I am so sick of the focus on Joe Biden’s age. In the interests of transparency, I will admit to being two years older than the President. I do forget names and dates more frequently than I used to (although I never had much of a memory), but then, like Biden, I have a lot more material to remember and a lot more experience to draw on than younger folks do.
Some people are senile at 50. Some never are. My grandmother, who died just two months before her 100th birthday, was mentally coherent to the end. My husband is 91 and still sharp (so is Willy Nelson, who’s also 91 and still performing). Donald Trump, who is a mere four years younger than Biden, seems to have been born with dementia. (Trump has always been incoherent, so his followers evidently haven’t noticed the extent to which he is visibly continuing to decline.)
The people trying to defeat Biden by claiming he is age-impaired are people who have no persuasive argument with his performance and are desperate to find something–anything–they think will work. The Democrats who are publicly panicking over the issue–or worse, insisting he should allow someone else to run– are providing them aid and comfort. The truth is, Joe Biden has been a great President. (My middle son says Biden is the first person he’s voted for who has exceeded his expectations.)
I thought about the issue of performance when I viewed a powerful ad run by a candidate for U.S. Senate in North Dakota, of all places, sent to me by a (formerly Republican) friend who pointed out that the picture painted by this particular candidate is applicable everywhere, not just in the state of North Dakota. I am going to shorten this post in an effort to encourage you to click through and watch it, because it is a powerful indictment of the “wolves” who have hollowed out America’s middle class and who are attacking Biden because, under Trump, they will be able to continue preying on America.
Joe Biden has done more than any President since FDR to combat the wolves and shore up the middle class, to grow America “from the middle out,” as he likes to say. If the linked video speaks to you, you are a Biden voter! (If, on the other hand, you are throwing your lot in with the wolves, you are clearly a MAGA person…)
Let me be clear (as if I haven’t been!). Given the choice Americans will in all probability face at the ballot box, I will vote for Joe Biden. I would vote for him even if he was in a coma. The only genuine issue with his age isn’t senility–he is clearly in possession of his faculties, and his superior performance as President has been enhanced by the depth of his knowledge and experience and the connections he’s developed over the years that have allowed him to surround himself with highly competent people. The only downside of his age is an actuarially increased possibility of death sometime during the next four years– and a Kamala Harris Presidency would still be infinitely preferable to the disaster–for America, for democracy, for world peace–that Trump represents.
When the Indiana legislature is in session, residents of urban areas don’t feel safe–and there is ample reason for our angst, as this blog has repeatedly documented. A sad side effect is currently playing out in the Indianapolis City County Council, where the Democratic majority is trying to quiet one Counselor’s expressions of anger over the arrogance of a legislator who says he knows best what sort of transit city folks are entitled to. The Democratic caucus is evidently worried that open resistance will make the legislature even harder to deal with.
The bottom line, of course, is that Hoosiers–both city dwellers and rural folks–are absolutely helpless to influence our legislative overlords. Thanks to extreme gerrymandering, legislators in Indiana choose their voters, not the other way around, and Indiana lacks the ability to mount referenda or initiatives. We are truly subjects, not citizens.
There’s no mystery about why.
Our Red state legislature makes war on the cities that provide virtually all of the tax dollars they spend–the cities that are demonstrably the economic engine of the state–because cities are where Democrats live and vote.
It turns out that Indiana is not the only retrograde Red state engaging in these tactics. According to a recent article in The American Prospect, Republican-led states have now taken to blocking liberal cities from even thinking about legislating on behalf of their residents.
There’s nothing historically novel about America’s politics dividing along urban vs. rural or cosmopolitan vs. parochial lines. One has to go back a full century, however, to find a time when the nation’s political fault lines ran so clearly along the city/country divide as they do today.
“Those people” tend to live in cities, and they tend to vote Democratic.
In the 1920s, cities were too Catholic and Jewish and freethinking for the countryside’s Protestant traditionalists, and new urban-based media (radio, movies) brought the taint of the new to rural communities whose susceptible young people were lighting out for the cities. Today, culture wars and economic conflicts also play out largely along urban/rural lines. Of the top 35 cities in America by population, only four have Republican mayors, and one of those, Eric Johnson of Dallas, Texas, was elected as a Democrat and switched parties in 2023.
State level lawmakers may not be the brainiest of people, but a number of them have figured out that–as the saying goes–there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
Since Republican legislatures and governors can’t stop city residents from electing Democrats, however, they’ve devised a whopper of a Plan B: negating majority rule in those areas by denying those cities the right to enact any laws or promote any policies that run counter to the preferences of the governor and the legislature.
