Dakota Beacon

That's the question Sandy Blunt, former CEO of North Dakota's state workers comp fund must be asking himself.

Because the most serious charge against Blunt was based on Blunt authorizing sick leave for and not getting expenses repaid by an employee who was terminated. Turns out the North Dakota state auditor had reviewed the situation and given Blunt a pass, and reported as much to prosecutor Cynthia Feland well before she went to trial. In fact, these 'crimes' were what enabled Feland to increase the charges leveled against Blunt from misdemeanor to felony status.

This documentary is far better than anything produced on World War II by the History Channel, PBS or A&E. It is certainly better than anything to come out of Hollywood including the realistic film “Saving Private Ryan.”

In the wake of the Massachusetts senatorial election, a sudden cascade of speeches and press releases by President Obama and his surrogates claim that the president is fighting to ‘rebuild the middle class.’ But it is not at all clear what is meant by ‘middle class.’ For more than a year, President Obama defined middle class as people making up to $250,000 a year—promising not to raise their taxes (at one point) and also promising to lower them (at another point). He did not say what the dollar threshold was—that is to say, the income level that puts one in the ‘lower class.

Dr. L. John Van Til—observes the emergence of political claims and terminology that crop up on a daily basis in the media. Yet, the terms are often ambiguous or misrepresented. In his latest op-ed, Dr. Van Til considers the two recent examples: “middle class” and “populism.

Jim Kleinsasser, It doesn't matter, It's about empowering business, confusing world of politics in North Dakota, It's too tangled -- I can't stand it!, another story about Pomeroy, ND's earmarks go, Three Affiliated Tribes, temperature swings, What would Lawrence Welk do?, Financial controls at NDSU, NDSU must clean up Chapman's budget mess, The Blind Duck and dae Udder Place, One-room schools, Leafy Spurge and Buffalo Chips

But fine, have it your way. Tuesday's vote was really a plea by a desperate people for even more Obama. We're going to need even more Obama teleprompters, even more Obama speeches, even more sonorous banalities unrelated to action, even more "Let me be clears..." prefacing even more tinny generalities, on even more reams of even more double-spaced paper. And we're gonna need a really heavy duty rig to carry all that verbiage.

Without pre-submitting questions, Dakota Beacon Publisher Steve Cates sits down with United States Senate candidate Governor John Hoeven and for a 22 minute, on the fly, stream of consciousness interview with a rapid fire series of questions designed to reveal as much as is possible in a short period time, essence of who John Hoeven is - life, loves, the pursuit of liberty, favorite books, movies, most important people, and much more.

Here was a warning against the pallbearers of the progressive death march, from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger—who hoped to expunge the gene pool of “human weeds”—to the euthanasia precipice to which America is being dragged. It starts with the weakest of vessels: the infant in its mother’s womb.

Timeless words of wisdom to bear in mind this week, as America struggles to survive another year of Roe v. Wade.

The Congressman quickly issued a statement denying it.

But today, yet another story from Roll Call comes out saying these rumors are continuing to persist in Washington about the Congressman's interest in the job.

So the question is:  does he want the job, and if not, why not?

Really, Obamascare itself, just like the man it’s named after, is invidious.  Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Diane Crimestein and the rest of their co-conspirators are invidious.  Big government is invidious.  And my will has become awfully, awfully ill.  Let’s just hope an ill wind of public discontent blows the right kind of discrimination through the halls of government this November.

Why do people take such umbrage at Robertson’s remarks?  Now, I don’t ask why they disagree; to reiterate, I part ways with him theologically myself.  Yet I’m not offended.  I don’t act as if his commentary is as bad as a phony reverend screaming “God d*** America!” from the pulpit — which, I should emphasize, isn’t just saying that God has punished America.  It is asking Him to damn America.  And let us be clear: Damnation in Christian thought is something infinitely worse than sending a natural or manmade disaster our way.  It is wishing on your target the worst thing possible: eternal separation from God.  We should also note the context of that esteemed man of the cloth’s remarks.  He was saying that 9/11 was our just deserts, that, as he put it, “America’s chickens have come home to roost.”  Only, unlike the pastoral admonishment of Robertson and Falwell, he spewed the words with venom.  And I don’t remember the chickens in the media condemning him as they did those two men.  But I digress.

Two prominent workers' compensation columnists say they believe former North Dakota Workforce Safety and Insurance (WSI) Director Sandy Blunt got a raw deal when he was convicted of misusing state funds to pay for items such as employee lunches and sick leave.

And they have targeted the prosecutor in Blunt's case for severe criticism. The prosecutor says the columnists don't have their facts straight.

The congressional race is gaining momentum with Kevin Cramer announcing his candidacy and Rick Bergs' impending announcement on Tuesday.  My intention is to move forward to obtain the GOP nomination for Congress.

