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So why even vote?
For one, the county is what controls most of our lives, if you live outside any of the smaller city limits…
Two, you pay them enough in taxes (included in your escrows if paying-off a mortgage). or a painful separate check if the asset is fully yours.
Three. They establish and run almost all the things that impact your daily lives… When it comes down to “gee, how well do we like this place in which we live”, the country has probably 60%, the state 30%, and the Federal government 10% of that decision…
If you don’t believe me simply try living without a sewer for one year… You get tired digging holes in your back yard. But also add the perks that sprout up, those festivals in our county parks, that farm next door that never was developed into a section 8 housing unit, the police who not only protect us, but let our kids pet their Clydesdales, and you sort of get a general idea of how important our County actually is to us….
So what happens, when county government stops working? You get everybody fighting for themselves… sort of like New Jersey. You get no planning. You get results where anything goes. You get increased crime because either one can buy off cops who have no one watching over them, or because they were strictured through lack of funding. You get no perks, unless you want to pay a private citizen your out-of-pocket money to get them… And all the stuff you do have now, starts falling through the cracks out of neglect….
Bottom line: it is very important to have someone running the county who can do it well…
Which thrusts us sometimes into this bizarre choice. Is it better to have a person more concerned with morals and appearances who always seems to be deep in a moral struggle just to do their basic job?… Or is it better to be stuck with someone always having the whiff of corruption seeming to surround them, but who makes your own personal life SO MUCH BETTER and easier by his abilities and skill to get things done before you even get to worry about them…..?
This bizarre choice is what New Castle County faces this primary season when choosing its Executive. ….. …. …. Your vote will simply depend on which of the above traits YOU think is more important, either it being sanctimonious, or being successful; which YOU prefer to see embedded in your leader….
Delaware Liberal just came out in support of Matt Meyer. Interestingly that same writer penning that article was also a fervent supporter of Hillary, even to the point of being quite vicious towards Bernie who was performing a service like Matt, challenging the current leader on their principles, especially when it came to the appearance of impropriety over their past choices between ones constituents and ones cronies and corporate friends.. If we remember correctly, the writer’s response to such criticism boiled down to: she’s effective, she gets things done, her enemies naturally try to discredit her and having no substance, must use whisper campaigns and false accusations.
It is ironical that this one writer was all Hillary in the national, and is now all Matt in the local because in this race, Tom is the candidate being pilloried more like Hillary, the seasoned politician, whereas Matt as the new interloper gets a “buy” on using morality to launch a challenge…
Because like Hillary, Tom Gorden has had an amazing career. Granted some is timing. But also granted is that he is feared by this state’s developers, ever since he shocked them with a moratorium on all new development.. He implemented that necessary action which had been a political albatross, so much so that none of his predecessors had been willing to touch it before he arrived. Whereas you may not agree with the copious amounts of development you have seen being dug lately; the control over what has actually been approved for development, was far more consistent with the opinions of those living in those local neighborhoods during the split terms of Gordon, than what occurred during the interims of those holding the office during the split… Can you say: Barley Mills Plaza?
In what matters to our longterm happiness, Tom Gordon has done a better job. In that way, he is our Hillary, the workhorse who simply because he chooses to support the majority will of the people over the peculating wills of the elite, has special interests spend inordinate time digging for dirt and constantly slandering him , even haul him in as a criminal. Yet when actually investigated (Hillary 13 times, Tom 1) , though there may be some impropriety brought to light (on both Hillary and Tom) it is innocent shadiness; nothing near what the accusers tried to paint… In fact, if you notice the shaming in the Delaware Liberal article, the problem they try to paint on Tom is that he was “accused”; little mention that a judge who “actually” saw the “evidence offered”, said it was political bullshit and dropped the case. There really is no difference here between those “accusing” Hillary, indicting her in public because she was called in to account 13 times… (for no one gets called up 13 times unless they are an actual criminal, right) and those indicting Tom Gordon because of “similar” accusations. Yet in each of those times, the evidence overwhelmingly showed not only was there no actual wrongdoing, but we glimpsed how great she was at running things. The real evidence that comes out of each of her “hauling in’s”, is that she is an awesome human being… probably the best we’ll see in our lifetimes… And the same can be said about Tom.
