Everyone who knows me knows I have no use for township government, however today the Marion County Township Trustees get a major thumbs up from me. 

I hear there’s a plan being circulated amongst the Trustees that would put people who repeatedly get poor relief to do mandatory work for either the township or the County government. 

I’m all for it.  There is no reason why someone who is able-bodied who is on the public dole shouldn’t do a little work to earn their keep.   They can sweep streets, pick up trash, plant flowers in urban greenways, the list just goes on and one.

I personally would like to expand it so they would also work for individuals who had jobs that needed done, but this is a nice start.

The only thing better than when a bad law is tossed out from the courts as unconstitutional is when a stupid law is thrown out.

U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker said a state law that would have forced stores and retailers to pay $250 to register if they sold sexually explicit material was vague and too broad (insert Beavis and Butthead laughter here).

Judge Barker said, “the new law could have applied to lawful and non-obscene materials such as R-rated DVDs or a widow selling a collection of old Playboy magazines at a garage sale.”

There is nothing worse than when lawmakers find a stupid idea and jump on it (insert more Beavis and Butthead laughter here).

Laws like this need to narrowly tailored and well-written; this was neither.

If lawmakers are trying to protect us from obscenity, I can think of a lot better ways and they don’t involve adult-oriented material.

John McCain will be speaking at 11a.m. in Indianapolis today.  You can watch it here courtesy of my friends at WRTV.

Democratic Gubernatorial candidate Jill Long Thompson is expected to continue her call to suspend the sales tax on gasoline at a news conference in Indianapolis today.   If you’re interested in what she has to say you can find an extensive interview here done back in May 2007 by my good friend Thomas Cook over at  Blue Indiana. 

By the way, JLT calling for a suspension of the sales tax on gas would put her position at odds with the Democratic nominee for President Barack Obama, who opposes such a move for the federal tax gas.

There are two more stories of violence in Indianapolis this morning.  One involved the shooting of a man at 38th Moeller Road, the second was a shooting last night outside the Walker Theatre.

Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of  reading or watching another story about violence in this community.   And while I’m all for crime prevention, I’m falling back into my old belief that what this town needs are a couple good police beatings.

I don’t want anybody killed or put into a coma,  but I honestly think that a clear message needs to be sent that crime won’t be tolerated and if these knuckleheads even dream about pulling out a gun on someone or committing an act of violence, they will wake up and apologize.

Of course this is also based on weeding out the bad cops, which makes me wonder who was responsible for hiring our latest round of bad actors?

The word is in on the number of signatures collected by Taxpayer Party candidate John Waterman.  So far Waterman has 128 reported signatures that means he has to collect 32, 872 by the end of today.  Do you believe in miracles?

I’m wrapping up my business trip to St. Louis this morning, but I had to share this story from dinner last night.

My old law school friends and I got together and started talking about the Presidential race. One of my good friends who is a true-hearted conservative from Kansas asked me who I thought was going to win the Presidency? I told him, with the appropriate caveats included, that I thought the race was Barack Obama’s to lose. Two main reasons that came to mind was first the national trends; the polling data shows him ahead in five of the seven key battleground states and winning the Electoral College, 331-221. Second, John McCain doesn’t work weekends.

My friend told me he was disgusted with the GOP at the national level, but couldn’t bring himself to vote for Barack. He was also somewhat hesitant to share his opinion because he didn’t want to come across as racist. I told him genuine disagreements don’t make a person racist. Although I think some of the attacks against Obama can be construed that way when they have nothing to do with policy.

However, I told my friend if he really wanted to fight bigotry, he should vote for Barack, because if Barack was elected President, Blacks would have nothing else to complain about and could no longer point the finger at white people for their troubles. I told him when someone calls him racist he can say, “Hey, I’m not prejudiced, I voted for Obama.” Barack can’t win the Presidency without white voters so what better way to get people to shut up about racism.

In addition, Blacks can no longer complain about the man, because as one comedian put it, President Barack Obama means we are the man.

The same people who complain about white rice being “enriched” and brown rice being “wild” will have to go somewhere and sit down.

The same people who complain about white cake being called “Angel Food cake” and black cake called “Devil Food cake” will have to shut up.

And the best thing about electing a Black President, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will have to go find real jobs.

My friend from Kansas is giving Barack a second glance. I’m back in town tomorrow.

The U.S. Supreme Court has said you have an individual right to own a gun. It also said you do not have the individual right to own a weapon that can be fired from the shoulder.

The opinion in D.C v. Heller went through a very detailed (157 pages) analysis of the 2nd Amendment. In so many words the Court said the Second Amendment is an individual right and governments can’t just outright ban them.

It’s also important to remember the other part of what the Court’s opinion said…

“Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep an carry any weapon for any purpose whatsoever in any manner whatsoever for whatever purpose.”

This is called common sense. No total bans and reasonable restrictions. Who could argue with this?

I’m taking a few days off to go play attorney in Missouri. In the meanwhile, I’m leaving the forum open for you guys and gals to talk about whatever floats your boat. Here are a couple things to watch out for while I’m out.

• Watch for the GOP to select youth worker Gabrielle Campo as their likely nominee for the 7th Congressional District.

• Watch for Andre Carson to head to Florida for a little fund-raising.

• Watch for John McCain to charge $1,000 to have lunch with him on Tuesday here in Indianapolis.

• Watch for IMPD to step up and get real aggressive in dealing with those open drug markets in some parts of the city.

• Watch for a possible public apology, but no admission of guilt, from City-County Councilor Doris Minton-McNeill.

• Watch for Marion County Democrats to stay internally disorganized while revolutionaries continue to plot against Marion County GOP Chairman Tom John.

• Watch for this summer’s property tax protests to not be as big as last year’s.

• Watch for the U.S. Supreme Court to split the difference on the 2nd Amendment saying the government can regulate firearms but not to the point of an outright ban. (This is my wild speculation because no one ever knows what the SCOTUS will do until they do it.)

• Watch for me to chime in when I’m supposed to be taking a working vacation.

I’m trying to figure out what’s up with Democratic candidate for Governor Jill Long Thompson and former candidate Jim Schellinger.  Schellinger wrote an op-ed piece for the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette reflecting on the primary. 

He said while running a statewide campaign was challenging, he enjoyed meeting with Hoosiers from across Indiana.  He also admitted to making some mistakes along the trail, but learning quite a bit at the same time.   And he thanked the people he met along the way.  (Your favorite pundit even got a “thank you” letter.)

One person he did not mention was Jill Long Thompson.

I thought it was odd that Schellinger would not acknowledge his rival, because he wished her luck in a June 2 letter to Democratic County Chairmen and other supporters.   It stopped being odd when I realized there is still bad blood between the two camps.

From what I’ve been able to gather, JLT called Schellinger for an endorsement.  He agreed but wanted to talk about it first.  The two also agreed to have their two campaign managers with them.  However, someone from the JLT camp decided the meeting would be a waste of time and cancelled.  

I e-mailed the the JLT folks, but had no reposnse as of last night.

While a Schellinger endorsement wouldn’t make or break the campaign, I think it would go a long way to showing the type of party unity a candidate needs to be successful.

After all if Hillary and Barack can work out their differences,  surely these two can also.