Tuesday, April 26, 2016
New Gubernatorial Poll Looks A Lot Like 2012 Race
A new poll released by WTHR and Howey Politics shows the race for Indiana governor almost exactly where it ended four years ago. Gov. Mike Pence narrowly leads his Democratic opponent, John Gregg, by a 49-45% margin. In 2012, Pence defeated Gregg by a 49.6-46.4% margin. Pence is viewed favorably by 44% of the voters compared to 41% who view him unfavorably. Pence's name recognition, 94%, is double Gregg's name recognition score.
It's A Clean Sweep For Trump
The grand plan by the establishment Republican Party to block Donald Trump hit another major bump in the road as he swept the five northeastern states on the ballot today by overwhelming majorities. Trump easily won primary elections in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
He captured more than 60% of the vote in Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. In the large, diverse state of Pennsylvania he captured nearly 60% of the vote and won in every part of the state- urban, suburban and rural. Trump is winning about 54% of the vote in Maryland, including the suburban D.C. area where Washington insiders predominate. Cruz is running dead last in all of the states but Pennsylvania, and he barely cracked 20% of the vote there.
It's also another big night for Hillary Clinton. She has convincingly won Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania and narrowly won in Connecticut, while Sanders won Rhode Island. There is no mathematical possibility of Sanders winning the nomination at this point. Trump, on the other hand, did everything he needed to keep his hopes alive of winning the magical 1,237 delegates he needs to win the Republican nomination on a first ballot.
With his clean sweep tonight, he's getting very close to having 1,000 delegates, or close to 400 more than Cruz. Despite his overwhelming win in Pennsylvania, archaic party rules guaranteed him only 17 delegates. He'll have to wrestle with the other candidates in the field to win over the 54 unpledged delegates. Trump is the only candidate coming into next week's Indiana primary with any momentum. Cruz has pretty much made Indiana his last stand. If he is unable to beat Trump here next week, it's unlikely he will win any of the significant state races yet to be decided.
He captured more than 60% of the vote in Connecticut, Delaware and Rhode Island. In the large, diverse state of Pennsylvania he captured nearly 60% of the vote and won in every part of the state- urban, suburban and rural. Trump is winning about 54% of the vote in Maryland, including the suburban D.C. area where Washington insiders predominate. Cruz is running dead last in all of the states but Pennsylvania, and he barely cracked 20% of the vote there.
It's also another big night for Hillary Clinton. She has convincingly won Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania and narrowly won in Connecticut, while Sanders won Rhode Island. There is no mathematical possibility of Sanders winning the nomination at this point. Trump, on the other hand, did everything he needed to keep his hopes alive of winning the magical 1,237 delegates he needs to win the Republican nomination on a first ballot.
With his clean sweep tonight, he's getting very close to having 1,000 delegates, or close to 400 more than Cruz. Despite his overwhelming win in Pennsylvania, archaic party rules guaranteed him only 17 delegates. He'll have to wrestle with the other candidates in the field to win over the 54 unpledged delegates. Trump is the only candidate coming into next week's Indiana primary with any momentum. Cruz has pretty much made Indiana his last stand. If he is unable to beat Trump here next week, it's unlikely he will win any of the significant state races yet to be decided.
Monday, April 25, 2016
Bobby Knight To Join Donald Trump Rally In Indy Wednesday Evening
Donald Trump will be joined by Indiana basketball coach great Bobby Knight at a second rally he has planned for Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. at the Indiana Farmer's Coliseum at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. Register to get your tickets here.
Poll Shows Young With Healthy Lead Over Stutzman
A WTHR/Howey Politics poll shows Todd Young with a healthy, 12-point lead over his Republican Senate primary opponent, Marlin Stutzman. The poll of Republican voters gives Young a 43-31% edge over Stutzman with more than a quarter of the voters still undecided with a little more than a week to go before election day.
