Midnight Sun | Iceland from SCIENTIFANTASTIC on Vimeo.

I call it the Honeymoon Glow, because there is simply no way Newton Leroy Gingrich is more competitive against President Obama than Mitt Romney, but that is what a new McClatchy-Marist poll finds. Obama leads Gingrich by just two points, 47% to 45%. Mitt Romney is next closest, trailing Obama by 4 points, 49% to 44%. Ron Paul is the third best bet for the Republicans right now, 8 points back from Obama, 49% to 41%. No other Republican is within single digits of the president. You know, I hope Ron Paul gets his flavor of the month chance. I doubt it though.

This is exactly the way I felt listening to Sandusky.  Watch:

When one of Delaware’s elected Democratic Senators starts talking bipartisanship, I get very suspicious, because it usually means Republicans get what they want. And with Senator Coons’ recent talk of “tax code reform” in response to any question about raising taxes on the richest 1% in this country, in response to closing corporate loopholes and giveways, and his talk of reforming entitlements, I suppose I have to look at any proposal from his office made in conjunction with a teabagger very closely and very skeptically.

Sen. Chris Coons reached far, far across the aisle Tuesday, introducing a job-creation bill with Republican Sen. Marco Rubio. […]

Their bill, the AGREE Act — for American Growth, Recovery, Empowerment and Entrepreneurship — combines elements of President Barack Obama’s jobs plan, recommendations from the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, and proposals from both parties in Congress.

“We can dwell on the partisan politics that have gridlocked this body and this town for much of our first year in office, or we can look forward and find ways we can work together to help Americans confront this jobs crisis,” Coons said in a statement. “We need to help our businesses grow and create jobs, and that’s what the AGREE Act is designed to do.”

Stop. Senator Coons, partisan politics have not gridlocked Congress. Saying that means that you equally apportion fault and blame between the two parties. And that is blatantly false. The Republican Party has gridlocked Congress with obstruction after obstruction, from taking legislation and nominations hostage, to refusing to ever compromise, from secret holds on the most mundane nominations and legislation to outright filibustering every single piece of legislation designed to create jobs. Senator Coons, you do your party and the nation a disservice when you say otherwise. But whatever. It is the same bipartisan mealy mouthed bullshit we have come to expect from any Senator elected from Delaware.

He and Rubio say the bill would extend tax relief for small businesses, encourage research and innovation, reduce barriers to immigration for highly skilled workers, protect businesses from illegal counterfeiting, and provide tax incentives for hiring veterans and regulatory relief for small companies.

More specifically, here are the bullet points from a summary on Rubio’s website:

–>Provide a three year extension of 100 percent bonus depreciation for the full cost of qualified investments such as equipment and property.

–>Provide a three year extension of Section 179 expensing levels for small businesses.

–>Provide a three year extension of eliminated taxes on certain small business stock.

–>Extend the Research & Development tax credit until 2013, increase the Alternative Simplified Credit (ASC) from 14 percent to 20 percent, and makes the ASC permanent.

–>Establish an enhanced research credit for domestic manufacturers to encourage job creation at home.

–>Provide veterans with a tax credit equal to 25% of the fee associated with starting a franchise up to $100,000.

–>Provide a five-year exemption from Section 404(b) of Sarbanes-Oxley for the first five years of a company going public, or for those below $250 million in total gross revenue (whichever comes first).

–>Eliminate the per-country numerical limitation for employment-based immigrant visas and adjusts the limitations on family based visa petitions from 7% per country to 15%.

–>Protect intellectual property by clarifying the Trade Secrets Act, and making it explicitly clear that it is not a crime for federal officials, in the performance of their duties, to share information about suspected infringing products with the right holder of a trademarked good.

Looking at this, a lot of it is temporary this and extension that. So I guess these are just simple quick fixes. I am not an intellectual property expert, so I have no idea if the proposal in there regarding IP is good or bad. So, Delaware Dems and Delaware Liberals, what’s the catch? I know there is one. How are we getting shafted?

In the News Journal story this morning on the continuing recovery and rehabilitation of Sussex County Councilman Vance Phillips, and the logistical problems his continued absence is presenting the Council, Sussex County Attorney Everett Moore says that Phillips cannot attend council meetings remotely, by either Skype, teleconference or videoconference because Delaware’s Freedom of Information Act expressly prohibits public bodies whose members are elected from participating via videoconference.

If that is true, that is a provision of the law that needs revision. Indeed, given that this blog and progressives in general throughout our state were quite instrumental in lobbying for the FOIA law, I think I will need it explained to me why and how this provision pertains to transparent government and the disclosure of information.

It just makes sense. Because if you go three terms, then you might become a cranky old asshole who cusses out anyone and everyone at every opportunity.

In a profanity-laced speech Tuesday, Wilmington Mayor James M. Baker lashed out at critics of a publicly supported hotel on the Christina Riverfront during a ceremony to announce the construction of another apartment building in the Justison Landing development.

