Eateries coming together as family topped the January Top Ten list of most-read posts at NA Confidential.

Local eateries rallying around
furloughed government employees
captured the attention of blog readers.

Thanks for reading NA Confidential, where we enjoy reconnoitering the neglected periphery for uniquely local perspectives on life in New Albany. Someone has to at least try doing it, or we can grow old waiting for the Jeffersonville News and Tribune to rediscover journalism.

Frequent readers will recall an ongoing issue with statistics, dating to October of 2018 and the infamously shoddy Blogger platform's rejigging of something, which caused page view counts previously stable for many years to suddenly change. Numerical ratios oddly stayed the same, as though all views had abruptly decreased by a set percentage. For those monetizing their blogs, this probably is infuriating. Since I'm a loss leader kind of fellow, it's merely an annoyance.

Beginning in January, 2019 I'll be using Facebook statistics. As always, the previous month's most-viewed list begins with ten "honorable mention" posts, before concluding with the Top Ten, escalating to No. 1.

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JANUARY HONORABLE MENTION (10)

642 (tie)

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

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.

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642 (tie)

Your Sunday MUST READ: "My city is unlike any other. My city is not a thru street."

If Deaf Gahan would have paid attention the first time ... thick, ain't he? Our campaign finance aggregator-in-chief will read this sentence and ask, "but isn't pass-through logic why I'm here?"

"We let the idea of high volumes of through traffic become our identity."

In terms of specific circumstances, Lebanon, Ohio is not the same as New Albany, Indiana. But shared universals are another matter entirely. Go to Strong Towns and read the entire essay, excerpted below.

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669

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Why is the non-brewing Flat12 in Jeffersonville considered a "brewery" by LEO Weekly but Gordon Biersch isn't? That's dumb, don't you think?

All this and LEO Weekly persists in describing Flat12 not only as a brewery, but as a "local" brewery, when the owner lives in Indianapolis and there has not been a single batch of beer "brewed" on site by Flat12 in the city of Jeffersonville, ever.

So, how does LEO Weekly define "our Louisville breweries"?

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675 (tie)

David White speaks with the News and TomMayBune about the Harvest Homecoming Festival Foundation.

Considerable progress has been made during recent years toward the shared objective of adapting the festival to the emergence of business concentration and residency downtown.

I feel better about it now, and that's what communication is all about. There's been far more of it recently from Harvest Homecoming, although the same cannot be said about Jeff Gahan's forever hermetic City Hall.

Change out the mayor and just think of the possibilities. Voting for David White in the Democratic primary is an excellent place to begin the cleansing. It also bears noting that Harvest Homecoming's physical "booth days" footprint lies entirely within the 3rd council district.

Just imagine a council person in the 3rd who actually knows what indie business ownership involves. Indies don't get tenure, you know.

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675 (tie)

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

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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679

A trio of shameless mob bosses attended yesterday's ribbon-cutting, because the Balkans have nothing on New Albany.

Most folks who value a semblance of basic human decency would like to believe that Caesar's, McLaughlin's and Gahan's glad-handing appearance yesterday at the ribbon cutting for Lorch's law office had something to do with penance for their lingering guilt over the way they humiliated Lorch two years ago.

But that's not it. Rather, an election season is upon us, and Develop New Albany remains eager as ever to (a) claim responsibility for matters touching the arm-of-city-organization not one jot, and (b) to provide as many photo-ops as possible for the big fish inhabiting our small local pond, thus enabling yesterday's ludicrous scene.

On second thought, now I'm the one feeling guilty -- about comparing New Albany to the Balkans. That's plainly an insult to the Balkans, and I apologize profusely.

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682

Balanced budget claims? "Many New Albanians 45 or older will likely be retired or perhaps even deceased before taxpayers manage to pay off just a single Gahan term as mayor."

The really telling part is that, as Gahan and Floyd County Democrats block social media access to more and more people, they never actually deny what those people have said.

They can't.

They just don't want people to know about it. The truth makes them look bad so secrecy and lies begets more secrecy and lies. If incumbent and new Democratic council candidates won't speak up against such misleading tactics now, there's no reason to think they will if elected.

It's damning for the whole party.

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686

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

Granted, Phipps is an intelligent and pleasant fellow, and he plausibly can lay claim to suitably progressive public positions on social justice and human rights issues; he’s fought for one or the other of them on scattered occasions, though generally only when given explicit permission by the likes of spider-webmaster Dickey.

