The ISTEP+ test scores are in and guess what, despite the crocodile tears of the status quo, students continue to make improvements. As you may have seen, according to the Indiana Department of Education 80.7% of Indiana students in public schools passed the English/Language Arts portion of the test, up from 79.5% in 2013. In […]

When I talk to my Democratic friends about now former U.S. Attorney Joe Hogsett running for Mayor of Indianapolis in 2015, you would think they were talking about the second coming and the only thing missing is the donkey and the palm leaves. I don’t blame them, there has to be something frustrating about Greg […]

I have always argued that when dealing with crime, more cops doesn’t equal less crime unless you do some other things, like keep the bad guys behind bars and mitigate the conditions that make new ones. The plan Mayor Greg Ballard announced today does just that.  It adds nearly 280 more police officers over the […]

I’ve gotten quite a bit of response to my column this week in the Indianapolis Star on my “reverse panhandling” experiment. You can read it here, but in a nutshell, a few weeks ago I got tired of the panhandlers downtown asking me for money so I decided to turn the tables on them and […]

For the past six years I have spent the second Saturday night of Indiana Black Expo working the door as a “bouncer” at Nicky Blaine’s cigar bar on Monument Circle.  I go back and forth between working the door and walking around the immediate downtown vicinity talking to law enforcement and other folks. I was […]

I didn’t expect to wake up this morning. Why?  Because I thought the world was going to come to an end yesterday.  At least that’s what i was led to believe after listening to the wailing and gnashing of teeth over federal Judge Richard Young’s common sense ruling that Indiana’s ban on same-sex marriage, like […]

Although Indianapolis City-County Council Democrats are touting their “Rebuild Indy” plan as a viable alternative to Mayor Greg Ballard’s infrastructure plan, there could be a legal road block that could stop their proposal from taking effect. As part of their $340 million plan, Council Democrats have proposed taking $45 million from the downtown TIF district. […]

What’s the difference between cockroaches and Congress?  One tends to be a disgusting creature that feeds on carrion and carries the plague, the other has an approval rating of just 13  percent. That’s according to the latest Gallup poll.  Which go me to thinking, what else is there that most of us have no use […]

My good friend and Democratic blogger Jon Easter is taking me to task over my attitude regarding Indy’s spike in murders.   On his blog, Easter has levied the charge that I am downplaying the city’s murders because most of the victims (80%) and the suspects (88%) all had mugshots, i.e. prior felonies.   Jon says that […]

The one thing I admire most about God is his/her wicked sense of humor, especially when it comes to dealing with folks who claim everything they do for your benefit is in his/her name. I bring this up because my “pro-family” friends have been doing victory laps following the primary defeats of Northeast Indiana State […]