DL Open Thread Monday, Sept. 2, 2024
The New York Times’ mollycoddling of Trump has gotten especially egregious lately, and you’re not the only one who noticed. Margaret Sullivan, the Times’ former public editor, calls them out for their recent whopper comparing Kamala Harris’ affordable housing plan to Trump’s, which is no better thought out than “we’ll deport millions of people.” I regret that I had only one subscription to cancel for my country.
Israel’s indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinians is supposedly in service of rescuing hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. It’s not going so well, and the execution of six hostages as rescuers closed in shows why. As a result, Israeli is under a general strike today, with widespread street protests still in progress.
In a not unrelated story, Robert Kuttner at the American Prospect calls on the Democratic Party to adopt measures to root out the scourge of AIPAC. As he notes, they’re sneaky bastards. They spend millions to defeat progressive Democrats, but they never mention Israel as an issue, maybe because a lot of people might find foreign meddling in American elections odious.
In another entry for the Advice That Won’t Be Taken file, Robert Reich has some ideas on how to rein in Elon Musk. When he gets to boycotting Xitter, he directs it at advertisers, not users, perhaps because he knows the punditry might disappear if they couldn’t tweet.
If the American republic is coming apart at the seams, well, it happens to the best of democracies. In the opinion of one prominent constitutional scholar, the document itself is a major source of our problems, so maybe it’s time for a new one. Man, that Advice That Won’t Be Taken file is stuffed today.
The floor’s yours.
That Margaret Sullivan piece is must-reading.
Pretty much ANY comparison between Trump and Harris is a false equivalency.
I honestly wonder how the Times got to this point.
“I honestly wonder how the Times got to this point.”
It is truly incredible. At least Fox News knows what it is.
Strong agreement that the constitution itself is both antiquated and a danger unto the nation as a whole, sad agreement that nothing will be done to fix it and that the supreme court now uses it as a weapon of the rich. Having been stupid enough to let Reagan’s magical tax cuts steer us back to the Gilded Age we now see the rise of unions, perhaps the best part of “Those who forget the past”.
Jim Maravelias and his New Jersey buddies are going all in with the last minute smear campaign vs Meyer. Got three new mailers claiming Meyer covered up sexual harassment. Could it succeed?
There was a poll published in the NJ that O’Mara was even with BHL both 15 behind Meyer with still 30% undecided. Not exactly a jump ball but not a zero chance for a come from behind in the final days.
That poll’s bullshit.
No way that O’Mara’s even with BHL.
Who’s that poll from?
Let me guess–Citizens For A New Something Or Other.
Nope. O’Mara leaked the poll results–from a pollster I’ve never heard of:
“A more recent poll shared with Delaware Online by O’Mara, which was conducted by Trailblazer Opinion Strategies on the governor’s race and released Aug. 27, shows Meyer at 33%, sweeping both Hall-Long’s 19% and O’Mara’s 17%.”
Mr. Google has never heard of them, either. Did anyone at the News Journal bother asking for their bona fides?
If any of the gubernatorial candidates had shown the NJ the results of a poll conducted by Delaware Liberal they probably still would have printed the “results.”
https://www.trailblz.com/
Could be… but not rated as a pollster.
I got this text randomly and saw a commercial on cnn referencing it as well today. Anyone know if there is validity to the claims? I was planning on holding nose and voting meyer as no one really is inspiring and BHL is a no go.
Here’s the text:
Numerous women working for New Castle County under County Executive Matt Meyer were sexually harassed by supervisors. Meyer has been sued repeatedly for silencing these women and enabling sexual predators. None of the harassers were fired. It’s never okay to enable sexual harassment. NEVER. Matt Meyer has proven he won’t protect women. Delaware can NOT elect Matt Meyer as our Governor. Reply STOP to opt out.
No. Nobody has ever accused Meyer of sexual harassment.
A woman filed a lawsuit a couple of weeks ago, and named Meyer as a co-defendant even though he had no involvement whatsoever in her case:
https://whyy.org/articles/sexual-harassment-new-castle-county-delaware-retaliation/
Filed just a couple of weeks before the primary. Note how the following text made it into BHL’s lit:
“That sequence of events that began in 2022 culminated last week with Oberlander suing three top government officials — County Executive Matt Meyer, Chief Financial Officer Michael R. Smith and former human resources chief Jacqueline Jenkins. Farnan is not named as a defendant.
Oberlander’s filing in U.S. District Court in Wilmington charges that she was subject to sexual harassment, gender discrimination, a hostile work environment and retaliation.
The lawsuit didn’t cite any specific acts by Meyer that pertained to how the county handled her complaint against Farnan or her bids to get promoted.
Oberlander claimed, however, that Meyer permits “the willful suppression of complaints of sexual harassment by female employees. As a result, female employees are discouraged from filing complaints due to continued fear of retaliation and retribution.”
