Category: Journalism

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End “Home Rule” of D.C.

With all that has gone on in Washington, D.C., it is time for Congress to take serious action. All of you and I know the governance of the District of Columbia is corrupt and incompetent. It is time to revoke “Home Rule” for the District; something Congress has the full power to accomplish.

Now we even have D.C. judges trying to over rule decisions made by the President of the United States. The worst of them is U.S. District Judge James Boasberg. He even ordered President Trump to turn plane loads of illegal criminal aliens around and bring them back into our country when they were headed for prison in El Salvador. I am thinking, “Just who in the Hell do these judges think they are???”. And this comes on the heels of J6 decisions a couple of years earlier that jailed American citizens for years when they peacefully stepped foot in the U.S. Capital in January 2021. Thankfully, President Trump pardoned most, but D.C. judges are responsible for incredible injustices and even suicides. And now those judges want to be President. They even resisted the release of citizens who had been pardoned. The U.S. Marshalls had to be sent in.

If I read things correctly, the establishment of “Home Rule” for the District of Columbia took place on December 24, 1973 under the President Richard Nixon administration. I’m not sure it has ever worked. The U.S. Constitution provides Congress has plenary (total) legislative authority of the federal district (District of Columbia). Home Rule delegated some of the day-to-day work of municipal government to local entities.

We know as of today, the governance is abysmal. We know the physical maintenance is terrible. We know crime is out of control. We know actions of judges and the courts are not only bad, but may be illegal themselves. And I was surprised to learn the D.C. judges are specifically appointed by the President of the United States.

It is time for Congress to take back control of and governance of the District of Columbia. I have no idea why this has not been done before now. If Congress does not take back control of the seat of the federal government, it is derelict in its duty. As for the federal judges; maybe they cannot be summarily removed, but Congress has total control of purse strings that support their courts. Time to bring those budgets to zero. And, frankly, Judge Boasberg should be impeached immediately.

We cannot have a country where the balance of power between the three branches of the United States federal government has been bastardized to such imbalance as presently exists. Federal District courts cannot rule over the Presidency and every decision coming out of the Executive Branch. My biggest issue is with the U.S. Supreme Court that has allowed all of the overstepping to happen. Too long Supreme Court justices have remained silent or cowards. The Supreme Court could stop all of the nonsense, but has not.

The Executive Branch through the President cannot act by itself to stop all of the roadblocks being put its way. The Congress and the Supreme Court have the power to correct all. It is time if we want to have a strong, healthy Constitutional Republic. Article II of the Constitution states, “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America”…… not in Congress or the Courts.

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Tax $$ and NPR/PBS

It is long past time for taxpayer dollars from the federal government to be sent off to the Public Broadcasting System and the National Public Radio. We are not talking a few dollars but hundreds of millions of dollars annually. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting takes federal tax dollars north of $500 million a year. Time for it to come to a screeching halt.

As one who drives a lot for business, I do a good deal of radio listening. An Indianapolis PBS station is one I frequent from time to time. I finally had to give it up. The reason was I became irritated with the politically left Democrat messages that came through either explicitly or subtlety in even the words or the slant of reports much too often.

Then I did a bit of research. I ran into an OpenSecrets report that 100% of political donations from PBS employees went to Democrats during the 2024 political cycle. And since 1996, going back nearly 30 years and more than $85,000 in donations, according to OpenSecrets data, there has only been one cycle (2004) in which Republicans received more in campaign contributions than Democrats from PBS employees.

Among NPR employees, the imbalance is even worse. OpenSecets NPR data of nearly $60,000 in donations goes back 33 years to 1992. There has never been an election in that period in which NPR employees donated more to Republicans than Democrats. OpenSecrets states in fact, in those 16 political cycles, Republicans only received any funding at all in just two cycles, and that includes a paltry $1 — yes, one buck — last year to then GOP presidential candidate Doug Burgum.

Do you think something is amiss? NPR/PBS are Democrat political propaganda arms and have been forever.

