Munster Schools dinged in State Audit

The state said what everybody knows from looking at their tax bill: Munster Schools have done too much building, and their debt is far too high.

I enjoyed a dip in our new Taj Mahal indoor pool yesterday. You really can't point to any feature that they economized on.

I was over at Purdue Calumet on Thursday, and I felt the same way. I also generally feel that way in any new medical facility or governmental building. They are all architectural and made with premium materials, totally different from commercial facilities.

What do these TAJ Mahal facilities all have in common? They are/ were generally paid for by taxpayers, either directly, or in the case of medical facilities, with Medicare and Medicaid payments.

Preacher RIP

I just saw in the obituaries that the Preacher passed. It says that he had heart problems. He was only 54. May God bless his soul.

Without the Preacher, I'm going to have to start a WJOB bankruptcy watch.

Michael Temores update

Burried in this story about Temores getting sued, we find what he is up to:

Court records show Temores was quickly released on bond after being charged with 18 new criminal and traffic-related charges in connection with the December crash.

However, within days, prosecutors filed a warrant to revoke his probation. Temores was placed in the custody of the Lake County Sheriff's Work Release program for the allowable 15 days with no bond.

Freed after the 15 days, Temores is scheduled to appear March 7 before Lake Criminal Court Judge Clarence Murray for an omnibus hearing and before Lake Superior Court Judge Julie Cantrell for a probation revocation hearing.

Let's see what Judge Julie does with him. I predict that he will be out on bond within seconds of stepping into her court room.

I got an enormous amount of pro-Temores comments at about the time he must have gotten out of work-release. I think the fat, drunk-driving loser was on here commenting on his own story!

Thurm Feree is an idiot, 2/23/2012 edition

Thurmee once again tries to minimize how corrupt Lake County Democrats are. He is blind to the corruption of Tom McDermott, for example.

I am going to outsource my comment:

"Yes, I agree we have had several public officials convicted and imprisoned over the years for things done while in elected office"... Several - I think 53 and counting is more than several... and all democrats.

While you write your column continuously criticizing Republicans your democrat friends march off to prison for fraud, theft or public money, nepotism, etc.

You complain of Lake County and its financial woes yet it is the democrats in Lake County that put you in that situation. You want the rest of the taxpayers in the state to foot your bills. You offer services to people you cannot afford. You encourage a welfare mentality rather than a work ethic to keep your voters in the democrat circle. You follow the method of the Community Organizer in Chief to get re-elected rather than do what is right for the community.

Lake County has brought about its own problems. Someday I hope you will elect good people who will look to straighten out your problems rather than whine to the rest of us. Look to Republicans. They did not get you into the mess you are in.

Lake County Democrats are the ones responsible for the levy freeze. Never forget that, it was strategery on their part that went wrong. Thurmee knows this, he is a bald faced liar.

The insane finances of Calumet Township

How can these numbers be right?

Ryfa said the town has two solutions in mind for the bill: either capping the levy at a different rate — which the Senate already approved in the first go-around — or allowing Griffith to secede from Calumet Township, which has been the argument all along.

“(Secession) would be the easiest and most beneficial to everyone involved,” Ryfa said. “If we’re allowed to go our separate ways, the township would lose only less than $2.5 million. Under the bill as it was, the township stood to lose $8 million.”

“We hope the legislators realize that capping language will have a much bigger impact than just letting us go,” he said.

If the town is allowed to secede, Griffith wouldn’t be the only entity to benefit, Ryfa said. Gary, for example, would see $2 million added to its coffers; the Lake County Solid Waste District would realize $21,000; and Lake Station would even see a monetary boost. Griffith, meanwhile, would see $100,000 come back.

“The bill would’ve helped at a time where budgets are really stressed,” Ryfa said.

Calumet Township is a fiscal disaster. The state needs to take it over and sort things out.

Switching from "self funding" health insurance saves Merrillville $175,000

There's a lesson here for Lake County.

Next Krazy Krybaby Kim Krull scandal: Somebody is changing VoterVault to screw good Republicans

Those of you who are Republican insiders know what VoterVault is, the Republican tool to keep track of voters.

