Dakota Beacon

The facts are there on paper - in numbers not fabricated or exaggerated. As a nation, we are not better off than we were four years ago. Median incomes are down, unemployment is up, cost of living is up and the debt incurred by the government is WAY up and our status in the world has been shaken.

So why am I talking about hope?

The facts are there on paper - in numbers not fabricated or exaggerated. As a nation, we are not better off than we were four years ago. Median incomes are down, unemployment is up, cost of living is up and the debt incurred by the government is WAY up and our status in the world has been shaken.

So why am I talking about hope?

During the British bombardment of Baltimore, Francis Scott Key wrote, "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight and the gloom of the grave." Let us abolish the U. S. Department of Agriculture and its crushing rules and regulations.

. . . everything else is better in North Dakota; you guys are Beverly Hillbillies “We can’t do anything until money is available”; “This issue is only part of our larger social dilemma”; “government on the reservation is broken”; no comments on the new policy; critical rants from readers; A dangerous business! “shocking indifference”; NDSU athletes and crime; Homelessness grows amidst prosperity; the bigest employers are hospitals and schools; ND’s largest for-profit employers; We don’t want to be Grand Forks; DAKTOIDS. . . . 

Reagan went further. During a National Security Council briefing, the admiral in charge asked precisely how far U.S. aircraft would be permitted to retaliate against Libyan aircraft. Reagan answered: “All the way into their hangar,” into Libya itself.

One recent study of a Florida program offering private school vouchers to low-income families found that test scores at public schools facing competition went up. A Gallup survey found that 61 percent of Americans were somewhat or very dissatisfied with the state of public education. Hispanics in particular ranked access to education as a critical issue, even above immigration. School choice clearly benefits students with low income and high potential.

Does the news media refer to Sharia law as a war on women?  … Crickets….

 . . . “the mood of the country”; NDSU teams at times seem more like criminal gangs; NDSU recruits most heavily in the Twin Cities; ND does better than most states; Norway’s state owned oil company; a $55 million shuttle grain elevator at Bucyrus, ND; financially better off, but had a poorer quality of life; Who pays for infrastructure for new residents?; “It’s a bad combination”; my Cinderella dream day; White Juneberries” (82) was born in the Little Missouri River badlands; Children of farm families often continue to live in nearby farm communities; UND feasted on South Dakota Mines; DAKTOIDS . . .

By the time of the 2012 Democratic convention, party delegates had already (following Barack Obama’s lead) embraced everything from unlimited taxpayer-funding of abortion to gay marriage. How does one get to these positions? Answer: by removing God. Fittingly, then, the delegates

In a world where government imposed poverty, mass murder and prisons have always been the norm, the United States of America has a unique place in history because we are free. If being “bi-partisan” means gong along with replacing our freedoms with the tyranny and socialism that other countries have, then I want partisanship.

In the plan he announced in 2011, Paul Ryan proposed changes to Medicare that would not take effect for 10 years and would reduce benefits only for those who are now younger than 55. By putting off real cuts until 2023, the Ryan plan would still add trillions to the national debt over 10 years. For the sake of future retirees, more radical changes need to be made and the sooner the better.

. . . Spirit Lake seems to be a rudderless ship; a “strike team” to Spirit Lake; The Ft. Berthold Reservation had 493 producing oil wells; N-Flex is contemplating 50 to 100 “micro” mobile plants; Hoeven sees a bargain; we’re feeling a little lucky; Lake Sakakawea is ND’s most significant water source; understaffed and overwhelmed; Hamid Shirvani’s proposed three-tiered system; Why are second tier colleges concerned; Jerry Charlebois (83) is big and good-looking; Germans from Russia; DAKTOIDS . . . .

D'Souza does not preach a gospel. He doesn't have to. Here the facts really do speak for themselves. Could the dream that Obama dreams be nothing more than his frustrated imaginings of a father that never was, and the resurrection of a failed 1950s-era revolt against colonialism? This is the sort of fire-setting that has led in the past to world war.

The word “Christ” means “anointed one”… so how can it be that Christians have pushed into a dark corner the female minister of the rite of anointing? After one of the anointings, Jesus remarked “Verily I say unto you, wheresoever’s this gospel shall be preached throughout the world, what she has done here will be told in remembrance of her.”

I tell my students that student loans are like power tools. With a nail gun you can shingle your roof more efficiently, or you can nail your hand to the roof. So often when discussing student loans, we hear about the people who seem to have nailed a hand and both feet to the roof—$100,000 borrowed for a bachelor’s degree in women’s studies? Where were the parents? There is no bachelor’s degree from any school that is worth that kind of debt. 

. . . “I think people should think about this as a windfall”; hotel developers are investing in Minot; Buffett likes to zig when others zag; Half the locations are in Montana; “New Hi-Tech Oil & Gas Discoveries”; Chairman Tex Hall gleefully signed the documents; a package of reforms proposed by Hamid Shirvani; long lives and large families; The Lone Steer motel; Nodaks are prosperous, but stingy; The 2012 ACT scores are out; amestown trial of black ex-con Leron "Rah Rah" Howard; media coverage, or lack of it; DAKTOIDS . . . 

