Archive for August, 2016
An Up Close Look At the City of Wilmington Okie Doke
Channel 28 on cable within Wilmington is a public access channel that is the locus of African American politics (and gossip) on Sundays. This is a segment from a recent Community Crossfire segment where Mayor Dennis Williams discusses the state of the city and the state of the Mayor’s race with Sammy Congo, Sam Guy, and Pastor D. If you can spend the 30 minutes or so to take a look at this, you can see how Wilmington’s African Amerian leadership speaks to its African American (mostly) audience. It’s pretty disappointing all the way around, really. If you read this blog regularly, you know that one thing that I like pointing out is how Republicans are particularly good at getting their victim on as a way to bully people into their POV. Even though they aren’t victims of anything, other than their own mismanagement or their own failure of messaging or leadership. You can see exactly the same thing here. Wilmington’s “leadership” is being victimized by Purzycki (called out by name), or others running for Mayor who — according to Williams — he has helped and who are now somehow displaying serious disloyalty in now running against him. Pastor D calls out Kelley in a particularly despicable fashion — denigrating his involvement and friendships with the families of crime victims, wondering why Kelley doesn’t bring jobs to these communities. You are quite welcome to wonder which of these gentlemen have brought any serious jobs to their communities.
Sunday Open Thread [8.21.16]
Ryan Cooper/The Week:
Unless something changes between now and November — and it will have to be something big — Hillary Clinton is going to win this election in a complete blowout, perhaps by big enough margins to retake Congress. It’s an extremely unusual chance to actually push through some big policy, which raises the question: Where is Clinton’s big plan?
Franklin D. Roosevelt had his New Deal, and Lyndon B. Johnson had his Great Society, both of which went some ways towards building a society that provided a decent standard of living to everyone, without exception. In the 1930s, “New Dealer” meant something. Hillary Clinton can try to finish the job with her own branded policy package — the New Deal Squared? The Extremely Good Society? — that will provide a unifying vision and rallying symbol. Here are some suggestions.
DL Does the Peach Festival
It was the political place to be, with multiple candidates taking part in the oft delayed parade (due to at least 7 people suffering from heat stroke or bee stings). But Delaware Liberal was there (LiberalGeek marched, I watched and took pictures and Jason330 interviewed people). We have brief interviews of Bethany Hall Long, Matt Meyer, Hans Reigle and Kevin Hensley. Jason, suffering from heat stroke no doubt, also interviewed a Corona at the end.
Bethany Hall Long, State Senator and Democratic Candidate for Lt. Governor
Matt Meyer, Democratic Candidate for New Castle County Executive
More inside….
Saturday Open Thread [8.20.16]
A GOP memo to Republican members of all the county election boards in North Carolina, obtained by the Raleigh News and Observer via a public records request, reveals everything you suspected about GOP motivations in pushing for voting restrictions, including voter ID laws. It’s not surprising, but it should still shock the conscience.
Theory: Republican Primary voters are stupid
I’ve read a lot theories about what Trump might be up to. From Michael Moore to George Will, these theories are proliferating because the one thing he does not appear to be doing is running for President. I think the theories are malarkey, and that Trump thinks he can do the job, wants to be President, and is running earnestly for the office, just badly.
So I have a competing theory to throw into the mix. Republican primary voters are stupid. They knowingly voted for a person who showed no signs of being able to win the office. They (Republican Primary voters) are just dummies who made a dumb choice. If you examine their personal lives, you would probably find a robust record of bad choices.
IEM Futures Market: Congressional Control Currently Confounding
My prediction market of choice is Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM) run out of the University of Iowa. It is the oldest and has been highly predictive over the years. More predictive than polls, anyway.
That’s why I want to know more about why traders are bidding up “Other” in the congressional control market.
Political Primal Scream Therapy
I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier. While we may not have a Christine O’Donnell in 2016, I can’t recall a year when there have been so many Stoopid Candidate Tricks. Or at least the kind of stories that make me want to scream. Two such stories surfaced this morning in the News-Journal. Scream along with me.
First, we have another example of Mayor Dennis Williams’ solid personnel judgment. Second, we have a DUI in Sussex politics again.
Friday Open Thread [8.19.16]
The big news from last night is that, in a few brief sentences, Trump, reading from pre-written text, expressed “regret” for some of his campaign rhetoric. He did not specific which rhetoric he was referring to. Was it the time he attacked a grieving mother, or prisoners of war, or veterans, or Muslims, or women, or Latinos, or African Americans?
He was not specific, and he was not sincere. To prove that, he followed the regret line up with this: “sometimes I can be too honest. Hillary Clinton is the exact opposite, she never tells the truth.” (Also, that the media has been taking “words of mine out of context.”)
Fuck Donald Trump and his regret.
But the media will lap it up. IT IS THE LONG AWAITED PIVOT!!!!
DL’s Endorsement for Insurance Commissioner
I was just going to say that we endorsed Trinidad Navarro for Insurance Commissioner because he is not Karen Weldin Stewart, but fuck that. It is an election year, and the Insurance Commissioner isn’t some bullshit job like Lt. Governor. When Matt Denn was in the office between 2004 and 2008, he was squarely on the side of the insurance consumer, and he had a huge positive impact on Delaware’s small business by fixing how worker’s comp was calculated for companies that have great safety records. Conversely, Karen Weldin Stewart has been a shit show. Anyway, I knew that my usual lazy half-assery wasn’t going to cut it, so I took a hard look at Navarro and this is what I found out.
Trinidad Navarro is exactly the kind of Democrat that this backward piss-poor excuse for a Democratic establishment needs. He annoyed the fuck out of John Daniello when he ran against a sheriff that had been in office since before Delaware’s motto was changed by then Governor Tom Carper to “The Usury State.” And here he is again, taking up a campaign against one of the so-called democrats that thinks that large multinational corporations are in need of a champion.
Hey, Daniello did something good!
While this blog has been at odds with the State Party Chairman, John Daniello, for much of our existence (i.e. since 2004 or so), we have to give credit where credit is due. So good on Chairman Daniello for sending the below letter to Donald Trump…er ah, I mean Charlie Copeland, the Chairman of the Delaware Republican Party.
Come inside to read the letter.
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