Free Republic

On Thursday Governor Doug Burgum (R) signed legislation allowing North Dakota residents to carry a handgun concealed for self-defense without a permit. The legislation–House Bill 1169–passed the House on February 21 by a vote of 83-9. It passed the Senate on March 21 by a vote of 34-13. USNews reports that the permitless carry law allows law-abiding citizens 18 and over to carry a concealed handgun for self-defense as long as they “have a valid ID and notify law enforcement of the weapon during instances such as a traffic stop.”

Families come under siege as anti-cop agitators move into pipeline campsThere reached a point when the Dakota Access protest became less about debating the merits of pipeline routes and more about mixing it up with cops. That’s when the danger spiked for officers and their families. While protesters were fueling worldwide outrage and fundraising over allegations of police brutality, an aggressive cohort of agitators was terrorizing the families of law-enforcement officers with threats of death, rape and arson. “There were threats made to us, mostly that they were going to come burn down our houses or rape us while our...

United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it arrested 86 foreign nationals across five Midwestern states last week, including 26 in Minnesota. In a release Wednesday, the department said the operation targeted immigration fugitives, re-entrants and at-large criminal aliens over a three-day span. The operation included 32 arrests in Nebraska, 26 in Minnesota, 23 in Iowa, four in North Dakota and one in South Dakota. ICE said 52 of those arrested had prior convictions in addition to an undocumented status. Twenty-three had previously been deported and returned, which constitutes a felony. 

A federal judge has denied a last-minute plea to stop the Dakota Access pipeline, allowing the $3.8 billion oil pipeline to begin operating as early as next week. U.S. District Court Judge James A. Boasberg ruled Tuesday that the Cheyenne River Sioux and Standing Rock Sioux are unlikely to prevail on the merits of their challenge to his March 7 decision, saying that the court “believes that Plaintiff does not have a strong case on appeal.” A status report filed Monday by Dakota Access LLC said oil is expected to start flowing through the North Dakota section of the 1,172-mile,...

Federal contractor hauls off 835 dumpsters of trash and debris from protest sites The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wrapped up its $1.1 million cleanup of the Dakota Access pipeline protest camps on federal land in North Dakota, hauling away 835 dumpsters of remaining trash and debris. The site, once occupied by thousands of environmental demonstrators, is now vacant. [Snip] Corps Capt. Ryan Hignight said a total of 8,170 cubic yards of debris was removed from the three camps — Sacred Stone, Oceti Sakowin and Rosebud - all within the flood plain on federally managed land. "In total, there were...

Garbage, building materials, and months of untreated human waste from thousands of Standing Rock squatters now threatens the very water they claimed to be protecting. After half a year, hundreds of arrests, and thousands of headlines, the protest against the Dakota Access Pipeline has drawn to an end at the Standing Rock site. On February 22, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum forced an evacuation of the protestors’ camps. The government needed time to clean the environmental mess the environmentalists left behind. That paradoxical reality underscores many of the problems with efforts that claim to solve potential problems. In the end,...

North Dakota has passed a “permitless” or Constitutional carry bill in the House. The bill had very strong support, passing 83-9, with two representatives not voting. From nd.gov: 11th Order – Final Passage House Measures – HB1169 – Energy and Natural Resources – Do Pass – Votes Required 48: PASSED – Yea 83 Nay 9 N/V 2 Exc 0 For a Constitutional carry bill, the legislation is fairly complicated. It removes various restrictions in ten pages of text. It applies only to North Dakota residents. Residency may be shown by displaying a North Dakota picture ID that was issued...

Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration's Waters of the U.S. rule WASHINGTON D.C. — President Trump has signed another executive order that will impact farmers and ranchers. Both U.S. Senators from North Dakota were on hand as Mr. Trump signed his order to eliminate the Obama Administration’s Waters of the U.S. rule. Senator Heitkamp says it’s time for Congress to act by giving the EPA direction on what water is jurisdictional under the Clean Water Act. Senator Hoeven says the rule was a regulatory overreach that...

Jaime French was jarred out of bed in Emerson, Manitoba early one morning this month by pounding at her front door, just yards from the U.S. border. A face peered in through the window, flanked in the darkness by others. Outside were 16 asylum seekers, arriving at one of the first houses they saw after crossing a lightly monitored border between Canada and the United States. "They banged pretty hard, then 'ring ring ring' the doorbell," said French, a mother of two young girls. "It was scary. That really woke me up." The town has become the front line of...

