Monthly Archives: November 2011

Thanksgiving Day Open Thread [11.24.11]

Happy Thanksgiving from all of us at Delaware Liberal! We are grateful for our readers (most of them anyway), days when it doesn’t rain, the non-stop trainwreck that is the Delaware GOP, DL business meetings at Pandora’s house and the post scheduling feature so we can spend the day arguing politics with our families. Who can argue with Tradition? We hope you all are having a great day with loved ones and that all of your football teams beat the spread.

Did you know that your turkey is spreading the Muslim this Thanksgiving Day? Apparently wingnut queen Pamela Geller has discovered that Butterball turkeys are halal and creating Muslim terrorist cells throughout the land this Thanksgiving Day. Or something like that. Anyway, the always hilarious Tbogg gives us his rundown of the manufactured outrage of the day from conservatives. Really guys, you could just eat turkey-shaped spam and put us all out of your misery.

Need a quick primer before confronting your Fox Noise-watching wingnut relatives at the Thanksgiving table? Moveon.org provides you with some truth to counter with.

Any of your loved ones hunting Thanksgiving morning? I wouldn’t hold dinner for them if I were you:

Because out in the woods, the hunters are NOT the 99%.

Thanksgiving Eve Open Thread [11.23.11]

Two Republican Illinois lawmakers want Cook County, which houses the City of Chicago, to become its own state.

The Pew Research Center finds that the Occupy Wall Street movement had its best week yet in news coverage.

“Last week, the U.S. economy was the No. 1 story at 22% of the newshole, with the majority of that coverage focused on the confrontations between protesters, law enforcement, and the city governments that preside over the public spaces that have become encampments. All totaled, the Occupy Wall Street story accounted for 13% of the overall newshole during the week of November 14-20… That coverage marked a major spike from the week before when media attention to the protests had dropped to just 1% of the newshole. It surpassed even the week of October 10-16, when the protests, largely focused on income inequality, filled 10% of the newshole as the demonstrations expanded around the country and partisans began turning it into a major political issue.”

So thanks Police and City Governments, the more you attack them, the more coverage they get.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) has asked Google to institute a new system on their Blogger publishing platform where readers can flag “terrorist content.” Joe Lieberman, I hope you burn forever in Hell you fascist asshole. Your retirement can’t come soon enough. And talk about something that will be completely ineffective. Republicans will flag Democratic content as terrorist content, and we will be forced to do the same to Republican content. So, basically, Joe Lieberman just wants more flame wars on the internet.

To prove that there is no issue on which he won’t flip flop, and I mean NO issue. Mitt Romney now says his first name is Mitt. Previously, his first name was Willard.

Michele Bachmann is somehow on the House Intelligence Committee. There, she is privy to classified information. She is also running for President. Last night at the 138th GOP Debate, she leaked classified information about Pakistan’s 15 nuclear sites being vulnerable to terrorist attack, and that six of them had already come under some form of terrorist attack. The National Journal says the new facts “represent either a news-making leak of previously unknown classified information or another in her recent series of seemingly-random, and highly inaccurate, public comments.” A full investigation will be required, and if it is proven true that Ms. Bachmann breached our national security by leaking this information, she will have to be jailed.

Only Fools and Clowns Believe Republican Ideology

Have mercy, there is one MORE, Republican debate tonite! I’m pretty sure that most of Delaware Liberal’s readers will be getting their houses ready for Thanksgiving dinner, baking pies, taste testing the wines, picking the activities to keep the kids busy on the drive to Grandma’s or in Zumba class and therefore too busy to watch the carnage. If you happen to be watching (I hope after successful taste tests of the wine!), use this thread to comment on the train wreck. But to get you in the mood, Paul Krugman tells you everything you need to know about the current form of the GOP —

Key points:

“I have a structural hypothesis here,” Krugman told ABC’s Christiane Amanpour Sunday. “You have a Republican ideology, which Mitt Romney obviously doesn’t believe in. He just oozes insincerity, that’s just so obvious. But all of the others are fools and clowns. And there is a question here, my hypothesis is that maybe this is an ideology that only fools and clowns can believe in. And that’s the Republican problem.”

Peggy Noonan (are you kidding?) defends Newtie and gets her butt handed back to her:

“We need a little on the pro-Newt side balance,” she remarked. “The base of the Republican Party knows that the establishment of the Republican Party doesn’t like Newt. That’s a big plus.”

“It was his time,” Krugman explained. “The Republican base does not want Romney and they keep on looking for an alternative. And Newt, although — somebody said, ‘He’s a stupid man’s idea of what a smart person sounds like.’ But he is more plausible than the other guys they’ve been pushing up.”

