Politics and other nightmares

Fisher residents are facing an interesting decision:

City or town?
Fishers residents will decide in May.

Let's see. If the General Assembly allows us to have a gambling referendum, and we vote to approve a casino, that means we can start building by . . . Oh, wait. Gov. Daniels says not so fast there, boys:

I think we've gone as far as we should go. If we're not at saturation, we're approaching it. Now, here come other states more fiscally desperate than we are trying to get in the game. So, no expansion would make any sense to me financially or otherwise.

There is a little justice in the world:

The good news for Senator Ben Nelson is that he doesn't have to face Nebraska voters until 2012.

If Governor Dave Heineman challenges Nelson for the Senate job, a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey shows the Republican would get 61% of the vote while Nelson would get just 30%. Nelson was reelected to a second Senate term in 2006 with 64% of the vote.

While many of us on the right are angry that President Obama is taking this country to hell in a handbasket, Prof. Kevin Howley of Depauw University is here to remind us that many on the left are unhappy that the journey is taking so darn long:

Fran Quigley is an attorney "working on local and international poverty issues." In an opinion piece for The Indianapolis Star, she says there are lots of other things the state could do instead of "handcuffing future generations" with a constitutional property tax cap and "cutting public education, health care for the disabled or other services" as a "last resort":

Like expanding the state's sales tax, which is our top source of revenue, to include more services.

Today's quiz: What's the sixth-largest city in Indiana?

Answer: Hammond. Its population (76,732) puts it between fifth-place Gary ((95,920) and seventh-place Bloomington (71,819). But if the suggested merger between Greenwood and White River Township in Johnson County goes through, Hammond and Bloomington are each going to go down a notch:

An Indianapolis Star editorial rightly calls out Sen. Bayh on health care reform:

Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is straining hard to paint himself as a fiscal conservative. It's disappointing then that he's prepared to vote for a bill almost certain to drive up the deficit in future years.

[. . .]

A state senator has a proposal that is both wrongheaded and pointless:

A state senator says he'll file legislation that would prevent Indiana schools from starting classes before Labor Day.

Poor Elkhart. How would you like to live in a place that became "a symbol of the economic meltdown"?

The Big Boys of journalism are still trudging there to find out how the little people of the heartland are weathering this turribul recession. Of course, they don't all see the same things. The Wall Street Journal reports that there are signs of hope as unemployment falls from 18.9 percent to 14.5 percent, with embattled RV makers actually starting to hire people back:

Wouldn't it be a wonderful Christmas if states really could get some power back

South Carolina's attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader's office.