Charlotte Lucas Rants About Minorities On Facebook

WRTV's Rafael Sanchez draws attention to a Facebook post made by Charlotte Lucas, wife of Lucas Oil's Forrest Lucas, in which she rants about minorities. Lucas, who currently serves as executive vice president of Lucas Oil Products, said she was "sick and tired of minorities running our country!" "As far as I'm concerned, I don't think that atheists (minority), muslims [sic] (minority) nor any other minority group has the right to tell the majority of the people in the United States what they can and cannot do here. Is everyone so scared that they can't fight back for what is right or wrong with his country?" Lucas confirmed to WRTV the words in the Facebook post were made by her:

"I was very upset when I wrote that," she said. "I will not elaborate other than to say that there are certain people who are trying to make the whole world eat what they want to eat and do what they want to do. I don't think it's any of their business what I put in my mouth. Thank you."

Yeah, I guess she was trying to outdo the Colts' Jim Irsay in doing the walk of shame. Not the kind of things you want to say publicly when your name adorns the most visible public building in the state's capitol city.

UPDATE: A quick check around the dial shows WRTV's report as the only report on this matter in the traditional local media. It looks like the downtown mafia sent out a memo ordering this news story suppressed. Lucky for Charlotte.

Former Butler Student Being Held By ISIS, Threatened With Beheading

UPDATED: Those of you who read my blog regularly know how skeptical I am of any claims made by the U.S. government and mainstream media regarding the so-called terrorist organization known as ISIS. The basis for my skepticism is the fact that the organization is entirely a manufactured creation of Western intelligence agencies no different than Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist organization. In the case of both, America and its Western allies covertly created, trained, armed and funded them to mold them as an enemy and threat to our national security to justify the relevance and expansion of the military/industrial complex following the end of the Cold War and the resulting military incursions into regions of geopolitical importance primarily for the purpose of controlling natural resources.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad has irked Western interests by his refusal to allow a natural gas pipeline to be constructed through his country from the south to the north. When the West's repeated efforts to fabricate war crimes allegedly committed by President Assad against his own people were one after another debunked, the U.S. and its allies turned to a different strategy. Rather than use the terrorist rebels the West sent into Syria to topple Assad in a losing civil war, their puppet masters turned them into a new terrorist threat known as ISIS and sent them into Iraq to wreak havoc where they quickly gained control of much of the country without the standing Iraqi army trained by the American military putting up so much as a fight. This was immediately played up as a basis for redeploying U.S. troops back in Iraq.

One by one, a series of videos have been uploaded in recent months to YouTube claiming to show Western aid workers from the United States and Great Britain being held hostage and ultimately beheaded. Numerous Internet sleuths have exposed these videos to be hoaxes perpetrated for pure propaganda purposes, which are generally successful in duping average Americans who only take at best a passing interest on any given day at what's being passed off to the public as legitimate news reporting. The videos served the propaganda purpose, and President Obama now had his excuse to begin a bombing campaign in Syria specifically aimed at weakening and toppling President Assad's government under the cover of combating the very same ISIS forces put on the ground in Syria by our intelligence assets.

The latest ISIS video depicting the beheading of a British hostage, Alan Henning, has introduced yet another individual this time with ties locally to Indianapolis. This person has been identified as Peter Kassig, who we're told served as a U.S. Army Ranger for a couple of years deployed in Iraq from 2006-07 before he was honorably discharged due to medical reasons. Kassig, a 2006 graduate of North Central High School, reportedly attended Hanover College from 2007-09 according to the Indianapolis Star. Kassig then began studying political science at Butler University in 2011. He apparently was at Butler for a very short time because by 2012 he had headed to Lebanon where he began performing humanitarian work as a volunteer medical assistant in the Middle East.

