(MT. PLEASANT, MI) - U.S. Navy veteran Ted Visner and his wife, Kathy Smith of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, have been living out a nightmare. It started two and a half years ago, when the family fell victim to an apparent real estate scam by a local sheriff's department employee.

Ted Visner says they bought their former home on a land contract, only to learn seven months later, that the seller, Isabella County Sheriff's Dept. employee Shelly Sweet, was not making monthly payments on the house. A bank foreclosed on the property, all unbeknownst to the Visner/Smith family.

Ted Visner, who builds custom homes for a living, said, "Although we were paying Sweet every month on the purchase of the property, she had not been paying the underlying mortgage and the home fell into foreclosure." I asked Visner if he had records of those payments, he said he does, including canceled checks. You won't believe what happened next.

"On a weekend Sweet knew that we would be out of town, she offered the contents of our home to her friends and coworkers at the Isabella County Sheriff’s Department, claiming we had abandoned the home. Many took her up on her free offer deal and took over $55,000 dollars worth of our personal property."

Continue reading Sheriff's Department Takes Family's Home and Contents Using a Fake Eviction

Remember the temper tantrum the "Right" threw over President Obama using children as "Props" during some events late last winter and early spring.  Here is just an example of a few headline from some right or right leaning publications:

Using Children To Pass Gun Laws Is Grotesque And Childish

Obama use of children as props mirrors Hitler, Stalin

Hey guys, what the hell is this?

Frankfort Police Dept. faces lawsuit

I have John Ratzenburger and ESPN's Jay Bilas Monday on The Gary Snyder Show from 3-5pm on 1400 WBAT and Indiana Talks

Guests include:

Jim Shella, WISH TV-8 policital reporter and host of Indiana Week in Review.

Sgt. Ross Allen, MPD, with his weekly segment, MPD Blue.

Jay Bilas, ESPN College Basketball analyst and author of "Toughness"

John Ratzenberger, actor, discusses his new project: RealityTVStar.com - the first platform for anyone in the country to have their TV show ideas seen by decision makers at production companies and networks worldwide.

Scott Jones, resident pr guru for The Gary Snyder Show, Daily Caller Columnist and former aide to 3 US Presidents.

Editors note: If you want to know why we are getting some of the ridiculous bills pushed through the Indiana General Assembly that we are, read this article by Karen Francisco of the Journal Gazette.

Boycott threats pressured dozens of corporations to cut ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council after Trayvon Martin was shot to death in Florida and “stand-your-ground” gun laws were exposed as the shadowy organization’s handiwork.

But the multinational corporations supporting and framing ALEC’s work are just the overseers of a sophisticated network responsible for a raft of corporate-friendly bills across the nation. State politicians are the workhorses. They are sent forth from corporate-funded meetings at resort settings to sponsor and pass cookie-cutter laws, and then are rewarded with campaign contributions from the same business partners.

Indiana has an impressive army of ALEC soldiers, concealed by an undeserved exemption in the state’s lobbying law and successful in pushing through voter ID, anti-regulation, education, health care and more laws championed by the organization. Then there are ALEC’s Hoosier supply troops: Gov. Mitch Daniels, state Superintendent Tony Bennett, Rep. Todd Rokita and more. They champion the goals supported by ALEC to help spread its influence.

Continue reading Smart ALEC

Doden is far left

That sound you heard Wednesday? That was the sound of the Indiana Charter School Board rubber-stamping a real estate deal to benefit a politically connected Fort Wayne business owner.

How else to explain a 5-1 vote to "replicate" an unproven school that has drawn few students in Indianapolis and met strong resistance from the Fort Wayne community during a public hearing held just 7 business days after local school officials and were notified? The application was approved less than 24 hours after the hearing.

Daryle Doden's Ambassador Enterprises has been looking to draw a charter school tenant to The Summit, its education center at the former Taylor University campus, for more than a year. Another charter school applicant, Sun Academy, proposed leasing space there in a charter school application last year, but withdrew its bid. (Sun Academy has submitted a letter of intent to offer another application this spring, along with Global Village International Inc., so as many as three new charter schools could be opening in Fort Wayne next fall.)

Doden is the father of Eric Doden, a former GOP candidate for mayor and Gov. Mike Pence's newly appointed director for statewide economic development. Daryle Doden and his wife contributed $15,500 to Pence's campaign.

Continue reading Charter school charades

Club for Growth, fresh off their successful efforts to get Richard Mourdock elected to the US Senate...wait...that's right..they didn't!  Anyway, Club for Growth is still calling for ideological purity and putting together a list of RINO's they would like to see primaried and Indiana's 8th CD Larry Bucshon makes the list.  I guess this puts Richard Mourdock's recent "I'm not done with running for office in to perspective?

