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…

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,…

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…

“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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Evangelicals (31%) aren’t a majority of Hoosier voters, citizens or Christians (72%), but act like they are a super-majority. There are (thankfully fewer) people like right-wing preacher/former GOP candidate Micah Beckwith. God, he claims, speaks w/Beckwith often. 1/10

Christians have a bad history of discriminating against each other. As recently 8/14/60, Eugene C Pulliam, publisher of The Indianapolis Star, wrote: “Why won’t Jack Kennedy be frank enough to admit publicly that it was…

The last of 7 points in a Feb 4 email from Indiana GOP chair Hupfer that purport to reply to President Biden’s question “What are Republicans for?” Item 6: “Equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome.” This ignores reality. Teddy Roosevelt, a GOP Pres, saw this. 1/6

TR advocated for "a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes." He argued that estate taxes are required "to preserve a measurable equality of opportunity." As we have seen, the more wealth goes into fewer hands, the…

To return once more to the Feb 4 email in which Indiana GOP chair Hupfer purportedly replied to President Biden’s question “What are Republicans for?” w/7 points. Item 6: “The sanctity of life.” That’s a grand idea for the Grand Old Party! We need to sponsor a study. 1/5

How many actual lives, as in people in existence, have been saved as a result of Roe v Wade? We have several categories. Incidence of violent crime dropped in 1991 nationwide, about the time males who would have been…

U.S. Const., Amend XIV protects a parent's right to raise their child. K.T.K. v. DCS, 989 N.E.2d 1225, 1230 (Ind. 2013). A parent's interest in care, custody & control of her/his child perhaps oldest of fundamental liberty interests. Troxel v Granville, 530 U.S. 57, 65 (2000). 1/7

“Racism” is “belief that some races are inherently superior to other races. ( ) Unfair treatment of people often including violence against them , because they belong to a different race from one’s own.”…