Gov. Mike Pence Signs Economic Development Transparency Legislation

Gov. Mike Pence signed legislation authored by State Sen. Mike Delph to provide transparency in the state's economic development activities. The bill requires the Indiana Economic Development Corporation to provide information to the public on the performance goals, jobs created, expected jobs, recaptured incentives and tax credits claimed each year by businesses. It also ensures that taxpayers have access to deal terms and contracts between the IEDC and companies. An online transparency portal being launched by IEDC will make information easily accessible to the public. "Greater transparency and accountability ensure public confidence in our economic development efforts and will help keep Indiana's pro-business environment healthy and competitive," said Pence. "I applaud both the members of the Indiana General Assembly for their work on SEA 162 and the work already begun by the IEDC to enhance transparency for the benefit of Hoosier taxpayers across our state."

Board Of Public Works Scheduled To Approve $2.4 Million Contract For World Sports Park Tomorrow

I doubt that it will do any good, but if you believe it's a horrible mistake for the City of Indianapolis to be spending tens of millions of dollars on construction of a new sports stadium to host international cricketing events, you might want to take time to attend a Board of Public Works meeting scheduled for tomorrow. The agenda for the meeting includes the awarding of a $2.4 million bid to a company called Renascent, Inc. for the "World Sports Park." The meetings are normally held in the Public Assembly room at the City-County Building starting at 1:00 p.m., but the information isn't provided on the Board of Public Works' website or the city's website listing for public meetings so I can't say that for certain. Anybody know anything about this company? Its president is listed as Linda Campbell and the manager is listed as Larry Campbell, which means it's likely another business taking advantage of the compulsory set-aside MBE/WBE racket the Ballard administration has established.

UPDATE: Check out this e-mail Councilor Zach Adamson received from Dennis Rosebrough, a member of the Board of Public Works, defending the World Sports Park boondoggle. Rosebrough likens criticism of the expenditure to those who criticized former Mayor William Hudnut's construction of the Hoosier Dome, which was leveled to make room for a new stadium and convention center expansion before hardly a dollar of the principle owed on the debt had been paid down. Rosebrough is a PR flack for the BMV. I don't know why the hell we allow government employees to be appointed to these boards. He has no business serving on this board. He has a life-time membership in the downtown mafia and all that that implies, which means he will always screw over the taxpayers to support the corrupt pay-to-play establishment that runs this town.

From: Rosebrough, Dennis [mailto:drosebrough@bmv.IN.gov]

Sent: Tuesday, May 07, 2013 9:28 AM

To: Adamson, Zach W.

Cc: Robertlparrin@aol.com; 'Laura Sniadecki'; Miser, Lori; neil.bloede@hotmail.com; Lotter, Marc E.

Subject: RE: Global Sports Complex

Good morning Councilor. Thanks for sharing your opinion. Improving parks infrastructure seems to be an appropriate use of the funds. At the end of the project, we end up with first class athletic fields that can be used for many activities including soccer, lacrosse and other games that require fields. The design does not preclude any use including cricket or Gaelic sports. In the worst case scenario, we end up with a beautiful, multi-functional recreational facility on the east side of the city that can be used by young and old. It could also become a regional center for emerging sports like cricket and draw thousands of people to our community in the future.

There were those who thought a domed stadium addition to the Convention Center was foolish and that even involved a new tax. As a member of the PR group for the that project, we heard all of the arguments. With Mayor Hudnut’s and the City-Council’s bold vision, it was built - and as they say, “the rest is history.” Obviously, this project is not even in the same league (maybe $5 million cost and no tax impact vs. $50 million and a new tax), but it does represent a “vision” for our community. I will proudly continue to support this project.