It’s just that Phipps has yet to utter the first peep of principled protest when these matters of basic human decency are blithely violated by Gahan, as in the obvious examples of the chaotic public housing takeover, City Hall's abysmal record of threatening and bullying both city employees and civilians, the mayor’s steadfast refusal to concede the existence of issues like homelessness and opioid addiction -- not to mention Gahan's personal addiction to campaign finance receipts.

Moreover, Phipps has yawningly rubber-stamped virtually every extravagant spending proposal ever minted by the mayor’s crack team of TIF juicers, the vast majority of which have been explicitly intended to encourage gentrification by benefiting higher-income segments of the city’s population, as well as fluffing a gigantic pool of pay-to-play special interests who donate profusely to Gahan for the privilege of profitable participation in these projects.

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716

LIVE TO EAT (AND DRINK): La Catrina Mexican Kitchen is open, and The Earl will be next week.

La Catrina Mexican Kitchen has launched in the former Dragon King Daughter's space at the southeastern corner of Elm and Bank.

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772

GREEN MOUSE SAYS: Why does City Hall demand financials from the county parks department when it eternally refuses to divulge its own River Run Gahan Water Dome numbers?

Howzabout every governmental entity shows us the financials pertaining to projects like Hammersmith Park and River Run Family Gahan Dome, without making their release tantamount to raiding the tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh?

Isn't 100% transparency the best for everyone ... even outside the immediate family?

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782

Life imitates art: The dizzying pinnacle of Gahanism came in January of 2016, when the Bicentennial Park Snow Schlong spoke volumes to our municipal predicament.

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803

BEER WITH A SOCIALIST: Donum Dei's second annual chili cook-off to benefit APRON is Sunday, January 27.

Just when you thought "Bowl Season" was finished, Donum Dei presents our second annual chili cook-off to benefit Apron, Inc.

JANUARY TOP 10

804

PINTS & UNION PORTFOLIO: Monnik beers have come to Indiana, so come to Pints&union on January 29 to taste and celebrate.

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807

David White: "On May 7th, you will have the opportunity to get your city back, but I need your help."

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932

Dear non-biblical readers: What book would YOU use to take your oath of office?

Someone asked if there were other atheists in the group, and the ensuing remarks were surprisingly civil until later in the evening, when an older white male felt compelled to write "get the hell out of my city."

YOUR city? My dear man, it's HIS city -- and you'll never forget it again once the Anchor Chip is implanted into your brain.

My demographic cohort continues to regularly embarrass me with such attitudes, which isn't surprising given how few of them were ever properly toilet trained, but I digress.

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1,081

First council meeting of 2019 is tonight -- is it Scott Blair's indie turn for the presidency?

It's nice to know that in a community filled to the brim with issues and challenges, 4th district seat-warmer Pat McLaughlin is concerned about what the library is called.

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1,095

It's a municipal election year in New Albany, and the GOP is serious.

Standing four feet away from Seabrook was Very Incongruous Barksdale, who garnered nowhere near the level of applause given the others.

His presence proved a bit strange. If the GOP intends to cite the Reisz Mahal as a prime example of Jeff Gahan's debt-laden waste -- and this is entirely true -- then why did Barksdale, one of the party's three council incumbents, provide THE critical vote to move the boondoggle forward?

Just remember that when it comes to manipulation and money, the mayor can be trusted to exploit the weak and vulnerable by finding and tapping their jugulars. Gahan simultaneously milked Barksdale for a crucial fifth Reisz Mahal vote and neutered a Republican. The historian blithely handed the charlatan power on a silver platter. Barksdale's abrupt collapse might be sad, except it's all hamartia and hubris to to me: "Hamartia is the (fatal) flaw, hubris is the behavior that does not acknowledge it."

Apart from Barksdale's capitulation to Dear Leader -- can he be redeemed? -- it's a fine and balanced slate, surely the deepest we've seen from the GOP since this blog's inception.

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1,103

Giving cameras to homeless citizens. What do they see?

"We gave disposable cameras to homeless people living around downtown Salem and asked them to document their lives. Anthony McGuire shows us what Christmas looks like on the streets."

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1,286

R.I.P. Bill Cochran, arguably Floyd County's last dynastic Democrat.

For local Democrats, Cochran has proven to be irreplaceable. Since 2010, they're run five different candidates against Clere, sans discernible traction. Up, down or sideways, 34 years is nothing to sneeze at, and we'll probably not see the likes of him again, maybe from either party.

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1,349

R.I.P. Miss Nadia, our spark plug gourmand comedian and longtime feline companion.

