Former Democrat Caucus chair talks about his campaign for Congress
By C.S. Hagen FARGO – Ben Hanson is young, but politically, he’s already made a name for himself. He’s the “hard-charging Democrat opponent” running for the state’s only position in Congress.
He’s running against Kevin Cramer, bestower of the title and the congressman “too many in North Dakota know little about.” Hanson plans to represent North Dakota in Washington D.C.
Ben Hanson – phorgraph taken by Logan Macrae
“Come 2018, I was not going to let this seat go unchallenged,” Hanson said. “Congressman Cramer, I think, is derelict in his duties. One thing I hear constantly across the state is, ‘I called Congressman Cramer’s office and he never got back to me.’”
Hanson leaned back in his chair, took a sip of his coffee – black. He appears to be a bundle of energy, a lone knight in a red state eager to take on a muscly dragon. Silly legislative bills proposed while he was the ND House of Representatives Democratic Caucus chair roll quickly and easily from his tongue. Politics is his passion, there’s little he doesn’t love about the role of a public servant.
“Politics is what we do instead of war,” Hanson said. “You shouldn’t do this job without having a future vision for this country and your state,” Hanson said. “I find this is a huge problem with Kevin Cramer as well, he basically says more government is bad, and I don’t think that’s productive.”
Although the election is still a year away, Hanson, 31, is running a grassroots campaign, with more than 500 unique individual donors, 75 percent of whom are from North Dakota, and believes he has a fighting chance. Instead of filling a large campaign purse with $50,000 for a video producer, and another $40,000 to place a television ad, he’s hitting the Internet: Hulu, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and soon, his campaign website.
With modern technology and using social media programs, he can get his message to a wider, younger audience for $4,000, Hanson said.
Hanson sees the Republican Party, historically at North Dakota’s helm, as an “abject failure.” The state needs to enter the modern world, there’s streamlining to be done, websites to be made, and a statewide population of nearly 800,000 people that need a more transparent government.
“There is so much potential this state,” Hanson said. “Did you know that we have 53 counties and only 20 of them have listed their property taxes online? Seven of them don’t even have websites.”
People he’s met while traveling to eight cities in two weeks have proven to him government and the media are far from transparent. Some people hardly know when the legislature is in session; one woman asked him if he went to St. Paul for his job.
He takes aim at Cramer’s voting record, and the current congressman’s claims of calling AM radio shows “Town Halls.” The two real Town Halls Cramer hosted, called “Coffee with Cramer,” both turned into heated shouting matches, with one irate man shoving money into Cramer’s collar.
“He also doesn’t raise the flag when individual parts of a bill are problematic, there is so much I could say about the tax reform bill,” Hanson said.
Or a bill called Section 199, which raises taxes on co-ops, to which Cramer didn’t raise any alarm or offer an amendment to try and stop it, Hanson said.
“Wouldn’t you want to protect your own state? He doesn’t bother. He doesn’t even have the courage to stand up for his convictions. Why is he even running for office?”
Despite Hanson’s young age, he’s experienced, and while working in the state legislature from 2012 until 2016, became aware of the games being played by many elected politicians. Politicians basically follow the agendas of their main supporters, and rarely their own constituents.
“In North Dakota it’s unlimited the amount of money we can take from anybody, you could buy a vote, you could buy whatever,” Hanson said. “There are 141 people sitting in the House and Senate who want to be in the governor’s seat. There’s a saying that every one of them look in the mirror every morning and see the face of a governor.”
Hanson isn’t planning on beating Cramer’s campaign wallet, which so far has raised $650,384. Cramer’s largest contributor is Energy Transfer Partners, the oil company behind the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline, with a donation of $31,050. Hanson wants his donations to come from North Dakotans.
“I’m not bought and paid for,” Hanson said. “There is no need to do that in the modern era, but you need to fire Kevin Cramer first, before you can hire me.”
Politicians within the majority party cannot cross the aisle and support bills made by state Democrats, Hanson said.
“After I was gone the Republicans took my bill, nearly word for word, and passed it. I had seven bills that passed with someone else’s name on them. It’s a pattern.”
Raised in Fargo, Hanson comes from a farming family, with a history in politics. His grandfather, Erwin “Bud” Hanson, from Crosby, served as a state senator. His mother’s side came from Casselton and Amenia, and helped form the first sugar beet co-op in America, which later became Crystal Sugar.
After graduating from MSUM, Hanson was elected to Fargo’s District 16, where he served two sessions. He also worked finance for Tim Mathern D-N.D., in his run for governor in 2008, and worked with Senator Kent Conrad D-N.D., where he fell in love with politics after helping a suffering North Dakota resident save his eye through reexamining state policies.
When Hanson isn’t on the road, two hours every morning are used for raising funds for his campaign, and then on to his day job as a commercial real estate broker for Archer Real Estate Services.
Hanson’s platform is easy to understand. He is for net neutrality. He is against arbitrarily raising property taxes, says current strategy is more like “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” He’s for getting a farm bill renewed that works for North Dakota farmers, including crop insurance remaining intact. Finding a national solution for cyber security is high on Hanson’s political bucket list.
Health Care: For Hanson, workers need raises, and only by ensuring economic security for the middle class can that be achieved. He wants to ensure more than 300,000 North Dakotans who struggle with preexisting conditions are not neglected, and that their essential health care benefits are protected. More than 90,000 North Dakotans are also on Medicaid, and as the nation tackles the opioid epidemic, Medicaid is the most important tool at the federal government’s disposal for saving lives, Hanson said.
Additionally, more than half of Native American children in the state also depend on Medicaid for basic health needs. Medicare, according to an article written by Hanson, is a promise to the elderly that paid into the program with a lifetime of work.
“We cannot abandon those who rely on this critical program,” Hanson said. On October 5, Hanson wrote an article explaining his position on the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, criticizing the Senate Finance Committee of procrastination, and putting the health of millions of low-income children at risk.
Retirement security: While reducing the national deficit, it’s also vital that Social Security and Medicare programs are not reduced, but strengthened.
Consumer protection: “At a time when consumer protections should be strengthened, Congress is instead doing everything in their power to slash those protections,” Hanson said. “Lobbyists have been getting their way writing big checks to members of Congress, so it’s time for North Dakota to have a congressman that puts people over profits.”
Recently, massive cyber attacks targeting Target, Home Depot, the SEC, and Equifax, which more than 140 million Americans, including 200,000 North Dakotans, had their person information exposed.
“This is a crisis that is not getting talked about,” Hanson said. “It should be viewed as an existential threat, it should be the easiest bipartisan win you could ever come up with. Fortune 500 America is begging for this.”
Hanson also supports overturning a law recently passed by Congress to authorize Internet Service Providers to sell personal data for profit.
Infrastructure: Rebuilding the country in ways that will compete with Asia’s light rail, and bringing America back into the modern era.
“We’re losing and there’s a simple answer to can’t, can’t, can’t do anything,” Hanson said. “We’re losing that edge because there’s a populist way of running for government, which says government is bad, and setting up approval once you get there. I think Democrats have been jumping on that bandwagon a little bit too much. I think we need public service to take pride in their work – not to say that government is the solution to everything – it’s not. I don’t want the government building our flat-screen TVs, but to take pride in your work, and realize there is a real role for the public sector.”
Local politicians’ online connections to the “Alt-right”
Instagram picture posted by Jake MacAulay on October 18 with Representative Christopher Olson and Lutheran minister Steve Schulz at NDSU
[Editor’s note: HPR began investigating elected state politicians after Jake MacAulay, director of right-wing think tank Institute on the Constitution, linked with the Confederate hate group League of the South, spoke at NDSU. His speech included racist and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. A picture MacAulay posted with West Fargo’s Representative Christopher Olson and a Lutheran minister on his Instagram while on campus raised questions about elected officials in the state. While not all politicians in the state were investigated, many were, and the results from public online searches including Facebook Likes and Tweets, were unexpected. It should also be noted that social media likes and groups may not always represent affiliation with any group, but at the very least show interest.]
FARGO – If the “Alt-right” had their way, America would become a white washed painting of a Caucasian family sitting around the dining room table, mother in an apron, father with a briefcase at his feet tussling a ruddy-cheeked child’s hair. Jesus would hang near the corner, all smiles, while an unopened newspaper explained away the dangers of war-weary refugees.
The “so called alt-right’s” extended family is vast, however, and includes quick-tempered, drunk uncles like the Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazis, to somewhat mild mannered cousins, like the “Alt-lite,” or grandpa, the “New Right.” Today, the links between benign-sounding organizations, such as the John Birch Society, Restoring Honor Rally, Young Americans for Liberty, and personalities including Ayn Rand, Bill O’Reilly, and Glenn Beck, can be connected to organizations listed as hate groups by civil rights watchdogs.
“Alt-right’s” fingers go deep, stealthily spreading hate in the name of religion and patriotism. In North Dakota, at least nine elected politicians are either sympathizers or actively involved with “Alt-right” organizations.
The significance of social media interactions has been made all the more important since President Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to express his personal views, and has also created scandals such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s “like” of a pornographic tweet on his official Twitter account from @SexuallPosts in September.
The Associated Press Stylebook on Media Law explains the alternative right as an offshoot of conservatism mixing racism, white nationalism, and populism, or more simply – a white nationalist movement, and is to be written as “Alt-right,” always in quotes. The term was coined by Hitler saluting Richard Spencer, and is ideologically connected to right-wing foundations and white nationalist think tanks. Since the word’s first mention in 2008, a war of words has commenced, stripping and disguising meanings, turning definitions inside out in an attempt to make bigoted and anti-LGBTQ organizations respectable.
“In the past we have called such beliefs racist, neo-Nazi, or white supremacist,” AP Standards described.
But according to the “Alt-right,” the Ku Klux Klan to good old-fashioned God-fearing white nationalists should now be known as “identitarians.” Genocide is too strong a word; they prefer “ethnic replacement.” Purging non-white people isn’t “Alt-right” correct enough; such people, including protesters, undocumented immigrants, and refugees from war-torn countries, have fallen under President Donald Trump’s umbrella and are called criminals, rapists, and terrorists, similar descriptions TigerSwan used against Native Americans and supporters during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy in 2016 and early 2017.