The article lists a number of examples. North Carolina’s legislature nullified a Charlotte ordinance protecting LGBTQ rights. When the city of Birmingham passed a municipal minimum-wage statute, the Republican state legislature outlawed municipal minimum-wage laws.
More recently, majority-Black and majority-Democratic Jackson, Mississippi, has had a crime problem, so the Republican Mississippi state legislature responded by enacting a law that stripped criminal trials from the jurisdiction of Jackson courts and established a new group of courts, with judges to be appointed by the state’s Republican chief justice. When Democratic Nashville established a civilian review board for its police, the Republican legislature and governor passed a law that banned civilian review boards. The underlying racism in such preemptions is never very far from the surface. The Republican neo-Dixiecrats who dominate Southern legislatures can no longer keep Blacks from voting, but they’ve found a way to keep Blacks, in the cities where they constitute clear majorities, from governing.
And of course, there’s always Texas.
In the past, the state had enacted laws to stop municipalities from creating local ordinances that protect tenants facing eviction and to stop cities and counties from regulating fracking within their boundaries. Last summer, however, the Texas legislature passed and Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law HB 2127, which its sponsors gloatingly called the “Death Star” bill for local governments. The law prohibits municipalities from enacting local ordinances that go beyond any state laws that deal with agriculture, business and commerce, finance, insurance, labor, natural resources, occupations, and property.
The sweeping law negated local statutes like those that Dallas and Austin had enacted to require employers to give water breaks to construction workers in torrid summers. It further forbade cities from enacting any such ordinances that climate change or conscience might require. It’s so broad that it’s not clear just what kind and how many local laws and regulations it would negate.
Knowing that Indiana isn’t alone really doesn’t give me any comfort.
In November, Hoosiers will vote to fill an open seat for U.S. Senate. Despite primary challenges, the choice will almost certainly be between Marc Carmichael and Jim Banks.
I thought a comparison of their positions would be useful–and for rational voters, motivating. (Marc’s website has background on these issues.)
Abortion: Marc wants to codify Roe v. Wade.
Banks has an A+ rating from Pro-Life America, and a 100% lifetime rating from the National Right to Life Committee. His voting record on abortion/reproductive health can be accessed here.
Gun Violence: Marc wants to reduce America’s gun violence by passing a ban on military-style assault weapons and he supports a national Red Flag law.
Environment: Marc recognizes the threat posed by climate change and will work to safeguard the environment for our children and grandchildren.
Banks calls climate change a “liberal hoax,” and the Biden Administration’s environmental efforts “a war on energy.” The League of Conservation Voters gives him a 1% lifetime rating. His votes on the environment can be accessed here.
White Christian Nationalism/Racism. Marc condemns bigotries of all kinds, and emphasizes the importance of fighting racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and bigotries of all kinds.
Banks created the “anti-Woke” caucus in the House of Representatives and has introduced legislation to outlaw any remaining affirmative action in college admissions. He has been dubbed “Focus on the Family’s Man in Washington.” He opposes all DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs.
LGBTQ+ issues. Marc has called for an end to the demonizing of trans children and supports the civil liberties of LGBTQ+ Americans.
Banks has been vocal in his opposition to gay rights generally, and to trans children especially. In addition to his “Anti-Woke Caucus,” he has supported efforts to ban trans people from the military, prevent trans women from participating in women’s sports, and prevent medical personnel from treating children for gender dysphoria. He recently sponsored a bill that would prevent agencies placing children in foster homes from taking measures to see that gay and trans children would not be placed with foster parents who have religious objections to homosexuality, saying that refusal to place those children in such homes was discrimination against religion.
Public Education/Teachers and Librarians. Marc opposes the recent efforts to censor books and intimidate schoolteachers and librarians. He is particularly concerned about Rightwing efforts to dictate to schools and colleges what they can and cannot teach.
Banks has attacked both public and private schools; he vowed to investigate the National Association of Independent Schools, focusing on the group’s role in political advocacy and its tax-exempt status. He has threatened to “expose” what he calls widespread political indoctrination in the public schools, and claims that lawmakers have a “moral duty” to investigate the use of academic accreditation associations as “political tools by leftist ideologues.” When he was in the Indiana legislature, he voted to allow instruction in creationism and supported educational vouchers that sent tax dollars to private, overwhelmingly religious schools.
Wages and Collective Bargaining. Marc supports a living wage and the right of workers to bargain for it. He believes that the recent signs of union resurgence are good news, and he joins with the 67% of Americans who—according to Gallup–support organized labor in the US.
Banks gets a zero rating from the AFL-CIO. When he served in the Indiana legislature, he supported “Right to work” legislation (dubbed by labor as “Right to work for less.”) On vote after vote in Congress, he has voted against labor; a list of those votes can be seen here.
