Everyone with a take-home car will pay $64 each month, public safety personnel who use their vehicles in conjunction with a part-time job will pay $128 per month and personnel with a take-home car who live out of county will pay $150 per month.I'm not sure why the administration waited to announce this plan until after the adoption and line-item veto of next year's budget. If transparency in the budget process is the goal, this money should have been on the table during the failed budget negotiations between the mayor's office and the council over next year's budget. The council approved assessing a fee for take-home vehicles when gas prices reached a certain level several years ago, but the administrion never implemented the plan because of how poorly-worded the ordinance sponsored by Councilor Ben Hunter was, who at the time co-owned a private security firm which employed off-duty police officers and opposed charging a fee based on the use of take-home vehicles and police equipment for off-duty work. The Marion Co. Sheriff's Department announced its take-home vehicle fee last spring. It requires personnel to pay a $75 monthly fee for take-home vehicles and a $150 monthly fee if they also use their vehicle for off-duty work.
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Indy Implements Take-Home Fee For Police and Firefighters
The Ballard administration announced this week that a deal had been reached with the FOP and firefighters' union to implement a monthly fee that will be assessed on public safety personnel with take-home vehicle privileges to help offset $7.5 million in annual fuel costs. The fee will generate about $1 million in annual revenues. WRTV's Jack Rinehart explains how the fee will be assessed:
Wednesday, November 07, 2012
Governor Mike Pence Will Have Super Majorities, But Will It Matter?
Given what happened in the national vote last night where President Barack Obama won re-election by a much smaller margin than he did four years ago and without any help from Indiana and Democrats easily retained control of the Senate, it may not make much difference what happens at the Indiana State House. Mike Pence won the governor's race by a much narrower margin than most pundits had predicted, beating John Gregg by a 50-46% margin. He'll also have super majorities in both chambers of the Indiana General Assembly. Republicans in the House bolstered their 60-40 majority to a 69-31 majority without any help from Marion County where the Democrats won every contested race. Incumbent Cindy Noe lost to Christina Hale, while Karlee Macer defeated Tim Motsinger to capture the seat of retiring State Rep. Phil Hinkle. Senate Republicans maintained their 37-13 advantage. Locally, Republican State Sen. Scott Schneider narrowly defeated Democrat Tim DeLaney with the help of the heavily Republican portions of Hamilton County in his district to offset the vote in Marion County.
Perhaps the most surprising statewide race was the defeat of incumbent State School Superintendent Tony Bennett, who lost by a 52-48% margin to Glenda Ritz, whose campaign had virtually no money on which to operate. Incumbent Attorney General Greg Zoeller performed the best of all statewide Republican candidates, easily defeating Kay Fleming by a 58-42% margin. His margin outperformed Mitt Romney, who easily carried Indiana by a 10-point, 54-44% margin. Joe Donnelly's 50% share of the vote in the U.S. Senate race closely mirrored Mike Pence's vote in the governor's race. Richard Mourdock won just 44% of the vote as Libertarian Andy Horning picked up 6% of the vote, performing better than Libertarian Rupert Boneham's 4% share in the governor's race. Indiana's Republicans congressional delegation grows by one with Jackie Walorski capturing Donnelly's 2nd district congressional seat after narrowly defeating Democrat Brendan Mullen. U.S. Rep. Larry Buschon turned back a strong challenge by Democrat David Crooks, winning 53-43% in the 8th District. Susan Brooks will join Walorski as one of Indiana's two female members of House of Representatives. Brooks easily beat Democrat Scott Reske by a 58-38% margin to hold the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Dan Burton in the 5th District.
