Think About It with Michael Leppert

In the opening scene to the classic film, "Animal House," two young freshmen walk by the statue of Emil Faber, the founder of the fictitious Faber College. The quote on the statue's plaque was simple: "Knowledge is good."

Generally, we can all agree with that profound statement, can't we? If so, it is "good" to know that Indiana ranks 48th in the nation on public health funding.

Gov. Eric Holcomb's Public Health Commission released its extensive final report in August of this year, confirming plenty of details that were generally already known. But as is often the case with fact-gathering entities like this one, the public often looks at the sweeping document in hopes of establishing the smallest of conclusions. Yes, only two states rank lower than Indiana in funding public health.

Some conservatives could claim that having our government spend less than others is something to tout. Yes, I can hear them now. Even I am reluctant to assume that it is fundamentally bad to spend less on any governmentally-based

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program or initiative. Measuring ourselves this way is often meaningless. Sadly, that is not the case this time.

While our funding rankings certainly seem bad by themselves, the result is even worse.

Indiana is an unhealthy state. Like Emil Faber's singular statement, it is a simple conclusion with profound meaning and consequences.

We all know people who always see a glass as half empty. It is tough to be around them and their unrelenting pessimism. Then there is the other bunch, those bright, sunshiny, "half-full" types, who always see the best in everything. They can be equally exhausting with their irritating enthusiasm.

I spend time in both places, depending on the day. But if I had to choose one team to join forever, well, that's easy.

One of my favorite things about my favorite American holiday is simply its reason–a national day of thanks. Thanks for what and why? And thanks to whom? Not to mention how. Is pigging out and watching football synonymous with expressing gratitude? Those half-empty types might wish it were, but of course, it's not.

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For more than a year, I have been patiently waiting for the arrival of the inevitable dilemma that Third District U.S. Rep. Jim Banks was facing. These are important days for the future of individual political careers in Washington, though it is much harder to see how the outcomes of any of these battles in the palace will be all that intriguing for Americans.

Republicans will narrowly take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the coming days, which means it is time to elect a new speaker. For Indiana, it is important to watch how the rest of the new speaker's leadership team is assembled, primarily because of Banks.

The projected majority in the new term for the House should be good news for the GOP. Until the reality of its thinness and isolation becomes clear, that is. With the Democrats securing control of the U.S. Senate, the House Republicans can't even get uncomfortable bills to President Joe Biden's desk for him to veto. That severely limits the new majority's ability to do much of anything that is meaningful given the group's lack of interest in bipartisanship.

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As I write, votes are still being counted in many places across America. That vital process, which has defined who we are since the dawn of the republic, had a big night Tuesday. So did voters. In most places, that is. Just not in Indiana.

It would be easy to interpret that opening as just the ranting of a left-of-center voter who wanted different partisan outcomes. Yes, there were plenty of candidates I was rooting for, and some I voted for, who lost on Tuesday. I'm used to that here, living in the deep-blue population center of the state in Indianapolis, while being surrounded by a sea of red counties. Nationally, things more often ebb and flow from cycle to cycle based on the circumstances at hand, including this year.

What happened this week in Indiana is different though. It is also relatively unique. Diego Morales was elected as the Indiana Secretary of State.

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"It's a hell of a thing, killing a man," is my favorite quote from my all-time favorite western. "Unforgiven" is the Oscar-winning 1992 Clint Eastwood movie about William Munny, a has-been killer who learns of a $1000 bounty in Big Whiskey, Wyoming, that brings him out of retirement.

Killing is a hard thing to do, and a hard thing to live with afterward.

Our modern and public discussions about gun violence often skip this part of the trauma. Americans intuitively view resolutions of conflict, including violent conflict, through a search for winners and losers. The truth is violent conflict rarely produces a winner. Including those who pull the trigger and come out of it alive.

"Behind the Bullet" is a 2019 documentary directed by Heidi Yewman, that explores the impact America's death-by-gun problem has on the shooter. Yewman was at Indiana University last week to discuss the making of the film and the related experiences connected to its creation. One of my classes is studying the gun safety movement right now, so the timing of her visit was fortuitous.

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Over the years, I have had the good luck of being able to visit our nation's capital in Washington, D.C., many times.

I once regularly had pressing work-related reasons to go. Those reasons might be so-called big-deal visits to "The Hill" or crucial meetings with some powerful federal agency. Maybe it was some random conference where I would sit in the back and drink coffee and eat pastries all day, or heaven forbid, I would be one of the important speakers.

