Free Republic

North Dakota Republican state legislators and officials have had no better luck than anyone else in prodding Gov. John Hoeven for hints about whether he'll run against Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan next year. Four GOP lawmakers who raised the subject in a meeting with Hoeven in his Capitol office last week said the governor gave them no hints about his plans, although one participant said he believes Hoeven will make the race. "I think he feels a responsibility to do it," said Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier. "Maybe I'm a little optimistic in my thinking, but I do believe he's giving...

Dorgan, who chairs the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, announced a $457,000 federal Energy Department grant to study the feasibility of a new oil refinery in North Dakota. What I’ve never understood is why the Rural Electric Co-Op is getting an earmark to study an oil refinery. And on top of that, why are we spending almost a half a million of our grandchildren’s as-yet-unearned tax dollars on studying the feasibility of an oil refinery in the state ? Plus, we already have one refinery in the state and there’s another one in the works... Other than the fact...

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., met with President Barack Obama and key budget advisers Friday to discuss financial reforms and energy issues under review in Congress. Dorgan was one of four Democratic senators invited by the White House to meet with Obama and his top advisers to discuss the federal budget and other issues. Dorgan said they had "a pretty wide-ranging discussion about a good number of issues." The North Dakota senator said he raised the potential for new financial reforms and regulations to help rebuild the economy. Dorgan has sought more accountability into the expenditure of economic recovery funds and...

More than $9 trillion -- in taxpayer dollars -- has been pledged, committed, lent or spent by the federal government in response to the economic crisis. Some say that if the economy continues to deteriorate, trillions more might be necessary to prevent another Great Depression. Yet no one has investigated how this crisis happened. That is irresponsible. A comprehensive investigation is essential to prevent this from happening again.

Minneapolis: Dropping any pretense of objectivity and non-partisanship, the “National Conference for Media Reform” on Saturday night turned into a Barack Obama-for-President rally, as left-wing media figure Arianna Huffington denounced Senator and presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain as a “Trojan horse for the right” who had “sold his soul” to become president. Several speakers, including Federal Communications Commissioner Michael Copps, used the Obama campaign slogan, “Yes, we can,” as they urged the thousands of “progressives” in the audience to bring “change” to Washington, D.C. --------------------------------------------------------- Meanwhile, a Canadian, Naomi Klein, who writes for the British Guardian and The Nation...

RUSH: Here's what happened last night on the immigration bill, as written up by the AP and then I will give you the correct analysis of this. "A fragile compromise that would legalize millions of unlawful immigrants risks coming unraveled after the Senate voted early Thursday to place a five-year limit on a program meant to provide American employers with 200,000 temporary foreign workers annually. The 49-48 vote came two weeks after the Senate, also by a one-vote margin, rejected the same amendment by Senator Dorgan. The North Dakota Democrat says immigrants take many jobs Americans could fill." Now, why...

In what may have been one of the US Senate's greatest speeches, Senator Byron Dorgan just trashed the Immigration Bill and poked fun at its framers. Senator Dorgan said about the bill: "It's about profits for big economic interests". He hammered repeatedly at the fact that there had been no consideraion given to American workers in the crafting of the legislation. The Senator commented about recent news stories that illustrated how employers are keeping relentless downward pressure on worker's wages and using cheap legal and illegal labor to do it, while management is getting huge salaries and retirement packages. Senator...

Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - Congress now has the opportunity to decide whether hunters should be allowed to hunt elk in North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., introduced legislation Monday that would allow the National Park Service to use volunteer hunters to thin the overpopulated elk herd in the park. "If we need to thin the herd, I don't see any sense in spending millions of dollars to bring in federal sharpshooters and helicopters when we have qualified hunters in North Dakota that would do it free of charge," Dorgan said. The National Park Service has...

by Mark Finkelstein July 28, 2006 - 08:27 MRC's Brent Baker has noted ABC News' hyper-ventilation over Exxon's 'breathtaking' profits. This morning it was NBC's turn. As everyone knows, the way to decrease the price of a product is . . . to raise taxes on it? As contradictory as the notion might sound, it appears to be the Today show's preferred solution to $3/gallon gas. It was the news of Exxon's $10.3 billion second-quarter profit that gaveToday the opening to air its n-th iteration of the 'soaring gas prices' story. In an innovative bit of demagoguery, Today even displayed...

