Archive for April, 2015
BREAKING: 50 Years For Viewing Disgusting Pictures?? Utterly Insane.
Breaking from the News-Journal: Former Tower Hill headmaster Christopher Wheeler was today sentenced to a 50-year sentence for having and viewing 25 pictures of kiddie porn on his computer. Two years for each picture.
Following the sentencing, the DAG said that Wheeler had been offered a 4-year sentence if he pled guilty, but he chose to go to a trial by judge.
So, let me get this straight…the AG’s office felt that 4 years was an acceptable term, otherwise they wouldn’t have offered it, but he gets 50 years instead.
Delaware General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up: Week of April 21-23, 2015
Common Corporate, Race To the Top, No Textbook Publisher Left Behind, these will be legacies of a lost decade-plus in education reform. Bloated bureaucracies full of bean-counters will hopefully shrink and vanish.
Make no mistake, while HB 50 is just one bill in one small state, it reflects a burgeoning movement nationally to reject the K-12 reform that was foisted on us by people with next to no experience in, you know, educating children.
Thinkers like Nicholas Kristof are already focusing on where our efforts would be best allocated in the post-reform era. Yes, the notion of reform was well-intended, still is, for that matter, in a time when there continue to be inequities in education. However, charter schools and one-size-fits-all testing have proven to help perpetuate and accelerate those inequities, as opposed to alleviating them. Which is what happens when there are huge piles of money thrown at the issue, and greedy corporations and individuals looking to pocket the proceeds. In fact, one could argue (and I will) that the most vocal proponents for this reform were those who (or in the case of Dubya, his family) stood to gain the most financially from the reforms.
HB 50(Kowalko) is important less for what it would do, than for what it represents. The bill serves as a reflection of the mounting dissatisfaction with both the disastrous education reform policies of the past decade and also the Bigfoot approach that this governor and his corporate comrade cum Secretary of Education have tried to impose/inflict on those with the nerve to fight back. “We may be wrong (although we’re not), but we have the power to crush you like a bug” does very little to win friends and influence people. With knowledgeable education-oriented legislators joining the likes of John Kowalko in the General Assembly recently (Kim Williams, Bryan Townsend, and Sean Matthews, among others), legislators are starting to understand how bad the current policies are. Plus, teachers, parents, and students have found their voices on these issues. Which is why getting HB 50 out of committee is/was important. There is also a bipartisan coalition forming on this issue, with many conservative legislators joining their progressive counterparts in support of HB 50. The question is whether the Chamber of Commerce types still have the numbers to outvote them. Might I point out that the Chamber of Commerce has embraced this disastrous reform going back to Phase One during the unlamented Carper years? If you support this bill, it is absolutely essential that you contact your legislators, especially, for now, your state representative. Kevin Ohlandt has done all the work for us, so click on this to get your specific marching orders. BTW, thanks, Kevin, for your contribution to the cause! Exceptional Delaware is an exceptional blog.
Friday Open Thread [4.24.15]
![Friday Open Thread [4.24.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Lynch-240x180.jpg "Friday Open Thread [4.24.15]")
Eric Holder is free!
The Senate confirmed Loretta Lynch yesterday in a 56-43 roll call after a long delay necessitated by Republican racism. The Republican senators who voted for Lynch are Susan Collins of Maine, Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Rob Portman of Ohio and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Johnson, Kirk, Portman, and Ayotte all face tough reelection battles in blue states, and a no vote would have guaranteed their immediate defeat in a presidential year. Flake, Graham, and Hatch had approved her previously, in their roles as members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. So a no vote now would have made them look like fools. More so than normal. Collins is a Maine “Moderate.” The enduring mysteries are Cochran and McConnell. Cochran is an old school Senate hand, so that may explain his vote. McConnell’s vote is, I suppose, an apology.
SENATORS VOTED Thursday to confirm Loretta Lynch as the next attorney general by an embarrassingly thin margin of 56 to 43. It was embarrassing not to Ms. Lynch, who clearly deserved confirmation, but to the Republicans who voted against a nominee who should have breezed through.
