Posts by jason330

It isn't such a slam dunk. On the one had Cruz is an easy pick, because he'd be oh so easy to beat in a national election. On the other hand I'd like to see some semblance of sanity return the the GOP, and picking Christie would be a nod in the direction of reality. Also, Christie would keep Cruz from even the possibility of becoming President. That issue looms large for me because flukey stuff can happen down the stretch and BAM! - you are looking at President Cruz. As bad as Christie would be, the idea of President Cruz should make ever patriotic American break into a cold sweat.

While the possible switch from Joe to Hillary sucked all of the oxygen out of the room, this Beau Biden item in the recent Halperin book flew under the radar.

Halperin and Heilemann offer behind-the-scenes details about the campaign and other revelations. They say, for example, that the 2010 stroke suffered by Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, the vice president’s son, was more serious than reported and that he suffered months of paralysis. “The stroke was publicly described as minor, but in fact was life-threatening,” Halperin and Heilemann wrote. “There were initial questions about how full his recovery would be. (He suffered paralysis for months.)”

Perhaps is was Christine O'Donnell, or it might have been the government shutdown.  But a recent The University of Delaware’s Center for Political Communication poll shows that the two largest parties in the State of Delaware are the Democrats (40%) and Independents (34%), with the GOP bringing up the rear at 22%. Independents, Other Party, Don't Know Party lean Democratic 33%, Republican 30% - so even among the I's the Democratic Party is the party of choice. That is polling data. In other words, a mere 22% percent of Delaware voters admit to being republicans.   The actual voter registration numbers are lagging behind voter sentiment, but are nearly as bad: 303,157 Delaware voters are Dems (48%),  180,041 are Republicans (28%)  A den margin of  123,116. In 2002 the margin was 48,800. Basically, the GOP in Delaware is hemorrhaging members. If another 6,000 people make their preference official, the GOP will be a third party. Can anyone help me out with this? Will the GOP be handicapped if they lose another 6,000 defectors?

The Center for American Progress (CAP) report, “The State of Women in America,” uses 36 different health, economic, and leadership factors to measure disparities between states and rank the best and worst states for women." Delaware women don't have it so bad (relatively speaking). We are fifth overall and our gals make $0.81 for every dollar men make for the same job. The national average is $0.77 - so not too shabby ladies. Maryland is number 1 by that measure. They pay their daughters $0.85 for every dollar their sons make doing the same job. The worst states in which to be a non-man are predictably, more often than not, in the south. Louisiana's Mesdames et Mesdemoiselles take down a measly $0.67 compared to their Messieurs. [...]

When I was getting my MBA 10 years ago, the manifold virtues of shareholder primacy were so ingrained in the culture of business academics that, while they informed every bit of the curriculum, they were only discussed in passing. There was no more attention paid this foundational concept than you would pay attention to the concept of addition in a calculus class. Fortunately that is changing. Lynn Stout, the Distinguished Professor of Corporate and Business Law at Cornell Law School, helps move shareholder primacy into a coffin and provides some coffin nails for the myth that has wrecked our economy in her most recent book, The Shareholder Value Myth: How Putting Shareholders First Harms Investors, Corporations and the Public. This abstract of the book explores the logical connections between the 40 year rise of shareholder value thinking and subsequent declines in investor returns, numbers of public companies, and corporate life expectancy. It also shows that shareholder primacy is an bullshit economic theory, completely lacking in support from history, law, or empirical evidence. [Set aside a few minutes to read the whole thing.]

Read this from from the national journal and tell me if you don't see the hand of Tom Carper stabbing seniors in the back.

15 years already? I remember when this money grab went down. If you ever want to get pissed off at the BILLIONS in welfare that gets doled out to wealthy individuals and corporations, just look at copyright law. It is a sick joke. I distinctly remember writing to Senator Joe Biden's office to tell him that extending copyrights on books that should be moving into the public domain (like the Great Gatsby, for example) amounted to a HUGE tax on schools and school districts. His response was, "Go fuck yourself. The Gershwin's and Disney just wrote me some fat checks. What have you contributed?" Something to that effect. Maybe that's a paraphrase.

mostly because I never thought a dyed in the wool, liberal hating, DLC simp like McAuliffe could ever be reformed. Times change.

WHY THE VIRGINIA GUBERNATORIAL CAMPAIGN MATTERS: Ron Brownstein has an interesting look at how Dem Terry McAuliffe’s embrace of liberal positions on social issues, gun control, and immigration highlights the Democratic Party’s larger increasing reliance on its new coalition of minorities, young voters, and college educated whites. Other red/purple state Dems are following this trend, and if McAuliffe wins, it will cement the emerging consensus that Dems should continue embracing liberal positions and rely less and less on the culturally conservative whites Dems used to fear alienating.