Ten Percent Of Private Schools Receiving Vouchers Not Graded

The Journal-Gazette's Niki Kelly has a disturbing story today about 28 private schools receiving vouchers to educate K-12 students under Indiana's Choice program not being graded by the state's Department of Education because of a statistical anomaly. No grade is issued if the school has insufficient data to calculate a grade.

The 28 private schools represented 10% of the schools accepting state-paid vouchers. Another 6% of the voucher schools received a D or an F. The grades are critical because it's what determines whether a school can continue to receive voucher students. If a school receives a D or F two years in a row, they are cut off from accepting voucher students.

According to the Department of Education, seven voucher schools received letters last year informing them they couldn't receive new voucher students due to low grades. Of those seven, five improved their grades in the latest A to F rankings. An additional four received their second letter telling them they couldn't enroll voucher students after receiving their second consecutive D or F grade.

Most of the private schools are church-run schools. The Indiana Constitution prohibits money from being drawn from the state treasury for religious purposes. The Indiana Supreme Court ruled Indiana's Choice program doesn't violate the constitution because the vouchers are made available to the parents of students who direct which schools the money is sent to educate their children, which some people would argue is a distinction without a difference.

Carmel Mayor James Brainard Does Something Right

I'm a frequent critic of the actions of Carmel Mayor James Brainard so when he does something right, I feel obliged to tip my hat to him. An ordinance passed by the council creating a conservation district encompassing a neighborhood west of the Arts & Design District has caused consternation for many residents who reside within the Johnson Addition where most of the homes were constructed in the 1950s. The creation of the conservation district means homeowners will be required to obtain approval of the city's historic preservation commission before making any substantial changes to their homes. The controversial measure passed the council on a 4-3 vote, but Mayor Brainard vetoed it because the commission met secretly to discuss the creation of the conservation district before recommending its approval to the council. The Star's Chris Sikich explains:

. . . In vetoing the ordinance, Brainard wrote that the commission met and discussed the creation of the conservation district for months in advance of the City Council meeting. 

The commission, he wrote, did not post public notice of meetings on Feb. 13, March 13, April 17, June 12 and Aug. 14. The Carmel commission did post a notice for a public hearing on Oct. 2, before recommending the City Council approve the ordinance. 

“The Johnson Conservation District was discussed at multiple public meetings that were not noticed,” Brainard wrote. “This is a fatal flaw in the process that would put the city in a non-defensible position if it were sued. More importantly, transparent and open government is paramount; secret meetings cannot be countenanced.” 

Communities can face stiff penalties for violating the open door law, including having decisions overturned in court. Neighboring Westfield has faced criticism because a City Council committee discussed financing a soccer arena in meetings that were not posted . . .

Perhaps Mayor Brainard has other motivations for his decision to veto the ordinance because an election is happening next year, but it's still the right decision to make. We've witnessed many local government leaders flaunting various state laws as of late so it is refreshing when any public official stands up for the rule of law.

RIP Jane Byrne

Chicago's first and only woman ever elected mayor, Jane Byrne, died today at the age of 81. Her meteoric, if short-lived, career in elective office sent shock waves across the country and inspired many woman to enter politics. Byrne had been a regular member of the Chicago Democratic Party when she upset Mayor Michael Bilandic in 1979, who himself had been thrust into power three years earlier when old man Richard Daley dropped dead after 21 years in office. After a week-long scuffle over who was in charge, Chicago's aldermen emerged to announce Bilandic, the alderman who represented Daley's Bridgeport neighborhood on the city council, would be the city's new mayor.

Two years later, Bilandic made his first big mistake as mayor when he fired Byrne in a highly-publicized way as the city's consumer affairs commissioner, the first woman appointed to that high of a level in city government. She stormed out of City Hall with her personal effects in hand and vowed to take on the machine by challenging Bilandic for the Democratic nomination in 1979, a move taken seriously at the time by virtually no one. She campaigned ferociously for more than a year to win the Democratic nomination, making little headway. As fate would have it, it would be a series of some of the worst snow storms in the City's history in the weeks leading up to the primary and Bilandic's perceived inability to live up to Chicago's acclaimed motto, "The City That Works," that would bury him in a pile of criticism and make possible Byrne's upset victory over the vaulted Chicago Democratic machine.

