This is a time to get together and eat and talk , just time for our friends. There is no format, dues, agenda etc., We can meet anytime or place we decide, picnic pot luck, local food, anything we want to, even invite speakers. But for now please show up, eat and talk to like minded friends. No need to RSVP just stop by and eat.
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Trana if you like.
We're going to try a new series here. It's just going to be a simple question I'd ask a candidate for office if I ever got an exclusive interview. Our first question would be for Kevin Cramer, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. It's a pretty straight-forward question.
If Cramer or any of his campaign staff reads this (and they do, FYI), they should feel free to answer in the comments section, below:
QUESTION #1 for Kevin Cramer:
You've run for the U.S. House of Representatives a couple times before, so you have some experience at this. The other day I was thinking about your first campaign and a memory popped back into my mind after all these years. If I recall correctly, during your first run for the United States House of Representatives in 1996, when everything seemed to be going just fine in your campaign, your campaign manager suddenly left your campaign team with no meaningful explanation for the departure.
Why did your campaign manager leave your campaign team in 1996?
Yesterday's big North Dakota news -- so big it made page 3B of today's Bismarck Tribune -- is that Dakota Grower's Pasta Company is being sold to a Canadian company for $240 million.
Viterra Inc. is offering to buy Dakota Growers Pasta Co. for $240 million, which would put the Canadian food processing and grain handling company into the pasta business.
Viterra's board of directors endorsed the offer Wednesday, the company said in a statement. The board of Dakota Growers, which is based in the central North Dakota community of Carrington, approved it Tuesday, said its chairman, Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple.
Tim Dodd, Dakota Growers president, said he didn't expect changes in the company's operations. Dakota Growers, the nation's third-largest pasta maker, operates manufacturing plants in Carrington and New Hope, Minn., and has nearly 450 employees, Dodd said.
Remember all the way back to July of 2007, when Bobcat Company was sold to a foreign corporation and everybody -- including Governor Hoeven -- promised there would be "no change in [the company's] presence in North Dakota"? Since then, Bobcat closed its Bismarck, North Dakota, facility and laid off a bunch of workers at its Gwynner, ND, plant. Those formerly-North Dakota jobs are all over in Korea and Slovakia now.
Originally Dakota Growers was formed as a cooperative in 1990 and became operational in 1994. It was owned by the ag producers who supplied grain to the company but eventually converted to a corporation. It's an interesting story...
Organized as a new generation cooperative in 1990, incorporated in 1991, becoming operational in 1994, and expanding in 1996, 1997and 1998, Dakota Growers Pasta Company had become the third largest producer of pasta in the United States by 1998. Many economists and sociologists had been studied the cooperative extensively, it had been widely heralded as an example of a successful new generation cooperative (Bielik, 1999; Trechter et al., 2001; Zueli et al., 1998; Boland and Martin, 2001; Boland et al, 2002; O’Connor, 2001), and had been held up a model for other similar ventures to emulate.
The debate about the merits of conversion occurred in private and in public. The private debate surrounding conversion occurred among members and between members and the board of directors in closed meetings. The board presented its official position in the filing with the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC). The public debate on the issue of conversion occurred through newspaper articles, letters to the editor, and editorials. Through these articles, letters,and editorials, a spirited dialogue developed about the virtues of cooperative as opposed to corporate organization as well as the purposes and relevance of cooperatives. The public debate went to the very soul of North Dakota. In a state with a radical agrarian past and where coopera-tives have drawn upon a history of populist, anti-corporate rhetoric, that the most successful newgeneration cooperative would convert to a corporation was unthinkable and unfathomable.
It's really an interesting story. I also think it's interesting that Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple is the chairman of the board of Dakota Growers, and that he's paid $62,000 a year to serve on the board while also serving as Lt. Governor (where he makes over $80,000 a year and his salary will be going up in a couple months). Think of the potential advantage that puts the company (and Dalrymple) in while Dakota Growers negotiated this deal with the Canadian company. "Hey," the folks at Dakota Growers could say, "the tea partiers are going to turn our Board Chairman, Dalrymple, into Governor of North Dakota by this time next year. Chairman Dalrymple might just be predisposed to do all kinds of favors for you Canadians next year if you pay enough to buy the company (and Dalrymple's stock) now. "
I don't know about this. I suppose I "get" that wealthy people serve on corporate boards and get paid lots of money to do not much, but having them serve on those boards while they're also serving in elected offices seems a bit sketchy. It's bad enough when our Insurance Commissioner uses his position to pass laws for one company, and then he goes to work as a "consultant" in the industry, billing $600 per hour to the insurance companies he used to regulate. I'm all for making money, but that just seemed like there was an opportunity for a corrupt politician to use his elected position to favor one company and then "get rich quick." Now we've got a Lieutenant Governor who is negotiating deals -- even "recommending" that the shareholders take the deal -- that could ultimately end up in the loss of more American jobs and profits to some other country. It looks bad.
