V20, N16 Thursday Nov. 20, 2014 GOP delegation: To confront or govern? U.S. Rep. Messer says Members Todd Rokita, should seek the (left) watches President ‘Indiana Way’ Obama sign his Child Care and By MARK SCHOEFF JR. Development WASHINGTON – Following Block Grant a decisive victory in the mid-term Program bill in elections, congressional Republicans the Oval Office have to make a decision about the on Wednesday. approach they’ll take with their new The tone will be Senate control and their strength- different after ened House majority. Obama’s immi- They can either use their gration speech power to tonight. govern or they can spend their time confront- leaders, Rep. Luke Messer, R-6th CD, said the party should ing President Barack Obama. look to Indiana for guidance, where the GOP has occupied This decision will be the governor’s mansion since 2004 and has increased its tested almost immediately, as control of the state House and Senate to super majorities. President Obama will initiate his “What we need more of in Washington is what executive action on immigration we’ve seen in Indiana,” said Messer, who last week was later today, then formally present it elected chairman of the House Republican Policy Commit- in Las Vegas on Friday. tee. “Republicans have proven that they’re a party that can One of their newly elected Continued on page 4 Peter Kassig & Jeff Ake By BRIAN A. HOWEY INDIANAPOLIS – The question from TIME maga- zine to Peter Kassig in 2012 was simple: Where do you see yourself in five years? He responded, “I believe that if you are passionate about something and you put “The power of the Congress is the necessary effort into making it work that it is ultimately up the power of the purse. If the to you how long you can keep President of the United States it viable. The work speaks for itself to some extent I think. I uses executive authority to over- certainly plan on continuing to try and serve those who are in turn American law, Congress has need for as long as I live.” the authority to block funding.” We all recognize the irony of the response. Peter Kassig, - Gov. Mike Pence, to the North Central HS grad who NBC on immigration attended Butler University and Page 2 Hanover College, who served with We like to name highways af- the Army Rangers in Iraq, then went ter lawmakers and cast statues of our on to found the Special Emergency fighters, but Kassig and Ake represent Response and Assistance humanitar- something conspicuously noble. ian organization, could only continue There was a cellphone call to his mission for another 18 months. his mother from Beirut several years We know he was captured by Syrian ago, when Kassig explained he had rogues in a terrible civil war, then handed over to the emerging Islamic State of Iraq is a non-partisan newslet- and Syria as it began ter based in Indianapolis and to perpetrate terror Nashville, Ind. It was founded and inhumanity on in 1994 in Fort Wayne. a medieval scale. He converted to Islam It is published by and took the name WWWHowey Media, LLC Abdul Rahman. 405 Massachusetts Ave., On Sunday, as Suite 300 Indianapolis, IN many of us prepared 46204 to watch NFL football, we were confronted with our worst fears, Brian A. Howey, Publisher the beheading of Kassig. Mark Schoeff Jr., Washington And it wasn’t just Kas- Jack E. Howey, Editor sig. The ghastly video Mary Lou Howey, Editor showed unmasked ISIS Maureen Hayden, Statehouse henchmen using ser- rated blades to saw Matthew Butler, Daily Wire through the necks of 16 captive soldiers. While Subscriptions the atrocities still fall far HPI, HPI Daily Wire $599 short of those of the Na- LaPorte businessman Jeff Ake went to Iraq in 2005 to provide HPI Weekly, $350 zis, Soviets and Khmer clean water there, and was abducted by militants and never Rogue, the potential is heard from again. Ray Volpe, Account Manager almost incomprehensible 317.602.3620 in a civilized context. found his calling. “Yesterday my life email: [email protected] Yet, there’s something to cel- was laid out on a table in front of me,” ebrate here. Hoosiers tend to extrapo- Kassig recounted in an article pub- Contact HPI late on our willingness to enter the lished this week in The New Yorker. battlefields, armed and equipped. We “With only hours left before my sched- www.howeypolitics.com sent the most men per capita into the uled flight back to the United States, [email protected] Civil War, and Indiana blood flowed I watched people dying right in front Howey’s cell: 317.506.0883 from Gettysburg to Bastogne, from of me. I had seen it before and I had Washington: 202.256.5822 Iwo Jima to Hamburger Hill, Khe Sanh walked away before.