Dakota Beacon

Of all the federal law enforcement agencies, ICE headed the news cycle over the past year leading up to the 2018 midterm elections. Border security was a major issue on the minds of voters. Sadly, ICE was the whipping boy of the left. The Passing Scene takes this opportunity to address falsehoods, fibs, and outright lies promulgated by the left.

As the dust settles around the 2018 midterm elections, a nagging question remains. Under the new Congress, will America be any safer with updated immigration laws and enhanced law enforcement? Don’t hold your breath. This is not on the agenda of the cop-hating left.

Are political divisions eroding the important social institutions which hold society together: Family, friends, and community organizations? Will holiday gatherings be filled with uncomfortable conversations about the 2018 midterm elections? In this article, Gabrielle Etzel discusses the need for civility in American political discourse—even at the Thanksgiving table. She writes, “Engaging in a respectful dialogue and learning from the perspectives of others just as much as sharing your own is a way to strengthen a relationship and to foster a mutual understanding.”

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Lack of civility in society is nothing new. George Washington, known for generations as the Father of Our Country, is regarded uncivilly in contemporary leftist thinking as little more than a sorry, old, white guy who should be ignored. Leftists generally believe the United States was illegitimately founded, especially leftists in academia who have taught generations of young people to hate America. As a minimum, school curriculum and text books teach revisionist history thoroughly ignoring American historical fact. Our Founding Fathers, if discussed at all, are portrayed as a bunch of elitist, racist, capitalist white guys who wrote the US Constitution to protect their own little fiefdoms. Nothing is further from the truth.

Perhaps the most disturbing feature of this year’s midterm election in Minnesota, however, was in the vote to elect a Sharia-advocating anti-Semite to the office of Attorney General.

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After the tragic Saturday shooting that claimed 11 lives at a Pittsburgh synagogue, there has been, lamentably, a predictable response. Seizing upon the incident, leftists are blaming President Trump and his supporters for creating a “climate of hate.” In response to this and the notion that it justifies suppression of speech, others will say that only one man is responsible, mass murderer Robert Bowers. Yet there’s far more to this matter than either position indicates.

Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced that he was lifting an EPA ban on sales of E15—a blend of motor fuel for vehicles. Was this a political move? Or is it a reflection upon the current state of the environmentalist movement? In this article, economist Dr. Mark Hendrickson examines the announcement and further suggests that current trade policy may also be a motivating factor.

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It’s that time of year when pumpkins metamorphose into jack-o-lanterns and little imps provoke adults to give them candy. Halloween is here again.

Is this really a time for celebrating evil, death and debauchery?

Many parents harbor misgivings about exposing their children to the horrific and macabre. Some rightly fear for the safety of their children. To celebrate or not to celebrate?

In light of today's "multicultural" environment, Halloween demands a fair hearing. In perspective, Halloween extends back more than one and a half millennium but few people associate Halloween with observances of the ancient Christian church.

On Saturday morning, 11 innocent people lost their lives at the hand of a gunman during a worship service at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. In this article, Dr. Paul Kengor details a personal account of the tragedy that left a community and nation asking: Why? Kengor reflects, “This world, unlike the heavenly paradise we seek, is full of sin and rot. Trees in this world decay and die. Like people, they face mortality in this realm. Eternal life and perfect bliss is not reachable in this world. It comes in the next.”

A reasonable case for term limits can be made when reviewing the lack of accomplishments of the permanent political class. Where is their leadership when it counts? On many of the following items, especially military legislation, they seldom co-sponsor legislation much less lead on the national issues. They remain part of the inert establishment enjoying their perks. As part of the majority of their respective houses they have accomplished zero on illegal immigration, the devastating sequestration, the fight against terrorism, correcting America’s disastrous health care policy, reversing the upward trend of the ever-increasing national debt, thwarting the monstrous spread of federal regulations – the list goes on. They are part of the establishment. Very little changed in 2010, 2012 and 2014. Not until 2016 and Trump’s outsider style of leadership did things begin to change.

Why not make the offer and put Mexico on the spot and unmask their corrupt government and reveal their real agenda?  

With perhaps the most significant midterm election in decades nigh, big tech’s censorship of conservatives has kicked into high gear. And while Facebook’s recent purge of right-leaning pages is obvious and has made news, perhaps just as destructive is the stealth censorship. A good example may be the report of WordPress’ “statistics shadowbanning” of Whatfinger News.

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Our Founding Fathers collectively possessed incredible wisdom: Ben Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and so many more.

Where did they acquire such knowledge and wisdom to create the Declaration of Independence, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution? None had “public education” to their credit but were taught at home by parents and tutors. All were well-read and otherwise self-educated. Several attended private universities in their late teens and early twenties.

In particular, the wit and wisdom of Thomas Jefferson remains an inspiration to all who read him. As with others, he was essentially self-taught surrounded by books. Jefferson is so often cited and embraced both by liberals and assorted progressives as well as conservatives and libertarians.

What we know of Jefferson’s thinking comes principally from his letters. He never wrote a book but, at the age of thirty-three, he drafted the Declaration of Independence.

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Many factors are involved when a young adult begins to choose a college: cost, campus life, location, employment after graduation, and others. But is the most important factor the one that is often overlooked? In this article, Lee S. Wishing argues: “Joy, real meaningful joy, should be the most important consideration when choosing a college.”

