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Ken Colbert
@KColbertReport
Business Owner, singer, genealogist, pro-life, opinionated, America First, and "What you think of me is none of my business"
Indiana, USA
Joined March 2019
3.1K Following
9.8K Followers
21.5K Posts
@JohnRust_IN Yes! Lol
INDIANA
Secretary of State
David Shelton has built his campaign for Indiana Secretary of State around a single, carefully chosen word:
professionalism.
The Knox County Clerk and county Republican chairman promises to strip “personal branding and self-promotion” from the office and to “re-establish the office as a nonpartisan institution.” Shelton’s is a tidy pitch, but on paper it is the pitch of a man who would change as little as possible about how Indiana counts its votes.The people lining up behind Shelton are precisely the people a conservative might expect to favor the status quo. His most prominent backer is Connie Lawson, who ran the Secretary of State’s office for the better part of a decade before stepping down in 2021. Lawson may be the definition of the “old establishment guard,” and Lawson’s blessing tells delegates exactly what kind of officeholder he intends to be: a careful steward of the status quo, rather than a reformer willing to tear up any of the bad rules.
THE DEMOCRAT YEARS.
Start with the matter of party, because Shelton’s is more recently acquired than his county chairmanship might suggest. In 2011 he allowed the Democratic candidate for mayor of Vincennes, Bob Lechner, to mount a large campaign sign on his business property. The following year he ran for the Knox County Commission himself, and he ran as a Democrat, finishing third in the Democratic primary with just 455 votes, around 14% of the field. He was still at it in 2015, the year Donald Trump came down the escalator, when Shelton applied to fill a vacant county council seat as a Democrat, a process that under local party rules required him to have voted in the most recent Democratic primary. Destiny Wells, the Democratic nominee for this very office in 2022, later remarked publicly that Shelton “used to call” her. A man entitled to change his mind is one thing; a man who wishes to be entrusted with the machinery of Indiana’s Republican-run elections while his conversion to the party is barely a decade old is quite another, and Indiana delegates are entitled to ask when, and why, the switch occurred.
JOHN RUST.
The company Shelton keeps now does little to settle the question. Campaign finance filings show a contribution of $1,041.02 from John Rust of Seymour, dated 16 March 2026, and Rust has publicly endorsed the campaign as well.
Rust is the former chairman of the egg producer Rose Acre Farms, and Hoosier Republicans will remember him as the man who tried to challenge Jim Banks for the United States Senate in 2024 and was thrown off the Republican primary ballot for his trouble. The bipartisan Indiana Election Commission voted to remove him, the Indiana Supreme Court upheld the decision, and both bodies found that Rust failed to meet the state’s party-affiliation statute because his two most recent primary votes had not been cast as a Republican. He had voted in the Democratic primaries of 2010 and 2012. Banks, never one to soften a blow, dismissed his rival at the time as a man disqualified “because of his Democrat voting record.” That a candidate now helping to fund Shelton’s bid to oversee Indiana’s elections is himself a man the courts ruled could not lawfully appear on a Republican ballot is the sort of detail that, in a campaign premised on institutional trust, refuses to stay in the footnotes.
AN AWKWARD RECORD ON ELECTION INTEGRITY.
Shelton’s central claim is competence at the one thing the office actually does, and his record as a clerk is where that claim should be strongest. Instead it is where the questions multiply.He has been openly dismissive of the very voters who care most about election security. In 2024 he described Hoosiers who believe elections are “hacked and rigged and stolen” as “election enthusiasts,” a group he said “can be intimidating,” even as he conceded Trump had carried Indiana comfortably. That same year he recounted how his electronic poll books had flagged a voter for what looked like an attempt to vote twice, and explained that because he could not establish the voter’s intent, he simply let the matter drop rather than refer it onward. A chief elections officer who treats a flagged double-voting attempt as a shrug, and treats integrity activists as a nuisance, is an unusual fit for a Republican electorate that has spent four years demanding the opposite posture.His instincts on how Hoosiers should vote have wandered too. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Shelton told the county council, “I’m really going to push those mail-in ballots,” and set about mailing absentee applications widely. Barely a month later he was on social media warning that mail-in voting was “a system that can easily be used in a fraudulent manner.” Which of those two Sheltons would show up to run the state’s absentee system is anyone’s guess. In the 2023 county budget he secured higher pay for poll workers and set Democratic judges at twenty-five dollars a day above their Republican counterparts, explaining that the Democrats simply carried more of the logistical load.Then there is the night the results did not come.
