If you wasted any time this weekend reading today's Indianapolis Star or the Indianapolis Business Journal, there was plenty of fawning over Greg Ballard and what a supposedly great legacy he's leaving behind after two terms as Indianapolis' mayor. I could take the time to explain my reaction to their drivel, but I think fellow blogger Fred McCarthy
summarizes it better than I can:
We believe most readers look at the front section of their newspaper to find out what’s going on in their city, state and the nation. This morning’s paper used just under half that space for non-news advertising.
We understand that’s what puts the paper out. But for that reason, we marvel at the fact that an additional ten percent of that section was wasted on a laudatory good bye to Mayor Ballard.
The fifth paragraph of the story admits that he "...has left his successor, Democratic Mayor-elect, with a public safety crisis...." The next paragraph tells us "...criticisms never seemed to stick." Maybe that’s because true investigative reporting seems to have been banned by media management.
The business weekly paper has an even more syrupy - though less relative space - sendoff, quoting city "leaders" about the magnificent record of his honor.
One of the quotes is from the vice chairman of Pacers Sports and Entertainment. He tells us that as people got to know Ballard there was great confidence that "...this was going to be OK." What else might you expect to hear from the recipient of an additional annual gift of $16,000,000 taxpayer dollars?
A bit of an editorial in the same paper generated some additional thought. With regard to the paper’s subscribers, we are told: their average household net worth is $2.4 million; average individual income is $234,000; 40 percent have attained millionaire status. And 42 percent are owners or partners in a business.
Is it fair to wonder how many of those specific businesses are among the recipients of the corporate welfare so avidly supported by the paper. Which are getting those TIF dollars which ought to be supporting legitimate municipal functions? Have any of those folks become millionaires in the last eight years? Why are millionaires on the public dole at all?
Perhaps the most distressing thing of all is the apparent elation and hope with which both papers report that mayor-elect Hogsett can be expected to follow the same path.
3 comments:
The Indianapolis Star? The Indianapolis Business Journal? I thought both were dead and no longer published.
As for "What Fred Said", I refer you back to your December 24, 2015, news report summation which is accurate on all counts:
"The undeniable realization that Mayor Greg Ballard's entire final year in office was devoted to schemes to defraud Indianapolis taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars, all of which were endorsed by the Indianapolis Star, failed to earn even an honorable mention.
Corrupt Criminal Republican Greg Ballard denied Marion County the opportunity to bounce his fat ass from the mayor's chair. I doubt, highly doubt, that POS who cost Marion County taxpayers YET UNBORN has anywhere near the "approval" or "likeability" rate the equally POS Gannett trash wrap claims.
BALLARD SHOULD BE IN CHAINS ALONG WITH EVERY CORRUPT ATTORNEY WHO PROPPED HIM UP.
How anyone can ascribe the last eight years of our mayor with such fanfare only proves that the media is part of the problem. The current media seems to exist only as the pr branch for downtown, and it's obvious that they aren't concerned with the truth but only to propagate the mayor's agenda.
Back when I was a boy growing up and playing sand lot baseball, we often played with our bright shiny new ball until the stitching broke and it began to unravel. We then taped it with black electrical tape which gave it a bit more life. Eventually, even the tape failed, revealing the interior stitching and at the center a very hard rubber ball.
At some point we pooled our money and bought a new baseball.
Our system which I would say is Fascist is similar. The bright new Hog$hitt exterior hiding all the interior stitching of Crony-Capitalism, patronage and a compliant intellectually challenged McMega-Media and City Council. The Hog$hitt ball is not meant to played with, it is placed in glass case for all us proles to marvel at.
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