North Dakota Today...The Finger

.
In the offices of the North Dakota Public Service Commission (all three commissioners are Republicans), a poster of a 7-year-old girl giving Obama the finger.

According to North Dakota Public Service Commissioner and Republican lifetime hack Kevin Cramer, while the poster hanging in the hall of the Commission's offices of a 7-year-old girl giving President Obama the finger is "distasteful" and "inappropriate," it's really a freedom of speech issue.

State Dem-NPL Chair Mark Schneider has it right: these are not the Republican party's offices, these are the people of North Dakota's offices.

It's not the only anti-Obama poster, either, in the offices where three Republican Commissioners hold sway. And the fratboy conduct of the office that determines all the energy issues for the state is only the latest in a parade of examples of questionable ethics and misconduct/incompetence and cover-up by Republican officeholders and their cronies.

Another of the commissioners, Tony Clark, actually proposed a few days ago to take over the Republican state chairmanship while sitting on the PSC. Let's see, I'm fundraising for the Republicans while I'm voting on your leases and licenses and rate increases. Nah, no conflict there....

Big dollars are flowing into the pockets of those Republican officeholders and candidates these days from Big Oil and Big Energy. North Dakota, some would say, is in an enviable position with budget surplus and low unemployment and energy to, well, burn.

But decades of one-party rule in Bismarck are taking their toll. And this year we're seeing the effects of that, from failed infrastructure in oil country to a governor so busy running for the Senate seat currently held by Byron Dorgan he can't be bothered to actually govern... to.... posters in the public offices of the North Dakota Public Service Commission.

So, Mr. Cramer, I beg to differ. This is not a free speech issue. It is craven exploitation whoring-out of a seven-year-old child.

You'd think they'd finally have some shame.

Or not.
.
Contribute to Democratic candidate against Kevin Cramer, a strong-credentialed candidate by the way, here: Brad Crabtree for PSC

crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

Prairie Cautionary

.
Last week, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Forum. It finally appears in today's issue. The announcement of Dorgan's decision to retire from the Senate does not change the message I had for my fellow North Dakotans;

Republicans and their fat-cat friends trying to stampede us

By: Sandy Scheel Huseby, Fargo

Looks like the Republican big boys are coming to town whipping up a stampede to distract us from the past decade of failed Republican policies and actions that President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress are working doggedly to clean up.

A stampede intended to drive Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Congressman Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., from office. A stampede that would send us right back into the abyss of economic disasters and buckshot cowboy blunders in sobering matters of national security.

State Republican honcho Gary Emineth and National Republican Chairman Michael Steele were on local talk radio recently full of bravado and bluster about how they’re going to steamroll over Dorgan and Pomeroy this election year. Seems to me what they’re really saying is they intend to steamroll over North Dakota’s way of living.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t need the likes of the Wall Street fat cats crowd telling me that I should turn away from public servants who have dedicated their lives to making life better for their North Dakota neighbors from Regent and the western range to the fertile farmland of the eastern Valley cities.

It’s going to take more than bluster and bravado and the kind of fishing-tale whoppers that would make true outdoorsmen blush to unseat Dorgan and Pomeroy. Oh, I expect they’ll try more. The Republicans have been downright shameless in their twisting and shouting spin-and-smear tactics as they’ve gotten more and more desperate in recent elections to keep control in the hands of a few big-money interests.

Those big-money interests that hide behind fake names of groups that basically consist of themselves and their own checkbooks.

This year, there’s too much at stake to go back to the failed Republican policies that have devastated everything from jobs to health care to the mortgages on the homes we live in. Can big money buy the 2010 elections in North Dakota? Oh, they’ll try. But I trust that the same pioneer spirit that brought my grandparents to homestead in Dakota Territory as immigrants from Germany runs deep in most families in this state.

We know common sense, hard work and community spirit that puts neighbors before partisan party politics. And we know what’s left behind on the trail in a stampede.

Writer Huseby blogs as Prairie Sunshine at www.prairiesunrising.blogspot.com.

Now Dorgan has decided to retire. Was he stampeded? Who knows, but him. I won't be. Neither will the pioneer spirit of the kind of North Dakota Democratic-NPL which dug in all the deeper when threatened by storms and the harsh life on the prairie. Dorgan steps back, but there are more than enough willing to step forward that are committed to the pioneer spirit that built our state.
.
In a comment over at firedoglake this morning, I said:

Sorry to mess with your theory, David, but ND Dems have no intention of ceding the Dorgan seat without a strong campaign. The opportunistic Whooooooooooven??????????, best known for community appearances at events like Hostfest in his hometown of Minot, has been playing coy with running for months now. Expect to see him emerge as the Republican candidate.

As for winning, he’ll have to earn that, if he can.

So Hoeven—or whoever the Republican candidate may be—can likely count on big bucks backers for this race. We'll see if they have the grit for it.
.
UPDATE: whole lotta buzz in the media about Ed Schultz invited to make a run for the Dorgan seat. Call me a Valley Girl, but I just don't see him making that decision. There's a flood of reasons why. Burning bridges and all that.
.
crossposted at firedoglake's The Seminal

UPDATE II: Recommended reading