There’s a good reason I don’t send “Letters to the Editor” of daily newspapers. I can usually reach the audience I want to reach here on my blog. It’s mine, and I can say whatever I damn well please. And I do. And if someone disagrees with me, they can just start their own blog. But then right-wing oil industry …
Billings County Commissioners, in a 2-1 vote at a special meeting Wednesday, agreed to stop all legal action concerning the proposed Little Missouri River Crossing for 60 days, or until a settlement can be reached to put an end to the condemnation of the Short Ranch property for construction of a road and bridge. The language of the motion was …
You’ve heard me say this before: Elections have consequences. Even in tiny remote places like Billings County in the North Dakota Bad Lands, where a total of just 628 people voted in the races for the Billings County Commission this past month. In Billings County, commissioners are elected to represent geographic districts. The county is divided into three of them. …
A group of dedicated North Dakotans has put together a proposal that will bring significant recognition to the North Dakota Bad Lands. They are my heroes. The project is the creation of a new national monument, the Maah Daah Hey National Monument. If the project succeeds, it will be an immense source of pride for all North Dakotans. A little …
The five most dangerous words in the English language for a journalist (of which I am one, of a sort — I keep this online journal) are “I’m not a lawyer, but …” OK, so there’s been this legal case going on for about 10 years involving Billings County and the Short family over whether there is going to be …
You probably didn’t know Vern Frederick. He was a quiet, humble rancher/farmer from down near Flasher, N.D., (one of the best town names ever), a big, strong, hard-working man, dedicated to his loving wife, Bonnie, a polio victim tied to a wheelchair most of her adult life, whose farming operation was always on the cutting edge of the latest techniques …
Relax. Take a deep breath. Things are going to be OK. Not easy but OK. Just imagine what might be going on in our country today if Kamala Harris had been elected president in a very close election, let’s say a handful of electoral votes, with very close races in Arizona, Michigan, Nevada or Georgia. Blood in the streets. And …
That headline is a reprisal of the one I wrote in this space eight years ago, when Doug Burgum dashed the hopes of Wayne Stenehjem ever becoming governor of North Daktoa, by beating him the June 2016 primary. As I wrote then, I didn’t see that one coming. OK, so much for my Predictability Quotient. Well, actually, it’s not too bad. …
Here’s a slightly updated rerun of a column I first posted 10 years ago, on Nov. 4, 2014. It came to mind because of a question I got this week from my friend, Colleen Stebbins down in Bowman, North Dakota, about the bars being closed in North Dakota on Election Day. Some of you remember those days, more than 30 …
There’s a list at the North Dakota Secretary of State’s Office, and if you live in North Dakota, you’re on it. You and about half a million of your neighbors. It’s a big list. Probably the biggest list in the state. How do I know you’re on it? Because every North Dakotan who regularly reads these dispatches surely votes in …
This article first appeared in the October issue of High Plains Reader and on its website.) As a political columnist, I know I should be writing an election preview for the issue of this paper that comes out just a couple of weeks before what is being labeled, once again, as “the most important election of our lifetime.” OK, so …
The headlines in the papers are using the word “historic” to describe the fires burning in western North Dakota right now and over the past few days. Well, let me tell you a story about a historic fire from a few years back. Almost 50 years, in fact. It’s a story worth telling. And retelling. Some of you have heard …
“How’s your day goin’?” the young woman tending the cash register in the Linton, N.D., convenience store asked me Sunday afternoon as I laid my ice cream bar on the counter and reached for my wallet. “I need some ice cream,” I replied, handing her some cash. “That wasn’t what I asked you,” she said, somewhat cheekily I thought. Then …
Sometime in the distant past, when David Strauss and I were managing the campaigns of the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party, I received a note from David with those words. They struck home. I went looking for their source. I found the actual quote, ironically, from President Calvin Coolidge, who said this: “Nothing in this world can take the place of …
