Politics and other nightmares

John Edwards can spend his money any way he wants to, but doesn't this make him at least as out of touch with "ordinary people" as Rudy Giuliani supposedly is for not knowing the cost of milk and bread?

As they sometimes do, Indiana legislators are stumbling to the end of a session with much major legislation still unresolved. A lot of things will be done in the last few days. Legislators in the past have passed complicated bills it is later clear they haven't completely absorbed. Think they might do it again? Consider the example from New Jersey:

Two heavyweights duke it out:

Indianapolis - Mayor Bart Peterson called on lawmakers Wednesday to give the city the authority to raise taxes to improve police protection.

[. . .]

House Republican Leader Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) did not mince words.

"The mayor needs a lot more than those two bills to deal with his public safety problems. . ."

If you have relatives in trailer parks, you should feel good that the state is protecting them (unless, of course, they have a meth lab or are inclined to get caught up in a TV show and forget the potatoes in the Fry Daddy):

Legislation mandating the use of weather radios in mobile homes is on its way to the governor's desk. The goal is to save lives. Weather radios can be programmed for residents' home county and if there is a severe storm on the way an alarm goes off.

Another game of gotcha! targeting one of those out-of-touch, fat-cat Republicans who don't know how ordinary people have to live:

But when asked about more mundane matters — like the price of some basic staples — Giuliani had trouble with a reporter's question.

"A gallon of milk is probably about a $1.50, a loaf of bread about a $1.25, $1.30," he said.

We know, because John Edwards has told us so, that there are "two Americas." Apparently, they are right across from each other:

RALEIGH -- Elizabeth Edwards says she is scared of the "rabid, rabid Republican" who owns property across the street from her Orange County home -- and she doesn't want her kids going near the gun-toting neighbor.

[ . . .]

You have to give Birch Bayh credit for his stubborn persistence. Political columnist David Broder writes that Evan's father is still at his crusade to do away with the Electoral College and institute a popular vote for president 40 years after his failed attempts to get the change into a constitutional amendment.

George Will wrote an interesting column recently about how angry we get these days and how the rage takes on a life of its own and "derails politics by defining opponents as beyond the reach of reason." Wait a minute, says Dahlia Lithwick, who agrees with Will about the effects of anger but takes him to task for his take on the causes:

After replacing a ridiculous law (you can buy fireworks if you promise not to use them here) with a wildly unpopular one (make big noise all the time!), the General Assembly finally gets it right:

I happen to disagree with Dr. John Crawford's coming near-total public smoking ban, because it uses wildly exaggerated claims about secondhand smoke to control people's behavior in places where the government has no business controlling their behavior.