Open Thread
Tuesday Open Thread [5.21.13]
![Tuesday Open Thread [5.21.13]](http://www.delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Open-Thread1-240x180.png "Tuesday Open Thread [5.21.13]")
Virginia state Sen. Mark Obenshain (R), the Republican nominee for Attorney General in Virginia, had introduced legislation in 2009 to require women to report their miscarriages to their local police department. Not only that, these devastated women would have to provide information in their report on the location of the fetus’ remains. Or else what, you ask? Well, if the mother did not report her miscarriage to the police, she would be charged and presumably be found guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor, which in Virginia carries a maximum sentence of “confinement in jail for not more than twelve months and a fine of not more than $2,500.” And they wonder why women, nationwide and in Virginia, have a problem voting Republican. Hey Assshain, oh excuse me, Obenshain, a woman’s miscarriage is none of your goddamn business, nor the government’s. It is a horrible tragedy for expectant mothers to go through. And you want to make their pain worse.
Monday Open Thread [5.20.13]
This has all happened before and it will happen again.
The president “has just weathered one of the worst weeks of his time in office,” according to Chris Cillizza. I don’t know Chris, I think death, destruction and obstruction (Boston Marathon Terror Attack, West,TX Explosion, Senate Background Check failure) trump three non-scandals that have been blown up by the media and the GOP as being worst than Watergate.
The network news ratings were down, so they gladly accepted the lies of the GOP (see Jon Karl) as news and proceeded to hyperventilate. But once again, as in the 1990′s, the American public are not fooled. The President’s approval ratings have actually improved over the last month, according to the latest CNN poll and Gallup polls.
Sunday Open Thread [5.19.13]
![Sunday Open Thread [5.19.13]](http://www.delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Karl-240x180.png "Sunday Open Thread [5.19.13]")
BREAKING: I didn’t win the Powerball yesterday!
In the evolving story of the “doctored” emails that ABC’s Jon Karl breathlessly injected into the Benghazi stupidity, it looks as though Karl has some right-wing bias issues. He’s not as bad as James O’Keefe, but one wonders where this man’s editors were.
In the same vein, Jay Rosen has written in some detail on how Jon Karl got played by his confidential source, and now he’s made ABC a problem too…..
Saturday Open Thread [5.18.13]
![Saturday Open Thread [5.18.13]](http://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/166084_10152531826998538_236825608_n.jpg "Saturday Open Thread [5.18.13]")
Usually, you can tell when the GOP has reached its overreach point on the scandal machine when they start screaming about something dumber than dirt. In this instance, they are apparently unhappy that a U.S. Marine held an umbrella over President Obama and Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan as it began to rain over the press conference they had earlier this week. Something about violating the U.S Marine protocol about not carrying umbrellas. Which I’m sure has nothing to do with doing what your Commander-In-Chief asks you to do. And, there’s this…..
Friday Open Thread [5.17.13]
If President Obama went the full Bullworth, it might look like this, from the Washington Post:
Q: Thank you, Mr. President. At this point, though, can the American people actually trust their government? There’s a sense that these issues might just be the tip of the iceberg.
OBAMA: [Long pause.] Are you kidding me?
No, the American people can’t trust their government. They can’t trust their media either, I might add. But that’s not because of a couple of I.R.S. agents out in Cincinnati. We can fix the Cincinnati office. Let me be clear: We’re already fixing the Cincinnati office. This problem was solved a year ago. The guy who solved it just got fired anyway because you all wanted to see some blood on the walls and I’m just political enough to give it to you.
Thursday Open Thread [5.16.13]
Rachel [Maddow] noted on the show last night that the controversy surrounding Benghazi effectively “went away” yesterday, and given the latest information, it’s hard to imagine how any serious person could disagree.
The White House yesterday afternoon released the inter-agency communications that went into crafting the “talking points” requested by Congress last September. Lawmakers already saw these materials months ago — they found nothing controversial at the time — but Republicans and the media decided it was time to see them again.
