Think About It with Michael Leppert

There is a primary election for mayor of Indianapolis in two weeks. To all of the candidates on the Democrat side, know this: I won't vote for you now or ever again if you are willing to re-sign with the NRA for future conventions. Poll that question if you'd like. I'm confident Democrat voters are with me on this.

If the good-guy-with-a-gun group ever returns to their senses, we can talk. But until then, NRA, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

This is what Indiana Democrats should be saying loudly and clearly.

We have a gun violence problem in America that is easy to identify. It can't exist without guns. The NRA of today exists for the singular purpose of defending, promoting and profiting from all things related to guns. The NRA of today is not interested in even admitting America has a problem. Until they are, I don't want them back in Indianapolis.

So, let's hear it mayoral candidates. Where are you on this?

The Republican supermajorities in the Indiana General Assembly have limited the capitol city's ability to implement commonsense gun policies. But they haven't taken control of our convention business. At least not yet.

Which leads me to the Statehouse. Wayne LaPierre, the CEO and Executive Vice President of the NRA appeared on the floor of the Indiana Senate last week so the organization could be celebrated on the eve of their convention. Senate Resolution 33 has plenty of resumé builders for the gun group and its history, mostly about things the organization used to be.

I get a kick out of the part about how "youth programs remain a cornerstone of the NRA …" I think most of us would like those "youth programs" to focus on keeping our school children alive, while in school, but they don't. These programs are like most other industry youth programs — designed to grow the industry.

The NRA of today is synonymous with the gun violence problem. It is the face of it. It maintains that ceremonial position even after near-catastrophic LaPierre-led mismanagement and corruption engulfed its operation beginning in 2019. Republican lawmakers fear it, even though gun safety groups like Mom Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety now have larger memberships.

No matter how humiliating it must be for Republicans to kneel before the throne of someone like LaPierre, it does have some painfully calculated, though cowardly, mathematical rationality. The GOP's extreme primary voters are irrational on guns.

But what about the Democrats?

Senate Democrats sat quietly and politely while LaPierre, was physically in their chamber being celebrated last week. My advice to the Senate Democrats would have been to put the Senate Republicans on notice that their objections to LaPierre's presence on the floor would make news. I would have promised bullhorns, protestors, and points of personal privilege that would have been cringeworthy for the body. I would have been willing to be expelled for it.

Sound familiar?

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Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over former President Donald Trump's first criminal trial in New York, made a $15 campaign contribution to President Joe Biden's presidential campaign on July 26, 2020. The inconsequential donation has opened the judge up to attacks of bias by those in the legal community. At least one former Manhattan prosecutor commented how it was a "bad look" when the news broke last Thursday.

That's right. A $15 donation is a bad look, even by some on the left.

Just to keep the contribution in context, IssueOne.org reported in December of 2020 that $4.9 billion was spent on the 2020 Presidential Campaign by all campaigns and outside groups, averaging to about $22 per voter.

On Wednesday, Pro Publica reported extensively on Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and a pattern of unlawful failures to disclose luxury travel accommodations and financial benefits given to him by Republican megadonor, Harlan Crow. These undisclosed gifts were a little pricier than Merchan's measly gesture. One trip alone is estimated to have been worth $500,000.

That's right. There is a luxury trip to somewhere on Earth that is worth half a million dollars. I would have guessed for that kind of money, SpaceX could have sent Justice Thomas to Jupiter.

As Gene Autry sang: "The stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas!" The Lone Star State's disdain for the rule law was bigger and brighter than anywhere last week.

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"We're not going to fix it," was how Rep. Tim Burchett answered when asked about a potential role for congress in addressing the relentless school shootings plaguing America. The Republican, three-term U.S. House member from Tennessee gave the comment only a few hours after last Monday's deadly shooting in Nashville.

Two attributes of the pro-gun crowd are troubling me. The first one is evidenced by Burchett's additional comments last week when he said, "I think you got to change people's hearts." This defeatist tone from the gun freedom crowd is familiar. Shootings like last week are now regularly described as an act of "evil."

As empty as "thoughts and prayers," evil is now the insurmountable phantom used by those not interested in "fixing" any of it. It's the GOP justification to not bother trying.