My pleasure with Indiana Republicans' State House victories is tampered considerably by the re-election of Barack Obama and the Democrats remaining firmly in control of the U.S. Senate. Although the House of Representatives will remain in Republican control, it is no match to President Obama's willingness to ignore the U.S. Constitution and rule the country by executive fiat. With the Supreme Court showing little willingness to rein in Obama's usurpation of his executive powers, the Constitution is for all intents and purposes dead. Obama will continue his mission to strip Americans of their wealth and freedoms and hand it over to his New World Order masters. As Obama assured Russia's prime minister earlier this year, "I will have more flexibility after the election." That unguarded comment by The One over a microphone he thought was turned off should have struck fear in the hearts and minds of all freedom-loving Americans. A majority of American voters increasingly dependent on the government gave us Obama and now the American dream is dead. I've never been more depressed and had more fear about my country's future than I feel this morning. I fully expect things to turn into a living hell in the coming months. Yesterday, we lost the Republic so many brave soldiers sacrificed their lives to establish and preserve.
Perhaps the most surprising statewide race was the defeat of incumbent State School Superintendent Tony Bennett, who lost by a 52-48% margin to Glenda Ritz, whose campaign had virtually no money on which to operate. Incumbent Attorney General Greg Zoeller performed the best of all statewide Republican candidates, easily defeating Kay Fleming by a 58-42% margin. His margin outperformed Mitt Romney, who easily carried Indiana by a 10-point, 54-44% margin. Joe Donnelly's 50% share of the vote in the U.S. Senate race closely mirrored Mike Pence's vote in the governor's race. Richard Mourdock won just 44% of the vote as Libertarian Andy Horning picked up 6% of the vote, performing better than Libertarian Rupert Boneham's 4% share in the governor's race. Indiana's Republicans congressional delegation grows by one with Jackie Walorski capturing Donnelly's 2nd district congressional seat after narrowly defeating Democrat Brendan Mullen. U.S. Rep. Larry Buschon turned back a strong challenge by Democrat David Crooks, winning 53-43% in the 8th District. Susan Brooks will join Walorski as one of Indiana's two female members of House of Representatives. Brooks easily beat Democrat Scott Reske by a 58-38% margin to hold the seat of retiring U.S. Rep. Dan Burton in the 5th District.
My pleasure with Indiana Republicans' State House victories is tampered considerably by the re-election of Barack Obama and the Democrats remaining firmly in control of the U.S. Senate. Although the House of Representatives will remain in Republican control, it is no match to President Obama's willingness to ignore the U.S. Constitution and rule the country by executive fiat. With the Supreme Court showing little willingness to rein in Obama's usurpation of his executive powers, the Constitution is for all intents and purposes dead. Obama will continue his mission to strip Americans of their wealth and freedoms and hand it over to his New World Order masters. As Obama assured Russia's prime minister earlier this year, "I will have more flexibility after the election." That unguarded comment by The One over a microphone he thought was turned off should have struck fear in the hearts and minds of all freedom-loving Americans. A majority of American voters increasingly dependent on the government gave us Obama and now the American dream is dead. I've never been more depressed and had more fear about my country's future than I feel this morning. I fully expect things to turn into a living hell in the coming months. Yesterday, we lost the Republic so many brave soldiers sacrificed their lives to establish and preserve.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Monday, November 05, 2012
Still More On Hurricane Sandy Victims Begging For Help
The hypocrisy of the liberals in this country knows no bounds. They could give a damn less about the plight of the victims of Hurricane Sandy because to complain about the lack of help they're getting would reflect badly on The One. The silence from the Left is deafening.
More On Hurricane Sandy Response
High-rise federal housing projects in New York City remain without power after a week. You can imagine how bad conditions would become in a high-rise building without power for that period of time--no elevators operating, no emergency lighting, no running water or heat of any sort. Why the government hasn't brought generators to power these buildings is anyone's guess.
Mourdock's Missed Opportunity
As I write the day before the election, I fully anticipate that Richard Mourdock will lose his Senate race to U.S. Rep. Donnelly and quite possibly cost Republicans control of the Senate. I don't come to that conclusion lightly, particularly as someone who strongly supports Mourdock and plans to vote for him. I've followed politics long enough though to read the handwriting on the wall.
