Think About It with Michael Leppert

In the Secretary of State race, the commitment to service matters. I find myself teaching this simple lesson with more enthusiasm lately: elected positions in American government exist as opportunities to serve. "Yea, yea, old man, we know that" is often the expression I see on the faces of my students when I start. Occasionally, one of them might actually say it out loud. Students are usually rel...

For many Americans, including me, the attraction to the exhausting news surrounding Great Britain's royal family is dumbfounding. The mere existence of a "royal" family is so antithetical to my view of our culture, I usually open my participation in any conversation about the Windsor's with an eye roll, not a bow.  Elizabeth II's passing last week led to Charles III's ascension to the throne, a ch...

Stephen King's 1982 novella, "The Body," was adapted into the award-winning, 1986 film, "Stand by Me." There are significant differences between the two versions of the story, but both are primarily about friendship. It is a tale about Gordie LaChance, his friend, Chris Chambers, and two other 12-year-old friends, who go on a journey to find the dead body of a missing boy near Castle Rock, Oregon....

Lawlessness is being romanticized in real-life America these days. The subtleties of this progression are causing a bewilderment in people who once took pride in their simple understanding of right and wrong. A cleansing reset of that understanding is in desperate need. Maybe it will help if we try an exercise in objective contextualizing. In the not-too-distant past, a subpoena had unwavering mea...

It's too hard for too many to love the first day of school. I am old enough to have forgotten whether I loved the first day of school when I was a young student or not. I might have been too cool for that then, but clearly, I have changed.  There is no question that I love it now. I was with some friends on Sunday night this week and one of them asked, "do you have to teach tomorrow?" I corrected...

It's time to have a heart-to-heart talk about truth, lies, facts, and fiction. A whole new season of make-it-up-as-Trump-goes began last week. So, I felt obligated to share some research about how bad many of our countrymen, and yes, they are mostly men, have gotten in recognizing nonsense when it lands on them.  First, a short list of facts: On Monday, August 8, the FBI executed a search warrant...

On Friday night, while the Indiana General Assembly was turning back the clock on human rights, I was at the Egyptian Room of the Old National Center to see a comedy show. With all of the tragically unfunny things going on for the last few weeks under the dome a few blocks away, the timing of the Marc Maron tickets I bought months earlier were a welcome reprieve. Right around the time the show was...

"I am here today to represent Jesus," was the most baffling utterance I heard last Thursday night. It was Senator Mike Gaskill's opening comment made on the floor of the Indiana Senate during the debate on an amendment to a proposed new abortion law. Gaskill is a Republican, representing Senate District 26, which covers portions of Delaware, Madison and Henry counties in central Indiana.  To hear...

I couldn't get the song out of my head on Monday at the Statehouse. I stood in line for an hour to get into the building to attend a rally in support of women's reproductive rights. My old lobbyist badge that used to allow me to skip those lines expired long ago, so there I waited with all the other angry people.  I watched throngs of them, of every kind, stand in line to get into the building. Ma...

It's not a surprise to those of us who have been watching it grow, stagnate, and then grow some more. But when the State of Indiana closed out its books for the fiscal year last week, the news about it still should have made more of an impression on Hoosiers than it did. Indiana ended the year with  $6.1 billion  in reserves.  That news should jolt taxpayers. But it doesn't. I don't know why it do...

I was speeding through Georgia this past Sunday and I couldn't help looking for political billboards. Then I saw it. A "Now Hiring" billboard for state troopers, with instructions to apply at  gatrooper.com . As an occasional government watchdog, I was fascinated by this whole new strategy for filling one of any state government's toughest jobs.  Of course, after concluding that Georgia is experie...

Last Thursday,  as reported by Casey Smith of the Indiana Capital Chronicle , Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said he'll sign any abortion-restricting measures that make it to his desk during the upcoming special legislative session. "I don't have any red lines right now," the governor said.  That is a remarkable place for him to be in this first post-Roe summer. It's remarkable in that he has abdicated...

