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The Golden Flush Award /Click Image for Past Winners
Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”… And then once we elect one, we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”
So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.
It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment…. If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012, would in one day become trivial….
And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….
Julius Cephus: Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington. The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before… Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper. It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch. Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations. They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.
Steve Newton: A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51 is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers. It is brilliant. It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause. By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read. Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered. Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing. Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law. Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware. His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future. We are already there. As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics. As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents. None can go to any other hospital. He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation. Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed. The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.
Ernest Lopez. If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man. Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden. Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district. A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him. He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious. A major billboard was put up to call him out. His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales. Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun. It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….
Cathy Cloutier: her vote allowed gays to marry. Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.
Bethany Hall Long: on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect. In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape. She went with the correct vote, over the easy one. As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.
Paul Baumbach: gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come. He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor. Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.
John Kowalko: also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant. In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be. Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed. The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.
Kim Williams; responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems. She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through…. She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied. The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways. Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….
Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment: I almost purposefully did not post this. Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned. Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of corporatizing public education. Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done… It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence. I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists. Well,… they are part of the play…….
Dan Short: Sometimes villains get noticed too. Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes… Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.
John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else. With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore. Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead. More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.
Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.
Amy Roe: a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate. Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace. Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before… The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it. Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.
Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…
Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron. Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”
Alan Levin: Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.
Jack Markell: had his hand in everything. He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover. He was behind SB 51 and HB 165. He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.
John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….
Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
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That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….
I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….
Israel is going forward with 1200 new settlements on the West Bank.
Expect the truce to end tomorrow afternoon as rockets arch the skies.
Once again, Israel takes advantage of what it believes is the US’s inability to think for itself.
Our proper response, is to demand they stand down. When Israel says no, tell them our support for their country depends on no new settlements. If they go ahead, they do it alone; tell them as of now we begin our withdrawal in one week…. We stop when we hear they have voted to stop all new settlements.
This is not about friendship; we will always have a love for Israel. It is about business. Every insurance company has the right to decide whether to insure an at-risk beach property, or not. The United States of America is Israel’s insurer of their right to exist. Israel’s actions have simply made it too costly to continue our relationship….
It is not our choice if Israel goes forward with settlements. They get to choose their future. Our only duty is to precisely define the options so they completely understand all consequences….. That precisely worded statement, is that if they do so, they do it without any of our help or aid.
Right Click for Full Image.
Issa’s hearing just got the lowdown on what happen that night Stevens died.
It is a very gripping tale of what went down. They were attacked. There was no warning. It was a 9/11 surprise that took everyone by surprise.
From the account of the attack, everything went according to plan. There were no glitches. There were no acts of cowardice. There were no mistakes made. Adequate and proper procedures were in place especially knowing the anniversary of 9/11 was intact. I was most impressed how the counsel of Turkey was walked out to the front gate by Stevens and they noticed the calmness of the city in the desert night. One hour later, Stevens would be dead.
Blaming the State Department for this incident is similar to blaming Rudy Giuliani for the 9/11 attack on New York, his city. It is stupid, arrogant, idiotic, and could only come from a Republican thug like Issa. He deserves to be deported.
There is something horribly sick in this Republican’s brain. Imagine blaming Giuliani for the loss of the twin towers. This Republican thug Issa deserves punched in the face, a thousand times. This Republican thug deserves to be outcast from the country he stole all his money from. America is too good for this thug Issa.
These guys who died were heroes. Stevens is a hero. Not some scum like Issa implies, who deserved to die for his cowardice. Just like if Giuliani had been a Democrat, this same thug Issa would have probably said it is a damn shame Rudy Giuliani didn’t die to rid ourselves of his disgusting caricature.
If someone had brought up that Giuliani was a hero, thug Issa would have dismissed that as poppycock. “He’s only acting that way to disguise his role in the tower’s collapse. He’s the mayor, he needs to die.”
Issa represents the soul of the Republican party at its darkest. That soul in hell would have no shame standing next to souls from parties such as the Nazis. Brown Shirts, or Red Communists, or the Spanish Inquisition. They would all be compatriots. Issa is simply in it for Issa. He is replaying Joe McCarthy’s role,… not of cleaning out communists from America, but making Joe McCarthy famous and important, and a household word. Issa is disgusting.
This attack and the real drama that ensued makes the State Department’s actions commendable. In offense and defense, truth is not a player. Obfuscation and distraction and fooling the other side, are as rightfully at home here, as they are on a football field. If the State department had announced the truth of the matter on the day Romney stepped forth and castigated in an embarrassing example of how he would lead in foreign affairs, then every Arab would see that every Embassy, every consulate was undermanned and an easy target.
All it took was forty men. You think you can’t find 40 disgruntled men in every country in which we have diplomatic relations? Hell, you can find 40 disgruntled men in Issa’s own district. Is he suggesting he now needs a bodyguard of 100 soldiers to now protect him?
