Dakota Beacon

In conclusion, I support Cramer without hesitation or qualification in his bid for Congress.  He has consistently shown the will to FIGHT for North Dakota citizens as a public servant.

Those who pronounced the eclipse of conservatism at the beginning of the twenty-first century are deathly afraid of conservatism’s virtual ascendancy. Thanks to great thinkers like Edmund Burke, Benjamin Disraeli and Cardinal John Henry Newman followed by contemporary thinkers like William F. Buckley, Jr., Irving Kristol and Russell Kirk, conservatism is once again rising.

I know this over-dramatizes the point, but there truly are certain individuals so incredibly knowledgeable in their areas of expertise—possessing a vast reservoir of information within the invisible shelves of their minds—that when they leave this world, that information turns to ashes with them. They are, really, national treasures—irreplaceable. When it comes to the history of arguably the most fascinating of centuries—the 20th century—and specifically the long battle against militant Soviet communism, which stretched from 1917-91 as the predominant, defining ideological conflict of the last 100 years, few figures knew as much as Arnold Beichman. … Arnold passed away on February 17 at the age of 96, gleefully outliving the miserable Soviet Union and its seedy cast of butchers and tormentors, and taking with him not only body and soul but mind—a mind overflowing with valuable information. That which Arnold was unable to record on paper, or transfer to others who recorded it on paper, has gone with him, now irretrievable.

The law says we cannot be discriminated against because of our religion.  I believe that religion is important in a child’s life but, whether atheism is a religion or not it should not ever be used as a reason to deny custody to an otherwise fit and wonderful parent.

It has since come to my attention that parents who profess to be atheist are being denied custody because of their beliefs.

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

Sandy Blunt was tried and convicted after Burleigh County State's Attorneys withheld a critical item of exculpatory evidence. When major health insurance expert Joseph Paduda presses Cynthia Feland on the particulars of the withheld evidence he gets nothing but full on PREVARICATING PROSECUTOR! Although Cynthia Feland continues to prevaricate at every turn, it does not change the fact that she withheld one particular memo that would have proven her primary prosecution witness, Auditor Jason Wahl, of the North Dakota State Auditor's Office was being much, much less than truthful on the most important material matters of the trial!

Was her action illegal? According to the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. law, YES!

I’ve been bandying comparisons with Britain and France but that hardly begins to convey the scale of it. Obamacare represents the government annexation of “one-sixth of the US economy” - ie, the equivalent of the entire British or French economy, or the entire Indian economy twice over. Nobody has ever attempted this level of centralized planning for an advanced society of 300 million people. Even the control-freaks of the European Union have never tried to impose a unitary “comprehensive” health care system from Galway to Greece.  The Soviet Union did, of course, and we know how that worked out.

Since the recession began in 2008, a period during which approximately eight million private-sector workers lost their jobs and millions more saw their income decline, the number of federal employees is increasing at a 7 percent per-year rate and their income is holding up quite nicely. … [The] average federal worker’s pay and benefits now approximates $120,000 per year, or roughly double the compensation of the average private-sector employee. Factor out the lavish government fringe benefits and look at salary only, and the civil servant is still far ahead: $71,197 vs. $49,935

Score: Bats 2, McClean County 0, Minot AFB has a nuclear mission, he did not go down quietly, NDSU president, Schuff Steel, Follow The Sun, 50th in the nation, their school bus hit a cow, Mr. Constitution, lured by the sirens of California, hockey rivalry between the U.S. and Canada, UND’s Energy and Environmental Research Center, Roundup Ready seed,

The sad and tragic fact is that sex-selective abortion is being practiced here in America; albeit quietly.  Doctors report that 25-30% of all abortions performed in the United States are done AFTER AN ULTRA SOUND; AFTER the sex of the baby is determined. Is a “male-bias” at work here too? What do you think?

It seems that the total reproductive freedom that pro-abortionists and feminists claim will give women true equality with men; may in fact, have dire, unintended consequences. Once again, our interference with “God’s Plan”; has come back to haunt us.

There is a geometric progression of consequences in the politics of arrogance, and politics informs all decisions in government, the military, and society in general. The inherent resistance to criticism and blindness to reality that are characteristic of oversized egos magnify such consequences.

Sometimes nations beat the math and survive the politics of arrogance practiced by leaders who identify their personal fortunes with the destiny of their country. Sometimes they do not. It is almost impossible to conceive of the United States over the next decade ‘beating the math. Efforts to create a European-style social democracy likely will produce a European outcome: a debt-ridden menagerie of stagnant societies smothered under a thick cloak of bureaucratic mediocrities oozing with self-importance. The prevailing politics of ‘never letting a serious crisis go to waste’ so far has generated national debt estimates that cannot possibly be sustained without the United States suffering in economic terms what imperial Germany did in military terms during the Great War.

Government, utilities, banks, education, land development; potential powerful brokers steering the “distribution of tax revenues” derived from hard working North Dakotans…to the tune of $141 Million over twelve years. Voters beware…this is not the last you will hear of these “economic development schemes”. Keep your “no new taxes” signs at the ready!

NDPERS manages, among other things, the retirement plans of public employees in North Dakota.  Nearly all state employees and many local government employees are invested in the NDPERS as a major portion of their retirement plans.

Now, much like Social Security, NDPERS is on a pathway to insolvency.  Their own figures show that, without a drastic increase in funding, NDPERS will be insolvent by 2038.  Unlike the Federal Government with Social Security, the state cannot simply write IOUs to itself to cover the difference.

