Selective ethics violations: Dickety Dickety Dock, hypocrisy stills the clock.

When you see an advertisement like this one in the News and Tribune, does it occur to you that when the mayor's face and name are sized larger than every other design element and font, perhaps this arrangement strongly suggests a de facto campaign ad, on an everyday basis, at taxpayer expense?

It should. To be sure, there is nothing innately unethical about this practice, and Jeff Gahan's certainly not the only elected official in irony-free America to use quasi-franking privileges for the advancement of his own personal brand, rather than that of the city.

Granted, we know by now that Gahan views these two brands as one and the same. He believes he personifies the city, or at least those components capable of being grasped without the corporate attorney explaining them to him. Consequently, in seven years at the helm, Gahan's team has failed to so much as attempt to produce a consistent, coherent brand for the city itself.

Just his face, again and again, like the framed portraits of the current Communist Party leader inevitably gracing the indoor spaces of Warsaw Pact satellite countries during the Cold War.

Meanwhile, there's the local Democratic Party, currently outraged by State Senator Ron Grooms' purported use of an improper campaign business card -- so much so that Adam Dickey has filed a formal ethics complaint.

That's just precious.

Recalling the Floyd County Democratic party's delirious, full-throated support of Gahan's hostile public housing takeover, which has in effect been one continuous ethics violation lasting over a year and a half, while impacting hundreds of human lives and rendering null and void the local party's allegedly fundamental commitment to the advancement of society's most vulnerable people ... where was I, exactly?

Wait, I remember.

Adam is upset about a business card.

Let that sink in, then consider this: the newspaper devoted several hundred words to this item.

How do any of them sleep at night?

Floyd County Dems file ethics complaint over Sen. Grooms social media posts

SOUTHERN INDIANA — A state legislator up for re-election is denying he used his government-provided email address for campaign purposes, which is being alleged in an ethics complaint filed by the Floyd County Democratic Party.

In a letter dated Oct. 1 to the Senate Legislative Ethics Committee, Floyd County Democratic Party chair Adam Dickey complains that state Sen. Ron Grooms, R-Jeffersonville, committed a violation of ethics after two social media posts contained a photograph of Grooms' campaign business card, which lists his Senate email address, in addition to his personal email address.