Assuming that we still have human civilization and historians a hundred years from now, the era we inhabit will probably have been dubbed the Age of Insanity.
Wherever you look, the people we’ve voted into power are pursuing “policies” that defy basic common sense. Here in deep Red Indiana, the so-called Second Amendment defenders–aka gun nuts–have eliminated all rational restrictions on the ownership of weapons. Are you a domestic abuser? No problem. Have you given friends and neighbors cause to think you are off your rocker? Hey, buy an assault weapon.
Are you blind? Here’s your permit! I
f you think I’m exaggerating, the linked article will disabuse you of that opinion.
WhenTerry Sutherland argued about gun laws with family and friends over the years, he would often joke about whether he — a legally blind man — should get a gun permit.
Everyone would laugh. Sutherland didn’t think it was possible.
“But eventually it kind of started weighing on me,” Sutherland told The Washington Post. “And I started thinking, ‘I wonder if it’s actually possible, and what would it mean if I could?’”
So last fall, Sutherland applied for an Indiana license to carry a handgun. He expected someone to stop him at some point in the application process, he said, or at least test if he could shoot at a target.
A few months later, Sutherland received his permit, as Indianapolis news channel WISH-TV first reported. He put it in a clear case and wears it on a yellow lanyard around his neck in hopes of starting conversations about Indiana’s gun laws, which he said are too lenient toward blind people. Sutherland hasn’t changed anyone’s opinions, he said, but some people have been shocked that he received the license.
Welcome to Indiana, where legislators regularly demonstrate that the only part of the Constitution they’ve read is the Second Amendment. (They routinely display total ignorance of the First–especially the Establishment Clause.)
And how are the geniuses in the Indiana legislature responding to the insanity of the Trump and MAGA hysteria over (dark-skinned) immigrants? Are they even aware that the U.S. Constitution makes Immigration a specifically federal responsibility?
Don’t be silly!
As the White House ramps up deportation of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, many Republican-controlled state legislatures aren’t just complying with federal directives but taking additional steps to curb illegal immigration.
That includes Indiana.
More than a dozen immigration-related bills have been filed this legislative session, ranging from a bill that would ban children living in the country illegally from enrolling in public school to higher criminal penalties for immigrants caught living here illegally. But lawmakers have ultimately decided to focus their attention on bills that help police enforce immigration policies and detain people living here without citizenship.
The constitutional allocation of responsibilities is obviously irrelevant to our lawmakers, as is the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled that the public schools cannot be closed to immigrant children. Jim Banks–the ignorant and nasty Christian Nationalist who is perhaps the most embarrassing person Indiana has ever sent to the U.S. Senate (and that’s saying something) has threatened to defund the police if they opt to “stay in their constitutional lane.” (Indianapolis’ Police Chief–who evidently has read the Constitution–used that phrase in explaining why IMPD would continue to focus on crimes against the city’s residents, rather than assisting in terrorizing Brown residents.)
Two counterproductive House bills have been introduced by Jim Lucus, one of Indiana’s most deranged “Second Amendment” legislators (he also has a FaceBook page that makes Twitter/X look like a DEI site). His measures–which are moving through the process– add stronger criminal penalties to immigrants found to be driving without a license. Never mind that research shows such laws endanger everyone. They result in fewer trained, tested, licensed, and insured drivers on the road, compromising safety for all. (They also perpetuate fear within immigrant communities and create barriers to immigrants’ ability to contribute to our communities and the economy.)
The MAGA animus toward dark-skinned immigrants is part and parcel of the central MAGA characteristic–racism. If you discount Project 2025, neither the state nor the federal GOP has advanced any coherent policy agenda. As Trump’s coup has proceeded and Musk and his DOGE techno-nerds lay waste to various federal agencies, GOP invertebrates express no concern. The only consistent themes have been concerted assaults on science and on efforts to be fair to those they’ve labeled Other: scrubbing federal websites of information, eliminating DEI efforts, and ejecting the immigrants who disproportionately pick our produce and build our houses.
This really is the age of insanity.
Having taken the time to read the 15 and 16 clauses of article 1 section 8 of the US Constitution. Federalist and anti-federalist writings 29 and glancing at the National Guard Act of 1903, it’s obvious the second amendment was to stop the federal government shutting down state militias(now the National Guard.) That it allows us all to have ar15s with bump stocks was made up by the Scotus MAGAt 6, to keep the gun lobby wealthy. Yes I own guns, have a permit (little as it means in this state) and police experience and training as to how and when use of a firearm is necessary.
Besides your observation of the Republican majorities at all levels, I think they are the laziest group of legislators in history. They have done nothing in the past 10 years except spar for camera time on Fox. We know why the US is falling behind the rest of the world.
