Dakota Beacon

Government, utilities, banks, education, land development; potential powerful brokers steering the “distribution of tax revenues” derived from hard working North Dakotans…to the tune of $141 Million over twelve years. Voters beware…this is not the last you will hear of these “economic development schemes”. Keep your “no new taxes” signs at the ready!

NDPERS manages, among other things, the retirement plans of public employees in North Dakota.  Nearly all state employees and many local government employees are invested in the NDPERS as a major portion of their retirement plans.

Now, much like Social Security, NDPERS is on a pathway to insolvency.  Their own figures show that, without a drastic increase in funding, NDPERS will be insolvent by 2038.  Unlike the Federal Government with Social Security, the state cannot simply write IOUs to itself to cover the difference.

The NDPERS fund currently has $284.1 million in unfunded liabilities - however, that shortfall will expand exponentially until 2038 (or sooner) when it cannot meet its obligations.

There’s no fools gold in the Olympic Games. One succeeds or one does not succeed. Two years from now in London the 2012 Summer Olympics will commence and we’ll again see old records broken and new records set. To everything there is a season.

One can only stand in awe of excellence

The Democrats intend to tax, borrow and spend Americans (except the political elite) into a life of “righteousness”. They plan to transform America into a nation void of capitalism like Haiti and Cuba. Remember, people flee their free government food, housing and healthcare and risk their lives trying to float here on makeshift boats from these liberal “utopias”. Many die trying.

If Democrats “fundamentally transform America” (as Obama put it), is there a country left in the world that we can flee to?

In the current range of atmospheric CO2, an increase or decrease of 10 ppm (parts per  million) or CO2 results in an increase or decrease of 1% plant growth. Going from 280 ppm to 390 ppm is a 110 ppm increase. From this, I would guestimate that plants overall are growing 11% faster and bigger than they would be if CO2 levels had not risen. That equates to crop yields and worldwide food production up 11% because of CO2 up that amount.

The adoption home that Clinton and her advocates have justifiably touted as a genuine display of her Christian compassion has been out of operation for a long time… Has Mrs. Clinton known that the home has been shut down, all the while boasting about it in books, statements, interviews, and no less than the keynote at the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast? Clinton extolled the ‘common ground’ she once found with Mother Teresa. The two had come together to open an adoption center, the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children. Mrs. Clinton touts it whenever she can, but it turns out, the home has been closed for almost a decade.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA --  In some countries, the perennial dominance of one party or political orientation has led to fundamental distortions of social outlooks and the political milieu. In the last few years, it has become clear that Canada -- with the Liberals as "the natural governing party" (a term frequently used in self-congratulatory fashion by Liberals themselves) -- is such a country.

Through his embrace of relativism modern man has made Christianity incomprehensible.  He has made philosophy incomprehensible.  He has, in fact, made civilization itself incomprehensible.  For, if there is no right or wrong, it can be no better than barbarism. 

Relativism also makes the existence of religion writers incomprehensible — and, increasingly, the writers themselves uncomprehending.   

Lamoureux hockey family in Grand Forks, North Dakota is an acquired taste, Hazelton didn’t buckle, western ND could define the state, a good deal of luck, Should the “Mighty Midgets” stay or go, American Indian reservation reaping oil benefits, one of the worst graduation rates in the country, the frauds are getting smaller, Flooding is imminent, the No. 1 wheat state

These citizen cadres of conservatism who will reclaim our land do not take orders from above.  We operate individually, like tens of millions of independent, autonomous minds, guided only by broad principles and objectives, and seeking less to capture any citadel or city than to liberate them all.  Free men tend to take freedom for granted.  It is almost in the nature of that treasure.  But when free men fight, slave armies lose.  That war is being fought, and won, right now.

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care “summit”, thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen - because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

Paul Schaffner absolutely nails the Fargo Forum on their hypocrisy regarding “Republican Hypocrisy” This is a must read. I understand that it has been submitted to the Forum for publication. It will never see the light of day in any Forum Communications venue. Count on it!

An Event Review by Lynn Bergman

I shared my initial observations with the facilitator of the “Digging out from Debt” round table after completion of the presentation. I explained that I was attending with the intent of writing an article on the event in the Dakota Beacon magazine. I then began to explain my concern with what was not said at the beginning of the presentation and my disagreement with a few of the suggestions within the presentation. At first the facilitator became slightly defensive, but quickly became conciliatory after realizing that I was genuinely concerned with the economic well being of young citizens and how their education in financial matters is paramount to correcting our societal indifference to saving and subsequently buying with cash, a “life skill” those professionals in multiple disciplines aptly term “delayed gratification”.

Is there such a thing as a “Good Politician”?  Or, is a politician, by definition, innately a self-serving, know-it-all, in league with the devil?  The approval rating of our politicians in Washington, DC, as a group, has never been lower; and each and every one of them should be embarrassed and ashamed.

The point is that national parties are vote-getting, patronage machines. The attempt to beautify them and their operations by attaching philosophical labels is nonsense. The only way we can have the kind of discussions that my friend Bill Kauffman wants is by forgetting the shifting interests of our two parties and their opportunistic labeling. Otherwise, there is no escape from the exchange of prepackaged sound-bites.

You may have seen the recent story about the 41-year-old doctor who graduated from medical school in 2003 with student-loan indebtedness of $250,000 that has since swelled to more than $555,000. She is now scheduled to pay $990 per month until she is 70 years old. Ouch!

