Is the Indiana General Assembly positioning itself for a showdown with the federal government? Yesterday afternoon I attended a four-hour presentation at the State House hosted by Senator Mike Delph. The symposium featured one of the nation’s foremost Constitutional legal authorities,Professor Herb Titus, a founding Dean of the College of Law and Government at Regent University. Also on the panel was Dr. Paul Jehl, Director of the Plymouth Rock Foundation and an author of curricula on the US Constitution.

A dozen legislators attended the forum on “Interposition.” This term concerns the proper roles of various branches and levels of government and the checks and balances set forth by our founding documents. Many legislators had questions about how states in previous generations asserted their rights and how interposition might be practiced today.

Each speaker explained the foundations of government and the historic conflicts that have occurred between states and the federal government and conflicts between the three branches of the federal government itself. With all of the required meetings and committee hearings a legislator must attend, it is not often you have legislators voluntarily stay at a four-hour meeting. One thing became obvious – many legislators expect a standoff between Indiana and the Obama administration over the Health Care Reform Act.

On April 9th, 2009, the Indiana Senate passed (44-3) Senate Resolution # 42 restating roles and duties under the 10th Amendment and it asked the Federal Government to “cease and desist” with all mandates upon Indiana beyond its defined limits. Indiana may soon have to contend with all the ramifications placed upon state health and welfare agencies stemming from Obamacare. Many of the cost cutting and efficiencies achieved by the Daniels Administration are at risk under a mandatory revamping and expansion of Medicaid that could cost the state billions that we simply do not have.

This could be something interesting to watch next year as legal challenges to Obamacare play out in the courts. There may also be efforts from various state legislatures signaling that they will not, or cannot, abide by this new slew of federal mandates.

A Call to Further Regulate Indiana’s Home School Families

Over the last few months, a controversy has emerged in Wayne County largely generated by the Richmond school administration and the Palladium-Item newspaper. I have been monitoring this situation and have spoken with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which is also aware of the situation.

The “controversy” which has made front-page headlines and been the talk of many local radio call-in shows is the “problem” of high school dropouts. Although it may not surprise you, apparently the Superintendent of the Richmond school system, Allen Bourff, was surprised to learn that when a high school student drops out of one of the Richmond schools, they are not very interested in continuing their education. In fact, they do worse educationally after leaving school. (The obvious is now big news in Richmond, when the local school leadership is stating it in a press release.)

The school administration has concocted a study finding that students who drop out of high school aren’t doing too well academically. They then conclude that these students are being home schooled and use their findings as an indictment on home education or a call to further regulate home education in Indiana. They have called upon State School Superintendent Dr. Tony Bennett to look into further regulating home education to address their problem.

What is actually happening is a secondary consequence of perhaps a well intentioned law that attempted to address high drop out rates by prohibiting dropping out before the age of 18. Prior to that, a student age 16 to 18 could drop out for any reason. Schools, parents and students have now realized that if an uninterested, failing or disruptive child wants to drop out of school there is now just one easy way to do so – claim that you are going to be home educated. This, however is not an indictment of parents who do actually educate their child at home as much as it is of the drop out law, itself.

AFA of Indiana, the Indiana Association of Home Educators, and many other leaders are watching this matter and will weigh in with the legislature and the Department of Education when appropriate.

“Please Play the Blooper Reel Mr. Producer”

Here are two “oops” moments that you may not hear much about in the mainstream media, unless, of course, Former Governor Sarah Palin had said the same things. Then it would be all over the news shows and fodder for all the late night hosts.

Blooper #1 – Forty-two members of Congress have signed on to a letter to President Obamaexpressing their concern over a statement he made in Indonesia last month. While speaking to students, the President said that the United States and Indonesia share a similar history (don’t ask what that means, just keep reading). “It is a story written into our national mottos. In the United States, our motto is ‘E Pluribus Unum‘ — out of many, one,” the President claimed.   At the time, some TV stations aired this clip without any comment.

The President must have forgotten that the E Pluribus phrase is not our national motto. Our national motto, as over a million Hoosier motorists with motto license plates know, is “In God We Trust.” It has been the unofficial motto since appearing on our money before the Civil War, and the official national motto adopted by Congress in 1956, five years before the President was born . . . wherever that might have been.

Blooper # 2 – On Sunday, ABC’s This Week aired a clip of Indiana Senator Evan Bayh speaking about the repeal of what has been called the “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy on homosexuality in the military. The clip showed Senator Bayh implying that homosexuality has never been a big deal within the US military saying in a Senate hearing, “In all likelihood, there were gay Americans serving at Valley Forge.”

Actually, in all likelihood there were not, Senator.   As I have repeatedly mentioned, homosexuality has been expressly forbidden in the US military since our nation’s founding. General George Washington personally presided over the public humiliation and removal of a soldier who attempted to sodomize another soldier in the Continental Army. Washington made a big deal of the incident, which he called “abhorrent” in his March 14th, 1778, general orders. He issued those orders requiring all available troops to gather to witness the dismissal and drumming out of service of the homosexual soldier as an example and a clear statement that debunks Senator Bayh’s statement.

Accuracy in Media noted that ABC’s This Week reporter John Donavan actually confirmed this incident later in the Sunday show making it the first time they have found any report in the mainstream media informing the public that homosexuality has always been against military policy . . . even among the founders who secured our freedoms and liberties.

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The Journal Gazette apparently decided to sit out the Palin book signing event today. Instead of sending their crack political reporter Ben Lanka, it seems the best they could do was post an Associated Press story on their web site.

I guess they think it’s a non-story, in spite of the fact that Andrea Mitchell of NBC’s “Today” show and the crew from “Good Morning America” are here doing live remotes.

They decide for you, what’s news.

Warner must not like Palin. She looks better in a dress than he does, (so we’re told).

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