Posts by jason330

This is from Sher Valenzuela so it may be pure fantasy (like her claims to love smaller government while building a business on government contracts). Anyway... If it is true, it strikes me that Jensen here channels the lizard brain of teabagist everywhere who value robust and angry simplicity over doughy thoughtfulness.

WDEL’s Rick Jensen Rips Simpler Debate Performance: Weak, Awkward and Creepy WDEL political talk show host Rick Jensen has leveled devastating criticism toward Ken Simpler and his performance in the recent WDEL Treasurer debate. Jensen described the performance at times as “weak,” “awkward” and “creepy.” Speaking live last week on his daily radio show, Jensen said Simpler’s opponent, Sher Valenzuela, was “strong, tough and every time Simpler took a swing at her, she blocked it and hit him real hard in the face.” Jensen concluded that he “didn’t think [Simpler] is very good at this debate stuff.”

I get a lot of well deserved shit for my sucky taste in music, but ignore all of that. Get in on the ground floor with these guys - Annie In the Water - "Hey, I'm on my way"

What? You want to know about a time when I wasn't such a crusty old bastard so down on Democrats? You want to hear about a piss-filled young progressive? Well pull up a chair Jason990.   Let me tell you a little story about the olden days.  It must be about forty years ago now that a man named Howard Dean came down from Vermont made some rumbles and raised some money online talking like a genuine Democrat.  Why, he went right 'round the usual fundraising and appealed directly to the folks out there for $20 or $30 bucks at a shot. Well, the people were right parched for a nice cool drink of undiluted Democratic speechifying and they came to that campaign by the bus load.  I even started a blog back then to help support that campaign and pour rhetorical boiling oil down on all the Republican Morlocks, and the Democratic compromisers and bank lovers.   'Course the national media and all the DC insiders couldn't stand it so they put on the TV lynching of that campaign.  But for a few months there it really looked like the Democratic Party was going to run an actual Democrat in an election. But Gramps, after Howard Dean showed what could be done, why didn't other authentic Democrats do that? Fuck if I know.

On August 7th I wondered aloud what kind of chaos a GOP controlled Senate would unleash on the nation. There is no longer any need to wonder. Senate Minority Leader and soon to be Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is very candid about the mayhem he is going to sow.

Interviewed by Politico aboard his campaign bus, the Senate minority leader offered his vision for the Senate should he be promoted to majority leader: confrontation, manufactured crises, and the ever-present threat of a government shutdown: In an extensive interview here, the typically reserved McConnell laid out his clearest thinking yet of how he would lead the Senate if Republicans gain control of the chamber. The emerging strategy: Attach riders to spending bills that would limit Obama policies on everything from the environment to health care, consider using an arcane budget tactic to circumvent Democratic filibusters and force the president to “move to the center” if he wants to get any new legislation through Congress. “Move to the center” is a clever euphemism for “pay ransom in exchange for hostages.” And I’m not putting words in anyone’s mouth here – back in 2011, McConnell was asked what lessons he learned from threatening to put the government in default in order to extract concessions from the White House, and he said the debt limit was “a hostage that’s worth ransoming.”

Copeland is really phoning it in, and why not? He doesn't have any viable statewide candidates so why should he try to make an actual case for Republican governance? He has clearly decided to punt on this round of statewide and focus his energies on building for 2016. But he still has to make a show about caring, so while he hasn't committed himself and the party to any coherent policies - he has chosen a campaign theme of sorts. That theme is a mild queasiness around the idea of "one-party rule" in Delaware. This is just the latest iteration of the perfunctory messaging coming out of Greenville:

In addition to seeing that justice is done in Ferguson - this 1033 program has got to go. It is really possible that in 2013 alone, the 1033 program has transferred $449 million in military equipment to police forces? Yes. They brag about it on the 1033 Program webpage.

The Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO), the facilitators of 1033 program, originated from the National Defense Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 1997 (FY 97). This law allows for the office to transfer excess Department of Defense property to law enforcement agencies across the United States and its territories. Since its inception, the 1033 program has transferred more than $4.3 billion worth of property. In 2013 alone, $449,309,003.71 worth of property was transferred to law enforcement. If your law enforcement agency chooses to participate, it may become one of the more than 8,000 participating agencies to increase its capabilities, expand its patrol coverage, reduce response times, and save the American taxpayer's investment

Perhaps I'm wrong. Maybe the GOP hasn't been taken over by the TeaParty. Maybe it has, in fact, been takeover by 'South Park' creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone?

A flyer distributed by the Republican Party of Garvin County, Oklahoma has engendered a significant amount of criticism for being incredibly racist, reports KFOR. How incredibly racist are we talking about here? So racist that Oklahoma’s Democratic Party initially assumed the flyer was fake, because it was so patently and incredibly racist.

I can empathize with someone who bought a house having been told by a developer that they would be living next to "a mix of single family homes, townhomes, and apartments" only to find out that really that means apartments. But can't our seniors come off a little less like a Simpson-esque sendup of old folks?

Residents of Spring Arbor, a luxury community for people over age 55, showed up at the August 4 Middletown mayor and council meeting to object to proposed apartment buildings near their neighborhood.

They were concerned with the types of people the apartments would attract, the devaluation of their properties, and the children that would allegedly “run through their yards.”

Via the Middletown Transcript

This would be comical if not voting for Democrats was anything other than a de facto vote for Republicans.

A Democratic Senate nominee had to clarify Monday that, contrary to a newly released video of her campaign chairman, she does not actually support "most" of President Barack Obama's policies.

Geezer has posted a tidy summary of our current political situation:

"I don’t support the (cigarette) tax. The fairest way to tax people would be on wealth, not income, not sin taxes. But thanks to folks like you — the stupid ones who side with the wealthy instead of standing for the people — we’ve made that unacceptable. Politicians have gotten the message: People with money (and their broke-ass, brainwashed lackeys) will defeat you if you tax them; poor people don’t have the juice to do that."