Such semantics are nothing new. The Posse Comitatus through organizations like the Liberty Lobby, used similar code words in the 1970s and 1980s, during the time when Heaton native, Gordon Kahl, took his Anti-Semitic, tax-avoiding stance against any government agency higher than the county level.
“They employed more insidious tactics, which were designed to cultivate a grassroots base of support,” author James Corcoran wrote in his book “Bitter Harvest.” “They disguised their hate for Jews, minorities, and the U.S. government with concern for the small businessman, the family farmer, and the white Christian American. Instead of sheets and swastikas, they draped themselves in the American flag.”
Today, the “Alt-right” has been successful at cultivating younger generations, even producing its own “deity,” partly for trolling amusement and also to make a political point. “Pepe,” the green frog, is a god of chaos and darkness, with the head of a frog. Pepe, who is more frequently known now as “Kek,” is the source of a type of magic to whom the “Alt-right” and President Trump owe their successes. The image is juvenile and racist, but appeals to young ideologists who play at deep thinking.
“Referencing Kek is most often just a way of signaling to fellow conversants online that the writer embraces the principles of chaos and destruction that are central to ‘Alt-right’ thinking,” the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on August 8, 2017.
The Kek prayer:
“Our Kek who art in memetics, hallowed by the memes. Thy Trumpdom come, thy will be done, in real life as it is on/pol/. Give us this day our daily dubs, and forgive us of our baiting as we forgive those who bait against us. And lead us not into cuckoldry, but deliver us from shills, for thine is the memetic kingdom, and the shitposting, and the winning, forever and ever. Praise Kek.”
Online, the “Alt-right” movement has its own imaginary country, Kekistan, and its own green flag that resembles a Nazi symbol.
Kekistan banner
The term “New Right” was first used by the Young Americans for Freedom in the 1960s, and was created as a conservative counter balance to liberalism, linked with the Religious Right, and more recently in 2016 to the “Alt-lite” movement. “Alt-lite” supporters flocked to President Donald Trump’s side during his campaign, and although they share “Alt-right” views, they say they reject racialism and Anti-Semitism.
Late last month, the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center issued a warning before a Congressional committee.
“The current administration’s rhetoric is emboldening white supremacist movements, and although we might find hate speech abhorrent, it should be protected as a right under the First Amendment,” J. Richard Cohen, president of the nonprofit hate crime watchdog Southern Poverty Law Center, said.
“National leaders need to speak out against growing white nationalistic ideals.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center was founded in 1971 as a nonprofit civil rights watchdog organization. For more than three decades, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been monitoring radical right activity in the United States, and advising law enforcement, civic leaders, college administrators on how to respond to rallies led by hate groups and leaders.
In 2007, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a list of hate groups in the United States, many of which are mainstream organizations, and the radical right struck back, branding the organization a hate group in retaliation.
A difference exists between “Liking,” “Following,” and joining a “Group” on Facebook, according to Tim Hoye, owner of Tim Hoye Consulting, a social media management and website customization company.
“To follow a page a person you can go click the ‘Like’ button on that page,” Hoye said. Hoye is also running for House of Representative District 45 as a Democrat.
“When they do that it will show up to your friends and if you have friends on that page they will see that you ‘like’ that page as well. It doesn’t mean you actually consider that content something you would endorse.”
Although liking a page doesn’t necessarily denote endorsement, it does increase the person’s or page’s popularity, Hoye said. A better option is to simply follow.
“Instead you can ‘follow’ a page and not have to increase that page’s likes, your friends won’t see that you like that page and it will do everything the same as liking the page without everyone on your friend list knowing you are watching that page.”
A clear distinction is drawn when someone joins a group on social media, Hoye said.
“Groups are a little bit more personal than a page. A lot of groups you have to be accepted to so you aren’t automatically in there to see the content. You aren’t able to follow a group, you can only ‘like’ a group.”
Dr. Matthew Crain, assistant professor in media studies at Queens College, part of the City University of New York, agreed, saying social media investigations are necessary, and newsworthy.
“There is actual empirical evidence out there for this,” Crain said. “In general it’s a safe assumption that if you tweet or retweet or post on Facebook that there is an implicit endorsement or an expression of support.”
A hierarchy of such support exists: follows, likes, and joining groups, Crain said.
“The differences are, if you like something, you are signaling that you like it in a public way, it publicly identifies your like for that thing. Following means you’re not necessarily signaling an attachment of that page, but you can see their posts, a less public version of liking.”
A group is different, joining a group means that you are a part of that group and you get updates on that group. Joining a group is the “highest level of engagement,” Crain said.
“The Like button is a crude mechanic (like most of Facebook’s icons) meant to signal support of some kind,” NDSU Department of Communication Assistant Professor Robert Mejia said. “What this support specifically means, however, is another question. In general, we would say that liking signals support for either the community, the actual message content, and/or the general tone of the message.”
A politician may monitor a group by pushing the Follow button, Mejia said. An argument can be made for a politician detesting a group, but following it anyway, as a means of keeping an eye on a particular subject, but, typically a Follow suggests a stronger sense of endorsement. “Following carries with it a distinct purpose apart from liking. If liking might mean endorsement with a specific message tone or content, or the community more generally, following just signals general interest in monitoring the ongoing communication of that community. Joining a group can be similar to following. The main difference would be that joining a group often enables a higher level of participation.”
“Preserve History” III% Security Force – from North Dakota Freedome Defense Forse III% Facebook page
North Dakota Nine Congressman Kevin Cramer received a $20,000 donation from the Freedom Project during his reelection campaign in 2016. The Freedom Project is an affiliate of the John Birch Society, and calls Common Core an “absolute appropriation of Soviet ideology and propaganda,” and that it is “mainstreaming homosexuality, promiscuity, and other practices,” according to The Washington Post.
The Freedom Project is also the educational arm of the American Opinion Foundation, a nonprofit created by the John Birch Society, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. On the Freedom Project’s website, it declares itself as a fully accredited online academy for churches to private schools – a Common Core free curriculum deeply rooted in Judeo-Christianity. Enrollment costs $2,000 a year for full time students.
Arms giant, Northrop Grumman, produces mssile systems and military drones, and is a major sponsor of Cramer’s donating a total of $20,000 in 2016. Northrop Grumman is also a sponsor of conferences intent on replacing mental health care with SWAT teams in police departments across the United States, and is intent on exacerbating Islamophobia, according to VICE News.
Cramer is also financially supported by Syngenta, a Swiss agribusiness giant, which was cited by the United Nations for influencing policy makers, obstructing reform, and in some cases “deliberately manufacturing evidence to infuse scientific uncertainty and delay restrictions.” Syngenta gave Cramer $5,000 in 2016, and settled its lawsuit with American farmers pertaining to approval of GMO corn for export before China approved it in September 2017 for $1.5 billion. Additional lawsuits from US grain handlers and Canadian farmers are still pending.
Northrop Grumman and the Freedom Project also gave $10,000 to Senator John Hoeven in 2016.
Representative Christopher Olson, of West Fargo, helped bring Jake MacAulay and the Institute on the Constitution to NDSU, according to MacAulay’s Instagram photograph. Olson believes The Washington Post and CNN are fake news, according to Facebook and Twitter posts. He frequently tweets Breitbart news stories, and believes politics is not a game, but is war. Citing Alexis de Tocqueville, Olson also doesn’t like democracy, according to a Twitter post on October 7, 2016.
“Democracy make[s] every man forget his ancestors, hides his descendants, and separates his contemporaries,” Olson wrote.
Theocracy is a model that he, and others, appear to support through Facebook posts, Likes, and Twitter feeds.
Olson is the introducer of a bill to change or halt refugee resettlement in North Dakota by offering local communities the power to request a moratorium. Cass County Commissioner Chad Peterson also supported Olson’s efforts. Local media quoted Olson in January 2017 saying he is against hate crime legislation and anti-discrimination laws, as such laws are not effective.
Olson’s a fan of Breitbart, and he also follows the John Birch Society, an old Cold War-era nonprofit that is still waging war against the “Red menace,” and has been diligently evading claims its organization is racist and anti-Semitic since the 1960s. He is also following the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which purports a Darwinian view of society in which elites are natural and government intervention is destructive, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. The institute believes forced integration and affirmative action is primarily responsible for the complete destruction of private property rights.
Olson likes the Chalcedon Foundation, reported as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Although the foundation’s name was founded with the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. in mind, the group supports theocracy, and the death penalty for practicing homosexuals and other abominators. “Father of Christian Reconstructionism” and the foundation’s founder, Rousas John Rushdoony, denied the Holocaust before his death, and wrote that American slavery was “generally benevolent” despite “misguided attempts to make whites feel guilty about it,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Ruth Institute is another organization Olson follows, and it is listed as a hate group because of its anti-LGBTQ message and association with the American Family Association, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
More prominent among these associations Olson subscribes to is the Federation for American Immigration Reform, or FAIR, listed as a hate group since 2008 by the Southern Poverty Law Center for its “virulent and false attacks on non-white immigrants.” FAIR is a lobbying organization, which according to its website seeks “to influence public policy directly by lobbying.”
Olson joined the North Dakota Freedom Defense Force III Public Forum, a recruiting forum for state militia, which contains many posts about the use of force against those in power and advertises handbooks on anti-Islamic resistance, exploding targets, and body armor for sale. The III in the name stands for the Three Percenters, also written as 3%ers and III%, and is described as an American “patriot movement” aligned with the Oath Keepers, one of the largest radical antigovernment groups in the USA today. Michael Brian Vanderboegh founded the Three Percenters group, and it has been linked to planned domestic terror attacks in Kansas in 2016 against Somali Muslims. Three Percenters have gathered into small militias around the United States, believe that only three percent of colonists fought in the Revolutionary War, and that the federal government is working to destroy American liberties, according to Vice News and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
ND Security Force III% patch – on ND Freedom Defense Force III% Facebook page
Nationally, Three Percenters have more than 10,000 members, and the North Dakota Freedom Defense Force III has a total of 145 in North Dakota. Included in the site’s posts is a picture of well-armed militia with Confederate flags flying, which says: “Preserve History III% Security Force.” On June 28, the group changed its name after the national movement “split” from III% Security Force to III% Freedom Defense Force, according to an announcement, which combined the states of North Dakota, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Colorado, Montana, Illinois, New York, Florida, and Alabama.
