Say what? Look, it's a pandemic parking garage painting innovation.

I still like my idea better (December 4, 2016).

---

My State Street Parking Garage public art dream.

Even better: Hang a Trabi right in the center.

Zoo TV Tour

---

But what happened to "wrapping" the parking garage with apartments and other luxury amenities -- or did Cornerstone merely tithe the mayor's re-election slush fund and move on to a different town?

---

March 19, 2017

Lucky ol' Cornerstone Engineering: Redevelopment awards $17,500 contract to explore the possibility of "wrapping the parking garage and adding apartments and businesses to the structure."

Here's one out the blue.

Redevelopment Commission secretary Adam "Where the Fix Is Always In" Dickey records Irving Joshua's strange musings on the possibility of the State Street parking garage's adaptive reuse (from the meeting of February 14).

Wouldn't you love it if Cornerstone came back with a recommendation to convert the parking garage into a farmers market?

Develop New Albany's on-line farmers market "poll" is a reeking, juvenile cesspool of intellectual dishonesty. (March 8, 2014)

Why is DNA opposed to having an intelligent community discussion about the farmers market and its place in a revitalizing downtown without resorting to the misconceptions and scaremongering?

Moreover, if we're paying engineering consultants to explore different uses for the parking garage, does it mean we don't have a parking problem, after all?

We need to hurry with the public art solution before Dogs Playing Poker wins -- again.

You'll be tested: GREEN MOUSE presents NAWBANY WEEK IN REVIEW for 6 March 2020.

Here's the thing about jokes: it helps when they're actually funny.

But enough about Uncle Joe. In fact, the two most popular posts of the week were about politics. In the top slot was a fond goodbye to Pete Buttigieg.

Good riddance, Mayor Pete. Let's celebrate with Buttigieg's high school essay praising Bernie Sanders.

Of course Super Tuesday proved to be a cinematic train wreck called "The DNC Dim-pire Strikes Back," and seeing as I don't much care for dystopian epics in fiction because they seldom compare to reality, I was compelled to seek solace in liquid form.

We can depend on the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party establishment, because it ALWAYS lets us down -- both near and far, and speaking of closer to my home, it's only March and already Squire Adam has egg dripping from his face.

Madam, I'm Adam: Local Dem's latest revolving door candidate for District 72 House makes the news.

Perhaps this is an opportune juncture to remind readers that counterpoint is welcome at NAC. No anonymous submissions, please. I'll publish your viewpoint straight up, without commentary of my own. Leave the memes behind, and let's chat.

Meanwhile Mayor Jeff Gahan had a productive week. We looked on reprovingly as Deaf went shopping for state of the art, water-closet-powered timekeeping technology ...

ROGER'S DIARY OF THE END TIMES: Nawbany is losing the Toilet Race to the Japanese.

  ... then found himself in the uncharacteristically supine posture of keeping his boastfulness tethered in the lordly presence of Dr. Tom.

COVID 19, HIZZONER 1: If Gahan’s willing to meet with COUNTY officials, the pandemic panic’s already started.

This week's column was about high school daze.

ON THE AVENUES: I've got the spirit, but lose the feeling.

I'd already selected the title (a Joy Division lyric), then found myself enduring yet another flashback from the 1970s -- although this one's from chorale, and thus actually a pleasant memory.

Substitute the word "drink" for "pray," and you'll understand my current worshipful posture.

Good riddance, Mayor Pete. Let's celebrate with Buttigieg's high school essay praising Bernie Sanders.

They don't come much phonier than Squire Adam. What's he prattling on about?

Probably the big-money donations accrued by Buttigieg at California wine caves. After all, Dickey's only genuine superstar is Jeff Gahan (sorry, Jason), who has hyper-monetized New Albany politics with fat cat special interest money. Principles? Those can wait -- forever if necessary.

Dickey's friend Buttigieg will make a fine ambassador to Malta. Too bad we can't ship Gahan to Pitcairn Island.

Did you known that Mayor Pete used to be a fan of Bernie Sanders -- you know, back before the moneyed interests began lining up with their checkbooks? Here's the scoop.

---

Pete Buttigieg on Bernie Sanders, by Pete Buttigieg (The Nation)

When Pete Buttigieg was a high school senior, he wrote a prizewinning essay praising Bernie Sanders. Here, we republish the essay in full. This essay was first published in 2000 by the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. That year, Buttigieg was the winner of the library’s annual Profiles in Courage Essay Contest.

In this new century, there are a daunting number of important issues which are to be confronted if we are to progress as a nation. Each must be addressed thoroughly and energetically. But in order to accomplish the collective goals of our society, we must first address how we deal with issues. We must reexamine the psychological and political climate of American politics. As it stands, our future is at risk due to a troubling tendency toward cynicism among voters and elected officials. The successful resolution of every issue before us depends on the fundamental question of public integrity.

A new attitude has swept American politics. Candidates have discovered that it is easier to be elected by not offending anyone rather than by impressing the voters. Politicians are rushing for the center, careful not to stick their necks out on issues. Most Democrats shy away from the word “liberal” like a horrid accusation. Republican presidential hopeful George W. Bush uses the centrist rhetoric of “compassionate conservatism” while Pat Buchanan, once considered a mainstream Republican, has been driven off the ideological edge of the GOP. Just as film producers shoot different endings and let test audiences select the most pleasing, some candidates run “test platforms” through sample groups to see which is most likely to win before they speak out on a major issue. This disturbing trend reveals cynicism, a double-sided problem, which is perhaps the greatest threat to the continued success of the American political system.

Cynical candidates have developed an ability to outgrow their convictions in order to win power. Cynical citizens have given up on the election process, going to the polls at one of the lowest rates in the democratic world. Such an atmosphere inevitably distances our society from its leadership and is thus a fundamental threat to the principles of democracy. It also calls into question what motivates a run for office — in many cases, apparently, only the desire to occupy it. Fortunately for the political process, there remain a number of committed individuals who are steadfast enough in their beliefs to run for office to benefit their fellow Americans. Such people are willing to eschew political and personal comfort and convenience because they believe they can make a difference. One outstanding and inspiring example of such integrity is the country’s only independent congressman, Vermont’s Bernie Sanders.

Sanders’s courage is evident in the first word he uses to describe himself: “socialist.” In a country where “communism” is still the dirtiest of ideological dirty words, in a climate where even liberalism is considered radical, and socialism is immediately and perhaps willfully confused with communism, a politician dares to call himself a socialist? He does indeed. Here is someone who has “looked into his own soul” and expressed an ideology, the endorsement of which, in today’s political atmosphere, is analogous to a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Even though he has lived through a time in which an admitted socialist could not act in a film, let alone hold a congressional seat, Sanders is not afraid to be candid about his political persuasion.

