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Vazquez and Feliciano power aces past Missouri State

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Aces pick up weekend road sweep

It was a big night for the University of Evansville volleyball team as the Purple Aces earned a 3-1 road win at Missouri State.  The win halted a 12-match skid against the Bears while the huge weekend MVC road sweep saw the Purple Aces move into a tie for 4th place in the league with a 3-game lead on 7th place.  The top six squads advance to the conference tournament.

“We were expecting a good weekend after what we saw in practice during the week,” Aces coach Fernando Morales commented after the win.  “I think we were putting too much pressure on ourselves over the last couple of matches.  The girls worked hard, had fun and we saw the results.”

Leading UE (14-5, 5-3 MVC) was Alondra Vazquez, who recorded 14 kills and had another double-double with 21 digs. Melanie Feliciano notched 13 kills on the night.  Gabriela Macedo led everyone with 32 digs while Allana McInnis had a match-high 39 assists.  Patricia Joseph added three blocks in the winning effort.

Missouri State (5-17, 2-6 MVC) saw Amelia Flynn finish with 18 kills while Laynie Dake had 17.

Evansville made its first big push in the opening frame, posting seven in a row when trailing 8-7.  Feliciano had a pair of kills in the run while McInnis added flawless serving.  MSU overcame the 14-8 deficit to tie the match up at 16-16 with an 8-2 run. After the Aces retook a 19-16 advantage on a Cecilia Thon ace, Missouri State rallied once again to tie it at 20-20, but an MSU service error gave UE the lead for good and they hung on for a 25-23 win to open the night.

In the second frame, a furious run by the Bears saw them tie the match at 1-1.  With the score tied at 8-8, MSU finished the set on a 17-5 run to take a 25-13 win.  The Aces rebounded in a big way in game three, opening up an 8-4 lead.  They would never let the Bears threaten in the set as UE retook a 2-1 lead with a 25-18 decision.  Missouri State got within a pair at 9-7, but a kill by Vazquez put UE back on track and they pulled away from there.

The fourth set saw the Aces get off to another 8-4 lead with Macedo posting a service ace to open the frame.  Missouri State chipped away at the deficit before eventually tying it up at 15-15.  Evansville came back to score the next two and never relinquished the lead from there as they took the set by a 25-22 final to clinch a 3-1 win in the match.

Following the road trip, the Aces will return home for another big weekend of league action.  UE welcome Drake to Meeks Family Fieldhouse for a 6 p.m. tilt on Friday before facing UNI in a 5 p.m. contest on Saturday.

 

Lowry Continues Win Streak at UE Invitational

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The University of Evansville men’s and women’s cross country team hosted the UE Invitational Saturday morning at Angle Mounds Historical Site.

As a team the women finished in third place with three top-20 finishes, while the men took fifth with also three top-20 finishes.

Winning her fourth consecutive individual title, Anna Lowry took the even by blazing an 18:17.4 time of a tough course. Lowry finished 21 seconds ahead of the next fastest runner giving her a sizable victory.

Bones Parker finished in 16th place with a 19:40.0 pace, followed by Jenna Fehrenbacher at 19:53.0 19th place finish.

Sarah Poltrack (20:15.8) and Izzy Dawson (20:24.4) finished in 21st and 22nd place respectively, rounding out the Aces scoring five.

Dawson Hood marked a new personal best 8K time with a 26:07.3 10th place finish. Ricky Hendrix came up next with a 26:25.0 15th place finish.

Stanley Chepchieng, also finishing in the top-20, ran a 26:39.4 8K, while Kalen Ochs (26:39.4) and Phil Dzienciol (27:45.3) wrapped up the top-five finishers for the Aces.

Evansville has finished out the regular season and will next be in action at the Missouri Valley Conference Championship on November 2, hosted by Valparaiso.

EPD REPORT

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EPD REPORT

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Endorsing Democratic Candidate For President Bernie Sanders

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for TownHall

 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced on Saturday that she is officially endorsing Democratic candidate for president Bernie Sanders. The anticipated endorsement was reported earlier this week by Townhall’s Matt Vespa.

Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “In the end, we must come together to defeat Donald Trump. We should do so knowing he is a symptom of a larger problem – and our greatest hope is a multiracial, working-class movement in the United States of America.”

The tweet includes a three-minute video from the Sanders campaign, featuring Ocasio-Cortez reminiscing about the first time she felt the Bern.

“The first time I ever heard about Bernie Sanders, was when I was a waitress in a greasy spoon diner type of restaurant in downtown Manhattan, and I had been working 12 hour days. I didn’t have health insurance. I was being paid less than a living wage. And I didn’t think that I deserved any of those things,” Ocasio-Cortez said. 

The freshman congresswoman credits Sen. Sanders for inspiring her political career. “The only reason that I thought running for office was even possible for me was because of his example. Because he proved that you could run for office and not take big money.

