Cattle killed by freak South Dakota blizzard, courtesy of CBS video.
I have been meaning to post about this, but I really couldn’t put the right words together, I think this blog post pretty much sums it up;
South Dakota ranchers, who were in favor of the government shutdown, are now bemoaning the fact that the shutdown means no federal assistance following a devastating early blizzard that wiped out much of their livestock.
Really?
What’s worse is that the ranchers don’t sound like they’ve changed their minds about the shutdown.
Rather, they think that their welfare checks from the government are the only good the government actually does.  So while the rest of the government should still be shut down for you and me, we should make an exception for them.
The LA Times reported on the freakish early blizzard, which followed 80 degree weather, a few days ago.  80,000 head of cattle were killed by the blizzard. It’s being called the states’ “worst economic disaster in decades.† Some ranchers lost all the cattle they had.  Clearly a devastating disaster.
“We’re just a bunch of ranchers from South Dakota — it’s hard for our voices to be heard,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table at dawn Friday, drinking coffee, fielding calls from fellow cattlemen. “You see crises across the country, the hurricanes and tornadoes, and officials are right on top of it. But something of this magnitude, that has just about leveled this part of the country, and there’s nothing.”
Many residents in this conservative region had supported the government shutdown as a way to make Washington more fiscally responsible. “But one appropriate role for these guys is to lend a hand after disasters like this,” Christen said, “and they’re not here.”
No sh*t, Sherlock. What part of “you shut the government down†are you not understanding?
Always shake my head at SD conservatives who bitch about Obamacare, Medicare, SNAP, Social Security and taxes, but all of sudden when they are not getting a bailout from our SOCIALIST democracy, they cry like the little hypocritical babies they are. Suck it up Clem, it’s gonna be a long winter. Next time be careful what you ask for.
West River ranchers shut the government down all by themselves??? I had no idea of the power we apparently possess….:)
Nope, but I am sure a majority of them voted for the Reps that made it happen. Like I said, be careful what you ask for.
My apologies though if you did not vote for Noem or Thune.
How come Denny Daugaard’s “able-bodied” attitude towards Obamacare and extending Medicaid to 47,000 South Dakotans doesn’t apply when Republicans like Thune and Noem are screaming for Federal aid for South Dakota ranchers, while flying in a helicopter with our Republican governor to review the West River devastation?
Sioux Falls might be the “Tale of Two Cities,”….. But the South Dakota GOP is definitely the tale of two philosophies…..
I saw a nice graphic today, showing the 33 Republican senators who voted NO on food stamps, yet receive farm subsidies themselves. Noem was up near the top with $3M+ received.
Anybody else see a conflict of interest in Kirsti getting to help write the farm bill while collecting subsidies herself?
Have you ever noticed how nice Noem’s ranch house is whenever KELO goes out to her place to talk to her about public policy? I think I know where the $ 3 million dollars in farm aid went…..
Oh don’t get me started again on this B*&#H…..You gotta see their hunting lodge. Racota Valley Outfitters used to HAVE a website but they took that down. Did you know there is 444 hunting lodges in SD that offer pheasant hunting.
Farmers are conservatives. MY F@*&IN ASS.
From what I understand her mother, and her siblings all have homes on the same land. That being said, her husband sells crop insurance. I wonder where the farmers get the money to pay for that. When I was growing up on a farm, just two miles from the town where Noem’s insurance office is, most of the farmers, including my folks couldn’t afford to buy any kind of crop insurance. Over the years there were a lot of crops hailed out, etc. with no reimbursement.
Racota Valley Outfitters
http://www.ohwy.com/sd/f/f0216830.htm
For the record, and I have checked into this, Noem hasn’t received farm subsidies since she has been in Congress, BUT, her family has. And she received them before she was in congress.
Not that it matters, but Repugs like to make red meat about that sort of shit.
I am laughing at these buffoons. The stupidity of these back to Gawd, tea partiers thinking they could destroy everyone else so they can ‘live free’ of any government. Bulls’it. I listen to it everyday out here about how bad the black president is and how the Dems are destroying America. Our members of Congress, Kristi (NoMind) Noem and Johnny Boy Thune, are doing all they can to let the southern confederacy win in the name of their fundamentalist religious views.
A version of America most of us were not raised to believe in. If only we had a Democratic Party in South Dakota who could pull their heads out of their collective asses.
Nice to see you compassionate city dwellers who complained about a few branches taking out your power last April and having to pay for the power line to reconnect to your house was a BIG expense. Plus the city not reacting soon enough or helping out enough have no compassion for some ranchers who will go out of business from this snow storm. There will be ranchers who lose their livelihood. Many live on the same margins as you do. Losing a $250,000 investment in a herd of cattle is catastrophic. They had the drought last year and lost cattle. I could give you a section of land in central SD and you would go broke trying to farm it…. No, you can’t sell it, you have to try to make money from farming it.