… I’m just not Business Office: 317.602.3620 to Falluja and Marja. We gave the going to turn my back this time, it’s as nation Ernie Pyle, the journalist who simple as that. My whole life has led described the horror and humanity of me to this point in time.” © 2014, Howey Politics Indiana. war at the cost of his own life. Kassig conceptualized SERA, All rights reserved. Photocopy- And then there are Hoosiers which he explained this way: “I de- ing, Internet forwarding, fax- like Kassig, and Dr. Kent Brantly who signed Special Emergency Response ing or reproducing in any form, went to West Africa to fight ebola, and Assistance around a belief that and LaPorte businessman Jeff Ake, there was a lot of room for improve- whole or part, is a violation of who journeyed to Iraq in 2005 to ment in terms of how humanitar- federal law without permission bring clean drinking water to what he ian organizations interact with and from the publisher. believed would be a rebuilding nation, cooperate with the populations that was kidnapped and never seen again. they serve. SERA is focused on the Page 3 distribution of aid materials to populations with an acute Think of that. Jeff Ake left his wife, four daughters and immediate need. We administer aid in the form of and a growing company he had built, journeyed 10,000 food and cooking materials, medical supplies, and clothing. miles away to try and provide fresh water for thirsty Iraqis, The idea is for SERA to supplement the efforts of larger be they Sunni or Shia. organizations by focusing on delivering aid materials that Dr. Brantly is an Indianapolis native like Kassig, can do the most good for the most people over the longest who traveled across an ocean to take on a terrible foe, period of time possible. I believe that how and why we the ebola virus in West Africa. He is the servant here who do what we do is equal in importance to what we do. It’s survived. about showing people Ake and Kassig are gone. that we care, that In their wake, American lead- someone is looking out ers and the people face excru- for those who might be ciating choices. There is con- overlooked or who have sensus that ISIS needs to be slipped through the eradicated. But while Europe- cracks in the system for ans rose up against a revived whatever reason.” Napoleonic threat and crushed Jeff Ake was him at Waterloo two centuries compelled to follow the ago, there is no consensus on American armies into how the destroy ISIS. We don’t Iraq. On the JeffAke. want to commit ground troops. com website, his friends NATO is not united. While the explained the LaPorte ISIS advances have stopped businessman and his short of Baghdad and Jordan, wife, “Jeff and Lilly were the situation in Iraq and Syria building a little piece looks like a lingering fever, of the American dream that flares into bloody video in LaPorte, Indiana, as clips that arouse our anger and their packaging equip- fear, but not the call to action. ment company, Equip- The Ernie Pyles of our day, ment Express began like NBC’s Richard Engel, are Peter Abdul Rahman Kassig preparing to deliver bread on behalf to grow. Jeff was now targets themselves, and of SERA. A public memorial service at Butler University’s Clowes installing his company’s the stories deep inside the war Memorial Hall at 5 p.m. on Sunday. equipment in an Iraqi zones go mostly untold. water bottling plant I wish I could have known when armed gunmen came in and kidnapped him. A day Ake and Kassig, who went to high school with my two later a video was shown of Jeff being held by hooded and sons. They should be remembered, celebrated for the heavily armed captors. In spite of much hard work by the incredible depth of their humanity and compassion, and FBI, military intelligence and other groups, there is no their causes should be supported. information about Jeff’s current status.” What might have Kassig done with another five The kidnappers made contact with Ake’s family years of his life? over the first month of his captivity, then vanished. “We He told TIME in 2012, “The truth is sometimes I had a lot of hope that things would be resolved relatively really think I would like to do something else, but at the quickly since the terrorists who abducted him contacted end of the day this work is really the only thing that I the family,” Dave Dlesk, who was Ake’s high school friend, have found that gives my life both meaning and direction.