Who Is This?

This is a guessing game. It’s supposed to be fun. You do the guessing. I’ll reveal the answer at some point in the future. Bottom line, I am interested in how this plays out. (To keep answers out of moderation, no links please.) You may use the categories above for some helpful hints, but knowing me, don’t expect to find the answer that easily.) 🙂

1) Foreign policy/defense: I want American imperialism rolled back and American interventionism halted, as the same time we begin to pull free from the military/industrial complex by slashing the budgets for defense and homeland security to reasonable levels.

2) Civil libertarian issues: I want to see gay marriage legalized; drugs decriminalized; Real ID abolished; the Patriot Act gutted; and immigrants viewed as human beings. I want intrusive government the hell out of my life.

3) Fiscal sanity: I want a government that stops growing and taking an ever-expanding bite out of my paycheck; I want to see wasteful programs cut, and to have Congress faced with the same sort of imperative the Delaware General Assembly had to face this year: balancing the budget.

Something’s Funny With Google

Ever since Google was complicit in working with the Chinese, I have been watching it’s characterization of my site. We all know the formula for how the links are ranked, but occasionally some bizarre things happen upon that page.

For example when I have come out hard against certain of our public officials, holding them accountable for things as I should, the links, locations and descriptions, that have been consistent for months, suddenly are different. If one wanted to presume, he could comment that those links shown were an attempt to embarrass me or more likely, dissuade someone from looking further. Now those of you who read me, know this can hardly bother me. I can embarrass myself without help….. easily…..

But tonight Google was acting strangely on several sites within our blogsphere. The search would go nowhere. Of course the sites were available; one could easily click them from another location. And on Google, other non pertinent sites came up immediately, but for some reason some (the ones I wanted) were disconnected.

I am most concerned because Delaware Liberal, one whose site I visit a lot, has disappeared from Google. Well not completely , but their standard location…. spot 3 down from the top of page one…… is gone. Instead, you may find an archived version that says “Howard Dean Kicks Ass” posted on 11/15/2006 in the location of what used to be Delaware Liberal.Net’s prime spot……

Other search engines are not affected. On those Delaware Liberal Net ranks at the top.

Back to the inconsistencies on my list, My featured cached post comparing the treatment bestowed on Paris Hilton, versus the pardon received by Scooter Libby, has temporarily replaced my post of Biden, which has remained in that spot for a long time. Yet my statistics do not show a single hit on that topic. So based on Google’s formula, why would it change? This happened once before, and 2 days later, again no hits were involved, reality reemerged.

Don’t know how many of you check your Google page , but seriously, I think now would be a good time to start. Those of you who do not poke around in areas where officials become uneasy, probably have little to worry about.

But if your Google page is being changed, for whatever reasons, at least you will be aware of it…….

Mike Castle Breaks with Bush

I thought it was a fluke. But two times in one day. It is like watching a losing team make two unanswered baskets in a row…….perhaps there is hope……

I first heard in on Allen Loudell’s interview during the evening commute. In what must be the second most original question ever asked of Mike, it went something like this…..

“If you woke up and we had bombed Iran…..and were at war…..would you still support the Bush administration?” And the answer he got, with all the double speak and twist and turns, was “no.” That would be the last straw.

Not to put words in Mike’s mouth, but the implication I got, correct me if I am wrong, is that if irrationality were to strike the White House so hard as to bomb Iran, we could count on Mike’s vote to impeach…….

The second sign of Mike’s split, was culled from what no doubt will be forever called the “splooooge” article by Jason at Delaware Liberal. In that amazing piece of work, Mike had this gem to say.

“I have long disagreed with the way this administration has misjudged the crucial diplomatic aspect of this conflict,” he said.”

I have to back Jason up when he says “then show us the votes, Mikey.” Saying one thing to a Rotary Club is one thing; going on record as bucking this administration by tubing the legislation they wanted, by voting against it, is what we are paying him to do. He hasn’t done it.

But as I said, he is down 30 points at the half…..It’s time he goes into a full court press against the Bush administration , if he wants any hope of pulling a win out of 08.

