Grooms versus Murray for State Senate.

For my scant money, this race is one of two genuinely compelling ones during the current election cycle (the other is Liz Watson and the filthy rich Tennessean for Congress).

In Depompei's preview, Grooms isn't shy about the notion of car-centrism as an inevitable pillar of regional economic development. Conversely, while referencing her opponent's traditionalism in the final paragraph, Murray has nothing to say about alternative, multi-modal transportation options.

As such, both candidates are conceding the daily absenteeism of One Southern Indiana as it pertains to taking for granted a future of single-occupant cars fighting for space on ever-widening roads, and encouraging the ensuing mayhem.

By not talking about cars, we continue to miss the boat. 

Opposites vie for Indiana Senate District 46, by Elizabeth Depompei (Chronicle of Tom May)

 ... To Grooms, the biggest difference between himself and Murray comes down to one word: experience.

"Experience and understanding and knowing the community. No comparison," he said.

He points to his involvement in issues like the opioid crisis (he authored the state's first pill mill bill) and education (increasing tuition support across schools in his district). It also helps, he said, to be a part of the supermajority held by his fellow Republicans in the Senate, "... which allows me to serve the constituents of my district much better, because I can get a bill heard in committee. I can be on the forefront of discussion," he said.

Murray said her experience as a lawyer has prepared her to work across the aisle.

"I'm used to negotiations and I know how negotiations work," she said.

She embraces her inexperience in political office, saying she offers a new perspective.

"He [Grooms] is still embracing policies that have been around for quite some time and in my opinion policies that have gotten us to the place we're at in terms of our statistics and our quality of life and our health and our general wellbeing of our population," she said. "We are failing."

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.

INDOT to make funding available for railroad crossing safety projects. The path to the amphitheater might be one of them.

Recently State Senator Ron Grooms passed along information of importance to downtown (below). First, some background.

Among the impediments (both real and imagined) to greater use of the amphitheater is one that largely has remained outside the city's control: a railroad track carrying passing trains.

Local folk wisdom holds that the levee acts as a sort of forbidding mountain range, dissuading riverfront use. For my money, trains are a far bigger safety concern, as well as a periodic roadblock: they'll queue to the west to leave the 6th Street automotive crossing open, thus blocking the pedestrian path from downtown to the amphitheater, often for a very long time.

And I'm probably not the only person who has witnessed people climbing over the couplers. It's very dangerous, indeed.

I chatted with Grooms yesterday at WANA's Political Social. Previously he had met with Mayor Gahan to discuss the railroad crossing, and then the new INDOT program arose. It provides funds to address railroad crossing safety through competitive match grant applications. I'm told that the city has responded favorably to this, and is dispatching John Rosenbarger for due diligence.

Let's hope something comes of it. If we can't have forward-thinking, multi-modal transport networks including a light rail stop at the amphitheater, and if we must tolerate freight trains, then crossing the tracks safely is job one.

Indiana to provide $125M for local railroad safety projects (The Republic)

CHESTERTON, Ind. — Indiana’s transportation authority will provide at least $125 million in matching grants to local governments that undertake railroad safety projects.

The Department of Transportation program will require local agencies to contribute 20 percent of the money for land acquisition and construction. The state would take care of the rest.

The plan is part of Gov. Eric Holcomb’s agenda to upgrade the state’s infrastructure. Holcomb signed a bill last year authorizing funding for the program, which was part of an infrastructure improvement plan approved by the Legislature that hiked taxes and fees.

Local communities may submit proposals from May until the end of August. INDOT is expected to hold several meetings this month to answer questions from local officials.

Grant winners will be announced starting in late summer.

Grooms, Murray join Clere in addressing public housing concerns during NAHA candidate forum.

We Are New Albany was well represented at last evening's candidate forum at the New Albany Housing Authority's gym. The advocacy organization's Aaron Fairbanks has given permission for us to reprint his report.

---

This is why our political voice matters:

"I oppose any plan that vacates anyone from public housing that they are now living in. We will at the state level make that not happen. You will not be evacuated unless we have another plan that puts you in a position where you want to be."
-- 46th District State Senator Ron Grooms (R)

(This comes after Candi and myself blasted Grooms at a town hall in New Albany).

"I'd like to start tonight by addressing an issue that is critically important, which is affordable housing... I don't want to see any families put on the street making it even harder for them to get back on their feet. So it's important that we make sure we have an adequate supply of affordable housing that meets at least minimal standards."
-- 46th District State Senate candidate Anna Murray (D)

Anna had been in contact to notify me of her preliminary comments before she releases a pending statement on the local housing issue. She's also agreed to follow up by getting some questions answered regarding the city's plan:

• to ensure that demolition doesn't forcibly displace NAHA residents from New Albany or leave them at risk of homelessness.
• to ensure that demolition does not reduce NAHA's ability to meet future housing needs for those on waiting lists and housing assistance applicants.
• to ensure that the City and NAHA work to meet the dire need for rental housing and affordable housing options, while knowingly facing an affordable housing shortage.

"We are at the New Albany Housing Authority, so I'm going to briefly mention housing issues. First of all, I'm grateful to be endorsed by We Are New Albany. I'm honored to have their endorsement ... It's been a privilege ... learning more about the situation here at the [New Albany] Housing Authority, which unfortunately hangs as a dark cloud over many of the folks in this room. And I will continue to oppose any plan for the [New Albany] Housing Authority that could displace current residents without stable, long-term alternatives."
-- 72nd District State Representative candidate Ed Clere (R)

Thank you, Ed Clere, for standing with this group since day one. The use of your platform to stand by NAHA residents and We Are New Albany has absolutely helped to give public housing residents a voice when no one would listen and no one would speak on such an important discussion as affordable housing.

Unfortunately, our work is not done yet. I will not rest until the "dark cloud" is gone, and no one is in fear of being forced from their homes and their community. It's most unfortunate that candidates that I have met and have respected avoided talking about housing at the New Albany Housing Authority (You have got to be kidding me?).

I'm appalled by the silence of people who should be representing you and me.