Representative Rick Becker, from Bismarck, founded the Bastiat Caucus in North Dakota in 2013, and is a fan of Young Americans for Liberty, a group that rose from the ashes of Young Americans for Freedom and listed in 2006 as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Young Americans for Liberty is listed as a hate group because of its sponsorship of right-wing extremist lectures, on the “perils of multiculturalism.”
Becker also follows “Alt-right” personalities such as Tomi Lahren, and the late Ayn Rand, known as the “patron saint of the libertarian right,” and founder of Objectivism, who said during a speech at West Point that racism didn’t exist in the USA, until liberals brought the issue up, according to media outlet Salon.
“Today, it is to everyone’s advantage to form some kind of ethnic collective,” Rand said during the 1974 speech. “If you can understand the vicious contradiction and injustice of a state establishing racism by law. Whether it’s in favor of a minority or a majority doesn’t matter. It’s more offensive when it’s in the name of a minority because it can only be done in order to disarm and destroy the majority and the whole country. It can only create more racist division, and backlashes, and racist feelings.”
Later in her speech, she lashed out against Native Americans.
“But now, as to the Indians, I don’t even care to discuss that kind of alleged complaints that they have against this country,” Rand said. “I do believe with serious, scientific reasons the worse kind of movie that you have probably seen – worst from the Indian viewpoint – as to what they did to the white man. I do not think that they have any right to live in a country merely because they were born here and acted and lived like savages.
“Any white person who brings the elements of civilization had the right to take over this continent, and it is great that some people did, and discovered here what they couldn’t do anywhere else in the world and what the Indians, if there are any racist Indians today, do not believe to this day: respect for individual rights.”
On Facebook and Twitter, Becker likes right wing organizations such as the Ludwig von Mises Institute, which believes forced integration and affirmative action is primarily responsible for the complete destruction of private property rights. Not far away under Becker’s Facebook and Twitter likes is the Tenth Amendment Center, or TAC, an antigovernment movement and organization that declares itself non-partisan and favors nullification of federal laws it considers unconstitutional. The tenth amendment defines the establishment and division of power between the federal and state governments, and came under fire in the 1950s when Southern states tried unsuccessfully to resist desegregation by nullifying federal laws.
TAC falls into the “Alt-right” category as the organization frequently invites speakers from the John Birch Society, and neo-Confederate hate group League of the South, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Further down on Becker’s Facebook likes are Glenn Beck and Restoring Honor Rally, a 2010 rally led by Beck, known as a “master divider along racial lines” icon. During a career in Top 40 radio, Beck frequently performed imitations of “black guy” characters and racist tropes, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which including mocking unarmed blacks shot and killed by white police officers. Beck refers to Reverend Jesse Jackson as “the stinking king of the race lords,” and whips up opposition to what Beck calls, black nationalism.
On Twitter, Becker follows Beck, the Ayn Rand Institute, and some of his Likes include a post from TheBlaze and Bill O’Reilly (who has recently settled sexual misconduct claims for $32 million) which states that Black Lives Matter is a “hate America group.” Becker also follows the Goldwater Institute, a think tank that promotes legislation called out by the president of the Southern Poverty Law Center in October for attempting to promote laws that will circumscribe the ability of college presidents to speak out against racism.
Representative Luke Simons, of Dickinson, also likes Young Americans for Liberty and the Bastiat Caucus on Facebook. He likes Breitbart editor Ben Shaprio, who claimed the LGBTQ community doesn’t really face discrimination, an untruth, or in the words of President Trump — “fake news” — according to Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reporting Program statistics. In 2015, 17.7 of all reported hate crimes in the country – 5,818 single-bias incidents involving 7,121 victims – stemmed from sexual orientation bias. Since 2005, LGBTQ people are twice as likely to be targets of violent hate crime as other minority groups, according to the FBI’s 2014 hate crimes statistics.
Representative Sebastian “Seabass” Ertelt, of Lisbon, follows the Bastiat Caucus on Facebook. He has also joined a Facebook group called the American Party, ND. Horace Greeley, a 19th century New York newspaper editor, once called the American Party the “Know-Nothing” party. The American Party is also recognized as the precursor to the Ku Klux Klan, as it pushed for immigration bans on foreign paupers, criminals, idiots, lunatics, insane and blind people, and wanted a 21-year naturalization period before an immigrant could become an American citizen. The American Party’s candidate for the 2016 Presidential election was Robert Macleod Jr., and the page currently has 33 members.
Representative Daniel Johnston, from Valley City, is a fan of Jake MacAulay and the Institute on the Constitution, an organization that has ties to the Confederate hate group League of the South, and calls the Southern Poverty Law Center “a joke.”
“I don’t impose or force my ideas on anybody, but just like you I am entitled to an opinion,” Johnston said on his own Facebook post.
Representative Dwight Kiefert, from Valley City, frequently posts Breitbart articles on his Facebook page, and he also likes the Conservative Tribune, a right-wing media outlet that frequently belittles the Southern Poverty Law Center. He’s also liked religious right attorney Jay Sekulow, personal attorney for President Donald Trump, and chief counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice. Sekulow i also affiliated with the Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism. Both companies are nonprofit organizations. In June 2017, The Guardian discovered Christian Advocates Serving Evangelism steered more than $60 million to Sekulow since 2000, after using fundraising tactics on the poor and unemployed about “abortion, Sharia law, and Barack Obama,” according to The Guardian.
Kiefert likes the anti-gay rights Benham Brothers, whose rising voices in right-wing Christian circles could not have happened without the Family Research Council, according to the Benham Brothers. The Family Research Council split from Focus on the Family in 1992, and has links with the Family Research Institute, a Colorado-based hate group, and with David Duke and the Ku Klux Klan.
Fargo City Commissioner and Fargo Deputy Mayor Dave Piepkorn, from Fargo, has nearly no online presence, preferring to work with political mouthpieces such as the SayAnything Blog, AM 1100 “The Flag,” radio, and Valley News Live. His Facebook profile is either hidden, or doesn’t exist, but his call for uncovering the costs behind refugees in Fargo and across the state has sparked heated debate since he made the proposal in October 2016.
Burleigh County Commissioner Jim Peluso, from Bismarck, is a fan of Right Stuff, Hardcore Conservative on Facebook, which is a nearly identical name of The Right Stuff, a fascist, anti-Semitic, prominent mouthpiece of the “Alt-right.” An inordinately large number of stories featured on Right Stuff, which has 451,000 followers on Facebook, reported on black people or Muslims beating white people, white people getting even, or blurbs damning current immigration policies. Peluso also follows a Facebook group with more than one million followers called Angry Patriot, which is filled with “fake news” from Christian News Alert defending President Trump’s actions.
Tennessee multi-state milita during training – FTX with ND, MN, OH, SC, GA.-ND Freedom Defense Force III% Facebook pagejpg
Woman allegedly involved in fake adoption scheme of Native American children
FARGO – Betty Jo Krenz is now in the Stutsman County State’s Attorney’s Office crosshairs.
Krenz, approximately 46, and formerly living in Woodworth, was once a case manager for the Spirit Lake Tribal Social Services. Her role within the tribe ended in 2011. She became a high-profile figure speaking out on tribal issues and was included in a 2014-campaign advertisement approved by Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-ND. She appeared in Cramer’s campaign ad entitled “No One Should Have To Be Afraid” in 2014. Three years later, the video had 377 views and 15 subscribers onYouTube.
Government attorneys had one interview transcript before Monday, but received two reports since then, Frederick Fremgen, the Stutsman County’s State’s Attorney, said. The Stutsman County Sheriff’s Office was the lead investigator, according to officials.
As the investigation is currently underway, Fremgen would not release any additional details about the case, he said, including if an arrest warrant will soon be issued.
During the time she was allegedly involved in faking adoptions, she frequently mentioned Cramer, and U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson, according to Autym Burke, who said she was “duped” by Krenz. She initially paid $1,800 in adoption fees, which were later mostly paid back.
Krenz was also a nominee for the 2017 L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth Award, but was not selected, according to L’Oreal management staff. She has a long criminal record involving forgery and writing bad checks, both under her current surname and former surname, Edland, according to North Dakota court records.
On September 27, 2017, the Spirit Lake Tribal Council banned Krenz from entering the Spirit Lake Reservation, tribal administration reported.
Since Burke made thesituation public on September 21, complaints against Krenz have gone viral on social media. Burke lives in Oregon, and although she met Krenz during the near year-long faked adoption process, she had no idea that 1,500 miles away the baby in question belonged to Jodie Blackboy, a registered member of the Spirit Lake Nation, she said.
Blackboy said she did not know Krenz was using her infant daughter’s pictures for “her own gain,” she said.
Other online messages between alleged victims and Krenz talk about Blackboy’s baby Julissa, and Haisley Jo, believed to be the same baby taken during Savanna Greywind’s murder on August 19. Krenz’ messages about Haisley Jo were written on August 27. Haisley Jo and the suspects in Greywind’s murder were found and arrested on Thursday, August 24. Haisley Jo was returned to her father, Ashton Matheny, in early September.
Krenz also had multiple GoFundMe accounts, raising more than $16,544, and $4,470 for a math camp for Lakota children. She was also involved in the Kind Hearted Woman Dream Shelter in Jamestown; with Robin’s House, a shelter for women and children, and a blog called Restless Spirit Blog, last updated in 2016. During a September 2016 YouTube posting, Krenz also discusses a $2,000 micro grant she planned to use to help women for Damsel In Defense, a women-empowering organization.
Burke said in September that her family felt heartbroken for the baby’s mother, Jodie Blackboy, and spoke out because she wanted to ensure nobody fell for Krenz’s lies.
Blackboy said in a September 23 Facebook post that she knew Krenz for years, and came close to letting Krenz take her child, temporarily. Now that the Stutsman County State’s Attorney’s Office will be investigating the charges filed by law enforcement, Blackboy was pleased.
“That’s great news,” Blackboy said.
