Politics and other nightmares

I wrote an "RIP, Doc Bowen" editorial for tomorrow's page that focused mostly on the property tax caps he muscled through the General Assembly in 1973. That was probably the biggest accomplishment of his political career and for decades after that they were called "the Bowen caps" by politicians and journalists alike as shorthand for the fiscal environment the state was dealing with.

Scary -- President Obama in a commencement speech:

Equality, baby:

The FBI put a woman, Joanne Chesimard (also known as Assata Shakur), on its Most Wanted Terrorists list for the first time in history Thursday.

A '70s radical who authorities say murdered a New Jersey state trooper, Chesimard made a daring daylight escape from prison and fled to Cuba.

Bizarre:

A man whose bid to become a police officer was rejected after he scored too high on an intelligence test has lost an appeal in his federal lawsuit against the city.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a lower court’s decision that the city did not discriminate against Robert Jordan because the same standards were applied to everyone who took the test.

Hey, here's the movie we've all been waiting for, huh?

Before she could be on the ballot for 2016, Hillary Clinton might be on the big screen.

Yeah, yeah, sure, teens are going to drink on prom night no matter what we do, so let's provide designated drivers for them, even if that might send the signal that we're condoing teen drinking. And they're going to have sex no matter what we do, so let's pass out condoms in high school, even if that might say to teen boys that we're giving our approval for them to put even more pressure on teen girls to sleep with them.

I don't get it:

Rep. Paul Ryan, last year's Republican vice presidential nominee, said Monday that he regretted voting to ban same-sex couples in the District of Columbia from adopting children.

Unless, of course, his anti-gay stance was affected for the purposed of getting votes or his "conversion" is a dishonest bid to get votes. If either of those is true, no apology would make him anything but a pandering political hack.

Here, from an editorial in the Bloomington Herald-Times, is the essence of the liberal argument against the just-passed 5 percent cut in the Indiana income tax. I've heard and read variations of it from all over the state:

For those who like averages, the "average" Hoosier would realize $114 in annual tax savings, or $2.19 a week.

Arsenio Hall had a segment on his show called "Things that make you go hmmmm." Bet he would have had fun with this one:

Got to admit, the president was funny here:

Referring to the coverage of the Boston Marathon attack, Obama also said at one point: "I know CNN has taken some knocks lately, but the fact is I admire their commitment to cover all sides of a story, just in case one of them happens to be accurate."

The best humor has bite because it's based on a kernel of truth.