RedState Blog Attacks Trio Of Hoosier Congressmen As Boehner's Bootlickers

RedState blog's Daniel Horowitz has a scathing review of three Republican members of the Indiana Republican delegation, including Represenatives Susan Brooks, Larry Buschon and Todd Young, who Horowitz refers to as "Boehner's Bootlickers." All three are attacked by Horowitz as being "pro-abortion, big labor-backed Republican Mainstreet Partnership."

He had this to say about Larry Buschon:

During his first term in Congress, Bucshon voted down-the-line with leadership, earning a 64% score from Heritage Action.  Despite campaigning on the promise of a balanced budget and cutting spending, he voted to raise the debt ceiling and against efforts by RSC members to cut spending.

In 2012, he still ran as a Tea Party member, noting that “his views are right in line with the majority of Tea Party members.”  Yet, he supports federal legislation limiting scope of practice for alternative healthcare providers, such as optometrists and chiropractors – the antitheses of free market healthcare reforms advocated by the Tea Party.

This about Susan Brooks:

With only 30% of the vote, Susan Brooks, the most liberal candidate in a crowded field, slipped into Congress and quickly became a water-carrier for leadership . . .

She has voted against most attempts to roll back spending and in support of bloated bills to increase spending, earning her a 58% from Heritage Action.

More recently, she has supported the Ryan-Murray bill, the omnibus, farm bill, and the bill in October funding Obamacare and raising the debt ceiling.  At the time, she echoed Obama's fallacious talking point about default almost verbatim . . .

Yet, despite her bold declaration about default, she didn’t have the moxie to vote for the latest debt ceiling suspension last month, presumably, because leadership had the votes to pass it with Democrat support.

Like most of Boehner’s bootlickers, Brooks is a big supporter of amnesty, and even had the temerity to praise the Gang of 8 bill – the most egregious piece of legislation since Obamacare.  She will clearly be part of any effort to push amnesty thought the House in the coming months and years . . .

Brooks is also a big proponent of limiting private gun sales.

And this about Todd Young:

If there is a time when leadership needs a rank-and-file member to carry their water, Young will be one of the first and most alacritous in line.  After voting to suspend the debt ceiling yet again in October, Young sponsored a vacuous non-binding resolution to disapprove the debt ceiling increase.  The resolution was just ceremonial thanks to Young’s previous vote, but much like Senator Mitch McConnell, he sent out a press release dishonestly giving the impression that he was fighting Obama on the debt, while obfuscating his previous consequential vote.

And remember, not all Republicans are created equal when it comes to taxes. Young is a co-sponsor of the internet sales tax, a harmful proposal that is gaining steam with the K Street crowd . . .

Ballard Administration Releases Three Finalists Competing To Privatize Our Criminal Justice System

The finalists bidding to seize control of the Marion County criminal justice system for profiteering purposes has been released by the corrupt Ballard administration. The three finalists are:

• WMB Heartland Justice Partners, led by equity members Meridiam Infrastructure Indy Justice LLC, Balfour Beatty Investments Inc. and Walsh Investors LLC with major non-equity contributions by Walsh Construction Co. II LLC, Heery International Inc., Cofely Services Inc., Skidmore Owings & Merrill LLP; and Dewberry Architects.
• Indy Justice Partners, led by equity members Fengate Capital Management Ltd., AECOM Global Fund I LP and Shiel Sexton Co. Inc., with major contributions by W.G. Yates & Sons Construction Co., Tishman Construction Corp. and Johnson Controls.
• Plenary Edgemoor Justice Partners, led by Plenary Group USA Ltd. and Edgemoor Infrastructure & Real Estate LLC. Major non-equity members are Clark Construction Group LLC, F.A. Wilhelm Construction Co. Inc., HDR Architecture Inc. and CBRE.

It's quite curious that CB Richard Ellis was permitted to bid on this project with Plenary Group since it was the city's contractor to determine the best sites suited for development of a new criminal justice center and came up with the bright idea of placing it near the airport on the county line next to Hendricks County in order to exploit contracting opportunities with the federal Bureau of Prisons' Con Air prison inmate bedding scheme.

