Archive for the ‘Opinion’ Category

We, the directors of Hoosier Access*, are proud to announce today our endorsement of Rep. Dan Leonard for re-election to the Indiana House of Representatives. Rep. Leonard, (R-Huntington) has represented House District 50 since 2002 and has ably served the people of Huntington and Whitely counties.

Since his election, Rep. Leonard has been a staunch fiscal and social conservative advocating for real and meaningful solutions to the problems that come before the Indiana General Assembly.

During the historic 2008 legislative session that focused a great amount of time on property tax reform, Rep. Leonard stood up for taxpayers by winning passage of the “Little Red Schoolhouse” amendment. This policy proposal was designed to help reduce the high cost of building new school buildings by requiring the Indiana Department of Education to develop a maximum cost per square foot formula for school construction and then maintain a database of approved school construction plans to lower the engineering and architectural costs associated with school construction.

Hoosiers of House District 50 have a legislator that they can be proud of and we encourage voters to cast their ballot for Mr. Leonard in the May 6th primary.

*Jim Banks, Whitely County GOP Chairman and Hoosier Access Director, abstained from this endorsement.

One of the three candidates vying for the Republican nomination in the 2nd Congressional District is Tony Zirkle, an attorney, perennial candidate, and holder of odd and strange views. Zirkle has already made a name for himself this cycle by advocating for nationwide racial segregation. Now, though, he has done something that is even worse than his inappropriate racial statements.

On Sunday, Zirkle spoke to a crowd of nearly 60 neo-Nazis/white supremacists gathered in Chicago to commemorate Hitler’s birthday. The fact that Tony Zirkle, a candidate for United States Congress, would honor a gathering of neo-Nazis who believe one of the most evil men the world has ever known was in fact a great leader, is utterly despicable and beyond the pale. Tony Zirkle has disgraced himself.

Here is a photo of Zirkle speaking to the gathering:

Click here to view more photos of the event (Zirkle is seen in most of them).

Speaking to  a group in Washington, D.C. Gov. Mitch Daniels made the controversial statement that conservatives and Republicans need to let Ronald Reagan go.  According this source, Daniels said “Nostalgia is fine and Reagan’s economic plan was good…But we need to look towards the future rather than staying in the past.”

If Governor Daniels was urging us to look to the future and dream big dreams about how we’re going to apply conservative principles to new problems (and Reagan, for all of his good work, didn’t solve every problem, there is much work still to do) then he’s right.  On the other hand, I tend to disagree with him if he was advocating that we move beyond Reagan and stop measuring our party’s leadership by the principles Reagan espoused.  While no individual will ever fully match up to any other individual, it is important that we still stick with the principles that Ronald Reagan lived out in his governing.  The principles weren’t Reagan principles, they were common-sense conservative principles and Ronald Reagan was the great communicator of those ideas.

Over this past election cycle while there were still numerous Republican presidential candidates, I got tired of hearing each of them claim the mantle of Ronald Reagan.  It is one thing to respect Reagan and quote him, it is another thing to simply say “I’m a Reagan Republican” and let the Ronald Reagan label do your thinking for you.  Labels should never be used as a cover-up for one’s own thought process.  If you believe in conservative principles, instead of telling us you’re like Reagan, tell us what your principles are and how they will influence your decisions.

I love picking on Democrats. Rush Limbaugh loves picking on Democrats. Find me a Republican who doesn’t. But I have to take issue with Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos. Trust me, I love the premise. I love the theory, I love that it really rankles Dan Parker.

What I don’t love is how Operation Chaos can hurt down ballot races in the coming primary. Consider our state reps and state senators who have primary battles. While I know that there are those who would love to see incumbents of all stripes taken down, I would hate to see good Republicans lose to unqualified opponents in the primary just because Rush Limbaugh wants to sent Democrat party leadership into a giant snit, while boosting his ratings at the same time. Don’t get me wrong here. I like Rush. I used to listen to him all the time, so I know he’s doing this as entertainment, to boost his ad revenue and to play with the liberals minds a bit.

