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- Increase Taxes substantially on the top 1% of Delawareans by increasing incrementally the top marginal tax rate.
- Override the Opt Out veto, giving parents the ultimate role in their child’s education.
- Remove and replace the crony Smarter Balanced Test with a test that can actually help students with immediate feedback.
- Remove charter schools from being funded per student and have them paid by line item in state budget, bringing them under tighter public scrutiny and control.
- Quickly pass HB 217 (Keeley) which is designed to require that firearms which are recovered from crime scenes be entered into the National Crime Information Center firearm database system.
We have a tough session ahead. All of these are no-brainers and should quickly be put to rest so attention can be focused outward towards new things.
I was talking to someone who was in favor of Common Core, and yet a vehemently against a power plant going up in her back yard. I was able to show them that both processes were similar, and that she was at different points of the curve on the two separate topics, but they were both curves that were parallel and would end the same……
I got this great idea off of Norquist and pulled out a napkin where we were eating…….
The x axis stands for truth… as in what we know about a topic goes from zero to infinity, and the y axis represents our feelings of favorability towards the project as we learn more…..
As you can see, when someone says… “a data center” we have no opinion at first… We are at (0,0) As we learn of jobs, taking up a brownfield spot, helping out the university by educating engineers, putting topmost technology into our home, Newark Delaware, as well as selling power to the grid, our favorability towards it rises…. Yeah we could use all those things.
But then as we learn more, our favorability sours. WHAT! 248 MEGAWATTS!!!!! Excessive pollution. Dangerous pollution, for 75 years, very loud noise. Huge cancer signatures around gas turbines. poisoning water, digging new gas lines through wildlife areas from Hockessin. A 24/7 operation. The TDC was to sell the power plant, not the power plant being there for the TDC. We sour. Something else, almost anything else could still give us the positives, without the negatives. All those negatives were hidden and still would be, if citizens hadn’t ferreted them out. There was never any plan to mention them if at all, until absolutely necessary…..
We lose favorability based on how much we know… So those still supporting it, even Al Mascitti (unless he changes his mind while on vacation), aren’t more stupid than the rest of us… in fact, they are exactly like us, back when we were at that same point on the learning curve… Instead of bemoaning that TDC supporters are jack-stupid, educate them… Then, after they’ve been educated, if they didn’t change their mind, it was not because they are jack-stupid. It’s because they are sinister. But really, when it comes to dying, very few people are really sinister. It’s really all about knowledge…..
This is exactly the same with Common Core!… This person with whom I was in this discussion, is a member of the Delaware Chamber of Commerce and she was at the milktoast breakfast thrown at the Hotel Dupont where the Grand Poobah of the national Chamber of Commerce came in to elevate support for Common Core. One assumes the Grand Poobah would know what he is talking about… Alas, he is a common man. He is no expert. Because really, very few people there are privy to the facts. You readers happen to be far more privy to what Common Core is really about, because you have seen it here, with your very eyes, and are certainly quite capable to make up your mind yourselves…
I assured my friend, that when I knew as little about Common Core as she did, I too believed in it. Of course it makes sense to have standards the same across the country. Of course it makes sense to raise the bar so students can’t loaf as much as they do now I thought… Of course it makes sense that if we don’t teach our children well, then the jobs will go to those nations which do teach their children well. Of course it makes sense to pay those teachers who do well more, and to weed out those who’s real calling is obviously not teaching… of course it makes sense to train teachers better, instead of throwing them into a classroom and saying: Good luck, here you go…
But none of those are true I found out as I learned more… I learned that poverty is what makes students not perform well, otherwise we are all born equal… I learned that if you give someone a harder test who is relatively impoverished, they will flunk it worse than they flunked an easier test their society wouldn’t provide the necessary safety net to enable them to study. I learned that Common Core was all about money and politics. I learned that Common Core was the brainchild of a mad scientist, David Coleman. Not a group of top educators. I learned that Common Core actually shut out teachers, and was made with one goal: to make more money. When teachers objected, they were summarily dismissed. I learned that it was getting rid of Shakespeare, and subbing in text on how to install a ceiling fan. I learned that students in all of Delaware’s pilot programs were tuning out of Common Core subjects, saying they learned that stuff 5 years earlier. I learned from inside the DOE that in the Common Core pilot classes of 2013, every pilot class had depressed scores. I learned that this administration, co-oped the favor of the teacher’s union, whose leadership jumped in with both feet, and now the rank and file who see Common Core up close, have said loud and clear, they have no confidence in this administration’s roll out.. I learned that grown up professional adults, most of America’s leadership, could not pass a third grade math test. IT is that hard!… I learned that though the test is impossibly hard, but the standards will not even include 8th grade algebra, or trigonometry, or geometry, or pre-calculus, or calculus, all of which are offered now. I learned the meat of Common Core is a crock of shit. Basically.