At some point, one has to shut down the accusers… “You have no evidence”.
Matt has a nice resume full of “progressiveness” but is seems short on the executive skills needed to run a metropolitan county. There is no endorsement by others in his “creds” showing he has experience in leading huge numbers of people, often including among that number, those who are trying to see you fail. In his resume I didn’t see any past acclamations which told us how good he was with dealing over conflict. How strong will he stand up to the selfish interests of County Council? Whereas his resume tells us what kind of a person he is, it doesn’t tell us what kind of an Executive he will be. So instead of starting a stock exchange, will he insist on using that money to send Payless shoes to Africa? Point made.
And since Delaware Liberal made a big deal on ethics, one should wisely point out that Matt Meyer’s hit piece last sent out in the mail, uses the same kind of ethics both he and Delaware Liberal try to pretend he is above…
His photo has a bright picture with school kids; Tom’s is grainy yellow darkened to show all the weathered lines on his face… Is that on the up and up? Playing with what you are given, putting out something that is Foxnewsworthy?
Highlighting “Pleading guilty to two criminal charges” without mentioning they were minor misdemeanors, the felonious charges were dropped because they were politically crafted. Is that completely honest? Most of us plead guilty to criminal charges every time we mail in a check for a speeding ticket.
“He was elected in 1996. Since then, many of our largest corporations have downsized or left the state: GM, Chrysler, MBNA, Avon, Astra Zeneca and Dupont?” Oh, you went there? Lets refresh the record on those companies. Both GM and Chrysler were bailed out by the Feds. Did Gordon have anything to do with that? MBNA was bought out by Bank or America… Did Gordon have anything to do with that? Avon consolidated elsewhere due to a huge national sales drop, could Gordon have bought all its makeup and applied it to his grainy yellow weathered face (see above) just to keep them in business? Astra Zeneca, again bought out. Dupont split for liability reasons… None of these are Gordon’s Fault. So what is Matt trying to accomplish by making it look so? Make himself look immature and amateurish? In fact, it was Chris Coons and Paul Clark who were in the office when most of those took place…right?
So is Matt Meyer being fair here? In all truth, this was written probably by his hired consultant, who tells everyone “I’m his consultant; I’m running his campaign” but in reality just creates and mails those things you get in your mailbox, and Matt Meyer’s consultant’s literature is no different from Tony Deluca’s, Tom Sharp’s, or those creeps’ who attack John Kowalko every two years.
Bottom line, Tom had nothing to do with those business switches and losses. and starting in 1996 covers a lot of time, 20 years. Twenty years that between being up or down, things have been pretty good in New Castle County compared to anywhere else near or far.
Matt’s flyer says we gave him a second chance and got more crime and decreased job opportunities. Has crime increased? There is less in my neighborhood than was during Paul Clarks’s span, so naturally I had to look it up to see….
(Just in case some of Matt’s supporters can’t see too well)………..
Perhaps they mistakenly add Wilmington to the mix but really, is that fair to add Wilmington to New Castle County when the current executive has no police-fire-or ambulance jurisdiction within Wilmington’s city limits?
Within the county, crime has dropped 16.4% since we gave Gordon a second term.. I’ve seen its results with my own eyes….
There also was much ballyhoo made in Delaware Liberal’s comments about the drop in reserves… In your own personal life, if a tree falls in your back yard and you have money in savings to cover its removal, … do you keep that money in savings, and leave the tree to rot?
That is what those who bring up this ridiculous charge are advocating… we had needs, we had reserves, we used them…
They say” OH NO! YOU USED THE RESERVES! YOU ARE AN INCOMPETENT IDIOT “. Collectively the entire populace of New Castle County should respond in kind by giving the only person we have ever had who has actually increase our reserves, another opportunity to do it again… In that quiet way, we will all have the last laugh and say….”no, it looks like you are the idiot….”
