Indiana Guardsman Stopped With 48 Bombs And Blueprints To Navy SEAL Training Facility

There's lots of stories circulating about what really goes on down at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Butlerville, Indiana that the federal government has pumped a lot of money into developing in recent years. The arrest of an Indiana National guardsman on New Year's Day in Columbus, Ohio is only going to add to that speculation. Andrew Scott Boguslawski was stopped by an Ohio state trooper for speeding 85 mph in a 70-mph zone along I-70 just outside of Columbus. While the trooper was issuing a ticket to Boguslawski, she noticed the handle of a gun between his legs. When the trooper ordered Boguslawski out of the car and requested back up, what she found in his car was jaw-dropping.

An Indiana National Guardsman was arrested outside Columbus on New Year’s Day after a state trooper found nearly 50 bombs and the blueprints for a Navy SEAL training facility inside his car, the Madison County prosecutor said yesterday.

Andrew Scott Boguslawski, 43, also had a remote-control device to detonate the bombs, Madison County Prosecutor Stephen Pronai said. Boguslawski’s civilian job is as a groundskeeper at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in south-central Indiana. Prosecutors could not say definitively yesterday whether the blueprints in his car were for the facility where he worked.

Boguslawski also had a bulletproof vest in his car, Pronai said.

“He said something to the trooper about making a bomb vest,” Pronai said.

Lt. Col. Cathy Van Bree, a spokeswoman for the Indiana National Guard, said Boguslawski is a specialist in the guard who does intelligence analysis and has top-secret clearance.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, Boguslawski has been charged with one count of manufacturing explosives, a second-degree felony. The fact that he had remote-control devices to detonate the bombs and blueprints for a Navy SEAL training facility is particularly alarming. It seems that someone within the U.S. government is trying awfully hard to kill off as many Navy SEALs as possible, particularly those who participated in the raid on the compound in Pakistan where Navy SEALs were sent to capture and kill Osama bin Laden (a/k/a Tim Osman). Of course, those of us who actually study what's going on in the world knew that bin Laden, an operative created by our own CIA, died at least a decade before the raid on the compound shortly after 9/11. The April 2012 raid was nothing more than a charade to help President Obama get re-elected.

Boguslawski was more than likely being set up as a patsy by someone. The Moore's Hill, Indiana native was recently divorced from his wife and has a job as a groundskeeper at the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center. You always have to keep an eye on the groundskeeper. His mugshot looks like someone under some mind control operation. If he had actually managed to set off any of those bombs somewhere, there would have been a cover story already in place about a disgruntled, ex-military, right-wing extremist ala Timothy McVeigh who went rogue. Someone should ask Gov. Mike Pence why he's such a big supporter of a military installation in his state that was established to train soldiers to wage war on the American people.

BOGUS-LAW-SKI. Get it? An online profile says he's an expert in firearms, fencing, security, intelligence and Kung Fu. Check out the bumper sticker Boguslawski had on his car.


UPDATE: An Indianapolis Star report has more on Boguslawski's arrest here. According to this story, Boguslawski told police the bombs in his vehicle were "smoke bombs" used for suicide bomber training. Would that be the same kind that were set off at the Boston Marathon? The story also claims the blue prints in Boguslawski's possession as he was traveling from Pennsylvania to his home in Indiana were for Mascatatuck and not a Navy SEAL training facility as reported earlier. It's a Gannett newspaper so mushing up the actual facts is never out of the question. This additional information is provided on his military background:

Boguslawski’s military career began when he enlisted for the Pennsylvania National Guard after finishing high school. He graduated from Fort Benning, a U.S. Army post in Georgia, in 1999 with a specialty in infantry. He also was in the Ohio and Tennessee national guards before he was transferred to Indiana in 2007, Lt. Col. Cathy Van Bree, spokeswoman for the Indiana National Guard, said in a statement.

