Musings for the week by David Coughlin on President Obama, the economy, abortion, socialism, taxes, the Tea Party, the election, media bias, regulation and more.

This has been a while in coming, and it’s good to see the launch of Liberty Today by the Life and Liberty Group here in Rapid City. The broadcast is going out on KCPO TV and their affiliates across South Dakota. In the first installment, Ed Randazzo of the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance discusses taxes in South Dakota, former legislator Bill Napoli talks about the abuse of power from the state House “Republican” leadership, and Stacey Wollman of the Care Net Pregnancy Resource Center in Rapid City talks about the services her organization provides, as well as the coercion women often face to get an abortion.

Last year South Dakota accepted one million dollars to study the state acceptance of ObamaCare via Health Exchange. Of this amount, over $600,000 has been spent so far. Curiously, people like Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana refused the money and wrote a nice “Keep your money, we’re not going to do it” letter to Obama. This governor did not fall for the scam that is ObamaCare. This governor also showed backbone. We should take heart that there are still people in America like him.  Unfortunately, such backbone is extremely rare in South Dakota’s government, which seems hot-to-trot for federal cash while selling out the people of South Dakota

The federal government has been moving aggressively since Jimmy Carter’s invention of the Department of Education to take over the public education system in America. What was for most of our history a function handled by state and local authorities has been coming more and more under the sway of bureaucrats in Washington D.C. As with pretty much everything you can think of, this process of federalization has been accelerated under the Obama Administration.

Pilgrim’s Progress was published FEBRUARY 18, 1678. An allegory of a pilgrim’s journey to the Celestial City, it was written by John Bunyan, born in Bedford, England. At age 29, Bunyan became a Baptist minister and was imprisoned for over 12 years for preaching without a license. Benjamin Franklin wrote of reading Bunyon as a child.

A succession of high-profile left-wing decisions and initiatives in recent weeks drive home the extent to which the left is changing the face of America. These developments are, I think, helping to buoy the newly surging candidacy of Rick Santorum, former senator from Pennsylvania. Why? Santorum stands out in the current Republican field in the clarity of his image and identity.