Dennis L. Rosebrough

Deputy Commissioner - External Affairs Indiana Bureau of Motor Vehicles

Sen. Joe Donnelly Supports Arming Al Qaeda Terrorists

Sen. Joe Donnelly tells the Star's Maureen Groppe that he doesn't support sending troops to fight in Syria, but he thinks we should arm the radical extremist rebels, a/k/a Al Qaeda, in their quest to topple the Assad regime. Uh, the CIA has been arming these terrorists for over a year and using those weapons to kill tens of thousands of Syrians but don't confuse Sen. Donnelly with the facts. That's why the Obama administration is going to such lengths to cover up what was happening in Benghazi, which was another CIA arms-running deal run amok. Donnelly thinks you're too to stupid to figure out that the arms these terrorists are using to fight the Assad regime are being provided to them by the CIA. The lamestream media used to report such matters as scandal. Now it's just a passing comment.

"We are trying to work through right now the best response as to moving forward in Syria, whether that includes no-fly zones, whether that includes arming the rebels," said the Indiana Democrat who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee. "Syria is critical because it is in almost a crossroads of the whole Middle East region. What happens there could spill over on a regional basis."

Donnelly declined to say how the United States should respond if al-Qaeda-linked insurgents get their hands on weapons of mass destruction.

"That cannot be allowed to happened," Donnelly said. "I don't want to speculate as to the steps, but I can assure you that we will do everything necessary to make sure that does not occur."

I hate to burst Donnelly's bubble, but who runs Syria's government is none of our business and it certainly is not critical to our country's national security. If he cared about our national security, why doesn't he support securing our nation's borders, which leak like a sieve?

These people sitting in Congress stopped taking an oath to the U.S. Constitution decades ago. Notice he doesn't even mention the words "declaration of war." During the Vietnam War, the battle raged over how the U.S. could commit U.S. troops to a war that claimed the lives of tens of thousands of American soldiers without Congress declaring a war as provided in the U.S. Constitution. Now they simply defer all these questions to presidents who allow rogue elements of the government to carry out assassinations, run drug cartels, bribe foreign leaders, engage in money laundering schemes and break virtually every other criminal law. As long as the defense contractors stuffing money in their pockets have a market for their products, that's all Congress cares about.

UPDATE: It's official. President Obama ordered the U.S. military to stand down when real Americans, including our U.S. Ambassador was under attack in Benghazi, Libya by terrorists funded and armed by our own CIA.

As the weakly protected U.S. diplomatic compound in eastern Libya came under attack the night of Sept. 11, 2012, the deputy head of the embassy in Tripoli 600 miles away sought in vain to get the Pentagon to scramble fighter jets over Benghazi in a show of force that he said might have averted a second attack on a nearby CIA complex.

Hours later, according to excerpts of the account by the U.S. diplomat, Gregory Hicks, American officials in the Libyan capital sought permission to deploy four U.S. Special Operations troops to Benghazi aboard a Libyan military aircraft early the next morning. The troops were told to stand down.

Defense Department officials have said they had no units that could have responded in time to counter the attack in Benghazi, but Republicans on Capitol Hill have questioned whether the Obama administration could have saved lives with a nimbler, more assertive response. They say that the reluctance to send the Special Operations troops may have, at the very least, deprived wounded Americans in Benghazi of first aid.

Congressional investigators released a partial transcript of Hicks’s testimony Monday ahead of a hearing Wednesday at which he is scheduled to appear. His remarks are the first public account from a U.S. official who was in Libya at the time of the attacks about the options that were weighed as militants mobbed the American diplomatic outpost and CIA station in Ben­ghazi, killing U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other government employees.

The new details are certain to reignite a debate over whether the Obama administration has been sufficiently forthcoming in its public accounting of the events and missteps that resulted in the first death of a U.S. ambassador in the line of duty in a generation. If Republicans in Congress succeed in portraying the administration’s response as feckless, the episode could dog any future political aspirations of Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was secretary of state when the attacks happened.

After the attacks ended without planes being scrambled or special forces dispatched, the lieutenant colonel in Tripoli who commanded the Special Operations team told Hicks he was sorry that his men had been held back.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life that a State Department officer has bigger balls than someone in the military,” the officer told Hicks, according to the diplomat’s account. Hicks called that “a nice compliment.”

