On Monday, May 11, Indy’s public TV station, WFYI will stream live two virtual town halls of the 14 (total) GOP candidates - seven in each due to the size of the field - for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District in June 2's primary.

GOP candidates will be webcast (go to WFYI’s website) in two sessions on Monday, May 11. Town Hall #2 will begin at 8:00 PM. Participants:Matt Hook, Matt Hullinger, Kelly Mitchell, Danny Niederberger, Mark Small, Victoria Spartz, and Russell Stwalley. …

My (frequently misguided) friend Paul Ogden replied to my May 2 blog about guns. None of my 14 opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District (INCD5) has replied, so I shall address points Paul raises.

1) Ogden: “You're counting suicides in with people who are victims of gun crimes. That's a bit misleading. Pretty sure someone intent on killing themselves could find other ways of doing the deed.”

Moi: a) The blog was about health implications of gun…

“Self-evident truths” usually are not so “true”. Positions of the far-right idiots (such as my 14 opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, or “INCD5") are fueled by such inanities.

A lot of times the concepts are implicit. Other times they are said out loud. An example of the former: the more guns we have, the safer we are. That notion popped into my mind yesterday when white people with assault weapons demonstrated against “stay at…

States have combined to launch regional efforts against COVID-19. This is several months after a united effort should have begun. Of course, we had a united effort for many problems in this country - we are the “United States of America.”

If the Federal government had acted sooner, tens of thousands of lives might have been saved. Many died in The Civil War. Several matters were decided - or so we thought. One matter had to do with freedom and equality. Another related to power of the…

None of the GOP candidates in the June 2 primary for Indiana’s 5th Congressional (INCD5) has addressed a point I have made repeatedly about health care. Because no one responded to my suggestion that we learn from other countries, I think my point is conceded.

Last evening’s virtual town hall was held simultaneously at, and with the 14 GOP candidates split between, three “places,” Carmel, Noblesville, and Westfield. I was in Carmel with State Treasurer Kelly Mitchell, my pal Dr. Chuck…

One of my opponents in the June 2 primary for Indiana’s 5th Congressional (INCD5), Dr. Chuck Dietzen, has been issued a “cease and desist” letter over Dr Chuck’s use, in various social media, of an image of Mother Theresa.

Dietzen’s use of Mother Theresa’s image has an emetic effect, on me, similar to Dr Chuck’s glowing reference to Dr Martin Luther King on January 20: Dr Chuck uses scare tactics to describe “a socialist approach” to health care.

Mother Theresa and Dr. King worked…

DATE: April 25, 2020 TIME: 3 p.m. EVENT: Premiere of podcast TITLE: mark “small on your ballot NIFTY THINGS: tweet or e-mail questions to the ONLY candidate in the June 2 Indiana primary for U.S. House District 5 (INCD5) who...

-Is pro-choice, anti-trump, pro-environment, anti-war, pro-science, anti-trump, pro-civil rights, anti-roll backs of EPA, pro-legalization of all drugs, anti-big business, pro-single payer health care and anti-subsidies for professional sports.

-Did I…

Health care: be based on science, facts and knowledge and furthered by education. “Nurse Beth” Henderson, one of my opponents in the June 2 primary for the GOP nomination for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District avoids 3 of those components.

Health care professionals who support the idiocracy that is trumpism would be funny, but for the deaths that the “personality” at the center of their cult has cost this country. “Nurse Beth” - her chosen moniker - praises trump.…

Many people will die who would otherwise be alive because of the ineptitude of the current

occupant of the Oval Office (“dt”). He delayed; cut anything started by or related to his predecessor, the last legitimately elected President of the United States.

Time is past to discuss in sober fashion the “two sides” - as if every issue has only two sides - of arguments about COVID-19. People with expertise have warned about this possibility - for years. The Federal government had tried…

In “American Graffiti,” a character says to put a traffic ticket in the “CS” file - “c” for chicken and “s” not for “salad.” Rev Micah Beckwith, one of my opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for Indiana’s 5th Congressional District (INCD5), is cs.