. . . “I think people should think about this as a windfall”; hotel developers are investing in Minot; Buffett likes to zig when others zag; Half the locations are in Montana; “New Hi-Tech Oil & Gas Discoveries”; Chairman Tex Hall gleefully signed the documents; a package of reforms proposed by Hamid Shirvani; long lives and large families; The Lone Steer motel; Nodaks are prosperous, but stingy; The 2012 ACT scores are out; amestown trial of black ex-con Leron "Rah Rah" Howard; media coverage, or lack of it; DAKTOIDS . . . 

Friedman once said, "The true test of any scholar's work is not what his contemporaries say, but what happens to his work in the next 25 or 50 years. And the thing that I will really be proud of is if some of the work I have done is still cited in the textbooks long after I'm gone."

Despite these intense privations and the incredible hardship experienced by this family and countless others during the period, what I remember of my grandparents growing up in the late 1950s and 1960s was a couple whose dignity and sense of self-worth remained intact.
They wore their best clothing to attend church on Sunday morning and had many friends who would call upon them on Sunday afternoon. The difficulties of the Depression years were stricken from living memory and a modest railroad retirement earned during and after the war along with Social Security allowed them to live a modest, yet comfortable life in retirement. . . Contrast this personal experience with what currently transpires among people living in poverty.

Yes, technology promotes liquidity in markets. However, hubris is Wall Street’s Achilles’ heel, as participants frequently disregard man’s limitations for measuring and predicting future risks. It’s becoming clear that the existing technology infrastructure, i.e., the plumbing of Wall Street, can’t fully support the complexity of high-frequency trading.

Maya Wiley of the Center for Social Inclusion told the lawmakers that "conservative messages" are "racially coded" and suggested ways to combat them. In Ms. Wiley's estimation, the facts of matters in question are not important. Rather, she said, "It's emotional connection, nor rational connection, that we need."
She argued, for example, that Newt Gingrich's labeling of President Obama as a "food stamp president" cannot be "a race neutral statement, even if Newt Gingrich did not intend racism." Thus, even though the food stamp program has grown dramatically in recent years, and despite the fact that most recipients are white, to discuss the question is somehow to engage in "racism."

Many in Congress who proclaim their belief in the free market and decry huge government deficits nevertheless seem ready to extend farm subsidies. This tells us, unfortunately, that what we are witnessing is politics as usual. And both parties are in it together. No one needs to wonder why we can't bring government spending under control. This example demonstrates why.

But since everything that begins to exist must have a cause, the universe, too, must have been caused. Its cause must have been immaterial and immensely powerful. This cause is what we normally call God.

“But, then, who created God?” the sceptic responds.

To slow the growth of government debt, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress want to raise tax rates when the Bush tax cuts expire in January 2013. A tax increase would reduce consumer spending, but the biggest problem with a tax increase is that it reduces the incentive to work, invest and take risks, particularly among entrepreneurs who start and manage businesses.

Because negative campaigning is so effective, Obama employs this tactic to avoid talking about his record. There is no adult conversation on vital issues, only adolescent attack ads from the Democrat super PACs. America approaches a fiscal catastrophe and Obama can only focus on his re-election through attacks and misrepresentations. No solutions, no budget, (Harry Reid and Kent Conrad where are you?). Just trashy attack ads.

Kelly was hardly alone in being burned by the Reds. My political hero, Ronald Reagan, once a self-described “hemophiliac liberal,” likewise was torched by Hollywood’s communists. Reagan, of course, more than redeemed himself. As a result, we remember him for his politics more than his movies.

Port of ND, no place for their employees to live, How ND saved rural Wisconsin, there was a disconnect, It’s not their fault!, ND Indians do better on both counts, a slightly frightening outcome,  ND political blog Say Anything, This year’s winner is Marilyn Hagerty, eight silver carp jumped directly in, Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, Where are the fatties?, new chancellor of the ND University System, the state’s first black-on-black on murder

Obama’s campaign will do anything to discourage opposition voters. Obama must find a way to make sure opponents don’t want to vote. He must demoralize them. He must make their vote appear hopeless, make them want to give up. In a word, Obama must poison the vote for Romney.

To do this, the Obama campaign must convince people that Romney hates them. Obama is still counting on class warfare to work its magic. Here is where advertising propaganda prevails. Many of Obama’s TV ads intend to suppress voter turn-out by portraying Romney as hurtful to the middle-class. Convincing the opposition that Romney sneers at them, that he resents them, that he is in politics for personal gain, that he loves closing plants forcing people to lose health care and die. Obama must convince the opposition they are already defeated and have no chance. They might as well not even show up at the polls.

Do the under-30s really want a president who has tried and succeeded in raising the price of electricity and gasoline; who has hastened the day of Social Security’s insolvency by cutting the revenues to that program; who has raised future taxes on young Americans through the reckless addition of trillions of dollars to the national debt; whose policies have pushed food prices higher; who has tried to keep home prices from falling to levels that would make them affordable to younger Americans?

The Romney Ryan ticket will challenge the Obama Biden record of abysmal failure. The national talk will now turn to economic growth, jobs, free enterprise, and most importantly--leadership.