You may remember… Only two states were accepted in the first Race to The Top Competition… Delaware..*yay* and Tennessee. Same agenda. Same connections to the Governor’s Association and Chiefs For Change… Same influences, etc…
Let me tell you where Tennessee is now…
In three weeks, they start their school year… yes, August 3rd. This past year they instituted a non-renewal policy that said if you’re scores were not above standard, your contract would not be renewed… AND you would be marked as ineligible for rehire.
(Someone thought the threat of firing would cause scores to rise.)
One of their larger districts is undergoing some pain right now…
The Metro- Nashville Public School system is experiencing a teacher shortage…
- So far, 320 new teachers have been hired- 42 are TFA ( which is the maxamim limit of them which MNPS is allowed to hire)
- The average # of new teachers hired each year (based upon the last 5 years) is 574
- 19% of schools will have new principals
- Currently, MNPS needs to hire 189 new teachers before school starts in three weeks
- MNPS still needs to hire 7 principals.
- There are 74 (out of 153) schools with major teacher vacancies
- The top needs are: Exceptional Ed (22), Math (19), English Learners (10) and Spanish (9)
- Just 21 (15 working) days to the start of school.
Obviously the strict discipline enforced on teachers has made the upcoming year to be one of survival; not excellence…. Just keeping open the doors will be a challenge, heaven help the test scores of 2017…
Also keep in mind that many of those teachers whose contracts were not renewed, were once considered excellent teachers before we started using Common Core’s tests. from the district’s website:
- Sixty-one percent of MNPS teachers hold a master’s degree or higher and 99.75 percent are highly qualified in at least one subject area
That 0.25 % not qualified matches up with the TFA candidates…..
Which proves as all have said, the folly of putting all education’s blame on teachers… Now, you have no teachers so what are you going to do?
Well the MNPS plans to contract out to a computer teaching service for its classes having no bodies in front of it… as well as wave all certification requirements for anyone willing to stand up in front of a class.
Yes.
NOW FOR THE GREAT NEWS…………………………………………………………………………..
This isn’t happening in Delaware.
Why?
Mostly because of you, who objected to insanity and would not be silenced… Though corporate money could buy out Earl Jacques, corporate money could buy out Dave Sokola, it could not buy out parents, it could not buy out teachers, and it could not tamper with the communication system set up between them…..
As a historian I am prone to look for those important moments and speculate had they gone differently, what the new outcome would be… I know that is a weakness of mine. But saying so, if one were to ask this historian where Delaware avoided the train wreak its sister is now going through, I would have to point to the pivot as being John Young of Christina’s Board of Education…
Keep in mind we are a small state. The Metro-Nashville school district alone has 80,000 students. That is two thirds the size of our entire state school system and they are but one district. Therefore each citizen here has a larger percentage of a voice in their government than do almost everyone else.
We also do not have a television station all turn to for local news. There is a definite knowledge gap which most smart people have found is best adequately filled through the blogosphere. Our blogosphere has more investigative reporters then the entire state’s news conglomeration of radio stations and newspapers combined…
As a result of all of this, here it was hard to only give “one side” of the story (though Dave Sokola certainly tried). The other story got out, sometimes too late to change legislation, but not to late to now hold those perpetrators who pushed it, accountable for the damage they have caused Delaware’s children in lost opportunities…
(Remember how our educational measurements soared, up until they hit the Common Core legislation these crooks pushed through?)
With all those kept in mind, it was John Young who pointed the direction long before anyone else publicly, that corporate schemes were behind this new “push” for improving education… I confess, I remember glossing over Kilroy’s exclamations of Markell’s Wall Street connections with glazed eye before John passed on an illuminating tidbit on what was wrong with American education…
What struck me in that video was how on a map, it was very obvious that the diagnosis of ADHD in children starts in Oklahoma and grows exponentially as it heads to the east Coast. Pretty much mirroring the graph for average amounts of extra disposable income after necessary expenses have been met on a state by state basis….
