The News Journal Plays the Patsy Again
A week ago the News Journal ran a front-page article on a confidential report on the state Auditor’s Office and the performance of Kathleen Davies, who was second-in-command to elected Auditor Tom Wagner. Davies apparently ruffled a lot of feathers in her six years on the job, enough so that people under her command clearly had it in for her.
The report cost more than $100,000 and, at least in the form acquired by the News Journal, wasn’t worth the time or money spent, as it found nothing beyond some chickenshit failure-to-follow-the-rules infractions. For example, she failed to use a state credit card for expenses, instead using her own and filing for reimbursement — actually a much better deal for the state. Ask Chip Flowers what happens when you give someone a state credit card. You can judge how limp-dicked this report was by the fact that Davies won her case against the state for her treatment, despite the report’s findings.
When someone handed a copy of the report to the News Journal, though, the paper played it as if they had performed an act of journalism, which is laughable. Only eight copies of this document are known to exist, and Wagner refused to produce one even under subpoena. So who gave their copy to the News Journal, and why?
Those questions were raised by Reps. John Kowalko and Kim Williams, who pointed out that releasing a confidential report could be a crime. The newspaper’s new executive editor, Tom Feeley, reacted with sanctimonious bullshit about “transparency,” proving he doesn’t understand the term. He’s also demonstrating that, like all News Journal executive editors, his lack of familiarity with the players prevents him from doing a decent job.
As Davies herself has pointed out, Wagner dragged out this process for almost two years, during which Davies was under suspension and would have forfeited her complaint about her treatment if she had talked about it. Now, with Davies threatening to foil the plans of Delaware’s Fake Democrats to install Republican-pretending-to-be-Democrat Kathy McGuiness to the position, suddenly the report appears.
This has happened before in Delaware politics. In 1996, an obscure right-wing outfit in Virginia released the divorce deposition in which Tom Carper’s ex-wife said under oath that he hit her. In typical News Journal fashion, that part of the story was ignored while editors sought to tie the release to Carper’s opponent, Janet Rzewnicki. When Valerie Helmbreck tracked down the connection — the Virginia outfit had gotten if from the ex-wife’s new husband — it completely failed to follow up on the wife-beating.
Here we have the exact opposite situation. There was no journalistic digging involved here — the report was handed to the newspaper, which did no further reporting other than asking for comment from Davies.
But the story here isn’t what’s in the report, it’s how the report — which Davies herself has never seen — found its way to the newspaper just in time for the primary election. I think we can all figure that out, though of course the News Journal can’t, for the simple reason that nobody who works there has any background or familiarity with the state of Delaware.
There are countless other stories bound up in this sorry episode. Why was Tom Wagner allowed to keep his job despite his inability to perform it? How did he come to designate Davies second-in-command? I was unaware that there were political appointees in the auditor’s office — people Davies says were doing political work on the clock, a bigger violation of state law than anything in the report they’re so breathless about. Who are these appointees, what are they doing there, and why are taxpayers paying for them?
All of those are worthier stories than the one that was printed, but they would require someone to do more than cut-and-paste the report and act sanctimonious about it afterward.
The biggest question of all, one that seems to point to the Department of Education: What did Davies find that scared the Delaware Way Caucus so badly they had to destroy her?
Don’t expect the News Journal to ask that anytime soon — or ever.
You still got heat. Nice work…
Fucking reeks of Carney. You guys had this dead, you & El Som. Delaware Way hatchet job. I have a lot friends at the paper. I want to take the Greenwald position and absolve the Journal…
Tough though. They must have known they were being played. If they didn’t they’re inept.
I was proud to have my letter published with Davies’ in today’s print edition.
Good news is they’re desperate. Grasping at straws. We got ’em.
……….
Kerri Evelyn Harris
Chris Johnson
S Elizabeth (Tizzy) Lockman
Don Allen
Laura Sturgeon
Kathleen Davies
You all know what to do. Everybody knows…
It was the sanctimonious response to Williams and Kowalko that set me off. I don’t know anything about the new guy — he seems to have good credentials — but he was vulnerable because he’s a newbie.