CANNON BALL, N.D – After seven months of protests, beating drums, freezing nights and canned chili, police shut down campsites once occupied by tens of thousands of environmentalists and Native Americans fighting the North Dakota Access Pipeline project. At least one person was injured Wednesday after protesters set fire to a handful of wooden structures at the makeshift campsite. Cecily Fong, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Emergency Services, says the extent of the unidentified female's injuries weren't known. Fong said an ambulance was being sent to the encampment. Most of the 200 to 300 protesters who remained at...

The Dakota Access Pipeline protesters are being forced to abandon their camp today, and rather than allow the site to be properly cleaned up, they have decided to light it on fire Burning sections of the camp will most likely make a sanitary and efficient cleanup more difficult for the authorities, which have repeatedly clashed with protesters over the camp’s threat to the environment. An even bigger reason many in the Standing Rock tribe won’t be sorry to see visiting agitators go: The pipeline protest has been detrimental to their most important source of revenue, the Prairie Knights Casino &...

By the time you read this the sun will have already risen in North Dakota, where a few hundred dead end protesters are hanging on in what remains of the Dakota Access Pipeline camps. Obstruction of the project essentially collapsed once Donald Trump took office and the Army gave the go-ahead for the final sections of pipe to be laid. Even the Standing Rock tribe has asked the unwelcome visitors to depart, preferring to fight the rest of the battle in court, but the remaining holdouts do not appear to be convinced. (Associated Press) As dawn breaks over an...

The Dakota Access Pipeline protesters left a little gift so the locals will be able to remember all they did to fight for the well-being of Mother Gaia: North Dakota, you’re welcome! Because they care so much about the environment: Sanitation crews are working hard to dispose of six months’ worth of garbage from a community the size of Wahpeton or Valley City. The mountains of debris need to be moved before the spring thaw occurs.Making a dent in the immense amount of trash being hauled out of the Oceti Sakowin protest camp is being hindered by the weather. All...

It has been consistently evident that left-wing environmentalists and their professionally unemployed protesters are the most hypocritical bunch of moonbats around the drum circle of social and economic stupidity.

A leading anti-abortion group is publicly pressuring two vulnerable Senate Democrats to get on board with the defunding of Planned Parenthood. Susan B. Anthony List launched radio ads Monday in North Dakota, targeting Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, and in Indiana, targeting Sen. Joe Donnelly. Its aim: To persuade both Democrats, who are up for reelection in 2018, to support a measure blocking most Medicaid reimbursements from Planned Parenthood clinics for one year.

Making a dent in the immense amount of trash being hauled out of the Oceti Sakowin #DakotaAccessPipeline protest camp is being hindered by the weather. The garbage that was left behind is now frozen into massive chunks of junk. It's estimated it will take 250 trucks filled with litter to clear the camp. Each load that's dumped is inspected by the Morton County Sheriff's Department. #DAPL

Clean-up crews are racing to clear acres of debris at the largest Dakota Access protest camp before the spring thaw turns the snowy, trash-covered plains into an environmental disaster area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced Friday that the camp, located on federal land, would be closed Feb. 22 in order to “prevent injuries and significant environmental damage in the likely event of flooding in this area” at the mouth of the Cannonball River in North Dakota. “Without proper remediation, debris, trash, and untreated waste will wash into the Cannonball River and Lake Oahe,” the Corps said in its...

It’s no secret that millions have been funneled into the six-month-old demonstration via crowdfunding websites, and that more than 30 environmental organizations, including the Sierra Club, Indigenous Environmental Network, Food and Water Watch, 350.org and Greenpeace, have backed the protest. If national environmental organizations are paying protest personnel, they’re not saying so publicly. Still, Mr. Rauschenberger said red flags will be raised if he doesn’t start seeing W2 or 1099 tax forms from those affiliated with the protest arriving at his office. “It’s something we could possibly pursue if we don’t see 1099s coming in for the activity,” Mr. Rauschenberger...

January 24, 2017 It is just day two of his presidency, and already Trump is taking a sledgehammer to the Obama legacy: in his latest move reported moments ago by Bloomberg, president Trump intends to sign two executive actions today "that would advance construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines", putting a spoke, so to say, in the train wheels of Warren Buffett's train-based oil transportation quasi-monopoly. Keystone was rejected under former President Barack Obama. Trump’s move on Energy Transfer Partners LP’s 1,172-mile Dakota Access project aims to end a standoff that has stalled the $3.8 billion project...

Protesters may want to think twice about blocking roads in North Dakota. Republican lawmakers in the state introduced a bill last week in the legislature that would not hold motorists liable for negligently running over someone obstructing a roadway. The bill was introduced in response to a year of protests over a proposed pipeline near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. "A driver of a motor vehicle who negligently causes injury or death to an individual obstructing vehicular traffic on a public road, street, or highway may not be held liable for any damages," the bill reads. "A driver of a...