You Noem-a-holics need a new hobby.
And if you don’t buy crop insurance, that is just stupid. The federal government subsidies your payment. That is like not have home insurance on your house. I have a hard time believing a banker lets anyone borrow money to put in crops without the assurance of crop insurance in the event of a diaster. And if you use your own money to put in crops without crop insurance, again, that is just stupid.
Point of order: Your wrong, her family farm did received $232,707 in direct payment subsidies in 2012.
http://farm.ewg.org/persondetail.php?custnumber=A09529125
Also subsidies from federal crop insurance program is not public record. Congress voted these sealed many years ago.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-09/farmers-boost-revenue-sowing-subsidies-for-crop-insurance.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-11/fraud-stealing-100-million-shows-flaws-in-u-s-crop-insurance.html
scott – should we not also see how the DC people on the banking committee spend the money they get from the banks? Once you are in DC in Congress, you have hit the lottery no matter your political affiliation. Dick Geppart said why would you leave? You are guaranteed a $500,000 job once you leave congress and stay in DC. Or Stephanie can come home after a few years of that and make a few hundreds thousand a year working for Raven.
Everyone else is sucking from the government teat so they might as well hop in too!
everybody is aware that since ww2 the government has been involved in all facets of agriculture? They have set up a system of price control and subsidies to insure a constant and stable flow of food to the masses. I would be all for going back to the open market supply and demand system that would guarantee wide fluctuations in price and availability. Then there would be some real reasons to disdain farmers and ranchers….
I just read that Kristi Noem voted NO for federal assistance to the people who were also the victims of a storm. Storm Sandy in New Jersey and New York. I am going to go out on a limb and say they probably didn’t lose cows but they lost their homes and all their possessions and they wanted help also. She said no to assistance to them but now she is upset that government assistance isn’t coming to the ranchers who lost cattle. She should understand hypocrite now that she has her degree.
I wonder if the New York and New Jersey congressmen don’t care about South Dakota and will vote no for federal funding now that the government is back in business.
Exactly Helga. OSFoot, I am very aware of what the Federal disaster programs do for a post storm recovering area and long term aid to producers through crop insurance. I agree with both. With a Federal system based on shared responsibility for each other, you know helping out your neighbor either next door or in New Jersey or God forbid, Alabama is our responsibility.
The hypocrisy of “Just help me and no one else” has to go out of our shared compact.
I think the quote from the rancher gets more to the heart of the issue than does squealing about hypocrisy; “We’re just a bunch of ranchers from South Dakota — it’s hard for our voices to be heard.â€
Political version of small man’s syndrome.
bret – I do think you deserve federal assistance, that is not my point, my point is that you can’t ask for yours then complain that other people are getting it. We are a socialist democracy and which way you look at it, we are all in this together. If you get your federal assistance, great, but don’t go complaining about the SNAP recipient or the poor kids on medicaid.
I don’t claim to know the details of this situation, but aren’t these ranchers insured for these types of situations?
If not, are they suggesting their failure to plan for such an event (via purchasing insurance) then requires the government to come in afterwards to clean up after them?
Keep in mind I said the same about people who lost their homes in New Jersey or New Orleans. For those who had insurance they should be ok – for those that didn’t I don’t understand why they should be expecting a handout.
I’m not a rancher, but if I had “inventory” worth $250,000 and I didn’t insure it against loss… I can’t imagine people wouldn’t call me a dumb ignorant ass and blame me if I lost it all.
So now this is an east river vs. west river or city slicker vs. hick farmer issue?
It doesn’t need to be when you face the reality that the US economy doesn’t exist without some kind of government subsidy either directly, or indirectly in some form or another.
No need to make excuses or blame one party or another, when all it comes down to is this is how the economy functions. The same can be said about personal and corporate welfare for most industrialized nations around the world.
Didn’t Thune run Unopposed? Where are these mighty Dems that can pull off a win?
I expect Thune and Kristi will eventually tell West River to just “Cowboy Up”.
It may be true that Noem no longer takes Federal farm aid since she has been elected to Congress, but that nice house of hers existed before she was ever elected and when she took farm aid.
Her affirmative defense of this issue reminds me of the old “Do you still beat your wife” joke…… Uh, NO!…. I mean, I never did…. But in her case, she use to take it at every chance she got….
“We fought hard to get as many reforms as we possibly could,” Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) told TPM. “It’s been a valiant effort.”
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/just-kidding-republicans-reveal-their-debt-ceiling-bluff
Yeah – as many reforms as they possibly could = exactly ZERO.