That and the failure Common Core was having among children who were in the test classes for it… Failures as high as 85% in those test classes, which the DOE still as yet has not divulged. These failures included some of the previous years’ top students… Something was seriously wrong.
Bottom line, Delaware did not go down the path as did Tennessee because the people exerted enough pressure here to slow the process and force the inclusion of parents, teachers, and “active” administrators in the formulation of policy….
No, we still do not have a perfect solution… we still need to fight on… But in all glaring truth, we also do not have Tennessee…..
And that, is a victory for truth, justice, and the will of the American people…. We should be proud of ourselves for what we stopped…. and we should tip our hats to John Young in congratulatory thanks for first sounding the alarm which mobilized us into action….
In a great measure due to him, we are much better than Tennessee.
Christian Hudson at 30045 (Eagles Crest Road, Milton, Delaware 19968; (302) 729-2178; info@FirstStateLiberty.org) is responsible for the robo calls now dialing off hate-lists compiled out of zip codes undergoing the Chrisina Referendum.
If you go to the beach, the above property is that old airport that has always been just north of Lewes…
If you’ve been here very long you may remember it as the location when as a child you looked out your window and saw this….
It was also one of the early fields featuring Pumpkin Chunking….
Today it is headquarter for Hudson Management, a wide ranging assortment of investments scattered across the winds, some of whose seeds have drifted close to home. Some of which include the wooden Fairfield Inn, Rehoboth Beach, Sam Yoder and Sons, Village of Five Points. Other investments include:
- 300MW Wind Farm and Solar project in northern Ontario, Canada (under development)
- 150 unit ocean-front luxury residential development in San Juanillo, Costa Rica
- Video commerce network- TV Page in San Diego, CA
- Leading digital news and information network in Dallas, TX
- Self-storage investment firm with 12 locations in the US, and 2 locations in Ontario, Canada
As would any investor, zeal against taxation would become a cause celebre because taxes sap some of the return off investments… And Christian Hudson has almost zealfully crusaded against any form of taxation….
Any form of taxation…. as would any zealot I could imagine.
Here is one of his ads on removing all taxes. Here are his ideas of cutting the state budget instead of raising taxes. Here is why they are against “smart” growth, advocating for its opposite instead. Here is him as a plaintiff trying to remove Delaware from the Regional Gas Initiative.
Those of us who have sparred with Christian Hudson across DelawarePolitics.net and Delawareright.com are familiar with his single-mindedness whenever anything interferes with the personal accumulation of money. Nothing wrong with that; were I raised differently it would make sense to me too.
But why would someone with no bone to pick in Lewes (Milton), employee his Robo-tax-cop machine to bother people in a district far-far away?
The first and simple reason: it costs nothing for him to do so.. The apparatus is set up; calls are free; and all it takes is 5 minutes to leave a greeting on tape, and then off to the Sussex Country Republican Convention while voters in Christina drop what they are doing when the phone rings, rush to their phones, only to hear a taped message telling them their taxes (but not their time) are wasted and they need to vote no on the upcoming increase….
For whether your taxes are or not wasted, here is a first rate breakdown of their funding… Basically Christina District is one of the most efficient districts in the entire NATION and if it weren’t for the abject poverty endemic in both Wilmington and the Route 40 Corridor, they would be considered one of the best districts in the United States… For the real fact is, those who are paying school property taxes across that small swath of state, are carrying the bulk of the weight for up to 90% of its students…. The real fact is that all the bad press being used to smear that district, is strictly because of the poverty that district bears; from the DOE website, we see one student in every two lives in families making less than $16,000 a year. Here is a quick succession of charts from the above Delaware-Liberal article.
Over 98% of all salaries go directly to people in the buildings or bus drivers. From a quick search over multiple educational funding sources, that seems to be the highest of any United States of American school district….
