Say Anything Blog

Stupid in North Dakota:

FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might “refine” his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

Obama was forced to call reporters back for a second news conference in Fargo, North Dakota, after he initially left open the possibility of revising his 16-month timetable for pulling U.S. combat forces from Iraq.

“Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the joint chiefs of staff in and I will give them a new mission and that is to end this war,” Obama told reporters in his second news conference.

But he added: “I would be a poor commander in chief if I didn’t take facts on the ground into account.”

Obama’s in a tough, tough spot with Iraq.  On one hand he has a long history of beating up political opponents like Hillary Clinton over their support, past or present, of the war in Iraq.  From day one he’s been an “end the war now” candidate, and distancing himself means distancing himself from all the leftist fanatics he’s attracted to his campaign with all that empty-but-nice-sounding stuff about “hope” and “audacity” and “change.”

On the other hand, even liberal rags like The New Yorker are noting that the situation in Iraq is trending more and more toward success and that Obama needs to change his outdated stance on the war.

If Obama continues to placate the far-left liberals - and he can hardly afford not to with big time movers-and-shakers like Markos Moulitsas already threatening to withhold money because of his previous policy flip-flops - he’ll look like an obstinate child with his fingers in his ears going “nah nah nah nah” lest he have to admit that his political opponents were right and he was wrong on Iraq.

Obama is an attractive candidate and a fantastic public speaker, but being good-looking and having a knack for delivering inspirational (if rather empty of meaning) speeches doesn’t cover for you being woefully, publicly wrong about one of the biggest issues of this campaign.

The full text is in the extended entry.

My reaction?  Meh.  Who can believe anything Obama says on the campaign trail these days?

At least he didn’t make any claims about his relatives liberating concentration camps in Europe that were really liberated by the Red Army.

So says the North Dakota chapter of Americans for Prosperity:

Bismarck, N.D. - Lt. Governor Jack Dalrymple has recently made stated the administration’s opinion that the current property tax rebate program should not be renewed during the next legislative session.  The program is statutorily set to expire after the 2008 tax year already.

“We are happy to hear the Governor is looking at better ways to improve the tax climate in North Dakota.  Under current economic conditions, there is plenty of room to reform local property taxes and reduce the long-term income tax burden of individuals and businesses,” state policy director Dustin Gawrylow stated. “ We welcome and look forward to working with the Governor and the legislature on ways to further reduce the tax burdens of North Dakotans, both property owners and non-property owners alike.”

Americans for Prosperity supports true property tax reform over one-time bailouts and short-term rebate plans.  Local property taxes, like the state income tax, require long term rate reductions that project a stable, low tax environment.

“Taxes are not an ‘either/or’ matter.  To insinuate that we can not afford to reduce taxes across the spectrum, regardless of property status, is an example of manufacturing a false dilemma.  Various special interests that would seek to spend the taxpayers’ money on pet projects rather than on issues of general welfare will use this argument.  It should be recognized as the political spin it truly is,” concluded Gawrylow. 

The real problem with spiking local property taxes is local government spending which is also spiking.  If North Dakotans want lower property taxes they’re going to have to take a long, hard look at the sort of spending their local political leaders are doing and then ask themselves if that spending is worth the taxes.

I suggest they start with education spending, which is never a popular topic when it comes to budget cuts, but the spending is out of control in many localities none the less.

With the explicit help of the North Dakota newspapers.

U.S. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-ND, is hoping a multifaceted approach by the government can rein in soaring fuel prices.

Conrad, who’s been touring the state this week touting his plan, said the price of gas is “what is really on the minds of NorthDakotans across the state.”

The official purpose of Conrad’s Wednesday trip was to hold a Senate Budget Committee field hearing on the issue, but he was also looking to unveil his five-point plan.

With his customary charts in the background, Conrad said he would like to see a plan that increases domestic oil production, reins in oil speculation, promotes fuel-efficient vehicles, provides incentives for alternative fuels, and promotes coal-to-liquid techniques.

What has Conrad done while he’s been in the Senate to accomplish this.  Aside from supporting bio fuels (jacking up food prices) he’s been 100% against developing energy sources.  Of course there are promising biofuel technologies, like switchgrass, but they aren’t ready yet.  Sure go ahead and develop them but until then fossil fuels are the way to go.