Burke had questions when she heard the news. “This is the first I am hearing of this news,” Burke said. “Do you know what the charges are? Is she being arrested?
“I am thrilled that law enforcement is taking this matter seriously. So many people including my family have been hurt. This is great news.”
Krenz taking the spotlight in Cramer’s campaign is an issue Burke hopes will be noticed.
“He [Cramer] owes the people of North Dakota an apology for not doing his research on her before aligning himself with her so tightly,” Burke said. “I have made it clear that he played an intricate role into my faith in her. I believed she was tight with him, she must be okay. I was a fool to believe that, and he is a fool for not stepping up and admitting that a gross error has been made here in his camp.”
Janel Herald, the founder of the National Collective of Concerned Parents, said the case was feeling like another crime against Native Americans that was to be swept under the rug until the State’s Attorney’s Office became involved.
“Silence speaks volumes,” Herald said. “I’ve taken away a lot from that silence. To Governor Burgum, senators Hoeven and Heitkamp, and especially Congressman Cramer who used Mrs. Betty Jo Krenz in his campaign advertisement, this is what your silence has spoken: you chose not to speak out against the protection of children and child exploitation. You chose not to speak on protection of the citizens against fraud, theft by deception or conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Why is that? Why do you choose to take ‘wait and see’ approaches on even the matters that would matter the most to your constituents – humanity.
“It is a shame to have you as the leaders of North Dakota.”
Cramer’s office has been contacted repeatedly for comment, but has said nothing about the situation.
More than 761 arrested, 310 cases dismissed, so far two activists imprisoned in connection to DAPL controversy
By C.S. Hagen MANDAN – Defense lawyers are whittling down the cases involved with the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, but the sudden imprisonment of two last month came as a shock, and has activists wondering if the state is either being vindictive, or changing strategies.
“I was singled out among many who were unjustly arrested,” Alex Simon said.
Simon, 27, is a teacher from New Mexico and served 13 days of an 18-day sentence for locking arms with activists – known as water protectors – against a police line on October 22, 2016. That same day, 140 others were arrested with him, but only one other received a jail sentence: 65-year-old Mary Redway, a retired environmental planner from Rhode Island.
Mary Redway spent four days in jail for standing her ground while at Standing Rock – photograph by Liminal Films
“I was shocked that he ordered us to jail immediately,” Redway said after she served four days inside the women’s booking cellblock of the Burleigh Morton Detention Center. “We were shackled and led out of the courtroom as though it were a scene from a really bad movie. It was [Judge Thomas A.] Merrick’s way of saying ‘F*ck you.’”
“It seems that Judge Thomas A. Merrick wanted to make an example of me, berating me because, in his opinion, I didn’t ‘have a dog in the fight,’” Simon said. “He is mistaken, and I am proud to help shoulder the burden in the fight for Indigenous Rights. If this is the price I must pay for Indigenous Peoples to pursue a path towards sovereignty, I am honored to do it.”
“I’m out,” post from Alex Simon on Facebook
Both Redway and Simon say they were treated decently while inside, surviving on a high-carbohydrate diet. Redway was treated with “kid’s gloves,” while Simon even made a few friends during his incarceration.Redway said the booking guard refused to believe she was convicted and imprisoned on a disorderly conduct charge.
“I had to show him the court papers before he would change what he had typed in,” Redway said. “Then he muttered something to the effect that nobody gets jailed for disorderly conduct.”
So far, 310 cases for activists arrested during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy have been dismissed or acquitted, 107 activists made plea deals, 24 cases have had pre-trial diversions, and one case has made an appeal to the North Dakota Supreme Court, according to Sarah K. Hogarth, communications director with the Water Protector Legal Collective. Another 109 cases are inactive, and 259 cases remain to be tried, calendared until July 2018.
A total of 761 people were arrested during the months-long opposition to the 1,172-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department. The Water Protector Legal Collective reports 854 people were arrested.
Alex Simon spent 13 days in jail for locking arms with activists against the Dakota Access Pipeline – photograph by Liminal Films
Chase Iron Eyes, an attorney and registered member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who ran against Congressman Kevin Cramer R-ND, last year, is one of those arrested and he’s still awaiting trial. He faces felony charges of inciting a riot, and plans to use the necessity defense, a tactic denied to valve turners in Pembina County by Judge Laurie A. Fontaine in early October.
Iron Eyes plans to argue that his crime, while he does not dispute his involvement, was justified because he committed them to prevent a greater harm. His case had a hearing on Friday to argue that his attorneys needed more time to gather evidence.
Iron Eyes also plans to challenge the “civil rights conspiracy” narrative that portrayed activists as terrorists, which resulted in harsh treatment.
“Radicalized capitalists are the terrorists,” Iron Eyes said in a Facebook post on Friday. “The unnatural outlier, the disease of all pursuits of life, liberty, happiness and spirit. Here they stand before God, criminalizing water protectors, privatizing water, preying on the impoverished, forcing a form of indentured servitude for capital exchange, committing genocide, and forcing people to kill each other for their own profits. Not in defense of land, water, people or even ‘country.’ We, sentient beings, are committing unforgivable murder on the innocent for their endless war machine, their death march.”
Redway is now out of jail, and finishing up her community service with theWater Protector Legal Collective in Mandan. Despite the state’s poor conviction record, she is worried that state prosecutors, and state leaders, are changing tactics. Judge Merrick was one of the petitioners who attempted to change the Supreme Court law to stop out-of-state attorneys from defending primarily out-of-state defendants.
The petition failed after the North Dakota Supreme Court received 536 comments against changing the law.
On October 23, Cramer along with 80 colleaguespetitioned US Attorney General Jeff Sessions to help prosecute “to the fullest extent of the law any criminal who try to destroy energy infrastructure.
“This is about right and wrong,” Cramer wrote. “As we’ve seen from the DAPL riots, environment terrorism – when left unchecked – sets a dangerous precedent that puts lives at risk and has resulted in major damage to private and public property.”
Judge Merrick – photograph taken by Liminal Films
“We’ve seen the state change it’s strategy vis-a-vis prosecution tactics,” Redway said. “They really went to town on my trial with enhanced photos taken from helicopter footage to establish who was where, and when. There was nothing like this in any earlier trials, and they brought in new charges and a judge from the surrogate circuit who is vindictive and willing to twist the law. All new plays.
“The state has found its winning combination and will probably try to replicate it in future trials. Chilling. They may even recharge those who had their original two charges dropped, but haven’t yet gotten the new charges.”
Despite serving time behind bars, both Redway and Simon do not regret their actions.
“The movement for Indigenous Rights is so powerful because it is focused on healing historical and environmental trauma and it is being led by people whose ancestors were the original stewards of this land,” Simon said. “As a fellow human being a person who comes from Jewish descent, I am compelled to help alleviate suffering wherever it exists.”
“Would I do it again?” Redway said. “To be clear: I had no intention of getting arrested that day. But I also believe, the judge’s verdict notwithstanding, that I did not break the law in any way. I do not regret my actions, despite having been convicted and sent to jail. I stand by my right to peaceably protest.”
Details of a faked adoption, mother-to-be speaks about how she was duped
By C.S. Hagen
WOODWORTH – Autym Burke spent months preparing a nursery for the child she thought she was to adopt.
Living in Oregon, she’d seen pictures and videos of the Native American baby she planned to name “Ruby.” The paperwork seemed to be in order, at first, the caseworker seemed legitimate. After all, Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-ND, included her in a campaign video.
The reported caseworker, Betty Jo Krenz, was included in a 2014-campaign advertisement approved by Cramer. She also spoke at a congressional subcommittee meeting involving Cramer, and bragged about her relationship with the North Dakota congressman and a presidential candidate, Burke said.
“In the beginning she did mention her tie to him [Cramer] several times,” Burke said. “She also said she was a friend of Ben Carson. It was really only in the beginning. I’m sure it was to gain our trust.”
Betty Jo Krenz in Kevin Cramer campaign ad – YouTube
Burke spoke of Carson, the neurosurgeon, and former presidential candidate, currently the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump Administration.
Krenz also said she was a nominee for the 2017 L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth Award, Burke said, for which anyone can be nominated but only 10 finalists are accepted. Spokespeople for the prestigious award affirmed Krenz had been nominated, but was not selected.
“Embarrassing that we fell for this nonsense,” Burke said. “But when I checked out the Congressman Cramer thing, it was legit.”
Cramer was contacted for comment repeatedly by telephone and emails. Cramer’s Communication Director, Adam Jorde, replied saying, “Congressman Cramer is unavailable for your interview request.”
Krenz, approximately 46, was a former caseworker for Spirit Lake Tribal Social Services until she was fired in 2011, and is currently under investigation for fraud and being involved in fake adoption proceedings by the Stutsman County Sheriff’s Department. Krenz has a long criminal record involving forgery and bad checks under her current surname and a former surname, Edland, from 1998 until 2015, according to North Dakota court records.
She appeared in Cramer’s campaign ad entitled “No One Should Have To Be Afraid” in 2014. Three years later, the video had 314 views and 15 subscribers on YouTube.
Approximately 1,500 miles away in South Dakota, “Ruby’s” birth mother, Jodie Blackboy, a registered member of the Spirit Lake Nation, knew nothing about her infant daughter being a candidate for adoption. Her baby’s real name is Julissa, and said in a Facebook post that the scam continued behind her back for eight months.
“I did not know Betty Jo Krenz was using my daughter’s pictures for her own gain,” Blackboy said. She discovered what she called a scam through a Facebook post from Burke.
“My daughter was never up for adoption and I’m not going to jail for drugs,” Blackboy wrote in a public September 23 Facebook post. “I trusted this woman for years, almost let her take my child, thank God I didn’t, I would have never got her back, and only to find out she was in it for my child.”
The same day she posted a picture of Krenz and titled it: “Human child trafficker alert.”
Another Facebook conversation written by Amber Jo, who claimed to be Krenz’s daughter, said her mother is “as corrupt as the person who fired her, and as far as I’m concerned, she should not be around children herself. I know her well, I’m her own blood, and this lady has no right to be around those children.”
The alleged long con A family friend who wishes to remain anonymous introduced Krenz to Burke in February this year.
