Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
Official Newspaper of Eddy County since 1883
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Hello, 2022. We hope you're not expecting to get the honeymoon treatment that most New Years have gotten throughout history. You see, 2022, most of us are very cranky here in the U.S.A. and we have our eyes on you. It's nothing personal, 2022. It's just that our hopes for the last two New Year's have fallen far short of our expectations. We remember the high hopes we had for 2020 - which seems many decades ago. That year got off to a really great start. The economy was thriving. Employment was...
“Am I going to get my paper on time this week?” a lady called and asked Friday. “Well, they’re not here yet,” Allen answered. “Where’s my newspaper? I haven’t gotten a newspaper on time in four weeks!” a man bellered on the other end of the line on Monday. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, for probably the 40th time that day, and it was barely afternoon. Readers, here’s the scoop. Your newspapers have been delayed due to holidays, weather and/or driver illness four weeks in a row, and we understand yo...
By virtually every measurement, McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) ranks as Chief Justice John Marshall’s greatest opinion, and, in the view of many legal scholars, the most important decision ever rendered by the Supreme Court. McCulloch is a landmark case among landmark cases. Chief Justice Marshall, a member of the Virginia Ratifying Convention, wrote the court’s unanimous opinion. He set forth the classic statement of national authority, affirmed the sovereignty of the people, explained the “Necessary and Proper Clause” and the doctrine of impl...
It’s a New Year and time to reflect, and a time to make resolutions. How can we engage and encourage those in leadership positions in our state? As a member of the North Dakota Republican party, I am aware that many of the 47 NDGOP Districts across the state are having reorganizational meetings in the upcoming months. You can go to www.ndgop.org and find out who your district chair is, and reach out to them to find out when your Republican District reorganizational meeting is. If you are not sure which district you are in, you can go to w...
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) joined Senator Mike Braun (R-IN) in filing an amicus brief to the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) in the upcoming case considering the Biden Administration’s top-down Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring private employers with over 100 employees to mandate the COVID-19 vaccine or weekly testing. The brief argues that Congress did not give OSHA the authority to impose a vaccine mandate and urges SCOTUS to stay the mandate. “Co...
In 1958, in Cooper v. Aaron, the Supreme Court, ensnared in the white-hot cauldron of southern resistance to federal authority, the Supremacy Clause and the abolition of segregation, delivered a massively important decision for the future of American Constitutionalism and the rule of law. In a case that threatened the very existence of the United States as a nation, the court reiterated its role as "the ultimate interpreter of the Constitution," denounced the doctrine of nullification, affirmed...
The Supreme Court's assertion in Marbury v. Madison (1803) of the power of judicial review, the authority to declare federal governmental acts unconstitutional, did not consider the question of whether federal courts could review state legislation and state judicial decisions. But that question would emerge in the hurly-burly of the young republic as citizens wrestled with the significant legal and political changes in the American landscape wrought by adoption of the new Constitution. A...
Having served on the State Investment Board on behalf of Governor George Sinner, I have had a continuing interest in the $8 billion pot of gold accumulated in the state treasury from oil revenue. The Fargo Forum and KX Television have been looking for a smoking gun in the State Investment Board, wondering if North Dakota is being well served by consultants that have worked for the state for two decades. Because the financial agreements between the Investment Board and the consultants are exempt...
‘Tis the season for giving — or, for some legislators, a good time to demand that the government force taxpayers to give others a large gift. A few weeks ago, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the house floor to issue another plea for the federal government to cancel nearly $1.7 trillion in student-loan debt. That is, she is demanding that taxpayers who didn’t go to college, or who didn’t take on large loans to go to college, pay off the often massive loans of those who did. AOC argues that...
FORT MYERS, Fla. - The traffic light on Winkler Avenue was green, yet the Camaro in front of me hit the brakes. I managed to avoid him as he stopped short for the duck and her eight babies, who were slowly trying to cross the four-lane street. It was rush hour and cars were whizzing in both directions. Camaro Guy and I held our ground as the duck family reached a two-foot center strip of grass. Now what? Like a shot, the Camaro swerved into the two oncoming lanes and stopped, successfully...
The Federalist Papers, it has been said, constitute one of the most important works in the world of political science ever written in the history of the United States. There is little exaggeration, if any, in saying that The Federalist is surpassed only by the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence as an iconic writing in our nation’s political history. Authored by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay, the 85 essays thoroughly explained the meaning of the Constitution proposed to Americans eager to know what the delegates t...
Christmas card trends are telling — they speak to the mood of the country — and this year’s trend offers some positive news. According to the Washington Post, hand-written “snail-mailed” Christmas cards are all the rage, particularly among millennials who, all of the sudden, are spending more on Christmas cards than baby boomers. We baby boomers came of age well before everything went digital. I still have and cherish the hilarious hand-written letters my friends and I shared during our colle...
Children all over the United States are currently wringing their iPhone-calloused hands over the possibility that Santa Claus might not make it this year because he's trapped in a delayed shipping container somewhere off the coast of California. The situation is a little different at my house. With three daughters in their mid-to-late teens, my wife and I are starting to wonder how much longer we should renew our private contractor partnership with Old Saint Nick. When the girls were younger...