A neighbor, Chris Lieman, tells the Star that he was not surprised to learn that police found bombs in his vehicle because "he's accustomed to hearing explosions loud enough to rattle his house" and knew his neighbor owned bombs. Really? He also says that he regularly hears gunfire from Boguslawski's 10-acre property but he never felt threatened by him. The report says that he's been stripped of his security clearance until the investigation is complete. A search warrant of his property has been placed under seal.

House Republican Plan Gives Counties The Option Of Eliminating Business Personal Property Tax For Preferential Businesses

House Republicans announced yesterday their plan to eliminate the business personal property tax. In some respects, it's worse than Gov. Mike Pence's plan to completely eliminate the tax that raises about $1 billion annually for local governments. The Republican plan would allow each county to decide whether to eliminate the tax for a select group of businesses--new businesses and manufacturing equipment. The idea is to use the tax break to entice businesses from other states to relocate to Indiana rather than encourage businesses to move from county to county to chase the tax break. "We think it's the smart route to give local counties the option to do what they know their community needs," Bosma said.

I'm really growing frustrated with lawmakers picking winners and losers when it comes to paying taxes, whether it's in Washington or at the State House. The Constitution is supposed to provide us equal protection under the law, but our tax laws do anything but treat individuals and businesses equally. Here's the bottom line. When government decides to award special tax breaks to one group of individuals or businesses, it means that a portion of the tax burden is shifted to another group of taxpayers. It's a zero sum game. We already favor companies that relocate to Indiana over existing businesses with all of the economic development incentives the state and local governments have in their arsenal to offer them.

Lugar Backs Democratic Candidate For Georgia Senate Seat

This comes as no surprise to those of us who figured out long ago that Dick Lugar was a Republican in Name Only. It seems the GOP establishment's favorite Republican is backing a Democratic candidate to fill the Georgia Senate seat being vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss. Lugar's political action committee has donated $5,000 to Michelle Nunn's campaign. It's a seat Republicans must hold if they hold any hope of winning back control of the Senate in 2014. Lugar is likely backing Nunn for the seat in an effort to elect yet another CIA-controlled asset like himself to Congress. Nunn is the daughter of former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn, a close friend of Lugar who is married to Colleen O'Brien, a CIA agent who Nunn met early in his career while visiting the U.S. embassy in Paris where she was pretending to be a State Department employee. Michelle is the CEO of the Points of Light Foundation established by another CIA-lifer, former President George H.W. Bush, a nonprofit foundation chaired by Bush's son, Neil, another CIA asset. She's never run for elective office before, but she plans to rely on her daddy's name to get elected. Speaking of Lugar's endorsement, Nunn said:

"I am immensely honored and grateful for Senator Lugar's generous support in this race. His tenure in U.S. Senate embodied the type of pragmatism and problem-solving Georgians are yearning for in Washington. Both in the Senate and in the international community, Senator Lugar's collaborative approach made us safer and moved our country forward. We need more leaders like Senator Lugar –- not less, and I will strive to follow this legacy in the U.S. Senate."

Fire Critically Injures Resident Of Health & Hospital-Owned Nursing Home

An 82-year old resident of the Bethany Village nursing home on Indianapolis' south side was taken to Eskenazi Hospital in critical condition last night after a fire broke out in her room. According to news reports, staff members were able to extinguish the fire with handheld extinguishers and rescue the resident from the room but she later went into cardiac arrest. The report does not indicate the origin of the fire. Bethany Village is listed on the Marion County Health & Hospital Corporation's website as one of 59 nursing homes it operates in Indiana with its private-sector partner, American Senior Communities. Last year, HHC and ASC were named in a wrongful death lawsuit that accused them of negligently causing the death of a resident at one of the nursing homes they operate in Fort Wayne who died from blunt force trauma she sustained during an altercation with another resident.

Things Aren't Always As They Appear

The recent arrest of a former Indiana State Police detective, Ryan Harmon, and the bizarre circumstances of his arrest, have not gone unnoticed by me. A number of readers have asked me to look into this incident more closely and get to the bottom of it. The moment I first read a New Year's Eve report by WRTV's Rafael Sanchez about Harmon's arrest at the Indianapolis International Airport on Saturday, December 28, I suspected there was much more to the story than the drive-by hit piece contained in Sanchez' report.

