April 17 2023

John Krull commentary: Indiana’s lawmakers play kiss the ring with the NRA

Just when it seems as though the lawmakers in the Indiana General Assembly have demonstrated they are as far removed from reality as is humanly possible, they find another level. A new dimension of delusion and detachment from real people’s lives. On the same day that another m “...”

April 10 2023

John Krull commentary: The Tennessee Three’s lesson about government

Just as night follows day, political power unjustly acquired inevitably will become political power unjustly exerted. The eyes of the nation and the world these days are on Tennessee’s House of Representatives. That chamber voted to expel two members, Rep. Justin Jones, D-Nashv “...”

April 08 2023

John Krull commentary: The wrong we do will live on

Some unfortunate moments and dumb acts are merely reasons to feel regret. Some, though, become enduring sources of shame. The measure approved by the Indiana General Assembly and signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb banning gender-affirming care for minors falls into the latter c “...”

March 23 2023

John Krull commentary: What’s around the corner isn’t good

Jeff Smulyan delivered the line almost as a throwaway, but it had a sting. Speaking at an Economic Club Luncheon in Indianapolis, Smulyan, the founder and CEO of Emmis Corp., referred to the Indiana General Assembly’s obsession with punishing a small minority of Hoosiers. Smuly “...”

March 11 2023

John Krull commentary: Todd Rokita, and the hole that goes all the way to China

Shovel salespeople must love Todd Rokita. Whenever Indiana’s attorney general digs himself into a hole, his response is to just keep scooping. It’s hard to know whether short-sightedness or some compulsion toward self-destructiveness drives this tendency of Rokita’s, but it “...”

March 03 2023

John Krull commentary: The incredible shrinking Indiana GOP

As they reached the halfway point of the 2023 legislative session, the members of the Indiana General Assembly made their priorities clear. They focused inordinate amounts of time and energy on making the already difficult lives of transgender students even harder, keeping studen “...”

February 23 2023

John Krull commentary: A new slogan for Indiana politicians

The members of the Indiana General Assembly possess a real passion for solving problems that don’t exist or that they created themselves. Real problems, on the other hand, they pretend not to see. The push to pass a measure modeled after Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law is “...”

February 21 2023

John Krull commentary: Scavenger bird in the Indiana secretary of state’s office

Elect a clown, the joke goes, and you should expect a circus to follow. Sometimes, you even get the clown’s brother-in-law as part of the act. The news, first reported by The Indianapolis Star, that Indiana Secretary of State Diego Morales hired his brother-in-law is an outrage “...”

February 17 2023

John Krull commentary: Look at what the students did

College students can do amazing things. I know I’ve seen them make magic happen. In 2006, not long after I came back to Franklin College—I am an alumnus—to become the director of the Pulliam School of Journalism, I took a team of students to Indianapolis to cover the first “...”

February 14 2023

John Krull commentary: What students ‘really’ need, lawmakers think

It’s a good thing Indiana Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, and other gun devotees in the Indiana General Assembly aren’t in charge of fire safety at state schools. If they were, their “solution” to classrooms set ablaze would be to make sure that every teacher had a can of gaso “...”