Archive for April, 2013
![Saturday Daily Delawhere [4.13.13]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8387/8624755868_38b7f93373_z.jpg "Saturday Daily Delawhere [4.13.13]")
Late Night Video — Jon Stewart Tackles Guess Who’s Coming to Howard
As usual, he nails it. Especially the collective ignoring of the last 50 years of GOP history. Especially choise that he found articles from the 70s when the GOP explicitly wrote off the Black vote, wanting the VRA to stay alive, because that would drive more southern whites to the GOP.
Here’s Another For The “Can’t Make This Stuff Up” Files
Via TPM: Rep. Steve Stockman @ReElectStockman Our campaign bumper sticker: If babies had guns, they wouldn’t be aborted. http://stockman2014.com #gosnell #tcot pic.twitter.com/CVaYrQAeK9 1:44 AM – 12 Apr 13 Can a fetus even hold a gun?
Friday Open Thread [4.12.13]
A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds most Americans support “creating a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who are working in this country illegally — and one with a shorter timeline than that contemplated by Congress.”
“Nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said they favor giving citizenship to those who came here illegally and now hold jobs. Support jumped to 76% for a plan that required immigrants to pay fines, back taxes and pass a security check, among other measures, to gain citizenship. Bipartisan legislation now being written in the Senate could open a pathway to citizenship with similar requirements.”
In addition, 51% say illegal immigrants with jobs should gain citizenship after five years with an additional 18% backed immediate citizenship. The plan being discussed in Congress has a 10 year time frame.
What Delaware’s Libertarian said
The News Journal’s editorial page: distorting the facts for political gain
If one’s only source of information regarding the disagreement between the Christina School District and the Delaware Department of Education were the News Journal editorial page, one might be excused for drawing the conclusion that
but in fact…
Portraying the CSD School Board as not wanting great teachers, as reneging on prior agreements, as being untrustworthy partners with the State, and as being lone wolf crazies flying in the fact of all Delaware education reform is–to put it bluntly–editorial prostitution that defies the facts of the whole case.
![Friday Daily Delawhere [4.12.13]](http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8111/8623651615_90369c3066_z.jpg "Friday Daily Delawhere [4.12.13]")
If you could rewrite the 2nd Amendment, how would you do it?
It is as if our Founding Fathers were high when they wrote this:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
It is as if Yoda was a Founding Father, and if he was that would be awesome, but we are still left with awkward backward sentences. In my mind, when I read the second amendment, it looks and sounds like two sentences got smashed together in a head on collision: “A well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State” and “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
The two sentences are mutually exclusive. The latter sentence establishes an absolute right to bear arms without any interference from Congress, including, presumably as to what constitutes “Arms,” since that term is not defined. So, if you look at only that sentence, as most gun nuts and the NRA does, you believe you have an absolute right to own a nuclear missle launcher, a bazooka, a tank, and 100 AR-15s.
Meanwhile, the former sentence says a regulated milita (militia at the time being a group of community citizens with guns) is necessary to the security of the free state. To me, that sentence as two interpretations: 1) the defense of a free state requires a well regulated militia, thus the state is responsible for establishing and regulating a militia, and 2) militias, or community citizens with guns, need to be regulated by the state to ensure the security of a free state, otherwise it is an OK Corral out there and no one is secure or safe.
Either interpretation of the former sentence requires state regulation of the right to own guns. Which is wholly incompatable with the latter sentence guaranteeing a uninfringed and absolute right to bear arms. And yet Yoda and the Founding Fathers smashed those two sentences together anyway.
I think there is a consensus in this country on guns, however, despite the rhetoric on the fringes where on one side there is an absolute right to bear arms and on the other where all guns should be banned.
GOP’s budget terrorists a significant threat to America
…or congressional lack of intelligence leads to intelligence failure. Either way, there is no way around that fact that we are our own worst enemy. By John Bailey and Jeff Black, NBC News Sequestration – the across-the-board cuts to the federal workforce and services — jeopardizes national security, and unless remedied will lead to an […]
Delaware Lawmaker not convinced we really went to the moon
John Atkins shared a link.
2 hours ago
Im not a big conspiracy guy, but after doing some research, reading, and critical thinking on my own, Im not sure we ever went. Whats your thoughts?
And from the resulting comment thread…
Rick, once its launched it simply could have orbitted around the earth out of view of the naked eye? Ever watch “astronauts gone wild”? A guy simply asks every man that walked on the moon to place his hand on the bible to confirm it. Not one would do it……why not?
2 hours ago
I’ve never heard of “astronauts gone wild” – but I’m 100% sure it is complete nonsense that only a person with diminished mental capacity could give any credence to.
The Whitesplaining Rand Paul
So Rand Paul went to Howard University yesterday to speak to the student body in what was billed as an outreach to minority and young voters. The GOP has gotten alot of press since November making it very plain that the structural problem with their party is its lack of appeal to minority and young voters. Rand Paul apparently sees himself as helping to fix this problem — first by actually going to the audience the GOP needs to start engaging, and then relying on the media to brand this as a libertarian outreach. The latter is important because it makes Paul look like a leader in a rebranding effort — making the GOP more libertarian — while still pursuing the same GOP goals on behalf of corporations and rich people. And trying to call those goals “freedom” and “opportunity”.
Thursday Open Thread [4.11.13]
John Dickerson is right: “The Obama strategy relies on theater. There is nothing substantively new about Obama’s budget plan. He has offered versions of the same plan (i.e. Chained CPI) privately to Republican leaders, but now he’s trying to go around those leaders. One requirement for building trust with Republican senators is putting these offers on paper. This is meant to show individual senators that he is making good on the promises he has made in private conversations, but it also offers them the cover they need with their constituents. If senators are going to flirt with tax increases, they have to show their voters that they purchased something in return. Now they can point to the president’s public effort on entitlements. But wait, how do we know that Obama is really making a sacrifice? Just look at how upset his supporters are.”
So you progressives and liberals and Democrats who are mad as hell and are screaming at the top of your lungs: keep doing it. It is what Obama wants you to do. You are doing your part in this theater.
Meanwhile, Greg Sargent explains why Obama wants a Grand Bargain in the first place and details his strategy to that underlies the current maneuverings over the budget….
Marriage Equality Bill Unveiled Today
A news conference unveiling the Marriage Equality bill is scheduled for 2:30 this afternoon at Wilmington’s Freedom Plaza. Rep. Melanie George Smith will sponsor the bill that will legalize marriages between same sex partners, just as she sponsored and worked the Civil Unions bill last session.
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