One of the finalists, Meridiam Infrastructure, recently built a very costly court system for Long Beach, California that will wind up costing taxpayers in the Golden State $2.3 billion over 35 years for a 31-courtroom building. A California legislative study found that the project was not well-suited for a public-private partnership and could have been obtained at a much lower cost through traditional procurement methods.

This is all about facilitating more payoffs, kickbacks and bribes that will be passed out in the course of transferring total control of our criminal justice system in Marion County to private interests. In this case, that private interest is assured of being controlled by a foreign company since all three finalist teams are led by foreign companies: Meridiam Infrastructure, Paris, France; Fengate Capital Management; Toronto, Canada; and Plenary Group, Melbourne, Australia.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting observation. Both Fengate Capital and Meridiam Infrastructure are among the four finalists the administration of Mike Pence is considering for the awarding of the boondoggle Illiana Expressway in Northwest Indiana which will feature toll road rates much higher than other area toll roads. Under that public-private partnership, state taxpayers will have to pick up the shortfall if the tolls are insufficient to pay debt on the bonds issued to build the highway. The proposition is a win-win for the private developer and a lose-lose for taxpayers.

Council Committee Approves $23 Million Gift To Big Campaign Contributor To Build Luxury High-Rise Apartment Building

The theft of public funds in Indianapolis continues to accelerate. The Metropolitan & Economic Development Committee tonight gave approval to awarding a $23 million gift to Flaherty & Collins in appreciation for all of the campaign dough they're stuffing in the politicians' pockets to fund their 28-story luxury apartment building to be built on multi-million dollar prime real estate downtown that was stolen from the taxpayers and given to this selfish, greedy developer to develop for use by the top 1%.

TIF funds are being used for this project at the site of the former Market Square Arena even though it's not located within the downtown TIF district, something that is not supposed to happen. The rules can be bent any way they like when there is a big campaign contributor to reward. Because the money is being borrowed, you're really gifting this developer about $40 million when interest is included.

Once upon a time, any elected official who would misappropriate public funds the way our elected officials in the City of Indianapolis do with our taxpayer dollars today would be prosecuted and sent to prison for lengthy terms. The members of this committee played a dance with this real estate developer for the past several months, pretending that they found the deal presented to them to be unacceptable. We now know that it was a game to extort favors in secret discussions to which the public was not privy. They adopted the proposal exactly as it was served up to them by the corrupt Ballard administration.

Until the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's Office get off their butts and start doing their jobs, we are going to continue to see hundreds of millions of tax dollars be pilfered to reward those who are stuffing money in the politicians' pockets. Make no mistake about it. Indianapolis is the most corrupt city in all of America. There is nothing on the scale of public corruption that is taking place in any other city in this country right now. It is clearly going to take a taxpayer revolt to turn these bastards out of office before we have any hope of restoring sanity to our local government. These people are so out of touch with their constituents it is beyond belief.

UPDATE: I want to correct misconceptions being reported in the local news media that the council committee obained a concession from the developer on local hiring. A TIF ordinance previously passed into law by the council requires businesses that receive TIF grants for their development projects to achieve a goal of hiring at least 40% of the workers used for construction on the project from Marion County unless they can demonstrate that despite good faith efforts the goal couldn't be achieved. The City and this developer take the view that the local hiring ordinance doesn't apply because the project is not located within a TIF district, even though TIF funds are being used to finance it. Again, we have another case of the rules being bent to serve one's ends. We don't have to follow the rule that TIF funds only be used for projects within the TIF district, but we're not going to be bound by the rules that are supposed to apply to TIF projects.

The developer agreed to a target of 30% but will only be penalized if it achieves 25% local hiring; however, there is no penalty. The city's economic development director Deron Kintner suggested that the penalty might be a claw back of some of the monies disbursed to the developer. That won't happen. No developer has ever been penalized by this city for failing to do something they promised to do with our tax dollars. This developer will not reach the local hiring goal, and you can take it to the bank that contractors on the work site will utilize a large number of undocumented aliens who are paid well below the prevailing wage rate for construction workers in Marion County and receive no benefits. If any of them get injured on the job, they will be transported to Eskenazi Hospital for medical treatment where they will be provided free health care courtesy of the taxpayers per standard operating procedure in this county. That's the ugly truth the dishonest news media in this town will never tell you about. And contrary to the media meme, this is not what council members have been debating with this developer and the Ballard administration for the past few months; they've been debating behind closed doors what's in it for me if I vote for this multi-million dollar give away.