The level of security to prevent this kind of surprise attack is unprecedented. In all honesty, we probably had sufficient security to repel such an attack in Baghdad. Other than that, every embassy, every consulate across the world was vulnerable to similar attacks.
It makes obvious sense that to protect American lives across this planet, especially those in areas where 40 disgruntled men having access to RPG’s can easily be found, one would not give out details that showed how easily every embassy, every consulate could now be attacked.
Obama should be commended. His state department acted very professionally in this crises. One can assume now that this has become public knowledge, sufficient security at a very large expense, including A10’s are now stationed to be at any hotspot within 5 minutes.
If you are going to castigate the Commander in Chief for Libya, you had better throw Rudy Giuliani in jail right now too. This Republican sham is easily seen. Republicans are the true enemy of Mohamed. Not the America Public.
Issa should be zip stripped and gagged, and kicked out of a car in Freedom Square in Cairo, with a sign, Ugly American, pinned to his back.
I’m joking, but they are not. It is time all Republican scum be humiliated, and exposed for the ugly frauds they are in public. Romney, Ryan, Issa, Boulton, Dan Senor, Cofer Black, Christopher Burnham, Michael Chertoff, Eliot Cohen, Norm Coleman, John Danilovich, Paula J. Dobriansky, Eric Edelman, Michael Hayden, Kerry Healey, Kim Holmes, Robert Joseph, Robert Kagan, John Lehman, Andrew Natsios, Meghan O’Sullivan, Walid Phares, Pierre Prosper, Mitchell Reiss, Jim Talent, Vin Weber, Richard Williamson, Dov Zakheim.
Romney/Ryan excluded, these people are the ones responsible for $1.5 trillion dollars of the national debt categorized under Iraq and Afghanistan. $1.5 trillion that future generations of American children will have to pay, out of which we simply got nothing, nothing at all. Not respect, not financial gain, not even a simple “thank you.” We’ve have exited Iraq, (Romney says we need to go back in) We are exiting Afghanistan in 2014 (Romney says we need to stay there indefinitely)
This new truth that came to light, really shows that President Obama was willing to take political heat just before an election which he could still lose, in order that American lives could be protected and made safe, before the truth came out. An America that can still elect a thug like Republican Issa, really doesn’t deserve as great of a self-sacrificing man as we currently have as Commander in Chief of the United States of America, a man who would put American lives above his own career. This nation is truly blessed to count such a man among its citizens.
(title is a chess reference).
There is no worse thing on this planet than a negotiator who agrees to a certain policy, waits for it to get set in stone, and then, just before that policy is implemented, says, no, I’m not for it anymore. People like that are called Finks.
That type of action turned all of America against the Tea Party who actually made it their career to say “we won’t agree until we get this”, and when they got “this” they stormed out anyway, saying “that is not enough, we won’t agree until we get that, and more…” and followed the same process over and over and over again…
There is nothing worse than people who do that….
The Catholic Bishops today are saying the compromise in which health insurers bear the cost of contraception, is not enough, even though it meets their objection of not having any Catholic money go towards paying for contraception…
That actually was a huge concession. Catholic hospitals and schools will not have to pay for contraception, but it will be available for all women who work there to use if they choose.
The current position being taken by the Catholic Bishops actually goes against Church doctrine as well as the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, himself….
(Remember, this is the exact same group that thought the best way to deal with priests who preyed Sandusky-like on alter boys, was to whisk them away where those guilty could abuse others who innocently had no idea beside whom they were serving the sacrament.)
The same group.
Bottom line, like the guilty priests, the Catholic Bishops got what they wanted. End of discussion. Any more discussion against this policy, and it becomes extremely obvious it is being done to support the Republican Party. The Church has been bought out by the 1%….
Back to why, prohibiting contraception in one way, violates the core spirit of the teachings of Jesus.
“Blessed are the Poor, for they shall inherit the earth”. “Give all you have to the poor, and you will then be able to enter the Kingdom of God.”
Obviously, if you don’t help the poor, you go to hell… Jesus could not have been more specific or clear.
When you don’t allow a woman to NOT GET PREGNANT, you force her out of being self sufficient, into becoming dependent on poverty.
Being against birth control forces women into poverty. Think about it. If you are single on a $40,000 job, and pregnant, you are out of $40,000 and have no income. Not only is the Catholic Church NOT GIVING ALL THEY OWN TO HELP THE POOR, but without free contraception, they are creating more and more poor, pregnant woman by pregnant woman, by the very position they take….
The Penn State disaster again teaches us the lesson as to why… moral behavior must be a human being’s number one guiding principal.
Looking away a decade ago, and not doing the right thing then, now erases away all the successes that Penn State has accomplished over the entire career of Joe Paterno.
The man walked on water. None of that means a damn thing now, nor will it, ever again.
It is just sad.
