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This week’s episode of “Follow the Dorgan & Pomeroy Money Trail” – Connect the Dots edition
According to this KX News article, Earl Pomeroy is once again being considered for a cushy job for a life insurance lobbying group. He was in the running several years ago as well, presumably with contacts he made while ND Insurance Commissioner. It’s called ACLI, for American Council of Life Insurers.
This insurance industry publication article talks about the loss of Democrats in the Senate. It points out that “Sen. Dorgan’s wife, Kim Dorgan, is senior executive vice president for public policy at the American Council of Life Insurers, its top lobbying position.” I find it remarkably convenient that the wife of one of these “Senate allies” holds a cushy lobbying position with the group. Something smell fishy here? I thought so, too.
According to opensecrets.org, The number one contributor to Earl Pomeroy’s election campaigns is a life insurance company. In fact, there are several insurance companies kicking in big dollars to Earl, along with labor unions, of course. In fact, there isn’t a single North Dakota entity listed in his list of top contributors! Let’s not forget, he gets ninety percent of his money from out of state donors!
Once this news broke, this article was released, claiming that Pomeroy is not interested in the job. That may or may not be true, but it brings to light an important point.
North Dakotans have caught on to Dorgan, Conrad, and Pomeroy. We know our Senators live in ND on paper, not really occupying the apartment building owned by Senator Conrad’s LLC. We know how these jokers vote, and where their money is coming from. We even know that Congressman Pomeroy’s on a short list for a cushy lobbyist position alongside the wife of another North Dakota career politician.
While the mainstream media wouldn’t take the twenty minutes required to track this stuff and write about it, an average guy can put the pieces together in no time and let ’em go viral on the Internet. The “new media” is a force these politicians can’t stop yet, although I’m sure they’d like to try. Now that the people can arm themselves with information, we’re a far greater threat to these politicians than they could ever imagine. Now…let’s set about giving Earl Pomeroy the opportunity to explore other career options this November!
Quite a different kind of snow balls
If I had a penny for every time I found myself out in the middle of a field and suddenly noticed a pyramid of old bowling balls…well, let’s just say my financial status would feel no significant impact. I was out east of Bismarck with my camera last weekend and picked up this shot. I’m sure there’s an interesting story behind this pile, but I don’t know it. Yet.
A little fog, a little frost…you know, the usual
Last night I stopped at the capitol on the way home from the Wizards game. I had been craving some nice salty Sta-Mart popcorn all day, so it all worked out quite handily.
Now comes news of an impending snow storm. Cool. Finally, some North Dakota winters the way I remember them as a kid!
Cell phone sunset
Towhead sunset
The term “towhead” comes from gutter German, which explains why it’s such a popular term in our area. I really didn’t know much about the term until we had the boys, then I heard it a lot from people admiring them.
We three dudes watched a big jet take off tonight as the sun set, in addition to going to the top floor of the capitol to look out the windows. We also saw some big construction equipment moving and played some games before going home to rejoin Mommy. Thankfully, Daddy got to play with the camera a little bit, too! Hopefully there will be more of that this weekend.
Good to be busy during this warm weather spell
Here’s a slightly more comprehensive list of ways to enjoy a warm, sunny break in the cold of a January winter:
– clean the Garage Majal. I even vacuumed in all the corners of my man cave, going through at least two movies on the DVD player. I put in a bigger TV, too…but the refrigerator needs to be stocked with fresh Dew.
– bring my wife a rose at work. Girls like that kind of thing! I’m still sneezing from the flower shop, though.
– remove ice from the sidewalks. Whether it’s by ice chopper or by giant torch, getting rid of stubborn ice spots now will pay off when it gets cold and blustery again. Especially with two year olds using the sidewalk!
