Delaware Liberal

Amid budget grief, big raises for Dover political aides Delaware lawmakers quietly awarded their top political aides in Legislative Hall thousands of dollars in raises earlier this year, even as they reduced or eliminated general pay increases for rank-and-file state employees, according to a review of payroll data by The News Journal.

House Speaker Pete Schwartzkopf, a Rehoboth Democrat who approved the raises, ducked questions from The News Journal, ignoring repeated requests for comment. "Pete is not available to comment about this," said Drew Volturo, a House Democratic spokesman.

“More than 10 weeks have passed since that Maureen Dowd column floated the possibility of a Biden run, but he continues to run — or stand — in place. Now, it’s very likely this was decision weekend for Biden, and either we’ll hear a firm ‘no’ from him in the next 48 to 72 hours, or we’ll see the building blocks of an active campaign (website, staff hires). But what is unsustainable is continued inaction, because it won’t be helping his party (if the Democratic nominee needs to raise $1 billion to compete in the general election in this Super PAC Era, Biden still hasn’t raised a cent); it won’t be helping Hillary Clinton (see the latest CBS poll, which shows her leading Bernie Sanders by 24 points without Biden, but by a smaller amount — 19 points — with him included in the contest); and despite experiencing his highest poll numbers during this limbo period, it won’t be helping Biden himself, either (if you want to compete in the early states, build an organization to win, and simply meet the upcoming filing deadlines, you’ve got to jump in ASAP).” “The 2016 train took off months ago. If Biden wants to catch up to his fellow Democrats, he’s got to hop on Air Force Two now. And if he’s not ready to make that move, he owes it to his party and its presidential frontrunner to end the limbo.”

What actually separates the insurgents from the Establishment is not ideology but tactics. The insurgents refuse to accept the constitutional limits of their power, and believe that more frenzied assertions of their core beliefs, combined with a periodic willingness to shut down the government and threaten a currency default, can prevail over President Obama through force of will. The insurgents mistakenly interpret disagreements over means as disagreements over ends; when Republican leaders express reluctance to shut down the government over Obamacare or Planned Parenthood, the insurgents take this as actual support for those programs. What makes Ryan so perfectly suited to bridge this divide is that he perfectly combines ideological extremism with methodological pragmatism.

Republican Congressman Jason Chaffetz has just admitted that the GOP’s investigation into Planned Parenthood’s misuse of federal funds turned out to be a dud. “Did I look at the finances and have a hearing specifically as to the revenue portion and how they spend? Yes. Was there any wrongdoing? I didn’t find any,”