I'm against that.
And I'm also against having some foreign company calling itself "Dakota Growers Pasta" when, in fact, the company used to -- literally -- be owned by "Dakota Growers," but now it's not. It just seems deceptive.
Maybe we need new "elected official ethics rules" (or laws) in North Dakota. Any thoughts on that?
If you read nothing else about America's economic problems over the past couple years, read Matt Taibbi's piece in the Rolling Stone about the banksters and their assault on the American taxpayer.
On January 21st, Lloyd Blankfein left a peculiar voicemail message on the work phones of his employees at Goldman Sachs. Fast becoming America's pre-eminent Marvel Comics supervillain, the CEO used the call to deploy his secret weapon: a pair of giant, nuclear-powered testicles. In his message, Blankfein addressed his plan to pay out gigantic year-end bonuses amid widespread controversy over Goldman's role in precipitating the global financial crisis.
The bank had already set aside a tidy $16.2 billion for salaries and bonuses — meaning that Goldman employees were each set to take home an average of $498,246, a number roughly commensurate with what they received during the bubble years. Still, the troops were worried: There were rumors that Dr. Ballsachs, bowing to political pressure, might be forced to scale the number back. After all, the country was broke, 14.8 million Americans were stranded on the unemployment line, and Barack Obama and the Democrats were trying to recover the populist high ground after their bitch-whipping in Massachusetts by calling for a "bailout tax" on banks. Maybe this wasn't the right time for Goldman to be throwing its annual Roman bonus orgy.
Not to worry, Blankfein reassured employees. "In a year that proved to have no shortage of story lines," he said, "I believe very strongly that performance is the ultimate narrative."
Translation: We made a shitload of money last year because we're so amazing at our jobs, so fuck all those people who want us to reduce our bonuses.
Do yourself a favor and go read that whole Rolling Stones piece. Sure, Taibbi is a little over-the-top with his foul language, but he knows his stuff, he communicates it well and he gets his points across. If you read his whole story you will walk away knowing something today about America's financial situation that you did not know yesterday. I promise.
The Obama administration is clearly not without blame on this whole deal. I still resent that Obama's economic team includes way too many people from the Goldman-Sachs world. The problem started a long time ago with financial deregulation, but we don't seem to be learning from our mistakes.
A lot of argument is swirling around right now about budget reconciliation(not to be confused with plain old reconciliation, which is what the House and Senate do in conference committee to merge a bill that has passed each house in different forms) and if it should be used to pass healthcare. A lot of it is misinformation and I want to take some time to explain the process, the reason that budget reconciliation is there, what it is supposed to be used for, and what it is not supposed to be used for.
I need to start though with how this country spends money. A pretty big chunk of our federal government runs on its own as a matter of law and doesn't need to be reauthorized year to year. Social Security and Medicare(among other things) are funded directly by statute. Money goes in, checks go out. That is mandatory spending. Discretionary spending is reappropriated every year. In this catergory are things like Defense, the Dept. of Commerce, the State Department, etc. Those departments are funded on a yearly basis through the federal budget. Here's how that process works: every February or March, the President submits a budget to Congress. Congress then takes that budget and marks it up in committee, amends it on the floor, reconciles it in conference, and pass a joint budget resolution. This resolution is not signed into law and has no legal force. No money is spent by it. The purpose it serves is to act as a guide for the appropriations process. In appropriations bills you can add anything you want, you can write a new law that has nothing to do with the budget, but provisions in appropriations are subject to points of order which force them to remain in line with the budget resolution and the Congressional Budget Act(which set up this whole process). Now the fiscal year for the United States Government begins on October 1. Appropriations bills are supposed to be done prior to this point. In reality, most bills take longer than that and in the interim, Congress will pass a continuing resolution to hold the government over until the new approriations bill is passed.
Make sense? Congratulations, you just passed Federal Budgeting 101. Now on to the budget reconciliation process. in order to have a reconciliation bill you first need to add instructions to the budget resolution that call for it. Once that is done you have to wait until the new fiscal year begins. The purpose of a reconciliation bill is to reign in runaway appropriations and bring down the defecit. It provides a method for correcting "misjudgements" about how much things were going to cost or how much revenue would be generated. The way a reconciliation bill does that is by giving it privileged status on the Senate floor. Reconciliation bills have a limit of 20 hours of debate after which the bill must be voted on. On the flip side, a reconciliation bill must meet the standards set out in the reconciliation instructions AND the Byrd rule. A provision in a reconciliation bill is subject to a point of order under the Byrd rule if it meets any of the following five provisions:
• do not produce a change in outlays or revenues; • produce changes in outlays or revenue which are merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision; • are outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure; • increase outlays or decrease revenue if the provision's title, as a whole, fails to achieve the Senate reporting committee's reconciliation instructions; • increase net outlays or decrease revenue during a fiscal year after the years covered by the reconciliation bill unless the provision's title, as a whole, remains budget neutral; • contain recommendations regarding the OASDI (social security) trust funds.
