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via Matthew Boyle on Twitter: Jim Bridenstine just announced Marlin Stutzman is issuing a public statement TOMORROW saying he voting against Boehner Stutzman coming out against Boehner is MASSIVE. Takes this BIG TIME. Stutzman ran for House Majority Whip last summer

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. (January 4, 2015) — Mayor Greg Ballard told viewers last month that the city’s murder rate, which was on its way to an eight percent increase over 2013 and finished with 135 cases, was due to the ebb-and-flow of crime. “It’s cyclical. Frankly I didn’t get a lot of these questions when it was below 100 for four years in a row, right?” The man whose job it is to send convicted killers to prison told us that Mayor Ballard is wrong for several reasons. “There is a certain starting point of poverty, lack of education and then...

INDIANAPOLIS - Castleton Square Mall closed early Saturday after a fight broke out inside, reportedly involving hundreds of people. Some witnesses reported hearing someone had a gun, but no one has been able to tell police they actually saw one, according to Ofc. Chris Wilburn. Shots were later fired in front of the AMC movie theater, but no one was hit. Large crowds began gathering outside the mall after the fight and shooting. Police quickly started dispersing those gathered. Police initially told WTHR.com that the mall had closed down for the night as a precaution after the brawl, and Eyewitness...

I am 100% getting mine today

HAMMOND | A mother grieved as her second son was gunned down in less than a month, this time an engineering student at Vincennes University who was home on winter break. Hammond authorities are investigating the shooting death of 19-year-old Donnovan Williams, a Highland resident who had been the first in his family to go to college but ended up the first victim of homicide in Northwest Indiana this year. Early on New Year's Day, Williams was shot at 1235 Wilson Place in Hammond, and later died at Community Hospital in Munster. The recent graduate of Morton High School in...

The average price for a gallon of gas has dropped for 99 days in a row, with six states – Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma and Missouri – having average prices under $2 for the first time since 2009, according to price surveys Friday. Prices have plummeted about 40 percent since the start of June. Put another way, the Auto Club estimates that Americans are saving $500 million -- per day, each day – compared to the high prices paid last spring, allowing that money to be spent with businesses other than oil companies or just kept in the savings...

While states debate expanding their Medicaid programs under Obamacare, they're wrestling with a looming 2017 deadline — when their taxpayers begin paying for the cost of the expansion. Beginning in 2014, states that agree to expand Medicaid to persons with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty line will have the federal government pay 100 percent of the cost. But beginning in 2017, the federal share will fall to 95 percent, and it drops to 90 percent in 2020. This has officials — many of them in Republican-dominated states across the country — worried that they will not...

Republican Indiana Governor Mike Pence spent Christmas with his family in Israel, part of a nine-day trip that includes a three-day jobs mission to meet with government and business leaders to discuss expanding economic ties between Indiana and the Jewish State. According to a Facebook post by Caroline Glick, senior contributing editor of The Jerusalem Post:As a visiting dignitary, Pence and his family were invited to PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas’s annual Christmas dinner, where he was notified that a car would be sent to fetch him to Abbas’s office for an unscheduled and unsolicited meeting at 10:45pm.Governor Pence in his inimitable...

One group of potential candidates for president probably won't be shuffling off to Iowa, New Hampshire or other early campaign spots in the new year. They'll be hunkered down in statehouses across the Midwest, pushing bills through their legislatures. Few outside their home states will notice, but these governors and their policies could wind up in the national campaign picture. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, Mike Pence of Indiana, Rick Snyder of Michigan and John Kasich of Ohio were all elected after Republicans began taking political control of the middle of the country back in 2010. Since then, they have offered...

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against a western Indiana school district seeking to force it to recognize a club for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students and those who support them. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Terre Haute contends the North Putnam Community School Corp. in Bainbridge, 35 miles west of Indianapolis, is violating the First Amendment rights of the Gay-Straight Alliance and the three students who are now members. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of those students at North Putnam High School — a senior,...

Assistant Senate Majority Leader Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) sent a letter to Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano today, asking her to halt deportations of immigrant students who could earn legal status under legislation they have introduced called the DREAM Act (S.729). The DREAM Act is a narrowly tailored, bipartisan measure which would permit undocumented students to become permanent legal residents if they came here as children, are long-term U.S. residents, have good moral character, and attend college or enlist in the military for at least two years. The DREAM Act would allow a generation of...