According to Sanchez, Harmon was stopped by airport police for speeding 62 mph in a 25-mile per hour zone on the lower level of the airport. It seems improbable to me that a driver could possibly operate a vehicle at a speed that high in that particular area, speed bumps and all, without losing control of the vehicle. The arresting police officer claimed that Harmon told him he was rushing to the airport to pick up a flight ticket purchased for him by President Obama, and that he was also a U.S. marshal. Sanchez, quoting from a police report, says that Harmon also threatened the police officer. The report stated that Harmon was later transported to Eskenazi Hospital for a mental evaluation after police claimed Harmon's mother told them that he suffered from bipolar disorder. Police claimed they found marijuana in Harmon's car. For reasons that are unclear, the Morgan County Sheriff's Department executed a search warrant on Harmon's home on December 30, where they claim they recovered property belonging to the Indiana State Police and the U.S. Marshal's Office. Sanchez reported that Harmon could face charges for possession of marijuana, reckless driving, impersonating a police officer and possession of stolen property.

To put all of this into perspective, it's necessary to learn more about who Harmon is and what has transpired in his life over the past several years. Harmon was a highly-decorated detective at the Indiana State Police for a number of years before losing his job following a traffic incident in downtown Indianapolis in 2010 after he was charged with criminal mischief for leaving the scene of an accident after backing into a parked motorcycle while driving an unmarked police vehicle after leaving a bar on South Meridian Street. Harmon had a top security clearance at the State Police where he served as the agency's liaison to the Indianapolis FBI office where he was assigned to work for a period of time. Harmon had access to some of the police agency's most sensitive investigations, including public corruption cases. In a manner of speaking, Harmon knew where all the bodies were buried, a fact known all the way up the ranks to Gov. Mitch Daniels. Harmon's attorney at the time, Jim Voyles, offered an eerie warning to him at the time that "they're coming after you."

After leaving the ISP, Harmon began working as a private investigator out of his home town in Martinsville and developed an expertise in electronic surveillance. Harmon says his expert testimony as an electronics surveillance expert has helped 23 defendants in 13 different states facing federal charges win acquittals. Among the defendants retaining Harmon's services was former Secretary of State Charlie White. Harmon analyzed White's cell phone GPS data and determined that the evidenced definitively proved that he primarily spent the nights at the home of his ex-wife during the period state prosecutors claimed that he was actually residing at a condominium in which he intended to reside when he married his second wife. Believing that prosecutors had failed to prove the vote fraud and other charges against White, his trial attorney, former Marion Co. Prosecutor Carl Brizzi, refused to put on a defense, including offering the testimony of Harmon. White was later found guilty by a jury of six of the seven felony charges brought against him.

After leaving the ISP, Harmon became aware of the fact that former Martinsville basketball coach Tim Wolf was having a sexual relationship with a female student at the high school. Harmon's mother, a former counselor at the school, learned that Morgan Co. Prosecutor Steve Sonnega's son, Tyler, had taken a cell phone video of Wolf and the female student walking on the football field late one night holding hands. Sonnega later admitted that he had viewed his son's cell phone video but concluded that it proved nothing. Wolf had told school officials that he was merely counseling the student and had no sexual relationship with her. Harmon pushed an investigation of Wolf's involvement with the student to school officials and law enforcement in Martinsville, a move he believes resulted in an effort by other powerful individuals, including local law enforcement, to retaliate against him. Harmon pressed for an investigation nearly a full year before Wolf was eventually arrested in February, 2012 in Indianapolis' Eagle Creek Park after police found him in a car with the 17-year old girl with his pants down. An investigation following Wolf's arrest led to the discovery that the school's tennis coach, Jeff McGown, also had a sexual relationship with the student. Both coaches gave up their jobs, pleaded guilty to child seduction charges and were given 9 months probation.

