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Harrison County will have up to 10 town elections this year. Towns that could see elections are Corydon, Crandall, Elizabeth, Laconia, Lanesville, Mauckport, Milltown, New Amsterdam, New Middletown and Palmyra. Positions available are town council members and clerk-treasurers.

Candidate filing began the first week of January; however, deadlines are dependent on the party.

For Democrat, Republican and Libertarian parties, the deadline will be noon on Aug. 1.

For write-ins (names not listed on the ballot), the deadline will be noon on July 3.

For independents, the deadline will be noon on July 17, along with petitions signed by 2% of the registered voters of their town who voted in the 2022 General Election (deadline for petition is noon on June 30).

The qualifications to meet for potential candidates running for town office include:

Candidate must be registered to vote within town limits.

Candidate must reside within the town where they are seeking office.

Candidate must never have been convicted of a felony.

Candidate is not a member of the United States armed forces on active duty.

Candidate must file a declaration of candidacy before the deadline.

To run for a town office as a Democrat, Libertarian or Republican, a voter must contact his/her respective county chair and tell them about their desire to be nominated. Those party chairs are Katie Forte (Democrat) and Scott Fluhr (Republican).

For Independent candidates, petitions will can be filed at the Circuit Court Clerks office any time from now until June 30.

If there are no major party candidates, the first Independent candidate will have their name at the top of the ballot. Otherwise, the Independents name will be listed below the Repbulican, Democrat or Libertarian party candidates and will be listed in the order of petition filing, respectively.

Perspective candidates can also write their own names in as a write-in candidate if they do not like the other options, but they must file with county clerks office before noon on July 3.

For more information, contact the Harrison County Clerks office at 812-738-4289 or email SherryBrown@harrisoncounty.in.gov. for more information.

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Town elections to take place this year - Madison Courier

In the wake of Silicon Valley Banks collapse, followed by the FDICs decision to make good on all SVB deposits (even if they were uninsured), Ive seen one pundit after another describe the situation as nothing more than a bailout for the rich. Follow certain accounts on Twitter and you might think that SVBs client list consisted exclusively of libertarian billionaires.

Now if their criticism was aimed solely at rich investors, I might not say anything publicly. No ones going to shed a tear for the venture capital firmsand no one should. If someone wants to talk about how our industrys herd mentalitycontributed to SVBs fate, thats only fair.

What isnt fair, however, is acting as if everyone with an SVB account is the samefailing to distinguish between creditors and depositors, or between large and small businesses.Its easy to paint situations like this with a broad brush if you believe they only affect the richbut why should we lose empathy for hardworking people just because of where they bank?

Yes, when Eniac invests in a startup, we believe it could become the next unicorn or decacorn, and that it should make its founders wealthy in the process. But even as we hope our portfolio is full of future Jobses and Zuckerbergs (but better!), the key word isfuture.

While SVB hasnt released a detailed breakdown, Ive been told that the bank had thousands of depositors with fewer than 20 employees. The current reality for those depositors involves scrappily leading small teams to pursue their vision of building something transformative when they could probably be working less and making more money if they were at one of the big incumbents.Today, Americas mom-and-pop businesses are led by these entrepreneurs who are building companies in climate, healthcare, fintech, and more.

These are the founders our team has been talking to, listening as they strategized about how to ensure their small businesss survival beyond the coming weeks, and as they agonized over what this would mean for their teams. Their employees were suddenly left wondering if theyd actually receive their next paychecks, or if they might lose their jobs.

These are stories for the founders, not me, to tell. Most of them, of course, have been more focused on keeping their company afloat than on external communication. So Ive been grateful to those few who have been willing to publicly share their experiences:

Criticize the billionaires and the VCs all you wantbut remember that theyre not the majority of depositors affected by the news. Many future American innovators breathed a sigh of relief when they realized that their companies would live to fight another day and they could continue to employ the hard-working team members who depend on that paycheck to put food on the table.

Nihal Mehta is a co-founder and general partner at Eniac Ventures.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs ofFortune.

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Dont believe the pundits who conflate middle-class entrepreneurs and Big Tech. Startups are todays mom-and-pop businesses - Fortune

As long as the awful law exists, concerning which the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on Monday, be careful what you say to, or write about, unauthorized immigrants.

Congress, in one of the federal governments increasingly frequent offenses against the First Amendment, makes it a crime if one encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in this nation in violation of federal law. Let the formulation of hypotheticals begin in order to illustrate the laws unconstitutional vagueness and overbreadth.