I can tell you now that many of them are calling our "bluff." They have calculated that the NAHA residents affected by this plan won't vote, and they have decided that even so much as entertaining a conversation with us is unnecessary because of this lack of participation. So many other candidates attended the forum tonight (with requests for public statements I might add), yet they avoided our concerns that we have been making public for several months.

We absolutely need help to leverage these conversations, and there's no better way to do that than to get involved and vote!

Anna Murray announces for State Senate as Adam Dickey reminds us to remain suspicious of anything with his fingerprints on it.

The Random Inanity Generator strikes again.

There is no byline on this News and Tribune dispatch, just a staff photo credit.

Written by human or bot? Or Adam Dickey? Can someone from the newspaper clarify, please?

However, I'm delighted that shill-in-chief Dickey chose the occasion of this announcement to state the case against DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party favorite Jeff Gahan in 2019.

I've helped him with the rewrite. Trust me; his writing needs help.

"Ron Jeff is the incumbent and it will be a challenge," he said. "But all you have to do is look at the (governing) record of Ron Grooms Jeff Gahan. I don't think many folks feel like they are better off today than they were when Ron Grooms Jeff Gahan took office two terms ago. Do they want the same thing or do they want to move forward?"

Have you ever noticed how Adam is unable to speak publicly with any degree of genuineness?

Invariably he sounds like a programmed political robot -- like a random platitude generator.

Anyway, now the Murray announcement.

Her policy positions are hopeful, and I'd like to be able to believe the best, though she's surrounded by the usual underachieving local Democratic suspects, and she emphasizes a yoga event at Gahan's megabuck Silver Street Park TIF Taj Mahal, which symbolizes everything that's amiss with the usual underachieving local Democratic suspects.

Sigh. The circle remains unbroken, to our continuing detriment.

Jeffersonville attorney announces run for Indiana Senate

Republican Sen. Ron Grooms the incumbent

JEFFERSONVILLE — After the 2016 election, Anna Murray decided to stop talking, and to do something about her political frustration. And Thursday afternoon, she made it official.

Murray, a Jeffersonville-based attorney who operates Anna K. Murray & Associates P.C., announced her plans to run for the Democratic nomination for Indiana Senate District 46, the seat currently held by Republican Ron Grooms. The district includes New Albany, Jeffersonville, Clarksville, Georgetown and Greenville.

Spare us: Both Grooms and Gahan, putting themselves and corporate interests ahead of Hoosier Families.

There assuredly are a few local Democrats who can write, but unfortunately, they're not writing on the DemoDisneyDixiecratic Party's website or social media pages.

Rather, we get by-the-numbers political template drivel, which might have been composed by a DNC Bot rather than a human being, such is the sad absence of a pulse.

Still, let's take a look at two sentences, beginning with the header.

Grooms out of touch as he seeks third term

Fair enough. It's true that Ron Grooms' record is dismal. He's never met an oligarch he wouldn't fluff, or a theocrat he'd fail to enable. Local, state and national chambers of commerce undoubtedly will see to it that Grooms never pays, ever again, for his annual suite in Branson.

It's the subheading that matters.

Record reflects putting himself and corporate interests ahead of Hoosier Families

Remember this sentence should Jeff Gahan reverse course and decide to challenge Grooms.

Also remember it if Gahan chooses to run for a third term as mayor.

Has any local politician in recent decades been more aptly summarized by party scribe Dickey's "putting himself ahead" than Gahan? Grooms may be a corporate shill, but so is Gahan, and at least Grooms doesn't have his portrait in every barber shop.

The chairman's batting below the Mendoza line. Doesn't this mean it's time to be called up to the big leagues as shoeshine contractor for Tom Perez?

So Grooms is running again. Will Jeff Gahan "primary" Anna Murray?

I don't think Gahan will run for the District 46 seat, lest he suffer an electoral humiliation better reserved for 2019, and his botched bid to become Mayor for Life.

As for Jeffersonville resident and attorney Anna Murray's candidacy, I missed the announcement, but even Wikipedia says she's running.

State Senate

(Ron) Grooms was elected in 2010, very narrowly defeating popular Floyd County Commissioner Chuck Freiburger to take the seat held by retiring Democrat Connie Sipes. In 2014, Grooms successfully ran for reelection, besting Freiberger again. Grooms will be up for reelection again in 2018. Though he has not announced, he would be facing Democratic challenger Jeffersonville attorney Anna Murray should he choose to run.

Well, now he's formally announced, so here is Murray's Fb site:

Anna Murray for Indiana State Senate

Curiously for someone who has been posting since January, she has little to say in terms of an introduction and platform, though judging from her posts, she's pleasingly left-oriented.

Murray's candidacy is hopeful, even if Adam Dickey will attach himself to her like a starving leech and drain the lifeblood of principles from her campaign.

Anna should resist being transformed into a female Ted Heavrin.

Chuck Freiberger went drab Clintonista centrist against Grooms twice, and lost both times. Murray might do no better in our conservative paradise, but at least she'd be riding Dan Canon's potential coattails rather than mimicking the customary NEA-approved candidate -- not that I have a beef with the NEA, it's just that surely there are local Democratic candidates who aren't teachers?

Right, I know; now they're lawyers. Okay. We have to begin somewhere.

Conversely, with a Democrat finally running who actually appears to be democratic, NOW will be the time Gahan decides to "primary" her. If so, the primary debate will be vastly entertaining.

That is, if the agoraphobic Gahan bothers showing up.

Here's another one we already reported: Grooms will run again in 2018, because the US Chamber of Commerce needs a reliable voice.

Yawn.

The only real question is which Clark County Democrat will be chosen to act as sacrificial lamb. Heaven knows, there are few (if any) credible hopefuls in Floyd County.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Tea leaves say Grooms will run again in 2018, dooming NA to a third Gahan mayoral bid in 2019.

It has been suggested that the Green Mouse should receive a pay raise. Allow me to suggest that is isn't possible to "raise" what doesn't exist.

Meanwhile, it's another dreary press release rehash from the disintegrating chain newspaper. As such, here's the whole kit and kaboodle.

