Unheralded

TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — Wake Up, North Dakotans

I’m going to type very slowly so you can keep up. Don’t get me wrong, I used to think North Dakotans were even more above average than residents of Lake Wobegone, blessed with sound cognitive abilities. According to some legislators, I was wrong, so I’ll try to keep this as monosyllabic as possible.

Republicans in the North Dakota Legislature have decided they need to keep the training wheels on for you feeble-minded voters. They have name tags, so they must know what they’re doing. Sens. David Hogue, Dick Dever, Gary Lee and Reps. Scott Louser, Kim Koppelman and Mike Nathe have sponsored a bill to make sure that if you well-meaning simpletons manage to pass another initiated constitutional amendment, the Legislature will have to approve it — twice. Then, I think it has to go to New York for review by instant replay officials.

You might wonder, “If I was smart enough to elect those guys, why am I incapable of making other decisions?” (Crickets.) See, you can’t come up with the answer, proving that you must be as dumb as they think you are.

Hogue, the primary sponsor of the bill, knows you’re helpless against an onslaught of out-of-state money. You are being cash-whipped into making poor decisions. Remember the time you re-elected Heidi Heitkamp, whose multikabillion dollar war chest overwhelmed Kevin Cramer? Poor guy never stood a chance.

Then you drooling stooges passed Measure 1, an anti-corruption bill championed by the Badass Grandmas and funded in large part by out-of-state leftists and their new-fangled notions about transparency, democracy and other weird Hollywood fetishes. These busybodies think voters should know when out-of-state oil money is used to try to influence legislation in North Dakota.

The fight to defend bribery was funded by out-of-state oil interests in an heroic but doomed effort to save one of the core principles of capitalism. It was also secretly funded by corporations that wished to remain anonymous because they are humble and would be embarrassed by all the attention and medals they would get for defending freedom. Truthfully, Measure 1 was unnecessary because unlike you, legislators can not be swayed by out-of-state money. But even though you can’t buy a legislator, shouldn’t we have the freedom to try?

Sure, the optics were bad when a few years ago, the Legislature cut the oil extraction tax by 23 percent, but they were just righting a wrong — cleaning up a bone-headed decision by “We The People,” who naively initiated that extraction tax back in the 1980s, thinking that keeping the money in the state was smarter than sending it away. Cute, but we should leave the thinking to people with name tags. Economics are too complicated for the unelected. The last thing we need to do is fritter away oil taxes on education, health care and infrastructure. That’s what your taxes are for.

Anyway, why would you be against tax cuts for Texas? After all, that’s where we’re sending our lawsuits these days. You’ll be pleased to note that Texas mercenaries successfully defeated the Affordable Care Act and its wacky protections for pre-existing conditions. It was like the Battle of the Alamo, only different. This time, the insurance industry won. Really, does it matter how many people die as long as we adhere to strict capitalist principles?

But don’t trouble your pretty little airheads about all this. Let the grownups get to work. They know what’s best for you. Just like the time they gutted the medical marijuana initiative or tried to bypass your vote against corporate farming. Someone will be by later to tuck you in.




4 thoughts on “TONY J BENDER: That’s Life — Wake Up, North Dakotans”

  • Jackie Brodshaug December 28, 2018 at 7:39 pm

    Right on.

    Reply
  • Susan Arata December 29, 2018 at 12:39 pm

    what a relief to read the thoughts of a statie who doesn’t sleep well with all the corruption that’s taken over ND YAY! Keep it up and burn those weasels, friend!

    Reply
  • Brad December 30, 2018 at 9:15 am

    you can’t be from North Dakota, no one here thinks, just vote republican and stop thinking.

    Reply
  • T.G. Magin December 30, 2018 at 11:25 pm

    They believe they have to destroy what the Constitution stands for in order to protect us from what it stands for…. typical of the mindset in Bismarck where the Legislature has become smaller (and more important) than the whole that they represent. Thanks for pumping some oxygen into the foul air inversion that has settled over the State.

    Reply

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