“Guns” and “fight tyranny” might not show up in proximity to one another with great frequency in a Google search, but their joinder has been a constant theme from those who advocate a right to own firearms by individuals.

The idea has been that the ultimate way to fight tyranny is for individuals to own guns. This is nothing more than 3-card monte, a sleight-of-hand where distraction wins the real thing. Now we know “guns” and “fight tyranny” really belong together, but not as…

Our country is supposed to function on the basic principles of majority rule in open and fair elections. A fringe of the latest iteration of the GOP has made much of the (patently false) claim that voter fraud has cost GOP candidates offices.

On Saturday, March 6, we witnessed the rather primitive play of power in the Marion County GOP’s election of Joe Elsener as County chair. Mr Elsener was a last-minute candidate chosen for the party by a hierarchy immune from popular checks. (Look…

Saturday, March 6: Marion County GOP Precinct Committee people (PCs) caucused to elect a County chair. In a February 26 letter to Marion County PCs, State GOP chair Kyle Hupfer wrote “this is something I usually don’t do.” He said he’d kept mum for 4 years.

He said “I trust our grassroots leaders to make the right decisions for their own community.” And then he says he wants his “letter to be one point of reference as you decide how to vote.” He then says the state party has an…

This morning the Marion County GOP chooses its chair person. This offers an opportunity for a major political party, as defined by Indiana statute, to make inroads, even if only symbolic, on the systemic corruption of our political system. I challenge the 3 candidates to promise:

1) To seek an end to slating fees for candidates who seek nomination for local office. Slating fees are a form of tribute people pay to be considered as a candidate for local office. Few see any return on…

Indiana GOP oligarchs couldn’t get the Indiana General Assembly to change a statute so their first pick for Marion County GOP chair could hold that job AND a gov’t daytime job. Their next first pick, Joe Elsener, will be absent for the March 6 caucus to attend a wedding in Nebraska. So Marion County GOP: (1) wants to recruit candidates & get new people in the County GOP; but (2) shoves aside people who challenged their first party hack in favor of a second choice hack.

Marion…

On Saturday the Marion County (Indianapolis) GOP will elect a new chair person. The County has grown more diverse. As a result its people have adopted views that are more progressive and have tended to cast votes more “blue.”

In 2020 Biden/Harris won Marion County with 63%. Joe Elsener is the candidate preferred by State GOP leaders. To reclaim Marion County elective offices, Mr Elsener said the County GOP has to recruit candidates for office and raise money.

In a letter Mr…

To his credit, John Schmitz (1) said the GOP needs to look more like people in the rest of Marion County (i.e., not all white) and (2) argued it is unfair that the State GOP has given its support to one candidate (not John or Alex Henby).

Alex scored a metaphorical knock-down in the 4th round by saying the slating system should be scrapped. Joe Elsener played it safe, although he talked about “grass roots” so much one would think he’s in lawn care.

Disconcerting was Mr…

Tonight the three candidates for Marion County GOP Chair participate in a forum as a lead-up to Saturday’s election. The party’s focus has been on who can raise the most money so the GOP here can once more be relevant.

Times - and demographics - change, as should the Marion County GOP. One local matter to address is corruption. The Marion County GOP can gain traction against corruption if it requires any candidate for office in Marion County or Indianapolis to agree she or he will…

The Republican Party (GOP) of Marion County (Indianapolis) elects a chairperson March 6, this Saturday. Tonight the three candidates will discuss various topics that seem to circle around a single theme: how to “win.” Here’s the formula to achieve those wins.

1) GET PEOPLE REGISTERED TO VOTE. I did not write “get our people registered to vote.” Everybody, in both major parties, all “third” parties, independents, should have a goal of 100% of eligible voters registered. Why?

In…

Into the 1990s the GOP controlled Indianapolis and Marion County. As Indy’s people became more diverse, political beliefs became more progressive. As a lead-up to Saturday’s caucus to elect a GOP County Chair, a candidates’ forum will take place Wednesday at 7.