Just got this e-mail from Pete Karagan:

Buzzcut,

You are now part of the news story. I was tipped off yesterday that a new complaint is in with the State GOP that a certain person has changed votervault info after hours. I thought it was funny, but then realized how vicious this action was.

So, I decided to look up my info on votervault. To my surprise I am listed as a #5 Strong Democrat. My info was changed 10/20/2011 at 7:50 pm. So, I dug a little deeper and to my surprise you are listed as a #4 Weak Democrat your info was changed 10/20/2011 at 7:52 pm. 2 minutes after my change occurred.

Voter Vault is not a State GOP tool it is a RNC tool, with the RNC owning the product. The State party has been notified and a complaint from me is imminent.

Pete

Is this yet another Krazy Krybaby Kim Krull scandal? I have never voted Democrat, so it is unpossible that I would be a #4. In fact, I find it quite insulting. I think that I am going to take action as well.

Gary Cops behaving badly

I love stories about cops misusing their weapons. My contention is that legal, licensed gun owners are more law abiding than the police.

Our exhibit today is a Gary cop charged with shooting his weapon in the air after a fight:

Already facing termination for crashing his squad car after smoking marijuana and drinking, Patrolman Laron Leslie now has a felony charge against him for a weekend incident involving gunfire.

Leslie, 27, hired on the force in July 2009, was charged with intimidation Tuesday. He faces up to eight years in prison if convicted of the charge. Police arrested Leslie at his apartment Tuesday evening. He was being processed and taken to Lake County Jail that evening.

A Gary firefighter told Detective Sgt. Mark Salazar that Leslie fired several shots into the air after the two men argued over a woman early Saturday outside a Lakeshore Dunes apartment where the woman lives, the probable cause affidavit states.

The woman said she was seeing both men, but the firefighter had been giving her money. The firefighter arrived at her apartment building and found Leslie leaving. The two “squared off” and swung at each other, but missed, the affidavit states.

Leslie admitted he threatened the firefighter and “fired three or four shots into the air” while running in the complex parking lot. He returned home and reloaded his weapon, but didn’t call police, court records state.

“He said that during his police academy training he was trained not to fire warning shots,” the affidavit states.

Leslie has been restricted to desk duty since he crashed his marked squad car while off duty. He admitted he had been drinking and smoking pot before the crash.

It is not clear if Leslie was charged with any traffic violations in connection with the crash. He was charged with violating police commission rules, but a termination hearing set for November was postponed and has not been rescheduled.

Chief Wade Ingram said he intends to suspend Leslie with pay and refer the matter to the police commission for dismissal.

State law prohibits a police officer from being suspended without pay for more than five days without a hearing.

What a city. The police are criminals too! How did this guy get hired? Don't they have random drug testing?

Booze at White Castle? Only in Indiana!

Booze at White Castle is being tested in Lafayette.

It seems to me that the White Castle in Hammond already makes money had over fist. How long would the drive through line be if they sold booze? ;)

Don't you know that you're only supposed to go to White Castle AFTER you're drunk? Preferably after a night of drinking, at about 3AM.

Anti-Dumey letter in the paper

Here.

Northwest Indiana politicians are like no other. Now our former Republican state Rep. and current Indiana Election Board Chairman Dan Dumezich has Rick Santorum in his crosshairs, attempting to have Santorum eliminated from the May 8 GOP primary.

By Dumezich's own admission, he is doing this because he feels Romney is the best choice to run against President Barack Obama in the general election.

Well, I have news for you. We the people need to choose who will run against Obama.

Dumezich should use his time, efforts and political clout to keep Obama off the ballot in November. Stand up strong and defend the Constitution instead of pitting the Republican Party against each other in such an underhanded way.

- Dave Kristoff, Hobart

Dave, I hope that you filed for precinct committeeman! We need more people like you.

Lugar is an idiot

How on earth can the guy not have a house in Indiana, and not have had one here SINCE 1977?!?

It's crazy. In fact, it shows quite an arrogance. It really speaks to who Lugar really is: an inside the beltway, Obama loving RINO.

