Free Republic

While roaming the grounds of the US Capitol yesterday, Kristinn Taylor obtained a list of possible democrat defectors of the now infamous “Healthcare” bill. Kristinn was asked to post this list of wobbly democrats on FreeRepublic in an effort to mobilize our forces and overwhelm these members with phone calls and e-mails asking them to vote NO on the socialization of our healthcare. We also learned that Nancy Pelosi had just scheduled the vote for tomorrow; Saturday, November 7, 2009 at 6:00 PM. For all those who were unable to answer the call to surround the Capitol yesterday, here is...

Three college softball players found dead in their Jeep after it dove into a pond on a North Dakota farm during a stargazing expedition probably drove straight into the water because they couldn't see it in the dark, authorities said Wednesday. Stark County Sheriff Clarence Tuhy said the women's SUV was found resting on its wheels Tuesday in about 10 feet of water hidden by tall grass, with the doors and windows closed. "When you're not familiar with an area like that it would have been very easy to drive into," Tuhy said. The sheriff said the Dickinson State University...

Three college softball players, who vanished Sunday night while at a North Dakota lake where they often went star-gazing, were found dead in their vehicle, which was pulled from a pond. Police Lt. Rod Banyai said Tuesday night that police are "still investigating" the cause of the deaths. Kyrstin Gemar, 22, of Grossmont, Calif.; Afton Williamson, 20, of Lake Elsinore, Calif.; and Ashley Neufeld, 21, of Brandon, Manitoba in Canada, all play softball for Dickinson State University in Dickinson, N.D.

FARGO — Fargo's largest Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation has suspended its funding to the ELCA.

North Dakota sits on one of the largest pools of oil in North America. The Bakken Shale Formation is estimated to hold nearly four billion barrels of oil that can be extracted. And now, a new batch of oil just under the Bakken is adding even more interest to oil exploration in the state. The Bakken Shale Formation has created excitement in western North Dakota - the kind of excitement that leads to things like bumper stickers. But even as oil companies scramble to tap into the Bakken, there's a new oil play brewing - it's called the Three Forks-Sanish...

BISMARCK, N.D. — North Dakota has surpassed Louisiana as the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the nation, the U.S. Energy Department says. The agency's Energy Information Administration said North Dakota produced 6.38 million barrels of crude in May, edging Louisiana, which had 6.34 million barrels for the month. Oklahoma was ranked fifth, at 5.7 million barrels for that month, according to the most recent figures. Oil production data typically lags at least two months. Steven G. Grape, an Energy Department petroleum engineer, said Wednesday that North Dakota averaged 206,000 barrels daily in May, compared with 205,000 barrels for Louisiana. North Dakota's...

House Democrats Lock GOP Out of Committee Room A bitter divide over Countrywide mortgage scandal. By JAMES FREEMAN Democratic staff for the House oversight committee informed their GOP counterparts today that the majority has changed the locks on the committee's hearing room. While Republicans previously enjoyed their own key to the room, they will now have to request access from Democrats. This followed a bitter partisan argument in which Republicans refused to take down a video from their website that contradicted Dem explanations about a closed-door meeting on the Countrywide VIP loan scandal. As we reported last week, the committee...

Tea Party movement has fans, detractors and an uncertain impact October 10, 2009 10:25 PM Mike Wilder / Times-News The Tea Party movement, depending on who defines it, is a collection of American patriots working to preserve democracy, a movement made up of people who don’t understand public policy and want to score cheap political points, or something in-between.Protests have been held throughout North Carolina and the United States since this spring. Many who have participated describe themselves as fiscal conservatives, but political analysts say there’s a broader range of opinions represented in the Tea Party effort than in a...

If you think it's cold now in Montana and the Dakotas, just watch what happens! Friday, an even stronger surge of cold air will come down from the Arctic, sending temperatures plummeting to unprecedented levels for this time of year. In Montana and the western Dakotas, temperatures will not rise out of the 20s Friday and Saturday which is roughly 35 degrees below normal.

Rove is adopted, so it isn't clear whether he is of Scandinavian descent. But he said his adoptive father, Louis, was of Norwegian ancestry and used to read to him literature from Iceland and Norway as a child. Louis Rove died in 2004.