Kassig founded an organization called Special Emergency Response and Assistance ("SERA"). You can check out the website for SERA here, which looks a bit contrived if you ask me. The website has a copyright date of 2014. Whoops! WhoIs tells us it was created on August 1, 2013 only two months before Kassig's kidnapping and was last updated on August 20, 2014. Naturally, CNN just happened to do a propaganda profile piece on Kassig back in 2012 to bolster the good work he was doing while helping provide emergency medical assistance to the victims of the manufactured civil war in Syria as it attempted to build American support for another war in Syria. Watch closely in the video above as he is shown applying bandages to patients. Try not to laugh too hard at how staged it is just like most of CNN's news reports.

According to a statement released by a spokesman for the Kassig family, WTHR-TV is reporting that Kassig was actually captured by ISIS almost exactly one year ago on October 1, 2013 before most Americans had even heard anything about the existence of ISIS, or if our crack news media knew about it, they were keeping the supposed greatest terrorist threat in the world facing our country a big secret at that time. The Kassig family kept Peter's abduction quiet because they wanted to work behind the scenes with his kidnappers to assist in his release. He disappeared while on his way to Deir Ezzour in eastern Syria, while on a SERA relief effort, WTHR-TV reported. Kassig's SERA organization was based in Gaziantep, Turkey at the time of his capture where the CIA was staging its covert efforts supporting the rebels we now know as ISIS. His family says Peter converted to Islam following his capture and assumed a new name, Abdul-Ramman Kassig. Curiously, until today, no media outlet in Indiana seemed to have been aware of Kassig's work. [Kassig's parents, Ed and Paula, released this video today (10-4-14) making a plea for his release. According to the father, Peter, a Methodist, had converted to Islam prior to his kidnapping.]


In February, 2013, a Syrian publication, News Deeply, interviewed Kassig about his humanitarian work. Kassig told the publication his organization was neutral in the Syrian conflict. "We do not discriminate between pro- and anti-regime people and we do strive to remain neutral," he said. Asked about his funding, he replied, "We need more funding." "Most of what we've done in terms of development, operationally or anything else, I've funded personally from my savings." He was specifically asked as a former soldier whether his work went beyond his humanitarian mandate. "Sometimes rebels want to know if I will help train people or if I will join the fight," he replied. "I always tell them no. It is of course not that I do not feel terrible for the civilians that are suffering in Syria, but… for an American young man in my position that would be foolish, and regarded as such by pretty much everyone, including the opposition. I can either be in a position to deliver tens of thousands of dollars of antibiotics for women and children, or I can be another young man with a gun."

In September, 2013 shortly before Kassig's kidnapping, Reed magazine, a literary journal published by San Jose State University in California, had a feature story discussing his work in Syria.

. . . Somewhere in southern Turkey, Eliot Stempf ’11 knowingly nodded his head—and shifted in his low-rent desk chair as he contended with a glacially slow internet connection. Eliot lives in Gaziantep, Turkey, roughly 20 miles from the Syrian border, and is currently masterminding the launch of a humanitarian startup, SERA (Special Emergency Response and Assistance), which specializes in prehospital care and has so far trained roughly 50 Syrians to become emergency first responders.

SERA was founded in late 2012 by Peter Kassig, a 24-year-old Army Ranger and Indiana native who returned from Iraq intent on mitigating the carnage of war. Kassig, who’s an EMT, lives with Eliot in Gaziantep and frequently forays into war-torn Syrian towns like Deir Ezzor to lead training sessions, distribute supplies, and provide basic medical care. Eliot, meanwhile, remains in Turkey, hunched at his computer, networking with care providers, such as the Red Crescent, and conferring with two Syrian doctors who advise SERA on, as Eliot puts it, “how to deliver aid in a way that’s sensitive, without exacerbating political tensions.”

Last week, Atlanta-based Conscience International gave SERA its biggest contribution yet—$30,000 worth of medical supplies (mostly antibiotics and pharmaceuticals) to be distributed over the coming weeks.

