Dakota Beacon

Try these challenges --

Name the famous jazz artist kidnapped at gun point and forced to play music at Al Capone’s birthday party.

Name the composer who wrote a new piece of music each year for his dog’s birthday.

Which music critic incurred the threat of physical violence from a US President?

Each of these little known but interesting anecdotes -- and more -- make up a remarkably unique devotional book assembled by Dr. Patrick (d. 2018) and Barbara Kavanaugh titled appropriately “Devotions from the World of Music” (Cook, 2000).

This “technology” that we are told to worship at the expense of common sense is a tool.  Look at one of the most popular programs - “Grammarly”.  This wonderful little app will not just clean up your minor errors, put commas and semi-colons in the right places and check your spelling.  It will rephrase your sentences.  It will make them “better”, more “professional”.  It will re-write what you tried to write.  In the end, Grammarly just wrote your paper, your report, maybe your book or article.  And students and parents think this is a great help.  It is helping its users to dependency and basic illiteracy. 

In 2026, Artemis II carried the first crewed mission beyond low earth orbit to the moon since Apollo 11 landed astronauts on the moon in 1969.

Fifty-seven years elapsed on the space frontier between Apollo 11 and Artemis II. There have been other Apollo moon landings (12, 14, 15, 16, and 17 ) and 12 astronauts have walked on the moon. The first space station was placed in orbit (Skylab, 1973) followed by the orbiting of the International Space Station in 1998.

Humans extended their presence among the stars in the last century and glimpsed where no eye had seen before. We stared like spectators into unknown corners of the universe from the vantage point of the Hubble Space Telescope. Exciting times, these.

May Day! News brings stories of Marxist rioting and hooliganism in cities around the world. Cities like Moscow where Communism found its roots still hold massive celebrations. Communist leaders wanted to structurally change the foundation of society – and then export the revolution to the rest of the world.

A century later, who wants to structurally change the foundation of America? Activist groups with ties to No Kings protests, deadly Antifa, and an array of leftist organizations seek a political revolution and an overhaul of the American system.

What better way to make their point than on May Day – the day Marxists and Communists claim as their own.

Americans have become too inclined to seek the easiest one-move kind of verification but it comes at way too high a cost.  

Over the years Judicial Watch performed a valuable service to America in part by bringing lawsuits against states over their failure to keep correct voter registration lists. The lawsuits and other legal actions have been filed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). As a result, nearly 6 million ineligible registrations were removed from the voter rolls in 8 cities and states.

These are the principles Judicial Watch runs under. Only eligible American citizens should be allowed to vote in US elections. It supports state efforts to require the use of voter ID and opposes efforts to weaken or abolish traditional honest-election safeguards. It employs the NVRA to compel states to follow federal law by keeping voter rolls free of ineligible voters. The Act also allows private groups like Judicial Watch to review voter registration lists for poor maintenance and voter fraud.

What follows are opponents of the Judicial Watch support for the NVRA.

Here is a little gem from A-I:

“The Law of Cause and Effect states that every action (cause) produces a specific reaction (effect) and every effect has a specific cause.  Often called the “Iron Law” of human action, it posits that nothing happens by chance; rather, success, failure and circumstances are directly created by previous choices and actions.”

No Kings became an international event when a massive crowd of people gathered in London in support of the American left’s No Kings protest. England, who literally has a King, protested America who does not. You cannot make this stuff up.

Continuing our story, No Kings activists dressed up in costumes. Some dressed up in inflatable frog costumes and danced in protest of Trump and his administration. I am not sure that this reinforced their point. Nonetheless, this silliness is entertaining to see just how freakish and ghoulish Trump’s opposition can be. And it will only get worse.

So goes the street theater of the No Kings circus.

Could a meme based on a cartoon/game accomplish what Britain's best thinkers and heroes have been unable to do?  Coule Amelia be the Joan of Arc that will lead the British back "home"?