Let’s hope these two baskets are the start of a streak……….

6th Floor Please……..

Whether coincidental or happenstance, the local blog scene has become mysteriously quiet since the signing of the wiretap law just before last weekend. Only Jason has defied the danger, and out of professional courtesy, I do not think he should face MR. CHENEY alone.

In one of my comments on another forum, I was (politely) told that I did not know what I was talking about when I was discussing wiretapping. Although I knew a lot from sources close to the business, after my weekend research on today’s methods (post internet), I came to the conclusion that they were right. I really did not know what was going on………..

No one is talking facts, making it doubly hard to investigate. Based on information culled strictly from the public domain, here is what I could find so far.

Granted the old wiretapping descriptions were out of date. As fiber optics invaded America, switches were placed at all network hubs, allowing for the passing of all information through the government’s hands during it’s journey en route from sender to recipient. These hubs were all on American soil, and therefore, under the old laws, required some type of oversight by FISA or another court, to issue a “wiretap” or other intelligence gathering device.

Had we suspected that a Saudi Arabian national, withdrawing money from an ATM in South Portland, Maine, just up the street from the Mobil station right there at the exit off 95, was about to commit a dastardly act that would change the future of this country forever, getting court approval in real time, would be difficult, if not impossible.

As Bonner “leaked” on national television, (where’s the outrage? Oh, he’s republican) a federal judge had declared such practices illegal. Why? Was he too, one of “them” liberals? No he just decided that the propensity for the system’s misuse, far outweighed it’s gain to society.

What could be more important than saving American lives?

That is a good question and needs a lengthy answer…. American lives are important…..In fact, the primary reason that most Americans are against Cheney’s Trillion $ war going on today, is that they feel it is squandering lives……American lives. But whenever lives are being sacrificed for a real purpose, Americans feel much differently, as polls taken during the Afghanistan campaign readily show…….

So there must be something hidden that is so controversial or so big, that Americans place a higher value on it, than they do saving lives. One questions, what could that be?

William Wallace says it best in “Braveheart“: Freedom!

I can see everyones eyebrows raise. Are we jumping the gun here? What reasonable person could expect an elected official of the United States government to spy on, control, and imprison their own citizens?

Apparently that is the fear that most Americans share. It is for that reason alone why everything must be kept secret and hidden from public scrutiny. For within this administration, everyone is scared to death that the public will someday find out……..

If you are hearing this for the first time, as I did last Saturday, it shows that their clamp on this intelligence and information about this story is working. But across the web and in various newspapers, are enough leads that put this picture in perspective.

Here is what we know. The technology out there is equal to what is available on most PC’s today. It is just the size and scale that blows everyone’s mind. Apparently everything that is ever said, written, posted, e-mailed, filmed, in the entire world, is being saved. Most of this will never be touched. We know this capacity exists: for how often has a commercial enterprise solicited us due to a pattern detected based on our personal trends? And how often have we football watchers been correctly told, based on probability, just where the quarterback is going to throw the ball, and guess where he then throws it to?

This coupling of voice recognition, the entire library of data, and a massive scale of sorting computer software all together under one roof, leads to a profile on every single American citizen at the touch of a button.

If we elected saints as our political saviors, we wouldn’t care. Sure, find the bad guys; just leave the good guys alone. But unfortunately instead of saints, we chose to elect republicans who we have found can be trusted far less than God, as our coins and old bank building in Millsboro, so declare is our intention. Our founding fathers were quite lividly adamant that any government should NOT have unlimited powers of search and seizure. So with today’s technology, our family jewels are safe within our home, but our private thoughts and conversations are not……..

So what is wrong with listening in on private conversations…….I do nothing wrong……and I’ve got nothing to hide……listen all you want, damn it….. That is the defense we hear from right wing nuts whenever they defend this invasion of anyone’s privacy. To stupid people that may make sense. But it only takes a small amount of intelligence to realize how readily that ability can be abused.

