At a high level North and South Dakota appear to be two states that look nearly identical. Both were admitted to the union on November 2nd 1889. Both share a similar immigration history with the majority of current residents tracing their ancestry back to German and Norwegian roots. Both have comparable GDP, household incomes and…
South Dakota Democrat, Forum Communications Employee Arrested For Soliciting Prostitution
A prostitution sting earlier this week resulted in the arrest of an employee of Forum Communications, which owns just about every major news outlet in North Dakota, as well as a Democrat running for state legislature in South Dakota. Valley News Live has the update: Today we know more about 61 year-old David Skogland of…
Hunger Games America: Districts Beat The Capital In Job Creation
America’s present economic malaise is often described in terms of the popular book and move franchise The Hunger Games. It seems fitting. “While the provinces starve, the Capital City lives it up, its wheeler-dealer bigshots growing fat on the tribute extracted from the rest of the country,” wrote Glenn Reynolds (of Instapundit fame) for USA Today back in November of…
South Dakota SB128 Would Allow Businesses To Discriminate Against Gays
South Dakota SB128 is being considered in that state’s current legislative session, and if passed it would make it explicitly legal for businesses to refuse service to gays. It has 12 sponsors, and is currently sitting in the Senate Judiciary Committee. An excerpt: Section 1. No person or entity may bring suit against another person…
North Dakota Is Inconvenient For Obama's Politics
The New York Times has a story about festering dissent against the President in the “states that Obama forgot,” and not surprisingly North Dakota is one of them (I wonder if the Times ever described liberal angst over President Bush as “festering”?). That shouldn’t surprise us. North Dakota doesn’t get a lot of visits from…
Life Is Less Expensive In North Dakota
According to prototype data from the federal government, North Dakota is among the cheapest places to live in the country. While some North Dakotans may grumble a bit about that – a roaring economy and soaring personal incomes are driving prices for goods, services and housing up in the state – it’s absolutely true that…
South Dakota Resident Feels His Group Is Part Of IRS Targeting
South Dakota citizen Doug Loen thinks delays in getting IRS approval for a free market non-profit he’s founding is the result of the IRS targeting scandal that has made news nationally: Eighteen months now and counting – that’s how long Doug Loen has been waiting on the Internal Revenue Service to approve his application seeking…
North Dakota's Government Is Twice As Large As Minnesota's In Terms Of Gross State Product
Yesterday Governor Jack Dalrymple signed into law and praised income tax cuts that were twice as large as what he called for in his executive budget. In fact, had Dalrymple not budgeted for such tiny cuts to state income taxes, the state Senate wouldn’t have had the leverage to bully the House into slashing the…
Guest Post: North Dakota Tax Cuts Represent Dark Clouds For Minnesota Border Communities
As the 63rd North Dakota legislative session comes to a close not much has been reported about the ongoing implications of the unprecedented economic prosperity, record tax relief and increased state spending on the communities bordering North Dakota and Minnesota. According to the 2010 census there were over 122,000 residents in the seven Minnesota counties…
Audio: Former Spirit Lake Tribal Judge Says Children Still Living With Sex Offenders On Reservation
Earlier today the Grand Forks Herald ran a report quoting current Spirit Lake Tribal Judge Shirley Cain as saying that there are no children being placed with sex offenders on the reservation. The federal government was forced to step in at Spirit Lake to take over the tribes child services programs after whistle blowers revealed…