Thursday Open Thread [4.23.15]
![Thursday Open Thread [4.23.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Open.Thread-240x180.png "Thursday Open Thread [4.23.15]")
“A week before a closely watched U.S. Supreme Court hearing on the issue, public support for gay marriage reached a new high in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll, with 61 percent of Americans – more than six in 10 for the first time – saying gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally.”
“Identical or similar majorities favor gay marriage on two key issues before the court: Sixty-one percent oppose allowing individual states to prohibit same-sex marriages. And 62 percent support requiring states to recognize gay marriages performed legally in other states.”
Wednesday Open Thread [4.22.15]
![Wednesday Open Thread [4.22.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Obama-240x180.png "Wednesday Open Thread [4.22.15]")
A new CNN/ORC poll finds President Obama’s approval ratings have reached their highest mark in almost two years.
“48% of Americans approve of how Obama is running the country, compared to 47% who disapprove. That’s the highest mark since May 2013, the last time a plurality of Americans backed the president in the poll. [Fifty-two percent] believe the economy is either ‘very good’ or ‘somewhat good.’”
Obama now is as popular as Ronald Reagan was at the same point in their second terms. The President’s approval rating has increased with 18-29-year-olds (57%), women (51%), Democrats (88%), and liberal Democrats (97%).
This is devastating news for the Republicans, who have based their entire existence, yet alone their 2016 campaign strategy, on the fevered alternate reality notion that Obama is this despised weaking mealy mouthed tyrannical dictator, who is both a radical black Christian but also a Muslim socialist communist. Republicans have been arguing that a win for Hillary Clinton in 2016 would equal an Obama third term. The question Republicans forgot to ask: what if America wants an Obama third term?
‘Would you attend a homosexual wedding?’ A simple question so many GOP candidates got wrong.
The correct answer is: I wouldn’t attend a homosexual wedding because to attend is to give public credence to the bastardization of marriage. That is to say, the answer above is the answer that doctrinaire Republican primary voters are looking for. And yet, that so many candidates got the answer FLAT WRONG, may say something […]
The NRA has Won.
Charles M. Blow asks “Has the N.R.A. Won?” Yes, they have, and it is time we liberals give up on gun control.
It is now fair to ask whether the National Rifle Association is winning — or has in fact won — this era of the gun debate in this country. Gun control advocates have tried to use the horror that exists in the wake of mass shootings to catalyze the public into action around sensible gun restrictions. But rather than these tragedies being a cause for pause in ownership of guns, gun ownership has spiked in the wake of these shootings.
A striking report released Friday by the Pew Research Center revealed that “for the first time, more Americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, 52 percent to 46 percent.”
Look, it doesn’t matter the reasonableness of gun control measures. It almost always gets painted as some sort of tyranny, as if your Second Amendment rights are violated if you cannot purchase this Class 3 Scud Missile launcher.
Tuesday Open Thread [4.21.15]
![Tuesday Open Thread [4.21.15]](http://delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Open.Thread.Gray_-240x180.png "Tuesday Open Thread [4.21.15]")
Dana Milbank takes apart the latest anti-equality argument:
As the Supreme Court prepares to take up same-sex marriage next week, conservative scholars have produced a last-ditch argument to keep the scourge of homosexual unions from spreading across the land: Gay marriage kills.
They’re saying that legalizing same-sex marriage will cause 900,000 abortions. The logic is about as obvious as if they had alleged that raising the minimum wage would increase the frequency of hurricanes. If anything, you’d think that more same-sex marriages would mean more adoptions.
I don’t even understand the possible connection, let alone logic, in such an argument. Perhaps these evil conservatives are threatening the court in some fashion by saying if they approve marriage equality, the conservative right will start having abortions. Yes, it is insane, but so are most conservatives when it comes to their bigotry towards gays.
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