I Call Them as I See Them

An explanation of why I write what I write and some of the consequences I end up enduring came out in a story in Sunday's NWI local newspaper.  Although there are multiple reasons many of our local elected, and some appointed, officials complain about my writing, the main one is that I make the thieves, charlatans, and incompetents cringe and crawl by calling them on the carpet and shedding light in on their ugly activities.  The result is that they scamper to try to shut me up either through my employer, my writing outlets, or my speech giving.  They succeeded with my column at the Post-Tribune; but, with the Twenty-First Century media, the Internet, newspapers are not the only available outlet.

The more recent creepy crawlers of NWI, specifically Lake County, are about to go on trial.  This was outlined in Sunday's Post-Tribune, Fraud trial to start for Gary insiders, by Andy Grimm and in The Times on Monday GUEA Defendants Go on Trial by Joe Carlson.  This is about the Federal trial that is about to begin for Lake County Councilman Will Smith and political insiders Roosevelt Powell and Willie Harris.  Andy Grimm and Joe Carlson are good reporters but they did forget to put in there that I was the writer who first "outed" these individuals and called them out for the crooks that they are.  In fact, they are one of a series of local "public figures" I have called on the carpet.  Not all have been indicted; but there are few in law enforcement who would disagree that my perceptions and analysis of all these politicians has been on the mark.  Lake County politics is so rife with corruption that one can truly say in an un-American fashion that anyone who is in office by appointment or election: you are guilty until you prove otherwise.  If voters were to make that assumption, they would not be far off.

Nonetheless, the evidence law enforcement officials do have is significantly more than what Chancellor Cohen requires to call me an "embarrassment."  I must truly admit that being an embarrassment to Chancellor Cohen, the defender of local politicians (of which he is now one as he is an appointed official on the Regional Development Authority, or RDA for short), is a certain type of compliment.  Why?  Because, I don't lie to the public; I don't misuse public funds.  I don't ask to be elected by NWI to the State Legislature and then take a job, surrepticiously, with IUPUI to help them with their education funding (more on this story later, but I am speaking of the former State Representative John Aguilera).  I shed light on these activities and if that is an embarassment to some, then so be it.  I would think that one would be embarassed to defend local politicians who exhibit clear signs of "Politico Corrupticus Syndrome" but apparently that is not the case. 

To this day, I find it amazing that these three indicted political operatives continue to work with the public sector, i.e. government, in Lake County.  One was president of Lake County Council and continues to serve as a council member.  He is actually going to be involved in deciding if we have a local income tax and what we pay for property tax.  The other continues to make money under contract to that same Lake County Government.  The third is continuing practicing his craft of making under the table deals for the political elite of Lake County.

This is the sad part: if the men and women from Washington do not put them in jail, the citizens of NWI are incapable of legally managing their own affairs and this is because they are lead by a corrupt leadership, i.e. elected and appointed chiefs, that hold peoples jobs and security as a way of controlling the "tribe."