National

GOP Presidential hopefuls were asked who they thought where the greatest living President was. They all answered Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan died in June of 2004, eleven years ago. He is no longer living. Or so we thought. We have been joking about it for years, but maybe they really did reanimate the dead corpse of Ronald Reagan. The reality is they all have to say Reagan because the living Presidents currently stand at Carter, Bush, Clinton, Bush and Obama. They can't say Carter, Clinton and Obama. And if they say either Bush, it will look like a plug of Jebbie Bush, or self serving if you are Jebbie Bush.

During the last session of the General Assembly, the Senate passed the repeal of the Death Penalty 11-10, only to have House Judiciary Committee Chair Rebecca Walker bottle up the legislation in her committee, refusing to even consider the legislation table the legislation in committee. This year, repeal again passed the Senate in a close bipartisan vote, 11-9. But this time, at least the bill will get a public hearing may get a vote a vote. [DD: It seems my memory is faulty. Drew Volturo contacted me and said that the Repeal Bill did get a public hearing last session but it was tabled in committee due to lack of votes to release it.] The bill's House sponsor, Rep. Sean Lynn (D-Dover), is not optimistic about the bill's chances in committee, but he has a Plan B ready.

Claire Snyder-Hall would lose a Democratic primary to Tom Carper, but that's not the point. The Democratic Party needs the moral leadership of people like Snyder-Hall. I only hope that she isn't already mobbed-up in the corporatist shit hole so much that she'd regard a primary challenge to Tom Carper as an affront to propriety. Her work with Common Cause gives me hope to think that she is not. But if not to win, why run? That's a legitimate questions, Snyder-Hall knows as well as anybody that running is hard. But I think a primary challenge from the left could help bring the discussion of income inequality back home to Delaware. It could make Carper account for his Republican voting record, and put issues from the environment to women's health in play. Tom Carper's utter contempt for the party of Truman, Kennedy and FDR is well known, and on constant display. If he is not primaried, it could very well reveal our contempt for democracy.

Bernie August would lose a Democratic primary to Tom Carper, but that's not the point. The Democratic Party needs the moral leadership of the Green Party people who have left the Party in disgust. Do I blame them for leaving? Hell no! The Democratic Party, particularly the Delaware Democratic Party is a festering shit hole of corporatist functionaires. And yet the Democratic Party is the only viable counterweight to its own wrongheadedness. If not to win, why run? That's a legitimate questions, but I think a primary challenge from the left could help bring the discussion of income inequality back home to Delaware. It could make Carper account for his Republican voting record, and put issues from the environment to women's health in play. Tom Carper's utter contempt for the party of Truman, Kennedy and FDR is well known, and on constant display. If he is not primaried, it could very well reveal our contempt for democracy.

Who was the wage killing, American worker hating hold out?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have dealt President Barack Obama a stinging setback on trade by blocking efforts to begin full-blown debate on his initiatives. All but one Senate Democrat defied the president Tuesday by voting to prevent consideration of his request for "fast track" trade authority. Such authority would let Obama present trade agreements that Congress could ratify or reject, but not amend.

Jonathan Cohn on what this means for the GOP if the Court does strike down the subsidies:

“Republicans keep saying they’ll be ready to act if the Supreme Court upholds the big legal challenge to Obamacare, thereby wiping out financial assistance for millions of people in two-thirds of the states. With the clock ticking down to a ruling, it’s gotten awfully hard to take the GOP’s vows seriously."

And that is because the choice on health care is more basic than everyone is willing to admit. President Obama passed the market-based conservative Healthcare plan. Obamacare is actually Republicancare. But because a black socialist muslim was proposing it, it had to be opposed until death. And most in the Republican party are fine with that because most really do believe that having health insurance and thus the resultant health care is a privilege for those who can afford it (i.e. the rich), and not a right. So really the reason there is not Republican alternative is because 1) Obamacare is the Republican alternative and 2) they don't care if millions can't now afford health insurance, because if you cannot afford it it means you were not supposed to have it.

Last week, we had the Governor sign HB 56 (Wilmington Charter School Moratorium) into law. We saw the House unanimously pass Senator Townsend's SB 47, the Public Defender Reform bill. We saw the Senate pass Rep. Jaques' HB 58 (allowing NCCo Vocational & Technical School District to levy taxes), 17-2. Rep. Heffernan's E-Cig Indoor Ban bill passed the House, as did Kowalko's Opt Out Bill and Bryon Short's Employee Social Media Privacy Bill. Come inside to see how everyone voted.

I think we can all agree that Republicans are not really anti-abortion. They are anti-sex. If they were honestly interested in reducing the number of abortions performed each year in…

First Read: “There are at least four reasons why the GOP candidates are focused so heavily on foreign affairs — more so than at this time in the 2012 presidential cycle. One, the economy has improved (223,000 jobs were created last month, and Obama’s economic handling is up to 49% in the latest NBC/WSJ poll), while the deficit has decreased. Two, there’s the rise of ISIS. Three, there’s the Iran deal that the Obama administration is racing to finalize by next month. And four, there’s the GOP recognition that focusing on foreign policy is maybe the best way to go after Hillary Clinton’s record as secretary of state.” The first is the most important reason. If this election is about the economy, it will be a Clinton landslide.

Chris Cilliza of the Washington Post has posted in regular (I think it's either monthly or weekly) ranking of Republican Presidential contenders, and his rankings leave a lot to be desired....

Dylan Byers: “On Nov. 8, 2016, Clinton will start — start — with a minimum 247 of the 270 electoral votes she needs to win. If you give her Colorado and Virginia — which many political strategists would, given the Hispanic population in one and the rising influence of the northern-centered population in the other — she’ll start with 269. That means Clinton doesn’t need Ohio or Florida. She just needs one small state like Iowa, Nevada or New Hampshire to put her over the edge. And because she’s got a boatload of money and no viable primary challenger, she’ll have plenty of time and resources to lock up at least one of those states.” “In order to shift the map, the Republican nominee would have to find a way to win Colorado and/or Virginia. That means winning over Hispanics, which will be a difficult task for a nominee who has spent a months-long primary trying to win over the conservative grass roots. It also means winning over enough members of Virginia’s white working class to counter the more populated liberal-urban centers in the north. Not impossible, of course, but hard.”

Kudos to Rep. John Kowalko, Mike Matthews, Rep. Kim Williams, John Young, Kevin at Exceptional Delaware, Kavips, and everyone else that I am not mentioning or forgetting right now on all your work on fighting for our children's education in Delaware. This was an important victory in a first battle, but the war is not over.