Gov. Dennis Daugaard announced today that Lt. Gov. Matt Michels has moved from a full-time role to a half-time role. The change, being made for personal and family reasons, was effective April 15.Michels was the second full-time lieutenant governor in South Dakota history, following Lt. Gov. Walter Dale Miller. As Michels transitions to half-time, some of his current duties will be reassigned to other staff. The move will result in a savings of 0.5 full-time-equivalent employee (FTE) in the Governor’s Office, and Michels’ salary as lieutenant governor will be cut to correspond with the change.

Each year on April 22, Americans celebrate Earth Day. While the “holiday” is dressed up as a day to preserve the Earth, it serves little more as a day to attack the benefits of capitalism and modern society. Does anyone really know what Earth Day is all about? Not only is April 22 Earth Day, it is also the Birthday of Vladimir Lenin and the National Day of Communism in the U.S.S.R..

South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley has addressed concerns from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) concerning South Dakota’s supply of lethal injection substance. Jackley reminded these agencies that South Dakota is in compliance with existing rules and practices. As with the DEA, Attorney General Jackley concluded by offering to work with the FDA to promptly come to an appropriate resolution.

$2.59 trillion. That’s how much the Obama Administration anticipates it will collect in taxes in 2012. The national debt has increased every single year since 1957 according to the U.S. Treasury. It is never paid back, only refinanced. A debt crisis, such as is being experienced in Europe, is said to be impossible in the U.S. because of our willingness to continue monetizing the debt. So, with such a seemingly limitless capacity to borrow and print money, this raises a profound question: Do taxes matter?

Last week, Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen provoked outrage from the Right when she suggested that Ann Romney is not qualified to speak about women’s economic concerns because “she’s never worked a day in her life.” While Rosen dismissed the kerfuffle surrounding her comments as an overreaction and politics as usual, her offhanded, mean spirited remarks about Ann Romney reveal a troubling problem at the heart of mainstream feminist ideology.

In Mount Vernon, Ohio, a 20-year teacher was fired for exercising his First Amendment religious freedom, and for encouraging his students to use their minds and think critically. The founders could have had something like this in mind when they enshrined religious and speech freedom in the Constitution, but they probably never dreamed the religion of evolution would be a threat.

Apparently lawmakers in Georgia have done what “Republicans” in South Dakota lacked the testicular fortitude to do: pass a law requiring drug testing of welfare recipients. And while South Dakota’s law would only require testing upon suspicion of drug use, it sounds like Georgia’s law will require testing of ALL applicants.

On APRIL 17, 1790, the son of a poor candle-maker died. The 15th of 17 children, he apprenticed as a printer and published a popular almanac. He helped found the University of Pennsylvania, a hospital, America’s first postal system and fire department. He became the governor of Pennsylvania, signed the Declaration of Independence and called for prayer at the Constitutional Convention. His name was Ben Franklin.

On April 16, 2012, a client brought some papers and a bill problem to me to help solve. The client is an elderly woman from Cedar Lake, Indiana. With our client present, I phoned her Medicare supplement insurance company to learn what it knew of the bill. It had already paid the bill. In fact, the insurance company gave me the check number, the date the check was made and sent, and the date that the check was cashed by the hospital that got the payment.