The candidates - John Schmitz, Alex Henby and Joe Elsener - will answer questions from topic areas of which they have received advance notice. The topic areas indicate the mindset of party leaders:

“Fundraising,…

I’m surprised the Republican Party has begun to turn communistic. Quite clever, these red agitators. They have framed the most basic and cherished of liberties - one’s choices in the marketplace - as a limit on “free speech.”

Where and how a person spends money is basic to liberty. Supposed Republicans say that we have to spend money with their pals. They frame anything else as “cancel culture.” Example: if you find the guy with the pillow company offensive, they say you still have to…

One party has run Marion County, Indiana, for decades. On Saturday, March 6, the local GOP will elect a County Chair. Three candidates have announced: John Schmitz, Alex Henby and Joe Elsener. (Michael-Paul Hart dropped out.)

The focus is on who can raise the most money so the Marion County GOP can be in the best position to sell its message. Mr Hart’s numbers indicate that a majority of an annual budget of almost $84K paid “a full-time Executive Director.”

The Marion County…

CPAC, the annual gathering of the right wing, is taking place this weekend. In a place full of advocates of the right - damn it, the right - to keep and bear arms, one would expect to see attendees strapped, i.e., carrying firearms.

After all, as I have heard more than a few gun advocates explain to me, gun violence is greater in “gun-free” - as in there are no guns - zones. CPAC, however, once again, has prohibited guns at its annual gathering. Perhaps it’s not their fault. It’s the…

People get scared if they are “served process” - usually by a civil sheriff’s deputy. And usually the document served is a subpoena: a “court order commanding the appearance of a witness, subject to penalty for noncompliance.” Black’s Law Dict., pocket ed., 1996, p. 601.

This is the Land of the Free where police cannot simply stop a person to question that person. Of course sometimes the police go a few steps further and beat or kill a person, but for an officer of the State even to…

On Saturday March 6, Precinct Committee people (PCs) of the Marion County GOP will caucus to elect a party chair. One candidate, Michael-Paul Hart, called me (I’m a PC) this week. He sent me his “Marion County GOP Plan of Action” (Plan) with a cover letter (letter).

The Plan focuses on organization and money, i.e. branding and sales. Issues at best are implied, e.g.: “democrats are tearing our City apart by shutting down businesses, letting rioters tear down our City, and aiding…

Strategy of this iteration of the GOP relies, in large measure, on buzz words. If voters are conditioned to shut their minds when they hear one or two words, then the GOP does not have to argue claims that lack merit. One such issue is ...

People who would limit our rights to what the Framers of the Constitution intended, in 1787, do not know how abortion was treated at the time the Constitution was written. Justice Blackmun noted that restrictions on abortion are relatively…

Individual States did not coordinate efforts of their respective militias or National guards in December, 1941, to fight in what became called World War II. A year ago the U.S. faced a World conflict with an “enemy” more implacable than in 1941.

If the (now nearly-500,000) deaths from COVID did little to change anyone’s mind about the efficacy of States’ experiments in how we address problems we face, the operation of free market forces in provision of energy in Texas probably won’t…

The dumbing down of America coincided with the spread of the audio virus people came to know as Rush Limbaugh. I shall not recount his generally misanthropic philosophy or cite specific instances of his hate-filled rants.

Instead, I want to quote the late Carl Sagan and what he foresaw: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped…

Paul Ogden blogged yesterday about the need for a new Constitution. Like many of my friend’s ideas, they are meant well, but horrible. A Convention can be called by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress or by two-thirds of the States’ legislatures. Const. Art. V.

The results of that convention would have to be ratified by the legislatures of “three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof...” THERE CAN BE NO LIMITS ON A CONVENTION ONCE…

In southern Indiana this morning I drove past three yards where Confederate flags flew, two with trump/pence flags. This afternoon trump was acquitted by the Senate, although the majority voted to convict. Seven members of the Republican Party voted Guilty.

The values of this iteration of the Republican Party are warped. They find impeachable the act of receiving oral sex in the Oval Office, but give a “pass” to a would-be dictator who sought to overturn the results of an election to…