Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Omedia's Anderson Cooper To Serve As Grand Marshal Of 500 Festival Parade
Cillizza: Daniels Winning By Waiting
Despite being a short, balding and not particularly attractive candidate, Chris Cillizza blogs at The Fix that he thinks Mitch Daniels is winning the Republican presidential nomination by playing the waiting game and appearing hard to get.
At first glance, Mitch Daniels is not someone who engenders political swooning. Shortish, balding and a self-described policy wonk, the Indiana governor is not who you would picture if asked to describe a presidential candidate from central casting.It must be sort of like the attraction bad boy Puck has to fat girl Lauren on Glee. Just kidding.
And yet, Daniels has become the hottest thing in Republican political circles of late by doing one simple thing: waiting.
Daniels has, for months now, been publicly mulling a presidential candidacy. And, as he has remained on the fence, almost everyone else in the race has jumped off of it — leaving a field that many GOP voters and strategists believe is wanting.
That sentiment has turned Daniels into the man of the moment as, in recent weeks, he has been publicly praised far and wide by prominent Republicans.
During an appearance on the “Today” show last week, House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) offered some unprompted praise of Daniels — calling him a “person with a track record of reform in his state, the kind of reforms we need in Washington, D.C.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie echoed that sentiment in a recent radio interview saying of Daniels that “he’s certainly somebody who I have enormous respect for and would give real consideration to supporting.”
(Reports that Christie — and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — had offered their support if Daniels runs are untrue, according to informed sources in both camps.)
And, on Monday, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, who looked at running himself in 2012, said that Daniels would be “an extremely good candidate”. (On Tuesday, Henry Barbour, the governor’s nephew, tweeted: “No idea if Mitch Daniels is running, but this wide open field needs another truth teller with a record like his.”
Daniels is being courted behind the scenes as well. Last week, a number of major GOP donors came to a Republican Governors Association policy conference at the Indiana governor’s mansion with many of the attendees urging Daniels to make the race.
“I think it is smart,” said GOP strategist Mike Murphy of Daniels’ waiting game strategy. “Why have the burn rate with no voter attention?”
Under Murphy’s logic, Daniels’ hard-to-get approach to the race not only turns him into a hot commodity for those looking for a fresh face to get behind but also saves him from raising and spending money on a bid before anyone even in early voting states is paying much attention.
While the Daniels’ buzz continues to grow — witness the “Run Mitch Run” signs being waved at last week’s Indiana Republican fundraising dinner — recent electoral history suggests that simply being the last major candidate to enter the race is no guarantee of success in the nomination fight.
Both retired Gen. Wesley Clark (D) and former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson were late entrants into the 2004 and 2008 nomination fights respectively.
But, in both cases, their best day as a candidate was their first one; neither man proved to be a particularly compelling and their campaigns wound up fizzling out.
And, now that the race has begun in earnest it becomes more difficult for Daniels to remain on the sidelines for much longer. The clearest evidence of why waiting might not work much longer? Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s monster $10 million one-day haul, a sum that some of his rivals could struggle to equal in the entire three-month quarter.
Daniels’ wait and see strategy has served him well to this point. But the day is rapidly approaching when he needs to make up his mind or run the risk of jumping the political shark.
Too Bad It's Too Late For Total Recall Of The Terminator
Former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger waited until after he left office to tell his wife, Maria Shriver, that he fathered a love child with a member of the couple's domestic staff more than a decade ago, which helps explain why Maria is now divorcing him.
"After leaving the governor's office I told my wife about this event, which occurred over a decade ago," Schwarzenegger told the Times in a statement that also was sent to The Associated Press early Tuesday. "I understand and deserve the feelings of anger and disappointment among my friends and family. There are no excuses and I take full responsibility for the hurt I have caused. I have apologized to Maria, my children and my family. I am truly sorry.Had this man told the truth about his love child when he fathered it, his marriage would have ended and he would have never been elected California governor in the special election after Gov. Gray Davies was recalled seven years ago. Shriver provided cover for Schwarzenegger when he came under attack for his womanizing ways as a candidate ala Hillary Clinton. He ran as a fiscal conservative but instead bankrupted the state with higher spending and higher taxes. Will he fess up to doing gay for pay with wealthy European businessmen before he immigrated to this country next?
