Clinton Illegally Used Private E-Mail Account As Secretary Of State

News has emerged that Hillary Clinton illegally used a private e-mail account for all of her official correspondence throughout her tenure as President Obama's Secretary of State. Clinton did not even have a government-issued e-mail account according to the New York Times. In response to federal record-keeping requirements, The Times says Clinton's advisers recently turned over about 55,000 pages of private e-mails after reviewing all of her private e-mails to determine which ones got turned over to the government. Officials tell The Times it is unprecedented for a high-level cabinet official to conduct official government business using a private e-mail account, particularly an officials who is communicating matters of national security. Government e-mail accounts are presumed to be more secure than private e-mail accounts.

For people who have followed the Clintons throughout their political careers, the flaunting of laws is nothing new. This comes on the heels of a disclosure that the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from foreign governments during her tenure as Secretary of State. An ethics agreement the foundation reached with the government prior to her tenure as Secretary of State was supposed to bar it from accepting donations from governments seeking favorable treatment by the State Department. During Bill Clinton's administration, it was learned that Clinton's campaign illegally raised millions of dollars from foreign contributors. Despite clear violations of federal campaign finance laws, the Clinton Justice Department swept the investigations under the rug. As with all Clinton controversies, the latest disclosure will likely be brushed aside as the state-run media pushes us towards the two preordained presidential candidates in 2016--Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush.

Council Sends $18.5 Million Gift To Angie's List Back To Committee

The City-County Council in a surprising twist sent a proposal to provide $18.5 million in public subsidies to allow Angie's List to build a new parking garage and provide for the renovation of the old Ford building after relocating an IPS warehouse from the building back to committee for more vetting. The council earlier delayed a committee vote on this same proposal until after Angie's List reported its 2014 fourth quarter financial results earlier this month, one of the rare occasions the company showed a profit in its two decade history. Are council members getting a bit uneasy about the real benefactors behind this real estate transaction?

UPDATE: The council also approved on a 19-10 vote funding for the controversial pre-K education program pushed so hard by Eli Lilly and the Matt Tully Circle Jerk Club. The $20 million payable over 5 years takes money from the city's reserve fund to fund the program. The opponents always had the stronger argument on this issue. After all, how can you justify spending on a brand new program outside the constitutional and statutory responsibility of municipal government when it's already failing in its job of providing adequate streets, sidewalks, lighting and a host of other city services to struggling neighborhoods? Proponents continued to make false claims about studies proving pre-K education improves educational attainment. The studies in actuality say nothing of the sort.

The biggest new disclosure made during the public testimony came from the mayor's education profiteer tool, Jason Kloth, who confirmed the children targeted by the program will include illegal aliens. The unelected, nongovernmental United Way of Central Indiana will get to direct the awarding of pre-K education scholarships. This could be a double sucker punch to the African-American community, which will be the group hardest hit by a move by the state legislature to eliminate state common construction wage requirements on publicly-financed construction projects in a further effort to depress wages paid to workers in the building trades. The construction companies pushing this legislation overtly discriminate against African-Americans and even white workers for that matter in hiring the growing illegal alien population.

Clinton's Portrait Artist Showed Shadowy Sleight Of Hand

A former neighbor of mine who was an art teacher at Herron School of Art and accomplished artist in his own right once showed me a number of his paintings and explained to me hidden meanings he had in each of them. As he explained to me, this is not an uncommon thing for artists to do. The artist who painted President Bill Clinton's official portrait is no exception.

Nelson Shanks revealed that a shadow cast on the fireplace was that of a mannequin adorned with a blue dress as a reminder of President Clinton's shameful extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Shanks told the Philadelphia Daily News that painting Clinton was his hardest assignment because "he is the most famous liar of all time." He added the nod to the Lewinky scandal to the painting because of the shadow it cast over his presidency.

If you look at the left-hand side of it there’s a mantle in the Oval Office and I put a shadow coming into the painting and it does two things. It actually literally represents a shadow from a blue dress that I had on a mannequin, that I had there while I was painting it, but not when he was there. It is also a bit of a metaphor in that it represents a shadow on the office he held, or on him.

