For any of you who were spending Saturday afternoon monitoring Twitter, you probably noticed me giving a plug for a North Dakota-based blog-the SayAnythingBlog.
Most likely you were instead watching football. Well, I had the opportunity to meet the creator of the SayAnythingBlog, Rob Port, during Saturday’s Citizen Watchdog training in Billings. I know I have come across the blog before, but since then I subscribed for his e-newsletter and have been checking out more of his blog posts.
Not only is North Dakota, like Montana, home to one of the most important US Senate races in the country, the “SayAnythingBlog” also comes across a lot of info that neighboring Montanans would find interesting.
For example, this piece by Port shares video and a brief excerpt of a clip from Saturday Night Live mocking North Dakota, after North Dakota State College of Sciences kicked a student off of the football team for being gay. (Click below to watch SNL clip)
UPDATE TO ORIGINAL POST: I also meant to add a link to this post– headlined “South Dakota Mining Students Earning More Than Harvard Graduates.”
Moving back to the US Senate race in North Dakota, Port also has an interesting post detailing former EPA lawyer, and North Dakota Senate candidate, Heidi Heitkamp’s (D-ND) contributions from an anti-fracking law firm. (Fracking combined with horizontal drilling is the technology which has led to the oil boom in North Dakota and to a lesser extent Montana)
In his post, Port notes a Huffington Post story mentioning that Heitkamp accepted $22,400 from employees of Weitz & Luxenberg, an anti-fracking law firm. After conducting a simple search at OpenSecrets.org, I was able to find at least one donation to Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) from the anti-fracking law firm as well.
Meanwhile, when it comes to both Senate races in Montana and North Dakota, The Wall Street Journal says the National Republican Senatorial Committee will be diverting money from New Mexico, and instead send more resources to Montana and North Dakota.
The Republican committee also canceled planned advertising late last month in New Mexico, where the Democratic nominee has opened a lead, in part because of the strength of President Barack Obama in the state.
Instead, the group is pouring money into Maine, Montana and North Dakota.
The Senate contests in Montana and North Dakota are close, partly because the Democratic candidates have worked to cast themselves as independent from Mr. Obama.