This developer claims it has a lot of skin in the game. Au contraire. Not one dime of the developer's personal funds are at stake; the developer is relying on taxpayer dollars and borrowed funds that will go to this newly-created limited liability entity. If it fails, the developer will file bankruptcy on the legal entity and walk away just like occurred with its high-rise development in Charlotte, North Carolina that sat vacant for years.

Warrick County Failed To Count 3,700 Votes In 2012 Election

Warrick County's Clerk Sarah Redmon has just confirmed that in the 2012 general election the clerk's office neglected to count about 3,700 votes that had been cast during early voting in that county. That number represents 90% of the in-person votes cast prior to the election during early voting. According to Redmon, the missed votes were discovered by a Democratic precinct committeeman just recently. A technician who worked for Indianapolis-based MicroVote incorrectly uploaded the early votes according to the report. Warrick County Democratic Chairman Kevin Derr said there was no cause for alarm because the untabulated votes wouldn't have affected the outcome of any races. These kind of mistakes are inexcusable. Thousands of voters were disenfranchised by the negligent act of this voting software company's employee. And then they wonder why people no longer trust the votes tabulated by electronic voting machines.

Senate Overwhelming Approves Bill To Allow Governmental Entities To Charge Prohibitive Fees To Block Access To Public Records

The legislation we earlier told you about, HB 1306, which would effectively bar members of the public from making public records requests because of the exorbitant fees governmental agencies will be permitted to charge you for your request if they claim it takes an employee more than two hours to search for the records you request easily passed the Indiana Senate on a 38-10 vote. Click here to see if your senator is among the overwhelming number of members of our corrupt state legislature who are want to keep government records secretive so you can't discern all of the criminal activity and malfeasance they are undertaking at your expense.

Hat tip to Indiana Law Blog, which has been monitoring the progress of this horrible legislation. Expect to begin paying $20 an hour for all of your public records requests thanks to this legislation. Incredibly, the State House reporters have completely ignored this piece of crap legislation, showing just how badly they've become embedded in the corruption that permeates our State House. Their employers should fire all of them on the spot for the dereliction of their journalistic responsibilities to the public.

FBI Aims Low Again In Public Corruption Investigations: Targeting Elwood Mayor

The only serious investigations of public corruption by the FBI in this state seem to involve cases of low-hanging fruit involving low-level players. Case and point: The Anderson Herald-Bulletin is reporting that the FBI and Indiana State Police are probing the campaign expenditures of Mayor Ron Arnold of Elwood, a town of about 8,500 people in Madison County. According to the report, the focus of the investigation is on money Mayor Arnold spent on out-of-state travel and wireless telephone and cable TV bills.

In particular, Arnold spent campaign money for out-of-state travel and personal bills, which could be seen as a violation of state election laws. A Herald Bulletin review of Arnold’s campaign finance records found that he spent $7,264 for Verizon wireless service and $3,939 for Comcast cable service.  

The investigation is being conducted by the ISP Organized Crime and Corruption Unit.
Sam Hanna, the former Elwood police chief and the treasurer of Arnold’s campaign committee, confirmed that he has talked several times with state police detectives. 

“I have been questioned by the state police and FBI about the campaign finance reports,” Hanna said . . .  

Included were expenditures of $472 for one-night stays in Los Angeles; Nashville, Tenn., and Louisville in 2012 and 2013. 

Hanna said he believed Arnold took trips to those locations to attend a son’s sports tournaments. 

An additional $453 was spent with Progressive Insurance for car insurance and $832 on a Master Card account. The campaign also spent $1,257 for gasoline purchases.

