Twelve and a half minutes and two screws. That’s what two of the first bills submitted to North Dakota’s 65th Legislative Assembly address. This is the kind of stuff guys love. No wonder, then, that the whole state is talking about two proposals submitted by Grand Forks legislators. One would raise the speed limit on North Dakota’s interstates and divided …
Well, hell, the Golden Retriever caught the Chevy. In less than a month, an unqualified senior citizen playboy, wife collector and renowned sex offender will become president of the United States. And I thought Millard Fillmore stuck in my craw. Russians playing games in our business won’t matter. It’s still going to happen. Obama is meting out punishment, but Trump, …
We have a huge public relations problem here in the Peace Garden State. While the world was watching the DAPL pipeline controversy, North Dakota failed abysmally in influencing the narrative telling people about us. What they see casts us in anything but a positive light. We need to acknowledge this. The movie Fargo gave us an example of how far good …
UPDATE: On Sunday afternoon, not long after I had written this article, the Corps of Engineers announced it would not issue an easement for Energy Transfer Partners to drill on Corps land, effectively putting a stop to completion of the pipeline until a full Environmental Impact Statement is prepared, seeking the best route for the pipeline. The Tribe won this …
The Army Corp of Engineers has told the Tribes that they must leave federal property on which they are encamped by early December. Then, to complicate matters, the Corps said it will not forcibly remove those individuals whom they claim unlawfully occupy the land. Further complicating the situation is this week’s emergency declaration by Gov. Jack Dalrymple to remove said individuals …
No morning-after pill Despite what many feared, the sun rose again Wednesday. And it will again, daily. The shockwaves of a Trump presidential victory reverberated around the world. Many people fell into a state of despondency, a pall cast over their world. Others were jubilant, a victory in hand for Americans who had simply had it with big government’s dysfunction. …
This election cycle has so eroded my thought process — temporarily, I hope — that I can’t focus on any one story line today. So, I’m not even going to try. I’m just going to sit here and write whatever pops into my head. Cass County Sheriff Paul Laney and the State Sheriffs Association would be well advised to remember …
I had the honor today to hear the world renowned Lakota flute player and hoop dancer Kevin Locke perform in Bismarck. He’s in his 60s now. He has been performing all over the world since he was in his early 20s. He’s a national and international treasure. Someone I know, who knows these things, says Kevin Locke is the greatest …
This year, as in most election years, I found a stack of notes to myself on my desk about things I thought I might write a blog about, but never got around to it because pheasant season opened, or the fish started biting, or the ducks were migrating, or Lillian’s “Things to Do In The Fall” list got a bit …
I know many of you have little respect for the Standing Rock Sioux (Lakota) in the ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline crisis. Your views by now are pretty well known: A) The Sioux leadership should have been at the negotiating table long ago, when it might have made a difference; b) the pipeline is off the reservation, so the Lakota don’t …
“All the Republicans are going to win.” “All the ballot measures are going to lose.” No, that’s not my election prediction for 2016 (although it’s pretty close). Those were my election predictions on my blog for 2014, written two years ago this week, just before the 2014 election. (You can go back and look at them here and here, if you want to.) …
From a marketing standpoint, it was a serious breach of intellect. It’s 101 material. If you send out a product that explodes and kills people, you aren’t smart enough to grow hair. Mushroom clouds always draw bad press. There’s no middle ground. “Chad, does our new shiny thingy explode?” “No sir.” “Ship it. Where are we going for lunch?” Or, …
“When you move, you get the endorphins going, and you have more energy, more life. And that is where the healing begins.” Those words, spoken by Johnny Eagle, the Wellness director for the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, not only echoed the important healing taking place in the camp at Standing Rock for the mental well-being of its participants, who deal …
Without water, this planet would be uninhabitable. Without protecting our natural resources, our planet will be uninhabitable. As the polar ice cap (a major source of all water on earth) recedes, water levels will rise dramatically. With all of the activity at Standing Rock in North Dakota, the actual focus of tribal intent is being lost. The Native Americans aren’t …
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the new oil refinery proposed by Meridian Energy Group, to be built just east of Medora, N.D., within three miles of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I wanted to wait with a follow-up until Meridian had actually submitted an application for an air quality permit, detailing what kind of steps the company was going to …
From the back roads and byways to the capital city of Bismarck, North Dakota offers some spectacular viewing, especially this time of the year. Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner’s recent travels across the state presented some great photo ops, which he shares here.