So the provisions have to fall within the jurisdiction of the committee it is coming out of, it must reduce the defecit, it has to be germane(relevant) to the overall bill, and it can't touch Social Security. If it does not, any senator may raise a point of order, which-if sustained by the Chair(the Vice President or the President Pro Tem) may only be waived by 3/5 of the Senate. So I told you that it was meant to deal with runaway appropriations and miscalculations of revenue. Now lets look at what it has been used for:
A couple of highlights here: COBRA was passed with Budget Reconciliation(Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act). SCHIP was passed with Budget Reconciliation. Medicare Part D was passed under Budget Reconciliation. Both the 2001 and the 2003 Bush Tax cuts were passed under Budget Reconciliation.
How, you might ask, were all of these programs passed under reconciliation? Well, most of them fully complied with the Byrd rule. I would say that there were two(maybe 3) exceptions to that. The Bush Tax cuts in no way complied with the Byrd rule. They in no way reduced the defecit. Far from it, the tax cuts put a $1.8 trillion hole in the defecit. How could they possibly have passed? The Chair(A.K.A. Dick Cheney) simply overruled the points of order against it. In this area, the Vice President is "the decider." He says what complies with the byrd rule and what doesn't, and in Cheneyland, the Bush tax cuts didn't reduce the defecit. In fact they went so far as to fire the parliamentarian that told him that he was wrong.
So given the history of budget reconciliation, lets look at how it is going to be used for healthcare reform. The Senate(the body that matters) has passed a comprehensive healthcare reform. If the House of Representatives wanted to they could pass that tomorrow and it would be over to the president's desk that same day. Unfortunately that bill doesn't really comply with some members of the house. They want a stronger bill. Everyone also wants to get rid of things like the "cornhusker kickback," and the "Louisiana purchase." The idea is to put these things, along with a few other tweaks to the Senate bill that will improve it, make it suitable to the House, and meet the requirements in the Byrd Rule. Then it can go to the President's desk. There are some that would argue for a public option(I would be one of them) to be put into the bill, but it seems like that is not in the cards for the current reconciliation bill at least.
So here are the attacks that I have heard, which I think need to be rebutted:
"Reconciliation shouldn't be used for such a massive bill. We're dealing with 1/7th of our economy here. It was designed for budgetary procedures, and shifts in taxes, not for a massive government takeover of healthcare."
Wrong on all counts. First, Reconciliation was designed for, and has been used to pass all sorts of healthcare reform programs, as I explained earlier. In fact, save for Medicare, pretty much every major healthcare program has been passed through reconciliation. Second, reconciliation is not being used to pass a massive government takeover of healthcare. It is being used to tweak a bill that was already passed. Third, Reconciliation was used to pass the Bush tax cuts in direct violation of the Byrd rule by the same people complaining that its being used here when it does comply with it.
"Reconciliation is usually used in a bipartisan fashion. It should be used for that here too."
Nonsense. Utter nonsense. pretty much every reconciliation bill has been passed on a party-line vote, save for one or two crossover votes.
"This is a parliamentary trick. Its a power grab for the liberals that want to take over the healthcare system."
Well, you may have me here. This is a parliamentary maneuver, but so is a filibuster, so is objecting to a unanimous consent request to waive the reading of a bill, so is everything that happens in a parliamentary body. Democrats have the votes for it, a majority of the Senate wants to pass this, and there is a provision that allows them to do that. Get used to it. Why should Democrats be forced to bring a spork to a gunfight?
I've also heard attacks on the parliamentarian, suggesting that he might not be fair about his rulings on the Byrd rule.
This is ridiculous on so many levels. First off, the Parliamentarian so far has been ruthlessly fair, as has been every officer of the Senate. He is acting in a perfectly non-partisan fashion. Second, The whiplash of republicans on this issue must be painful. These clowns are the one that FIRED the parliamentarian when he was fairly ruling the Bush tax cuts to be out of order in a reconciliation bill. They have absolutely no room to complain when Democrats pass a bill that the man that the Republicans hired to replace that guy agrees with. How two-faced can you be?
So in conclusion, Democrats are probably using reconciliation, they are using it for exactly the reasion it was created, and they are operating fully with the constraints of the Byrd rule. The repbulicans really don't have a leg to stand on with this. Democrats have the votes. Get used to it.
I'm not going to write this blog post. It's not that I'm too lazy or that I don't understand it. I'm just not going to write it. The commenters should write this blog post.
