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Song of the Day 1/6: Lynyrd Skynyrd, “That Smell”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 6, 2024 1 Comment

Given the media’s eight-year obsession with Donald Trump, you would think the fact that he’s odiferous would have emerged before now. A person of my close acquaintance who interviewed him several times back in the ’90s, when he was having an affair with Marla Maples and doing his best to pretend he wasn’t, said at […]

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DL Open Thread: Saturday, Jan. 6, 2023

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on January 6, 2024 4 Comments

Supreme Court Fast-Tracks Trump Ballot Eligibility Case, Slow-Walks Trump Immunity-From-Prosecution Case.  Gee, wonder why.  All that remains is to see how the Justices will weasel Trump back onto the ballot despite the Constitution: The Supreme Court said Friday that it will decide whether former president Donald Trump’s name can appear on primary election ballots, scheduling […]

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DL Open Thread: Friday, January 5, 2024

Filed in Featured, Open Thread by on January 5, 2024 5 Comments

Trump Violated The Emoluments Clause Of The Constitution.  Supreme Court Didn’t Give A Shit: In January 2021, the justices dismissed two cases about then-President Trump’s alleged violations of the Emoluments Clauses, which are the Constitution’s guardrails against presidential corruption. In doing so, the Court forfeited a golden opportunity to clarify just what these mandates mean for […]

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Delaware Political Weekly: Dec. 29, 2023 To Jan. 4, 2024

Filed in National by on January 5, 2024 0 Comments

1.  Where are those year-end campaign finance reports?  So glad you asked.  Although the reports had to be closed out as of the end of 2023, they can be filed any time between now and Jan. 22, 2024.  Department of Elections will post them soon after having received them.  I’m sure we’ll see some reports […]

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Song of the Day 1/4: Coven, “One Tin Soldier”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 4, 2024 2 Comments

Unless you grew up in the ’60s, it’s hard to imagine how naive the Boomers were in their youth. They actually thought singing about peace could bring it about. Nowadays music venues are frequent targets for mass violence, from the Pulse nightclub to the Las Vegas country music festival to the Nova music festival in […]

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DL Open Thread: Thurs., Jan. 4, 2024

Filed in Delaware, Featured, Open Thread by on January 4, 2024 13 Comments

MAGAt Brain Part I:  Apparently Delaware Rethugs have concluded that the Scourge Of Electric Cars is their hot button issue.  You know, like abortion.  Specifically, Mike Ramone.  Filed yesterday in Delaware Superior Court: Michael Ramone; Nandi Randolph; Samuel S. Sloan, owner of S&S Auto Repair; Richard G. Collins v. Delaware Department of Natural Resources and […]

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Song of the Day 1/4: T Bone Burnett, “Humans From Earth”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 3, 2024 2 Comments

T Bone Burnett is well-known and widely respected as a producer, but before he embarked on that career he was a guitarist – he played in Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the ’70s – and started a solo career that saw him release albums in musical styles ranging from New Wave to country. This song […]

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DL Open Thread Wednesday, Jan. 3, 2024

Filed in National, Open Thread by on January 3, 2024 1 Comment

Gold Bar Bob Menendez used his position as head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to run quite a racket, according to his new federal indictment. It doesn’t add any new charges, but the details of how Menendez did favors for his wheeler-dealer campaign contributors and foreign governments, including Qatar as well as Egypt, illustrate […]

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Song of the Day 1/2: Green Day, “The American Dream Is Killing Me”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment, National by on January 2, 2024 2 Comments

Punk-pop veterans and Rock Hall of Famers Green Day waded into America’s politico-cultural wars on New Year’s Eve when frontman Billie Joe Armstrong altered a line of the band’s signature song, “American Idiot,” by proclaiming, “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.” MAGAts reacted predictably, but they shouldn’t have been surprised. The song was written […]

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DL Open Thread Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2024

Filed in National, Open Thread by on January 2, 2024 8 Comments

Former labor secretary Robert Reich used his year-end column to make a point I’ve long believed: The perception that America’s quality of life is declining is linked to the fact that wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands. In his words, the American Dream is vanishing. Over the past 40 years, the earnings of the […]

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Song of the Day 1/1: Uptown String Band, “I’m Looking Over a Four Leaf Clover”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on January 1, 2024 3 Comments

The Mummers Parade is hanging in there, even if it’s much diminished. The march nowadays runs only from City Hall to Washington Street, in the wrong direction, and it doesn’t air on WPHL-17 anymore (you can livestream it, though). As critics note in this Philadelphia Inquirer article, the parade has roots in minstrelsy, and a […]

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DL Open Thread Monday, Jan. 1, 2024

Filed in International, National by on January 1, 2024 5 Comments

Benjamin Netanyahu must think the high road has been mined, because he steadfastly refuses to take it. As the slaughter in Gaza continues, he promised to continue what he calls a war for another year. I think history is more likely to call it a massacre. Frustration makes people say things they haven’t thought through. […]

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Song of the Day 12/31: Ella Fitzgerald, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?”

Filed in Arts and Entertainment by on December 31, 2023 1 Comment

We apparently have the Romans to thank for the annual night of bacchanalia that accompanies the final hours of the waning year. But it’s German folklore, which held that how you rang in midnight determined your luck for the coming year, that made the midnight kiss a tradition. That’s why New Year’s Eve is, after […]

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