I wouldn't count Stutzman out yet. I expect the final vote count will see the winning candidate prevailing by a single-digit vote margin. Stutzman polled much better on election day six years ago than he did in polls prior to the 2010 Senate primary election where he finished second behind Dan Coats. A poll taken a week before that election showed Stutzman trailing in third with only 18% of the vote, with Coats in the lead with 36% of the vote. Stutzman wound up second on election day with 29% of the vote compared to Coats' winning margin of 39%.
The Trump factor is a big unknown. Will those who traditionally don't participate in Republican primary elections who come out to vote for Trump cast a vote for Stutzman or Young? Neither Stutzman nor Young has endorsed a presidential candidate, although Young did attend an anti-Trump gathering of wealthy GOP donors in Palm Beach, Florida last month. What will the rate of voter participation look like this year? Will the decision of Cruz and Kasich to collude in an effort to deny Trump the nomination affect voter turnout?
Early voting numbers to date aren't particularly impressive. The Indiana Secretary of State's office reports that more than 110,000 people have already cast early votes in this year's primary election. More than 64,000 of those, or about 58%, are Republican voters. That's only about 10% of the total number of Republican voters who participated in Indiana's presidential primary election four years ago. Compare that to the 2008 Democratic primary election in Indiana against Clinton and Obama when nearly 1.3 million voters participated in the primary election. Also, those early votes this year were cast before Hoosiers learned that Kasich made a last-minute decision not to compete in the primary election.
Obviously, those who voted early and cast a vote for Kasich are extremely angry that their votes were wasted on a candidate who doesn't even want their votes. I've said it before, and I think it bears repeating. The Indiana Republican Party has been making every effort possible to suppress voter turnout in this year's Republican presidential primary, which is the exact opposite tact taken by Democrats in 2008. The lack of enthusiasm shown by the poor, early voting numbers seems to indicate their plan is working.
I wouldn't count Stutzman out yet. I expect the final vote count will see the winning candidate prevailing by a single-digit vote margin. Stutzman polled much better on election day six years ago than he did in polls prior to the 2010 Senate primary election where he finished second behind Dan Coats. A poll taken a week before that election showed Stutzman trailing in third with only 18% of the vote, with Coats in the lead with 36% of the vote. Stutzman wound up second on election day with 29% of the vote compared to Coats' winning margin of 39%.
The Trump factor is a big unknown. Will those who traditionally don't participate in Republican primary elections who come out to vote for Trump cast a vote for Stutzman or Young? Neither Stutzman nor Young has endorsed a presidential candidate, although Young did attend an anti-Trump gathering of wealthy GOP donors in Palm Beach, Florida last month. What will the rate of voter participation look like this year? Will the decision of Cruz and Kasich to collude in an effort to deny Trump the nomination affect voter turnout?
Early voting numbers to date aren't particularly impressive. The Indiana Secretary of State's office reports that more than 110,000 people have already cast early votes in this year's primary election. More than 64,000 of those, or about 58%, are Republican voters. That's only about 10% of the total number of Republican voters who participated in Indiana's presidential primary election four years ago. Compare that to the 2008 Democratic primary election in Indiana against Clinton and Obama when nearly 1.3 million voters participated in the primary election. Also, those early votes this year were cast before Hoosiers learned that Kasich made a last-minute decision not to compete in the primary election.
Obviously, those who voted early and cast a vote for Kasich are extremely angry that their votes were wasted on a candidate who doesn't even want their votes. I've said it before, and I think it bears repeating. The Indiana Republican Party has been making every effort possible to suppress voter turnout in this year's Republican presidential primary, which is the exact opposite tact taken by Democrats in 2008. The lack of enthusiasm shown by the poor, early voting numbers seems to indicate their plan is working.
Gannett Makes Bid To Acquire Tribune Publishing
In yet another blow to print media, Gannett is making a bid to acquire the Tribune Publishing Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Orlando Sentinel, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Baltimore Sun and San Diego Union-Tribune. Gannett is offering $12.25 per share, a 63% premium over the company's closing stock price Friday. This continues the troubling centralization of American media under the control of a handful of corporate media giants with close ties to the military/industrial complex.
