Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Why is President Obama coming to Louisville?


Louisville, KY - President Obama will be visiting Louisville on Thursday for less than 3 hours in a last minute hastily scheduled event. He will appear at a closed function at inDatus presumably to talk about high tech and worker training concerns. Why inDatus, who really is not a big fish in the data collection pond, nor are they a new company having been in business since at least 1989? Their biggest claim to fame is they were given $1 million in our tax money to move from New Albany to Louisville.

We will delve into the land deal and the other arrangements regarding inDatus later. That deal is quite frankly normal procedure for us and nothing glamorous enough on its own merit to bring the President here. For his part, President Obama has not been in Kentucky since his 2008 Presidential campaign because he quite frankly doesn't care for Kentuckians.

So why a hastily arranged visit to Louisville? Why now?


As you know I have been providing complete coverage of the lawsuit against Greg Fischer brought about by former Ford employee Jay Morgan. While the focus lately has been on the insider trading allegations against Ford Motor Company, that started the whole sequence of events that led to the lawsuit, it is important to understand just where in Louisville this all began.

This visit is not coincidental.

I did a two part West End story series on the worker training facility that Fischer nixed in favor of ensuring his sister Lynne Fischer and JCTC profited from any initiative towards that end. You can refresh your memory here and here.

Recently, President Obama announced a $100 million funding grant that would be focused on high tech, high paying jobs. Louisville was announced as one of the communities within the 20 "regions" determined by the President to benefit from this project.

This is not an original idea by Obama, Jerry Abramson, or Greg Fischer no matter what claim.

Why come to Louisville and try to take credit for it?

As we know, Jay Morgan brought everyone together and created the worker training facility project. He found funding of at least $15 million, and up to $25 million, in federal funds to produce a world class workforce training facility here in Louisville in the West End. A facility that would have benefited the entire community, set the standard for the rest of the country, and helped one of the poorest areas of the city, and one of the poorest in the Nation, which happens to be predominantly African American.

How far does $100 million go towards 20 "regions" to accomplish the same goal?

It most certainly will not go towards a state of the art training facility but will instead go towards "grant" funding to individuals such as, you guessed it, Lynne Fischer and JCTC who just happened to announce a recent joint venture to provide workers to local employers such as Ford and GE as "students" working towards a tech degree at JCTC.

On the job training, or OJT is a wonderful idea but it doesn't require JCTC involvement. They provide a piece of paper but the companies involved provide the real hands on learning environment. That is what the worker training facility was to accomplish. Real hands on training in a classroom environment that would have benefited some of the poorest citizens in our Louisville.

So why don't these employers just do this on their own?

These employers will get relatively cheap labor, the "students" will be paid an hourly wage, with no union membership, benefits, or retirement as the regular workers do, and JCTC and all connected will get federal funds to abuse at their discretion as usual.

Think of these employees are temp employees but on a larger allowable times scale. As "students" they don't fall under te esame criteria as temporary employees when it comes to permanent hiring status.

In short? The money isn't training our young people in a way that will benefit the many. It is business as usual to benefit the few, handpicked by the elitist with political connections. It is also a habit to attempt a cover up when potential malfeasance is alleged. Thus bringing in the biggest gun of them all.

President Obama.

It is a pattern of behavior in Louisville to deny equality to all its citizens. It most certainly is a pattern of behavior to ignore the needs of the West End and the African American community. Broken promises and false hopes during election years is what the West End community has been conditioned to accept.

Jerry Abramson even proved it in my opinion with his "poorer, blacker, older comments" I outed back in 2009.

Greg Fischer further proved it by nixing the deal for the worker training facility that would have benefited the West End and its residents. In favor of Wal Mart. We will outline the money trail and back room deals on that going forward.

With the upcoming depositions by both Greg Fischer and Jay Morgan we can be assured that the insider information about the worker training facility will come to light, as well as details on the insider trading allegations against Ford, that Greg Fischer's own taxpayer funded legal staff brought into the public record, and just why Ford and/or Greg Fischer lied about Morgan.

And that is why President Obama is here. Jerry Abramson and his good friend Representative John Yarmuth  set this up quickly to try and do preemptive damage control for Greg Fischer and Jerry Abramson. Why worry about Fischer and create this ruse?

They aren't worried about Greg Fischer assuredly. No this goes deeper than that. Is it to protect Ford Motor Company from the Morgan allegations? Ford has plenty of money and has spent plenty of money to try and protect themselves thus far.

Ford may be a part of this ruse, perhaps some Congressmen and local ex elected officials benefited from the allegations of insider trading as well.

Or maybe it is due to the fear of what will come out in the Fischer and Morgan depositions regarding federal funds sent to Louisville.

There are many questions to be raised about federal grant money that the YMCA did not use that Fischer decided to re channel to the West End Wal Mart rather than the worker training facility. There are a whole lot of questions to be asked that will lead to other federal grant monies. That will set off alarm bells, and raise red flags, regarding other federal grant monies that came to Louisville.

We have a history of  getting caught misusing federal funds and the last thing Abramson wants is an investigation that will go all the way back to when he was Mayor and controlled those funds.

There are many other possibilities as well and we will get to them in future articles but at this point one thing is clear.

The President certainly has more important things to do then to drop into Louisville for a 3 hour tour in a state that he hates for a seemingly minuscule visit. A closed visit. Someone is  scared and is pulling out all the stops. This Presidential visit does not add up.

Look for the usual feel good press releases to be handed out that mainstream in Louisville will give you to act like it is news. Those releases will announce money towards the "high tech" training initiatives that President Obama has already announced.

You will hear what a great program JCTC has put together working with Mayor Fischer. You may even be told that a new training facility is going to be built but it most certainly will not be in Louisville's west end,. that ship has sailed thanks to Mayor Fischer and his cronies.  You will hear how tirelessly Abramson works on behalf of Louisville and how he persuaded the President to come here.

Maybe you need to read about Abramson here.

Business as usual in Louisville.

They will create the illusion that Abramson and Fischer are doing such a great job for Louisville. The reality is thsi visit is to set up the plausible deniability for Fischer and try to protect all involved.

Meanwhile the citizens of the West End get shafted once again.

At least until the depositions start.

How deep does the rabbit hole go? We are about to find out........stay tuned.


Listen daily from 7-8pm at The Ed Springston Show. Also visit Louisville Politics for more details and in depth coverage of local political and news issues.

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