Byrne went on to win a landslide victory over her Republican opponent and quickly became one of the clear leaders of the machine she fought in 1979. Her views were more progressive than her predecessors. She was the first Chicago mayor to recognize the Windy City's gay community. She welcomed Hollywood filmmakers to use the City's streets to film great movies like the "Blues Brothers," something Old Man Daley would have never permitted. Taste of Chicago was her brainchild. She led the revitalization of Navy Pier.

Changing demographics and an antsy Dirty Little Richie Daley upset her chances of winning re-election in 1983 when he unsuccessfully sought to reclaim the office for the powerful Daley family. Anti-machine candidate U.S. Rep. Harold Washington, narrowly defeated her in the Democratic primary with Daley playing the role of spoiler by splitting up the white vote in Chicago, allowing the City to elect its first African-American mayor. Byrne ran again against Washington in 1987 but narrowly lost. In 1991, she lost a rematch against Daley.

This interview below was done when she was a first-time candidate for mayor and still unknown by most Chicago voters.

Full Text Of FBI "Suicide Letter" To King Revealed

It was once thought of as just crazy conspiracy talk. FBI's J. Edgar Hoover nearly fifty years ago mailed a hate-filled anonymous letter to the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a package containing illegally obtained recordings of King's sexual romps with women other than his wife urging him to do the right thing and take his own life. An assistant to FBI Director Hoover typed the one-page letter chocked full of grammatical errors in an effort to make King believe it was a right-wing crackpot determined to destroy him behind the letter rather the nation's top law enforcement agency.

The New York Time's Beverly Gage revealed the full text of the letter in which King is referred to as "evil" six times after referring to him a "colossal fraud, and an evil, vicious one at that." It attacks him for engaging in "sexual orgies," "adulterous acts" and "immoral conduct," and characterizes him as an "evil, abnormal beast." The letter gave him 34 days "before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation." "There is only one thing left for you to do," the letter concludes. "You know what it is."

King shared the letter with his closest associates, who agreed with his assessment the letter had come from Hoover's FBI. Ten years later, the Senate's Church Committee confirmed King's suspicions. Gage uncovered the unredacted version of the letter recently while doing research at the National Archives on a biography of Hoover. The recordings made by the FBI began after Hoover ordered illegal surveillance of him and his associates, which included wiretaps in his home, office and hotel rooms. Hoover sought to link King to communists but instead turned up evidence of his infidelity.

According to Gage, Hoover and his associates were surprised by their discovery and began disseminating derogatory information about him to friendly members of the media in hopes of discrediting him. "To their astonishment, the story went nowhere," Gage writes. In 1964, Hoover denounced King as "the most notorious liar in the country." One of Hoover's deputies, William Sullivan, wrote the anonymous letter and had it sent to the FBI's office in Miami for delivery to King in Atlanta. Friendly associates of Hoover maintain Sullivan acted on his own, not at Hoover's direction.

Sullivan died in a freak hunting accident when a hunter supposedly mistook him for a deer and shot him in the neck, killing him instantly. His shooting occurred during a six-month period in 1977 during which a half dozen current and former FBI officers died before they were scheduled to testify before the House Assassinations Committee investigating the FBI's role in the investigation of President Kennedy's assassination.

Valparaiso Law School Grads Arrested For Double Stabbing

Alecia and Andrew Schmuhl

Andrew and Alecia Schmuhl, both 2009 graduates of Valparaiso University Law School, have been charged in the stabbing of a prominent Virginia attorney and his wife this past Sunday evening.

According to the Daily Mail, the couple drove to the McLean, Virginia home of Leo Fisher, 61, the managing partner of Bean, Kinney and Korman in Arlington where Alecia had worked until recently as a corporate lawyer before being fired. When Fisher answered his door, Andrew began stabbing him. Fisher's wife, Susan, who is also a lawyer, heard the commotion and came to the door. Andrew allegedly began stabbing her as well.

Mrs. Fisher was able to set off an alarm, which caused the Schmuhls to flee in their car. Police later found the Schmuls in their car on I-95 where they were arrested on charges of abduction and malicious wounding in connection with the attack.

Emergency responders transported the Fishers to a hospital in Fairfax where they are in serious condition. Friends expressed shock at the Schmuhl's actions.

Alecia, 30, served on the board of a local homeless charity. Andrew, 31, who is currently unemployed, had worked as a medical recovery and claims judge advocate for the U.S. Army at Fort Belvoir. He also served as a non-commissioned Army officer at Fort Sheridan, Illinois.