President Obama released the following statement on the lastest beheading and threats made by Kassig's captors to do the same to him:

"The United States strongly condemns the brutal murder of United Kingdom citizen Alan Henning by the terrorist group ISIL. Mr. Henning worked to help improve the lives of the Syrian people and his death is a great loss for them, for his family and the people of the United Kingdom. Standing together with our UK friends and allies, we will work to bring the perpetrators of Alan's murder - as well as the murders of Jim Foley, Steven Sotloff and David Haines - to justice. Standing together with a broad coalition of allies and partners, we will continue taking decisive action to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL."

Red Pill Revolution posted this video to YouTube recently to demonstrate five easy steps to staging  hoax ISIS beheading. Judge for yourself. The authenticity of the videos themselves, of course, doesn't necessarily equate to the deaths they depict as being faked as well, but it certainly raises doubts in the minds of anyone capable of critical thinking of what actually transpired.


See also this video for more background on the origins of ISIS.

Council President Accepts New Job At Indiana Grand Casino

Advance Indiana has learned that Indianapolis City-County Council President Maggie Lewis (D) has accepted a new job as human relations director for Indiana Grand Casino in Shelbyville. Indiana Grand is one of two horse racing tracks/casinos operated by Indianapolis-based Centaur Gaming, which also owns and operates Anderson's Hoosier Park horse racing track and casino.

Lewis has been working as the executive director of the Dove Recovery House in Indianapolis for the last several years, which has posed a conflict of interest insofar as it relies on city grants for part of its funding.

Centaur Gaming operates an off-track betting parlor in downtown Indianapolis, Winner's Circle. The company's main issue of concern before the City-County Council has been the city's smoking ban ordinance, which has provided a special exemption for its facility. A lawsuit brought by several area tavern owners challenging the constitutionality of that ordinance was dismissed earlier this year by the Marion County Superior Court.

UPDATE: An observant reader tells me that Centaur Gaming also recently hired Frank Thompson, husband of State Sen. Jean Leising (R), for a marketing job at Indiana Grand. Looks like Centaur's CEO, Rod Radcliff, is up to his old tricks. God only knows how many other of our other public officials are on Centaur's payroll in one form or another. Radcliff's influence peddling with state lawmakers was in the spotlight back in 2005 when it was discovered that State Rep. David Frizzell (R) and State Sen. Jeff Drozda (R) were hired by the company around the time it was lobbying to legalize slot machines at horse racing tracks. Then-Senate President Robert Garton declared the legislative efforts dead that legislative session because of the lawmakers' hiring. Frizzell later resigned his job, while Drozda later left the Senate to become a full-time lobbyist like he was before he became a lawmaker. He now lives in Louisiana.

Clark Co. Sheriff Pleads Guilty To Federal Charges One Day After Resigning

Yesterday, Clark Co. Sheriff Danny Rodden (D) resigned just two months after he faced a federal indictment that accused him of tampering with evidence and making false statements to FBI agents regarding his relationship with a prostitute at a Louisville hotel. Today, he pleaded guilty to three counts filed against him, including counseling in the destruction of evidence and two counts of providing false statements to law enforcement, in exchange for an agreement to dismiss other charges against him according to the Jeffersonville Evening News.

Under the stipulated facts of his plea agreement, Rodden admitted that he met with a prostitute in a hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Hotel on May 29, 2013 in which he paid $300 to the prostitute for oral sex and also provided the prostitute with a uniformed shirt and other clothing bearing the insignia of the Clark Co. Sheriff's Department. FBI agents interviewed Rodden in May of this year a short time after the prostitute agreed to become an informant for the agency. Rodden told the agent he never had sex with that woman or paid her for sex. Immediately after the interview, Rodden telephoned the prostitute and ordered her to dispose of the clothing bearing the sheriff's department insignia that he had given to her. During a subsequent interview with FBI agents in June, Rodden again lied about his relationship with the prostitute and denied he had her telephone number. Rodden's criminal defense team included high-profile Indianapolis attorney Jim Voyles and Larry "Trash Can" Wilder of Jeffersonville.