“The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.” You might recall that memorable line, uttered by Dick the Butcher, from perhaps the least memorable of Shakespeare’s plays, “Henry VI.” I’ve been thinking about it because I’ve been thinking about lawyers. And governors. It’s been 40 years since North Dakota had a lawyer in the governor’s chair. That …
Thank God for the Summer Olympics. I’ve been mostly laid up for a few weeks with a recurrence of the strange leg infection that kept me in the hospital much of the summer two years ago. I rode it out at home this year and was entertained in my recliner by watching the world’s best athletes competing for medals in …
I really hate to be critical of my governor. But c’mon, Doug, give us a break! Start acting like a governor. (More about the lakes in a minute.) The quotes from Burgum in Friday’s Forum Communications Co. papers were as unbecoming of a governor as anything I’ve ever read. Well, maybe I could drag out some old Jesse Ventura or …
In the olden days, when I was a young reporter for The Dickinson Press, one of the assignments for the newsroom staff was to check with the Police Department every day to see if there was any news. We’d wander across the street to the station and take a look at the daily log. Once in a while, we’d happen upon …
Sometime later this month, the State Historical Society of North Dakota is going to officially announce the approval of a new historic neighborhood in Bismarck. I’m pretty excited about it because I live in it. Two years ago last week, the Highland Acres neighborhood in west Bismarck was named to the National Register of Historic Places, with its official new …
This is a story of a tragic, ironic, almost unbelievable twist of fate. Some of you remember I wrote a series of stories, beginning in July 2017, about an illegal bridge across the Little Missouri State Scenic River west of the Killdeer Mountains, built by a fellow named Wylie Bice, a wealthy rancher with his pockets full of oil boom …
I should have been in Wahpeton Tuesday. I should have been at the funeral of my best childhood friend, Max Reinke. But I just couldn’t take another funeral right now. I’ve been to too many lately. But luckily, my friend Kevin Carvell says, none of them were mine. I know, it’s just a function of my age (soon to be …
Well, I could write about the election just past, or I could write about bacon. I like politics — most of my readers know that. But ALL of my friends know of my bacon fixation. I’ve liked bacon all my life, but never so much as when we moved into this house 15 years ago with its big garden space …
I’m stuck at home for a few days nursing some bruised-up ribs and a cut-up hand after a tumble in the Bad Lands, but I can type, so I’ll a share a few political thoughts with you in the days leading up to the June 11 North Dakota primary election. Congress First, you need to watch this short two-minute powerful video produced …
IN FLANDERS FIELDS By John McCrae In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie, …
This article first appeared in the May issue of High Plains Reader. I am an old man. I have been a politics junkie most of my life. I have been involved in many campaigns, but have not run for office myself. Each time someone has suggested I do that, I tell them the same thing: I will not put my …
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” — Ecclesiastes 1:9 Hmmm. Nothing new under the sun. Perhaps North Dakota Gov. Douglas Burgum needs to spend a little time with his Bible. Wise man, that Solomon. I’m referring to Burgum’s much ballyhooed announcement of the creation of …
In an attempt to share with you what’s going on in my phone’s text messages, without offending your sensibilities, I’m going to keep this short. As I mentioned in an earlier column, I continue to get text messages from the Trump campaign after North Dakota’s failed presidential candidate, Doug Burgum, shared my personal contact information with the Trump campaign. I’m …
I’ve been moping around the house most of this cold, wet, windy, dreary, week, feeling sorry for myself because I can’t get out in the garden. I managed one garden day early in the week and planted about half of what I hope will be this year’s potato crop, but I’ve got a big bag of seed potatoes in the …
When residents of Billings County in western North Dakota, home to the Bad Lands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora, head to their mailboxes sometime this week or next, they’re going to find a letter from their county commissioners. That’s unusual. About the only time county government sends you a letter is with your property tax bill. But this …
Humorist Will Rogers once said, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” North Dakota Republicans left Fargo mumbling something like that Sunday morning, changing the last word, after the fiasco that was their purported state convention. Democrats, meanwhile, trickled out of town knowing they had at least three credible candidates at the top …