Cruz And Kasich Collude To Deny Trump, Kasich Dropping Out Of Indiana Primary
The media has been all abuzz about how Indiana's presidential primary election is relevant this year, a rare occasion. In reality, the election has been rigged by political insiders to make the choices made by Indiana primary voters next week irrelevant to the outcome of the election. Even though Indiana Republican leaders had already rigged the delegate election prior to any votes being cast, the campaigns of Ted Cruz and John Kasich have united in an effort to block even a symbolic victory for Donald Trump in Indiana in the beauty contest.
In spite of the Republican Party establishment's trashing of Trump with the full support of the established media in the state, a trio of polls all showed Trump on top and likely heading to a win next Tuesday. As Advance Indiana has already made clear, even winning the popular vote in Indiana is meaningless for Trump because the vast majority of the delegates chosen in backroom deals by state party leaders oppose his nomination. The only candidate with a clear advantage among those chosen in that corrupt process is John Kasich, but his campaign is now suspending his efforts here and urging his supporters to vote for Cruz. Theoretically, those delegates are bound to the candidate who wins the statewide vote or the individual congressional races, but there have already been rumblings that won't happen if doing so would give Trump a first ballot win.
As part of this Faustian bargain, the Cruz campaign has agreed to drop efforts in New Mexico and Oregon, giving Kasich a shot at defeating Trump in those two upcoming races in a head-to-head match-up. The end game is to ensure by any means possible that Trump is unable to secure enough votes to win on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. Polls show Trump with a commanding lead in Pennsylvania, but its delegate selection process ensures that he will lose the delegate race regardless of the preference of the state's Republican primary voters. Trump is also the clear favorite in other big state remaining, including California and New Jersey, but similar efforts are being made to undermine victories in those and other upcoming states where Trump is likely to win.
What should now be clear for all to see is that the Republican Party has endorsed the election of Hillary Clinton for president. The Republican Party's money man, billionaire Charles Koch, signaled that over the weekend in an interview where he stated that he would prefer Hillary Clinton over any of the Republican presidential candidates. The Republican Party isn't interested in choosing any candidate who offers a clear choice this year. Both parties' nominating processes have been entirely rigged, making our popular presidential election process as meaningless as it is in the countries our nation is fond of criticizing for lacking truly freely elections. Your votes are meaningless. The Republic is dead. And while the nation awakens today with a collective yawn, President Barack Obama is sending more American troops into Syria because he's not satisfied the bloodbath already caused in that country by our nation and its allies has resulted in enough death and destruction.
In spite of the Republican Party establishment's trashing of Trump with the full support of the established media in the state, a trio of polls all showed Trump on top and likely heading to a win next Tuesday. As Advance Indiana has already made clear, even winning the popular vote in Indiana is meaningless for Trump because the vast majority of the delegates chosen in backroom deals by state party leaders oppose his nomination. The only candidate with a clear advantage among those chosen in that corrupt process is John Kasich, but his campaign is now suspending his efforts here and urging his supporters to vote for Cruz. Theoretically, those delegates are bound to the candidate who wins the statewide vote or the individual congressional races, but there have already been rumblings that won't happen if doing so would give Trump a first ballot win.
As part of this Faustian bargain, the Cruz campaign has agreed to drop efforts in New Mexico and Oregon, giving Kasich a shot at defeating Trump in those two upcoming races in a head-to-head match-up. The end game is to ensure by any means possible that Trump is unable to secure enough votes to win on a first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. Polls show Trump with a commanding lead in Pennsylvania, but its delegate selection process ensures that he will lose the delegate race regardless of the preference of the state's Republican primary voters. Trump is also the clear favorite in other big state remaining, including California and New Jersey, but similar efforts are being made to undermine victories in those and other upcoming states where Trump is likely to win.