Despite what most pundits claimed after Mourdock upset Sen. Richard Lugar in a landslide primary victory in this year's May Republican primary, I always thought this race was Mourdock's to win or lose. His upset win over Sen. Lugar was historic and shook the political landscape across the country. Unlike his primary election, money flowed in abundance to his campaign to ensure that he would have all the money necessary to run a credible campaign against a well-funded Democratic opponent. The pundits kept saying that Mourdock wouldn't be able to win over the votes of the so-called Lugar Republicans to win in November. This never made sense to me because Mourdock is no further to the right than Indiana's other senator, Dan Coats, who has won three statewide races, one as recently as 2010. And he's certainly no more conservative than Mike Pence, who polls have consistently showed leading his Democratic opponent John Gregg by healthy margins.
In my view, Mourdock's challenge after winning the primary was to re-introduce himself to Indiana's voters. The Lugar campaign had much more money to spend in the May primary, and it trashed his character thoroughly with a barrage of negative television, radio and direct mail pieces. The vast majority of Republican voters were turned off by the negative attacks, but Mourdock had a real challenge to rehabilitate himself with independent and conservative Democrats in this state who have no problem crossing over and voting for Republican candidates in general elections. Unfortunately, that was a challenge Mourdock's campaign never took up. Mike Pence or his wife, for example, have effectively spoken directly to voters in most of his ads to give you some sense of what kind of person he is.
The Mourdock message, as far as I can tell, has been to simply tie Donnelly to Obama's hip, particularly with respect to his vote in support of Obamacare. In virtually every ad I've seen run by the Mourdock campaign, there is some other voice speaking Mourdock's message. I don't recall any memorable ads where he looked into the camera and spoke directly to the voters to give them some sense of what kind of person he is. In fact, I can't remember watching a single Mourdock ad this campaign season that I would describe as either memorable or effective, including the avalanche of SuperPac ads paid for by outside interests.
Donnelly, by comparison, has run a series of ads where he tells a little bit about himself with a man heckling him in the background with the same message, "Hey Donnelly, it's my way or the highway." Unlike many ads I've watched this year, the Donnelly ads stick in your mind and leave an impression--an impression that has largely gone unanswered by the Mourdock campaign. Donnelly comes across as this affable, straight-talking guy, while Mourdock appears as some marginalized nut case who is not capable of getting anything done. That's an unfair perception, particularly when you look at his record working with Democrats as a Vanderburgh Co. commissioner and as State Treasurer. Nonetheless, Mourdock has failed to disabuse voters of that notion by speaking directly to them with the millions of dollars he's spent on his media campaign.
Some people may say that Mourdock wouldn't come across as well as Donnelly if he spoke directly to voters. I'm not buying that. I still recall the campaign Dan Coats ran against Joe Hogsett for the Senate in 1992. Many Republicans feared that the more photogenic Hogsett, coming off his upset win for Secretary of State over Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut, would overwhelm Coats. Coats immediately put his money advantage to use speaking to voters directly about himself and defining his opponent at the same time. He portrayed Hogsett as this single guy, who had no family and had nothing better to do than be a full-time professional politician. Never mind the fact that Coats had worked in Washington his entire adult life, the image that Coats portrayed of his opponent stuck and helped him handily defeat the younger, more attractive Hogsett in the general election. That image Coats painted of Hogsett stuck, and it hurt him in his subsequent losing campaigns for Congress and Attorney General.
If Mourdock had done a good job at messaging himself early on, I think he could have survived his poorly-chosen words about the rare circumstance of a woman becoming pregnant as a consequence of being raped during his recent debate with his opponents. The reality is that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Mourdock's and Donnelly's positions on abortion, but that won't matter. As it is, the only image most casual voters have to inform themselves of Mourdock is this man who said he likes "to inflict his opinion on others" and that a pregnancy resulting from a rape is something that "God intended." That's all that's in their heads, and it's not a winning message--not by a long shot. Mourdock didn't just fail to deliver an effective message to the so-called Lugar voters. He failed to deliver an effective message to any voters.