Was the original release this bad, or is it just the rewrite?

Grooms to seek re-election to Indiana Senate

Formal announcement to be held at Big Four Station

JEFFERSONVILLE — State Sen. Ron Grooms has announced his intention to run for re-election in Indiana Senate District 46. A formal announcement is expected at 10 a.m. June 23 at Big Four Station in front of the Walking Bridge in Jeffersonville.

Since Grooms was elected in 2010, the State of Indiana has made huge strides in employment, education support, and combating opioid use, according to a news release issued by the Grooms campaign. In fact, since Grooms' election the unemployment rate has decreased to 3.9 percent as of March 2017 from 10.7 percent in January 2010. More Hoosiers are working than ever before

It is also important that we continue to support increases in support for K-12 education in Indiana, like Sen. Grooms has over the past eight years, the release stated.

The public is welcome to attend Sen. Grooms’ formal re-election announcement, where he will be giving some remarks to supporters, friends and family.

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Tea leaves say Grooms will run again in 2018, dooming NA to a third Gahan mayoral bid in 2019.

Never forget.

The Green Mouse has learned that regional oligarchs are breathing easier. Barring the unexpected, Indiana State Senator Ron "RFRA and Toll Highways" Grooms -- who never met a monied interest he didn't fervently embrace -- will seek a third term in 2018.

If true, Grooms' decision to extend a political career than began way back in 1984 effectively rules out a challenge by Mayor Jeff "Dear Leader" Gahan, who would have sought a promotion to state office only if the seat opened.

For all his self-eroticization by sycophantic press clipping, Gahan knows he cannot beat Grooms head to head. Reality is reality, even when one's head has swelled to the size of Kerry Stemler's empathy gap.

So, now what?

Gahan's massive campaign finance war chest will be withheld until 2019, and his now inevitable bid for a third term as mayor. Ambitious bootlickers like Bob Caesar simply must swallow their medicine and continue coddling the mayor's lunch pail.

In 2018, Adam Dickey can resolutely bound from the trench of delusions and walk across no man's land toward incumbent Ed Clere's electoral machine gun nest, all the while spouting gibberish from the DNC's Clintonesque text.

And local Democrats in Floyd and Clark counties must find a candidate to take one for the team in opposition to Grooms.

Hmm. David "Dugout" Duggins could do that, couldn't he?

After all, he can run for State Senate without pretending to care enough about Floyd County to move here -- and his handlers are dressing him so very nicely here lately.

The Green Mouse drinks a lot, but he never misses those sartorial hints.

UPDATED Clerely, schools should be included in redevelopment commission decisions.

(6:00 p.m.: See update below)

It took a few days to get back to this one.

Southern Indiana lawmakers to file toll-related bills in 2017 session ... General Assembly's 2017 session begins Tuesday, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

Let's be clear: Tender mercies for the toll-afflicted never came up even once for Ron Grooms when the tolling oligarchs first came calling, and he climbed into bed with them.

I suppose we must give Ron partial credit for belatedly grasping the simple fact that tolling disproportionately taxes the working poor, even if he steadfastly ignored all attempts to convince him of this at the time.

But wait -- buried at the bottom amid "other bills to be filed by local lawmakers" is something of genuine interest.

• REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSIONS — Gives local school corporations one voting appointment to municipal redevelopment commissions by taking one appointment from mayor's administration, with the intention to better include schools in redevelopment decisions (Clere)

Well, look at that. If Jeff Gahan stands to lose an appointment to the body that works most diligently to keep his campaign finance beaks wet, we might yet be entertained by a good, old-fashioned self-immolation -- though I still think New Albany City FC is funnier.

Thanks to Elizabeth Beilman for posting this update from the Indiana General Assembly page. As you can see, the legislation also provides unfilled vacancies on the board of municipal housing authorities.

DIGEST

Appointments to local boards and commissions. Provides that after June 30, 2017, one of the commissioners appointed to a redevelopment commission must be a member of the governing body of a school corporation that includes all or part of the territory served by the redevelopment commission. Provides for the appointment to be made by the appointing governing body as determined in the statute. Removes language providing for the appointment of nonvoting advisers to redevelopment commissions from the governing bodies of school corporations. Provides that nonvoting advisers serve until a member of the governing body of a school corporation is appointed to the redevelopment commission. Provides that if the executive or fiscal body of a municipality does not fill a vacancy in the municipal housing authority before the 61st day after the vacancy occurs, the remaining members of the housing authority shall fill the vacancy. Provides that the remaining members are authorized to fill the vacancy even if the number of remaining members is not sufficient for a quorum. Provides that an individual who is acting as a member of a housing authority 60 days after the expiration of the individual's term as a member of the housing authority may continue to act as a member for purposes of filling the vacancy. (Provides for expiration of this provision.)

ASK THE BORED: They have a plan to prevent toll dodging, and have scheduled it for completion one year after tolling begins. Yay!

I haven't attended a Board of Public Works and Safety meeting since before the unpleasantness of November 8, when the local political party branch responsible for appointments, patronage and a gently pervasive wetting of beaks -- in fact, for these very prized seats on BOW -- was handed a vicious, epic bloodbath of a beat-down.

Consequently, the Green Mouse reports newfound popularity for this fashionable statement of beans, franks and whiplash. You can bet that if HWC Engineering offered orthopedic body gadgets, the contract already would have been signed, sealed and sluiced.

By the way, kindly note that Team Gahan's campaign finance lube jobs with HWC are so comforting that the engineering firm is opening a branch office right across the street from City Hall. Now, THAT's service with a smile -- and an invoice.

Two weeks ago, and by its own publicly stated reckoning, BOW struck a heroic faux blow for presumed preparedness in the face of the traffic diversions and dodging sure to follow the implementation of bridge tolls.

In short, a tragically butchered two-way street plan edited to the very edge of insensibility (but campaign finance ready!) was formally approved, and the back-slapping commenced.

