A lot of the RINOs here in South Dakota (including some that never use their name when leaving their liberal comments here and there) have been squawking about various individuals and groups who have been exposing the liberal votes and actions of RINOs in South Dakota government who masquerade as Republicans. A recent Wall Street Journal article discusses how homosexual activists use government regulation of “free” speech to punish and intimidate people for opposing their agenda, and it sheds some important light on the “Republican Civil War” going on in South Dakota.

Daniel Boone served with George Washington in 1755 during the French and Indian War. In 1765, Daniel Boone explored Florida. In 1778, during the Revolution, Daniel Boone went to Blue Licks to get salt for his settlement but was captured by Shawnee Indians and taken to Detroit. He learned of British plans to incite Indians to attack his settlement, so he escaped and ran nearly 400 miles in 5 days to warn Boonseboro. Daniel Boone became a Major in the militia and served in Virginia’s legislature.

The U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) announced today that South Dakota leads the nation in income growth. South Dakota’s total and per capita personal incomes rose faster than any state in the nation from 2010 to 2011, going up 12.8 percent and 11.8 percent, respectively.

ABC News’ website headlined an article in June, “Emperor Penguins Threatened By Shrinking Kingdom,” with this just being one of a series of articles crying the alarm around the globe that the loveable penguin, star of both the big and small screen is endangered by global warming. Just one problem: Antarctica is actually cooling, not warming, and ice flows on the continent are increasing.

Built up over more than two centuries, America’s “irreversible trend toward more freedom” has been suddenly (and stunningly) reversed over the last decade – with tragic consequences for business owners, taxpayers and citizens alike. Once a bastion of free market ideology and unprecedented prosperity, America’s ongoing descent into dependence-inducing command economics is fast approaching terminal velocity.

The violent response to an anti-Muslim movie has cast the subject of religious tolerance into the limelight. Is Islam a religion that can tolerate criticism? Can Muslims bear up gracefully when their religion is insulted? As I wrote last week, when it comes to Islam as practiced and understood in much of the Middle East, the short answer to these questions appears to be “no.”

President Obama & Playmates seem to spend a great deal of time telling whomever happens to be listening at the moment just how much he cares for people. I suppose that is why he listened to the citizens when they didn’t want ObamaCare or listened when people were offended by the mandate that violates religious freedom or how people weren’t too happy when he interjected himself on behalf of Professor Gates over a “white” law enforcement officer who was acting in good faith, or when he got in the middle of another…

Though said with less grace than was optimum, pop culture icon Paris Hilton recently got herself in hot water for telling the truth about homosexuals. Though this young woman has since apologized for telling an unpleasant truth about homosexuals, this has nevertheless been illustrative on a number of levels. For one thing, it illustrates that there are likely far more pop culture idiots out there who mindlessly parrot the politically correct dogma in public…while secretly they know the truth.

One of the latest stories of Christian persecution and the trampling of our God-given rights to freedom of speech and religion comes out of New Orleans, Louisiana. A year ago, almost to the day, New Orleans amended the city code to prohibit certain types of “aggressive solicitation,” specifically in the French Quarter on Bourbon and Royal Streets between sundown and sunrise—the hours in which demonic “joy” is at a fever pitch in the Big Easy (I have been there; I know this).

These are some more pictures from my recent visit to Washington D.C. This set is primarily of the Lincoln Memorial, the Reflecting Pool, and the Washington Monument. Some were taking in the golden light of late afternoon, with others taken at night.