My friend is looking at me now with a dumb-ass deer expression… sort of like… “Gee, I’m a dumb-ass deer…. I wonder what I should do now….”
“But, but, but, none of that can be true,” she blurted out.. ” I was at the meeting with the Grand Poobah.. None of this stuff was mentioned. Common Core is our future… It is good, It is necessary for this nation……”
All I simply said was this: “And on the power plant they didn’t tell you about the carcinogenic radon and sulfuric acid that would be dropping on your lawns, pets and cars, or the horrendous noise that never stops, or the amount of cancer rares that go up because of a power plant in your back yard, did they?… And… when did you find out how big the 248 MW power plant really was? That didn’t grow on you, you know… That was planned from day one… And…You only found out because other people told you. Just like with Common Core, you need to see what other people are saying about it instead of taking the official side, and then make up your own mind…”
“I need to learn more about Common Core”, she said….
And if you dear reader still think Common Core is all good, then so do you……
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As an after thought, it struck me how this pattern has played out rather often since Markell’s second term began….. Kinder-Morgan, Common Core, Delaware City expansion, Coastal Zone eradication, Charter School expansion. Always a very dark undercurrent that only benefits the top 1% at the expense of 99% of the rest of us… It is sugar coated, given the Editorial Board approval, rushed in secret through the GA, where any dissent is squashed by Pete Schwartzkoph and Valerie Longhurst, and the signature gets applied, and commemorative pens are then handed out…. And it bears mentioning that in the first term there was also Fisker…. and Bloom… How much are we paying for Bloom right now with each electric bill? How much did we pay for Fisker?
Well if you still think Common Core is good… do some reading… If you don’t do your reading, (and who has time) you should not give it your support, but instead, … say you prefer the current system until you have time to find out more…. Because as the graphs above show, if you state your opinion too early… as you continue to hear more and learn, you will be forced to change your mind…….
In what turns out to be nothing more than a get-rich-quick scheme, literally hundreds of thousands will die from this action…
The people of Newark have the last say; but only if they exercise it. If they do nothing, BIG BUSINESS always wins, because it can buy the political clout it needs. It can’t control you…..
Respond and contact those at the end of the video. Everyone needs to help here. 75 years of pollution is a long time… Almost one third as old as is the United States of America….
Courtesy of Delaware Way
Courtesy of Delaware Way
Dear Kavips:
In response to your asking, here is why I went to the meeting in Newark High School for the Power Plant. My boss made me. I was pissed off about it because I was suppose to go to my first grader” concert that night, and had to miss it. I got the call at 4:00 from my boss and was told I had to go there ASAP. I said WTF for and he said it was important. I said my daughter is more important, and he said, he could let me go that very day if I didn’t show up for this meeting….
I had to call out of a service call and postpone it till the next day to make the trek up there. and get inside. I saw a lot of other HVAC vans and many that I trained with so it wasn’t all bad I guess.
Sad thing is, I don’t even want the power plant cause I live downwind from it right off Rt. 4, behind the ShopRite…. I think a lot of others were forced like me to go, because we all weren’t too happy to have to be there… But, gotta do what the boss man says….
Signed…
(your buddy)
This was a surprise. Today the Federal Appeals Court ruled against the FCC, and for Comcast and Verizon and AT&T…….
If you’ve always loved your cable company, XOXOXO, then have no fear. But….if they have ever pissed you off in your lifetime, GRRRRRR, …be afraid, very afraid.
Essentially what this ruling “could do” is give them unlimited power over what you see, or not see on the internet….. As well as unlimited power over what they can charge for the privilege (no longer your right) to see what ever it is they choose to show you…..
The internet is set become another payola as was the radio…. no matter what station you tune, you hear the same 10 songs, unless of course, you always listened to WVUD….. And the reason you hear the same 10 songs, is because those record companies paid the 10 highest fees to the corporate entity overseeing the music selection….