UPDATE: Two-ways streets in downtown New Albany are a go; Switch to be in place by end of next year, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

 ... "It's a shame it couldn't be done this year, but jumping through all the hoops with federal dollars and all — it's worth the wait," Warren Nash, board of works president, said.

The Federal Highway Administration will fund about $2 million of the project, leaving the city to pay $400,000.

My, my. What's even more shameful than a political time-server's breathtaking insincerity is the project's price tag of almost $3 million, for what amounts to an omnibus paving project with one (!) bicycle lane and the same old cluelessness from suburban-think city officials, who never have understood what Jeff Speck was saying, not once, and never will.

But the overarching point is summarized by this meme, encapsulating a question that has failed to occur to several dozen local newspaper reporters.

Verily, if the Downtown Grid Modernization Project (DGMP -- nice acronym, and the word for "poop" in Mongolian) is intended as a means of taming toll dodgers, and if the curative project won't be finished until a year after tolling begins, then WHAT'S THE PLAN FOR THE INTERVENING 12 MONTHS?

In order to be answered, the question must be asked, and you know the reaction if NAC tries to ask it.

What we'd surely get would be Team Gahan's tried-and-true boilerplate:

"You want answers? (Yawn) I'll check the Gahan for Next account, and if your name's not there, I'm sure the Indiana Public Access counselor has room on his schedule."

Two-way streets and one-way mentalities. What could possibly go wrong?

Before I drift into unconsciousness, here's a link where you can learn more about the advent of Kerry Stemler's auto-erotic tolling boondoggle, with an added bonus of an economic development study that didn't include independent local businesses, as well as typically incoherent testimony from State Senator Ron Grooms, who has been trying for five years to explain why he never grasped the impact of tolling during the time when he performed yeoman's service as One Southern Indiana lapdog.

But damn, those royalty checks come in handy when it's time to buy groceries, don't they, Ron?

Drivers brace for start of bridge tolls, by Madeleine Winer (Courier-Journal)

With the arrival of the holiday season comes colder weather, family gatherings and this year, for Kentuckiana, bridge tolls.

For the thousands of drivers who cross the Ohio River daily, that also means toll dodging or buying a transponder and setting up an account with RiverLink, the electronic tolling system that could cost them more than $40 a month.

ON THE AVENUES: His nose knows tolls and polls (2010).

ON THE AVENUES: His nose knows tolls and polls (2010).

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Let's turn back that forever unforgiving stuck-in-the-70s New Albany alarm clock to October 21, 2010, and the following essay from the time of my employment (yes, they actually paid a few farthings) as pre-merger New Albany Tribune columnist. It has never appeared here previously.

Surveying the 2010 bridge tolling contestants, we see that Dalby, Price, Garry, Daniels and Grooms have long since swapped jobs, the latter now afflicting us with Chamber of Commerce envy in his second term as state senator, but either Chuck Freiberger or Jeff Gahan is going to take care of this in 2018 -- right?

Kerry Stemler, prime architect of the approaching bridge toll regime, remains in place as a well-groomed, obsequious and venerated regional figure of the country club set. His toll fetish is about to come to glorious fruition, but before this happens there'll be another potentially momentous event.

As readers already know, I'm a member of the current Leadership Southern Indiana class, and on the 19th is Economy & Commercial Enterprise Day. In the morning, we'll be touring the Port of Indiana, and one of our guides will be none other than Stemler, the gray eminence himself.

I'm giddy. Positively giddy. Now, back to the future, yet again.

---

His nose knows tolls and polls.

October 21, 2010

Doublethink: A simultaneous belief in two contradictory ideas (Orwell).
-- Merriam Webster Dictionary

One Southern Indiana’s well-tailored chairman, Michael Dalby, stood before New Albany’s city council, a fractious and generally dysfunctional entity, one nonetheless transformed for the occasion into a veritable firing line of incisive questioning.

Huh? Evidently I’d missed a turn near Albuquerque.

At stake was payment to 1Si for vague economic development “services” previously rendered, for which Dalby advanced colorfully apocryphal claims, none accompanied by the slightest documentation, to the overall effect that without 1Si, New Albanians would be living in yurts on the Mongolian steppe, subsisting on fermented mare’s milk and, for entertainment, watching beetles copulate.

Eventually Steve Price zeroed in, embracing the campaign issue that seemingly came from nowhere this summer, but really didn’t, and asked (I’m paraphrasing): How can the current council financially support an organization that advocates tolling existing bridges to pay for the colossal Ohio River Bridges Project?

A well-rehearsed Dalby did not hesitate.

"We are not in favor of tolls. Nobody is in favor of tolls. That's not something we want to see happen."

A tremor ominously rumbled in all directions, and half a world away, a game of yak polo halted abruptly as the riders reached for their furiously stuttering BS Meters.

Back here in New Albany, after a hyper-kinetic bout of Duck Duck Goose, our council members approved a reduced stipend for 1Si and sent Dalby back to his executive suite. If I were Kay Garry, I’d stop payment on the check.

---

I say this because Dalby’s miraculous election eve conversion to tender, merciful concern for the pocketbooks of Southern Indiana plebeians doesn’t just strain one’s credulity.

It splits, breaks, smashes, mangles, incinerates, lacerates and spits in the very eye of credulity. Let’s avoid that other nasty “L” word, and say merely that Liberties with the truth are being taken. As such, kindly permit me to provide the sort of forensic evidence generally lacking when 1Si’s dampened palm comes at you, outstretched.

Here’s Michael Dalby in a press release that was quoted on April 15, 2010, in “The Ville Voice” on-line blog. His memo extols the virtues of the ORBP, and devotes hundreds of words to buffing and polishing the act of tolling, just in case a stray, ordinary soul in Kentuckiana might somehow notice that tolls were being considered as a financing option.

“We support the process that has been put in place by both Kentucky and Indiana – the formation of the Bi-State Authority – and giving them the ability to review any and all funding options … If viable funding options emerge that don’t include tolling, we fully support that approach. Nobody wants to pay tolls. However, if including high-speed electronic tolling is the only way to fund the project and get it built in a timely manner, then we will accept a funding solution that includes tolling.”