As of this week- Stimulus Spending is at: $20,726,309,285.22 At the link on the upper right will be a listing: *American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Report* Updated as of 9/4/2009. New contracts signed this week are for design and construction of 10 land port of entry buildings for customs and border protection. 6 In North Dakota,1 in Vermont, New Mexico and Montana (The one in Vermont isn't even near the border, in Killingly.)

George Boggs thought he was doing police a favor last week when he handed over the firearm he kept in his car after he was in a wreck. Boggs has a permit to carry a concealed weapon, and he wanted his handgun secured while he went to the hospital, he said. The permit requires him to notify police of his weapon. On Monday, when he went to the Fayetteville Police Department to retrieve his gun, he couldn't get it back. He was told that police first wanted to fire the gun to see if the spent shell casing and round...

Minot Air Force Base is preparing to activate a new B-52 bomber squadron that will send 10 more B-52s to the North Dakota base. The new unit will be the fourth B-52 squadron in the Air Force. Minot base already has one squadron and Barksdale Air Force Base has the other two B-52 units. The Air Force has not said whether the planes will be transferred from Barksdale or taken from backup aircraft. Air Force officials say adding the new squadron at Minot is part of plans to put a stronger emphasis on nuclear mission training for B-52 units.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel09/harrington082109.htm August 21, 2009 FBI Responds to United States Parole Commission Decision to Deny Parole to Leonard Peltier Statement of Thomas J. Harrington, Executive Assistant Director, FBI Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch: The FBI family has never forgotten the ultimate sacrifice made by FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, and we fully support the decision of the United States Parole Commission to deny parole to Leonard Peltier. His callous criminal acts demonstrated a complete disrespect for human life and for the law. His time served in jail for their 1975...

Woman took items while bags were being screened. A 30-year-old former Transportation Security Administration worker was sentenced to 90 days in jail and five years' probation Thursday for stealing jewelry, gift cards and other things out of tourists' bags as the items were undergoing security screening at Kahului Airport. Devie Darla Dale Feig... The agency already has reimbursed the victims. "I'm not a bad person. But what I did was wrong. I wanted to say I'm sorry," Feig said ... Deputy Prosecutor Terence Herndon called the case egregious and asked that Feig receive the full 90-day jail term. "I believe...

There is no suspect in the burglary attempt that occurred August 18, in Eagle Run at 1139 38 ½ Ave. W., where the homeowner, Jason Fonder, fired a single shot at an intruder discovered in his residence. Also home at the time were his wife, and two-year old daughter. There were no injuries and nothing was taken. West Fargo Police responded to a call of a burglary in progress at about 1:30 a.m. By the time they arrived, the suspect had fled and has yet to be found. The suspect is believed to have entered through an unlocked door. He...

Women seeking an abortion must be told that the procedure ends a human life, a federal judge ruled Thursday, upholding part of a South Dakota law.U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier said doctors must disclose to pregnant women that “the abortion will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.�But she rejected other portions of the state’s 2005 informed consent law that required doctors to tell women that abortion increases the risk of suicide and that they have “an existing relationship with that unborn human being.�10-week old human fetus (Credit: Wikimedia Commons) “A legal relationship requires two people....

Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy? Last week, David Patterson released a draft report of his Energy Planning Board that does something Democrats are loath to do: It proposes developing a domestic energy resource — the huge amounts of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation. New York produces 5% of its natural gas in-state and imports more than 95% from the Gulf Coast and Canada. The Marcellus Shale...

Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., has hoped to break the gridlock in Washington by replacing the public option with health care co-ops. But both sides are so dug in that his idea has made little progress.Liberals have scorned co-ops as a retreat from creating a government insurer. Conservatives see it as a public option by another name. "The only reason it is getting any play at all is because the public option is on the downside right now, we think," said Merrill Matthews, director of the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, which represents insurers. Conrad, Senate Budget Committee chairman, told Fox...