Tom Carper, along with many democrats voted for the unlimited use of this technology, done legally at the discretion of the Executive branch itself with no one watching…..This is the same guy who once took great effort to dress up as Commodore McDonough and speak to little school kids about the greatness of this country……Can anyone reasonably expect that such a cognitive switch which jumps away from America’s true ideals to those of a totalitarian state, was NOT coerced by some type of blackmail?

What dirt do they know on Tom Carper? He should count his blessings…..for he is one of the lucky ones. Were he squeaky clean, he could have shared the same fate as Tim Johnson…..or Jon Corzine…..or Paul Wellstone. Speculation to be sure, but it goes to show to those who implicitly trust their leaders, just what can happen when government is given the free hand to spy on their citizens.

But let’s take a more realistic example. One that occurs worldwide today. Over at Delaware Liberal there is a lot of anger focused on the current administration. That blog has become a better source of news than delawareonline, or its printed companion, the News Journal. Of course if you want obituaries, you should still buy the paper. But major news stories are broken day’s ahead of the controlled media, and create firestorms of public opinion that are detrimental to the establishment of the Cheney ideals, which are even occasionally sponsored in part by the republican party.

So how to stop it? This might work. An anon post describing some to the conversations that took place last February could just be enough. It would take a strong Hillary at one’s side to say that did not create any problems. And where would those conversations come from? Apparently they are stored, right now, along with those of every reader, pulled at will with a couple of keystrokes next to your name………..

Yes this technology can corral terrorists…..but it can also be used to know what Biden will say in the next debate, who sold Obama his cocaine when he was young, and whether Hillary is or is not returning the favor her husband gave her during the previous scandal. It can be used to silence witnesses: find and expose whistle blowers, thereby killing them. It can be used to publicize a politician’s health problems, say erectile dysfunction, or blackmail those who don’t ask, and don’t tell.

It can be used to find which of an opponents supporters are “still on the fence” and get to them first. Why do you think Karl Rove resigned the first business day just after the law was passed? Being good for six months, this ability to eavesdrop on each and every Democratic or republican candidate will, unlike Watergate, be legal to well after all the big primaries have all been settled.

Lawsuits against reporters who won’t reveal their sources? A thing of the past, for this law now makes all those irrelevant. There are going to be a lot of dead people turning up soon.

This power can be used in political appointments to insure that only a “yes sir…as you wish sir”…mentality becomes firmly entrenched within the decision making process of our executive branch, and all previously conflicting conversations that have so far kept our country from driving over a cliff, become no more…..

It can also make average citizen afraid to write criticisms such as this…..never to be heard again. Based on what I have seen so far, Jason turned out to be the only one with a “Bravehart” enough to continue….. (my apologies if I missed someone). Yeah…..it affected me. (Call me Robert Bruce.) But like Nathan Hale, before me, I too now decide to walk up to the gallows, put the noose around my neck, and plainly speak my words of wisdom, which hopefully will far outweigh anything I could have done to help this nation, had I cowered and remained silent…………………..

nothing happening; a good day to skip blogging and go to one of Delaware’s finest beaches…..

Kevin Giannini copyright 2001-2007

Like the White House is prone to do, I wanted to slip this post in where it would go unnoticed for as long as possible. Sunday morning is a bloggers day to sleep in or go to church. I will probably (although I am not sure as of yet) put a bland title that most readers will pass over.

Why, because what I want to talk about is something I would personally feel more comfortable if no one knew.

What brought these debates within my soul, was the posting in Delaware Liberal that Castle broke with Bush on an important piece of legislation, and the sad news that Carper, did the opposite.

Many people think that politicians control their own destines. That is a very rare case. A better metaphor would be (I love this one) that they wheel, deal, or beg for any ride that looks to take them where they want to go, and then, once inside the car, they have to deal with what ever choice they’ve made……..sort of like groupies chasing after a string of Greatful Dead concerts scattered across the Great Midwest……….

When young and idealistic, most politicians make a choice and then spend the rest of their lives proving to others that they chose wisely…….That is why when an independent notion strikes a politician so hard that he chooses to switch parties, it is news indeed.