"I ask that the media respect my wife and children through this extremely difficult time," the statement concluded. "While I deserve your attention and criticism, my family does not."
Monday, May 16, 2011
DLZ And Its Pay To Play Ways Strike Again
In my various reports on "Pay To Play Is The Ballard Way", I've noted one of the largest Ballard contributors has been a minority-owned engineering/consulting firm, DLZ. This is the same firm that federal investigators in Illinois subpoenaed in its ongoing investigation of Pay To Play corruption in Illinois. The firm lavishes campaign contributions to politicians all over the state of Indiana. Last week, the firm flew Porter Co. Commissioner Nancy Adams (R) and her husband to the state GOP dinner to hear First Lady Cheri Daniels speak. The Northwest Indiana Times Bob Kasarda reports on the free plane ride for the county commissioner:
The engineering firm of DLZ flew newly elected Porter County Commissioner Nancy Adams and her husband to a Republican dinner last week in Indianapolis.
Adams said she and her husband paid for their own tickets to the dinner, but did not reimburse the company for the flight, which also included a mayoral candidate from Mishawaka.
Adams said the flight, gifted by the top paid consultant of Porter County government last year, will in no way influence her decision making.
She said she opted to take the company up on the offer because the Thursday flight was much quicker than driving, which allowed her to attend county-related meetings both that day and Friday. She also felt it was important to attend the event to get to know others downstate, who she will need to rely on to get things done on behalf of the county.
DLZ Indiana President Brian Glaze did not return calls for comment.
The county personnel policy manual prohibits elected officials from accepting and donors from offering any gift, favor, service or entertainment under circumstances in which it can be reasonably inferred the gift would influence special consideration by the official.
Adams took office at the start of this year and thus was not part of the decision making that resulted in DLZ receiving the largest individual share of consulting funds last year from the county at $616,499.
Adams said she and the other two commissioners have made a point to share county work with many consulting firms.
She referred to the $20 million drainage project, where $680,000 in planning and engineering work was recently awarded to four area firms. DLZ was selected as the program manager and to take on a large amount of the work.
Cheri Daniels, wife of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, was the featured speaker at last week's GOP fundraising dinner in question.
Barnes v. State: Echoes of Fred Sanders?
The Indiana Supreme Court's 3-2 decision in Barnes v. State abrogating a long-standing common law rule that citizens have the right to reasonably resist an unlawful entry into their home by police continues to gain national attention. Fellow blogger Jeff Cox, however, focuses on a real-life Indiana case involving Indianapolis police and a warrantless intrusion into a man's home that left one police officer dead and the homeowner nearly beaten to death. Cox, who considers himself "second to no one in being tough on crime," sees a frightening parallel in the Barnes decision with the case of Fred Sanders. Here are the facts Cox recites from another blog entry:
In 1988, a Catholic high school teacher, Fred Sanders, didn't always get along with his neighbors. They would often call the police with some sort of complaint, and each time, the complaint would be shown invalid. But it was a kind of harassment he experienced. One time, they called about a dog making racket and so the police, a group of them, came and addressed him while he was outside.Professor Henry Karlson often recounted this case to his law students. I recall Professor Karlson telling me how angry the police were that he had gotten involved in Fred Sanders' case, the threatening phone calls he received and how he learned that someone had illegally wiretapped his telephone while he was working on the case. Here's a factual summary of what happened in the civil case, which was Sanders' only recourse for justice:
There was a discussion, and already, they were shown to be aggressive. They were already being physically abusive to him. He didn't like it, so he went back to his home, and locked the door. The police didn't like his attitude, so they demanded entry. He asked if he were under arrest or if there were a warrant. The answer to both was no. He told them to go away. They didn't. Instead, when he knew they were going to break down his door, he ran upstairs to get a shotgun. They broke in, and ran up after him. When they saw him with the gun, they started to run -- he, however, was not convinced and was afraid, after being physically assaulted. So he shot out, and hit one of the officers -- killing him! [Note: this officer was Patrolman Matt Faber -- JC.]
He gave himself up.