Shanks told the Daily News the Clintons were aware of the shadow's meaning and hate the portrait for that reason. He said they demanded it be taken down from display at the National Portrait Gallery. The portrait was taken down about three years ago, although not because the Clintons requested it be taken down according to officials at the gallery. I wonder if Shanks' depiction of Clinton making a downward pointing V-sign with palm inward isn't a reference to being sexually violated by a horned pagan god

Three Of Four Hoosier Billionaires Are State's Largest Welfare Recipients

UPDATED: The same familiar Hoosier names made Forbes list of wealthiest Americans. Bloomington's Carl Cook of Cook Group, Inc. ranks as the 72nd wealthiest American and the world's 216th wealthiest person. Cook got his $6.5 billion in estimated net worth the old fashion way. He inherited it from his late father, William Cook, who died in 2011. To our knowledge, the Cook family has no known history of demanding large public handouts from Indiana or local taxpayers. [An observant reader points out Cook's ownership interest in the French Lick Casino, whose lobbyists are currently asking state lawmakers to approve changes that would save the casino about $4.25 million annually in wagering taxes and exempt the casino from the admissions tax, which would cost local governments in the area about $3.25 million annually.]

The same can't be said for the other other three Hoosiers who made the list. They are the largest welfare recipients in the state of Indiana bar none. Herb Simon's estimated net worth grew nearly 50% to $2.9 billion thanks in large part to the increased value of his Indiana Pacers NBA team. Indianapolis taxpayers have been forced to publicly-subsidize Simon's NBA franchise to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars under threats by the greedy billionaire that he would take his team and move it to another city if officials didn't cough up the money he demanded.

Hotel and billboard magnate Dean White of Crown Point saw his net worth grow nearly a half billion dollars to $2.5 billion. Indianapolis taxpayers were forced to subsidize his J.W. Marriott luxury hotel in downtown Indianapolis to the tune of about $60 million. White's hotel company has sought lucrative public incentives for similar hotel projects elsewhere, including Chicago.

Finally, Jimmy "The Pill Popper" Irsay came in at $1.8 billion with little change over his previous year's estimated net worth. Taxpayers in Indianapolis built the Hoosier Dome at a cost of more than $60 million to allow Irsay's father rent-free use of the domed stadium for his NFL team. A little more than two decades later after Irsay inherited the Indianapolis Colts from his father's estate, he demanded a new stadium or else he would take it elsewhere. He got use of a nearly $750 million new stadium built to his personal specifications rent-free, and taxpayers are picking up 100% of the tens of millions of dollars in the annual costs of maintaining the stadium from which only Irsay derives any income. The former Hoosier Dome was imploded to make room for an expanded convention center even though a substantial part of the original debt owed on it remained unpaid.

The United States is no better than Russia where the government is operated for the exclusive benefit of wealthy oligarchs. The masses are nothing but mere slaves to the 1%, billionaire class of elitists who own virtually every elected public official who exercises any significant control over government tax dollars. Until the people rise up and revolt, the growing wealth disparity between the haves and have nots will only continue to grow at its rapid pace, along with the accompanying social injustice wrought by extreme income inequality.

Pence Signs Off On Political Crony Redevelopment Of GM Stamping Plant Acreage For New White River Music Venue

Gov. Mike Pence proves once again that he's nothing but a tool of the corrupt political cronies with whom he's surrounded his administration. The IBJ has the latest on a Pence-approved plan to have the state acquire 35 acres on the former GM Stamping Plant site for development of a new outdoor music venue that would replace the existing White River State Park-owned, outdoor music venue on the opposite side of the river. Steve Goldsmith's old crony, Mike Wells of REI Investments, is making the scene to flip the property for a huge profit.

According to the IBJ, REI has the 35 acres under contract for purchase for $2.8 million, or about $80,000 an acre. "Wells also expects to earn a profit, which he said could be a 3 percent to 5 percent development fee," the IBJ reported. Wells plans to partner with concert promoter Dave Lucas to develop a 15,000-seat outdoor amphitheater "that would rival Klipsch Music Center in Noblesville." Wells' REI also controls the land that is proposed to be used for the new Marion Co. Criminal Justice Center. One can only imagine who all has been cut in on the profit REI will make when it flips the land to WMB Partners Heartland Justice, LLC for development of the new criminal justice center. The article claims Wells will sell the land to the city at cost, which doesn't hardly pass the smell of marijuana that will be emanating from the new music venue.

State Sen. Jim Merritt, the advocate behind the ROC deal that screwed over Indianapolis taxpayers so badly, reappears to push this deal. "I think the bottom line is, if the terms are correct and they get it done, we're growing to grow the park, which is a very good move," said Sen. Jim Merritt. So the state wants to grow White River Park with an outdoor music venue that will provide a key downtown drug distribution network just like Klipsch Music Center started originally by Lucas provided to the Noblesville community where it sits? Local police in Noblesville are kept busy at the venue writing tickets all summer long for illegal consumption by minors, public intoxication and drug possession. "One of the biggest mistakes we made was letting that go out to Noblesville," Wells said. Glad they're thinking long-term. He told the IBJ that White River Park plans to cut programming of its lawn venue on the opposite side of the river because it "is not a big money-maker for the park." Public parks exist to make money? Translated, it ain't making any money for him and his political crony friends so it needs replaced by another one that will make them millions at the public's expense.