Oberlander further alleged that “Meyer and his administration continue to turn a blind eye to blatant acts of sexual harassment which includes male supervisors propositioning female subordinates for sex and naked photos.”
That looks like language DESIGNED to get into a lit piece to me. Not even a hint that Meyer has been involved in this. Whether you like or don’t like Meyer, does anybody seriously believe he would turn a blind eye toward behavior like that? County government is big. Most employees are Merit System hires. This wouldn’t rise to his level, especially since there is no evidence that Meyer has engaged in discriminatory practices with his OWN hiring.
BTW, I know that employees were harassed by Karen Hartley-Nagle b/c the County had to pay out.
However, the assertion that ‘(n)umerous women working for New Castle County under County Executive Matt Meyer were sexually harassed by supervisors’ is unsupported by any evidence, nor is the claim that ‘Meyer permits the willful suppression of complaints of sexual harassment by female employees.” Oh, let me correct that. Harassment claims WERE filed against the NCC Police Department. You know, the police who view Meyer as Public Enemy #1.
While I hate sexual harassment of any kind, both the timing of this (the incidents allegedly took place in 2022, and the alleged harasser was not included in the complaint), and frankly naming Meyer as a party to the suit but sparing her alleged harasser smells of political opportunism.
I assumed it was a political hit job but wanted clarification
Thanks for the info
They’re referring to the police sexual harassment case, settled several years ago. Counter the allegation, that had been going on for years before Meyer was elected and eventually settled the suit. It’s akin to blaming Biden for ending the military involvement in Afghanistan.
The story does raise the question of why the supervisor, John Farnan, is still working for the county. What he did sounds like grounds for dismissal to me.
Might it be because Farnan is related to a retired federal judge?
Guess who was the President Of NCC Council when the complaints about police abuse were filed.
If you guessed Stephanie Hansen, who is now attached at the hip to BHL, you would be correct. This happened long before Matt Meyer came on the scene. Amirite, Stephanie?
I really wouldn’t be so surprised about BHL’s numbers being so low.
I think there were a lot of assumptions about this race that have led to miscalculations. A few:
– BHL’s name ID was likely much lower than one would expect.
– A year’s worth of stories from the media saying you’re an inept crook do, in fact, permeate.
– Weeks and weeks of heavy (and effectively produced) TV ads do make a difference
– Having a consistent campaign manager and just general organization does make a difference
– $$ makes a difference
– That Collin would take voters exclusively from Matt. I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I don’t know why – but I think that assumption was wrong. (fwiw, that was my original assumption too)
I’ll close with this: If Matt Meyer wins this by 10+ points or anywhere close, he is coming in with a true mandate. Despite having millions spent against him and the whole democratic party apparatus – and Governor – working against him (in some cases illegally. see: albence and York) – he’s probably going to win and by a lot. That’s pretty impressive. I hope he uses that mandate well to do big things and tear out the rot that has consumed the democratic party here.
We won’t know until next week but there’s a lot of chatting out there and the capitulation has begun…..
Good points:
– “BHL’s name ID was likely much lower than one would expect.”
This is definitely true and something I believe polical insiders missed with this race (which is not over). What does the average DE voter interact with their LT Gov? It’s mostly about ribbon cuttings. And tie breakers, which never happen in Dover, least not in recent years. The average voter in Delaware does not know who BHL is. Meyer as County Exec has more built in name recognition with the averae NCC voter, because that position impacts things that impact them directly and which they care about on a day to day basis.
Not to mention that so many people in DE are relatively new and not originally from here so why would they have any clue who the Lt Gov is? Especially in Sussex.
“– That Collin would take voters exclusively from Matt. I don’t think that’s what’s happening. I don’t know why – but I think that assumption was wrong. (fwiw, that was my original assumption too).”
Hard to say to what degree, but Colin is taking some voters from Hall-Long. I think the poll is plausible. And it wouldn’t shock me if BHL finished 3rd, with Omara 2nd and Meyer 1st.
If I had money to burn, I’d take that bet.
I taught public school for 35 years. I was the first male to achieve national board certification in Delaware in 1998. I am not sold on any of the candidates in the area of education. The strongest of the three is Matt Meyer, but don’t take his so-called teaching experience seriously. Matt was a Teach for America teacher. He never went through pre-service training like regular hires do. He will not understand what makes education work like a trained teacher would. His ads that focus on his teaching do a remarkable job of showing how you can turn a sow’s ear of teaching experience into the entire education pig. Nevertheless, I will vote for Matt Meyer. I will not count on him to have answers to Delaware public education’s pervasive problems, and will instead expect him to be open to answers coming from people like me. (matt is way ahead of BHL or O’Mara).
This is where the Laura Sturgeons of this world come in.
It’d be great if Matt put together the best public education minds he can find and develop a proposal that makes sense.
I THINK he will be a collaborative governor, but we don’t really know until he’s there.