Dakota Beacon

The Questions

What:

• What is your favorite movie?
• What is your favorite television show of all time?
• What kind of music do you listen to the most?
• What is your favorite book?
• What is the most important book you have ever read?
• What is your favorite song?
• What is your favorite leisure activity?

Who:

• Who is your favorite author?
• Who are your top 3 figures in world history?
• Who are your top 3 figures in U.S. history?
• Who are your two favorite U.S. Presidents?
• The economist who’s ideas most reflect your own is?
• Who are your three favorite U.S. Supreme Court Justices of all times?
• Who are the four most influential people on your life?

On a scale of 0 to 10:

• The U.S. Federal Government’s role in K-12 education is?
• The U.S. Federal Government’s role in College education is?
• The U.S. Federal Government’s health care regulation is?
• A flat tax is a good idea?
• The definition of marriage is that of the union of one man and one woman?
• Human activity is leading to climate change?
• The United States Constitution is a living, breathing document/national law?
• I agree with President Bush’s position on embryonic stem-cell research?
• The traditional national media is truthful and accurate.
• The emergent alternative media of bloggers and talk radio are truthful and accurate.
• The emergent alternative media of bloggers and talk radio effects politics and public policy.
• Popular culture is eroding the institution of the traditional two parent family.

If:

• If government support was withdrawn tomorrow corn ethanol would be economically viable.
• If no, how long until viability?
• If government support was withdrawn tomorrow, wind generated electricity would be economically viable?
• If no, how long until viability?

Misc:

• When is a human being a person?
• Will you make the following pledge: "I hereby pledge to the people of my district/state upon my election to the U.S. Senate, to sponsor and support legislation to repeal any federal health care takeover passed in 2010, and replace it with real reforms that lower health care costs without growing government."
• If you'd been in the Senate at the time it was being considered, would you have voted for the TARP bailouts?
• If you'd been in the Senate at the time it was being considered, would you have voted for the "stimulus" spending?
• Given the national budgeting situation, with big deficits and debts, will you forgo so-called "earmarks" or other North Dakota-specific spending not related to necessary security and/or infrastructure needs?
• How would you approach deficit-reduction at the federal level?
• How would you treat your constituents differently than Byron Dorgan?
• Do you believe in Truth, Justice, and the American way?
• Do you believe in Liberty and Justice for all?

WorkCompCentral is the nation’s premier publication dealing strictly with the Workman’s Compensation industry. WorkCompCentral is a news and information service for that industry. They publish news daily and provide information regarding rules, regulations, case law and various related legal issues. They also have extensive continuing education training and facilities.

That said, they have now seem to have gotten a whiff of the North Dakota stench coming from the persecution/prosecution of Sandy Blunt. WorkCompCentral is a subscription only website but they have graciously given The Dakota Beacon permission to reprint the article by Bill Kidd.

Columnists Defend Former WSI Director, Blast Prosecutor: Top [01/11/10]         
By Bill Kidd, Central Bureau Chief
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Two prominent workers' compensation columnists say they believe former North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) Director Sandy Blunt got a raw deal when he was convicted of misusing state funds to pay for items such as employee lunches and sick leave.

And they have targeted the prosecutor in Blunt's case for severe criticism. The prosecutor says the columnists don't have their facts straight.

Joseph Paduda, principal in Health Strategy Associates, and Peter Rousmaniere, columnist for Risk & Insurance, cite, among other issues, allegations that the prosecution may not have disclosed information that could have exonerated Blunt. They also argue prosecutors inflated what were at most misdemeanor violations into felony charges.

Blunt was convicted in December 2008 of charges relating to misapplying more than $10,000 of entrusted money from the state monopoly workers’ compensation insurance fund. Jurors found Blunt not guilty of a second count, which alleged that he gave out illegal bonuses totaling $7,509 to four employees.

Blunt’s case is currently on appeal before the North Dakota Supreme Court.

Blunt told WorkCompCentral Friday he could not comment on the case. “My attorney would absolutely excommunicate me if I did,” he said. But Blunt said he had seen the columns by Paduda and Rousmaniere and said he was grateful that "some people appreciate that there are some significant issues" involved.

Cynthia Feland, assistant state’s attorney for Burleigh County, began to investigate Blunt in 2006. In April 2007, she charged him with criminal misapplication of entrusted property.

Rousmaniere, in a column published Jan. 5, called “virtually all of the evidence…trivial, such as the $320 the fund spent on lunches at an employee summit and other sums for gift certificates, flowers and small employee bonuses.”