After a 2023 municipal election, the county’s contractor hit a firewall and could not post returns to the website, and Shelton, by his own account, halted the effort and locked up the courthouse before eight o’clock because he “was ready to go home.” He had pushed the figures to the state system and to social media, but “IT issues plague city election” is not the headline a man running on flawless administration wants following him to Fort Wayne.
PUBLIC SERVANT OR PRIVATE VENDOR?
The sharpest questions concern where Shelton’s public office ends and his private ventures begin, because the line runs through several of them. He owns Shelton Specialties LLC, which holds a patent on a stabilizer bracket for electronic poll books, a device the federal Election Assistance Commission credited to the “County Clerk’s Office” and which his company now sells to counties across Indiana at $35 apiece. Whether the sitting clerk developed and patented that device on his own time or is profiting from work done on the public payroll is a question that deserves a straight answer before he is handed authority over every county that might buy it.
He also runs a redistricting consultancy, Redistricting Refined LLC, and has turned up before neighboring county commissions presenting maps in a capacity that is never quite defined as helpful neighbor or paid contractor. In 2020 his firm applied for a $5000, taxpayer-funded COVID grant administered by the very county he serves.
DAVID SHELTON’S CHARACTER.
The administrative calm Shelton projects is not borne out by his history. His business record includes a 1999 aircraft-refurbishing venture that collapsed into a Chapter 7 bankruptcy within two years, 64 creditors listed, alongside a string of state tax warrants in 2001, 2002, and again in 2013. His judgment in public has been combustible: in a 2011 feud with a city inspector over a sign permit, Shelton demanded the man’s arrest at a council meeting, accused him of voter fraud, and threatened to bring in the FBI and the state’s Homeland Security department, conduct that prompted the city attorney to write that Shelton presented a “personal threat” and to invoke the memory of an Indiana mayor murdered by a constituent. His social media, under the handle @omnicientdave, supplies the rest: a 2018 jab at the Special Olympics, a 2019 quip about vibrators, and a 2021 crack about the suicides of police officers. Even his green credentials lean in a direction his prospective electorate may not love.
As a housing authority board member he spent the mid-2010s championing energy audits, low-flow toilets, a recycling program, rooftop solar on a low-income housing project, and a “Knox County Green Partnership” built on stacking, in his words, “grant upon grant upon grant” of federal money. A word on his household, which voters can weigh as they see fit: his wife, Rachel, is a distributor for Pure Romance, the multi-level marketer of adult products. The Pure Romance website advertises vibrators, anal toys, cock rings, butt plugs, bondage products, and even your very own “Pure Romance” party experience.
The company has run corporate campaigns urging customers to oppose what it calls anti-trans legislation. Indeed, in 2018 the Pure Romance CEO donated $2 million to the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital for transgender patient care. The company’s website also includes a transgender-advocacy page asking people to encourage their elected officials to oppose “anti-trans or discriminatory legislation” and commit to “learning and using gender-inclusive language.
THE CHOICE IN FORT WAYNE.
None of this requires inventing a villain; Shelton’s own record does the work. The delegates gathering in Fort Wayne on 20 June are being asked to install as Indiana’s chief elections officer a man who ran for office as a Democrat within the last dozen years, who waves off election-integrity activists as paranoid, who let a flagged double-voting case go, who pushed mail-in ballots before denouncing them, and who is part-funded by a man his own party kept off its ballot for voting Democrat. He calls it professionalism. They should call it what it is, and choose accordingly.
@omnicientdave @Jim_Banks @GovBraun @MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @Jamie4INgov @cdiegomorales @SOSDiegoMorales @GovBraun @HoosierEnquirer @Hoosier_truth
@midwestgoober My family has been here since 1811. The city is run by Socialist.
INDIANA -EVANSVILLE
Evansville continues to spiral to lower depths of societal decline under socialist policies of Evansville Mayor Terry.
The local NGO’s coordinate vehicles for illegals, and yet allow the poor whites to Uber with a dolly.
Evansville is a 💩 show.
@EvansvilleWatch @MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @GovBraun
Who to follow
NRF Productions
@DigitalGashouse
Full Tank NASCAR Content. YouTube channels: NRF Productions, Fuel Cell Full. Business Inquiries: [email protected]
Mackenzie
@MackenzieARohde
Jersey Girl | Fmr. @NHGOP Comms Director | Fmr. White House Intern @realDonaldTrump | opinions are my own*
Somewhere in Time
@Somewhe25118085
The Journey is just Beginning 🇺🇸 Make America Free Again 🇺🇸
@midwestgoober In EVANSVILLE, the libs are socialist. When you use taxpayers money as a government official; you’re a socialist. Everything falls to the lowest common denominator.