“First contact with her was over the phone,” Burke said. “Before this ordeal was complete, we had communicated by phone, text, Messenger, and she even came to my home in Oregon to conduct what we now know to be a fake home study to make sure we were qualified to adopt this little baby girl. She inspected our home and spent a great deal of time with us over the course of a week.”
Screenshot of conversation pertaining to the baby Autym Burke was to adopt with Betty Jo Krenz assistance – Facebook post
Even though Krenz came with a high personal recommendation, Burke did her due diligence, she said. Krenz seemed well connected, and said she loved the Native American people. Her apparent relationship with Cramer played a “huge role” in believing Krenz was credible. She was an apparently fierce advocate for women and children and helped find homes for the children of birth mothers who didn’t want to or couldn’t raise their children, Burke said.
“I have to say, there are very few people I have ever liked as much as I did Betty Jo upon first meeting a person,” Burke said. “She was so great.”
Day by day, Burke’s dreams of adopting a baby girl slowly melted away.
“There were a few things throughout the whole process that caused a slight amount of doubt here and there,” Burke said. “However, she told me many times that I have lived under a rock my whole life and just don’t get how the system works. She is very convincing. It wasn’t until the very last week of August that I knew she was lying to us, and that this baby, who we had named Ruby, was never coming home to us. It was a heartbreaking process getting to the end of this and uncovering her lies one by one. Very, very painful.”
The most poignant proof Burke had about what she calls a con was the lack of proof.
Weeks of delays were followed by excuses. Judges had full court schedules. Paperwork needed signing.
“Something in my heart was telling me that she was lying,” Burke said.
Burke, who has no natural children, and her husband, who has two boys, began demanding proof of the documentation they were promised. They wanted to stop relying on Krenz’s word.
“When she couldn’t produce the proof over the course of the last 48 hours of this ordeal, we knew it was all lies,” Burke said. “And then I confronted her with her lies and she didn’t even deny them.”
Krenz is still under investigation, and has not been arrested at this time. Repeated attempts to contact Krenz have not been successful.
Screenshot of conversation between Betty Jo Krenz, sometimes known as Jo Betty, and Autym Burke on August 26, 2017 – Facebook post
“I can’t explain how painful this realization was for us,” Burke said. “Of course I know now that this sweet little baby was never meant to be ours, but it was still a heartbreaking blow to our family. I know my husband and I never held her, but she truly was in our hearts.”
The Burke family didn’t seek out a Native American child to start with, she said.
“Our hearts were open to any child from anywhere,” Burke said. “However, when this came into our lives without us seeking it out, it felt very meant-to-be at that time.”
Knowing little about Native American adoption issues, they accepted an explanation that their baby-to-be was not eligible for enrollment in an indigenous tribe. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 gave a strong voice to tribal governments concerning child custody hearings involving Native American children, by giving tribes jurisdiction on a reservation.
An indigenous child is considered a ward of the tribe. The act was enacted due to the excessive removal of indigenous children – approximately 35 percent – from traditional homes into non-Indigenous and religious groups.
Krenz has numerous GoFundMe accounts, including one that is now now closed, which raised $16,544. Another account Krenz is credited with being involved with is called a math camp for Lakota children and raised $4,470. Krenz was also involved with the Kind Hearted Woman Dream Shelter, in Jamestown, with Robin’s House, a shelter for women and children, and with a blog called Restless Spirit Blog, last updated in 2015. On a September 2016 YouTube channel, Krenz discusses a $2,000 micro grant she planned to use to help women for Damsel In Defense, an empowering women organization.
Three years ago, Krenz issued a public statement on Disqus.
“Well, I am proud to say I am a birth mother of a baby girl I chose to place up for adoption 22 years ago, and I can assure you I received nothing and paid my own medical expenses,” Krenz wrote. Punctuation and grammar have been altered for editing purposes.
“Adoption fees go to the place that does the legal work involved in name changing and other court work involved. Legitimate adoptions thru agencies such as The Village do not pay the birth mother a penny. I know nothing about surrogate mothers, but I have seen children sold on a reservation and it’s nothing that I care to see legalized in this state.”
“We are very sad at the heartache this had caused for Jodie Blackboy as well,” Autym Burke said. “I never would have reached out to her if not just to try to protect her and Julissa from Betty Jo. Honestly, putting this behind us would be the best way to begin healing, but we felt she needed to know. We felt she too was lied to. And as sad as this loss is, we truly are so glad that it ended where it did and did not go further, and that Jodie and Julissa are together and doing so well.
“We will stand by them as long as it takes to shine the light bright enough on this issue to make sure no one else is victimized by Betty Jo Krenz. And maybe more people will come forward if they hear our story.”
As pipelines leak, and Bakken soil is poisoned, North Dakota politicians snuggle closer to oil tycoons
By C.S. Hagen
FARGO – The collusion between might and money historically has been the beginning of the end for countless empires.
From China’s Shang Dynasty more than 3,000 years ago to the American Revolutionary War against a corrupt monarchy, when power marries money, downfall always follows.
North Dakota government’s collusion with private corporations is “so expansive that there does not appear to be a sense in the general public where there is anything wrong with this,” Barry Nelson of the North Dakota Human Rights Coalition said.
It was the same when ancient China’s King Zhou Xin created a pond filled with wine to float on, or when King George III raised taxes on the colonies to fill royal coffers. Both leaders, at the pinnacle of empire, decided not to listen to what was right, but to what they thought was profitable.
No ethics committees or commissions exist within the Peace Garden State. Instead, the North Dakota Century Code leaves ethical decisions up to the individual.
“The resolution of ethical problems must rest largely in the individual conscience… to resist influences that may bias a member’s independent judgment,” North Dakota legislation reports.
Today, the Dakota Access Pipeline is leaking, and the Bakken earth is poisoned. Politicians are welcoming slick-talking oil tycoons like conquering heroes. Despite a United Nations condemnation of state militarized tactics in March, little, if anything, has changed in the Peace Garden State. Hundreds the 761 activists arrested during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy still await trial, adding to the approximately $38 million the state has already spent militarizing local police and quelling the disquiet outside of Standing Rock. And while litigation continues, it’s business as usual for state politicians.
On April 19 Valley News Live “Point of View” Anchor Chris Berg posted pictures of Congressman Kevin Cramer R-ND, ceremoniously giving Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren the pen President Trump used to sign the DAPL executive order. Additionally, Berg thanked Warren online for traveling to the Peace Garden State, and asked Governor Doug Burgum – not for the first time – if the state would accept a fat check from the CEO of Energy Transfer Partners.
Pictures of Rep. Kevin Cramer presenting Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren with pen President Trump used to sign the DAPL executive order – photo listed on POVnow Facebook page
It is a move many suggest is similar to the age of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency collusion with the federal government. Warren continues to offer to pay in full the state’s expenditures used in militarizing police and cracking down on Standing Rock and the No DAPL movement.
So far, the offer has not been rejected by state politicians.
North Dakota will receive up to $15 million in federal funding for costs incurred during the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, according to Governor Burgum’s office.
“We’re committed to pursuing all avenues available to hold the federal government responsible and ensure that North Dakota taxpayers alone don’t bear the enormous costs of law enforcement and other resources expended on the protests,” Burgum said.
Rep. Kevin Cramer and Energy Transfer Partners CEO Kelcy Warren – photo posted on POVnow Facebook page
Burgum also sent a letter to President Trump stating that the federal government is significantly responsible for costs due to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to enforce regulations.
“Ethically, it has all the appearances – it has a smell to it – it seems to be undue influence of one industry, one company, on federal and state governments, and you want to believe the government is there to make sure all sides of the issue are addressed,” Nelson said.
During the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, the state was not looking out for all sides of the dispute, rather to assist oil industry’s agenda, Nelson said.
“It’s one thing when it feels like collusion between a government official, in this case Kevin Cramer, and a corporate head of a private industry, in this case a pipeline company, if the general public feels all of this was perfectly justified, then what is considered right and wrong anymore? It makes you step back. The North Dakota Human Rights Coalition believes that this kind of collusion between private industry and government is wrong. Good cannot come out of this.
“It speaks so much about power and money against the people.”
Bakken earth is poisoned, according an April 27, 2016 study released by Duke University, funded by the National Science Foundation, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and published in the Environmental Science & Technology magazine. The study shows that accidental wastewater spills from “unconventional oil production in North Dakota have caused widespread water and soil contamination.”
Much of the poisons come from brine, or saltwater used in frakking, and is non-biodegradable.
More than 9,700 wells have been drilled in the Bakken region of North Dakota in the past decade, which led to more than 3,900 brine spills, primarily from faulty pipes, the report states.
The water studied in some spill sites was unsafe to drink, the study reported.
High levels of ammonium, selenium, lead, and salts have been found in the soil; streams have been polluted by wastewater, which contain contaminants, according to the study. Soil along spill sites has also been contaminated with radium, a radioactive element.
“Many smaller spills have also occurred on tribal lands, and as far as we know, no one is monitoring them,” Avner Vengosh, a researcher and a professor of Earth and Ocean Sciences at Duke University said. “People who live on the reservations are being left to wonder how it might affect their land, water, health and way of life.”
The spills are primarily coming from pipelines in the Bakken area, he said. The spill areas have not affected reservoirs for human drinking water, but some are close. Everyone shudders when news of an oil spill breaks headlines; brine spills are far more frightening, he said.
“Nature cannot heal from inorganic brine spills,” Vengosh said. “The contaminants are going to stay. You can dilute and over time this will help, but the actual concentration will remain.”
In other words, areas where the brine spills have occurred in the Bakken region must be completely removed and disposed of. Radiation, which could spread by wild animals, is another concern that is difficult to control.
“And the more wells you drill, the more spills you have,” Vengosh said..
The narrative spun by the state has assumed that the need for militarized security was because of out-of-state environmental terrorists who chose to stake their claim here, Nelson said. “So no responsibility is placed on bad decisions made by the state legislators, that the company violated laws and did things that were illegal. None of that is laid at their doorstep. All is on the doorstep of people coming from around the country, and locally from Standing Rock.
“It’s blaming the rape victim that they got raped.”