Now do you see where we are headed?
Ever heard of Netflicks? Of course you have. Dump your stock. They will now be charged between $75- 115 million extra a year, just to have their movies carried by Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T..
Prefer to use Google over the Alta Vista search engine on the Comcast Site? Expect to pay a premium. Wish to see a video from your children in South Africa? Expect to pay for it…. YouTube? Will now be pay in advance….
At stake is “common carriage”. It is a centuries old premise that if someone operates in the public arena, one must allow all the same option to use it. One can’t for example, run a ferry and not allow his mother in law to cross, or Ted Cruz… If one is providing a public service, under common carriage principles he must not discriminate between parties….
This was one of the tenants that helped strike down bus segregation in the Old South, the fact that this age old principle was violated.
However… what happened…. was in 2005, the Supreme Court in their “Brand X” decision, decided that broadband (and wireless), was NOT a common carriage entity under existing law… Phones, yes; old cable, yes; but broadband… no… The current court used that decision to say that since broadband was NOT a regulate common carrier provider (even though obviously it is), it did not have to comply with the common carriage principles every other entity has to follow….. Broadband is not a telecommunications network, and therefore FCC rules DO NOT APPLY.
The 2011 FCC rules being challenged in this court case, essentially state that broadband providers cannot block competing traffic on their network or discriminate against another company’s services that ride over its network in order to benefit its own competing services.
Here are the fears.
This happened immediately after the decision. Try going to the EFF site, Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization hostile to corporate takeover of the internet. It takes 5 minutes to load each page, and all other sites take under a second. I tried it repeatedly with always the same results. Prior to the decision, it had always been in an instant. So obviously now that companies can do what ever they want, any website critical or your cable company, is getting dissed… (No wonder Chris Coons uncharacteristically is sucking up to the Cable Industry.) If Christine O’Donnell runs again, she will be the only candidate in the race, according to the internet…. unless you do “their” bidding.
Mozilla responded with this…
And that is the solution. The FCC can simply redirect broadband and wireless to be back in the public domain, and net neutrality can continue.
Or Congress can pass legislation demanding he same.
Or the Supreme Court can overturn the Appeals Court’s decision.
It comes down to our rights to free access of knowledge, versus a corporation’s right to make money. As has been the trend lately, the Court decided the trump suit was a corporation’s right to make money….
Don’t you hate how everything is in initials today… As if one is supposed to remember what all those stand for….
Cunt Switching Imbeciles sue Damn Norquist Rectal Energizer Conglomerates over Raping Governor’s Gerbil’s Ass*oles.
Perhaps I got it wrong. Now I have to go look-up other alternatives on the Internet and see what other possibilities could occur. Are you sure I’m wrong? You are, huh? Do any of them fit?
Perhaps if one didn’t use initials and came right out and said “Caesar Rodney Institute sues Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control over Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative”, we’d save a lot of time… However the off-line consensus says I nailed it pretty well with the first stab of interpretation….
So what is this about?
Did you ever at work have those smart asses who try to cause trouble by challenging the interpretation of every word in the employee handbook? Their prime objective is simply to be annoying. For example if the handbook states that shoes must be worn, they point out that it doesn’t specifically allow for sneakers, and that under some obscure rule or regulation that only they can find, someone once said that sneakers were different from shoes…. Therefor all those wearing sneakers need to come to work in “real” shoes? And so they force an issue that should have been left unchallenged, for of course sneakers are shoes and everyone knows that, but we have now to go through a long trial and they and the sneaker people have to appear before the arbitrator and waste everyone’s time to decide the obvious, that yes, sneakers are shoes because they protect the feet almost equally….. And therefore much time is wasted over nothing…..
Yeah, this lawsuit is like that…. Very similar to the Constitutional Sheriff’s argument that 2013 put to rest…. The formula is the same. Take an obscure colonial reference, twist it in a fashion so someone could according to that interpretation be acting illegally, bring it up and harass until it goes to trial, then appeal your loss, then appeal that new loss again…. The sole object it to waste time, and draw attention away from doing one’s assigned duties.
Of course or laws are designed so they have the right to do that… but in balance, we are also given right, if not duty, to skewer them royally for all the selfishness and pomposity they exhibit… Of course as in the work-place analogy, all the exaggeration we do makes little difference in the outcome, for as the ridicule piles on from us, they double down, enabling us to pile even more ridicule upon them……. Our only benefit is that we get something to mock, to laugh at… And if you live this life and don’t laugh out loud every other minute, your missing out on life my friend….