According to federal prosecutors, Rodden is likely to be sentenced between 10 and 16 months if the federal judge accepts the plea agreement. Rodden had been placed on administrative leave on July 30 following his indictment. A chief deputy who assumed his duties initially, John Kahafer, died unexpectedly on August 25 days after being hospitalized. Another deputy, Brian Meyer, became active sheriff. The Clark Co. Democratic Party will hold a caucus to select someone to fill out the remainder of Rodden's term, which ends this year. Meyer, the Democratic candidate on the November ballot, is expected to be chosen by the party to fill out the remainder of Rodden's term. Jamey Noel, the Clark Co. Republican Chairman, is the GOP candidate for sheriff this November. Rodden is the second Indiana sheriff to see his career end this year over a relationship with a prostitute. Boone Co. Sheriff Ken Campbell (R) resigned earlier this year for allegedly having a relationship with the very same prostitute who ended Rodden's career. No charges have been filed against Campbell.

Day Nursery Gets $20 Million Of $22.5 Million Grant Money From Lilly Endowment For Pre-K Education

I've been telling you all along that this entire early childhood education initiative pushed by Gov. Mike Pence and Mayor Greg Ballard with the strong backing of Eli Lilly was all about steering money to particular providers of early childhood education. As it turns out, there is only one entity that Lilly is interested in supporting. That would be the Day Nursery as it has always been known as until it recently started calling itself Early Learning Indiana. "Early Learning Indiana — formerly Day Nursery Association — will get $20 million to increase the number of programs it offers statewide and improve their quality, according to a news release from Lilly," the Star's John Tuohy reports. An additional $2.5 million grant is being awarded to United Way of Central Indiana, the nonprofit Mayor Ballard intends to rely upon to dole out the $5 million a year he wants to pass out to providers of early childhood education in Marion County for children of low-income parents. United Way will likely use most of that money for administrative costs associated with the program.

As only Advance Indiana reported, the wife of Star political columnist Matt Tully, Valerie Tully, chairs Day Nursery Association of Indiana, a fact he failed to disclose when he used his political column to endlessly advocate for Ballard's plan to eliminate the homestead property tax credit to provide $5 million a year in funding for pre-K education. Mayor Ballard's deputy mayor of education, Jason Kloth, also serves on Day Nursery's Board of Directors with Tully's wife. Tully also neglected to mention that his wife is employed as an executive at Eli Lilly, the same company that has made such a large public commitment to funding pre-K education. Tully insisted that there was no problem in not disclosing his wife's service chairing the Day Nursery's board of directors because she served in a volunteer capacity for the organization. "We have absolutely no financial interest in Day Nursery," he wrote in an e-mail to Advance Indiana. "The volunteering is a huge time commitment for her, but she does it gladly." He also defended his decision not to mention the fact that his wife worked for Eli Lilly because he ran it past his bosses at the Star who were comfortable with him writing about the subject despite Lilly's role in advocating for the program.

Now you know the rest of the story. The Star's Matt Tully and editorial manager, Tim Swarens, have been highly critical of any public official who dares to oppose city funding for Mayor Ballard's proposed pre-K spending program despite the fact that the City lacks resources as it is to fund basic services. The two have made quite clear that the news and editorial pages of the Indianapolis Star will be used to brandish anyone who stands in the way of approving Ballard's plan to provide $5 million a year in city tax dollars to the pre-K initiative, ignoring the fact that education is not the constitutional or statutory responsibility of municipal government in Indiana. Their funding plan would actually cut funding for Marion County's public schools by about $5 million a year by eliminating the homestead credit. Currently, Head Start in Indianapolis is provided exclusively by Family Development Services, which operates nine pre-K learning centers throughout the county. It spends about $16 million a year providing services to about 2,500 low-income children, all of which is funded by the federal government. FDS has attained state and national accreditation for its learning centers. Apparently, the Pence/Ballard/Lilly plan is to start up a competing program using the Day Nursery as an exclusive provider to compete against current Head Start programs.

