Mike Pence sits alone in a corner of sadness

Somebody please come up with a new career trajectory for our unlamented former governor Mike Pence.

As David Byler writes in the Washington Post, "Mike Pence wants to be president. But there’s one problem — compared to the competition, he polls terribly. According to the latest data from Civiqs, he’s the only potential GOP presidential candidate who is well-known but not well-liked."

Every good story has an Indiana connection...

...even the murders in Idaho.

"Indiana State Police body-camera footage shows that the suspect who was later arrested in the slayings of four University of Idaho students had been pulled over twice on his way back to Pennsylvania from Washington state on Dec. 15," notes HuffPost.com.

"Though most of the conversation is indiscernible due to background noise, the officer can be heard giving the driver and passenger a warning for following another car too closely. According to WXIN-TV in Indianapolis, Kohlberger had also been pulled over on Interstate 70 less than 10 minutes earlier for speeding, but he didn’t receive a ticket for either traffic stop in Hancock County, east of Indianapolis."

You can read it all here: "Police Body Camera Shows Suspect In Idaho Slayings Was Pulled Over Twice In Indiana

"Let's do a story about roundabouts"

Carmel gets another shoutout for its roundabouts -- and a confirmation of the Hoosier pronunciation of the suburb's name!

Check out the article in the Washington Post: Roundabouts are (slowly!) eating the suburbs

Mike Pence Just Can't Get It Right

"Mike Pence says Americans don't have a right to freedom from religion," notes the headline in Salon.com. According to our "esteemed" former governor, "the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not protect Americans from having other people's faiths forced upon them."

Pence shares an interpretation of the First Amendment that strays wildly from what Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and James Madison clearly spelled out more than two centuries ago.

"There are no references to a supreme being anywhere in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to centralized religious power as well as requiring individuals to subscribe to any particular denomination."

Don't let the Christian Nationalists claw their way to oppression of those who don't "subscribe" to their "particular denomination". Vote as if democracy depended on it (because it does).

Live-Stream Shaming in a Parking Lot, Then a Conviction

The Washington Post has all the details on the vigilante predator caught in Avon: Click here.

A thousand kudos to Hendricks County for their role in bringing this creep to justice (oh, yes: he was convicted in a jury trial).

Todd Rokita's actions "improper and smacking of McCarthyism"

Todd Rokita launched an unhinged attack on an Indiana physician recently, and the blowback continues.

According to IBJ.com, "A former congresswoman and retired federal judge are publicly criticizing Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, describing recent actions as improper and smacking of McCarthyism. Susan Brooks, a Republican who represented Indiana’s 5th Congressional District from 2013 to 2021, and John Tinder, who served on the Southern Indiana District Court then the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, jointly wrote a column that was published Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal.

Rokita is unfit to be Indiana's Attorney General.

Poor Mike Pence is toast

"Mike Pence can't be president. His devotion to Donald Trump will be his downfall." That's the headline for a feature article on Slate.com.

"Pence is running around the country making speeches in front of small audiences as if he has a snowball's chance in hell of winning a national election again when the sad fact is that he is a man without a constituency," writes Heather Digby Parton.

Of course we Hoosiers know that. He grabbed at the vice-president lifeline when he figured out there was no way he'd be re-elected governor in Indiana.

" Mike Pence is a walking piece of Wonderbread toast."

'"Issues" as we previously understood them no longer exist in the Republican Party. Trump's "dark tone and feedback-loop quality" are the issues. It's all about grievance, anger and resentment served up with the juvenile derision and mockery that only a true demagogue can deliver. A bowl of lukewarm water like Mike Pence simply can't serve that no matter how many dramatic pauses he takes in his speeches,' Parton writes.

Pence is "forlornly trying to salvage a political career based entirely on his fervent devotion to the man whom the only people who would vote for him believe he betrayed. Sad isn't the right word to describe it. It's pathetic."