Fort Wayne will miss Greg Purcell. He is a capable administrator, a relatively skilled politician and a nice guy, really.

Politics is a fight in Fort Wayne. There are plenty of interests, there are Machiavellian twists and turns, there are those who play both sides against the middle. It is a fight to get something done, it is a challenge to determine a policy, outline the actions that will be needed for success and then push the project through the various votes to make it law. Greg Purcell did a relatively good job of implementing his mayor’s wishes. He is courteous, friendly and does not seem to hold a grudge. A nice guy, a calculating politician.

The deputy mayor is Fort Wayne is the chief of staff, the principle advisory, the privy counselor, the head cheerleader and, on occasion, the last word on city policy. The mayor is allowed to be the eminence gris, the wise thinker who conjures ideas and hands them to the deputy mayor to execute policy while he, the burgermeister, cuts ribbons, masks speeches and kisses babies. It was a relationship created with the effervescent Graham Richard in mind, not Tom Henry. To be clear, the current mayor is gifted at cutting ribbons and reading stories to grade-schoolers, it is that visioning thing that is the challenge.

So, those of us who have opposed Greg Purcell have been impressed with his skills to get things done, ruefully so at times. That is why he will be missed. He has been able to sell administration policy and assemble the votes on council to push through his mayor’s agenda. But he has also been part and parcel of the various troubles the Henry Administration has brought on itself: the casino double-dealing, the waste on Calhoun, the bungled negotiations with I&M, the burgeoning bill to buy a new city hall, and more. Just last week the revelation of so much apparent corruption in the Mayor’s contributor list has to make one ask whether the mayor’s chief advisor offered noble counsel. He is in the position to be the mayor’s chief wise counsel, as well as the tough insider, the guy who might occasionally display sharpened elbows.

Other mayors have had their Machiavellians; David Kiester comes first to mind. During his tenures with Mayors Ivan Lebamoff and Win Moses it was joked that he, Mr. Kiester, would kill his grandmother for a vote. Those making that joke would look just a bit over their shoulders when sneering that insult. I had both good and bad experiences with Mr. Kiester, at times he served the community exceedingly well, at other times not so well as an earlier version of a deputy mayor. Every mayor has had one, the question is how well they serve.

Purcell was hired to advise the mayor, to take over in illness or absence, to be the number two. He was hired for his wise counsel and potentially sharp elbows.

And, this is, afterall, Fort Wayne. We are a middle sized community living in comfortable mediocrity. We attract middle-quality administrators. Greg Purcell has, over three administrations, been consistently good for the city, but not great. One would expect the number two in government would speak truth to power and would resign if even the appearance of impropriety were exhibited by his boss. Unfortunately, given the big contributors list and the “pay-to-play” image it creates, and the appearance that the administrations plays favorites at taxpayer expense it does not seem that Mr. Purcell was strong enough in that part of his duties, or willing to draw a line in the sand against the image of corruption now surrounding Mayor Henry. But, then again, perhaps that is what he has done, in his normally less confrontation way.

The baton now passes to Controller Pat Roller. Let us see how tough she is.

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ACORN is bringing one of it’s subversive units to Fort Wayne, which operates under the name of Organizing for America. Nick Buis, State Organizer and Alison Griffin, Regional Organizer for Organizing for America are leading the charge, (read; ACORN) and will be in town on Saturday, September 26, 2009 at 8:30 a.m. at Brevin’s Restaurant in Churubusco.

Show them what you think, and make your way to the sidewalk outside Brevin’s restaurant in a peaceful protest. Better yet, Brevin’s has very good food, show up at 6:00 and let’s pack the place.

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From www.defendglenn.com/

From a February 11, 2009 “lecture” at the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC) in Berkeley, CA. Remember, this is an White House OFFICIAL with power over the entire multi-billion dollar “Green Jobs” initiative. This is the same man who endorsed the statement that President Bush “gave troops permission to go down (to New Orleans) and shoot us (black people)” after Katrina. He is now at the highest levels of power, and is targeting Glenn Beck for exposing his true agenda.

It should also be noted that Van Jones is also a 9/11 truther, (defined here). He thinks 9/11 was an inside job. So dear readers, if you voted for that other asshole, this is what you’re getting.

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From RFQ NUMBER: WHO-S-09-0003 [link: PDF]

1. Purpose
The purpose of this Statement of Objectives (SOO) is to obtain the necessary services to ensure that content published by the Executive Office of the President (EOP) on publicly-accessible web sites is archived in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA), that information posted on publicly-accessible web sites where the EOP maintains a presence is archived in accordance with the PRA, and that all archived information is securely stored and provided to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) for historical preservation, in accordance with the PRA.

Here’s where it gets juicy.

