Dakota Beacon

In this famous parable, Jesus illustrated … the two forms of Christian charity: first, assistance provided personally and directly to another; second, rendering assistance indirectly by donating one’s own property to those who have the time and skills to tend to those in need, in lieu of our own hands-on assistance.

Let’s suppose that the Samaritan, upon spotting the badly wounded man, also sees a rich man walking by. Let us then suppose that the Samaritan is a big, powerful man who intimidates the rich man into handing over enough money to pay for the wounded man’s care. The man in need would still receive the help that he so desperately needs, but would the Samaritan still touch our heart, and would he have acted selflessly? Would we remember him as a paragon of Christian virtue and charity?

North Dakota taxpayers have been told repeatedly that they would see a 16-17% decrease in their combined income and property taxes in 2009.

This assertion is based on the fact that the state income tax rates were reduced and property taxes were to be reduced by a mandatory reduction in school property tax levies because of increased state funding. It is a given that property taxes did decrease since a large portion of that tax is in school taxes.

However, some of the anticipated saving was negated by an increase in property values. The increase in taxable valuation was required by some state mandate, we are told.

North Dakota Joins Multi-State Lawsuit Challenging Individual Mandate Provisions In Government Healthcare Law

So do the Church’s critics really care about sexual abuse?  Some do, for sure.  But there’s no doubt that many of those using the issue to attack the Church do not.  And “using” is the key word.  If they truly cared about sexual abuse of youth, they would take pains to emphasize that it isn’t limited to the priesthood.  Oh, I’m not saying they would necessarily do this to defend the Church; they would do it to truly expose the problem.  Instead, they’re simply interested in exposing the Church — to ridicule — and to this end use these abuse victims as a convenient vehicle through which to attack a hated adversary.  This is typical of the left, which makes a practice of using people as human shields, props and political hammers.

Albert Einstein told us that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. The bureaucracy of our federal government, the elected, the appointed and the hired;  have broken, ruined, our Post Office, our Social Security, our Medicare, our Medicaid and Amtrac. In God’s name, what makes them think; what makes us think, that healthcare will be any different?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said “all options are on the table” to halt Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons program. The problem with this superficially aggressive stance is that it makes no matter whatsoever what is, or is not, on  the table when no one sits down to talk. This is the state of the current state of affairs on diplomatic talks versus the imposition of tougher economic sanctions.

Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries. These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war, but, with such a full plate over at the State Department, it’s no wonder that peripheral matters like Iranian nuclear deadlines seem to fall by the wayside.

Last year the VA hired a board of individuals hired to cut costs; it is called the Clinical Resource Management Team. It sounds quite innocuous doesn’t it? This board is anything but that.

How many other Service Connected Disable Veterans has this guy screwed up or made worse by his refusal to sign a consultation for a specialist that the VA doesn’t have?  Ask yourself these questions.

How much more damage will this fool inflict on us Veterans before he is stopped?

Has he killed a cancer patient because of his power of the refusal pen?

This is an illusion, The scores of ND students are mediocre, wealth is shifting from the Red River Valley to the carbon corridor, Time for a reality check, That could result in career changes, husband and wife team who are Democratic activists, Drake lost its grocery store, USA Today reported that ND public officials are the most corrupt in the land, Williston wants someone else to take the risk, unmanned aerial systems, Feathers ruffled, the low-brow movie “Slap Shot

Democrat U.S. House member absolutely nailed!

Follow your oath regarding U.S. Constitution?

Read the ObamaCare bill?

Telling the big whopper?

This video pretty much confirms all that we already suspected about the people that forced this monstrosity on the American people.

At some point, we may well replace coal and oil with some cheaper and easier technology, but in the meantime, oil is still much cheaper than bottled water and coal still provides half of our domestic energy. On the other hand, if one really does believe that man-made climate change is an impending disaster worthy of dismantling our economy, then it may be rational to argue for a shutdown of oil, coal, and other industries.