Washington, DC – Today, Club for Growth Action launched a new website, www.PrimaryMyCongressman.com. The purpose of the website is to raise awareness of Republicans In Name Only (RINOs) who are currently serving in safe Republican seats. In many of the Congressional districts highlighted, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney received over 60% of the votes for President in 2012, but the incumbent Congressman has a lifetime rating of less than 70% on the Club for Growth’s Congressional Scorecard, which measures the commitment of lawmakers to limiting government and free markets.

The website will offer Club members and the general public the opportunity to recommend primary opponents to the incumbents highlighted by Club for Growth Action, as well as to recommend primary challengers for any Republican member of Congress.

Club for Growth Action will rotate liberal Republicans through the website to highlight their failed records on limiting government. To start, the following Republican members are highlighted:

·        Rep. Mike Simpson (ID-02) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 58%; Romney % of Vote: 64%

·        Rep. Adam Kinzinger (IL-16) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 56%; Romney % of Vote: 53%

·        Rep. Rick Crawford (AR-01) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 56%; Romney % of Vote: 61% 

·        Rep. Frank Lucas (OK-03) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 68%; Romney % of Vote: 74%

·        Rep. Steve Palazzo (MS-04) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 69%; Romney % of Vote: 68%

·        Rep. Martha Roby (AL-02) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 69%; Romney % of Vote: 63%

·        Rep. Larry Bucshon (IN-08) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 68%; Romney % of Vote: 58%

·        Rep. Renee Ellmers (NC-02) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 66%; Romney % of Vote: 57%

·        Rep. Aaron Schock (IL-18) Lifetime Club for Growth Rating: 61%; Romney % of Vote: 61%

 “Big government liberals inhabit the Democratic Party, but they are far too common within the Republican Party as well,” said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. “The Republicans helped pass billions of dollars in tax increases and they have repeatedly voted against efforts by fiscal conservatives to limit government. PrimaryMyCongressman.com will serve as a tool to hold opponents of economic freedom and limited government accountable for their actions.”

Picture coutesy of Huntington County Sheriff's Department

Indicted Huntington County Commissioner Tom Wall's trial on 7 Class-A misdemeanor battery charges has been moved from early March to June 5, 6 & 7th.  The move was requested by special prosecutor D.J. Sigler.

Wall is accused of inappropriately touching two different women.

JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — The execution of a Georgia man who killed a fellow prisoner in 1990 was halted Tuesday at the last minute so courts could consider claims that he's mentally disabled and other issues.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted its stay of execution as 52-year-old Warren Lee Hill was being prepared for lethal injection. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of the appeals court said further review is needed of recent affidavits by doctors who changed their minds about Hill's mental capacity.

"In other words, all of the experts — both the State's and the petitioner's — now appear to be in agreement that Hill is in fact mentally retarded," judges in the majority wrote in their order.

Courtesy of NPR

This week, the Supreme Court will take up a classic David-and-Goliath case. On one side, there's a 75-year-old farmer in Indiana named Vernon Hugh Bowman; on the other, the agribusiness giant Monsanto.

The farmer is fighting the long reach of Monsanto's patents on seeds — but he's up against more than just Monsanto. The biotech and computer software industries are taking Monsanto's side.

Bowman also is battling a historic shift that's transformed the nation's seed business over the past 20 years.

Despite all that, Bowman seems remarkably cheerful about his situation. "Confrontation does not take a toll on me!" he says. "You and me can argue about the Bible; we can argue about religion. I'll pound my fist and we can argue all day, and I won't lose a bit of sleep at night!"

NY Times financial columnist and author is back on The Gary Snyder Show on 1400 WBAT & Indiana Talks Monday from 3-5pm and a replay from 11p-1a.

Guests include:

Jim Shella, WISH TV-8 political reporter and host of Indiana Week in Review

Sgt. Ross Allen, MPD, MPD Blue

Diana Henriques, award winning NY Times financial columnist and author of "Wizard of Lies", talks about Bernie Madoff's recent "I wish I wouldn't have pleaded guilty" remarks.

Scott Jones, resident PR Guru for The Gary Snyder Show, Daily Caller Columnist and former aide to 3 US Presidents.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (AP) -- America's No. 1 team finally came out a winner twice this week.

Indiana's reward: It can stop worrying about votes and start focusing on the Big Ten title chase.

Will Sheehey scored a career-high 22 points and set a new school record Saturday by going 9 for 9 from the field and leading Indiana to its second straight blowout over archrival Purdue, 83-55.

