V25, N37 Thursday, June 4, 2020 Race could impact Spartz/Hale Mrvan prevails in 1st CD on the thrust of Visclosky By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – To understand how 5th CD Democratic nominee Christina Hale will have to thread the proverbial needle to turn this reliably red district to blue in her race against Republican State Sen. Victoria Spartz, look no further than Carmel City Hall. In a bizarre subplot to the COVID- delayed Tues- day primary, on white, 3% black, and 9% Asian. The “threats” presumably Monday, Mayor James Brainard were made by protesters in Indianapolis. In other major threatened to sue Minneapolis for U.S. cities there were threats by protesters of taking their costs his city had incurred from actions to the suburbs. A source told HPI he witnessed a the protests and riots that had Carmel demonstration Tuesday near the Monon Center, spread across the nation. And describing it as “five African-Americans and whites who Brainard invoked a curfew, its duration “indefinite” due to looked like they belonged to the Carmel Honor Society.” what Carmel Police Chief Jim Barlow described as “threats On Wednesday, Brainard announced he had ended the cur- directed toward our community,” insisting the curfew was few, but said it could be reinstituted if further information “necessary to better ensure the safety.” According to the 2010 Census, Carmel is 85% Continued on page 3 American carnage revisited By BRIAN A. HOWEY CARMEL – Donald Trump stood before us in January 2017 and surveyed a tormented nation that had chosen what it believed was the lesser of two evils. He and Hillary Clinton had offered Americans two nominees with “I’m calling for the Election the highest negatives in presidential election history. At his 2016 Republican National Conven- Commission to extend no-fault tion acceptance speech, he vowed, “When I take the oath of office absentee voting to the General next year, I will restore law and or- Election and come to a biparti- der to our country. Nobody knows the system better than me, which san agreement about extending is why I alone can fix it.” necessary deadlines. This is He added, “Here, at our convention, there will be no lies. something Hoosier voters want.” We will honor the American people - Democrat Chairman John Zody with the truth, and nothing else.” Six months later, President Page 2 Trump surveyed at his inauguration when he carried Pennsylvania, Michi- an insecure America teeming of crime, gan and Wisconsin by about 80,000 gangs and drug abuse. “This American votes. carnage stops right here and stops If the election were held right now,” he said. today, Trump would lose to Biden in Today, President Trump pre- a landslide. Just in the past day, polls Howey Politics Indiana sides over a nation that has lost more in Texas and Ohio showed Trump in WWWHowey Media, LLC than 100,000 souls to the COVID-19 statistical ties (he won Texas by 9% c/o Business Office pandemic that he suggested in March in 2016) while two Fox News polls PO Box 6553 would magically disappear by April. He show him losing Wisconsin (49-40%) signed off on an economic shutdown and Arizona (46-42%). Kokomo, IN, 46904 that tanked the economy, sending job- But the election is not www.howeypolitics.com less numbers into a freefall not seen today. It’s a little under five months since the Great Depression. When a from now and as I repeatedly said Brian A. Howey, Publisher Minneapolis police officer pinned a throughout 2015 and 2016, anything Mark Schoeff Jr., Washington black man’s neck to the asphalt pave- can happen. Anything. ment for more than eight minutes, In the past six months, Mary Lou Howey, Editor depriving him of his life, it ignited riots Americans have witnessed a cas- Susan E. Joiner, Editor and looting in dozens of cities, and cading series of events and crises, protests in a hundred others. Subscriptions When a volatile crowd last Friday night forced the Se- HPI, HPI Daily Wire $599 cret Service to take Trump to the HPI Weekly, $350 White House bunker normally used Lisa Hounchell, Account Manager in terror events, it prompted him (765) 452-3936 telephone three days later to clear a peace- (765) 452-3973 fax ful protest across the street with [email protected] percussion grenades and tear gas, prompting widespread criticism Contact HPI that included evangelist Pat Rob- [email protected] ertson and a couple of Republican Howey’s cell: 317.506.0883 senators. Trump didn’t go to the boarded up St. Johns to pray or begin ranging from Trump’s toothless Washington: 202.256.5822 a dialogue. He brandished a Bible as a Senate impeachment trial, to the Business Office: 765.452.3936 prop, then left. possibility of socialist Bernie Sanders Trump wasn’t the only Ameri- winning the Democratic presidential © 2020, Howey Politics can politician to head to the bunker. nomination, an attack by Iran on the Indiana. All