Questions for Taschner – Will the DSEA investigate who has it out for the DSEA?

Filed in National by on October 12, 2018

With Matthews stepping down for the good of the DSEA, will the DSEA do the right thing?

There is still a genuine news story hiding in plan sight. Piece of shit stenographer, Cris Barrish is protecting a person or group willing to go to great lengths to attack the DSEA and influence the direction of public education through the use of character assassination. Even today other “media” outlets are playing along allowing the anonymity of the “source” to stand. Will Jeff Taschner join the conspiracy of silence and allow bygones to be bygones, or will there be in investigation?

About the Author ()

Jason330 is a deep cover double agent working for the GOP. Don't tell anybody.

Comments (55)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. jason330 says:

    Here is a thought. If anyone knows who, or what group, wanted to weaken the DSEA by taking out Matthews dictate the story to Cris Barrish. He’ll type it up for you.

  2. puck says:

    If you donate to WHYY, maybe it is time to redirect that money toward candidates who support public schools. Drop WHYY a note and let them know why.

    • jason330 says:

      Good point about WHYY, but I get thier motives. As noted – they were trolling for clicks. Barrish simply did what any shit head stenographer would do.

      I’m left wondering if the DSEA is sitting this out. Jeff Taschner was mentioned as a possible culprit. If it was him or someone inside the DSEA that is big news.

    • RE Vanella says:

      I stopped donating to WHYY tears ago. Centrists shills.

      • RE Vanella says:

        t is directly adjecent to y on the keyboard. Works either way.

      • Phil says:

        centrist shills? shouldn’t journalists be centrist, or non biased one way or another? Hasn’t keeping sources anonymous been a hallmark of journalism for about forever?

        • RE Vanella says:

          Pretending that a person doesn’t have a side is disingenuous and clouds judgment. Like pretending there are two equal sides to every story. Sometimes there’s only one side and sometimes more than two.

          No, it isn’t a Hallmark of Journalism… It’s a lie.

          Read Taibbi’s new online serial book The Fairway. It’s a relook at Manufacturing Consent 30 years on.

          Keeping sources anonymous is different. I have no issue with that.

        • Alby says:

          “shouldn’t journalists be centrist, or non biased one way or another?”

          That’s been the line ever since cities could no longer support two newspapers, one Democratic, one Republican. They wanted customers of both to buy what was left, so publishers pretended they had always been “unbiased” and demanded the same of their employees. This coincided with the rise of broadcast news, which is under federal license and so had to obey the equal time mandate. Because time is money in broadcast, they found it more profitable (less time-consuming) to air no views than both views, or worse, a multiplicity of views. It wasn’t until cable news that opinion became a big deal in TV. Given the violent partisanship that spawned, one could easily argue that the fairness doctrine was a good thing for society. The only real way to put a lid on friction in a heterogenous society is to eliminate what causes of it you can.

          “Hasn’t keeping sources anonymous been a hallmark of journalism for about forever?”

          Depends on the country. In Saudi Arabia it can get you killed, and there are very few public monuments to martyred journalists.

        • Barrish could have taken a breath and done a lot more research if he was interested (or if his editors were interested) in a balanced article and not a slam piece.

          See what he could have found if he looked for a minute: https://exceptionaldelaware.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/mike-matthews-speaks-from-april-2006/

  3. puck says:

    Let’s also not forget the hit Mike Ramone put on his opponent Stephanie Barry, and the gutless cave by her employer P.A.W.S. purportedly in defense of their $5000 grants-in-aid funding. Next June let your legislator know you disapprove of how P.A.W.S. handled the situation and you demand the grant be withdrawn. Drop P.A.W.S a note and let them know.

  4. puck says:

    DSEA has always been a slave to the Chamber of Commerce/Delaware Way establishment, which is synonymous with the charter school lobby. Mike Matthews was an outlier. I’m sure the DSEA endorsement of Kathleen Davies motivated the establishment forces to move now.

  5. Jason330 says:

    Bottom line:

    If Jeff Taschner is involved he has good reason to be quiet and hope it blows over.

    If he isn’t involved he owes it to the DSEA membership, present and future DSEA leadership to figure out who will stoop something like this and why. If character assassination works as a tool to shape policy – why wouldn’t they use it again?

  6. Alby says:

    Character assassination has been used to neuter opponents since the ancients. That will never change.

    Keep in mind that this would not have worked were there no audience for it — and I don’t mean clicks. The story says this made the rounds on the grapevine before someone approached Barrish. People gossip.

  7. jason330 says:

    Ok for you, but too jaded for me. It abuses my sense of justice when the powerful and wealthy pull shit like this and it is met with a shrug.

    • Alby says:

      The serenity to accept the things you cannot change. The primary thing that nobody but the genetic engineers can change is our simian nature. Humans, in their pride, call it “human” nature.

      Your response is as much a part of that as their blunt exercise of power. Your sense of justice is just as baked in.

  8. DelawareNative says:

    So you are allowed to talk shit about people years ago and simply think they will forget? Revenge is a a long game, people.