Continue reading Fast start sends No. 1 Indiana past Purdue 83-55

NCAA

Clarke has 22 as No. 11 Butler tops Fordham 68-63

Batts leads Providence over Notre Dame 71-54

McDermott, Creighton defeat Evansville 71-68

Bryant leads Eastern Michigan by Ball State, 56-50

By Brian Howey

INDIANAPOLIS –  How is Indiana going to ensure health insurance to the “working poor?”

State Rep. Ed Clere, the New Albany Republican who chairs the House Public Health Committee, defines this estimated pool of 400,000 Hoosiers like this: “These are people who are doing exactly what Republicans want them to do. The father works in a factory. The mother is a retail clerk.”  They are more than likely to be Republicans.

Together, they might bring in $40,000 to $50,000 a year. But the factory and the retail store don’t provide health insurance, and even if they do, in many cases it’s a flimsy policy.

“If they have a major health issue, they face a financial disaster,” Clere said.

Or as Dr. Aaron E. Carroll of the Indiana University School of Medicine, told the committee, “The choice for many isn’t between Medicaid and some private insurance. The choice is between Medicaid and nothing.”

Now, if you’re poor and below the poverty level, you’re covered by existing Medicaid. If you’re rich or in the middle to upper levels of the middle class, your employer provides or you buy a health insurance policy that could cost your family between $10,000 and $20,000 a year.

Now, there is no question: Hoosiers don’t like “Obamacare.”

But here’s the indisputable reality: The Affordable Care Act became a long-term reality when President Obama defeated Mitt Romney last November. It’s the law of the land.

Indiana must now make decisions on how it will participate and in the next weeks and months, decisions that could impact 400,000 working Hoosiers with billions of dollars of implications will be made by Gov. Mike Pence and the Republican-dominated Indiana General Assembly.

The Medicaid debate came as Gov. Mike Pence - parting ways with GOP governors in Michigan and Ohio - issued an ultimatum to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleel Sebelius this past week. Pence has ruled out expanding Medicaid under the federal health care law unless Indiana gets approval to use its Healthy Indiana Plan savings accounts for the expansion. “It was important to me that we do fully fund Medicaid, but we did not fund a Medicaid expansion, nor do I think that under the current framework for Medicaid that it would be advisable for Indiana to do that,” Pence said last week.

On Wednesday, he reiterated that stance, with his office saying the governor “flatly refused to expand the traditional Medicaid program in Indiana.”

In a letter to Sebelius, Pence requested federal approval to use the Healthy Indiana Program to serve an expanded Medicaid population  “Medicaid is broken,” said Pence. “In Indiana, an expansion of traditional Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act would cost our taxpayers upwards of $2 billion over the next seven years.”

Bills in the Indiana House and Senate advanced on Wednesday that paves the way for HIP to be the framework of services, though no one can say what those costs will be.

The Healthy Indiana Program currently provides health coverage for about 40,000 Hoosiers, though there are another 46,000 people on the waiting list. So with the governor ruling out a Medicaid expansion, the question is, what happens to the 350,000 to 400,000 “working poor” Hoosiers?

Clere cited the innovative Indiana health care programs - Hoosier Healthwise in 1995 and the Healthy Indiana Plan in 2008. He said HB1591 which would expand Medicaid “takes the lessons of existing programs” and operates in a way that is “predictable and respectful of the Hoosier taxpayer.” He explained his proposal would reflect “Hoosier values” while ensuring that “everyone has skin in the game.”

The decisions coming in the next week and months come with billions of dollars at stake. The federal government will cover upwards of 95% of the Medicaid expansion until 2020, and 90% thereafter. If Indiana declines, it could cost the state billions of dollars.

And we’ve done this before.

Back in the early days of the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal government made billions of dollars available to states to correct its widespread combined sewer overflow problem. But because of ideology and a disdain for federal aid, Indiana passed the opportunity up.

 Of the 772 communities that haven’t separate storm and sanitary sewers, 108 are in Indiana, and the cost to ratepayers will eventually be about $10 billion. Has your sewer bill gone up recently? You can thank the politicians of yester year.

Hoosier office holders in the 1950s and 1960s did the same with federal school lunch program dollars.

And in the early 1960s, the Indianapolis Public School board voluntarily desegregated its schools, then rescinded the decision a year later. The result was a federal busing order that prompted “white flight” and more than a billion dollars in busing costs over the ensuing three decades.

So the decisions at the Indiana Statehouse made between now and April will impact scores of hardworking and vulnerable Hoosiers for years to come. The flow of these federal dollars could bring about 30,000 jobs as hospitals expand.

The question we all must ask is, what happens here to the working poor?

The columnist publishes at www.howeypolitics.com. Find him on Twitter @hwypol.