Healthcare. Marc supports Medicare for All, which would save an enormous amount of money (an estimated $600 billion per year, not including savings on prescription drugs) while providing everyone in America with access to high-quality health care coverage.
Banks voted against the most recent expansion of Medicaid and supports legislation that would ban vaccine mandates. He has voted to repeal the ACA, and against legislation that would prevent insurers from discriminating on the basis of pre-existing conditions. A review of all of his healthcare votes is here.
Immigration. Marc supports critically needed reform of America’s immigration laws, to allow us to address the chaos at the border, and he supports a path to citizenship for DACA children and other undocumented persons who meet certain requirements.
Banks supports finishing Trump’s wall on the southern border, eliminating federal funding for sanctuary cities, and the deportation of “criminal illegal aliens.” He opposes any legislation granting amnesty for any undocumented persons (presumably including children currently protected by DACA) and opposes any expansion of guest-worker programs.
Other: Marc wants to ensure a fair, impartial and ethical judiciary; Banks enthusiastically supported the rushed confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett and other deviations from longstanding norms.
Marc supports reforming the tax code to ensure that the rich pay their fair share, while Banks opposes any increase to the tax rate on profits earned from the sale of stocks, bonds, and real estate.
Marc also supports reclassification of marijuana to Schedule 3, and further research on its effects. Banks has voted repeatedly against efforts to fund research into the effects of marijuana. Banks’ votes on issues related to pot are here.
In November, Hoosiers will choose between a reasonable, thoughtful person who actually understands government, and an extreme MAGA culture warrior who will be generously funded by the usual suspects.
We have eight months to inform voters of the implications of that choice.
Valentine’s Day is tomorrow. The only valentine I want is the widest possible sharing of this information with Hoosier voters.
What is so depressing about living in Indiana these days is the dismal quality of our state government.
I’ve frequently posted about what the late Harrison Ullmann accurately called “The World’s Worst Legislature,” a body currently waging war on Indianapolis and higher education, among other travesties.
I actually had some residue of respect for the governor, who I thought was an “old kind” of Republican caught in the vice of MAGA world, but that respect evaporated when he sent Indiana National Guard troops to the southern border to bolster Texas’ performative pissing match with the federal government.
The embarrassment that is our current legislature is largely attributable to the gerrymandering that allows lawmakers to choose their voters, but that excuse is unavailable when we consider statewide candidates like our Attorney General, Todd Rokita, about whom I have posted more frequently that his sorry career warrants. (Put “Rokita” in the search bar, and multiple examples will come up.)
Rokita’s efforts to out-MAGA the MAGAs in his party have been so egregious and unethical that he was sanctioned by Indiana’s all-Republican Supreme Court.
As Paula Cardoza-Jones (a former member of the Disciplinary Commission) has noted, Rokita just can’t stop lying:
In 2022, Attorney General Todd Rokita spoke repeatedly and publicly about his investigation into complaints about a doctor who provided abortion services in Indiana to a 10-year-old rape victim who was unable to obtain such services in Ohio.
As a result, Rokita was accused of violating a statute that requires complaints about a doctor “be held in strict confidence until the attorney general files notice with the [Medical Licensing Board] of the attorney general’s intent to prosecute the licensee.” Ind. Code § 25-1-7-10(a) (“Confidentiality Statute”).
On September 18, 2023, the Disciplinary Commission (“Commission”) filed a Disciplinary Complaint in three counts (“Complaint”), Cause No. 23S-DI-00258, alleging violations of the following Indiana Rules of Professional Conduct (“Rules”):
(1) Rule 3.6(a)—making extrajudicial statements with a substantial likelihood of prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding;
(2) Rule 4.4(a)–using means that have no substantial purpose other than to embarrass, delay, or burden a third person; and
(3) Rule 8.4(d)—engaging in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice based on his violation of the Confidentiality Statute.
Members of Indiana’s highest court agreed on the probity of those allegations, only disagreeing about the severity of the sanctions to be imposed. Rokita subsequently issued misleading pronouncements about that conclusion and was again reprimanded by the Court.
You might think being continually slapped down would teach him a lesson, but–despite his focus on Indiana schools–Rokita is clearly incapable of being educated.
A new dashboard unveiled Tuesday by the Indiana Attorney General’s Office makes public more than two dozen allegations of “potentially inappropriate materials” in Hoosier schools, like critical race theory materials and gender identity policies.
But numerous local officials told the Indiana Capital Chronicle they weren’t made aware of the complaints and contend the allegations were not properly vetted before the portal went live.
Attorney General Todd Rokita referred to “Eyes on Education” as a transparency tool that intends to “empower parents to further engage in their children’s education” and provide “real examples of indoctrination.”