So, the administration, eager to put the matter to rest, released the documents. In turn, we learned what we already knew: there was no cover-up; State and the CIA engaged in a predictable bureaucratic “tug of war”; and this:
The internal debate did not include political interference from the White House, according to the e-mails, which were provided to congressional intelligence committees several months ago.
And with that, everything Republican conspiracy theorists desperately wanted Americans to believe — there’s a scandal; there’s a cover-up; there’s evidence the White House manipulated and lied about a crisis for political ends — suddenly evaporated before our very eyes.
And anyone still saying there is or was a cover up today is simply a liar. I am looking at you Rusty. If you want to get a synopsis of what the emails revealed yesterday, you can go here. In the meantime, Republicans can use this open thread to offer their heartfelt and sincere apologies to the American people.
Wednesday Open Thread [5.15.2013]
Sorry for my absence in the open thread department the last two days. I had some family business to deal with and thanks to Cassandra for stepping in.
So it looks like the whole Benghazi Conspiracy Theory being embraced by Republicans is based on a phantom email created by a GOP source. Whomever that GOP source on Capitol Hill is, he or she should be imprisoned. You have to wonder why the GOP does this to itself. Sooner or later some kind of actual government wrongdoing was bound to come down the pike for the GOP to make hay out of. It always does. In some administrations more frequently than others. But the current Repubican opposition is so bereft of ideas and new policies, and so desparate to come up with anything to tarnish the President so that he in reality matches their fantasy version of him, that they have tried to turn either minor stories or tragedies into massive scandals, like Fast & Furious, like Solundrya, and now, like Benghazi. And the reason why they were so desparate is that the Obama Administration, up until now, has been relatively scandal free.
If only the GOP had waited….. because now they do have two stories that could turn into actual wrongdoing, at least on the parts of the agencies themselves, but the poor GOP already cried Wolf.
Tuesday Open Thread [5.14.13]
SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS TODAY! Polls are open 10 – 8. Please try to get to your polling place and vote today. Feel free to advocate for candidates in the comments of this thread. For more info:
Red Clay
Christina
Brandywine
Appoquinimink
Monday Open Thread [5.13.13]
On Friday afternoon, Marcos at dKos posted up a great analysis of how the new gun safety groups — Mayor Bloomberg’s and the one headed up by Gabby Giffords — are changing the state of play over gun safety legislation. Kos’ piece focuses entirely on the money in the game, not on any of the organizing that might be done by either group, but if Bloomberg can keep this up, I’m hopeful:
Mother’s Day Open Thread [5.12.13]
![Mother’s Day Open Thread [5.12.13]](http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/321481_460333794040664_91603920_n.jpg "Mother’s Day Open Thread [5.12.13]")
Happy Mother’s Day! Hope you are lavishing attention and gifts on your Mom today. The adorable Kid President has a message to all of the Moms out there (not the least of which is that the secret to changing the world is Moms):
Saturday Open Thread [5.11.13]
Today’s NJ has a piece by Adam Taylor explaining the stakes in the upcoming meeting regarding rezoning several areas of the Beaver Valley holdings of the Woodlawn Trustees. I’ve seen alot of Facebook energy on this, but this is the first I’ve seen the issues spelled out.
In all, the plans call for 200,000 square feet of commercial space that would be housed in several buildings and residential developments with a total of 432 houses and townhomes, Green said.
The commercial development would be called Concord Commons, an age-restricted community would be called The Mews at Concord and the other residential development would be called The Preserve at Concord.
Nothing about this seems like conservation. And conservation is about more than preserving recreational options. And certainly this is one more opportunity to increase traffic and congestion on roads that were not built for their current capacity.
Thursday Open Thread [5.9.13]
We haven’t had a polling report in a while, but suddenly we have all a slew of polling info just released this week. Come inside for the polling goodness…
Wednesday Open Thread [5.8.13]
I wrote this last night about the fact that Ernie Lopez, Gerald Hocker and Greg Lavelle ending their statewide political futures with their votes against marriage equality yesterday and about the chances that Cathy Cloutier, on the other hand, had elevated her statewide future based on her yes vote:
The problem, though, is the Republican Party. When I say that the next Republican Governor of Delaware will support marriage equality, I say that because no one who doesn’t support marriage equality will ever win a statewide race going forward. They will barely crack 40% of the vote. So for a Republican to win, he or she will have to be for marriage equality.