I come from a journalism background in newspapers. I don’t think any newspapers ever were supported with tax dollars from the government — state or federal. Newspapers in their day were supported by subscription dollars and dollars from advertisers. The lived by being relevant to their subscriber readers. Their time passed for several reasons, which I intend to write about in the future, and new media, primarily electronic, means are and have been emerging.

It is long past time, again, for tax dollars to stop going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, NPR, and PBS. If they are to live, they must earn the support of listeners and advertisers. If enough want the kind of biased news and messages they broadcast and will pay for it, they will prosper. If not, they will fold up and fade away.

Our nation is in a financial crisis and this funding is certainly one that is no longer justified, if it ever was. And this is not over. The next look needs to be at the “Voice of America” which received over $250 million in 2023. It needs to be axed as well.

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The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity.

Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work.

In art, in literature, in music, in industry; the reward and the punishment are always the same.

The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction.

When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone — if he achieves a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging.

Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting.

Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build; no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius.

Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done.

Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius.

Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all.

The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by.

The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership.

Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy — but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant.

There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions — envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass.

And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains — the leader.

Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman; each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages.

That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial.
That which deserves to live — lives.

[From an advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post, January 2nd, 1915, by the Cadillac Motor Car Company]

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The Fourth Estate

In the early 1800’s, the term, “The Fourth Estate”, was coined in reference to a free and unfettered press. The first three “Estates” are the legislative, judicial, and executive branches of the government. The Fourth Estate was seen as the last of the four cornerstones that uphold a free and democratic society. The recognition of the vital need to have and guarantee a free press was written into the Constitution by our country’s Founders.

Axiomatic to the exercise of a free press must be the reciprocal element of responsibility to the people. The public’s right to know is to be carried out by that free press. This principle has stood the test of time from the beginning of our Republic until the present day; but not without periods of failure.

In New York City over 100 years ago, the term “Yellow Journalism” came into being as a result of the battle between the New York Journal and the New York World for increased circulation. Critics attacked both newspapers for building circulation based upon sex, violence and crime sprinkled with emotionalism, inaccuracies, and exaggerations.

We seem to be in a period of resurgence of yellow journalism. Today’s yellow journalism finds fertile ground in would-be or pseudo journalists whose motives have little to do with social conscience, disclosure of injustice, uncovering wrong doing or giving voice to the voiceless. Rather these journalists-in-name only are self-seekers whose motives involve pride, profit, power and a practice of abusing the standards of journalism. Today’s journalists, particularly those of the electronic media, are becoming entertainers, celebrities and spokespersons for the rich and powerful. In short, they have failed the people.
The firewall that used to exist between news and editorials has either faded or completely broken down. Whatever the medium, what distinguishes the best from the rest is the quality of objectivity and completeness in covering news combined with a clear, sharp line between news and opinion. In television, the distinction has disappeared completely. Advocacy reporting has become the norm. Ratings have become supreme.

The print media, newspapers and magazines, have not faired much better. The consolidation of ownership from many thousands of independently owned publications to fewer and fewer media groups or giants has made the profit motive supreme; not the telling of thoughtful, deep, complete, and accurate stories upon which the public depends.

Too many contemporary journalists, in a rush to be first in print or on air that has to do more with personal prestige than with informing the public, have overlooked two basic journalistic rules: 1) find a second, confirming source, and 2) check, check, and then recheck…. Then give the whole story as objectively as humanly possible to the public. The media owes the public an abiding sense of fairness and responsibility. A free press is only as good, and as durable, as its performance.

We are now in the early years of a new era: that of the Internet dissemination of news. Traditional media have an increasing presence there, but the real ground swell is from thousands who have chosen to communicate with their fellows what their own eyes have seen and ears have heard. They have as well chosen to express their own opinions about what they have seen and heard. We have another chance now to try to get it right. A free society feeds on an informed citizenry, not on talking or blogging heads broadcasting an undifferentiated mix of news and opinion.