The second attribute is broader, but also easily identifiable. It's called "hyper-individualism." Though this permeates much of our politics and culture right now, it is most visible in the gun fights. Pro-gun Americans try to avoid saying things like "the death toll by guns is the price of freedom." But it is this deeply expensive freedom, specifically, that supports gun manufacturer's production of the tools being used to kill our kids.

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I have a sister named Peggy. But because "Peggy" is not a saint's name, my grandmother objected to my parents naming her that. So, the name they gave her was "Margaret," and only to satisfy grandma and an outdated, dumb, Catholic rule. Peggy legally changed her name when she was old enough to do it herself, and to eliminate that dumbness once and for all. Whew!

The only place she was ever called Margaret, after she was baptized, was at school. But only until they were told: her name is, was and always will be Peggy.

I would have loved to see my dad deal with a school that refused to call her Peggy. My grandma was a famously difficult woman, and while dad might have taken that naming crap from her the day my sister was born, any school that tried that would have regretted it.

House Bill 1608 is an offensive and ignorant bill rolling through the Indiana General Assembly this year. The bill is titled, "Human sexuality instruction." It should be titled, "Prohibited human sexuality instruction," since the primary function of the bill is to specifically prevent the teaching of something. The bill is not solving a problem in Indiana. It is borrowing a made-up problem from somewhere else and legislating a made-up epiphany to solve it.

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I've always been fascinated with St. Patrick's Day, and there is no question that my interest comes from the fascination others have for it.

Being of Irish descent used to make me feel like the holiday belonged to me more than others. In Ireland, it has been a religious holiday for more than a thousand years. In America, it's a party. Now, I may be Irish American, but I'm not religious. And if given the choice of Christianity or a party that features beer, whiskey, dressing funny and bag pipes, at this point in my life, I choose church.

When reading the History Channel's brief chronology of the March 17th holiday, it jumps out at you: Irish immigrants weren't always who most Americans wanted to pretend to be on that day or any other. The group's presence is so prominent in our culture now, every day could be St. Patrick's Day, I mean, without the parades of course.

Parades seem to be a vital part of moving groups of Americans into the mainstream. Indy Pride is the best parade of the year in Indianapolis. I imagine that is the case in many cities. It is the second Saturday in June each year. In 2023, that is June 10, so write it down. The following weekend is the city's Juneteenth Festival. For anyone who doesn't think these events are important, St. Patrick's Day events are good examples of why they absolutely are.

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The competition for trust and credibility in the press are far from new. This struggle dates back to at least the late 1800's when the "yellow journalism" battle between moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst dominated the New York media market. Both were fighting for circulation and ultimately, you know, profit.

There was a time, during my lifetime, that the evidence of conspiratorial lying by a media outlet would destroy that outlet. Readers and viewers, advertisers and investors, would flee the outlet once its credibility was obliterated. Once the media outlet no longer possesses the trust of the public, there would no longer be any value in it.

Pulitzer and Hearst both believed in this.

The First Amendment to the Constitution creates five American rights, or freedoms, that often go unquestioned in our culture. Not always, but often. Most of us grew up believing that freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly and to petition the government are the primary freedoms Americans have. But the founders didn't designate these freedoms because they were cute or profitable, they were designated because of their value to the nation.

The question of "value" is the primary one in the lawsuit of Dominion Voting Systems versus Fox News.

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At Indiana University, I teach government to students in one school, and speech to students in another. The subjects are quite different, as are the students. But the story of East Palestine, Ohio, gives me a real life lesson to teach both classes and will for years to come.

On Feb. 3, a train operated by Norfolk Southern derailed near the village in northeastern Ohio. Five cars containing vinyl chloride were among 20 derailed cars that contained hazardous substances.

East Palestine is a "village," which features a council-manager type government in Ohio. It is near the Pennsylvania border and is 40 miles closer to Pittsburgh than Cleveland. It has a little less than 5,000 residents, is 98.5% white, has a median family income of about $40,000 per year, and its population last showed growth in the census of 1970. Thank you, Wikipedia.

On Feb. 6, three days after the derailment, Norfolk Southern performed a controlled detonation of the cars containing vinyl chloride, a chemical that is used in the manufacturing of polyvinyl chloride, or PVC pipes, and other plastics. Train company officials claim the detonation was executed "perfectly," though footage of the dark cloud rising from it scream anything but perfect.