Pipelines leak. If North Dakota didn’t have such an awful reputation for not enforcing its environmental regulations in the Oil Patch, maybe we wouldn’t have a few thousand people camped out along the Cannonball River protesting the mother of all North Dakota pipelines, Dakota Access. Pipelines have been leaking oil and dangerous fracking saltwater all over western North Dakota for …
There has been a lot of idle talk about who killed Jimmy Hoffa and how they disposed of his body. Well, I’m not going there because I know nothing about it … but it was a great hook to get your attention. My sermon of the day relates to an extent about politics, decency and civil rights … or, more …
So, The Forum’s antiabortion columnist is shocked — shocked! — that WDAY broadcast a story on the Red River Women’s Clinic’s need for more volunteer escorts during the stepped-up protests of the nationwide “40 Days of Life.” She says, “(Their story) reads like an advertisement for our state’s only abortion clinic” and calls it a “stab in the heart.” As …
UNDERGROUND BUNKER, MCINTOSH COUNTY, N.D. — Hi folks, it’s your intrepid reporter. I’m still hunkered down, clinging to my guns and my Sports Illustrated. I don’t care if we’re in a State of Emergency. (Play ominous organ music here.) It’s football season. In that regard, it is a personal emergency. My fantasy football team is so iffy, I may be …
In February 1999, the U.S. Department of Justice published a report that I have never before seen. Among its revelations: American Indians experience per capita rates of violence that are more than twice those of the U.S. resident population as a whole. In the category of murder, blacks lead the way by a vast number, followed by Native Americans and …
There was a discussion at my table Saturday night about whether Indians in North Dakota have gained or lost respect as a result of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. There was no consensus. But what I do know is that important voices are rising in support of Tribal actions (although not so much in support of Tribal agitators), and there is …
The following is a report on the events that are unfolding south of Mandan, N.D., near the boundary of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The story is by Tony Bender and his son, Dylan, and appeared today in the Ashley (N.D.) Tribune and Wishek (N.D.) Star. The accompanying video was shot by Dylan, who is a student at Bismarck State College. An …
Today I am 69. It is a meaningless birthday, in a world and time when numbers that don’t end in zero or five are of little consequence. But it is significant in that I am still here. Males in my family don’t generally live this long. I kind of wish I had planned a little better. But I am grateful to still …
Events of historic importance are slowly unfolding south of Mandan, N.D., near the boundary of another nation state, the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The Dakota Access Pipeline protest has grown into something much larger and more important for the future of white-Indian relations. It is no longer just about the pipeline. We may be witnessing the beginning of a continent-wide …
It’s in all of our interests to show respect for the protests now under way at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation (and nearby). I acknowledge that the pipeline company has a right to extend its oil pipeline across the Missouri River (willing buyer — willing seller, the very essence of American capitalism). I acknowledge that the state of North Dakota has …
Once upon a time, there was a legislator who had to report campaign donations by amount and by donor … one who had to disclose how his funds were spent … one who would explain why a donor was not creating a conflict of interest. Once upon a time, this same legislator was bound by a code of ethics. It …
After following news coverage of the developing story at Standing Rock, I am saddened by North Dakota’s official response to the legitimate issues raised by the Native protestors north of the reservation. What North Dakota’s governor, lieutenant governor and Public Service Commission don’t seem to understand is that the Native Americans who are protesting are, in fact, American patriots. Their …
North Dakota’s Industrial Commission, Gov. Jack Dalrymple and his advisers can take credit for some negative publicity that North Dakota is getting on the national. I refer to the plight of Native Americans across the country in addressing the Dakota Access Pipeline and its impact on reservations, their people and their long-held beliefs. I applaud their courage in defending the …
All right, my Native American friends, I’m guest-hosting the KFGO Radio “Afternoon Show” from 2 to 5 p.m. Thursday. The media has complained you haven’t been available for interviews. Please have some of your spokespersons call in to outline your positions. The more you speak the less I have to You’ll be on the No.1 talk show in the state. …
Note: This story has been updated since it was originally posted Friday evening. Late Friday, North Dakota’s governor, Jack Dalrymple, declared that a state of emergency existed in south-central North Dakota, due to a large gathering, in temporary campgrounds, of opponents of the placement of the Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River on the edge of the Standing Rock …
To steal a title from an old Ray Charles’ song, “night time is the right time” for Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons. That’s evidenced here by the images he captured recently over the course of a few nights on the North Dakota prairie. Check out more photos from Russ Hons here.
