Lexington All Over Again

Since becoming aware as a child I have often wondered if had I lived along the Boston-Concord Highway in Massachusetts roughly 239 years ago… whether I would have taken up my gun and head to Lexington? Or if I would sit and let others do it for me…

Pondering this as an idealistic youngster, I would certainly have gone and fought.  But as a mature, responsible individual I have questioned that automatic reaction….. It appears ones level of action depends on what one has to lose.  Being young, there is no lost investment one puts at risk. Being older, there is.

Today when we sit back, we know how that history played out.  That clouds our judgment: “Oh sure” we’d say, “I’d have grabbed my gun and stood in that square.” but we say that knowing full well how the British lost and the Royalists were run off to Canada… However, to those at that time, there appeared a greater chance for the opposite to occur.  Back then, Britain was the United States of today….

How could some dirt farmers overwhelm the world’s greatest army?  Fortunately for us today, they didn’t think like that or didn’t care, and in that there is the lesson for today.

As George Washington was hounded, as was Andrew Jackson, as was Abraham Lincoln, we living today have systematically against all facts and evidence to the contrary, been repeatedly told our current leader is an incredible disaster waiting to happen.  We have waited 6 years with the same repeating messages and yet so far things keep improving, getting better and better.

It is time we fire the messengers.  The lying messengers.

Like those Massachusetts’ farmers we too have two choices to make.  We can stay with what has been broken, and cling to the fact that it is not yet as broken as it could be, or…. we can throw our hearts behind the possibility of achieving real change,  betterment for our children, and a future brighter than our dreams can imagine upon looking through the reality of today…

Every lie so far told, each intended to scare us away from not achieving that dream we hold for ourselves (instead to accept theirs), has so far been false. Health care CAN be effectively controlled.  We CAN get Osama Bin Ladin. We CAN rebuild America’s auto industry. We CAN negotiate with Russia, Syria, Iran, Egypt, Israel, China and not have to go on a national alert as does North Korea does every time it faces an internal domestic crises.  We CAN stop Ebola from spreading here.  We didn’t have a crises in Benghazi. We didn’t have malpractice in the IRS.  We CAN raise taxes on our top earners and grow jobs faster than we could with tax cuts.  We CAN have gas prices at $2.84 a gallon for unleaded.  We CAN have people in love with each other, marry for life without the world caving in. WE CAN grow jobs at rates over 200,000 per month.  We CAN have the stock market earn rates over 30% per year….

Compare that to their alternative?  We could take 25 million Americans off  their health insurance. We could shut down our government, costing America another $25 billion of lost economic activity. We could again tax the middle class with user fees to pay for the tax cuts the top 1% can simply get for asking. We could make seniors pay more for their medical care and hospital visits,  and cut Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals. We could make Social Security pay half of what seniors currently receive.  We could legalize paying less, not more to employees.  We could privatize education by firing all teachers and rehiring them at reduced wages, making teaching a minimum wage job. What gets done to teachers then gets continued throughout the entire middle class.

We can stay with what has been torn down and remained broken since Republicans took over in 2000….. OR we can throw our hearts behind at least the possibility of change…. One party does absolutely nothing, except pass tax cuts for the one percent.  The other party vetoes those tax cuts, and tries to negotiate and offer compromises that at least push necessary legislation forward…

These House Republicans have created the least productive Congress ever across the history of the United States of America.  Even the cantankerous Senate has responded responsibly in bipartisan fashion to pass and send important critical issues into the House… only to see them languish, never to even be voted up or down… because if they were,  the votes are there to pass them.

So are you going to vote this year? Are you actually going to get up off your ass, head to the poll, wait in line to cast a vote for a better future, knowing full well that if you don’t, things will continue to get worse?  Or, …are you going to say… “it doesn’t matter whether I vote or not. The powerful will always get their way anyway. ”

You see?  You’ve been put in the exact same position as those boys and young men 239 years ago… Whatever level of action you decide to take, mirrors the level they had to ponder and decide, and will be talked about long after you are dead, like that shot heard around the world… THIS election, not 2012, is the one that REALLY matters.  THIS one decides Congress… We’ve seen it for six years; no president can do anything constructive without at least, a functioning Congress ….  Whereas in the past, Congress has sometimes led and the President has been delegated to either sign or veto, this current Republican House is so dysfunctional it can’t even do that.  Therefore this is a do or die election… Whether you always vote in every election, or you hardly ever vote at all…  this is the one your grandchildren will be asking you about…. This one unequivocally decides their future.  Like those boys or men along the Boston-Concord road 239 years ago….the call has gone out;  it is now in your hands.. Do you fight?  Or just let them win.  What will you do?

 

 

Ken Simpler or Sean Barney?

If nothing major ripples the water, it will all come down to Common Core.

Simpler as being against it… Period.

Barney as being for it!   “Woot, woot, yeah, yeah.. corporate money in MY pocket” sort of being for it…

Like a game between two really equal teams, I expect a lot of defense action the first three quarters and then things open up in the fourth…

(So It’s ok to turn away, and come back when the clock is about to run out… )

Republicans Need To Go All Out And Vote For Simpler

if you are a Republican, and distraught at how the Republican Party has dissipated over the past 10 years here in Delaware, and wish it would revive, you need to take control of your party from the henchmen, and vote Simpler over Sher….

