u/PlainTalkND

Full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRffgYi_WOw

“We have too many empty classrooms,” Superintendent Levi Bachmeier said when asked about the proposal to pay teachers annual retention bonuses out of the earnings on the Common Schools Trust Fund. He says that more pay won’t fix all of the challenges teachers face, but that it will keep more of them on the job, and help ease their burdens.

Full episode: https://youtu.be/_yMRSzVsPuY?si=OxBA8PIVOtOhyRkr

The story: https://www.inforum.com/opinion/columns/port-prairie-st-johns-asked-state-to-keep-5-5m-medicaid-billing-settlement-quiet

Prairie St. John’s Hospital paid the State of North Dakota $5.5 million to settle an investigation into the double billing of Medicaid. The settlement wasn’t reported, because included in it as a provision prohibiting the state from announcing it, though the documents were still available for an open records request.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/oPuXeU4WnoY?si=O9nYzBgM1UwMM5WE

Senate Majority Leader David Hogue says that voters should approve Measure 1 on North Dakota’s 2026 ballot, because the state constitution should be about protecting minority points of view. They should be protected by a supermajority, he says.

Full episode: https://youtu.be/AqFItUf1Y74

During their last regular session North Dakota lawmakers implemented some very popular property tax reform, giving primary residence owners a big credit on their bills, and implementing a 3% cap on growth in property tax bills from local governments. But now locals are complaining that the cap is too restrictive. Tyler York, Democratic-NPL candidate for the House in District 43, sees room for loosening the cap.

Watch the episode: https://youtu.be/AxPWaKP4ySM?si=8BajLMACzLp80LTP

North Dakota Sec. of State Michael Howe says President Donald Trump’s vote by mail rules would have been impossible to implement had the courts allowed them to go forward this election cycle.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/QB2cywhyaBg?si=23zIAb6sv9GIysj9

The North Dakota legislature bailed out the military museum, but Sen. Sean Cleary says he’s frustrated. At a time when the state is looking at budget cuts, when there’s resistance to things like school meals, the Legislature is giving tens of millions of dollars to a military museum? He said this project is going to become an example of what not to do.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/cizy929k558?si=mlzBj6pGDvIIXnw_

With diesel prices over $5.00 per gallon as we head into harvest season, and an ugly trade war with Canada, plus inflation and rising input costs, we talk a lot about when North Dakota’s Republican political leaders will start standing up to President Donald Trump and his policies. But, upstream from that, when will North Dakota voters change their minds?

Watch the full episode → https://youtu.be/eg_qJPM9zrU?si=bMR42fUKg9dl2Ey2

American Experiment North Dakota economist Martha Njolomole defends her group’s call to provide funding for school choice, and private schools, by taking it from public schools.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/besauVEG1Z4

Rep. Desiree Morton, who has made headlines with bigoted comments about Somali immigrants and Muslims, defends those comments in an email to a constituent.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/9PtM5XalZCI?si=rOlZ9IwXYcmpR7fW

In the past, police abuse of the databases of information available to them has been rampant. With Flock cameras creating whole new horizons of ways in which our activities can be tracked, lawmakers need to look at regulating who in law enforcement can access that information, and under what circumstances.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/Oa8igCFkEzY?si=UDjmut4ga0sIxkAx

A survey conducted by the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction found that more than 80% of North Dakotans believe teachers need a raise. That’s a rare area of agreement in these divided times says Superintendent Levi Bachmeier, who also argues that the state has the resources to do it.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/ISwRa7Lt2CU

A topic that has caused public consternation around development in North Dakota is the practice of companies asking public officials to sign nondisclosure agreements about their proposed projects. Sen. Tim Mathern has a bill for the upcoming special session that would ban the practice, but only for data center issues, which Democratic candidates have made a central campaign issue this election cycle. Shouldn’t that sort of legislation cover other types of projects?

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bM3KO9Pvlg

Article: https://www.inforum.com/opinion/columns/port-republican-lawmaker-suggests-a-ward-system-for-fargo-would-allow-the-city-to-be-taken-over-by-imports

Rep. Desiree Morton is back in the news with more ugly comments about Fargo’s immigrant, Somali, and Muslim communities. She says that a proposed ward system would allow these 'imports' (as she described them) to take over city government.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bM3KO9Pvlg

Gov. Kelly Armstrong has called North Dakota lawmakers into special session to address a kratom crisis. Mac Haddow from the American Kratom Association said they partly agree with Armstrong’s move. They fully support a ban on synthetic kratom, which Haddow said is basically an opioid. However, he argues that natural kratom only needs regulation.

Watch the full episode: https://youtu.be/IlidsSzE4CE

Gov. Kelly Armstrong says that because kratom is widely available for purchase in North Dakota, over the counter, with not even an age limit, that North Dakotans are assuming it’s safe and not addictive. But that’s not necessarily true, he says. He hopes that lawmakers ban kratom, both in synthetic and botanical varieties, but if they don’t, he hopes they implement age limits and some regulations to ensure that ingredients and dosages published on packaging are accurate.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TesNZ2S-IDU

Dr. Chris Tiongson is a Democratic candidate running in a deeply Republican state, in District 41, where the incumbents are all Republicans. He has a lot of progressive ideas about what the state ought to be doing, but how does he balance that with the reality that we have to pay for those things, and the public may be unwilling to do so?

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-RBrjMUQ8M

We’re going to run into a “glass ceiling” with housing in North Dakota where it becomes a “burden” on the state’s economic growth, says Adrian Cummings, president of the Grand Forks-based Forx Builders Assocation.

Former Fargo city commissioner Arlette Preston explains how a switch to a ward system for city government would go if voters approve it in a special election. She also explains would would happen to current members of the city commission.

#northdakota #fargo

North Dakotans support the military, and the Heritage Center in Bismarck is a wonderful and popular amenity, so it’s shocking that the state Historical Society couldn’t raise $38 million to get a military museum built. But ground has been broken on the project, and if some donors don’t step up, the taxpayers may be left holding the bag.

Watch the full episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUKavCJTVc0

Is North Dakota still open for business? Longwater co-founder and CEO Brooks Burgum answers that question, saying that a growing chorus of not-in-my-back-yard objections to development in the state is “scary.”