Sen. Erin Oban is the only member of the Democratic-NPL to be elected in western North Dakota. To the extent that you can consider her Bismarck-area district to be “western North Dakota,” anyway. Oban announced recently that she will not be running for another term in that office. Hot on the heels of that announcement, Republican Sean…
Friday Mailbag: A Christmas tradition, defending Agatha Christie, common ground on EV, and our shifting political landscape
MINOT, N.D. — Decorating for Christmas might be my favorite family tradition. In my family, it’s a very specific tradition. Right after Thanksgiving we go and buy a tree (we’re a real tree family). Then we order Pizza Hut (it has to be that specific restaurant, which we don’t patronize any other time of the…
University system didn’t provide sufficient oversight on problematic Dickinson State procurement
At best, we have a university president who leaned a bit too heavily on some personal relationships while supervising a sloppy procurement. At worst, we have a significant contract that was deliberately steered toward some friends of the president. Even worse, when asked to provide oversight, the NDUS issued some superficial findings completely out of…
Could overturning Roe v Wade make North Dakota a blue state?
MINOT, N.D. — The answer to the question in the headline is “probably not,” but the political implications of the case currently before the U.S. Supreme Court are enormous and could result in a political groundswell that will drive some unexpected outcomes. Allow me to explain why. Yesterday SCOTUS heard oral arguments in a case that involves…
Instead of censoring books, maybe we should try understanding them
MINOT, N.D. — In Fargo, a middle school student has found herself offended to read the term “Indian” in the famed Agatha Christie novel, “And Then There Were None.” Instead of using the situation to educate this child about language and culture and our always-evolving struggle to find comity on issues of race, the child’s mother took…
Plain Talk: How are North Dakota’s businesses handling vaccine mandate uncertainty?
Vaccine mandate policies are a fluid situation right now. They’re being challenged in the courts. The federal government is tweaking its policies. In North Dakota, during the recent special session of the Legislature, a bill passed that doesn’t ban businesses from implementing vaccine mandates, but did implement a lot of policies dictating what those mandates…
Unethical actions of a judge expose problems with municipal courts
MINOT, N.D. — Ashley Beall is a lawyer, a professor at Minot State University, and a municipal court judge for the City of Minot. Last year one of her students came to her alleging that she had been sexually assaulted while at a party at North Dakota State University. This set off a chain of events in which Beall would act…
Pete Buttigieg, electric cars, and why Democrats can’t win in North Dakota
MINOT, N.D. — Recently Pete Buttigieg, erstwhile presidential candidate and current secretary of transportation, appeared on MSNBC to extol the benefits of electric vehicles we rubes in fly-over country will enjoy if we ever become as enlightened as our more urban and coastal counterparts. “The people who stand to benefit most from owning an EV are…
Man who ax attacked Sen. Hoeven’s office doesn’t seem a bit sorry
MINOT, N.D. — If we were to legalize homicide, removing from the action all legal consequences, who is the first person you’d murder? Your answer is almost certainly “nobody.” Because you are not a murderer. You do not refrain from killing because it is illegal, but because it is unethical and immoral. We tend to…
Amid the chaos, something to be thankful for
MINOT, N.D. — As we begin the week that encompasses the Thanksgiving Day celebrations, I know that many of you are feeling anxious about the state of our nation. You’re feeling beat down. Discouraged. I feel it too. So let us turn to history for an analgesic. In 1921, Republican Warren G. Harding was inaugurated…