Brandywine School District Passes Referendum

Brandywine School District Passes Referendum

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Quick blurb because I'm still at Christina Board meeting, but Brandywine has passed their referenda by close to a four thousand vote margin! 9,612 FOR - 5,780 against. Congratulations!  BSD also smashed Christina's total turnout (13,395) by almost 2,000 votes: 15,392 total votes!

Tuesday Open Thread [5.17.16]

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Jonathan Chait:
Donald Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns could be seen as a process issue, perhaps even a vetting question so important that it’s “disqualifying,” as Mitt Romney has called it. But perhaps it could be something more than that. It might be the thin end of the wedge that opens up a powerful theme against the self-professed billionaire: that Trump is a total fraud. Trump has repeatedly refused to publish his tax returns, and repeatedly lied about his intention to do so. He promised five years ago to release his returns when President Obama released his birth certificate, and reneged. He promised to release them in February 2015; again promised to do so last fall and then in January, then backed off on the grounds that he was under an IRS audit, an argument tax experts have unanimously dismissed as nonsensical. Now he insists there’s “nothing to learn from them.” As many financial reporters have speculated over the years, based on whatever fragmentary information Trump has provided, he almost certainly has far less money than he claims. A reporter who has dug into the question estimates Trump’s actual worth at $150–250 million; Trump claims to be worth $10 billion, which is at least 40 times the journalist's estimate. The reality of Trump’s business career is that he is not so much a great businessman but somebody who has figured out how to make money by convincing people that he is one. [...] The particulars of his day-to-day message, to the extent he has one, barely matter. His entire appeal rests on the bedrock of his identity as a successful entrepreneur. The vast wealth Trump claims to have amassed allows him to supposedly fund his own campaign, escaping the influence of fundraisers who control his opponents. His alleged deal-making skill explains why he will be able to improve every trade deal, solve every legislative impasse, and finesse every diplomatic conflict. Trump’s endlessly repeated proposition is that he will take the skills that made him so rich and generously use them to make the country rich. Without that, he’s just a dumber version of Pat Buchanan.
General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., May 17, 2016

General Assembly Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show: Tues., May 17, 2016

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I'm back from Oregon, and I see that I didn't miss much. The General Assembly is currently in collective thumbs-twiddling mode.  I now understand why they took a week off recently.  It's not like they have nothing to address (like minimum wage), it's just that they've chosen not to address much of consequence. Cowardice in an election year, who'dathunkit? Can we just talk about minimum wage? Please?  While places across the country are passing $15 an hour minimum, idiot/legislators like Andria Bennett and Quin Johnson turn up their noses at a far less ambitious proposal by accepting Chamber talking points w/o even looking on their own at how higher minimum wages have impacted communities that have implemented them.  Plus, if one of them should 'falter' and eventually go against the Chamber, there is always the no-longer-running-for-Congress business lackey Bryon Short waiting to deep-six the proposal. When it comes to minimum wage, Delawareans did better when the R's controlled the House than they do now. As to the notion of raising taxes on Delaware's wealthiest, I wrote about this last year. If it wasn't even gonna be considered in an off-year (thanks, Pete), it certainly isn't gonna be passed in an election year. The General Assembly made the decision to give more to the 1%, hence the corporate bailouts that were rushed through in January.  More and better Democrats are few and far between in Dover.