The News Journal has a long history of fellating those in power. That’s why Carper’s wife-beating was treated as no story back in ’96.
Speaking of… we hold some ground already. Do everything to dig in and support the side…
in addition to that list of candidates we should be all out for….
J Kowalko
K Williams
Sean Lynn
Nnmadi Chukwuocha
etc., etc,..
(N.B. B Townsend could be included in this. He’s so close. Show us more. And don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.)
Kevin Ohlandt has more on this at Exceptional Delaware, including the statement Kathleen Davies released about the News Journal article:
https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/breaking-news-kathleen-davies-issues-press-release-on-slanted-news-journal-article/#more-20695
Did this do the old backfire deal? Blowback?
That’d be dope. Haha.
Alby skinned the executive editor. Nicely done old man. He deserved it.
The News Journal is being played by the McGuiness camp, no doubt. But I think it’s more opportunistic underhanded politics than some deep dark conspiracy. McGuiness is the party fav and they are pulling strings to get her in, it’s a leap from there to saying it’s because they are afraid of Davies. If Davies knows something then why doesn’t she spill it?
There is dirty political bullshit aplenty here but I don’t think it runs any deeper than sign stealing does.
This has all the smarmy hallmarks of Tom Wagner’s delaying and subsequent whitewashing of a report critical of Dick Cathcart.
Wagner may be portrayed as a bumbling do-nothing Auditor, but he’s also a sneaky amoral political operative. His role in this should not be understated. And it raises the question: Why does Tom Wagner want to run interference for Park City Kathy, and why is he looking to undermine the Davies campaign?
@Rufus: I don’t think they’re “afraid” of Davies, though I don’t rule it out. They, whoever they are, set out to destroy Davies long before she decided to run for office. What did she find out to set that destruction in motion? That’s the question I’d like answered. I don’t think there’s a deep or dark conspiracy. These are Delawareans we’re talking about, so “deep” is out of the question.
Ohlandt has written extensively about Davies having conducted audits where Wagner would never tread?
Between the hard on most Del pols have for the Charter School lobby and Harris McDowell’s heavily-protected SEU, those investigations undertaken by Davies would have brought severe pushback.
And, if political operatives doing campaign work on state time in the AoA were unveiled by Davies, that would most likely have been spotlighting GOPers.
So you have a healthy, all around DE Way working here, hands across the aisle.
And I have known DE State Senate atty Frank Murphy from my People’s Settlement Assn. days.
I shake my head every time I read an SEU agenda because their regular payments to Murphy take a prime spot. Nice pay if you can get it.
@Nancy: The 2016 audit of SEU should have been enough to end it. This is what do-nothing Democrats look like.
Which reminds me, Harris McDowell’s mug can be seen endorsing Kathleen Jennings over on her youtube page. Just under Val Longhurst’s. Don’t look for any investigations into SEU should she be elected AG.
Which reminds me I saw a TV ad for Jennings last night on one of the Philly stations.
A timeline many haven’t reported or looked at. Delaware GOP guy John Fluharty becomes Wagner’s deputy at the beginning of 2016. Davies out by May. Just as the Indian River School District audit was beginning. A charter school petty cash report never comes out but Wagner sends non-public letters to the charters. Those letters come out as a result of a FOIA request, not Wagner unveiling them. After ruffling feathers at DOE, fire companies, and the SEU audit. Indian River S.D. audit was stopped from coming out in August of 2016 by Delaware DOJ. Wagner goes back and forth on when to release it with regards to the referendum in Indian River. John Carney picks Indian River Superintendent Susan Bunting for Secretary of Education. It wasn’t just what Davies accomplished with the explosive audit investigations she led but what she would have come out with.
John Fluharty was a big Trump supporter. Just sayin’!
Yep. Jennings has been up with that ad where, after they stress her many years as a state prosecutor, she says that ‘cash bail’ is wrong. As if she just discovered it after decades of asking for bail for defendants. Where the bleep WAS she on this issue during her decades as a prosecutor?
