Port: I won't be intimidated into silence with threats - The Daily Republic

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I had a small part in the story. Last year this woman, Tore Maras-Lindeman, sent me an email informing me that I had to stop publishing content on the blog I founded 17 years ago, or at least begin publishing content she approved, because she had registered my blog's name with the North Dakota Secretary of State's office.

Nothing came of that inane strategy, and I related the story to Adam for his piece. Maras-Lindeman told him her lame attempt to take over my blog was a "troll."

I wasn't planning on writing anything more about Maras-Lindeman, but this morning I received an email from her attorney, David Thompson of Grand Forks, who decided to threaten me just in case I was considering taking to my keyboard.

Citing some of my past critiques of his legal arguments, Thompson wrote that he was "hereby advising you that puished [sic] comments by you such as 'attorney David Thompson's crazy legal theories' are false and defamatory statements which I will not ignore, and which I may well address in legal action against you and your employer Forum Communications."

Here's the full email:

Mr. Thompson is deeply involved in Democratic-NPL politics. He was a statewide candidate for the party, running for Attorney General in 2018 and receiving just 32% of the vote. He's also frequently represented the party and its candidates in various legal proceedings. Notably, he was involved in the state Supreme Court argument over erstwhile insurance commissioner candidate Travisia Martin's eligibility (she was removed from the ballot by the court).

Thompson's involvement with Maras-Lindeman stems from a 2017 event in Minot she was raising money for. The attorney general's office sued her over the use of the funds — AG Wayne Stenehjem described it as a "garden variety scam" to Adam — and Thompson served as her attorney.

I'm not sure why Thompson chose to send me an email, specifically, but this isn't the first time he's tried to intimidate me into silence.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column, based on many publicly available records, about a Democratic legislative candidate in Grand Forks named Jackie Hoffarth who lost her job at the University of North Dakota over a romantic relationship with a student. Hoffarth was "terminated for adequate cause" by her boss. She challenged the termination and then subsequently reached an agreement with the university. She was allowed to resign in exchange for roughly seven months of salary and health insurance coverage.

Thompson and Hoffarth, who ultimately received the lowest number of votes of the four candidates in her state House race, held a public news conference where the former made legal threats of a lawsuit over my column.

My column is still online, and unedited and not retracted in any way, which is our answer to Mr. Thompson's threats.

But the fact that Thompson keeps making these threats, and is now making them preemptively before a word is even written, is deeply troubling.

Again, this is a prominent member of the Democratic-NPL. Their legal counsel, at times.

Is this sort of Trumpian bluster how Democrats treat the First amendment?

There probably aren't many Democrats who are eager to rise and defend the good name of Rob Port. I am, after all, a conservative columnist and frequent critic. But maybe we should all agree, whatever our political affiliations, that criticism, and even sharp-elbowed discourse, should be allowed to happen without threats and intimidation.

That, after all, is the price of admission to a free society. Sometimes, you're going to have to tolerate some speech you don't like.

To comment on this article, visit www.sayanythingblog.com

Rob Port, founder of SayAnythingBlog.com, is a Forum Communications commentator. Reach him on Twitter at @robport or via email at rport@forumcomm.com.

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Port: I won't be intimidated into silence with threats - Grand Forks Herald

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I had a small part in the story. Last year this woman, Tore Maras-Lindeman, sent me an email informing me that I had to stop publishing content on the blog I founded 17 years ago, or at least begin publishing content she approved, because she had registered my blog's name with the North Dakota Secretary of State's office.

Nothing came of that inane strategy, and I related the story to Adam for his piece. Maras-Lindeman told him her lame attempt to take over my blog was a "troll."

I wasn't planning on writing anything more about Maras-Lindeman, but this morning I received an email from her attorney, David Thompson of Grand Forks, who decided to threaten me just in case I was considering taking to my keyboard.

Citing some of my past critiques of his legal arguments, Thompson wrote that he was "hereby advising you that puished [sic] comments by you such as 'attorney David Thompson's crazy legal theories' are false and defamatory statements which I will not ignore, and which I may well address in legal action against you and your employer Forum Communications."

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Here's the full email:

Mr. Thompson is deeply involved in Democratic-NPL politics. He was a statewide candidate for the party, running for Attorney General in 2018 and receiving just 32% of the vote. He's also frequently represented the party and its candidates in various legal proceedings. Notably, he was involved in the state Supreme Court argument over erstwhile insurance commissioner candidate Travisia Martin's eligibility (she was removed from the ballot by the court).

