Northern Valley Beacon

• Where politics has no business

  
  
  Click on people's faces in the photo to tag them.
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  In this photo: The Cynosure Brass Quintet:  Aaron Melon, trumpet; Alex Pace, trombone; Leslie,  tuba; Aubrey Krengel, French horn; [...]
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  Posted: December 09, 2009, 10:42pm EST
  by David Newquist

• Taking back the country--all the way back to segregation, slavery, the crusades, and The Inquisition

  Number of comments: 1
  
  
  
  
  This billboard appears at an automobile leasing and consignment business in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, owned by Phil Wolf.  The dealership, Interstate Sales and Leasing, is part of the Wolf Automotive Group.  Phil Wolf also owns Chrysler product dealerships in Jackson [...]
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  Posted: November 30, 2009, 12:23pm EST
  by David Newquist

• Fire the lying profressors

  Number of comments: 0
  There is one way to settle the question raised about the quality of science in climate change: 
  
       1.  Fire any professor who is proven to have fabricated, distorted, or otherwise manipulated data.  
  
       2.  Insure that any such firing be attended by the most meticulous academic [...]
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  Posted: November 28, 2009, 6:57pm EST
  by David Newquist

• Woman from South Dakota pleads guilty to spying for Cuba

  Number of comments: 0
  Gwendolyn Myers, a woman from Aberdeen, and her husband, Walter Kendall Myers, pled guilty to spying Friday in a federal court, according to an Associated Press story.    Mrs. Myers had worked as a political campaign staff member in Aberdeen and then worked in  state government in Pierre, where she [...]
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  Posted: November 21, 2009, 11:56am EST
  by David Newquist

• The longing for competence and the death of Morgan Lewis

  Number of comments: 1
  Daniel Zwerdling is a professional journalist for National Public Radio.  He came up with a document that shows that Maj. Nidal Hasan, the killer of 13 soldiers at Ft. Hood,  had raised questions about his competence among his superiors.  An evaluative memorandum lists problems with Major Hasan's performance and' [...]
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  Posted: November 19, 2009, 10:32am EST
  by David Newquist

• John Thune: one big macaca moment

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Now comes Chris Cilizza of the Washington Post to speculate about John Thune rising to the role of savior of the Republican Party,  following on the heels of David Brooks' paean to Thune's cowboyiness.
  
   Thune's current claim to prominence is his efforts to' [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 12:07pm EST
  by David Newquist

• The descent into pettiness

  Number of comments: 0
  Having covered agriculture and business for many years, I have developed a huge disrespect for corporate bureaucracies.   There are dangers to big government.  But bureaucracies are bureaucracies, no matter their setting, and they operate on the lowest common denominator--the stupid, the mean, the incompetent, the crooked, the retarded.
  
  All [...]
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  Posted: November 17, 2009, 11:31am EST
  by David Newquist

• While the partisans bicker over  U.S. energy ...

  While the partisans bicker over  U.S. energy sources, foreign countries are taking it over.  
  
  The two largest wind-turbine farms in northeastern South Dakota are owned by foreign corporations, one headquartered in Australia and one in Spain.  Two coal-powered generating stations in the region have been postponed, mostly [...]
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  Posted: November 16, 2009, 9:18pm EST
  by David Newquist

• Lou Dobbs and the struggle for journalism

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Lou Dobbs suddenly announced on his CNN show Wednesday that it would be his last appearance on the network.  The moment could hardly be regarded as the product of clear objectives and careful planning.  Only a few follow-up stories delved into the reasons why Dobbs left [...]
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  Posted: November 14, 2009, 12:09am EST
  by David Newquist

• David Brooks gets off on John Thune

  Number of comments: 0
  Basing his opinions largely on John Thune's appearance and demeanor as a cowboy who has not as yet visited Broke Back Mountain, David Brooks in The New York Times touts Thune as a leader in the model of Barack Obama who could save the Republican Party.  The piece is' [...]
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  Posted: November 13, 2009, 8:44am EST
  by David Newquist

• The ghouls invade Ft. Hood

  Number of comments: 0
  The killing of 13 people and the wounding of 29 at Ft. Hood is an occasion for respectful honor and somber reflection about those killed and harmed. But not for some who turn it into a frenzy of manic bureaucratic blame-placing and a harvest festival of wingnut malevolence.
  