Blunt also was charged with misusing an employee’s license plate number in an attempt to find who had leaked WSI payroll data to reporters, Rousmaniere said.

In August 2007, a district court dismissed the charges as lacking merit but the state Supreme Court reversed that decision.

Rousmaniere wrote that the prosecutor, “lacking a respectable case,” added to the earlier allegations, including that Blunt allowed an employee whom he had recruited to “earn…unused sick leave” and not require the employee to repay relocation expenses after the employee was forced out.

Steve Cates, who publishes the Dakota Beacon, has run a series of articles on "The Prevaricating Prosecutor," examining the case against Blunt and actions by prosecutors in Blunt’s case.

An article published in November alleges prosecutors withheld an exculpatory memo from Blunt and his attorney, Mike Hoffman.
Cates wrote that the document would have allowed Hoffman to argue at pretrial that the sick leave and moving expenses at issue "had no probable cause to support them and therefore should not be added to the case against Blunt."

"Possession of the memo would have also allowed Hoffman to stop dead the primary assertion of the prosecutors regarding Sandy Blunt’s preferential treatment of WSI employees (which was a major prosecutorial theme in the trial)," Cates argued.

Cates said the alleged action violated North Dakota’s rules of criminal procedure and professional conduct.

Paduda, who has written several times on the Blunt case, quoted from Rousmaniere’s column in a Jan. 6 column of his own, concluding that “what the state of North Dakota has done to Sandy Blunt is reprehensible.”

“If and when the (North Dakota Supreme) Court does the right thing and throws out his conviction, Blunt should sue the prosecutor and her accomplices for every dime they have and ever will have. Their behavior was that egregious,” Paduda wrote.

WorkCompCentral furnished Feland copies of the articles by Paduda and Rousmaniere for comment.

In an e-mail reply, Feland said that “I find it unfortunate that the authors have chosen to print information without checking their facts.”

“A transcript of the trial is available and if they would have reviewed it, it would have been obvious that the information they received and used to write their stories and base their opinions was inaccurate,” Feland wrote.

“For example:  Mr. Rousmaniere stated (I) ‘tarted up the criminal count with three more heavier-looking allegations.’

“The facts from the case established that no new ‘allegations’ were added.

“They were always part of the case and the information concerning them was provided to the defense at the beginning stages of the case,” Feland said.

Rousmaniere told WorkCompCentral that Blunt may have been caught up in “a lot of turmoil” regarding the operation of WSI.

Rousmaniere said in his column that as Blunt was settling in at the fund in 2004, WSI was being attacked in newspaper articles as becoming an “unchecked empire” after being placed under an autonomous board in 1997.

Over the next few years, WSI was targeted by a state auditor’s investigation, subjected to “intense media attention and legislative hearings,” and drew public attention because of salary increases not given to other state employees, Rousmaniere said.

The board’s status was changed by a public referendum, so the fund is back under the control of the governor’s office, Rousmaniere said.

Unlike other state funds, Rousmaniere told WorkCompCentral, “this is a state that’s going in the reverse direction,” away from professionalism.

Blunt’s prosecution was “nasty froth atop a wave of popular distrust of the autonomous status of the fund,” Rousmaniere wrote.

Paduda, who has described Blunt as “a decent, honest, very capable guy who has been absolutely screwed,” concluded his column with the warning that “if this could happen to a person as above-board and completely honest as Sandy Blunt, it could happen to you.”

One thing in the controversy seems clear:  whatever the North Dakota Supreme Court decides, it will generate a lot of comment.

Rousmaniere’s column can be found at http://www.riskandinsurance.com/story.jsp?storyId=316815677.

Paduda’s column can be found at http://www.joepaduda.com/archives/001712.html.

Cates’ article can be found at http://dakotabeacon.com/entry/the_prevaricating_prosecutor_iii_no._4_states_attorney_withholds_exculpator/

In the 70 years since implementation of the New Deal, rural populism drove Washington D.C. to expand the depth and breadth of government's role in rural America.  We saw the introduction of rural electrification, paved roads, railroad regulation, grain elevator regulation, and commodity price regulation. Furthermore, the populist movement in North Dakota created the state mill and state bank. I have no intention of debating the efficacy these two institutions or the federal policy of the time. My purpose is to discuss the sour legacy of Populist tactics upon North Dakota.

My favorite traits of the populist are their unceasing adoration for people and the core paranoia of the movement. These attitudes are revealed in the Populist lexicon.