High-profile ‘climate-change’ alarmists have been backtracking following recent revelations of significant errors and outright fraud involving the so-called scientific global-warming ‘consensus. In recapping prior attempts to revolutionize our transportation system, Mr. Skorup assesses current prospects for a similar technological revolution alongside the purported benefits and probably costs.

The next step in the debate over government healthcare will be in the courts.  Already a dozen states have announced their intentions to challenge the constitutionality of the new law. 

The healthcare issue will likely get pushed out of the forefront - already, new calls to push both Cap & Trade and Union Card-Check before the summer recess are being made.  The theory being: if the liberals are going to get kicked out anyways, they might as well shove though everything they can - regardless of the Constitution.

I heard this possibility months ago and thought it kind of wacky then. But as times goes by and it is obvious that Tracy Potter would get smeared....Dorgan will be making a special announcement this morning at 10:00 a.m. in Bismarck. According to AP people think he is getting back in the race.

Was this all just a giant fake-out to begin with?

The Constitution originally provided for a Senate that represented the states rather than the voters. A popularly elected Senate that can easily end debate is no check at all on the House of Representatives. The people need to be educated about the intent of the Framers when they established the system of delay and deliberation as a protection against the tyranny of popular passions. Perhaps then the Senate will be able once more to serve as a needed brake on reckless legislation. Perhaps then we could even return to the original way of selecting Senators. The Senate was once a far, far better place. It should return to its roots. 

Senator Kent Conrad is busy barnstorming the state defend the government-run healthcare plan.

Senator Conrad can say it is not government-run healthcare until he is blue in the face.  But the following list of 159 new government boards and commissions created by the new healthcare law.

For better or worse, the Republican and Democrat parties in North Dakota have held their conventions.  If you participated, you are to be thanked and congratulated.  If not, and if you don’t like what you’ve got that’s too bad.  Now the decision you will have to make is which of the two major parties do you want to support?  What we need is some input into the system we have.  Let this be the last year you patriots sit out the process.  You’ve been protesting now for a year.  In that time you could have taken over one or both parties (many Democrats feel the same disconnect Conservative Republicans feel) and been on the road to recovery for this nation!  Instead, too many of you have taken the attitude that neither party is “pure” enough. Just ask yourselves why.

At the current rate, military veterans and retirees can look forward to fighting over budget scraps doled out by an ungrateful congress after “higher” priorities are funded. It was never supposed to be like this. It is ethically and morally correct that promises made to veterans and retirees decades ago be kept.

If military veterans and retirees must do battle with other government departments for a diminishing slice of the health care pie, then they are up for one more fight.

When large percentages of the people view government as the goal and not the means, then these people have no interest at all in keeping government modest, tame, and neutral.  Instead, government becomes the Cossack of their lusts.  The sabers and whips are, rightly (they think) used to punish and to intimidate all voices and all groups which oppose them.  The end-game is predictably atrocious:  ask the Jews of Germany, the Sudras of India, or the blacks of the Reconstruction South.  Democracy was the enemy of each of these tortured souls of humanity.

A  cannibal was walking through the jungle and came upon a restaurant operated by a fellow cannibal.  Feeling somewhat hungry, he sat down and looked over the menu.

    +Tourist:                                         $5.00
    +Broiled  Missionary:                      $10.00
    +Fried  Explorer:                             $15.00
    +Baked  Democrat :                        $100.00

Election after election Democrats and their media passed out the Cool Aid. Seniors drank it. In life we are many times surprised when we learn who our friends really are. Unfortunately for seniors, it’s probably too late.

An editorial in the Fargo Forum says that North Dakotans should be “disappointed in Representative Earl Pomeroy and Senators Byron Dorgan and Kent Conrad for going against the sentiments of a majority of North Dakotans” and voting for a “deeply flawed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.”

Personally, I think “disappointed” is a drastic understatement of the situation. I think that all North Dakotans should be “embarrassed” that the men we elected to speak and to vote for us, for the good of our state and our country,  in Washington, D.C.;  knowingly and deliberately went against the obvious wishes of over 60% of the citizens and the voters of our state.