After numerous political defeats in his traditionally Republican state, Sanders won the office of mayor of Burlington by ten votes. A successful and popular mayor, he went on to win Vermont’s one congressional seat in 1990. Since then, he has taken many courageous and politically risky stands on issues facing the nation. He has come under fire from various conservative religious groups because of his support for same-sex marriages. His stance on gun control led to NRA-organized media campaigns against him. Sanders has also shown creativity in organizing drug-shopping trips to Canada for senior citizens to call attention to inflated drug prices in the United States.

While impressive, Sanders’s candor does not itself represent political courage. The nation is teeming with outspoken radicals in one form or another. Most are sooner called crazy than courageous. It is the second half of Sanders’s political role that puts the first half into perspective: he is a powerful force for conciliation and bipartisanship on Capitol Hill. In Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy wrote that “we should not be too hasty in condemning all compromise as bad morals. For politics and legislation are not matters for inflexible principles or unattainable ideals.” It may seem strange that someone so steadfast in his principles has a reputation as a peacemaker between divided forces in Washington, but this is what makes Sanders truly remarkable. He represents President Kennedy’s ideal of “compromises of issues, not of principles.”

Sanders has used his unique position as the lone independent congressman to help Democrats and Republicans force hearings on the internal structure of the International Monetary Fund, which he sees as excessively powerful and unaccountable. He also succeeded in quietly persuading reluctant Republicans and President Clinton to ban the import of products made by underage workers. Sanders drew some criticism from the far left when he chose to grudgingly endorse President Clinton’s bids for election and reelection as president. Sanders explained that while he disagreed with many of Clinton’s centrist policies, he felt that he was the best option for America’s working class.

Sanders’s positions on many difficult issues are commendable, but his real impact has been as a reaction to the cynical climate which threatens the effectiveness of the democratic system. His energy, candor, conviction, and ability to bring people together stand against the current of opportunism, moral compromise, and partisanship which runs rampant on the American political scene. He and a few others like him have the power to restore principle and leadership in Congress and to win back the faith of a voting public weary and wary of political opportunism. Above all, I commend Bernie Sanders for giving me an answer to those who say American young people see politics as a cesspool of corruption, beyond redemption. I have heard that no sensible young person today would want to give his or her life to public service. I can personally assure you this is untrue.

Colonial Manor listening? Yesterday Gahan, Dickey and the DemoDisneyDixiecrats displayed with unmistakable clarity just how little integrity they have left in the tank.

A portrait in hemorrhoids?

It was great to hear from "the" Democrat at the Colonial Manor listening session -- the one, single, solitary Democratic political figure willing to speak for attribution.

The lone Democratic political type to so much as dare making comments at last evening's Colonial Manor listening session was at-large council candidate Maury Goldberg, and he's to be applauded for doing so.

To be sure, the event's grassroots organizers have been consistent in minimizing politics during the course of their neighborhood advocacy. This is understandable, and even commendable.

Unfortunately, it's a election year; politics is about distributing power, and this fact lurks in the background whether desired or not. As such, three of the four currently declared mayoral candidates were present at last night's Colonial Manor chat (White, Seabrook and Coffey).

Aspiring mayor for life Jeff Gahan skipped the meeting, having launched his own petulant #MyNA broadside earlier in the afternoon.

Let's focus on Jeff Gahan's breathtakingly brazen string of fake facts and outright lies about Colonial Manor.

Of the four city council persons voting in favor of Gahan’s and Adam Dickey's more-of-the-usual-boilerplate redevelopment fix, only 5th district representative Matt Nash attended a meeting held in his own district. Perhaps exhausted by the necessity of fluffing Dear Leader round-the-clock, councilmen Bob Caesar, Greg Phipps and Pat McLaughlin did not show their faces, and not unexpectedly, Silent Nash said absolutely nothing -- not even so much as an introduction or the re-assurance that he was there to listen and would take listening seriously.

You're entitled to my opinion, so here it is: the listening session was another in a series of horridly disconnected and non-responsive showings by local Democrats, who are too busy smugly power-brokering behind closed doors to even attempt engaging with the community's stakeholders.

But before summarizing, I want to allow chief organizer Kathy Copas her say. I greatly admire what she's trying to do.

Now that we're all safely home and settling in for the night, a million thanks once again from our Colonial Manor Redevelopment Citizens Coalition for a wonderful evening of listening, reflection, connection, and fun. Independents, Democrats, and Republicans all together in one room for an evening, all being courteous and respectful of one another's ideas, words, and presence. Everyone who was there should just feel incredibly proud. And thanks so much to the Facebook Live viewers and watch parties, too, that added to our experience of being connected. If we can manage to regularly use structured listening techniques---coupled with real-time technology---to talk about challenging issues, there's just no end to what we can accomplish. So many people volunteered tonight and helped with everything from door prizes to registration to set up and technology. Without the risk of leaving someone out, thanks again to ALL of you for all you do to make New Albany a better and stronger community. We're just getting started! #colonialmanorrising

I can't say enough positive things about the attitude displayed by Kathy and her associates. They're showing us what grassroots involvement can mean.

And, sadly, local Democrats are responding in the only way they know how, with an equally compelling display of detachment, arrogance and pure spite -- which Gahan's Wednesday afternoon video displayed with sheer, numbing pettiness.

Gahan’s absolute power corrupts, and it corrupts absolutely.

He "plays politics" every minute of every day of his public life, and when someone disagrees with him, they’re accused of ... wait for it ... "playing politics."

Gahan seems to believe that his tenure as mayor and the very practice of politics in New Albany are intertwined, synonymous and inseparable -- that Gahan himself is entitled to a monopoly on political power solely because the press clippings he paid someone else our tax dollars to write depict him in such glowing, infallible terms.

But forget Gahan's giggly, goofy uncle persona. It's his inner bully -- the thug deep down -- that compelled yesterday's video, which was posted for the sole purpose of bullying and humiliating a group of sincere grassroots stakeholders.

Don't forget this image.

AT THIS "PUBLIC" MEETING, GAHAN DIDN'T ALLOW THE PUBLIC TO SPEAK.

This incessant urge to reassert his primacy is further proof of Gahan's mounting narcissistic imbalance. He has gathered far too much power for one ill-equipped man, and he's not using this power for the community's greater good.

Patronage, propaganda and power trips are not hopeful platforms for progress, are they? Fortunately, we can do something about it: #FireGahan2019

ON THE AVENUES: It's time for a change, and David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing.

Greenville, Georgetown and Duncan capitulate as giddy Gahan boasts that New Albany is "the economic engine of Floyd County." No shit, Sherlock. But not so much regionally, eh?

Democrats are slobbering in ecstasy that we're slaughtering Galena; meanwhile, New Albany continues to steadily lose ground regionally in terms of economic development and job creation.

