Carper Steps Down – Will Not Seek Reelection in 2016

Carper Steps Down – Will Not Seek Reelection in 2016

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Shocking news via Politico:
Senator Thomas "Tom" Carper (D-Del.) announced Wednesday morning that he would not seek reelection in 2016. Carper, 68, is the senior United States Senator from Delaware, serving since 2001. His surprise departure at the end of the term could set off a scramble among his top Delaware politicians to succeed one of the longest-serving elected officials in the state. A towering figure in Delaware politics, Carper served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993 and was the 71st Governor of Delaware from 1993 to 2001.

Pence calls for legislation to invalidate Indy’s “right to discriminate” law

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This thing has turned into a huge pain in the ass for Pence. (And not the good kind of pain in the ass.)
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) said Tuesday that he wanted to see legislation on his desk this week clarifying that the controversial religious freedom bill he signed into law did not allow businesses to deny service to anyone. "...the intent of the law when I signed it, was to give the courts in our state the highest level of scrutiny in cases where people feel that their religious liberty is being infringed on by government action."
This should be called Pence's MC Escher law. Since Indiana's "religions freedom" law in was intended to explicitly allow discrimination, this law (a government action) proposed by Pence can be seen by wingnuts as infringing on their recently won religious liberty to discriminate against gays.
“The Sodomite Suppression Act” gives everyone a glimpse of what Republican rule would look like

“The Sodomite Suppression Act” gives everyone a glimpse of what Republican rule would look like

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The California ballot initiative system is a progressive direct democracy plebiscite. However, it allows everyday Republicans with deranged views nurtured by the GOP noise machine to propose crackpot shit such as the "The Sodomite Suppression Act". This initiative, if enacted, would call on all Godly Californians to kill homosexuals. As such, the initiative is a tidy glimpse into the mind of the modern Republican. It also gives us a view of what complete GOP control of the government might look like.
"The abominable crime against nature known as buggery, called also sodomy, is a monstrous evil that Almighty God, giver of freedom and liberty, commands us to suppress on pain of our utter destruction even as he overthrew Sodom and Gomorrha," it begins. "Seeing that it is better that offenders should die rather than that all of us should be killed by God's just wrath against us for the folly of tolerating-wickedness in our midst, the People of California wisely command, in the fear of God, that any person who willingly touches another person of the same gender for purposes of sexual gratification be put to death by bullets to the head or by any other convenient method," the proposal continues.
Denn/Johnson/Henry bill would change what’s considered a violent felony

Denn/Johnson/Henry bill would change what’s considered a violent felony

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Unwinding our idiotic, wasteful and (lets face it) racist "war on drugs" is going to take time. This isn't perfect, but it is a step in the right direction.
A bill that would soften the state's treatment of drug possession felonies and harden its stance on certain violent crimes will be introduced in the Delaware Legislature this week. Attorney General Matt Denn and a group of lawmakers unveiled Monday a bill that, if passed, would mark the first time specific crimes were taken off the state's 19-year-old list of violent felonies. Attorney General Matt Denn and a group of lawmakers unveiled Monday a bill that, if passed, would mark the first time specific crimes were taken off the state’s 19-year-old list of violent felonies. "We want to make sure the penalties are appropriate for the crimes," Denn said. "In seeking justice, we have an obligation to reduce statutory (sentences) when they do not fit the crime."
While the bill removes drug possession from the violent crime list, it adds certain crimes against children and police officers. These add on's feel like sops to conservatives to me. Protecting children is laudable, but with the way cops have been escalating their violence against citizens that they don't happen to like, I'm not crazy about that one. And yet, as Prince Otto said, politics is the art of the possible.