And when it comes down to economically viable fossil fuels Kent Conrad has been terrible.  That’s because he’s beholden to environmental nuts rather than the North Dakotans he should be worried about.

Kent Conrad has always fought against drilling in ANWR.  In fact when it had been attached to a filibuster proof bill in 2005 Kent Conrad led the parliamentary challenge to it and saw to it that it was defeated.  He’s voted against it every time it’s come up.  If it weren’t for idiots like him we’d have that oil on the market, lowering our trade deficit by a significant amount. 

The energy industries have done a fantastic job of keeping supply up even with all of the obstruction from the Subprime Senator and his ilk.  But sooner or later we were going to have a shortage with a resulting price spike.

And when it does Conrad has the gall to claim he’s for domestic production and the Bismarck Tribune gladly prints that lie.  They should be blasting him for helping to give us four dollar a gallon gas. 

After posting on a Fargo Forum article yesterday which indicated that, instead of Republican House candidate Duane Sand having crashed his plane because of an iced-up carburetor he ran out of gas, I got quite a bit of email.

First, Sand’s campaign manager Matt Dabrowski sends the following:

Duane’s not a mechanic. He honestly wouldn’t know why his plane broke down. WDAY asked him to speculate, and he did.

The actual quote on WDAY was something like, “I think it might have been ice...”

Far from an assertive statement of mechanical know-how, don’t you think?

That’s certainly true, and I wouldn’t put such a deception it above the Fargo Forum which a) is not known for objective journalism and b) has a bone to pick with Sand already.

Here is a copy of the publicly-available NTSB report on the crash.  In the narrative of that report (it’s very short, one page, so I recommend reading the whole thing if you’re interested in this issue) it has Sand as claiming that he checked the fuel level before he took off by looking at the gauges on his plane but not visually checking the fuel in the check.  He also claims that he recently had the gauges calibrated.

Depending on when Sand was interviewed for this report by the NTSB (and I’ve got to think it was soon after the crash) and how that correlates to when he gave the interview with WDAY, the “iced up carburetor” story is looking pretty anemic even if Sand said that’s just what he “thought” it was.  Clearly, the NTSB knew right away what caused the crash (the plane was out of fuel) and questioned Sand along those lines, so Sand himself had to have known that it was an “out of fuel” issue and not a carburetor issue.

Of course, if Sand gave his WDAY interview before learning from the NTSB about the low fuel levels all can be excused.  But if its the other way around, Sand flat-out fibbed.

Also, a reader with some flight experience emails and says that Sand’s pilot’s license may be suspended over this.

Not that they were trying to be objective about it in the first place.

Apparently Tuesday the Subprime Senator, Kent Conrad visited the Herald to give them his side of the story.  That rated not one but two articles in the paper.  One on the front page (at least it was on their website) and one on the editorial page.  I don’t know which is worse.  This story was completely inappropriate for a news story in that there was no objective reporting.  When a politician is caught in a scandal do you give him front page coverage without any other reporting?  Not if you’re a real news outlet, but the Herald did.

There are so many objectionable things in this story that I’ll have to fisk the story to do it justice.  First the “news” story.

If it turns out he received any preferential treatment when he refinanced a mortgage with Countrywide Financial in 2004, Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., told the Herald on Tuesday, he’ll write the company a check for the difference.

According to documents provided by Conrad, Countrywide Financial waived a 1 percent fee for him in 2004 when he refinanced a mortgage he’d originally received from the company two years earlier on a Delaware beach home. The waived value was $10,700.

Well right there he admits he got a special deal in the documents they gave him.  Where’ s the check?  By the way it’s not appropriate to think that paying back money after you were caught is any kind of excuse for unethical behavior in the first place.  Besides when it came out he paid that amount to Habitat for Humanity already so he admitted he got the deal.

Conrad has steadfastly maintained he never knew the fee was waived — he offered to swear to it Tuesday on a stack of Bibles — and that the resulting mortgage was still consistent with market rates…

Since then, Conrad said, he’s been told it was common practice in the mortgage industry to waive such fees in 2004,

You just admit that the documents showed that the point was waived.  We know there was an email from the CEO to take a point off.  Does he do that for any run of the mill customer?  Why would he do that except for the fact that he knew Kent Conradwide was a US Senator?

