In this video clip, we learn of the patriot pastor John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg who took off his clerical robes to don the uniform of an American soldier in the American Revolution. Who says pastors shouldn’t get involved in politics? This great patriot is honored with a number of statues about our nations’ capital. Our nation is teetering on the brink of disaster. Isn’t it time pastors and laymen once again got engaged in the fight for what God has given us in America?

Participants at the Homeland Security Conference in Rapid City received the kind of straight information on radical Islam that our government has typically been deep in denial about. The featured speaker yesterday was former Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) member Walid Shoebat who has since converted to Christianity and given up his support of terrorism. Shoebat said America has been infiltrated at all levels by radical Muslims.

This audience question dealt wtih the BID Main Street Square project and whether city employees were involved in lobbying for the project. Tuesday night’s mayoral forum was sponsored by the Rapid City Tea Party group Citizens for Liberty and moderated by Brad Anderson of KTOQ AM radio. Participating in the forum werecurrent Mayor Alan Hanks, Alderman Sam Kookier, Alderman Ron Weifenbach, and Rapid City businessman Pete Wernicke.

This question from the audience dealt with how the mayor and the city would treat homosexuals. Tuesday night’s mayoral forum was sponsored by the Rapid City Tea Party group Citizens for Liberty and moderated by Brad Anderson of KTOQ AM radio. Participating in the forum were current Mayor Alan Hanks, Alderman Sam Kookier, Alderman Ron Weifenbach, and Rapid City businessman Pete Wernicke.

How many more times do we need to see Obama thumb his nose at the Constitution and the rule of law in America for us to understand that he is a man of lawlessness? There is no need for me to do the laundry list rundown of the outrages wrought by this administration and former Democrat Congress, because you have watched them happen one by one since Obama took office.

South Carolina is the latest state to fight back against the meddling nanny-state nonsense being foisted on the once-free American people by our Marxist government. They are considering the ncandescent Light Bulb Freedom Act, which would allow South Carolina manufacturers to continue to sell incandescent bulbs so long as they have “Made in South Carolina” on them and are sold only within the state.

The Festival of Life, sponsored by the Faith and Family Foundation, starts tomorrow in Rapid City. There’s something for everyone who values innocent human life, and with events over three days (including appearances by Alan Keyes), everyone should be able to make at least part of the festival.

As the states’ lawsuit against the imposition of the unconstitutional ObamaCare works its way through the appeals process, Senator Ron Paul (R-KY) hit the nail on the head concerning the abomination that is ObamaCare during a hearing in the Senate HELP Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging today. He called it “slavery,” amounting to the conscription of doctors against their will. Indeed. It also enslaves every American taxpayer, forcing them to work for the benefit of others against their will.

This video is an audience question about the Rapid City Business Improvement District (BID) tax to create the Main Street Square project. Tuesday night’s mayoral forum was moderated by Brad Anderson of KTOQ AM radio. Participating in the forum were current Mayor Alan Hanks, Alderman Sam Kookier, Alderman Ron Weifenbach, and Rapid City businessman Pete Wernicke.

It’s hard to believe that after all the guff the “mainstream” media and the rest of the Left has given the Tea Party movement for supposedly being racist President Barack Obama, America’s second black president (Bill Clinton was the first, you will recall) has invited a couple of bigoted racists to the White House for a poetry event.

This video is from last night’s Rapid City mayoral forum. Participating in the forum were current Mayor Alan Hanks, Alderman Sam Kookier, Alderman Ron Weifenbach, and Rapid City businessman Pete Wernicke. The question comes from a member of the audience and asks the candidates to cite an example of current mismanagement in city government and tell what they would do to correct it.

President Barack Obama and Herman Cain, the man who would replace him in 2012, have two very different views of immigration and border control for America. We already know all too well what President Obama’s vision entails: amnesty, and refusing to enforce the law. Herman Cain, however, has a four-pronged approach to deal with border security, law enforcement, citizenship and hiring practices, and empowering the states.

In a well-produced brochure touted as its Clean Water Framework, the Obama Administration last week announced its updated and revised policies governing the Nation’s Waters. Included in the initiatives it discusses is “updated draft guidance regarding Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction.” Those of us now familiar with the Administration’s attempts to use the EPA as a vehicle for circumventing the wishes of Congress and the Courts naturally fear something far less wholesome. Under its new Guidance, EPA officials freely admit that compared to how things stand currently, “the number of waters identified as protected by the CWA will increase.”