I will tell you just a little about what this is: This is a single page from the working papers of the audit that was done of the North Dakota Department of Commerce by the State Auditor's Office last year. The information on the page below did not make it into the State Auditor's Office's final report. (That report can probably be found somewhere else online.)
If you have any questions that might be answered with another document or a link to legal authority, contract or data, please ask your question in the comments section or post the link to legal authority (or ask me to, if you don't know how to find it) or ask about the data. I've got a bit more documentation relating to this. If you ask the right question(s), I'll probably post updates with info I've got that might answer your question or clear up an issue.
[UPDATE #2: In a comment, below, "What the heck" asked how much money the state pays out renting offices around the state. Click here to read a document that shows (among other things) how much NDSU is paying to "lease back" some of the property it leases out for $1.00 a year.]
When I was a young man living in Dickinson in the early 1970’s, a friend of mine and I used to occasionally take a drive north of Medora to a place we called the Bell Lake Wilderness (the locals called it the Bell Lake Pasture). We’d drive a little ways off the West River Road onto a two-track trail that led to a little draw with some ash and cottonwood trees alongside Bell Lake Creek. We’d throw our sleeping bags, mostly of the Boy Scouts era, on the ground (no tents or air mattresses for hardy young twenty-somethings) on a quiet summer night and fall asleep under the stars. In the morning, we’d make some coffee on an old white gas Coleman stove, eat a handful of Baker Boy donuts, and take off across the prairie for a long day’s hike.
The Bell Lake Wilderness was about a township full of short grass prairie, part of the publicly owned Little Missouri National Grasslands. There were no roads through it, except a couple of two-tracks used by ranchers who had grazing leases, and not many fences. Open range, mostly, as I recall.
Today, if you drive up West River Road west of the Elkhorn Ranch Site, you’ll see a sign that says “Bell Lake Oil Field,” and you can turn off on any number of bright red scoria roads leading to oil well sites, and storage and pumping stations.
The Bell Lake Wilderness is gone, as are most of the other public land roadless areas in North Dakota. The RARE II study completed in 1979 (Remember that? I still have a copy!) identified 265,000 acres of that public land that were being managed as roadless areas in the Little Missouri National Grasslands—about half of what existed when I first started going there in the early 1970’s. Today there are only about 40,000 of those acres left that the Forest Service still manages as "Suitable for Wilderness." The Forest Service has leased the rest to private companies who have gone in and developed the minerals, building a vast network of roads to connect oil wells and storage facilities with the outside world, and creating a noisy, dusty, thirsty landscape that most of us who went there thirty years ago hardly recognize. Uffda.
Comes now an organization called the Badlands Conservation Alliance (BCA), a small North Dakota-based grass roots organization (full disclosure—my wife is the founder, and I am a member) with a big idea: to save a few small areas still existing as mostly roadless areas, as North Dakota Wilderness. I use a capital W on Wilderness here because we have so little of it in North Dakota, it needs some calling attention to. If you go to BCA’s website and click on the little box in the bottom left hand corner of the home page, you can download a brochure that explains the entire proposal (and you can also become a member for just a few bucks and help their cause).
Theirs is a modest proposal. It would classify those 40,000 acres, plus another 11,500 in the Lone Butte area, where there are no private mineral leases, and 5,000 over in the Sheyenne National Grasslands, as Wilderness. It would be called The Prairie Legacy Wilderness.
Wilderness designation would allow almost all existing uses to continue, but it would not allow any more roads or wells, and it would not allow anyone except the ranchers who lease those acres to drive on the existing two-track trails. The rest of us would just ride horses or hike in these areas. The parcels are small enough that if you take a good long day-hike through each of them, you can see much of the landscape, and get a pretty good sense of why we should save them as Wilderness. I know. I've done it. And seen the Golden Eagle and Prairie Falcon nests and the Prairie Fringed Orchids that are going to disappear one day, soon, if we do not preserve these areas.
There are a million acres of Little Missouri National Grasslands. This proposal would set aside just 5 per cent of them as permanent native prairie. Ninety-five percent--950,000 of those acres--would remain open to oil development under this proposal. The last time I was up on Bullion Butte there was a 4-wheeler rally going on. Under this proposal, they'd have to ride their 4-wheelers on that 950,000 acres that are not off limits to motorized vehicles. That ought to be enough room. That’s a pretty reasonable proposal, don’t you think?
Despite its vast areas of wide open spaces, North Dakota has surprisingly little Wilderness area now—about 40,000 acres, divided among the Chase Lake and Lostwood National Wildlife Refuges and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. (If you click on any of those links, you’ll go to great day trip planning sites.)
