Porter County Indiana Politics - Latest Comments

Re: Sand Creek and Coffee Creek - opportunities lost

daltonsbriefs — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 13:16:05 -0000

Some readers may think "who cares" but frankly this project has the potential to be one of our most important economic development engines in the entire region, it always has. I love the concept, the park, the golf course, the club, the residents are a "who's who" and want to cheer for a home team. What LEL has missed and I hope isn't turning the same deaf ear once again, is that this community/development needs a home team ... We all want this community to succeed. I only hope NiSource is listening

Re: Libertarians have new chair in Lake County

travisgearhart — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 19:49:32 -0000

Oooh, poker tournament. Do let me know when that is (I've been known to play a hand or two)

Re: Interesting news - at least to me this morning

Streeter — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 15:46:49 -0000

A related article in the Times questions whether we may have too many indoor facilities, given the recent announcement concerning the Hobart complex. This comment caught my eye,

"Speros Batistatos, president and CEO of the South Shore Convention and Visitors Authority, said he could see multiple facilities co-existing with transparency and communication."

Yes, because Mr. Batistatos is the poster child of "transparency and communication." At least the Crown Point announcement, and the alleged tie to Dean White, clears-up the completely bizarre comments in the paper from Mr. Batistatos about endorsing/not-endorsing the Hobart complex.

There is no better example than this guy, why I am so absolutely leery of Porter County trying to do anything with Lake County government.

(http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/article...)

Re: An early look at 2010 - Northwest Indiana elections

NWIpundit — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:07:33 -0000

Let me preface this remark by saying that I don't pay much attention to party affiliation on a local or county level when I vote.

With that said I hate seeing candidates run unopposed - especially incumbents. Let's hope both Dem's and the GOP field some really viable candidates *ahem* especially for county offices. Real world, hard nosed, successful business experience would be a plus.

#justsayin

Re: "CPR For Everyone" Cries East Porter County School Board; A Cautionary HealthCare Tale

TMLutas — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:33:25 -0000

Amy, you've better informed me, thank you, you're right. There is one medical professional in the school, though, the school nurse to which it might be reasonable to further the discussion. I wonder if the DNR discussion in general is about school nurses or general personnel.

You've shrunk the issue down a great deal though, much more than I thought possible, good catch.

Re: "CPR For Everyone" Cries East Porter County School Board; A Cautionary HealthCare Tale

Amy — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:12:18 -0000

You remain unclear on the scope of a DNR order. It is a guideline for DOCTORS and HOSPITALS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Do_not_resuscitate

"Many US states do not recognize living wills or health care proxies in the prehospital setting and prehospital personnel in those areas may be required to initiate resuscitation measures."

In other words... Depending on where you are, if you're not a DOCTOR or a HOSPITAL, the DNR doesn't apply to you, and you could be opening yourself up to horrendous liability if you're, oh, I dunno... A school board and you're going around honoring DNR orders! It sounds like even EMTs and other first responders are not subject to a DNR, from the above, depending on where they are.

First aid has not advanced to the point that a teacher in a classroom would be able to do ANYTHING that would render a student/patient a vegetable on life support. In all my time in the schools, I never intubated anyone. There will be ample opportunity to change the decision later, when the appropriate people (the parents and the physicians) are on hand to make the decision.

I think you're trying to pick a fight where none exists. I don't think any rational person really wants to foist these end-of-life medical decisions onto teachers and school administrators. That is inappropriate in the extreme.

Pro-life people are rarely moderate, whether you're talking about the end of life or pre-life. When was the last time someone who was pro-choice blew up a clinic or murdered a doctor?

Re: "CPR For Everyone" Cries East Porter County School Board; A Cautionary HealthCare Tale

TMLutas — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 22:46:49 -0000

I can accept a mistake and to err on the side of life. That makes sense. But that's a straw man you're knocking down Amy. If you read the article, the Board seems to be saying that even if they know, even if there's no mistake, anybody honoring a DNR is going to be in big trouble with the school board, yes even if the DNR kid has a tattoo on their forehead. That's going too far.