GOSH, what a surprise: A committee of their fellow senators has decided that Chris Dodd and Kent Conrad did nothing unethical when they took out loans from Countrywide Financial on the kind of favorable terms not available to mere mortals without their financial or political standing -- or a personal connection to the head of Countrywide. The very Select Committee on Ethics did recognize that the whole deal looked bad, and gave its colleagues a gentle pat on the wrist for creating "the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator." But in the...

Energy Policy: New York's governor wants to tap into a shale formation that can supply the entire U.S. with natural gas for 65 years. Will NIMBY environmentalists let him stimulate New York's and America's energy economy?Last week, David Patterson released a draft report of his Energy Planning Board that does something Democrats are loath to do: It proposes developing a domestic energy resource — the huge amounts of natural gas trapped in the Marcellus Shale formation. New York produces 5% of its natural gas in-state and imports more than 95% from the Gulf Coast and Canada. The Marcellus Shale stretches...

Four Democratic senators want to put off the proposed cap & trade legislation. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad both of North Dakota are urging the Senate to delay legislation that puts caps on greenhouse gas emissions and instead, pass a narrow bill that sets requirements on the use of renewable energy. Senators Lincoln and Dorgan are up for re-election in 2010 and are from states that would be hurt economically from a cap and trade bill similar to the one passed by the House in June. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid...

Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND), one of the most committed broadcast watchdogs on Capitol Hill, is enjoying a 69% approval rating among citizens of North Dakota, despite their Republican tastes when it comes to presidential candidates. But he may be vulnerable nevertheless, if the even more popular Republican Gov. John Hoeven decides to mount a challenge. Dorgan entered the House in 1980, and moved up to the Senate in 1992. According to Politico, he has never faced a tough election. But all bets would be off if Hoeven decides to run for the seat. The National Republican Senatorial Committee has conducted...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Two key Democrat senators were cleared by the Senate Ethics Committee on Friday from year-long investigations about whether mortgages they obtained from Countrywide Financial Corp. violated the senate's rules on gifts. The bipartisan committee, which supported the decision unanimously, did scold the senior lawmakers, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for not being more careful in their dealings. "While the committee finds no substantial credible evidence as required by committee rules that your Countrywide mortgage violated Senate ethics rules, the committee does believe that you should have exercised...

Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) lashed out at Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) after the Republican congressman pushed the powerful Democratic senator to divulge details about low-interest loans he received from Countrywide Financial. In letters provided to POLITICO, Conrad has accused Issa of attempting to impugn his name in a GOP inquiry into the Countrywide mortgage scandal. Conrad said that the Senate Ethics Committee is the “appropriate forum to resolve this matter,” not Issa’s Republican staff on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. “It is unfortunate that you chose to damage my good name in your report without giving me the...

The remains of a dinosaur found in the Hell Creek Formation of North Dakota are so well preserved that some scientists are just “gobsmacked.” The mummified remains belong to a hadrosaur nicknamed “Dakota” and were the subject of a recent study that appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.[1] About the size of a hippo, the dinosaur is supposedly 66 million years old. But its skin says otherwise, a find that paleontologist and the study’s co-author Phil Manning called “absolutely gobsmacking.”[2] Like many other young-looking dinosaur remains,[3,4,5,6] this specimen was “extremely well preserved” and contained “soft-tissue replacement structures...

Corruption: Chris Dodd's teetering re-election chances weren't helped by news that the senator may have lied about not knowing he got preferential treatment as one of Countrywide Financial's Friends of Angelo program.Can you foreclose on a house of cards? Dodd, D-Conn., may soon find out after the official who handled his mortgages testified before both the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee and the Senate Ethics Committee that Dodd did in fact know he got sweetheart deals from a company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. As the No. 1 recipient of...

Two powerful Senate Democrats said Tuesday that they knew they got low mortgage-rate deals in a lender's VIP program but thought the special treatment was a "courtesy" or the same as "frequent flier" discounts. Both vehemently denied any wrongdoing or ethical lapse in the mortgage deals, which came to light a year ago and triggered investigations by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. "I thought this was like a frequent-flier program," Sen. Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, said of the special benefits. "I thought nothing of it." Sen. Christopher...

