I’m about to watch the debate, but this space is for you.
Tonight was one of those Council meetings that should have only lasted a couple minutes, but it didn’t! It wasn’t the ad nauseum debate over whether the city should spend up to $500,000 on crime prevention grant monitors, but actually it was the opening prayer that did it for me.
It was CCC member Doris Minton McNeil’s turn to do the prayer. McNeil has been charged with felony battery for allegedly shoving a police officer while intoxicated. She invited her Pastor to lead the invocation, which is not out of the ordinary, but the fact that it took forever wasn’t. I don’t attend church and now I remember why.
It’s one thing to ask the big man upstairs for guidance and wisdom, it’s another thing to ask him to watch for Minton McNeil because her enemies are out to get her. I am not making this up. Her Pastor also asked the Lord to “reign down justice,” whatever that means. He also asked the Lord to give her strength.
Now in all fairness, in what seemed like the same amount of time it took the Lord to make the world, the Pastor did ask for other things, but I thought it was highly inappropriate to turn the occasion into an ecumenical get out of jail free card.
I always chuckle how people call for Jesus when they screw up. Maybe had they been talking to him before they decided to engage in counterproductive behavior, they would have avoided the mess they got into.
A proposal is being introduced at tonight’s City-County Council meeting which would censure former Council President Monroe Gray for ethics violations.
An ethics hearing found Gray failed to file proper disclosure forms regarding his business interests.
There are no penalties in the ordinance, but it does call for Gray’s actions to be publicly condemned.
Expect some controversy out of this one as there is a question as to whether the Council’s investigative committee of Gray ever had a quorum since it was made up of two members from each party. And there was a question as to whether Democrat Paul Bateman had officially resigned from the Committee after he was part of a federal investigation regarding charity fraud.
Stay tuned.
Here’s what my map looks like right now.
That is my prediction of the Presidential race with 30 days to go. Feel free to cheer, scream, whatever. I’ll still be here to explain my analysis.
Welcome back.
Okay, here’s my rationale.
Although the national polls have Obama with a 5-7 point lead, it’s state polls that matter because of the Electoral College.
By my count based on polling data, voter registration and the general mood of the electorate, Obama has 259 Electoral votes while John McCain has 160. 119 are up in the air. Obama wins the Northeast, Upper Midwest and West Coast. McCain wins most of the South, the Plains states and most of the Rocky Mountains.
The battle ground states are Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana, Missouri, Colorado, New Hampshire and Nevada. New Hampshire and Florida notwithstanding, the path to the White House literally cuts across the center of the United States.
To win, McCain has to literally sweep Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Virgina, Indiana and Missouri. He has only four ways to get to 270 while Obama has 11 combinations. McCain needs to win 110 out of the 119 Electoral votes. Obama only needs 11 out of 119.
What complicates matters for McCain is all the states in play are places where George W. won.
Of course there are still two debates to go and there could always be a national emergency that puts foreign affairs back in the spotlight. And in politics, a day is a lifetime and anything can happen.
But if the election were held today Obama would be Commander-in-Chief.
I’m working on a project this weekend, but I wanted to let you all my producer at WXNT, Chris Spangle, will be leaving the morning show.
Chris has taken a position at the new Executive Director of the Indiana Libertarian Party.
Chris is bright and has a lot of ideas and will bring some new blood to the Libertarians. Heck, he might even win a couple elections.
He’s come a long way from the kid who listened to the morning show and hated it, which is kind of funny now that you think about it.
We’re making the official announcement on Monday.
Good luck, Spangle!
Okay folks, it’s question and answer time?
I wrote this post back in January. In the wake of today’s financial meltdown and subsequent baliout/rescue, I thought it was worth re-posting.
ECONOMICS 101
With a recession breathing down America’s economic neck, the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington are scrambling to do something.
They’re seriously considering giving tax rebates to people who don’t pay income taxes.
And they’re also lowering interest rates so people who make bad business decisions on the stock market can borrow more money and make even more bad business decisions on the stock market. This comes from a need to do something to save the economy.
Well here’s a thought, how about we do nothing? That’s right, nothing. Recessions and economic slowdowns are normal parts of the business cycle. You need them to help eliminate inefficiencies and waste in the economy.
Remember the dot-com bust of the late 1990s? Stupid internet companies went away and the strong ones survived.
That’s what we need to fix our American economy. We need to let the system crash and the financial bodies hit the floor. Bad companies need to go away so good companies can rise to the top. This is the only way for the market to truly correct itself after 20 years of unprecedented growth. This is Econ 101 folks.
We can’t keep artificially messing with the economy because the longer we try to hold back the bad times, the harder they’ll hit when it all comes crashing down. Just think October 1929, if you still don’t get what I’m saying.
Days like this I feel like Nostradamus.
There are lots of little things to mention this morning, so here they are.
Indianapolis City-County Council Member Doris Minton McNeill has been charged with felony battery and resisting arrest for her alleged altercation with a police officer this past summer.
Special Prosecutor Jim Oliver charged McNeill with D felony battery and three counts of resisting law enforcement, a class A misdemeanor.
McNeil was reportedly drunk and belligerent when police were called to her home in District 15. According to the police affidavit she shoved IMPD Officer Emily Perkins.
She will appear in court sometime next week.
McNeill is part of a string of controversies surrounding Council Democrats. Councilor Paul Bateman was involved with a local not-for-profit that is under federal investigation. Former Council President Monroe Gray was found to have violated the Council’s ethics rules. And Council Democrat attorney Aaron Haith is being investigated by the Indiana Supreme Court for alleged misconduct.