There is no substitute for Christ living His own life through believers. We are meant to function as dead men -- dead with Christ. He is meant to be the Resurrection and the Life within us. We can try to love better, pray harder, and read our Bible more, but these efforts are hopeless without the Life of Christ filling us. It is only the Divine Nature that pleases God. We are at odds with God if we are trying to live up to biblical standards without Christ. He is not just our helper and healer. Sooner or later, we realize that we are not the central focus of God’s plan. Christ is. God’s desires rest with Christ His Son as the True Vine, and we are His intimately joined branches. If this is good news to you, then you will discover a fulfilling way of relating to God.

No one should take offense. May the reality of the indwelling Christ be genuine this Easter in the life of all believers.

Let’s talk about voter fraud. A bill titled The SAVE America Act (Safeguard American Voter Eligibility) is a U.S. federal elections bill introduced into the 119th Congress in January 2026. It changes how people register and vote in federal elections by amending the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives after delays and grousing by Democrats. Senate consideration comes next. Most, if not all, Senate Democrats oppose it and the bill may well go down to defeat.

The reticence and foot-dragging by Democrats opposing the bill comes as no surprise. Let’s review the bidding.

In recent decades, “Climate Alarmists” and “Class Envy Marxists” seemed to have overtaken “End-of-times” Religious Fundamentalists in our ongoing Fear-Mongering Olympics.

The attempted destruction of the US fossil fuel industry that began with the blocking of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and was continued with the cancellation of construction of the Keystone XL pipeline within the United States (after the Canadian portion had been all but finished) represented two major examples of severe setbacks to United States Energy Independence.

I think Steyn is wrong in the bigger picture here, although he has brought up some excellent points and some worthwhile history to ponder.  But in the end, I disagree with his assessment of the Iranian situation.  This could all go horribly wrong, however, if Trump does not play this perfectly.  

Books offer more than entertainment and information. The written word imparts understanding for the reader. I knew a man who engaged his books in “conversation.” After “conversing” with a book he not only knew the author’s point of view, but he could explain the subject and why the author wrote what he did. The book imparted enlightenment and understanding.

Book lovers are in a world of their own. Bibliophiles, the technical term for these gentle, bookish folks, have unbridled affection and unquenchable thirst for the printed word. The history of books reveals some startling accounts of bizarre behavior shown by book lovers on the fringe. Some book lovers have found their affection addictive. As with other areas of human behavior, bibliophilia has its dark side. What happens when the desire to obtain, own, store, and read books goes awry?

As an undergraduate in college, I took part in a School-to-Work project for one of my professors. He assigned a bibliographic essay on a particular topic. A bibliographic essay is a type of academic writing that analyzes and evaluates the existing literature on a specific topic. Instead of arguing a new idea, a bibliographic essay maps out what scholars have already written. What follows is a greatly modified bibliographic essay of books in my library on the topic of Islam.

Publisher's Note: If he were still with us,Joe Sobran would be celebratinghis 80th birthday.Below is one of his columns recounting his 60th birthday.

The root of this mental illness can perhaps be best explained in a hypothetical example. As a married couple’s daughter is contemplating leave home for college at age 19, her mother abruptly decides she no longer loves her father and wants an open marriage. But why?

Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real. Even after President George Bush’s failed “nation-building” gambit; even after the exposure of Muslim rape gangs trading local girls as sex slaves in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and France; even after communist China’s saber-rattling regarding Taiwan and promises of world domination; Western globalists insist that civilizational clashes aren’t real. Huntington begs to differ.

Years after writing “The Clash of Civilizations” Huntington has been vindicated. Entering the second quarter of the twentieth century, we will see a renewed reality of civilizational conflict. In the real world, values matter, culture matters, religion matters, the past matters. As one wag put it, “In the real-life bullets fly faster than words. In the real world, people fight, cultures compete, and civilizations clash”.

An odd nod to Black History Month – odd because the following two gents would never be nominated by liberal Black history proponents. These two influential Blacks taught me what I know about economics. Both are highly qualified economists, academics, authors, and social commentators. In tribute, let them speak for themselves in their own words.

            Getting older does have advantages. With modes of technology advancing so rapidly, it becomes possible for folks my age to see the birth of technologies forward into their maturity.

Take drones for example. Toy drones began appearing as household playthings in the 1980s when Japanese toy manufacturers released what is widely credited as the first consumer toy drones. They were simple, remote‑controlled indoor helicopters with a plastic body and a small electric motor.