Additionally, the 1,100-mile-long Dakota Access Pipeline, made from “sterner stuff” according to politicians and engineers, and with Russian steel, according to DeSmog, has already leaked 84 gallons in South Dakota. A storage tank outside of Keene, North Dakota spilled 25,620 gallons when an operator overfilled the tank, according to North Dakota Department of Health.
Both spills took investigators a month to announce the mishaps to the public.
“This spills serves as a reminder that it is not a matter of if a pipeline spills, it’s a matter of when a pipeline spills,” Dallas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network said. “The fact that this occurred before Dakota Access even becomes operational is all the more concerning. We fear more spills will come to bear, which is an all too frequent situation with Energy Transfer Partners pipeline projects. As such, eyes of the world are watching and will keep Dakota Access and Energy Transfer Partners accountable.”
Although most of the world thinks Standing Rock’s movement is dead, remnants remain. For months, Facebook statuses reported former Dakota Access Pipeline activists, or water protectors, felt lost after the February closing of the camps outside Standing Rock. Dozens of cases have been thrown out of court, but not all.
Some water protectors are still wandering. Others have found new causes defending water at Flint, Michigan, Dresden, Ohio, and against the Piñon Pipeline in New Mexico. Activists have also set up the Four Band Great Sioux Nation Camp on Standing Rock land.
The movement against big oil, for native rights and clean water, has spurred at least fifteen new camps to life around the country, according to Rev. Karen Van Fossan, a minister of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship & Church of Bismarck-Mandan.
A “Stand with Standing Rock” banner hangs outside her church, a congregation that has been in Bismarck for 65 years. During the controversy her church and church members housed at least 250 activists. The stance her church takes on the issue has created controversy in Bismarck she said, but is also a blessing in disguise.
“Some of us who are white, and haven’t experienced racism in any kind of real way, have now had some glimpse of what that experience might be like,” Fossan said.
“In my experience, the water protector movement has given us in North Dakota an opportunity to face some pretty harsh realities about racism in our state. I sometimes hear it said that race relations are more strained now than they have been in some time, and people of color who I know tell me actually, the racism has been there.
“Now it is just that all of us are taking the opportunity to look at it and contend with it.”
State support of big business has trampled indigenous rights, but has given the state a unique opportunity for change.
“I have been increasingly concerned about the role of many governmental entities, locally and statewide, promoting the interests of business and painfully ignoring other voices,” Fossan, who is also a writer, said.
“Even while I’m deeply disturbed by the executive order to push the pipeline through against the very clear voices of Standing Rock and many other native nations, I do see that here locally in Bismarck and Mandan, we continue to have an opportunity like we haven’t had in a long time to look at the reality of life in our communities, and the reality of racism. Not just personal visible racism that many indigenous people and people of color in our communities experience regularly, but the systems themselves are already rolling along in ways that at best ignore indigenous voices and at worst push a pipeline through, and manifest in the arrests of hundreds of people.”
Trump’s Administration orders Army Corps to issue long-embattled final easement for Dakota Access Pipeline, Veterans Stand may return to Standing Rock
By C.S. Hagen
CANNON BALL – Nearly two months after the Standing Rock’s victory against big oil, Trump’s Administration is trying to take it away.
Senator John Hoeven, R-N.D. reported the Army Corps has been ordered to proceed with the easement needed under the Missouri River at Lake Oahe.
“Today, the Acting Secretary of the Army Robert Speer informed us that he has directed the Army Corps of Engineers to proceed with the easement needed to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline,” Hoeven said. “This will enable the company to complete the project, which can and will be built with the necessary safety features to protect the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and others downstream.”
No mentions were made by Hoeven of negotiations, or of a reroute, or of the current environmental impact study issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Earlier in January, President Trump also signed executive orders reviving the Keystone Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline, and to expedite studies pertaining to environmental impact.
The decision to issue the go-ahead clashes with the environmental impact study, which could take months or years to complete. A comment period is currently underway and will continue until February 20, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Dave Archambault II said.
Thousands, and then hundreds of activists remained at Oceti Oyate, or All Nations Camp, outside of Cannon Ball during the freezing winter months in opposition to the pipeline. Due to cleanup efforts and impending spring floods, the main camp is emptying.
Coals from the Oceti Oyate were carried to western high ground Wednesday morning, attorney and long-term activist Chase Iron Eyes reported.
“This is the start of what’s called Last Child’s Camp,” Iron Eyes said. “That name was chosen to honor Crazy Horse and the only warrior society he was known to create. For many reasons, one of those reasons being the last children that are born usually have it harder and have to struggle more.
“Our conscience won’t let us back down. DAPL seeks to bring death to our children. The easement to drill under the river is set to be granted. Ready our hearts.”
Iron Eyes called upon anyone interested and strong enough to endure the remaining cold months to join them.
Activists surround new fire at the Last Child’s Camp – video still provided by Chase Iron Eyes
Archambault has written to President Trump at least twice asking for a face-to-face meeting between leaders. All requests have not been answered, Archambault said.
“This change in course is arbitrary and without justification,” Archambault wrote in a letter to President Trump. “The law requires that changes in agency positions be backed by new circumstances or new evidence, not simply by the President’s whim. It makes it even more difficult when one considers the close personal ties you and your associates have had with Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco.”
President Trump and Hoeven, along with other North Dakota politicians, stand to gain financially if the pipeline is completed.
“Trump’s most recent federal disclosure forms, filed in May, show he owned between $15,000 and $50,000 in stock in Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners,” according to Bloomberg. “That’s down from between $500,000 and $1 million a year earlier.”
Trump also owns up to $250,000 in Phillips 66, which has a one-quarter share of Dakota Access Pipeline. Owner and CEO of Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access Pipeline, Kelcy Warren, contributed $3,000 to Trump’s campaign plus $100,000 to a committee supporting Trump’s candidacy, and $66,800 to the Republican National Committee.
In 2016, Hoeven’s largest campaign contributor was the oil and gas sector with a total of $327,963, including Continental Resources, Inc. and its CEO, Harold Hamm, who collectively donated $8,200. The Hess Corp contributed a total of $20,800 to Hoeven’s 2016 campaign. ExxonMobil contributed $10,000, and Whiting Petroleum Corporation contributed $2,750. Energy Transfer Partners donated $5,000 to Hoeven’s 2016 campaign. Hoeven has invested in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota listed under the 2012-company Mainstream Investors, LLC, according to the United States Senate financial disclosure form.
In a move many deem contradictory because of apparent disregard to Standing Rock’s repeated petitions, Hoeven, a long-time supporter of pipelines, was also elected chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on January 5, according to a Senate Committee on Indian Affairs press release.
Hoeven said he was honored to serve on the committee, but added two of his top priorities were to address job creation and natural resource management issues on native lands. He has also called upon federal assistance, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, to clear the camps outside of Cannon Ball.
“We are also working with the Corps, the Department of Justice, the Department of Interior and the Department of Homeland Security to secure additional federal law enforcement resources to support state and local law enforcement,” Hoeven said. “On Sunday, 20 additional Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement officers arrived at Standing Rock to assist local authorities. Also, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribal Council has asked the protesters to leave the campsite on Corps land.
“This has been a difficult issue for all involved, particularly those who live and work in the area of the protest site, and we need to bring it to a peaceful resolution.”
Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., a long-time advocate of the 1,172-mile long Dakota Access Pipeline, said in press releases he couldn’t be happier with the way the government under President Trump is heading.
“The meddling by the Obama Administration in trying to block this legally permitted project has encouraged civil disobedience, threatened the safety of local residents, and placed an onerous financial burden on local law enforcement – with no offer of federal reimbursement for these increasing costs,” Cramer said. “Legally permitted infrastructure projects must be allowed to proceed without threat of improper governmental interference. Finally we have a President who will stand by our efforts in Congress to bring common sense to an immigration policy in dire need of reform.”
The Indigenous Environmental Network condemned the order given to the Army Corps.
“We are falling into a dangerous place where the United States government makes up its own rules,” the network stated in a press release. The Indigenous Environmental Network is a nonprofit organization and supporter of Standing Rock and other environmental and indigenous issues.
“We are disgusted but not surprised by the Secretary of the Army’s decision to recommend the easement on the Dakota Access Pipeline. Instead of following proper legal procedure and completing the Environmental Impact Study, the Army has chosen to escalate an already tense situation, go against their own processes, and potentially put peoples in harm’s way.
“Trump and his climate denying cabinet are clearly doing what is best for their businesses and are willing to put profit before human rights and the environment. But make no mistake: we are prepared to mobilize and resist this brazen power grab.”
A group identified as Veterans Stand said it will continue to support Standing Rock and the fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“In response to recent aggressions and the passing of legislation which clears the way for the completion of the Dakota Access Pipeline, Veterans Stand is announcing that we will continue operations in support of the people of Standing Rock, the Water Protectors who have held the front lines, and the sustainability of our precious environment.
“In the spirit of service, and in the name of a free and evolutionary sustainable America, Veterans Stand is committed to ensuring that no human or civil rights violations go unchecked, that the voices of the people are truly heard, and that we leave behind a stable and unpolluted environment for future generations.”
The fourth story in the continuing fight spearheaded by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against Big Oil to save water and sacred indigenous lands in North Dakota
By C.S. Hagen FARGO, ND – The true power behind the Dakota Access Pipeline extends beyond the private sector and into state leadership. This gray eminence – or power behind the proverbial throne – rivals the story books both ancient and modern, truth and fiction.
Such as China’s Empress Dowager Cixi who was the iron will behind Qing Dynasty’s last emperor, Puyi, or Dick Cheney, dubbed the “intellectual godfather” of President George W. Bush’s administration. In North Dakota, politicians have been bought, unilaterally across the state by big oil and gas lobbyists, according to statesmen and analysts. Some have invested heavily into Bakken oil interests declaring profits for the good of North Dakota’s infrastructure.
“We are where we are… and having difficulties today because only one side has been able to really participate in the decision making in North Dakota that’s totally dominated by the oil industry,” Don Morrison, executive director of the Dakota Resource Council, said. “So what’s happened is our elected officials – every single one of them – is supported by the oil industry.”