– Work. Holy cow have we been busy. Now that I’m not in television, I mostly work bankers’ hours…but there have been some evening shoots lately. The winter sun can be a challenge, so if you can’t control it, wait for it to go away. I was shooting in a building with a lot of windows, and sunlight streaming in made it impossible to balance the lighting correctly. Thus I made the call to shoot after dark, and the results were fantastic.
– surprise my wife with a clean kitchen. She wasn’t feeling well and went to bed early. I have the kind of hard working wife who can’t shake the fact that there’s a chore left to do, so imagine the load lifted when she woke up and the chore didn’t need to be done!
– be Daddy. I took my two year old to the airport last night to ride the escamalators (sic) and watch a couple of jets take off. He carried around the miniature pack of M&Ms that I gave him, since he had to wait until after dinner.
– write. I haven’t done any blogging since the Monday announcement, but I have polished up a magazine article and wrote a brief outline for an op-ed I might shop around in a week or two. I also occasionally contribute to some video / photo / animation forums, and recently there have been some questions posted which I can answer.
– maintenance. I’ve spent a lot of time in the studio tightening clamps on light stands and tripods, cleaning cameras, tuning boom poles, and other basic maintenance. I also came up with an improvement for our crane rig, one which allowed me to get some unconventional shots you’ll probably see on TV in the next couple of weeks.
– exercise. I did this in the form of chopping all the compacted snow/ice off our driveways. Fun. It was a solid 45 minutes of work, got the blood pumping, and I left one garage door open with a movie going as entertainment.
– play in the snow. This one hasn’t been accomplished yet, but I plan to take my little towheads out sledding or to make a snow fort and snowman. I even bought two new purple snow-block makers to assist in the task. That may have to be a Saturday plan so I can take them out during the warmest part of the day.
– Photography! I’m itching for this one, too. With the holidays and other things going on, my hobby has taken a back seat. It isn’t that there’s nothing to photograph in Bismarck or Mandan, that’s for sure. Hopefully over the weekend I can venture out and find something neat with the camera.
Enjoy the warm weather! Compact some snow and throw it at someone you love, or build something, or just get outside and exercise. I’ll post some more fun photos soon, including some I’ve been sitting on: a homemade P-51 Mustang airplane replica that seats one and is powered by a Geo Metro engine!
Governor Hoeven’s running
It’s too bad all that ammunition against Senator Byron “Skybox” Dorgan won’t have to be used…it would be great to expose him for his true legacy. It’s no wonder he didn’t want to go against a popular incumbent governor, given all the baggage that is going to stick with our helmet-headed Senator forevermore.
Go get ’em, John! We’ll be keeping an eye on you.
Boston Globe can’t figure out why Senator Dorgan opposes his state’s interests so frequently
This Boston Globe Op-Ed article has the author scratching his head in bewilderment over Senator Dorgan’s protectionist position. There were some interesting North Dakota stats in here:
– One seventh of North Dakota’s manufacturing jobs are due to exports according to the International Trade Administration;
– Foreign companies employ 8,300 people in our great state;
– 900 of our North Dakota businesses earned combined revenues of $2.8 Billion from export sales in 2008 alone.
I’m scratching my head too, Senator Dorgan. In fact, many of your North Dakota constituents have been doing so for such a long time, its a wonder WE don’t have your hair predicament!
Visitor from the 4×4 Galaxie (pun intended)
I’d say this whole homemade 4×4 thing is getting out of hand…but isn’t that the point? I’d hate to discourage this kind of creativity and ingenuity. Besides, it’s exactly the opposite of what liberals want us to do, drive silly little death traps in a vain attempt to “save” the planet they worship.
For any of you who haven’t seen them all, here are a few of the other creations I’ve spotted in Bismarck-Mandan:
There’s one other 4×4 I haven’t seen around here since the mid 1990s: a pinkish-red pearl El Camino, or possibly Ranchero, which was last seen on the used car lot at Cedric Theel. Who knows where it eventually ended up. If I spot that one, I’ll count my collection complete. Of course, that’s what I said before I saw the Gremlin.