The other police handcuffed him and basically beat him up -- very very bad. Nearly to death. His eye was out of its socket it was so bad (and never fully healed). He is put on trial for murder, and afraid of the consequence (with a lawyer not helping, and his mother, dying, and afraid he will be put to death, telling him to take pleas) pleads guilty ( I think to manslaughter). But then others hear of the case, and think he was railroaded (should have been legitimate defense of his home/life), and that the police officers, when on trial, lied and were protecting each other as they avoided much of the evidence of what happened. He gets a new lawyer (who also recruited my dad, a law professor, as co-counsel) [Editor's note: The law professor is the late Henry Karlson of IU School of Law--Indianapolis]. The new lawyer can't do much with the conviction. So he launches a suit and criminal charges against the police.
On August 4, 1988, numerous IPD officers, after illegally forcing their way into the home of Fred Sanders and arresting him, savagely beat Sanders after he was handcuffed and subdued, causing Sanders serious bodily injury. The police department covered-up the use of excessive force by the officers in the case. IPD Officer Robert Ward was identified by civilians as one officer who engaged in the beating, and he was later convicted of battery. The federal jury who heard the Sanders case returned a verdict for $1.5 million for Sanders and against the Police and the City of Indianapolis. This sent a powerful message to the police that the community would no longer tolerate such abusive behavior towards Hoosier's as the Defendants' in that case had exercise with impunity against Sanders. Judge Sarah Evans Barker, in one of the more heinous acts of usurpation of citizens' power committed from a federal court bench, reduced this jury award to a mere $77,000.00, thereby condemning Sander's attorney to retry the case no less than three more times on narrower grounds than the first trial court victory.
Dan Coats Can See Dead Bin Laden Photos But We Can't
Sen. Dan Coats is part of the privileged elite who has spent his entire adult life living and working inside the Washington beltway. He decided he had the right to view the alleged photos of the now-deceased Osama bin Laden but the American people have no right to view them because to share them with the public would only incite more Muslim terrorist attacks:
Sen. Dan Coats, who on today viewed the photos taken of Osama bin Laden after he was killed by Navy SEALs, said President Barack Obama was right not to release the photos publicly.Sure, we can watch Americans falling to their death live on TV from the burning World Trade Centers, see the videos of the massacres at Mumbai, Spain and London or the beheading of Daniel Pearl at the hands of Muslim terrorists, but it's expecting too much to allow the American people the opportunity to view the proof for themselves that the man we spent more than $1 trillion dollars fighting the past decade, bankrupting our country in the process, is truly dead. Yeah, I'm sure Coats saw photos of a dead bin Laden. I'm just not convinced they aren't photos that are nearly a decade old. Dr Steve Pieczenik, a counter-terrorism expert under three Secretaries of State and four U.S. presidents who worked on psy-op projects, says U.S. intelligence knew bin Laden died within a year following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and withheld the evidence from the American people to gain support for a two-front war on terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq. The CIA has a long history of fabricating evidence to suit its ends. The American people have every reason to be skeptical. I'm certainly not going to take the word of a career beltway insider like Dan Coats on something like this. The more story-telling I hear from our government explaining how the capture and execution of bin Laden went down, the more convinced I am that we're not being told the entire truth. I'll take Pieczenik's word until I'm convinced otherwise.
“They’re graphic,” said Coats, a member of the Senate intelligence committee. “And because of the graphic nature of them, I can see better now why the president decided not to release those photos for fear that it would incite groups in the Middle East as well as elsewhere.”
Obama told CBS’s “60 Minutes’ earlier this month that releasing the photos would create ”some national security risk“ and that he didn’t want them used as a propaganda tool or an incitement to additional violence.
”Americans and people around the world are glad that he’s gone,“ Obama said of bin Laden. ”But we don’t need to spike the football.“
Coats said he had been concerned that not releasing the photos would give fodder to conspiracy theorists who would insist bin Laden was still alive. But the Indiana Republican said that has not happened and that keeping the photos private was the right decision.
”They’re there, and that along with the cumulative body of evidence that we’ve been given over the past couple of weeks adds the last box to be checked in terms of verification on his death,“ Coats said.