Nadia didn't walk into a room, but sashayed, exaggeratedly shaking her butt and announcing her presence -- and the imminent need for a tasty morsel. She was an epic chatterbox with a startling array of sounds and noises that might have led the untutored to believe a duck or squirrel had wandered past. I'm unembarrassed to concede that Nadia and I had daily conversations, during which I'd harangue her and she'd answer, or sometimes vice versa.

I'll miss those. She was a receptive sounding board for my writing ideas, and never once advised me to tone it down.

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1,619

The soul-numbing pits of depression: 410 Bakery no longer will be selling bread.

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5,496

We Are All Family In Kentucky (and Indiana): Schedule of restaurants providing meals as a show of support for federal employees.

We Are All Family In Kentucky

In an effort to help employees of the Federal Government who are not getting paid through the shutdown, a group of restaurants has banded together to provide meals as a show of support and appreciation for the dedicated men and women who keep our community safe.

Together, we strive to be better and to overcome adversity as one community.

Just one of those "no shit, Sherlock" moments: "Sickouts and Strike Threats Stopped the Government Shutdown."

Workers organizing to further their own interests, rather than those of the oligarchs.

What a concept.

Sickouts and Strike Threats Stopped the Government Shutdown, by Ben Beckett (Jacobin)

Just last night, there was no end to the government shutdown in sight. But when airport workers started calling in sick and raising the threat of a strike, everything suddenly changed.

As recently as Thursday evening, elected officials were engaged in theatrical, go-nowhere resolutions with no real chance of reopening the government.

But by Friday afternoon, President Trump abruptly announced a deal to reopen the government, at least temporarily. What changed in less than twenty-four hours? Massively disruptive worker sickouts and the threat of strikes.

Earlier this week, Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) international president Sara Nelson raised the possibility of a general strike to fight the shutdown, and a group of aviation unions issued a dire warning that the aviation system’s safety was degrading.

Then on Friday, the second missed payday of the shutdown, a significant number of air traffic controllers called out from work, temporarily grounding all flights at New York’s LaGuardia airport and causing flight delays across the East Coast. A source inside the White House told CNN Friday that the flight delays were a “contributing catalyst” to the hasty deal ...

These seven important things about the government shutdown -- and look, not one of them has to do with Covington Catholic High School.

The federal government shutdown has brought the dysfunction of American civilization right to our doorsteps, and yet we've spent the past few days screaming at one another about Catholic school students in DC.

Maybe our Pavlovian reactions to social media prompts are the problem, not the solution. Localism is my mantra, and while defining it hasn't always been easy, to me it comes down to paying attention locally.

How does our local habitat work, and can it work in a more human way?

What's happening outside our front doors and in our own communities?

What can we do at the grassroots level to make life here fairer, better and more equitable?

Social media has been both a blessing and a curse as it pertains to localism. The medium is capable of ready use in reaching numerous households with matters of local importance, but just as often serves as an impediment by monopolizing attention spans over a plethora of national and international issues both fake and real, none of which tend to be capable of addressing by direct grassroots action.

In the sense of ancient Rome, bread and circuses: "A diet of entertainment or political policies on which the masses are fed to keep them happy and docile."

Or in our times, increasingly unhappy, angry and feeling pinned down.

I haven't watched any of the videos documenting the MAGA/Native American molehill. I've read none of the commentaries, screechings and tub-thumpings. Rather, I've been viewing the local scene these past few weeks, and noticing the shutdown becoming increasingly divisive -- and why wouldn't it be?

Since time began, the powerful seek to maintain their privilege by dividing the populace; we're already losing our grip on reality, so why not a few more coffin nails? The article below adroitly surveys the situation, most aspects of which are being ignored as we prepare for the arduous demands of the 10-year challenge on Facebook, or the next student field trip outrage.

As for the government workers being held hostage by the two-party system, it's a siege. If you're feeling bad because you've played no role and done nothing to help them, here's an idea: Do something to help them.

Occam's razor and all; the simplest explanation usually is the best.

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Time for the U.S. Yellow Vests, by Paul Street (CounterPunch)

Here are seven things you won’t hear much if anything about in the reigning corporate media regarding the ongoing record-setting partial shutdown of the United States federal government:

1: The Longstanding Neoliberal War on “Big Government”: a proper understanding of the shutdown in relation to the longstanding capitalist project of what the leading corporate-neoliberal champion Grover Norquist called “starving the beast,” with “beast” taken to mean “big government.” Norquist wanted, he said, “to cut government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Now might be a good time to recall how Trump’s former top political adviser the faux-populist Steve Bannon (with whom Trump certainly still regularly speaks) described his main policy goal when speaking to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February of 2017: “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”

Bannon once proudly told an academic: “I am a Leninist.” Bannon said that “Lenin wanted to destroy the state and that’s my goal too.”

