Dakota Beacon

According to the Associated Press, Senator Conrad's plan "promises to cut the deficit by almost two-thirds over the next five years, but the budget plan could threaten about 30 million people with tax increases averaging $3,700 in 2012 and after because of the alternative minimum tax."

For decades now, American schools corrupted by cultural Marxism have been eroding the moral fiber and judgment skills of schoolchildren. Unless sensible parents and teachers put a stop to the indoctrination, today's free speech-crippling political correctness, tolerance of immorality, and lack of knowledge of our country's birth will continue to grow until America is no more. To stop the indoctrination, parents and teachers must understand how cultural Marxism came to permeate school curricula.

We got back from the Republican State Convention in Grand Forks last month having had a grand time. If you are at all passionate about politics, you should go to a state convention just to see what it is all about. Three people who were mostly unknown ran for the two Congressional nominations, which proves that anyone eligible in North Dakota can run. It is so great to be part of a direct democracy like we have. I have long known that I was more conservative than the average politician. Today, there are many types of conservatives; Reagan Conservatives, Tea Party conservatives, but the bedrock of the movement has to be Constitutional Conservatives. Best quote of the convention: “When people fear government it is called tyranny; but when government fears the people it is called liberty.”

The election of 2008 gave super majority status to the Democrat Party in Congress and it gave them a compliant President--the two entities in collusion have brought our Constitutional government to crisis. We see now that 223 years of Constitutional self governance may be brought to an end. The government of the people and by the people has been superseded by the Domed Building in Washington D.C.

GM and Chrysler cannot survive under the profit-killing UAW-imposed business model. Public schools cannot improve kids' academic performance under teachers' unions' inflexible policies and compensation demands as well as rampant school district corruption, incompetence, and inefficiency. As for government unions, the USPS should go belly up. Then the entire state of California, now insolvent under the weight of public sector union pension demands, should dissolve and be taken over by responsible people who keep the state's destroyers out of government. Other states should follow suit.

The whole world is beginning to seriously speculate that the U.S.Treasury is becoming a deadbeat borrower. The Federal Reserve’s current monetary policy may become a “hostage to the combined annual maturing debt ‘roll’ and deficit. The Fed's predicament will be that it won't be able raise interest rates to stop inflation or defend the U.S. dollar for fear of what it will cost the Treasury in additional interest expense. Lenders, both foreign and domestic, would begin to speculate that the Treasury could soon be caught in a borrowing death spiral…. That, in turn, will force the Fed to simply print the money in order to provide the required financing. The money printing would then easily translate into a serious inflation (hyperinflation) and a currency collapse.

A one-time chief of staff for Bill Clinton, Podesta has headed up a radical or far-left think-tank for most of a decade, hoping that somehow a radical candidate would emerge to support his leftist agenda. Not surprising, when the Clinton campaign tanked in the summer of 2008, there stood a fellow Chicagoan who was an experienced community organizer and part-time U.S. Senator—Barack Obama. Especially interesting is the fact that I discussed the VAT in several articles last year. It was noted that the VAT appeared in the writings of the principal ‘progressive’ supporter of Obama, John Podesta.... If you doubt the extremism of Podesta’s program, note the title to part III of his book: ‘Why America is Poised for a Progressive Revolution in Politics.

Above all; ABOVE ALL; every Tea Party member and every Tea Party event attendee knows and believes that dissent, loud but always peaceful dissent, is Patriotic. Dissent is as patriotic today, with an apologetic, socialist community organizer in the White House as it was when GW was our proud and patriotic president. Indeed, dissent is our right and our duty as Patriots, as Americans.

"The law is the witness and external deposit of our moral life," is how Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. famously put it. "Its history is the history of the moral development of the race."

Politics and governing can be difficult work, filled with traps and snares. There are plenty of people who bring dishonor to it. But there is also something ennobling about the enterprise when it is done properly. And it is terribly important work. We cannot neglect the importance of our laws because we cannot neglect the importance of our moral lives.

Peter Wehner, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He served in the Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations prior to becoming deputy director of speech writing for President George W. Bush in 2001

In years to come – assuming, for the purposes of argument, there are any years to come – scholars will look back at President Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit and marvel. For once, the cheap comparisons with 1930s appeasement barely suffice: To be sure, in 1933, the great powers were meeting in Geneva and holding utopian arms control talks even as Hitler was taking office in Berlin. But it’s difficult to imagine Neville Chamberlain in 1938 hosting a conference on the dangers of rearmament, and inviting America, France, Brazil, Liberia and Thailand …but not even mentioning Germany.

