The Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has an editorial critical of the efforts of Indiana’s Department of Homeland Security.

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security’s failure to prepare a list of critical infrastructure and key assets, as Dan Stockman’s Sunday story detailed, may not indicate complete incompetence. But the failure to compile the list, as the national homeland security strategy dictates, raises questions about whether the state is doing what is necessary to keep Hoosiers safe.

Even more troubling is that state homeland security officials can’t even figure out what constitutes critical infrastructure or key assets despite the fairly comprehensive definitions given in the national strategy. For example, there appears to be a discrepancy about whether state assets, such at the Statehouse, are in the jurisdiction of local agencies or the state homeland security department. State officials say the Statehouse is part of Marion County’s infrastructure, but Marion County officials did not initially include state-owned assets on their homeland security list.

The dispute indicates there is a lack of effective communication between local homeland security agencies and state officials.

The Dan Stockman article referenced is here. In part it says:

[I]n February 2003, the federal government released its national strategy for protecting critical infrastructure and key assets, detailing what needed to be done.

“Like the federal government, states should identify and secure the critical infrastructures and key assets under their control,” the strategy says.

And just in case officials were unsure of what constitutes a critical infrastructure or key assets, the national strategy explains there are 13 types of critical infrastructure – from agriculture to transportation – and three types of key assets, from monuments and icons to industry and technology to commercial centers and anywhere crowds gather, such as sports stadiums. It then devotes a chapter to each type.

But three years after the national strategy was released, Indiana still cannot say what its critical infrastructure and key assets are.

Mike Smith has an AP article I saw in the Fort wayne News Sentinel entitled “Daniels hits skid of negative news,” noting the hits Gov. Daniels has taken to his pledge to running an open government.

In 2004, Daniels and the Republicans spent a lot of time criticizing O’Bannon and Kernan for running a sloppy shop “riddled with scandal and waste.” Since getting into office, Daniels has spent a lot of time whining about the condition of the agencies he inherited. However, now is probably a good time to remind Gov. Daniels about Jesus’ admonition in Matthew 7.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

Mike Smith’s article goes on to say:

Now, in just the past two weeks, the administration has done an about-face on a private contract awarded to one of its top officials; the state’s public access counselor said the Indiana Department of Transportation violated the open records law and the governor’s office had been unreasonable in responding to separate records requests; and an agency head appointed by Daniels was fired at his request.

I guess Gov. Daniels has cast out the Bolejack in his administration, anyway.

The Toll Road trial got to the real heart of the toll road privatization debate. The reason the Toll Road lost money is because the legislature lacked the will to raise tolls on the road. The foreign consortium will have no such inhibitions. Essentially the legislature is outsourcing its taxing responsibilities.

The issue came up when the plaintiffs challenging the Toll Road privatization were seeking to show that stopping the deal from going through would harm the State either minimally or not at all.

Roger Skurski, a retired University of Notre Dame economics professor, testified that the state could make more money if it kept the toll road for the 75-year term of the lease. He said that by using state figures he estimates the state could make anywhere from $1.5 billion to $8 billion more than the $3.8 billion it will be paid under the lease.

“The state is forgoing the opportunity to make these numbers,” he said.

A state attorney, Michael Wilkins, questioned Skurski’s calculations, asking him how he could assume the highway’s tolls would go up 4.42 percent a year when they hadn’t been raised since 1985.

“Historically, there’s no basis for a 4.4 percent increase over a period of time, is there?” Wilkins asked.

“I guess my assumption was that if the state can figure out a way to let the lessor raise the rates, the state should be able to figure out a way to increase the rates,” Skurski said.

The Daniels administration is backing away from Richard Rhoad’s sweetheart crony deal after they got caught giving him an $80,000 pay raise for doing the same job.

Said FSSA chief Mitch Roob, “And we would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling reporters and their dog.” Or maybe I’m confusing this with a Scooby Doo episode.

TDW’s Jennifer Wagner gets a quote:

“It’s too bad it had to take a public call for investigation to get the Daniels administration to understand the situation,” Indiana Democratic Party spokeswoman Jennifer Wagner said.

AFSCME union spokesman had similar sentiments:

Employee union AFSCME responded swiftly to the news Tuesday, saying it was unfortunate the Daniels’ administration only made changes after being caught.

“Governor Daniels should remember that he’s not running a corporation anymore, where you can make up the rules to serve executives at the expense of stockholders or employees,” union spokesman David Patterson said. “He’s serving Hoosiers who work hard to pay their taxes to fund important programs, not to pay for higher salaries for executives.”

The Daniels administration primarily hid behind statements saying, essentially, we didn’t do anything wrong, but we’ll back off because it looks bad because the evil press mischaracterized the deal.

The Indy Star has an article reporting that 30% of water in state streams is too dirty for fishing or swimming. That number has tripled since 2002, though the drastic increase could be attributable to better reporting. Nevertheless, that is a ridiculous number. We are fairly literally crapping in our own nest, as the saying goes.

Some are fouled with bacteria from sewer overflows, manure runoff and failing septic systems. Some cannot support aquatic life at all because too much sediment and fertilizer have washed into them. And others are contaminated with mercury and PCBs, prompting health officials to advise against eating too many fish caught in the waters.