Is the current shut-down not an exercise in “administrate state deconstruction” – something right out of the faux-libertarian (more on why I use that term in my next comment) fever dreams of a Norquist, a Bannon, a Charles Koch, a James McGill Buchanan, a Milton Friedman and others of their right wing and so-called free-market ilk? The orange monstrosity says the shut-down could “go on for years.” You can be sure that capitalist politico and ideologues in the Norquist and Bannon mode are hoping the shut-down can last as long as possible with no clear reported disasters resulting. This will help them advance their “drowning” project. “See?” they can proclaim, as former federal employees work for reduced wages at grocery stores and shopping malls, “we don’t really need this big monstrous and totalitarian government after all. All hail the free market!”

2: On the “Left Hand of the State,” That is: any serious discussion of which parts of government are really targeted by right-wing neoliberal “Leninists” like Norquist and Bannon. Beneath their anti-statist discourse about the great conflict between “government bureaucracy” (bad) and the “free market” (good), they wish to aggressively wield state policy of a specifically regressive, plutocratic, and authoritarian — state capitalist — sort. They don’t really want to destroy the state. They want to de-fund and de-legitimize what the late French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called “the left hand of the state”— the programs and services won by past popular struggles and social movements for social justice, equality, environmental protection, and the common good. They do not wish to axe the “right hand of the state” – the parts that provide service and welfare to concentrated wealth and dole out punishment (including rampant mass incarceration and felony-marking) for the poor (and right-handed social-control functions tend to rise when left-handed ones fall). They do not go after America’s Pentagon system, a great cost-plus subsidy for high-tech corporations like Raytheon, Lockheed-Martin, and Boeing.

It’s not about whether the state should work or exist. It’s about who government should work for: the public and the working-class majority or leading centers of concentrated wealth and power.

3: The Bipartisan Terror of Neoliberalism: how richly complicit the contemporary Democratic Party is in the ugly and regressive neoliberal project. The 2018-19 lockout may be primarily owned by Trump and the Republicans (as MSNBC will tell you again and again) but (as “MSDNC” will not report) the Democrats have participated in the assault on positive government functions across the whole long neoliberal era.

The deregulation of corporations rose dramatically under the Jimmy Carter presidency. It was the arch-neoliberal president Bill Clinton who proudly proclaimed that “the era of big government is over” and then signed off on ending poor families’ entitlement to federal cash assistance while advancing racist mass-incarceration (a government program) with his “three strikes” bill. Clinton passed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a new continental bill of regulation-free rights for global investment capital. He also worked on to work with Republicans to de-regulate derivatives and the financial sector more broadly. Giant Cold War-level “defense” (empire) budgets – a massive taxpayer windful for corporate war masters – remained the rule under Clinton despite the collapse of the only other planetary “super power” (the Soviet Union) right before the beginning of Clinton’s presidency.

Bill Clinton was a masterful, silver-tongued fake-progressive champion of the U.S. bourgeois state’s movement from left- to right-handed state power when it comes to enforcing social control on the victims of the nation’s intertwined regimes of class rule and racial oppression. So, of course, was Obama, whose richly right-handed neoliberal and imperial policy record I have detailed on numerous prior occasions here and in other venues.

4: Wall Street Dems for the Wall: how key Democrats like Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Senator Minority Leader Charles Schumer have in the past supported border fencing. All three voted for the Secure Fence Act of 2006, and all three supported the 2013 Senate immigration overhaul that passed the Senate, which called for tougher border security including additional physical barrier construction. As Oliver Ortega noted on Counterpunch two years ago, the border wall was a bipartisan project before it became a partisan football under Trump:

“When President Trump signed an executive order last week to complete a wall along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico, he was building on decades of bipartisan consensus among lawmakers…In fact, Congress had already approved a border wall not too long ago. In 2006, legislators—including many Democrats—passed the Secure Fence Act, which called for 700 miles of double-fence construction along certain stretches of the border. Trump cited the Bush-era law in the first paragraph of the executive order he signed Wednesday as rationale for his executive authority to order a wall be built.

“Many of the same Democratic leaders now bemoaning Trump’s wall voted for one at the time— Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Dianne Feinstein….Then-Senator Barack Obama, who as President would later deport a record-high 3 million people during his two terms, lauded the bill on the Senate floor, saying it would ‘help stem some of the tide of illegal immigration in this country.’”

