Talkin’ ‘bout My Generation

 by Mike Kendall

  

  Many Americans of my Baby Boomer generation complained our political system offered no chance for choice or change.  We later opted for the illusion sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll was “The Revolution,” and material goods were the icing on the marijuana brownie. 

  Eligible voters today are even less persuaded they can effect change.  Election studies show those who don’t vote do not believe the election will effect local, state, or national governance change.  A canyon of futility, frustration, and indifference separates the weltanschauung s of voters and nonvoters.

  The eligible citizens who do not vote are such a large percentage of the electorate that we are ruled by tiny minority governments constituting about 12-14% of eligible voters.  Contrary to public pronouncements, the two dominant political parties in America have a vested interest in the turnout status quo.  Neither party knows what will happen if there is a significant, let alone a dramatic, shift in voter turnout.  

  

  The nonvoting majorities’ futility arises out of the structure of our single general election, two-party primary system.  Various viewpoints are cut out in the primaries leaving the chosen candidate closer to either party’s center.  In the general election slightly left of center and slightly right of center nominees’ move toward dead center.  The resulting choice is between conservative free market capitalism and liberal free market capitalism protecting those already powerful and protected. 

  The oligarchs are shielded by a global imperial foreign policy which requires a military larger than the rest of the world combined because of the shear geographical scope of our foreign policy commitments.  Its consumption and domination, combined with a tax structure that favors making money out of money rather than progress out of ideas, starves the scientific research, education, social programs, environmental correction, and infrastructure that is the long-term source of national wealth, health, power, and security. 

  Enter Bernie Sanders.  Sun Tzu said a successful, winning “leader must learn to sail against the wind” to win.  Bernie Sanders’ candidacy is the biggest threat to the establishment that runs this country since Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 campaign.  The powers-that-be know it so they hide it by saying ‘Bernie ‘can’t win.’ 

  An Independent United States Senator from Vermont, he was elected on a platform of “democratic socialism.”  He is running for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nomination.  Bernie is tied with Hillary Clinton in the influential primary state of New Hampshire, hopes to also win Iowa, and is running second to her in many national and state opinion polls. 

  Thursday, November 19^th, he made an important speech comparable to and John F. Kennedy’s speech on Roman Catholicism in 1960 by tackling the electability of a self-proclaimed, “democratic socialist” head on.  The speech demonstrates what Mr. Sanders offers is unlike anything anyone else is offering:  Electability because he has the faith, courage, and skill “to sail against the wind.”

 

  Senator Sanders began and ended by declaring himself the heir to the successful, winning traditions and policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (elected President  four times) and Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (who changed the face of equality in America), through their respective priorities of democratic socialism and social and democratic equality.  He made three major policy points that no one else running will declare:

·         The government bailouts of big business and banks, and the lack of any prosecutions of their executives was a form of state socialism propping up the wealthy.  Quoting Rev. King, Mr. Sanders echoed, “This country has socialism for the rich, and rugged individualism for the poor.”

·         Democratic socialism is not a soviet-style command economy and government ownership of the means of production but is a system where government provides the individual entitlements such as free public colleges, and $1 Trillion Dollars in infrastructure and public works.

·         He is not a pacifist and democratic socialism does not preclude war to protect our country, but only in self-defense, national interest, and as a last resort.

   Sanders hopes to win more voters by showing he, and his political philosophy of “democratic socialism,” are both sincere and electable.  He’s a leader who “means what he says and says what he means,” to paraphrase Dr. Seuss, “who will be faithful 100%” guarding our nest.

  How many times have we in our generation been offered no real choice, or settled and voted for the winnable candidate, thus failing to bring about change to prevent Viet Nam, Race Riots, Inequality, Poverty, Climate Change, the Iraq Wars, Afghanistan, and Assassinations 1, 2, and 3?  We should know better.  If we haven’t figured that out yet, we might actually “need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.”

  As one of the oldest of the Baby Boomers, I have made the same mistake and now I have learned from it.  “Don’t get fooled again.”  Feel the Bern.  If not now, when? 

If not now, “A Hard Rain’s Gonna’ Fall.”

Be Careful What You Wish For . . .

By

Mike and Teresa Kendall

Everybody’s told somebody, “Be careful what you wish for because it might come true.”  The problem is nobody listened to anybody, especially in Hoosier politics.  Take the Religious Right for example.  They wished hard for the “Restoration of Religious Freedom Act.”  Well, they got what they wished for in the long session of the IGA this year.  Their Governor, Senate Leader, House Speaker, and the GOP wished to give them RFRA.  The Pols’ wish came true too.     

