cassandra_m

"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

rss feed Author's Website

cassandra_m's Latest Posts

Taxpayers Should Stop Subsidizing Low Wage Jobs

Filed in National by on October 30, 2013 34 Comments
Taxpayers Should Stop Subsidizing Low Wage Jobs

Bill Maher on Friday went to town on the hypocrisy of small government conservatives fighting efforts to increase minimum wages and to get corporations to pay a fair wage.

Just for the fast food industry alone, American taxpayers pay $7 billion in public assistance programs because fast food workers aren’t paid enough to feed their families:

Continue Reading »

Late Night Video — Chip Flowers Takes His Denial Tour to TV

Filed in Delaware by on October 28, 2013 21 Comments
Late Night Video — Chip Flowers Takes His Denial Tour to TV

Apparently The People’s Treasury has plenty of time to yak it up with the local news media. NOT to give them the records they request and even FOIA, but he can talk to them. This one is from NBC10:

Continue Reading »

Chip Flowers’ Pictures from Denali

Filed in Delaware by on October 28, 2013 42 Comments
Chip Flowers’ Pictures from Denali

So there’s been plenty of questions about where were Chip Flowers and his Deputy Erika Benner the days after their NAST conference ended in Anchorage. Flowers said he stayed in Anchorage to meet people. Benner went to Talkeetna to meet people. But she reserved a room for two people and certainly spent enough in food […]

Continue Reading »

Record Gun Violence in Wilmington

Filed in Delaware by on October 28, 2013 22 Comments
Record Gun Violence in Wilmington

As of today, there were 137 incidents of gun violence in Wilmington (not quite 11 months into the year) which surpasses last year’s incident total of 119. Deaths as a result of gun violence (see the NJ article) is down (14 homicides vs 25 — 15 vs 25 as of Sunday) from last year though. We’ve seen lots of reports of armed robberies, which seem to be up (but no data) and if there was any confidence in the Williams’ Administration’s ability to get a handle on Wilmington’s violent crime problem, that confidence is now waning. Alot. Sunday, the 136th victim of gun violence was shot at 7th and Washington. Just a few blocks away from the Market St patrols that manage panhandlers. Also on Sunday, the 137th victim of gun violence was shot at 24th and Washington.

Continue Reading »

Late Night Video — RIP Lou Reed

Filed in National by on October 27, 2013 8 Comments
Late Night Video — RIP Lou Reed

Lots of Lou Reed and Velvet Underground memories being written today as Mr. Reed died today of currently unknown causes. I got to hear him once live at Constitution Hall in DC and hoped that the Daughters of the American Revolution were rolling in their graves. This video of Street Hassle is about the era of that concert (but this one performed in Spain):

Continue Reading »

Chip Flowers Does Not Know the Difference Between Epic Spin and Transparency

Filed in Delaware by on October 27, 2013 36 Comments
Chip Flowers Does Not Know the Difference Between Epic Spin and Transparency

There’s more on Chip Flowers and his inability to manage the travel budget of his organization today in the NJ. And at this point, this is more about his inability to live up to the transparency he keeps promising and the failure of his epic spin to get him out of this thing.

Continue Reading »

Delaware Political Polling!

Filed in Delaware by on October 26, 2013 6 Comments
Delaware Political Polling!

We don’t get much polling focused on Delaware, so this might be interesting. The University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication commissioned a poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates that finds that AG Beau Biden is the most popular politician in Delaware. He leads the pack with 64.2% favorability– followed up by Governor Markell at 62.1%, Senator Carper at 61.3%, Representative Carney at 47.1%, Senator Coons at 47% and Chip Flowers at 28.4%.

Continue Reading »

Grading Wilmington’s City Council

Filed in Delaware by on October 26, 2013 6 Comments
Grading Wilmington’s City Council

So readers — we have a gauntlet:

[P]erhaps someone in Delaware Liberal should grade out City Council people once a year.

Yes, I was nominated to do this grading, but will recruit some help to get this done. First off, if you are a city voter, tell me what you want to know about your City Council and their legislative track record.

Continue Reading »

Guest Post — New Castle County Council–2, Gordon Administration–0

Filed in Delaware by on October 24, 2013 2 Comments
Guest Post — New Castle County Council–2, Gordon Administration–0

During the October 22 committee meetings, some New Castle County Council members showed a surprising degree of independence from the Gordon administration by rejecting two of the administration’s proposals. It probably helped that vociferous Gordon allies Jae Street and Bob Weiner were not present during these committee meetings. The first proposal (presented in the Community Services Committee) to be routed was Ordinance 13-078, which would create an Office of Community Governing. This was an office established by Gordon during his first turn as County Executive.

Continue Reading »

Chris Coons is On the Budget Conference Committee

Filed in Delaware, National by on October 22, 2013 4 Comments
Chris Coons is On the Budget Conference Committee

This is the committee formed as part of the deal to re-open the government and avoid the debt ceiling. It isn’t much of a giveaway, as Conference Committees are the usual order of business in Congress after budgets have passed the House and Senate. This Conference Committee — as would others — is meant to negotiate a single budget from the two that have passed. Senator Chris Coons is on this committee as a result of his being on the Senate Budget Committee.

Continue Reading »

Christine O’Donnell Is Still Grifting — Halloween Edition

Filed in Delaware by on October 21, 2013 25 Comments
Christine O’Donnell Is Still Grifting — Halloween Edition

According to CNN, O’Donnell is working on shaking down her supporters for MORE money for her legal bills related the the FCC investigation into the misuse of her campaign funds. Apparently she is in settlement talks and it looks like she is looking for money to keep fighting the FCC over charges of misuse of campaign funds — misuses she admitted she did.

“I’m going to be straight forward and candid in this email – probably more candid and vulnerable than my political advisers would like!” O’Donnell said in a message to the supporters of her political action committee ChristinePAC. “I am facing a major decision and you play a large part in this decision.” […]

Continue Reading »

Perspective on the Obamacare Rollout

Filed in National by on October 21, 2013 15 Comments
Perspective on the Obamacare Rollout

Now that the GOP hostage-taking is done, the media is ready to pay attention to the Obamacare rollout. It is been frought with problems — access to the website, errors on the website, transfers of data to the insurance companies and it just sounds like the failure of the century. Certainly something like this *should* roll out better, but I can’t think of a tech rollout that I’ve seen that has been glitchless. If you’ve used Faceboook long enough, you know that every time they change their interface, the place is glitch-city until they fix it. Facebook is not the same as Obamacare, of course, but Obamacare isn’t the only health care initiative that had a great many issues when it rolled out. So how about a reminder?

Continue Reading »

More Ethics Issues in Wilmington City Government

Filed in Delaware by on October 21, 2013 117 Comments
More Ethics Issues in Wilmington City Government

The next round of fallout from the Foxtail concert is detailed in Sunday’s NJ, where we learn that Parks and Rec Deputy Director Shawn Allen let Foxtail’s organizers use Allen’s non-profit to get a temporary liquor license. The problem, though:

Continue Reading »