Lack of Clean Hands:  Complaints filed against GOP Organizations for Campaign Finance Violations

Lack of Clean Hands: Complaints filed against GOP Organizations for Campaign Finance Violations

After the Dana Long incident, I warned Republicans against triumphalism, indicating to them that they better have clean hands when it comes to this election. While this is not necessarily directly analogous, indeed I would say this is worse, the Democratic Party has filed a complaint with the Elections Commissioner over multiple campaign finance violations by state Republican organizations. Come inside for the full release....
Sign This Petition — Rep. Smyk Should Apologize

Sign This Petition — Rep. Smyk Should Apologize

Sexual assault is serious and traumatic for its survivors -- and there is no comparison to paying taxes. Insisting on that comparison is certainly callous and certainly stupid. Two things that may, in fact, be habit with Rep. Smyk. He needs to apologize (and stop chasing down people he thinks are responsible for circulating this) and he needs to apologize now. Please sign this petition that calls upon Smyk to apologize for his stupid and offensive use of the word "rape" in trying to defend corporate interests. Then, make sure you go vote for Marie Mayor, who will certainly respect and represent her constituents better than this.
2014: My Predictions

2014: My Predictions

Everyone knows who the President of the United States. But after that, it's a crap shoot. A Jimmy Kimmel (I think, maybe it was a Jimmy Fallon skit) revealed that some people in New York don't know who Joe Biden is. And we know moving down the electoral ladder, from governor to U.S. Senator to your representative in Congress to your state Senators and Representatives and your local councilpeople, that the smaller and more local a position, the less likely it is that people are going to know who they are. So the people who have the most power to affect your daily and everyday life, i.e. your county and city councilmen and women, your state representatives and senators, are strangers to you. But everyone knows Obama. As a local political blog, we strive to keep you informed as to who the most important politicians to you are. But even we fail at that sometimes. National political news is easier to follow, because you know the players and the players want to be known, and you have many people wanting to tell you the story. If you want to follow local politics, your choices are limited, hard to find, and often lacking much substance. And its hard to follow events because the players are lesser known to you. So to help in that, let's start in talking about and predicting all of the offices up and down the ballot. And as you see below, I have included all the statewide and county level Row offices, even though I think some of them should not be elected offices (yeah, we shouldn't be electing sheriffs, treasurers, recorders of deeds or wills, at any level of government). Now, El Somnambulo has already posted his predictions for you. And he, along with our illustrious founder, Jason330, are very pessimistic, in their attitude, and in some of their predictions. I am a little more optimistic and realistic.
El Somnambulo Predicts ‘Em All For You!

El Somnambulo Predicts ‘Em All For You!

The tough races are really tough, the easy races are really easy. I know I'm not running the table, but I don't know where I'll falter. I just know that I will. If there's a unifying theme, I think it's that D's will struggle in Delaware more than usual, which is exactly what I expect to happen nationwide. Hope I'm wrong. These predictions are also going up a week out, and there's plenty of movement in some of the races. With that depressing, but not hopeless, forecast out of the way, here we go: United States Senate: Chris Coons over Kevin Wade, 58-40%, with Andrew Groff of the Green Party at 2%. I'll be among the 2 percenters. US Representative: This provides the true measure of how many people will vote Republican no matter what.  Does Rose Izzo get over 30%? I'm going Carney 67%, Izzo 29%, with the Green and Libertarian candidates maybe getting 4%.  For me, it'll be August in November. Attorney General: Matt Denn will win, does he break 60%?
Is This What’s Happening at the News Journal?

Is This What’s Happening at the News Journal?

We all know that the NJ is working on the lastest Gannett revenue extraction scheme -- the Newsroom of the Future -- that mainly looks like a way to implement a staff reduction while re-orienting their attention to their website, rather than the paper. This article from the Nashville Scene provides some details of what is going on at The Tenneseean (another Gannett property going through the same thing):
Rep. Smyk Thinks Delaware Casinos are Being Raped

Rep. Smyk Thinks Delaware Casinos are Being Raped

So he says in this recording of a debate answer defending his vote for bailing out casinos. Smyk is -- surprise -- an ex-cop and the district he represents is the area where Bradley committed his crimes against children. And this career cop wants you to believe that the taxes paid by casinos are the equivalent of rape. A comment that completely diminishes the violence of real rape and completely devalues the real trauma endured by its victims. To be sure, plenty of Ds voted for this bailout too -- but none of them would tell you they were somehow in the rape prevention business. His opponent, Marie Mayor, has a great response -- that the revenues from casinos ought to be in use the fix Delaware infrastructure, which is exactly right. So the choice is between the R who wants to reduce the casino taxes vs the D who wants to help get our roads and bridges fixed. There's no point in re-electing Smyk if the only people he plans to represent are a handful of casino owners. Come inside for the video....