 

The intent of the Religious Right was RFRA would allow them to discriminate against LGBTs, and sue anybody tried to stop them.  The intent of our One-Party politicians was to make amends to the Religious Right, for skating on their attempt to ban gay marriages, by at least letting the Religious Right refuse to bake cakes for gay weddings with impunity.  But be careful what you wish for.

Within days the Governor’s reputation and political future was in free-fall.  Groups around the country were threatening to take their business elsewhere and businesses in Indiana were calculating how much money they’d and how many employees couldn’t recruit.  Outed by the nation, GOP leaders ‘put on a beard’ by pulling LGBTs out of RFRA’s clutches and ruminating one might wish to insert LGBT persons into the Indiana Civil Rights Act.  But be very careful what you wish for.  To their chagrin, the Right, the Righteous, and local governments now find themselves awash in a tsunami-like LGBT cultural revolution crested by a broad, formidable wave of prominent businesses, organizations, and community leaders.  Be very, very careful what you wish for.

 

This political tsunami is likely to get its wish to amend the ICRA to include LGBT persons as a category protected from discrimination in the 2016 IGA session.  But now it’s time for the LGBT community and its allies to “be very, very careful what you wish for!”  If your “wish” is merely to amend the state Act to secure the same rights in employment and contracts as persons protected from discrimination because of their “race, religion, color, sex, disability, national origin, and ancestry,” you will be ‘very, very sorry’ if that is your only wish and it comes true.        

The current ICRA is under the labor law section of the Indiana statutes.  Its stated purpose is to protect “unions, corporations, and business” from the horrible specter of “unfounded charges of discrimination” by minorities.  It also protects “educational institutions” with a Hoosier tradition of segregating or excluding women students (or men) from discrimination complaints.  (Here insert LGBTs?)  But wait.  It gets better.  The victim in Indiana can only sue in court if the employer is dumb enough to consent.  If he is dumb enough, you better check his and his law firm’s ties to the Judge.  You don’t get a jury trial, just a judge trial.  The only damage you get is “back pay.”  Indiana does not award damages for lost future income, severe emotional distress, physical pain and suffering, or intentional discrimination (punitive damages).  And good luck finding an attorney.  You can’t afford an hourly lawyer fee to only recover back pay, you can’t find a lawyer for a percentage of back pay, and the employer doesn’t have to pay attorney’s fees.  Moreover, Indiana does not order reinstatement unless you were fired for being a “U.S. military veteran.”     

 

Not to belabor the point, but if a LGBTs’ best day in the next session is mere inclusion in Indiana’s Civil Rights Act, their best day in Court is the epitome of a Pyrrhic victory.  For example:  Suppose you are a LGBT employee fired from a job earning $15 an hour, and out of work for six months.  Down $15,600 in back pay, you find a lawyer to represent you for 40% of your recovery.  She sues your employer, who kindly agrees to be sued in state court.  You draw a local judge who has no tacit knowledge of your former employer and his lawyer.  After two years of litigation and a court trial, the judge rules in your favor and awards you every dime of your back pay!  You or your employer pay the $3,600 owed for withholding taxes, you pay your lawyer $6,240 (40%) of the judgment, and you have over $5,000 left over for the psych you need from a total victory!            

 

A prominent Indianapolis attorney in the LGBT community, concentrating in Estate Planning, Probate, Adoptions, and Business and Employment Law, Barbara J. Baird, recently told me merely adding LGBTs to the protected classes of the Indiana Civil Rights Act “is just window dressing because the ICRA doesn’t provide a real remedy for the victims of discrimination.”  So fellow reformer, let us be very, very, very careful what we wish for.  The cost in political capital will be no higher, and the base of support for changes broader, by putting teeth in the Act as well as putting LGBTs in it.  All victims benefit by a right to a jury trial, future pay, damages for emotional distress and physical pain and suffering, back to work orders, and attorney’s fees. 

Now’s the time to make a new wish.  Be careful.

Byron Ernest, SBOE Member
 selected by Brian Bosma

New Indiana State Board of Education Member Politically and Ethically Compromised

by Teresa Kendall

Bryon Ernest, one of the new Indiana State Board of Education Members represents everything that is wrong with politics in Education.  He is a political and ethical disaster waiting to happen.

