More info needed on Thomas Bearson

This week, we take a look at two issues in the news we found worth commenting and taking a stand on: the unsolved homicide of Thomas Bearson and the Keystone Pipeline veto by President Obama.

Recently, we editorialized about the need to find answers on the case of NDSCS student Andrew Sadek who went missing and was later found dead. That also should apply to the mysterious case of NDSU student Thomas Bearson, who also went missing and was later found dead. The similarities are a bit eerie although the official word is law enforcement has no evidence that Bearson was a public informant.

The police recently spoke about the case for the first time in months, partly because they were under pressure for the lack of information released on the case. However, if their goal was to ease that pressure, they didn’t succeed. Not much new has been said.

The biggest news from their press conference was video and stills from a car that appeared on the scene of Bearson’s death. Why it took the police months to release that info is baffling. Police wanted help identifying the car, which they quickly discovered had nothing to do with the case. So other than revealing the cause of death as homicide (but not the method used in that homicide), the police’s first words about the case in months didn’t really tell us anything.

Law enforcement members investigating the case say they are sensitive to the public perception that they aren’t actively investigating the case. However, the police’s reaction has not produced a whole lot of confidence that they really are. They say they are at a crossroads and need the public’s help in learning more. The fact the police are this stumped this long after the death can’t bode well for solving it. Perhaps if they let the public know even the most basic details about the nature of the death and a few facts they do know about why Bearson ended up where he did, it may lead to a breakthrough in the case. At this point, it can’t hurt. They are getting nowhere and the appearance of uncaring has not subsided.

Yes, the Bearson family deserves answers and the public deserves more information. To this point, the police’s handling of the case has not led to any confidence that there isn’t a killer on the loose and conjecture about who and what that killer is. They need a reinvigorated effort to solve the case and releasing more information about it, rather than a few scant details, may be just the way to do it.

Obama vetoes Keystone Pipeline bill

The long, protracted, fatiguing battle over the Keystone Pipeline appears to be finally near an end after President Obama vetoed legislation that approved the project. This was only the third veto of his Presidency. We applaud the president’s veto and ability to stand up to corporate interests and their allies in Congress who have inflated the economic impact of the project and misstated the real cause of the project: to mainly help transport Canadian oil and benefit Canadian and Chinese economic interests.

Elected leaders who can’t even bring themselves to believe that climate change is real should not be trusted to protect our environment. The safe transport of US oil including from the Bakken is important and no doubt we need better and safer ways to do it. But the Keystone was not it, a fact proven when oil executives like Harold Hamm stated Bakken oil was being transported through other methods. No doubt the wear and tear on trains and railroads means more pipelines are necessary. But those pipelines should be for Bakken oil interests not Canadian ones. They should not go through Native American land without approval. And as we’ve seen with some spills and explosions, pipelines aren’t exactly fail safe either.

In the oil patch, we recently saw a brand new pipeline cause a major leak, which wasn’t inspected by state officials because they don’t have enough inspectors yet to check all the new miles of pipelines. Maybe in the rush to get new pipelines out there, safety corners were cut or mistakes were made while constructing it under pressure.

Moving forward, Senator Hoeven wants to continue to push for the Keystone Pipeline despite the veto. However, Republicans have plenty of chances and years to pass the project and still are unable to get enough votes to override a presidential veto. The likelihood they would flip four votes now after the veto finally happened is slim to none. The time for someone on the fence to change their mind has long passed, and Obama’s veto only hardens the pressure to keep votes the same. Senate Republicans should move on. Continuing this would only waste time and effort. It would distract from real Senate business that actually has a chance to pass like an upcoming Highway Funding bill, which Republicans are threatening to attach the Keystone project in order to force a dilemma for Obama on vetoing highway funding in addition. These games are tiresome. The Republicans’ exhaustive efforts have failed. Now let’s move onto the next tiresome, lengthy policy debate that hasn’t been solved in years.