Real, professional journalism is the effort to help the reader know the difference between fact and fiction. This requires a pledge to follow established practices of good journalism. This requires a pledge to state as clearly as possible what is believed to be verified fact verses a writer’s opinion or information that cannot be independently confirmed

We know the notion that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; and surely that will continue to be true where information freedom is concerned. The formal press and now the one person who transmits information to others must stand responsible — which is to say professional, conscientious, discreet, fair, and accurate. The health of our nation depends upon an accurately informed public. The right of the people to know must be a sacred pledge.

(The above largely from USFEVA.ORG; an organization no longer existing.)

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Election Day

As I write, this is election day: November 5th, 2024! The road to today has been long since the day campaigning began. Democrats even substituted one candidate for President of the United States for another without any public vote. So, the campaign for President came down to Donald Trump verses Kamala Harris: a former President verses a current Vice President.

The last four years under the regime of President Joseph Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have been a nightmare for the United States of America. There have been so many things wrong, they are too numerous to list. The two most major screw ups are a totally open southern border allowing millions of illegal aliens to flood the country and the spending of federal money like a drunken sailor causing record economic inflation. In short, the country has been on the road to disaster for four years.

This national election will tell the tale of whether the United States will change course back to a strong, sane one or continue down the path to disaster in the form of socialism and communism. It will tell the tale of a return to power of the people verses power by the elites and the deep state. The fork in the road is crystal clear.

The Democrat candidate for President, Kamala Harris, is really a puppet. She comes across daily as being really stupid. One must think she is being controlled by others behind the curtain like Barack Hussein Obama, for example. And there are surely others.

The Democrat candidate Harris replaced, President Joe Biden, is demented. He hardly knows where he is most of the time. His most recent gaffs were at the White House Halloween party for children. Biden’s behavior included chewing on infant’s toes, biting legs, and getting right in the face of small children. How inappropriate, but this goes along with his earlier smelling of women’s hair and inappropriate kissing. What a creep.

In the last days of the campaign for the Presidency, we see Donald J Trump drawing tens of thousands of people to his rallies. We hear a message of hope back to economic stability and growth and back to rule by the people. We hear a message of a stop to the flood of illegal immigration. We hear a message of inclusion of all citizens of any race or ethnicity or religion. We hear a message of the stopping of transgender insanity and men in women’s sports. We hear a message of a return to being respected by other nations and the return to a strong, non-woke, military.

In the last days of the campaign by Kamala Harris, we see the trucking out of so-called celebrities from the music and movie industry. That is about it. And, frankly, who gives a damn what people think who can sing or play an instrument or those whose claim to fame is pretending to be people they are not. People who are swayed by these antics cannot be the brightest themselves. Too, Trump is a threat to those who have prospered under the Biden/Harris administration, but those are not the common folks of the United States of America.

Trump is the champion of the people. Harris is the champion of the elites and deep state. The outcome of this election will determine whether our Constitutional Republic will survive as a country of free, strong, and independent people…. And survive as the “Light on the Hill” for the world.

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Journalism & Kent

Oh, to have the time to write. I whine and moan about never having the time I would like to write for my Blog and Substack, even if no one reads them. I do have things to say and opinions to express rattling around in my head all the time.

I was thinking….. from the time I was born until I was 44 years old when my family sold the Kokomo Tribune, all I remember was newspapers. My father at age 24 was the CEO of the Tribune when I was born. His grandfather Kautz was CEO and owner beginning in 1897 until he died in 1938 when my father took over as a family Trust of Kautz’s daughters technically controlled ownership and operations. I remember I lived, breathed, and almost worshiped journalism and newspaper production and the peoples “right to know”. My first job was in the Circulation department where I mapped motor routes and solicited subscriptions. That was an experience when I approached Amish/Mennonite families out in Howard County. The women at home were always polite, but they deferred to their husbands who were working out on the farm somewhere.

