It shouldn't be too surprising if the poll numbers are true that Gov. Daniels' approval rating is among the 15 worst in the country:
In fact, more Hoosiers currently "disapprove" of the job Daniels is doing -- 50 percent -- than "approve," at 44 percent, according to a 600-person poll released by SurveyUSA Thursday. Six percent of respondents were "not sure."
Indiana Anarchists are preparing for their fall gathering. If you'd like to know what's going to happen, in order to decide if it would be worthwhile to go, too bad. Creating a program would, you know, indicate that somebody might be in charge, which is a bad thing, so:
Sen. Evan Bayh continues his visits to important Democratic presidential primary states. His recent speech was said to matter more than most:
Masson's Blog continues to collect all the time-zone reaction from around the state (note especially the map in this post, which gives an easy-to-grasp picture of where we are right now). Except for the justifiable consternation over the possibility of St. Joseph and Elkhart counties being in different zones, most of the reaction seems to me to make too much of the issue, which has played about as well as a political process can.
What the members of the Westboro Baptist Church do at military funerals is despicable; may they be consigned to the lowest circle of hell. But as a legal matter, should they be really be treated differently from other protestors who protest at other types of events? Yes, charge them with disorderly conduct if it applies. But making such conduct a felony at military funerals and keeping it a misdemeanor at other events doesn't seem very much like equal treatment under the law.
See if you agree that this is a case of overzealous prosecution. Two Marion County children engaged in sexual activity with each other other from the time the boy was 9 and the girl was 6 until the time the boy was 14 and the girl was 11. Now the boy, 17 and a high school student, is being charged with child molesting for that activity, even though state law says children that young can't legally consent, which should mean that they can't form the proper intent to commit a crime, either.
Paul Musgrave on why Indiana needs to get rid of township assessors:
The Chicago Tribune has a nice profile of Indiana U.S. Rep. Mike Pence, who is getting quite a reputation as THE voice of small-government conservatism. This excerpt gives the flavor of the piece:
This is a very ugly, very public dispute among professors at the School of Law at Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis:
Mr. Bradford went public in a June 26 column in The Indianapolis Star, alleging he was under fire from Ms. Roisman and Ms. Mitchell because of his political views. The following day Ms. Roisman sent Mr. Bradford an e-mail message demanding "an immediate, unconditional, and public retraction."
BREAKING NEWS: Masson's Blog, which has led the pack in the time-zone issue, is reporting the federal Department of Transportation's Notice of Proposed Rule Making on the requests of the Indiana counties wanting to change zones. (He also links to the pdf of the entire 18-page DOT document.) Five counties -- St. Joseph, Starke, Knox, Pike and Perry -- will have their requests to move from East to Central approved. All the rest were refused, although the proposal is tentative, and the other counties have until Nov.
