cassandra_m
"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm
cassandra_m's Latest Posts
I’m Out
It’s been a fun ride, one that started with me just looking to learn more about this state that I had just moved to, but seemed so politically insular. I learned alot along the way, some history but especially how easy it was to push some local political buttons. Even better, I made alot of friends that I would not have otherwise, including people who wanted to talk about better integrity from governments that didn’t seem interested in that. There’s more of those folks than you might imagine — in government and out — and they’ve helped me to be able to provide sunshine on issues that just got whispered about. Some of those folks are commenters and most are lurkers and I want all of you to know that I still share your interests and will still be looking for smarter decisions and better accountability — perhaps now on a broader playing field.
In Which We Find That Legislators Can’t Read Contracts — The Sallies Contract vs. Charles Potter
So this deal is still dead and I think that the expectation is that if it gets revived it will be because the new Mayor will work at reviving it. No idea if it is even possible at this point, but that is where we are. In the meantime, we have Rep. Charles Potter putting out a piece of propaganda that specifically misrepresents the terms of this dead deal — I guess so that he can make himself look like a hero or something for standing up to the big bad Sallies and their desire to make Bayard Stadium into a working home field for everybody. He counts, of course, on the fact that no one will spend any time on that document and just get fired up because he says to. I did look at that contract and here is the response to the propaganda with references to the page numbers where I found this info. The items in BOLD are the ones listed on the “Highlights of the major points of the contract with Sallies” that he has posted to Facebook. My responses and references follow.
The November 25th Thread
Looks like we didn’t get one up, so here we go: The Russians tried to re-create their Cold War propaganda machine on the internet this election season. A thing that helped to make “fake news” a thing. Since the US does not censor (mainly) the internet and since Americans still do not get how to […]
Message to Democrats –Time to Come Out Swinging
The Pew Research Center conducted its quadrennial survey of post-election reactions and overall the mood of the electorate still looks more polarized and more pessimistic than ever. The bright spot was for Trump supporters, but there is certainly less of the post-election glow and desire for parties to work together to get stuff done. It is worthwhile to spin through this entire report — there is no doubt that voters are less enthusiastic about both candidates, and they don’t think much of either party,pollsters or the press.
A key finding here is the fact that Democrats want their leadership to fight the GOP.
Ya’ll Need to Come and Get Your Boys
Bill O’Reilly famously declared back in the spring that if any Republican other than Trump won the nomination that the GOP could count on the white aggrieved voters that powered his campaign would stay home. They didn’t stay at home, of course, because Donald Trump executed a campaign of dog whistles, outright demeaning rhetoric and spectacular lying to pick at the scab that is this country’s white grievances.
Trump famously blamed trade deals and government complicity in the disappearance of the kind of good middle-class jobs at places like Bethlehem Steel or US Steel or American Motors or RCA that let you support a family right out of college. He told voters that he would bring these jobs back and that he would get rid of the trade deals, the regulations and the taxes that were holding back job creation in the US. On top of that, he blamed immigrants for taking jobs, used Obamacare as a proxy for poor people taking your stuff and impressively – for a guy born with a silver spoon in his mouth – made these people believe that he felt their pain.
No One Hears Your Protest Vote
Clay Shirky published an amazing Twitter rant a couple of weeks back, that I’ve been thinking about and talking about with a few others since then. Take a look and tell me what you think:
Voting can never be a reflection of any individual voter's preferences, because those preferences are too varied between voters.
— Clay Shirky (@cshirky) October 23, 2016
2017 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees
And now for something completely different!
The powers that be released their list of nominees to the Hall of Fame for 2017. So that is time for us to get our music snobbery on and dissect this (mostly uninspiring) list. The nominees:
Let’s Talk: A Discussion About Mental Health and Addiction Sponsored by Delaware United
Delaware United is sponsoring a meeting to discuss the correlation between Mental Health and Addiction, with some discussion of strategies to help. This looks like a very interesting and on point discussion, especially as multiple groups and agencies are working to address the needs around both. Here’s the details:
This will be a meeting hosted by Delaware United to expand the discussion about the correlation between Mental Health and Addiction, and what we can do to help in Delaware.
Our list of guests speakers include:
Trinidad Navarro, Democratic Candidate for Insurance Commissioner
Matthew Meyer, Democratic Candidate for County Executive
Dave Humes, Board Member atTAcK addiction
Denise Bowers, Candidate for Senate District 5This will be a forum style meeting, where speakers will get to answer questions about mental health and addiction in Delaware, and discuss different positions and ideas that they have for the future.
It’s Time to Legalize Pot in Delaware
Senator Margaret Rose Henry has a bill in draft that she has committed to sending to the GA in January to legalize and tax marijuana sales here. She is proposing it in part to help generate more than $21M in new revenue for the state. I hope that this is money that would be specifically earmarked for Education, rather than the general fund. Still — there’s not much detail yet.
Paul Ryan Tells Donald Trump ‘Bye Felicia’
This is breaking news — that Speaker Ryan has gathered his House Caucus and told them that he will not be defending Trump or campaigning with Trump. He also advised the members of his caucus to do what they needed to do, but he (Ryan) would be working to preserve congressional majorities:
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan dealt a hammer blow to Donald J. Trump’s presidential candidacy Monday, telling Republican lawmakers that he would no longer defend Mr. Trump and would focus instead on defending the party’s majority in Congress.
But in an illustration of Mr. Trump’s powerful grip on much of the party, Mr. Ryan faced angry blowback from conservative lawmakers supportive of Mr. Trump.
The Vance Phillips Civil Suit Comes to an End With No Justice for the Woman He Assaulted
It has been awhile since we heard anything about the lawsuit brought by Katelynn Dunlap against Vance Phillips seeking some accountability for raping her. We talked about this multiple times here at DL, but see here, here, here and here for a good recap.) Updating the story, Ms Dunlap has filed a stipulation of dismissal for the civil action filed against Phillips in Kent County court. This isn’t quite the end of the story though. Ms. Dunlap took to the airwaves Wednesday to talk about this and released a statement about her decision to both the media and her Facebook page. This is what she published to Facebook:
Help for DL Family Raising Funds for Autism Speaks Walk
Rachel Schain is DL family (we needed a musician, ok?) and she is fundraising for an Autism Speaks Walk in a couple of weeks.
Rachel is walking for all families dealing with autism and she is walking for her gorgeous toddler who has autism.
234
That was the number of votes that separated Mike Purzycki and Eugene Young for Wilmington Mayor by the end of the night on Tuesday. The difference between Purzycki and Kevin Kelley was 415 votes. 12,578 votes for Mayor were cast. But at the end of the day, there were 2,734 votes cast for Eugene Young who made me proud to be a small part of his campaign everyday. Everyday. A quick reminder of where we started — a year or so back, as Eugene started talking with people to gather up support, the leadership of this city (and its pundits) told him that no one knew him, then that he needed to wait his turn for Mayor, then that he couldn’t raise any money. Eugene did, of course, overcome every bit of that and ignored the wait your turn crowd. With is smart and fiercely competitive management team, he ran a citywide campaign with more than 200 volunteers (91 volunteers showed up and volunteered on Tuesday. 91!) and ended up knocking on more than 50,000 Wilmington doors. He ran an honorable and progressive campaign and completely avoided the sideshows that were being run by the more establishment candidates. Eugene Young, his vision for the city and his crackerjack campaign team caught the attention of the News Journal who endorsed a genuine progressive for Mayor. It was a real heartbreaker to come up short by 234 votes.
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