Hicks may have been the last American official to speak with Stevens. After an embassy security official ran into his residence to tell him about the initial attack, Hicks managed to get Stevens on the phone. “Greg, we’re under attack,” Stevens blurted out, according to Hicks. “My response is ‘Okay,’ and I’m about to say something else and the line clicks.” . . .

Notice how the Washington Post reporter casually refers to the "nearby CIA complex." The mainstream media ignores the fact that the Benghazi CIA post was operating as an arms-running operation for these terrorists the CIA is arming in Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East. There was no U.S. consular post in Benghazi. It was strictly a CIA post. How many acts of treason will this President be allowed to commit before someone in Congress has the balls to call for his impeachment?

This is an entirely different subject, but has anyone else noticed how there is always some big news distraction every time something very bad comes out about the Obama and his administration. The focus today is all on this three girls found being held captive in Cleveland, Ohio for nearly a decade. Why do these stories always surface as a distraction when Obama is facing very bad news?

Florida Mayor Thinks Ballard Has A Screw Loose For Investing In Cricketing

I shared with you over the weekend a story from the Sun-Sentinel discussing the problem Lauderhill, Florida had in attracting international cricketing events to a new stadium it built for that very purpose in hopes of attracting a supposedly large base of cricketing fans from its Caribbean immigrant population. Lauderhill Mayor Richard Kaplan laments of the facility's ability to land events to sustain the facility, let alone how many people can be drawn to events hosted there. He thinks Mayor Greg Ballard must have a screw loose for thinking his city can fare better than his if it spends millions on a new stadium.

Richard J. Kaplan, Mayor of Lauderhill, Florida, says his letter to the ICC earlier this month was written in a last-ditch effort to get them to intervene and be proactive with the USA Cricket Association (USACA) about holding more events at the cricket stadium at the Central Broward Regional Park before plans are enacted by Broward County officials to convert the venue into a facility for other sports.

"I'm afraid what the county is going to do [is] go ahead and proceed (to make the conversion). We're at the 11th hour," Kaplan told ESPNcricinfo. "The ICC, if they do nothing or they say sorry there's nothing we can do, that is the answer. Cricket in the United States will go away." . . .
Mayor Greg Ballard of Indianapolis, Indiana, visited India earlier this month and discussed plans to construct an international cricket facility in Indianapolis, something that was initially reported by ESPNcricinfo in 2009. Kaplan says that he can't see how any other city would want to follow through on such an investment after witnessing what has happened with the stadium in Lauderhill, which was built as part of a $70 million county park.

"It's been told to me that [USACA] is trying to get other cities in the United States to build facilities that could be accredited," Kaplan said. "I will tell you that I know most of the mayors in the country that may deal with this thing, and I presume they're gonna talk to me about how it turned out in Florida. It isn't gonna be a positive review. I would assume that any area that is doing due diligence on working out the economic viability are going to look at what presently exists, in which case they're going to come and take a look at what happened here, and they're gonna ask what happened."

"It's being utilized a little bit by some Associate members and developmental teams for the ICC. It's [also] being used by some private groups from American College Cricket, but not one of those events puts anybody in the stands. It doesn't sell one ticket. I don't need a multi-million dollar stadium with 5000 permanent seats to sit there with nobody using it. I can understand the county's point that somebody needs to use it. It's a wasting asset."

Without more revenue generating events, Kaplan says that stadium reconfiguration may begin by the end of this summer. The most likely sports that the stadium would accommodate would be soccer, lacrosse or minor league baseball.

Obama Administration Caught In Another False Flag

The Obama administration accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons on its own people ala Saddam Hussein, a so-called red line that President Obama said would warrant the United States entering yet another war in a country in which there is no plausible reason for committing U.S. troops. The UN now claims that it was the American-backed rebels, also known as Al Qaeda, which used chemical weapons. From The Hill:

United Nations human rights investigators said Sunday they have gathered testimony from outside Syria suggesting rebels, not Bashar Assad's regime, may have used chemical weapons.

