Rucker in LEO: " It is time for Louisville to stop calling itself a compassionate city when Mayor Greg Fischer and the Metro Council continue to act counter to that."

Opposed to Deaf Gahan's socioeconomic cleansing of the housing authority? Please register your point of view by signing the petition at We Are New Albany, and remember that on Monday evening at 6:00 p.m., there'll be a gathering at Hauss Square. We'd love to see you there.

Given that Greg Fischer is Jeff Gahan's numero uno political man crush, we've found it simple to use the two names interchangeably. It saves valuable time, and the pig doesn't get as annoyed.

Homelessness, we cannot care just at Christmas, by Erica Rucker (LEO Weekly)

As the temperature struggled to reach 30 degrees last Friday morning in Louisville, police and the Department of Public Works showed up to a homeless encampment ready to move people out — six officers for three homeless people who moved along without struggle. Protesters were there and also people to help the men move their belongings.

Compassionate Louisville strikes again.

It is time for Louisville to stop calling itself a compassionate city when Mayor Greg Fischer and the Metro Council continue to act counter to that.

Just fucking stop. We don’t believe you.

In recent months, as the city has continued to build giant, new luxury apartment, boutique hotels, stadiums and whatever other money-sucking black hole they can stain the city with, Louisville’s population of homeless individuals are being pushed farther and farther away from the services they desperately need to exist.

But we’re compassionate, y’all ...

Telling it like it is.

Attention is important and as the weather gets colder and the holidays approach, many of us turn our attention to our homeless neighbors; but the problem is a yearlong one. With New Albany’s proposal to destroy affordable housing and Louisville moving people around without a real solution, we must do more.

Back on November 29, Erica revealed that she'd left a message with Gahan at City Hall, and was awaiting a reply. I'm guessing she hasn't gotten one, though Mike Hall may have deleted the e-mail.

Public housing putsch: "New Albany’s government is being reckless and disorganized. Gahan’s power grabs are not much different from those of Governor Selfie in Kentucky."

Bipartisanship, Nawbany-style: Jeff, Adam and Pat sacrifice a fellow Democrat so Danny C. Trump can place a Republican as council attorney.

Earlier: Council Power Poll: Join us as Dan Coffey selects the next city council attorney.

Quoth the Green Mouse: "Consider this."

All 6th district councilman Scot Blair must do to see a Republican installed in the council attorney seat is vote with Dan Coffey and the three "real" sitting Republicans, and voila: Kristi Fox is right there, seated next to Coffey.

Scratching your head, you wonder if this is what the Three Democratic Stooges had in mind during the six weeks they spent chasing Matt Lorch around the council chamber with a rubber knife.

Slapstick Troika: "We have come here to remind Lorch that his future in the party requires being a good soldier and stepping aside, not to praise him."

Lorch: "I'm not dead yet."

ST: "Stop running around the room. This is for Gahan's your own good! Don't you want us to allow you run for judge again?"

It's funny how when Trump does it, local Democrats are outraged, but when they do it ... we're supposed to rise and salute.

"Here’s the good news: All this makes Donald Trump incredibly vulnerable."

The missus and I were chatting over dinner, and I was describing Mayor Gahan's forthcoming crusade to dismantle public housing in New Albany, which he's doing first by starving the NAHA board, then packing it with sycophants like the ubiquitous and unprincipled flatterer Bob Norwood, and using the new comprehensive plan to disseminate artlessly contrived lies about a non-existent citizen mandate to remove the public housing component -- all because poor people don't vote often enough, or they get in the way of all that luxury, and therefore they gravely offend Dear Leader's pasty white suburban propriety (probably back in middle school a girlfriend got stolen away from Gahan by an immigrant, or some such characteristically New Albanian small-pond memory) -- and the two of us simultaneously reached precisely the same conclusion.

You simply can't convince us that Gahan didn't vote for Donald Trump, in the company of a good many other City Hall stalwarts prone to pretending they're Democrats. Consequently, as I post these reminders of ways to resist Trump, surely you understand my real point, don't you?

Trump’s Crony Cabinet May Look Strong, but They Are Scared, by Naomi Klein (The Nation)

From climate justice to the Fight for $15, movements had CEOs on the ropes—and we can still beat them.

Let’s zoom out and recognize what is happening in Washington right now. The people who already possess an absolutely obscene share of the planet’s wealth, and whose share grows greater year after year—at last count, eight men own as much as half the world—are determined to grab still more. The key figures populating Donald Trump’s cabinet are not only ultra-rich—they are individuals who made their money knowingly causing harm to the most vulnerable people on this planet, and to the planet itself. It appears to be some sort of job requirement ...

... Stolen homes. Stolen wages. Stolen cultures and countries. All immoral. All extremely profitable. But the popular backlash was mounting. Which is precisely why this gang of CEOs—and the sectors they come from—were rightly worried that the party coming to end. They were scared ...

... So now they are cutting out the middleman and doing what every top dog does when they want something done right—they are doing it themselves ... So what do we do about it? First, we always remember their weaknesses, even as they exercise raw power. The reason the mask has fallen off, and we now are witnessing undisguised corporate rule is not because these corporations felt all-powerful; it’s because they were panicked.

Lewis & Clark Bridge? It's better than the Stemler & Stemler Bridge, but only marginally.

Stemler (Kerry) & Stemler (Steve) sounded too much like Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sacco & Vanzetti and Bonnie & Clyde, so of course Rep. Stemler opted for the most trite and predictable possibility. It's who he is, and what he does.

Whatever happened to NAC's excellent idea of selling the bridge's naming rights to K-Y Jelly?

Is this the new name for the East End Bridge?, by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

We could be getting closer to the naming of the East End Bridge that will connect eastern Jefferson County to southern Indiana near Utica when it is completed later this year.

Indiana state Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, filed a resolution with the Indiana General Assembly to name the East End Bridge as the Lewis & Clark Bridge.

Heavrin "leaves big shoes to fill," and Morris rushes to shine them.

Roughly what the paper's worth, too.

More of the same: Republicans gather to praise a departing "conservative Democrat" whose congenital obstinacy was to creativity what Bud Light is to pet shampoo.

Meanwhile, forever pining for the sports desk, editor Morris never once detects the irony, never asks a hard question, and never doubts his elders -- and he's regarded as the information conduit to detached, sequestered newspaper management in Jeffersonville, itself yearning for hipster redemption in The Ville.

The first paragraph alone might be the most insipid collection of words I've ever seen in this organ -- and Eddie Laduke wrote there.

Well, let's look at the bright side: Heavrin's out. Maybe the Democrats can find a Democrat next time. Insofar as the Alabama pensioners are concerned, this might just be the time to cry uncle.

Heavrin leaves big shoes to fill; Veteran Floyd County councilman’s last day in office is Dec. 31, by Chris Morris ('Bama Fluffer Digest)

NEW ALBANY — Maybe Ted Heavrin should be involved with the ongoing fiscal cliff negotiations in Washington, D.C. With his no-nonsense style and bipartisan approach, he could probably get things kick-started in our nation’s capital.