Thompson's involvement with Maras-Lindeman stems from a 2017 event in Minot she was raising money for. The attorney general's office sued her over the use of the funds — AG Wayne Stenehjem described it as a "garden variety scam" to Adam — and Thompson served as her attorney.

I'm not sure why Thompson chose to send me an email, specifically, but this isn't the first time he's tried to intimidate me into silence.

Earlier this year, I wrote a column, based on many publicly available records, about a Democratic legislative candidate in Grand Forks named Jackie Hoffarth who lost her job at the University of North Dakota over a romantic relationship with a student. Hoffarth was "terminated for adequate cause" by her boss. She challenged the termination and then subsequently reached an agreement with the university. She was allowed to resign in exchange for roughly seven months of salary and health insurance coverage.

Thompson and Hoffarth, who ultimately received the lowest number of votes of the four candidates in her state House race, held a public news conference where the former made legal threats of a lawsuit over my column.

My column is still online, and unedited and not retracted in any way, which is our answer to Mr. Thompson's threats.

But the fact that Thompson keeps making these threats, and is now making them preemptively before a word is even written, is deeply troubling.

Again, this is a prominent member of the Democratic-NPL. Their legal counsel, at times.

Is this sort of Trumpian bluster how Democrats treat the First amendment?

There probably aren't many Democrats who are eager to rise and defend the good name of Rob Port. I am, after all, a conservative columnist and frequent critic. But maybe we should all agree, whatever our political affiliations, that criticism, and even sharp-elbowed discourse, should be allowed to happen without threats and intimidation.

That, after all, is the price of admission to a free society. Sometimes, you're going to have to tolerate some speech you don't like.

To comment on this article, visit www.sayanythingblog.com

Rob Port, founder of SayAnythingBlog.com, is a Forum Communications commentator. Reach him on Twitter at @robport or via email at rport@forumcomm.com.

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Amid The Pandemic, Wisconsin Ports Adapted As Tonnage Dropped In Some Places, Others Saw Positives - Wisconsin Public Radio News

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It has been an unprecedented year for Wisconsin’s commercial freight ports, which faced challenges due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there were also bright spots.

At the end of October, total tonnage at the Port of Duluth-Superior — the largest on the Great Lakes — was down nearly 29 percent compared to 2019, said Deb DeLuca, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority. Iron ore cargo declined 27 percent compared to last year while coal cargo was down 45 percent, she said. The drop can be directly linked to the pandemic.

"It's been a challenging year for everyone with the pandemic, of course, and shipping really was no exception," she said.

Early in the pandemic, a number of Minnesota's iron ore mines closed after demand for steel dropped when auto and appliance manufacturers shut down, she said. With factories closed, demand for coal, which is used for energy, dropped, too.

"We have a big coal terminal on the Wisconsin side of the harbor. It's the largest coal terminal in the Great Lakes and that was actually shut down for about six weeks," DeLuca said.

In 2020, tonnage was also down at the Port of Green Bay. By early December, 143 ships had visited the port this year compared to 161 at the same time last year, according to a news release from Brown County Port & Resource Recovery.

But it wasn’t bad news all around for the state's ports.

It was a record-breaking year for wind energy cargo at the Port of Duluth-Superior — the second in a row. Thirty ships from eight different countries carried wind cargo through the port this year, DeLuca said.

"Last year's record was 306,000 freight tons. That broke a record that we set in 2008, and it was really just a lean at the tape, like we barely broke the record. But this year, we blew it out of the water," she said.

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More than half a million freight tons of wind energy cargo traveled through the Port of Duluth-Superior in 2020. About 50 employees work at the terminal that processes wind cargo and they had a busy summer, DeLuca said. Originally, shipments were expected all year long, but due to the pandemic, many were pushed back to the second half of 2020.

In the southeastern part of the state, Port Milwaukee had a strong year despite some big challenges, including a storm last winter that caused almost $2 million in damages, said director Adam Tindall-Schlicht. As of Dec. 1, the port was on track to equal its commercial performance in 2019. That is its best year in about a decade, he said.

That is thanks largely to the diverse cargo that moves through Port Milwaukee, he said. While the port saw a decline in some commodities, exports of Wisconsin corn, grain and soy were highlights for port authorities across the state, he added.

Despite the challenges of 2020, Port Milwaukee is in the midst of a historic resurgence, Tindall-Schlicht said. Construction on its new agricultural export facility will begin in early 2021. Port Milwaukee and other Wisconsin ports are also moving into the international cruise shipping, with companies like Viking Cruise Lines and Pearl Seas committed to making Milwaukee the turnaround point for their Great Lakes routes, he said.