Beckwith initiated contact with me in a February 1 tweet: “You’re in the wrong primary! But I’m glad you decided to fake it in the GOP primary. I’m gonna have a lot fun dismantling the stupidity of your progressive ideology. Can’t wait to see…

“We take gun rights seriously in the 5th District, someone said Thursday during a Madison County Tea Party town meeting to which I was invited. I pointed out: guns do not have rights. People have rights.

Actually a lot of people - in the 5th District and across the country - are sick of whack-os with a fetish for guns. Too many people own guns and too few know about gun safety. That doesn’t matter to gun manufacturers.

Care to see people fall over each other in defense of “gun…

April 14, 2020

Fiscal Conservatives of Hamilton County

I appreciate your inquiry about my positions on issues and shall answer the five questions, with clauses, you pose.

1) Do you favor term limits for members of Congress? If so, what period and why?

The way in which you phrase the question implies the answer is presumed to be “yes.” I oppose term limits for members of Congress. I would suggest your read Federalist 53, written by James Madison. The Framers…

White supremacists have taken control of the Republican Party (a/k/a GOP). They are a minority, but are well-financed and have an advantage: control of one of the two major political parties.

They had a hold on the Democratic Party, from 1865 until the mid-1960s, but both parties had “wings” that balanced racism and made it okay, as long as one was white. Then LBJ, a white southerner, backed the Civil Rights Act.

GOP strategists realized they could pick up where George Wallace left…

Nothing in The Constitution guarantees one-half of the political system belongs to forces of ignorance and hatred. The so-called Southern Strategy of parts of the GOP succeeded, and handed control of the party and half of our system to a minority.

We cannot both allow such forces to keep what they have taken (sometimes illegally) and vow to remove them from control. If we allow them to remain in control of the GOP, we have given up 50 yards before the kickoff.

In Indiana’s 5th…

The 3rd Amendment (“No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.”) is “almost never-used.” Silvera v. Lockyer, 312 F.3d 1052, 1076 (9th Cir. 2002).

We should learn history, especially the history of our Constitution and case law and amendments that followed ratification in 1789 up to today.

England enacted Quartering Act of 1765 required American colonists to bear the…

Gosh golly - when candidate A in a party’s primary challenges to debate any of the other candidates in that primary, and one of those other candidates (me) accepts the challenge, one should (reasonably) infer A will reply to my acceptance.

Kent Abernathy - one of my opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District (INCD5) - issued such a challenge. I accepted. I have received no reply. There are several possible reasons: his stands on…

One of my opponents in the June 2 GOP primary for U.S. House in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District (INCD5), is Kent Abernathy, who apparently issued a challenge to any candidate who wants to debate him.

I accept that challenge - and we can debate via Skype or Zoom or one of those devices. If any other candidate accepts the challenge, I don’t believe it would be much of a “debate.” Implicit in the notion of a debate is a clash on issues.

The other candidates for the GOP nomination…

The re-election campaign for trump has issued a cease and desist letter to stop a TV ad that uses trump’s own words to illustrate how trump has bungled the COVID-19 pandemic by downplaying its seriousness.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market...” 250 U.S. at 630. trump speaks of, yet mocks, “truth” and is ignorant of the marketplace.

The First Amendment’s protection of free…

Devotion to ignorance in the face of fact - scientific or other - marks the current administration. trump lied yesterday when he said no one could have anticipated this pandemic. In fact the Obama administration HAD anticipated it.

And trump then dismantled the framework that had been established to address a pandemic, going so far as to eliminate the job of the person who - this is “on point” - monitored health crises in China.

I cannot be so cynical as to suggest voters who…

Anti-science, anti-humanity and absorption with absurd ideas rejected long ago - these forces coalesced in this administration and Indiana’s primary elections have been kicked back to June 2. This administration bungled the COVID-19 crisis.

IF: you live in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District (INCD5), your vote can make a difference. ALL of the other candidates for the GOP nomination advocate the same failed policies of the past three years. trump has told States should find supplies…