UPDATE: This case gets even more bizarre. The Washington Post describes the crime scene much differently. According to a police report, Andrew Schmuhl placed Fisher in handcuff after tazing him. He similarly handcuffed his wife and put her in a bathroom. At one point, Schmuhl fired a shot at Fisher's wife but did not hit her. Schmuhl allegedly held the couple for hours in what is described as a "torture session" while his wife Alecia remained outside. Fisher's wife was able to trip an alarm, which caused Schmuhl to flee the house. The Post says Schmuhl was found wearing nothing but a diaper when the car his wife was driving was later stopped by police near Springfield, Virginia. An attorney for Alecia Schmuhl claims she was unaware of what her husband's intentions were when he entered the home.

University Of Illinois Trustees Pave The Way For Rehiring Of Convicted Domestic Terrorist James Kilgore

James Kilgore (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune photo)

It was unlike the University of Illinois Board of Trustees to interfere in university administrators' decision to hire another reputed terrorist for a teaching position at one of its campuses since it previously allowed Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers to become a tenured professor at its Chicago campus despite his admitted role in bombing various government installations as a form of protest against the Vietnam War. According to the Chicago Tribune, the trustees have reversed an earlier decision not to renew James Kilgore's teaching contract at the university after the Champaign News-Gazette publicly disclosed the fact that he had a felony conviction for his role in a 1975 California armed bank robbery which left one woman dead. Kilgore's crimes occurred while he was a terrorist member of the Symbionese Liberation Army.

Kilgore fled the country following the deadly bank robbery and assumed a new identity in Australia before later traveling to South Africa. Kilgore was arrested in South Africa in 2002 and extradited to the United States where he spent five years in prison for second degree murder and possession of an explosive device. Kilgore wound up in Champaign following his release from prison after his wife, Teresa Barnes, whom he met during his time in South Africa, landed a teaching job at the university. Kilgore neglected to mention his felony convictions or the fact that he had been a fugitive of the law living abroad under an alias for more than 25 years, although all but one university administrator claimed they were aware of his past at the time of his hring. His resume contained gaps in his employment while he was teaching English in South Africa when he described himself as a self-employed writer.

Christoper Kennedy, son of the late Sen. Robert Kennedy, chairs the board of trustees and earlier referred to Kilgore as a "domestic terrorist" in expressing his disapproval upon learning of his hiring by the university. Kennedy played a key role in blocking Bill Ayers from obtaining professsor emeritus status at the university in 2010, but he had a change of heart on Kilgore's status. A university committee appointed to look into Kilgore's hiring concluded he had been "a successful employee" and had "contributed to the scholarly and educational missions of the campus." Kilgore had been teaching global studies at the university before his contract was not renewed last summer due to the controversy.

Jack Cashill's "YOU LIE!"

One of my favorite researchers on the subject of Barack Obama has a new book out in time for your holiday reading pleasure this year. Jack Cashill's new book is aptly titled, "YOU LIE!," which recites the litany of "evasions, omissions, fabrications, frauds and outright falsehoods" made by Obama and regurgitated by our mainstream media and fed to the American public as factual. Cashill, an independent writer who holds a Ph.D. in American studies from Purdue University where he has taught literature and media, has dared to look down the rabbit hole many others dare not look for fear of retribution. Cashill's inspiration for his book's title comes from the spontaneous outburst by South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson (R) during one of President Obama's addresses to Congress in 2009 in response to a series of fibs the President made about his Affordable Care Act.

One of Cashill's greatest discoveries during his research of Obama was the identity of the person who ghost wrote one of two memoirs he supposedly authored before entering politics, "Dreams From My Father." While Obama frequently dismissed his critics for their questioning of his deep ties to unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist William Ayers as "just another guy in the neighborhood I knew," Cashill knew there was much more to that relationship. It was Cashill who first observed after reading Ayers' book, "Fugitive Days," the striking literary similarities between Ayers' book and "Dreams From My Fathers." As Cashill explained to Advance Indiana, "the parallels leaped off the page." The mainstream media scoffed at Cashill's game-changing discovery, even after Ayers confirmed his authorship of the book publicly and privately to Cashill's friends.

