During the labor protests of early 2011, Indiana Democrats walked out of the state, denying the legislature a quorum, to protest several bills, among them an education voucher law and legislation making Indiana a “right-to-work” state. Daniels immediately disavowed the latter bill, saying it wasn’t something he wanted to take up; then he was running for President. Now that’s over, and Daniels, going back on his earlier word, supports the right-to-work legislation.

Because the Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s voter ID law in 2008, it would not surprise me to see them uphold South Carolina’s version. And that could be a means to invalidate Section 5, giving Southern states with a history of racial discrimination in voting the chance to do so again.

So here’s a wild end-of-the-year situation: Charlie White, the Secretary of State of Indiana, has been ruled ineligible to serve by a judge in Marion County. White has been battling charges that he was illegally registered to vote at the wrong address. In other words, he would be the most high-profile perpetrator of voter fraud in recent US history.

What’s more, the judge ruled that the second-place finisher in the 2010 Indiana Secretary of State’s race, Democrat Vop Osili, should be made the Secretary of State.

In the autumn of 1968, Rollo Turner opened the Black Market in Bloomington, Indiana on land owned by businessman and antiwar activist Larry Canada. Located on the corner of Dunn Street and Kirkwood Avenue, the Black Market sold LPs, books, artwork, and African imports, and quickly evolved into a peaceful gathering place for Bloomington and Indiana University’s African-American community. In May of 1969 Turner would gain fame for leading a coalition of students and faculty in an occupation of IU’s Ballantine Hall to protest tuition increases…

Kevin is on a tour of Occupation sites in the Midwest. He’ll be visiting the sites, talking to and interviewing occupiers, and getting a feel for where they are and what they need. He’ll also be delivering needed supplies using funds donated to FDL’s OccupySupply fund.

Despite the struggles of the Great Recession and the need for jobs, Republican legislatures across the country have engaged in a concerted effort to legislate a woman’s right to choose. There is settled case law that abortion is a legal medical procedure in the United States, and yet several states have banned late-term abortions after 20 weeks, the so-called “fetal pain” bill, so far this year. This conflicts directly with the fetal viability standard ruled by the Supreme Court, and seems destined for a challenge.

One of the more revealing elements of the Greek bailout discussions is not that the IMF and European finance ministers want another round of austerity from Greece before providing funding, and not even that banks are being urged to take haircuts or engage in restructuring to accommodate the Greeks. It’s that other element – privatization of state assets – that is the tell here. This is the real extraction from the Greeks, the real shock doctrine scheme at work here. Greece essentially must sell the family silver – their ports, their state-run water supply systems, their utility company, their telephone company – to get out of the mess created largely by the financial crisis and the Great Recession.

I remember receiving a phone call from a prominent newspaper reporter in Fall 2009 about the emergence of the Tea Party, largely in opposition to President Barack Obama’s health care legislation. “Is the Tea Party going to become a major force in American politics,” the reporter asked. “No,” I responded confidently. “Like other fringe protest parties in the past, it will fizzle quickly. Their message is too negative.”

I have never been so wrong in my life!

The Department of Health and Human Services, along with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, have told the state of Indiana that they cannot block Planned Parenthood, a qualified provider under Medicaid, from funding, and that they would risk all of their Medicaid funding if they followed through with the policy.

This is a hostage situation as much as other Republican gambits. The penalty for non-compliance is a cancellation of Medicaid funds. That doesn’t hurt Mitch Daniels so much as it hurts poor people in Indiana. But if you impose no penalty, you’ve let Indiana restrict health care choices for Medicaid recipients, and allowed them to target an organization that also happens to perform abortions. And you’ve given other states the tacit approval to do the same thing.