The USD 3.8 billion Dakota Access Pipeline project has drawn thousands of activists together to an encampment outside of Cannon Ball, ND, in what is known as the largest gathering of Native Americans in 140 years, since the Battle of the Greasy Grass, where Colonel George Armstrong Custer made his infamous “last stand.”
It isn’t the first time North Dakota has leapt into the oil race, with the best intentions, but the state is now blindly following big oil’s agenda and supporting it with every law possible, Chase Iron Eyes, a lawyer and the Democratic challenger for the US House or Representatives for North Dakota, said. Iron Eyes has no support from the oil and gas sector in his 2016 race against Congressman Kevin Cramer R-N.D.
“It is a conflict of interest,” Iron Eyes said. “As a lawyer, I would get in trouble for that. In this case the client is the people of North Dakota, and it is obvious what has happened in the last 10 years. Our politicians do not do what is best for the people.”
Ten years ago, most people in North Dakota supported responsible growth in the Bakken Formation. Today, however, an unhealthy environment of either you are either for oil, or against oil, with no room in-between, has emerged, Morrison said.
“The power of the oil industry in so many ways sets the agenda of North Dakota. It’s what they do,” Morrison said. “They dominate. They’ don’t listen to anyone else’s opinion. Why? Because North Dakota elected officials have decided that’s the future of North Dakota, and that they don’t want to fight the oil industry.
“Every time questions are raised about this, people are accused that they want the oil industry to go away. And it’s been designed by the politicians to do the bidding of the oil industry.”
Iron Eyes wants responsible growth in the state, but on North Dakota’s terms. As a member of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, founder of the Last Real Indians website, and an activist who challenged white supremacists’ attempt to take over the town of Leith, North Dakota in 2013, Iron Eyes said today’s oil conundrum is the fallout from politically-motivated personal interests and big oil pressure from behind the scenes.
Chase Iron Eyes marching with activists at NDSU – photo by C.S. Hagen
On Friday, Iron Eyes arrived in Fargo to march with advocates of Standing Rock at North Dakota State University. Approximately 40 students and supporters attended the march. Prayers were said. Every participant was smudged with sweetgrass. Before marching, Iron Eyes recalled the day in 2010 when he saw – for the first time – big oil lobbyists in Bismarck’s YMCA.
“I thought, oh no, big oil is moving in,” Iron Eyes said. “I didn’t think too much of it at the time, but now I know it was the conglomerate that began pulling our state in this direction. I’m running for Congress out of necessity. I take a look around and I see that our government is broken, and I feel responsible to do my part to try and fix this on behalf of North Dakota.”
The Dakota Access Pipeline will also have a negative effect on the railway and trucking industries, Iron Eyes said. Iron Eyes has received numerous emails from labor unions and shipping industries asking him questions. “I don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes, but it’s all about who gets the money, who gets the authority to transport.”
Not everyone believes big oil’s agenda is pulling North Dakota’s strings, rather that state and big oil interests are aligned. Bismarck Mayor Mike Seminary said that although the possibility of conflicts of interests exists, he doesn’t believe it to be true among North Dakota’s current politicians.
“I think it is par for the course across the board,” Seminary said. “I don’t think that’s a conflict of interest. It always bothers me when people go there. I would never ever, ever question whatever motive they have for making investments. They’re trying to get a return. For the better part of eight years that was one of the best places to get money if you wanted a return.”
Recently, the “Commission,” or North Dakota Industrial Commission, Oil and Gas Division, a government agency established in 1919 to manage certain utilities, currently comprised of Governor Jack Dalrymple, Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, and Agricultural Commissioner Doug Goehring, pushed big oil agenda by attempting to ban the public sector from testifying, or having any input at Commission meetings. Only “interested parties,” which would have included project owners and landowners would have been allowed to testify, if the suggestion had been ratified.
Open processes are difficult, Senator Erin Oban said at the April 11, 2016 hearing about new rules for state oil regulation, but they are necessary.
“It would have been easier, I suppose, to limit that process and to only allow a select few to testify,” Oban said. “But my job as a public servant is not to make things easier for me, it’s to make it open and accessible to the public.”
President of the labor advocacy group North Dakota AFL-CIO, Waylon Hedegaard, attended the same meeting, and said big oil has cozied up to North Dakota politicians, effecting legislation, and twisting policy to their collective wills.
“I believe everything we do has to be done to the best of our abilities,” Hedegaard said. “Our government has to regulate to the highest degree, achieve the highest quality, we have to hire the most skilled craftsmen, the most skilled people, and our government has not regulated the oil field nearly to the extent it should have.”
The lack or regulation concerning oil drilling, fracking, waste disposal, and crude transportation has created the perception that all construction in the Bakken region is about bad players putting poor pipes into the ground, Hedegaard said. Hedegaard also asked the Commission to strike the amendment from the proposed rules.
“The essence of democracy is that everyone who thinks they are a stakeholder in something comes together vocally, or gets their opinion out there, and then argues over it and we come to a compromise,” Hedegaard said. “It is not democracy when there’s another group of people limiting who has interest in a certain thing. Democracy is a messy thing.”
Activists on the Missouri River near Cannon Ball, ND – photo by C.S. Hagen
Rocks, according to retired correctional officer Eric Thompson, are the only disinterested party to big oil interests.
“If a party drinks water, oil and gas developers could take a minute to make them an interested party,” Thompson said at the hearing. “If a party breathes air, oil and gas developers could take a minute because air is a requirement for life.”
During recent legislative processes, oil companies have frequently opposed changes, and continue to do so stating the “crackdown” is too expensive and that the timing is bad – oil price decline has caused steep inactivity in drilling in North Dakota. No oil companies stepped forward to oppose the “interested party” amendment, according to Commission records.
North Dakota, the second-biggest oil producing state in the USA, and among the ten largest oil patches in the world, has historically been lackadaisical about instating stricter regulations. A spirit of leniency toward oil companies has been fostered in North Dakota, analysts said. Criticism over lowering fines for oil and saltwater spills has mounted. In January 2016 the Commission agreed to scrutinize the issues, but behind close doors.
Some of the state’s top politicians are chairmen or members of regulating agencies governing big oil and Native American interests. Additionally, big oil supports the political campaigns for Dalrymple, Senator John Hoeven, Senator Heidi Heitkamp, and Cramer, making their voice, according to some, tainted.
Kevin Cramer
Congressman Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., is a member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where some of the largest legislative battles regarding oil regulation are started. Cramer is also a member of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations (Energy and Commerce), and a member of the Subcommittee on Environment and the Economy, and has served on the North Dakota Indian Affairs Committee. Cramer’s largest campaign contributor is the oil and gas sector with a total of USD 138,500, Xcel Energy contributed USD 12,000, and Tesoro Corp. contributed USD 11,000.
John Hoeven
Senator John Hoeven, R-N.D., is on the United States Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and also a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Hoeven is a member of the Subcommittee on Energy, the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, Subcommittee on Public Lands, Forests, and Mining, and the Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy. Hoeven’s largest campaign contributor is the oil and gas sector with a total of USD 327,963, including Continental Resources, Inc. and its CEO, Harold Hamm, who collectively donated USD 18,200. ExxonMobil contributed USD 10,000, and Whiting Petroleum Corporation contributed USD 2,750. Energy Transfer Partners donated USD 5,000 to Hoeven’s 2016 campaign. Hoeven has invested in 68 different oil-producing wells in North Dakota listed under the 2012-company Mainstream Investors, LLC, according to the United States Senate financial disclosure form.
Jack Dalrymple
Governor Jack Dalrymple, R-N.D., a long-time advocate of oil interests, chairman of the Commission, and is also the chairman of the Commission and the North Dakota Indian Affairs Commission. The top supporter for Dalrymple’s most recent campaign is the oil and gas sector with USD 467,290 in donations, and Hamm personally donated USD 20,000, while Hess Corporation’s CEO John Hess gave USD 25,000. Dalrymple has stated he will not run for a second term.
Heidi Heitkamp
Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a ranking member of the Subcommittee on Rural Development and Energy, and a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. The tenth-ranking supporter for Heitkamp’s campaign is the energy and natural resource sector, according to Vote Smart, and the oil and gas sector is the third largest contributor to Heitkamp’s 2016 campaign with a total of USD 258,379, according to Open Secrets. Hess Corp donated USD 19,600, BP contributed USD 17,750, Continental Resources, Inc. donated USD 17,500, American Petroleum Institute donated USD 13,250, and Xcel Energy donated USD 13,000.
Chase Iron Eyes
Chase Iron Eyes, D-N.D. has raised USD 82,127 in 2016, running as the challenger for District 1 as a Democrat. Iron Eyes has no support from oil and gas or energy and natural resources sectors, and his largest contributing sector is casinos and gambling. Ho-Chunk Nation is top supporter with a donation of USD 5,400.
Kelcy Warren
Kelcy Warren, the main force behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, founder of Energy Transfer Partners, is worth USD 7.3 billion, according to Bloomberg, Dakota Access Pipeline quietly purchased 6,000 acres last week of private ranch land near to Camp of the Sacred Stone – the historic Cannon Ball Ranch, which begs questions on how the purchase was made possible. Energy Transfer Partners donated USD 304,200 in 2016 and USD 581,300 in 2014 to political campaigns.
Harold Hamm
Harold Hamm, Bakken fracking mogul, and Continental Resources, Inc. CEO, long time financial supporter of North Dakota’s politicians, and worth approximately USD 13.8 billion, according to Forbes. Hamm is currently the campaign energy advisor to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, and is a candidate for energy secretary of the United States if Trump is elected in 2016.