And let’s not forget Bill Clinton’s critical wall-building activities in anticipation of heightened Mexican in-migration expected to result from NAFTA’s decimation of Mexican farmers. As Ortega noted:

“The most pivotal moments in the militarization of the border arguably took place during the time of Obama’s Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton. ‘Operation Gatekeeper,’ passed in 1994, poured billions of dollars into border security. High-intensity stadium lights, motion detectors, and remote video surveillance were installed along key points of the U.S-Mexico divide, and the amount of border patrol agents was increased by roughly a third. With resources deployed to patrol densely populated sectors, undocumented immigrants were often forced to trek barren desert and mountains. Thousands died in their quest for a better life. ‘We will not surrender our borders to those who wish to exploit our history of compassion and justice,’ President Clinton said at the time.”

“It’s no coincidence that Operation Gatekeeper followed another landmark in US-Mexico relations that same year: the North American Free Trade Agreement. Under NAFTA, Big Ag flooded the Mexican market with heavily-subsidized corn and other staples, displacing small farmers in Mexico in one of the greatest neoliberal coups in history. The result was a flood of immigrants heading northbound in search of opportunities, accelerating one of the largest mass movements of people in history.”

“In short, the U.S. government, acting in the service of corporate profits, caused the very mass migration it has spent the last 25 years trying to keep out and criminalize.”

5: The Authoritarian Idiocy of Our Holy Constitution, crafted to prevent popular sovereignty in the time of the French Bourbon monarchy: how the manifestly un- and even anti-democratic U.S. Constitution empowers the right-wing-led assault on positive federal government functions by absurdly over-representing the nation’s disproportionately white rural “red” (Republican) states in the presidential selection process and in the composition of the U.S.Senate. We hear nothing about how the Constitution helps feed the partisan polarization that lay behind the current government shutdown by enabling states to create House of Representatives districts so badly gerrymandered on partisan lines that right-wing extremists in Republican districts can exercise political influence far beyond their numbers. And we hear little if anything about how the Constitutional system of “checks and balances” is prone to crippling gridlock when its separate components are controlled by different and conflicting, mutually hostile parties (the Constitution’s framers thought they had avoided this flaw because they foolishly believed or claimed to believe that they had created a scheme that would prevent the emergence of political parties).

6: The Need for a Popular Intervention Beneath and Beyond the Masters’ Election Cycle. The Gilets Jaunes (“yellow vests”) in France have given us a taste of what’s required. Among their list of demands is a real and functioning democracy—popular self-rule. Further to that, they have called for a referendum whereby 700,000 citizen signatories would force the French Parliament to debate and vote on a given law within one year. Evoking the French Revolution of 1789, there have even been calls for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new constitution meant to create a new French government—a Sixth Republic based on popular sovereignty and majority rule rather than the demands of a de facto corporate-financial dictatorship. Imagine!

The yellow vests have no illusions that their nation’s reigning elite-controlled political parties and time-staggered election cycle offer anything remotely like substantive popular and democratic input on the making of policy. They have already forced the repeal of a regressive fuel tax and are fighting effectively every day and in the streets for things supported by the majority of the French populace.

We, like the French, get to vote every few years? So what? Mammon reigns nonetheless in the United States, where, as the latest and best political science definitely shows, “government policy…reflects the wishes of those with money, not the wishes of the millions of ordinary citizens who turn out every two years to choose among the preapproved, money-vetted candidates for federal office” The notion that “we the people” are supposed to sit around with glazed eyes captivated by the endless RussiaGate drama and the already-underway two-year build-up to the next quadrennial electoral extravaganza (U.S. cable news is already obsessing over the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate field when it isn’t panting over crumb of Mueller-Trump-Russia news) while hundreds of thousands of “our” government’s workers go unpaid and key positive government functions are disabled in the present is preposterous from any kind of remotely democratic perspective.

7: The Potency of Direct Action. As the venerable left writer Barbara Ehrenreich recently Tweeted: “The shutdown would come to a sudden end if airport workers stop working and shut down air travel. Business, aka capitalism, cannot function if its minions are all floating in the stratosphere or fattening themselves at Cinnabon. The whole thing should take no more than 3 hours.”