But even before that I was around the Tribune a lot. I still have a photo of me at the corner of the Tribune building selling papers on VE day at the end of WWII in Europe. And I have a photo of me at a typewriter in the Tribune newsroom writing something when I was probably around 10-12 years old. Then when at Kokomo High School, I became the radio editor for the the student newspaper, the Red and Blue. We had a weekly program with three of us: sports, news, and social. And who knew at the time that my father was one of the owners of the WIOU radio station. Wonder if that had some influence?

Finally, off to Purdue. My father wanted me to study engineering of some kind. He believe the mental discipline and thinking processes taught were the best in engineering verses any other studies. I started in Electrical Engineering and finished three years in that discipline, but due to circumstances involving a fraternity pledge which did not go well, I switched to Industrial Management. I was in the very first class of that offering at Purdue. As it turned out, it was the best combination of engineering and management one could imagine. Purdue became famous for this. This really saved me from academic probation. I excelled in all classes. I really loved the studies in management, engineering, and finance.

My life did go into chaos though with an unplanned pregnancy and an early marriage when I was still 19 years old. I was a junior at Purdue at the time. I will save that story for later.

After graduating from Purdue with a BS Industrial Management, I became a full time Kokomo Tribune employee. This, as it turned out, was a time at the cusp of an enormous change in the way newspapers were produced. The old way was with hot metal type and letter presses. The huge change that occurred was to photo composition and offset presses and the use of computers in typesetting. That is easy to say, but it took years — nearly a decade — to make the changes. The Kokomo Tribune became a world leader in medium sized newspapers in technology. We had visitors from all over the world to see how we did things. With General Motors Delco engineers, we created one of the very first computers for typesetting. I wrote all of the software for it as well as a Fortran comprehensive package for circulation accounting and bundling in the mail room. We had a tremendous “family” of about 150 folks at the paper that worked together to get it all done.

At the same time, my father pursued newspaper industry leadership interests. He eventually became the President of the Inland Daily Press Association and later the American Newspaper Publishers Association, the industry association of most of the daily newspaper in the United States.

This is enough for now…. Chapter One in the life of one Kent Blacklidge and journalism. More later…….

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Biden Attempts Failing

Now we learn President Biden and his Justice Department authorized the use of deadly force in the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump and his family’s Florida home. Court documents show there was a medic with the heavily armed agents and that a triage unit had been set up some miles away; a practice not normally initiated. Further, FBI agents were instructed to wear unmarked polo or collard shirts and to keep enforcement equipment concealed. Why?

This was a non-standard, unprecedented operation with significant potential for confusion resulting in blue on blue armed conflict: FBI agents verses Secret Service agents. This set up competing equities between federal agencies (FBI & United States Secret Service) with equal statutory claims to interrupt the other’s activities. Again, why? It is reported there was no prior coordination between agencies. Was this an attempt to heighten the possibility of gunfire?

This all was to retrieve so-called “federal classified documents” Trump had taken from Washington DC at the end of his presidency to which he allegedly was not entitled. This all for documents Trump had securely stored at Mar-a-Lago and for which he had been negotiating with the National Archives and Records Administration.

Was this raid really a veiled assassination attempt? Fortunately, President Trump and family were not at Mar-a-Lago when the raid took place.

And we learn, too, there were documents planted by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago and that evidence presented to Judge Aileen Cannon in the Jack Smith Florida court case dealing with the papers case was tampered with. The papers were scrambled — not in original order — and the covers seen in photos were later added by the FBI agents.

All of this is coming out as the days go on. Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case against President Trump is falling apart. And their remains the root question as to whether Smith is legitimate in the first place having never been approved by the US Senate to occupy such a special counsel position. This is yet to be resolved.

What appears it will come down to ultimately is whether Trump took papers originally classified. As then President, he had absolute authority to declassify anything he wished and take them with him when leaving office. Clearly, he took something or somethings likely related to “Crossfire Hurricane” (the illegal spying on the Trump campaign for the 2016 election and papers he had formally declassified) that scares Democrats. I have to wonder if those papers finger Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Joe Biden, specifically.