Populist politicians have a distinct vocabulary; I will use Mark Schneider's own words while describing Byron Dorgan and his independent Populist style: a better day for children, quality affordable education for all, a helping hand for those who cannot help themselves. This banter is a distraction to the real issues facing North Dakota specifically Cap and Trade and Health Care. So, while the NPL is out adoring the people, we conservatives must bring forth leadership and ideas to ensure the lignite coal industry a secure future in North Dakota. Finally, Byron Dorgan opposed Cap and Trade for one reason: the speculation of carbon credit on Wall Street.  He made no mention or distinction to the economic impact of Cap and Trade to North Dakota.

Populist politicians such as Earl Pomeroy distract citizens with terms like "out of state interests."  These out of state interests' have for 18 years waged a coordinated effort to slander the character of Earl Pomeroy.  And, after 18 years I would think someone in the media would have the curiosity to ask Congressman Pomeroy to name a specific threat.  Anyway, this is the 21st century and we should encourage interests from outside our borders to aid the growth of our economy.

On another note, I would like to welcome Kevin and Cramer to the congressional race. And let me be clear; Kevin Cramer is a leader and his record demonstrates this fact.

Very Best Regards,
Paul

CNN's Jack Cafferty explains the profligate spending and arrogant ways of the U.S. Congress and why he thinks the leader of that body is a HORRIBLE WOMAN.

A MUST WATCH VIDEO!Not because of what he calls Madam Speaker but WHY.

While the North Dakota media continues to ignore the biggest miscarriage of justice in recent history, industry insiders and top analysts begin to expose the truth about the persecution of Sandy Blunt. How can it be that people at the very top of the industry would make so many public pronouncements in defense of a convicted FELON? Answer: THEY WOULD NOT unless they KNEW with near certainty what was going on! THE VINDICATION CONTINURES TO GROW! But will North Dakota ever know? Time will tell.

Major Worker’s Comp blogger Lynch Ryan (over 7,600 unique site visitors in December 2009) weighs in on Sandy Blunt and the strange case of his persecution. Ryan writes at Workers’ Comp Insider that:

Sandy Blunt and the goings on in North Dakota - Good for Peter Rousmaniere and Joe Paduda for shedding light on the travesty of a prosecution related to Sandy Blunt, former CEO of North Dakota's Workforce Safety and Insurance. I met Sandy Blunt at a conference in DC a number of years ago and had been following the turn-around he was effecting in North Dakota's system. He struck me as progressive, innovative, and very sharp - it seemed a real coup for North Dakota to have his services. Then came a series of surprising charges resulting in his ouster. In following the case, it appears that most of these charges were minor, trumped up administrative issues, such as spending a few hundred dollars on lunches and gift certificates to motivate staff - practices that were not uncommon in other state departments. Other more serious charges were dismissed or shown to be erroneous. Blunt has appealed his conviction to the state's Supreme Court and we hope he will prevail.

Read more about the Sandy Blunt Persecution at The Dakota Beacon website.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

After a series of articles written by himself (Joe Paduda, nationally prominent analyst), and top author Peter Rousmaniere at Risk and Insurance (Blunting Political Vindictiveness), the top periodical of workman’s compensation, WorkCompCentral started to get a whiff of something rotten in the state of Nodak and started an interesting process of investigation.  It seems that the more Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney says, the more curiouser and curiouser things get.

Joe Paduda’s article of January 12, 2010 “Fact Checking – North Dakota Style”, begins to put the hot, hot spotlight on the shenanigans that were used to convict former North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance CEO Sandy Blunt. It is not a pretty sight. He provides a nice summary of the situation saying:

Turns out that the prosecutor who brought the charges, Cynthia Feland, knew that failing to collect the moving expenses was not a crime - yet she brought charges anyway.

She had in writing that the ND Attorney General advised state auditors in October of 2006 that the exec did not voluntarily leave and thus there was no legal authority to collect. This fact was then put in writing to Feland a year before the trial and she

- added it as a crime just weeks before the trial and

- withheld the memo proving it was all legally done, thereby not giving the defense exculpatory evidence she was legally required to provide."

That's a big assumption, as her comments could have referred to any of the other posts I've written about the Blunt case, but as the possible withholding of exculpatory evidence is the most egregious of the prosecutor's actions, I'll focus on it.