When you don’t vote FOR a Christina referendum…. you are voting to kick children in the teeth… Those lies of being too top heavy may apply to other districts INCLUDING CAPE HENOPLEN WHICH ENCOMPASSES CHRISTIAN HUDSON’S DISTRICT, but it does not apply to what is probably the most efficient school district in the entire nation:… Christina.
Of course. We understand there may be personal legitimate reasons, (such as living on limited pension income that is being too-quickly drained by ever-increasing corporate fees), which could push you not to want even one more dollar of money taken from you which you can’t spend on absolutely necessities. It’s just like there are reasons you don’t always put money in the collection plate as it’s passed by you in your church. You are entitled to vote and that is why we put it up to a vote. But be advised. Outside influences spreading mis-truths to achieve a certain outcome from which they are completely insulated, such as Christian Hudson and everyone who votes his way solely on ideologically grounds…. are putting loaded guns to the heads of children and pulling the triggers, especially in a place where one out of every two children comes from an under-$16,000 income family.
Just thought you all should know that…..
The title clues you in on the first… Delaware has a claim on first spot no other state can match.
Now, for more.
Let’s for a moment assume that Delaware votes to hold their presidential primary on January 2nd, 2016.. Of course it causes an uproar among many and in todays “Trumped up” media world, an uproar is good for politics.
If other states change their dates to match or beat (New Hampshire’s state law requires it to do so), I hope they do; competition is always good, but to beat Delaware, they would have to move to late December. Thereby choosing this day (Jan 2,2016) would call New Hampshire’s bluff.
But for Delawareans we have the week between Christmas and New Years when everyone is off and attendance at political events by the curious, would not have conflicts with things like … Jobs… There could be lots of campaigning going on…
Of course right now this sounds far fetched… so let me spin it this way…. If you are a national reporter or nations news agency monitoring expenses, living in either New York or Washington, where would you prefer to go to follow candidates, Frozen Iowa? Snowy New Hampshire? Or a 2 hour drive up or down I95 from home and families, especially around the holidays?
One should expect and even count on boycotts because if one is still locked in on following tradition, one would expect voters in Iowa and New Hampshire to abandon for reasons of state pride, any candidate who came to Delaware first…
But…
If so that would open Delaware to lots of minor candidates who at least here, have a crap-shoot of getting 3 delegates which is a lot better odds than they’d see in either of the other two snow states… We’d get something.
And there is something pridefully important about the first….
Now let me tell you the real reason why I think this year is the year to stab the old primary system in the eye. This will not be the first challenge to the primary system…
The first occurred in 1916 when New Hampshire captured spot one. Being good for the state’s economy, it permanized its first place into state law…. The second occurred in 1949 when New Hampshire changed from being a closed primary, and it’s importance suddenly mushroomed the next year when Dwight Eisenhower beat the party-favorite Robert Taft. And Truman lost. (Remember to whom?) The third big change occurred 1976 when the nobody-cared-about Iowa Caucuses decided to move their their date upwards before the New Hampshire Primary and a smiling religious Southern Governor tapped into Iowa’s religion to shoot into front runner.
Ironically both these two primaries were pushed by and had backers who had lots of money and were conservative. The way to get in front of of liberal voters they said was to force the front runners to run conservatively by having conservative primaries first… Today that trend continues….