The article says that the Subprime Senator brought a binder with his mortgages to the meeting.  I assume those documents show that papers that he signed did in fact show that the point was waived.  All along Conrad said that he never got a special deal.  If this is the case he probably signed the terms sheet or whatever they call it and that proves that he knew he got a special deal.  The only thing missing is Mozilo’s fingerprints.

[Conradwide] “This is absolutely one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever been through,” he said. “The national media didn’t care about the facts.”

Certainly we can say that about the Grand Forks Herald and other Forum Communications properties.  At least they don’t care for the North Dakota public to know the facts.

The article describes how Conrad’s short phone call with the CEO of Countrywide in 2002 led to the national media interest.

But Conrad said Monday it “strains credulity” that he would have expected his conversation with Mozilo to affect the deal he received when he refinanced the same loan two years later.

Why would you speak to the head of a mortgage giant unless you expected to get a special deal? 

Conrad also shot back at suggestions that his special deal from Countrywide had been a quid pro quo for his work to curtail the recent mortgage crisis — during which Countrywide has often been cited as a purveyor of risky mortgages — in his role as chairman of the Senate’s banking committee.

This is my favorite part.  The Herald allows Conrad to present the defense for a charge that they nearly never allowed to be printed in their paper.  If this was an actual “news” paper they would have covered the fact that he broke the budget rules to benefit the mortgage industry after receiving nearly $11,000 from them in personal funds, (let along a lot of campaign donations).

“That’s so utterly farfetched and nonsensical,” he said, arguing there would have been no way to predict the mortgage crisis when he first spoke with Mozilo in 2002 and that he’s worked to bail out the housing industry at large, not Countrywide in particular.

As if we’re supposed to believe that it’s ever a bad thing to have a senior US Senator friendly to your company for when you need it.  But when Countrywide needed the bailout the Friend of Angelo, Ken Conradwide, was ready to waive the rules for him.  Unfortunately while that cost Countrywide $10,700, it’s costing the US Taxpayers Three Hundred Billion Dollars. 

Conrad also joked about the Friends of Angelo program Tuesday, which he said, by some accounts, is so large it could hardly be labeled exclusive.

That’s not the question.  The question is why was the Subprime Senator on the Friends of Angelo list?  Conrad says that he didn’t know the man so it’d have to be because of his position as US Senator.  We know Kent got $10,700 because of that status and we know that he waived the budget rules to move the bailout bill along. 

That’s the “news” story.  I’ll be covering the shameful editorial later today or tomorrow. 

And replace it with more government spending!

Seriously, though, if the Governor had been listening to his conservative base he’d have realized that his property tax credit scheme was a loser from the get-go.

By DALE WETZEL Associated Press Writer Bismarck, N.D. (AP) Gov. John Hoeven wants to dump a North Dakota income tax credit for state property taxpayers.

Lt. Gov. Jack Dalrymple outlined the governor’s plans for the Legislature’s interim Taxation Committee.

Hoeven has proposed a $300 million school aid plan. It would set aside $200 million for local school property tax cuts and provide $100 million in extra state aid.

Dalrymple says the plan would result in an average school property tax rate reduction of 55 mills. Now the state average school general fund tax rate is almost 191 mills.

The problem with the Governor’s plan is that it takes money from the surpluses in the state budget - which proves that North Dakotans are being taxed too much by the state - and uses it to essentially “buy down” local property taxes, which does nothing to address why local property taxes are so high in the first place.

Namely, excessive spending by local government.

Rather than spending state budget surpluses which, in a perfect world, would be going back to North Dakota taxpayers in the form of tax cuts and tax rebates, Governor Hoeven should use the power of the Governor’s office to put the blame for high property taxes back where it belongs: Local government officials.

He should also pressure those officials to rein in spending so that soaring property taxes, which almost nobody in North Dakota is happy about, can be put in check.

Let’s remember that rising taxation is always associated with rising spending.  If North Dakotans are upset at rising property taxes they need to address what those taxes are being spent on, and ask themselves whether or not those expenditures are worth it.

Republican challenger for Rep. Earl Pomeroy’s House seat Duane Sand got in a plane crash a few weeks back.  Scary episode, to be sure, but Sand emerged from it without a scratch.

Sand himself blamed an iced up carburetor for the crash, but the Fargo Forum points out that this is something less than the truth:

In an interview with WDAY, Sand said cold and moist weather conditions most likely caused the ice on the plane’s carburetor.

