MINOT, N.D. — Lawmakers this week received a report about that cost-overrun fiasco in the Attorney General’s Office from state Auditor Josh Gallion’s office. This mess just keeps getting messier. To catch you up, Attorney General Drew Wrigley was appointed to that post earlier this year to replace his long-time predecessor Wayne Stenehjem who had…
Port: Let’s talk about why Cara Mund’s campaign is sputtering
MINOT, N.D. — On Aug. 6, former Miss America Cara Mund announced a campaign for North Dakota’s at-large U.S. House seat as a pro-choice independent making abortion her center plank. The news made a big splash. Some of North Dakota’s top Democrats were so enthused by Mund’s entry into the race that they leaned on their…
Port: Brett Favre, selective outrage, and our deeply unhealthy obsession with sports
MINOT, N.D. — Brett Favre is getting roasted, and I’m here for it. I don’t bear the man any animosity because of his football career and team affiliations. I’d have to care about football before that could be true. But I will admit to some schadenfreude over the suspension of his SiriusXM talk show , and the…
Port: North Dakota Republicans increasingly getting burned by Trumpy loons
MINOT, N.D. — There are two recent anecdotes that may illustrate some buyer’s remorse North Dakotan Republicans have when it comes to Trumpism. The first is the assault on North Dakota’s Secretary of State’s Office coming from the disciples of pillow salesman Mike Lindell. These mouth breathers, out to find evidence of an election conspiracy they’ve already…
Online idiocy takes over a small-town tragedy
MINOT, N.D. — In the early hours of Sunday, Sept.18, a 41-year-old man named Shannon Brandt allegedly ran over 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson. Ellingson is dead. Brandt has been charged with vehicular homicide . The story, as tragic and sad as it is, would have been nothing more than a regional headline but for a claim Brandt made…
Port: North Dakota’s open records laws, election conspiracies, and the tyranny of the confidently incorrect
MINOT, N.D. — A week ago I wrote about the legions of dopes and dupes who are flooding North Dakota election officials, at the state and local level, with open records requests for election data. Now comes reporter Michael Standaert with a deeper dive into the sorry situation . These dim bulbs have been led down the primrose path…
Port: Let’s acknowledge the deceit at the heart of Cara Mund’s US House campaign
MINOT, N.D. — I like Cara Mund. I’m impressed by her political acumen. But there is something fundamentally deceptive about her U.S. House campaign. This self-proclaimed “independent” is trying to put one over on us. What we are being asked to believe is that Mund is a sort of moderate Republican and not a closet…
Port: A national abortion ban isn’t any more constitutional than Roe v. Wade was
MINOT, N.D. — For decades after a previous iteration of the U.S. Supreme Court, with the Roe v. Wade decision, struck down state-level abortion bans, conservatives have argued that the ruling was unconstitutional. We were right, as the current iteration of the court recognized in the Dobbs decision. Not one clause, section, or article was…
Here’s 12 minutes of Senate candidate Rick Becker whining about how Republicans don’t like him any more
MINOT, N.D. — One of my favorite genres of social media umbrage is “I’m not bothered by this thing I’m ranting about” rant. You know what I’m talking about. It’s a person who is going on and on about some topic while simultaneously insisting that they aren’t upset about it. Independent U.S. Senate candidate Rick…
ND election officials being flooded with ‘canned’ records requests from election conspiracy activists
MINOT, N.D. — Earlier this week The Washington Post reported on an “unprecedented wave of public records requests” filed by election conspiracy activists supporting disgraced former President Donald Trump. These requests are impacting nearly two dozen states, and “may be intended to hinder” the work of election officials. Is North Dakota among the states targeted? Secretary of…