The IBJ story notes that if the state didn't acquire the land, he and his music venue promoting pals would have had to deal with those pesky zoning regulations and the expected opposition from the surrounding neighborhood, which will be adversely affected by the crowded traffic caused by concert-goers. "As a state entity, it's not subject to local zoning, said Rep. Justin Moed, D-Indianapolis, whose district covers the GM site and most of the downtown," the IBJ reports. "Moed, who by virtue of his position is a non-voting member of the park commission, said he's expressed his hope that the state will conduct a transparent planning process for the GM site." Yeah, right. That's why he signed on as a co-sponsor of the Indy Eleven soccer stadium legislation that includes language that creates a new state-like TIF to capture state revenues generated from within this region for use by these self-serving political insiders. His constituents in the near westside neighborhood will not only get inmates from the new county jail released into their neighborhood, they will get all of the negatives associated with abutting an outdoor concert venue. It didn't take him long to sell out his constituents to help line the pockets of the downtown mafia.

LA Cop Shoots And Kills Unarmed Homeless Man As Crowd Looks On And Records

There is a very disturbing NSFW video of a police-action shooting in Los Angeles where one police officer is captured on video shooting an unarmed homeless man at least four times, killing him. The man is clearly resisting the arrest, but there are about a half dozen police officers present for the arrest. The officers have the man penned down on the ground when the shooting occurs. It's unclear why the officers didn't use a taser instead of a firearm to subdue him. The victim is black, and some of the bystanders are blaming a black police officer for the shooting, although it's not clear which officer's gun fired the shots as other white officers present appear to have their guns drawn as well. You will see in the video people calling out the officer who shot him later in the video.

Sun-Times: Rep. Aaron Schock Charged Government For Personal Trips

It's always refreshing to check out what's on the pages in the two-newspaper town of Chicago where there's competition to pump out hard-hitting stories instead of the dribble we're fed by most of our daily newspapers in Indiana. The Sun-Times tells us that its reporters' examination of Rep. Aaron Schock's travel records show he used taxpayer money for personal use like attending Chicago Bears football games, and to travel out-of-state to raise money for non-government purposes. Schock is the cake boy darling of the Republican Party, and all of those dirty wealthy donors who finance our political campaigns want to be close to him and more.

Political columnist Lynn Sweet (the one who dared tell her readers Obama's "Dreams From My Father" was a work of fiction) says Schock billed taxpayers on November 16 to fly from Peoria to Chicago to attend a Chicago Bears football game. It was unclear which of his political donors paid for the 6 Bears tickets Schock and his fellow travelers used. Ticket prices range from $106 to $430 according to Sweet. In September, he traveled to New York where all of the billionaire financiers are and spent $3,000 for Global Citizen Festival Concerts where the lineup featured Jaz-Z, No Doubt, The Roots and Carrie Underwood but billed taxpayers for the trip.Together, he bill taxpayers over $20,000 for the two trips. "These new Sun-Times revelations are part of a growing number of questions surrounding Schock’s use of campaign and government funds to support his extravagant jet-set lifestyle," Sweet writes.

Sweet notes that Schock touted his trip to the concert in New York very visibly on social media. "It’s no mystery where Schock was on those days — he was in New York for the Sept. 27 Global Citizen Festival and for a round of national media interviews," Sweet writes. "He was very visible. Thousands of people saw Schock on the festival stage in Central Park, where he introduced India’s new prime minister, Narendra Modi." Schock has some association with the nonprofit Global Citizen according to Sweet. He traveled to India last year for an event sponsored by the group. Sweet notes no hotel expenses were listed, which raises questions about who paid for his overnight expenses during the trip.

The Indianapolis Star and the rest of useless media in Indianapolis could have done a bevy stories like this on Mayor Greg Ballard's overseas junkets with his campaign contributors, but they refuse to do it either because they're just lazy or want to keep up his phony aw shucks image.

UPDATE: That didn't take long. Rep. Schock's office announced he reimbursed the government for about $1,200 he billed the government for air travel to the Bears game. That brings the total to more than $41,000 that he has repaid the government for office and travel expenses that have come under media scrutiny.