Harmon also later provided information to Martinsville Mayor Phil Deckard and local police about allegations of a high-ranking city employee sexually assaulting a woman. The matter was referred to Sonnega, who asked Harmon's former employer, ISP, to investigate the allegations. After ISP concluded that no crime had occurred, Sonnega in an extraordinary move charged Harmon with three counts of false reporting for each person to whom he had reported the sexual assault allegation, including the mayor. The 39-year old Harmon was arrested by police publicly on the courthouse square in Martinsville in April, 2012 to maximize damage to his reputation in the community. He was later found guilty on all three counts after the judge hearing the case, Christopher Burnham, refused to allow Harmon's attorney to offer evidence related to his client's role in pushing the investigation of Wolf that was swept under the rug by Sonnega, local police and school officials until Wolf's arrest in 2012 left them with no other choice than to open a serious investigation. Harmon's attorney believed the evidence would help prove that charges were brought against his client as a retaliatory move on the part of the prosecutor and police. Sonnega later appointed a special prosecutor to handle the Wolf and McGown cases because of his son's role in providing evidence in the case that he concluded was of no value. (See this report by Fox 59's Russ McQuaid for more background on the Wolf/McGown cases).

More recently, former Secretary of State Charlie White's attorney called Harmon as a witness during his petition for post-conviction relief in Hamilton County. White's attorney contends that his trial attorney, Carl Brizzi, provided ineffective counsel by, among other things, refusing to put on a defense. Prior to Brizzi's testimony at the hearing, a verbal altercation occurred between Brizzi and Harmon during which Brizzi warned Harmon that he had better watch his back. Judge Daniel Pfleging later provided a court room admonishment to witnesses and courtroom observers after attorneys for both sides conferenced with him behind closed doors about the matter. Brizzi testified at the hearing that he had no part in retaining Harmon's services and would have never agreed to let him testify as a witness at White's trial because of the criminal mischief case his office handled while Harmon was at the ISP and the false reporting case down in Martinsville. Despite the substantive value of Harmon's evidence and the fact that Brizzi listed him as one of White's witnesses, Brizzi made no effort to procure a substitute expert witness and never bothered to tell White or Harmon that he would not be called as a witness.

As to Harmon's latest arrest, he insists that he was set up. Twitter posts made contemporaneously with the arrest on his Twitter account show that an acquaintance of Harmon, a writer for a late night talk show in Los Angeles, had tweeted him with instructions to pick up airline tickets he had acquired for him at the airport to make a flight out to LA where he could spend a few days. The next thing Harmon knew he was in police custody and taken to Eskenazi Hospital where he was detained for six days for psychological evaluation. Harmon, who seemed completely sober and clear-minded when I spoke to him about the incident, is as perplexed by some of the allegations contained in the police report cited in Sanchez' report as others. He flat out rejected the claim that he had any stolen police equipment at his home. Harmon does not rule out the possibility that he was unwittingly drugged before he made the trip to the airport, which could explain his lack of recollection and awareness of all that transpired before he found himself being detained at the hospital for psychological evaluation rather than sitting in a jail cell charged for actual crimes that he allegedly committed. At this point, I'm inclined to give Harmon the benefit of the doubt. It appears to me that there are just too many important people in this state who are acting very uneasy about information he learned in his former job at the State Police.

Star Reporter's Hiring By Carmel Mayor Part Of A Disturbing Trend

When I worked for the Illinois legislature before moving to Indianapolis to attend law school, I noticed a disturbing trend of State House reporters leaving their jobs to take jobs in state government. After I moved to Indianapolis, I observed the same thing happening with increased frequency here in Indiana. So I suppose it should come as no surprise to read in the latest edition of the IBJ that Carmel's controversial mayor, James Brainard, hired Dan McFeely, an Indianapolis Star reporter assigned the job of covering the northern suburbs, as an economic development consultant earning up to $99,000 a year. The IBJ's Chris O'Malley observes that a story written by McFeely prior to his hiring, "25 things I love about Carmel," was featured prominently on the City of Carmel's website for months.