So why am I writing about this proposal? Well, just last month, South Dakota U.S. Senator Tim Johnson announced that he would introduce a bill in Congress this year to designate between 40,000 and 50,000 acres of the Buffalo Gap National Grassland east of Rapid City, South Dakota, as Wilderness. An area similar to our own Little Missouri National Grasslands here in North Dakota. So some of us think the timing is right to initiate this effort in North Dakota too.
I hope BCA is successful. I hope we get our North Dakota Senators to introduce a bill too. If you want to help, send me an
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. Or e-mail)
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, BCA’s executive director, and ask her how you can help. Or just go ahead and contact your Senators or Congressmen. This takes an Act of Congress. Somebody has to sponsor it. It’s a reasonable proposal. One of them should be willing to get the ball rolling. It’s time to get this done.
It’s too late for Bell Lake. But not for Bullion Butte.
Democrats have been accusing Republicans of using fear to chase numbers to the polls every November since the beginning of time. But before today they've never had proof in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.
The Republican National Committee plans to raise money this election cycle through an aggressive campaign capitalizing on “fear” of President Barack Obama and a promise to "save the country from trending toward socialism."
The strategy was detailed in a confidential party fundraising presentation, obtained by POLITICO, which also outlines how “ego-driven” wealthy donors can be tapped with offers of access and “tchochkes.”
The presentation was delivered by RNC Finance Director Rob Bickhart to top donors and fundraisers at a party retreat in Boca Grande, Florida on February 18, a source at the gathering said.
You can look at the entire PowerPoint presentation by clicking here.
In the presentation, Republican operatives address the fact they will be helping John Hoeven in North Dakota with the strategies in the presentation. On page 21 of 72, the presentation characterizes North Dakota as an "Offensive Target." The strategies to look out for here in North Dakota are laid out on pages 29, 30 and 31. On page 29, the official Republican presentation talks about how they will use "Fear" to motivate "visceral giving." On page 30, Republicans say they will "sell" their agenda by suggesting they will "save the country from trending toward Socialism!" Then, on page 31, you get this:
I used to naïvely think the hate-mongering and fear-mongering you see on Fox News, on right-wing radio and on right-wing blogs was the work of a few, rogue conservative outsiders. I thought all the unthinking hate just came from liars and propagandists like right-wing radio puke Scott Hennen and blogger Rob Port; people who lack any credibility at all. It's troubling to learn that those clowns are actually being spoon-fed their trash in a focus-grouped, orchestrated, official program devised by Republican Party insiders and circulated by PowerPoint presentations at official RNC training sessions.
If I were one of the many cowering, party-line Republican voters out there, I'd feel like a pathetic, manipulated guppy right now. The only thing they have to fear is the Republican Party itself.
Hotline is reporting the North Dakota Republican Party ("ND GOP") is affirmatively seeking out campaign funds from the insurance industry and expects to raise as much as $50,000 from insurance companies in June of this year:
Amid a flap over an embarrassing fundraising presentation, another presentation appears to show at least one state GOP is ready to reap rewards from the insurance industry, which could open the party up to charges that it is in the pocket of an industry that would be hurt by health care reform.
A photo posted to a Facebook profile of the ND GOP [reproduced at NorthDecoder.com, appropriately, to the upper-right] appears to show a recent RNC campaign school presentation. Part of that presentation included laying out the state party's fundraising goals, one of which is to hit up the insurance industry for $50K.
Under the "Major Donors" category, "Insurance Industry" is listed next to a figure of $50K. The ND GOP also appears to be planning an event in the Hamptons in June with 120 attendees.
It takes a special kind of pathological liar to go out into the world, claiming to fight for the little guy, and then go raise tens of thousands of dollars from the insurance industry.
I'd bet I know exactly where the NDGOP is planning to get this kind of insurance industry dough.
And what's with the fundraiser in the Hamptons?!? Isn't that a fancy, expensive vacation venue in New York where all the East Coast "Who's-Who"s spend all their time? Is that where North Dakota's Republican Party has found its base? Guess so.
No wonder they've scheduled the coronation of a socialist banking heir as North Dakota's next U.S. Senator.
NorthDecoder.com contacted the North Dakota Republican Party seeking comment regarding this story. The NDGOP has not yet responded.
Highlighted on the second page are (apparently important) words, "government-controlled healthcare in this country won't work."
I think that's hilarious.
Think about who this hit piece is being distributed by: it's being distributed by U.S. House Republicans. Where do U.S. House Republicans get their healthcare?!?
You guessed it. They get their healthcare from a "government-controlled healthcare" program.
If Republicans were really against "government-controlled healthcare," they'd all cancel their tax-dollar funded congressional health plans.
The other highlighted language in the hit piece is this: "Cuts to Medicare."
That's equally funny. Democrats are proposing that medicare spending be reduced through the elimination of fraud, abuse and waste. I thought Republicans were against fraud, abuse and waste. Maybe not.