A self-described democratic socialist, Ocasio-Cortez explains why she is endorsing fellow-socialist Bernie Sanders for president.

“And when he talks about a political revolution, and when he talks about ‘Not me, us’, those aren’t slogans. This is not about me. This is not about Senator Sanders. This is what we have to accomplish together. This is not about saying everyone should have health care with some asterisks, or that your student loan debt should be forgiven under certain conditions. This is about an unconditional, universal, guaranteed advanced standard of living in the United States of America.”

Ocasio-Cortez then called for “a revolution of working-class people, and it needs to be multi-racial, multi-gendered, multi-generational.” Apparently, she couldn’t think of any more “multi’s.”

Also on Saturday, Ocasio-Cortez joined Sen. Sanders at a campaign rally in New York City. It was the first campaign rally for Sanders since his heart attack earlier this month.

 

Attorney General Disciplinary Hearing Begins Monday

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TheStatehouseFile.com

 INDIANAPOLIS- Attorney General Curtis Hill Jr., facing Indiana Supreme Court disciplinary commission charges for allegedly groping women, is trying to block the testimony of two women who worked for him when he was Elkhart County prosecutor.

Retired Supreme Court Justice Myra Selby, who will preside over Hill’s hearing starting Monday, has not yet ruled on whether the witnesses will be allowed to testify.

On Wednesday, Selby met with the attorneys for both Hill and the disciplinary commission to iron out details in advance of the hearing. Hill, a Republican in his first term as attorney general, will be fighting for his political and professional life in the hearing looking into misconduct charges stemming from an end-of-session legislative party in early 2018.

At that party, held at an Indianapolis bar, Hill allegedly touched the backs or buttocks of State Rep. Mara Candelaria Reardon, D-Munster, and three legislative staffers, Niki DaSilva, Samantha Lozano, and Gabrielle McLemore.

The women came forward with the accusations in June 2018. Many high-ranking officials in both parties, including legislative leaders and Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb, called for Hill’s resignation.

Hill has refused to step down and has denied groping the women. He attributed any behavior from him at the party to have had a few drinks – three glasses of wine, a martini and a shot of Fireball Cinnamon Whisky – and his friendly attitude.

In one court filing, his attorneys said Hill “has an engaging personality and often physically interacts with others by placing a hand on the other person’s arm, shoulder or back. He also has some difficulty hearing in one ear, so he is prone to leaning close to people with whom he is conversing, especially in loud environments.”

In October 2018, a special prosecutor appointed to investigate the accusations decided against filing criminal charges against Hill. A legislative investigation found lawmakers could take no action because Hill was not the women’s boss and it happened on private property. Also, an inspector general’s report found that Hill’s conduct at the event was well-documented and inappropriate and then closed the case.

 

However, in March 2019, a complaint against Hill was filed by the Supreme Court’s disciplinary commission saying his actions amounted to a battery, a misdemeanor, and sexual battery, a felony, and constituted professional misconduct. That was followed by a civil lawsuit filed by the four women against Hill.

The disciplinary commission hearing is expected to last through next week in the Supreme Court chambers in the Indiana Statehouse. If Selby finds he committed professional misconduct, his punishment could cost him his license to practice law. That would effectively remove him as the attorney general since the position requires the person holding it to have an active license.

During the pre-trial meeting, Hill’s lead attorney, Donald Lundberg, disputed Selby’s decision to grant the commission’s request to use communications between Hill and two of his top aides, Chief Deputy Aaron Negangard and Chief of Staff Mary Beth Bonaventura, with the exception of one text from Bonaventura. Lundberg cited the impact that would have on the civil lawsuit. Selby gave him until noon Thursday to file a written motion renewing his objections.

The commission also wants to present testimony from two women who previously worked with Hill when he was a prosecutor in Elkhart County.  Hill’s attorneys are arguing that past alleged actions should not come into play during this hearing.

However, the lawyers for the disciplinary commission argued in a filing that “evidence of prior inappropriate sexual behavior at (Hill’s) workplace will show that the Sine Die party was not just an isolated event unfortunately caused by a relaxed social atmosphere and too much to drink.”

Selby indicated she would rule on whether those and other witnesses can testify during the course of the hearing.

Seth Pruden, staff attorney for the disciplinary commission, told Selby he expected to have about 15 witnesses testify, along with video and audio exhibits. Lundberg said Hill will present five to 10 witnesses.

FOOTNOTE: Brandon Barger is a reporter for TheStatehouseFile.com, a news website powered by Franklin College journalists.