UPDATE: So more details about the $20 million grant indicate that none of the $20 million being doled out to Day Nursery will actually be used to provide scholarships to low-income children to attend pre-K; rather, Day Nursery will supposedly be using this windfall of money to help other pre-K providers improve their curricula, build classrooms, educate parents and support professional development for teachers.

U.S. Government To Blame For Ebola's Arrival In America

It's almost as if President Barack Obama and his administration wanted the deadly Ebola virus introduced into this country. The Liberian national who boarded a flight to enter the U.S. on a tourist visa on September 19 knew that he had been exposed to several people infected with Ebola who died within days. Four days before he boarded the plane, Thomas Eric Duncan carried his landlord's pregnant daughter who was convulsing to a clinic to be treated for the disease. The 19-year old woman died the next day after she was turned away from a crowded hospital. The landlord's son and three neighbors who also came in contact with the daughter died from Ebola days later. Because Duncan wasn't showing symptoms when he boarded a plane days later, still within the disease's incubation period, he was allowed to board a plane bound for the U.S. Although a person can carry the disease for 21 days before becoming symptomatic, policy permitted a passenger to board a plane as long as they weren't sick at the time of boarding. The White House has told reporters they see no need to change that policy. President Obama has even signed an executive order that would prevent U.S. immigration officials from removing inadmissible Liberian nationals from the country for at least 24 months on humanitarian grounds.

The U.S. government acknowledges that there are currently 13,500 like Duncan from Ebola-stricken countries in West Africa who hold visas that allow them to travel to the U.S. uninhibited. Duncan worked for FedEx in Liberia, but he quit his job right after obtaining the visa in order to visit a son living in the U.S. Duncan no doubt intended to stay permanently in the U.S. after entering on his U.S. visa. The astronomical cost of treating Duncan's deadly disease will now be picked up by taxpayers, laying aside his potential exposure of dozens of others who came into direct contact with him after he became sick with Ebola after his arrival in the U.S.. News reports indicate that he was sent home with antibiotics on September 26 when he showed up sick at a hospital, Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital, in Dallas despite telling the people who treated him at the hospital that he had traveled to the U.S. from Liberia only days earlier. You can bet the hospital was most concerned about getting him out the door as quickly as possible since they knew he had no insurance or means to pay any medical bills that he incurred. Duncan spent two days in his son's Dallas apartment getting sicker and sicker before he was finally transported by ambulance to the hospital and diagnosed with Ebola. The ambulance which transported him remained in use for another two days before it was taken out of use. At least five children who attend four different schools came in contact with Duncan while he was sick with Ebola.

Texas officials say there are at least 18 people altogether who are being monitored for exposure to Ebola. Some news reports claim he may have had direct contact with as many as 80 people after he became symptomatic. Dr. Mark Lester at Texas Health Presbyterian acknowledges that Duncan had informed a nurse who saw him that he had recently arrived from Liberia but claims that the "information was not fully communicated throughout the whole team," whatever that's supposed to mean. The government assures us that hundreds of airline passengers who came in contact with Duncan have no fear of contracting the disease because he was asymptomatic at the time he traveled. Duncan traveled on three different planes during his journey from Liberia to Dallas. He flew from Liberia to Brussels where he boarded a plane bound for Washington's Dulles Airport. He then boarded a third flight to Dallas. U.S. health officials insist the disease can only be communicated one a person shows symptoms. They also insist that the disease is not air-borne like other common viruses, although some dispute that contention. We are told that a person must come into contact with an infected person's bodily fluids in order to communicate the school. Why have so many health care workers who take extraordinary precautions to protect themselves while treating Ebola patients contracted the disease in Africa if it's not an air-borne disease?