What we do have in abundance -- an indie business and entrepreneurial class -- labors under Jeff Gahan's insistence that (a) they receive few of the incentives and subsidies lavished elsewhere, and (b) he's responsible for their success, anyway.

Thus the sad pantomime. Here and there Wendy Dant Chesser tosses Gahan a few crumbs; in reply, Gahan and what's left of his captive council minions buy a few pencils from One Southern Indiana.

For eight years we've been waiting for Gahan to present and explain a coherent economic development strategy in this time of River Ridge hegemony and the concurrent loss of companies like Pillsbury (and remember Samtec's new plant ... in Scottsburg?)

For eight years, we've heard barely audible gurgling sounds in response -- and so with nothing concrete to offer, Gahan and the Democrats just conjure whoppers out of whole cloth.

Regular readers know how difficult it can be for reality-based people to fathom the DemoDisneyDixiecratic fantasyland wherein Tricky Dickey churns out fabrications, concoctions, fibs, cock and bull stories and fake facts almost as quickly as Putin's computerized bots.

What's worse, his press releases never vary from the Democratic National Committee's style-free user's manual -- which is to say, they're unreadable. Like so many other fiction writers, perhaps Dickey is paid by the word.

Let's be perfectly clear, Mudd.

HMS Maritime's expansion in New Albany had nothing to do with Jeff Gahan, although even one as skeptical as me can plainly see why this or any other sitting mayor seeks to take credit for each and every sunrise, taco and subsequent bowel movement.

But Greg Phipps?

Can anyone capable of reading and comprehending these words cite a single instance of Phipps being involved with economic development during the past eight years, apart from attending the stray ribbon-cutting, and issuing rote rubber-stamp approval of every expenditure ever handed him by Team Gahan?

Yet he is commended for "sponsoring" incentives written by City Hall's legal team. By this same skewed logic, 5th district councilman Matt Nash personally engineered the deal to spend a few million more in TIF-ATM funds for the Colonial Manor property.

As the kids say, "OMG."

Readers, we've all heard politicians lie. That's a real fact, not a fake one. But I can't recall a time when the "leading element" of the local Democratic Party has lied to such a breathtaking extent. Nor can I remember this much Kool-Aid and Loaded Rice Krispie Treats being consumed by the rank and file.

It's almost as if the quiver's empty, and self-delusion is all they have left.

---

Democratic mayoral candidate David White understands that change begins with a whole lotta scrubbing, and NA Confidential advocates just such a deep civic cleansing. 

After eight years on the job, Mayor Jeff Gahan's list of stunning "achievements" is long, indeed: tax increases, budgetary hide 'n' seek, self-deification, daily hypocrisy, public housing takeover, non-transparency, pay-to-play for no-bid contracts, bullying city residents and bullying city employees. Eight years is enough. It's time to drain Gahan's swamp, flush his ruling clique and take this city back from Gahan's Indy-based special interest donors. 

NA Confidential supports David White for Mayor in the Democratic Party primary, with voting now through May 7. 

No equal billing for David White? That's because Tricky Dickey is playing favorites again, ceding the party's HQ window space to the highest and only bidder, Jeff Gahan.

In October of 2018, it looked like this.

But then it changed.

Same power-brokering slumlord still owns the building.

Same underachieving political party still claims the building as its headquarters.

2003 photo?

Same Democratic chairman still wants us to believe he's democratic.

Maybe the Floyd County Democratic Party sold naming rights to a party member's campaign as displayed on the window of the party member's building.

 

Well, at least they can pay the utility bills this way.

Be that as it may, or may not -- the fun begins soon, as we undertake the dissection of the Gahan campaign's expenditures -- we're left with a question: As it pertains to fairness and impartiality in a primary election, does the county party chairman have a responsibility to assure that all party candidates are treated the same? 

Neither the state nor local party rule books seem to address this, but the Democratic National Committee's charter and bylaws do.

 
The Floyd County Democratic Party's platform ends with this passage, implying that the local party must defer to the national party in matters undefined.

David White is a Democrat, and he's running for mayor in the Democratic Party's 2019 primary.

And yet, for White to get a sign at his own party's downtown headquarters, he has been forced to hang it across the street.

How is Adam Dickey administering a fair and impartial primary election on behalf of the Democratic Party if only one candidate for mayor (hint: the $438,000 candidate) is accorded every square inch of the window at the party's headquarters?

Isn't this level of hypocrisy intense even by Dickey's lofty standards?

Maybe the best explanations are here.

If you're one of those gung-ho local Democratic party members waking each morning to coffee, then hurling abuse at Donald Trump for sleaze and corruption before you've even used the toilet, howzabout while you're in there you take a glance at the mirror and observe exactly who is condoning bad party behavior right here in Anchor City?

Not a pretty sight, is it?

(thanks J)

The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 12: Madam I'm Adam, or the way HMB's Dickey brokers power and channels his party's beak wetting.

Previously: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 11: Lawyers from afar, expressing gratitude to Jeff Gahan for their billable hours -- and the curious case of Stan Robison.

Some people peddle religious tracts, but during the coming weeks we'll be plucking highlights from eight years of the Committee to Elect Gahan's CFA-4 campaign finance reports. Strap in, folks -- and don't forget those air(head) sickness bags.

A political machine such as the one administered by New Albany's DemoDisneyDixiecrats is not designed to enable sincere policy discussion, or to empower ways of improving the lives of residents. It exists to allocate power, to preserve power in the hands of those who already have it, and to maintain this power.

Characteristics of such a system include:

• Control by a political boss
• Reliance on patronage
• Distribution of spoils
• Shadowy operations behind-the-scenes
• Reinforcement of longstanding loyalties

In true mafioso fashion, the boss of our DemoDixieDisneycratic political machine is Jeff Gahan, a two-term mayor whose absence of gravitas and charisma is chump change compared to an almost superhuman ability to suck wads of campaign cash through a garden hose.

However it bears mentioning that personality cults like the one Gahan has built these past eight years -- his face on every object, credit claimed for every achievement, no errors ever made, the source of all local knowledge -- has two functions.

One of them is to dazzle and distract the populace with daily lies about Gahan's unprecedented wisdom and perfection.

The second is to remind potential challengers of Gahan's firm control at the top of the monetizing pyramid. That's because no absolute ruler ever rests easy. Aspirants to the throne, and more importantly potential enablers of rebellion, always lurk -- even when they don't at all.

Paranoia, the destroyer.

Gahan's own enablers include key DemoDixieDisneycratic machine cogs like the spectacularly overpaid city attorney Shane Gibson, self-identified elder real-e-statesman Warren Nash, larcenous bag man David Duggins, former legislator Connie Sipes, reclusive heating and air human money funnel Lemor Dowell and template-bred party chairman Adam Dickey -- who in an exceedingly crowded field easily wins the title of "Most Likely to Be Smarmy."

smarm·y/ˈsmärmē/
adjective INFORMAL

ingratiating and wheedling in a way that is perceived as insincere or excessive.

