While ambling through my favorite discount retailer this weekend, the front page of the Bismarck Tribune caught my eye. Actually, it was the headline seen above: “Conrad cleared, scolded”. Amazing…Senator Conrad has been under ethics investigation for months but our ever vigilant sycophant media in this state has refused to investigate it! Any reluctant acknowledgement of the affair, while a rarity indeed, mostly consisting of reprinting a Conrad press release as fact and dutifully moving on.

Apparently the fact that the Democrat-controlled committee in charge of such matters has let him off changes the game. Now instead of having to print that one of their beloved Democrats is under investigation, they can print that he’s no longer under investigation. That’s how “journalism” works in the modern day, folks.

You want to know how difficult it is to research this stuff, that apparently seems to escape the unwilling North Dakota lapdog media? Easy. I did a little poking around, and look how much I found:

These apartment buildings are actually one complex despite different mailing addresses (note the shared driveway). They’re up on Central Avenue, behind Sta-Mart. In one of these apartments “lives” Senator Kent Conrad, and I believe his brother has a place there too. In the other one “lives” Byron Dorgan. I have to put “lives” in quotes for these guys because I too lived in one of these buildings. I never saw either one of them even a single time. You’d know it if your Senator passed you in the hallway.

Each building has a meager mailbox (let’s face it, they’re meager apartments – my appliances were olive green) in the entry way. This composite shows the glamorous mailbox of Sen. Conrad and wife as well as Sen. Dorgan and wife. Do you think that if a US Senator actually lived in a shoebox apartment, he’d have his name hand-written on a crappy stick-on label? That doesn’t exactly seem like “the trappings of office” to me.

While doing some other work in the county recorder’s office, I decided to have a look-see at this piece of property. Among other things, I found this piece of documentation where Senator Conrad sold the building to his LLC for $1 in a quit claim deed. The Senator’s full name is Gaylord Kent Conrad, thus the GKC (and the fact that he goes by “Kent”). Notice that while there are two buildings with separate mailing addresses, it is listed as one parcel of property.

That’s where part of Senator Conrad’s problems occur. Not only does this debacle point out that he and Senator Dorgan have a nifty arrangement to remain North Dakotans on paper cheaply in order to be eligible for re-election, it also points out that he got special treatment from Countrywide, a financial institution under the purview of his Senate committee! In fact, Countrywide was trying to get the federal government to buy up to $400 BILLION in bad loans, something that would certainly require Senator Conrad’s and Dodd’s approval.

An executive from Countrywide has testified under oath that Senators Conrad and Dodd knew that they were getting “VIP” treatment. And it isn’t just about the interest rate. Remember the fact that I pointed out above, that the property looks like two buildings but is one unit? That makes it an eight-plex. Reports I’ve read on the case indicate that Countrywide Financial policy did not allow financing anything over a four-plex. It wasn’t just a matter of getting a lower interest rate, it was getting a mortgage that nobody but a Senator Conrad could have received from Countrywide Financial.

As the yellow journalism of the Bismarck Tribune illustrates, it’s all water under the bridge until election season. The fact that senators Conrad and Dorgan are sort of “inverse carpetbaggers” is even more infurating right now, since they are refusing to meet with North Dakota citizens to discuss government-run health care.

They don’t represent North Dakotans in their residency, they don’t represent North Dakotans in their voting records, and they don’t want to hear from North Dakotans on important issues. And one of them just got let off the hook by New York Senator and committee chairman Edolphus Towns, who also got VIP loans from Countrywide!

In very short order I was just able to connect the dots that are apparently too obfuscated for local newsrooms to send one of their “journalists” to investigate. That proves that the North Dakota media such as the Tribune guys are either too incompetent or too unwilling to actually collect some facts on this case. All they’re willing to do is cheerlead for the guy.

There you go, North Dakota. Keep right on voting for these two jokers. This is the kind of thing you can expect every time you cast a vote for Conrad, Dorgan, or Pomeroy. Hope™! Change™! And while you’re at it, support your local media. That way you can get thrilling stories such as dancing down the aisle at your wedding or quarantined bison from Yellowstone.