It’s not important whether you see a refinery stack from the highest point in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit. What’s important is what comes out of that stack. Meridian Energy’s publicity stunt the other night, hoisting a weather balloon from the site of its proposed refinery just three miles from the park and proving that it couldn’t be seen from …
Dear Readers: I first wrote of James Henrikson in January 2014, not long after the murder for hire of Doug Carlile, a crime for which he was recently sentenced to life in prison. I summarized the entire 2½ years in an article for Dakota Country magazine, which should be in the mail and in stores today. For those of you …
WTF? Nobody — not me, not you, not Doug Burgum — could have predicted that outcome. Some predicted a Burgum win. Not me, although I had this nagging feeling every time I saw Ed Schafer on TV that maybe, just maybe, it could happen. But too many times I have predicted an election outcome because I wanted that outcome, not because I …
It was late afternoon on an dreary late October day in 1990. I was stopped at the Fifth Street railroad crossing in downtown Bismarck, waiting for a train to go by on the tracks in front of me. I looked to my left and there, in the car beside me, was Ed Schafer. He spotted me about the same time. He …
If you came here looking for my blog post about billionaire sex and drug king Henry Nicholas and his unwitting (I think) North Dakota foil Kathleen Wrigley, wife of Lieutenant Gov. Drew Wrigley, who, together, are bringing you a North Dakota ballot measure called Marsy’s Law, well, you won’t find it here today. I wrote about the two of them last …
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an article here about the Little Missouri State Scenic River Commission and how important it had been to protecting the integrity of North Dakota’s only “State Scenic River” during our first oil boom in the 1970s and ’80s. If you missed it, you can go here to catch up. Well, we’ve had another boom …
WAIT A MINUTE OK, the story below about state Sen. Nicole Poolman is funny, but according to her husband, it is not quite true. Almost, but not quite. The real story is even funnier. Way at the very end of this blog, I repeated a story that’s been making the rounds in political circles these days. A story about state …
Note: In Monday’s article, I discussed the North Dakota governor’s race, in light of the economic downturn the state is suffering. Today, one of the candidates for governor, Doug Burgum, discusses the state’s economic plight in an op-ed he e-mailed to the North Dakota media late Monday. — Jim Fuglie By Doug Burgum The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia for …
What’s a Democrat to do? Just when the North Dakota Republican Party appears more vulnerable than it has been in almost 25 years, the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party has retrenched into a hole so deep that it’s unlikely Democrats here will be able to climb out of it in time to compete in an election about 280 days hence. The …
U.S. Highway 85 is North Dakota’s deadliest highway. If you’re not familiar with it, it is the road that runs north and south along the western edge of the state, from our border with Canada to our border with South Dakota, through the North Dakota Bad Lands, some of the state’s most scenic and fragile landscapes. Even though it passes …
You might remember that memorable line, uttered by Dick the butcher, from perhaps the least memorable of Shakespeare’s plays, “Henry VI.” I thought of it today because I was thinking about lawyers. And governors. It’s been 30 years since North Dakota had a lawyer in the governor’s chair. That’s about to end. Because it looks like the race for governor …
I enjoy playing with scammers. You know, the ones who pretend to be your friends on Facebook. I like to think I’ve wasted at least some of their “work” time by keeping them occupied for as long as possible. Below is my actual conversation from Saturday: Scammer: Hello. How are you? Me: Doing well. Scammer: Am pretty good, life is …