Very interesting, too, that President Joe Biden took classified papers from Washington when he was a Senator and Vice President. These showed up in Biden’s garage and at his homes and at the University of Pennsylvania. He had absolutely no authority to have any classified papers in his possession. Him having them then is a federal crime. Biden should be held accountable for these actions, but don’t expect that from the Biden Justice Department.

We all need to thank God for Florida Federal Judge Aileen Cannon. It appears she is putting up with no nonsense or manipulation attempted by Jack Smith. She is after the truth. Her current position is there are many pretrial questions to be answered before any potential trial could take place. There is even a chance she will dismiss the Smith case entirely. Now, that would really enrage Biden Democrats. Or maybe it is really Obama Democrats and RINOs.

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Europe in Crisis

[Below is a speech by Eva Vlaardingerbroek, a Dutch national, at CPAC Hungary. She clearly tells what has and is happening in Europe as a result of illegal mass migration. There are parallels and differences for us, the United States of America. We are a country of LEGAL immigrants with the largest numbers coming in the 1800s to the early 1900s. From the beginning, we were a mix of Native Americans (the Original People), Europeans, Africans, Hispanics, and others. We managed somehow to get through some pretty difficult cultural times, but we did it with a devotion and loyalty to liberty and freedom and respect for all citizens… and with guidance from the US Constitution. Times are different now. The USA cannot tolerate the hordes of ILLEGAL immigration. Legal, yes. Illegal, no. We have enough problems to solve to take care of US citizens. As in Europe, mass illegal migration into the USA must end and all illegal immigrants returned to the countries from which they came.]

Hello Hungary…. Hello Budapest…. Fellow Europeans and American friends! Thank you so much for having me.

Allow me to skip formalities for a moment and dive right into subjects not so cheerful, but very, very necessary to discuss.

Let me walk you through the past seven days in Europe. This week in Stockholm, three elderly women in their 70s were stabbed in broad daylight on the streets. In London, 4 people were stabbed in a time span of just 42 hours. In Paris, hundreds of African migrants took to the street to riot. And in Brigamot, France, yet another church was burned down to the ground. That —ladies and gentlemen— is just a few incidents in just a couple of days on our beautiful continent. But we all know that these “incidents” are not “incidents” anymore.

If there is one thing that is for sure, it is that we know, and our governments also know, that there is a link between mass migration and crime.

In the Dutch city of Dorda, something interesting happened the other day. They announced — and this is a small city in the Netherlands — that a new asylum center will be put in that little town. And what did the municipality do? They said we are going to offer citizens who live in the vicinity of the center 1000 Euros to take extra safety measures.

Our reality in Europe consists of frequent rapes, stabbings, killings, murders, shooting and even beheadings. But let me be clear about one thing: this did not used to happen before. This is a newly imported problem.

Samual D Huntington predicted this over 25 years ago when he wrote, “In the new world of mass migration, the most pervasive and dangerous conflicts will not be between the social classes. They will not be between the rich and the poor. They will be between peoples belonging to different cultural entities, tribal wars, and ethnic conflicts will occur within civilizations”.

Well, boy was he right. And the worst part is that we as a society seem to have become indifferent to it. When an other white boy or white girl dies at the hands of an immigrant, we might shake our head… we might let out a sigh… we might even get angry for a minute or two. And then we go on with our lives. We offer the family thoughts and prayers, but nothing ever changes.

Ladies and gentlemen, what does that say about us? This is the response of a society that has already given up. A society that has already accepted its defeat. But, is this true? Have we given up? Do we really accept the new reality that our globalist leaders have in mind for us?

And know one thing for sure. That is that if nothing changes…. If we don’t start to seriously fight for our continent, for our religion, for our people, our countries; then this time that we live in will go down in history as the time which Western nations no longer had to get invaded by hostile armies in order to be conquered. This time will go down in history as the period in which the invader was actively invited in by a corrupt elite. And not only did this corrupt elite invite the enemy in, they made the native population pay for it, too.

