Tuesday Open Thread [12.17.13]

Tuesday Open Thread [12.17.13]

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The Governor is about to show us whose side he is on? The rich or the poor.
Gov. Jack Markell, who will present a new budget to the General Assembly next month, will not have a significant boost in new tax revenue to cover mandatory cost increases in health care and education, according to new revenue estimates out Monday.[...] “Even though revenues ultimately are still going to be up from last year, they’re not going to be up enough to cover the automatic growth in Medicaid and the automatic growth in schools,” said Rep. Melanie George Smith, D-Bear, co-chair of the budget writing Joint FinanceCommittee. “That’s the real issue.”
Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson offers the standard Republican prescription for anything involving fiscal matters: tax cuts and more tax cuts. Even though history has shown all tax cuts do is raise the budget deficit, something the Governor and the General Assembly is trying to close. I assume Mr. Markell will not go down the tax cut course, for if he does, he should just join the Republican Party right now. But what I do seem him doing is trying to cut spending on social services to avoid in any way raising a dime in taxes on his friends in the corporate world.
In Which Sheriff Christopher Pretends He’s Real Law Enforcement Again

In Which Sheriff Christopher Pretends He’s Real Law Enforcement Again

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The ever hapless but ever blustering Sheriff Christopher has signed on to an effort to not enforce President Obama's gun control laws -- whatever they might be. If you look at this list of associations and Sheriff's who have signed on to this idiocy, you can definitely tell that the completely non-law enforcement Christopher is hoping that no one will notice that he is not wearing the grownup's long pants at this table. He can't enforce anything, so here he is pretending he really does belong at the grownup table. But the other thing that is funny about this bit of wingnuttery is that there are new gun control laws right in his own backyard that he can't be bothered to claim to not be enforcing. Maybe he won't enforce these laws in where ever it is that he is supposed to be moving to after being smacked down by the state courts.

Cookie Hooky Day!

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I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really far behind this holiday season!  Today I took my daughter out of school for a cookie hooky day.  Chocolate chips, peanut…

Sunday Open Thread [12.15.13]

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Third Way stalwarts Tom Carper and Chris Coons sniff at the ongoing tug-of-war between Progressive groups and the Third Way. While Senator Warren pushes back on the Third Way bamboozlement, we have Carper and Coons responding thusly:
Carper and Coons dismissed the flap, with Coons calling it a “tempest in a teapot.” “This does not strike me as the kind of thing that deserves the sort of attention I understand it’s getting,” Coons said. Carper agreed. “There’s a lot going on that I am focused on,” he said. “This is not one of them.”

Saturday Open Thread [12.14.13]

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One year ago today, 26 children and their teachers were gunned down in their school in Newton, CT. There are quiet memorials going on all over the country -- the most important one probably being remembering to hug your kids tight today. Especially since there have been 20 school shootings in the US since Newtown and it is apparent that we (not sure if that includes the shooting in Colorado yesterday -- two kids wounded and the shooter killed himself), as a nation, are just fine with the fact that our kids may not return after a school day because of more gun violence. I hope everyone is thinking about all of the families whose children did not get a chance to grow up today.