If Republicans really think passage of the proposed healthcare reform measures will be the end of the Democratic Party, why don't they just let it pass and take over the House and Senate in less than a year?!?
These Republican leaders are the worst kind of hypocrites.
I happened across the 2010 campaign website of North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner. It appears that he is spending his warchest very wisely. It takes me two whole screenshots to show you the entire page. Here's the homepage:
Notice that there is only one active link, "Meet Doug." Here's what's behind that link:
there you have it, Doug Goehring's website, in its entirety circa 3:30 March 3rd. Impressive indeed. Horrendous design, check. No content, check. This baby is ready to launch. A note to all you aspiring campaign webmasters out there: make sure your site is done before you launch it. Have your "under construction" page up until then. Don't have a barely started site out there for us to point and laugh at while you start generating content. I'd also suggest that your site look like is was made in the last decade. This site appears to have been designed in 1997. White and light blue with black text is a terrible color scheme. Get with the program. It's 2010.
TheHill.com is reporting that Clay Jenkinson, author and humanities scholar, may be considering a run for the United States Senate...
State Sen. Tracy Potter is so far the only Democrat running for the seat, and Heitkamp's exit means Dorgan will be a heavy, heavy favorite in November.
Another name that will likely surface after Heitkamp's announcement is that of author Clay Straus Jenkinson.
I don't know what to think about that. I like Jenkinson's work, but he's definitely not someone anybody could ever accuse of being a "politician." I suspect he'd be more statesman than a poltician. From some folks' perspective, that's probably a good thing.
I like Tracy Potter (he's my state senator) and look forward to watching his campaign, but I gotta confess that I think a Jenkinson vs. Hoeven debate would be very, very fun to watch too.
The National Journal's hotline blog is reporting Heidi Heitkamp is out.
Ex-ND AGHeidi Heitkamp(D) will announce today she will not run for the seat being vacated by Sen.Byron Dorgan(D), according to Dem sources.
Heitkamp's decision is another blow to Dems, who were stunned when Dorgan said in Jan. he would not run for another term. After Dorgan's announcement, Gov.John Hoeven(R) said he would jump into the race, giving GOPers one of their best shots at picking up a seat.
Well, there you have it. It's a done deal. John Hoeven -- our socialist banking heir, do-nothing, coward of a governor -- is our next U.S. Senator. It's inevitable.
I'll be watching the mailbox to see when I get my invitation to the coronation.
[UPDATE: Listen to Heitkamp talk about her intentions on KFGO.com at 10:35 a.m. CST today. on KFGO.com]
Let's look at what's going on with New York's Governor David Paterson right now. National womens' organizations are calling for Paterson to resign today.
The National Organization for Women on Tuesday urged New York Gov. David Paterson to resign because of a report he directed two staffers to contact a woman about a domestic violence case involving one of his top aides.
The group is highly influential in Democratic politics and called for the governor's resignation despite what it considers Paterson's "excellent" record of strong support for women's issues and in combatting domestic violence.
"It is inappropriate for the governor to have any contact or to direct anyone to contact an alleged victim of violence," said Marcia Pappas, president of NOW New York State. "This latest news is very disappointing for those of us who believed the governor was a strong advocate for women's equality and for ending violence against women."
"It is now time for the governor to step down," she said in the written statement.
Next let's take a look at North Dakota Governor John Hoeven, currently a candidate for the United States Senate.
Less than a year ago, on March 28, 2009, in the middle of North Dakota's most recent legislative session, a member of Governor John Hoeven's staff was assaulted by her husband, David Weiler, a Republican state legislator (mugshot, to the left). Rep. Dave Weiler (R-Bismarck) was arrested and charged criminally with domestic violence assault after trying to kick in the door to get at his wife again that night as she made a frantic call to police.
Luckily the police got there quickly and were able to make sure Rep. Weiler didn't hurt his wife any more. His wife was taken to the hospital where her injuries were treated and photographed.
During the investigation, police inquired of Rep. Weiler's child and victim about what they saw and about the danger they felt the Republican legislator posed to them. Here's an excerpt from the officer's police report [with the childrens' and victim's names redacted]:
"I talked to _______ and asked him what he saw. He stated that he had seen his daddy push his mommy down to the ground. At that time ________ started crying. She said, "_______ do you remember where daddy was going to take you shopping the other day? ________ looked at me and said, "Daddy and I were going to buy a gun." __________ stated she did not know what that meant."
Weiler's victims were obviously very frightened. One can only imagine why Representative Weiler's wife mentioned, during the police investigation of the assault, the fact her husband was going to take their child to go buy a gun.
