Defending gun rights is “Defending the indefensible,” writes my friend and fellow columnist Tony Bender. His column is his usual exercise in tautology – these dummies are dumb because they’re dumb, he’s saying of the people he disagrees with. Yawn. But in his section lashing out at me for a column I wrote last month he…
The Government Shouldn’t Depend on Revenue From Putting People in Jail
My jaw hit the floor at least twice over the course of two paragraphs while reading this piece from Grand Forks Herald reporter Adam Kurtz. First, there’s this: The Grand Forks County Commission heard from David Bostwick of HDR Architecture, a firm in Chicago hired to conduct a needs analysis of the Grand Forks County…
It’s Ridiculous That the Army Corps Won’t Take Responsibility for Failing to Address Trespassing by #NoDAPL Protesters
The violent protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline cost the State of North Dakota nearly $40 million. That dollar figure is based on what it cost to have law enforcement, first responders, the National Guard, and various state/local agencies address the situation. There were a lot of factors at play during the protests but one…
Kaleb Booker, Daniel Bye and Vladimere Olson face criminal charges after law enforcement in Grand Forks said they found nearly 400 hash oil vape pods and more than 2 pounds of marijuana in their vehicle during a traffic stop Grand Forks Herald photo
North Dakota Marijuana Activist Warns Against Using Marijuana Vaping Products
Last night David Owen called me and said he wanted to speak out about the dangers of marijuana vaping products. Owen is one of the organizers behind Legalize ND, a citizen group which backed a ballot measure to legalize recreational marijuana in North Dakota last year. His group is readying another proposal for the ballot…
Should There Be an Age Limit for Holding Elected Office?
Former President Jimmy Carter, 95 years old next month, was asked during a recent town hall at the Carter Center in Atlanta whether he would consider running for president again. Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan in 1980 after serving only one term in office. He is technically eligible to run again, and indeed former…
Saudi Attacks Should Make Us Thankful the Environmental Zealots Have Been (Mostly) Losing Their War on American Oil Development
Over the weekend the American news media was obsessed with another salacious (though ultimately not nearly so salacious as initially reported) story about the Trump administration. Largely overlooked in that furor were coordinated drone attacks on roughly half of Saudi Arabia’s crude oil production facilities. Though the Saudi national oil company, Aramco, acted quickly to…
If We Want Electric Vehicles We’re Going to Need Coal Power Which Is Why the Coal Industry Is Backing Them
There are still a lot of things which need to happen before electric vehicles become, for most of us, anything more than an expensive novelty. As a tech enthusiast, there are a lot of things about electric cars which are downright thrilling. Like the self-driving capabilities, which have now proliferated to the point where people…
Here’s What North Dakota Lawmakers Said They Learned on That Nearly $90,000 Trip to Nashville
Earlier this week I wrote about a group of Republican and Democratic state lawmakers who, along with a group of lobbyists from the state, attended a National Conference of State Legislatures summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The lobbyists on the trip paid for at least one big meal at the Country Music Hall of Fame, which…
Trump’s Ban on Flavored Vaping Products Is a Dumb, Knee-Jerk Reaction
In recent weeks we’ve seen a lot of headlines about vaping being linked to hundreds of cases of lung disease. In our region, North Dakota has reported at least one case of vaping-related lung disease, while Minnesota has seen a similar case end in death. This has, unfortunately, provoked some hysteria. Newspaper editorial boards are…
Dinner for Lawmakers, Paid for by Lobbyists, Was Legal Only Because There Aren’t Any Ethics Rules Yet
Recently a group of 29 North Dakota lawmakers took a trip to Nashville, Tennessee, which cost the taxpayers nearly $90,000. You probably haven’t heard much about it since both Republicans and Democrats were on the trip and most of our media commentators are so thoroughly addled by partisanship they get frozen when the controversy is…