Despite what most pundits claimed after Mourdock upset Sen. Richard Lugar in a landslide primary victory in this year's May Republican primary, I always thought this race was Mourdock's to win or lose. His upset win over Sen. Lugar was historic and shook the political landscape across the country. Unlike his primary election, money flowed in abundance to his campaign to ensure that he would have all the money necessary to run a credible campaign against a well-funded Democratic opponent. The pundits kept saying that Mourdock wouldn't be able to win over the votes of the so-called Lugar Republicans to win in November. This never made sense to me because Mourdock is no further to the right than Indiana's other senator, Dan Coats, who has won three statewide races, one as recently as 2010. And he's certainly no more conservative than Mike Pence, who polls have consistently showed leading his Democratic opponent John Gregg by healthy margins.
In my view, Mourdock's challenge after winning the primary was to re-introduce himself to Indiana's voters. The Lugar campaign had much more money to spend in the May primary, and it trashed his character thoroughly with a barrage of negative television, radio and direct mail pieces. The vast majority of Republican voters were turned off by the negative attacks, but Mourdock had a real challenge to rehabilitate himself with independent and conservative Democrats in this state who have no problem crossing over and voting for Republican candidates in general elections. Unfortunately, that was a challenge Mourdock's campaign never took up. Mike Pence or his wife, for example, have effectively spoken directly to voters in most of his ads to give you some sense of what kind of person he is.
The Mourdock message, as far as I can tell, has been to simply tie Donnelly to Obama's hip, particularly with respect to his vote in support of Obamacare. In virtually every ad I've seen run by the Mourdock campaign, there is some other voice speaking Mourdock's message. I don't recall any memorable ads where he looked into the camera and spoke directly to the voters to give them some sense of what kind of person he is. In fact, I can't remember watching a single Mourdock ad this campaign season that I would describe as either memorable or effective, including the avalanche of SuperPac ads paid for by outside interests.
Donnelly, by comparison, has run a series of ads where he tells a little bit about himself with a man heckling him in the background with the same message, "Hey Donnelly, it's my way or the highway." Unlike many ads I've watched this year, the Donnelly ads stick in your mind and leave an impression--an impression that has largely gone unanswered by the Mourdock campaign. Donnelly comes across as this affable, straight-talking guy, while Mourdock appears as some marginalized nut case who is not capable of getting anything done. That's an unfair perception, particularly when you look at his record working with Democrats as a Vanderburgh Co. commissioner and as State Treasurer. Nonetheless, Mourdock has failed to disabuse voters of that notion by speaking directly to them with the millions of dollars he's spent on his media campaign.
Some people may say that Mourdock wouldn't come across as well as Donnelly if he spoke directly to voters. I'm not buying that. I still recall the campaign Dan Coats ran against Joe Hogsett for the Senate in 1992. Many Republicans feared that the more photogenic Hogsett, coming off his upset win for Secretary of State over Indianapolis Mayor Bill Hudnut, would overwhelm Coats. Coats immediately put his money advantage to use speaking to voters directly about himself and defining his opponent at the same time. He portrayed Hogsett as this single guy, who had no family and had nothing better to do than be a full-time professional politician. Never mind the fact that Coats had worked in Washington his entire adult life, the image that Coats portrayed of his opponent stuck and helped him handily defeat the younger, more attractive Hogsett in the general election. That image Coats painted of Hogsett stuck, and it hurt him in his subsequent losing campaigns for Congress and Attorney General.
If Mourdock had done a good job at messaging himself early on, I think he could have survived his poorly-chosen words about the rare circumstance of a woman becoming pregnant as a consequence of being raped during his recent debate with his opponents. The reality is that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between Mourdock's and Donnelly's positions on abortion, but that won't matter. As it is, the only image most casual voters have to inform themselves of Mourdock is this man who said he likes "to inflict his opinion on others" and that a pregnancy resulting from a rape is something that "God intended." That's all that's in their heads, and it's not a winning message--not by a long shot. Mourdock didn't just fail to deliver an effective message to the so-called Lugar voters. He failed to deliver an effective message to any voters.
