Tag: Featured
SOTU – Who was the President talking to about bipartisanship?
My hobby horse is in splinters from having been ridden to death. I’ve railed against John Carney giving aid and comfort to the radicalized doomsday cult know as the GOP long after I was able to do so, and be funny at the same time. So…was the President talking to me last night? Let’s see…
Delaware General Assembly Pre-Game Show: Tues., Jan. 12, 2016.
My outlook for January: Real interesting real fast. Just like today’s Al Show will be.
The second session of the 148th General Assembly kicks off today. Since it’s not a new General Assembly, everything that was in place on July 1 remains in place today. It’s gonna be a wild and wooly month. You can look forward to:
1. Votes on overriding the veto of HB 50-the ‘opt-out’ bill. The bill passed both houses with veto-proof majorities. The House vote was overwhelming, 36-3, so it should get through the House in comfortable fashion. The final Senate vote was 15-6, so that is the chamber where Markell might be able to flip a couple of senators. I will be especially interested to see whether her run for Lieutenant Governor might play into Sen. Bethany Hall-Long switching sides. I’d like to point out that HB 50 has already had a key impact. The decision by the Department of Education to cancel the ‘Smarter Balanced’ test for juniors in favor of the SAT would almost certainly not have been made without the catalyst of HB 50. In fact, you may recall that Sen. Bryan Townsend introduced and passed an amendment extending the opt-out provision to high school juniors. That amendment is no longer necessary, for the best of reasons.
More inside…
A State of the Union to Remember
I was essentially beyond words when Christy told me. Braeden’s been to the White House twice before, when he won in 2013 and when he was asked back to speak at the Kids’ State Dinner winners in 2014, and both trips were humbling and amazing, but this one is something else. To be asked to sit in a room with Congress, the Supreme Court justices, most of the president’s cabinet, and listen to one of the most important speeches the president can deliver, to be interviewed and featured by Time Magazine, to have your bio posted on the White House website, I don’t even know what to say. I couldn’t be more proud of Braeden and the ideas he’s come up with, the way he’s implemented them, and how he’s stuck with it for the last 3 years.
The General Assembly Needs To Override The Governor’s Veto Of Opt-Out Bill
It’s interesting how the biggest proponents of Choice! are the ones now against it. Then again, anyone who understands how Choice came to be and the reasons behind it knows it never had anything to do with giving parents options. Choice was simply the stepping stone to privatizing our public schools. Choice is what has hurt our public schools; it’s what opened the door to charters and privatization (as well as magnet schools). What we’re dealing with now in education wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t implemented a system designed to create high poverty schools – schools no one has seriously tried to help.
But the point has never been to help high poverty, struggling schools. The point, and one I’ve been making for over a decade, is to privatize/charterize our public schools. It’s no coincidence that the privateers started with the poorest among us – the ones with the least influence and voice. It’s how they got their foot in the door. Take a good long look at the city of Wilmington. That’s the plan for everyone. Yep, all this will spread outward (and is spreading) to suburbia. No one actually thinks that Ed Reformers are going to let all that education money slip through their hands, do they? Of course not. What they’ve done/are doing to our struggling schools sets the precedent. And once that precedent is set it will spread like wildfire.
Which brings me to the point of this post and Mike Matthews’ Delaware Voice column. The Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA) is the tool to implement this agenda. This test isn’t about helping children learn; it’s about labeling schools and teachers as failing so the next step in the Ed reformer’s agenda can be implemented. Remember Priority Schools? Remember how ALL roads in that plan led to privatization and charterizatiion? Out of everything in that plan only private/charter conversion was carved in stone. The reason it was carved in stone was because it was the end game.
2015: The Good. The Bad. The Ridiculous.
Because this list is generally a critical review of the year’s events, I’ve decided not to place Beau Biden’s death or Joe’s flirtation with running for President on the lists. Who is to say how one should react under such circumstances? And how does one rank a death? Answer to both questions: I don’t know. So, I won’t do it.
We start as always, with the list with the fewest nominees: The Good. Because, let’s face it, on balance, this was not a good year for Delaware. Much closer to an annus horribilis, or whatever Queen Elizabeth calls it.
Wherever possible, I’ve linked to an article that provides context.
Pay Per Pupil?
Imagine if we paid for other government services on a per use basis. Fire companies. They can’t douse your burning home until you pay them. Paramedics can’t begin to administer emergency medical care until your form of payment clears. Police can’t come take your car accident report until they verify your credit card transaction goes through. They can’t investigate your home invasion until you remit payment. The 911 phone system. “The fee for this service is $2.99 per minute for the first minute, and $1.99 per minute thereafter, please enter your 16-digit credit or debit card number followed by the pound sign”. Transportation. I take Route 40 to work sometimes. Sometimes I take 896. Imagine if they set up EZ Pass sensors at every point where a secondary road connected.
No Indictment In The Tamir Rice Killing
I’m a little late with this post, but this story needs to be heard. Of all the police shootings the case of Tamir Rice – a twelve year old boy playing with a toy gun only to be shot dead by police in less than two seconds of their arrival on the scene – stands out. This incident was so straightforward that not indicting the officers sets an extremely dangerous precedent. Obviously, there’s no line to cross if you’re a police officer. Fire away.