As is fairly normal in in a domestic violence case, a No Contact Order was issued by a judge telling Weiler he was to stay at least 300 feet from his victim, he was to not enter or go near the victim's residence, and that he was to have no contact with or go to the victim's place of employment. Weiler's adult victim worked in Governor Hoeven's office. Her place of employment is the North Dakota state capitol building. The No Contact Order was signed by a municipal judge on April 1st, 2009. You can read the No Contact Order by clicking here.
A No Contact Order like this would normally be enforced on the state capitol grounds by the North Dakota Highway Patrol. The Highway Patrol does law enforcement for all state-owned buildings. In North Dakota, the Highway Patrol is an executive branch entity, under the Governor's control.
Despite the fact there was an order saying he could not go to his victim's place of work (the state capitol building), Dave Weiler did not miss a day of the legislative session. He was just down the (Great) hall from his victim's office voting on bills on April 1st, April 2nd, and April 3rd. Weiler beat up his wife and didn't miss a beat. Weiler eventually admitted to assaulting his wife and was sentenced.
Not long thereafter, Weiler was rewarded by Hoeven's current political party. Rep. Weiler was named vice-chairman of the North Dakota legislature's Energy Development and Transportation Interim Committee. This is an important time in North Dakota for energy development and transportation, so this vice-chairmanship is an important position. Hoeven -- the highest elected Republican in North Dakota -- has never said anything about Weiler's special treatment by the Republican legislative caucus. Not a single word.
It also seems fair to point out that during his time in the legislature, Rep. Weiler has successfully voted to kill three important domestic violence bills in the North Dakota legislature. He voted to kill HB 1462 in 2005, HB 1337 in 2003 and HB 1476 in 2001.
David Paterson is accused of making phone calls to get special treatment for a staff member of his who beat up a woman. I do not have any evidence that Hoeven ever made a call to anybody regarding the assault of a Governor's office staffer by her husband, a Republican legislator. I would bet Hoeven never made any calls. I would bet he never did anything. That's John Hoeven's nature. Avoid conflict. Do nothing.
But this was and is a time when a leader would have stepped up to the plate and engaged. Hoeven did nothing. This shows he was and is a bad leader.
I would propose to you that Governor Hoeven's inaction is, at best, equally offensive, and possibly more offensive than Governor Paterson's action. Paterson, though badly, appears to have taken some action. Paterson probably thought he was acting like a "leader," though he was wrong. If the story turns out to be true, what Paterson did was wrong.
Hoeven fails to act. He always fails to act. During legislative sessions, Hoeven is absent. Ask any legislator. (Remember a couple sessions ago when he vetoed bills after the session had ended and had to call legislator's back for a special session? That only happened because Hoeven failed to walk down the hall and talk to the legislators in his own party before they all left town.) Hoeven's biggest failure is that he always fails to act when action is needed. I'd rather have a governor who takes action and makes a mistake once in a while than a governor who never does anything. (Ribbon-cutting ceremonies do not count as "taking action.")
The New York chapter of the National Organization for Women has called for Paterson's resignation. I'd like to know when the National Organization for Women -- or even one of North Dakota's in-state abused adult resource centers -- is going to call for Hoeven's resignation. Since North Dakota does not have a N.O.W. chapter, I sent the national N.O.W. office a request for comment earlier this afternoon. N.O.W. has not responded so far. If they do I will supplement this post.
Have you seen these limp-wristed, half-hearted non-criticisms of John Hoeven in the newspapers lately? How disappointing. It's as if the editors at the Bismarck Tribune and Forum Communications (the owners of most of North Dakota's daily newspapers) are whipping themselves, forcing themselves to write op/ed pieces they can point back to -- months from now -- when they get criticized for never saying anything negative about North Dakota's Governor John Hoeven (Socialist Bankers Party-Bismarck). But they write like they're worried the Governor's thugs are waiting in the parking lot.
Check these out. The Fargo Forum first:
Americans tend to forgive politicians for most transgressions, but hypocrisy is a deal-breaker. When Republican governors rail against the Recovery Act (stimulus) and then jump on the podium to take credit for stimulus-funded projects, the stench of hypocrisy cannot be masked by flowery speeches. The same reek taints Republicans in Congress for playing politics with one hand and taking the stimulus money with the other.
Facts shine a light on hypocrites. More than 100 Republican governors, representatives and senators have been having a grand ol’ time ripping the stimulus bill, while simultaneously working the system to secure stimulus dollars to create jobs in their states and districts. Those must be the jobs party dogma says the stimulus didn’t create.
Go read this whole editorial. I ask you to go read that whole article for a reason. Go read it and see if you can find John Hoeven's name anywhere in the editorial.
If you haven't gone to look, I'm going to spoil it for you. It's not there. The article must be about Governor Hoeven. It has to be. What other North Dakota governor has gladly shown up with his giant scissors at every stimulus-funded project in North Dakota, and then went on to attack the stimulus as "socialism"? None. It's about Hoeven.