"a smarmy, unctuous reply"

synonyms: unctuous, ingratiating, smooth, slick, oily, greasy, fulsome, flattering, obsequious, sycophantic, fawning

Chairman Tricky Dickey is a very busy man, who like the proverbial hedgehog understands one (and only one) important point: Everything he does, every day of the year, is mutually reinforcing, devoted to allocating, preserving and maintaining power for the machine.

Credit him with no wasted motions -- and then reach for your pitchfork.

Dickey serves as 9th district party chairman and has seemingly permanent seats on New Albany's Redevelopment and Economic Development Commissions, as well as the Tree Board, where he lubes chain saws.

The chairman, who prepared for his political career by peddling AFLAC, also enjoys prominence at the River Hills Economic Development District & Regional Planning Commission. If there's a dimly lit courthouse corridor anywhere in Southern Indiana, it's a safe bet that Dickey has transacted business in it, as his employer is HMB Professional Engineers, for whom he toils as Regional Development Director.

Paving news, but before that, a review of pro-Gahan campaign finance "engineered" by HMB and HWC. (May 14, 2018)

Given the impossibility of separating Dickey's day job selling engineering services to governmental entities, from his night job trying to populate government entities with Democrats, his work affords numerous opportunities to curate the patronage machine's allocation, preservation and maintenance of power.

Although occasionally even Dickey must pretend to be impartial, allowing the remainder of his pliant associates on various boards to approve the fix he's already enabled. This one's from 2017, I believe.

In 2014, HMB had a contract to assist with pump refurbishment at the Flood Control Bureau of Nepotism. There no doubt have been numerous other opportunities to wet beaks, with Dickey winking, nodding and stepping aside when necessary, no doubt a tolerable tactic in comparison to the power thus buttressed.

From 2011 through 2018, HMB Professional Engineers has tallied a nice chunk of change for Jeff Gahan's Money machine.

Christopher Stewart     500
Brad(ley) Meyer (HMB head honcho, six years of donations) 8,000
Adam Dickey     100
Total: $8,600

It's only 20% of what Clark Dietz has tithed to Dear Leader during the same period, but remember that a mayor seeking to raise more than $50,000 each calendar year -- not just during his own re-election campaigns -- already has grasped the utility of money in the bank.

Money helps with the power thang, especially when there's a loyal backroom emissary like Dickey, for whom the words "conflict of interest" are no more than social media feeds ripe for blocking.

#FireGahan2019

Rebuttals are welcome and will be published unaltered -- so don't forget spellcheck. If you have supplementary information to offer about any of this, please let us know and we'll update the page. The preceding was gleaned entirely from public records, with the addresses of "individuals" removed.

Next: The Jeff Gahan Money Machine, Part 13: United Consulting Engineers rocks Deaf Gahan like a hurricane.

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

ON THE AVENUES: Democrats should judge city council incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 by their regressive deeds, not their progressive words.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Ever since Dan Coffey’s how-did-it-take-so-damned-long-anyway defection from the Democratic Party in January of 2016, New Albany’s nine-member city council has been populated by just four presumed Democrats.

• District 2: Bob Caesar (now in his twelfth year)
• District 3: Greg Phipps (eighth year)
• District 4: Pat McLaughlin (twelfth year)
• District 5: Matt Nash (fourth year)

The scuffed fingernails of this motley 44th percentile have managed to cling to an ever-shrinking semblance of significance for a variety of reasons, absolutely none of which attest to any specific distinction or merit as public servants.

Both literally and figuratively, it hasn’t been about them at all. The gradual evolution of mayoral authority, as capable of governing New Albany by authoritarian decree apart from direct council oversight, has allowed the city’s diminished Democrats to hang on to what’s left of their power.

With the municipal populace forever determined to ignore local matters in favor of arguing endlessly over national issues, apathy and inertia play their roles, too.

It also took a while for the three council Republicans and two Independents to come together (occasionally) for a semblance of common cause against the imperial excesses of Jeff Gahan’s reign.

One example: In hindsight, Al Knable probably regrets being conciliatory at the beginning of his council career in 2016, seeing as conniving and opportunistic Democrats lost no time in paying back Knable for his equanimity by savagely attacking his character over the contrived and nonsensical 9-1-1 phone call episode.

Unfortunately the Republican at-large troika hasn’t always been able to maintain a unified front. Their biggest head-slapping disgrace in recent memory remains David “I'm Passionate for Masonry” Barksdale, who resembled a slobbering puppy angling for tasty kibbles and bits during the course of gulping Dear Leader’s cynical pleasantries, as necessary to procure approval for the cherished Democratic Party goal of an election-ready Reisz Mahal luxury city hall boondoggle.

Then earlier this month, a befuddled David AeberSOLD out his compatriot Knable by bizarrely rolling over on behalf of an unctuous Caesar in the election for 2019 council vice-president.

With friends like those, who even needs Adam “Tricky” Dickey as an enemy?

---

The enduringly fascinating aspect of our bedraggled Democratic council quartet is the beige patina of its blandness. The best historic parallel is those jowly Politburo geriatrics propped atop Lenin’s Mausoleum during Soviet May Day parades of old; colorless and featureless functionaries without the first original thought of their own, committed only to agreeing in lock step with the First Secretary.

By the end of 2019, New Albany’s four remaining Democratic council critters will have 36 years of combined service – and for what ultimate purpose? They’re faded pawns waiting to be pushed around the chess board, and veritable rubber stamps in desperate need of re-inking. They seem far older than they really are, with a collective demeanor suggesting mute charred hulk burnout.

That’s no surprise, given that their chief duty these past eight years has been to purge their souls of any damning stain of cogitation and meekly obey whatever orders Gahan and Dickey have given them as obsequious toady foot soldiers digging trenches to maintain Gahan’s sole achievement as mayor: a cash-laden political patronage machine constructed to enable VIP treatment for donors and vested interests, boasting pay-to-play as the order of the day, and with the lion’s share of the proceeds going to the mayor himself.

Witnessing these four remaining council Democrats in (re)action at last Thursday’s meeting, and knowing that all of them will trudge forward to re-enlist for four more senseless, torpid years of tuck-pointing Gahan’s prophylactic wall against fresh thinking and new ideas, I couldn’t help noticing their utter political exhaustion.

They’re bored, lethargic and absent anything resembling excitement, save for the sporadic flaring of pet fetishes. As such, Caesar briefly showed a heightened pulse when allowed to gush like a hormonal crush-afflicted schoolboy over One Southern Indiana’s yearly panhandling appointment to tout its oligarch masturbation outreach.