A National Transportation Safety Board report, though, makes no mention of an icing problem.

The report said less than 32 ounces of fuel was aboard the plane following the crash. Inspectors also didn’t notice the smell of fuel at the crash site and found no indications of leaking fuel.

I’m no pilot, but I’m pretty sure having only 32 ounces of fuel in your plane when you crashed means you crashed because you forgot to fuel up.

I guess “iced up carburetor” sounds better than “I forgot to put gas in.”

A good catch by the Forum, though it’d be nice to see the paper exercise this level of scrutiny when it comes to the shady dealings of, say, Senator Kent Conrad.

Earlier today I blasted North Dakota Democrats for being a bit hypocritical about closed political events for Presidential candidates.  The Democrats criticized both President Bush in 2005 and then-Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani earlier this year for holding closed events in North Dakota.  Then Obama comes along and announces a closed event of his own.

Except, now according to an updated Fargo Forum article Obama’s event is “free and open to the public.” As long as you have a ticket, that is (I wonder if they executed a wording change because of my post earlier today?).

So it’s still closed, really.  The Democrats just changed the wording of their press release around a bit.  And, naturally, North Dakota’s reporters eat it right up.

Oh well.  I’ll bet North Dakota Democrats are just glad Obama actually knows which state they’re in again.

You know what’s interesting?  Exxon CEO Lee Raymond gets brought up by Democrats all the time as an example of a nasty, rich white guy who makes too much money.  When gas prices are high liberals invoke Raymond’s yearly income.  When someone wants to kill the estate tax liberals say it’s a tax cut for Mr. Raymond.

But what about, say, Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo?  You know, the guy who we just learned has been giving politicians like Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd “VIP loans?” According to Forbes he makes tens of millions of dollars more per year than Raymond.

So how come we never hear Mozilo’s name invoked in Democrat press releases?

I guess Mozlio is paying off the right people.

Good news for the state’s economy, too be sure.

Meanwhile, one of the Senators who allegedly represents the interests of these North Dakotans benefiting from the oil boom (it’s not just the land owners, the oil companies have hired so many North Dakotans that other businesses are having a hard time staffing their positions) wants to punish the oil companies that are making North Dakotans rich with massive new taxes.

Byron Dorgan: North Dakota’s Senator, or an out-of-state liberal who just claims to be from North Dakota?

I just got this from Scott Hennen and thought I’d share it with all of you:

I wanted you to be the first to know that I am guest-hosting for Sean Hannity today (Monday June 30) on his national radio show. To hear the show, you can go to www.AM1100.tv and Listen Live from 2 to 5pm.

As you know Sean is joining our new radio station and our new home is still under construction at 64 Broadway in Downtown Fargo...this has been a fun and exciting project, but it is taking a few more weeks than we hoped. So our new projected on-air date is now early August. AM 1100 THE FLAG will be home to my show from 8 to 11AM, Rush Limbaugh from 11 to 2pm, Sean Hannity 2 to 5pm and Mark Levin from 5 to 7pm.

And we have some more great news for you, while you are waiting for us to get on-the-air...Rush, Sean and Mark Levin can be heard on-line at our new web site www.AM1100.tv. Sign up for our VIP club while your there so you continue to get updates on our progress.

Your support is most appreciated!  Take care,

Scott Hennen
Host of the Scott Hennen Show
President/CEO
AM 1100 THE FLAG/FM 106.9 THE EAGLE

It’s tough getting people to show up to an anti-war rally in North Dakota.

I suspect that it’s getting tougher to get people to show up at rallies against the war in Iraq in general these days.  With it looking more and more like the war is going to conclude with Iraq being a sovereign and democratic US ally where there was once an oppressive, terror-sponsoring, belligerent rogue state - and with the media unable to find many negative stories about the war to sensationalize - the entire anti-war movement just seems a bit pointless, doesn’t it?

After all, it’s hard to indict Bush as some sort of monstrous, bigoted war monger when by all appearances Bush is going to leave office with Iraq and the middle east in general in a lot better shape than it was when he entered office.

I was shocked Wednesday to hear that my home town of Grand Forks North Dakota had failed to meet federal requirements in twelve of it’s schools. You have to understand that Grand Forks has turned out great students into the world year after year, decade after decade.  So to hear that TWELVE schools which includes BOTH high schools is a jar to our perception of how things are.

