"By late 1785, Madison recognized that individual states would never regulate commerce fairly.  States with active ports could not resist taxing goods from nearby states, while their neighbors retaliated in any way they could.  When three New England states tried to win concessions from the British by restricting their trade, Connecticut undermined them by aggressively promoting its own trade with Britain." Stewart, "The Summer of 1787," 2007, p. 8.

   The Articles of Confederation…

   In the lead-up the passage of Medicare in 1965, some warned of the imminent Apocalypse. Ronnie Raygun always viewed "socialized medicine" as the harbinger of Marxist-Leninism. Those warnings were strident and loud. The bill passed. Earlier these year, when the far right rumbled about replacing Medicare with a voucher program in which a person would have a credit voucher for several thousand dollars to take anywhere she or he pleased---Gee, I wonder how many clinics would fashion their…

   Yesterday I addressed two areas of argument Ryan Ripley---libertarian, Libertarian, host of "The Shill Report" on Indiana Talks and my opponent in a debate on the constitutionality of Obama care we shall wage on Saturday's Show from 11 am to 1 pm---has offered opinion.

   One quick comment about yesterday's blog. Colleague and friend Paul Ogden pointed out the Supreme Court's decision on ACA held the Commerce Clause does not provide the basis for the Federal Government's ability to…

   On Saturday, August 24, from 11 am to 1 pm, Ryan Ripley, a libertarian (or is that Libertarian?) who hosts "The Shill Report" on Indiana Talks, will debate me on whether the Affordable Care Act is constitutional. Ryan debated in high school. We agreed upon a format in which each of us will give an opening argument, then proceed to polite interaction on several areas of focus. Ryan e-mailed to me areas he wants to address. (We agreed to make the discussion one of principles with focus on…

   A theory I have developed is that 38% of all people are assholes. A corollary to this theory is that all people have the tendency to be assholes. (Since Justice Alito announced two years ago that broadcast TV is dead and implied the rule against the "seven words" no longer holds, I shall continue on this topic.) By "asshole," I mean someone who is self-centered to the point that she or he would ruin someone else simply out of spite, at the very least verbally abusive to most people whom…

   We have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars into "sports" in Indianapolis over the past 30 years. The largesse has seemed most prolific in the past five years. One can point to the now-famed Pan Am Games in 1987 as some sort of hallmark. The flow of greenbacks began before that.

   Years before the disembodied voice spoke to Kevin Costner's "Ray" in 1989's "Field of Dreams---"Build it and he will come!"---the City of Indianapolis erected an edifice to professional football,…

   Next week's Show features a debate between Ryan Ripley, co-host of The Shill Report on Indiana Talks, and me. We shall debate whether the Affordable Care Act---a/k/a Obamacare---is constitutional. 

   October 1, 2013, is a date on which I shall rejoice. As many of you know from my past blogs, I have Multiple Sclerosis. That means I cannot obtain regular health insurance. I have to go through Indiana's high-risk pool. That ran me one grand per month---even though I have not had an…

   To those unaffected by disparage treatment, such treatment does not exist. Many advances in people's rights were made in the 1960s and 1970s, that people have presumed the inequities in the areas in which those advances were made no longer exist.

  The Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law by President John F. Kennedy to end the "unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job."  Inequality still exists in levels of pay between…

   With the show "Chicks on the Right" in the spotlight recently, we thought it would be a good idea to discuss women's equality---in the workplace and in the economy---and obtain perhaps a more accurate view than that advanced by the program just mentioned.

