Year: 2015

Timothy Egan at The New York Times writes about Donald Trump’s rhetoric in the race for the Republican nomination:

Take him at his word — albeit, a worthless thing given his propensity for telling outright lies and not backing down when called on them — Donald Trump’s reign would be a police state. He has now outlined a series of measures that would make the United States an authoritarian nightmare. Trump is no longer entertaining, or diversionary. He’s a billionaire brute, his bluster getting more ominous by the day.

Several white supremacist terrorists shot 5 people at an ongoing Black Lives Matter protest in Minneapolis last night. According to a police report today, two suspects have been arrested. It is what Trump has started.

White supremacists are obviously already inclined towards hatred and violence, but in other ways they are just like anybody else. They’re suggestible. They can be incited. They can take cues from political leaders and feel as if those cues grant legitimacy to their beliefs and actions. So, when a Black Lives Matter protester gets beaten down and choked at a Trump rally and called a nigger and a monkey, and the candidate (who also happens to be leading in the polls) says that he probably deserved this treatment, it certainly seems like it could influence a few white supremacists to show up armed at a Black Lives Matter rally looking for trouble. Sending out racist tweets only strengthens this impression. It’s really a matter of leadership. Trump has chosen to be the leader of a group that has a lynch mob mentality. I don’t think there is any doubt that he’s been encouraging and condoning this kind of behavior, even if he hasn’t told anyone to start shooting people.

When a police officer "fears for his life" he basically has a blank check to bypass District Attorneys, hearings, juries, judges and sentencing hearings and skip directly to the execution. That is why 70 people were killed by cops in Chicago last year and all but one were found to be justified. That test for deadly force is much too low. I understand that police work is hard and dangerous, but it is supposed to be. Police are supposed to be carefully screened and trained to be able to contend with the difficulties and danger of the job. Police work is only easy in a police state.

CHICAGO (AP) — The white officer who shot a black Chicago teen 16 times has been charged with murder and jailed. The graphic video of the slaying has been made public. And in the hours after the footage was released, protesters seemed to honor pleas for restraint.

It would be utterly humiliating for the DEGOP ticket to be topped by Lacey Lafferty. A complete disgrace. An utter travesty, and an intolerable burden for down ticket Republicans. But Copeland alone doesn't have the juice to get Bonini to unquit the race. So my sense it that Copeland, Simpler and Burris triple teamed Bonini who will be getting some pay off, like a piece of pizza, or a root-beer float, in exchange for being the candidate to lose to fellow GOPer, John Carney.

State Sen. Colin Bonini (R-Dover South) will forge ahead with his campaign for governor. The decision came after meeting with top donors and political allies Friday, which Bonini says rejuvenated his conviction to seek the Delaware’s highest office.

The great paradox: Americans hate government, want it do a lot, and they are satisfied with the job it is doing. Pew Research surveyed 35,071 Americans between June and September of 2014 and compiled information about their religious and political beliefs. A majority of the American public supports the government playing a major role in a wide range of areas and issues. And when asked about whether or not the government is doing a good job in each of those areas (rather than the more general question about overall trust in government), the ratings are relatively high. Of course there are some differences on how Democrats and Republicans rate government performance in these areas. Come inside to find out more.

Senator Tom Carper matched Governor Markell's approval rating of 61% in Morning Consult's job performance polling of all 100 U.S. Senators Delaware Tom Carper over the last few months. 22% disapprove of the CEO of Carperdyne Systems. Senator Coons has a lower rating, but still relatively high, at 58%. 23% disapprove.

Jeb! Bush is down to fourth (or lower) in most polls and seems to be about done. His style of pretending to be the grownup in the room is so…

A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds Hillary Clinton is better-trusted on dealing with the terrorism threat, with her biggest edge over Donald Trump.

“By 50% to 42%, more Americans say they trust Clinton to handle the threat of terrorism than Trump, who leads the Republican field and responded to the Paris terrorist attacks by calling for heightened surveillance of mosques and redoubling his opposition to allowing Syrian refugees to settle in the U.S.”