The people will have to decide what they want for themselves and their children - mob rule, where hysterical people can accuse without proof and destroy others’ lives or the rule of law, where the accused has the right to a presumption of innocence, specificity of charges against him, a fair hearing, the right to his defence.  That is the question to consider this November.

The grotesque excesses of feminism will never be stopped as long as men behave like meek Jewish professionals in Nazi Germany who hope that a low profile will protect them or behave like the broad smiles of terrorized black men in the South living in fear of the Ku Klux Klan.  Moreover, an Anti-Defamation League for Men could recruit not only men from across the spectrum but also women who are quietly disgusted by the manifest injustice of modern feminism.

This is a vital battle and it is worth fighting, indeed, it is one of those battles which will have to be fought if our society is going to survive.

If you’re a conned-servative who gets sand thrown in your eyes, your kneecaps kicked off and slashed with a broken bottle and then still fights the next time by Queensberry rules, this article isn’t for you. But if you’re disturbed by the Left’s behavior these last years and want to know how to handle these people whose “mask has been dropping,” understand this: Behind that mask is the Devil.

If you’re not a person of faith, view this as a thought exercise. But it’s one connedservatives — those nice guys who always finish last — had better embrace fast. Because the behavior of what we call today’s “Left” and what Satan would prescribe are virtually identical.

Why are results of political polling such big news? Does anyone really believe that the polls this far out reflect the outcome of the elections? More to the point, will polling sway the electorate substantially this early in the campaign? It is likely that a constant drumbeat over time of lousy polling could influence a candidate’s defeat. Or, it could simply result in a lack of public confidence in polls. In the end, the only important poll is the one held on Election Day.

People may not recognize the term “push polling” but they do realize that polls can be used to generate news. Interest groups and campaigns are not above structuring polls so that biased results will be carried by a sycophant media to fit their own biased narrative. This is a form of surrogate negative campaigning on behalf of a candidate of the media’s choice

Returning to the metaphor of the first paragraph, President Obama was the lightning, and Congress (especially retiring “Republicrat” Senator Jeff Fleck and entrenched RINO Senators Murkowski and Collins and including all Democrat Senators seeking re-election in this cycle) is the dense underbrush. President Trump is the lightning-caused fire and the voters have a choice to be the controlled-burn that insures gradual renewal… or the Democrat fire truck that insures that a future fire (ignited by one of the lunatics of the left) will be CATASTROPHIC.

In today’s world, loud voices claim that free inquiry and open discussion are no longer part of the solution to society’s ills—this is especially so in higher education. On campuses across the country, humanities have been subject to ruthless politicization and concomitant trivialization over the years. In this article that first appeared at First Things, Grove City College professor Dr. Carl Trueman discusses his broad educational philosophy that includes the foundation: “I want to teach my students to think, which means the classroom must be a place where I challenge them and where they are free to challenge me. That is the only way true learning can be achieved in an ethical manner.”

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Consider a few of the many recent news stories. “Membership in the Democratic Socialist of America (DSA), which has been around since 1982, has grown from about 5,000 to 35,000 since November 2016, and dozens of DSA candidates are running for office around the country. In June, one of them, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, upset Joe Crowley in the Democratic primary, knocking off a ten-term incumbent and one of the most powerful Democrats in the House.” – “The Socialist Network,” Washington Monthly, July-August 2018.

       “She represents the future of our Party.” – Tom Perez, DNC co-chair, discussing Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on “The Bill Press Show,” 7/3/2018.

There was something curiously missing from Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s Thursday Senate testimony, something quite relevant to her basic claims. Please consider the following segment from her testimony about the alleged (circa) 1982 sexual assault by SCOTUS nominee Brett Kavanaugh:

Both Brett and Mark [Judge] were drunkenly laughing during the attack. …During this assault, Mark came over and jumped on the bed twice while Brett was on top of me. And the last time that he did this, we toppled over and Brett was no longer on top of me. I was able to get up and run out of the room.

Now please read the corresponding segment from her original letter, sent months ago to Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.):

Kavanaugh was on top of me while laughing with Judge. …At one point when Judge jumped onto the bed, the weight on me was substantial. The pile toppled, and the two scrapped with each other.

After a few attempts to get away, I was able to take this opportune moment to get up and run across to a hallway bathroom.

“We all ought to be burdened about the stories coming out about our public figures. We are now living in a culture with a broad consensus of worshipping hedonism,” writes Dr. Gary Welton. In this article, Welton looks at recent research that suggests there are strategies for changing the “hedonistic environment.”

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How will the Kavanaugh hearings impact the 2018 midterm elections? Pollsters predict doom for Republicans. But then, the pollsters were dreadfully inaccurate with a failure record in an attempt to forecast the outcome of several recent elections. Bad performance does not give them much credibility this time around.

Is Kavanaugh so vile, so ill-equipped, so devoid of character that his life and family must be destroyed and he not seated on the Supreme Court? Or, are the Democrats overwhelmed with a spirit of vindictiveness?

Leave it to the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party, the mainstream media, to run with speculative stories and commentary emphasizing the negative to shape the anti-Kavanaugh sentiment.