Some, perhaps even myself on rare occasions, have castigated Mike Castle for his support of a leader who is leading this country in the wrong direction. Since Mike Castle was enabling that same leader to continue down that same path fraught with danger, and was not speaking up,… I was holding him accountable for the failed results of that very policy…..

So now I am faced with a dilemma. Do I continue to lambaste someone who is “coming to Jesus” and punish him for his past sins?

My gut feeling says no. I should not. Of course those who have read me for a while know that I am heavily influenced by that story of the “adulteress who was condemned for stoning.”

“Who has condemned you?’

‘No one is left, Sire.”

“‘Nor do I condemn you. Arise and go home.”

Perhaps my writings too will just be scribbles in the sand, whose record will be forever lost to history. But then again, the effect of those words, may just influence one of you to rise to a higher plain of eloquence than I am capable, and in turn, fan the flames a smidgen higher. A historical change may be on the verge of occurring…….

So here is a man, similar to each of us, who has seen up close the effect of pursuing the Bush Policy. Like the pharisee Saul, who witnessed the stoning of Stephan, he is overdue for a change of heart.

So what do we do? Do we support him, and welcome him in as a blinded Saul, feed and nourish him and treat him as a brother? Hoping as we do so, that others will see our noble nature and realize that it really is safe to defect from the will of Bush over to the other side? Or do we humiliate, spit and crucify him and by doing so intimidate those very others who are debating whether or not to jump ship,… from doing so?

There are many shades and colors to this question. Is this defection real or is it just a feint? Is this move designed to flush out and focus the Cheney Eye of Mordor firmly upon those in Delaware who must be surreptitiously removed whenever Cheney is eventually crowned king?……..Perhaps this olive branch is a ruse, a Trojan horse, or a decoy to buy time and lull us into sleep, while the secret orc army is cultivated deep in the bowels or earth?

It could be. I don’t know, ……….and implications lie too far beyond my meager influence, to care.

For in the end of this argument, I am just one person, but as one person who made a choice, I hope my warnings will have at least caused some free thought to have occurred within each of you. With each new reader, as ever increasing free thought and independent thinking is generated, it is through such disclosures, comments, and discussions,…..that more and more information becomes placed upon the open table, and the more informed our leaders, lawmakers, and electorate will ultimately be……..

And when it comes down to how I feel, or partisanship, …part of me like many of you, has those strong feelings that want justice. But in my case at least, those feelings are overwhelmed by a strong love for this nation and the ideals this nation represents. If someone, especially after a deep cleansing soul search, reaches in and does that unthinkable thing for a politician, and emphatically surprises everyone and says to the driver: “STOP THIS VEHICLE NOW……I’M GETTING OFF HERE…………..

he will have my support. For it takes only a small breath, or a butterfly’s wing effect, to tumble a house of cards….. If Mike Castle wants to be that link in the chain of events that makes this happen, I will do what I can to help…………

As I said……..this is hard for me to write……..I hope it generates much controversy. Truly that is what is needed……in these dire times.

And if my endorsement of a former Saul, who may soon turn on a Castle quarter and regenerate into the apostle Paul……..stops this insane war of profit just a smidgen sooner, to save even one life that would have died had events continued differently; it will be worth the pain and embarrassment that is sure to come my way by many of my closest friends and colleagues.

I have made my choice. I have personally decided that this nation’s place in history, far outweighs my own.

May God continue to bless this great nation, the United States of America…….

Born 7/4/1776 Died 7/17/2007

Hyperbole has its uses. Often points are scored in courtrooms, on televisions, and national debate through the use of hyperbole.

Only by writing, have I fully come to appreciate its usefulness. The effect of such comes not from what is said, but from the thought process that goes through each listeners head as they try to decipher the irrationality of what they have just heard………..Often through that analysis, they make some neural connections that are often quoted as “thinking outside the box…..”

It is unfortunate that in this case, my title is not hyperbole. It is my response to this, which I picked up from a link on Delaware Liberal…..