Ms. Feland has now made public statements that authors have been incorrect in their interpretation of the events and situation of the Sandy Blunt case. Will she give a straight answer to Paduda’s latest query?:

Ms Feland made an assumption of her own in her note to Kidd; in fact I have read the relevant parts of the transcript, and searched the entire transcript for any mention of the memo in question. Couldn't find any reference to it anywhere. Now, I'm certainly no attorney, so it's possible I didn't look for the right words. So I've asked Ms Feland to tell me exactly where the memo is mentioned in the transcript, when it was placed into evidence, and/or any other official documentation that it was shared with Blunt before or during the trial.

I'll keep you posted.

For more background check out the Sandy Blunt Persecution section of The Dakota Beacon website.

Obama getting serious about terrorism.....

America’s premier periodical of Insurance, “Risk & Insurance” is weighing in on the Sandy Blunt affair in shall we say “Blunt” terms when their star columnist, Peter Rousmaniere, publishes his article “Blunting Political Vindictiveness”.  Having spent a lot of time in study of the travesty of justice which is the Sandy Blunt affair, perhaps my favorite quote from the article is:

Blunt's criminal trial took place in December 2008. Feland, lacking a respectable case, tarted up the criminal count with three more heavier-looking allegations, one of which the judge threw one out (claiming that Blunt had improperly awarded a grant to a volunteer firefighter association).

And….

The prosecution of Blunt was nasty froth atop a wave of popular distrust of the autonomous status of the fund. With the Blunt conviction, North Dakota has marched toward, not away from, more political intrusion into workers' compensation.

Let's hope that this kind of political vindictiveness remains rare in our field. Best wishes, Mr. Blunt, in your career.

The article first appears online, and will be published in the next issue of the print version. The folks that know about insurance and bureaucracy are interested and know what took place in North Dakota even if no one in the N.D. media will say anything.

"After a lot of thought I have made the very difficult decision that I will not be seeking reelection in 2010, "Dorgan wrote in a memo to staff distributed this afternoon. "This decision is not a reflection of any dissatisfaction with my work in the Senate, nor is it connected to a potential election contest next fall (frankly, I believe if I were to run for another term I would be reelected)."

Read all about it in The Washington Post!

Byron Dorgan, Abortion, and the Cloture Vote Deception

In August of 2009, Senator Byron Dorgan promised the citizens at the numerous Town Hall meetings that he would not support a health care bill that did several things. Other than telling his state’s citizens what he would not do, there is no evidence that he made any effort to DO anything thing about opposing in any way, those thing he knew that the vast majority of North Dakota voters wanted. Instead, it will turn out that technically, he will be instrumental in advancing the radical socialist agenda of the President Obama, Senator Reid, and Representative Pelosi  triad (the ORP).

The Senator is telling you one thing, then purposely making sure that the ORP has a victory by providing the crucial procedural vote that really matters to ensure the massive take over of health care by the ORP. The Senator, having ensured the ORP victory will then vote against the bill on the final vote so that he can claim to have done what he told the home folks he would do. Once again, the head fake will work. Without doing anything to truly oppose the ORP  agenda other than say things, Senator Dorgan will ensure the opposite, and no one in the state media will have the guts to call him on this very significant bit of deception.

 In August Senator Byron Dorgan said, "I've indicated I won't vote for a bill that's a government take over of health insurance, or the healthcare system. I won't vote for a bill that pays for abortions, public funding for abortions. I won't vote for a bill that represents healthcare rationing. I won't vote for a bill that undermines or undercuts healthcare for senior citizens in their Medicare program."

From the fully documented and source referenced Heritage Foundation analysis of the bill:

“The Senate health care bill would overhaul the entire health care sector of the U.S. economy by erecting massive federal controls over private health insurance, dictating the content of insurance benefit packages and the use of medical treatments, procedures, and medical devices. It would alter the relationship between the federal government and the states, transferring massive regulatory power to the federal government.”

If Federal funds will be used for abortions in the final Senate bill it will before the first time in American history and your dollars will be dispersed by the federal government to kill unborn children. The bill as currently written allows requires federal subsidies to private health plans that cover elective abortions.  While the bill includes a “state opt-out” provision  so that if any state outlaws insurance coverage of abortion federal funds will not be used in “that” state, it’s all a huge deception because it does not prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for elective abortions in other states. Senator Dorgan should be ashamed for complicity in this fraud!

Over $500 billion in Medicare cuts are demanded in the Senate bill. Chief actuary Richard S. Foster of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has raised the alarm that, the results of these cuts are likely to be so costly to hospitals and nursing could not afford to service Medicare paid patients any longer.