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Reading the article on former Congressman Lee Hamilton endorsing Barack Obama, got me thinking. At the height of the abolition movement in America, in a speech accepting the Republican nomination for Senate in Illinois in 1858, Abraham Lincoln uttered one of his many famous quotes, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Since George Bush won in 2000 (electoral votes, not popular votes matter liberals, so get over it) all the political rhetoric I’ve heard is that we are a divided nation. In fact, Lee Hamilton used the phrase when giving his endorsement of Obama.

From the Indy Star:

“I begin by asking myself what kind of leadership the country needs at this juncture and I think, for me at least, the answer is that you want a candidate that will try to bring together a country that is very evenly divided, a country in which partisanship has been very sharp and to try to get a candidate who will create a new sense of national unity and will try to transcend the divisions within the country,” (emphasis mine)

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The Politico earlier this week ran a story on the struggle and strife, both monetarily and ideologically, that plague many state GOP parties around the country. Whether they be in the bluest of blue states or the reddest of red, the aftermath of the 2006 mid-terms still loom large over them. Michigan GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis was quoted as saying “After twelve years of being in power, you tend to get fat and lazy, and in some cases arrogant with respect to your positions”. Makes me wonder why it took 42 years for that to happen to the Democrats before the 1994 revolution.

Aside from mass political defeat on the state and national levels in 2006 for Republicans the problem stems from the perception and fact that Republicans lost their way ideologically. By the time 2006 rolled around, Social and Fiscal conservatives were up in arms over scandals and fiscal ineptitude. The votes (or lack thereof) for Republicans on the national level sank, not just for congressman and senators, but Republicans lost majorities in legislatures and/or governorships all across the country. Indiana was no different.

So is our state party next on the list of soon to be fractured and broke?

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On Monday, Chelsea Clinton declared to a South Bend crowd that it was her first time to visit Indiana and she was expecting to fall in love with the state.  After a question at Butler University on Tuesday I’m wondering how much she loves Indiana crowds.

It seems that a large part of Chelsea’s job in the Clinton campaign is to reach out to younger voters and carry her mom’s message to her generation.  This role necessarily involves going to college campuses across the country. 

On Tuesday Chelsea fielded questions from a Butler U. crowd and at the end of the session she got asked a question that she said she had never been asked.  The question was something like “Do you think the Monica Lewinsky scandal hurt your mom’s credibility?”  Chelsea was caught off-guard and she quickly responded that the issue was none of the questioner’s business.

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Happy Dyngus Day everyone. With Indiana mattering very much in the Democratic presidential primary, you may be seeing more and more posts on what’s going on at the national level between Barack and Hillary.

Apparently one of Barack Obama’s key supporters made a ridiculous statement just as the campaign was trying to survive the fall-out from it’s friend the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. The target of the charge was not America in general (as was the case with Mr. Wright) but former President William Jefferson Clinton, otherwise known as Monica Lewinski’s Ex-Boy Friend. Speaking in North Carolina last Friday, the ex-President stated:

“I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics.”

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Shouts of “Yes We Can” reverberated through the Plainfield High gymnasium as Barack Obama delivered up various platitudes on the subject of “hope” and “change.” Although the shouts we very distinct and clear, it is unclear as to what it is that the shouters were proclaiming they can do. “Yes we can ___?” What is to fill in the blank?

Barack Obama’s campaign has all of the substance of a blank page.

For an excellent review of the shallowness of Obama’s speeches read the cover article from the Weekly Standard.

Here is a video of part of the event:

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[This is a guest post from fellow Indiana Leadership Forum classmate and Director of Operations and Public Policy for the Indiana Family Institute, Ryan McCann. I asked him to write about the last week’s California’s Court of Appeals ruling on Homeschooling and how it could affect Indiana.]

Big Brother liberalism strikes in California…is Indiana next?

For years conservatives (including yours truly…here, here and here) have been sounding the alarm against the significant and growing problem of judicial activism. Liberalism infested and conquered most law schools many decades ago. However, until more recently the spawn of this corruption of the legal profession at least attempted to hide their ideological bias behind the tricky “penumbra” they keep magically finding in the Constitution.

However, in more recent history, marriage, property rights, religious liberty and now parental rights (to name only a few) have taken serious frontal assaults from a few black-robed tyrants. Most recently the California Court of Appeals ruled that parents have no legal right to home-school their children.

