Political Action Committees (PACs) send mail to candidates for public office. ABC/PAC (its logo in red, white & blue), made of “400 businesses in the construction industry across Indiana” sent a questionnaire of five (5) compound questions that could be a bit confusing. 1/5
ABC/PAC opposes labor unions and calls non-union contractors “merit construction companies.” Labor unions is subject to the same imperfections as any human endeavor, but without unions we would not have…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 28, 2022 at 9:00pm — 1 Comment
On a different note: gov’t should not subsidize pro sports. Billionaires don’t need $. Our public school teachers, bridges & highways are better places to spend tax $. However, local gov’t has already thrown $ in and there is little we can do to stop the deluge. However... 1/3
If I am elected State Rep from Indiana’s 86th legisl district, I shall offer a bill to ban professional sports franchises from offering, and elected officials from accepting, free tickets, passes to suites,…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 28, 2022 at 10:13am — No Comments
Added by Mark Small on February 27, 2022 at 6:38pm — 1 Comment
trump calls Putin invading Ukraine brilliant/something we should do to Mexico. So trump is callous to mass death, wants conquest for its own sake, ignores how Russia’s economy will be crippled & would have us reviled by rest of the World. 1/
Groups of Americans cheered 4 dictators B4. Example: 2/20/39 the German-American Bund (“GAB”) held rally in Madison Square Garden w/ > 20K present. Few months later Germany invaded Poland & WWII started. Support for GAB collapsed.…
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Added by Mark Small on February 26, 2022 at 9:08am — No Comments
Vladimir Putin came up through the KGB back in the U.S.S.R. After Boris Yeltsin gave Putin the keys & staggered off the stage, Putin cemented his hold on power by blaming apt bldg bombings on Chechens. Over 300 ppl were killed. This from the Heritage Foundation: 1/5
“Putin is a killer” because his rise to pwr was based on the siege of Grozny, the Chechen capital, where “between 50,000 and 80,000, most civilians, were killed. Russian tanks flattened the city.” Add to that:…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 24, 2022 at 4:14pm — No Comments
Sen Rick Scott built his career on defrauding Medicare, Medicaid & other Federal programs. He has issued an 11-point GOP manifesto (of sorts) with several policy suggestions to follow. The first point focuses on kids. They’ll say the pledge of allegiance & salute the Flag. 1/6
They’ll learn America’s gr8, choose a school that will inspire patriotism & stop teaching radical left’s revisionist history. Kids’ll learn re: wisdom of Constitution, Bill of Rights & founding…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 23, 2022 at 10:31pm — No Comments
Putin’s speech was startling & scary. Parts seem to have passed w/little notice, but that is to be understood in such a long speech. Rare is the speech of a U.S. President that cites specific events in distant history to justify current policy. Putin traced Russian/Soviet history. 1/6
An Austrian, who later led Germany, dictated an exhaustive, fictional history of der Fatherland to justify twisted plans. Skirmishes expanded his Reich & led up 2 false claims of Polish…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 22, 2022 at 10:10pm — No Comments
All 3 GOP candidates for Michigan Att’y Gen’l last evening chimed in on SCOTUS’s decision in Griswold v Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965). Good news? None recognized the case by name & 1 had to look it up on his phone. Bad news? All 3 want Griswold scrapped. 1/7
In Griswold, the Court held there is a right to privacy. If you say, “There’s no ‘right of privacy’ in The Constitution,” you do not understand The Constitution. This sentiment is why Alexander Hamilton, one of The Framers,…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 22, 2022 at 7:58am — No Comments
People close to me, whom I respect, don’t understand why I am a Republican after a life spent as a person not GOP. Others, who cling to a GOP as bastion of conservativism, say I am not a “true Republican”, but the GOP’s articles of incorporation contain no ideology. 1/8
Lee Atwater set the groundwork for double-think. In the early ‘80s he said the GOP should swap out divisive terms (like racial expletives) with race-neutral terms like “busing,” i.e. the GOP should dissemble & deny…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 21, 2022 at 9:32pm — No Comments
