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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"We North Dakotans trust our politicians - even when they sell us out."
I think that comment explains a lot when asking why people vote against their own best interest. They are stupid!
Where Oil and Politics Mix
By DEBORAH SONTAG NOV. 23, 2014
After an unusual land deal, a giant spill and a tanker-train explosion, anxiety began to ripple across the North Dakota prairie.
IOGA, N.D. In late June, as black and gold balloons bobbed above black and gold tables with oil-rig centerpieces, the theme song from Dallas warmed up the crowd for the One Million Barrels, One Million Thanks celebration.
The mood was giddy. Halliburton served barbecued crawfish from Louisiana. A commemorative firearms dealer hawked a one-million barrel shotgun emblazoned with the slogan Oil Can! Mrs. North Dakota, in banner and crown, posed for pictures. The Texas Flying Legends performed an airshow backlit by a leaping flare of burning gas. And Gov. Jack Dalrymple was the featured guest.
Traveling through the economically struggling nation, Mr. Dalrymple told the crowd, he encountered many people who asked, Jack, what the heck are you doing out there in North Dakota? to create the fastest-growing economy, lowest unemployment rate and (according to one survey) happiest population.
<snip>
Suddenly a percolating anxiety came uncorked. The worm is turning, Timothy Q. Purdon, the United States attorney, said in April.
It was against this backdrop that on a brisk spring day David Schwalbe, a retired rancher, and his wife, Ellen Chaffee, a former university president, walked headlong into the wind on their way to an F.B.I. office in Fargo.
A mile-long oil train was rumbling through downtown. Wordlessly, Mr. Schwalbe tightened his grip on the black binders bearing what he considered evidence, based on an unusual deal involving his familys land, that Governor Dalrymple had a corrupt relationship with the oil industry.
This has David kind of nervous, Dr. Chaffee confided. He comes from a very below-the-radar culture.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/11/24/us/north-dakota-oil-boom-politics.html?emc=edit_th_20141124&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=45299538&_r=0
Scroll to the bottom to see some of the destruction caused by this oil boom.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)North Dakota government is more corrupt than any I know of.
This is the reality of the Bakken and the heartbreak.
Doubt I'll ever return there. It was my home. What drew me back there is in too sad a state to look at anymore.
Wishing the best to those who have fought against the oil profiteers and a sincere thank you, for exposing the corruption of the NDakota government.
You have done as much as you can to protect the land & your neighbors.
God Speed
Thank You for this post liberal N proud.
I wish every newspaper in the State of North Dakota prints & re-prints this NY Times article.
Every TeaBaggin Republican in that State & across the borders to the next, needs to gnaw on the truth.
Their proud days of hunting & fishing & loving their prairie land will be a memory.
misterhighwasted
(9,148 posts)The link contains photos of the destructive truth.
Oil Cos will mow over this once pristine land till it looks just like the Canada Tar Sands horror
re post link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017228511#post1
liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)hedda_foil
(16,372 posts)The irony, it burns!