Archive for July 23rd, 2008

Thomas Cook longs to be the next Jen Wagner, living large in the blogosphere, smearing candidates and career politicos left and right, all while taking Dan Parker’s money and acting as his hired gun in the Hoosier Internets.

Instead, he spends most of his time banging out laughable and factually incorrect press releases.

Today, he decided to throw out for consideration two smears on 2nd District Republican Congressional candidate Luke Puckett.

The first involves unpaid property taxes by Puckett in 2006. Hardly surprising given the problems that frequent the dispatch of property taxes in Indiana to property owners, but I digress. Joe Donnelly, Puckett’s opponent, had four and a half times as much in unpaid property taxes as of January that same year.

The second, of course, is the infamous “churning rumor mill,” a “bubbling, brewing issue” of sorts. What rumor mill, you ask? What bubbling, brewing issue, you wonder?

I asked myself the same question.

So I went to the Puckett campaign and asked them what was up.

And, surprise, surprise, they sent me a response.

Read all about it after the leap.
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In our current national economy, times are a bit tough and money is tight. The RNC, however, doesn’t think that should keep people from making non-tax deductible donations to them. Now don’t get us wrong. Those of us at Hoosier Access are fans of the RNC, but this is no way to treat your supporters if they haven’t “ponied” up in a while. Friends of the site, Kurt and Kristen Luidhardt, got this letter in the mail recently.

Um, yeah, I’m ready to give. How about you?!

(H/T - Prosper Group Think)

The South Bend Tribune is reporting:

South Bend to cut 200 jobs by 2010

The city is cutting more than 200 employees over the next two years and could close parks facilities, because of a loss in property tax revenues from House Enrolled Act 1001.

Among those positions are 53 firefighters, 40 police officers and some parks personnel, which will have to be cut by 2010. It’s a total of 15 percent of the city’s staff.

Mayor Stephen Luecke told the Common Council during its first budget hearing Monday that the numbers are not pretty but are realistic.

The city will lose a projected $18.2 million annually to its general fund and $3.1 million to its Tax Increment Financing District funds by 2010, which means a loss in city services.

(Read more after the leap) (more…)

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First, Indiana’s Luke Puckett and Mike Sodrel travelled to ANWR and the northern slope of Alaska to see for themselves where the oil will come from once the Democrat Congress permits such (fat chance with General Secretary Pelosi in charge). Then a CoDel led by House Minority Leader John Boehner went to the same area after Puckett et al returned home.

Not to be outdone, hearing on Rush this afternoon, Presidential candidate John McCain is planning a trip to an oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico for awareness of oil exploration on the Continental Shelf.

Seems Indiana’s Own has stirred up a lot of interest in summer travel to the places where domestic energy is extracted from the earth.

And now for your lunch video du jour.

It seems things are getting interesting surrounding the continuing soap opera that is the Democrats on the City-County Council.

It seems the Democrats don’t care about political fallout. The Democrats take YOUR votes for granted. The Democrats are not concerned over the controversies surrounding the corrupt Monroe Gray, anti-police Doris Minton-McNeill, and now Paul Bateman. The Democrats consider if you’re a minority, poor, working class, a union member, or an alternate lifestyle you will always vote Democrat and you don’t know any different. Therefore, they don’t need to work to get your vote, nor be concerned over who they appoint into various elected offices.

It appears the [Indianapolis] City-County Council Democrat Caucus holds the opinion embattled councilor Doris Minton-McNeill has no intention of ever making a public statement concerning her arrest. The Democrat Caucus feels her conduct is none of her voters business and know her voters always vote Democrat no matter how poor of an example or poor quality of leadership the candidate or office holder possesses.

Isn’t it amazing how the Democrats claim to help the poor, when in fact they work to keep people impoverished through economy strangling taxes and job killing over-regulation. They believe poor people always vote Democrat, and the more people they keep poor, the more people vote Democrat and keep them in power. Thanks, LBJ, for cursing this nation with the biggest vote buying scheme ever created - The Great Society.

When Mitch Daniels has raised almost $13 million so far for his reelection, an additional $725,000 from the Republican Governors Association is not a big deal.

It ends up being less than one eighteenth of the total amount that Mitch has raised, not that the Democrat Governors Association has yet made a similar investment in the Long Thompson campaign.

By contrast, some 75% of the total money raised by the Long Thompson campaign has come from far-left special interests from outside of the state of Indiana.

I’ll grant that $725,000 is a lot of money. So is the $1.25 million that came from the pro-abortion group Emily’s List and the labor union SEIU.

The difference is that money from out-of-state groups like Emily’s List represents an overwhelming majority–three dollars in every four–of the money given to the Long Thompson campaign.

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After city officials were embarrassed by their overzealous enforcement of the city’s sign ordinance earlier this month, city attorney Patty Mulvihill requested that the case be dropped. The city was seeking $1,904 from Renaissance Rentals for two balloons attached to a yard sign. But that is not the most outrageous part of the story.

According to The Herald-Times, “the city could have sought $95,200 from Henke” under its fine schedule. That is correct. City code gives the Planning Department the authority to smack a local business with a ridiculously disproportionate $95,000 fine for a couple balloons attached to a temporary free-standing sign.

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