Democate Candidate for the Senate Joe Donnelly is an idiot

He says that, instead of Right-to-work, Indiana should have "improved education".

There is no doubt that states with higher levels of educational achievement have higher wages, and that Indiana is rather low when it comes to educational achievement. But individual levels of education are a rather personal achievement, having more to do with your personal circumstances (mostly, your parents, and where they fall on the educational scale). There is very little that the state can do to change that.

Essentially, we are stuck with the Hoosiers we've got. ;) More importantly, when we are already spending $10k per student, the standard Democrat recipe of spending more money isn't going to raise the level of Hoosier educational achievement.

But the legislature COULD change things in Indiana with a stroke of Mitch Daniel's pen when it came to Right-to-work. With that one simple change, we went from not being considered at all by most corporations looking to cite manufacturing plants, to being at the top of the list. And manufacturing is more in line with the abilities of Hoosiers than professions that require college degrees.

Democrat sleaze at work in Scheub/ Dominguez race

Buried in the story about a Scheub "advisor" defecting to Dominguez, we find out how sleazy Democrat Lake County politics really works:

Popka said Tuesday he served as Scheub's campaign manager and close adviser for more than a decade until the two parted ways.

Scheub said five years ago their relationship soured after a 2005 Times investigation disclosed Popka's wife and son were on the county payroll. As a result of the disclosure, Scheub said he ordered Popka to fire his son. All three commissioners have power to dismiss county officials.

Their breach became public in 2007 when Popka resigned as fairgrounds superintendent after eight years in that job, after Scheub began receiving complaints about underage drinking parties in a park. Scheub oversees county parks and the Lake County Fairgrounds in his role as commissioner.

Lake County's payroll is infested with insiders like the Popka family. You can't get hired in Lake County unless you are related to somebody, and the price of admission is to be a cog in the Democrat machine.

The way to destroy that machine is to systematically go through the County's employment records and fire everybody who is a Democrat operative. Fire all the precinct committeemen. Fire all the campaign workers. And fire everybody who is related to a bigwig.

Then rehire using a civil service exam.

"Laptop Shooting Dad" would go postal if he were in Munster Schools

So my kid has his Munster Schools provided laptop, and what does he do with it? He fucks around on it in class obsessively, ignoring everything else that is going on in class, so much so that the teacher needs to move his seat so that she can constantly see what he is doing on it!

I emphasize with Laptop Shooting Dad.

In a posting on his Facebook page, where he has so far contained his public comments, he wrote that he was mad about kids who can't write a sentence without a spell-checker. He was upset about schools that leave students incapable of performing even simple arithmetic by hand. He was just plain furious about child labor laws that, in his view, encourage teens to laze around instead of learning good work habits.

"'Modern' parenting," he wrote, "raises ill-prepared kids who can't do anything and have no skills because they're protected from even LEARNING them until 18 years old, at which time you want us parents to throw them out into the world, send them off to college and expect them to be productive members of society? You can take your 'modern' parenting and shove it."

Bravo, Laptop Shooting Dad. Bravo. I am with you.

Schneider Bankruptcy Watch

Schneider is the small town equivalent of Gary. Who knew?

If Buzzcut were running for state rep

I'd be pushing to get rid of the corporate income tax. If Indiana had no corporate income tax, companies from Illinois would be busting down the doors to get over here. Downtown Hammond would see a rebirth, with the buildings filled to the brim with companies moving over from Illinois.

One thing that is lacking in NWI is office space. Getting rid of the corporate income tax could change that.

Long term, I'd personally rather see the personal income tax abolished. But short term, for 2012, this is the issue for Republicans. Especially Lake County Republicans. People in Chicago are looking for a way out. Give it to them.

Evidence of massive voter fraud in Gary

Just got this e-mail:

In you latest post it had the stats of over 100% registration. I am sure we are there in Gary. Is there an easy way to find the number of voters registered in Gary for the '10 election? I had previous counted by precicnt.

In summary , here is what I found. The percentage of votes cast in Gary are not so different then the rest of the county. In fact in the '08 Presidential election they were right in the ball park with the rest of the country. This is true with the exception of some precincts which have unusually high turnouts (one with over 100%). Samples around the county have about the same anomalies. That is to say some precincts with real high turnout.