Saturday morning. The first Saturday of April. Time for Spring. I’ve played a lot of golf on the first Saturday of April over the years. Not last year, of course, when there was 2 feet of snow on the ground outside my bedroom window. But this year, the grass is getting a green tint out there, and I’d at least …
OK, Doug Burgum, this time you’re on thin ice with me. It’s that time of year. The ice is getting thinner and thinner. but YOUR ice is really thin right now. This past summer, you used your thick billfold to try to become president by offering to send $20 gift cards to anyone sending you a dollar, so you could …
“The crux of this case is the preservation of the untouched and dramatic beauty of the Shorts’ property in the North Dakota Bad Lands while the underlying legal issues are resolved. Theodore Roosevelt once described this area in compelling terms: ”From the edges of the valley the land rises abruptly in steep high buttes, whose crests are sharp and jagged. …
In the Bismarck Tribune about North Dakota Lt. Gov. Tammy Miller’s announcement that she was running for governor this past week. Tribune reporter Jacob Fulton wrote this: Miller touted her childhood “cleaning toilets and stocking shelves” at the family lumber and hardware business in Brocket; she also said she “defended the store from robbers with her shotgun.” Now I had …
The North Dakota Secretary of State’s office says it is OK for Billings County residents to vote in June on whether they want their County Commission to use its power of eminent domain to take land for a road and bridge across the Little Missouri State Scenic River. The vote would not be binding on the commissioners or the bridge’s …
This past week, I wrote a story in this space that said the North Dakota Democratic-NPL Party had apparently been the victim of electronic eavesdropping after a device that might have been a “bug” was found in a door frame at the party’s former headquarters, the North Dakota Kennedy Center. Turns out that I and several members of the Kennedy …
I am a sucker for seafood. No, wait, let me shorten that sentence. I am a sucker. You’d think by now, at my ripe old age, I’d know to be mindful of the old saying “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” In my case, I’d change “probably” to “definitely.” I got scammed. Really, really scammed. …
The only thing we know for sure after Monday morning’s court hearing on the proposed bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River is that the bridge is not going to get built before March 1. U.S. District Judge Dan Traynor made sure of that because he’s not going to issue a decision on whether he’s going to grant a …
This space can get awfully discouraging much of the time, as I go after oil barons and county commissioners and politicians and other bad guys, and most of my friends will tell you pessimism is not generally my demeanor, so I continually go looking for things to get me back on the “sunny side of life.” From time to time, …
That’s the title of a storied 1969 movie starring Jane Fonda. The first time I saw it was the first time I fell in love with Jane Fonda. God, she was hot. I was a lad of barely 20, and she was 10 years older than me, but I’ve been in love with her from a distance ever since. No …
Sunday night (New Year’s Eve) over supper with family and friends (Lillian’s extraordinary Swedish Meatballs with her secret ******berry ingredient and homemade egg noodles), we had one of those end-of-the-year conversations about the state of things. We decided things are not so good. Oh, our personal lives are pretty much OK, considering those around the table had survived car crashes, …
It’s almost here. 2024, an election year. I get the feeling that most North Dakotans, like their fellow Americans, shudder at the thought. That’s OK. Politics in America, which I used to call “my favorite spectator sport,” has taken a sad turn away from what used to be the path to the most successful democracy in the world. Elections, too. …
I wrote this past week about the battle between the Short family and the Billings County Commission and how it is going to finally go to court in January. The Short family, descendants of the late U.S. Congressman Don Short, own the land on the west side of the Little Missouri State Scenic River — the west end of the …
The heirs of North Dakota’s U.S. Congressman Donald Levingston Short are going to get their day in court. You can join them Jan. 22, 2024 if you sit quietly in Courtroom 1 of the U.S. Courthouse in Bismarck. At precisely 9 a.m., U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor will gavel the audience to quiet and begin hearing a request from attorneys …