At least one Carmel city council member, Lucy Snyder, is questioning the wisdom of adding yet another consultant to the list of 17 economic development consultants being paid by the city, who collectively are paid more than $800,000 annually. In addition to the numerous consultants, Carmel employs four full-time employees and two part-timers for economic development work, including Nancy Heck, the city's director of communications and economic development. O'Malley describes the first invoice McFeely submitted in November only days after leaving his job with the Star in which he invoiced $2,750 for his services to promote economic development opportunities in Carmel via Twitter and Facebook, and to write press releases about road projects and bond sales. Isn't that Heck's job?

McFeely has absolutely no background in economic development, a fact picked up on by Snyder. He "isn't an economic development person," Snyder told O'Malley. According to O'Malley, he studied theology at Marian University and earned an ecclesiastical lay ministry degree from St. Joseph's College. Since 2007, he's headed an adult ministry program for St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church, in addition to working as a reporter for the Star. Heck tells O'Malley that the city sought no proposals from potential consultants before hiring McFeely. "Dan was our pick," she said. "He's covered Carmel for several years, so we are familiar with his work and the quality of his work."

I'm wondering if McFeely had actually performed any in-depth investigative reporting of the many questionable things taking place in Brainard's administration while working for the Star if he would have been offered such a lucrative contract. Increasingly, news reporters seem to do little more than act as mouthpieces for the people in government and elsewhere who they are supposed to be objectively covering for their audience. Former Washington Post editor Philip Graham once told a CIA operative that "You could get a journalist cheaper than a good call girl, for a couple hundred dollars a month." Former CIA Director William Colby once boasted that his agency "owns everyone of any significance in the major media." It looks like it's not only the CIA that owns the media we rely upon for objective news coverage.

Union Vote To Slash Benefits Ends Indiana's Hope Of Landing New Boeing Plant

Members of the International Association of Machinists, the union representing Boeing's union workers in the Seattle, Washington area, reversed course and narrowly voted this past weekend to cut benefits and future wage increases as part of a deal to secure manufacturing jobs to produce the company's new 777-X plane. The vote ends Indiana's hope of landing a new manufacturing plant that promised billions of dollars in investments and thousands of high-paying jobs.

Under the deal, union members agreed to give up their current pension plan in favor of a traditional 401(k) savings plan, pay for more of their health insurance costs and accept smaller future pay increases. The deal was bitterly opposed by the union's local leadership and received a bare majority vote by the members who last year rejected the deal, setting off a competition among two dozen states bidding to win the new manufacturing plant. Reaction to the union's vote in Seattle varied sharply according to the Seattle Times.

While Boeing executives chose to remain silent the day after the Machinists’ contract vote secured the work of building the 777X jet for Washington state, top officials at the Machinists national headquarters and in Gov. Jay Inslee’s office were almost giddy.

“It’s going to be sunny in Seattle for another 40 or 50 years,” gushed Rich Michalski, who represented the International Association of Machinists (IAM) national headquarters in the 777X negotiations. “Boeing is going to be here forever now.” . . .

The bitter acrimony within the union was clear Saturday on the Facebook page for Rosie’s Machinists 751, a rallying point for Vote No union activists.

“ANYONE who voted yes is a traitor, a coward, and a scab. They should be blackballed,” one angry Machinist posted.

Trying to calm such sentiment, Wilson Ferguson, president of the Local A unit of the district and a prominent leader of the Vote No campaign, posted a message calling for respect.

“Those people are not scabs. They are not sheep,” Ferguson said in an interview. “The members have spoken. We have to move forward and heal the damage.” . . .

Observers described the machinists' union concessions to Boeing's demands as highly unusual because it comes at a time when Boeing's financial performance has been soaring. "Against Boeing’s threat to move work elsewhere, the union could do little but “slow the tide” of concessions, Grunberg said. It is left split and weakened as never before," the Times reported. "Boeing developed maximum leverage by negotiating outside the normal schedule of contract talks — when it could threaten to locate a new airplane elsewhere and the union couldn’t strike."