BISMARCK — The number of North Dakota schools failing to make adequate yearly progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law jumped dramatically during this past school year.

Twelve Grand Forks schools are on the list as are several other schools in the region.

What’s even more shocking is the nonchalance displayed by the school district.  The outgoing school superintendent thinks that it’s not big deal.  Standards are tougher to meet.  My opinion is that they’ve known about these standards for years and Grand Forks schools should make grade.

Even the Grand Forks Herald finds that the school systems had too many excuses and not enough urgency. 

What’s interesting is that FOR ONCE the excuses weren’t about money.  There’s a good reason for that.  During the time our schools have lost their preeminence the state and local governments have been showering the school system with more money.  According to Sunshine on Schools Grand Forks is paying much higher than average to educate our kids. 

In fact in the last last ten years Grand Forks per pupil education spending has gone up forty percent over and above inflation.  We can now conclude that that money has been wasted.  It isn’t helping our students learn what they should learn. 

Now it would be an obvious fallacy to conclude that the money made things worse.  The true problems is the state and local education leadership has lost their focus on the students in order to benefit the teachers, staff and bureaucracy.  In fact last year it came out that 61% of their increased funding is going to non-instructional areas.  That means the administration is sucking up all of the money.

And it doesn’t seem like the Grand Forks School Board gets it.  They seem to think they’re entitled to keep overspending money and if the taxpayers complain it’s the states fault.  I read a couple interviews of school board members lately and they seemed to think they were doing a great job.  Well the news is out and you’re not. 

Of course the ultimate example of their irresponsibility was having their new superintendent accept the job at $165,000 and renegotiate the position to $179,000.  I don’t know if any children were left behind, but the taxpayers sure were. 

This is a call to action of the citizens of Grand Forks.  They have been taken for a ride by the local school board.  They need to let the school board and the new overpaid superintendent know that it’s up to them to provide a good education to our students.  They also need to know the gravy train is over.  We have local proof that more money doesn’t result in a better education. 

The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating, and now 17 other Senators aren’t responding to inquiries about their personal mortgages.

Wonder if Conrad’s colleague Senator Dorgan is among them?

Democratic Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Kent Conrad of North Dakota still rank high in the loser category. They had to admit that they received special treatment on mortgage loans from Countrywide. They insist they had no idea they got a break—everybody else in the country is saying, “gimme a break.” Conrad is chairman of the Senate Budget Committee and Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. They are two very powerful senators whose committees have jurisdiction over Countrywide’s business. It turns out they were also “Friends of Angelo,” as revealed by Conde Nast Portfolio Magazine. That’s Angelo as in Angelo Mozilo, chairman and CEO of Countrywide.

It’s a pretty seedy story: When Conrad was looking to buy his Delaware beach house in 2002, he called his good friend, former Fannie Mae CEO James Johnson, Conde Nast reported. Mozilo happened to be in Johnson’s office and Johnson handed the phone to him. Countrywide financed the beach house and, later, an investment property of Conrad’s. Mozilo instructed a subordinate via email to “(T)ake off 1 point” and in another email wrote, “Make an exception due to the fact that the borrower is a senator.” Dodd never spoke directly to Mozilo, but Dodd was aware that his two Countrywide mortgages were in a “VIP section.” Dodd says he assumed that was just some kind of “courtesy.” The Senate Ethics Committee is investigating.

Incidentally, Johnson is the same guy who was briefly tasked by Obama to vet potential running mates. Johnson stepped aside when it was revealed that he had received preferential loans from Countrywide.

As of this writing, 17 senators still haven’t responded to Politico.com’s request for information on their mortgages.

It’s funny that this article describes the second property Conrad financed through a Mozilo-issued “VIP loan” as an “investment property.” That second property just happens to be the apartment complex Conrad owns in Bismarck.  The complex which holds the apartment he claims is his home to fulfill state citizenship requirements.

In the mortgage industry, an “investment property” is an official term used to describe property which is owned by a person but isn’t where that person lives.  When Conrad got this loan from Countrywide did the lender treat the property as an investment property?  And if so, wouldn’t that raise questions about Conrad’s citizenship?  And thus his qualification to serve as North Dakota’s Senator?