Sen. Chris Dodd is overdue for a long talk with his spokesman, Bryan DeAngelis, who wrote: “As the Dodds have said from the beginning, they did not seek or expect any special rates or terms on their loans and they never received any; they were never offered special or sweetheart deals and if anyone had made such an offer, they would have severed that relationship immediately.” That statement is false: Senator Dodd himself has acknowledged that he knew he was given a “VIP” offer from Countrywide, the disgraced mortgage lender where CEO Angelo Mozilo’s “Friends of Angelo” program traded sweetheart...

Whoa. It's looking like Sen. Chris Dodd's involvement with a sub prime-lending company warrants far more than a mere Senate Ethics Committee look-see. Or so suggests closed-door committee testimony from a fomer executive of the firm in question. Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota both got sweetheart mortgage deals a few years back from Angelo Mozilo, CEO of subprime-mortgage giant Countrywide Financial.

Despite his denials, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd knew from the start he was getting a VIP mortgage break from a major lending group, an official involved in the loan testified secretly to Congress. Dodd and Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND) both got preferred treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp., but have maintained all along they didn't know they were benefiting at the time their mortgage packages were crafted. The two men were part of an elite group known as "friends of Angelo," a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.

The Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) at the University of North Dakota has been awarded a subcontract by Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) to help produce jet fuel from algae. The effort is being funded by the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and is a continuation of the first successful production of 100% renewable fuel for the U.S. military by the EERC. Under a previous DARPA contract, the EERC advanced the development of a feedstock-flexible process that can utilize various crop oil feedstocks to produce combinations of renewable jet fuel, diesel and naphtha...

Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony. Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment. Dodd got two Countrywide mortgages in 2003, refinancing his home...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony. Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment.

WASHINGTON – Despite their denials, influential Democratic Sens. Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd were told from the start they were getting VIP mortgage discounts from one of the nation's largest lenders, the official who handled their loans has told Congress in secret testimony. Both senators have said that at the time the mortgages were being written they didn't know they were getting unique deals from Countrywide Financial Corp., the company that went on to lose billions of dollars on home loans to credit-strapped borrowers. Dodd still maintains he got no preferential treatment. Dodd got two Countrywide mortgages in 2003, refinancing...

Energy: With a media wind at his back, Barack Obama regularly gets away with false and distorted statements. He repeated one Tuesday that seems superficially plausible but should not go unchallenged.ust as he said during the Sept. 26 University of Mississippi debate with John McCain, the Illinois Democrat claimed during the Nashville town hall setting that "we have 3% of the world's oil reserves and we use 25% of the world's oil. So what that means is that we can't simply drill our way out of the problem." It's disappointing that McCain failed to call out Obama on his figures,...

The Obama administration will make reforming the nation's 137-year-old hardrock mining law a top priority despite a full plate of higher profile issues, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday. Salazar told a Senate committee considering reform legislation that "it is time to ensure a fair return to the public for mining activities that occur on public lands and to address the cleanup of abandoned mines." The General Mining Act of 1872, which gives mining preference over other uses on much of the nation's public lands, has left a legacy of hundreds of thousands of abandoned mines that are polluting rivers...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) - Dozens of fruitful wells beneath the rich Bakken shale in North Dakota continue to fuel a hunch among oilmen and geologists that another vast crude-bearing formation may be buried in the state's vast oil patch. Lynn Helms, director of the state Department of Mineral Resources, said recent production results from 103 newly tapped wells in the Three Forks-Sanish formation show many that are "as good or better" than some in the Bakken, which lies two miles under the surface in western North Dakota and holds billions of barrels of oil. "I think it's a big deal...

...A former nuclear missile launch center that closed as the Cold War was winding down opened Monday to a public curious to see what life was like at the once top-secret site.

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — Petty Officer 3rd Class Chad Kahl never suffered from a lack of open space while growing up in North Dakota. When he told friends and family there that he had volunteered to live aboard a 350-foot-long metal tube underneath hundreds of feet of water, they thought he was crazy. Kahl had done his homework on the submarine lifestyle. But as he prepared to get under way for the first time, he wondered if his friends may have had a point. "I think everyone that goes doesn’t really know what they’re getting into," said Kahl of...