It is doublethink, writ large. Dalby now asks us to believe simultaneously in two contradictory ideas: That 1Si is “not in favor” of tolls and also “supports the process” of the unelected Bi-State Authority, which has the unimpeded power to levy tolls on existing bridges to finance the monstrosity of the ORBP.

And from whom does this unimpeded authority’s unelected power derive? From Indiana’s and Kentucky’s elected officials, foremost among them Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who clearly indicated his bridges project position in a video interview with the Courier-Journal (August 25, 2010):

“I don’t think anybody’s got even a wildly unrealistic plan that doesn't involve tolls."

To enforce discipline as Bi-State Authority capo to the governor’s folksy star turn as Hoosier Godfather, Daniels previously anointed local businessman, 1Si shadow government stalwart and Reclaim Our Culture Kentuckiana theocratic apologist Kerry Stemler.

While customarily operating on the hazy periphery preferred by traditional regional power elites, Stemler appears in daylight every now and then to utter fearsome non-negotiable bromides, as in his most recent public pronouncement on tolling in a Tribune article by Braden Lammers on October 9, 2010:

“I’ve studied this long enough. Tolling, for this to get built, will be a part of the project.”

No wonder the equestrian athletes in Arvaikheer tugged at their mustaches as the word “tilt” lit up their bovine manure detection devices.

Daniels says, “Tolls.”

Stemler says, “Tolls.”

The Bi-State Authority appointed by politicos to make tolling decisions without that minor, nagging democratic principle of polling, say, “Tolls.”

1Si’s Dalby says, “No tolls” and “Tolls,” simultaneously, and expects us to buy it. Doddering old Geppetto, among others, knows exactly what’s about to happen. But what about the Jeffersonville councilman, Ron “Profiles in Abstention” Grooms?

---

Grooms, also a candidate for District 46 Indiana Senate, gave us a valuable pre-election glimpse of his legislative prowess last Monday.

On colleague Keith Fetz’s compromise resolution, revised to specify the council’s opposition to tolls on existing bridges, as opposed to future tolls on freshly built ORBP bridges, Grooms heroically … abstained. The resolution passed.

On a motion requesting that the Jeffersonville city council attorney convey to One Southern Indiana the council’s concern with 1Si's partisan endorsements, and to request clarification of such political skullduggery in light of the council's annual $30,000 support level, Grooms courageously ... abstained once more, and the motion also passed.

Perhaps Grooms discerned a troubling conflict of interest in questioning the same ham-fisted political action committee that endorsed him. Fortunately for voters, divestment from 1Si and its hand-picked slate of candidates is a simple, elegant solution to doublethink in all its banality.

Isn’t there an election soon?

---

September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART THREE: Survey says … Irv’s street grid agitprop won’t be putting Diogenes out of work any time soon.

September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART TWO: Inkem binkem notamus rex, protect us all from the city (still) with the hex (2014).

September 29: ON THE AVENUES 3-PK, PART ONE: Chocolate covered frozen banana republic, or "understanding" Harvest Homecoming, our peculiar institution (2014).

September 22: ON THE AVENUES: On two-way streets, a modest proposal for the consideration of my disoriented one-way counterpart.

He's absolutely right. It should be named the Eliza Harris Bridge.

In the overall scheme of things, we live in a region that values dull uniformity, and isn't afraid to wield it like a deadly weapon. We're positively evangelical about rote mediocrity.

This explains why certain of our legislators have again chosen to walk the rutted path of deadening predictability and advocate naming the new east end bridge for Lewis and Clark. The state recently electing Matt Bevin as governor chose Abraham Lincoln as the name for the downtown bridge, pointing to another facet of life hereabouts, namely an immunity to irony.

But it gets even worse. With living white males having narrowed the naming competition to dead white males, Indiana's fascist governor is said to prefer Ronald Reagan. I'd rather cut out the middle (dead white) man and cast Steve Stemler and Ron Grooms in a remake of Bedtime for Bonzo, to be filmed at One Southern Indiana.

Keep a pail nearby as you read the recurring, sad litany.

Lewis and Clark bridge naming resolution dies in Senate committee, by Elizabeth Beilman (Clark County Jail TV Guide)

Public safety concern hold-up in naming process

INDIANAPOLIS — The official name of the east-end bridge is still uncertain, since a resolution to name it after explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark died in Senate committee.

My friend LP has sensibly suggested an alternative. He proposes we name the east end bridge the Eliza Harris Bridge, so as to "celebrate the literal freedom crossing that the Kentucky/Indiana border and Ohio River represents."

Eliza Harris: Famous Escaped Slave

Eliza Harris was the name informally given to a slave sheltered by Levi Coffin after a precarious escape on treacherous ice floes with her baby. The event was retold to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was inspired by the brave slave and based her character, Eliza Harris, upon the slave in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Levi Coffin and his wife thereafter referred to the unknown slave as Eliza Harris.

Or, LP adds, perhaps the Harris-Coffin Bridge; after all, while white and male, the abolitionist Coffin afforded shelter to the escaped slave. It's real history that genuinely matters, and Eliza Harris has the tremendous advantage of NOT being yet another dead white male.

I replied to LP that given the limitations of our creativity-challenged area "leadership" cadre, it's almost impossible to even imagine pitching this idea to Grooms or Stemler. Just try. LP did, and produced this imagined dialogue about the Harris-Coffin Bridge.

Grooms: Coffin was an abortionist? Why would we celebrate that?!?
LP: No, an ABOLITIONIST.
Stemler: Oh, yeah. A tree doctor.

[I leave room]

For once ... just for once ... could we think outside the claustrophobic confines of our cultural box?

Gather the plastic bags, mama -- Ron Grooms is doing that pro-life thang.

Ron Grooms is so busy speaking out on pro-life legislation that he hasn't bothered reading a newspaper.