    • Alby says:

      I don’t think anyone believes this is payback from someone he wrote about more than a decade ago. He’s made plenty of enemies in the decade since his blog ended, and not because he called them some nasty names. In his position he could have cost some important people real money.

      • RE Vanella says:

        If I had a nickel for every dummy on here that missed the point after 24 hours of discussion…

        Couldn’t hit water falling from a boat.

    • jason330 says:

      That is the most scarlet of red herrings I’ve read in my time blogging. Someone doesn’t like this line of inquiry.

  9. Jason330 says:

    10 hours later – I’m not expecting the DSEA to bother much with finding out what went down.

    My sources are implicating Jeff Taschner as the person who put Barrish up to the hit piece. A Taschner/Alleyne tag team, perhaps? KO makes a strong case for Alleyne. It probably didn’t take much to get a hack like Barrish interested in something that sounded like it potentially could go national.

  10. Bane says:

    Nothing unfair here people. Mike chose to be in this game. This is politics. It may have been unfair if it were a lie; But it’s not. He wanted to be in the game, this is part of it. People have been taken out for much less. As Hyman Roth said about Moe Greene in Godfather 2, “This is the business we’ve chosen. I didn’t ask who gave the order. It was business”

    Also, is this a leak if it’s on the internet? Pointing to something on the net (old or new) and leaking priviledge info is a little different. An investigation into who told Barrish about the publically accessible Wayback search engine seems it would contradict their orginal statement about Mike’s posts.

  11. Bane says:

    This is all I’m saying.

    Hyman Roth: “There was this kid I grew up with; he was younger than me. Sorta looked up to me, you know. We did our first work together, worked our way out of the blogs. Things were good, we made the most of it. During legislative session, we ran protesters into Dover… made a fortune, your father, too. As much as anyone, I loved him and trusted him. Later on he had an idea to build a city education system that served kids and teachers. That kid’s name was Mike Matthews, and the city he worked in was Wilmington, Delaware. This was a great man, a man of vision and guts. And there isn’t even a plaque, or a signpost or a statue of him in that town! Someone put a bullet through his eye. No one knows who gave the order. When I heard it, I wasn’t angry; I knew Mike, I knew he was head-strong, talking loud, saying stupid things. So when he got attacked, I let it go. And I said to myself, this is the business we’ve chosen; I didn’t ask who gave the order, because it had nothing to do with business!”

  12. RE Vanella says:

    Mike has Roth assassinated in the end, just like he did with Moe Green.

    Maybe you forget how it ends.

    • Alby says:

      If history has taught us anything…

      • Bane says:

        No I do remember. And that’s also a part of the game… If history has taught us anything, it’s that you can kill anyone. So if that person gets outed and people attack them, you won’t hear me whining about it asking “Who gave the order?” and whining about the reporter who covered it.

        • Jason330 says:

          Fuck you dude. If this is “part of the game” then the game isn’t over until the people behind this are outed and the motives are disclosed.

          Also Cris Barrish is a shit head stenographer, and whenever I’ve been accused of whining it has been when I’ve been making people nervous, so it doesn’t have the impact in me you’d expect it to have.

  13. It wasn’t just enough to take Mike down. This self-serving egomaniac, Atnre Alleyne, had to write his own spin on it and make sure every Delaware teacher in the state got it. How he got all those email addresses, along with personal emails, is beyond me. DOE? DSEA? Rodel?

    Jeff Taschner vowed to find out how Alleyne got all those email addresses without the consent of teachers. As well, Alleyne heavily backed Guillermina Gonzales in the 22nd. Gonzales beat Jeff Taschner’s wife, Renee Taschner, in the Primary. I would have a tough time seeing Jeff Taschner team up with Atnre Alleyne.

    This is totally Alleyne, but he had help.

  14. Alby says:

    The Barrish bashing shows a basic misunderstanding about how the news media work.

    No story gets run — generally speaking, no story gets pursued on company time — without the say-so of an editor. When a reporter hears about something like this — that someone is circulating controversial stuff a prominent union official wrote — it’s his job to tell his editor. It’s the editor’s job, not the reporter’s, to decide whether to pursue the story. Once the reporting is done, it’s the editor’s job to decide whether to proceed with the story and, ultimately, to run it, a decision that is made by higher editors.

    Barrish would be remiss to hear about this and not tell his editors. They, not he, decided to move ahead with it on the basic grounds of newsworthiness — a judgment shown sound by how much shit this has stirred up.

    There are many legitimate criticisms to be made of this process, and in a world with more journalistic resources finding who released the information and why would make a good follow-up. Sadly, that’s not what the public is interested in.

    I’ll give you an example: The Tom Carper wife-slapping story. When it was released by the Rzewnicki campaign, the News Journal barely took notice, instead concentrating on finding the connections between the obscure wingnut-welfare group that released it and the Rzewnicki campaign.

    Was the conduit for the story as important as the story itself? I would argue no — that a sitting state official running for a higher office had lied about this incident for years is more noteworthy than his campaign opponent’s fingerprints either being on or not being on the release of the deposition that proved him a liar.

    Nobody remembers today that Rzewnicki released that information, while the slap remains newsworthy.

    • John Young says:

      For me, it’s disdain for how it works. Very little balance or background, just dump and print.