I was lucky to be able to see Rusty Bowers, the speaker of the Arizona House of Representatives, testify recently before the January 6 Committee. It was a fascinating story Bowers told about the pressure he got from then-President Donald Trump to participate in a coup to flip the electoral votes of Arizona from President-elect Joe Biden to Trump. He successfully resisted that pressure, using his c...

Thursday, June 23, 2022, is one of those days on Capitol Hill that will appear on history tests years from now. It was gun day on the hill, and two of the three branches of government seemed to be passing each other on Constitution Avenue going in different directions. In the morning, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case challenging a 109-year-old New York state law that required a...

The third of seven expected hearings of the January 6 Committee was held on Thursday. Just like the two before it, there were plenty of "wow" moments.  It is also clear there are plenty more wows to come. Here in Indiana, we know former Vice President, former Indiana governor, former congressman, and former radio personality, Mike Pence better than most. I have written more about him than anybody...

Americans addicted to belief in "the big lie," and the unconditional defense of those responsible for all of its components, are in a zombie fog. The January 6 Committee began telling the story of its work Thursday night. By the time it took its first break, an hour into the opening hearing, I was nauseous. This was not a protest or a riot. There is no serious "counter-narrative" available for the...

In the last two weeks, I have heard two things regarding the state of our union that disturb me more than anything. The first was a statement made on the morning news early last week, after the massacre in Buffalo, but before the one in Uvalde. A reporter, not a commentator, but a reporter, matter-of-factly reported on the gun policy debate that, "the Senate is an outlier on this issue." Think abo...

One anti-problem-solving sentiment used by Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio this week is an old one. It goes like this: "There is no law that we could pass that would have prevented that shooting." Now, no intelligent person thinks there is some magical, singular solution that inconveniences no one. But that sentiment is the saddest possible excuse for inaction. I pray for all th...

It appears Indiana's leaders don't want to get caught trying on this one. It is another intolerable fiscal choice, given the one elephant in Indiana's fiscal room: an oversized and outrageous budget surplus. That surplus, which has hovered around $2 billion for more than a decade, has continued to grow recently, and has the potential to reach $6 billion before the fiscal year ends next summer. It...

I regularly tell my students these days, just like I used to regularly tell my clients, if you have an idea for a policy change in America, be prepared to successfully make your case purely on economic terms. In other words, trying to convince policymakers the change that is being proposed is simply the right thing to do usually won't get the effort very far. Proponents for change need to show the...

The news was breaking about the leaked, draft opinion that was circulating at the U.S. Supreme Court. Early reports on the screen claimed this leaked draft would "overturn" the 1973 decision in  Roe v. Wade . We didn't know much about this draft opinion until later, but based on the initial news, it wasn't immediately all that surprising to me. It was what I expected out of this court. However, af...

I have felt for the longest time that America has begun to feel like a never-ending reenactment of Monty Python's classic sketch, "The Argument Clinic." The premise of the 1970 sketch is that there might actually be people who are simply looking for an argument and are willing to pay a pro to deliver one. Michael Palin and John Cleese expertly show how frustrating a so-called argument can be when...

Imagine being the person in charge of recruiting a business to locate in the state. The shortlist of what Indiana wants from them includes modern, high-paying jobs for people who need them, the local investment a new headquarters or manufacturing facility requires, and of course, the tax revenue the business will create. So, what do virtually all new business recruits want from Indiana in return?...

On Thursday, the Republican National Committee voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates. As reported by Reuters, RNC's chairperson, Ronna McDaniel said in a statement, "We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make their case to the American people." Connect with Micha...

So Cold the River is a real Hoosier horror. The book was another Koryta classic I discovered. It was only a New York Times Best Seller more than a decade ago, who knew? But the story is not just loosely connected to some random historic hotel that serves as some random thriller's setting. In many ways the book is about the French Lick Valley and its history, told through the vehicle of a creepy an...