Similarly, Phipps became momentarily lucid on the topic of resuscitating (yet again) his otherwise toothless Human Rights Commission; those of us with long memories winced while recalling the time just a year ago when he dramatically “washed” his hands of the HRC. This exceedingly rare moment of Phippsian candor evidently has been delightfully airbrushed from the narrative, Dickey having issued contradictory marching orders numerous times since then.

In customary fashion McLaughlin said almost nothing the entire evening, leaving the accidental Democratic council yes-man Nash to shock the peanut gallery by erupting at freshly installed council president Scott Blair’s appointment of civilian Scott Whalen to the Board of Zoning Appeals in place of Stephen Pacciano, whose term had expired.

It is the prerogative of the council president to reappoint or replace board members, which the remaining eight councilmen subsequently affirmed. It later emerged that Pacciano had wanted another term, with Blair preferring his own man, although characteristically secretive Nash didn’t clearly explain any of this during the course of his weirdly emotional and garbled complaint.

Nash’s outburst came as a surprise to veteran council watchers, who’ve grown accustomed to the passing of entire seasons between instances of Nash saying anything at all. Last summer when it came time for the final Reisz Mahal vote, Nash remained impassive and unquestioning through a lengthy and detailed discussion without uttering a peep apart from the single syllable “aye” when called upon by Gahan and Dickey to vote in favor of the most misguided expenditure of public funds I’ve witnessed since my council viewing began in 2004.

The 5th council district plainly deserves better than this.

As much as I like Nash personally, the sad fact is that politically, he is a pliable tool of the Democratic Party’s fix-is-in machine, a jalopy lubricated for decades on end by Warren Nash, the councilman’s father.

In 2015 Matt Nash became the nominee for 5th district councilman by predetermined precinct committee decision when Dustin Collins became ill, and later when down on his luck in 2018 after the failure of his business venture, he abruptly and miraculously landed a job with the housing authority, itself the victim of a hostile annexation by Gahan the year before – something Nash has yet to publicly reference even once as a councilman.

If that’s not nepotism and political bondage according to the gnarly Tammany Hall model, American history books might have to be rewritten.

For Nash to be angry about Pacciano’s treatment might well have been exemplary and praiseworthy – but exactly where has Nash’s outrage been hibernating during his council term as Gahan and Dickey have run roughshod over basic human decency, bullying, bribing and bartering without any semblance of empathy or conscience?

Had Nash murmured even once about the immoral morass and selective ethics of his Democratic Party overlords, it might be different for me – but wait, I forget; he has the same tired excuse as every other Democrat in town, namely that Republicans are always worse.

Spare me.

---

Meanwhile here in the 3rd, the PhippsBot becomes even further estranged from his self-described powers of cool, analytical detachment, with these skills inevitably being spotted solely as knee-jerk responses to Republican initiatives, and never in gauging the various special interest power plays advanced by his own party.

Last Thursday Phipps haltingly described the inadequacy of the digital speed control installations on Spring Street, and he’s right, but apparently it has not occurred to Phipps that his own cowering and complicit complacency during the run-up to two-way street reversion crucially enabled Gahan to assign HWC Engineering the task of unceremoniously junking the vast majority of Speck-recommended precepts as intended to REDESIGN these same streets to lessen vehicular speeds.

And this is the ultimate truth: unalloyed enablement.

Each of these four Democrats – Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash – are pleasant enough company for a beer (well, maybe three of them, excepting the former jeweler, who still has those Bicentennial Commission finances safely hidden), but the political roles they’ve agreed to play are exuberantly passive.

They’re to emit gurgling sounds of rote acceptance on cue to whatever degraded and dictatorial whims Gahan and Dickey decree – just as Shane Gibson’s daily insider job is to find legal precepts capable of being artfully molded to accommodate a mayor and party chairman so crooked that it takes two valets each morning to help them screw on their pants.

Enablement and passivity, silence and culpability.

These are the de facto re-election “platforms” of New Albany’s four incumbent Democratic council representatives Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash. That’s 36 years of … what, exactly?

As you might expect, Gahan and Dickey are working hard to assure there’ll be no primary opposition to incumbent council candidacies in 2019. That’s highly ironic, given that during mid-term elections last November numerous residents of the council districts represented by Caesar, Phipps, McLaughlin and Nash loudly declared themselves to be progressive, and publicly supported folks like Liz Watson, Dan Canon and Anna Murray.

If we are to assess the situation today, referencing the record of 36 combined years of actual city council seat-warming rather than their imagined stances pertaining to substantive policy, the incumbents in districts 2, 3, 4 and 5 are nowhere near as “progressive” as their 2019 Republican challengers – and Phipps’ underachieving sinecure is as yet uncontested, at least until I get my Independent petition started.

It’s very sad for the Democratic Party, though not for residents of those districts, who have high-quality Republicans ready and waiting for November. Personally, I find it hard to fathom that seemingly none of Watson’s, Canon’s and Murray’s purportedly progressive enthusiasts living in these precincts have grasped that when it comes to deeds and not words, their own Democratic council representatives are the ones who are completely out of sync.

There’s still time. Shouldn’t the local Democratic Party be walking the walk and not just talking the talk?

---

Recent columns:

January 15: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

January 1: ON THE AVENUES: As a new year dawns, I’m existentially yours.

December 29: ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

It's MLK Day, and the local Democratic Party's hucksters will be bleating. Let's not forget how badly they botched the Human Rights Commission reboot in 2018.

To begin with a reprise from last year, thanks to a regular reader for this pithy introduction to an important topic.

"After listening to the dismissive remarks Mayor Gahan made earlier this month concerning public housing and Mount Tabor Road residents, I think what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said is very fitting. 'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' The mayor is a kakistocrat and a poor excuse for a leader and human being."

MLK Day typically brings out the political posturers and panderers, which in New Albany reveals a bedraggled procession of DemoDixieDisneycrats mounting their seldom-used soap boxes to praise someone who doesn't even remotely figure into their daily lives the other 364 days a year.

As such, it's an ideal time to re-read my column from October 18, 2018. In it, we see the local Democratic Party at its bottom-feeding finest, mangling a Human Rights Commission reconstituted by Republicans, and in short, maintaining the party's hypocritical stance that speechifying about minority advancement and human rights is peachy keen, but actually doing something about it is tantamount to heresy.

Consider Jeff Gahan's seven-year record as mayor of advancing New Albany's African-American community into municipal leadership.

That's right: there is no record, because there has been no advancement, but then again this level of non-achievement is fully in keeping with the Democratic Party's longtime strategy of cynical political patronage, wherein the African-American community is asked to be content with selective hiring of the rank and file just so long as it doesn't expect leadership positions to be among the spoils.

