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DeLuca to Labor?
There is a rumor that Governor Markell is going to appoint former Senate Pro Tem, Senator Tony DeLuca, as Secretary of Labor. Will that job be in addition to the other jobs DeLuca has in state government.
If this is a trial balloon, then let’s pop it. Governor, this is unacceptable. This is Delaware Way politics at its worst. It is something that Ruth Ann Minner would do. It is something we imagined Ruth Ann Minner’s Lt. Governor, John Carney, would do. Which is why we backed what appeared to be the more progressive option in the 2008 Democratic Primary…. you.
If you do this, boy were we wrong.
![Daily Delawhere [8.15.13]](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5336/9483731247_644e15f581_z.jpg "Daily Delawhere [8.15.13]")
Open Thread for Wednesday, August 14, 2013
Rep. Tom Cole (R) of Oklahoma said some months ago that the “only way Republicans will lose the House is to shut down the government or default on the debt.”
Guess what Republicans have spent the entire summer talking about?
![Daily Delawhere [8.14.13]](http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7346/9483731139_be0c652b7e_z.jpg "Daily Delawhere [8.14.13]")
Open Thread for Tuesday, August 13, 2013
The Newark Mayor, no not Corey Booker, but Vance Funk, is retiring earlier than originally indicated. He is now leaving office on September 30, rather than December 31.
[Deputy Mayor] Clifton – sitting in the mayor’s chair Funk has occupied since being elected in 2004 – said Funk changed the effective date of his resignation to accommodate the process for a special election in accordance with the city’s charter.
Council will hold a special meeting on Sept. 30 to schedule the special election, which is expected to be held Nov. 26, Clifton said.
Although Funk was not in attendance at Monday’s meeting, he made a statement in a city news release distributed immediately after Clifton’s announcement.
“Considering that it is not in my best interest health wise to attend the many meetings between now and the end of the year and to allow the election process to move forward in a timely fashion, I determined September 30 to be an appropriate date for my term to end,” Funk said in the news release.
![Daily Delawhere [8.13.13]](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5447/9486529510_2da55ecf2e_z.jpg "Daily Delawhere [8.13.13]")
Open Thread for Monday, August 12, 2013
So last week that little worm Reince Priebus, the Chairman of the RNC, told CNN and NBC that unless they stopped production on a Hillary Clinton news documentary and a Hillary Clinton miniseries, respectively, that both news organizations would not host or air any Republican debates in 2016. The truth is Reince doesn’t care at all about the documentary or the miniseries, and he just wants to cut the non-Republican-fellating networks out of conducting debates, because, as he said last week, he wants moderators who care about the glorious future of the dear Republican Party, and not some objective neutral journalist who sole interest is the facts and the news. So the Hillary Clinton documentary and miniseries, respectively, were the reasons to cut out CNN and NBC from hosting or airing the 2016 Republican Primary debates.
Over the weekend, something totally predictable happened: Fox Television Studies is now seeking to produce the Hillary Clinton miniseries. Fox Television Studios is the sister company of Fox News in the same way as NBC Entertainment is the sister company of NBC News. If Reince Priebus has any honor or integrity, he will now of course issue a press statement where he wholly condemns Fox News and informs them that Fox News will not host or air any 2016 Republican primary debates.
Hell, no debates is probably what he wants anyway.
![Daily Delawhere [8.12.13]](http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5475/9486529624_a4e67aa396_z.jpg "Daily Delawhere [8.12.13]")
The Open Thread for Friday, August 9, 2013
Byron York is right: “In 2012, he won 11 primaries and caucuses, making him the solid second-place finisher in a party that has a long history of nominating the candidate who finished second the last time around. (See Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain, and Mitt Romney.) And yet now, no one — no one — is suggesting Santorum will be the frontrunner in 2016, should he choose to run. As far as the political handicapping goes, Santorum’s 2012 victories don’t seem to count for much.”
You know the reason why? Because even they know that Santorum is insane.
As Jason noted in a posted last night, there is now polling evidence that senior citizens have turned against the GOP by such margins that former Speaker Pelosi could soon be future Speaker PelosiL
—In 2010, seniors voted for Republicans by a 21 point margin (38 percent to 59 percent). Among seniors likely to vote in 2014, the Republican candidate leads by just 5 points (41 percent to 46 percent.)
—When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives at the beginning of 2011, 43 percent of seniors gave the Republican Party a favorable rating. Last month, just 28 percent of seniors rated the GOP favorably. This is not an equal-opportunity rejection of parties or government — over the same period, the Democratic Party’s favorable rating among seniors has increased 3 points, from 37 percent favorable to 40 percent favorable.
Booman notes that Republicans in several states have done a great job at gerrymandering the House districts to such an extent that even though the Democrats won the majority of the popular votes for Congress in 2012, the GOP maintained their House majority by 20+ seats. And that fact is not going to change in 2020, assuming that the demographic groups vote in the same way as they did in 2010 and 2012.
If these numbers are real, a lot of supposedly safe seats are not really safe. DCCC Chairman Steve Israel needs to get busy recruiting candidates, because it looks like a strong well-funded candidate can compete much better than we thought in a lot of House districts.
Around the Horn for August 2-8, 2013
Steve Newton at Delaware Libertarian has begun a must read series about whether Karen Weldin Stewart’s favorite company Highmark is trying to build a monopoly for MedExpress in Delaware:
[T]he current incestuous relationship between Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield and MexExpress urgent care clinics is a classic example of government utterly failing at “regulating” a market.
To begin with, let’s go back and recall that Senator Patti Blevins and Insurance Commissioner Karin Weldin Stewart teamed up to exempt Highmark from the Attorney General’s authority to require the insurance company to set aside $175 million in reserves for a foundation to benefit taxpayers.
This was Highmark’s condition for entering the Delaware market–$175 million plus multiple other exemptions and exceptions to existing insurance law. If you bother to go look at either Blevins’ or Stewart’s campaign donation pages at the Delaware Commissioner of Elections page, and you take the 2-3 hours necessary to trace down the bewildering array of PACs and healthcare related donations that each woman received in 2012, you will discover that they were well compensated for screwing Delaware taxpayers out of $175 million.
Next, you need to recognize that Highmark holds a $51+ million stake in MedExpress urgent care clinics. To put it as clearly as open sources allow: Highmark holds at least a 10% ownership stake in MedExpress, probably more.
So it was no surprise that, as in Pennsylvania, when Highmark came to Delaware, MedExpress quickly followed behind. In the past year, MedExpress has dumped FOUR new clinics into New Castle County, and is (or has) added four more in Kent and Sussex. These new clinics arrived with tens of thousands of dollars worth of smaltzy advertising about “your new neighbor.”
Here are the harsh realities: the arrival of MedExpress is only the FIRST STEP in a tried and true Highmark business model for vertical integration. Basically, the plan involves four steps…
Go to Delaware Libertarian and read on. Great work, Steve. Come inside to check what other Delaware bloggers have been blogging about this past week.
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