What should now be clear for all to see is that the Republican Party has endorsed the election of Hillary Clinton for president. The Republican Party's money man, billionaire Charles Koch, signaled that over the weekend in an interview where he stated that he would prefer Hillary Clinton over any of the Republican presidential candidates. The Republican Party isn't interested in choosing any candidate who offers a clear choice this year. Both parties' nominating processes have been entirely rigged, making our popular presidential election process as meaningless as it is in the countries our nation is fond of criticizing for lacking truly freely elections. Your votes are meaningless. The Republic is dead. And while the nation awakens today with a collective yawn, President Barack Obama is sending more American troops into Syria because he's not satisfied the bloodbath already caused in that country by our nation and its allies has resulted in enough death and destruction.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
Davey Blackburn Explains Forgiving Amanda's Killers
Pastor Davey Blackburn of Indianapolis' Resonate Church spoke at New Spring Church in Anderson, South Carolina today about the killing of his wife, Amanda, last year by three young Indianapolis men during a home invasion. He said the first time he felt anger after Amanda's senseless killing was when he saw photos of the three young men after they were arrested. He said forgiveness is not an emotion. He was never going to feel like forgiving them."It's a decision," he said. "I have to decide to forgive." "Bitterness is going to be a cancer to no one else but me." "On the other side of eternity, Jesus is going to restore and make all bad things completely untrue." "He's going to take care of vengeance."
Davey: Imagine if these three guys met Jesus, okay. Imagine the kick in the nuts it would be for the enemy.
Pastor Perry Noble: I love it. Yes. (laughter)
Davey: I'm just saying.
Pastor Noble: You can tell he's from New Spring. (laughter)
Davey: I don't know if I'm supposed to say that or not.
Pastor Noble: No, much worse things have been said from this stage . . . by guest speakers. (laughter)
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Yikes! Only 100 Show Up To See Ted Cruz In Plainfield
Ted Cruz returned to Indiana to make stops in Plainfield and Lebanon today. His first stop at the Oasis Diner in Plainfield was sparsely attended with about 100 on hand to greet him. Early reports don't suggest the turnout at his stop at the Boone Co. Fairgrounds is drawing a large crowd either.About 100 people here for @tedcruz in Plainfield. pic.twitter.com/BoIDENnpP5— Abdul-Hakim Shabazz (@AttyAbdul) April 23, 2016
Latest Indianapolis Parking Meter Report Proves Privatization Is A Public Rip-Off
Watching a recent meeting of the Public Works Committee of the Indianapolis City-County Council where members received a 2015 report on the revenues generated from the privatized parking meter assets, one would have gotten the impression the report was all good news. As the council members read over the report and discussed it with DPW Director Lori Miser, they were careful not to discuss the numbers out loud so the viewing public could understand what they were actually reading. The council members seemed thrilled with the report, but after obtaining a copy of it, Advance Indiana doesn't think the numbers look so great.
Total parking meter revenues in 2015 came in at $9.96 million, or roughly the same as what they generated in 2014. The City's share of the total revenues was pegged at $3.7 million; however, there is the matter of waived revenue. Under the terms of the 50-year parking meter lease with ParkIndy, the City is required to reimburse the private operator when meters are taken out of use for purposes other than civic-sponsored events. That provision of the lease agreement allowed the private operator to capture $266,831.00 of the revenues otherwise payable to the City, which means the City actually netted less than $3.5 million from the parking meters compared to the nearly $6.5 million the private operator pocketed. The City netted more than $3.3 million in 2014.
When the City originally privatized the parking meter assets, the private operator paid an initial $20 million concession fee to the City for the 50-year lease. As you may recall, about a third of that amount got kicked back to Ersal Ozdemir's Keystone Construction to build a new mixed use parking garage in Broad Ripple in exchange for all of the campaign contributions he showered on former Mayor Greg Ballard. The parking meter fund is supposed to be used for sidewalks and infrastructure improvements in the area where parking meters are located. So where was the more than $6 million paid out of the fund spent this past year?