BUT…
For the foreseeable future (at least until 2016), the Republican Party’s base is violently against marriage equality, and no Republican candidate can win the primary or get the nod at the state convention without being against marriage equality. Maybe the victory today will speed the death of the rabid bigots at the heart of the state GOP, and I hope it does. But assuming it doesn’t, the GOP is caught in a horrible catch-22: it can only nominate anti-gay candidates, and it can only win with pro-equality candidates.
And this, in response to how losing could be so addictive to our state GOP:
How can losing be so addictive? Easy. It allows these social conservatives to play a role they love so well: that of the victim. They love whining about how oppressed they are. And nothing proves their oppression more than defeat after defeat after defeat at the ballot box and in roll call votes in the General Assembly. And nothing brings in the dollars of retired old bigots more than hate and fear and victimhood.
Jonathan Bernstein agrees with me, or I guess I agree with him (depending on who wrote what first) in his latest article in the Washington Monthly…..
Tuesday Open Thread [5.7.13]
“All of these things we’ve said about what the president could do, should do, might have, could have, but the central thing to keep in mind is his opponents — you talk about taking them out to dinner, making nice with them — these people, politically, want to cut his heart out and throw his liver to the dogs.” — Dan Rather, in an interview on the Chris Matthews Show.
Today is Election Day in South Carolina’s First Congressional District, made necessary by the elevation of Representative Tim Scott to the U.S. Senate upon the resignation of Senator Jim DeMint. Disgraced former Governor Mark Sanford is the Republican nominee, and given the demographics and partisan breakdown of the district, he is or should be the runaway frontrunner. But he is not. Two weeks ago, he was down by 10 points to the Democratic nominee, Elizabeth Colbert Busch, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert. In a poll yesterday, Sanford had recovered to lead by 1 point, so the election is a toss up. Even if Colbert Busch loses, argues The Fix’s Chris Cillizza and Sean Sullivan, the outcome might benefit Democrats in part because Sanford would be a high-profile reminder of “the narrative that Republicans have a woman problem,” especially considering Sanford is due in Court on trespassing charges tomorrow after he allegedly trespassed on his ex wife’s property and broke into her home several weeks ago.
Monday Open Thread [5.6.13]
At this weekend’s NRA convention you could buy ‘Obama’ mannequins designed for use as target practice which actually bleed when shot. It is things like that which makes me have almost no sympathy for families like the Sparks family in Kentucky, the family that had a five year old son shoot and kill his 2 year sister with his “My First Rifle.” That family may be suffering horribly, but in my opinion they deserve that suffering for their irrespondibility and negligence. I know the two things are not directly connected, and I don’t know the particular political views of Mr. and Mrs. Sparks as it relates to the NRA v. Obama, but still. Irresponsibility and selling and marketing guns to children has been a direct result of the NRA’s efforts to fight any and all regulations. So when children of gun lovers actually die, it is very difficult to feel sympathy for the parents.
Sunday Open Thread [5.5.13]
And WTF is up with Tom Gordon’s CAO?
Grimaldi, who is County Executive Tom Gordon’s chief administrative officer, got in a shoving match during a Delaware Police Athletic League meeting in late 2011 or early 2012, witnesses said. And he was charged with offensive touching after a 2010 altercation that Grimaldi said was his reaction to an attack, court records show.
Having a government gig apparently means never having to be accountable, I guess.