CNN has an excellent timeline of the events. When I worked for state government years ago, I was a regulator and communicator. Timelines like these make me want to come out of retirement.

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If you are a parent, I'm sure you have had the experience of seeing your child laying on the ground crying hysterically over what appears to be nothing. "Show me where it hurts," is often the command that most effectively breaks through the noise. Amazingly, more often than not, nothing hurts at all.

In this week's metaphor, that child is the Indiana General Assembly. I will try to explain it through three legislative initiatives, none of which will ease this metaphoric child's fragile soul.

The alleged problem they are trying to solve this session is a medical diagnosis called gender dysphoria. Those who have it, and are hurting because of it, are a statistically tiny percentage of young people. How tiny? Approximately 300,000 13–17-year-olds in all of America identify as transgender, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

But grievance-based GOP legislators and their supporters have volunteered to play the victim here. To ease its pain, they are trying to ban treating youths diagnosed with gender dysphoria entirely. Yes, all forms of youth treatment will soon be illegal. That is what Senate Bill 480 does.

Just in relation to suicide, The Trevor Project found that one in five transgender or nonbinary youth attempt suicide each year, twice the rate of cisgender youth. More than half of transgender youth consider it. These numbers don't magically improve by banning treatment for gender dysphoria. Quite the opposite.

By contrast, having just one supportive adult, including a teacher, made LGBTQ children 40% less likely to report a suicide attempt in the last year, as reported by Whitney Downard of the Indiana Capital Chronicle. Remember the supportive teacher component. It will come up again.

Doctors also say the legislature is wrong on this one, claiming that the proposed ban goes "against evidence-based care." But this legislature quit trusting doctors regarding health care long ago.

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"You can't handle the truth!" That's the famous line spoken from the witness stand by Jack Nicholson in his portrayal of Colonel Nathan Jessup in the 1992 hit movie, "A Few Good Men." That was thirty years ago, in a make-believe story of a governmental cover up, and long before the line became so true for a big chunk of Americans.

In fact, Fox News, the most watched cable "news" network in the country, believes that telling the truth to its viewers is just too big a risk to their bottom line to consider actually doing it. That became clear last week through discovery in the Dominion Voting Systems' $1.6 billion defamation suit against Fox.

Internal communications show that the channel's biggest personalities and its owner, Rupert Murdoch, knew the now infamous "big lie" about election fraud in 2020 was not true. But within a week of the election the channel also knew its viewers didn't want to hear the truth about it and have since spent more than two years energetically perpetuating that lie.

Mike Pence knows that the voters he needs are the same people Fox News fears. What really is the difference between voters, constituents and customers anyway? In Pence's case, that question isn't even sarcastic.

When the former Indiana governor became the vice president in 2017, he was far from wealthy. In June of 2021, he purchased a $1.93 million home in Carmel. He also signed a book deal reportedly worth between $3 million and $4 million. Being the VP has blessed Pence with a profitable platform, albeit, one with a rather troubling need.

Pence's book buying customers apparently need to be lied to. And in grand fashion. And in the midst of facts and truths that engulf them. At least that's what Pence appears to think.

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For those among you who haven't seen the 1969 classic film, "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," let me spoil the ending for you. Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in the title roles, had been chased into a shack by authorities in Bolivia after a lengthy manhunt. They were surrounded, exhausted and had nowhere else to run. Little did they know, the Bolivian Army had also gathered outside the shack where they were holed up.

The outlaws decided to come out shooting. They were sitting ducks. The end.

They had no idea how many guns awaited them in Bolivia back in 1908. In 2023 America, none of us do either.

House Bill 1177 is a bill filed in the Indiana General Assembly by the state's leading cheerleader for guns, Rep. Jim Lucas. The bill is titled, "Handgun training for teachers," and that efficiently describes it. It is designed to create funding and training curriculum for teachers and certain school staff who voluntarily want to carry a handgun in the school where they work.

School districts in the state already can allow teachers and staff to carry without training. Chris Lagoni, executive director of the Indiana Small and Rural Schools Association, stated in testimony that "only a couple" of districts have implemented the policy. No safety training is currently required. Possessing the gun, and any relevant training that logically would accompany it, is voluntary. Under the legislation, all of the training offered will also be voluntary. The bill primarily establishes the authority to fund the curriculum.

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