For those of you keeping score at home, the liberal ideology dominates much of American culture today including: the mainstream media (for example: CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, the New York Times, most major newspapers…ring any bells?), the education system (Last time I checked the teachers unions were still a bastion of liberalism and they run much of the public school system. To make matters much worse, many colleges and universities have crusty Marxists from the 60’s entrenched in power), government bureaucracy (need I explain…really?), the courts, much of corporate America (Bill Gates, Tim Gil, etc.), even the church is threatened (only 50% of pastors have a biblical worldview according to George Barna).

Conservatives still have a fighting chance in some areas of public influence, but our last best hope is in the home. Conservatives don’t abort their babies and they teach their children the Truth. That is a threat to liberalism. Given this reality, is it any surprise that the home and parental rights are targeted? Will liberals be content with crushing parental rights in California? Were they content to declare sodomy a constitutional right in only one state? Were they happy to allow babies to be murdered within their mother’s wombs in only one state? Be vigilant Indiana.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.” - Thomas Jefferson

Hat tip - One News Now

Editor’s Note: Tom Rose, one of the candidates who ran during the GOP nominating process for Tuesday’s special election, has written the below article on Democratic congressional candidate Andre Carson’s faith and the role of a candidate’s faith in politics.

By: Tom Rose

While both candidates for Tuesday’s special election to Congress have explained their positions on some important issues, there is a virtual media blackout preventing discussion of perhaps the most important and certainly most uncomfortable issue of this short campaign. That issue is religion.

Democrat Andre Carson is a recent convert to Islam. He proud of his faith and to his credit, appears both happy and willing to answer any questions the media asks him. The problem is that media isn’t asking any questions. Why not?

Is it because the media is worried that discussion of Carson’s Muslim faith would focus unfair attention upon a religious minority? Is it worried that asking him specific questions might sound too much like a constitutionally forbidden “religious test”? Neither explanation holds water since neither explanation prevented an aggressive, even belligerent focus on Mormonism during Mitt Romney’s recent presidential campaign.

Here is a thought. Maybe the list of murdered journalists, ransacked newspapers, torched embassies and whole countries subjected to crippling international pressures by millions of “aggrieved” Muslims has so intimidated even our local media that they now willingly impose upon themselves the very censorship that extremist Muslims demand when ever they are “offended”. Maybe the media showed none of the “sensitivity” to Mormons that it self righteously offers to Muslims during the Romney campaign because they did not fear violent outbursts of “Mormon Rage”?

Since many of the most prominent positions of influence and authority within the Muslim world are filled by people who openly call for the violent overthrow of the United States, the destruction of Western civilization and the establishment of a global Muslim caliphate, determining precisely where Mr. Carson stands vis-à-vis the leaders of his religion is not just a legitimate demand, it is an essential one. If we as voters are not entitled to ask Carson what role Islam plays in his thinking about public policy and national security, then when are we entitled to ask him?

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By: Brian Sikma 

On Tuesday, March 11th voters in Indiana’s 7th Congressional District will go to the polls in a special election to replace the late Congresswoman Julia Carson. The candidates set before them are Andre Carson (D), Jon Elrod (R) and Sean Shepard (L). For the past few weeks we’ve seen articles and heard news stories about this or that fact of the life histories of Mr. Carson and Mr. Elrod. The public is well aware of the general political affiliations of these two candidates and hopefully possesses some vague knowledge of where they stand one at least one or two issues.

There are similarities between the two major candidates; similarities that cause me to dislike both of them. However, on one very important issue one candidate in particular has adopted a disturbing stance. Andre Carson, a Muslim, has called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. In this time of great debate about America’s role in the world and specifically our role in defeating Islamic terrorists, it is utterly vital that individuals who, well meaning though they may be, push for a policy that would be a catastrophe for our national security are not sent to Washington to vote on critical pieces of legislation that impact our future.

Yet beyond perhaps a mention or two of this “out of Iraq” stance on the part of Mr. Carson, the mainstream media has failed to carefully touch on a very important underlying issue: Mr. Carson’s Islamic faith. It should not be assumed that Mr. Carson’s Muslim beliefs automatically tie him to those evil thugs who, in the name of their Islamic faith, engage in atrocities and periodically seek to force their brand of faith on anyone, anywhere.

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