Sunday Breakfast Links: Open Thread, Nov. 12
Question of the day comes from Lucian Truscott, who asks “WTF is wrong with rich people?”
I have to say, I don’t have a clue what’s up with rich people. I mean, I’ve got friends here in Sag Harbor who do stuff like building teak decks and painting houses and plumbing and electrical work, and every single one of them has trouble getting paid when it comes to summer people, which is to say, when it comes to rich people. Working for locals isn’t a problem. But rich people? They don’t pay on time and they fight over the bill. … [N]one of them — not a single one of them — will just take the damn bill and pay it. They have to nitpick things to death before they write a check on an account that’s linked to some offshore trust in the Caymans.”
Maybe the better question is “WTF is wrong with Trump? First he trashed America’s intelligence agencies and said he believes Putin’s denials of Russian election meddling. A few hours later he started spinning in the opposite direction and said he backs the intelligence agencies.
State Democratic leaders demonstrated that they’re all-in on the state ignoring the transgender menace when they condemned Rep. Rich Collins for bringing it to the attention of a grateful public.
Earlier this week The News Journal’s Scott Goss previewed the court fight over the Delaware City refinery’s proposal to act as a gateway for ethanol shipments. It’s part of the ongoing erosion of the Coastal Zone Act.
Ezra Klein at Vox has an in-depth piece about how regular voters — the 80 percent of them who go to the polls but don’t obsess about it like we do — approach politics. The tl;dr takeaway is that only the elites, on both sides, place any value on ideological consistency.
Policy wonks will enjoy this Washington Monthly look at the Democratic Party’s new focus on fighting monopoly and business consolidation, an issue the party took up at the urging of Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
From the People Are Idiots file: Someone lost or dumped an exotic serval cat in or near Reading, Pa., where residents who encountered it thought they had seen a cheetah. It’s illegal to own a serval without a license, and nobody in Berks County has one, so nobody showed up to claim her, even though she had been declawed and so was obviously kept as a pet. Because she’s relatively tame, a big-cat rescue group will use her in school programs.
For those who had a long Saturday night and are too bleary to read, treat yourself some gorgeous pictures of the planet Jupiter shot by Juno on its last flyby Oct. 24. Seriously, these close-ups of the gas giant’s swirling clouds are mesmerizing, especially on a big screen. Or maybe I just had a long Saturday night.
Add anything you find interesting.
I have an open question: what is the skinny about Nicole Theis and the Delaware Family Policy Council? Bob Wheatley is on Facebook looking for discussion of the trans policy put forward by the Carney administration to govern the behavior of local school board’s and administration’s behavior toward transgender students. He is probably allied with the DFPC’s position opposing the new regulations. The folks commenting are not taking the new regs well, concerned primarily with the clause that says that in negotiating the tricky ground between parents and a trans minor, preference must be given to the minor’s self selection of a new name, when it is determined the parents are opposed to the choice.
DFPC is affiliated with Focus on the Family</a., an anti-gay organization that actually focuses on giving children the rights of chattel. They have been fear-mongering on accommodations for the transgendered since at least 2013, when language protecting them was added to state law. She sends her kids to a Christian school, so, IMHO, she should shut her yap.
If Wheatley's in with that crowd, he's no Democrat as we understand the term.
Alby, this is the state of the Democratic party in Sussex. The county includes Democrats who worship at the altar of superstition, just like the FOTF folks. The chairwoman of the county, just elected last spring, is in this camp as well. SMH
The Sussex Democratic chairwoman, Jane Hovington, was actively anti-gay when she ran for Senate five years ago. Her answers to this Family Policy Council Q&A are almost identical to her Republican opponent’s: http://www.delawarestrong.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/2012-C3-General-Election-Voter-Guide-v5.pdf
But then this was the woman who valiantly pulled failure from the jaws of victory when the GOP candidate on the ballot was indicted on child sex abuse allegations and dropped like a hot potato and the Rs had to organize a write-in campaign.
In a district where the Ds actually had a couple hundred registered-voter edge, in a presidential election year with Obama on the ballot, she lost with 40%. Five years later, she is the county party chairwoman.
Go Sussex!
@A “Seriously, these close-ups of the gas giant’s swirling clouds are mesmerizing, especially on a big screen.”
I see storms within storms.