Gannett List Says Pence Won't Run For President

Gannett-owned newspapers won't ever be accused of being a source of good investigative journalism when it comes to the meatier affairs of government, but they like their lists because it adds that game show aura to the news. Apparently the Operation Mockingbird operatives at CIA Headquarters down the road from the corporate media headquarters of Gannett decided sheeple like lists, and so the local Indianapolis Star gives us plenty of lists to consume in a newspaper heavy on sports and entertainment and way short on substantive news reporting. Former State House investigative journalist Tom LoBianco has a list of five reasons today why Gov. Mike Pence won't run for president in 2016.

The number one reason is the entry into the race of Jeb Bush, a CIA child prodigy, which means all of the top donors and fundraisers are now working for Bush. The second reason is Pence's request that his name not be included in CPAC's straw poll this past weekend despite his prime-time speaking spot at the event. The other reasons are far flung. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has crowded him out, and Terre Haute's Jim Bopp is supporting Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Finally, the Star's manufactured story about Pence's reorganization of state news-related services under the JustIn umbrella caused Washington operatives to believe he's not ready for prime time. The Star was upset that Pence was making it too easy for the public to access press releases for free that it has to pay to read on the Star's website.

Hamilton Co. GOP Leadership Epitomizes All That's Wrong With The Republican Party

The Indianapolis Star's Chris Sikich has a good story this weekend, "In Hamilton County, GOP party leaders accused of playing favorites," about the complaints real Republicans have with the self-dealers who run the Hamilton Co. Republican Party. One gets the impression reading the story the problems complained of in this story are isolated to Hamilton Co., but in actuality it's a mere microcosm of what the party has become statewide and nationally, and for that matter, what the Democratic Party has become from top to bottom.

The Hamilton Co. Republican Party's Chairman is Pete Emigh, who is an independent broker for One America. By no coincidence, Emigh manages retirement accounts for the city employees of Carmel, Nobelesville and Westfield, which have a combined value of $70 million. All three mayors, of course, say their decision to hire Emigh had nothing to do with his party leadership position. Since 2009, Emigh has run an independent political action committee known as Shamrock PAC, which isn't shy about picking favored candidates in Republican primary elections to support. The Hamilton Co. GOP's executive director, Andy Greider, often serves a dual role as campaign manager for Republican candidates involved in heated primary races.

Emigh, a Westfield native, was instrumental in the election of Westfield's current Mayor Andy Cook, who has been emulating Carmel Mayor Jim Brainard's crony capitalism model for growing his city in a fast and furious manner since his election. In Cook's narrow 62-vote win over Russell Cameron, Emigh's PAC kicked in about $44,500 to Cook's campaign according to Sikich's story. Cameron opposed Cook's crony capitalism that used taxpayer dollars to favor the private development activities of Cook's campaign contributors. Cameron raised raised more than $5,000 to challenge Cook in the close election.

In this year's election, Mayor Cook is opposed in the Republican primary by Jeff Harpe. Harpe tells Sikich that he thinks the Hamilton Co. GOP leadership is too connected to developers who benefit from the crony capitalism and plans to beat Cook through a grassroots campaign that attempts to connect to voters directly. Harpe has been particularly critical of Cook's plan to pay Holladay Properties $53 million over 25 years for an indoor soccer facility at Grand Park. He filed a lawsuit seeking to block the deal because city council members conducted meetings in secret that should have been publicly-noticed and heard before going to the full council for a vote.

Prior to last year's first municipal election as it transitioned from a town council to a city, the Hamilton Co. Treasurer Pete Peterson and Greider formed Royal Tiger PAC, which funded all but one of the winning candidates in the election. Fishers' new mayor, Scott Fadness, champions the use of tax increment financing as a form of economic development and turned to Greider to serve as his campaign manager. Greider also has been paid to work for Carmel's Mayor Brainard in primary elections. Brainard's primary opponent, Rick Sharp, thinks Greider should take a leave of absence from his work as the party's executive director if he's going to support candidates in primary elections.

Mayor Brainard defended Emigh's and Greider's involvement in primary elections. "The parties have an interest in making sure the primary nominees can win in the fall," Brainard said. "In this day of low-cost email and Internet communication, a small group can influence the primary and the parties need to make sure the voters are getting accurate information. "If a fringe candidate is nominated, the party can lose in the fall." In other words, unless you support crony capitalism, you are a fringe candidate. Brainard's suggestion that such a candidate would lose to a Democrat in the general election is laughable. Hamilton County is a one-party county where the primary election determines the outcome of an election.