“Our investigators have been in neighboring countries interviewing victims, doctors and field hospitals and, according to their report of last week which I have seen, there are strong, concrete suspicions but not yet incontrovertible proof of the use of sarin gas, from the way the victims were treated,” Carla Del Ponte, a member of the independent commission of inquiry on Syria, told Swiss-Italian television. “This was use on the part of the opposition, the rebels, not by the government authorities.” 

The allegations will likely make it harder for the Obama administration to justify taking a more active role in the two-year-old civil war on the side of the opposition. The administration has said in recent days that chemical weapons appeared to have been used in Syria, which would violate the “red line” Obama set for Assad's forces.

So much for Obama's self-government meme.

Justin Bieber Busted Lip Syncing: Voice Continues On After Attack By Crazed Fan

Check this out. Justin Bieber is sitting behind the piano performing at a concert in Dubai when a fan rushes up behind him and attacks him. The piano at which he is playing is knocked over in the ensuing ruckus as security guards rushed to his rescue. Watch and listen as he never misses a beat. It's as if nothing happened as audience members begin screaming. Whoops. 

CIA-Employed Uncle Takes Charge Of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Burial Arrangements

Ruslan Tsarni (Steven/Senne/AP photo)

The immediate family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev insist that their son was under the control of federal agents of the U.S. government when he allegedly set the two bombs which we now have confirmed were yet another false flag attack conducted by rogue elements within the CIA against the American people in furtherance of their goal of toppling the Republic and serving it up to the New World Order. Tsarnaev's parents have insisted that Tamerlan and his brother Dzhokhar were framed, and that Tamerlan was initially taken alive by federal agents before he was killed by them. The parents planned to travel to the U.S. to claim their son's body, but the feds turned up the pressure, threatening to bring criminal charges against them, leading them to drop their plans to travel to the U.S. for now. The parents had planned to have an independent autopsy performed to determine the cause of his death.

Tamerlan's mysterious uncle, who was quick to throw Tamerlan and his younger brother under the bus, has now taken charge of handling Tamerlan's burial arrangements. Alternative investigative news reporters have confirmed that Uncle Ruslan is a CIA asset handled by his ex-father-in-law, long-time top CIA official Graham Fuller, the brainchild of the Iran-Contra scandal that rocked the administration of President Ronald Reagan. To no body's surprise, Uncle Ruslan has blocked plans to conduct an independent autopsy because that would violate Islamic tradition, a religion Uncle Ruslan described as being "a fake religion." The Boston Globe reports on Uncle Rulsan's plans for his nephew's remains:

Relatives of Tamerlan Tsarnaev accompanied by religious leaders visited the Graham Putnum & Mahoney Funeral Parlors Sunday morning and planned this afternoon to wash Tsarnaev’s body in the traditional Islamic fashion.

Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, is overseeing burial arrangements for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect, with the help of funeral home director Peter Stefan. It is still not known where Tsarnaev will be buried — a handful of local cemetaries have rejected requests to bury Tsarnaev.

“I appreciate the help that I’m receiving from Mr. Stefan,” Tsarni said to reporters Sunday. “Tamerlan Tsarnaev has no other place to be buried. There is no other place to accept this body.

“He lived in America. He grew up here and for the last 10 years he decided to be in Cambridge, therefore any contemplation that the body should be taken to a home country...his home country is Cambridge, Massachusetts,” Tsarni said.

Family members had been expected to have a second medical examination conducted on Sunday, but it is now unclear whether any further examination if Tsarnaev’s body will take place.

Stefan initially said he was expecting an independent medical examiner to be sent by the family’s attorneys. But Stefan said he was told this morning that second full autopsy will not be performed, but that representatives from the family’s legal team will likely photograph the body before it is washed.

Once the body is washed, no further medical examination can be conducted without violating the religious burial tradition, Stefan said.