Here is what I found which is very remarkable. In the last two Presidential elections nationwide the percentage of registered voters were in 2004 72% and in 2008 71%. This was about right on in the City of Gary as well. Here comes the remarkable part

You must first look at population data. In 2000 Gary had more than 102,000 people. As of 2010, the population is just over 80,000. The math just does not add up. Bear in mind the 72% is a figure of people eligible to vote. In Gary we are talking 72% of the entire city.

Subtract children according to the 2010 census and the possible eligible population is 57,764. In the 2008 election there were more than 60,000 registered voters. Assume that the population decline was steady in each of the ten years that Gary lost population. That is about 2,000 per year. So assume in 2008 there were about 85,000 people.

According to census data of Gary's population in 2010 28% were under the age of 18. Use the same figure (28% under 18) with the assumption of 85,000 residents in '08 and you have the possibility of 61,200 eligible voters. That means that in '08 there was a registration rate of almost exactly 100%. Which, in my mind means one of two things, either the City of Gary should be held in highest esteem for civic duty, or there is fraudulent registration.

Early on in my search, I talked to an old Gary political activist that I know well. He made the statement to me that they are cleaning up the rolls. No doubt this is true. It is my understanding that the election board sends out mailers, and if they go unanswered, the person is then removed from the rolls. It is my further understanding that this is normal election process in Gary. Swelled voter logs prior to an election, only to have them cleaned after the fact. And, if there is indeed fraud, after the damage is done.

It is time, folks. Next election board meeting, it is time to blow the roof off this thing.

How much voter fraud is out there?

Quite a bit:

Pew has discovered that 1.8 million dead Americans are registered to vote. Perhaps worse, 2.75 million Americans are enrolled in two states each, while 68,725 are signed up in three. Indeed, Pew found, “24 million — one of every eight — active voter registrations in the United States are no longer valid or are significantly inaccurate.”

...

Exacerbating this mess, Pew finds, America’s “antiquated, paper-based system remains costly and inefficient.” Oregon and Wyoming spend about $4.00 to register and manage each active voter. Canada, in contrast, uses modern, private-sector name-matching techniques to process registrations. Cost: 35 cents each.

...

Meanwhile, as prosecutors at Justice’s Voting Section literally play computer solitaire and watch YouTube, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission reported in June 2009 that in North Dakota, registered voters totaled 101.6 percent of the voting-age population. In Michigan, that figure was 101.9 percent; in Alaska, 102.2 percent; and in Maine, 103.9 percent. Alarms should wail when there are more registered voters in a jurisdiction than eligible adults. Instead, Justice’s snooze buttons are busier than ever.

South Carolina’s attorney general determined last month that 953 people “were deceased at the time of their participation in recent elections.” Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler compared voter rolls and drivers’-license records. Last March 8, he determined that “it is likely that many of the 4,947 voters were not citizens when they cast their vote in 2010.”

These problems vindicate efforts, primarily by Republicans, to require photo ID at the polls. Such rules will slow or stop those who try to cast ballots on behalf of deceased Americans. Citizens who lack ID cards should get them for free. Such a requirement will be far less inconvenient than another presidential-election fiasco fueled by posthumous voters.

Another solution: A company called Catalist assisted Pew’s research. Catalist, Pew notes, “applies a complex matching process to combine and analyze data to verify or update records of voters.” States should hire Catalist to update and oversee their election procedures.

I think that Lake County needs to compare their voter rolls to Indiana BMV records. Those who are registered differently than their driver's license should be purged from the rolls, and those who have voted fraudulently should be prosecuted.

Are Lake County Democrats unusually corrupt?

A new study says no, but only by using faulty information:

However, U.S. Attorney for Northern Indiana David Capp said that the study was perhaps not the best picture of public corruption convictions. For instance, he said, all U.S. attorneys must submit a yearly report to the U.S. Department of Justice on public integrity and includes a broad span of crimes, including U.S. Postal Service employees who steal even $1 from their employer. Most of Northern Indiana’s public corruption crimes, however, have focused mostly on actual elected officials, he said. The study does not say what it counts as a public corruption cases.