Top national recipients of support from Continental Resources, Inc. 2016
3rd Place: Heidi Heitkamp – USD 11,300
4th Place: Donald Trump – USD 10,928
5th Place: John Hoeven – USD 10,200
14th Place: Kevin Cramer – USD 5,000
In 2014, Continental Resources donated USD 6,200 to Heidi Heitkamp, and USD 3,500 to Kevin Cramer
Top national recipients of support from Hess Corp. 2016
2nd Place: John Hoeven – USD 20,800
8th Place: Kevin Cramer – USD 10,000
19th Place: Heidi Heitkamp – USD 3,500
In 2014, Hess Corp donated USD 15,600 to Heidi Heitkamp and USD 2,600 to Kevin Cramer
Top national recipients of support from BP 2016
5th Place: Heidi Heitkamp – USD 15,700
100th Place: John Hoeven – USD 1,000
In 2014, BP donated USD 2,000 to both Heidi Heitkamp and John Hoeven
Top national recipients of support from Energy Transfer Partners 2016
6th Place: John Hoeven – USD 5,000
In 2014, Energy Transfer Partners donated USD 1,500 to both Kevin Cramer and Heidi Heitkamp
– financial statements made available by Vote Smart and OpenSecrets Center for Responsive Politics – statistics do not reflect Dark Money groups, or educational or membership building donations.
Every day, 1,027,131 barrels of oil are produced in North Dakota, and a total of 1,662,917 thousand cubic feet of natural gasses are produced from 13,248 wells, according to the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Mineral Resources.
Since January 2016, more than 100,900 gallons of crude oil, waste oil, bio solids, natural gas, and brine were spilled in North Dakota and surrounding areas, according to the North Dakota Department of Health records. Approximately 50,000 gallons of slaked lime solids slid into the Missouri River in June causing unknown impacts, according to the North Dakota Department of Health.
Few companies involved in the spills have been fined. In January, the Commission reviewed six outstanding spill cases with fines totaling USD 600,000, according to the Bismarck Tribune. Additionally, past spills are still being cleaned up around the state, such as the Tesoro Corp. spill of 2013, the XTO Energy, and the Oasis Petroleum Inc. spills of 2014 and 2015, according to Bill Suess, Spill Investigation Program manager of North Dakota Department of Health.
Spills occur on a daily basis, Suess said, the cleanup is costly, and companies are rarely fined.
“Not every one gets fined,” Suess said. “Usually we hold off as long as we can on the fines because it is a motivator to get them cleaning it up.”
The North Dakota Industrial Commission’s policy on levying fines for damaging spills is unclear, and is usually negotiated then settled for a fraction of the initial fine. In 2015 and 2016 the Commission proposed a total of USD 4,525,000 in penalties, collecting USD 125,976, and suspending for one year a total of USD 461,250. No violations were reportedly committed, according to the Commission.
“Although generally reported otherwise, fines are never forgiven,” the Commission’s Public Information Officer Alison Ritter said. Every fine is a legal process, and if a company contests a fine the case will be taken to court. “Fines are suspended for a period of time, usually a year, to encourage changed behavior from a company.”
Wild West: Cowboys vs. Indians
Racism against Native Americans in North Dakota, is prevalent across the state. Nearly every activist who stands to speak in Big Camp’s Sacred Circle mentions racism, oppression, and genocide, in one form or another.
North Dakota State Highway Patrol logo
From the logo emblazoned on State Highway Patrol vehicles – Sitting Bull’s killer Marcellus Red Tomahawk – who was from Cannon Ball area, to whistleblowers in 2012 condemning federal and state authorities of allowing native children to be placed in homes with sexual predators, to the recent use of attack dogs against activists, to blatant disregard and ignorance for native cultures, to big companies armed with eminent domain laws whose only concern is profit, to North Dakota politicians, namely Cramer during a 2013 meeting with Abused Women Services, who verbally attacked and threatened Native Americans.
The list goes on. The State Highway Patrol’s emblem is a constant reminder of oppression, many activists said. From the beginning of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not include Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in meaningful discussions, the lawsuit filed by Standing Rock Sioux Tribe against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stated. Native archeologists have been ignored, activists said. Petitions for consultation as a sovereign nation went unanswered, according to court documents. Morton County law enforcement is working under standard operating procedures, without regard to native practices or culture, officials said. And now, Dakota Access Pipeline quietly purchased 6,000 acres of private ranch land near to Camp of the Sacred Stone – the historic Cannon Ball Ranch. A blow to Standing Rock Sioux some say is below the belt.
Buffalo drinking from pond near Cannon Ball Ranch – photo by C.S. Hagen
Twenty parcels of the Cannon Ball Ranch, established 1883 and inducted into the North Dakota Cowboy Hall of Fame in 1999, was sold to Dakota Access Pipeline by David and Kathy Meyer on September 22, for an undisclosed sum. The area lies west of Highway 1806 where the Standing Rock Sioux claim burial grounds and other sacred sites were disturbed on September 3, the day of the attack dogs and pepper spray that injured at least eight people, according to camp attorney Angela Bibens.
“The signs are there, as far as the fear politics,” Iron Eyes said. “Just being unwilling to back down from that posture. It revives the old prejudices that exist, that we’re trying to evolve from. We’ve been living side by side for 120 years, and now it gives the Indian the reason they need to demonize white people. The white people are at our door again, and trying to make us beg again. They’re trying to turn us into beggars.”
One other questionable fact raised Seminary’s eyebrows when he first heard news the pipeline’s route was moved from north of Bismarck’s water wells to its current location, a spear’s throw from Standing Rock Sioux Tribe reservation land. He knew trouble was coming.
“And here is the first thing I said to myself, ‘Really. Really? You were concerned about Bismarck’s water source? You just made your job a lot harder.’ That was my first impression, and that probably didn’t win me any supporters on the deal.”
“It feels a lot like racism,” Iron Eyes said. “We’re all evolving from some form of say, I don’t want to use this word, oppression, but that is what it is.”
Seminary agreed with Iron Eyes that systemic racism is a contributing factor to today’s controversy over the Dakota Access Pipeline. This racism, dating back hundreds of years, emboldens the “wasi’chu,” or the white man to exclude natives in important talks with a historically ‘take what we want’ mentality. Ignorance on how to approach tribes like the Standing Rock Sioux as sovereign nations under binding treaties with the United States government, has been in play since the planning stages of Dakota Access Pipeline, activists and legal documents stated.
“But nobody talks about that stuff in North Dakota,” Iron Eyes said. “The governor created the emergency, he declared it, and he called in the National Guard, and now he is crawling to Obama, asking him to foot the bill for this emergency.
“There is no emergency to speak of that merits his kind of response.”
“We have some racial tension in this,” Seminary said. “We have some racial tension in the country. For whatever reason it is worse now than it has been for some time. I don’t care what someone looks like, I don’t care about ethnicity, we are all on God’s planet and we’re supposed to do as much as we can for each other while we are here.”
Looking back, Iron Eyes wondered if the entire Dakota Access Pipeline situation couldn’t have gone much differently if only all parties involved sat down to discuss with mutual respect. In the words of Sioux chief and holy man Sitting Bull, “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”
Seminary wants to help open dialogue between all parties, and traveled to Cannon Ball area to discuss racism problems last weekend.
“It just seems like we have let the civility escape the discussion. If in fact, we’re dealing with a sovereign nation, which we are, I don’t know that this standard operating procedure for how the state or its agency conducts business, is necessarily what you want to hang your hat on.
“It is a sovereign nation. Maybe, just maybe another step should have been added to the process,” Seminary said.
Activists singing alongside the Missouri River near Cannon Ball, ND – photo by C.S. Hagen
No Light at Pipeline’s End
On the day Dalrymple declared a state of emergency, Iron Eyes approached the governor, petitioning for an opportunity to gather all interested parties to talk about rerouting the pipeline.
“They’re not interested in anything other than what they announced as their plan, and they’re unwilling to back down from that posture,” Iron Eyes said. “Everyone is doubling down.”
From the governor, to Morton County law enforcement, to Dakota Access LLC, no one appears willing to consult with the Standing Rock Sioux and come to a compromise.
“As non partisan leaders, we are not against progress,” Iron Eyes said. The smear campaign coming from North Dakota’s extreme right, coupled with Dakota Access LLC’s refusal to discuss the issues, threatens any kind of peace.
Energy Transfer Partners’ response came in the form of an in-house memo from its CEO, Warren, who vowed to his employees to complete the 1,172-mile pipeline on time. The pipeline, if built, will “safely move American oil to American markets,” Warren stated. “It will reduce our dependence on oil from unstable regions of the world and drive down the cost of petroleum products for American industry and consumers.”
“How long can we continue with this economic reality?” Iron Eyes said. “We can continue it a lot longer if we are smart about this. We have a shelf life, we are at a tipping point as a global consumer and we have to figure out how to survive this. We can’t treat the earth as if fresh water will always be available. As if deforestation and climate change aren’t real issues. Right now it doesn’t seem to be happening, but this thing changes every day. There are going to be pipelines built here, we’re slow to evolve, so let’s do it in a way that’s smart for our state, and our people. We can do that if we avoid the Missouri River.”
If a reroute is not on the table, then there will be no “lawful resolution,” Iron Eyes said. Civil disobedience will continue.
Around 9:30 a.m. on Sunday 200 activists marched on to a Dakota Access Pipeline construction site off of Highway 6, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department. Thirty private security personnel at the scene, most left by the time protesters arrived. Three remained behind, and one security personnel was assaulted, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department.
“When law enforcement arrived, they witnessed protesters carrying the security guard for approximately 100 yards,” Morton County Sheriff Kyle Kirchmeier said. “The guard was treated for minor injuries.”
Activists departed once law enforcement arrived, according to Morton County Sheriff’s Department, but officers reported seeing knives and one activist with a pistol. On Tuesday, five more activists were arrested near St. Anthony along Highway 6, according to sheriff’s department spokesmen, and on Wednesday, 21 more protesters were arrested by officers assigned to the Dakota Access Pipeline, raising the total amount of people arrested to 95. Law enforcement brandished automatic weapons, shotguns, and drove up in an armored riot-control vehicle with sound cannons, amidst activists chanting “We have no weapons.” More arrests are pending after deputies review video and photographs taken at the scene.
“Our officers are trained to respond to the threats they perceive and to take appropriate action,” Kirchmeier said. “A charging horse combined with totality of the situation presented an imminent threat to the officer.”
“It’s a real pickle,” Seminary said. “I’m not qualified to give anything other than my opinion. Whatever the decision is I pray it is a peaceful result. I think there are some real significant decisions ahead. It’s just such a mess right now. I don’t know how, but we’ve got to go back to the drawing board.”
Activists take over Dakota Access Pipeline work area – photo provided by Morton County Sheriff’s Department