An often heard statement by many in the Indiana State Legislature is "Take the Politics out of Education." Everyone claims the best of intentions, "It's all about the students!"  The recent legislation to fix the so-called political problem on the Indiana State Board of Education, SB1 allowed the Governor and the State Legislature to appoint people that could work together in an idyllic, apolitical way. Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives, Brian Bosma, selected Dr. Byron Ernest, head of the virtual charter school Hoosier Academy, to the State Board of Education.  His appointment can only be described as a political punch in the gut to anyone that had hoped that the new Board appointees would leave their ideologies at home.

Dr. Ernest, a former Agriculture teacher in Clinton and Boone counties was named Indiana's Teacher of the Year in 2010 and became friends with Tony Bennett who was the Superintendent of Public Instruction.  In 2011,when the State Board of Education took over the "failing" Manual High School in Indianapolis, Ernest was later made the principal of the school that was turned over to Charter Schools USA, a for-profit charter company. Bennett used Ernest often during his tenure as the Teacher of the Year to promote school choice, vouchers, the failure of public schools and anti-union rhetoric.  As you can see in this article from State Impact he earned a reputation for being Bennett's mouthpiece across the state.

Byron Ernest was principal of the Manual High School from August of 2012 to January of 2014. There is some dispute about when he left.  Ernest claims he left at the end of the 2014 school year, I have it on good authority from some of his former teaching staff that he was out due to the school’s low grade at the end of 2013, not returning at the start of the second semester.  During the time he was principal of Manual High School, the school grade was an "F."  The grade for the school year 2013-2014 was a "D."  Ernest leaves Manual at the end of 2013 and later in 2014 becomes the head of a virtual charter school, K.12's Hoosier Online Academy, another for-profit charter school.  Hoosier Online Academy is also a failing school, earning four straight years of F grades which means that K.12 should be out as the company managing the school or at the very least the amount of money that goes to the charter is reduced.  With the closure of the school and the loss of his job looming in the future, Ernest went to the SBOE at the March meeting and asked the Board to give his school more time because of the special circumstances of his students, such as illness or bullying in their home schools. Even though these are the same circumstances that occur in regular public schools that are not given any special consideration, the usual "take care of Tony's friends" attitude prevails on the SBOE and Ernest's second failing school was given a one-year reprieve for survival.  As decided in the March 2015 SBOE meeting, a determination and another vote will be taken in regard to Hoosier Academy in 2016.

Some disclosure here - I have worked with Dr. Ernest in Boone County both as a teacher and on committees.  He is arrogant, judgmental and cannot tolerate anyone that questions his opinions or his authority.  I am not alone in my opinion of him - just read some the comments to the articles I linked.  Byron Ernest has a very small fan club.  

So now Dr. Byron Ernest, head of the failing Hoosier Online Academy, leader of his second school with an "F," and friend of Tony Bennett, gets appointed to the very board that will decide if he gets to keep his job.  There is stink all over this appointment.  Bosma and Ernest have some questions to answer.  How can someone with this record be a part of the very board that holds schools accountable?  How can Ernest ethically be allowed to take part in a vote that determines the future of a for-profit company in which he is an employee?  

Bosma should immediately rescind Ernest's appointment and he should be replaced by and Educator without political connections and compromised ethics.

We are “On” to Mike Pence and He Knows It

By

Mike and Teresa Kendall

            Virtually everyone is “on” to Indiana Governor Mike Pence after his pathetic performance over the disgusting debate, passage, retreat, and the “fix” of the State’s so-called Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).  But Mike is also on to all of us.  He knows that we know he really did not want to “fix” the original bill and was forced, kicking and whining, to back the changes that were meant to quiet the critics rather than protect the ones that would be harmed by the law.

The Gov also knows that we know he and his political supporters really don’t want to do the right thing, but something that just looks good to the Right. We are on to this because the legislature didn’t repeal the “fixed” RFRA and pass a fix to the Civil Rights Act recognizing equal rights for LGBT people, families, and their children.  The Gov knows the we are on to the purpose of the March 26^th  RFRA signing ceremony, complete with a cast that looked like something from a Star Trek Convention; a ceremony that was meant to sooth the fears of his Irreligious Right, and the backers of his discriminatory social agenda.