2. Scope
The contractor shall provide the necessary services to capture, store, extract to approved formats, and transfer content published by EOP on publicly-accessible web sites, along with information posted by non-EOP persons on publicly-accessible web sites where the EOP offices under PRA maintains a presence, throughout the term of the contract.

[...]

Publicly-accessible sites may include, but are not limited to social networking sites.

I suppose that means blogs would be searched, indexed and stored as well. But wait, there’s more! They’re already doing it.

4. Background
In order to comply with the Presidential Records Act, the White House New Media team is looking for a non personal service contractor to crawl and archive PRA content on all third party sites where the EOP has a presence (i.e. Facebook.com/whitehouse, Twitter.com/whitehouse). Currently, the Government team is capturing the data and content both programmatically (via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) from social networks) and manually (through daily screen shots).

If you look back at Obama’s first days as President, he signed Executive Order 13489 [link: PDF] that states that only the records he chooses to be made public will be released. Now he wants to archive everything anyone has to say about him and his administration.

5. Performance Objectives

(G) Capture of comments and publicly-visible tags posted by users on publicly-accessible websites on which an EOP component subject to the PRA maintains a presence. Vendor must be able to either:

(i) Capture all comments posted to a list of websites provided to vendor; or
(ii) Capture a sample of comments posted to a list of websites provided to vendor, according to a sampling

(J) Ability for government employees to tag captures from publicly-accessible websites by arbitrary fields or tags such as office or issue (i.e. OVP or health care).

There is no requirement in the Presidential Records Act for the storage or archiving of non-EOP content. Obama doesn’t care.

Get ready to be tagged.

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In 2004, the state’s Democrat-controlled legislature changed the law to prevent the governor from appointing an interim successor after a U.S. Senate seat becomes vacant. Instead, the new law requires that a special election be held between 145 and 165 days after the position becomes vacant.

At the time, Democratic Sen. John Kerry was running for president and Massachusetts had a Republican governor, Mitt Romney. Proponents of changing the law argued that a gubernatorial appointment was undemocratic and that only voters should decide on a replacement. Democrats also feared Mr. Romney would appoint a Republican.

That’s how they wanted it then. Now that Teddy’s dead, they’ve changed their minds.

The question of how to fill Mr. Kennedy’s seat is vexing Democrats. In 2004, Mr. Kennedy supported a special election rather than a gubernatorial appointment. Yet more recently, he wrote to Mr. Patrick and legislative leaders, urging that Massachusetts give the governor the power to appoint an interim successor.

Pure partisan politics.

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Read his post, it also shows how the mainstream media doesn’t fact check. In this case it was the Houston Chronicle. Also check out the Lone Star Times on how they uncovered the truth as well as a Che Guevara connection.

In most states it’s illegal to represent yourself as a doctor if you don’t have a license to practice. Then again, maybe it’s just okay for the democrats to play doctor?

From Democrats.com:

Prosecute Noelle Bush – Sign the Petition
20-Sep-02
Bush Family
“Should Noelle Bush be getting favorable treatment because she is the daughter of Governor Jeb Bush and niece of President GW Bush? Absolutely NOT! Why do the Bush girls think they are above the law? The answer is simple. They are NOT. Noelle, age 24, has either been involved or found guilty of; Impersonating a doctor to obtain drugs.

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Oh, this takes the cake. Texas Democrat Congressman Eugene Green has this posted on his congressional web site.

But when it comes to showing a photo ID to vote, well guess what?

My suggestion to his constituents would be to take their Sam’s Club card, or better yet, their AARP cards.

One thought. I suppose now he won’t be able to pack the house with illegal immigrants.

I can’t wait for 2010.

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From the Post Dispatch

St. Louis County police say six people were arrested. Two of those were arrested on suspicion of assault, one of resisting arrest and three on suspicion of committing peace disturbances. Carnahan was gone when the ruckus started.

Kenneth Gladney, a 38-year-old conservative activist from St. Louis, said he was attacked by some of those arrested as he handed out yellow flags with “Don’t tread on me” printed on them. He spoke to the Post-Dispatch from the emergency room of the St. John’s Mercy Medical Center, where he said he was waiting to be treated for injuries to his knee, back, elbow, shoulder and face that he suffered in the attack. Gladney, who is black, said one of his attackers, also a black man, used a racial slur against him before the attack started.

“It just seems there’s no freedom of speech without being attacked,” he said.

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More from Gathering of Eagles.

I was going to post this tomorrow, but now seems appropriate. After the successful rally we had two weeks ago downtown, we are organizing another rally. As senators travel to their home states over the legislative recess to hear from their constituents, Americans for Prosperity’s Patients First Bus Tour hit the road yesterday beginning it’s “Hands Off My Healthcare Tour”.

It will be in Fort Wayne the morning of August 17th. More details will be posted here in the coming week.

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