2 Abortion Foes Behind Planned Parenthood Videos Are Indicted, by Manny Fernandez (NYT)

Abortion opponents claimed that the videos, which were released starting in July, revealed that Planned Parenthood was engaged in the illegal sale of body parts — a charge that the organization has denied and that has not been supported in numerous congressional and state investigations triggered by the release of the videos.

Can't he just go back to suppressing local environmental initiatives and seeing to it that One Southern Indiana's oligarchs get their full complement of subsidies, tax breaks and brothel gift cards?

Ron Grooms is speaking out on pro-life legislation.

Like millions of Americans, I was appalled last year to watch videos showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing how the organs of aborted children were preserved and sold to medical researchers.

More recently, a medical waste facility in Indianapolis was fined $11,250 for receiving aborted fetuses from a Missouri Planned Parenthood clinic.

This session, legislation is being considered to address this issue. It would put a stop to the trafficking of aborted baby remains in Indiana, ensuring that such remains are treated with dignity and respect.

House Bill 1337 would make it a Level 5 felony for an individual to acquire, receive, sell or transfer fetal tissue. It would also prohibit abortions based solely on race, color, national origin, ancestry, sex or a non-lethal disability. An abortion performed solely on the basis of these factors suggests that certain lives have less value than others, or that life is not worth living for certain categories of people. This is not consistent with Hoosier values.

HB 1337 was approved in a Senate committee on Wednesday and is expected to be considered by the full Senate next week.

Grooms musters meaningless rearguard legislative feint, says he tried really hard to undo the bridge tolling damage he supported all along.

It's all about appearances, now and always.

Senator Grooms was a ceaseless, persistent and utterly tireless supporter of the Ohio River Bridges Project, ignoring all questions and testimony about the deleterious effects of tolling on Southern Indiana residents and businesses, right up until the detestable boondoggle was signed, sealed and artfully applied to his constituents via Kerry Stemler's preferred political method (which occurred to him when he underwent a colonoscopy with failed anesthetic), and then -- only then -- did Silent Ron, who in 2015 just as enthusiastically vamped as one of the GOP's homespun Heroes of RFRA, finally conclude that some toll "relief" posturing was necessary.

In 2012:

Groggily, belatedly ... but finally, Senator Grooms begins to fathom the toll of bridge tolling.

... “After careful review of the recently released economic impact study on the Ohio River Bridges Project, I am still primarily concerned with the burden to Indiana taxpayers and worry that the proposed tolls will put undue financial strain on the people the project is designed to help,” said Indiana Sen. Ron Grooms, R-Jeffersonville, in a statement released last week. “It is important to look at every option available to lessen the financial burden southeast Indiana residents will face, either with some type of individual tax credit or one for employers who are willing to pay employee tolls.”

And then in 2014:

Today's truthful moment: "Bridge tolls will devastate Indiana businesses, owner says."

... And then there's Ron Grooms, who said and did nothing until nothing could be done or said, and only at a dog-won't-hunt point far beyond tactical usefulness finally opened his eyes to the issues and heroically spoke out to mostly empty rooms. Posterity won't be kind. Meanwhile, the rest of us search for survival strategies.

Now, in 2016, Grooms does his homework by cribbing a Wikipedia article.

How stupid does he think we are?

Oops. Let's be more accurate.

How stupid are we?

Lawmaker: Bills seeking tax relief for Hoosiers using Ohio River toll bridges dead for 2016, by Marcus Green (WDRB)

... Federal data indicates that Southern Indiana residents who travel to jobs and school in Louisville will bear most of the toll burden. About three times as many Clark County residents commute to Louisville for work than do people who head in the opposite direction, according to Census estimates released last year.

In State of the State, Mike Pence congratulates Ron Grooms for servile, ingratiating, sycophantic, fawning, unctuous, oily, groveling, subservient, submissive and slavish devotion to Mike Pence.

Okay, so the real story had nothing to do with this.

On a side note, have you ever noticed that even as the newspaper denies its Clark County Centrism, the weather always originates in Jeffersonville?

Good local travel piece: "A river beckons in Southern Indiana."

It's a solid article with local shout-outs.

I suggest that State Senator Ron Grooms focus on the preface, in which it is explained that his adored RFRA makes it necessary for the rest of us to wage constant damage control.

Thanks again, Ron. By the way, can you please see fit to do nothing, if doing something has ramifications like these?

A river beckons in Southern Indiana, by Joseph S. Pete (The Times of Northwest Indiana)

The Religious Freedom Restoration Act ignited a firestorm and incited many, including prominent Star Trek actor George Takei, to call for boycotts of Indiana. The furor has died down, but the bad press could have biased many against trips to Indiana in unconscious ways for years to come. The Hoosier state, however, offers plenty to see and do. The bimonthly Travel Indiana series highlights what's worth exploring around the state.

Louisville's a pretty cool city to visit.

The city boasts the "Keep Louisville Weird" campaign to keep unique merchants flourishing, chic dining options, a lively indie rock scene that's produced My Morning Jacket and Will Oldham, the Forecastle Music Festival, the Humana Festival of New American Plays, the Louisville Slugger Museum, all the bourbon you could ever handle, the bohemian Highlands neighborhood that's like a college village on steroids, and of course the "decadent and depraved" Kentucky Derby.

Like Chicago and Cincinnati, the Louisville metro spills over into Indiana. And the Indiana suburbs north of the Ohio River are also worth visiting in their own right.

The area is known as Southern Indiana, which is marketed as the Sunny Side of Louisville and symbolized by the iconic Colgate Clock. Because of the Ohio River, it was the first area in Indiana to be settled, and New Albany was actually Indiana's most populous city in 1850. It can feel like the South and is an area rife with natural beauty that’s not as flat and uniform as much of the rest of the state. Here's a look at some potential stops ...

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

ON THE AVENUES SPECIAL EDITION: When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Back on July 20, I attended a pep rally for public officials.

The topic was the Indiana Regional Cities Initiative (RCI), which first came to my attention in 2014 when both Jeff Gahan and Ed Clere attended a sparse merchant mixer meeting to tout the idea.