“We should be excited about our city. I don’t understand where all the negative people come from. They all ought to go to hell and forget it. We don’t need them. I mean, they’re about as useful as a doggone flea on an elephant. Nothing,” Baker told a crowd of about 30 people who had gathered at the site of a proposed $17 million building across from the Kooma Restaurant and Lounge Bar on Justison Street.

Winding up his remarks, Baker said, “I don’t care anymore. You can’t kick me no more. I’ll kick your ass.”
In an interview later Tuesday, Baker did not temper his earlier remarks.

“Anybody who opposes me, I call a fool,” he said. “I don’t sugarcoat it.”

Well that’s just wonderful. Nothing makes me excited and proud about a city than a profanity and insult-laden tirade from a mayor who has been on the job far too long.

Now, some of you may call me a hypocrite here, since I use foul language and insult my ideological and political opponents every day of the week and twice on Sunday. But I am a blogger. I am not an elected official.

How does a two term limits connect to this? Well, sometimes you just get tired of dealing with people. You get more abrupt and rude in your official duties, duties that call on you to be gracious and dignified, at the very least in public remarks you make in and around the city. If you can’t manage a veneer of dignity and graciousness in office after 10 years and during your third term, then perhaps it is time for you to take a powder.

Then again, Mayor Baker may simply be an asshole.

Baker’s outburst is among several in his 10 years as mayor and 28 years on City Council. In March, Baker ripped into City Council for daring to question his budget proposal. He also has lambasted council members by calling them “idiots” more than once in public settings.

Come January 2013, I am sure most of us will be happy to see Mayor Baker and all his graciousness get shoved out the door.

I love pizza. It’s my comfort food. Yet I try to stay away from it because too much pizza is not a healthy thing. All that cheese, grease, and carb ladden dough. But it turns out that I was wrong all along. For you see, I had not considered the obviously true fact that a pizza slice, what with its one to two tablespoon of tomato paste or sauce, was a healthy vegetable. At least…. according to congressional Republicans.

The final version of a spending bill released late Monday would unravel school lunch standards the Agriculture Department proposed earlier this year. These include limiting the use of potatoes on the lunch line, putting new restrictions on sodium and boosting the use of whole grains. The legislation would block or delay all of those efforts.

The bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. USDA had wanted to only count a half-cup of tomato paste or more as a vegetable, and a serving of pizza has less than that.

Is it the 1980’s again? Didn’t we already go through this with Ronald Reagan’s ridiculous “ketchup is a vegetable” idea? What is it with Republicans and school cafeterias. It is almost as if they want children in public schools to be unhealthy and obese.

Advice to the Presidential Aspirant Who Is Currently A Laughingstock from Dr. Gerry Mander (from the Guardian) (scroll down):

Dear Dr Mander,

I’m the governor of Texas, running to be the Republican candidate in next year’s presidential election and I’ve got myself three problems. First, I forgot one of my key policies in a live TV debate. Second, I’m now the laughing stock of the internet. Third… now what was it? Nope, sorry, it’s gone.

Rick Perry

Dear Governor Perry,

So you’re an inarticulate, rightwing Texan with no grasp of policy who liberals sneer at – and you want to be US president. Something tells me you’ll be just fine.

Via Pineview Farm

Donald Trump told Fox News he would make an endorsement in the presidential race very soon. “Within a month probably sounds good — maybe a little bit more than that, but I’ve got a good, good sight on everybody. I have a lot of respect for a lot of them. We have some good people.” Words fail.

A new poll says that a majority of Americans now support the individual mandate, an important and probably the most controversial component of Obamacare.

In the new poll, support for the individual mandate — requiring people to get health insurance — has climbed to 52%, with 47% opposed. When the last survey was taken in June, that a majority of 54% opposed it, with 44% in support.

President Obama leads Mitt Romney by 6, with 49% to Romney’s 43%, and Herman Cain by 9, 49% to Cain’s 40%. They didn’t poll how the new Republican frontrunner, Newton Leroy Gingrich (yes, that’s his middle name) polls against Obama, but I would expect a Cain like performance at best.

Sussex County Clerk of Peace George Parrish is going to announce shortly on Dan Gaffney’s show that he is running for Insurance Commissioner, for George Cole’s seat in the 4th District on the County Council (if he retires that is) as a Christianist Republican, obviously. (DL got punked with a tip that this idiot would somehow run for IC. A county council seat makes much more sense). This news comes on the heels of an News Journal story on him today where he kindly reveals that he will deign to enforce the law of the State of Delaware on Civil Unions over his own bigoted discriminatory views.

“As I have reviewed all my legal options, administrative options and political options, I have determined that I took an oath in support of the Constitution and the rule of law should prevail,” said Parish, who lives in Long Neck. “It’s because of that and because if I were to resign, liberal Gov. Jack Markell would have the opportunity to appoint a potential liberal to succeed me and that’s unacceptable to George Parish because Sussex County voters should be the source of deciding and electing the next clerk of the peace of Sussex County.”

