Will Star Investigate Serious Allegations About Andre Carson?

The Star's Mary Beth Schneider took up a Democratic spoon-fed nonissue in the 7th District congressional race and attempted to make into a big deal to harm State Rep. Jon Elrod's campaign for Congress. You know who stood up in the balcony and videotaped Elrod signing campaign letters on campaign-paid stationery, folding them up, licking them himself and placing them in campaign-paid envelopes. As someone who has spent a lot of time working around legislatures in the past, I can assure you it is a common practice for the part-time lawmakers to tend to other matters while they are over at the State House. Insurance agents work on selling insurance in between meetings. Attorneys work at their desk on client matters. Business owners tend to matters pertaining to the businesses back in their districts by telephones. And yes, legislators tend to campaign matters. Everyone at the State House knows this happens, but until today, nobody made a big deal out of it. Yet, Mary Beth Schneider, who has always written stories to help out the Carson political machine, tries to do a hit job on Elrod today.

If she were really doing her job, she would have walked across the street and picked up a copy of Andre Carson's personnel file from the Indiana State Excise Police. There's plenty in there worth mulling over. Carson had no formal education beyond maybe a high school diploma when his grandmother, the late Rep. Julia Carson (D), pulled strings to get him and his cousin, Sam Carson, a job working as state excise police officers, passing up more qualified candidates for the jobs. Prior to becoming excise police officers, the two had patronage jobs working for their grandmother in the Center Township Trustee's office doing little more than earning a paycheck at your expense. Carson finished 88th out of 89 in his class at the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy. Yet, while working this full time job, Carson somehow managed to earn a bachelor's degree from Concordia University in a faraway place called Mequon, Wisconsin. He started classes in the Spring of 2001 and had his degree in hand by the Summer of 2003. That's no small task when you're supposedly being paid to work full time for the state. By 2006, Carson had also earned a master's degree from Indiana Wesleyan University.

As I learned from Supt. Alex Huskey of the Indiana State Excise Police, much of Carson's personnel file has been missing since a grand jury led by former Prosecutor Scott Newman seized his file. The investigation was prompted, in part, over allegations Carson's former boss, Gene Honeycutt, had been showing political favoritism in the office. That investigation resulted in Honeycutt pleading guilty to charges he accepted favors in the form of free food, alcohol and the services of strippers at two Indianapolis area strip clubs. Another excise employee, Jack Dugan, was charged with ghost employment. Advance Indiana has learned from sources that Honeycutt is not the least bit pleased with how events turned out for him and believes the Carson political machine bears blame for his downfall. Both Honeycutt and Dugan lost their jobs. The Carson boys got to keep their jobs. Former Prosecutor Scott Newman always had a soft place in his heart for the Center Township gang because they supposedly helped him defeat former Prosecutor Jeff Modisett. There's much more to be told about this sordid mess, but the local news media won't cover it. They won't cover it because it will be extremely damaging to Andre Carson's political aspirations. Yet, Schneider will take something she knows that most lawmakers over at the State House do every day and try to use it to destroy the political chances of a decent elected official like Jon Elrod.

We're sick and tired of the local news media in this town acting as the enabler for the Carson political machine and allowing them to get by with all sorts of unethical and corrupt practices while holding our respected elected officials to a much higher standard. “Democrats are going to pull out every trick in the book,” State GOP Chairman Murray Clark told Schneider. “I’m going to call Jon and make sure he pulls his shades at night.” Well, Ms. "I'll do anything I can to help elect another do-nothing Carson to political office" Schneider, we don't intend to let you get by with it again and stick us with a representative in Congress who is completely and utterly unqualified to hold the office.