Saturday Open Thread [5.4.2013]
![Saturday Open Thread [5.4.2013]](http://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn1/21162_10152357958106393_561355475_n.jpg "Saturday Open Thread [5.4.2013]")
[...]If your “way of life” involves handing deadly weapons to five-year olds, your way of life is completely screwed up and you should change it immediately because it is stupid and wrong. (And, again, also, too: goddammit, “learning to use and respect a gun” means at least knowing that the fking thing is loaded when it’s sitting in the corner of the parlor like it’s a damn umbrella stand or something, and we should talk about that part, too.) It is not in any way “normal” to hand a kindergartner a firearm. If a mother from the inner-city of, say, Philadelphia did that, and the kid subsequently shot his sister to death, Fox News never would stop yelling about the crisis in African American communities and the Culture Of Death, and rap music, too. If your culture is telling you that children who have only recently emerged from toddlerhood should have their own guns, then your culture is deadly and dangerous and that should concern you, too. If your culture demands that, in the face of a general national outrage over the killing of other children, your politics work to loosen the gun laws you have, as they apparently did in Kentucky, then your culture is making your politics stupid and wrong and you should change them, too.[...]
Friday Open Thread [5.3.13]
The U.S. economy added 165,000 jobs in April, which is a good not great number, but the better news is the revisions for February (a great month that is now Clintonian Great) and March (a Bushian bad month of low job growth that has now become Obamian Good).
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for February was revised from +268,000 to +332,000, and the change for March was revised from +88,000 to +138,000. With these revisions, employment gains in February and March combined were 114,000 higher than previously reported.
Thursday Open Thread [5.2.13]
Michael Tomasky: “How stupid does the Senate background-check vote look now, I ask the pundits and others who thought it was dumb politics for Obama and the Democrats to push for a vote that they obviously knew they were going to lose. I’d say not very stupid at all. The nosedive taken in the polls by a number of senators who voted against the bill, most of them in red states, makes public sentiment here crystal clear. And now, for the first time since arguably right after the Reagan assassination attempt–a damn long time, in other words–legislators in Washington are feeling political heat on guns that isn’t coming from the NRA. This bill will come back to the Senate, maybe before the August recess, and it already seems possible and maybe even likely to have 60 votes next time.”
Wednesday Open Thread [5.1.13]
McKay Coppins notes that with teabagging criticism of the immigration reform effort “grow[ing] louder, many Republican operatives, donors, and consultants are bracing for an outcome that would be even worse, politically, than the demise of the bill: A fierce, national, right-wing backlash that drowns out the GOP’s friendlier voices, dominates Telemundo and Univision, and dashes any hopes the party had of making inroads to the Hispanic electorate by 2016.”
I personally think we are going to get both nightmare outcomes for the GOP. The demise of the bill will be accomplished by having the right act all explicitly racist, anti-immigrant and insane.
Tuesday Open Thread [4.30.13]
![Tuesday Open Thread [4.30.13]](http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/18m85ntmcfdoogif/ku-xlarge.gif "Tuesday Open Thread [4.30.13]")
In Pennsylvania, a new Quinnipiac poll has such horrible numbers for the Republican Governor that I am now worried that he will bag a reelection campaign all together, in favor of a Republican that might have a chance. Gov. Tom Corbett trails all three major Democratic challengers.
Monday Open Thread [4.29.13]
This was a deadly weekend for the City of Wilmington, with 4 shooting incidents in about 24 hours. Mayor Dennis Williams did not return Adam Taylor’s calls for his article this weekend, but one of the WPD’s PIOs spoke to WDEL this AM on the subject:
Saturday Open Thread [4.27.13]
There have been several retirements among Senate Democrats this year. Rockefeller, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and now Max Baucus of Montana. Many Beltway pundits tell us that means the Democratic majority in the Senate is thus in danger. That may be the case in West Virginia, where Rockefeller is likely to be replaced by Republican Shelly Moore Capito. But in Montana and South Dakota, these retirements have likely increased the Democrats’ odds of holding onto these seats.
Friday Open Thread [4.26.13]
Nate Cohn notes that Hillary Clinton currently “commands a staggering 60 percent of the primary vote, an unprecedented figure for a non–vice presidential candidate and one of the highest levels of support of all time”: Yes, Clinton lost in 2008. But it’s important to note how much stronger her numbers are today than they were [...]
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