Politics and other nightmares

Residents of a New Hampshire town have, unfortunately, refused to kick Justice David Souter out of his house to make way for the Lost Liberty Hotel. But it was a glorious effort to call attention to eminent-domain nonsense:

An Arizona lawmaker has another new way to deal with illegal immigrants:

A Paradise Valley Republican thinks she's found a way to let state and local police round up illegal entrants — make their presence in this state the crime of trespass.

I've written before (in connection to the journalists' shield law sponsored by Indiana U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar and Rep. Mike Pence) about the reluctance of some to welcome the citizen journalists of the Internet into the press community. Now it's a state issue, too. House Bill 1067, introduced by Rep. Bob Cherry, R-Greenfield, would close birth and death records, which are open to the public under current state law.

I like hearing life stories, but Judge Alito went on a little long describing his before he finally got around to saying something about his view of the law and judges. I do agree with him that:

A judge can't have any agenda, a judge can't have any preferred outcome in any particular case and a judge certainly doesn't have a client.

Here's President Bush, speaking in defense of No Child Left Behind, showing that, in many ways, he is no conservative:

"We have a moral obligation to make sure every child gets a good education," Bush told a supportive audience in the school gym.

For "moral obligation," read, "spend lots of federal money," no matter what the outcome. But here's why Bush is about the best we can expect when it comes to federal spending:

Mike Pence has been mentioned in a few places as a contender to replace Tom DeLay as speaker of the House, including "This Week" on ABC yesterday morning. Here's a site asking for our input on the question; I already posted a comment including my vote for Pence. Republicans have lost their way as the voice of small-government conservatism.

You remember Kelo, the now-infamous Supreme Court decisison that made it clear the court was not going to halt the drift toward public-good taking of land as opposed to the public-use taking clearly spelled out in the Constitution (what do you think about that, Judge Alito?) Well, things aren't going too well for the hope of New London officials to kick out some private-property owners and replace them with ones who could provide more tax revenue.

As the hearings for Judge Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court get under way, we might have to look somewhere other than in the questioning of the senators to find the careful analysis we need to see what kind of justice he might make. As the Roberts' hearings demostrated, the senators seem mostly interested in having their own star turns (sometimes they go on for 10 or 15 minutes before actually getting to a question) or acting as conduits for the interest groups of the extreme left and right.

Because of Indiana's late Primary and its nearly total Republican allegience, we never really get to have any fun in presidential elections. By the time we get a chance to weigh in, it's all over. So we have to get our jollies where we can. There's a site out there that, at least for a time, will let Hoosiers feel like they're an important part of presidential politics. Online ratings polls such as this are silly and meaningless. Still, it's interesting to see that Mike Pence comes in third.

A danger in being a strong advocate for something is that we can overlook obvious drawbacks that our passion blinds us to. The trick is to know which issues affect us that way so we can both doublecheck our reasoning and be open to flags raised by others. I can name numerous subjects I can be snared by: downtown revitalization, regional economic development, advocacy for the mentally ill, a limited federal government and on and on.