The anti-national-health-care "type" overlap the pro-life grouping but it's not an exclusive one and major segments of the pro-life movement have no problem with national health run by the government so long as the care rules are acceptable (including I suspect a fair number of Catholic bishops).

You don't seem to get the pro-life ethic at all which is a moderate one. You can go overboard on killing and you can go overboard on keeping a body going. In that context "Make up your minds." is a call for extremism. Is that really what you are trying to do?

Re: "CPR For Everyone" Cries East Porter County School Board; A Cautionary HealthCare Tale

Amy — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:31:05 -0000

I disagree that DNR orders are only given out for the extremely sick and/or handicapped. My dad is healthy (relatively speaking), and he has one. All it takes is a lawyer, and you, too, can have your own DNR, regardless of your health status. (Dad is a nurse and has seen people on life support and he doesn't want the family to spend that kind of money to flog him if he's probably going to die or be disabled, anyway, if we do manage to save him).

Can you imagine the alternative? A school has a student in a health crisis, and rather than making quick, lifesaving decisions, they're rifling through paperwork to find out whether or not THIS kid is a DNR? Meanwhile, precious seconds are lost? What are you going to do, tattoo "DNR" on the kid's forehead?

I think the school is correct. If a child is THAT sick, that you don't want CPR done, maybe he should be educated at home! At the very least, the parents should have a cell phone and constantly be reachable, so that if something happens they can give instruction. However, as a former special ed teacher, I promise that if a kid stroked out on me, I'd be doing CPR first and calling Mom later.

If the crushing decision to let a child die must be made, it should be made BY THE CHILD'S PARENTS, not by the school in an emergency. DNR orders, generally don't apply to the public and good Samaritans (who have no way of knowing if the stranger having a heart attack in the restaurant is under a DNR or not!). They're meant to be a guideline for the doctors caring for terminally ill patients.

Can you imagine if there was a mistake? "Oh, that was Tommy Smith that had the DNR? We thought it was TAMMY Smith! Shoot. Sorry we let your daughter die. Our bad." For God's sake. I think you're turning molehills into mountains, and it's a pretty big stretch to say, "The school district doesn't care about your kid's DNR order, so national health care will never work!"

If you anti-national-health-care types aren't crying about "death panels" (TOO MUCH DEATH!) you're freaking out over DNRs (NOT ENOUGH DEATH!). Make up your minds.

Re: "CPR For Everyone" Cries East Porter County School Board; A Cautionary HealthCare Tale

TMLutas — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:24:47 -0000

From a libertarian perspective this is a violation of self-ownership. From a Catholic perspective this is a violation of several principles including subsidiarity and the pro-life ethic of living until a natural death. I suspect that a great number of other religions agree. It is not up to the state to make these decisions, contradicting parents wishes except under the most extraordinary of circumstances, when the parents are unfit, and the child is being removed, and there is a DNR order, and the school has control of the child prior to social services getting them.

In that very far fetched state of affairs I could see a hard case where it could happen legitimately. That rarity is not what the policy is about. What the policy is about is power for the state at the expense of private institutions.

Re: Prisoner Abuse Photos Will Not Be Released

travisgearhart — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:41:01 -0000

Thanks for the correction, foreign policy isn't my strong suite and I do make mistakes on it from time to time. I agree, theres no reason that I see to release them. It's common knowledge what happened over there, and it was taken care of acccordingly by the military. See though, as far as whether or not the photos were whitewashed: this was a decision made by Gates under authority given by Congress. Gates has done a pretty good job in the position, and I'm willing to trust that if he thinks they will incite dangerous circumstances overseas, then they probably will.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

KS — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:22:31 -0000

I am not a Tea Party member, however, I have gone to several meetings in Warsaw (with close to 75 present) when they had candidates speaking and I never saw or heard what they were accused of in the above comment. Neither have I seen this as a private citizen living in Warsaw.