While Democrats and the “progressive” left were quick in trying to brand the Abramoff scandal as a “Republican scandal,” the facts indicate that this declaration is just another attempt by political opportunists at misdirection. In fact, Democrats do a great job at feeding off the special interest trough. According to Internal Revenue Service records, and substantiated by the Campaign Finance Analysis Project, forty of the forty-five members of the Democrat Senate Caucus took money from Jack Abramoff, his associates, and their Indian tribe clients. These recipients include: Charles Schumer ($29,550), Harry Reid ($68,941), Patty Murray ($78,991), Mary Landrieu($28,000), John Kerry...

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close associate of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, to plead guilty to corruption, other charges, source tells CNN. That is the teaser on CNN. CNN reported that Abramoff has agreed to a prison sentence of a maximum of 10 years, pending his full co-operation with the justice department. Updates will follow.

ON WARRANTLESS SEARCHES AND WIRETAPS:THE ABYSMAL CONSTITUTIONAL RECORD OF BILL AND HILLARY CLINTON(and this report covers only term #1) I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. LEARNED HAND Since there are occasions when every vessel will break from her moorings, and since,...

WASHINGTON - Lawyers for Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff are in discussions with the Justice Department about his possible cooperation in a congressional corruption probe, a person involved in the investigation said Tuesday night. The probe involves a number of members of Congress as well as staff. A former aide to ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, has already pleaded guilty. Abramoff would plead guilty under an arrangement that would settle a criminal case against him in Florida as well as potential corruption charges in Washington, said the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the...

WASHINGTON -- All's well, Senator Byron Dorgan of the great state of North Dakota has done come clean. Senator Dorgan is the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. In that capacity he accepted $67,000 in contributions from Indian tribes represented by the recently indicted Jack Abramoff, a fabulous fixer here in the capital of the Free World. Abramoff, a Republican, has obviously been an equal-opportunity fixer, and apparently Dorgan was not above accepting his help, though Dorgan claims he never met the rogue and never backed any of his programs knowingly. Now there is an adverb to contemplate, "knowingly."...

Yvonne Lee - All Headline News Staff Reporter Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Byron Dorgan is returning $67,000 in donations to dispel any notion that tribal money was directed to him by Jack Abramoff, who has been indicted for wire fraud and conspiracy http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7001460632

Who Is Byron Dorgan? By R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. Published 12/15/2005 12:07:04 AM WASHINGTON -- All's well, Senator Byron Dorgan of the great state of North Dakota has done come clean. Senator Dorgan is the vice chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. In that capacity he accepted $67,000 in contributions from Indian tribes represented by the recently indicted Jack Abramoff, a fabulous fixer here in the capital of the Free World. Abramoff, a Republican, has obviously been an equal-opportunity fixer, and apparently Dorgan was not above accepting his help, though Dorgan claims he never met the rogue and never backed...

WASHINGTON -- The top Democrat on the Senate committee investigating Jack Abramoff's Indian lobbying is returning $67,000 in donations in response to Associated Press reports that he collected tribal money around the time he took actions favorable to those Abramoff clients. While Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., never met Abramoff and didn't take any actions at the lobbyist's behest, he nonetheless wants to return the money to avoid any appearances that tribal money was directed to him by the controversial lobbyist, his office said Tuesday. Dorgan is the senior Democrat on the Senate Indian Affairs Committee that has spent more than...

Democrats have their own scandal brewing at the moment, but they are doing much better in covering it up than their Republican counterparts. At issue is the report by David Barrett, the last remaining U.S. independent counsel. Over ten years, Barrett has spent $21 million on the investigation of former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, who lied to FBI investigators about hush money paid to an ex-mistress. The reason the report and the investigation have taken so long is that allies to Cisneros and the legal team of former President Bill Clinton at the powerhouse Washington law firm of Williams and...

WASHINGTON - New evidence is emerging that the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Jack Abramoff got political money arranged by the lobbyist back in 2002 shortly after the lawmaker took action favorable to Abramoff's tribal clients. A lawyer for the Louisiana Coushatta Indians told The Associated Press that Abramoff instructed the tribe to send $5,000 to Sen. Byron Dorgan (news, bio, voting record)'s political group just three weeks after the North Dakota Democrat urged fellow senators to fund a tribal school program Abramoff's clients wanted to use.The check was one of about five dozen the Coushattas listed...

More than a dozen members of Congress intervened to help Indian tribes win federal school construction money while accepting political donations from the tribes, their lobbyist Jack Abramoff or his firm. The lawmakers hailed from both parties, including House Appropriations subcommittee Chairman Charles Taylor, R-N.C., and Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota, the top Democrat on the Senate committee currently investigating Abramoff. Most wrote letters that pressed a reluctant Bush administration to renew a program that provided tribes federal money for building schools. Others worked the congressional budget process to ensure it happened, according to documents obtained by The Associated...