One of the suitors is a legislator…. Harold “Lost-My” Peterman… a Log Cabin Republican from Milford…. 
Hi. I’m Harold “Lost-My” Peterman and I approve this lawsuit.
So what does all this mean?
Essentially it means the Koch Brothers are paying to impede Delaware’s entrance into the agreement we have over CO2 with our neighbors, because Koch-heads don’t care how people get hurt as long as they make their money…. That is essentially what this is all over….
Now here is their mixed up, convoluted, obfuscated, Rue Goldberg Contraptionalized, attempt to make that money grab look like something else…..
They are challenging its Constitutionality, taking a page right out of Jeff Christopher’s bid to becomes Supreme Ruler over the Fiefdom of Delaware….
They are trying to win friends by implying that environmental controls were not put in place to protect the environment from money grabbers who just want to make money and don’t care what harm gets left behind…. but instead were put there by “bad, bad people” who “just don’t like them”, and therefore in fairness they should just … go away… So they can make more money.
They are also trying to scare the population by making everyone think that energy costs will rise solely because of laws to protect the environment….
Before we jump on them and bust apart their claims, let’s cover what the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative really does…
Most of us don’t know. In plain speak, it was a way of spreading out the costs of what we will one day have to pay…
This concept is very pertinent at a time we are all sensitive to corporate abuse of our social structure. Wal*wart and McDonalds are paying $7.25 and hour, and enjoying the fruits of that low labor cost while they send their employees off to get food stamps and Medicaid at the taxpayers expense…
We, the taxpayers are subsidizing their business… Wal*Mart and McDonald’s should be paying for the Food Stamps and Medicaid costs out of their excessive profits…. But since they aren’t… it amounts that they are using government subsidized labor to increase their profit margins, then walking away from their self-created problem….
It is the same with energy…. Essentially we will one day have to pay for our energy’s damage to the environment. That is a given. The question is when… Recognizing this, several states joined in a pool to sort of start assessing power companies some of that cost now, so it would not be a giant shock in the future.
The way it works is that in this region, power companies will have to cut down their emissions or pay a fine. It is minimal in the first few years and gradually gets tighter over time. The Power companies if they possibly cannot meet the requirement for a variety of reasons, can do so through credits earned by paying cash to companies who did come in under their threshold of gas emissions…. It’s like if I farted less than you, and you farted more, you could pay me money for the times I didn’t fart…
It is an arbitrary scheme and that is why it has animosity behind it, primarily from people of “that type” who don’t like arbitrary schemes. But the contrivance was built to create a marketplace incentive by using that biggest motivating factor ever,… money! By playing these rules, you can make money by cutting down your greenhouse gases….
To make this lawsuit even more of a moot case, every state is already far under the allowance caps, because cheap natural gas from fracking has replace dirty coal in most furnaces….
The second myth being propelled by Koch-heads is that this will cost you, the customer, more money… They play on our common sense notions that if things cost more to get, the price goes up…. Well, you can readily see with energy, … that is not necessarily so….
Let’s use gasoline as an example… Right now at the pump gas is at $3.45 to $3.55 a gallon for regular. I saw both on my return from church this Sunday. The last time prices were that high, a barrel of oil cost $107. It now costs $93. Yet, when it was at $98, the pump prices were between $3.20 and $3.30….
The point being made is that energy prices, because we need them no matter what they cost, are set by demand, not supply… Holiday Travel pushed the price up the week before Thanksgiving, and Christmas and New Year’s pushed it up now… Especially with fracking, acquiring energy is rather cheap. Some wells produce at a cost of 19 cents a gallon.
So who gets hurt, is not the consumer, if costs go up… The money makers in the middle are the sole ones who have to eat their profits. Which is exactly why the Koch Brothers are funding this nuisance lawsuit to cast aspersions upon the Greenhouse Gas Initiative….