Re: An early look at 2010 - Northwest Indiana elections

TMLutas — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 03:45:26 -0000

database doesn't actually exist for now. The concept is to find reliable data sources I can automate the data load from and create reports off those data sources for users.

It's all very much a work in progress.

Re: Prisoner Abuse Photos Will Not Be Released

TMLutas — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 02:23:20 -0000

Small, very minor correction to an otherwise excellent article. The second is in your first sentence really should be was. Abu Ghraib is no longer under US control as of 2006 and was reopened under Iraqi control in February of 2009 under a different name.

In support of your larger thesis. Old photos sometimes get recycled in the muslim world in ways that surprise us all. Who knew that Sesame Street's Bert was a bin Laden associate? It's difficult to say with certainty that the release of these additional photos demanded will risk lives but if I were a betting man, that's the way I'd bet.

The only actual news value is whether the DoD's assertion that the many photos it already released are truly representative of the entire body of photos available or did they whitewash the release. This *is* a legitimate question of oversight. I think that we can resolve this question in a better way that doesn't risk lives.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

TMLutas — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:18:43 -0000

Oh I agree and would go further. The tea party movement wins if politicians tie themselves to them, not the other way around. That's not limited to Leyva.

I think that there's plenty of Obama provocation left to give the tea party people new chances if they've squandered the chances they've gotten so far. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the large tax increases set to hit ordinary people is one driver. Another will be the realization of the return of bracket creep with some new Obama tax initiatives in the works. I expect further ones to emerge.

Re: Governor Daniels making government smaller

TMLutas — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:10:07 -0000

The role of the ratings agencies and our continued unwillingness to let new, untainted entrants into that business is a continuing crisis caused by overregulation. Had we not legislatively denied the ability of new ratings agencies to participate in certain critical parts of the business, we very well could have had new entries calling shenanigans long before the bubble had a time to grow to its eventual huge proportions. We would have had a crisis quicker but it would have been much smaller. Several of our current ratings agencies would likely have died in the scandal.

Had we not gone down the road of threatening banks' federal licenses if they did not make sufficient bad loans, we likely would also be in better shape. The revisions to the CRA that put regulatory teeth in them caused a distinct uptick in bad loans that needed to be bundled and those bundled bad loans were a key component in the crisis. That's another overregulation problem.

Even omitting the huge numbers of bad regulation in commerce and industry, there's plenty of bad financial services regulation out there. I don't think that anybody, left or right, thinks that the ratings agencies covered themselves in glory in the current crisis or there isn't a need to break their status as a legal oligopoly. How anyone can trust them at this point is a mass delusion we tolerate at our peril.

Good governance means identifying the regulations that don't work and cutting them. We've identified plenty that don't work but nobody cuts them. This will be the death of the republic eventually if we don't solve this problem.

Re: Governor Daniels making government smaller

Jim — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:54:12 -0000

Right, because the reason we are in this recession in the first place is because we had too many regulations over the financial services industry . . . oh, wait....

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

fatpete — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:52:43 -0000

Fair enough, I didn't intend to imply there was a hidden group that should be leading. My only intent was to point out that the local movement is going to become nothing but noise if they tie themselves to Leyva.

The tea party strength comes from fear of what is currently happening in DC. If that causes more people to get involved great. I had hoped the tea party movement would lead to change in elections and candidates. If they aren't organized and able to raise money then the effect will be limited to frustrated voters going against the grain. I'm not scared of the tea party I'm sad with how it's turned out. I though they had a chance to really become an entity that had to be dealt with by any serious candidate. Instead they will end up pandered to by politicians looking to get votes or co-opted by goofs.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

TMLutas — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 19:28:48 -0000

No, this isn't a knock knock joke. It's not a joke at all. I'm just trying to understand what you meant.

You said "When Leyva is your most distinguished member". This implies that there's some population of distinguished people out there in NW Indiana that you expected to see in such a movement but didn't. I was curious who you expected to see. I don't know enough about the local elite to really know who should have been there. Why do you expect known names at the head of a new grassroots movement? I really don't understand.