rights reserved. Presumptive Democrat nominee Joe U.S. military after we killed a sav- Biden was esconsed in his Delaware age Persian military commander, to Photocopying, Internet forward- basement for much of the past three the ghost of Biden rising from the ing, faxing or reproducing in any months. The reality is that it doesn’t political graveyard, to the pandemic form, whole or part, is a violation matter much what Biden does or says; and its 100,000 deaths, and now the of federal law without permission the November election will be a refer- most prolific spate of racial violence from the publisher. endum on President Trump. to hit American cities since Martin The results from Tuesday’s Luther King’s assassination in 1968. Indiana primary in the 5th CD bear Trump has responded by Jack E. Howey this out. Club For Growth positioned denying the pandemic even existed, editor emeritus its endorsed candidate, State Sen. to routinely touting the coming 1926-2019 Victoria Spartz, as a Trump supporter, “rigged” November election, to his and she won with 39% of the vote, proclamation as a Nixonian “law and matching Trump’s approval in the lat- order” president. Enough Americans est Reuters/Ipsos poll. wanted a “strongman” elected in National polls show Biden 2016 to place Donald J. Trump at leading Trump by double digits, and 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, but a sig- the president was trailing in five of the nificant percentage of that vote came six key battleground states, includ- from people who simply refused to ing the “blue wall” he toppled in 2016 vote for Hillary Clinton. There is now Page 3 speculation that his authoritarian tendencies and his threat ing, we must endeavor to see American cities and towns to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 pose a practical as our homes and our neighborhoods. They are not ‘battle menace to the U.S. Constitution and the fragile American spaces’ to be dominated, and must never become so.” experiment, with Defense Sec. Mark Esper and the Joint Mullen wrote that the St. John’s church episode “sickened” Chiefs pushing back. him and that Trump’s response to the nationwide protests On Wednesday, former Defense Sec. James has brought the United States to “an inflection point.” Mattis weighed in, saying in an extraordinary op-ed in The “Too many foreign and domestic policy choices Atlantic, “I have watched this week’s unfolding events, have become militarized; too many military missions have angry and appalled. Donald Trump is the first president in become politicized,” he said. “This is not the time for my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people stunts. This is the time for leadership.” — does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide Trump appears to be grasping for and playing us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of to his base, and one thing I’m hearing a lot these days is this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences it’s exhausting to be for Trump, particularly when it’s all of three years without mature leadership.” about him. Retired Adm. Mike Mullen added Tuesday in The Trump's "American carnage" has met its inflection Atlantic, “Even in the midst of the carnage we are witness- point. v clearing photo op at St. John’s Episcopal Church across Spartz, Mrvan, from page 1 from the White House, his mulling of invoking the Insur- warrants. rection Act and his summoning of Richard Nixon’s “moral Another cautionary tale that comes with the majority” has the potential of shifting the dynamics in combustible race issue in American politics, Hammond what Democrats hoped for a “purple” 5th CD in November. Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr., himself pitted in an intense Brainard doesn’t fit the profile of an ardent Democratic 1st CD primary race, arrived at a volatile pro- Trumper (he served on President Obama’s climate task test in his city on Saturday and intervened. “When I got force). But his indefinite curfew and talk of threats stand there, nobody was talking to each other,” McDermott told to help Spartz, should racial politics stay in the foreground the NWI Times. “The cops were digging in and not letting of this election. them get to the highway and the protesters were yelling Princeton University political scientist Omar Wasow (curses) at them. The crowd was extremely hostile. They in his May 2020 paper, “Agenda Seeding: How 1960s knew exactly who I was. Black Protests Moved People would come up and Elites, Public Opinion and yell curses at me, although Voting,” found that the some people were saying violent protests following thank you for being here.” the April 4, 1968, assas- While Lake County sination of Martin Luther Sheriff Oscar Martinez cred- King tipped that year’s ited McDermott for “calming presidential race to Rich- the the crowd,” on Tuesday, ard Nixon.