To me, RCI is just another big-ticket bauble to distract the attention of folks who should be concerned about why we can't fill potholes, reconvert streets to two-way traffic, or recognize the threat posed to us all by income inequality of the sort that RCI's backers accept as the default rules of the game. But I don't, and had the best of intentions to write about my experience before today.

Sorry about that. It didn't happen. RCI is a multi-faceted boondoggle, the usual suspects are swarming, and I've been busy with other things. In the absence of coherence, I'll go scattershot and try to provide a broad outline peppered with venom.

On Monday night, the Clark County Council approved an ordinance authorizing the Regional Development Authority (RDA), this being the necessary first step for participating governmental bodies. Opponents of RCI reckon that the Floyd County Council will follow suit on Tuesday.

Learn about the case against RCI here, and in this video by Martina Webster. There are valid concerns about eminent domain, crony capitalism, corporate welfare and the largely non-existent sources of local matching funds, among others.

Fortunately, none of this means that RCI is a done deal -- at least yet.

The state will choose two winning contestants from those regions submitting proposals, with the losers queuing to try again next time, so it's rather like uncertainty of buying a lottery ticket combined with the Nigerian bank scam e-mail: Even if you win, you have to pay to get the money (20% local match, and 60% from unnamed sources).

Lagos ... meet Galena.

---

Purportedly, RCI is the solution to the answer to a question: What's Indiana's biggest issue pertaining to economic development, at least according to how the state's Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Corporation define economic "development"?

They believe it is Indiana's population stagnation, "largely attributed to its shortfall in retaining and attracting talent." Read about it here ... and here.

This excerpt is from Elizabeth Beilman's coverage.

 ... The Regional Cities Initiative, or RCI, is a state program intended to support “quality of place” projects through regional collaboration.

The state has allocated $84 million to be split among two regions and used for redevelopment projects that would transform those regions into more desirable places to live ...

 ... The General Assembly passed RCI legislation in May, establishing the funds and outlining the criteria for the IEDC to consider when choosing which regions to award funds to.

State Rep. Ed Clere, R-New Albany, who was House co-sponsor of the legislation, said the RCI was a “no brainer.”

“I think what it boils down to is this has the potential to be a transformative opportunity for Southern Indiana ...” Clere said.

Multiple regions across the state are in the process of submitting their comprehensive project plans, due Aug. 31.

One Southern Indiana has taken the lead in producing this plan through a new initiative called “Our Southern Indiana.” The plan includes developments across Clark, Floyd, Washington, Scott and Harrison counties as the Southern Indiana region.

Wendy Dant Chesser, 1si president and CEO, presented the five key areas that the projects cover — waterfront development, regional greenway system, workforce development, River Ridge Commerce Center economic engine and regional water resources ...

 ... In order to be chosen by the IEDC for RCI funds, the five counties’ fiscal bodies that form the region here must approve the formation of a Regional Development Authority, or RDA. Five non-elected or nongovernmental representatives will be chosen and approved by the each county commission.

If chosen, the Southern Indiana RDA would execute the plan that Our Southern Indiana has devised with the input of local officials and residents through various public forums.

A local ordinance and by-laws — which Our Southern Indiana has preliminarily drafted — would outline specific restrictions or obligations tailored to this region’s needs.

The IEDC guidelines suggest the projects are funded through 20 percent RCI funds, 20 percent local public funds and 60 percent private funds.

I'm tired and sober, so let's put it this way.

River Ridge accounts for roughly 60% of the "wish" funding presented as part of the RCI proposal by One Southern Indiana's front committee.

River Ridge was crony capitalism's chosen regional winner decades ago.

The rest of us are intended as ancillary housing habitations for River Ridge.

There's a toll bridge being built straight to River Ridge.

Soon the city of Jeffersonville will be renamed Amazonapolis, and yet, with $434 million being sought, $252 million is slated to go to River Ridge ... and a paltry $200,000 to a study of the state of the region's water resources.

That's an afterthought, a puddle of spittle, and probably less than Dan Coffey has cleared from demolition kickbacks just this year.

And: Not a penny is proposed for public transit, arguably the finest regional use of such funding if one accepts the primacy of River Ridge ... which I don't wish to do at all.

---

On the day of the pep rally, Ron Grooms made a typically leaden speech, which of course was widely praised by the usual economic development sycophants in clucking attendance, even though it sounded entirely like the dubbed English language version of the commissars praising falsified crop yields from atop Lenin's Mausoleum during May Day parades of old Moscow times.

Grooms recited the banal boilerplate, stressing how important it is for us to make Indiana a great place to live, to attract talent, and keep our best and brightest right here in Hoosierland.

I've been livid ever since.

What Ron Grooms was, and remains, is an outspoken, unrepentant and Kool-Aid swilling proponent of Indiana's catastrophic Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), precisely the sort of bigoted fundamentalist gibberish actively assisting in the dispersal of Indiana's population, and the prevention of investment in the state, but recognition of facts like these lie so far beyond Grooms's reach as a partisan political hack that he stood right there in a room filled with regional elected officials and told them, in effect: Only by creating an RDA to sign onto the coin-flip of the RCI would they be able to cancel out the deleterious effects of RFRA, as foisted on them by his own party's hypocritical Torquemada wing, to which he is slavishly devoted.

Grooms sees no contradiction in creating one mandatory piece of bureaucracy to chase people away, and then establishing another to bring them back, and mayor's race or no mayor's race, had I packed a Boston Cream Pie for lunch that day, I'd have sprinted to the front and crammed it in his face.

My question, which unfortunately there was no time to ask, and hence this column's title:

Yo, Ron -- When it comes to the RCI, can the RDA opt out of the RFRA?

See you at Pine View on Tuesday afternoon. The meeting's been changed to 4:00 p.m., in case you were wondering.

---

Recent columns:

August 6: ON THE AVENUES: Money is the ultimate bully.

July 30: ON THE AVENUES: Homegrown New Albany, but not in a good way.

July 23: ON THE AVENUES: A citizen's eloquent complaint about the parking debacle at River Run reminds us that planners and brooms go hand in hand.