Call it a politically correct Coup if you want but the federal government has been taken over in a military type action without a shot being fired…YET. The ConstitutionS at federal and state levels are no longer in effect, lost along with our human and civil rights, and there seems to be no way to stop it after no actions have been taken to force our elected officials to uphold their OathS of Office or remove them…physically if necessary. Do any of you or any of the lawmakers in our courts remember that those lawmakers are primarily Attorneys at Law who took that oath to begin practicing law. They are still in their PRACTICING MODE and are not yet upholding our Rule of Law. And there is no Honor Among Thieves. They are all in a self-serving situation till they go to the polls to vote; still safe in having that right while denying it to others.
TEN YEARS from now will there even be historians still with us? Trump has managed to destroy our democracy, Rule of Law and the Constitution of the United States of America in LESS than ten years. As I lay awake last night (again) I considered the possibility of a military takeover as we have seen in other countries BUT… as in those other countries too many in our military are militant and have an Oath Keepers mindset.
We watch as “The Blind Leading The Blind…” are also leading those with 20/20 vision who are cowering in fear or becoming members of the wealthy thanks to co-president Musk.
KKenna,
You may need those firearms to defend your family against MAGA or to defend the Constitution from MAGA.
Yes, this IS the era of insanity brought to us, mostly, by Republicans pushing the timeline for the destruction of regulated capitalism for the sake of the rich. This sort of thing has happened before; many times, actually. After the invention of economics and legalized hoarding, humans have opted, mostly, for controlling the means to add wealth to themselves. The egregious SCOTUS Citizens United Decision was the door opener for the acceleration of this process of Constitutional destruction.
My favorite words from that idiotic decision came from the diseased mind of Antonin Scalia: He called all the testimony regarding this case as “jiggery-pokery”. You know, one of the classic phrases learned in first-year law school.
The era of insanity will also validate the much-used statement that Republicans destroy everything they touch. Now they will destroy our nation’s founding document and gleefully raise a champagne glass.
To say Senator Banks is perhaps the worst US senator Indiana has had is being unfair to Jesse D. Bright, who was expelled from the US Senate in 1862 when it was discovered he wrote a letter of introduction for a man wanting to sell arms to the rebel government of Jefferson Davis. You see, Jesse was an enslaver on his Kentucky farm. He believed slavery was right and proper (it was quite legal at the time) and during his long tenure in the Senate did all he could to support slavery. Therefore, Ol’ Jesse supported the rebel government that was warring on the US of A because that rebel government enshrined slavery in its Constitution. He got caught. That’s right, he was a traitor.
So give Jesse Bright his due. I hope Sen. Banks doesn’t sink so low.
Wait until one of these ignorant, bigoted goobers decides that a no-child policy for immigrants (documented or not) is a clever way to get around the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. The forced-birth zealots who think women are nothing but baby factories will jump on the forced abortion/involuntary sterilization bandwagon so fast it will make your head swim.
The average state legislator who froths at the mouth at the thought of gun legislation, makes clear that the rules of English grammar are not learned very well in the public schools. I wonder how many state legislators realize that if Madison et al. had felt that gun ownership was a God-given right, they would have inserted a semi-colon after the words “free state”, instead of a comma. The comma makes it clear that gun ownership was felt to be related to national security, not personal security. The “Founders” understood the rules of grammar.
“Welcome to Indiana, where legislators regularly demonstrate that the only part of the Constitution they’ve read is the Second Amendment”. Not quite right I think. If they focused on the entire Amendment, they might have discovered that the right to keep and bear arms is limited to members of the National Guard, the only well regulated militia that might be called upon to serve the Federal government in times of war. Justice Scalia once said that there were exceptions to every Amendment. What he failed to say was that the Second Amendment has its exception within it. He’s the Justice that is largely responsible for the current version of that Amendment.
Needless to say, SCOTUS appears to disregard any history or precedent that they find annoying. If it gives you any comfort, know that what we are experiencing today is not completely new.
In Indiana, you no longer need a gun permit, so anybody can buy a gun if they pass the state FBI background check. Pop into your local Rural King and buy yourself a 9mm. You’re going to need it in this state for what’s coming…
If you want to see insanity, spend time on X today. There is so much disinformation flowing that it’s hard to keep track of all the lies. You know it isn’t good when Alex Jones gets a boost from Elon’s algorithm.
Even though the USAID revelation shows that both parties have their hands in the till, only the Democrats are being blamed for corruption. I listened to a few short speeches from Democrats, and they are incredibly lame, as are the ones from Republicans. Lindsey Graham said that USAID is “a victim of its own abuse.” Uh, Lindsey has been funding it for years and never once raised a red flag because, as a hawk and a political party member, he was profiting from the theft.