The Hurricane Sandy Response
What a difference it makes in who occupies the White House. Reporters were all over President George W. Bush for a lackluster government response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans where state and local officials made no organized attempt to evacuate people from the areas most prone to flooding until it was too late to do anything about it. When disaster ensued, it was all the fault of President Bush. Hurricane Sandy, by comparison, posed a much greater threat given its predicted path and its impact on the country's most populous metropolitan area with people living at or below sea level. The media has been falling all over themselves praising President Obama for showing leadership in helping the Tri-State area recover from Hurricane Sandy, while they haven't been shy at criticizing local officials for their response efforts, particularly Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who only called off the New York Marathon after protests grew loud and runners started voluntarily dropping out of the race because of the poor taste it would show in running the marathon when so many people were in dire need of food and shelter. At its peak when it hit last week, 8.5 million people were without power in the metropolitan area. That number was down to just under 2 million as of yesterday. As of yesterday morning, there were 164,000 residents who had applied for emergency aid with FEMA. The situation is more dire for New Yorkers than NOLA faced because of the cold temperatures. People have faced hours-long lines to get gasoline with many gas stations closed due to power outages. Looting is a problem in many areas. Some people are struggling to find food or water to drink. Just finding a place to go to the bathroom has been a problem for many people with the power out and no running water in their buildings. In the video above, Mayor Bloomberg gets an earful from some city residents in the Rockaways neighborhood about the slow response.
Friday, November 02, 2012
American Israelis Pick Romney Over Obama 85-14%
An iVoteIsrael exit poll claims that 80,000 Americans living in Israel cast votes in this year's election, more than double the 2008 turnout, and that 85% voted for Mitt Romney compared to only 14% who cast votes for Barack Obama. According to the report, a significant number come from battleground states like Florida and Ohio where 7,500 and 3,500 votes, respectively, were cast by absentee ballots from Israeli-Americans. The report notes that Bush's winning margin in Florida that gave him the presidency was only 537 votes.
Rasmussen Shows Closer Mourdock-Donnelly Race
A Rasmussen poll released today shows an entirely different picture of where the Indiana Senate race between Richard Mourdock and Joe Donnelly stands. Mourdock lost a narrow 5-point lead he had in Rasmussen's poll taken earlier this month when he stood at 47-42%, five-point advantage over Donnelly. In today's poll, Donnelly has picked up three percentage points, while Mourdock has slid backwards five percentage points to give Donnelly a three percentage point advantage, 45-42%. A Howey Politics-DePauw poll released today shows Donnelly with an 11-point, 47-36% lead over Mourdock. Rasmussen rates the race a toss-up, while the Indianapolis Star and the rest of the Indiana media has climbed on the bandwagon and declared the race over with Donnelly the winner.
Here are some things to keep in mind. The media in this state loved Richard Lugar more than any other politician in this state. I'm not sure why. He moved out of the state 36 years ago and only rarely stopped in for an occasional visit during an election year. Obviously, they never read the former Indianapolis Star reporter and Pulitzer prize winner Dick Cady's book, "Deadline: Indianapolis" where they would have learned that Lugar turned complete control of the City of Indianapolis over to organized crime during his eight years as mayor to protect dark secrets ala J. Edgar Hoover. The media has been out to destroy Richard Mourdock since his landslide victory over their New World Order adherent, particularly the evil Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star, whose corporate headquarters in suburban Virginia Lugar visited as often in recent years as his visits to the state he represents in the Senate.
The pollster for the Howey Politics-DePauw poll is Fred Yang, who works for David Axelrod. We all know how well that team worked four years ago to hypnotize enough Hoosier voters into supporting The One's candidacy, while suppressing the truth about his real biographical narrative from the people. [Listen to the fed's audio recording of Yang discussing the sale of Obama's Senate seat with Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff here.]Yeah, I know that Yang worked with Christine Matthews on his poll, but like Howey, she is a Lugar adherent who wants to see Mourdock destroyed for daring to challenge Lugar. They all want Mourdock to lose so they can declare the Tea Party the Republican Party's true foe rather than the Democratic Party. Would they skew their poll in this election deliberately? Anything is possible. Who would have thought the Obama Justice Department would use the force of the government to exact revenge on the Gallup organization this year because its polling looked too favorable for Romney, while giving former U.S. Senator Jon Corzine, an Obama bundler, a clean bill of health after bilking investors out of billions of dollars? I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of those missing billions are being used to help elect Obama and Donnelly. Don't think this same evil cast of characters don't control the decisions of other so-called professionals. The problem is that it is clear for all to see that the perception has been created that Mourdock is toast ahead of Tuesday's election. It may take an act of God to save Mourdock under the circumstances.