Simpler was running this race, and Sher came in at literally the last half hour forcing a primary.  The News journal quotes that she had conversations with Charlie Copeland and he convinced her to run.  From her campaign, and her spread in today’s News Journal, it is obvious what transpired…

Simpler was not a rabid Republican.  The party’s ideologues felt he could not become the state’s only Republican winner which he had a chance to become, and now with Chip Flower’s being out of the race, he is running against someone even Democrats don’t like:…. Tom Carper’s little buddy….  So by adding all the Republicans, and half the Democrats who don’t appreciate Tom Carper, you get 60% of the vote… Looks like a Republican can finally take one office….

But in comes Charlie Copeland with assurances of support for Sher, and convinces her to jump in….

It would be wise for Republicans to reflect, that ever since Charlie Copeland emerged into making the upper judgments of the Republican Party, they have literally slid into a hole with slippery mud walls….  From being a strong contender to a joke, that entire party structure has become… And now, finally when a good candidate emerges, he scrambles to scuttle him.

If Republicans don’t want to completely toss in the towel, they need to get off their ass this September 9th, and vote for the most qualified treasurer candidate we have ever seen.  And then, after these elections, begin to change their party from the top down….

 

A “New” Christine O’Donnell Has Emerged….

Content, Image and interview courtesy of Delaware Politics.Net

In an effort to repeat their past glory, Sher Valenzuela has taken Christine O’Donnell’s new mantle… She has become the new Republican “Prima Donna” and the new “Great Attractor”…

I believe it was Al Mascitti who said it on Tuesday… What do Christine O’Donnell and Mike Protack have in common? There was never an office they DIDN’T run for…. I believe he called them political opportunists, and I will use that word today…

I’ll let Sher herself explain her opportunism in her own words….

“this is the first chance we (republicans) have to win in twenty years and I could not let it slip away.” (notice nothing about being a…. treasurer?)

After a chat with State Republican Chairman Charlie Copeland in October, Mrs. Sher Valenzuela pondered running for the position of State Treasurer, (notice nothing about being a …… treasurer?)

“No one was saying anything different or speaking up for our conservative values”, (notice nothing about being a ….. treasurer?)

She was also unhappy that the other GOP candidate is perceived by her not to have an appreciation for the state’s dependence on Casinos… (notice nothing about being a….. treasurer?) Anybody notice a trend here?

“I think the best qualifications for this office in terms of what we need to bring to the arena, is business background. This office should be involved in economic development. We should be looking to build our economic future,” … (Hello… it’s a treasury office, not a governor’s race… Quick question: do you even know what a Treasury Officer does?)

She further states that two of our top ten revenue sources include casinos and unclaimed property, and that both are unreliable.“One of the focuses of the office should be calling attention to the fact that some of our top revenue sources are unreliable and developing more reliable revenue through economic growth,” So getting rid of half a billion dollars, to make that up on a tax rate of 6%, we need salary income growth of $8.3 billion a year covering that short-fall. At a job rate of $50,000/year we would need to hire 166,000 people and put them to work… Currently there are 26,000 listed as unemployed, so we would need to import 140,000 people into this state in one year to do what Sher says she wants to do…

Everything revolves around that economic engine. Hopefully people know that I am not a fly-by-night person seeking office. I am not a person with baseless political aspirations, but the key to getting our state back on track is reducing unnecessary regulation and incubating new businesses” Yeah, how well did that work in the Bush years?

“We don’t need people in office acting like they are smarter than the people they serve. Ken Simpler (Valenzuela’s opponent) was working with a Democratic Official’s son to turn the Seashore State park into a casino location, What would Democrats do with that? ”

“more jobs, less government. I don’t know why the chief financial officer can’t go in with sleeves rolled up to reduce regulation and offer new ways to have sustainable revenue through economic development.” Sher, read the Job description….

Our education process will also include the state’s top ten revenue drains ????? (like education? like highways?) Does she think she does the state budget instead of the governor? ?????

Valenzuela states that she will be an advocate of cutting taxes and reducing the size of government, while unleashing Delaware’s economic engine so the people of Delaware have sustainable sources of revenue.

Now, where have we heard this before? Where someone who shoots from the hip challenges a methodical thoughtful person in a Republican Primary and hits them over the head with a brickbat as soon as they pay the filing fee? Familiar?

Let us not bring up the gigantic contradiction… That elephant in the room here…. She’s for less government, unless they are guaranteeing millions of dollars in loans to her business or contracting with her business to the tune of millions as well. She literally wrote a book about how to exploit loopholes and get government money. Don’t believe me? She’s even selling it on her campaign website!?

Ms. Valenzuela criticizes Mr. Simpler because he was willing to invest his “OWN” money in casinos. I guess if he had gotten a government grant it might have been different…

Furthermore In Sheryl Valenzuela’s world Republicans are never to associate with Democrats, much less they are not to do business with Democrats, and certainly not, if this includes their children.

“Hopefully people know that I am not a fly-by-night person seeking office.” Naa! Why would they think that? You only woke up on the morning of the last day for filing and jumped in a race that had a declared candidate, forcing a primary…….

We have a new Christine O’Donnell who is running: because she thinks she can win….

Did anyone else notice there was nothing about being …… a treasurer?

Now, listen to her opponent…. Ken Simpler…..

“When I began exploring this race, I began with a premise that a two billion dollar portfolio should be managed by someone with experience managing a billion dollar portfolio.”

Sometimes doing things Simpler, is best.