I have to admit, even though I try to use clean language when I write, when I read this my bowels rolled over and I even said “Oh shit. Here it is.” For amongst ourselves we have been talking about the repeated tendency of our president to laughingly consider himself as a king. And as we did, all of us knew in the back of our minds that the only real rational for such unconstitutional actions was for them to actually think………. that they would someday become one…………

Many of our generation were never schooled in the classics. As one who sprinted through two years of Latin, I would highly recommend that the reading in Julius Caesars’ own words, his argument for the replacement of the Roman democracy with the instillation of himself as its dictator, be required reading for all members of all democracies.

Fortunately today we do not all need to know Latin,…… for the same argument is dramatically portrayed in the last three episodes of the Star Wars Trilogy. The Dark Side is among us……………………………

But this recent executive order scares me…….. for next comes the assassination of our Jedi knights and the heartless slaughter of their future generation……………………….

I am no Jedi knight, but I may have to become one after this..

From the executive order signed days ago……….

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,..I hereby order: all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in:(for) any person..undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people.

If one assumes the language is English and that the words therein have the meanings associated with those defined by dictionaries of the English language, then as someone who is adamantly against the Bush Iraqi Oil Grab, I am one of these, I am included. So are most of you…….

So is Dennis Kucinich, Olympia Snow, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi…….all of us who protest not the war, but it’s failed policy, are in the same boat, for according to Republican Sen. Bunning of Kentucky, anyone who opposes the war, is in effect giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Despite the reality that the opposite is true, as Dana was quick to point out here, that it is really the policy of George W Bush that has banded and bonded disparate groups (united by their hatred of both al Qaeda and the US) to “GET US OUT OF IRAQ“, ………. under the language of this order, even poor June and Rebecca Young, who have eloquently spoken against the war, are now like Will Smith and Gene Hackman,……………. enemies of the state.

And should we, as patriots, decide to help our friends and neighbors after their bank accounts have been frozen and assets devoured, we too stand on the wrong side of this capricious Ministry of Magic.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

To our representative E-ZPass Mike Castle, Republican of Delaware: Our sincere thanks for your silence in support of the dissolution of what was once considered the greatest nation to have ever existed on this planet……….May future generations show you mercy and spare you the infamy that has hitherto, been previously reserved for Benedict Arnold, Judas Iscariot and Pontius Pilate……….

Laura Ingram and the Senate All nighter

It happened accidentally. The radio was on and at first I wasn’t listening, then something broke through that I couldn’t believe I was hearing, and then I listened intently for collaboration.

I haven’t found the link, so all of you can hear, but if my hearing was correct, and reading between the lines of her jeers at the Democrat participants, in my opinion here is what she said about our troops.

“All this Democratic whining about the war dead. For heaven’s sakes get over it!!….. …they are not slaves, they volunteered! … We are doing them a favor by sending them over there! … It’s what they are there for!”

It has to be a Freudian slip-up, right? She just seem to say that our local men and women of the National Guard volunteered to become war dead, right?

Then later in her flagrant praise for Republican retorts:

The Republican party needs to stand firm on this one. We cannot waiver. There can be no defections. Our reputation is at stake.

This has strikingly similarities to the video of the College Republican convention across from the Arlington cemetery that was graciously provided by Delaware Liberal Their youthful comments and those of Ms Ingram sound remarkably the same.

In WWII the Hitler Youth provided twelve year olds the opportunity to defend Berlin, when older, and more mature soldiers knew that all hope for the Wehrmacht was lost. Based on the video clip above, the Republicans still have 6 years of depth on their bench. When we have stooped to seeing twelve year olds defending Bush/Cheney, we know the end is near…….

Back to Laura: if you put her two thoughts together, in a two plus two sort of equation, you get this:

As our precious sons and daughters lay dead; the Republicans proudly raise their head.

Sounds like poetry doesn’t it; I believe it’s iambic pentameter.

So What Are You Doing this Friday, at 11:00 a.m.?