Saying Goodbye To My Father

My father, Ray Allen Welsh, peacefully past away last night at his home in Marshall, Illinois with our family surrounding him. He was 83. I am so thankful that I was able to be at his side, along with my mother, brothers and sisters, even if my last moments with him were relatively brief, just to say goodbye one last time. The harsh affects of cancer that he had successfully beaten several years earlier were really starting to take their toll on him. He died quickly as he wished, not wanting to be dependent on others for his care or wasting away in a nursing home.

My father was one of the hardest working persons you would ever meet, but he always had time for his family. He was the youngest of six children and his father died when he was only two years old. His mother did an extraordinary job raising six children and holding the family farm together during the Great Depression. He studied agriculture at the University of Illinois for awhile before being drafted into the U.S. Army where he served during the Korean War. He met and married my mom a few years after he began farming with his brothers and raised five children with her.

He retired from farming a few years ago and enjoyed sharing coffee with old friends every morning and hanging out at the local VFW post and playing cards. He was an avid sports fan who particularly enjoyed attending all of his grandchildren's sporting events. It's hard to believe that he was able to attend his last ISU basketball game only last weekend where my nephew is playing his last season.

He will always be remembered for his consistent positive outlook on life, unswerving loyalty to his wife and family and charitable giving to others less fortunate than him. We're all going to miss him a great deal, but we are content knowing that he lived his life as fully, happily and honestly as can be expected of any human being in the eyes of our Lord and always treated others with the greatest respect.

Sell-Off Of Angie's List Stock After Top Trial Firm Announces Investigation Pushes Price Down Sharply

One of the nation's top trial firms, Cohen Placitella & Roth, announced today that it has launched an investigation to determine if Angie's List's officers and directors violated securities laws involving misrepresentations about its core subscription business. That news, along with a spate of class action shareholder suits in recent days, led to a sell-off of the company's stock that sent stock prices downward more than 10% today. A press release issued by Cohen Placitella & Roth details the focus of its investigation:

Specifically, CPR is investigating whether the Company and its officers and/or directors failed to disclose the following information that: (i) Angie's List was increasingly relying on providing free memberships in order to artificially boost its subscriber figures; (ii) contrary to the Company's claim that it provides its members with unbiased, online reviews, disallowing service providers from buying ratings, the Company consistently derived more than half its revenues from the service providers; (iii) that because Angie's List charged service providers hundreds of dollars for "hot leads", service providers were faced with the choice of charging above market prices for basic, run-of-the-mill services (that could be procured by consumers for cheaper prices) in order to absorb the high referral fees Angie's list was charging -- or simply abandoning Angie's list; (iv) that the legitimacy of the service provider side of Angie's List business model was dubious, as service providers were forced to pay the Company thousands of dollars a year in order to be listed as a highly rated service providers, and if they did not, they would not get customer referrals from Angie's List; and (v) that Angie's List did not vet the service providers listed and recommended on its website, either for qualifications or for safety, leading many consumers to question the value of its recommendations, causing them to be unwilling to pay outsized membership fees. As a result of these omissions, the Company and its officers and directors lacked a reasonable basis for their positive statements about the Company and its business, earnings and financial prospects.

Angie's List was co-founded by its namesake, Angie Hicks Bowman, the company's chief marketing officer, and its CEO, William Oesterle. Oesterle has close political ties to former Gov. Mitch Daniels and now Purdue University President, having served as his one-time campaign manager during Daniels' first run for governor in 2004. Oesterle and other key officers are accused of selling off more than $13 million worth of shares in the company during the period of time they allegedly made material misrepresentations about the company's performance. Prominent Indianapolis businessman Michael "Mickey" Maurer, the owner of the company that publishes the Indianapolis Business Journal and Indiana Lawyer, serves on the company's board of directors. Maurer formerly served as head of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation during the Daniels' administration. Angie's List has received more than tens millions dollars' worth of state and local economic development incentives for its base of operations in downtown Indianapolis.

The price of the company's shares closed today at $13.57, down $1.58 a share, or 10.43% on a day when more than 2.5 million of the company's shares were traded, much higher than its average trading day volume of about 1.8 million shares. The stock traded as low as $13.29 per share today after opening today's trading at $15.00 on a previous closing day price of $15.15.