INDIANAPOLIS - An Indianapolis man was shot and killed by a homeowner Friday during an apparent robbery attempt, police said. IMPD said the call came in at 9:17 p.m., when a homeowner said he'd fire shots at two intruders in his home on the 4500 block of Devon Court on Indianapolis' northeast side. The caller told police he thought some of the shots hit an intruder, but wasn't sure.

McDonald’s and its franchisees illegally retaliated against employees for participating in union-related activities, the National Labor Relations Board’s top lawyer alleged Friday in a case with sweeping industry implications. NLRB general counsel Richard Griffin announced Friday he will issue 13 complaints involving 78 charges against franchises and McDonald’s USA, LLC. Though many of these alleged labor violations were committed by independent franchise owners, Griffin ruled earlier this year that McDonald’s can be held liable for those actions as a so-called joint employer, leaving the corporatrion — and potentially other franchisors — exposed to such claims. McDonald’s said the decision will...

SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -- Some officials in the Indiana city of South Bend have called on a police officer to stop selling T-shirts that make light of the "I can't breathe" refrain used in recent protests of the police killing of a New York City man. Mishawaka police officer Jason Barthel this week began selling T-shirts with the message "Breathe easy, don't break the law" at a South Bend store he owns in response to a weekend protest at the University of Notre Dame. [...] South Bend City Council members Oliver Davis, Henry Davis Jr. and Valerie Schey...

Some officials in the Indiana city of South Bend have called on a police officer to stop selling T-shirts that make light of the “I can’t breathe” refrain used in recent protests of the police killing of a New York City man. Mishawaka police officer Jason Barthel this week began selling T-shirts with the message “Breathe easy, don't break the law” at a South Bend store he owns in response to a weekend protest at the University of Notre Dame. …

For a member of Congress to accuse his party leaders of lying to him, and for their aides to return the favor, is about as rare as the drama that surrounded last week’s procedural vote — a vote that led to the passage of the $1.1 trillion spending bill. That’s the situation Representative Marlin Stutzman (R., Ind.) found himself in last week after he lent his support to the spending package at a moment when it seemed unlikely to ever receive a final vote. Stutzman initially voted no on what is known as “the rule” — the procedural step that...

INDIANAPOLIS -- If success at the state level were enough to recommend someone for president of the United States, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana would be among the frontrunners for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination. According to the governor's office, Pence has "signed into law $643 million in annual tax relief: That includes: $313 million for hardworking Hoosiers, thanks to last year's 5 percent income tax reduction, the largest state tax cut in Indiana history." In addition, the state corporate tax rate was reduced from 6.5 percent to 4.9 percent, making it the third lowest in the country and contributing...

Alexander (R-TN) Ayotte (R-NH) Barrasso (R-WY) Coats (R-IN) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Enzi (R-WY) Flake (R-AZ) Graham (R-SC) Hatch (R-UT) Heller (R-NV) Johnson (R-WI) Kirk (R-IL) McCain (R-AZ) McConnell (R-KY) Murkowski (R-AK) Toomey (R-PA) Wicker (R-MS) Not Voting Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)

NOTRE DAME - After hundreds of protests broke out across the country over the case of Eric Garner, the Notre Dame women's basketball team joined in the effort. At Saturday's game against Michigan the team wore shirts that read "I Can't Breathe". The phrase comes from the last thing Garner said before he died. According to our partners at the South Bend Tribune: A Notre Dame spokesperson said the decision to wear the shirts was driven by the players, but that the coaches and administration supported the move.

The cromnibus had an unlikely savior Thursday afternoon in the form of a lame-duck lawmaker who used to raise reindeer. Rep. Kerry Bentivolio (R-Mich.), who lost his primary earlier this year, was originally among the conservative Republicans who voted against the rule. Without the help of Democrats, Republicans could only lose 17 of their own to pass the rule, which sets up floor debate for the underlying "cromnibus" spending bill. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) intervened once there were 18 Republican defectors — and not a single Democrat voting "yes." Many Democrats will vote against the government spending measure because they...