South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley announced today that Larry Lee Jones, 63, Yankton, South Dakota, was sentenced to serve 180 days in the State Penitentiary for committing Medicaid fraud. The case was investigated and prosecuted by the South Dakota Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, with assistance from the Division of Criminal Investigation, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, and the Department of Social Services.

Trees infested by mountain pine beetles produce lumber that has the same structural integrity and durability as wood from non-infested trees, according to South Dakota forestry officials. Lumber from trees infested with pine beetles often carries a blue stain is created by a fungus, but it will not spread to other lumber. The lumber does not decay any faster than un-stained wood and will not cause mold.

Proposed federal legislation purporting to protect online intellectual property would also impose sweeping new government mandates on internet service providers — a positively Orwellian power grab that would permit the U.S. Justice Department to shut down any internet site it doesn’t like (and cut off its sources of income) on nothing more than a whim.

Why do we never see questions like these being asked on ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, MSNBC, NPR, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, Newsweek, Time, US News & World Report, et al? But hats-off to Daily Caller for asking relevant and important questions that expose the utter hypocrisy of the Left. Come learn about some really hypocritical ice cream.

The American colonist’s believed it was necessary to build a moral culture in their communities if their experiment in self-government was to be successful. Their schools taught the moral values of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament. But some 50 years ago, secularism became the new religion in our schools–bringing with it the tragedy of Columbine and similar incidents repeated every year.

On the 70th anniversary of hte Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we learned about the outrageous, despicable characterization by the Defense Department of the Fort Hood Muslim jihadist attack as an act of “workplace violence.” Meanwhile, TLC is trying to “normalize” Islam with a show called “All-American Muslim.” Why do we never learn?

Americans have seen their freedoms decline on almost every front over the past decade. We have been spied on by surveillance cameras, eavesdropped on by government agents, had our belongings searched, our phones tapped, our mail opened, our email monitored, our opinions questioned, our purchases scrutinized. One of the few things that has kept us teetering on the edge of a full slide into tyranny is the internet, the primary source of news and information for many people. Little wonder, then, that federal and state governments continue to try to gain control of the world wide web.

John Quinn was one of the featured speakers at the Dec. 10 meeting of the South Dakota Tea Party Alliance. Quinn spoke about the American economy, what makes it great, and what holds it back. He also spoke about economic theory and how the political state of affairs affects the strength of our economy. This is the complete video of his presentation.

Zynga was already the leading Facebook platform developer when it launched Farmville in June 2009. The idea was not original, but Zynga implemented it better and advertised it more than other companies. A year later Farmville had 80 million users, with most people coming back every day and representing about 10% of the Facebook population. If we celebrated our efforts at financial responsibility as much as we do Farmville, the savings rate in this country would rise significantly.

Western Civilization burns while our Party of Power plays the fiat financial fiddle. Will we continue the shadow dance pretending we have a limited government or will we muster up the courage to tell our media enhance perpetually re-elected puppet master that he who pays the piper calls the tune? It is time for my generation to admit we have been ripped off for every cent ever extorted from us for Social Security, and the only way we can receive benefits is to have the government extort it from our children and give it to us.

Communities across South Dakota took a look at their needs for the past several years and with the help of state and federal grants and loans some of those needs have been taken care of. However, there is one question that probably hasn’t been asked. Is our community pretty? Is our town attractive, good looking to a visitor, be he or she a family member or someone who may be looking for a town just the size of where you live to start a new business?

These are the hottest articles at Dakota Voice over the past week, including: Macys Shows Religious Freedom and Homosexual Agenda Cannot Coexist; Homosexual Activist Tries, Fails to Embarrass Michele Bachmann; Slandered Hero Marine Files Defamation Lawsuit; Overrruled: Parental Rights on the Ropes; Time for an American Deborah?; Chinese Expansion Stepping on US Toes in the Pacific; and more.

The Daily Caller featured an interesting article yesterday about the Occupy Wall Street folks who are beginning to become disillusioned by the union thugs who are more and more coming out into the open to direct their activities. If these amateur Marxists had the slightest clue about history, they would have known this is the natural order of things. They are beginning to see that the union bosses and political elites are the “pigs” of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm.”