Ad’s been up for awhile. She is the candidate for those who don’t want any changes to the system. Which is why she’s the Delaware Way candidate, just like Park City Kathy is the Delaware Way candidate.
Actually, she was a defense lawyer for decades, I think for longer than she’s been a prosecutor. That alone would make her unique in the history of the office.
“Where the bleep WAS she on this issue during her decades as a prosecutor?”
This is an absurd standard. Nobody who took a stand against it would be allowed to work in the office.
BTW, I’m not surprised that the ad’s been around. It must be in high rotation if I saw it.
That’s something the ad never mentioned. Just touted her record as a prosecutor. That’s what she’s running on.
Did she mention the unfairness of cash bail when she was a defense attorney?
Of course that’s what she’s running on. The only places that will elect a reformer as top prosecutor are places like Philly, where you have a large minority population and almost a century of police brutality against them.
Nobody talked about the unfairness of cash bail until a few years ago.
I think you’re wrong on her defense work. According to her website, she and Oberly formed a firm after her decades in the AG’s office:
https://www.kathyfordelaware.com/meet-kathy
Then Oberly became a Fed prosecutor, and she returned to the AG’s office.
Kathy Jennings never mentioned the unfairness of cash bail until Chris Johnson made it a cornerstone of his campaign.
I know I’m not wrong on her defense work. My wife did a big profile of her when she was a defense attorney. But I think I’m wrong about it being for longer than she’s been a prosecutor.
“Kathy Jennings never mentioned the unfairness of cash bail until Chris Johnson made it a cornerstone of his campaign.”
Nobody is going to vote for a prosecutor running on the issue of cash bail. Just sayin’.
She was in the AG’s office during the terms of Oberly, Biden and Denn. She was ‘in the wilderness’ during the Brady years.
And Jennings ‘appropriated’ the issue from Johnson. Just sayin’.
I don’t think it’s an issue at all. I didn’t even notice she said anything about it. It resonates with the black community and SJWs, and would be opposed by just about everyone else.
I’m trying to find a copy of the article that isn’t behind a paywall.
“It resonates with the black community and SJWs, and would be opposed by just about everyone else.”
For the elimination of cash bail:
Black community
Latino community
Social justice workers
Defense attorneys
Liberal whites
Everyone else = Conservative white people and moderate white people who can’t admit that they’re conservative white people.
No, most people have never heard of the problem, and when they find out about it, most won’t care. Facts should be faced.
The Latino community doesn’t vote. If there were any liberal white constituency of any size we wouldn’t have the Washington delegation we do.
Speaking of endorsements, any idea why liberal darling Bryan Townsend is endorsing Park City Kathy?
I’ve alluded to this.
It sucks. He did it months ago. Pre-Davies. I can’t justify it.
It smells to me an awful lot like Lindsay Graham’s sudden love for Trump. I’m sure it smooths things with Schwartzkopf.
Well, he DOES try to pass a lot of complex legislation, and largely succeeds. Maybe he needed some friends in high places to make sure those bills got onto agendas.
Alby said it best. To smooth things with Pete. I pray to God the House comes to their senses and picks a new Speaker for the 150th.
Hahahaahahah!! Oh man… good laugh.
Politics always made “strange bed-fellows”. Kathleen McGuiness proposed Corporations & LLC’s vote in Rehoboth elections and that is never brought up. She got heavy blowback on that. Mrs. Davies exposed in her “Sustainable Energy Utility reports just how the massive honey pot of money is used unaccounted for with bogus energy savings with Markel’s budget director signed off on a contract obligating payouts on bonds until 2034. Also not being reported is the senior state senator sitting on the loan committee a serious conflict of interest. He also sits at the top of the “Joint Finance Committee which I believe is a triple conflict of interest. Somewhat surprised the other party hasn’t made an issue out of that but they may not have known. I do believe there is serious exposure.
Incredibly serious exposure, and the Republican who ran against him last time didn’t make the case, but he nevertheless got his reward: a place on the statewide ticket to run for … AUDITOR!