Unless the “small town” looks suspiciously Davos-y and that’s by design.

Something about his whole demeanor last night was rubbing me the wrong way the more I thought about it. Maybe it was the injured leg tripping his vibes up…I didn’t know.

Things got a good deal clearer this morning.

Whachoo mean, Beege?

Oh, hello.

Tremendously grateful to welcome Bill Gates to North Dakota this past weekend for a wide-ranging conversation on the important issues facing citizens in our state, and around the world. Harnessing technology is key to driving innovation in all areas of government, from healthcare and addiction, to justice reform, education and infrastructure. Bill’s leadership and commitment to improving the world around him is an inspiration for finding creative solutions to 21st century challenges.

Barf.

Of course, it turns out that Gates and the gov know each other very, very well. And to be completely fair – which I try to be most times – Burgum is a small town success story. He was born in North Dakota to a family whose Welsh immigrant pater familia (on his dad’s side) founded the first grain elevator in Arthur, ND, in 1906. He wasn’t poverty-stricken by any means, but his dad passed away when he was a senior in high school (that got to me last night when he choked up), and his mom went back to work as a “widow with 3 kids.”

I have to give it to him for hustle. Apparently he even started a chimney sweeping business that made the AP wire with a picture of him on a frozen chimney. That picture is rumored to have caused a hub-bub in the Stanford University admissions office when his application for the Stanford Graduate School of Business hit. Not every day a North Dakotan chimney sweep wants in. Standford said, “Okay.”

It was there he met and became fast friends with another graduate student named Steve Ballmer, who would later become CEO of Microsoft.

All kind of coming together now, isn’t it?

Burgum moved to Chicago to work in management consulting, then mortgaged farmland to purchase a software company in Fargo, ND. That became Great Plains Software, which he grew to 250 people and, in 2001, sold to – guess who – Microsoft for $1.1B. Burgum was named Senior Vice President of Microsoft Business Solutions Group, the offshoot created by the merger.

He stayed with Microsoft until 2007. Burgum is immersed in the culture…

Satya Nadella, current CEO of Microsoft, has credited Burgum with “inspiring him to find the soul of Microsoft“

…and, while he has a reputation for philanthropy, why, so does Gates and all the rest of the Silicon types, right?

His connections haven’t been without controversy in his home state, either, what with friends buying large swaths of farmland, and who those friends are. Nowadays, people are understandably skeptical of anything with the stench of Gates and Davos attached to it, I don’t care what kind of small town hero champions him.

The sale of a couple thousand acres of prime North Dakota farmland to a group tied to Bill Gates has stirred emotions over a Depression-era law meant to protect family farms and raised questions about whether the billionaire shares the state’s values.

Gates is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the country with some 269,000 acres across dozens of states, according to last year’s edition of the Land Report 100, an annual survey of the nation’s largest landowners. He owns less than 1 percent of the nation’s total farmland.

The state’s attorney general has asked the trust that acquired the North Dakota land to explain how it plans to use it in order to meet rules outlined in the state’s archaic anti-corporate farming law. It prohibits all corporations or limited liability companies from owning or leasing farmland or ranchland, with some exceptions.

North Dakota farmland purchase tied to Gates stirs emotion | AP News

AP: "North Dakota Republican Gov. Doug Burgum, a former Microsoft executive whose campaign received $100,000 from Microsoft co-founder Gates when Burgum first won in 2016, declined to comment on the farmland… pic.twitter.com/SC4tWCV8Oq

— Marc Morano (@ClimateDepot) August 24, 2023

And then there’s his stance on the climate change business.

OOF

Burgum is a YUGE proponent of carbon-capture schemes, including one that is cleaving the Dakotas asunder – carbon dioxide pipelines being forced through traditional farmlands using eminent domain condemnation and confiscation to get right-of-way for a privately owned company’s operation.

Campaigning in Iowa for the Republican presidential nomination, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said he is confident that a controversial carbon pipeline will be built despite a setback.

The North Dakota Public Service Commission on Aug. 4 rejected a route permit application from Iowa-based Summit Carbon Solutions. In North Dakota, the three members of the PSC are elected, unlike Iowa, where the governor appoints the three members of the IUB.

Iowa Radio quoted Burgum f rom the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 10 as saying, “I have every expectation that pipeline is going to (be) approved in North Dakota,” Burgum said. “There is going to be a reconsideration of that process I’m sure and as they have done in the past, they’ve been super accommodating in routing around. If you’ve got a farmer that doesn’t want a big check for an easement, their neighbor probably does and they’ll keep making adjustments.”

What kind of governor pushes for the right of a private company to be able to take his citizens’ land?

North Dakota landowners testified for and against a carbon capture company’s use of eminent domain Friday, as Summit Carbon Solutions moves forward in constructing a massive underground system of carbon dioxide pipelines spanning 2,000 miles across several states and under hundreds of people’s homes and farms in the Midwest.

The proposed $4.5 billion carbon pipeline project would capture carbon dioxide emissions across neighboring states and deposit the emissions deep underground in North Dakota.

Landowners who opposed the company’s right to eminent domain argued that a private entity should not be able to forcibly buy their land and that the pipeline will potentially endanger people living above it.

Eminent domain refers to the government’s right to forcibly buy private property — like the land under a person’s house or farm — for public use.

… Republican Gov. Doug Burgum lauded North Dakota’s efforts to store carbon dioxide in January.

“We’re on our way toward achieving carbon neutrality as a state by 2030, thanks to our extraordinary capacity to safely store over 252 billion tons of CO2, or 50 years of the nation’s CO2 output,” Burgum said. “And in the process, we can help secure the future of our state’s two largest industries: energy and agriculture.”

A Silicon Valley progressive dude does. A climate cultist does.

At least South Dakota coward Kristi Noem is making the proper noises while doing absolutely nothing to stop it in her state.

“Small town boy” Burgum is cheering on the drills and pipelayers.

Yeah. Don’t be fooled by the meek, mild mannered package. He has bugs for you on future menus.

And while his having $250,000 of inherited farmland to mortgage for that first, big business purchase was okay for HIM?

It’s not “your” farmland when his interests diverge from your property rights.

Davos, baby – the collective.

All your land are belong to us.

Hope his leg feels better so he can go home sooner, ‘cuz we have enough of those types already.

But that’s just me.