IMPD arrests 14 year old black boy today after the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Brett Scrogham, a recent graduate of Indiana University. Brett was killed in a downtown Indianapolis parking garage heading to the Indians game.
It is also reported that the Marion County Prosecutor @ryanmearsindy will NOT charge the 14 year old black boy with capital murder.
@bholtz622 Valid point. Fake Republican was running the Scheme. Uni-party in Evansville.
https://t.co/hrd9mU6BSs
Purdue University in Indiana is ground zero for food insecurity and animal services; it’s premeditated. The Purdue Chinese President just resigned to now infiltrate Notre Dame. The video attached is the owner of an animal hospital sharing his truth on China infiltrating the US Food Supply.
@timburchett @GenFlynn @Jim_Banks @GovBraun @LifeAtPurdue
https://t.co/hrd9mU6BSs
Purdue University in Indiana is ground zero for food insecurity and animal services; it’s premeditated. The Purdue Chinese President just resigned to now infiltrate Notre Dame. The video attached is the owner of an animal hospital sharing his truth on China infiltrating the US Food Supply.
@timburchett @GenFlynn @Jim_Banks @GovBraun @LifeAtPurdue
Let me be clear. An egregious employer in EVANSVILLE hiring illegals, is partnering with a developer to build a new building using the IEDC tax credits.
Imagine rewarding an employer, hiring cheap illegal labor, a brand new building being leased from the government corporate welfare.
Literally in our faces. The frustration is @AGToddRokita ‘s office knows and the charade continues. We are closely monitoring and will get even more vocal. Rokita appears to be protecting the fraudsters over Hoosiers best interest.
Being a “Republican in bad Standing” is a badge of honor. We will not comply.
@indianagop @Jim_Banks @MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @GovBraun
@RepMaryMiller Congress can’t even pass the Save Act. You are virtue signaling.
Every single American who died on 9/11 died in vain.
And the GOP is nowhere to be found because they refuse to address the Islamic terror threat in America.
Now we have Hamas supporters going to Congress to be a voice for Hamas and Islamic jihad.
America 250 will likely mark the end of America. America 250 is going to be a funeral, not a celebration.
INBOX: Child mutiIation flag flying outside Austin, TX Police Dept
Hey @GregAbbott_TX why is this allowed?
Last week, the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus posted their support for Sharia Law.
This week, the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus posted their support for Pride Month.
Considering Sharia Law wants to throw Pride Month off a building, this seems confusing.
Last week, the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus posted their support for Sharia Law.
This week, the Indiana Senate Democratic Caucus posted their support for Pride Month.
Considering Sharia Law wants to throw Pride Month off a building, this seems confusing.
https://t.co/hrd9mU6BSs
Purdue University in Indiana is ground zero for food insecurity and animal services; it’s premeditated. The Purdue Chinese President just resigned to now infiltrate Notre Dame. The video attached is the owner of an animal hospital sharing his truth on China infiltrating the US Food Supply.
@timburchett @GenFlynn @Jim_Banks @GovBraun @LifeAtPurdue
INDIANA
VETERINARIAN CRISIS IN AMERICA
John Piper, a Greenwood Indiana veterinarian, discusses with Cheryl and Ken, the 23 States without licensed veterinary services and the impact to clean US Food supplies.
Purdue University currently has 86 students enrolled in a veterinary program, 50% are required to be from out of State or a foreign Country to participate. The State of Indiana is underserved by a shortage of 600 veterinary students. John alleges the current students pay a placement fee to enroll at the University.
John talks about Clemson University in South Carolina where Senators Tim Scott and Lyndsay Graham are responsible for under serving veterinarian services to residents of South Carolina.
John alleges Mitch McConnell provides a financial incentive of between $10 - $40 million to Senators to thwart the building of veterinary colleges across America.
John discusses the Kentucky Derby and having no veterinary schools to train veterinarians.
Additional details are found at:
https://t.co/fhWJq10Kou
#purdue @thejohnpiperpro @jfradioshow @MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @GenFlynn @GovBraun @braun4indiana @NathanIndiana1 @indgop @AndrewIrelandIN @realDonaldTrump @indgop @Indy_reporter_ @INHouseGOP @INFREEDOMCAUCUS @Trevor4indiana @Hannah__Adamson @AdamsCoINGOP @MsStarDreamer @lcgm1951
INDIANA
VETERINARIAN CRISIS IN AMERICA
John Piper, a Greenwood Indiana veterinarian, discusses with Cheryl and Ken, the 23 States without licensed veterinary services and the impact to clean US Food supplies.