  The [...]
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  Posted: November 11, 2009, 10:42pm EST
  by David Newquist

• When people go up in flames

  Number of comments: 3
  The Democratic e-mail list serves in South Dakota were aflame over the weekend because of Rep. Herseth Sandlin's announced no-vote on the House health care bill. Many people are puzzled by her vote on that issue along with others in which she has sided with the opposition.  What transpires when' [...]
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  Posted: November 09, 2009, 10:22am EST
  by David Newquist

• Let us sit down and dither together.

  Number of comments: 1
  It is better to dither than to blither.  The world and particularly U.S. politics would be better off if much of the blither had not been expressed.  There is nothing wrong with thinking long and hard about a decision to be made.  There is much wrong with not thinking at [...]
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  Posted: November 03, 2009, 9:36am EST
  by David Newquist

• What brought down the Berlin Wall?

  Number of comments: 0
  
  Some Americans like to think that Ronald Reagan bellowed out "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear down this wall!" and the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.  The Berlin wall came down because it was built on a faulty foundation in the first place.
  
  
  This week marks the [...]
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  Posted: November 01, 2009, 10:46am EST
  by David Newquist

• Who will oppose John Thune?

  Number of comments: 0
  Larry Pressler made national news when he tried to exit from a dais and walked into a closet. He was known among the press corps as Press Release Pressler, because he issued pronouncements on almost everything but accomplished little.
  
  Now comes Throwback Thune   He accrued an astounding record in [...]
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  Posted: October 29, 2009, 9:29am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Monsanto State University in the Sacrosanct State of Sanford

  Number of comments: 0
  The small-minded, mean, and ignorant carping of the small-town cafes has been interjected into the discussion of SDSU President David Chicoine's dual service on the board of Monsanto, for which he gets paid $195,000 plus that same amount in stock.  That amounts to a value of $380,000 compared to his' [...]
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  Posted: October 26, 2009, 3:05pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• At least give the Black Hills land back

  Number of comments: 2
  
  
  After I posted a a link to a  photography feature from The New York Times Tuesday, five other South Dakota blogs picked up the feature and linked it from their sites.   Some acknowledged our original posting; some did not.  That is a matter of who [...]
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  Posted: October 22, 2009, 12:12pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Somebody did it.

  Number of comments: 0
  
  
  Okay, who did it?  
  
  He did it.
  
  I think you did it, sir. 
  
  Pete Souza, the White House photographer, did it all. .
  
  The  one place the Internet has improved journalism is in photo-journalism.  It has increased access to and interest [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 9:35am EDT
  by David Newquist

• The poverty of Pine Ridge through the eyes of the New York Times

  Number of comments: 0
  The New York Times features a stunning series of photographs from the Pine Ridge Reservation.  
  
  
  
  Here is the account by NY Times blogger James Estrin.
  Aaron Huey arrived on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota at the [...]
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  Posted: October 20, 2009, 7:33am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Watching the balloon go by

  Number of comments: 0
  [...]
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  Posted: October 19, 2009, 11:03am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Thank you, Susan Klebold

  Number of comments: 4
  In thirty years of teaching writing and literature and 55 years of editing writing, I have been asked what I think are the most significant works I have encountered.    It is hard for me to list "favorite" authors because I appreciate the accomplishments of so many writers, including some [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 11:37am EDT
  by David Newquist

• What if Hitler had written "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz"?

  Number of comments: 0
  South Dakota likes to claim inspiration for L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz on which the movie, The Wizard of Oz was based. Although a prolific writer who produced 50-some novels in a benign vein, Baum is remembered in Indian country for recommending genocide against' [...]
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  Posted: October 18, 2009, 11:16pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• It was not just Wall Street. Main Street failed years ago.

  Number of comments: 3
  
  
  
  Intellectually and morally America is in decline. It has turned from a country that gets things done to a country that is mired in small-minded bickering and destructive abuse.  Its business community failed the country in massive dimensions, as the historic business narrative from [...]
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  Posted: October 13, 2009, 1:46am EDT
  by David Newquist

• The desperation for hope

  Number of comments: 5
  The Nobel Peace Prize committee obviously did not consider how awarding President Obama the prize would fan the sparks of political and racial hatred into flames in his own country.
  
  People from both parties are puzzling over how and why he was nominated only two weeks into his administration.  [...]
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  Posted: October 09, 2009, 9:43am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Hildebrand excoriates Congress

  Number of comments: 0
  
  In a posting on Huffington Post, Steve Hildebrand goes after the reasons for the partisan failures in Congress.
  