Gahan, Dickey and their minions will be spouting platitudes today. Dear reader, if you can locate any known instances of actions matching their words, please forward to the editor. The next such citation will be the first.

Now, let's reprise the Great Human Rights Commission Debacle of 2018, with this side note: Dr. Staten is said to have stepped aside from the board owing to his impending retirement, leaving one mayoral appointment to be made along with the two new seats created by city council.

This should be interesting and entertaining. Can Gahan and the self-abased Democrats get it right this time?

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ON THE AVENUES: As long as the Democratic hierarchy keeps the Human Rights Commission under its thumb, it's hard to be optimistic.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

A proposed enlargement of the New Albany Human Rights Commission (HRC) from five board members to seven comes to this week's city council meeting on Thursday night.

That's tonight, for those of you able to attend.

The ordinance is likely to be approved, and stands to generate little in the way of pros or cons. That’s too bad, because the latest HRC saga symbolizes most of the abject failings of the Democratic Party’s flailing leadership cadres – all blow, no show, perpetually diversionary, and power hungry to the very last dollop of campaign finance.

Hilariously, the same Floyd County Democratic Party absently snoozing through four long years of HRC interruptus now feels compelled to gloriously affirm a commission enlargement made relevant by absolutely nothing the party itself has done.

The party's response has been clumsy, to say the least. The GOP's central role in recently re-animating a commission that both Democrats and their mayor, Jeff Gahan, had shown zero interest in maintaining meant Democrats had to do something; forced to respond to council president Al Knable's HRC resuscitation efforts, Gahan's "dependable-functionaries-first" prioritization led to the appointment of two over-60, white, straight but utterly reliable men.

In turn, Gahan's oafishness resulted in the exclusion of African-American candidates, including ideal appointee Nicole Yates, the latter owing to the mayor's and party chairman's fundamental distrust of human rights. The embarrassment aroused by the preceding game-playing disturbed a handful of quasi-progressives, who'd be needed for the coming election even if they fail to grasp the mayor's and party chairman's spoils-driven hypocrisy

Dickey’s typically overcooked blandishments reinforce a fact long grasped by New Albanians with a the faintest of pulses: if you want to know when Dickey is torturing the truth, just look to see if his lips are moving.

Statement on Human Rights Commission Ordinance

Party Chair supports growth of City Commission; urges creation of County HRC

New Albany, October 18, 2018 – In response to a proposed ordinance expanding the New Albany Human Rights Commission sponsored by City Council Members Greg Phipps and Pat McLaughlin, Floyd County Democratic Party Chair Adam Dickey issued the following statement:

"As Democrats, we believe our government works best when it reflects the many faces of our community and is informed through civic engagement. Councilman Phipps’ and McLaughlin’s ordinance to expand the City of New Albany’s Human Rights Commission offers a unique opportunity to not only add strong representation, but to grow the diverse community voices present on this important body. To that end, we support the city’s efforts through this new ordinance."

"In recent weeks, our community has continued to see incidents of hate and bigotry through the vandalism of public property and places. It has long been my sincere hope that Floyd County would adopt a similar Human Rights Commission ordinance to that approved by the City of New Albany under Mayor Gahan’s leadership in 2012. Alas, our Commissioners, led by Republican Mark Seabrook, have failed to act and no such body protects our citizens in the county. With the city’s leadership to once again renew its commitment to the HRC, I hope a new effort to pass a similar ordinance protecting Floyd County residents can be implemented. Together, our community can make a strong value statement against discrimination and ensure that everyone, regardless of one’s race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or economic background, is welcome to be part of our community."

As recently as last year, original HRC mover Greg Phipps publicly stated that he'd washed his hands of the commission, such was his own party's indifference. Meekly, he's skulking back into the tent, forever unwilling to publicly differ with the party's most powerful.

And with elections impending, it's important for the party to do some content-free political posturing (read: play-acting). Note the inclusion in Dickey's broadside of a potshot aimed against presumptive Republican mayoral contestant Mark Seabrook.

Dickey, whose Democrats have done nothing at all about hate crimes -- whose mayor won't acknowledge homelessness or the opioid crisis -- in effect accuses Seabrook of doing as little as his own organization has.

That's principled in a dust-mite-like way, wouldn't you say?

---

It's extremely important for onlookers to remember that after the long moribund New Albany Human Rights Commission first was revived six years ago amid much hope, it promptly was allowed wither on the vine by the same City Hall team eager to publicly take credit for its existence.

The general idea was for local Democrats to be seen as upholding human rights, as opposed to actually doing anything about human rights. Of course, it's true that certain local Democrats genuinely believe in the HRC's concept and its mission.

However, as it pertains to the Democratic Party's power-brokering elders (Gahan, Dickey and commission appointee Warren Nash, among others), there is no refuting their determination to restrict the HRC to public relations alone; if the commission actually were to be autonomous with real teeth, the elders might not be able to exercise control over it.

Just as obviously, matters like the mayor's hostile takeover of public housing and his consistent, self-aggrandizing diminution of his nominal party's traditional base (the community's most vulnerable) then would become precisely the sort of human rights violations suitable for examination by a truly independent body.

The impetus for the current re-re-animation of the HRC is Republican councilman and council president Al Knable, whose appointments to the commission (Paul Kiger and Calle Janson) reflected a clear understanding of exactly what such a body should be.

In short: Knable acted decisively to bring life to the HRC when Gahan wouldn't, which was savvy both politically and conceptually. Strangely (at least to Democratic ideologues), some local Republicans are invested in human rights, too.

Hence the predictable response of Gahan, Dickey, Nash and other Democrats devoted first and foremost to the principle of preserving party power patronage; placed on the defensive, their first instinct has been to ensure the HRC remains (a) under their control, and (b) non-functional, while reserving the right to claim any public relations benefits down the road.

This is how your Democratic "leadership" operates, progressives.

Accordingly, and as previously noted, Gahan appointed two white, straight, male Democratic Party stalwarts: Warren Nash (82) and Cliff Staten (64). University professor Staten, whose son Josh recently was hired as head of redevelopment, served on the HRC previously.

As an academic and previous member, Staten's appointment to the HRC is justifiable. But Nash, whose son is Matt -- a city councilman recently hired by the New Albany Housing Authority, an entity annexed by Gahan in 2017 -- is a purely political appointment.

His presence is a dreadful, sad joke, and when it came to the four appointed members picking the fifth, it immediately became evident that the vote wouldn't be easy.

New Albany Human Rights Commission to vote on fifth member, by Chris Morris (Selected Works of Tom May)

Two of the four members, Paul Kiger and Calle Janson, wanted to vote for the fifth member following the interviews Thursday, but Cliff Staten and Warren Nash preferred waiting a few days in order to review the resumes.

