I can't help but grimace when I see how Republicans don't see what they are doing to themselves and to North Dakota.  It's like watching someone giving themselves a round-house punch to the face. They elect these corporate sell-outs who are destroying Western North Dakota, and then get mad that Western North Dakota is being destroyed.  In a tragic, sick and sad way, it's funny. It's unfortunate.  Let me draw  you a map.

The Mayor of Watford City is a fellow named Brent Sanford.  He's mad as hell and he's not going to take any more.  What's he mad about?  He's mad that the North Dakota Highway Department isn't doing anything to stop the slaughter of people on our Western North Dakota highways.  Here's a snippet from a Tribune story...

The mayor of Watford City was livid Wednesday after two local teenage boys were killed and another injured in an accident with a semi truck just outside the oil patch city.

Brent Sanford said it’s time for the state Department of Transportation to take some blame for dangerous two-lane highways with thousands of semi trucks.

“It makes me sick to think of children dying on our roads. It’s a nightmare,” Sanford said.

The accident occurred at about 1 p.m. Tuesday, when a westbound Subaru Forester driven by Fenton Matthew, 17, spun sideways in icy slush into the path of an oncoming semi and was split in half by the collision.

Bismarck Tribune

He's mad because our state's leadership has failed to build and maintain infrastructure that can handle the kind of industrial pressure being put on the entire western half of the state.  He's mad the state's leaders haven't prepared to handle what they've let loose on his town and county. At the same time, Mayor Sanford supports the Republicans who are doing this to us. Makes sense, right?

Here's Sanford, praising Dalrymple and "Bismarck" for all the help Watford City had seen from Bismarck:

And the state’s recognition of the need for improvements to Highway 85 didn’t go unnoticed by Brent Sanford, Watford City’s mayor.  “Sen. Hoeven and Gov. Dalrymple know of our plight out here,” stated Sanford. “The Governor really went to bat for us. It’s been wonderful to see the support from Bismarck. We didn’t have to beg. They saw our need and helped us.”

WatfordCityND.com (11/23/2011)

So which is it, Mayor Sanford?  The Highway Department buck stops at Jack Dalrymple's feet.  Did Dalrymple's Highway Department really go to bat for Watford City?  Or did they do something for which they deserve blame?  Let me take a shot at answering my own rhetorical question.  The answer is that Mayors feel like they need to suck up to the state's Republican leaders because, if they don't, they've seen the reign of horrors that can be wrought upon them. So -- like our state's cowardly newspaper editors -- they're afraid to point fingers and name names. They'll blame "the Highway Department" but they won't mention whose responsibility the Highway Department is.  It's easy to be mad at a building or a department, but there are people responsible for that department who should be held accountable. And the person who should be held accountable at the Highway Department is Jack Dalrymple.

Let's be clear about one other thing here, too.  This is a horrific tragedy.  The residents of Watford City and McKenzie County would be completely justified in being "livid."  The State of North Dakota and its elected "leaders" have completely failed in planning for the life-and-death problems we're dealing with as a state. And those "leaders" are all Republicans here.  

But Mayor Sanford hasn't helped at all in making sure our state's elected officials aren't all a bunch of Republican corporate sell-outs.  If you take a look at political campaign contributions made by Mayor Sanford, where do you suppose he's put his money over the years?

(Source)

Listen: Maybe Mayor Sanford is a really nice guy. Maybe he's recognized the errors of his ways. He donated $1,000 to Ryan Taylor's campaign last year; and maybe that's an indication he now recognizes the error of his ways. But his earlier track record makes him look a little like the proverbial orphan who's killed his parents and, brought before the court, he complains that he's an orphan. Maybe he even feels bad about killing his parents now. But he supported Republicans as they gave away our state to out-of-state oil companies and didn't support Democrats who aren't around to make his breakfast in the morning. Only then does he seemingly express outrage because the state's been sold out to out-of-state oil companies and the governor's Highway Department hasn't done anything to protect the victims in North Dakota.

While I feel horrible for the families of these poor young men who have fallen victim to the North Dakota Republican party's selling off of North Dakota to Wayne Stenehjem's, Doug Goehring's, Jack Dalrymple's, Rick Berg's, and John Hoeven's buddies in big oil, I have a limited amount of sympathy for Mayor Sanford as he whines about the problem he helped the state's Republicans build.

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