During most recent election years North Dakota’s Democrats have offered up to voters a menu of utterly uninspiring candidates. A sort of coalition of the coerced. People with no chance of winning pushed into campaigns to spare the state party the embarrassment of unfilled races. When former state Rep. Ben Hanson, fresh off of losing…
Tax Commissioner Ryan Rauschenberger Is Testing North Dakota’s New Attitudes on Addiction
Ryan Rauschenberger, North Dakota’s Republican tax commissioner, is an extremely intelligent and competent man. A dedicated public servant. On a personal level, he’s a warm and genuinely nice person. Rare things in the world of politics. Which is why it’s heartbreaking to watch as he deals with alcohol addiction. Back in September of 2014 I…
Linda Thorson: Why Dr. King Is Coming to the Red River Valley
Why is Dr. Alveda King, a civil rights activist and the niece of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. coming to the Red River Valley? Dr. King is a former college professor and served in the Georgia State House of Representatives. She is a recipient of many awards including the Life Prize Award and the Civil…
UND Spent Over $16,000 on Consulting in Athletics Department Which Produced No Written Reports
Brian Faison, the Athletics Director at the University of North Dakota, retired earlier this week. Only my colleague, Grand Forks Herald sports reporter Tom Miller, doesn’t buy that it was a retirement. In a column he opines that Faison was pushed out and the university is keeping it quiet. Miller notes that UND hired a consultant…
Senator Heidi Heitkamp Raised More Money From Goldman Sachs Employees Than North Dakotans
Fully aware that she’s in a vulnerable electoral position in the 2018 political cycle, first term North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp has been working on filling her campaign coffers so that she can effectively fight off any Republican challenge. But most of itemized donations from individuals to her campaign have been, by far, from out…
Video: Anti-Oil Zealots Shut Down Public Hearing on Line Three Pipeline
The political extremists in the anti-oil movement have promised to make Enbridge’s Line 3 replacement project into the next #NoDAPL movement. Given that the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline were hugely violent, and saw millions of dollars worth of vandalism and economic damage perpetrated in the region, the folks of Minnesota should feel a sense…
John Andrist: Celebrate or Tear Down Our History?
Some people call it revisionism. Others prefer the term re-writing history, but by any name its a slippery slope on which we are riding these days. Revisionism was once a practice employed only by tyrants and revolutionaries, who wanted people to believe there was nothing before them, nor to follow them. Today it has become…
Poll: 42 Percent of North Dakotans Say They’re Less Likely to Vote for Heitkamp if She Opposes Trump Tax Plan
Will Senator Heidi Heitkamp back President Donald Trump on tax reform? Her ride on Air Force One to the President’s event in North Dakota a few weeks back made national headlines. She also reportedly attended a dinner with Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at which tax reform was the topic of discussion. That Heitkamp is…
If We’re Going to Preserve the History of #NoDAPL, How About We Document All of It?
News is that the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is going to preserve an 11.5-foot-tall mile-marker post made by Hickory Edwards which was displayed at one of the #NoDAPL camps during the protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Here’s a photo of it: That’s just fine and dandy. The protests were a major historical event,…
Heidi Heitkamp Took Money From Wells Fargo PAC Just Nine Days Before Saying “Someone Should Go to Jail”
“I think somebody should go to jail,” Senator Heidi Heitkamp said during an interview with CNBC earlier this month (video at the link). “If we can start developing a level of personal responsibility of corporate leadership with the ultimate penalty being a criminal prosecution, we’ll see changes in terms of the duty to know,” she added.…