“I just know we have focused a great deal of attention on elected officials,” Capp said. “And sadly most of them come from Lake County.”

Because it’s unclear just which cases were considered for the report, it’s hard to narrow down how many of the 83 convictions in the Northern District came from Lake County. However, a perusal of news archives shows about 40 cases from Lake County, or about half of the district’s cases, that involved blatant public corruption by elected officials, government employees or people appointed by public officials to boards and committees who had control over tax dollars. Capp added that the only public officials he can think of who recently were convicted who were not from Lake County were Michael and Teresa Orsburn from Jasper County.

The rough estimate would put Lake County at a rate of 0.81 convictions per capita of 10,000 people. Compared with the averages of all the states, Lake County would rank behind just three states and Washington D.C. Most states averaged a rate from 0.2 to 0.5.

FBI Supervisory Special Agent for Northern Indiana Bob Ramsey said the fact that Lake County’s per capita rate is more than double the state’s shows the county has a public corruption problem.

Lake County corruption is exclusively Democrat. The reason that Lake County is so corrupt is because of STDs (straight ticket Democrats), people who "Punch 10" no matter who is on the ballot, no matter how corrupt the ballot seeker might be.

Clarence Page is SORT OF an idiot

I really can't stand Clarence Page. He's a nice enough guy (watched him for decades on The McLaughlin Group), but he is a great example of false diversity. He has his job at the Chicago Tribune because of the color of his skin, but his commentaries are the same BS liberal conventional wisdom that you can find from any white guy in Washington.

Today, he rehashes "What's the Matter With Kansas. Like I said, same stuff you can get from any white liberal. But he quotes something from Charles Murray about why working class whites are Republican that strikes true to me:

"You've still got a big proportion of Fishtown that's getting married, working hard etc.," he wrote back. "They're the ones who are most likely to vote (overall voting among the working class is quite low), and also the ones who rationally can vote for conservative candidates. So it's not surprising that the polling results from Fishtown still tend to go Republican."

This is the Buzzcut Theory of Poverty taken to the next level. We all know that the poor people we see around us live chaotic lives. They're drunk or high, they don't work, they have kids out of wedlock, don't get married, or if they do get divorced. They don't live "traditional values". And a culture that is permissive with regards to traditional values feeds the cycle of poverty. Who best to understand that than poor people themselves.

The irony is that the liberal elites DON'T live that way. They live very traditionally, getting married and staying married, not using drugs or alcohol, working very hard, etc. Yet, it is these liberal elites that most support our permissive culture, and are leading the fight for cultural decay.

You know, I would love Clarence Page if the column he wrote was about the liberal elite, and why THEY live traditional lives but don't preach it. That would be a Clarence Page worthy of being on the Chicago Tribune's editorial page. That would be real diversity.

Highland Clerk Michael Griffin is an idiot

He has a very pseudo-philosophical commentary in the paper today.

He wants government to be more like Apple. He wants government to be responsive to peoples' needs, execute well, and have high quality, all things that Apple does.

But Apple has it a lot easier than government has. Apple operates in the free market. Apple has feedback every single second of every day as to how they are executing. Their earnings give them that feedback.

Government does not have that. The only feedback that government has is on election day, and that feedback is weak compared to the market. Voters only have vague notions as to how their vote effects what and how the government performs its duties, quite a different situation than consumers of Apple's products are in.

This is why I am such a skeptic of government. I don't think that elected officials have the incentives to do a good job the way that those in the private sector do. There are few feedback mechanisms, and the incentive is only to find the next so called "problem" and write the next law that will "solve" that problem. Nevermind that adding layer upon layer to our legal system creates more problems than it solves at this point.

What we need to do is accept that government can only do a few things well, and stick to those things. Keep it out of the way of the free market, and allow citizens to solve problems themselves, without government interference. Let Apple be Apple, and let the Town of Highland, and Michael Griffin, be limited in what it does.