As for the “insanity” over brown people, why hasn’t our press, Congress, and SCOTUS come unglued about in your face proposed genocide in Palestine? Trump is proposing that the US ethnically cleanse the remaining 1.8 million Palestinians from their land and take it so he can build resorts. I mean, so Jared Kushner can build resorts with Saudi money. The entire world is openly criticizing Trump’s plan, but the media is doing its best to filter out the dissent. And even the Americans aren’t objecting!
When an African president does it in their own country to white people, Trump sanctions the country. Yet, he wants to go into the Middle East and take land from Palestinians. His glaring hypocrisy should be blasted across all media channels, but silence!!!
As for the blatant hypocrisy, maybe Trump learned from his Holy appointment to his new Faith department – Paula White. She is a swindler whom Senator Grassley should have imprisoned, but he didn’t file charges against her even though his investigation clearly showed embezzlement. She’ll be the leading Christian Nationalist in Washington:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paula_White
Boy, oh boy, are we ever lucky…that Trump has not taken it into his feverish brain to declare that gravity is a “woke” phenomenon, and ban it from his Great America!
Agree with Peggy, everyone seemed to drop the “….Well Regulated Militia” words of the Second Amendment. This oversight (sic) gave many who desired the freedom and supposed “right” to have and openly carry firearms, perhaps wanted to appear(swaggering) “strong and powerful”, while terrifying me, many of our kids, and maybe others.
This seems to me One of the first erasures of The Constitutional basis during this lastest attempt to destroy our Constitutional Framework and Freedoms of Persons in the United States of America.
Trump’s threats to take over countries such as Canada, Greenland, Mexico and Gaza are nothing short of a declaration of war and these countries should be prepared to defend themselves. His actions have threatened allies we have treasured for the last 250+ years. Don’t expect them to come back anytime soon. STOP THE INSANITY.
The Red Party deeply believes that all Hoosiers should be as they are, just as MTV (Musk, Trump, Vance) believes all Red Party members should be as they want others to be. So, they are building a National Christian army.
Every day you intentionally misconstrue what is happening – lying!
. GAME OVER
Your TDS has taken over. The democracy is safe but you’re losing your BUREAUCRACY
of WASTE, FRAUD, and ABUSE.
The dem party is so lost you need a google map to find it
11 It is not what enters into a man’s mouth that defiles him, but it is what comes out of his mouth that defiles him…….
17 Are you not aware that whatever enters into the mouth passes through the stomach and is discharged into the sewer? 18 However, whatever comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and those things defile a man. 19 For example, out of the heart come wicked reasonings: murders, adulteries, sexual immorality, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies. 20 These are the things that defile a man; but to take a meal with unwashed hands does not defile a man.” (Matthew the 15th chapter)
Nothing from outside a man that enters into him can defile him; but the things that come out of a man are the things that defile him. Mark 7: 15
29 Let a rotten word not come out of your mouth, but only what is good for building up as the need may be, to impart what is beneficial to the hearers.
Ephesians 4:29
Here, we see that what we hear from someone’s mouth can defile that person and you, and it’s worse than vomit or excrement.
gail,
If “democracy” is safe, why has Trumpolini repeatedly broken the law and circumvented Congress?
Not sure how many federal lawsuits there are existing right now, but they are all because Trumpolini is circumventing the democratic pillars. He’s already stifled and censored the “free press” and closed down departments created by Congress, etc., etc.
If you read about the intellectuals behind the Silicon Valley Broligarchy, you will understand that they are intentionally pushing for autocracy—one-man rule. They want another Caesar, and Trumpolini is the man with Vance ready to take over anytime. Peter Thiel entirely owns Vance.
Democracy has been dead for decades. This is the next chapter or what I’d call a paradigm shift to where we are going. Marx nailed it and that is why our university system will become a HUGE TARGET (enemy of the state).
I’m so tired of all the ass kissing Republicans. They always come out talking condescendingly to people like they have their best interests at heart when they don’t. Public servant? Yeah right…
Well Todd, Ben Shapiro said it best:
“ Over the course of the last century and a half, Democrats have hollowed out the Constitution and worn around its face like Hannibal Lecter. They created an entire administrative, bureaucratic executive branch filled with 2 million people to make all the rules that govern your life. They have turned the legislature into a vestigial organ of American government. And now Trump is coming in as the head of the Executive Branch, deploying people to make cuts within the Executive Branch, and Democrats are calling this is a constitutional threat to the country. They want some separation of powers now. Well, welcome to the party, pal. You created these rules and now you are going to have to live by them.”
Gail, the little boys “finding” waste, fraud, and abuse as they surf through our personal data and the country’s cash, 1) are coders, not forensic accountants; 2) have not been in this secure data nearly long enough to “find” anything like waste, fraud, or abuse as they; and 3) HAVE been in our data exactly long enough to build back doors to access it again after the courts kick them out, sell it, change it, or destroy security measures that will allow others to hack in.
If THIS is what you and the GOP what, you’re a special kind of stupid.