“I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm-in-arm with Balzac and Dumas; I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I will, and they come graciously with no scorn nor condescension.” — W.E. B. DuBois IF YOU SEE NO DIFFERENCE between equality of results and equality of opportunity, this essay will make no sense. It’s about the idiocy of diversity for diversity’s sake. In 1977, some of us…

by Leo Morris In their campaign for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas engaged in seven debates, each lasting an astonishing (by today’s standards) three hours. The first speaker (which alternated), expounded for an hour. The second candidate responded for 90 minutes. Then, the first speaker was allowed a 30-minute “rejoinder.” All seven debates were heavily attended, since their subject, slavery, was of profound interest to citizens in the rapidly disintegrating…

‘An Evening with Tom Huston’ You hadn’t known Donald Trump had a good chance to win the presidency? That may be because you hadn’t read Tom Huston’s Feb. 13, 2016, essay, “Trumpism and the Invisible Man.” That and almost a hundred other articles from the pen of Mr. Huston, Indianapolis developer and formerly associate counsel to President Richard Nixon, have for a decade now pierced the fog of policy and culture for readers of our quarterly…

THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE NAILS IT — You don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to have figured out that the last-minute ambush of Judge Brett Kavanaugh was organized by the Washington Post and Sen. Diane Feinstein in coordination with the “victim” and her publicist lawyer. Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii insists that men should just shut up about the credibility of accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, presumably because they are: a) sexist; b) incompetent to fairly weigh evidence; and c) too dumb to understand…

by Leo Morris It has been several weeks now, and I still can’t fathom the Indiana Chamber of Commerce’s decision to endorse Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly in the U.S. Senate race. The Chamber has always endorsed the Republican in Senate races, and all the candidates it is endorsing in this year’s U.S. House races are Republicans, so the Donnelly pick goes against everything in the group’s history. In the absence of a reasonable explanation from…

Please note that Monday is national Constitution Day. (For immediate release; click on mug shot for high-resolution image.) by Mark Franke James Madison is generally known as the Father of the Constitution, and rightfully so. His record of the debates at the Constitutional Convention are a historical treasure. His partnership with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in authoring the Federalist Papers may be the most effective one in our history. Where we would we be…

by Mark Franke This column is about immigration. And about the American War for Independence. And about Indiana counties. What do these three topics have to do with each other? Quite a bit, in fact, and it isn’t a stretch to see the linkages. Leo Morris, my colleague at the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, recently wrote on op-ed piece on how the idea of legal immigration is lost in in all the excessive rhetoric in…

by Leo Morris I realized today that I would be sitting down to compose my 51st weekly column for The Indiana Policy Review, just one masterpiece away from that happy anniversary when I will have completed a whole year’s worth of work. So, since I’m sick to death of the bitter political divide that has deteriorated into outright tribalism in this country, I decided to make this piece a happily neutral one. Therefore, following (in…

by Mark Franke I recently completed a three-day tour of the Kentucky Bourbon Trail. It was quite educational as well as introducing me to a few new labels to try now that I am back home. Not everything I learned was blissfully enlightening however. At one of the distillery tours, the guide said that the wholesale price for its product was 60 percent federal and state taxes, 30 percent ingredients and processing, and just 10…

IT’S A WAYS OFF but this Veterans Day let’s vow to use the distinction “hero” with more precision. The mass media has gotten into the habit of assigning it to all dead veterans, preferably ones outside the conservative sphere. Reading such a hero’s recent obituary, I took down the family military medals from a box on my book shelf. The more recent veterans who did not see combat received more medals than those who actually…