You'll be happy to know that the largest expenditure from the fund went to Bollore's Blue Indy, that illegal and corrupt exclusive, electric car sharing business our former mayor awarded to the French-owned company as another kickback scheme for his corrupt cronies. Blue Indy received $2.757 million from the fund of the $6 million the City committed to awarding the company. The balance came from the Rebuild Indy fund. The fund also kicked back nearly a half million dollars to cover maintenance expenses on Georgia Street, the city street-turned private venue that is operated by Downtown Indy under a lease agreement that apparently allows the nonprofit to pocket all of the revenues while the parking meter fund is tapped to cover its maintenance expenses.
The City's parking meter fund also spent about $719,000 in sidewalk improvements for Milhaus Properties' private development project at the site of the old Bank One operations center. The fund also was tapped for $425,000 on improvements for three segments of the Cultural Trail along Washington Street, Alabama Street and Virginia Avenue. Over $521,000 was spent on street, curb and sidewalk improvements along Pennsylvania and Alabama Streets. Over $100,000 was spent on a study to determine appropriate timing for left turns/pedestrian crossings within the mile square. Over $110,000 was paid to attorney Robert Glennon in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain approval from the IURC in an IPL rate tariff case for LED street light conversion. Walker Research got paid $75,000 to conduct a parking study for Downtown Indy. About $30,000 was funded for streetscape improvements around the Artisty, Cummins and Flaherty & Collins 360 Market project. So I guess council members were so happy with the revenue report because their campaign contributors were being taken care of, even if the taxpaying public is not.
Total parking meter revenues in 2015 came in at $9.96 million, or roughly the same as what they generated in 2014. The City's share of the total revenues was pegged at $3.7 million; however, there is the matter of waived revenue. Under the terms of the 50-year parking meter lease with ParkIndy, the City is required to reimburse the private operator when meters are taken out of use for purposes other than civic-sponsored events. That provision of the lease agreement allowed the private operator to capture $266,831.00 of the revenues otherwise payable to the City, which means the City actually netted less than $3.5 million from the parking meters compared to the nearly $6.5 million the private operator pocketed. The City netted more than $3.3 million in 2014.
When the City originally privatized the parking meter assets, the private operator paid an initial $20 million concession fee to the City for the 50-year lease. As you may recall, about a third of that amount got kicked back to Ersal Ozdemir's Keystone Construction to build a new mixed use parking garage in Broad Ripple in exchange for all of the campaign contributions he showered on former Mayor Greg Ballard. The parking meter fund is supposed to be used for sidewalks and infrastructure improvements in the area where parking meters are located. So where was the more than $6 million paid out of the fund spent this past year?
You'll be happy to know that the largest expenditure from the fund went to Bollore's Blue Indy, that illegal and corrupt exclusive, electric car sharing business our former mayor awarded to the French-owned company as another kickback scheme for his corrupt cronies. Blue Indy received $2.757 million from the fund of the $6 million the City committed to awarding the company. The balance came from the Rebuild Indy fund. The fund also kicked back nearly a half million dollars to cover maintenance expenses on Georgia Street, the city street-turned private venue that is operated by Downtown Indy under a lease agreement that apparently allows the nonprofit to pocket all of the revenues while the parking meter fund is tapped to cover its maintenance expenses.
The City's parking meter fund also spent about $719,000 in sidewalk improvements for Milhaus Properties' private development project at the site of the old Bank One operations center. The fund also was tapped for $425,000 on improvements for three segments of the Cultural Trail along Washington Street, Alabama Street and Virginia Avenue. Over $521,000 was spent on street, curb and sidewalk improvements along Pennsylvania and Alabama Streets. Over $100,000 was spent on a study to determine appropriate timing for left turns/pedestrian crossings within the mile square. Over $110,000 was paid to attorney Robert Glennon in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain approval from the IURC in an IPL rate tariff case for LED street light conversion. Walker Research got paid $75,000 to conduct a parking study for Downtown Indy. About $30,000 was funded for streetscape improvements around the Artisty, Cummins and Flaherty & Collins 360 Market project. So I guess council members were so happy with the revenue report because their campaign contributors were being taken care of, even if the taxpaying public is not.
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