Suppose a pediatrician says an unauthorized immigrants child needs medical care that is available here but not in the country from which the immigrant came.

Has a crime been committed?

According to the Migration Policy Institute, approximately 11 million unauthorized immigrants have been here for almost two decades. They are a declining portion of the growing U.S. population 30 percent in 2007, 23 percent in 2018. And there is no reason to believe that Americans in their decency would tolerate the police measures that would be necessary to substantially reduce that number. Now, suppose you factually tell an unauthorized immigrant that his or her chance of being deported is small.

Did you criminally induce that immigrant to reside here?

Seventy-eight percent of unauthorized immigrants have resided here for more than five years, the institute says; 19 percent for 10 to 14 years, 21 percent for 15 to 19 years, 22 percent for 20 or more years. Twenty-four percent have high school diplomas or equivalents; 18 percent have bachelors, graduate, or professional degrees. Sixty-five percent are employed and 28 percent are homeowners.

How many U.S. citizens, in their many interactions with these people over many years, could be said to have encouraged or induced any of them to reside here knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that this is illegal?

The law in question provides enhanced penalties for people who encourage or induce illegal immigration for financial gain. Damon Root, who writes about legal matters for Reason magazine, published by the libertarian Reason Foundation, posits: Suppose an advocate of open borders writes a book arguing that restrictions on immigration are unjust and calling for unauthorized immigrants to remain, hopes for better policies, and fights for their rights. Selling such a book, Root writes, would seem to violate the plain text of the law at issue in Mondays oral arguments in the case concerning Helaman Hansen.

He was convicted, and given an enhanced sentence (240 months), for a fraudulent and lucrative plan that purported to enable undocumented immigrants to pay to become U.S. citizens. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit vacated his conviction last year, endorsing his argument that the law is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague. The law at issue is ominously symptomatic of casual violations of the letter and spirit of the First Amendment.

In the years since the 2002 enactment of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, speech restrictions imposed or encouraged sometimes that is a distinction without much difference by government have become more common. McCain-Feingolds purpose was to regulate the quantity of political speech: All campaign spending is, directly or indirectly, for the dissemination of political advocacy. Since then, and especially recently, government has become promiscuous and audacious in attempting to regulate speech.

The Department of Homeland Security failed to embed in American life a Disinformation Governance Board. But other government agencies have practiced what George Washington University Law Schools Jonathan Turley calls censorship by surrogate by, for example, numerous moderation requests to Twitter, and perhaps Facebook and other social media. Government, says Turley, cannot use private agents to do indirectly what it cannot do directly.

In the name of public health, government has encouraged the suppression of certain views about vaccines, masks and the origins of the coronavirus. In the name of national security, government sought to discredit critics of the false theory that the surfacing of Hunter Bidens laptop was a Russian intervention in the 2020 election.

After Silicon Valley Bank capsized, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) participated in a Zoom call with other members of Congress and Federal Reserve, Treasury and other officials. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) says Kelly asked whether there was a program that could censor social media posts that, by sowing doubts about the banking systems health, might cause bank runs. Kelly denies suggesting censorship. Perhaps there was a misunderstanding.

Given, however, the governments recent attempts to shape the information ecosystem, and given the governments slapdash criminalization of speech by means of the law the court will consider come Monday, wariness is prudent.

George Will is an American libertarian-conservative political commentator and author.

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How government casually violates letter and spirit of First Amendment - NUjournal

Greg Gutfeld has never hosted the Academy Awards, done carpool karaoke with Ariana Grande or chugged cocktails with Lizzo. Yet he's become the hottest name in late-night TV by sticking to a simple, but smart, formula: Cater to a conservative audience tired of being beat up by liberal Hollywood.

Gutfeld, a former editor at Men's Health and Stuff magazines, has been part of Fox News since 2007. But it wasn't until two years ago that he became a force that can't be ignored with the launch of "Gutfeld," which airs at 10 p.m. Monday through Friday. His program averages more than 2 million viewers a night, thanks in no small part to having Laura Ingraham as his opening act. But it's still impressive that he has more than five times the audience that "The Daily Show" can muster. On most nights, he has higher numbers than any of the network hosts, with Stephen Colbert as his closest competitor.

The fact that he does it with mediocre material and a minuscule budget shows just how hungry conservatives are for humor. Any humor.

"Gutfeld" airs from an intimate New York studio with lights so hot that you could probably roast a chicken on stage. After a snarky monologue, the 58-year-old host turns to four panelists, often regular Fox contributors hot-footing it over from nearby sets.