UND loses a great tradition, a combination of anger, disappointment and resignation, a plus and source of pride for the teams, summarized in a word, “furious", “Snarky”, property tax bills skyrocketed, This is not an aberration, completely shattering her windshield with his bare hands, King of Pork, It seems nothing is getting done, the shortfall could be as much as $4 billion, A mysterious van bristling with high-tech equipment, It was very thoughtful indeed

This is why I have said before that the coverage of the Church scandal has nothing to do with concern about youth — it has nothing to do with Truth.  It is simply a hammer with which the media can attack religion, something they hate more than the worst child molester.

Pushing back the frontiers of oxymoronic moronity, the left has added to “non-heterosexual marriage” and introduced the concept of non-homosexual same-sex relations.  It’s the kind of lunacy you disgorge when trying to cloak a truth hiding in plain sight.

Part of this article was read on air today by Rush Limbaugh:

"There is, however, an old familiar story in the Battleground Poll.  This question goes directly to the core beliefs of the respondent, not how politicians, parties, and pundits are spinning the politics of the day.  Question D (3) in the Battleground Poll asks what ought to be the most important question about America – what are the political values of Americans?  - a question almost never asked by polling organizations."

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The results of the April 2010 Battleground Poll show nothing has changed.  Fifty-nine percent of Americans in the latest Battleground Poll call themselves conservative; two percent of Americans call themselves moderate; thirty-four percent of Americans call themselves liberal; and five percent were either unsure or refused to answer.  Remove the “Unsure/Refused” and sixty-two percent of Americans are conservative.  Stories from the establishment media, like  USA Today and the L.A. Times, conveniently miss the story about the April 2010 Battleground Poll.

If you enjoyed the lack of transparency shown by the Senate when crafting their version of Obamacare, you will love the way they plan on crafting the Cap and Trade legislation.

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"That's the way the Senate works. The Senate works by running things through a committee."

Funny how Senator Dorgan is now, all of a sudden, concerned with "the way the Senate works. He did not seem to mind abusing the process last month.

Sioux Citizen asks Governor Hoeven to do the right thing in open letter:

"We want to believe the sad history of broken promises to the American Indians had ended but obviously the calloused and disrespectful actions by the Board of Higher Education prove otherwise."

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"The large majority at Spirit Lake spoke out loudly by our vote.  They believe this identification with the University of North Dakota is very important.  To lose this will only mean further isolation which will be harmful to the Sioux citizens."

The pernicious influence of a long-dead Italian Marxist on American morals .

Now that congress, including North Dakota’s congressional delegation, voted us into a catastrophic fiscal hole, everyone agrees reducing the national debt is a good thing.

But wait! Didn’t Obama, Pomeroy, Conrad and Dorgan assure us that their proposed health care “reform” bill was based on its deficit neutrality? They knew otherwise and didn’t tell us. Even the Congressional Budget Office didn’t believe the neutrality argument and said so.

THIS IS A HUGE DEAL!

A proposed initiated measure that will be entitled the “Infant Decapitation and Skull Crushing Ban Act” was turned in to Secretary of State Al Jaeger Tuesday, April 13, 2010. The proposed ban is designed to limit infanticide within the state and is intended to be added  to the North Dakota Century Code under the Criminal section (Title 12). The Secretary of State has until April 22 to review and approve the petition for circulation.

With sadness we noted last week the passing of a remarkable man.  Jaime Escalante pursued a profession not usually linked with fame.  He was a high school math teacher.  Born in Bolivia, Escalante earned his teaching degree and at his wife’s urging, immigrated (legally!) to the United States.  He found himself in Los Angeles, in an economically depressed area overwhelmingly ethnically Hispanic. 

Upon perusing the teaching materials and textbooks, Escalante was dismayed.  The work expected of high school students in Los Angeles was taught at the 5th grade level back in Bolivia.  It made no sense to him to require less of these kids than he knew they could deliver, and he resolved to put himself and these students to the test.

A little known fact that the biased liberal media will not tell you ... the government denies a larger percentage of medical claims than any private insurance agency. Death panels already exist in the Veteran's Administration, Medicare, and Medicaid systems. Thanks to Obama and your representatives in Washington, you may face one in your lifetime.

The desire of today’s big spenders in Washington to greatly increase their revenues is reminiscent of how FDR financed his spending binge during the Great Depression. During the 1930s, federal revenues from the income tax fell the more tax rates were raised. (Congress, take note.) To raise more revenue, FDR and Congress increased excise taxes—taxes embedded in the price of common consumer goods like gasoline, milk, and cigarettes. The effectiveness of those taxes as generators of government income derived from the fact that those taxes are difficult to avoid, unless you can live without milk, gasoline, etc.