The Obama administration has been reassuring the public for months that there was no significant risk posed to Americans by the Ebola outbreak in Africa. It refused to alter any travel policies regarding people from the affected regions of Africa in an effort to minimize risks to Americans. What's even more troubling are reports that there was a public tweet from a large government supplier of emergency response products specializing in "high risk events" to Disaster Assistance Response Teams to be prepared to activate in the month of October. That suggests that someone not only knew that Ebola was coming to America but when it was expected to arrive here. There are some who even speculate that the particular strand of Ebola spread during this latest outbreak had been weaponized to maximize its spread. Previous outbreaks of the disease on the African continent since it was first discovered in 1976 have been very localized in mostly remote areas where very few people were infected by the disease. Earlier outbreaks were all easily contained, unlike the outbreak that began earlier this year in West Africa.

Son Of Herff Jones Executive Receives 3 Years On Home Detention For Fatal Hit-And-Run

A Hendricks County judge yesterday sentenced Charles Alex Parrett, the 19-year old son of Herff Jones VP and CFO Michael Parrett, to four years of home detention with one year suspended after he agreed to plead guilty to a single felony charge of fleeing the scene of an accident resulting in death. A vehicle driven by Parrett struck and killed 36-year old Robert Blankenship on U.S. Highway 36 on February 5. Parrett initially fled the scene and went to a restaurant in Plainfield before later returning to the scene with his mother.

Subsequent toxicology reports revealed that Parrett was under the influence of marijuana at the time of the accident. Judge David Coleman agreed to dismiss a felony charge against Parrett for driving under the influence of a schedule I or II controlled substance as part of a plea agreement Parrett reached with the Hendricks County Prosecutor's Office. Parrett, an Avon High School graduate, was a freshman member of Wabash College's football team at the time of his arrest. Parrett will be required to serve one year of probation after he completes his sentence of 1,093 days on home detention. He was also ordered to perform 40 hours of community service, fined $100 and ordered to pay $2,248.00 as partial restitution. Parrett is to be working or enrolled in school during his sentence, as well as undergo substance abuse evaluation and treatment.

Spierer Family Lawsuit Against Former IU Students Dismissed

The disappearance of Lauren Spierer, an undergraduate student at Indiana University, on June 3, 2011 remains as much of a mystery as the day we first learned of her disappearance following a night of drinking with several male friends in Bloomington. The questionable handling of the case by Bloomington Police and Indiana State Police investigators may never yield answers that will unravel the unsolved case to bring closure for her parents. Efforts by Spierer's parents to find justice through a civil lawsuit have met a similar fate. Judge Tanya Walton-Pratt has dismissed on summary judgment a negligence and Dram Shop Act violation claims against two defendants, Corey Rossman and Jason Rosenbaum, two IU students who were in Spierer's company on the night she disappeared. Judge Pratt earlier dismissed a wrongful death claim against the two and another IU student, Mike Beth.

Essentially, Spierer's claim against Rossman and Rosenbaum was dismissed because they were unable to designate sufficient evidence from which a reasonable jury could find that the underaged Spierer's intoxication on the night in question was the proximate cause of her injury or death. Spierer's attorneys belatedly tried to save their case from dismissal on summary judgment by claiming they had not had an adequate opportunity to conduct discovery that would establish a genuine issue of material fact that could be considered by the jury. Judge Pratt rejected their assertion, noting that the plaintiffs' attorneys had never requested additional time to respond to the defendants' summary judgment request and had even told the magistrate handling the case that additional discovery was not necessary to respond to the defendants' summary judgment motion. Spierer's attorneys also could not point to any information they anticipated uncovering during discovery that would create a genuine issue of fact.

Spierer's attorneys had offered an affidavit of a medical expert who would testify that her state of intoxication seriously diminished her mental and physical capacity to establish liability on the part of the defendants for allowing her to walk home on her own. Oddly, the plaintiffs never named Kilroy's Sports Bar as one of the defendants in the suit. Rossman had taken Spierer to Kilroy's that night and purchased alcohol for her there. When the two left the bar around 2:30 a.m., Spierer was observed to be highly intoxicated. She left without her shoes or cell phone. The two headed to her apartment before later going to Rossman's apartment. When Rossman's roommate, Mike Beth, got home around 3:30 a.m., he found Spierer in a highly intoxicated state and took her to Rosenbaum's apartment. Spierer later left Rosenbaum's apartment around 4:30 a.m. on her own to head to head back to her apartment when she disappeared.