Tindall-Schlicht, who serves as president of the Wisconsin Commercial Ports Association, said the state’s ports aren’t just dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. They’re also facing challenges due to climate change, he said, noting it’s not unusual for water levels to fluctuate on the Great Lakes, but it’s become more extreme over the last decade.

"The way that port authorities and coastal communities throughout our state respond, maintain operation and plan for the future through the lens of coastal resiliency is increasingly important," he said.

Both DeLuca and Tindall-Schlicht agree they were impressed by the adaptability and resilience their industry showed this year.

"So many challenges in 2020, but our port authorities, including Port Milwaukee, have met the challenge, have continued to be a backbone for both new recreational services, but also our ongoing statewide support for commercial supply chains. I anticipate they’ll continue to grow in the future," he said.

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Police: 3 teens injured after suspects open fire and flee the scene - FOX 35 Orlando

Police search for tips in Titusville shootings

Police said that the vehicle fled the scene and the suspects are still at large.

TITUSVILLE, Fla. - Three teens are injured after suspects in an unknown vehicle opened fire on them in Titusville, police said.

The Titusville Police Department said that they are investigating the shooting, which happened at about 10:30 p.m. on Sunday on 3rd Avenue. 

They said that officers responded to the scene and located a teen with a gunshot wound. At approximately the same time, they said that two other teens were admitted into a nearby hospital with non-life-threatening gunshot wounds, possibly connected with the shooting.

Their investigation reportedly revealed that two of the victims were inside a parked vehicle and the third was outside when they were hit. The suspects, which police described as three black males, fired dozens of gunshots from an unidentified vehicle. Other vehicles and residences were also said to have been also struck. 

MORE NEWS: President Trump signs COVID relief, spending bill averting shutdown. So what happens now?

Police said that the vehicle fled the scene and the suspects are still at large.

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"We are working with all of the families connected to this. Anyone in the community we haven't spoken to, we want to build that bridge between the community to figure out these crimes and create that partnership with the community so that we can find justice," Sgt. Timothy Werring of the Titusville Police Department said.

Detectives ask that anyone with any information contact the police at 321-264-7800. Tips can also be submitted anonymously at 1-800-423-TIPS. You can remain anonymous and could be eligible for a $5,000 tip.

Tune in to FOX 35 Orlando for the latest Central Florida news.

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Port: If oil is a crime, then we're all criminals - West Central Tribune

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It's not clear that Erdrich knows the Line 3 pipeline already exists. This is not new construction. Enbridge is replacing an existing pipeline that has reached the end of its life cycle. Either Erdrich doesn't know this, which is disconcerting, seeing as how she's sharing her opinion on the project in one of America's most-read publications, or she's dishonestly skirting that fact because it weakens her argument.

Like many other left-wing voices who agitate against pipelines, Erdrich urges less production and use of oil — she accuses the oil industry of "perpetrating a vast ecological crime" — but tells us nothing about what the world might look like without oil.

How would we get around?

Electric vehicles are a dazzling technology, but they aren't affordable or even practical for most Americans — particularly those living in rural settings. The Tesla Model S (retail price $69,420) has the best range of any electric vehicle on the market at 401 miles, meaning you couldn't quite drive from Bismarck to St. Paul in optimal weather conditions (cold diminishes battery efficiency) without needing to stop for a full charge that would take over an hour, assuming you could find a 440V rapid charger, or as much as 12 hours at 220V.

Don't get me wrong, I think electric vehicles have a bright future, but we need oil in the here and now. Not just because electric vehicles aren't quite ready for primetime, but because our electrical grid isn't ready to replace the energy currently provided by petroleum products.

Unfortunately, our energy grid isn't becoming more resilient. As green politics shut down baseload energy sources like coal and natural gas, wind and solar haven't proven up to the task of replacing them.

Case in point, California's struggles to keep the lights on this year.

"California's aggressive push to abandon natural gas for solar, wind and other renewable sources to meet its goals of reducing emissions of carbon dioxide blamed for rising global temperatures has left the state vulnerable to outages during heat waves as the sun sets and solar power fades," the San Jose Mercury News reported in August.

In our region, an aggressive push toward heavily subsidized wind energy has left us similarly vulnerable. At least three times since 2018, our regional power grid has run out of energy. That gap was filled by electricity borrowed from neighboring grids, but blackouts were avoided only because those grids had the energy to spare.

Thanks to politics and left-wing environmentalism, our energy grid is struggling to keep up with current demand.