Remote‑controlled model airplanes certainly existed even prior to that. Radio‑controlled planes flown by hobbyists were popular in the 1950s and 1960s but they were not mass‑marketed as toys.

Sometime around 2009 toy drones advanced to the point where they were Wi-Fi controlled and included cameras. Arguments arose among townspeople over privacy, zoning, and noise requirements. Drones really became a nuisance when they invaded airspace over homes and began peeking in windows!

“They are programmed…,” Soviet defector and ex-KGB man Yuri Bezmenov warned decades ago about the ideologues we call “leftists.” “You cannot change their mind…. You are stuck with them.”

It’s common for people to say today when contrasting our two major ideological groups, “Conservatives think leftists are misguided; leftists think conservatives are evil.” I, though, am different.

I know leftists are evil.

Peter Schweizer’s new book “The Invisible Coup” opens a wide panorama on America’s problem with illegals and what to do about it. In his thesis, Schweizer argues that US immigration policy has been turned against American citizens by American elites, non-government organizations (NGOs), foreign governments, and criminal networks for personal and political gain. Over time, these entities intentionally devised the immigration flow to alter US political outcomes for their own personal and political gain. He frames the argument as an “invisible coup” -- a slow, systemic subversion rather than a single dramatic event. As you will see if you read the book, if you dismiss his argument as mere conspiracy theory, then you do so at your own risk. “Houston, we have a problem.”

In reality, the extreme focus on Minneapolis protester Alex Pretti’s death is a distraction. It may sound terrible to say because, of course, human life is sacred. (Now, if only the Left accepted this on abortion.) But the real point here is not that Pretti is dead, but what got him that way. And, no, it wasn’t blood-lusting ICE agents salivating for their next victim.

It was this: a vast network of power-hungry demagogues, foreign financiers of intra-US destabilization, astroturfing communist/socialist activists, and expendable useful-idiot protesters.

How popular are the anti–Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protests in the US?

A leading China analyst, Gordon Chang, warns that the increasing surge of protests across the US may not be as home grown as they appear. He alleges that networks tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are covertly financing and directing the unrest.

Appearing January 19 on Newsmax’s Newsline, Chang said the CCP has a well-documented history of using proxies to destabilize adversaries, including the US, while maintaining plausible deniability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1EA2ohrt5Q

Anyone who thinks the Democrats oppose border control, or even deportation, in principle doesn’t grasp the principle operative here.

Leftists, morally relativistic/nihilistic to the core, don’t have principles—only provisional preferences. They could one day support the strictest immigration control imaginable, too. When? Well, while I’ll elaborate more on this later, here’s a hint:

No one wants the apple cart overturned when it’s his apple cart.

Question: Who in their right mind would choose a Toxic “Spanberger and Hashmi” meal while declining a steady diet of experience in Winsome Earle-Sears and John Reid?

Answer: Racist Virginia Republican voters that chose to stay home because a perfectly qualified Republican candidate for Virginia Governor happened to be Black.

On December 30, 2025, ABC News reported more than 100 immigration judges were fired nationwide during 2025 - something that may affect the immigration backlog in the near term.

Jeremiah Johnson served as an immigration judge for eight years. On Nov. 21 he was one of five judges let go on the same day.

"Immigration judges are employees of the Department of Justice. We are appointed by the attorney general. Part of the law indicates that, as an immigration judge, we should use our independent decision making, authority and discretion as independent immigration judges. So, we are protected. We should be protected from firing, from termination," said Johnson.

What?! No accountability required? If only the immigration judges’ decision making were truly independent! Read on.

A book review by Lynn Bergman

“Pagan Threat” by Lucas Miles

Pastor Lucas Miles, an ordained minister since 2004, is the lead pastor of Nfluence Church in Granger, Indiana, the President of The Nfluence Network, and the Senior Director of TPUSA Faith, installed by the late Charlie Kirk prior to his assassination.

I remember my dad referring often to Longfellow’s quote, “Of what had been and might have been (and who was changed and who was dead)"  . . .