The first part of Cashill's book touches on the numerous inconsistencies and discrepancies in the Obama biographical narrative, completely shattering the existence of any legitimate marriage between Obama's mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and Barack Obama, Sr. In fact, the couple at no time ever resided together as husband and wife or as a family unit. Notwithstanding the Hawaiian birth certificate which purports otherwise, Cashill tells Advance Indiana he still has doubts about his place of birth. Cashill speculates it may have actually been north of the border in Vancouver. "The fact that the first sighting of the baby was in Seattle, coupled with Barack Sr. telling the INS that they were giving the baby up [for adoption] through the Salvation Army, lead me to wonder whether Dunham went to the major SA maternity home and hospital in Vancouver," Cashill said. A Hawaiian birth certificate could have still been obtained through parental verification, and Dunham's parents "might have called in birth announcement" to the newspaper to help substantiate the record for citizenship in this country Cashill speculates.

As this blogger experienced, Cashill witnessed as much resistance to digging for the truth about Barack Obama coming from those on the right as he did from Obama's natural constituency on the left. "Yes, there was much resistance from the right, especially on my assertion that Bill Ayers helped Obama with "Dreams," Cashill said. "If a few conservatives would have reviewed my evidence in October 2008, we might have turned the election." Cashill agrees it is "indisputable" that Obama has used a Social Security number previously issued in the state of Connecticut. "I know the woman who discovered it, and she knows her business," he said. He also has his own theory about Obama's passport file being breached during the 2008 presidential campaign. "I do believe Brennan's people amended Obama's passport record so that he could begin talking about his trip to Pakistan in 1980," Cashill said, in reference to the employees of a State Department contractor where CIA Director John Brennan previously served as CEO gaining unauthorized access to Obama's passport file.

To Cashill, however, the biographical lies don't approach Obama's biggest lie. "Obama's claim that his would be the most transparent administration," Cashill believes is his biggest whopper. "As [former CBS reporter] Sharyl Attkinson learned the hard way," Cashill said. Most of Cashill's book focuses on Obama's actions as president on a wide range of issues at odds with his stated public positions, including health care, national security, job creation and respect for the Constitution and rule of law. Cashill loves quoting constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley, who describes President Obama as "the President Richard Nixon always wanted to be." So true. Pick up your copy of Cashill's "YOU LIE!" today. It's well worth the read. You shouldn't have any trouble finding it in your local bookstore if you don't want to buy it online, even if it might be hidden from plain sight.

INDOT Begrudgingly Reviewing Indiana Logo Sign

Call 6's Kara Kenney has an update on her earlier eye-popping report about a one-sided agreement the Indiana Department of Transportation entered into with Indiana Logo Sign more than a quarter century ago, which gives the company the exclusive right to sell those blue signs on the state's interstate highways pointing the way to particular businesses. According to Kenney, Indiana Logo Sign has netted about $63 million under its contract with INDOT compared to only $2.75 million earned by the state, which did not begin receiving any revenues until 2007.

Kenney uncovered an e-mail from INDOT Commissioner Karl Browning bemoaning the subject. "Gawd, I’m tired of this subject. :),” Browning wrote in an e-mail to INDOT's Jay Wasson and Ryan Gallagher. "I would like an independent assessment of our situation vis-à-vis the “blue signs,” Browning wrote. "Specifically, can we do better when all things are netted out.  Ideas?" Yes, INDOT could do much better according to Kenney's research, which found some states keep between 60 and 80 percent of the revenues generated under similar advertising deals with private businesses. As part of a rule change, INDOT tells Kenney it's renegotiating its agreement with Indiana Logo Sign.

GOP Reaction To Joe Hogsett's Announcement

Hogsett mayoral announcement (Matt Detrich/Star Photo)

Joe Hogsett (D) made official his Indianapolis mayoral bid with a campaign kick-off speech at the Landmark for Peace Memorial in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park before a couple hundred supporters with Evan Bayh at his side. Marion Co. GOP Chairman Kyle Walker released the following brief reaction to Joe Hogsett's announcement:

"Joe Hogsett has been rejected by voters three times and next year will be the fourth; either in May or November. Hogsett's unwillingness to support pre-k for low-income families is one of the many reasons he is wrong for Indianapolis."

Okay, so as a Republican the primary reason I should oppose Hogsett is because of his supposed lack of support for pre-K education for low-income families, something they've been offered for nearly 50 years under the federally-funded Head Start program? So that's your strategy to defeat Hogsett? Excuse me, but if people want to talk about education, then let them run for the school board.