Jennifer Burns’ new biography of Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right, is a welcome contribution to this growing body of literature. Burns has produced a thoroughly researched and critical (but fair) study of one of the conservative movement’s most influential and colorful thinkers. The book is in part a sobering cautionary tale for conservatives. The narrative offers at least three timely lessons worth noting. Among them are words of caution about “radical individualism,” “troubling contradictions in a representative democracy,” and “myopic dogmatism.”  Ideologues on both the right and the left have often fallen into this sort of blinkered sectarianism, speaking only to true believers and dividing the world neatly into enlightened individualists and crude collectivists.

Briefly, the FairTax Act of 2009 (with only 79 pages) is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including:

    * A progressive national retail sales tax.

    * A prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the

       the poverty level.

• Dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality.   
• * Repeal of the 16th Amendment through companion legislation.

This proposed communist invasion of our personal freedoms must be fought back and defeated... and we the people cannot rest until the victory is attained and our liberties once again are secured. But I want to encourage you to take heart... and do not despair... for the battle is already won and the outcome is certain because right has always triumphed over wrong in the end, and I remind you again my friends... God is in control.

have fun with it and go kick some butt, This has been a Carrington year, the safety of teenage drivers, The town of 300 may have to leave, financial problems at NDSU, there are few suprises, Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, It was in retirement that Nick bloomed, a compelling case for a N.D. unicameral legislature, ND grew by about 5,400 residents, The Health Care Bil,  Polls show Pomeroy lagging his opponent, THIS AND THAT

There was, of course, nothing unpredictable about Sunday’s health-care vote.  It was fairly obvious that the Chicago mobsters would, using the Escobarian silver-or-lead tactic, scare up the votes needed to pass Obama’s baby.  It was plain that “pro-life” Democrats such as Bart Stupak would, after the requisite posturing, find the rationalization they needed to cast aside a position that was never really a principle.  That it came in the form of an executive order with the credibility of the Hitler-Stalin Pact is of little consequence.  It was also predictable that the Monday after would bring talk about the extinguishment of liberty and the republic, and heads hanging so low that good Americans could look up and see their shoelaces. 

There's a sucker born every minute, P.T. Barnum observed, and the sales of these atheist tracts, of which god Is Not Great is only one, argue that he was guilty of gross understatement. On the one hand, Hitchens ascribes religion to "wish-thinking"; on the other, he blames it for creating a horrible and wholly false vision of Hell. Well, which is it? I can say only that it seems to me obvious which side is guilty of wishful thinking, starting with the pleasant idea that we will never have to answer for our sins.

From the guy who is in North Dakota working on the "Read The Bill" initiated measure, Jerrol asks the simple question as to if it is right that as soon as a legislator takes someone’s word for the contents of a bill, and doesn’t personally read and study it, that legislator is representing the person who gave the advice, not you or me?

 Our congress and president cannot and will not curtail the spending even as they see the revenue coming in is inadequate, the frightening deficits grow, and the national debt balloons to predicted levels of 13 or 14 trillion dollars by year’s end. In spite of all that the Democrat majority, driven by their progressive members, have not given up on the agenda they came into Washington to do; that is they intend to pass into law one of the biggest entitlement (spending) programs ever in U.S. history called Health Care Reform. Never mind that the country is in recession, people are unemployed at levels not seen since the Great Depression, and the nation is trillions of dollars in debt. They are planning to do it. President Obama has said that we are on the verge of making history. Over the coming years we will find is the cost of “History”.

Is American foreign policy in a meltdown prompted by the Obama administration’s focus on radicalizing the American healthcare industry while negating any remnants of American ‘exceptionalism’ in U.S. foreign policy? If so, a nuclear capable Iran may embolden Israel’s enemies into renewed attacks by Hamas guerrillas in Gaza and from southern Lebanon, where fanatically determined Hezbollah units, well armed and trained by Iran and Syria, stand ready to attack. Washington will condemn the aggressors as well as the inevitable strong responses by Israel, but will do nothing to support Israel. In that case, American foreign policy, whether from ineptitude or chicanery, will have engendered a Middle Eastern catastrophe.