   I stopped using the word "chick," or variations of it, to describe female human beings when I was in college and was castigated by a female classmate who said I had used a sexist term. In a couple of the on-line dictionaries,…

   Fifty years ago, the Equal Pay Act of 1963 was signed into law by that most ardent lover of women---sarcasm---President John F. Kennedy. As he said, the Act was meant to be the end of the "unconscionable practice of paying female employees less wages than male employees for the same job."  That was the age in which "Mad Men" is placed; an age in which white males were expected to have leadership roles. For everyone else, the notion that "any person born in the United States one day could …

   The United States Constitution protects the freedom of speech. Article 1 of the Indiana Constitution contains similar provisions. "Political speech" is speech that is amongst the most protected. That is speech meant solely for expression of political belief. When a law is challenged on the grounds that it infringes the First Amendment's protections of free speech, and the defendant(s) claim the speech is political, the court must subject the ordinance or law to the strict scrutiny test.…

   The lives of young people---from my perspective these days, that would be anyone under the age of 40, but, on a more general basis I mean people of high school age and younger---in 2013 are dominated by computer-based communications systems. Nearly all communications today could be said to be computer-based. A call from a rotary-dial telephone goes through a computer somewhere, instead of simple wires that lead to the Mayberry switchboard. By computer-based communications, I mean messages…

   When I thought about a title for this blog yesterday, I thought "the time has come to seriously consider..." Then I realized, the time is now.

   I have been a fan of football. I like to watch college and professional games. My Division III alma mater plays our foe each year in the Monon Bell Game, the oldest rivalry west of the Allegheny Mountains. I grew up watching the Chicago Bears each Sunday. The only World Championship of a sports teams, of which I have been a lifelong fan,…

   About half of teens have been the victim of cyberbullying. Only ten percent (10%) of those kids tell their parents. The latter should not be a surprise. A kid---male or female, whatever ethnicity, color or religion---especially if the kid is a teenager, does not want to have to go to mom or dad and say, "I'm getting bullied." That was true over 40 years ago (Ah! I'm that old?) when I was a teenager. It is no less true today; maybe more so. When I was in school, the bullying took the form…

   One of the reasons I wanted to go away to college was to get away from people who intimidated others through violence---i.e., bullies. The last "bad" incident had been my junior year of high school, when I was slammed into a locker by two brothers who were jocks. They therefore were immune from most disciplinary measures the school could have taken, since most of the people in the high school responsible for discipline were coaches. Most, if not all, of the bullies I had encountered along…

   Dr. Dennis Cuddy will discuss with us today concepts of his book, "The Power Elite and the Secret Nazi Plan." We will stream "live" from Papa Roux's at 8950 East 10th Street. I have heard the food there is seriously good.

   Our guest panelist will be Gary Welsh of "Advance Indiana."

   "Operation Paperclip" was not a figment of someone's paranoid imagination. The Office of Strategic Services, at the end of World War II, saw great value in the abilities of German scientists who could help the United States. High among U.S. goals: secure the scientists who worked at the Reich's missile research center in Peenemunde.

   There were a few problems with the attainment of this goal. One problem was not the  scientists' desire to join the efforts of the United States…

   As Germany's army fell in the spring of 1945, then-General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered German citizens who lived near the death camps to walk through those camps. Eisenhower also brought the press into the camps to ensure no one later would question the monstrous extent of the Nazi government's actions against many groups, most prominently in our history books members of the Hebrew faith, but also Gypsies, gays, and those who had opposed Hitler. The Nuremberg trials of war criminals…

   Many times during my youth in mid-North Indiana, I would hear someone say, "Hitler mighta been a [fill in the blank, but the gist was murderous jerk], but ya gotta admit he was a genius." The speaker of such words nearly always explained that Hitler's economic and foreign policies had benefited the German people in that those policies brought der Fatherland out of its longtime depression and rid it of the bonds of the Treaty of Versailles.

   Hitler was not a "genius." I have seen…

   We were at a party in Chicago in the spring of 1983, as I recall. I had moved to the City with very little experience in large population centers. I had learned that people "tagged" buildings and that while some of the graffiti was art for the sake of art, albeit on the sides of buildings or other structures, the owners of which had were little enthused about what had been spray-painted during the night, much of the graffiti was gang-related. Gangs tagged walls to mark…