The best candidate to take the commission’s fifth seat was Nicole Yates, who is president of the NAACP; while a strong Democrat, she also has valuable experience working outside the narrow confines of New Albany, for both Greg Fischer and John Yarmuth.

Consequently, she has shown more independence and is less beholden to Dickey, the local party chairman, and that’s why Dickey and Gahan, who fear Yates in much the same way as inferior white men always react to strong, independent and intelligent women, duly conspired to assure the election of Jennifer Ortiz.

Ortiz named to New Albany's Human Rights Commission (Morris)

The New Albany Human Rights Commission now has a fifth member.

Jennifer Ortiz, a professor at IU Southeast, was elected 3-1 to the commission Tuesday. Nicole Yates was also nominated but failed to get a second.

Last week five New Albany residents were interviewed by the four sitting commission members. Besides Ortiz and Yates, Ken Brooks and Sarah Ring were both considered. Lane Stumler interviewed but withdrew from the process, saying the board needed to add more diversity.

Make no mistake: Ortiz is qualified for a seat, period.

However, she also works with Staten at IU Southeast, which must be mentioned in the context of City Hall's eternally nepotistic tendencies. Undoubtedly Dickey and Gahan believe she's a vote they can count on.

In the final analysis, the overarching point has nothing to do with any of the HRC appointees, save for Nash's inexcusable presence, because Gahan's and Dickey's objectives with their mismanagement of the HRC has not been to represent the community’s diversity.

It has been to assure their continued control of a “human rights” product in pre-packaged, controllable form.

Human Rights Commission lacks African-American representation

Prof. Jennifer Ortiz appears to be a wonderful addition to the Floyd County Human Rights Commission. As an academic with a background in criminal justice she should lend an intellectual rigor to the Commission and an authoritative perspective on issues that are often at the center of concerns over racial injustice.

However, the failure to directly represent the legitimate and unique experiences of African-Americans on a Human Rights Commission that will likely confront issues of racial discrimination is a remarkable feat of negligence on the part of the City Council and the Mayor’s Office, which were responsible for the other appointments. The issue isn’t about quotas and it’s certainly not a knock against the qualifications and commitment to service of the other distinguished members of the Commission.

The mandate of the Commission requires an authentic representation of the full range of perspectives from members of our community. It is encouraging that Commission Chair Paul Kiger is open to correcting the imbalance.

— Frank Z. Riely Jr., Floyds Knobs

Good, but I'd have Frank be aware that the city council did just fine with its share of the mandate. Dickey and Gahan are the ones who squandered the mandate for purely political considerations, and so city council will enlarge a board which has been suppressed by none other than Dickey and Gahan.

Not one aspect of the HRC board's size matters if City Hall and the Democratic Party continue to regard the HRC as a non-functional, symbolic set piece, not as a tool meant to be used.

Progressives, pay heed. The HRC's comeback needn't have occurred, because it shouldn't have neglected, and once it became necessary, your own party's leadership has politicized it again; if Dickey and Gahan don't get what they want from the HRC, they'll smother it a second time.

What you permit, you promote. What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own.

Don't let Dickey and Gahan speak for you. They may be "Democratic" in the sense of a two-party duopoly, but they're by no means "democratic" in any meaningful way.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are Trumping the Donald when it comes to breathtaking moral turpitude. Have they no shame?

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Last night I wrote the equivalent of two columns (you're rubbing your eyes already), but neither seems appropriate just yet. Instead, let's take an instructive journey by means of the rewind button, back to January 25, 2017.

You'll notice that nothing's changed. Matt Lorch subsequently was removed as council attorney, and the Democrats suffered another catastrophic election defeat in 2018. Adam Dickey kept his job, and now it's 2019.

#FireGahan2019 #FreeDistrictThree #FlushTheClique 

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You can’t blame Dan Coffey for understanding simple math.

Coffey might well be one of the nastiest politicians to mar this or any other underachieving settlement, at least since records were first scrawled on the wall at the Caves of Altamira, but say this for the man: He doesn’t need an abacus to smell raw fear – and take advantage of it.

When Coffey bolted from the Democratic Party in January of 2016 in preparation for becoming the most obvious Donald Trump supporter in New Albany, you can be sure he’d already run the power poll numbers.

After city elections in 2015, there were two more Republicans on the city council than before, totaling three. Scott Blair already had declared himself an Independent, and Coffey correctly surmised that Blair would eventually tire of desperate efforts to please Mayor Jeff Gahan when Gahan had no intention of responding to Blair’s overtures.

Coffey saw Blair joining the GOP bloc more often than not, leaving four Democrats – and one pivotal seat for the Dan Coffey Party.

That pesky math again: Three Republicans plus one independent equals four Democrats in need of a fifth vote, placing Coffey in the catbird’s seat.

All Coffey needed to do was wait until his swing vote passed from possibility to reality, and this magic moment arrived in spades on November 9, 2016, as the full extent of the Democratic Party’s latest precipitous collapse in Floyd County elections became evident, and Team Gahan began mainlining Bud Light Lime.

With party chairman Adam Dickey fundamentally lacking the cojones to resign, which is what should occur immediately after catastrophes, and with Dickey’s “leadership” quotient at rock bottom, what remained of the ramshackle political entity was inherited by Papa Gahan, by default the highest ranked Democratic official left wobbling, and bunker-bound inheritor of Dickey’s vast nothingness.

In a delightful reprise from the 1960s sitcom Green Acres, this turn of events freed Coffey to play the wheeler-dealer Mr. Haney to Gahan’s hapless Oliver Douglas.

In January, it came time to select city council “leaders,” and Gahan went into his customarily paranoid, reactive Alamo mode. The four remaining council Democrats were handed defective slingshots and instructed to fight to the death, but first, it was necessary to obtain a ringing affirmation of Pat McLaughlin (president) and Greg Phipps (vice-president) as pliable, unquestioning council rubber stamps.

Blair and Coffey were one step ahead of Gahan’s small-pond theatrics, and both duly visited the mayor to collect their available winnings in return for supporting McLaughlin and Phipps against Republican trial balloon candidacies. Order was restored, and the council’s ruling twosome remained tenuously toothsome, as yet in place to field 3:00 a.m. phone calls from the city’s reigning agoraphobic.

Blair’s favors aren’t known, but Coffey’s became manifest at January’s second meeting, when it was made perfectly clear that the price of Coffey’s loving cooperation would be council attorney Matt Lorch’s head.

Council Republicans quickly objected to the impromptu lynch mob, and Bob “I So Desperately Want to Be Mayor” Caesar was conveniently absent, so L’affaire Lorch was tabled. It isn’t clear what will happen next.

However, quite enough already has happened to provide final, damning proof that the Floyd County Democratic Party is utterly without a moral compass.