            So how do we know he knows we’re on to him?  Easy.  Mike announced on April 14^th he had hired a New York PR and advertising firm, Peter Novelli, “to help rebuild the State’s image” in the wake of RFRA.  (Read rebuild Mike’s political image by hiding what was and is in his heart about the LGBT community.)  The Gov thinks that if we pay millions of tax dollars to repair his political image he can avoid doing the right thing, amending the state’s Civil Rights Act, and still please the “Star Trek Cast” he surrounds himself with at the Statehouse.

Instead we need to call on the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate to ask for and insist that the Gov call a special session of the Indiana General Assembly after this session ends.  The sole purpose of the Session would be to consider, debate vote on and pass legislation protecting Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals, and Transgendered from discrimination.  They would be brought under the protection of the Civil Rights Act that already exists in Indiana to protect other persons and groups from discrimination because of racism national origin, gender age, or disability. 

There you go Legislature and Gov.  Fire Novelli.  Save two million of our dollars.  Help our people who are LGBT get justice and be protected from discrimination.  And, oh yes, do the right thing and in the process the national news will tell everyone in this nation what a good place we are and we are not cowards, hypocrites, and opportunists. 

Everybody but Mike and his political supporters are onto another thing.  “The times, they are a changin’.”  In fact, they changed.  The debate on whether LGBT community should be treated equally is over among people under 40, people with education, people in modern technology, people who aren’t convinced the world in about 900 years old, people who don’t have swastika’s tattooed on their arm or thigh, and every single business that doesn’t have a death wish.

It’s time for our political leaders to reflect who we are in Indiana.  It’s time to be who we want the rest of America to think we are, not waste $2M trying to market them into thinking what we are not. 

And it’s time to call a halt to the PR Plan for Pence; it’s not a plan for us or the LGBT community, but a plan to save Mike’s political career.  What the Gov doesn’t want to do is actually invite, serve, and dine with any LGBT person at the same table; he cannot charm his way out of this one.  We are on to you Mike Pence and you know it. 

One Party Rule

           As you read this article, an ethics reform bill may have passed both houses of the state legislature and be on the Governor’s desk for signing.  It should be re-named the Eric Turner Memorial bill, after the former Speaker Pro Tempore, of Cicero, favored by House Leader Bosma of Indianapolis until his corrupt deeds were brought to light.   Turner’s Democratic opponent forced Bosma to announce he would not serve as Pro Tem this session, and two weeks later Turner announced he would resign if re-elected.  His opponent couldn't overcome the gerrymandered Republican District 32.  Turner was re-elected although he didn't want the job anymore anyway, and Republican precinct committee people picked his successor (Tony Cook, of Cicero).   

            You may have noticed I only mentioned the party affiliation of Turner’s Fall opponent.  That’s because everyone in the state legislature is a Republican except a few people.  Glenda Ritz, Superintendent of Education, is the only state office holder who isn't an R.  And the Governor and the legislature are in the process of a bloodless, legislative coup to strip her of power or office or both.  (Hoosiers call this One-Party Rule in Russia, and Super Majority Rule in Indiana.)  Assume every one mentioned is a Republican, unless otherwise noted, until there is a political revolution in the State.

            Anyway, the ethics reform bill is an improvement and helpful.   But laws and legislative procedures already exist that would allow remedies from punishment and removal for Turner-like acts to civil and criminal prosecution.  Indiana’s continuing ethical scandals (e.g., Bosma and the proposed soccer stadium) continue because there is a lack of political will to bring it to a halt because there is almost no chance it will cost a Republican their seat.  Turner’s district, like almost all others since 2001 and 2011, is so gerrymandered the only real fear is a primary challenge from the far right of the Party. 

            But Turner-like perfidy, conflict of interest, and billion dollar hauls is not the worst consequence for our democratic polity and civil society, and not even the worst unethical conduct.  Turner made himself and his family business rich at the public trough.  Republican One-Party Rule is taking people’s rights from them by hateful, prejudicial, and unconstitutional legislation that debases our Judeo-Christian heritage by using religion as a cover for civil sin.

            As I write this article, Republican One-Party Rule has already passed through both houses and the governor, on March 26^th, has already secretively signed into law, a horrible law.  The bill is deceptively titled the “Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 2015.”  (“RFRA.”)  It’s “double-speak” title is enough to make George Orwell role over and cough in his Tubercular grave. 

