TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalWestern North Dakota landowners call property rights bill 'offensive'
Western North Dakota landowners lined up Friday to testify against an energy bill they called an “offensive” taking of private property rights, while supporters said there’s a misunderstanding of the bill’s intention.
Sponsors of Senate Bill 2344 say it seeks to clarify issues related to pore space, or the cavity or void in an underground formation.
Watford City attorney and landowner Dennis Johnson brought a sponge to the packed legislative committee hearing to illustrate pore space.
“The formations below the surface have tiny pockets of space,” Johnson told members of the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee. “It is empty, but it is a container that belongs to me and, as the owner of that container, it should be up to me whether I am going to allow someone to use it.”
Read more: https://bismarcktribune.com/bakken/western-north-dakota-landowners-call-property-rights-bill-offensive/article_3539e16e-feb0-546c-a178-0be02fb5609b.html
West Fargo man gets 18 months in prison for threatening to kill federal judge
ST. PAUL — A West Fargo man has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for threatening to murder a federal judge.
Robert Phillip Ivers, 65, was convicted by a federal jury last September and sentenced Friday, March 1, in U.S. District Court in St. Paul.
In the case, U.S. District Judge Wilhelmina Wright held a bench trial on a civil lawsuit in January 2017 brought by Ivers and ruled against him. He was trying to recoup proceeds from his policy with a life insurance company.
Ivers, according to testimony in the September trial, sent a series of threatening letters to the judge and called a court employee to say he was "crazy angry" at the judge and described himself as a "walking bomb."
Read more: https://www.inforum.com/news/crime-and-courts/980037-West-Fargo-man-gets-18-months-in-prison-for-threatening-to-kill-federal-judge
Bill would let Minnesota school leaders escape funding cuts, jail time for not making up snow days
ST. PAUL — Minnesota’s school leaders can avoid funding cuts and even jail time if a bill at the Legislature allowing snow days to be counted as school days becomes law.
The change would only be for this school year, when frigid temps and record February snowfall forced schools to close for safety reasons. Many districts have taken a week or more off because of winter weather and typically only build a few extra days into their schedule to account for arctic temperatures and snow.
State law requires students attend school for a set number of instructional hours each year. If a district fails to meet the threshold, funding can be cut and school staff could potentially face jail time.
A state Department of Education spokesman said he was not aware of any time when a district lost funding or educators were jailed for not meeting the instruction time standard because of inclement weather.
Read more: https://www.inforum.com/news/government-and-politics/979879-Bill-would-let-Minnesota-school-leaders-escape-funding-cuts-jail-time-for-not-making-up-snow-days
Former head of children's food program gets 33 months in federal prison in fraud case
PEORIA — Nora L. Steele, of Silvis, the former operations director of the Quad Cities Area Children’s Food Program, was sentenced Tuesday in federal court to 33 months in federal prison.
Through the QCACFP, at-risk youth were served meals at numerous Quad-Cities area locations, according to federal authorities. The meals often were combined with learning or care programs operated by the YMCA or Spring Forward Learning. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reimbursed the QCACFP per meal.
On Sept. 19, 2018, Steele pleaded guilty to defrauding the U.S. Department of Agriculture and filing a false tax return, according to authorities. She chose to waive indictment on the charges when she did so. At the September hearing, she admitted that from August 2015 through June 2017 she recorded more meal count forms at Church of Peace and QCACFP than actually were served when she filed for federal reimbursement.
Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Shadid sentenced her during a Tuesday afternoon hearing in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of Illinois’ Peoria courthouse. She must also serve one year of mandatory supervised release and pay about $525,000 in restitution to the federal government. She must turn herself into the U.S. Marshal's Service on March 12, Shadid said.
Read more: https://qconline.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/former-head-of-children-s-food-program-gets-months-in/article_a581ac32-0bd3-5788-9ffa-f6caea7ce005.html
By The Book: The Right Answer by John Delaney
Julie Stauch shares her thoughts on presidential candidate John Delaney’s “very readable book.” Bleeding Heartland welcomes reviews of memoirs by politicians or books on any political topic of statewide or national importance. - promoted by Laura BelinI have this rule with myself that if someone gives me a book, I always read the first chapter out of appreciation and respect for the person who shared it. In January I was invited to attend a luncheon for women hosted by April McLain Delaney, where they gave each attendee a copy of John Delaney’s book. I started reading it that day, and by the end of the week had finished the book. This is my review.
John Delaney, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives and current candidate for president, has written a book called, The Right Answer. In it he outlines how we can unify our divided nation, while sharing stories of his life. It is a very readable book: well-written, clear and not at all pompous or self-righteous in its delivery.
The book opens with a quote from John F. Kennedy, which he expressed two years before he was elected President of the United States.
“Let us not despair but act. Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past – let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
The chapter titles give you a sense of a theme, but it is the substance of each chapter that resonates.
1. Tell the Truth
2. Embrace Compromise
3. Open the Door
4. Harness the Power of Incentives
5. Think Different
6. Release America’s Inner Entrepreneur
7. See Both Sides
8. Get Back to Governing
9. Focus on the Future
Read more: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2019/02/28/by-the-book/
Rhode Island fraudster was major donor to Reynolds, Ernst, King, Pate
Four Iowa Republican candidates received large donations in 2018 from Russell Taub, who agreed last week to plead guilty to federal crimes related to his political activity.
Patrick Anderson of the Providence Journal broke the news on February 20: “Federal prosecutors have charged former Rhode Island Republican congressional candidate H. Russell Taub with siphoning more than $1 million in political donations for personal use and have reached a plea deal with him, according to court documents.”