The portal accepts submissions pertaining to K-12 classrooms, colleges, universities and “other affiliated academic entities in Indiana.” But it is unclear how, or if, they are vetting the accuracy of the allegations.
Given what we know of Rokita, it is highly unlikely that these allegations are being “vetted” at all. His “explanation” makes the politics of this new “portal” abundantly clear.
“As I travel the state, I regularly hear from students, parents and teachers about destructive curricula, policies or programs in our schools,” Rokita said in a statement, adding that the portal allows Hoosier parents to “view real examples of socialist indoctrination from classrooms across the state.”
“Our kids need to focus on fundamental educational building blocks,” he continued, “NOT ideology that divides kids from their parents and normal society.”
Several districts have pointed out that portal submissions were out of date or simply inaccurate–but of course, none of those responses appear on the portal. Representative Ed Delaney notes that–among other issues– public education matters are outside the purview of the Attorney General.
This effort to score political points with the most rabid of the MAGA cultists isn’t simply a dishonest ideological stunt; it exceeds the Attorney General’s jurisdiction.
But hey, it’s Todd Rokita–the “lawyer” who has no respect for the Constitutions of either the U.S. or Indiana, or for the rule of law.
Please vote so that I won’t have to waste pixels on this sorry excuse for a public servant after November.
A couple of days ago, I considered the stakes of this year’s election choices, and speculated about whether and to what extent the abortion issue will drive both turnout and results. What I failed to explain ( thanks to the word limit I have self-imposed for these daily rants) is why the debate about reproductive choice is in reality about far more than a woman’s right to control her own reproduction, important as that is.
The deeply dishonest Dobbs decision struck at a fundamental premise of America’s Constitution, as we have come to rely upon it– the belief in limited government.
When politicians talk about “limited government,” they generally focus on the size of government, but the U.S. Constitution defines those limits in terms of authority, not size. What is to be limited is the power of government to prescribe certain decisions that should be left to the individual. In the original Bill of Rights, the federal government was forbidden to censor speech, prescribe religious or political beliefs, and take other actions that were invasions of fundamental rights–rights for which early Americans demanded recognition.
Over the years, those limitations on federal government power were imposed on state and local government units, and evolving cultural and social norms prompted a fuller understanding of what sorts of decisions individuals are entitled to make without government interference. I frequently cite what has been called the Libertarian Principle, because that principle undergirds America’s particular approach to government. The principle is simple: Individuals should be free to pursue their own ends–their own life goals–so long as they do not thereby harm the person or property of someone else, and so long as they are willing to accord an equal liberty to their fellow citizens.
The gender of your chosen mate, your adherence to a non-Christian religion (or your utter rejection of the notion of divinity), your choice to reproduce or not, and a number of other life choices are simply none of government’s business. (As Jefferson is often quoted, such decisions “neither break my leg nor pick my pocket.”)
The Libertarian Principle was central to the original Bill of Rights, and its application has extended as “facts on the ground”–scientific and cultural–have changed. Ever since 1965, when the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut– informing the Connecticut legislature that a couple’s decision to use contraceptives was none of government’s business–the belief that there are areas of our lives where government simply doesn’t belong has been absolutely central to Americans’ understanding of liberty.
When I was much younger, the importance of limiting government to areas where collective action was appropriate and/or necessary—keeping the state out of the decisions that individuals and families have the right to make for themselves– was a Republican article of faith. It was basic conservative doctrine. Ironically, the MAGA folks who inaccurately call themselves conservative today insist that government has the right—indeed, the duty– to invade that zone of privacy in order to impose rules reflecting their own particular beliefs and prejudices.
It’s critically important to understand that what is really at stake in what we shorthand as the “abortion issue” is that fundamental Constitutional premise. Forcing women to give birth, denying medical care to defenseless trans children or forbidding school children to read certain books are not “stand-alone” positions. They are part and parcel of an entire worldview that is autocratic and profoundly anti-American.
I used to point out that a government with the power to prohibit abortion is a government with the power to require abortion. (As an ACLU friend used to say, poison gas is a great weapon until the wind shifts.)
The issue at the heart of the Bill of Rights–as I interminably repeated to my students–isn’t what decision is made. The issue is who gets to make it. In the government system devised by our Founders, certain decisions are simply off-limits to government. I may disagree with your religious beliefs or political opinions; I may disapprove of your choice of marriage partner or your selection of reading material–but I cannot use the government to countermand your choices and require behaviors more to my liking.
It is that fundamental premise that is at stake in this year’s elections, which will pit the MAGA theocrats and autocrats against those of us who want to preserve America’s hard-won civil liberties and individual rights.
The abortion issue is about so much more than abortion, and I have to believe that, at least at some level, most Americans realize that.
