South Bend gave us County Democrat Chairman Butch Morgan who found it profitable to falsify dozens of signatures on petitions to get Barack Obama on the 2008 Indiana ballot.
South Bend gave us Democrat Speaker of the House B. Patrick Bauer who blocked all discussion on replacing the most abusive form of taxation – property taxes. At least 4,000 St. Joseph County citizens are appealing government over-appraisal of their properties. And the pandemic of abusive over-taxation extends far beyond those 4,000 victims.
South Bend gave us Democrat Joe Donnelly who advocated with Obama to compel a largely-Catholic community to sponsor the murderous practices of abortion through forced taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood, and of euthanasia through support of ObamaCare.
South Bend gave us Democrat-controlled city and county councils who enacted a 1% tax to fund their corrupt real estate investment and maintenance business, advancing the mechanism for laundering of public tax funds to Democrat causes.
South Bend stacked the local courts with easy-on-crime Democrat judges to guarantee a revolving door – and associated stimulus effect – to drive criminal activity to the second largest economic sector in St. Joseph County.
South Bend does not have to take a back seat to anyone. South Bend residents can be justifiably proud to have the most corrupt government officials that money can buy off.
Enter Brendan Mullen.
Mullen was raised in the cesspool that is South Bend. He spent his informative years sitting on the front row, witnessing the lying, cheating, theft, and void of morality that drives local Democrat politics and government administration.
His life took a positive turn when family connections provided him entrance into West Point. Many of the most honorable men and women in our country come out of the academies at West Point, Annapolis, and Colorado Springs. Mullen’s website testifies “the values the Army instills in each of its service members; Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage.” Mullen left the academy and served our country.
You could play in the mud, without getting dirty. You could move to Washington DC and still retain the character that had been faithfully built during years at West Point.
Mullen landed at Halfaker and Associates, LLC. Clients included Departments of Defense, Army, Navy, Air Force, Veterans Affairs, and Homeland Security. He was somehow able to move to the tony address of 1102 K Sreet NE in Washington, DC and started a family. Mullen leveraged his military and later consultancy experiences to start his Washington business, MKS2, LLC, in 2009.
But the honor taken from the academy that had served him well would be compromised by a different kind of service . . . the brand of service that he learned as a youth observing the ways of the world, South Bend style.
Coincident with Joe Donnelly’s decision to not stand for election again in the redrawn 2nd district of Indiana, Mullen decided to run for his vacated seat. However, Mullen faced the barrier of a constituency who would not likely support a candidate who lived a thousand miles away in Washington DC. He had witnessed the corruption of South Bend that had raised the few leaders to material wealth, while condemning one out of every five city residents to poverty.
What you do when you are a thousand miles from home, and no one is watching, is the classic definition of “integrity”. Brendan Mullen was a thousand miles away from his home in Washington DC and presented with an opportunity to declare his residency. Lying came easy. Mullen had witnessed it many times in his early South Bend years, and reinforced in later observation of it as the common currency of Washington DC. Local government families have owed their progression – cross-current to growing poverty – to the patronage that was built on a foundation of gratuitous lying. And so it was that Mullen felt perfectly at ease with claiming his father’s residence as his own. Thus the issue of residency was satisfied with continuation of the same tradition of lying that has served his predecessor so well.
Lying presented an opportunity to skip waiting in line to establish legitimate residency. Lying allowed Mullen to go to the front of the line. Using dishonest means to achieve personal gain is what they used to call “cheating”. It was not allowed in Adams High School and West Point, but is widely practiced in local Democrat government.
Mullen turned his back on the values of duty, honor, and country instilled at one of the world's preeminent leader development institutions. The leadership of character he had learned at West Point was discarded in the same manner as yesterday’s trash.
Corruption is never free. South Bend citizens have been duped by deceit for over half a century. And those the electorate return to government with religious regularity have been only too happy to rob the citizenry blind.
South Bend’s fourth largest employer could not escape the bonds of the geography that inspired its name. St. Joseph Regional Medical Center could not break free of the county whose name it bears. However the 2,500-employee hospital did bolt the crucible of corruption that is South Bend in advance of the city’s destruction by wicked leadership.
Let a similar destruction be the promise of Democrat leadership comfortable with a pattern of wanton lying, necessary to hide its less than honorable intent. Brendan Mullen’s compromised life foretells a sorry ending to any constituency unfortunate enough – and uninformed enough – to come under his misguided stewardship.