“Once that body is washed and shrouded, the only place we’re going after that is to the cemetery,” Stefan said . . .

Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker correctly called it first two days ago when he suggested that the CIA had taken control of the Boston bombing investigation as he lamented the disgraceful role the American media has played in covering the story.

RIP Governor Otis Bown

Former Governor Otis Bowen, 95, passed away yesterday evening at the Catherine Kasper Life Center in Donaldson, Indiana. The popular two-term governor from Bremen also served as Secretary of Health & Human Services in the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Gov. Mike Pence released the following statement on his passing:

"Governor Otis R. Bowen's contributions to the life of this state and nation are incalculable, and I mark his passing with a sense of personal loss. His story is as inspiring as it is uniquely Hoosier.

From his early days in Fulton County where his dreams of practicing medicine were born, to his service in uniform in World War II, "Doc" Bowen's life would be defined by caregiving and public service. Upon his return from military service, he started a private medical practice in Bremen and began a career in public life that carried him from local office to the General Assembly and on to one of the most consequential governorships of Indiana's second century. 

As the first governor since 1851 to serve two consecutive terms in the office, our 44th governor led Indiana through a season of reform in taxes, healthcare, and government administration. Governor Bowen also advanced historic improvements to our state park and recreation system, helping to create five new state parks including the first urban park in Indiana.  

After leaving office, "Doc" Bowen returned to medicine as a professor at the Indiana University Medical Center, but in 1985, this extraordinary Hoosier would be called, once again, to public service when President Ronald Reagan nominated him to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Secretary Bowen would lead that government agency until January 20, 1989, when President Reagan left office. Coming full circle, "Doc" Bowen returned to Bremen, Indiana where it all began.

Throughout his life, Governor Bowen's career was characterized by integrity, devotion to family, and love for Indiana. The debt this state owes to Governor Otis R. Bowen can only be repaid by relentless imitation of his example.

Karen and I send our deepest sympathies and prayers to his family, his wife Carol, and to his children and grandchildren during this difficult time. God bless you, Doc. Your caring work as a physician, your service, and your leadership left Indiana and our nation better for you having been here. You will be missed and your contributions to Indiana will be remembered always." 

Ballard's Cricket Stadium Just Another Sticky Wicket?

City-County Councilor Christine Scales has shared with her fellow Republican council members a cautioning story out of Broward County, Florida that should give pause to efforts by Mayor Greg Ballard to spend millions of Rebuild Indy funds on a new east side sports facility that he hopes will host international cricketing events. A community in a part of Florida where tourists flock is now questioning the wisdom of spending $10 million on the nation's first internationally certified cricket stadium. The Sun-Sentinel has the story on Lauderhill's sticky wicket that's costing Broward County taxpayers dearly.

More than five years after Broward County opened the nation's first internationally certified cricket stadium, promoters can count on one hand how many international matches have been held there — and still have three fingers to spare.

It's unlikely things will get better any time soon for the $10 million multipurpose stadium at Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill, although it was sold to taxpayers as a high-profile, tourist magnet.

So far, the stadium has produced less than $100,000 a year in rental and parking revenues, mostly by hosting lower-level competitions, local cultural events and various sporting attractions. Tourism officials say cricket generated only $3 million last year, barely a half-percent of the county's sports-based tourism dollars.

"We told them repetitiously it wasn't going to draw the hype they were stating," said Lauderhill resident Alan Brown, who supported the park but not the emphasis on cricket. "They focused all their energy into something they felt was going to be an economic boon."

The stadium was promoted by local cricket enthusiasts and endorsed by U.S. and Caribbean cricket officials who saw it as a natural draw given the area's sizeable Caribbean population. It is being paid for through a voter-approved $400 million park bond passed in 2000 and is part of the $72 million regional park, the county's most expensive.

Observers cite the lack of a stadium business plan, ignorance about how the cricket world operates, and an uncooperative national cricket organization as reasons for not drawing the international matches that would fill the stadium and area hotels and restaurants . . .