Politics and other nightmares

President Bush discovers fiscal restraint:

News on the immigration front:

Since 2005, the backlog of legal U.S. immigrants whose applications for naturalization and other benefits are stuck on hold awaiting FBI name checks has doubled to 329,160, prompting a flood of lawsuits in federal courts, bureaucratic finger-pointing in Washington and tough scrutiny by 2008 presidential candidates.

Sorry, don't believe him:

The agreement, coming after President Bush's pledge earlier today to provide $4.4 billion for border security, revives a bill that had stalled in the Senate and was all but given up for dead.

If we were serious about border security, we'd be following the current law that requires it.

Americans love the immigration plan, and they want Congress to get it passed, right now!

June 13 (Bloomberg) -- Most Americans back a guest-worker program and a proposal allowing illegal immigrants to become U.S. citizens that were part of legislation the Senate shelved last week after it failed to gain sufficient support.

If you think New Hampshire has had far too much influence on presidential politics, blame it on Indiana:

This is one anniversary we can't let slip by us. Twenty years ago today, Ronald Reagan gave his "tear down this wall speech." Conservatives like to remember it as the turning point in the Cold War, while liberals even question how much credit Reagan should be given for the end of the Cold War.

I'm afraid I didn't read Howard Kurtz's take on the Republican debate, since he decided to preface it by noting how much smarter he is than everybody else. In the lone debate between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, you see, he knew Carter had won it, because he had paid attention to the substance, unlike regular moronic voters:

The obvious point is made that, having a record he must defend, Gov. Daniels can't just rely on his RV-tour gimmick during his next campaign:

Indeed, Daniels has made some waves in these first 21/2 years in office.

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But Republicans say for every person angry about one of those issues is a person -- or people -- who benefited.

Democratic mayoral candidate Tom Henry's campaign manager has been let go, and I'm not sure what his transgression was:

Knuth said Ascher lacked strengths the campaign needed, such as working with the media, and had a style that clashed with other campaign members. Still, Knuth said he would recommend Ascher to another campaign.

Gas prices have been high long enough for Indiana Senate Minority Leader Richard Young to notice. What's a leader to do? Fire off a letter to the state attorney general, of course, demanding an investigation:

In the letter Young said that while the economic forces of supply and demand are most often cited for the rising fuel costs, attention needs to also be paid to the profits made by oil companies and to the possibility that fuel supplies are artificially manipulated to keep prices high.