“If you build it, he will come,” a voice told Kevin Costner’s character, Ray Kinsella, in “Field of Dreams.” Kinsella nearly goes bankrupt as he mows down corn to build a baseball field. We see a similar phenomenon here in Indianapolis. A lot of buildings are going up. 1/7
If someone has $, contractors will build. In Indy the $ is from Tax Increment Financing Districts or “TIFs.” TIFs were a funding mechanism created in California in the 1950s to build things in urban wastelands where…
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Added by Mark Small on February 19, 2022 at 8:41am — No Comments
Added by Mark Small on February 18, 2022 at 9:37pm — No Comments
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines “liberty” as “the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant.” Academic freedom in college means professors “should be free from institutional censorship or discipline.” AAUP, 1940. 1/5
Texas Lt Gov Dan Patrick tweeted about Critical Race Theory (CRT) “we will ban it in publicly funded higher ed. That’s why we created the Liberty Institute at UT [Univ Texas].” To “ban” is “to legally or officially…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 17, 2022 at 9:00am — No Comments
1 benefit of candidacy 4 Indiana State Rep is organizations want to know where I stand on their pet issues. “Hoosier Gun Rights” & “National Association for Gun Rights” sent me a “candidate Survey” to be completed & signed by 3/4/22. Two items are @ the end. 1/8
“Please Note: Failure to answer a question will be graded as an anti-gun answer.”& “My signature affirms that the answers given above accurately represent my beliefs as a candidate for State Representative in the…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 16, 2022 at 6:02pm — No Comments
There are people who say slavery, as an issue, is in this country’s distant past. As such kids in public schools should not be made to feel “uncomfortable” by study of slavery. We should put slavery in the context of a tumor holding that which should be released. 1/8
U.S. average adult weights today. Adult male: near 200 lbs, female 170. At the start of the Civil War, slaves were 17% of the total population and 32% population of the States that seceded. The tumor would be 34/28.9 lbs…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 15, 2022 at 9:54am — No Comments
Prof Laurence Tribe noted trump “now suggests that in a country as ‘strong’ as he’d make ours, those linking his 2016 campaign to Russia would be put to death. That’s Donald Trump’s America. Not kidding.” I would have to be included on the list of the condemned. 1/5
I’ve written how trump obtained office w/Russian help. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, passed by veto-proof majorities in House & Senate in 2017, noted Putin, in 2012, aimed to influence our…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 14, 2022 at 8:18am — No Comments
If you are a voter in Indiana’s House of Representatives District 86 (IN86), please consider why you should request a Republican ballot for the primary election on May 3, especially if “GOP” or “Republican,” in these times, makes you angry or has an emetic effect. 1/9
1) Not long ago both major parties had progressive wings. Clean Air & Clean Water Acts were enacted & EPA created during a GOP administration. Roe v Wade: written by GOP-nominated Justice. @ 1 time Nixon & Dr…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 13, 2022 at 7:46am — No Comments
More random points from my platform. 10) Voting rights. We should make it easier for people to register to vote & then to vote. Early voting, voting by mail and multiple polling sites facilitate voting. We need to pursue all three. Gerrymandering is a horrible practice. 1/6
Both major parties gerrymander to marginalize opponents. Redrawing district lines inherently is political, but should be insulated from partisans for any party. Non-partisan commissions are a step in the right…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 12, 2022 at 8:33am — No Comments
It is not easy to refuse to go along. Evangelicals, a minority among Hoosier Christians, might say a child may choose not to go along w/classroom-led prayer, ignore the difficulty of going against the “tide.” (NOTE: prayer in school never has been illegal.) 1/8
Each generation starts out as kids who face crap, some of which is different from what earlier generations faced & some crap is the same, e.g., puberty. In the 1960s I was lucky, as were a lot of the kids in our…
ContinueAdded by Mark Small on February 11, 2022 at 9:25pm — 1 Comment
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