So why wouldn't the editors at the Fargo Forum name Hoeven by name?
It's because they are cowards. Because they're afraid to specifically mention John Hoeven by name in an editorial. Instead, it's a generically vague piece about Republican governors, generally.
Freakin' cowards.
So the Bismarck Tribune's cowardly editor decided to pick up where the cowards at the Forum left off.
Too many leaders - government and business - are much too much into the blame game, or efforts of absolution. In part it is because of a fear of angering those in higher, maybe even lower, places. One official once said: "I'm not going to take on a governor who has a 75 percent approval rating." I wasn't quite sure of the implication, but it seemed the official might be suggesting they were an innocent "fall guy."
I've been told the governor of North Dakota is demanding and doesn't take bad news well. There is nothing wrong with demanding excellence and reacting to bad news, but how people in authority react to bad news can scare the bejesus out of some who can react by screaming bloody murder because their very thin skin is being lightly poked by press pins and needles.
No one in the tall building would want to be sourced, but it isn't hard to imagine some excited about the strong prospect of the governor moving to the Senate, based on the prospect of a kinder-gentler management style. But be careful what you ask for - no leader-manager will satisfy everyone.
I have no complaints in my one-on-one interaction with the governor. He always has been professional. But it seems most stories that challenge or expose possible concern on any governmental level, draws a challenge by some politician, official or agenda-driven organization. The overabundance of such comments might suggest a need to review the content. We do this daily. But the comments might also suggest the standard operating procedure in government is to cover your butt and over-react, despite "Crisis Communication 101" teaching immediate action, honestly and transparency will aid in the healing of wounds.
Bismarck Tribune (February 28, 2010) [Please go read this whole piece of crap, too.]
Let me see if I can follow this: John Hoeven has always been nice to you. He's always professional. But when someone writes a story that challenges or exposes "possible concern on any governmental level, [it] draws a challenge by some politician, official or agenda-driven organization." (emphasis mine)
By "some [generic] politician, official or [ ] organization"?!?
Really?
Wait, wait, wait. Who are we talking about here? You were just talking about how the governor is this great guy, and then all of a sudden you're talking about how when there is criticism of government, there's a challenge from "some politician, official or agenda-driven organization."
Did I miss something?!?
How are those two things related?!? Are you talking about Governor John Hoeven?
Should your column be entitled "North Dakota's state of defensiveness" or is it really about "John Hoeven's state of defensiveness"?!?
If that's the case, Mr. Irby, why don't you name John Hoeven by name in the column?!? If it's not about Hoeven, why don't you grow a set and tell us who it is about?
Are you afraid of John Hoeven, Mr. Irby?!? What do you think he's going to do to you?!? Take away your newspaper's credibility?!?
Too late for that.
North Dakota's newspaper editors need to grab a spine, or find other work.
We deserve editors who aren't afraid of Governor John Hoeven.
We deserve brave, competent, neutral newspaper editors with the courage to write about our state's leaders.
I do d...
We're going to try a new series here. It's just going to be a simple question I'd ask a candidate for office if I ever got an exclusive interview. Our first question would be for Kevin Cramer, a Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. It's a pretty straight-forward question. 
Yesterday's big North Dakota news -- so big it made page 3B of today's Bismarck Tribune -- is that Dakota Grower's Pasta Company is being sold to a Canadian company for $240 million. 
Hotline is reporting the North Dakota Republican Party ("ND GOP") is affirmatively seeking out campaign funds from the insurance industry and expects to raise as much as $50,000 from insurance companies in June of this year:
TheHill.com is reporting that Clay Jenkinson, author and humanities scholar, may be considering a run for the United States Senate...
Let's look at what's going on with New York's Governor David Paterson right now. National womens' organizations are calling for Paterson to resign today. 
Less than a year ago, on March 28, 2009, in the middle of North Dakota's most recent legislative session, a member of Governor John Hoeven's staff was assaulted by her husband, David Weiler, a Republican state legislator (mugshot, to the left). Rep. Dave Weiler (R-Bismarck) was arrested and charged criminally with domestic violence assault after trying to kick in the door to get at his wife again that night as she made a frantic call to police. 
Have you seen these limp-wristed, half-hearted non-criticisms of John Hoeven in the newspapers lately? How disappointing. It's as if the editors at the Bismarck Tribune and Forum Communications (the owners of most of North Dakota's daily newspapers) are whipping themselves, forcing themselves to write op/ed pieces they can point back to -- months from now -- when they get criticized for never saying anything negative about North Dakota's Governor John Hoeven (Socialist Bankers Party-Bismarck). But they write like they're worried the Governor's thugs are waiting in the parking lot. 