That’s a bit too simple, perhaps. TSA workers lack the legal right to strike and are likely afraid of losing their jobs and the back pay that is due them if they walk off their jobs. Still, the basic direct-action point is sound. Hiring replacement airport screeners for no pay would be no small problem for the federal government. The TSA workers would get strong public support for refusing to work without pay – support that might be modeled on the remarkable airport mobilizations that protested Trump’s Muslim travel ban in early 2017. And what if the airline pilots walked off their jobs, reasonably refusing to fly planes under the unsafe conditions created by the non-payment of air-traffic controllers?

It’s not for nothing that the remarkable Gilet Jaunes struggle and story has been essentially blacked out in U.S. corporate media.

The time has come for direct worker and citizen action against the insane federal shut-down. Since I’m referencing Twitter, let me give the last word to an excellent and dead-on Tweet from the left economist Richard Wolff: “Where are the US ‘yellow vests’ to protest gov’t shutdown and the wall? Millions would sympathize, mobilize. The movement could grow, win demands, and expand just as in France.”

Inhumane working conditions then and now -- or, can you explain to us again why David Barksdale deserves another council term?

Without Barksdale's help, how could Gahan
have achieved luxury in our time?

Remember last summer when at-large councilman David Barksdale somehow managed to keep a straight face while insisting for the public record that municipal employees at the City-County Building were laboring under "inhumane working conditions"?

It was all part of ensuring that Jeff Gahan and the Democrats got their Reisz Mahal luxury city hall in advance of the 2019 municipal election cycle.

Problem is, Barksdale claims to be a Republican.

Has he said anything aloud lately about whether it's inhumane to punish Federal employees during the current shutdown? I didn't think so. After all, such a statement would suggest a logical consistency of thought.

Why is it again that Barksdale deserves another term?

But as it stands, there'll be only one contested primary election race on May 7 between the two major political parties, this being David White's run against Big Daddy G.

By the way, as of Thursday's council meeting, Barksdale's appointment to serve as council liaison with Develop New Albany has ended. Incoming council president Scott Blair unceremoniously replaced Barksdale with Dan Coffey. The city's remaining trees wish he'd have done the same v.v. the Clearcutting Board.

Apparently Blair (an independent) gets it.

Do the Republicans?

Where Republicans are Democrats,
and trees are scared.

Local businesses are supporting federal workers. Dysfunctional elected representatives are still being paid. Think about that for a moment.

Photo credit.

I was the greeter at Pints&union on Thursday night, and it was a wonderful scene given the ridiculous circumstances. Thanks to Joe, our team and the volunteers for rocking it.

Save your Darwinian drivel for another time, and urge Senators Young and Braun, and Representative Hollingworth, to be accountable to their constituents.

And now for local chain newspaper guest columnist Amanda Beam's commentary on this matter, as picked up by CNN.

Congress and the President continue to weave a web of partisanship born out of pride. My husband and federal workers like him have gotten trapped in their sticky mess. They ask people deemed "essential" to execute their duties despite withholding funds but neglect their job of approving a workable budget.

Yet somehow the representatives who fail to pass legislation are still receiving their paycheck. A trip through Alice's looking glass couldn't produce a more mixed up world.

No matter your party loyalties, you must admit this is no way to run a household, much less a government.

Enough is enough. Not resolving this shutdown through courage and compromise is a dereliction of Congress's sworn duty. Generate bipartisan legislation. Bring it to a vote. And, if vetoed by the President, work among yourselves, override the veto and fund our nation.

To conclude, it's great to see an increasing number of local businesses picking up the pace.

Local businesses offer free services for federal workers, by Brooke McAfee (Bill Hanson's Tom May Content Reciprocator)

SOUTHERN INDIANA — As the weeks have passed, Floyds Knobs resident Robin Huntley has had to save her money while furloughed from the U.S. Census Bureau in Jeffersonville.

But a few local restaurants have made it easier for her family, along with many others, by offering free services for federal employees affected by the government shutdown. This week, she received free meals at businesses such as Pints & Union and Cox's Hot Chicken in New Albany.

Huntley said the businesses' support of federal workers defines community, and she plans to support the participating restaurants after the government shutdown is finished.

"Everyone is going through it together," she said. "When a new business opens, we come down and support them, and when they see that some of their clients are not able to come in, they pitch in and help. It really is a community relationship" ...

Save your Darwinian drivel for another time, and urge Senators Young and Braun, and Representative Hollingworth, to be accountable to their constituents.

Fact is, 800,000 unpaid federal workers are being held hostage not by one man, but by America's wretched two-party system. In any other facet of our lives, being given a "choice" between two options would be laughable, and yet we continue to accept one or the other of two entities that both suckle the same teat of accumulated wealth for sustenance.