“It’s a Wonderful Life” is my favorite Christmas movie. It takes me back to a simpler time I have never experienced, but love to revel in nonetheless, if even for a couple of hours. There’s something special, and timeless, about the way the characters treat each other and the way the community rallies to help a man through his most trying time. This film, that director Frank Capra didn’t consider a Christmas movie at the time, is now ranked #1 on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB) list of the To...
Our time is the best gift we can give to our friends and family this Christmas. Nobody knows how much time we have on Earth - nobody knows when our time will end. We all have friends and loved ones who were claimed way too early. Hopefully, you are blessed, as my family has been, to have loved ones who have lived long and fruitful lives. Such family members have an abundance of wisdom to share - wisdom cultivated over time. I particularly enjoy the pearls of humorous wisdom my 88-year-old...
The other day, Otis, the used car dealer, pulled out a wad of bills and handed my son two crisp C-notes. That’s all Danny’s ’98 Pontiac Grand-Am was worth anymore, but the rite of passage it had provided was invaluable. Danny purchased his car from Otis years earlier with $3,000 saved from two summers of maintenance work at the local golf course. The Grand-Am served him well, but it didn’t really shape his development or fuel memories the way a first car did in my day. That was the 1960s, when k...
The first landmark ruling delivered by the U.S. Supreme Court was Marbury v. Madison (1803), in which Chief Justice John Marshall asserted the power of judicial review, the authority of the federal judiciary to review the constitutionality of governmental acts, including laws passed by Congress. Consider the fundamental impact of the power of judicial review for American Constitutionalism. In 1627, in The Five Knights Case, an important case in English legal history, the Attorney General, representing the King, asked: “Shall any say, the K...
During hunting season here in North Dakota, it is critical for drivers to stay alert to avoid collisions. Every year tens of thousands of cars hit deer on North Dakota roads, a tragedy that takes precious lives and sends many more to the emergency room. Deer aren’t the only wildlife you are likely to see lying dead on the shoulder of the road. Elk, pronghorn, pheasant, sharp-tailed grouse, and bighorn sheep are among countless species hit every year on our roads. Collisions with vehicles, and r...
I wish I had a change of heart, but I still can't support it. Back in 2009, long before I got my beloved 11-month-old puppy, Thurber, I was critical of a proposed federal bill that sought tax deductions for pet owners. According to the Washington Times, Robert Davi, a tough-guy Hollywood actor, and then Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, R-Mich., attempted something back then that tough guys and conservative Republicans don't often do. They collaborated to get a bill - the Humanity and Pets Partnered...
The year-long commitment of this column to the exploration of the Constitution has focused, primarily, on historical explanations of the aims and purposes of delegates to the Constitutional Convention. On occasion, we have illuminated constitutional controversies surrounding current governmental acts through this historical lens, a method which largely avoids charges of partisanship, and leaves disappointed readers to quarrel, not so much with this author, as with James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, George Washington and others who wrote the...
New Rockford Transcript readers, city property owners, and citizens of New Rockford: I am deeply concerned for the wellbeing of New Rockford regarding the special assessments for the proposed street project that will be in addition to what you currently pay. I’d like to thank Craig Voigt for his letter to the editor recently. I’m not going to go into a lot of details about my situation regarding the estimate of my taxes nearly quadrupling; rather, I would like to keep this more about the property owners at-large, and how this has the very rea...
The Supreme Court's historic rejection in U.S. v. Nixon (1974) - "The Watergate Tapes Case" - of President Richard Nixon's assertion of an "absolute" and "unreviewable" authority to invoke executive privilege, saved the republic from an unaccountable, autocratic executive, and won richly-deserved praise from a grateful citizenry across America. But the court cut the ground from beneath its landmark ruling with a wounding declaration that the president enjoys a "limited" executive privilege:...
The COVID 19 pandemic confirmed the critical role that small businesses play in our daily lives. Throughout the pandemic, small businesses continued to provide crucial goods and services and kept our citizens employed. It sounds cliché, but our locally-owned small businesses truly are the heart and soul of our cities and towns. Small Business Saturday has become an American tradition following the Thanksgiving holiday. However, online shopping skyrocketed during the pandemic as more people...
With natural gas prices projected to be higher than last year for the winter heating season, Montana-Dakota Utilities, and AARP North Dakota, have teamed up to provide customers and members information about the price projection and tips on how to mitigate some of the increase. Natural gas prices are expected to increase more than 50% over last year across the country due to increasing demand, and flat supply, not just nationally, but globally. Options for controlling costs include: • Balanced billing: Montana-Dakota offers balanced bil...
Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, as we have seen, did not fail to address the issue of presidential authority to invoke executive privilege. Rather, they chose not to clothe the president with power to withhold information from Congress. The framers of the Constitution, part of a generation that fought executive tyranny in the form of King George III, studiously avoided any pretense of granting to the newly-minted presidency a power that was denied to the English monarchy. The absence of any mention of executive privilege in the...
