Author: Craig Ladwig

by Richard Moss, M.D. It is painful when defeat is snatched from the jaws of victory as occurred on Jan. 15, 2025, some five days before President Trump’s inauguration. Israel was on the verge of a strategic triumph over the Muslim Brotherhood/Iranian axis in the Middle East, brought about by its unparalleled military superiority and audacity.…

Education: Partisan Is Good BIPARTISANSHIP, the comedian George Carlin famously said, usually means some larger-than-usual deception is being carried out. That has been our experience with school board elections.  Back in the 1980s we allowed the local political machines, some of them actively corrupt and all of them black at heart, to control the election…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. Last week the Indianapolis Star reported on “Senate Bill 235: Banning DEI.” The Star said that “this bill bans all state spending on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives — from trainings to diverse hiring initiatives — at state agencies, educational institutions and health profession licensing boards.” The bill passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee by…

Diversity Has its Limits LISTENING TO BLACK LEGISLATORS at the Statehouse this week protesting Gov. Mike Braun’s dismantling of DEI, it was clear they are driven by sincere conviction. They believe there are many more people like them who deserve to be, say, surgeons, judges, engineers and pilots, but are being unfairly denied. Oh, you should…

by Mark Franke “The changing structure of the family unit has degraded cultural values and economic stability.”  This was the provocation addressed recently by my Socratic discussion group. We call our monthly topic a “provocation” because it should provoke probing questions and lively debate. This one did, so much so that near the end of our mandatory two-hour limit…

‘Counterfeit’ Journalism THE LEGACY MEDIA, exemplified by our own Indianapolis Star, is having a problem exerting authority — it has none. Nonetheless, its editors and columnists still affect the tone of earlier days when their titles were depended upon to sort out the morning’s news. Columnists Michael Hicks, James Briggs and Abdul-Haikin Shabazz have assumed the concocted morality of…

by John Gaski, Ph.D. Officials of both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government have recently sounded off on the prospect of eliminating Daylight-Saving Time, i.e., ditching the inconvenient semi-annual clock change observed in most of the U.S.  The highest official of all, President Trump, is a proponent.  This development resurrects the specter…

by Mark Franke Donald Trump’s inauguration today to a non-consecutive second term had the beneficial effect of reminding us of Grover Cleveland, the only other president to have achieved this dubious honor. Having memorized the presidents as a schoolboy, this being one of those obscure lists that my failing memory can still resurrect, I recognized the…

by Barry Keating, Ph.D. Private entities, both for-profit and nonprofit, behave differently than public entities. Although we often hear that “government should be run more like a private business,” we know that is nonsense. It’s as difficult to make a cat bark as it is to get a government agency to behave as effectively as…

by Mark Franke It’s high time for Donald Trump to focus. His transition team got off to a good start by readying nominees for federal offices and Trump was active in the foreign policy space. A different Donald Trump was evident late in the campaign and it seemed the new Trump was for real. Then…