If the Koch Brothers earn $3.26 cents off of every gallon sold at $3.45, they will fight to make sure that doesn’t drop to $3.25, or $3.24, or $3.23 or lower…. People purchasing energy will not be affected by the Initiatives. The Corporate Investors will. Unfortunately as we can see with today’s gasoline, even when energy prices plummet, we the consumer, don’t get the benefit… The Hedge funds do…
So the bottom line is this…. The Greenhouse Gas Initiative save us money… They put the cost of the problem upon those who are creating the problem, and not leaving it for us to pay from some other account at some future date… Corporate profits in the energy business are too high, and have been since deregulation. Those who are making money off of polluting the world, off of blowing CO2 into the air, should be able to make money and pay for the polluting of the world… The Koch Brother think differently, and that is why they are paying for this lawsuit…
It is ironical that a Delaware legislator from Milford, which does not have a huge power plant in their backyard as to those poor souls at Millsboro,…. would sell his soul and the souls of his constituents, just for some Koch Campaign money come his next election…..
Bottom line, is if the Brandywine Zoo put baboons in a glass enclosed Monkey House, and then suddenly no one came into see them, ever, they craving attention, would probably file a law suit just exactly like this one….
I am just as guilty of this as is every one else.
A single issue polarized this election for outsiders. A huge power plant, which will dominate the skyline from Academy Avenue southwest to Chestnut Hill.
However there are other factors not being taken into consideration. The 115 margin is disheartening to many of those outside Newark who will be soon breathing toxic air. But it is a miracle that it was even that close when one considers the dynamics of a small town mayoral race.
The first factor left out of every discussion so far up till now, is that the incumbent was considered by most Newarkeans to be the best mayor they have ever had. Both business interests and residents have commented in private, that Vance Funk “got it” . He understood how things worked together, development and quality of life, and rode the magic line right down the middle. In truth, the Newark of today is almost unrecognizable from the Newark of the early 2000’s… Now when one says Main Street of Newark, one has to ask… which one?
A lot of the magic that is Newark is due to Vance Funk. So when someone of such stature endorses his pick as someone who will carry the same theme forward, it carries a lot of weight. Many votes for Polly are votes of thanks to Vance. “He’s a good guy, so if he picked her, she must be alright too” was a sentiment heard across the streets of Newark the past two months…
Against this, two great candidates, Amy Roe and Rebecca Powers, would probably not have done as well had they not had the thermal of the power plant issue burning underneath them…. From Amy’s personal biography one has to wonder if she would have ever run, had this not become an issue requiring someone of her stature to step up… I’ll let Ezra speak for Rebecca.
In point, if one lives in Newark, this race was not only about a power plant. It was about people you know; it was about how you feel about the town; it was about who should lead the town in the future on all issues, not just the town’s approval of a power plant…..
And the people spoke. And it was close. Whether the power plant goes in, or another controversy rises up to stop it, (a severe economic crash for example)… the people will have to live with their choice for a long time.
I think it should be noted, that Amy Roe handled herself in the spotlight rather well, and in the future, all this effort will undoubtedly lead to a greater good.
And, just in case no one heard Allan Loudell’s observation on WDEL, all the top three vote getters were women…. How nice is that?
Republicans.. you have today and tomorrow to get yourselves out of that ridiculous party of yours, that wastes your vote every time you poll, and come over to the democratic side, where you, you get the chance to determine your representative, not just vote up or down on that representative once he’s been chosen.
Likewise, Independents. You signed up as an Independent because you thought it more patriotic to be the judge, than jury. You didn’t know that party rules would force out your opinion, except on just one day of the year.
You probably envisioned that one day, a different party, the Independent Party, or Libertarian Party, or Constitutional Party, would rise up and you’d be at the forefront leading the way.
It hasn’t happened. You have little over 24 hours to get real in time for this years primary….
Remember. This is not about who your are. You are not a typical Democrat because you signed up to vote in a Democratic Primary. You are still you, the same you who signed up for one of the other two categories…
The only difference is that now, you actually have a voice in determining who will be your local representative. It’s the only way to go when you are in the minority. You play on the level where you can make a difference.
So in a state, that is 95% Democratic, (ignore the official figures; just not all Democrats vote).. you have to impact that choice, if you want government to represent you…
Remember values are great to talk about. They do dick in the real world. Power is something we don’t talk about. But power, is the only thing that will do real dick in the real world.
Without power, you are a bubble swept along with the current. It is time you realized that, and start working on changing the current…
All you registered as third party out there; whether Libertarians, Institutionalists, Republicans, or other. You have very little time left. Change that affiliation before you time passes and you regret you didn’t.
kavips 