  You show up for work a few days a week, dine with fancy lobbyists and take taxpayer-funded junkets around the world. Maybe we could live [...]
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  Posted: October 08, 2009, 10:16am EDT
  by David Newquist

• A clean, well-lit barn

  Number of comments: 0
  
  
  
  
  
  Rainy Monday.  It was a good day to be in a barn.  The weather outside was wet, muddy, chilly, and just nasty.  And I failed in the meager task I was assigned at the Farm Forum of Rep. Herseth Sandlin and Secretary [...]
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  Posted: October 06, 2009, 10:35am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Plumbing the depths of the mean and petty

  Number of comments: 0
  The most significant aspect of the choice of Rio de Janeiro as the site of the 2016 Olympics is the way it was played in the press, both traditional and internet.  Because Obama made a pitch in behalf of his hometown, the press went into one of its mindless frenzies [...]
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  Posted: October 02, 2009, 6:08pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Cut taxes, close the universities

  Number of comments: 1
  
  
  
  Talk is going around again (actually it always is) about closing a South Dakota university.  In South Dakota, such talk will probably always go around.  A predominant part of the electorate values low taxes more than it does smart people.
  
  In fact, in [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 8:45pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• It's called sedition

  Number of comments: 1
   Pres. Obama inherited two botched wars, an economic crisis with programs put in place by the Bush administration, and crises in North Korea and the Middle East that developed under the policies of the Bush administration.  As his administration attempts to work through the problems, he is accused of violating [...]
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  Posted: September 30, 2009, 11:46am EDT
  by David Newquist

• The honkey and his ho

  Number of comments: 0
  
  
  A new movie about global pollution is titled "The Age of Stupid," but climate change is not the only topic that seems to overstimulate those who regard stupidity as a virtue.  Journalism also provokes an outpouring of ignorance, illiteracy, and the fence-post brand of [...]
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  Posted: September 27, 2009, 1:03pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Who opposes health-care reform?

  Number of comments: 1
  We are the only leading democracy that does not support health-care for all citizens.  The cost of our health-care systems has squeezed a significant portion of our citizens out of the system, is squeezing more out daily, and is a major contributor to family bankruptcies.  The private sector, as in [...]
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  Posted: September 26, 2009, 1:05pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Rep. Herseth Sandlin says there is some relenting of Blue Dog opposition to public option

  Number of comments: 1
   Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post reveals in an interview with Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin that there is some shift in the Blue Dog opposition to the public option in health-care reform.
  
  The Blue Dogs have been surveying their membership over the last several days; coalition co-chair Stephanie [...]
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  Posted: September 25, 2009, 12:10am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Puttin' on the honkey

  Number of comments: 0
  
  This attractive young couple put on outlandish costumes as a whore and her pimp and canvassed ACORN offices looking for some kind of scandal.  They played stereotyped roles as conceived by privileged white bourgeois children of what they think black street life is all about. 
  [...]
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  Posted: September 20, 2009, 3:20pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• A question that may save health-care

  Number of comments: 0
  
  By Tom Toles in the Washington Post. [...]
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  Posted: September 17, 2009, 10:34pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• It's the racism, stupid.

  Number of comments: 1
  Most progressives do not want to believe that the U.S. has regressed to the culture that their predecessors fought against during the civil rights movement. They, and many of the regressives, like to think that the election of a black president was evidence that the country [...]
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  Posted: September 17, 2009, 10:26am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Health-care in one sentence

  Number of comments: 2
  
  Former Senators James Abourezk and George McGovern were in town Thursday night to promote the campaign of Scott Heidepriem for governor, outlining why they support him and are raising money.
  
  The question of health-care and the absurdities raised as objections to reform came up. [...]
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  Posted: September 13, 2009, 10:23am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Glenn Beck Proposes Cap on Nation's IQ

  Number of comments: 1
  
  

  Speaking at a massive rally of his so-called 9/12 Project in Washington, D.C., Fox News host Glenn Beck called today for stricter limits on the nation's IQ.

  "Barack Hussein Obama would like to see our country's IQ rise - just like our taxes!" Mr. Beck [...]

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  Posted: September 12, 2009, 4:32pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Is there a proctologist in the House?

  Number of comments: 0
  As an ABC reporter put it, Congress tried to hold a joint session last night and a town hall broke out.
  
  Rep. Joe Wilson's doltish "You lie!" may have stunned people who think that important business must be done in an atmosphere of decorum, but his was not [...]
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  Posted: September 10, 2009, 3:18pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• The sickness infecting health-care: a political party defines itself

  Number of comments: 1
  The past weeks have been a time of travel with a laptop with a failing wireless card in places with no wireless access or cell phone towers. From a wacipi at Wakpala to a former Swedish communal village at Bishop Hill in Illinois, we've been trying to cut through the' [...]
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  Posted: September 07, 2009, 9:43pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Anti-health-care propaganda sends the lie detector stylus off the chart

  Number of comments: 0
  Factcheck.Org has two major headlines leading its list of assertions made about proposed health-care legislation.
  