This is an extreme example of a widespread problem. Only 40 percent of the $730 billion of outstanding student loans are actively being repaid. This isn’t healthy for financial institutions and it isn’t healthy for many young Americans. Just as was the case with the ongoing mortgage fiasco, there is plenty of blame to go around for this sorry state of affairs. Still it is significant that almost all student loans are taken out by Americans too young to know what it takes to pay their bills and make a living on their own.

It has been an absolute rollercoaster watching Senator Conrad's policy regarding the use of budget reconciliation on non-budget issues take shape.

People criticize Senator Thurmond because he did not support integration until the people of South Carolina did. On the other hand, these critics ignore completely the fact that if, in 1948, Northern Republican Conservatives and Southern Democrat Conservatives alike had rallied to his cause and elected him, many of the 33,000 plus American soldiers and Marines killed in Korea might be alive today. Weighing these two factors, I have no hesitation in saying we would be better off if he had been elected.

Smart people are backing away from the fraud and deception of falsified data. Only politicians and stubborn ideological nitwits chase that myth and illusion.

The bloom is off the rose. Time to call a time-out on anything alleging manmade climate change. Use that time to separate climate from left-wing liberal politics.

Now, let's increase agricultural income across the board.  How?  Mandate we consume 10% more of the following  products: beef, pork, chicken, lamb, wheat, barley (beer you know), flax, field peas, soybeans, chickpeas, dry edible beans, oat, turkey, rye, spelt, canola, rape, lentil, mustard, corn, sugar beet, potato, duck, pheasant, quail, pond raised fish, carrots, onions, radish, cabbage, squash, pumpkin, peas, green beans, yellow beans, broccoli,  tomato, asparagus, grape(wine of course), honey, milk, cheese, butter, yogurts plus an endless list of other specialty crops and products  produced right here in North Dakota as well as nationally.

Jesting aside, it’s no stretch to say that this is the result of America’s affirmative-action mentality.  And, if you think it’s much ado about nothing, know that it reflects a society to which standards increasingly mean nothing.  We are creating generations of ignorant, shiftless slackers, people who are only eternally vigilant about seeking pleasure.  And think about this: If many modern Americans cannot adequately perform even simple functions, how can they tackle complex problems?  How can we expect them to be able to solve our budget and financial woes or create healthy families?         

We are descending, pell-mell, toward Idiocracy.  But, hey, man, like, you know, I get ABC’s drift, you know.  So what’s my problem?  Well, my bad, dude, my bad.  Yo, yes, we can!

I never knew Al Haig, though I did interview him for books I wrote on Ronald Reagan and on Reagan's closest adviser, Bill Clark, who had the thrill of serving as Haig's deputy at the State Department in that critical first year of the Reagan administration. I learned plenty about Haig from others. What I grasped about Haig—from a policy perspective—was not the conventional wisdom among pundits and historians: though Haig was the prototypical tough-talking, take-no-prisoners military general, he more often assumed the role of dove in the early Reagan administration. Alexander Haig was far from perfect, but aren't we all? He left the world a more interesting place, and one not as black-and-white as his critics suggest.

Today, the North Dakota Taxpayers' Association (NDTA) called on North Dakota's federal delegation to denounce the use of the budget reconciliation process to force government-run healthcare through Congress.

 The Quirks of ND, I froze up, I was just like a Popsicle, wolf at the door, Michele Bachmann, we'll always be Midgets, in his heart always remained a farmer, a lifetime interest in aircraft, a true Nodak, the town decided to reinvigorate itself, Living the good life in North Dakota, Lutheran Social Services, A startling statistic from South Dakota

America is overwhelmingly conservative, but that conservative will has long been frustrated by a combination of leftist entrenched establishments, befuddled Republican leaders who did not grasp that their supporters wanted a conservative revolution, and Democrats like Bayh, Dorgan, and Lincoln – who said one thing at home and did something very much different in Washington.  Everything has changed.  The next two election cycles are critical.  Right now, the constellations point to gains in 2010 and also in 2012 sufficient to allow stout hearted conservatives, through the Republican Party, to introduce the sort of hope and change that most Americans desperately want.  In three years, at long last, America may have the government that the vast majority of us want.

On the other hand, when it comes to “keeping you safe” from real threats, such as a millenarian theocracy that claims universal jurisdiction, America and its allies do nothing. There aren’t going to be any sanctions, because China and Russia don’t want them. That means military action, which would have to be done without UN backing – which, as Greg Sheridan of The Australian puts it, “would be foreign to every instinct of the Obama Administration.” Indeed. Nonetheless, Washington is (altogether now) “losing patience” with the mullahs. The New York Daily News reports the latest get-tough move:

“Secretary of State Clinton dared Iran on Monday to let her hold a town hall meeting in Tehran.”

How many times have we read or heard about children who were returned to abusive environments being severely injured or even killed? What of the emotional abuse that comes with domestic unrest?

Enumerated powers, separation of powers, checks and balances, high thresholds for amending the Constitution, and a system of co-equal state and federal powers – these were the promises made to the people and to their sovereign states when the Constitution was adopted.  Has any solemn promise not been broken?  Federal offices swear to protect and defend the Constitution, but when is the last time this sacred oath was taken seriously?