Dakota Beacon

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."

.......

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.

Spirit Lake Nation Tribal member recounts the facts and explains a native view:

Now as for our position on the name and logo the vast majority of Sioux in North Dakota take pride in the name and logo and feel it honors our ancestors.  We understand that there are honorable people who oppose the name and they do respect the people, but there are those also who oppose the name, who do not respect our people.  And as a Grand Forks Herald reporter said after speaking with an opponent he got the impression the “end justifies the means” that tactic, we feel dishonors our ancestors.

This controversy is far from being over, the Sioux having yet begun to fight.  The only way to stop this controversy is for eight council members in Standing Rock to get out of the way and let the people speak.   If by some amazing turn of events Standing Rock voted in opposition to the name and logo the people of Spirit Lake would accept it as long as it is open and honest.

Nazis? Nietzsche? Insanity? Obama? What does it all mean?

First Democrats (the party of slavery, segregation and the Klan) accused conservatives (who passed the Civil Rights Act despite Democrats) of “racism”; now the party of violence and terrorism calls us “terrorists” for peacefully warning people about the horrors of socialism and deviating from our constitution. If socialized medicine is so wonderful, can’t they simply debate the issue?

One sin you don't hear much about is envy: the hatred of the good for being good. Yet it's one of the most basic human temptations, making its first recorded appearance near the beginning of the book of Genesis, when Cain hates -- and kills -- his brother Abel for being favored by the Lord.

This kind of envy is not to be confused with coveting another's possessions. Mere jealousy of wealth can be assuaged by acquiring wealth. But envy arises from the humiliation of moral inferiority. It makes you want to denigrate or even destroy the person you feel is better than you. Usually it takes the form of detraction and slander, but it can even go to Cain's extreme.

When Hitler’s goons fled the concentration camps at the site of Allied guns in the spring of 1945, it was left to the Allies … to grapple with what they suddenly confronted. Once the survivors were freed and carefully transported, what would the Allies do with the camps? For nations like America and Britain, steeped in Judeo-Christian notions of fairness and justice, the options for the camps ranged from the legal, meaning document them as evidence of Nazi war crimes for the Nuremberg trials, to the theological: exorcise them. For the USSR, however, the next step was a no-brainer: use the camps. Indeed, fling the doors open and get ‘em back in business. The communists were not about to waste a perfectly functional, German-built concentration camp. If the Soviet system knew how to do one thing, it was to collectivize and redistribute squalor and death.

We are now not merely disincentivizing economic energy but actively waging war on it. If 51 per cent can vote themselves government lollipops from the other 49 per cent, soon 60 per cent will be shaking down the remaining 40 per cent, and then 70 per cent will be sticking it to the remaining 30 per cent. How low can it go? When you think about it, that 53 per cent of American households prop up not just this country but half the planet: They effectively pick up the defense tab for our wealthiest allies, so that Germany, Japan and others can maintain minimal militaries and lavish the savings on cradle-to-grave entitlements. A relatively tiny group of people is writing the check for the entire global order. What proportion of them would need to figure out the game’s no longer worth it to bring the whole system crashing down?

Gen. Norton Schwartz, the Air Force’s senior officer, Global Hawks at Grand Forks, opponents of the UND Fighting Sioux nickname are a minority, Archie Fool Bear gathered over 1,000 signatures, How do tribal members feel, What is a “coyote stick?, What is “thunder snow?, Armey is one of ND’s most well-known and distinguished figures, Frontier states strategy, Commission on the Future, 120 miles of canals to nowhere, The marvelous machine will go 70 mph on water, ND has its own shaking, he is quick on his feet.

The modern left’s ‘social justice’ strives for economic equality. It endeavors to reduce, if not erase, the gap between rich and poor by redistributing wealth. This is ‘justice’ more akin to Marx and Lenin, not according to Moses and Jesus. It is a counterfeit of real justice, biblical justice. Modern notions of ‘social justice’ are often wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce . . . .

When was the last time we had a government reflecting these limits?  The truth is that Uncle Sam violates the Constitution ever more brazenly with the passage of time, adding to its power and subtracting from our rights.  And it won’t stop unless someone stops it. 

And it is time we stopped it.  The states should send a message: Black Robes, if you won’t do your job, we will do it for you.  No state resident shall be compelled to buy health insurance, and we will not cooperate in the enforcement of such a mandate.  Furthermore, no federal agents may enter our territories for the purposes of such enforcement.  And if they do, they will be arrested.