Purdue University currently has 86 students enrolled in a veterinary program, 50% are required to be from out of State or a foreign Country to participate. The State of Indiana is underserved by a shortage of 600 veterinary students. John alleges the current students pay a placement fee to enroll at the University.
John talks about Clemson University in South Carolina where Senators Tim Scott and Lyndsay Graham are responsible for under serving veterinarian services to residents of South Carolina.
John alleges Mitch McConnell provides a financial incentive of between $10 - $40 million to Senators to thwart the building of veterinary colleges across America.
John discusses the Kentucky Derby and having no veterinary schools to train veterinarians.
Additional details are found at:
https://t.co/fhWJq10Kou
#purdue @thejohnpiperpro @jfradioshow @MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @GenFlynn @GovBraun @braun4indiana @NathanIndiana1 @indgop @AndrewIrelandIN @realDonaldTrump @indgop @Indy_reporter_ @INHouseGOP @INFREEDOMCAUCUS @Trevor4indiana @Hannah__Adamson @AdamsCoINGOP @MsStarDreamer @lcgm1951
INDIANA
What the utility says vs Hoosier experience is vastly different. The Indiana Legislature allowed the IEDC to circumvent Hoosiers by providing tax credits and infrastructure funding to the utility providers, paid for by Hoosiers and condoned by the Indiana Utility regulatory commission.
AES Indiana uses that investment to support affordability and reliability for our customers.
AES Indiana’s partnership with Google is structured so that all costs for Google’s proposed data center in Monrovia, Indiana are paid by Google — not the 533,000 customers AES Indiana serves across Central Indiana. In fact, this investment from Google is projected to save AES Indiana customers over $770 million over 15 years.
$770M
Over $770 million projected in customer savings over 15 years
$1.3B
New Indiana energy infrastructure investment
100%
of Google’s energy and infrastructure costs paid by Google
533K
AES Indiana customers benefit across Central Indiana
“Affordability is one of Indiana’s five core energy pillars, and it is central to our planning and decision making.”
— Brandi Davis-Handy, President, AES Indiana
The HEA 1007 filing explains how AES Indiana plans to meet that demand responsibly, without passing costs to the customers who depend on us every day. Central Indiana’s energy needs are growing fast — driven by data centers, electrification, and new technology.
No cost to existing AES Indiana customers:
Google covers 100% of the energy its data centers consume, plus every dollar of new infrastructure needed to serve those facilities. None of those costs are shifted to existing AES Indiana customers.
Lower bills over time
When large customers like Google join the grid, they spread fixed system costs across more users — meaning the cost per customer goes down. Current modeling projects over $770 million in savings over 15 years for existing customers.
A stronger grid for everyone
AES Indiana is planning a phased approach to infrastructure upgrades as growth happens. Google’s investment funds substations, transmission lines, and other upgrades that strengthen the entire grid — not just for the data center. These improvements benefit all Central Indiana customers with greater reliability and resiliency.
Regulatory oversight
Every proposed investment and the agreement with Google must be reviewed and approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission (IURC). AES Indiana expects an order from the IURC in September 2026.
The HEA 1007 filing timeline
Indiana passes HEA 1007 (May 2025)
In 2025, the Indiana General Assembly passed House Enrolled Act 1007 — a law specifically designed to protect existing utility customers when large new customers (like data centers) come onto the grid.
AES Indiana structures the Google deal under HEA 1007 (2025 – 2026)
The Customer Specific Contract (CSC) with Google is a long-term agreement (at a minimum of 15 years). As part of the contract Google pays 100% of its power costs and 100% of all new infrastructure required for its data center in Monrovia, Indiana.
AES Indiana files with the IURC (April 22, 2026)
The filing explains the terms of the agreement and how customer protections are built in — including financial assurances, minimum usage commitments, and exit provisions that prevent stranded costs from landing on existing customers if circumstances change.
IURC reviews and issues an order (September 2026)
The IURC provides regulatory oversight of the agreement and all proposed investments. AES Indiana anticipates receiving the Commission's order in September 2026. No action takes effect without regulatory approval.
“For more than 100 years, our commitment to customers has meant more than delivering affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy. It has meant being a trusted partner to the people and places that make Central Indiana strong.”
— Brandi Davis-Handy, President, AES Indiana
CUSTOMER PROTECTIONS
What keeps AES Indiana customers protected
AES Indiana built multiple layers of protection into this agreement so that if Google’s circumstances change, AES residential and small business customers are not left footing the bill.
