Dakota Beacon

. “So,” Darren told me, “I touched the hand of a man who touched the hand of a Civil War vet who in turn touched the hand of a Revolutionary War vet. We are not a very old country.”

The increased acceptance of lies is a sign of a nation in decline.

It certainly is fair to ask whether the current Republican establishment will look back to its past, before the term “conservative” entered the political lexicon, and see that the most popular American in the 1920s was a Republican—Calvin Coolidge. A traditional Republican, he stood for limited government and had reverence for the Declaration and the Constitution. He thought balancing the budget was a good idea, too.

As the political class emerged, increasingly asserting its arrogance, power, and certainty that it could remake America in the image of social justice, environmental supremacy, and political correctness, the greatness of America declined and is on the verge of disappearing.

It is time to begin looking for a replacement for Kevin Cramer for the 2014 Republican ticket.  He has shown us little leadership and less principle since his election in 2012.

Missing from the Republican establishment lineup is a sound leader. Who are we supposed to mass behind? No disrespect intended, but within North Dakota's delegation Senator John Hoveven and Congressman Kevin Cramer are not leaders. They are followers. As such, they are wandering in the wilderness. Confirm this with their recent behavior in their respective chambers on immigration, the debt ceiling and defunding Obamacare. No one in their group is willing to take a stand on principle. No one will say "Stop! Enough is enough!"

After some uneasy words, our conversation picked up and lit up when we suddenly hit upon something we hadn’t discussed in years: baseball. Specifically, the focus was Pittsburgh Pirates baseball. The Pirates were looking at their first winning season in over 20 years. Drew and I talked for probably a half hour just about the Pirates.

. National Review no longer seeks to restore state sovereignty, repeal the New Deal, bring back public piety, or free Cuba or mainland China. Far from it. It now embraces the very thing it was founded to fight -- liberal Eisenhower Republicanism.

. . . It has never been so cool to be from North Dakota; artist James Rosenquist; a nickname to replace the Fighting Sioux; fifth straight home loss; Disgraced former Dickinson State President Richard McCallum; growing financial instability; sharp increases in burglary; concealed weapons permits; a time when the oil industry leaves and commodity prices fall; no-interest loans (using oil money) to farmers; Do you know what crop swathing is? Mandan had 285 oil wells; glossy brochures of Happy Cobbers; THIS AND THAT; DAKTOIDS . . . .

 Meanwhile, a new generation of conservative leaders has emerged from the rubble -- Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. In these young Turks the moderate Republicans grabbed a tiger by the tail

From an economic perspective, rather than a political perspective, linking the Defund Obamacare effort to a deal to fund the federal government wasn’t nutty; it made a lot of sense for the long run because Obamacare will create massive economic pain. Sadly, politics and elections are more important to politicians than the state of the American economy.

This vote will continue to haunt us – Cramer himself admits we have a $17 trillion debt.  THAT IS BEFORE Obamacare even starts.  This program will exponentially increase that debt and make it more impossible every day for us to ever balance the books again.  And he voted to fund that and now he’s talking about dealing with the debt.

" .  . . The era of small government is over and gone forever. Yet some backward elements, some Reaganite dead-enders remain."

A civilization of love requires freedom to flourish. "Progress" aims to destroy it.

  What kind of leader wants a military more loyal to himself than to the rule of law?

We have now allowed schools and private organizations to take over sex education. This data suggests, however, that parental involvement remains an important part of the mix.

We have now allowed schools and private organizations to take over sex education. This data suggests, however, that parental involvement remains an important part of the mix.

Great harm is wrought by the President's deceptive and fear-mongering rhetoric. His rhetoric is facilitating both economic damage and human suffering. No thinking person can any longer believe America has a responsible leader.

They will say that even in New York City — which has a larger white population than L.A. — blacks and Hispanics committed  96 percent of all crime. So who would we expect police dogs to bite in a big city? “I mean,” these apologists will say, “K-9s generally don’t bite random people on the street.”

No question. What happened at the World War II Memorial was pure political exploitation. The spectacle of elderly, heartbroken, wheelchair-bound vets voyaging thousands of miles to remember their fallen brothers, maybe for a final earthly time, only to be denied by cruel, intransigent Republicans, was apparently too delicious to pass up.
But even then, as the Standard noted, the barricading of the World War II Memorial was “just the start of the Park Service’s partisan assault on the citizenry.”

On the eve of World War II, the Army found Marshall unfit for promotion from colonel to brigadier general. Eisenhower never mastered the basic war skills of a two-, three-, or four-star general.

. . . the best year ever in 2012; Red River Valley sugar industry; a widespread drug investigation; Farting bridge trolls; the Forum continues to titillate; Griggs County voters were against a new courthouse; the strange reluctance of Twin Cities newspapers; a black Texan working on a road crew; Can’t say whether his education helped or hindered; Memoirs from the Greatest Generation; Lawrence Welk’s birthplace; a spurt of retail growth; Legacy Center; DAKTOIDS . . . .

The plan was to introduce into the marketplace of ideas views separate, distinct, and provocative from the more progressive mainstream views then in evidence.

In 1984's Ministry of Truth, Outer-Party member Syme is hard at work on a new edition of the Newspeak Dictionary. He regales Winston with his dreams of ultimate success:

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make Thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller.

Obamacare's costs and regulatory mandates will, in less than five years, double America's health care costs and significantly reduce care quality and availability. Obamacare mandates are driving doctors out of the profession.

Does this display of brute force on the part of our federal government during the “shutdown” or “slowdown” want to make you hop on the bandwagon for Obamacare?

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) responded by calling Vitter an "anarchist" playing "really juvenile political games" for insisting that Congress and Obama follow the law, and the same rules as everyone else.

 "Although Barack Obama's chefs have been deemed 'essential,' employees at the National Institutes of Health who offer last-chance experimental cancer treatments to children suffering from cancer have not. Worse still, House Republicans have offered to compromise with the president and single the NIH out for funding. The White House has threatened a veto.

Here's a thought : Maybe all the Republicans in Washington who've been leaking their disparaging views on Cruz and Lee can get together in a room and work out a plan to mend it not end it.