Let me give you one example. Highland runs a fitness center, and it just spent millions renovating an old school for that fitness center. There is absolutely no reason that government should be owning and operating a fitness center, this is something that should be left to private enterprise. I would rather see Highland work to bring Bally Total Fitness to town than see them operate their own fitness center.

What happens when Democrats win in Republican towns?

Crony capitalism takes hold.

Schererville was a Democrat town, and then it was Republican. The first thing the Republicans did when they took over was fire the Police Chief who was also Chairman of the St. John Democrats, and change engineering firms.

In the last election, the Democrats NARROWLY won. What did they do?

The rehired the Democrat Police Chief, and rehired the engineering firm.

That engineering firm has been suspended from doing work in Illinois for accounting irregularities. They also have a history of f-ing things up in Schererville.

I need to start looking into campaign finance reports to see who these guys give money to.

Excellent Mitch Daniels commentary on NWI

Here.

In no other part of Indiana do people receive so little information about the state where they live and pay taxes; things virtually every other Hoosier knows, even the most attentive resident of Gary or Valpo or Crown Point has a hard time discovering.

It's no one's fault, of course. The area's news coverage is heavily dominated by Chicago media and, with only a small percentage of their viewers living in Indiana, it rarely makes sense for their papers and TV stations to cover a Northwest Indiana story, let alone something happening in the capital or downstate. One major source of information -- that delivered during statewide political campaigns -- is effectively nonexistent in Northwest Indiana, because of the prohibitive cost of Chicago media advertising.

Aside from one public television station, and a couple of brave but small radio outlets, area residents have The Times and one other paper to bring them any facts about their home state. If you're reading this, it probably puts you in the top few percent of informed residents in your community.

Consequently, we find that people in the region hold very different views from their fellow Hoosiers. That's no surprise; start with different (in this case, fewer) facts, and you'll come to different conclusions.

In every public opinion survey, people in Northwest Indiana differ by 10 to 15 percent from all other Hoosiers. Residents everywhere else are more positive about the condition of the state, more optimistic about the future, and see wider differences between trends in Indiana versus the rest of the country.

Here are some examples of things most Hoosiers know, but people in Northwest Indiana often don't:

• Indiana has the lowest taxes in decades, and the lowest property taxes in the country.

• Indiana has the nation's No. 1 road-building program, now in its sixth straight record-setting year, all without a penny of new taxes or borrowing.

• Indiana has become one of the top handful of states attractive to new business, and broken the old records for new jobs and investment in each of the last seven years.

• Indiana is in its greatest era ever of land and water conservation, with 50,000 acres newly protected in the last seven years, including the three largest wetlands conservation projects in state history.

• Indiana's air and water are the cleanest in our lifetimes, the cleanest by far since measurement began. In 2011, every Indiana community met the national air quality standards for the first time in the history of the Clean Air Act, and we became the only state with zero backlog of old (meaning less strict) environmental permits.

• Indiana's child welfare system, a few years ago perhaps the nation's worst, has won top national awards the last two years for protecting our kids and, as often as possible, keeping families together.

• Indiana has the most efficient state government it has ever had, probably the most efficient in the nation. With the fewest state employees per capita in the country -- the fewest the state has had since 1975 -- service levels are up everywhere, from the state parks to the Department of Revenue to the Bureau of Motor Vehicles. Department after department has won national best-in-class awards.

That last quote gets me going. Why is the State of Indiana so efficient? I have found that their IT is very well spent. Their website is excellent. More information on the web means less people needed to answer phonecalls and whatnot. It is something that Lake County should emulate.

Brian Howey is not an idiot today

Howey thinks that, thanks to redistricting, Republicans could get to 70 members in the General Assembly.

I do believe that Howey mistakenly has Niemeyer in the 15th, when he is really running in the 11th.

I think that with past Democrat gerrymandering purged from the House districts, 70 Republican seats is actually too low. The House should be as Republican as the Senate (which more closely reflects just how Republican Indiana really is). I'm thinking more like 74 Republican seats.

Local candidates like Johnson and Karagan need to drive home the point that Indiana is a Republican state, and is only getting more Republican. A vote for a Democrat for the House is a wasted vote. Democrats are going to be marginal players, just like they are in the Senate.