      • Alby says:

        Check out the other stories about officials “caught” for things they did years ago. I linked to a couple of them in today’s open thread.

        The public is not interested in who was out to get Mike Matthews. The public likes to leer and be outraged. Like it or not, this is happening to people all over the country. It’s mostly covered locally; occasionally someone is close enough to a major media market, like that cop in North Jersey, that getting fired over a racist remark makes the national news. In none of them have I seen a follow-up on who was out to get the victim.

  15. jason330 says:

    I understand it. I don’t like it, and staying mum is the same as being a party to it.

    Take Down With Absolutes, for example. The blog itself was a critique of the shit ass political media we have in this state in the style of the. Being “outrageous” was a way to demonstrate the outrageous uselessness of the Delaware media. When Mike was writing the News Journal, as Alby points out, was acting like a PR office for Carper. Every other story filed by Celia Cohen could have been called “The Apotheosis of Tom Carper” or replace Carper with any other top tier politico.

    What Barrish has done is nothing more than being a servile toady for some monied interests. I want to know who those monied interests are.

    • Bane says:

      Oh go cry about it

      Get off youre vs moral high horse. Kevin Ohlandt, this blog, and Mike Matthew’s himself have done the same. Like when Kevin Ohlandt outted the ED from the school board as his leaker, placing her job in jeopardy. Or when he went on a campaign to connect Wali Rushdan (School board) with the guy from Family Foundations. This blog has been party to it as well. You’re telling me that no contributors on this blog has shared info with a reporter about an opponent; for good cause or not.
      How close was this blog to the news journal when they took out Tony Deluca? Nobody has ever complained about journalistic ethics then. You’ve actually complained when these outlets haven’t covered stuff like this. You’re just mad that someone did it to your buddy; and now Chris Barrish is an asshole, I can go fuck myself (repeatedly… Lucky me), and western society is ruined. You sound like such a hypocrite…..

      • jason330 says:

        You are not making a bit of sense.

      • Slightly connected with the State Board of Education there Bane? Probably not. Cause it isn’t called the “school board” it is the State Board (of Education). I highly doubt the ED’s job was put in jeopardy due to the fact she stayed for another three years. As for Wali, the fact his connection with Family Foundations Academy didn’t come up until I brought it up on my blog was troublesome. It was scrubbed from his profile right before he got nominated by Carney. While I was satisfied with his answer, it was a glaring omission which the Senate had no clue about. And he did wind up having a connection.

        The difference with the Mike thing is that it was common knowledge Mike ran a blog back in the day that was controversial. Atnre and his buddies got ahold of it and got Barrish to pick it up after Atnre shopped it around to others who said no thanks. It was petty and ugly. The News Journal and other media in Delaware are very selective about what they will write about. That selective method tends to result in severe favoritism toward certain schools while putting down traditional schools.

      • RE Vanella says:

        This Bane just likes to find some hypocrisy©. She thinks it scores a point or a touchdown or something.

        It’s some sort of game I guess and, in her mind, she’s winning.

        Again, it’s been explained very clearly. Personally, I’m offended that with zero fucking evidence “this blog” are “party” to feeding bullshit oppo rumour mill trash to the press.

        From me to you personally, fuck you, you anonymous cunt rag. You want to accuse Kevin specifically, go there. Don’t make broad accusations unless you want to provide your name and the evidence.

        And you don’t do smug well. You sound ridiculous. Leave it to me. I’m excellent at it.

    • Alby says:

      It’s the same thing the Castle people did when they released the damaging information about Christine O’Donnell to Ginger Gibson. That landed Gibson a job at a bigger newspaper and, soon after, a national publication.

      In point of fact, he did more than act as a servile toady. You have to confirm the information, which in this case was easy to do than in Gibson’s. But I’m sure her sources told here where to look for the documentation; otherwise it’s like telling someone “there’s a pirate treasure somewhere on the island but you can’t have the map.”

      It’s fine to want to know who did this. But not only would Barrish not tell you who he talked to, even if he did it’s almost certainly not the person who “did this.” And even if you found out, what could you do? They didn’t break any laws.

      • jason330 says:

        ” And even if you found out, what could you do?”

        Provide some context, when shit comes around as it does. Keep hitting the drum, like you do about Tom Carper and his first wife – make ignorance a less viable defense. That’s all anybody can do.

        • Alby says:

          Here’s the thing: I actually think it’s something that should be forgiven, though I would like him to be honest about his past dishonesty. I keep highlighting it to show that “morality” is not what determines who gets dumped and who survives, and that people pretending it is are stupid, hypocritical or both.

          Al Franken got dumped because his progressive positions frightened the corporate Democrats, not because he grabbed women’s asses while photos were being taken. If it were the opposite, Carper would have been attacked too. He wasn’t, and in fact nobody involved in calling for Franken’s head has said jackshit about Carper. That tells you all you need to know.

          Mike Matthews lost his job because his anti-charter activism scares people, not because he called for someone’s gang rape.

  16. mouse says:

    The republicans used to have liberals and moderates in DE but now they are all fruit cases or just pandering to ignorant bigots