Rapid City Tea Party group Citizens for Liberty held their second mayoral forum tonight in the contest for Rapid City mayor. The election will be held June 7, 2011. Tonight’s forum was moderated by Brad Anderson of KTOQ AM radio. Participating in the forum were current Mayor Alan Hanks, Alderman Sam Kookier, Alderman Ron Weifenbach, and Rapid City businessman Pete Wernicke. Questions ranged from changes the candidates would make as mayor, to dealing with downtown parking problems, to the Main Street Square project and more.

The “mainstream” media desperately wants us to think that Barack Obama has already won the 2012 election, that Republicans should just give up now because the Obamessiah is unbeatable (in their minds). But with a good conservative candidate like Herman Cain launching to near the top of the polls, there is renewed hope that not only can a Republican win, but a real Republican can win.

Do parents have a right to control the upbringing of their children, especially when it comes to what their children should be exposed to in terms of sexual practices and intimate relationships? That question goes to the heart of the battle being played out in school districts and courts across America right now over parental rights and whether parents essentially forfeit those rights when they send their children to a public school.

The Soviet Union is history, but the ways of it are alive and well right here in America. I’m talking about the diseased scourge of political correctness, which is nothing more than speech fascism. The relentless assault continues on the freedom of Christians to express their beliefs and speak out against the radical homosexual agenda that infects our society, and has largely succeeded in capturing the sympathy and even the lives of many of the young people in our country through years of public school, media and entertainment indoctrination.

These videos are from the second of three seminars on American history and the U.S. Constitution during the Save our Republic weekend in Rapid City held in mid-April. This three-hour seminar was held on the morning of April 16, 2011 and was sponsored by the Family Heritage Alliance, BigHorn Canyon Ministries, and the Life & Liberty Group. This second three-hour seminar covered the articles of the U.S. Constitution and featured speakers John Eidsmoe and Mark Skogerboe discussed America’s unique heritage and Constitution.

Gov. Dennis Daugaard today released an After-Incident Report on last month’s escape attempt at the South Dakota State Penitentiary that resulted in the death of corrections officer Ronald Johnson. The report outlines policy and procedural modifications that have been adopted by the DOC since the incident, including the addition of more corrections officers, more cameras and personal body alarms for corrections staff.

Obamacare is like turnip greens: bitter and hard to swallow, but Mommy made you choke them down anyway. The difference is that turnip greens are constitutional (though perhaps they shouldn’t be). When one’s stated goal is to “fundamentally transform America,” the U.S. Constitution, as intended by our nation’s founding visionaries, becomes a significant encumbrance rather than an instrument of freedom. It’s little wonder that exceeding constitutional authority has become the defining hallmark of this, the most radical presidential administration in American history.

One man does not make a movement and one leader does not encompass the enemy in an irregular war. This is especially true in the case of Bin Laden and his brain child Al-Qaeda. This organization is post-modern or perhaps pre-modern in style. These international conspirators are not united by personal contacts or unified by strategic planning; instead they’re forged into an inter-active whole by solidarity of purpose and continuity of world-view. In such a structure the death of any one person no matter how highly placed or inspirational will not have more than a marginal impact.

A common temptation is to judge our well-being not by what we have but by how much we have compared to others. Families at today’s poverty level live as well as the upper middle class did a few decades ago. Nevertheless, they still feel deprived. Luxuries ultimately disappoint us as we become accustomed to a higher standard of living. An indulgent purchase loses its luster, and the satisfaction it brings is fleeting.

Last year, a senior citizen woman who was a client brought her grandson to our agency for health insurance. The young man was in his twenties and had served our country in Afghanistan. His TRICARE coverage ended in late 2010. Carol Quaglia was able to help the man get a short term health insurance policy that lasted six months. He had trouble getting health care because he was still under medication for post traumatic stress disorder from his service in Afghanistan.

Journalism 101 should note there are two kinds of news–good and bad. One definition of the news is the reporting what is the unusual. Good news isn’t always noteworthy in the minds of some people. Another definition of news is the reporting of current events. I’ll touch on that later in another column. Good news deserves to be read as well as all the murders, car crashes and obituaries that appear in most newspapers.

The best of the best from Dakota Voice last week, including: Osama Buried at Sea While Obama Buries America; First GOP Presidential Debate; Focus Group: Is Obama a Socialist?; Consensus: Herman Cain Won GOP Debate; Muslims Gone Wild, Dearborn Style; Whats a Widget Worth?; and more!