one of the drawbacks of doing most of my blog-reading using a feed reader is that i seldom read blog comments anymore, unless those comments have a feed of their own. in particular, this means i rarely read comments on blogger blogs (other than my own). and since blogger is the platform of choice for most of the local right-wing bloggers, that means i rarely read the comments on those blogs... and the comments are often where the wackiest stuff goes on.

because of this, i hadn't realized just how bad things had gotten on the local right-wing blogs. they are cracking up over the inept leadership of mayor ballard and the republican-controlled city council. i knew that gary welsh had turned on mayor ballard not long after the election, and i knew that paul ogden—a former commenter who now has his own blog—was also critical of the ballard administration. but i didn't know that melyssa donaghy—once one of the mayor's most vocal supporters—had finally turned on him as well. (i knew it would happen, and predicted it here more than once, but didn't know when. though i had noticed she wasn't coming around here and defending the mayor in the comments anymore.)

melyssa and paul are planning a protest at the statehouse for next month, calling it "revolt at the statehouse". apparently they hope to recapture some of the attention they got for the property tax protests of 2007. but while those protests were narrowly focused on an issue that had upset a lot of people, their new protest is vague and hard to grasp, spilling over a number of right-wing grievances:

The rally will focus chiefly on issues relating to corporate welfare, Indiana style "pay to play" politics, property tax reform, and the need for transparency and ethics reform. Particular topics are likely to include: "The Colts, Pacers & the Capital Improvement Board, "Pay to Play Politics, Indiana Style: Campaign Contributions & Government Contracts," "The Executive and Legislative Revolving Door," "Corporate Welfare – How Politicians Have Used Our Tax Money to Make the Rich Richer."

if you even know what all that means, you're probably one of the event's organizers. i don't see this protest attracting a lot of protesters nor much media attention. the whole thing is too vague and ephemeral for tv reporters, who won't have a clue how to cover the thing. and in today's economy, i don't see the typical taxpayer getting too riled up about "the executive and legislative revolving door"—these days, people are more worried about just finding jobs and making ends meet. if this were a focused protest centered around, say, the mess at the CIB, i could see it being a moderate success. but a kitchen-sink protest of complaining about "corporate welfare" is doomed to failure.

the press release for the protest is posted on paul ogden's blog, and while i was there reading it, i noticed a link in the blogroll to an anti-ogen blog. now, i must give ogden kudos for blogrolling his own haters. that takes confidence. the "ogden truth squad" is a ballard apologist blog devoted to attacking ogden (and by extension, gary, melyssa, and others). in other words, it's a pure drama blog: right-wingers attacking other right-wingers in defense of republican politicians. the drama itself is not as exciting as you might have hoped, but the fact that such a blog even exists is evidence of how much things have changed in recent months. not that long ago, greg ballard was a hero to all these people. now, he's hated by many, and the source of much bickering among his former followers. ¶

I think Paul's blog is a solid addition to the blogosphere.

My, perhaps unfair, notion of comments at right wing sites involves a lot of capital letters and multiple punctuation, usually exclamation points. ¶

Maybe that anti-Ogden blog is another one of Abdul's covert special operations blogs like IndyUndercover was? ¶

Actually the anti-Ogden blog has been traced to an employee of Tom John, the Marion County GOP chair. We know who he is.

You seem to giving a pass to the problems of corporate welfare, backroom insider deals, cronyism, and the fact that it has been two years and our property tax crisis still isn't solved by our spineless legislature.

You seem to give a pass to the fact that the corruption within the Marion County GOP is so bad that one of the councilors, Ed Coleman, resigned the GOP because he was being forced to tow the party line and they were covering up the CIB's business.

Don't attack the good lawyers attacking the problem.

Instead, you should be screaming that the political leadership of this state (politicians well paid by Simon and Irsay) who are now talking about how they can tax the arts to pay for sports!

Due to the responses in our mail box, obviously this event strikes a cord with people. The website for it has been up less than one week and I bet we get more hits per day than this site does. ¶

of course the GOP is corrupt. it always has been. but your planned protest lacks focus. you're trying to do too much at once. ¶

This only shows that they really have no idea what is really going on with the Pacers and Colts (Irsay and the Simons) and sorry once you start picking on the sports teams your message will be lost... ¶

"and our property tax crisis still isn't solved by our spineless legislature."

But... I thought the property tax crisis was Bart Peterson's fault. That's what Melyssa was screaming about for months. Now it's all the legislature's fault? ¶

Well, sorry, but y'know a lot of people joined in the Teabag Crusade purely from self- (absorbed) interest, and they were directed to hate Bart Peterson, who was, in fact, the man who had the least to do with their property tax bills. And this--somehow!--to the exclusion of even a basic understanding of what had happened to property taxes over the course of a decade, which could be laid most directly at the feet of the Republicans in the Legislature and the one who's supposed to live in the Governor's mansion.

Now they've seen the light? Now I'm supposed to follow them in a bi-partisan crusade? Pass, thanks. ¶

I am certainly not alone in believing that these "fair tax" folks have been wrong about everything else over the past couple of years so there is no reason to think they are right about anything now.

Melyssa has tracked the IP address of a dissenting poster on her blog and published a Google satellite map showing their street location. For what purpose? Bipartisan outreach doeen't seem likely; bipolar does. Stay away. ¶