Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley stated this week that the Confederate flag stands for “service, sacrifice, and heritage” and lamented that Dylann Roof, who killed nine African-Americans in a Charleston, South Carolina, church on June 17, 2015, had hijacked the Confederate flag. Ms Haley pointed out that, as governor, shortly after the shootings she ordered the Confederate battle flag removed from the grounds of the South Carolina Statehouse.

There are misconceptions about the…

The results of a poll commissioned by The Economist and conducted by YouGov.com should disturb people: 53 percent of Republicans believe the current occupant of the Oval Office is a better President than was Abraham Lincoln.

After January 20, 2017, spoof headlines began to lose their dynamic of absurdity. Each day brings new examples of incompetence and corruption gratis the individual who, for the time being, is POTUS. I checked and this poll had occurred and the result had been as…

Cults of personality do not turn out well for the nations over which they rule. The ruler is neither skilled in ability to rule nor smart in solving problems. Irony abounds in that the dictator in each such cult usually has little personality. Charisma and luck play their parts. Brutality is necessary, too.

A hallmark of a free society is the ability to disagree - especially with members of one’s own political party. People have to be able to discuss issues and acknowledge certain…

I examined the positions on issues held by other candidates for the GOP nomination for the United States House of Representatives for the 5th Congressional District of Indiana. I will address these issues and candidates in no particular order. Today I focus on one candidate and one issue, or set of issues.

My view is that if you are a woman and you are raped, you should not be forced to take to term a fetus to that results from that involuntary union.

Usually people say “let’s not…

In the 1960s, as opposition to the Vietnam War grew, the phrase “love it or leave it,” as a counter to those who opposed our military involvement in southeast Asia, appeared frequently. Implicit was the notion that one does not protest United States military involvement. To say a war is wrong is also to say U.S. military personnel who died in such involvements died in vain. Such protest is unpatriotic and people who protest wars should leave the country.

The Pentagon Papers revealed…

Too many people own too many guns in this country. Too few of those people know a damn thing about gun safety. That explains why the mechanism of death for so many people is a firearm.

First, the statistics are not as clear as would be preferable. We know how many people die. Also, a bullet in the head is pretty clear as the reason why John Doe met an early demise. There are statistics to deaths from firearms that we might be able to use to reduce gun violence.

According to a Pew…

The Indiana Republican Party is a nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Indiana, incorporated by Citizens United attorney James Bopp, Jr., and under the control of up to twenty-four (24) and as few as three (3) members of the board of directors of another nonprofit corporation organized under the laws of the State of Indiana - The Indiana Republican State Committee, Inc.

Under Indiana law, the two “major political parties” enjoy significant advantages. For…

In a diner a couple of days ago, a person said to me, “The electoral college sure worked in 2016, didn’t it.” Hers was a statement, not a question. I might have surprised her when I said, “No. And there is no ‘electoral college.’”

I have written about this matter before, but sometimes it is necessary to re-visit a topic. And the topic of the “electoral college” seems relevant.

There is no mention of “electoral college” in The Constitution. A “college” is “an organized association…

In March 2015 The Metropole Hotel in Hanoi was reopened after renovations. Media reported Vietnamese dignitaries arrive in Bentleys, Benzes, and other cars that one reasonably may describe as “luxury” cars. Vietnam is a country with which the U.S. trades.

Today is Veterans Day. On November 11, 1918, the Treaty of Versailles took effect at 11 a.m. and brought an end to World War I. The carnage was so horrific that some called it the “war to end all wars.” Of course, there was a bigger…

Like it or not, the political structure of this country is predisposed to a two-party system. With force and counter-force, and checks and balances, since 1789 our government has been dominated by two political parties. Even as they decried “factions” (what we call political parties), Madison (Republican later to be called Democratic) and Hamilton (Federalist) took helped form the first two parties.

By the mid-1800s the institution of chattel slavery had so devastated this country that…

In 1854 the Republican Party was founded, its principal policy position being opposition to expansion of slavery through the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Cavendish, History Today, Vol. 54, #7, July 2004. After the Civil War, Republican members of Congress pushed reconstruction of the South and sought to protect the rights of people recently freed from slavery (while at the same time seeking to enrich themselves). When Theodore Roosevelt assumed the office of President after the death of William…

“Republicans resigned to Trump losing 2020 popular vote but confident about Electoral College” - David M. Drucker, Washington Examiner, 3/22/19.

  This headline grabbed my attention. The “Electoral College” never was meant to be “how our system works,” contrary to the opinion of an Arizona Republican donor who supports the current occupant of the Oval Office. The occupant himself is quoted: “I used to like the idea of the Popular Vote, but now realize the Electoral College is far better…

Our intelligence agencies have determined Russia used cyberforce to attack this country during the 2016 elections. Cyber warfare is big money these days - because so much of the World’s security depends upon computers.

Intelligence agencies have determined Russia will interfere in elections yet to come. Putin is no friend of democracy. He hates the United States. He hates political systems that espouse democratic values.

The current occupant of the Oval Office travels to Finland to…

Nothing quite manages to silence opposition and join people in the spirit of loyalty like a national crisis. When crises are real, people legitimately bond and work toward a common goal. The United States faced such crises on December 7, 1941, and September 11, 2001.

Unfortunately, despots read history - at least for pointers on how either to seize, or to tighten hold on, power. Crises are right up some despots’ alleys.

Adolf Hitler took office as Chancellor of Germany on January…

The kids from the school in Florida, who have been brave and energetic enough to demand changes in policies in regard to gun violence, have used orange apparel to express the movement that way.  I sometimes wear a tie.  I wanted to find a non-for-profit from which I could buy an orange tie such that my expenditure would go to stopping gun violence.  I found some that sell other apparel, but none that sell the specific apparel I could wear. Therefore, I ordered five (5) orange neckties…

   Office holders in this country do not possess “rights” via that office. Governments - and, by extension, individuals who hold office in governments - hold power. People have rights. A government official has rights as a person, as do we all.

The current occupant of the Oval Office tweeted yesterday:

“As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong? In the meantime, the never ending…

  Insider trading is against the law - and not “just because.” It is against the law because markets can be “gamed” artificially.

  Mortimer and Randolph Duke, the brothers in “Trading Places” who sought to scam the market on frozen orange juice futures, learned how playing on insider information can backfire. Their characters ended up on the street and broke.

  The current occupant of the Oval Office committed a faux pas this week. Well, he does that all the time, but this one…

Isn’t this how the Second Amendment is supposed to work?

Citizens were concerned. Loved ones, neighbors, people whom they didn’t know personally were shot.

Citizens devised an odd plan. They purchased copies of Quotations of Chairman Mao - who racked up more deaths than anyone else on the Top-10 Mass murdered list - for 25 cents per copy in Oakland and sold the copies for $1 each to students at Ucal-Berkeley.

With the profits from those sales, shotguns were purchased. Citizens…

The First Church of Cannabis, and members of the Church, filed a lawsuit in July, 2015, under Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, to allow members and congregants to use marijuana as a sacrament. The cause number assigned to the case, pending in Marion Circuit Court, is 49C01-1507-MI-022522. I am the attorney who represents the Plaintiffs. The Office of the Indiana Attorney General represents Defendants who are political entities or officials of the State “State Defendants”). The…

The Electoral College is a vestige of the “Great Compromise” of the 1787 Constitutional Convention, whereby States were apportioned seats in the House of Representatives based on population, but each State - even the smallest - had two (2) seats in the Senate. States in which slavery was allowed benefitted. “Each person in a State, regardless of her or his status, was counted for purposes of apportionment of seats in the House and electoral voes: “Representatives and direct Taxes shall be…