Politics and other nightmares

This should not be a big surprise:

WASHINGTON - Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar's voting record so far this year shows him breaking with his party more than most senators and, if the Republican keeps it up, more than in any of his 30 years in the Senate.

Some Fort Wayne bar owners say their business has dropped significantly since the city's near-total ban on smoking, a not unsurprising development since the county and some nearby communities such as New Haven have less-restrictive bans. The mayor doesn't even want to hear it, but some City Council members at least pretend to care:

Florida was the first state to make its no-retreat law apply outside the home (Indiana is now one of at least 13 others), creating an automatic assumption that the use of deadly force is justified in warding off an attacker in just about any public place. The gun-control lobby warned that we would see a shooot-first mentality and a wave of vigilante justice. Instead, what seems to have happened is that prosecutors say they are confused by the laws and think others are, too.

We've had a fiscal downturn or two in Indiana, but nothing like the meltdown they had in Pennsylvania:

Thousands of state workers who were sent home without pay were allowed to return to their jobs today, a day after the governor and legislators hammered out a budget deal.

Nearly 24,000 government employees were furloughed for a day and state parks, state-run museums and driver-license offices closed during a partisan deadlock that held up a state spending plan nine days into the new fiscal year.

The collectivist, populist, redistributionist dogma of Clinton, Obama, et al. is as tiresome as it is unsupportable. But John Edwards is downright scary, because he seems to actually believe the nonsense he spouts about "economic fairness" (i.e., they have yet to take enough of my money to give to people who didn't earn it). Now, he's going on a "poverty tour" to round up poor people and, "by telling their stories to the rest of the nation . . .

Democratic 4th District City Council candidate Charles Langley is dropping out of the race:

According to a letter written by Langley, he was promoted by the Southwest Allen County Schools Board on June 5 to department coordinator for social studies at Summit Middle School, where he teaches.

A couple of Indiana University professors take the typical hardline establishment view of illegal immigration, i.e. that anyone who worries about it is an inhumane monster trying to deny basic human dignity. Even calling immigrants  "illegal" instead of "undocumented" is an attempt to dehumanize them. One of them takes a pass at "birthright citizenship," the practice of granting citizenship to children of illegal immigrants born in this country:

Isn't this just outrageous?

President Bush's move to commute former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 2 ½-prison term for lying and obstruction of justice in the CIA leak case has drawn harsh criticism from Democrats who said the decision showed the administration's lack of accountability.

The dumb, mean politics of angry Republicans/rightwing Christians/the Bush administration/the Supreme Court/most white people except enlightened ones like me are destroying the kind, tolerant society that once tried to help the downtrodden and cared about trying to find the wisdom to solve our most serious problems and make the world the kind of place it should be.

The immigration bill is dead, at least for now, and who would have thought it would be Bayh rather than Lugar who took the more conservative course?

Republican Sen. Richard Lugar voted for an unsuccessful effort to move the overhaul of immigration laws toward final passage while Democratic Sen. Evan Bayh voted with the majority against it.