Here is the current 2016 schedule…
| Date (all 2016) | State |
|---|---|
| February | |
| Monday, February 1 | Iowa caucus |
| Tuesday, February 9 | New Hampshire |
| Saturday, February 20 | Nevada caucus (Dem) South Carolina (GOP) |
| Tuesday, February 23 | Nevada caucus (GOP) |
| Saturday, February 27 | South Carolina (Dem) |
| March | |
| Tuesday, March 1 (Super Tuesday) |
Alabama Arkansas Colorado caucuses Georgia Massachusetts Minnesota caucuses North Carolina Oklahoma Tennessee Texas Vermont Virginia |
| Saturday, March 5 | Louisiana Nebraska (Dem caucus) |
| Tuesday, March 8 | Hawaii caucus (GOP) Mississippi Michigan |
| Sunday, March 13 | Puerto Rico (GOP) |
| Tuesday, March 15 | Ohio Florida Illinois Missouri |
| Tuesday, March 22 | Arizona Utah |
| Saturday, March 26 | Hawaii caucus (Dems) |
| April | |
| Tuesday, April 5 | Wisconsin |
| Tuesday, April 26 | Connecticut Delaware Maryland Pennsylvania Rhode Island |
| May | |
| Tuesday, May 3 | Indiana |
| Tuesday, May 10 | Nebraska (GOP primary) West Virginia |
| Tuesday, May 17 | Kentucky Oregon |
| June | |
| Sunday, June 5 | Puerto Rico (Dem) |
| Tuesday, June 7 | California Montana New Jersey New Mexico South Dakota |
| Tuesday, June 14 | Washington, DC |
| States with no firm dates: (Some states may be listed with tentative dates)
|
New York North Dakota Utah Colorado Idaho Kansas Maine Washington Wyoming
|
The first normal states vote on Super Tuesday and even they are buried in a wealth of Conservative states.
Now this argument is not about fairness. It is about representation… For in defense of the current status quo one can show that Obama beat Hillary in a conservative state. and Bill Clinton lost in New Hampshire, though he was more conservative than his 1992 opponent.
By our current arrangement, we are putting America’s hopes on who can best satisfy some freaks….
Here is Iowa’s racial profile…92.5% white/ 3.3% African American.
Now: New Hampshire’s: 94.2%/ 1.5% Afro American
These states choose our front runners which which can easily be illustrated by the Santorum (2012) win in Iowa …. or Pat Buchannan’s (1996) winning New Hampshire… To majorities living in California, or New York, such choices are a joke.
If we grabbed the ring for Delaware,
Our stats @ 71.1% white/ 22.9% Afro American is much closer to the national average of 77.7% white and 13.1% Afro-American…
From pure numbers, choosing these states to elect the front runners nothing less than discriminatory. You are attempting to preserve a dying way of life from which most of America has moved on….
Which is why we have very conservative officials when a majority of Americans based on 2012’s elections supports the opposite… Actually, they beg for the opposite.
Every four years the nation goes through the charade of having conservative values which no one wants to hear discussed ad nauseum and the ideas we need to hear get covered up because they might cause one to lose primary votes among potential conservatives…
Bottom line is our nation gets short shifted. We get a government NOT representative of our people…. Which is exactly what we have today.
Big money will not allow someone to upset this applecart they have constructed. Which is why it is pointless to try to make a change by going through political channels, winning friends and influencing people. The only way to change this archaic structure is to accomplish it fait accompli. Just do it. Move Delaware’s date to January 2nd (a Saturday) and dodge the torpedoes as we see them.
If it IS a great idea, it will catch on, just as New Hampshire and the Iowa Caucuses and Super Tuesday all caught on… but it will take a wobbly first step….
Which is why I support Joe’s entrance in the race because he stands a very good chance of capturing the favorite son status of Delaware if we can go first; giving him if current schedule holds, a month of being number one… Which means… that the other candidates can’t leave him alone to do so, and will out of necessity, brush off Iowa (-15 below) and New Hampshire.
Surely Delaware’s General Assembly wouldn’t mind shifting a forgotten primary, the definition of futility where it is now (four days after Earth Day), up to the spot of Number 1?
The reason for doing this is not to make it easier for Joe Biden to win one. It is because this is desperately needed in a democracy… where the candidates who best represent all America, compete in an arena that also represents the best of all America….
We should be talking about how we are going to bring children out of poverty in this nation… Ways of giving people jobs… Not about how much more we can cut their benefits before they croak or who can send Mexican children across the border cheapest….
America needs this; it is something only Delaware can provide…. Our nickname.. first state, should mean something NOW, not passed down only in history books….
kavips 