So there I was as a young man, traipsing over the grassy knolls of a compound called Dachau……..and the single image of which I could not shake from my mind, was a view back home from the top of the former Twin Towers.………taken while walking  around the observatory in a slow 360 degree circle and realizing that the entire mass of humanity in that circle of twenty miles, was less than the amount of those eradicated by the Nazis, without a whimper from the German people.

And as my eyes watered a bit, ((no I did not cry), I was still too young), while gazing upon the fake showers, and peering into the cyanide vats on the other side, a tiny child’s voice between my ears, kept repeating a phrase I had stumbled across before the tour on the floor inside the museum. ” You saw us being beaten, you saw us wearing stars, you saw us humiliated, you saw us being transported, and YET YOU DID NOTHING……… I remember at the time being quite angry at the timidity and the complicity of the German people. For a brief moment I hated them…….and in a typical fashion common of that gender in possession of high and excessive levels of testosterone, in those emotional moments I vowed that I, (superior being that I was) would never fear or cave in to brutal intimidation………..

Today, my friend’s friend, lies buried in Arlington……And when I clicked on a forgotten link……(do I still need this?…) and saw the face of a very brave New Castle citizen…….looking back from her high school picture…..those jaded eyes of mine wet over again as I slowly realized that I too had failed to live up to that promise I once made on a bright July afternoon, while standing beside a giant trench planted over with flowers……….

So where was I when it happened? What was I doing that was so important as events played around me? Nothing earth shattering really, and if you probe and scrape all the residue away, I was simply way too busy going through motions in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, to really worry making those tough sacrifices that are personally required to implement the necessary changes (piece of crap, I am)……. Then,……… something about that girl’s picture…………..pissed me off. I think it was how much like my own daughter she was……

So what can I do? Not much, I am no Kissinger nor Howard Baker. I cannot bring these people together and make a settlement. But I can make a choice……and that choice is this.

I can choose to STOP DOING NOTHING. I can go on record and suffer the surprise trip to Guantanamo that may come in the middle of the night (risk diminished), or the bullet to the back of the head in some forgotten landfill (not likely), if it comes to that. And most particularly, I can look at those who enabled and supported this administration when it chose to invade a nation that had not attacked us, a nation that had no intention of attacking us, a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11…….but only a nation that had the poor unfortunate distinction, of being the chosen victim that this bully of an administration had decided to make an example of………..long before the 2000 elections were ever held!

If any of you have ever felt that you too have done too little, that you too were lulled and fooled into believing this war made you safer, then come, join me outside Delaware congressman Mike Castle’s office on Friday July 6th. And should you be too busy, I will understand. Most likely you do not have that haunting childlike voice as do I between my ears, that implores ……..AND YET YOU DO NOTHING…….…But if, by some ancient gene, you do…… possess the capacity to know right from wrong, and if…… by the grace of God, you have been given time to come and be counted, and if…… you do not want to pass on, having never made a difference in anything………… then take the half hour, and come and join us; be counted on this upcoming Friday at 11:00am. (Tell Boss-women you have a doctors appointment if you have to……or call on someone you know who feels like you do, and unlike you, has nothing going on at moment in time.)

Results:

If ten people show, the war goes on, but us ten can rest at ease that we did our part. If twenty show, our numbers just grew 100% !!…….If hundreds show, one or two lines will appear in the News Journal and it will not have been in vain. If a thousand people show, the Congressman and staff will take notice. And just maybe……just maybe……..find within themselves the moral courage to add their voice to echo ours……..WE CAN MAKE A CHOICE……WE CAN DO SOMETHING.

In democracy, the real leaders are always “We, the people“: it is us who tell the government what We want them to do…… Please……..come with us……….and make our stand?

kavip’s epistle to the Corinthians

Occasionally something pops up and causes me to remember Senator Lloyd Bentsen, D Texas, responding to soon to be Vice President Quayle’s allusion that he, a young Republican was the new John Kennedy.

“Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Today another John is in the news, albeit briefly. Often as human beings we sometimes tend to make assumptions about the motives of another person, based solely upon our own emotional reaction. Because we happen to be in a somber or serious mood, any form of satire, humor, or silliness is taken verbatim and acted upon as an actual threat………..Only when one accounts for the degree of damage caused by a humorous action, can we hold its perpetrator accountable. For example, it would really be hilarious to yell fire in a crowded theater and watch all the fools (those not in on the joke) get flustered and crawl over each other to get out. Only when the bodies were counted, would we realize that our joke was not very funny to those families lined up to claim those corpses. Only then, would we understand the serious implications behind our actions.

John is a funny guy. He is outrageous. He is probably slightly crazy. (I love this quote)

“Daniello is the type of guy who can ask, as he did Saturday, “Can we all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, please?” and make it sound like a threat. Do not cross him when he has a gavel in his hand.” With this reputation it would be irresistible not to utter some outlandish proposition, strut and fret your hour upon the stage, and watch the minions scurry away in fear and trepidation.

John Daniello received his 15 minutes of fame last night, making it all the way to Kos and perhaps Malkin with his reported comment. Quite possibly he got more hits last night than he got votes against Dupont in 1970!

Many young bucks, restless after years of hiding behind a Bush, want to let chips fly, open wide the doors to opportunity, and let anyone and everyone have a run at the gold ring, and with a “what the hell,” throw all to the wind and let the voters decide, then accept whoever the voters choose. But underlying their premise, is the unspoken notion that the Democrats are going to take it anyway, so why not let them fight it out, and let the best man win the primary? It will be good for the state. Or will it?

Ask John Daniello. “Yo, John, know any Shipleys?”

The war was bad then…….just as it is today……great dissatisfaction was prevalent with the status quo, because of some guy named NIxon (no relation to Tyler). A general malaise had fallen over the entire country. Democrats were sure to win in the off year election, especially in a solidly Democratic state such as Delaware.

Two contenders, both beloved favorites of the party, both with strong support from their respective contingents, thought it was their time to grab the ring. Neither candidate, nor their supporters, could fathom that the other side would feel just as strongly for their candidate. Each side would run clean positive campaigns. But only one group can win, right?

What happened? If you don’t remember that primary you are telling your age. Daniello got into a lobster fight for the 1970 congressional nomination with Samuel L. Shipley, later a Democratic state chairman. After some double-dealing and a fistfight between two rival supporters, Daniello won the party’s backing at a wild, wild convention, but Shipley forced their feud to a primary. Daniello won again, but there were so many hard feelings that his candidacy was doomed in the general election.

It took 12 years and a young Tom Carper to put the House Seat back into the Democratic column.

If Democrats cannot hold together like glue, and based on tonight’s story and the blogger’s reaction, it looks like they can’t, the upcoming primary will result in a Republican’s capture of the governorship for the first time in 16 years.

So what’s with John’s beef with bloggers? Daniello sees bloggers as being the wild cards stirring up the embers, just as those long haired radicals, Tom Carper and Ed Freel did in the seventies. Just like those young bucks, the bloggers run on their own agenda, fueled by the passion of the moment (and a couple of beers), and as we have all read in the comment sections, they often threaten to switch parties if such- and= such does not happen.

But what if our flagrant actions were to result in the postponement of progressiveness’s moving forward. What if the electorate, recoiling from the animosity expressed so recently in a September primary, on November makes the emotionally safe choice, instead of the rational “better-we -go- this- way” choice……….

We pay for our sins a long time.

More than anyone else, John Daniello knows the pitfalls that a divisive all state primary will create…………he knows that war, sometimes seems glamorous from afar, especially to both young bucks and wizened draft-deferring Republicans, but when its ugliness is experienced up close……war exposes the worst of the human capacity.

Do we want to go there? Remember Franklin’s admonishment: we must all hang together, for surely if we don’t, we will all hang separately. Still want to go there?

We do?……. Good, I was hoping someone would say that. For a second I was afraid that I had convinced you otherwise. So lets get the rumble going……
I’ll start: That John Carney is nothing more than an ostrich, full of feathers, head in the sand, lays a couple of big eggs, and is so damned ugly……or was it Markell I was supposed to say that about…….damn, I can’t remember…….I’ll get back to you later as soon as I figure out which side I’m on…..It was Markell, right, oops I mean Carney, Markell………its time for some chocolate………

What Is the Electronic Revolution?