The mix usually includes a stand-up comic, a marquee name like Sarah Palin or Kat Timpf, a 34-year-old libertarian commentator who often looks embarrassed to be sharing space with guests her parents' age. When Gutfeld tried to explain the plot of "Indecent Proposal" to her, she reacted like he was trying to revive the telegraph.

"I don't even know who Robert Redford is," she said.

The conversation is sometimes interrupted by taped comedy bits, like one that imagined a Zoom debate between Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Vice President Kamala Harris. The impressionists were so awful that I wouldn't be surprised to learn they were volunteers from the studio audience.

Gutfeld himself is the show's biggest draw. He may come from a print background but he's got the timing and delivery of a veteran stand-up. I could do without his habit of teasing segments with corny rhymes ("There's no disputing/The downed drone was Putin?") but he seems to relish the fans' groans.

I wish he and his writers were more ambitious.

In mid-March, the war raged on in Ukraine, Silicon Valley Bank collapsed and Donald Trump inched closer to being indicted. But the show mostly ignored those issues, focusing instead on the threat of the woke movement.

Gutfeld routinely acts as if policies catering to trans people are the most divisive issue to face this country since the Civil War.

There's also a tendency to pick at low-hanging fruit way past its expiration date. A new Fox Nation documentary gave Gutfeld the excuse to once again go after Jussie Smollett, the actor who falsely claimed he was targeted in a racial attack more than four years ago. Gutfeld poked fun at Brian Stelter, who lost his high-profile gig at CNN seven months ago. The audience broke into applause when he compared Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Clintons.

Like a number of his Fox colleagues, Gutfeld seems to take particular delight in going after "The View," joking that Guinness World Records gave the panel the title of heaviest program in daytime TV.

An entire segment was dedicated to a recent conversation on "The View" in which Sunny Hostin admitted that she still has her groceries delivered to her home. Gutfeld and his cohorts reacted like she had sold classified documents to the Chinese.

After one particularly nasty joke, Gutfeld asked: "Did I go too far or not enough?"

Those who despise everything about Fox would answer: Too far. For those who would welcome a truly funny show from a conservative viewpoint, it's not enough.

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Why Fox News' Greg Gutfeld is the king of late-night TV - Star Tribune

The Washington Post

The United States recently suffered the second- and third-largest bank failures in the countrys history.

This wasnt supposed to happen. A slew of protections were put in place after the financial crisis 15 years ago to prevent a repeat of big banks collapsing and nearly taking down the whole banking system with them.

But once again, the federal government had to step in with what amounted to a bailout of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank along with a bazooka of aid to prevent more banks from collapsing. Its welcome news that the dramatic action appears to have prevented other regional banks from toppling, too, though no one should be pleased. Bankers were once again taking unwise risks, and regulators were once again too lax.

Theres more to learn about all of the mistakes that led to this moment, but its already obvious midsize financial institutions need additional scrutiny. What is now apparent is that the list of too big to fail banks is far longer than most assumed. Congress and regulators have to face this new reality and rapidly adjust. Silicon Valley Bank was the nations 16th largest with about $200 billion in assets, and Signature Bank was the 30th largest with about $110 billion in assets.

These banks put profit over prudence. Silicon Valley Bank courted startups and venture capital money. Signature Bank wanted to be a player in crypto and real estate. Both had a heavy reliance on high-risk clients with many deposits well over $250,000, which is supposed to be the upper limit for insurance from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

On top of that, Silicon Valley Bank heavily bought assets that sank in value as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to fight inflation. When depositors attempted to rapidly withdrawal $42 billion earlier this month, the bank had no option but to sell those assets at a deep loss.

The FDIC, the Fed and the Biden administration calculated they had no choice but to make all of Silicon Valley Banks depositors whole. Among them were companies such as Roku and Roblox, which might have had to struggle to pay workers if they had lost their uninsured funds.

Then there was fear that panic might spread into a classic bank run if people and businesses suddenly withdrew money en masse from other midsize financial institutions. The risks to the broader economy and banking system turned out to be hefty. When the crisis came, tech luminaries and bank heads, some of the most vocal proponents of free markets in Silicon Valley, were willing to set aside their libertarian principles to plead for help.

Taxpayers were not on the hook for this bailout. Regulators used money from fees that banks pay to the FDIC. But a dicey precedent was set that all deposits of any size would be treated as though they were insured. Banks wont like it, but this new environment will likely require higher fees so the pot of emergency funding at the FDIC remains large enough going forward. If it is not, taxpayers could indeed have to step in directly as that fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government.

Originally posted here:
Another viewpoint: Bank failures will change system - Seymour Tribune