July 16: ON THE AVENUES: Louisville Beer, then and now ... and cheers to Rotary.

July 9: ON THE AVENUES: A mayoral petition as prologue to history.

July 2: ON THE AVENUES: "Water on the brains: Much less for far more will keep us swimming in it."

Sunday reading: Real Indiana and wedges splintering.

A confession: When I land at a newspaper website demanding the answers to stupid questions before being permitted to read the content, I ALWAYS GIVE THE WRONG ANSWERS.

Piss off, Gannett.

Friday's SCOTUS decision on marriage is wonderful, and in Indiana, we still have much work to do.

Locally, this probably means utilizing whatever means are available to extract a clue from the barren consciousness of Ron Grooms, who has learned absolutely nothing from the lessons outlined in these two articles.

It might take until 2018 to pay back Mr. Grooms, by voting against his continued presence in Indianapolis. Let's not forget to do so.

First, Matthew Tully: "Pockets of intolerance and the pettiness of a few influential culture warriors don't define Indiana." I hope he's right.

Dear America, this is the real Indiana, by Matthew Tully (Indy Star)

First, the polls show that the politician most closely tied to the religious freedom debacle, Gov. Mike Pence, continues to pay a severe price for his advocacy of the bill and his handling of the debate. What this shows is that it wasn't only outsiders who were upset with what Pence and his Republican Statehouse allies did. Among the angry were Hoosiers.

Many Hoosiers.

Second, the poll found that Indiana residents strongly support concrete, legally binding actions aimed at inclusiveness. Actions such as the expansion of state civil rights laws to include protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Next, John Krull observes that political wedges are multi-directional.

Note that in response to these latest reversals, the rapidly shrinking Pence is defiant; if the governor cannot defeat the gays, then he'll raise a middle finger to greenhouse gas emission rules.

When wedges no longer work, by John Krull (NUVO)

... But here in quiet, staid Indiana two events have given the political landscape an earthquake-level shake.

The first involved the mayor of Indiana’s fourth-largest city, Democrat Pete Buttigieg of South Bend. Buttigieg is a former Rhodes Scholar and a Navy reservist who was deployed to Afghanistan for seven months last year ...

... Then, hours later, a poll conducted by a respected GOP pollster – and paid for by Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels’ first campaign manager, Republican Bill Oesterle – showed that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (also a Republican) is in real political trouble.

The clothespin on Ron Grooms' nose is not removing RFRA's stench.

Governor Mike Pence "looked awful doing (RFRA)," but as the editorial board of Lafayette's newspaper reminds us, "But for all the justifiable grief piled on Pence in those two weeks, legislators deserve at least as much."

Yesterday our own Ron Grooms, who remained conspicuously silent as the GOP's RFRA-laden ka-ka first started hitting the fan -- and who has been doubling down on the disingenuousness ever since -- remained in a state of abject denial.

According to Grooms, who elevates abject cluelessness to a sort of epochal art form, "Hoosier Hospitality" remains alive and well in spite of his party's determination to smother it by means of New Age Nuremberg Laws.

Hoosier hospitality was on display for the whole country to see this weekend as Indianapolis hosted another successful Final Four. After the fierce debate over the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, it was good to see our state’s true character get some national media exposure.

Those on both sides of the RFRA debate were wrongly led to believe that it was going to change the state’s discrimination laws. While the criticism of the law was unwarranted, the economic harm that would’ve come to Indiana without a clarification of the RFRA was real. Hoosier employers were on the verge of losing clients and customers; our cities were poised to lose convention business; and the state’s AAA credit rating was in jeopardy, which would have cost taxpayers millions of dollars.

Now that the General Assembly has acted to clarify the law, I hope people will begin to see that the RFRA is a victory for Hoosiers of all faiths. It doesn’t harm anyone. With passage of the RFRA, Indiana now joins some 30 other states in providing the highest level of legal protection for religious liberty.

The RFRA in its final form is a law that reflects Hoosier values. It recognizes our Constitutional right to free exercise of religion and follows the history of other states’ RFRA’s by specifying that the law doesn’t change discrimination laws one way or another.

Don't you see? That fecal matter Republicans smeared in our faces was perfume-scented lace, and the fact that we couldn't tell the difference was those bad outsiders misleading us -- I mean, it was their fault, and the experience was a positive, and now we all feel SOOO much better trooping off to the showers, don't we?

online.com/story/opinion/editorials/2015/04/03/editorial-rfras-supermajority-debacle/25242381/">After RFRA’s supermajority debacle (Lafayette Journal & Courier)

It’s hard to imagine Gov. Mike Pence handling the past two weeks any worse than he did.

He discounted the readily available signs that Senate Bill 101 — Indiana’s version of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — came factory-installed with hints and allegations of discrimination against gay and lesbian Hoosiers. When those hints and allegations started turning into nixed development deals and nationwide boycotts — real deals about money, jobs and convention traffic — Pence blamed the media for smearing a law they misunderstood. He continued to listen to inside cronies with easily traceable ties to anti-gay agendas before giving in to adjustments on the law to save face — not to mention the state’s dwindling reputation.

And he looked awful doing it, wire to wire, from a hide-it-under-a-bushel, private signing of SB 101 on March 25 to Friday’s less ceremonious, but still closed-door signing of supplemental legislation intended to clarify that the law was not aimed at allowing businesses to refuse service of gays and lesbians.
Sneaking out a back door of the Statehouse and quietly leaving for Europe moments after House and Senate leaders brought him a fix to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act — even as schools started arriving for the NCAA Tournament Final Four and a mega-weekend in downtown Indianapolis — didn’t help the perception problem much.

Then again, given the heat laid on by the NCAA, threatening it was open to pulling its headquarters from Indianapolis if the Statehouse couldn’t figure how to erase the perception of discrimination hanging off the new law, maybe it was best that Pence disappeared for the sake of clearing the slate before the nation converged for one of Indianapolis’ biggest weekends.

All in all, a terrible week for the governor. And an insufferable week for Indiana.

But for all the justifiable grief piled on Pence in those two weeks, legislators deserve at least as much.