Arnold expenditures Campaign finance reports for 2012 and 2013 filed with the Madison County Clerk's office list $34,368 in expenditures by Elwood Mayor Ron Arnold. Here are some of Arnold's notable expenditures: -- Verizon Wireless, 2012-2013: $7,264 -- Comcast, 2012-2013: $3,939 -- Payments to Arnold, 2012-2013: $1,920 -- Master Card, 2012: $832 -- Casey's General Store, 2012-2013: $776 -- Progressive Insurance, 2012-2013: $637 -- Swifty, 2012-2013: $283 -- Days Inn, Nashville, Tenn., Jan. 17, 2012: $162 -- Ramada Plaza hotel, Louisville, May 28, 2013: $160.90 -- Holiday Inn, Los Angeles, July 24, 2012: $149

Have they ever examined the campaign finance reports of Greg Ballard, Carl Brizzi or James Brainard? Geez.

Mishawaka Going All In On Expanded TIF, Fearing State Legislation

Municipalities across the state of Indiana continue to gut their tax bases to finance favored capital projects by expanding the areas within their taxing districts that are contained within tax increment finance ("TIF") districts. Mishawaka officials are considering a plan that would add 479 acres to two existing TIF districts on the city's north and south sides and combine the TIF districts into a single, larger district. Mishawaka's TIF districts have a perpetual existence, and city officials fear that pending state legislation may set a mandatory expiration date on the life of a TIF district according to the South Bend Tribune. City officials are looking for a way to fund $28 million in capital projects the city's voters turned down at the last election. More than 12% of the city's total assessed valuation is now contained with a TIF district. The plan call for adding public lands to the district, while releasing some areas currently within a TIF district that are expected to experience little or no revenue growth.

. . . As city staff tried to redraw new TIF boundaries, they had trouble deciding where one district would end and the next would begin, Prince said.

By forming a single district, he said, the city isn't looking to shift financing so that more dollars from the city's north side pay for projects in the south -- or vice versa.

Rather, he said, a single district would combine the funding so that bigger projects could be done anywhere within the boundaries without having to borrow. In other words, he said, it would mean "better cash flow." . . .

Umbaugh and Associates estimates that, if approved, the new TIF boundaries would generate between $17.5 million and $21 million per year. That depends on the district continuing to see growth each year that's consistent and similar to recent years, Julien said. And it figures in the state's Circuit Breaker tax caps.

By comparison, the revenue from the city's two districts was a total of $22.6 million in 2013. The highest revenue was $24.6 million in 2008 . . .

City officials have been working on the proposed changes for most of a year, but they're pushing for approval now before some proposed Indiana laws have the chance of passing and taking effect.

The state bills could put a major crimp in the city's TIF districts.

Senate Bill 118 would set expiration dates on certain TIF districts -- possibly 2025 -- including some areas in Mishawaka that have no expiration.The same bill also would prevent TIF from being spent on telecommunications equipment like fiber optics cables and related equipment. With almost every new road that the city builds with TIF, Prince said, it also installs a conduit where telecommunications companies can later come to pull through their fiber optics -- cheaper than having to install the conduit afterward.

There's likely no way of escaping the effects of S.B. 118 if it passes, Prince said. But he said the city believes its proposed changes could get grandfathered in if the following bill passes.

House Bill 1266 would prohibit a city from enlarging a TIF district in a way that 1.) would cause the total TIF areas within a county to exceed 12 percent of the county's area or 2.) would cause the total assessed value of TIF areas in the county to exceed 12 percent of the assessed value in the county. But there's an exception to both: Either can happen as long as each of the taxing units in the TIF areas pass resolutions that agree to the change.

St. Joseph is one of six Indiana counties that have already reached 12 percent in either category, Prince said . . .

Indiana is marching rapidly towards the catastrophic conditions that occurred in the state of California where local government officials kept expanding TIF districts to the point that many local governments could no longer fund basic services and public pension obligations, forcing some to file bankruptcy. The law was so abused the California legislature repealed the state's law authorizing the use of TIFs. California was the first state in the union to use TIFs, which were originally designed only to assist development areas in blighted areas. As we've seen in Indianapolis and Carmel, TIF districts have been created in the most booming areas of the community in an effort to grab as large of a share of property tax revenues as possible to bolster slush funds local officials tap to finance development projects of their large campaign contributors. Bond lawyers and financial advisers based in Indianapolis, which earn lucrative fees from projects financed with TIF dollars and contribute boat loads of money to local government officials, are always encouraging local officials to expand their reliance on TIF districts.