Imagine that!!!! Jack Markell a liberal!! LOL. Also too, imagine a state officer, a clerk of peace, a judge…… enforcing the law!!!! The times we live in. Oh, there’s more.

Parish favors a constitutional amendment that would define marriage in Delaware as between a man and a woman. He believes the question of same-sex civil unions should be put to a vote in Delaware, as some states do with referendum or initiative questions.

He believes Delaware’s new law is discriminatory against heterosexuals. While it provides same-sex couples the same protections and benefits of married couples, it does not extend to heterosexual couples who do not wish to be married. Delaware’s civil-unions law allows those who object for religious reasons not to perform the ceremonies. And some public officials in other states where civil unions or same-sex marriage are legal have sidestepped the requirements of their government position by finding a deputy to perform the ceremonies in their place.

Well, Mr. Parrish, I do believe civil unions will be put to a vote in Delaware. If you are evil and hate gay people, and thus are against civil unions, then please vote against Jack Markell and every legislator up for election in 2012 who voted for civil unions. There is your referendum right there. And if you believe in equality and compassion, then please vote against George Parrish.*

* Since the coward announced he is not running statewide but instead in 2014 for a County Council seat, we won’t get the full statewide referendum Parrish longs for. Come on Parrish. Man up. Put your views on the line. Run against Markell!!!

Thomas Day, a 31 year old Iraq War veteran wrote a guest column yesterday in the Washington Post’s On Faith section. Mr. Day is also a Penn State graduate, a Catholic, an acquaintance of the monster Jerry Sandusky and a product of the now notorious Second Mile foundation. The point of his column to express what I think is a common theme running my and Mr. Day’s generation, and also the youth movement that has been behind both the election of Barack Obama in 2008 and also the Occupy Movement this year:

[I] have fully lost faith in the leadership of my parents’ generation. […]

I was one of the lucky ones. My experience with Second Mile was a good one. I should feel fortunate, blessed even, that I was never harmed. Yet instead this week has left me deeply shaken, wondering what will come of the foundation, the university, and the community that made me into a man.

One thing I know for certain: A leader must emerge from Happy Valley to tie our community together again, and it won’t come from our parents’ generation.

They have failed us, over and over and over again. […] They have had their time to lead. Time’s up. I’m tired of waiting for them to live up to obligations.

Think of the world our parents’ generation inherited. They inherited a country of boundless economic prosperity and the highest admiration overseas, produced by the hands of their mothers and fathers. They were safe. For most, they were endowed opportunities to succeed, to prosper, and build on their parents’ work.

For those of us in our 20s and early 30s, this is not the world we are inheriting.

We looked to Washington to lead us after September 11th. I remember telling my college roommates, in a spate of emotion, that I was thinking of enlisting in the military in the days after the attacks. I expected legions of us — at the orders of our leader — to do the same. But nobody asked us. Instead we were told to go shopping. […]

We looked for leadership from our churches, and were told to fight not poverty or injustice, but gay marriage. In the Catholic Church, we were told to blame the media, not the abusive priests, not the bishops, not the Vatican, for making us feel that our church has failed us in its sex abuse scandal and cover-up.

Our parents’ generation has balked at the tough decisions required to preserve our country’s sacred entitlements, leaving us to clean up the mess. They let the infrastructure built with their fathers’ hands crumble like a stale cookie. […]
Now we are asking for jobs and are being told we aren’t good enough, to the tune of 3.3 million unemployed workers between the ages of 25 and 34.

Perhaps the most vivid illustration this week of our leaderless culture came with the riots in State College that followed Paterno’s dismissal. The display resembled Lord of the Flies. Without revered figures from the older generation to lead them, thousands of students at one of the country’s best state universities acted like children home alone.

Generational definitions are hard to come by and subject to much debate. But generally, you have the Greatest Generation, those born in the 1910’s and 1920’s, who fought World War II. The Baby Boomer Generation are the children of the Greatest Generation, and were born in the late 40’s and 50’s, that much is certain. Where the debate comes in concerns the parameters of what constitutes the next two generations after the Baby Boomers. There is Generation X (those born in the mid 60’s and 70’s) and Generation Y (those born in the 80’s and early 90’s). Mr. Day speaks of the generation that is in their 20’s and 30’s today, which would cover both GenX and GenY.

Regardless, it is the collective XY generations are who are in conflict with the Baby Boomers. Fittingly, President Obama is really not encamped in either generation. He is really not a Baby Boomer, obviously, having been born in 1961, although some generational timelines have the Baby Boom generation lasting until 1964. But Bill and Hillary and George W. are Baby Boomers. Barack is not. Barack is also not really a GenX-er, having been born too early. No, he is a child of the Silent Generation, those who were born between the Greatest Generation and the Baby Boomers. But I am really digressing.

What we are experiencing right now is a generational battle. The younger generations have lost all faith in their elders, and are fighting back.