Erdrich and other shallow-minded opponents of oil production believe the grid can replace all of the petroleum-based energy we currently rely on.

Maybe they think we just need to build a few more wind turbines.

These are not people who have spent a lot of time thinking about their arguments. Or maybe they just don't care. After all, if you're a famous novelist or a Hollywood activist, the cost of getting around is trivial.

The undeniable truth is that oil and gas are commodities our society needs. Every single one of you reading this use oil and gas every day to heat your homes and power your vehicles, which are just the two most prominent uses.

You are using petroleum products, both directly and indirectly, in hundreds of other ways, too.

I guarantee you that Louise Erdrich is using oil, in one way or another, on the same day she claimed its production is a crime (at least she didn't claim, as fellow celebrity activist Winona LaDuke did, that building a pipeline is like working the ovens at Auschwitz).

Pipelines, meanwhile, are the safest, most efficient way to transport oil.

What sense does it make to oppose their construction?

Or, in the case of Line 3, their prudent and timely replacement?

To comment on this article, visit www.sayanythingblog.com

Rob Port, founder of SayAnythingBlog.com, is a Forum Communications commentator. Reach him on Twitter at @robport or via email at rport@forumcomm.com.

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Tom Burns, harmonica player and fixture of the Minneapolis blues scene, dies at 67 - Minneapolis Star Tribune

Tom Burns sometimes told friends, "You've got to live the blues to play the blues."

It was a fitting mantra for a man who just scraped by when he wasn't wailing on the harmonica in bars around the West Bank — once the epicenter of the blues in Minneapolis. Over the years his eclectic residences included a room over the Viking Bar, houseboats on Minnesota rivers and an old Winnebago parked in the Arizona desert.

A longtime fixture of the local blues scene, Burns died on Nov. 23 after suffering from lung and heart disease. He was 67.

"Music was his life," said Janet Bergstrom, who had an on-and-off relationship with Burns over many years. "He was a true blues man."

Burns took up the harmonica after falling in with a crowd of musicians at Wayzata High School in the early 1970s. His first band, Lake Street Stink Band, got its start with a regular gig playing to dancing crowds above a restaurant in Mound.

He would soon become a regular player at blues bars around the West Bank such as the Joint, the Cabooze, Whiskey Junction, the 400 Bar, Triangle Bar and Viking Bar, back when the area was a haven for hippie musicians.

John Franken, who played with Burns in the Joel Johnson Band in the 1990s, said Burns was well versed in blues masters like Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter.

"Tommy could speak that language on the harmonica," Franken said. "He had studied all those guys. To me that's what made him great."

He knew how to get a good sound out of a harmonica — even a cheap one, said John Beach, a longtime friend who played with Burns regularly in Arizona.

"He was an expert at what makes a harmonica tone funky," Beach said.

Burns' personal life was rocky at times. His heavy drinking — he enjoyed brandy and Milwaukee's Best beer — was a source of friction with Bergstrom. They had a daughter together but split up when the girl was young.

"He would take me to the Viking Bar to hang out with him when I was 11 — during the day," said his daughter, Jerusha Steinert.

Offstage, Burns was an enthusiastic storyteller, Steinert said, but a reticent musical performer. Steinert said she was in college when she first saw her father play at a public venue, at Famous Dave's in Uptown.

"I just broke down in tears," she said. "I could not believe what a different person he was on that stage, and just how everybody else looked at him when he was doing it."

Burns also played regularly with Lazy Bill Lucas, who broke through in the Chicago blues scene and moved to Minnesota later in life. And he toured at one time with Kent DuChaine — now a prominent blues musician.

"They didn't have any gigs booked. They just went down there and hustled their way across the South on their own," said Larry Hayes, a lifelong friend of Burns from Wayzata High and fellow blues player.

For a time, Burns lived above the Viking Bar in a suite of small rooms known to some as "hell house." Former Viking bartender Rick "Kelso" Nelson remembers about five men living there with a refrigerator full of beer

He also lived, often year-round, on houseboats at marinas on the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers.

"His winter regimen was not for the fainthearted," Beach said. "He was on this leaky, damp, small, dark boat."

Burns moved to Arizona several years ago and lived at Twin Buttes RV Park, where Beach also lives, in the desert near the Mexico border. He and Beach played gigs, Burns armed with a suitcase full of harmonicas, until the pandemic cut them short.

Burns is survived by Steinert of Stacey, brother James "Butch" Burns of Le Sueur, sister Deborah Mediger of Le Sueur, and sister Pauline Holz of St. Peter. A celebration of life will be held in 2021.

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