As  Michael Barone observed, “the educated class” was dazzled by style, the knuckledragging morons are talking about substance. They grasp that another year of 2,000-page trillion-dollar government-growing bills offers America only the certainty of decline. Just before the Senate’s health care vote, Obama, the silver-tongued orator, declared that we were “on the precipice” of historic reform. Indeed.

On Tuesday, we’ll find out whether even Massachusetts is willing to follow him off the cliff.

Populist politicians such as Earl Pomeroy distract citizens with terms like "out of state interests."  These out of state interests' have for 18 years waged a coordinated effort to slander the character of Earl Pomeroy.  And, after 18 years I would think someone in the media would have the curiosity to ask Congressman Pomeroy to name a specific threat.  Anyway, this is the 21st century and we should encourage interests from outside our borders to aid the growth of our economy.

In a letter to the state's papers, ND Democratic Chairman Mark Schneider advised Nodaks how to act if they should encounter  “negative and distorted campaign rhetoric.”  He said do what Dorgan might do back in Regent, N.D., -- “scrape your boots, mount your steed and take the high ground.”  Schneider is new in his job, but could soon become a master of mixed metaphors.

Of course Black Americans have a right to feel profoundly insulted.  Reid has apologized and, in his infinite arrogance, Barack Obama has graciously accepted - presumably for himself and all other, lesser Black Americans, at least the "lighter-skinned" ones without a "Negro dialect", whatever that may be.  In so accepting he forgives Reid for his presumption.

Decent Americans of all racial and ethnic backgrounds are Americans first.  It is long past time to cease inferring racism or projecting it onto others.  Black or White, Americans all have an urgent common cause right now - we must repair the damage done to our country by this Congress and restore healthy dialogue on the issues.

CNN's Jack Cafferty explains the profligate spending and arrogant ways of the U.S. Congress and why he thinks the leader of that body is a HORRIBLE WOMAN.

A MUST WATCH VIDEO! Not because of what he calls Madam Speaker but WHY.

While the North Dakota media continues to ignore the biggest miscarriage of justice in recent history, industry insiders and top analysts begin to expose the truth about the persecution of Sandy Blunt. How can it be that people at the very top of the industry would make so many public pronouncements in defense of a convicted FELON? Answer: THEY WOULD NOT unless they KNEW with near certainty what was going on! THE VINDICATION CONTINUES TO GROW! But will North Dakota ever know? Time will tell.

When a job exists only because of a government subsidy (whether in the form of a grant, a tax credit, or any other policy device), then what the job produces is worth less than the worker is being paid. Society as a whole is made poorer by the difference between the value of what the worker produces and what the government pays him, and that wealth is withdrawn from the private sector. Obama’s fundamental problem regarding jobs is that he believes all that baloney about government having quasi-deific powers as an alleged ‘creator’ and ‘savior’ of jobs. Yes, government can put people on its payroll or prop up certain jobs, but only by redirecting scarce capital and resources from elsewhere in the economy, thereby reducing employment in the private sector.” In his latest op-ed, Dr. Hendrickson supports this contention with several real-world examples. “A little economic knowledge explains why this happens.

State's Attorney Richard Riha	Assistant State's Attorney Cynthia Feland	Assistant State's Attorney Lloyd Suhr

After a series of articles written by himself (Joe Paduda, nationally prominent analyst), and top author Peter Rousmaniere at Risk and Insurance, the top periodical of workman’s compensation, WorkCompCentral started to get a whiff of something rotten in the state of Nodak and started an interesting process of investigation.  It seems that the more Burleigh County Assistant State’s Attorney says, the more curiouser and curiouser things get.

Perhaps we shouldn’t try to read the tea leaves. Who would have believed that we’d have abandoned our Constitution because it was “too restrictive”, that we would be using tax dollars to fund thugs and prostitution rings, that after two weeks in office the new boy would have been chosen to receive a Nobel Peace Prize, that euthanasia is on the table?

Nevertheless I offer my prediction: America will rise to the challenge.

Obama getting serious about terrorism.....

What made it so wonderful to be a young conservative in the 1960s was that we were defying all the conventions that liberals believed they had established forever. Nothing could have been more fun. The equivalent today would be a college student advocating poll taxes, literacy tests to vote, the imprisonment of homosexuals, an all-male West Point, and one seat per county in the state legislatures. If young people start saying things like that now, they will have the kind of fun we did 50 years earlier.

Pfizer played a central role in getting New London to seize the homes of local residents who lived adjacent to the Pfizer site,” but “Now Pfizer is leaving New London ‘high and dry.’ How did this happen?

It is a sad story of local governments drawn into projects by the promise of large state grants. The grant then allowed them to accede to the special demands of large enterprises like Pfizer for tax breaks and special treatment. What is even sadder is that in their rush to redevelop, these same local governments bulldozed the fundamental rights of their own constituents and, then, their ‘business partner,’ Pfizer, cast them aside whenever it chose to do so.