Want to be independent? I hate to be a buzzkill this early in the year, but first, you have to think independently.

Those of you hugging the Darwinian ledge on the far right side of the aisle, who currently chortle with glee at the prospect of at last achieving Saint Grover Norquist's cherished wish to drown government in a bathtub, are displaying even less empathy toward fellow human beings than usual -- which is saying something.

You're seemingly fine with expediently eliminating "non-essential" jobs by starving job holders, when the jobs were created by ... wait for it ... the two-party duopoly. Can you explain to me why this process cannot be a process, rather than collateral damage suffered by de facto hostages, and for a reason (a wall) that has nothing whatever to do with your "small government" mantra?

Doesn't it contradict this mantra?

My friend Amanda wrote at Fb. My boss Joe was spot on: enough is enough.

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So today my husband- the FBI agent one who is currently working without pay- was told if we miss another paycheck due to the shutdown we lose our vision and dental insurance. Yeah.

I phoned my congressional representatives Senator Young, Congressman Hollingsworth and Senator Braun. I've emailed them before. This time I invited them to dinner.

Not one of them seems to care about out situation. Nor do them seem to want to respond to me or my family, their constituents.

If you can, give them a call & tell them your displeasure in their inability to even call or email back those of us who are affected by their actions. You might want to throw in that they need to do their jobs when my husband is doing his without pay. Their phone numbers are below. Let them know Amanda Beam sent you.

(And please be nice to those answering the phone. Sen. Young and Rep. Hollingsworth's staff were very kind and did a great job. I even told them to go grab a beer. Sen. Braun's assistant made ME want to grab a beer.)

Senator Young: 202-224-5623

Senator Braun: 202-224-4814

Representative Hollingsworth: 202-225-5315

We Are All Family In Kentucky (and Indiana): Schedule of restaurants providing meals as a show of support for federal employees.

(submitted press release)

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We Are All Family In Kentucky

In an effort to help employees of the Federal Government who are not getting paid through the shutdown, a group of restaurants has banded together to provide meals as a show of support and appreciation for the dedicated men and women who keep our community safe.

Together, we strive to be better and to overcome adversity as one community.

In Lexington

Thursday, January 17
11am to 3pm
Free Federal Super Saver Lunch Special for federal employees with valid federal ID.

Windy Corner Market, 4595 Bryan Station Road, Lexington
Zim’s Cafe, 215 West Main Street, Lexington
Smithtown Seafood, 501 West Sixth Street, Lexington
Smithtown at the Summit, 119 Marion Street, Suite 160, Lexington
Wallace Station Deli, 3854 Old Frankfort Pike, Versailles

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Monday, January 21, MLK Day
4pm to 6pm
Free Spaghetti & Meatball Dinner to federal employees and their families. To attend please call (859) 846-4732.

Holly Hill Inn, 426 North Winter Street in Midway KY

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In Louisville

Thursday, January 17
11am to 2pm
Free small pizza and soup or salad combo for federal employees with valid federal ID.

bar Vetti, 800 S 4th St, Louisville

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Thursday, January 17
11:30am to 5pm
Free sandwich, side and soft drink for federal employees.
Feast BBQ, 909 E Market St, Suite 100
Feast BBQ, 10318 Taylorsville Rd

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Thursday, January 17
11:30am to 5pm
Free chicken tenders, dipping sauce, side and soft drink for federal employees.
Royals Hot Chicken, 736 E Market St

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Thursday, January 17
4pm to 6pm
Free family meal with homemade lasagna, salad, and soft drinks.

610 Magnolia, 610 West Magnolia Ave
Please call to reserve: 502-636-0783
There will also be bag lunches available for pick up during the dinner

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Monday, January 21, MLK Day
4pm to 6pm
Free family meal with hot dinners, salad, and soft drinks.
610 Magnolia, 610 West Magnolia Ave

In New Albany IN

Thursday, January 17
4pm to 6pm
Free dinner for federal employees with valid federal ID.
Pints&union, 114 East Market St, New Albany
Please call to reserve 812-913-4647

Monday, January 21, MLK Day
12 noon to 2pm
Free lunch for federal employees.
Pints&union, 114 East Market St, New Albany
Please call to reserve 812-913-4647

#gotolouisville #howwelou #louisvillekentucky #louisvillelove #shutdown #kentuckyproud #explorekentucky #KYtotheworld

"Republican defeat, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that."

Smell that? You smell that?

What?

Republican defeat, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that.