“Daddy, what do you know about the Electronic Revolution? Teacher says it took place early this century and that it changed a lot of how we do things today. I would like to know more, but teacher says I should ask you.”

“She did, huh?”

“Well……. your grandpa and a couple of people at the same time just got mad at how things were being run in their small state and decided to use a new medium at the time to yell about it. As more and more people began checking into what exactly they were saying, more and more people came into agreement, and said, yeah, we feel that way two. Suddenly the entire population felt the same way as they did.”

“This made a several powerful people angry, because they had secret plans that they wanted to accomplish. And before, when no one was paying any attention, they could do a lot of bad things with other people’s money, like spend it on themselves, and no one would ever know. But after the Electronic Revolution, when everything they did became known by everyone else, they had no choice but to change their habits and not do those bad things anymore. Everybody was watching.”

“What bad things were they doing?”

“One of the worst, was they were not changing with the times. As people became more and more modern they wanted more things done. Like you want to do more now that you are 9, than you did when you were 3. You used to be happy walking around in a big circle…….remember that? Walking, running, walking? You did it all the time. But it is not so fun anymore, now is it?”

“So when someone wanted to change the law to make things better for everybody else, these people would stick it in a drawer and never open it again. That law would stay in that dark drawer with all the other bills people wanted passed, because by law, that was the end of the bill. And when they wanted to talk about how to spend our money, no one was allowed to listen in. It was done in secret, and we would find out too late, that our money was already spent by some friends of that man who put the bill in his drawer……”

“Teacher said something about newspaper’s? What were they?”

“Ahhh……newspapers…….that goes way back. Well, in those days believe it or not, many people did not have computers, and if they did, most of them did not know how to properly use them. So they got their information printed on big sheets of paper, which newspaper boys sold to make some money. But at that time the newspaper companies had became so preoccupied with getting more and more money that they stopped printing what people wanted to hear, and since the news was always uncovered first on a blog anyway, most people stopped buying the papers.”

“Why did they stop printing what people wanted to hear?”

“Well the newspapers became more concerned with presenting a certain point of view. Telling others only what they wanted them to believe. They were trying to print only good news about the bad people, and were not telling the public just how bad those people were……..”

“So how did people find out?”

“Well these few brave people, one of which was your grandfather, would talk to people who had something to say and then write it on their blog for everyone to see. Those people your grandfather would talk to had first gone to the newspapers, who would pretend to be interested, but in end, wouldn’t print the bad news for people to read, because they were paid lots of advertising dollars by those very candidates who put bills in drawers. So those people told the bloggers what they knew and the bloggers printed the truth for everyone to see.”

“When did it happen?”

It happened between 06 and 07, many years ago. Many people learned to blog for the 06 election. After it was over, they continued looking at the government officials and wrote about them nonstop.”

“Because of them, many changes took place in the state. Some of those bills that were buried in the drawer, were pulled out and became law. People were happy.”

“Why is it called the Electronic Revolution?”

“Because it changed things. Before, with just television, people learned how to control it and would only tell people what they wanted them to hear. If you had a question and wanted to find something out about a candidate, you couldn’t. You just had to listen to whatever he said and decide whether you liked him or not…….”

“During the electronic revolution, instead of only a few hundred reporters looking over your shoulder, and most of them only wrote follow up stories based on what one or two reporters who broke the story, you had anyone and everyone who knew how to search the internet, looking at everything you ever did. Because politicians knew that someone would one day find out the truth, they were more careful to look like they actually cared for their citizens.”

“Also, especially in our small state, the bloggers on opposite ends would actually post messages to each other, and eventually they realized that both sides wanted changes to take place that would allow the public to see what was going on.”

“So Dad. how can I sum it up for my report tomorrow? The electronic revolution did………?”

“How about this. The electronic revolution returned the power of government away from elected officials, and back to the people, for the people, giving them once again, a government of the people?