In other Gingrich news, there is some Christian group passing out flyers in Iowa questioning Newtie’s character via the number of marriages he has had.

Tuesday Open Thread [11.22.11]

Remember the NY-based foreclosure mill who had the Halloween Party where they dressed up to mock poor and homeless people? Well, they are closing their doors. Hold your schadenfreude long enough to get a load of who they are blaming for their closure — the reporter who published the story about their stupid party. Yes, it is GOP play No.1 — Be Victimized By Something Other Than Your Own Actions. How about some personal responsibility here? Or better — how about acknowledging that this is how free markets work? Your customers are sorta likely to change lawyers if you turn out to be a douchebag. But hey, it’s Tiny Violins Tuesday.

Jack Abramoff is calling out Newtie Gingrich for his “consulting” (nudge nudge, wink wink) for Fannie and Freddie:

Noting that Gingrich — who now claims to be a Washington outsider — is one of the many who “use their public service and their access to make money,” Abramoff told NBC host David Gregory that Gingrich is “engaging in the exact kind of corruption that America disdains.” When Gregory noted that that corruption is a “heavy charge,” Abramoff insisted that “it is corruption.”

I’m thinking that you’re definitely in trouble when Jack Abramoff says you’re in his club, right?

This company is trying to kill credit cards. Dwolla has a neat model that has been attracting a decent bit of venture capital. And the key thing here? Not *wanting* to make a killing. Basically, they are in the business of moving money from your account to a merchant’s account — no credit cards in the middle — and are currently charging .25/transaction to do it. A thing to watch, especially since they are pissing off credit card companies.

The Pepper-Spraying Cop has a tumblr page, with lots of crowd-sourced images of the pepper-spraying cop cracking down on famous scenes from history. Then there’s this:

Sussex County Smackdown – Round 3

Welcome to the latest episode of the feud between Sussex County Sheriff Jeff Christopher and the County Council. In today’s installment, Christopher has been ordered to stop all of his illegal actions.

County Administrator David B. Baker has ordered the sheriff to stop those activities immediately and warned that continuing them will be treated as insubordination on the part of his deputies.

If you recall, I posted a piece about these illegal activities back on October 5. Yeah, we broke the story that the News Journal finally caught up to.

So what has the sheriff and his chief deputy, Dennis Lineweaver, been doing?

Sussex County Sheriff Jeff Christopher has ordered his deputies to round up wanted criminals and make traffic stops and has formed a volunteer “posse,” county officials say.

» Deputies have been ordered by Christopher to stop vehicles for speeding, reckless driving or DUI, and to research outstanding warrants and take wanted people into custody.

» Christopher has named a volunteer “sheriff’s posse” and appointed special deputies, who all wear uniforms.

» Deputies have participated in public meetings and events in uniform and provided security and crowd control at events.

The public meetings have been either Sussex County GOP meetings or meetings of the 9/12 “Patriots.” Yeah, nothing political there. And it was Lineweaver who pulled over the motorist I referred to in my October 5th post.

Christopher, saying he was “perplexed over why County Council was setting policy and procedures for his” office, did not deny the accusations.

He neither responded to nor disputed the specific issues raised by Baker. “I believe that there is so much more the Sheriff’s Office can do for the people here,” his statement read. “Wondering why we elect and trust a person to run the office if that person has no discretion to make these decisions.

I’m not a toy sheriff.”

Not a toy, but an elected official who is out of control. Jeff, where is the money coming from to fund this posse and these special deputies? Who’s paying for their uniforms? Who’s paying for the pre-screening drug testing and background checks?

Seeing that Sheriff Christopher has been running a rogue operation out of his office, I call on Speaker Bob Gilligan and House Majority Leader Pete Schwartzkopf to immediately begin impeachment procedures against Sheriff Jeff Christopher for violating his oath of office, violating the Delaware Code, and violating the Constitution of the State of Delaware. The people of Sussex County deserve a sheriff that understands and obeys the law.

And This is Surprising How?

Farleigh Dickinson University (yeah the one COD supposedly went to) has come out with a poll showing that FOX News viewer are not as informed as they think they are.

The poll — which asked New Jerseyans where they find news and information about current events — found that Sunday morning news shows are the most informative, while Fox News actually leads people to be less informed than those who consume no news at all.

Wow. I’m speechless. 🙂 I mean, I thought FOX News gave everyone a fair and balanced view of current events.