UPDATE: Mourdock's pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, notes an interesting anomaly in the Howey Politics/DePauw poll. Although Romney is leading Obama by 10 percentage points in their poll, Obama is astonishingly beating Romney among independent voters, 41-34%. That is the complete opposite result other reputable polls are showing where Romney consistently leads Obama among independent voters. Even more extreme, their poll shows Mourdock losing to Donnelly among independent voters by a 34-point margin, 51-17%. The Howey poll even shows Mourdock losing heavily-Republican congressional districts and his own 8th congressional district. McLaughlin's poll released today shows Mourdock leading by two percentage points, 46-44%, while it shows Romney leading Obama 54-41%. Also take note of the fact that none of the media in Indiana are mentioning the Rasmussen poll results, despite its national reputation and respect as a leading pollster in the country.
Here are some things to keep in mind. The media in this state loved Richard Lugar more than any other politician in this state. I'm not sure why. He moved out of the state 36 years ago and only rarely stopped in for an occasional visit during an election year. Obviously, they never read the former Indianapolis Star reporter and Pulitzer prize winner Dick Cady's book, "Deadline: Indianapolis" where they would have learned that Lugar turned complete control of the City of Indianapolis over to organized crime during his eight years as mayor to protect dark secrets ala J. Edgar Hoover. The media has been out to destroy Richard Mourdock since his landslide victory over their New World Order adherent, particularly the evil Gannett-owned Indianapolis Star, whose corporate headquarters in suburban Virginia Lugar visited as often in recent years as his visits to the state he represents in the Senate.
The pollster for the Howey Politics-DePauw poll is Fred Yang, who works for David Axelrod. We all know how well that team worked four years ago to hypnotize enough Hoosier voters into supporting The One's candidacy, while suppressing the truth about his real biographical narrative from the people. [Listen to the fed's audio recording of Yang discussing the sale of Obama's Senate seat with Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff here.]Yeah, I know that Yang worked with Christine Matthews on his poll, but like Howey, she is a Lugar adherent who wants to see Mourdock destroyed for daring to challenge Lugar. They all want Mourdock to lose so they can declare the Tea Party the Republican Party's true foe rather than the Democratic Party. Would they skew their poll in this election deliberately? Anything is possible. Who would have thought the Obama Justice Department would use the force of the government to exact revenge on the Gallup organization this year because its polling looked too favorable for Romney, while giving former U.S. Senator Jon Corzine, an Obama bundler, a clean bill of health after bilking investors out of billions of dollars? I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of those missing billions are being used to help elect Obama and Donnelly. Don't think this same evil cast of characters don't control the decisions of other so-called professionals. The problem is that it is clear for all to see that the perception has been created that Mourdock is toast ahead of Tuesday's election. It may take an act of God to save Mourdock under the circumstances.
UPDATE: Mourdock's pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, notes an interesting anomaly in the Howey Politics/DePauw poll. Although Romney is leading Obama by 10 percentage points in their poll, Obama is astonishingly beating Romney among independent voters, 41-34%. That is the complete opposite result other reputable polls are showing where Romney consistently leads Obama among independent voters. Even more extreme, their poll shows Mourdock losing to Donnelly among independent voters by a 34-point margin, 51-17%. The Howey poll even shows Mourdock losing heavily-Republican congressional districts and his own 8th congressional district. McLaughlin's poll released today shows Mourdock leading by two percentage points, 46-44%, while it shows Romney leading Obama 54-41%. Also take note of the fact that none of the media in Indiana are mentioning the Rasmussen poll results, despite its national reputation and respect as a leading pollster in the country.
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