The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench is the deepest known point in Earth's oceans. In 2010 the United States Center for Coastal & Ocean Mapping measured the depth of the Challenger Deep at 10,994 meters (36,070 feet) below sea level with an estimated vertical accuracy of ± 40 meters.

That’s right; the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench.

It’s where Gahan’s and Dickey’s creation, the Good Ship Democratic Lollipop, currently rests, and taken together, these two narcissistic beached whales in a child’s overmatched wading pool are managing against all imaginable odds to make the buffoonish serial liar Donald Trump look precisely like George Washington.

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A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn needs to be justified.
-- Leon Trotsky

Younger readers may not be familiar with the workings of the organization known as the Comintern.

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International (1919–1943), was an international communist organization that advocated world communism.

At the risk of oversimplifying, once the Soviet Union came into existence following World War I, the international Communist movement finally possessed real-world dirt acreage to serve as refuge and fulcrum.

Moscow was to Communism what the Vatican was (and is) to Catholicism. The Kremlin coordinated and directed the planet’s Communist parties, and generally did not take “no” for an answer when work orders were disseminated.

For almost 30 years after Vladimir Ilyich Lenin died in 1924, Joseph Stalin served as the anointed Communist equivalent of the Pope. Stalin’s decrees required utter loyalty; after all, he was the infallible mastermind, and the goal was the revolution’s ultimate triumph everywhere, not just Russia,

If Stalin zigged, so did a diehard Communist in Argentina. As he zagged, another dyed-in-the-wool Communist in Scotland followed suit. There was almost no room for discussion or dissent, but at least for a while, Communists outside the USSR were able to blithely ignore the brutality of Stalin’s paranoid totalitarianism.

That’s because the doctrinal faith and the propagandistic Kool-Aid were strong, and the utopian Commie chic alluring, seemingly promising a peaceful, prosperous future. After all, it wasn’t about the USSR’s needs, it was about the proletariat as a whole – except it really was about Stalin, and not a lathe operator in Italy, and there came a time when theory and practice were poles apart.

And yet the Comintern still demanded obedience, even after Stalin’s death, and many Communists outside the USSR chose to deny facts rather than face cognitive dissonance. Few seemed able to do what the famous writer George Orwell did: Abandon the Soviet Union, but retain his socialist beliefs.

For Stalin, Marxism was of the Groucho variety: Who are you going to believe, me or your own two eyes? The overarching point for those obedient Stalinists in the West is that once Stalinism was discredited and tossed into the “dustbin of history” (Trotsky’s words again), so were they, those who hadn’t believed their own two eyes. The damage to their credibility was irreparable.

Stalin certainly didn’t invent the rigorous suppression of individual conscience. He wasn’t the first to deny the necessity of justifying the end, or to proclaim the imperative of absolute obedience on the part of expendable foot soldiers, whose only job – whether from a sense of duty or inchoate terror – is to move to their assigned places on the chessboard when directed, come what may.

Just the same, Stalin may have perfected these conditions. They’re not the sort of behaviors we should emulate, are they?

I repeat: Are they?

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If you’ve spent any amount of time in New Gahania, it’s plainly evident that Matt Lorch is everything Dan Coffey isn’t.

Lorch is jovial, reliable and ethical.

Lorch is trustworthy and doesn’t play games of the sort that can hurt people.

Lorch’s position as the latest in a long, successful family line of lawyers has not come without personal challenges, as with his hearing impairment, which if anything impels him to work harder and more efficiently.

What’s more, unlike Coffey, Lorch has been an absolutely dependable member of the Democratic Party, resolutely toiling for the greater good of the organization.

I can’t help thinking back to Coffey’s ill-fated race for county commissioner, which he lost in a landslide. Lorch attended Coffey’s biggest fundraiser, and offered Coffey his full support as a fellow Democrat. He probably donated, too.

Ultimately, this points to the unkindest and most disgusting cut of all – and it has nothing whatever to do with Coffey, a man incapable of trustworthiness. While Matt Lorch is everything Dan Coffey isn’t, and cannot ever be, for Coffey to spit in Lorch’s face comes as no surprise, precisely because as a loathsome, grandstanding, bullying, homophobic sociopath, it’s what Coffey does.

It’s like your dog licking his balls, just because he can.

Yes, but it’s Gahan and Dickey who leeringly are throwing Matt Lorch under the bus, and it’s the steadily shrinking handful of elected Democrats, like Pat McLaughlin and Greg Phipps, who are being asked by Gahan and Dickey to lend their stamp of approval to the shameful sacrifice of Lorch for no other reason than the way it encourages Coffey’s variable tumescence, and rather than objecting as a dignified human being to the sheer insanity of this, they’re the ones who are shrugging and asking timidly, “Yes, dear leaders -- which axle?”

Perhaps the Floyd County Democratic Party recent electoral disintegration has rendered its adherents confused and stunned, like Abe Lincoln’s duck hit on the head, and I’ll try mightily to phrase these questions in simple language, so even the Democratic central committee might understand them.

How are Gahan and Dickey to extinguish the smoldering dumpster fire of a Floyd County Democratic Party if they’re so eager to toss solid, loyal Democrats to the self-centered whims of an anti-democratic Copperhead?

How can Gahan and Dickey even pretend to “lead” the political opposition to the GOP’s escalating hegemony – here, there and everywhere – when they’ve failed to reveal a single coherent resistance tactic since November 9, but found ample time to plunge a rusty dagger in Matt Lorch’s back?

How can these people be trusted, ever again?

If you’re a Democratic Party voter, it matters far less whether Gahan and Dickey can sleep at night; after all, they’re proving themselves to be just as dangerously sociopathic as Coffey himself.

Rather, how can YOU as a Democrat sleep at night if you allow them to get away with it?

Jeff Gahan and Adam Dickey are asking Democrats precisely the same question as Stalin did Communists: Who are you going to believe, us or your own two eyes?

The fact is that your own two eyes are revealing sordid and uncomfortable truths, and I believe you should honor your conscience and refuse to countenance their madness. Gahan’s and Dickey’s ends do not justify their means, and this isn’t the time to mimic the lemming’s logic and follow them into the abyss.

They’re conniving and ethically destitute. They’re utterly lacking a moral compass. If you support Gahan and Dickey in this metaphorical beheading to curry favor with Coffey, then your own moral compass has gone missing, too.

It isn’t too late to rediscover it, and to do the right thing.

Isn't it time to take back your party?

Isn't it time for a change?

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Recent columns:

January 8: ON THE AVENUES: In the 3rd district, that "stepping aside" time finally has arrived.

January 1: ON THE AVENUES: As a new year dawns, I’m existentially yours.

December 29: ON THE AVENUES: Another year older and deeper in debt, so let's doo-doo it all over again.

December 20: ON THE AVENUES: Truth, lies, music, and a trick of the Christmas tale (2018 Remix).