D.C. does conferences like Las Vegas does craps — which leads me to the sage advice I give for meetings in either place: keep the stakes low. If you must go to the capital, get your work done and out of the way as quickly as possible so you can get to what the city does best.

While most see Washington as a town defined by politics and power, to me it more accurately stands for history and food, and not necessarily in that order.

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I wonder every election if voters fully understand what candidates are really saying to them during campaigns. Some years, I'm sure voters get it. Lately, it seems to be getting tougher.

A couple of issues this year are making things particularly difficult: inflation and abortion.

When talking about the economy, time is money, so, let me get right to the point: The American Recovery Plan is not the reason there is global inflation.

I know of zero credible economists who will say it is. Some will say it exacerbated inflation. I wonder if those same experts would agree that the $1 billion refund Indiana Republicans just approved in August did the same thing. I know some who do.

The pandemic is the cause of the inflation that is being felt across the planet, and yes, that includes the United States. So, then why is Indiana's senior senator, Todd Young, trying to campaign so hard against the Biden-led recovery plan while ignoring his own party's similar play in the Statehouse?

Young doesn't believe voters will notice, is my guess. And if I had to guess again, Young is probably right.

This election year, there is a long list of examples across the country of candidates' strategies presuming voters won't notice obvious contradictions and reversals. Blake Masters was a hardline supporter of the elimination of abortion rights with no exceptions when seeking the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate in Arizona. Since winning the primary, and after the notorious abortion ruling this summer, he has scrubbed his campaign website of all of that.

Dr. Mehmet Oz went the other direction in his campaign for the Senate in Pennsylvania. In 2019, Oz publicly stated his support for Roe v. Wade. In 2022, as a candidate, he has slowly evolved from moderately anti-abortion to extreme on this issue as reported in August, by New Yorker Magazine. That's quite a shift by a medical doctor. The desire for power in the U.S. Senate is apparently too great for his medical philosophy to withstand.

What Young, Masters and Oz share in common is that these are examples of things that make them unreliable. Again, it seems they don't think voters will notice or care or both.

Are they wrong?

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The Judicial Branch of government is certainly on a roll. It started with "The Leak" in May of what turned out to be the official landmark ruling in July of Dobbs v. Mississippi.

You know the one. It is the one that turned back the clock on women's healthcare rights by nearly half a century. The justices voting in favor of Dobbs, had all tap-danced through their Senate confirmations to the court with statements of their commitment to "settled law" in this arena. Those lies were still hanging in the air as they defiantly reversed themselves — as expected.

That expectation matters more than some might immediately think. For the bulk of American history, the credibility of the U.S. Supreme Court has been high enough for the nation's citizenry to go along with whatever it decides. This lopsided court is testing us, and it isn't only about abortion.

The court began hearing cases this session on Oct. 3, and they are hearing some doozies. And don't forget, SCOTUS gets to choose what it hears.

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Indiana GOP chairman Kyle Hupfer has a real problem on his hands. Wait a minute, that's not accurate. Hupfer's hands are full of them.

Really? How much trouble could the Republican chairman have in a state like Indiana? His party controls all of state government. Being in charge doesn't sound like any trouble at all.

Except it doesn't appear the state's top two elected Republicans are in charge of the party anymore.

The obvious problems started a few weeks back when the GOP candidate for Secretary of State, Diego Morales, showed that he could not accurately and openly discuss his military service. Couple this problem with the rest of his already unflattering work history, and Morales is responsible for a red state full of faces red with embarrassment. And that was before Friday's news dropped.

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When I first heard about Andy Borowitz's new book, "Profiles in Ignorance," I knew it was moving to the top of my must-read stack. Then I found out he was reading the Audible version himself, and so I am now that guy walking down the street who spontaneously bursts into laughter at seemingly nothing.

As anyone who is a Borowitz fan, yes, the book is hilarious. Unless you consider yourself a "Reagan Republican," or if you are merely willing to admit that you know Dan Quayle, that is.

The book is a discussion of the three stages of ignorance: ridicule, acceptance, and celebration. But more importantly, Borowitz appears to be attempting to answer the question of why so many ignorant people are attracted to elected office in America. I'm not quite halfway done with it, so I hope to report back if he actually finds an answer.

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