 

OF FOUNDERS AND RUSSIANS

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OF FOUNDERS AND RUSSIANS

Gavel Gamut By Jim Redwine

Harvard law professor Michael Klarman was the keynote speaker at the June 2019 Indiana Graduate Judges Conference. As an attendee, I received a signed copy of Klarman’s book, The Framers’Coup, The Making of the United States Constitution. Gentle Reader, to give you some perspective on the exhilarating experience of a law professor’s book, the tome’s Note and Index sections run from page 633 to 865. Of course, the substance of the book contains 632 pages of which several pages thank the law students who did the grunt work. Regardless, I do recommend the book to you as an interesting and often surprising exposition of how our Constitution survived the throes of birth. As Klarman says of our pantheon of founding heroes:

“In the book, I try to tell the story of the Constitution’s origins in a way that demystifies it. The men who wrote the Constitution were extremely impressive, but they were not demigods; they had interests, prejudices, and moral blind spots. They could not foresee the future, and they made mistakes.”

This is Klarman’s raison d’etre for writing the book. His admonition is that the men and they were all white, Anglo Saxon, Christian men, who struggled for six months in Philadelphia in 1789 to create the United States were just men, not gods. Some of them owned slaves, some did not. Some were from populous states, others were not. But they were all mere mortals with virtues and defects.

The underlying message of the book is that if those men could find a way to overcome their political and philosophical divisions, we and future Americans should also be able to. For example, in our current culture wars where President Trump alleges Ukraine helped Secretary Clinton in the 2016 election and Clinton alleges Russia helped Trump and more recently both Trump and Clinton and many others are flinging arrows in all directions alleging our leaders are “foreign assets” we should just chill. If James Madison and the Federalists and Thomas Jefferson and the anti-Federalists could reach compromises, we should be able to also.

The salient issues and the thorniest were how could our Founders apportion representation among populous and less populous states, how was slavery to be addressed (or not) and could common citizens be trusted to govern themselves.

According to Klarman, as our Framers struggled to hold the Constitutional Convention together with the Federalists and the anti-Federalists, “Questioned their opponents’ motives and attacked their characters, appealed to the material interests of voters, employed dirty tricks and made backroom deals when necessary.” Sound familiar?

Okay, you probably are choosing to go sort your socks rather than to hear any more from Professor Klarman or from me. But a word of caution, Gentle Reader, if I have had to experience the joys of all the almost 900 pages of Constitutional history, you may have the same opportunity in next week’s column. We might even delve into the vicissitudes of whether the United States Supreme Court is truly independent or are its decisions as politically based as those of the other two Branches?

For more Gavel Gamut articles go to www.jamesmredwine.com

Or “Like” us on Facebook at JPegRanchBooks&Knitting

Lineage Society Workshop On November 2, 2019

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Lineage Society Workshop On November 2, 2019
Registration

September Indiana Employment Report

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 Indiana’s unemployment rate continues to drop to 3.2 percent for September and remains lower than the national rate of 3.5 percent. The last time Indiana’s unemployment rate was lower than 3.2 percent was December 2000. The monthly unemployment rate is a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicator that reflects the number of unemployed people seeking employment within the prior four weeks as a percentage of the labor force.

Indiana’s labor force had a net decrease of 2,722 over the previous month. This was a result of a decrease of 2,934 unemployed residents and an increase of 212 employed residents. Indiana’s total labor force, which includes both Hoosiers employed and those seeking employment, stands at 3.38 million, and the state’s 64.5 percent labor force participation rate remains above the national rate of 63.2 percent.

Additionally, this month had the lowest unemployment insurance claims in the reference week (12th of the month) in 2019.

Learn more about how unemployment rates are calculated here: http://www.hoosierdata.in.gov/infographics/employment-status.asp.

September 2019 Employment Charts

Employment by Sector

Private sector employment has grown by 21,500 over the year and has decreased by 3,400 over the previous month. The monthly decrease is primarily due to losses in the Leisure and Hospitality (-2,000) and the Manufacturing (-1,000) sectors. Losses were partially offset by gains in the Construction (1,700) and the Financial Activities (400) sectors. Total private employment stands at 2,737,700, which is 5,600 above the December 2018 peak.

Midwest Unemployment Rates

September 2019 Midwest Unemployment Rates

  

EDITOR’S NOTES:

Data are sourced from September Current Employment Statistics, Local Area Unemployment Statistics – U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

September employment data for Indiana Counties, Cities and MSAs will be available Monday, Oct. 21, 2019, at noon (Eastern) pending U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics validation.

Have Fun, Be Aware This Halloween By Wendy McNamara

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Have Fun, Be Aware This Halloween By Wendy McNamara
Celebrations like Halloween and fall festivals are fun for the whole family, especially children, who can dress up in costumes, enjoy parties and eat their favorite treats.

Check out these tips to ensure everyone enjoys a safe and spooktacular Halloween:

  • Walk on sidewalks or paths where possible;
  • Decorate costumes and bags with reflective tape or stickers;
  • Carry glow sticks or flashlights to be seen;
  • Use face paint instead of masks to avoid obstructed vision;
  • Choose a costume that properly fits to avoid trips and falls;
  • Trick or Treat during locally designated hours; and
  • Eat only factory wrapped treats and avoid consuming homemade treats from strangers.

Click here to find trick-or-treat times in our area, and be sure to check below for other local events.