suicide ideation and suicide.”

Photo credit: BrianSwant

Planned Parenthood Challenges New South Dakota Abortion Law

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A law scheduled to go into effect July 1 to require women to wait 72 hours and consult a crisis pregnancy center adviser before getting an abortion violates First Amendment rights, according to a lawsuit filed Friday by Planned Parenthood in U.S. District Court in Sioux Falls, S.D.

Calling South Dakota’s abortion laws the most burdensome in the nation, Planned Parenthood said that HB 1217 aims to misinform pregnant women with the intent of dissuading them from getting an abortion.

“Under the pretext of ensuring the patient’s decision to have an abortion is ‘voluntary, uncoerced, and informed,’ the law has both the purpose and the effect of severely restricting access to abortion services, and violates patients’ and physicians’ First Amendment rights against compelled speech and patients’ right to informational privacy,” Planned Parenthood said in a written statement.

HB 1217 was passed in March and aims to toughen the state’s current 24-hour mandatory waiting period. The law requires physicians to provide women with a list of “pregnancy help centers” where they must go to get “written proof” that they sought counseling before getting an abortion.

A woman must also be given the opportunity to view a sonogram and receive literature describing the risks associated with abortion.

Read More at Fox News