“If the oil and gas industry puts fracking wells in our neighborhoods, threatening our lives and our children’s lives, then don’t we have a moral responsibility to blow up wells and eliminate fracking and workers?” environmental activist Andrew J. O’Connor wrote in the Boulder Daily Camera on April 19. It was a letter to the…
This Is the Legislation North Dakota Should Have Passed in Response to the #NoDAPL Riots
Yesterday the state Senate passed three of four of the “protest bills” introduced in reaction to the #NoDAPL rioting against the Dakota Access Pipeline. One of those bills made it illegal to wear a mask while committing a crime, while another increased the consequences for illegal protest activities. A third allows law enforcement to cite…
With Outrage Cranked to 11 Where Does the Left Go From Here?
Back in 2009 I was one of a group of conservatives in North Dakota who helped organize the local tea party movement. Our rallies, though not as large as those taking place in other states, garnered a lot of attention. Much of it critical. Our friends on the left played at being concerned at this…
Video: Senator Heitkamp's Chief Of Staff Tries To Bully Fargo News Station
Valley News Live’s Chris Berg has been very critical of Senator Heidi Heitkamp of late, specifically on the issue of the child abuse scandal at the Spirit Lake Reservation. As I noted previously, Senator Heitkamp has been largely silent on the issue until just recently. Berg’s criticism prompted a phone call from Senator Heitkamp’s Chief…
Valedictorian Has His Mic Cut Off After Mentioning Religion In Commencement Speech
A similar story about a valedictorian at a South Carolina high school ripping up his speech and delivering the Lord’s Prayer, in defiance of school policy, got a lot of reaction on the reader blogs. Today comes another story about a valedictorian in Texas who got his mic cut off after he diverged from his…
Miss World Cancels Bikini Competition After Muslims Object
If a group of Christians objected to a beauty pageant bikini competition they’d be subjected to much snickering and ridicule. They certainly wouldn’t be catered to. But Muslims object, and suddenly we must be sensitive to their views. Which isn’t to say that we ought to cancel bikini contests when Christians demand it too. Count…
Media Portrayal Of Benghazi Controversy Shifted After Election
According to The Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, the media’s coverage of the Benghazi controversy shifted after the presidential election: Since House Republicans released an interim report on Benghazi on April 24, 58% of sources in major newspapers have faulted the Obama administration’s response to the attacks, while 42% exonerated…
Boston Bombers And Family Received $100,000 In Welfare Benefits
I’m a little underwhelmed about this story. We’re talking about $100,000 spread over a decade, so that amounts to $10,000 per year for multiple people. That’s not much. We’ll spend far more on paying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense lawyer to help him avoid the death penalty. But still, the optics of terrorists living in America at…
The Vulgar Pro-Abortion Movement
I posted some pictures and videos of the pro-life and pro-abortion protests around the state yesterday. Last night a reader sent in a few pictures from the Minot protest that are…something less than classy. “Just because I have a vagina doesn’t mean I’m a pussy,” says one sign. Here’s one that’s playing on the Minot…
Video: Pro-Life, Pro-Abortion Rallies Compete In North Dakota
I don’t have any news about the turnouts for the pro-life and pro-abortion rallies from other places in the state, but here in Minot it sure seemed to me like the pro-lifers had a much bigger crowd. The challenge is that the two protests weren’t gathered the same way. The pro-abortion folks were all grouped…