Another of Adam Dickey's hilarious DemoDisneyDixiecratic shit shows provides timely comic relief.

With barely any time to spare after issuing his daily marching orders to groveling subalterns (Jeff Gahan, NAHA and New Albany's city council), multi-party-hydra-chairman Adam Dickey arrived back at HQ to find the toilet overflowing.

Unable to afford a plumber, he issued this statement instead.

Our ubiquitous Boy Wonder refers to a social media posting by Doug Leatherbury, a superannuated Washington County apparatchik, who without warning decided to publicly praise Donald Trump and condemn anti-Trump protesters. An excerpt provided by an outraged Democrat is below; naturally, Leatherbury's original post seems to have been scrubbed from Facebook. 

It merits only a chuckle to note that given the history of the Democratic Party hereabouts, Leatherbury's comments are by no means removed from the mainstream. He's right there with Ted Heavrin, Dan Coffey and hundreds of Floyd County Democrats still ambulatory and voting today.

The gut laughter begins with Adam's predictably mealy-mouthed conclusion: Leatherbury's viewpoint is completely at odds with everything the party stands for, and so "we have urged him to reconsider his position."

Leatherbury surely is quaking in fear, and LBJ just rotated his coffin, but the funniest part of all?

Leatherbury's not some Rambo-bedecked party-crasher. His name's right there on the masthead. He's Adam's treasurer, for heaven's sake.

Following is a screenshot for posterity, in which activist Julia Adams goes straight for Adam's (and the party's) jugular with a pointed question: If y'all really are about social justice, why the perpetual silence v.v. Jeff Gahan's public housing takeover? 

Crickets chirp, pins drop. Somewhere a lonesome cur barks.

Julia is to be commended for trying to jump-start a progressive dialogue with Adam, one this Human Delete Key typically spends so much time reflexively suppressing that his own party's Dixiecrat wing can sidle up unseen, kneecap him, and be given only a cursory "tsk tsk" as payback. 

Oh, you crazy guys ... now, behave, or you'll get only a half-stuffed envelope next time!

Here's some unsolicited advice for anyone tempted to praise Adam for his bold statement of principle: challenge him to (a) apply it equally across the board, and (b) to do more than just talk a good gesture politics game.

Consider Coffeys instructive experience.

He rejected the Democratic Party, touts his pro-Trump, anti-progressive views at every opportunity -- and continues to collect his traditional favors from Adam and the municipal hegemony preservers.

Coffey may be a reactionary quasi-fascist, but he's not an idiot.

Burn Baby Burn: Pence "scorched" by the RFRA firestorm, as we provide legal opinions.

And the best Silent Ron Grooms belatedly can manage is, "But all the other fascists states do it, too."

Verily, the state of Indiana's Holiday Inn Express hotels have been inundated with overnighters since Governor Mike Pence signed SB/HB 101 earlier this week and established the reign of error known as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Before moving to a few legal opinions, let's look back on the past week's unpleasantness in our one-party Hoosier paradise:

March 24: Religious freedom: How about freedom from embarrassment?, by David Hoppe (NUVO)

KRAVITZ BLOG: Religious freedom bill may hurt Indy's sports, convention business, by Bob Kravitz (WTHR)

March 25: Tully: Statehouse Republicans embarrass Indiana. Again, by Matthew Tully (Indy Star)

March 27: Local religious leaders, others fire back at Religious Freedom act’s passage, by Jerod Clapp (News and Tribune)

March 28: Seattle, San Francisco mayors join in boycott of Indiana over RFRA, by Madeline Buckley (Indy Star)

And George Takei, and Keith Olbermann, and dozens of other humiliations, great and small. Even Pence's own feelings now have been hurt, along with his presidential prospects, and so damage control is operating full tilt:

Gov. Mike Pence to push for clarification of ‘religious freedom’ law, by Tim Swarens (Indy Star)

Gov. Mike Pence, scorched by a fast-spreading political firestorm, told The Star on Saturday that he will support the introduction of legislation to “clarify” that Indiana’s controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act does not promote discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Pence breaks into karaoke: "There must be some misunderstanding ... There must be some kind of mistake." The band is Genesis, which seems fitting. 

Following are three explications of RFRA from the legal community. The authors may or may not have stayed in a Holiday In Express, or even someone's airbnb spare bedroom, but at least they're trained, rested and ready.

Opinion: Democracy key in fighting Indiana and Kentucky ‘religious freedom’ laws, by Joe Dunman (Insider Louisville)

So how can opponents of discrimination defeat “religious freedom” laws? There is no easy answer, unfortunately. Laws like RFRA already have been upheld as generally constitutional. They codify a right already present in the First Amendment and don’t single out any classifications of people in their text or application. And limiting the classifications protected by civil rights laws is generally within the discretion of a legislature to do, since civil rights laws themselves are products of the legislative branch.

The Indiana and Kentucky civil rights acts currently omit sexual orientation from protection and there’s no constitutional compulsion to change that. Adding protected classifications is subject to the whim of the voters and those they elect to represent them.

Democracy is the key. Unlike discriminatory marriage bans, “religious freedom” laws like those in Indiana and Kentucky are best defeated at the ballot box. For this reason and many others, state elections matter. Individuals, businesses, and lobbying groups must pressure legislators not to pass and governors not to sign such laws, and vote them out of office when they do.

And:

The Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act – An Analysis of Its Controversy, by Matt Anderson (IN Advance)

Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of this law to its opponents is that it comes right after Indiana’s very public and very unsuccesful bid to ban gay marriage. Our own attorney general went state to state submitting amicus briefs in support of laws that would prevent state-sanctioned gay marriage. The state’s arguments at the 7th Circuit were nearly laughed out of the courtroom and were called out for what they were: discrimination based on personal views. The proponents of the IRFRA seem to gloss over this aspect even though the proponents of this bill were the same who had tried to ban gay marriage through Indiana’s Constitution. The exasperation could probably summed up as: “Look, if you hate the LGBT community, so be it . . . but don’t act like this law has nothing to do with it.”

And:

Letter from the legal scholars

We write you as legal scholars with expertise in matters of religious freedom, civil rights, and the interaction between those fields, to offer our expert opinion on the scope and meaning of the proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Acts pending before both houses of the Indiana legislature. The thirty signatories to this letter, many who are Indiana University law professors, agree with the Indiana Supreme Court “that the Indiana Constitution’s religious liberty clauses did not intend to afford only narrow protection for a person’s internal thoughts and private practices of religion and conscience.” We share the view that a commitment to religious liberty is fundamental to a uniquely American notion of pluralism whereby religiously motivated practices should be accommodated in contexts where such accommodation would not result in meaningful harm to the rights of identifiable third parties.

That said, we have several concerns with the language of the proposed Religious Freedom Restoration Acts (RFRA).