But what really bothers me is how the police always seem to lie about what happened. Then the video tape is released. Let’s look at what the police claimed happened before the Tamir Rice video was released…..
Watching Mayor Williams Get Played By His Own “Take Credit for These Ideas” Strategy
I’ve been following the news from my Holiday Location and it is looking like Mayor Dennis Williams is being hung by his own “We’re Not Going to Let This Commission Take Credit for These Ideas” strategy in his effort to push back against having to live with the accountability (and potentially some consequences) that would come with a grant being provided by the Joint Finance Committee to help the City pay for foot patrols. You’ll recall that the Williams Administration’s response to the Wilmington Public Safety Strategies Commission report was to claim that they had already implemented most of the recommendations made — with the help of the VRN folks, not the Governor. There is wide skepticism about this claim that they’ve implemented most of those recommendations — especially from me — and the JFC looking to send the Police Foundation back into the WPD to check on progress is an excellent accountability measure. And if I am Mayor Dennis Williams with a re-election hanging in the balance because he is widely seen as utterly ineffective in managing the crime problem (in spite of campaign promises) — it would be Good News all the way around if one of the Commission’s consultants could say that progress is actually being made as promised.
Time for Some Optimism: Some Victories for Progressives in 2015.
I am an optimist. Which is unusual for a Progressive. Usually progressives, despite their forward looking politics, are most times pretty depressing and unhappy people. Look at Jason330 for an example of this. He has been pretty down of late. I think it is because we progressives never get what we want, in policy or candidates. And that is true, if you look at everything from a short term perspective. If you zoom back though from a distance, you will see that we are, as a people, as a country, always progressing. And while sometimes there is a conservative reaction to two steps forward that produces a one step backward, in the end, we are always going forward. So to do my part in instilling a sense of optimism in you, here are some victories progressives saw in 2015.
Delaware Liberal in 2015
As we all recover from Christmas, the Eagles losing, and prepare for New Years, it is time to look back on 2015 at Delaware Liberal. We added a new amazing writer here this year in Brian Stephan from the local blog, Those in Favor. He makes a great addition to our team of Jason300, Pandora, Cassandra, Rob Tornoe, El Somnambulo and yours truly.
Inside you will find our most discussed, visited, and viral posts of 2015, and this year, they reflected the most important political stories in Delaware in 2015.
Dear General Assembly, here is your “Honey-Do” List for 2016
1. Pass either House 181 (Kowalko), which simply creates a new tax bracket at $125,000 with a rate of 7.10%, and an additional bracket at $250,000 with a rate of 7.85%; or House Bill 196, which also establishes the two new brackets, but then gives all brackets a 0.05% tax cut.
The passage of one of these bills in non-negotiable. It must be the first order of business. No other bill or resolution or nomination can be considered by either House until one of these two bills is passed and sent to the Governor’s desk for his signature. No committee hearing on any other topic can be held until that time. If he vetos, the General Assembly must override. There is no other settlement money for you to raid, Democrats. It is time to stop being cowards, and time to make the wealthy pay just a fraction more.
2. Override the Governor’s Veto of House Bill 50, the Opt Out Bill.
3. Petition SB 40 (Death Penalty Repeal) out of the House Judiciary Committee for a full vote of the House on the floor. It at least deserves an up or down vote.
4. Pass HB 105 (No Excuse Absentee Voting) and SB 111 (Same Day Voter Registration). I expect all Democrats to vote for these two bills, for the simple reason that Democrats believe in making it easier for everyone to vote, while Republicans believe in making it harder, if not outright oppressing the right to vote. If any Democrat does not vote for these bills, you should simultaneously announce your switch to the Republican Party.
5. Pass SB 39 (Minimum Wage Increase).
The 2015 MVP (Most Valuable to the Progressive Cause in Delaware) Awards
How many times have I asked the question, “Won’t somebody, anybody, challenge this egregious wrong?” Lots of times. Whether it’s the illegal actions of the corrupt Minner team or the illegality of Tony DeLuca serving as both a legislator and as an administrator of a public agency, the answer has always been, no, nobody will challenge this egregious wrong. The budget that was forced through the General Assembly this year was an egregious wrong. Specifically, the (I believe) illegal application of settlement funds to help balance the operating budget. This misuse of funds violated the specific purposes for which the funds could be used. While the AG strongly criticized the misuse of the funds, he either chose not to challenge, or was not in a position to challenge, the General Assembly’s cavalier actions. But someone else did. And that someone else is our Most Value Progressive of the Year.
2016 Statewides–LG–Handicapping a Scrum
We have a Republican style free for all in the primary for Lt. Governor. For the first time in many decades, the office is open with no obvious “next in line” candidate running, hence the scrum. State Senator Bethany Hall Long seems to be the favorite, or at least, the establishment favorite, as she has garnered significant support from Legislative Hall, which of course is natural given her current job, including 14 of her fellow Democratic legislators, led by Patti Blevins and Dave McBride. But, trying to handicap this primary is more difficult than the Congressional primary because the lanes of the primary is not as obvious.
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