News

More preemptive ALEC strikes

May 8th, 2019

Activists leaving the No-DAPL camps on the final day before law enforcement entered - photograph by C.S. Hagen

BISMARCK – Two more preemptive strikes from the North Dakota Legislative body target free speech against corporate oil interests. Although some of the bill’s wording is misleading and vague, focused on terrorism, the meaning could be open to interpretation, representatives said, and is a solution looking for a problem.

Four other preemptive strikes were passed this legislative session and include laws restricting banning plastic bags and reusable straws, gun buyback programs,…

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Preemptive strikes: bags, guns, zoning, and a living wage

May 1st, 2019

A 38 mm handgun - photograph by C.S. Hagen

BISMARCK – ALEC’s fingerprints are smeared across more than a handful of preemptive state strikes – now laws – from the 2019 Sixty-sixth Legislative Session of North Dakota.

Each bill was designed to eradicate smaller governments’ power, and more than one copied sample proposals from the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, the powerful bill mill backed by the Koch brothers.

ALEC reports that it is the largest membership driven organization of legislators in the…

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How a few bad apples almost spoiled the bushel

April 24th, 2019

Picking apples - photograph provided by Wild TERRA

FARGO – When apple supplies were low last year, Ethan Hennings called out for help. Hundreds, from Moorhead to Bismarck, answered.

Sweet Honeycrisps and tart Northern Lights came in by the bushel. SnowSweets, Prairie Magics, and deep red Hazens followed Dakota Gold, an early ripening apple great for sauces and pies. Plucked primarily from trees planted in backyards, some tree owners exchanged the fruit for drinking vouchers at Wild TERRA, the city’s only “urban cidery.” Others…

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It’s about high time

April 17th, 2019

Design by Raul Gomez

After nearly two and a half years since the people of North Dakota voted to pass the Compassionate Care Act into law in the state, medical marijuana is finally available to patients. Only one dispensary is open right now, but seven other cities have been named as future sites of medical marijuana dispensaries, including four which were named last week.

The most recent cities to be added to the list of dispensary sites are Minot, Devils Lake, Jamestown, and Dickinson. They join Grand…

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​‘Agents of the devil’

April 17th, 2019

Screenshot of Michael Anthony Peroutka speaking at a church in early March - Facebook

On the masthead of the New Song Church’s Facebook page is a picture of the word IDENTITY along with a fingerprint.

A quick search of the word’s meaning leads to the proper definition, also to extremist right wing groups such as one from Portland called Identity, and also to a religious movement to redefine what Christianity means. Religious links pertaining to identity also lead to St. Charles, Missouri and the Staley family, specifically to Jim Staley, who was sentenced to seven…

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​‘Government is like a steamroller’

April 17th, 2019

Chief Darrell Graf teaching firefighting techniques 2012 - Facebook

Former Medina Police Chief Darrell Graf was 23 years old when Gordon Wendell Kahl and his posse-men killed two and wounded three lawmen along rural Highway 30 outside of Medina. Kahl’s son Yorie was also severely wounded during the shootout, and is currently in prison.

Graf attended Dr. Clarence Martin’s Constitution Party meetings at the Medina clinic before the shootout in 1983, and listened to Kahl’s speeches, finding some truth, including Kahl’s belief that income taxes only…

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​North Dakota Rep. linked to extremist political group

April 17th, 2019

Congressman Kelly Armstrong during the ND GOP Convention 2018 - photograph by C.S. Hagen

MANDAN, ND – The state’s lone Congressman is an online member of a grassroots group promoting Constitutional interpretations shadowing anti-government movements.

Newly elected Kelly Armstrong, the Republican shoo-in who filled Senator Kevin Cramer’s seat after beating attorney Mac Schneider, a Democrat, in November 2018, is one of the 77 members of the North Dakota Constitutional Grassroots Movement, or CGM.

While the political organization – including another named North Dakota…

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​‘Does he not consider us real Americans?’

April 17th, 2019

Screenshot of state Senator Oley Larsen's comment on Facebook

BISMARCK – The day a U.S. Congressional House election subcommittee traveled to Standing Rock to hear Native leaders speak about being disenfranchised from voting in North Dakota, a state senator posted to social media saying they should abstain if they don’t like it.

“If they are denouncing our voting then they should obtain [abstain] from voting,” state Senator Oley Larsen, a Republican from Minot wrote on a story published online by KX News. “We do have rules.”

Larsen,…

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​Vinyl is Back with a Vengeance

April 10th, 2019

Once upon a time in 2007, a group of independent record store owners and employees had a discussion that would help shape the music scene for years to come. They recognized the resurgence of interest in vinyl records and wanted to celebrate the unique culture that was sprouting up right in front of them.

The hipster movements of the early 2000s, the growing obsoleteness of CDs, and the yearning for physical items in the transition to the digital age all contributed to the second coming…

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​Right wing media attack Rep. Buffalo, again…

April 9th, 2019

Ruth Buffalo, while running for the North Dakota House of Representatives for West Fargo's District 27 - photograph by C.S. Hagen

FARGO – Persistent and seemingly coordinated attacks from area media outlets against Representative Ruth Buffalo have pushed her to become one of the more successful legislators of 2019.

Four bills and one resolution were signed into law, she said. Her bills range from allowing students to wear cultural regalia at graduation ceremonies, to hotels, schools, and law enforcement training on missing and murdered Indigenous prevention and awareness. She has also introduced legislation for…

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