We stand at a critical crossroads today in clarifying the role of government in our free country. President Obama was correct to say in Osawatomie, Kansas recently that “this is the defining issue of our time.” Ours is no longer, in our president’s take on things, the land of the free and the home of the brave. America now is the land of the envious and the home of the victim.

Recent national rankings released by three different organizations prove that South Dakota has one of the best business environments and among the strongest economic policies in the nation. For the seventh year in a row, the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council named South Dakota as the No. 1 state in the nation for friendliness toward small businesses.

The Left has long been engaged in a war on reality. Why would the Left declare war on reality? Because reality doesn’t really change that much, and they find it extremely inconvenient to their pursuit of their ideal fantasy world. We’ve seen them try it with innocent human life, with economics and property rights, and with human sexuality. Now the Left seeks to redefine the world of illegal immigration. Notice to the Left: you can run, but you can’t hide from reality. It will catch up to you sooner or later.

A bill sponsored by Rep. Kristi Noem (R-SD) to prohibit any further regulation of rural dust by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) passed the U.S. House today with bipartisan support. The bipartisan bill, H.R. 1633, was approved by a vote of 268 to 150. “The EPA is still saying they have no plans to further regulate farm dust, and that this issue is a “myth,” but those words are empty promises until we back them up with real action.

Chuck Woolery has been watching the Occupy Wall Street movement and he wants to help. Woolerly will be hosting a massive, nation-wide Un-Occupy Rally at every state capital across American on January 1, 2012. I think all Americans–100% of us–should get behind this effort and participate with the greatest enthusiasm we can humanly muster. I plan to lead by example and make a commitment this day to participate.

I think we can all agree that parents who willfullly do harm to their children should no longer be trusted with the welfare of those children. But what if it’s the state that means to do children harm? What are we to do then? Unfortunately, in a culture where government has little if any constitutional restraint anymore, where that government is filled with radicals who are hostile to families and parental rights, this is becoming more of the norm than the exception.

We have seen the full-frontal assault against marriage by radical homosexual judges and homo-sympathizing legislators. Another current example of radical homosexuals pushing the envelope to force society to accept their behavior comes fromSan Antonio where an employee of Macy’s department store has been fired for refusing to allow a man to use the women’s dressing rooms. No, I’m not joking.

Control of Micronesia was key to swift Japanese victories on Guam, the Philippines, Wake Island, Kiribati, New Guinea, and Nauru. During the war, much of the Japanese fleet was based in Truk Lagoon. Four years and one hundred thousand American lives later, the U.S. declared no nation would ever again enjoy such a strategic foothold in the Pacific. Yet we are watching the expansionist Chinese making incursions in that area, and the United States is doing little to maintain its foothold in this strategic location.

Some jobs are dustier than others. Rural American jobs like tilling fields, herding cattle, driving along dirt roads or extracting important resources from the land are critical American jobs that sometimes kick up a little more dust than others. But as far as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is concerned, the dust is too much.

Less than a month from the first presidential primary, the field remains uncertain… and somewhat less than inspiring. Mitt Romney wonders why no one likes him, Cain is out, Bachmann, Santorum, Paul and Huntsman don’t’ appear to be gaining traction and have little time for resurgence, and Gingrich is likely incapable of avoiding some form of self-immolation. So, is it too late for someone else to emerge from the wings?

An elderly couple brought some papers to our office and asked me what the papers meant. The couple brought three Medicare Summary Notice forms to me. They told me that they never had gotten Medicare Summary Notices until now. They should have been getting these forms since 1992 – almost twenty years ago – when the husband first went on Medicare. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to expect from our government–and that’s often the problem.

A column from South Dakota Governor Dennis Daugaard on the Fiscal Year 2013 state budget, in which he urges continued caution but increases in spending in some areas. Increases include a 2.3% ongoing increase in K-12 education, coupled with one-time investments that total more than $12 million. Gov. Daugaard also proposes Medicaid providers and state employees receive extra one-time funds that are the result of strong revenue growth.