My only hope is that, when rocking the boat looks like an unsurmountable obstacle, that this lesson and seeing its ramifications, will maybe help others make the “right” decision the next time, and not fall for the “easy” one.
Under the Obama administration, things have never been better.
Today numbers were released showing us that productivity rose this summer by 3.1% and labor costs dived by 2.4%…
America is finally becoming an engine of economic efficiency. Fewer workers produced more product, than anytime in our nation’s history. Efficiency is the key to success… Labor costs are what made our goods too expensive to sell on the world market.
But wait. Isn’t that the opposite of where we want to be?
Shouldn’t we be looking at ways of being more inefficient if it means hiring more people to do more work? Do all of us rejoice at the prospect of earning less and less as our years pass by, instead of more and more?
But our corporations are doing well.. apparently. They are earning higher profits. Isn’t that what Mitch McConnell and Eric Cantor both stated? That the Bush tax cuts would create more jobs?
Fact: Job growth was rising rapidly coming off the Republican Recession of 2008 under a Democratic Congress and Democratic President, until, until, until the Bush Tax Cuts were extended through 2012. After that point, November 2010, when it became apparent they might continue,.. job creation stopped. Well not exactly. The amount of jobs being created by the private sector were matched by the jobs being lost by the Tea Party’s slashing at the current administrations budget. Government jobs lost, equaled or beat out, private jobs gained…
So… why is it that in a time of rising corporate profits, we have protests erupting in every city?
Obviously those figures of growth, are not getting to where they need to be.
So what needs to happen.
First, Congress needs to focus on people, not corporations.
That means:
Corporate money needs to be banned from all elections.
That means:
The cost of elections needs to come down considerably. Get rid of the campaign industry that escalates costs showing now discernible results.
That means:
Lobbyists can only interact with government in open sessions, where all is in the open and accountable to the payee’s: the American people.
That means:
Stacking the Supreme Court so it is anti- corporate, and votes so, whenever corporate aims are truly unconstitutional.
Pretty much, that is it.
Since Congress is owned by corporate money, (not in a sinister fashion, just by need) and it is they who make the laws, .. it is rather obvious to all that Congress needs to be more focused on the needs of its people, and not the corporations.
After all it’s the people who are suffering.. The corporations seem to all be doing fine.
She won’t change… That is essentially it. The darling of the Tea Party after the Democratic landslide, she kept her voice.
It is one thing to say outrageous things when you are trying desperately to keep a fire alive. It is another, to say outrageous things, when you are running for the most powerful position on the planet…..
The resignations that are coming at a quick pace now, are only cascading now because when they were first raised, she dismissed them. They couldn’t do that to her; it didn’t fit into her plan.
It is highly likely that her campaign is finished. Just today’s shots of her, show her disoriented, slightly unkempt, almost like she’d just come down off Xanex…
Not what I’d want running the country during a crises….
There is a reason she has no funding.
Her website has no meat, only fluff. Her one on ones are devoted to her insistence that Barack Obama be a one term president. .. When you ask her what she’d do, she repeats all of Dick Cheney’s lines from 2000…. Reminds me of Wendell Wilkie running against Roosevelt.
Those lines are old. Those lines are not working. Those lines are in today’s world, more unbelievable than they were in 2000. Those lines fooled us in 2000. They hopefully fool no one eleven years later…
She had one option to turn it around. She lacked the breadth to see herself in a historical light, and turned down that one chance…
That chance was to capture that silent majority of the American Republican Party… but dissing the extremists who once were her most strident supporters… They’ve left, not because she’s not conservative enough… but because other candidates are making more sense…
When all America is hurting, and we are losing government jobs more than the private economy is creating them… to argue to triple the number of people put out of work, is if not insane, at least in bad taste…
How can she change her luck? By being the first Republican candidate to accept the notion that we must increase revenue. That means raise taxes. Every Republican not running, knows we need to raise taxes. It just is. It is obvious. It is necessary, and it probably won’t hurt, it could even help the economy. We need to raise taxes…
When this was explained to her, by some of her innermost supporters, it was obvious she had no intention of running to win. It is obvious she was doing this for herself, and a handful of benefactors to whom she was bonded with bounds tighter than reality….
As word of this got out, all smart staffers began shuffling off the shift….
Including this one. Figuring on her mid-western common sense winning the day, I had predicted a comeback. Turns out, after seeing things up close, it is a one man operation that has no chance at success…
Which is sad. Her position on the intelligence committee, and the finance committee, would have been a wonderful springboard to bring American values to the forefront, and disassociate herself from the crap that both major parties carry with them…
There are millions looking for a rational alternative to the current President. The Republican who accepts that the wealthy must be taxed more, is the one, who would walk away with the nomination…
It is not corporations or think tanks or radio hosts, or Fox News that votes.. It is Americans.
Her ship is now dead in the water with no sails; pretty soon, her ammunition will dry up too….
And on Thursday, she had the world placed in her hand, and she shoo’d it away.
kavips 