North Dakota’s only American Civil Liberties Union office in Fargo closed in February, a closure blamed generally on the poor national economy, but also to losses major contributors suffered in the Bernard Madoff scandal.... “The ACLU got hit pretty hard in this economic downturn as far as fewer donors,” Ring said. “There were a couple of really big donors that were really affected by the Madoff scandal.”

Blanche Lincoln, AR 45% Public Policy Polling, March Barbara Boxer, CA 48% Survey USA, June 12-14 Michael Bennet, CO 34% Public Policy Polling, April 24-26 (trails Rep. Beauprez) Christopher Dodd, CO 37% Quinnipiac, April (trails several) Roland Burris, IL 17% Public Policy Polling, April 24-26 (likely to lose primary) Harry Reid, NV 34% Mason-Dixon, June 18-19 Kirsten Gillenbrand, NY 24% Marist (disapproval rating also below 50%) Byron Dorgan, ND (only poll in this red state was commissioned by DailyKOS) Also in possible danger but above 50% approval: Daniel Inouye, HI leads Republican Gov. Linda Lingle, but he'll be 86, and...

As the country has tipped into a deep recession over the past two years, North Dakota, under the leadership of the nation's longest-serving governor, John Hoeven, has bucked every trend. In 2008, North Dakota's economy grew 7.3%, twice as fast as any other state except Wyoming, which grew 4.4%. By this point, many states in the industrial Midwest, and housing-bubble states like Arizona, Nevada and Florida, were already shrinking. Unemployment in North Dakota is the lowest in the nation at 4.4%, less than half the national average. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says North Dakota and Montana are...

Republican Gov. John Hoeven, who has avoided questions about whether he will challenge Democrat Byron Dorgan for his U.S. Senate seat, says he is likely to decide by early September whether he will make the race. North Dakota's Republican state chairman, Gary Emineth, said he hoped to recruit Republicans to challenge Dorgan and North Dakota's Democratic congressman, Earl Pomeroy, by Labor Day, Sept. 7. Candidates against both men will need a long head start on campaigning and fundraising to improve their chances of winning, Emineth said. Hoeven, in an interview, said Emineth's goal is reasonable and said his own decision...

Democrats are becoming bolder about their idea that middle-class familes get the option of joining a government insurance plan in any overhaul of the health care system. Their fervor carries a risk. Liberals, citing polls that show support for a public plan, say they are increasingly frustrated with negotiations to make the idea more palatable to Republicans. Moderates, however, warn that abandoning the talks could jeopardize efforts to draft a bill that can pass a closely divided Senate. "It is important not to draw lines in the sand and rule out options before they are fully explored," Sen. Kent Conrad,...

Reston, VA - North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken Formation.A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

Bismarck, N.D. (AP) Snow has fallen in Dickinson in June, the first time in nearly 60 years the city has seen snow past May.

State Has a Sizable Budget Surplus and the Lowest Unemployment in Nation as Strong Commodity Prices Keep Cash Flowing California has the Golden Gate Bridge, New York has the Empire State Building, Illinois has the Magnificent Mile. And North Dakota? It has a hefty budget surplus those states would envy. While many states scrounge for ways to repair budget deficits, North Dakota is cutting taxes and fretting over how much of its budget surplus to spend or save. "We all ought to move to North Dakota," joked Raymond C. Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. The group said...

There is growing interest in Washington in a new national consumption tax, otherwise known as a value-added tax or VAT. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D., N.D.), for example, recently told the Washington Post that "a VAT" has "got to be on the table" as part of "fundamental tax reform." President Barack Obama is already looking at a wide range of other potential tax increases, including higher income tax rates, restrictions on itemized deductions, an energy tax, and higher payroll tax rates. Even if they all became law, the revenues would not come close to satisfying his and Congress's...

President Obama Tuesday night proclaimed at his high-dollar, Hollywood fundraiser that the economy is on the rebound due to his “stimulus� spending orgy. Obama told the adoring crowd of limousine liberals, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!� Back in the real world, unemployment rates continued their steady rise upward this week, reaching a record high for the 17th consecutive week.  Nearly 6.8 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits despite White House claims that we have begun to spend our way into prosperity. Federal tax revenues fell a significant 34 percent in April of 2009 due to a national unemployment rate now...