Senator Heidi Heitkamp’s last address on the floor of the U.S. Senate today came off less like a graceful farewell than a not terribly coherent stump speech delivered with tearful emotion and a rambling sort of vitriol. She sounded at times like a peeved schoolmarm lecturing we bad boys and girls about how we have…
Teddy Roosevelt Library Is a Good Idea, but Please Don’t Call It Mt. Rushmore
“North Dakota’s Mount Rushmore,” is a term Governor Doug Burgum has been throwing around, touting the $50 million in interest earnings from North Dakota’s nearly $6 billion Legacy Fund to the build out of a $150 million Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora. I cringed when I read that Burgum was calling the project that.…
Pro-Obamacare Lawsuit, Filed by North Dakota Democrats as a Campaign Gambit, Smacked Down by Judge
When it’s an election year in North Dakota we know at some point left wing interests will probably file some frivolous lawsuit to manufacture headlines, and that invariably these lawsuits will fail on their merits once the election is over. The most notorious example is from the 2012 cycle when the Dakota Resource Council and…
Public Service Commission Says North Dakotans Can Be Charged for Green Energy Policies in Other States
The Public Service Commission, in a split decision, recently gave the go-ahead to Xcel Energy to inflate power bills here in North Dakota to recover the cost of building wind energy capacity in compliance with green energy policy in other states. Commissioner Randy Christmann, who voted no, made it clear why this was a terrible…
Pro Athletes Facing Bigger Tax Bills Should Blame High-Tax States Not Trump’s Tax Reform
“Why pro athletes may lose a fortune because of the new tax law,” reads a headline from MarketWatch. Professional athletes aren’t the most sympathetic demographic. Even players making the minimum in their leagues are usually taking home multiples of the median household income for Americans. Still, the Trump tax cuts were promised to be tax…
Any Reform to North Dakota Speeding Fines Should Avoid Move Toward Policing for Profit
If there were no risk of death, injury, or property damage on our roads we’d have no need for speeding fines. Unfortunately, that risk exists, and so to mitigate it we set speed limits and enforce them primarily with fines. Many, including the editorial board of the Grand Forks Herald today, argue that North Dakota’s…
Measure 1 Backers Send Deeply Ironic Letter to Lawmakers Insisting They Begin Work on an Ethics Committee
The North Dakotans for Public Integrity, an ostensibly local front group for left wing interests funded by big donations from Hollywood activists, was successful in getting Measure 1 approved on the statewide ballot last month. That despite the ACLU, among other groups, objecting to the onerous restrictions on political speech the measure represents. Now, with…
Should Convicted Criminals Be Able to Serve on North Dakota’s School Boards?
Last week Bismarck Tribune reporter Amy Dalrymple ran a story about a Twin Buttes woman named Melissa Starr who was elected to the local school board despite a conviction for embezzlement she’s still paying restitution on. Embezzlement from the school district she was just elected to govern. “Starr was one of seven Twin Buttes School…
The Legacy Fund Was Created to Benefit All of North Dakota, Not Just Fargo and Grand Forks
Tammy Miller and Steve Burian had a letter to the editor recently, on behalf of the Fargo and Grand Forks based Valley Prosperity Partnership, backing a proposal which would take $100 million out of the state’s Legacy Fund to fund research projects at North Dakota State in Fargo and the University of North Dakota in…
Study: #NoDAPL Activism Cost Backers of the Dakota Access Pipeline Billions
According to a study by the University of Colorado Boulder’s First Peoples Investment Engagement Program, the activism against the Dakota Access Pipeline cost that project’s backers billions of dollars. The headline to an article about the study posted on the UC website states the #NoDAPL movement “cost companies at least $7.5 billion,” with that figure being…