IURC approval required
Nothing moves forward without independent regulatory review. The IURC must approve all proposed investments and the terms of the Google contract before any infrastructure is built or costs are incurred.
Financial assurances
Google must provide financial guarantees upfront, ensuring AES Indiana — and therefore customers — are not exposed to risk if the project changes.
Minimum demand commitments
Google is contractually obligated to use a minimum level of power — preventing a scenario where infrastructure is built but underused, creating costs that could fall on existing customers.
Exit provisions
If Google exits the agreement, contractual exit provisions ensure that any stranded costs remain with Google — not transferred to AES Indiana’s residential and small business customers.
Transparent cost separation
AES Indiana uses the HEA 1007 framework to keep Google’s costs completely separate from the rate base used to set prices for residential and small business customers.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
What AES Indiana customers are asking
What is a data center and why does AES Indiana support them?
A data center is a facility that houses computing resources and infrastructure used to process, store, and manage large amounts of data. Data centers are energy-intensive facilities that require a continuous and reliable supply of electricity, cooling, and water to operate effectively.
AES Indiana has an obligation to serve current and potential customers reliably. This includes providing service to new customers while maintaining safe, reliable, and affordable service for existing ones.
FULL ARTICLE:
https://t.co/5qp870oSJB
Ken Colbert was Indeed Denied Due Process
Recent reporting in the Courier & Press (https://t.co/FysMilw2SJ) describes an unusual path for an internal party fight: a misdemeanor citation for “falsely making a declaration of candidacy” after Ken Colbert filed to run for delegate to the Indiana Republican State Convention.
Whatever you think of Colbert, this is a bad precedent. The Supreme court has already ruled that political party conventions are the proper venue for delegate eligibility questions (https://t.co/8BASeSZXvb). Make no mistake, this is politically motivated and legally dubious lawfare.
Colbert has been a thorn in the side of the establishment GOP for some time now. At the 2022 convention, he invoked his rights as a delegate to introduce business to the convention, and he was ignored in spite of loud protests of delegates from the floor.
In 2024 again he ran for delegate.
He won the election but his status as a delegate was challenged before credentials committee. I assisted in his defense. Colbert was ultimately removed from the credentials committee's proposed delegate list due to an in-kind donation he made to an independent candidate in the previous election. On the surface this was an open and shut case.
Of course the Republican Party should not tolerate members who are not loyal to the party!
But if you look a bit deeper, you realize that this is the exact problem Colbert was trying to fight. Among numerous other grievances, various Evansville Republicans including Steve Hammer, a Braun staffer, openly supported the Democrat Stephanie Terry for mayor of Evansville in the 2023 election after their preferred primary candidate lost (https://t.co/6Ph60fcyQF).
If you ask Colbert, he will tell you that his fellow "Republicans in Bad Standing" were simply supporting populist wing MAGA Republican policies and were stonewalled within the local party while other Republicans were allowed to publicly support democrats with no consequences simply because of their high profile connections. Rules for thee and not for me?
But the crux of the matter here is that Colbert was denied due process. While he was removed from the list of delegates in 2024 by the credentials committee, the full convention has the authority to approve, deny, or amend the list. Mr Colbert was denied this opportunity for appeal as he was escorted from the premises by security before he could make his case. I even submitted a separate Motion to the convention to pardon Mr. Colbert for his alleged misdeeds, but the convention chairman again violated fundamental parliamentary procedure to prevent delegates from bringing business before the assembly.
The convention might have voted no, and we would have accepted that, but it was the convention's decision, not the decision of party elites.
This and other related matters are the subject of pending litigation (49D02-2507-CT-033096), the question at stake being whether the Indiana Republican State Committee, or the Convention is the ruling authority over matters of party business.
Do Republicans (or Democrats for that matter) have the right to influence their own party? Is party leadership bound by the rule of law? Is process important? When I awoke to my duties as a citizen in public life, I idealistically thought that there was some modicum of respect for these things, but I quickly learned I was wrong.
The GOP would have done well to harness the energy Mr. Colbert brought to the party. Mr. Colbert and co. did after all recruit some 90 plus people to run for Precinct Committeeman in 2025. What could someone like Ken do with institutional support? It's a huge missed opportunity if you ask me.
Continued. 👇🏻
@MicahBeckwith @LGMicahBeckwith @GovBraun @braun4indiana @SenatorBanks @Jim_Banks @Indy_reporter_ @indgop @Trevor4indiana @INHouseGOP @RobMKendall @RobertOrdway @robert_kruse15 @PaulaCopenhaver @RBagsbyIndiana @
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