Everyone who has eyes can see it. The native white Christian European population is being replaced at an ever accelerating rate. Let me back this up for you with some statistics from my home country. Let’s take Amsterdam, the Capital. Amsterdam currently consists of 56% migrants. The Hague, 58% migrants. Rotterdam, almost 60% migrants. And, of course, most of these immigrants come from non-Christian, non-Western, African and Middle East countries. Conclusion: the Dutch population is already out numbered in the majority of our cities. But let’s look onwards.

London, 54% migrants. Again, conclusion: native population outnumbered. Brussels, — color me shocked — 70% migrants. Conclusion: native population majorly outnumbered. And other Europeans will follow suit soon, if they have not already.

So, I am going to draw the forbidden conclusion here. The Great Replacement Theory is no longer a theory. It is reality. And what is interesting about replacement is that the establishment will either deny its existence or, when they admit to it, they say it is a good thing that the native European population is soon no longer a majority on its own continent.

Such national disgrace and dubbed “Climate Pope” Frans Timmermans already stated in 2015 that diversity is humanities destiny. And that Europe will be diverse. And, of course, by now I think we all know what they mean by “diversity”. It means less white people. Less of you.

Imagine this in an Asian or African country. Imagine their leaders rejoicing in the fact that their people will soon no longer be a majority in their own country. Absolutely, unthinkable. Unimaginable. So, what in the world is wrong with our leaders?

The underlying sentiment is always they same. Our establishment claims that white people are evil and that our history is somehow fundamentally different from that of others. Consciously or unconsciously, they have sucked up the lies of anti-white dogmas of the Neo-Marxist Critical Race Theory. That why the totalitarians in Brussels are trying to force you, the Hungarian people — a sovereign nation, to accept immigrants despite the fact that the population has said “no” and so has the government. But make no mistake, the majority of the Dutch people have not asked for this either.

Just like Brussels is forcing Hungary to accept hordes of immigrants, they are doing the same now even in the smallest of towns in the Netherlands. No part may remain Dutch in a traditional sense of the word. No part of Europe may remain “European”. And it is not difficult to understand why.

If the old Europe still exists in certain places, then people will be able to compare the new Europe to the old…. And —news flash — they will prefer the old. That is why the bureaucrats hate Hungry so much. And their message is clear. Our way of life, our Christian religion, our Nations…. They have to go, without exception.

Their vision of the future is the neo-liberal, unrecognizable Europe where every city becomes kind of like Brussels: ugly, dirty, unsafe, zero social cohesion, where the buildings are constantly under construction and they never, ever seem to finish. And, even when they do, the end result is uglier somehow than what they started with. And what are we left with? A permanent state of isolation, confusion, and disorientation.

Ladies and gentlemen….. Welcome to the New World Order!

So what is the antidote? A strong Christian Europe of sovereign nation states. That is why we need to outright reject the lies that nationalism causes wars. It is not nationalism or national sovereignty that causes wars. It is expansionism. And where in Europe do we find that now days? In one place and one place only: Brussels.

Isn’t if funny that the same people who erode our national sovereignty and love to do it … give it all up to the Eurocrats there… that those people are now telling us that we need to spend billions and billions of Euros on the national sovereignty of Ukraine? It’s a joke, honestly. And it is pretty sick and expensive dangerous joke.

During a recent interview, I got ask do you ever think you go too far? Do you ever think that you are too radical? I thought about it for a second: said NO. No, I don’t think I go too far. Truth be told, ladies and gentlemen, I think we in Europe do not go far enough.

I think that if we really think about the organized structural attack on our civilization, that we don’t do enough. Do we do enough to stop the attack on our families, on our Continent, on our countries and on our religion when we hear about another murder, another stabbing of a young innocent child; do we do enough? When we know that our national sovereignty has been given up in less than a century to Brussels; do we do enough? When we hear that Christian kids in Germany are now converting to Islam to ‘fit in’ ; do we do enough? I don’t think so.