It's always been my theory that Spierer likely fell and struck her head at some point during the night and suffered a severe head injury. She likely died while in the presence of whoever was with her last. That person panicked and disposed of her body rather than call police and answer questions about her death. Speculate is all we can do at this point since no body has ever been recovered and nobody has come forward with evidence to explain her disappearance.

When I was growing up in Marshall, Illinois, a farmer in our town, Fred Grabbe, strangled to death his wife, Charlotte, and burned her body down along the Wabash River and then threw her remains into the river. Her disappearance went unsolved for years until Grabbe's former girlfriend turned on him and provided testimony against him. The girlfriend had witnessed Grabbe strangle his wife, have sex with her dead body one last time and then using a grease gun to pump her body cavities full of grease before throwing her body in a 50 gallon barrel, driving her to the river, pouring diesel fuel on her body and then setting it on fire. The prosecution actually found an expert witness on trees from the University of Illinois who testified that he could explain stress damage to the tree under which Charlotte's body was burned to a fire that occurred near the date by examining the tree's rings. The case took an odd twist after Grabbe was found guilty and awaiting sentencing. Another girlfriend of Grabbe barged into the Clark Co. Jail where he was being held, shot a deputy and tried to spring Grabbe from jail before being overpowered. Shortly after he was sentenced, both his and his son's houses mysteriously burst into flames simultaneously and burned to the ground. His son, Jeff, was later found dead floating off the coast of Long Beach, California. Jeff's killer was never determined. The arson remains unsolved as well. Maybe someday a person's conscience will lead them to come forward with the truth about the disappearance of Lauren Spierer.

The Indiana Law Blog has posted the summary judgment opinion here.

Angie's List Next Step Is To Find Foolish Buyer

Angie's List should be formally declared a Ponzi scheme. It's operated for nearly two decades and has never turned a profit. The end game has always been to swap out one group of duped investors for another to provide cash infusions to keep the company afloat. Most astute stock investors have figured out that the Angie Hicks/Bill Oesterle business model only makes money for themselves and a few company insiders. Now that the company's stock has been in a downward spiral for the past year it should come as no surprise that Hicks and Oesterle would start shopping their company to a buyer. The IBJ, which is owned by one of Angie's List's long-time directors, Mickey Maurer, is all giddy about the company's stock rising on news of a possible sale of the company:

Shares of Angie’s List Inc. rocketed 22 percent higher Tuesday night after The Financial Times reported that the fast-growing consumer-review service had hired investment bankers to explore strategic options, including a sale.

An Angie’s List spokeswoman said the company had no comment because it does not respond to "rumors." The company’s shares surged $1.73 to $7.80 in after-hours trading.

The Financial Times, which did not name its sources, said Angie’s List had held conversations with prospective buyers. However, the newspaper cautioned that the company “is not wedded to selling itself” and might decide not to pursue a deal . . .

The company has been laying off sales staff following its most recent $18 million quarterly loss, and the company has been moving its staff from a series of buildings on East Market near downtown that it bought from a company owned by Oesterle into an office tower on North Meridian. Is there really a company out there that would be foolish enough to buy Angie's List? It makes you wonder just what the hell the business of America is all about when people like Hicks and Oesterle can become multi-millionaires running such a business that should have been shut down years ago due to the massive losses it has accumulated year after year without exception. How any consumer would pay for a membership fee and trust their ratings when the company relies on the vast majority of its revenues from the service providers it supposedly objectively rates is a mystery to me. The company just recently settled a class action lawsuit that accused it of providing misleading information to its members regarding automatic renewal of memberships.