Taub raised more than $1.6 million for political action committees he never registered with the Federal Election Commission. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (also known as FACT and formerly led by Matt Whitaker) filed an FEC complaint last July against Taub and his Keeping America in Republican Control PAC (KAIRC) “for failing to comply with the basic filing and reporting requirements of federal campaign finance law.”
Prosecutors later determined that Taub
Instead, prosecutors say Taub withdrew “nearly $100,000” in cash, transferred more than $715,000 into his personal bank accounts, and spent more than $217,000 on personal expenses including airfare, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, clothes, cigars, strip club visits and “escort services.”
The donations Taub did spend in the political arena he spent illegally, according to the charges.
He advertised KAIRC as a “Super PAC” and took advantage of that designation to raise donations in excess of the $5,000 individual limit. But prosecutors say he made more than $215,000 in donations directly to the campaigns of federal candidates, illegal for Super PACs under federal law.
Read more: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2019/02/27/rhode-island-fraudster-was-major-donor-to-reynolds-ernst-king-pate/
Cross-posted in the Rhode Island Group.
Rhode Island fraudster was major donor to Reynolds, Ernst, King, Pate
Four Iowa Republican candidates received large donations in 2018 from Russell Taub, who agreed last week to plead guilty to federal crimes related to his political activity.
Patrick Anderson of the Providence Journal broke the news on February 20: “Federal prosecutors have charged former Rhode Island Republican congressional candidate H. Russell Taub with siphoning more than $1 million in political donations for personal use and have reached a plea deal with him, according to court documents.”
Taub raised more than $1.6 million for political action committees he never registered with the Federal Election Commission. The Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (also known as FACT and formerly led by Matt Whitaker) filed an FEC complaint last July against Taub and his Keeping America in Republican Control PAC (KAIRC) “for failing to comply with the basic filing and reporting requirements of federal campaign finance law.”
Prosecutors later determined that Taub
Instead, prosecutors say Taub withdrew “nearly $100,000” in cash, transferred more than $715,000 into his personal bank accounts, and spent more than $217,000 on personal expenses including airfare, hotel rooms, restaurant meals, clothes, cigars, strip club visits and “escort services.”
The donations Taub did spend in the political arena he spent illegally, according to the charges.
He advertised KAIRC as a “Super PAC” and took advantage of that designation to raise donations in excess of the $5,000 individual limit. But prosecutors say he made more than $215,000 in donations directly to the campaigns of federal candidates, illegal for Super PACs under federal law.
Read more: https://www.bleedingheartland.com/2019/02/27/rhode-island-fraudster-was-major-donor-to-reynolds-ernst-king-pate/
Cross-posted in the Iowa Group.
Neo-Nazi group's leader is black man who vows to dissolve it
One of the nation's largest neo-Nazi groups appears to have an unlikely new leader: a black activist who has vowed to dismantle it.
Court documents filed Thursday suggest James Hart Stern wants to use his new position as director and president of the National Socialist Movement to undermine the Detroit-based group's defense against a lawsuit.
The NSM is one of several extremist groups sued over bloodshed at a 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Stern's filing asks a federal court in Virginia to issue a judgment against the group before one of the lawsuits goes to trial.
Stern replaced Jeff Schoep as the group's leader in January, according to Michigan corporate records. But those records and court documents say nothing about how or why Stern got the position. His feat invited comparisons to the recent Spike Lee movie "BlacKkKlansman" in which a black police officer infiltrates a branch of the Ku Klux Klan.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/neo-nazi-group-s-new-leader-black-man-vowing-to-dissolve-it/506508572/
Sen. Amy Klobuchar says she will 'do better' in treatment of staffers
As more former aides shared stories of sometimes-abusive behavior, U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar vowed Friday to improve relations with her staffers.
The Minnesota presidential candidate is trying to rise from a large field of competitors as stories about her treatment of employees long shared privately among Democratic operatives and insiders are spilling into the open. Former employees of her Senate office and previous political campaigns have anonymously described to BuzzFeed, the New York Times and now the Star Tribune, many examples of behavior by Klobuchar they considered abusive, bullying and demeaning.
“I’m incredibly proud of the work our staff has done and I would not be here without amazing staff,” Klobuchar said in a statement to the Star Tribune. “I know I can be tough, I know I can push people too hard, and I also know I can do better — and I will.”
Klobuchar did not grant an interview for this story.
Read more: http://www.startribune.com/sen-amy-klobuchar-says-she-will-do-better-in-treatment-of-staffers/506582872/
Man convicted after threatening St. Paul church now accused of threatening county, state workers
A man convicted after threatening violence against a St. Paul church was arrested again Friday — and now he’s alleged to have made threats on Twitter to county and state workers.
The Twitter feed for Adam Bailey, in which he includes a video identifying himself by his full name and date of birth, shows posts from Thursday that read, “Doesn’t matter what ‘their’ title is, job is, or anything else..” and “Kill ‘their’ county and state employees first.. …. :::: @FBI @CIA.”
It was the FBI that notified the Ramsey County sheriff’s office and other law enforcement agencies on Thursday at 6 p.m. regarding Adam Wayne Bailey, 36, said Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.
The sheriff’s office saw in Bailey’s criminal history that he pleaded guilty to stalking in 2017.
https://www.twincities.com/2019/03/01/man-convicted-after-threatening-st-paul-church-now-accused-of-threatening-county-state-workers/
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