The totalitarian institute of the European Union needs to come down. Let me be clear. I don’t believe in reforms. When the foundation of your institution is rotten, and that is the case in Brussels, you can rebuild the house on top of it all you want, but it is still going to crumble. So, the only answer is the Tower of Babel needs to be destroyed.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are the daughters and sons of the greatest nations on Earth. And we ask ourselves, what has happened to us. Where have we come from. And more importantly, where are we going. Our elites have declared a war on us and now it is time for us to put on the full armor of God, fight back, …. And WIN.

Thank you so much.

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Voter Registration

Let’s see, the Tribune-Star (Terre Haute, IN) editorial writer in the column published in the Kokomo Tribune on the 8th thinks that for folks having never registered to vote before, it would be a burden or too complicated to ask they present some photo identification and some address-verifying mail to establish Indiana residency in order to register to vote. Well now, this sure sounds pretty complicated to me only if one concludes prospective voters are stupid or deceptive. The writer claims this requirement would apply most to young people and naturalized citizens who more than likely would vote Democrat.

The other way to get through this extremely complicated maze of registering to vote is to provide a copy of a driver’s license and the last four digits of their social security number along with their registration application. This too sounds really ominous and very difficult to do, especially if you are young and/or naturalized.

The truth is that nothing in the above is complicated or burdensome. Anyone with half a brain can figure it out.

The writer then goes on to say, “Indiana’s elections are secure, as are elections in every other state. Election fraud is rare.” Frankly, the writer must live under a rock. Even in very red Indiana, there is election fraud.

I am grateful the Indiana General Assembly is taking steps to assure voting in Indiana is fair and accurate. I would be happier if Indiana would return to paper ballots, one day voting at one’s home precinct, rare and justified absentee ballots, and hand signature ballot registration books (the only way to match signatures). I do think that one way to promote more eligible people to vote would be to declare a state holiday for a voting day. No work obligation for that one day.

What the General Assembly has done does make elections more secure. They just need to do more.

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The Comet

North Central Indiana has just experienced a great loss. There was a small weekly newspaper, The Carroll County Comet, in Flora, Indiana, that had been published for many, many decades. It is now closed. Its owners’ family had been involved in newspapers in Carroll County for over 100 years. The Carroll County Comet itself came into existence in February 1974. It was published every week since then until the end of December 2023; close to a half century. Its owners were dedicated to serving their community.

The loss of the Comet is yet another in the grievous story of newspapers in the United States. Now we find many ‘news deserts’ around the country. In the last issue of the Comet, the owners point out that since 2005 over 2,900 local newspapers have closed. They reported the USA is on pace to lose one-third of all its newspapers by the end of 2024. What a catastrophe.

Thomas Jefferson said long ago, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate to prefer the latter”. He knew the importance of an informed public to make a strong country.

The USA is in crisis times. In my mind, we may not survive as a strong Constitutional Republic. The loss of newspapers is yet another indication we are losing the glue that holds us all together. Electronic media and the Internet will never take the place of locally owned and operated newspapers that once put printed paper into the hands of citizens weekly or daily. Those papers told the story of a community from the minor to the major events, sports, and interests. They helped to create the feeling of knowing neighbors…. something now disappearing.

Where I live in Kokomo, IN, there still is a daily newspaper. But it is a skeleton of what it once was. In the days when I was directly in Kokomo Tribune management, we had about 185 employees and over 300 newspaper carriers that delivered the paper to doorsteps each day. Each edition was of many pages of extensive stories, photos, and editorials about local happenings and interests. Now the Tribune has maybe a dozen or so employees. Each edition is of a few pages only. Its coverage of happenings is very limited and its circulation is a fraction of what the KT used to be.

I sure don’t know the answer. An informed public is critical to the strength of our country.