RFRA (it’s a hell of an angry acronym) is the worst bill I have seen or read in 40 years of work in Congress, the State Senate, and law practice.  

First, it is indecipherable and incomprehensible.  The only reason we think we know what it is supposed to mean is because of the bill Digest and the news media. RFRA actually says it “applies to all governmental entities.”  A lay reader or a lawyer has about as good a chance of figuring out RFRA is designed to legalize evil acts toward minorities from just reading the bill as you do figuring out how to program a computer by watching your teenager play “League of Legends” all night.  The actual bill is a misleading mosaic.  RFRA says it “applies to all governmental action.”  Not so.  In reality it empowers, and applies to, people, organizations, and corporations who hate and fear people who are different than themselves. 

RFRA defines a “person” as an “individual,” “organization,” or “business.”   The bill says that a “person” engages in an “exercise of religion” if they say so, even if it is “not compelled by” or “central to” their religion. or any religion.  Lawyers call this the “Straight Face Test:”  If the “person” can say the reason he is kicking the gay couple out of the restaurant is because he is engaging in an “exercise of religion” without giggling, then he is protected by this bill. 

            Second, new statue is unconstitutionally vague and over broad.  This law is so bad because it in effect establishes a government religion allowing discrimination by de facto attacking all the anti-discrimination ordinances in Indianapolis, Evansville, Ft. Wayne, and elsewhere, in violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and the Indiana Constitution.  To blunt this, the drafters had to insert a clause that says the law cannot be construed to do what the law accomplishes:  “This chapter may not be construed to affect, interpret, or in any way address the Establishment Clause.”  (Remember your English classes?  “You can eat the cookie but you may not.”  The law tries to tell appellate judges they may not think the statute violates the Establishment Clause.)         

          Third, it is an embarrassment to the State and a potential body blow to Indiana’s economy and reputation.  The NCAA, the NFL, Lilly, the Republican Mayor of Indianapolis, and businesses, institutions, organizations, and the LGBT community in leadership are expressing cold feet toward Indiana.  The March Madness of the Final Four may turn out to be our final Final Four.  In other words, its stupid because it got ‘good headlines’ for many in the legislators but the financial chickens and calls for repeal are about to come home to roost.  My first year in the State Senate, a colleague of mine, who’d been there a few terms, got the bright idea to sponsor a ‘headline bill’ banning the sale of hypodermic needs in Indiana because of the rising use of ‘hitting drugs’ in his area and the state.  He got great press and strode around with his chest out for about three days.  Then the Farm Bureau, the AMA, nurses, hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, farmers, Veterinarians—need I go on?—howled, he was laughed at, and the bill was dead.  To add insult to injury, the Senator was a diabetic who himself used a hypodermic needle daily at the time.              

          Fourth, it’s insincere.  The proof is in the last sentence of the law.  It has so far flown in under the radar.  It provides RFRA “is not intended to, and shall not be construed or interpreted to, create a claim or private cause of action against any private employer by any applicant, employee, or former employee.”  You can sue the government if it intervenes to protect the lesbian couple you threw out of the store you were managing because of your religious epiphany, but you can’t sue your employers if he refuses to hire you or fires you because of your religious views on LGBT people.  Some employers in this “at-will employment” State will tolerate prejudice and discrimination in the name of an “exercise of religion,” but they draw the line at a wrongful discharge suit by a worker.  That’s an ‘irreligious exercise of religion!’

            Fifth, it’s going to drain state and local government money.  The Legislative Services Administration’s “Fiscal Impact Statement” on RFRA reported it would result in an increase of expenditures with the Attorney General, and payment of more tort claims.  It will also result in similar expenditures and payments by cities and counties.  The only up side to this law is it’s a bonanza of legal work and attorney fees for lawyers. 

And last but not least, it is an unethical bill.  It is unethical because it licenses the hurtful and unconstitutional discrimination against our fellow citizens, to curry favor with and appease homophobic people who contrive religious reasons to be un-Christian to fellow citizens. 

As Barry Goldwater said about gays in the military 25 years ago, when that was the touchstone of prejudice, “The question is not are they straight, but can they shoot straight.”  Republican Conservative Icon Barry Goldwater, and the current Republican Governor of Arizona who vetoed a similar law, have more ethics, good sense, and tolerance in their little fingers than Pence and his peeps.  Unfortunately lots of people in this state are going to pay a high price for the new law to ‘ban the sale of the hypodermic needle.’