  
  Twenty-six Lies About H.R. 3200
  A notorious analysis of the House health care bill contains 48 claims. Twenty-six of them are false and the rest mostly misleading. Only four are true.
  
  [...]
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  Posted: September 02, 2009, 8:50pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Reasoning with dining room tables

  Number of comments: 1
  I suppose the forum sponsored by South Dakota Public Broadcasting and AARP-South Dakota at NSU last night was an attempt to circumvent the delusional scurrility that has subverted the discussion of health-care reform and to put the focus back on the issues that reform measures are intended to address. The [...]
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  Posted: August 19, 2009, 8:14am EDT
  by David Newquist

• The fence post caucus makes itself heard

  Number of comments: 0
  The word fascism is being hurled around. Well it should. We've lived under a regime of corporate fascism for the better part of a decade. What has happened to our country fits the definition of fascism perfectly. I don't mean the definition made up by the withered fruits on the [...]
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  Posted: August 18, 2009, 8:42am EDT
  by David Newquist

• A forum question for Sen. Daschle

  Number of comments: 0
  Time has posted an article pointing out that while Sen. Daschle personally excoriates the health insurance industry while he is a leading advocate for the public option, in his role as a consultant he also advises one of the biggest opponents of health-care reform, United Health. The article asks [...]
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  Posted: August 17, 2009, 10:29pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• NEED SOME FACTS, RESPECT, INTELLIGENT INFORMATION?

  Number of comments: 0
  You want some facts,some courtesy, and some intelligent talk?
  
  The BROWN COUNTY DEMOCRATS HAVE SOME EVENTS SUNDAY AND TUESDAY FREE FROM RANCOR AND MALICIOUS FABRICATIONS BUT FULL OF IMPORTANT INFORMATION.
  
  SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, BEGINNING AT NOON.
  BROWN COUNTY DEMOCRATS ANNUAL PICNIC,
  WYLIE PARK PAVILION
  FEATURING BARBECUED PORK LOIN
  [...]
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  Posted: August 15, 2009, 10:36pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• When Did Americans Turn into a Bunch of Raving Lunatics?

  Number of comments: 0
  That's the headline in a series of stories about the anti-Obama forces by Esquire's political columnist. He delves into the personalities driving the "birther" movement and other kinds of dementia that possess what seem to be otherwise nice folks.
  
  Members of the main stream media are [...]
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  Posted: August 14, 2009, 10:54am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Les Paul: June 9, 1915 - August 13, 2009

  Number of comments: 1
  
  Les Paul, the most influential maker of music and muscial instruments, died today at the age of 93 of complications of pneumonia.
  
  Starting out at 13 playing in a country band, Les Paul played with and inspired the nation's top jazz and popular musicians, [...]
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  Posted: August 13, 2009, 1:28pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Is it about health-care reform? No, it's about finally lynching Rosa Parks

  Number of comments: 3
  People go to town halls to disrupt, insult, and abuse. Their defenders make the preposterous claim that they are simply voicing their protests over proposed legislation they don't like. But what they don't like is stated in fabricated lies that have no basis or relationship to what is being proposed [...]
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  Posted: August 13, 2009, 11:26pm EDT
  by David Newquist

• Someone needs to talk to someone's mama outside

  Number of comments: 1
  The Washington Post in an editorial titled "An Unhealthy Debate," makes an astute case about what the discussion of health-care has devolved into:
  
  No one, liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, should be happy with the current system [of health-care], which spends too much to cover too few. [...]
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  Posted: August 10, 2009, 9:36am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Crypto-racism and the incitement of rage

  Number of comments: 2
  Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) captured the real attitude that possesses conservative America. He spoke of the protests taking place with his constituents in Missouri:
  
  "Different people from Washington, DC, have come back to their districts and have town hall meetings, and they almost got lynched."
  
  The audience [...]
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  Posted: August 08, 2009, 10:48am EDT
  by David Newquist

• Republican lies and agitation get called out

  Number of comments: 2
  A Washington Post business writer decides he can no longer tolerate the Republican perfidy and malice:
  
  The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical [...]
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  Posted: August 07, 2009, 9:27am EDT
  by David Newquist