Meanwhile, the Louisville Courier Journal has an article on DNR chief Kyle Hupfer, citing his focus on firing top level DNR officials, banning fenced deer hunting, increased cutting of the state’s forests, and using prison labor in the state parks.

Hot on the heels of Rep. Bosma’s implication (and subsequent apology) that Christian prayer as official business of the House Representatives is acceptable because non-Christians are a minority of the population, U.S. Rep. Mike Sodrel seeks to bar access to the courts for minorities whose rights are violated by the likes of Bosma.

Sodrel has introduced a bill (H.R. 4776 – not yet available) that purports “To amend title 28, United States Code, with respect to the jurisdiction
of Federal courts over certain cases and controversies involving the
content of speech occurring during sessions of State legislative
bodies, and for other purposes.”

Without reading the legislation, it’s impossible to be sure, but presumably Sodrel’s legislation would prohibit judicial review and remedy where state legislatures choose to officially embrace Christianity or particular subsets thereof such as Catholicism or Mormonism because, like Rep. Bosma, they choose to ignore the Constitutional rights of those of minority faiths.

Again, the whole point of the First Amendment is to protect those in the minority from the passions and preferences of those in the majority. For Mike Sodrel to bar the minority’s access to the courts is to  render those protections meaningless. Rep. Sodrel is in a tough election fight with Baron Hill. This is a pretty obvious attempt by Mike Sodrel to inflame the passions of the religious majority for political gain. This sort of religious demagoguery is exactly why the protections of the First Amendment are so important.

(And, once again, the Sodrels and the Bosmas of the world are attempt to portray this as a free speech issue. They are being wilfully ignorant on this point. Rep. Bosma’s attorney conceded that this case does not involve individual speech, only government speech. Our Constitution places limitations on the government. Limitation on government speech does not implicate the Free Expression Clause of the U.S. Constitution.)

Josh Claybourn has a column in the Evansville Courier Press explaining his role in how the fact of candidate Brad Ellsworth’s 19 year old daughter drinking beer became a story in the Courier Press.

The column contains an apology to Andrea Ellsworth and some questioning as to the Courier Press’s editorial decision to make a story out of the pictures of a 19 year old girl drinking beer.

The Courier & Press decided not only that this was newsworthy, but also that it merited several days’ worth of coverage. I believe far too much has been made of the issue. It should not be a front-page story, and my own opinion, which Langhorne made the focus of the story, is irrelevant.

Worst of all, the article embarrassed the Ellsworth family. Although I have spoken with Andrea Ellsworth, I would like to publicly apologize to her, to the Ellsworth family and any others for my part in passing along the forum thread to the newspaper.

Both the apology and the assessment of a flawed editorial decision by the C&P are good and appropriate. However, those good things are, in my opinion, tainted by attempts at justification.

Whether the illegal – and very public – actions of a member of Brad Ellsworth’s family are newsworthy is a difficult question. When Courier & Press reporter Thomas Langhorne asked for my take on the issue, I was deliberately cautious. I noted several times that underage drinking is commonplace and nothing new.

Yet some might see the blatant display of such actions by a member of a sheriff’s family as evidence of a double standard; police have used Facebook.com pictures before to identify people involved in committing a crime. Underage drinkers who do get caught – and many do – do not get off lightly.

The paragraphs are dressed up as non-committal deliberation, but given the context, they seem more like attempts at justification. Until and unless some connection is made between Candidate Ellsworth and something more significant than the fact of his 19 year old daughter’s consumption of beer, this information simply isn’t relevant to deciding whether Ellsworth is and will be a good public official.

The Indiana Law Blog has a good post on the subject of the video record of the proceedings of the Indiana House of Representatives. I’m glad the video is available and is online, but I wonder how useful it really is. I’m a pretty avid follower of the General Assembly, but I’ve only been tempted to watch the video once or twice but have never followed through. Part of this is my skepticism that any votes change as a result of public debate. My impression is that the decisions have been made prior to the public hearings and that the testimony and speeches are just dog and pony shows.

The Evansville Courier Press has a story on the Ellsworth/Hostettler race for Indiana’s 8th Congressional District. On the one hand, Ellsworth is probably Hostettler’s most formidable challenge to date, coming at a time when Republican fortunes are having troubles generally. On the other hand, Hostettler has a highly motivated, social-conservative issues oriented political machine that does not depend on a great deal of money and does not tie him into the sorts of lobbying involved in the Abramoff scandal.

Says Brian Howey of Hostettler’s political machine:

“It is perhaps the most dynamic, loyal and top-performing political organization at the congressional level in the state, if not in the Midwest,” Howey said.

Howey said Hostettler’s coalition of home-schooling advocates, pro-gun rights and anti-abortion activists and other conservatives is highly motivated and likely to respond to an all-out challenge with equal energy and enthusiasm.

“Hostettler always confounds the purveyors of conventional wisdom in Washington because he doesn’t raise (political action committee) money and he just never raises a lot of money, but he wins,” Howey said.

Let the fun begin.