Former Indiana GOP Chairman James Kittle Fingered In Bribe Offered To House Speaker To Block HJR-3

Wealthy businessman and former Indiana State Republican Chairman James Kittle has been identified as the businessman who offered House Speaker Brian Bosma unlimited campaign cash earlier this session if he would kill HJR-3, the proposed marriage discrimination amendment according to the AP's Tom Lobianco. Citing multiple sources familiar with the offer, Lobianco said Kittle withdrew the offer of "unlimited" campaign help after Bosma questioned the legality of his offer.

Jim Kittle offered "unlimited" campaign help to House Speaker Brian Bosma as part of a push to defeat the proposed amendment, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the discussion. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to disclose the private discussions.

Kittle withdrew his offer after Bosma questioned its legality, and it turns out the money wasn't needed after all. Only four House Republicans targeted by ban supporters face primary challenges, and changes to the proposed amendment's language will keep the issue off the ballot until at least 2016. But the back-room intrigue illustrates how election-year politics and campaign dollars shape some of the state's most important decisions . . .

Bosma also has said a potential candidate notified him that he had been offered $500,000 from an out-of-state source to challenge the speaker in the May primary.

But Kittle's offer is the one that raised some eyebrows. Bosma first announced an offer of campaign dollars in a January news conference but did not identify the potential contributor.

"I received a pledge of unlimited campaign funding if I were to make this issue go away," Bosma announced.

Bosma said he rejected the offer and expressed concern that it might have violated state or federal law. He has worn his decision as a badge of pride throughout the session, telling reporters he does not bow to threats or intimidation.

Bosma told The Associated Press last week that he didn't think the offer constituted a crime. But the speaker, who has never said Kittle made the offer, acknowledged voicing some concerns.

"I did bring to that individual's attention what it sounded like he was saying and I think he was pretty concerned about it after he said it," Bosma said.

Kittle did not return calls seeking comment . . .

This isn't the first time Kittle's name has surfaced in connection with nefarious activities. Kittle, who stepped down as the GOP's state party chairman and Gov. Daniels' finance chairman after before his arrest for drunk driving in Hamilton County in December, 2010, was identified as one of several investors a controversial Chinese immigrant had supposedly lined up to start up a new company that would assist Chinese investors with investment opportunities in the United States. Monica Liang, then a newly-hired consultant to Mitch Roob, the former head of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation (IEDC), became the subject of a complaint lodged by Chinese businessmen after Liang lured a Chinese billionaire, Ao Yuqi, to wire $50,000 into her bank account. According to a written complaint several Chinese businessmen had delivered to Gov. Mitch Daniels accusing Liang of criminal wrongdoing, Liang had identified Kittle as someone with whom she was very close who had tremendous political clout in Indiana.

She advised us that the State of Indiana would set up an office in China and she would be appointed as the manager of that office. She also repeatedly hinted to us that she was connected politically because she was in an intimate relationship with Chairman of Republican Party of Indiana. She advised us that the Chairman was "super rich," owned two large biotechnology companies and was the largest campaign contributor of Governor Daniels' election. As she put it that meant it was no problem for us to meet Governor Daniels when we next visit Indiana.

Sources familiar with an FBI investigation of Liang's business dealings tell Advance Indiana that she had formed a new company, China North American Investment Group, LLC, whose members according to Liang were to include herself, Ao, Kittle, Mitch Roob and Bingham McHale managing partner, Toby McClamroch, a former Indianapolis City-County Council member. Liang used a letter dated February 18, 2011 signed by Roob appointing her as his special assistant for Chinese relations to impress potential investors in China. Liang had also supposedly represented to the Chinese investors an opportunity to invest in a $12 million nursing home project she was trying to develop in a building she had purchased in Marion, Indiana, which she claimed included Gov. Daniels, Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold and Roob as investors according to an expose' on the entire sordid affair by the Indianapolis Star, titled, "The China Letter." Among the supporting documents Liang provided to the Chinese investors was a letter on the City of Marion's letterhead signed by the city's economic development director, Darren Reese, pledging support for TIF incentives for the project.