The tea party strength comes from outsider energy bringing in new people. It's largely made of unknowns which is a good chunk of the reason why it scares the establishment. They don't know which way these people will jump. I don't know either but I'm not horrified by it.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

fatpete — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:40:16 -0000

Larry, If the tea party wishes of small government etc... happen I'd be thrilled. I don't see how a disengaged movement will make it happen, frustration against Obama/Pelosi/reid is not the private domain of the tea partiers. If they can't fund raise or get organized with or with out the republican party the'll be the pretty girl at the dance with no date. Locally they have had a few demonstrations, some pool parties, some sign painting get togethers and public rallies where drivers honk. Congratulations your the pep club.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

fatpete — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:30:12 -0000

I don't know who? Is this like a knock knock joke?

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

TMLutas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:57:40 -0000

So who are the distinguished members who should have been members but weren't? What have they been doing instead?

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

TMLutas — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:55:45 -0000

TPM Muckraker is a Josh Marshall production, a pretty famous online liberal. Perhaps that is not the most impartial of information sources? Even accepting the source, you're talking about a number of factions, one of which is having a lawsuit about a former board member who tried to abscond with a domain and was misrepresenting herself as still on the board. There's a preliminary injunction and the domain is being returned to the board of TPP.

This is very thin gruel to hang the story that a national political movement is losing steam. Sure it's not a very good thing to have happen but a rogue board member does not a movement crackup make.

Associating flag burning anti-americanism with the tea party movement is a bit of a dirty trick. It's not like you couldn't find an effigy burning picture without a burning flag. The visual is offensive and inaccurate.

Apparently one tea party group in Virginia is going to burn a congressman in effigy. Another hung one in effigy back in July. Considering the size of the movement and its distributed leadership, it's astonishing that this has happened as little as it has. Liberal protests have seen much more of that when they were protesting the Bush administration.

I don't agree that everything is fair game. I think we'd do better without the effigies at this point. That's apparently the view of the vast majority of the people in this movement. So a small minority feels differently and it's a sign of the end? That doesn't make sense. It'll either work (I doubt it) and be adopted by more protesters or it won't and be abandoned.

There are excluded solutions in the list of ways to go in 2010. The tea party people can run people for GOP committee posts and name their own candidates. They can force primaries by running their own candidates no matter what the committees pick. They can issue endorsements selectively. They can build up the infrastructure for a 3rd party run but not pull the trigger this time by assembling an "I'm holding my nose for the GOP" group.

This last one was my argument with my friends and acquaintances in 2004. We should vote for Bush as a last chance before we turn away in 2006. It must have been a popular idea because 2006 was exactly when the GOP took a nose dive into minority status after not cleaning up their act in 2005.

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

Larry Wright — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:03:44 -0000

It is funny to watch the liberals implode as the various Americans who continue to join the Tea Party movement get stronger and stronger. It is also hilarious to see them write "the sky is falling for conservatives" screeds like this article...you can just hear them whistling past their own graveyard!

Meanwhile Sarah Palin's book goes to #1 before it is even printed...and the libs are running scared!

Tea Partiers - we will take back America! Weak Sauce articles like this only prove it!

Re: Tea Party Tantrums

fatpete — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 13:20:02 -0000

I don't even care about the teaparty anymore. With all the crap about who is a true patriot they pissed the bed. All the momentum and energy and emotion was wasted. When Leyva is your most distinguished member you kind of marginalized yourself. A bunch of malcontents beating their chests blabbering about liberty. Damn if I ever see Buckley in public I kind of owe him a beer.

Re: State will help finance mergers

TMLutas — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:19:53 -0000

Oh, I have no doubt that greed (for money) and lust (for power) is at the heart of this. They're quite powerful forces.

What puzzles me is that Newt Gingrich figured out how to get around this 15 years ago. You find a win-win consolidation (a consolidation where multiple jurisdictions benefit) and present it. It gets shot down by the powers that be and you use that consolidation, and other common sense reforms like it to ride to power yourself.

So my question remains, if in altered form, why hasn't this been done locally? It's not like it's new ground.