Earlier this year state lawmakers considered legislation, introduced by Rep. Scott Louser (R-Minot), which would have allowed those running for local political office to affiliate themselves on the ballot with a political party. You can listen to my interview with Louser about the legislation here. It wasn’t too popular among some local elected leaders, including…
The Bernie Sanders Plan to Eliminate Student Debt Is Hardly a Free Lunch
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. It’s an undeniable truth. Somebody always has to pay. The Bernie Sanders plan for eliminating the roughly $1.6 trillion in student loan debt some 45 million Americans are carrying is no exception to the rule. “At a Capitol Hill news conference, Sanders unveiled the plan to eliminate…
Fargo Is Drunk Because People in Fargo Like to Be Drunk
One of the big reasons I tend toward the conservative/libertarian end of the political spectrum is that so much of the liberal/progressive left’s instinct for public policy seems like hubris to me. A crass overestimation of the government’s ability to impose its will on the masses (and that’s setting aside the moral questions about how…
North Dakota Needs Fewer Elected Offices
In Burleigh County (Bismarck), commissioners are considering eliminating elections for two county offices. Currently the auditor/treasurer and recorder positions are elected. The county may turn them into appointed positions. It’s a good idea. In fact, it’s one which should be emulated state wide. North Dakota simply has too many elected officials. We have 13 elected…
Groups Discussing an Initiated Measure to Create a Legacy Fund Loan Program for Infrastructure
During their regular session earlier this year state lawmakers defeated a proposal, introduced by Senator David Hogue (R-Minot), which would have invested Legacy Fund dollars into an infrastructure loan program for local governments. The benefit would have been cheaper, faster financing for infrastructure projects, which saves tax dollars, but the Legacy Fund would have still…
Let’s Not Create an Exception to the 1st Amendment for Flag Burning
Senator Kevin Cramer has made himself a co-sponsor of a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution which would create an exception to the 1st amendment for flag burning. While presently burning the U.S. flag is legal, as it should be, the amendment Cramer is backing would give Congress the power to make flag burning illegal.…
Stop Rewarding Politicians for Just Winning Elections
The North Dakota Women’s Network has announced their “woman of the year” award recipient. It’s state Rep. Ruth Buffalo, who is just months into her tenure in elected office and completed a legislative session in which her accomplishments were, if we’re being generous, quite modest. But the left in North Dakota – which very much…
Jon Stewart and His Sanctimony Are a Lot of What’s Wrong in American Politics Today
This week comedian Jon Stewart made headlines with a rant he went on during a meeting of the House Judiciary Committee. Faced with a bunch of empty chairs, Stewart angrily denounced members of Congress for supposedly not caring about the plight 9/11 first responders. Stewart was there to testify in favor of legislation appropriating more…
Losers Don’t Get to Be Choosers, Democrats
The Legislature has been organizing its interim committees of late, and a tradition for Democrats during this time is to spend a bunch of time whining about committee assignments. This time around, state Rep. Karla Rose Hanson (D-Fargo) is insinuating that Republicans purposefully excluded Democrats, and women specifically, from appointments to chair interim committees: You…
New Study Suggests Legal Marijuana Doesn’t Reduce Opioid Problems
Back in 2014 a study was released suggesting a strong connection between legal marijuana and decreased overdoses from opioid abuse. It looked at data from 1999 to 2010, and found that states that ended marijuana prohibition to one degree or another had an average of 25 percent lower rate of opioid overdoses. What’s more, that…