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.

"God Can Change Gays," says former Kentucky governor Julian Carroll.

My first reaction upon seeing this story on Twitter (below) was incredulity: How could it be that Julian Carroll is still alive?

(He's 85).

And he's a state senator in Kentucky?

And he's a DEMOCRAT?

If you don't already follow Jacob Payne on Twitter, I recommend doing so. Hoosiers have precious little room to laugh, if any, but some of the political tidings in the Commonwealth are breathtaking, and Jake covers them all. Scroll back a few days, and he has much of interest to say about Carroll's (shall we say self-serving) remarks.

God Can Change Gays, Says Former Kentucky Governor & Current State Senator (The River City News)

It was a story about how being gay in a Kentucky campaign was a surprising non-issue.

Jim Gray, the Lexington mayor who is the Democratic Party's nominee to face incumbent Republican U.S. Senator Rand Paul in November, is openly gay.

"Does anybody care?," asked the headline in Roll Call, the DC-based political newspaper ...

 ... The part about Gray's allies who may still believe that being gay is a choice seems to point to former governor Julian Carroll, now a state senator representing Frankfort. Carroll, a Democrat, is quoted towards the end of the lengthy profile published Monday. Here's what Roll Call included from the Democratic Minority Whip ...

Boilerplate aplenty as Coffey's defection arouses heroic words of meaninglessness from Democratic officials.

Dan Coffey explains himself.

Pot, meet kettle: Dan Coffey's letter of disassociation with Adam Disney's merry band of ... er ... well ... ?

Coffey says he hasn't left the Democratic Party -- you see, it left him. Coffey now will team up with Scott "Banker" Blair to form an "independent" duo on the council, which means we're a city with Moe and Larry, desperately in search of Curly.

Not to worry. There's a Curly on every street corner in New Albany.

Watch as the Republicans recoil in horror. They'd probably be willing to take their chances negotiating with Coffey, but not if he brings Blair along for the ride.

Some indignities are just too great to bear.

See Dixiecrat stalwarts like Jeff Gahan and Pat McLaughlin express shock at such a defection, which of course constantly has been discussed here at NA Confidential for months, if not years, without the somnolent newspaper ever bothered to pick up on it.

Gahan might even have a case. Has Coffey fulfilled the terms of his latest payola contract? After all, TIF residues remain payable, inside the machine or out.

Of course, Adam Disney benignly points to the national Democratic Party platform, this being the one he's studiously avoided referencing locally since his accession to kingpin.

And naturally, everyone involved was perfectly content to ride out the most recent election cycle, with Adam joyfully accepting Coffey's perennial cemetery voter sweep -- you know, one last lucrative concert tour before the band breaks up and begins stoking rumors of a reunion to come.

Peel away the layers of this story, and the local Democratic Party's conceptual rot comes into ever greater focus. We've been discussing THAT for years, too; then again, for all his flaws, Coffey never ceases to function like a human litmus test.

The redder his face, the blacker the local Democratic Party's heart.

New Albany Councilman Dan Coffey leaves Democratic Party, by Chris Morris (Clark County First)

 ... District 1 Councilman Dan Coffey — who ran unopposed in the November general election — said he was no longer associated with the Floyd County Democrats at the meeting.

When contacted Tuesday, a day after the meeting, Coffey said the decision to leave the party had been building for some time.

"The Democratic Party is not the same as it was years ago when I joined," he said.

Pot, meet kettle: Dan Coffey's letter of disassociation with Adam Disney's merry band of ... er ... well ... ?

Them people are "divisive" and "confrontational?" No, Dan, the words I think you're looking for are "formless milquetoasts" (sorry, Shane -- I'll explain it in your column next week).

Coffey disassociates with Dems (letter to the Jeffersonville newspaper)

For the past few years, I have questioned myself on the Democrat Party's direction. Historically, the Democrat Party has been about issues such as fair wages, affordable housing, standing up for people who were unable to do so themselves and the belief in our fundamental rights as individuals.

Unfortunately, the past few years has seen a shift from what the core values once were to a more divisive and confrontational approach that doesn't stand for the values I believe made our country and community strong ... 

See also:

Boilerplate aplenty as Coffey's defection arouses heroic words of meaninglessness from Democratic officials.

Meanwhile, another political party, this one pure and unalloyed, is said to be courting the Copperhead.

The Danse Macabre, rim shots, hayseed Dixiecrats and Ted Heavrin's county council candidacy.

Ted Heavrin's county council celebrates after slashing remaining fat from the 2011 budget.

I see that Ted Heavrin is running for Floyd County Council.

Again.

It's only been two years since Floyd County was doomed to ruin when Heavrin, sole possessor of the ATM password, was deposed in the primary. His loss prompted the News and Tribune's Chris Morris to break out his shoeshine kit, but then Heavrin staged a dramatic comeback and returned to vetoing budgets as a member of the board of the Floyd County Parks Department, pausing only to secede from the county and establish his own island kingdom -- which failed when Ricardo Montalban finally died.

Heavrin's 2014 yard signs have been appropriately doctored to block weird traces of previous campaign use, such as the "re-" in "re-elect." Given his legislative background, we can posit that he didn't buy new signs because the county couldn't afford them.

But seriously, I wouldn't vote for Heavrin for dog catcher. I've no doubt he would catch the dogs, but he'd also starve them like he did the county all those years.

Starving poor animals plainly would be cruel ... almost as cruel as Heavrin being elected to council.

Again.

Looks like Barbara Sillings is the choice in District 2. I don't know here, but we all know him.

Ouch.

Democrat-pretend Steve Stemler can't wait to support HJR-3. How quaint.

If you can find evidence anywhere that Rep. Stemler has changed his mind, let me know and I'll happily publish it. Until then ... how exactly is he a Democrat?

Goliath's comments compelled me to dig out this piece from February 16, 2011:

Same-sex marriage: One in the win column for Rep. Clere, who refrains from supporting the "language of hate."

 ... Hurriedly speed-dialing ROCK's Ayatollah Wickens for direction, Stemler first beat the pander bear rush to become co-author of HJR-6, but did not cast a vote either way yesterday. Weidenbener explains:

Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, was excused from House action on Tuesday and did not vote. However, he was listed as a co-author of the bill.

Professional grade fluffing like that belongs in California, not Indiana, but I digress. Kindly permit me to publicly ask a question that surely must have occurred to many readers: Is there any known way to distinguish Steve Stemler from a garden variety GOP stooge, save for his own declaration of affiliation, one regularly contradicted by his political actions?

Crickets chirp, pins drop.