Trump Wisely Passes On White House Bid
If there had ever been any time in his life when he needed to think about himself rather than his country, this was the time. Donald Trump wisely announced he won't be seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2012. From ABC News:
After a roller-coaster flirtation with a presidential bid, Donald Trump bowed out of the 2012 contest in true Trump fashion on Monday, saying that while he would not be a candidate this year, if he had run, he would have been able to win the primary and the general election.ABC goes on to speculate in their online story that the lucrative contract Trump had with NBC for his "Apprentice" TV show had more to do with his decision to forego a presidential bid than anything else. The fact of the matter was Trump realized the Omedia was digging into every financial transaction he had ever made, Obama-friendly attorneys were readying lawsuits against his real estate ventures and every other aspect of his personal life was being looked at by Obama's opposition research operation in Chicago and Omedia loyalists. In short, Donald Trump would have been professionally destroyed and facing personal bankruptcy if he had challenged Obama. His departure from the race means there is no Republican candidate in the field who will hit the phony Obama narrative head on, which is precisely what the Obama campaign and Omedia set out to accomplish when Trump dared to raise the questions everyone else is too afraid to address that deeply troubles a large segment of the American electorate.
"I maintain the strong conviction that if I were to run, I would be able to win the primary and ultimately, the general election," Trump said in a statement on Monday. "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly. Ultimately, however, business is my greatest passion and I am not ready to leave the private sector."
Trump, who had contemplated running for president in years past, seemed poised take the plunge this year. He even had a tentative date set for a campaign announcement: May 25 in the atrium of Trump Tower in New York City.
According to Trump aides, the real estate mogul and reality television mogul had even settled on campaign consultants to help steer his potential presidential bid. Trump had already made two visits to New Hampshire within the last month and had a series of events planned in that state and in Iowa over the next few weeks.
"This decision does not come easily or without regret; especially when my potential candidacy continues to be validated by ranking at the top of the Republican contenders in polls across the country," Trump said in the statement. "I have spent the past several months unofficially campaigning and recognize that running for public office cannot be done half heartedly."
John Gregg's Gubernatorial Campaign Swingin Into Action
Former House Speaker John Gregg (D) kicks off the announcement he has filed an exploratory campaign to seek the 2012 Democratic nomination for Indiana governor with the release of this video. A relaxed Gregg is sitting on a front porch swing with a glass of iced tea with lemon next to him and the Indiana flag blowing in the breeze behind him. The short pep talk is obviously geared towards stereotypical Hoosier values. His home is in "Sandburn", not Sandborn. He derides "Warshington", not Washington. And he's been "travelin", not traveling the state. The only things missing are the fresh-baked apple pie and the sound of country music star John Anderson singing his 1983 hit song, "Swingin," in the background.
No Such Thing As Free Speech Rights In Chicago
As Chicago Mayor Richard Daley was leaving City Hall for the last time on Friday, a protagonist yelled at him, "Fuck the mayor." Yep, that will get you arrested in Chicago, particularly when a police officer gets hit by a bus while chasing after you to make an arrest. From the Sun-Times:
A Chicago Police officer was struck by a CTA bus while chasing a man who allegedly swore at Mayor Daley as he was leaving City Hall Friday for the last time as mayor.Here's a good example of why there should be limits on police officers making warrantless arrests and entries into people's homes. Mayor Daley may not have liked what Kopycinski thought of him, but his police department had no valid reason for making an arrest based on his spoken words alone. Daley, by the way, is being provided permanent protection by the Chicago Police Department. Incoming Mayor Rahm Emanuel has assigned several police officers to protect the former mayor, who lives in a gated community, on a 24 x 7 basis at Daley's request. Daley will also be drawing a pension from taxpayers of $184,000 a year. He earned $216,000 a year as Chicago's mayor. Behold, King Daley.
About 4:45 p.m. Friday, as a crowd gathered to watch Daley say goodbye to City Hall, Janusz Kopycinski, 30, allegedly yelled “F - - - the mayor,’’ police said.
Kopycinski ran, followed by police officers. As he was being arrested, a male officer was grazed by a moving CTA bus, police said.
The officer was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with non life-threatening injuries, police said.
Kopycinski, of the 6500 block of West Wellington, was charged with three counts of resisting arrest, two counts of disorderly conduct and one count of reckless conduct. He was arrested in 2007 for battery to police.
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