[kneels]

I love the smell of Republican defeat in the morning.

We already took a sideward at pretend-Democrat Caesar's disappointment and a much coveted national day of gloating. In the Sunday NYT, Thomas Friedman compares the Tea Party to Hezbollah. And then there's this.

Losing a Lot to Get Little, Jeremy W. Peters (New York Times)

WASHINGTON — For the Republicans who despise President Obama’s health care law, the last few weeks should have been a singular moment to turn its problem-plagued rollout into an argument against it. Instead, in a futile campaign to strip the law of federal money, the party focused harsh scrutiny on its own divisions, hurt its national standing and undermined its ability to win concessions from Democrats. Then they surrendered almost unconditionally.

No wonder Bob Caesar was in a rotten mood last night.

After all, his Republican Party was routed in the Shutdown Showdown, and for a closeted GOP Man, it's gotta be tough at times like that, right? All the Mogen David Blackberry on ice and onion dip ladled out for the celebration, and poof -- all gone.

Steve Stemler probably feels even worse.

The good news is that CeeSaw needn't rely on city council insurance for one moment longer, because the Health Insurance Marketplace is open.

online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/obama-declares-national-day-of-gloating.html">OBAMA DECLARES NATIONAL DAY OF GLOATING, posted by Andy Borowitz at the New Yorker

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Residents of the District of Columbia were roused from their sleep by a massive fireworks display over the White House just after midnight, as President Obama declared what he called “a national day of gloating.”

“It would not be productive for this nation, going forward, to crow about our victory over political adversaries,” he said in a nationally televised address. “So let’s get it all out of our systems today.”

Craft beer and the shutdown: Et tu, Rep. Young?

Remember the time last year when I enjoyed a beer with Rep. Todd Young?

Nichevo, Tvarish Young.

We had a nice chat about craft beer in the context of economic development. Now, as the story below clearly outlines, there is no economic development in craft beer owing to the government shutdown ... which Todd Young endorses.

No histrionics are necessary, because I'm guessing that lots of others reading this can spot a disconnect the size of the Grand Canyon.

What isn't clear is whether Rep. Young can. Seems to me that my business is being held hostage in order to further GOP political aims ... and it doesn't look much like economic development at all.

Now the shutdown's getting SERIOUS... as government closure dries up the nation's beer supply, by Lizzie Parry (Daily Mail)

• US federal shutdown closes agency responsible for alcohol licensing
• Craft brewers on the frontline facing financial disaster
• Small businesses and start-ups put on hold indefinitely
• One brewer claims shutdown will cost him $8,000 a month

... Paul Gatza, director of the Brewers Association, which represents more than 1,900 US breweries, said: ‘One could think of this shutdown as basically stopping business indefinitely for anyone who didn't have certain paperwork in place back in mid-August.’

A woman who answered the phone on October 2 at TTB’s headquarters in Washington abruptly hung up on Associated Press after explaining the government was shutdown. Assistant Administrator Cheri Mitchell did not respond to telephone or email messages.

Them angry white folks in the GOP are doing that shutdown thing again.

Anyone seen Mark Seabrook and Steve Bush lately, or have they already retreated to the command bunker?

This Week in ‘Nation’ History: Government Shutdown as Coup d’État, by Katrina vanden Heuvel (The Nation)

... Dramatizing the supposed precariousness of public services by forcing their arbitrary cessation makes it easier for conservatives to argue that the market alone should determine the proper distribution of wealth, goods, and services in American society. There is no smaller government than none at all. As the radical political philosopher Sheldon Wolin argued in a remarkable 1996 essay in The Nation, “Democracy and the Counterrevolution,” the effort “to stop or reconstitute government in order to extract sweeping policy concessions amounts to an attempted coup d’état.” Wolin’s brilliant essay reminds us how shutdowns and austerity economics fit within the broader Republican philosophy of governance—or lack thereof—and how that philosophy is antithetical to the defining principle of democracy: rule by the people.

Meanwhile, back home again in Indiana, the state Republican apparatus prepares to filibuster Obamacare to the ultimate detriment of its own people. That's leadership.

HOWEY: Obamacare, propaganda and statesmanship, by Brian Howey (N and T)

But Congressional Republicans are using their offices like political candidates do during campaigns. They have become fonts of propaganda, declaring that Obamacare has “failed” and is a “trainwreck.” This isn't an effort to help their constituents understand the new law. There has been little effort to “tweak” or even revise troubling segments of the law. Instead, they play to that 10 or 15 percent of their constituents who pose a threat in a May primary.