The NDPERS fund currently has $284.1 million in unfunded liabilities - however, that shortfall will expand exponentially until 2038 (or sooner) when it cannot meet its obligations.

There’s no fools gold in the Olympic Games. One succeeds or one does not succeed. Two years from now in London the 2012 Summer Olympics will commence and we’ll again see old records broken and new records set. To everything there is a season.

One can only stand in awe of excellence

The Democrats intend to tax, borrow and spend Americans (except the political elite) into a life of “righteousness”. They plan to transform America into a nation void of capitalism like Haiti and Cuba. Remember, people flee their free government food, housing and healthcare and risk their lives trying to float here on makeshift boats from these liberal “utopias”. Many die trying.

If Democrats “fundamentally transform America” (as Obama put it), is there a country left in the world that we can flee to?

In the current range of atmospheric CO2, an increase or decrease of 10 ppm (parts per  million) or CO2 results in an increase or decrease of 1% plant growth. Going from 280 ppm to 390 ppm is a 110 ppm increase. From this, I would guestimate that plants overall are growing 11% faster and bigger than they would be if CO2 levels had not risen. That equates to crop yields and worldwide food production up 11% because of CO2 up that amount.

The adoption home that Clinton and her advocates have justifiably touted as a genuine display of her Christian compassion has been out of operation for a long time… Has Mrs. Clinton known that the home has been shut down, all the while boasting about it in books, statements, interviews, and no less than the keynote at the 2010 National Prayer Breakfast? Clinton extolled the ‘common ground’ she once found with Mother Teresa. The two had come together to open an adoption center, the Mother Teresa Home for Infant Children. Mrs. Clinton touts it whenever she can, but it turns out, the home has been closed for almost a decade.

TORONTO, ONTARIO, CANADA --  In some countries, the perennial dominance of one party or political orientation has led to fundamental distortions of social outlooks and the political milieu. In the last few years, it has become clear that Canada -- with the Liberals as "the natural governing party" (a term frequently used in self-congratulatory fashion by Liberals themselves) -- is such a country.

Through his embrace of relativism modern man has made Christianity incomprehensible.  He has made philosophy incomprehensible.  He has, in fact, made civilization itself incomprehensible.  For, if there is no right or wrong, it can be no better than barbarism. 

Relativism also makes the existence of religion writers incomprehensible — and, increasingly, the writers themselves uncomprehending.   

Lamoureux hockey family in Grand Forks, North Dakota is an acquired taste, Hazelton didn’t buckle, western ND could define the state, a good deal of luck, Should the “Mighty Midgets” stay or go, American Indian reservation reaping oil benefits, one of the worst graduation rates in the country, the frauds are getting smaller, Flooding is imminent, the No. 1 wheat state

These citizen cadres of conservatism who will reclaim our land do not take orders from above.  We operate individually, like tens of millions of independent, autonomous minds, guided only by broad principles and objectives, and seeking less to capture any citadel or city than to liberate them all.  Free men tend to take freedom for granted.  It is almost in the nature of that treasure.  But when free men fight, slave armies lose.  That war is being fought, and won, right now.

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand new, even more unsustainable entitlement at the health care “summit”, thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen - because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

Paul Schaffner absolutely nails the Fargo Forum on their hypocrisy regarding “Republican Hypocrisy” This is a must read. I understand that it has been submitted to the Forum for publication. It will never see the light of day in any Forum Communications venue. Count on it!

An Event Review by Lynn Bergman

I shared my initial observations with the facilitator of the “Digging out from Debt” round table after completion of the presentation. I explained that I was attending with the intent of writing an article on the event in the Dakota Beacon magazine. I then began to explain my concern with what was not said at the beginning of the presentation and my disagreement with a few of the suggestions within the presentation. At first the facilitator became slightly defensive, but quickly became conciliatory after realizing that I was genuinely concerned with the economic well being of young citizens and how their education in financial matters is paramount to correcting our societal indifference to saving and subsequently buying with cash, a “life skill” those professionals in multiple disciplines aptly term “delayed gratification”.

Is there such a thing as a “Good Politician”?  Or, is a politician, by definition, innately a self-serving, know-it-all, in league with the devil?  The approval rating of our politicians in Washington, DC, as a group, has never been lower; and each and every one of them should be embarrassed and ashamed.

The point is that national parties are vote-getting, patronage machines. The attempt to beautify them and their operations by attaching philosophical labels is nonsense. The only way we can have the kind of discussions that my friend Bill Kauffman wants is by forgetting the shifting interests of our two parties and their opportunistic labeling. Otherwise, there is no escape from the exchange of prepackaged sound-bites.

You may have seen the recent story about the 41-year-old doctor who graduated from medical school in 2003 with student-loan indebtedness of $250,000 that has since swelled to more than $555,000. She is now scheduled to pay $990 per month until she is 70 years old. Ouch!

This is an extreme example of a widespread problem. Only 40 percent of the $730 billion of outstanding student loans are actively being repaid. This isn’t healthy for financial institutions and it isn’t healthy for many young Americans. Just as was the case with the ongoing mortgage fiasco, there is plenty of blame to go around for this sorry state of affairs. Still it is significant that almost all student loans are taken out by Americans too young to know what it takes to pay their bills and make a living on their own.