The likely political cover for Senator Dorgan will be that he will vote against H.R. 3590 on the final vote, because for passage all the Senate needs is 51 in support. His real vote that will make this law a reality will be providing one of the 60 votes for cloture, cutting off debate, thus allowing  for the final vote.

If Senator Dorgan votes for cloture, claiming that the bill deserves an up or down vote, and then asserts that he voted as he promised North Dakota, he may well fake-out lots of citizens of this state but in truth, he will have given all of the votes needed for the government take over of health insurance, government take over of the health care system, federal funding for abortion, and undermining Medicare.

It is evident for all to see that it is the intent of the Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress to eventually have taxpayer funding of pre-birth infanticide. President Obama cannot make this happen by himself, he must have complicit legislators. A cloture vote is a vote for government support of infanticide. Regardless of what he SAYS, voting for cloture, even though voting against H.R. 3590, will ensure the creation of the governmental super-structure that will eventually mean that the blood of unborn children will be on the hands of Senators Dorgan.

Dr. Coburn released the following fact sheet on the agreement:

Sen. Reid’s Manager’s Amendment Solidifies Requirements that Federal Funds Pay for Abortions

• The Manager’s Amendment introduced by Sen. Reid does not in any way resolve the concerns previously articulated by Sen. Nelson, Rep. Stupak, and pro-life Americans have raised regarding the federal funding of abortions. In fact, the “compromise” language included in the manager’s amendment would be even worse than the so-called “compromise” put forward by Sen. Casey earlier this week. This abortion language ensures that—for the first time—federal funds will be used to pay for elective abortions.

• The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, National Right to Life Committee, Americans United for Life, Family Research Council, and a myriad of other pro-life groups are opposed to this language, and with its inclusion they will officially oppose the passage of this health care legislation.

• The manager’s amendment is nothing more than elaborate structure to circumvent and violate the clear intent of the Hyde, Stupak, Weldon and Nelson amendments: that no federal funds will support health plans that include elective abortions.

There is no prohibition on abortion coverage in federally-subsidized health care exchanges

• Unlike the language in the original Nelson/Hatch amendment, or the Stupak amendment in the House, the manager’s amendment does not prevent federal funds from paying for abortion in the federally-subsidized health care exchanges.

The state “opt-out” still requires each state’s tax dollars to pay for elective abortions

• A state may prohibit abortion coverage in its exchange, but the underlying bill already allowed a state to do so. This provision does nothing to prevent one state’s tax dollars from paying for abortions in other states. States can opt-out of providing insurance coverage of abortions, but cannot opt-out of paying for abortions. The manager’s amendment ensures that Nebraska taxpayers will be paying for abortions in California.

The new “public option” managed by the Office of Personnel and Management (OPM) will cover abortions

• Each state through OPM can provide two multi-state plans and only one of them will exclude abortions. OPM’s current health care program—the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) does not include any plans that cover elective abortion. For the first time, a federally funded and managed health care plan will cover elective abortions.

The manager’s amendment includes the reauthorization of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act, without Hyde Amendment language to prevent federal funding of abortions

• Last Congress, the Senate passed a reauthorization of Indian Health Service (IHS) and included pro-life protections—supported by Sen. Nelson—to ensure that no federal IHS funds can be used to pay for abortions. This amendment fails to codify restrictions to prevent federal funding of abortions within Indian health.

The manager’s amendment rejects other “compromise” proposals on abortion

• Other “compromise” proposals put forward would have codified the House-approved “Weldon Amendment” which prohibits government bodies from discriminating against health care providers. These compromises also included an “individual” opt-out from abortion coverage, which the manager’s amendment does not. The manager’s amendment rejects even the most broadly accepted agreements on this issue.

During the trial of Sandy Blunt, Burleigh County Assistant State's Attorney Feland presented as evidence of Blunt's guilt of Missapplication of Entrusted Property, records of purchases that were absolutely legal purchases. These legal purchases, per North Dakota Office of Management and Budget Director Pam Sharp, were fully outlined in the “Prevarication Prosecutor II” published in the February 2009 Dakota Beacon.

There are NO records that I have seen that show Burleigh County Assistant State's Attorney in any manner attempted to investigate the legal basis of every individual item charged against Blunt and presented at the trial. Why had Special Investigator Quinn never been instructed by Feland to question the actually legality of each individual purchase? Feland lied to the judge, jury, and citizens of North Dakota in asserting that every purchase offered as evidence was illegal.