The FBI dropped its investigation of Liang's business dealings after she died unexpectedly from an aneurysm during a visit to her apartment in Carmel in late October, 2011 from a Chicago attorney, Thomas Gehl, who was advising her on EB-5 immigrant visas, a visa program that allows large foreign investors to obtain permanent resident status in the U.S. in consideration for investing in qualified American investments.  As a result of an internal investigation of the complaint sent to Gov. Daniels, Liang was immediately terminated and Roob stepped down as IEDC's CEO a short time later, although he insisted that the sordid affair was not the cause for his resignation. IEDC also ended its long-term relationship with Pacific World Trade, which had an exclusive contract to assist the IEDC in developing business relationships in China, in retaliation for its perceived role in helping bring the serious allegations of wrongdoing on Liang's part to light. The company's owner, Dennis Kelley, delivered the complaint on behalf of the Chinese businessmen, a fact that irked state officials, even though essentially all of the allegations contained in their complaint had been determined to be accurate based on the state agency's internal investigation of the complaint. Roob had demanded that Kelley retract the allegations set forth in the complaint prior to his abrupt departure from the state agency.

Last December, the Indianapolis Star featured a $2.5 million log cabin home in Carmel owned by Kittle that was being offered for sale. "Detailed craftsmanship is the hallmark of this spacious Carmel home being offered for $2.5 million," the article read. "Jim Kittle's custom log home is filled with signature lines from the family furniture business." "Set in a private, wooded area, the home resembles a mountain retreat, complete with natural interior features such as slate flooring and exposed board and batten ceilings." Watch the Indianapolis Star and other media outlets to bury this AP story since it doesn't fit their meme on HJR-3, not to mention the advertising Kittle's furniture store purchases from them.

Company Owned By Marion Building Commissioner Suing Korean Businessman Who Failed To Redevelop YMCA Building After Receiving $2.5 Million In TIF Funds

Advance Indiana recently told you about how a Korean businessman from California managed to land a $2.5 million TIF grant from the city of Marion to redevelop the former YMCA building but failed to carry though with the redevelopment plan as promised. The Chronicle-Tribune reports today that a company owned by the city of Marion's building commissioner, Larry Oradat, is suing Michael An's company for construction work it says it performed on the building for which it was never paid. Mayor Wayne Seybold's brother, Chad Seybold, worked for An's company at one time.

 . . . Erma’s Home Improvement — whose agent and president is Larry Oradat, Marion’s building commissioner — is involved in a dispute with World Enterprise Group. The registered agent and president of World Enterprise Group is Michael An. In 2009 and 2010, World Enterprise Group was listed on invoices totaling about $2 million for renovations to the former YMCA building. An also employed Chad Seybold, the brother of Marion Mayor Wayne Seybold, for a time.

The lawsuit claims World Enterprise Group “breached (a) contract by not paying the amounts due and for not allowing the defendant to complete the work that was contracted,” according to a lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in Grant County Superior Court I.

Court documents do not state where Oradat’s company performed work for An’s company. Nor does it state the amount owed. According to the defendant’s written response to the lawsuit filed Dec. 10, the two parties did enter into a contract for construction work to be completed by Erma’s Home Improvement for World Enterprise Group. Citing the quality of the work, World Enterprise Group contends Erma’s Home Improvement is not owed any payment.

“The work that the plaintiff did do was of a shoddy, unsatisfactory and unworkmanlike quality,” the document reads. “Plaintiff is in breach of the said contract and, due to such breach, defendant has no duty to pay any amount to plaintiff.” No further documents have been filed on the case then, and records show the case remains pending . . .

An's original plan for redeveloping the YMCA building included a hotel, restaurant, spa and men's and women's clothing stores. No visible work has been performed on the exterior of the building since An purchased it, and the property has subsequently been placed on the auction block for failure to pay the property taxes owed on it. The city of Marion has since refinanced the original $2.5 million bond issue.

A public records request by the Chronicle-Tribune recently failed to produce documentation of where more than $2 million raised from the bond issue was spent. Oradat's lawsuit against An's company doesn't indicate how much Oradat claims he is owed by An. It's unclear why the state's conflict of interest law wouldn't have prohibited Oradat's company from participating in a construction project financed with public tax dollars while he served as the city's building commissioner. Per standard operating procedure, no criminal investigation is opened by federal or state prosecutors in this state when public funds are pilfered through TIF financing schemes.