The poll focused partly on popular uprisings in Egypt and Syria. Asked whether the people of Egypt successfully topped Hosni Mubarak’s regime, 49 percent of Fox News viewers answered “yes” — the lowest on the scale — while 68 percent of NPR listeners answered in the affirmative, the highest on the scale.

They also probably think that Libya is a term for a progressive from the South.

“The (poll’s) results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at all,” said Dan Cassino, a political science professor at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the poll.

So, I wonder how O’Liely will spin this tonight in the “No Spin Room.”

In Which We Find That John Sigler Doesn’t Know What He Is Talking About

But I guess that’s how you know he’s in the GOP, right?

In yesterday’s Delaware Voice (New Journal), Representative J.J. Johnson reminds GOP chair John Sigler that he should stick to refereeing the food fights in Sussex County and leave the business of governing to those who will care about its details.

Sigler apparently spent his time writing about “runaway tax and spending”, which isn’t borne out by looking at the numbers. But no member of the GOP ever went broke waving the Tax and Spend flag at the local bulls. And as impotent as they are right now, they still haven’t decided to commit themselves to some better numeracy. But here is the *data* as cited by Representative Johnson:

Since fiscal 2009, our budget has grown by $145.7 million, or 4.3 percent, over a three-year period. That is less than 1.5 percent per year, which is hardly runaway spending. Of that $145.7 million, $112.4 million is due to increases in Medicaid, Welfare and teacher unit counts.

More than 75 percent of our budget increase is due to things we are required to fund. A recent News Journal article noted that there are an additional 48,000 people receiving Medicaid and 63,000 more people receiving food stamps since fiscal 2009, and our teacher unit counts are tied to student enrollment. And those numbers will continue to increase.

Unless Mr. Sigler thinks we should cut seniors off the Medicaid rolls or increase classroom sizes, these cost increases are unavoidable. I would hope he agrees with me that we cannot afford to abandon those Delawareans who depend on this aid.

Sigler has called for clearly failed policies, like super-majorities to pass tax and budget bills, TABOR, and other stuff that localities that submitted to this kind of GOP experimentation are working hard to get rid of. Places like Arizona and Nevada have had their bond ratings downgraded by Moody’s in part because the supermajority gives the power of stopping any rationality on budgets and spending to a few people. Meaning that they are likely to become much like California, where they haven’t been able to do much to address their fatal budget issues because a few Republicans won’t be responsible. But here is Representative Johnson:

Mr. Sigler also calls for a constitutional amendment requiring a two-thirds “supermajority” on all tax and fee bills and our “money bills” — the budget, Bond Bill and Grant-in-Aid. First off, state law already requires a three-quarters majority for Grant-in-Aid and the Bond Bill and a three-fifths majority for all tax and fee bills. Mr. Sigler is blowing smoke and then yelling “fire.”

Hello.

Mr. Sigler needs to stick to his knitting and get the in-fighting stopped in his own party — so maybe they may be competitive again, you know? — and then get themselves wrapped up in the actual facts of how this state is governed, so maybe they’ll not just sound smarter but they may come up with some interesting solutions to real problems here in Delaware.

Who said it? (cross posted at Democrats4Kovach)

Was the following Republican sounding gibberish spouted by “Democrat” John Carney, or Republican Tim Kovach?

For too long, leaders in Washington — from both sides of the aisle — have put the U.S. in a severe financial mess.

Carney or Kovach ?

America’s debt isn’t just an economic problem, it’s a national security problem as well. We’re leaving future generations with trillions of dollars owed to foreign governments.

Carney or Kovach ?

The people of Delaware understand that everything must be on the table. … And when I say everything must be on the table, that means that everything should be on the table: discretionary spending, entitlement programs, revenue, defense, tax reform, and other areas.

Carney of Kovach ?

I’ll put the answers in the comments section after a while. In the meantime “Who said it?” is going to be a regular feature of the Democrats4Kovach blog. “Regular” anyway, until John Carney decides to stop muddying the waters as to what it means to be a Democrat.

Monday Open Thread [11.20.11]

Bill Dunn makes his announcement for NCCo Council President! Did anyone go?

Newt Gingrich thinks that child labor laws should be rolled back so kids can be janitors. This is all kinds of awful, and apparently one feature of a new Contract On America that will try to make over America into some Dickensian debtors prison.

Now here’s a constitutional amendment that we can get behind (listen up, John Carney!):Rep. Deutch Introduces OCCUPIED Constitutional Amendment To Ban Corporate Money In Politics Who’s in?

From The Onion, Libertarian Reluctantly Calls Fire Department: