Call Out The Press On Your Social Media Pages

In 8 short months, Americans have gone from trusting their press 44% of the time, to trusting them 17% of the time.

Undoubtedly their coverage of this election cycle is responsible.   There has never been an election in recent living people’s memory where the entire press corp has focused on supporting one candidate, who then drops out, then focused on another, who then drops out, etc.  Jeb Bush was the favorite until people actually started voting. It was him and Hillary said all the pundits… Jeb Bush is gone, gone, gone… Then it was Marco Rubio… He was the one all voters would elect in the end… Gone, gone, gone…  And so now… it is Hillary…

Which means that Bernie is about to be smeared no doubt…

First this is a good thing… Why?  Because it is better than being ignored which what has happened for so long.  For when a candidate gets smeared, he gets elevated in prominence and people pay attention to him…

Usually that is bad for a candidate, such as with Chris Christie, who once he put himself in the limelight of New Hampshire, couldn’t pass muster.  But when you have a prophetically good candidate who gets smeared, people look closer at that candidate and if they like what they see, they say, “wow, I didn’t know all these details about him.  Why was no one telling us all these great things?”

Then it becomes the smearers who are the ones who look bad… How many people today still have a good positive opinions regarding the Sanhedrin during the time of Pontius Pilate?

So today I saw a headline that Sanders Concedes Defeat.... Intrigued, I looked to see, since with Bernie having earned more campaign money than Hillary across the last three months in a row, I knew that was nothing close to the truth.  Upon reading the article, the headlines premised false.  The article quoted no one who said Sanders was done. Instead, it was twisted from the articles we have already seen about how Sanders didn’t attack Hillary strong on her emails and her Wall Street paid speeches… To be honest, most of us normal people see that as a good saintly thing in Sanders’ character:  choosing to base his campaign strictly on our needs and not on whether he by primary day stands a micro-inch taller than his opponent so he gets a “win”.

So I went to the comments on the social media sight  (It was “recommended” for me, not a real friend’s posting I later found out) and added to the hundreds of others, how the headline lied about the article it tops… “Click Bait” I posted. “This whole post is nothing but bullshit.”

I am asking you to not pass by these anonymous sites, but to do the same.. Just type in the comments: “Click Bait” and some type of warning…

I warn of this malfeasance every election year and since suckers indeed are born every year, new fish are always entering the pond, here is how these things are played….

A major paper, one of the top 5, runs a story with a headline that is very misleading.  They send it out on their multiple feeds…

 

The news is that the Wall Street Journal is reporting (the lie).. All those papers reprinting the lie are legally then telling the truth, and cannot be sued for liable (though they could with deep enough pockets), because they are reporting not the lie itself, but that the Wall Street Journal was reporting it…

The story’s instigators are hoping that the credibility behind the Wall Street Journal, spreads the story wide enough so it becomes belief and every new reporter focuses anew on trying to one-up the story to a higher level, instead of reporting on it being bull.

So news outlets are very careful at first, to make the distinction that they are reporting the accusation itself… not its validity;”the news” is that a certain outlet made such an accusation.  Nowhere is there any detail giving creedence to whether the claim is true.  And if anyone goes to the original article making the accusation, they immediately find no evidence. It is bunk.

In the past it was called Swift Boating where unanswerable accusations are thrown out, no rebuttals allowed to air, and massive proliferation ensues.  Such may have thrown a close 2004 election in the one state that made all thedifference.  All’s fair in war I guess.

It also was used by the Washington Post, to sink Joe Biden’s 2008 presidential run, as detailed here in 2007.  Here, when one combed that Washington Post article for proof, it came down to this single printed sentence… “that some on the editorial board “felt” Biden thought Blacks were poorer students than whites showing he must be prejudiced…”  In today’s  world, we have terrible corporate polices enforced on every state to close that very gap.  That was truth back then, not prejudice.  But the headline ran something like: “Biden Thinks Blacks Can’t Be Educated.”  Yeah, it was pure race baiting.

This is just how it works….  In those days when Facebook was something only college kids used, there was no way to combat the newspapers and medias reach. Today there is…. if you use it…

When you see a lie on your social media,  read the article, comment it is nothing but click bait and if you feel the Bern, put it up on your site ridiculing the perpetrators…  People don’t read junk.  They read what you wrote….

It is hard to convince anyone not to like Bernie… If enough of us call out the media where they get hurt the most, on social media, then we have fought a small part in the ongoing war to keep America in the hands of Americans… and not the hands of some Australian news conglomerate owner…

 

 

 

 

 

War On Schools….

Taking a page from the Republican play book, where one takes an event, finds the worst possible thing in it, and harps on that one thing ad nauseum.

So it is with the Newark Riots.

In an embarrassing glitch of sensational journalism, that could only have one purpose, elevate charters to appear better than public schools, Newark High was portrayed as having a giant riot requiring 4,000,000 policemen to come in from neighboring states to break it up…

Instead. Two gangs. 11 people, were fighting each other… and… no one was hurt.

Caught in the exaggeration of 4,000,000 cops coming in to handle the riot, the News Journal continues to drill down on it today…

You have already seen the NHS student letter written to the News Journal… The newspaper lied; a student calls them on it… Pretty sad when someone too young to vote has infinately more credibility THAN THE ONLY DAILY NEWSPAPER IN THE STATE…

“But it can’t be ignored that officers of the law were prevented from performing their sworn duty – which included protecting the rowdy onlookers. Their parents and guardians should be made aware of their role and some measure of responsibility and punishment needs to be considered”..

Can someone bitch-slap them for me?

It was 7 am… The students have just gotten off their buses and are headed to class… the halls are 15 feet wide. All students must pass the A cafeteria. There are over 1,500 students… No student is going to walk by people fighting in the hall… They stop. 1,500 students stop behind them…. The police who come last have to maneuver through 1500 students to get to the fight…..

Imagine police trying to crash through the waiting line to get inside Space Mountain?

There is nowhere in the original report of any mention where students intentionally were trying to keep police from getting to the fights. In fact, 99.9% of the students were on the police’s side of this. Arrest the bums and get them out! But there was nowhere to move.

Here is how a more responsible news organization reported the event….

“”They found a large crowd, as you can imagine at 7 a.m. in the high school, in the hallways at that location and multiple individuals were fighting,” he said.

And here is exactly how the News Journal reported it on Monday….

“The school staff handled it, but while officers were there several other fights broke out in the C and D hallway where officers found several hundred kids gathered, impeding their access to the ones fighting and [officers] called for assistance,” he said.

“Impeding” as in being stuck in the middle; not interlocking arms in protest to prevent passage of law enforcement!

And here is how the News Journal spins that story, and this comes from the editorial board itself…..

“It’s necessary to reinforce the value of respect for law-enforcement servants, who have sworn to protect the very students who interfered with their obligation to keep them safe. Those interlopers helped extend the brawls, and as a result, should be held equally responsible by school officials and city police.”

This is the textbook definition of “liable”. Falsehoods perpetuated by a commercial media. It is past time for a class action lawsuit against the News Journal over its damage done against every student in our public schools… If one takes the enrollment of last year from across the state… 133,369 and figures that they’ve done $1,000 damage per student (college remedial classes to undo Common Core), the minimum of the class action suit should begin at $133,369,000… This is the amount for what the News Journal should be sued over this defamation; it owes Delaware’s children for its past deceit and for choosing to not report facts going on inside the Delaware Department of Education, as they truly were…..

When it comes to education in Delaware and the News Journal editorial board…. you are always being lied to….. Either they are too lazy to check out a story; too rich to care, or are working solely off an agenda to elevate charters (which all know are worse than public schools) by denigrating public ed

Creep At Bloom Bodes Ill Wind For TDC

Did you know that Bloom Energy was operating beyond the scope of its DNREC permit? It took prying citizens’ eyes to discover this… DNREC says “oops” it didn’t know… I don’t think Bloom Energy has commented yet… But are we to assume that across this entire state, no one knew what the permit levels were, or that this plant was over-exceeding them?

The issue lies with their excessive use of natural gas. They are purchasing more than the permit allows… Not a big problem except that of course this extra purchase gets passed on to Delaware’s Delmarva rate payers in the form of extra charges on their monthly bill.

But what if the issue instead was pollution? Such as spewing out more radon than allowed. Or more mercury than allowed? Or more cadmium than allowed? Who would know? Someone? Ahhh, but who would say?

One very damning reason why the TDC cannot, and should not be allowed to continue in Newark…

For example, would you ever trust the entire state’s financial assets to a stock broker who was fined by the SEC for illegal actions? Oh, but wait. Excuse me. In this state we do… Not only do we trust this one person with all of our Treasury, who was fined over $900,000 by the SEC (he sits on the Cash Management Board), but when he whines over the idea of any transparency coming to the Cash Management Board, the governor and his movers in Legislature, remove the Treasurer from being able to watch over this Criminal running his hands through our state’s money?

So…. Can we trust this administration’s promises when they say they will keep a tight rein on the Data Center Project’s pollution?

What a silly question I just asked… When it comes to this administration, we already have our answer….

The….”Distraction”…..

Steve Newton, one of Delaware’s ablest analysts, issued the warning early in the year… I have since been on the lookout for what he called…. I believe…. The Great Distractor”….

This is a outrage so great, it dominates all discussion, to the extent no controversy can exist beyond it…  It gets covered in the News Journal.  It is the sole subject for weeks on end on the talk shows… etc…

Even bloggers take up the outrage, so inflamed are they and smelling blood, all want some credit for a kill….

Meanwhile, real bills that transfer the building blocks put in place over centuries of public schooling , get pulled and shuffled over to private enterprise….

Bluntly put, the rich get richer by picking all our pockets while we focus on the bar fight taking place on the floor directly in front of us, little realizing the entertainment is completely staged for our own fleecing…..

Yesterday the same topic dominated both the morning show, and afternoon show on WDEL….  Jonathan Starkey’s piece in the News Journal had done its part…..

There was considerable buzz; legislators were being called up on air, and duly pitching their outrage to get their name out in front of the voters….

The controversy is over the unclaimed property issue…   Basically everyone is upset over how the government can claim unused gift cards…  Yes, if you listened… that is what the entire controversy boiled down to. ,   The Republicans think they have an issue.  The Government is taking private property because…. they can….

So let us pop this “distractor” and get back to reality…   All this controversy is about who should own unclaimed property… Two people see a dollar bill in the road… Who should get it?  Why does one have more right over it than the other?  Should corporations be allowed to keep money that is not theirs?  If I find a wallet with $500, should I keep it and spend it on me?  Or should I turn it in to the police, and if no one comes and claims it, they then get to use the proceeds in their service to all….

Obviously, the latter is the more fair.  I certainly have no right to that wallet, except by some made-up rule …. finders-keepers.  Who does that money belong to?  It belonged to someone, one of those who are protected by the police, and who are an  individual just like me… Who is more likely to get an inquiry requesting whether anyone turned in a wallet with $500?  A random stranger (me)?  Or the police?….

Again, it is obvious to which one society would benefit having ownership of that dollar found in the street….. And the amounts of money are paltry… dollar bills for the most part….

Oh, but the outrage!!  The Outrage!   The outrage…..

“Look, Buzz, an alien……  Ha, made you look…… ”

There are some rather serious crises currently nibbling the foundation of the Markell and Democratic party.. Primarily they are two fold.  The economic folly of cutting taxes on the top 1% of Delawareans, who should be funding the state with their windfall capital gains earnings, and that folly’s impact on stifling job growth….  and the crises of building charter schools for “Friends of Jack Markell” by dismantling the public schools that have carried Delaware to prominence up to this point……

They almost need this distraction… In a very bad way….

• Meanwhile they they insist on pushing forward the TDC, to the detriment of all those 30,000 Newarkians who will soon be breathing cancerous particles 24/7….
• Meanwhile they insist on pushing a Charter School agenda forward when next year’s charter schools can only muster 40% capacity.
• Meanwhile they insist on pushing Common Core, by now a completely debunked curriculum, that was so obviously created to summarily give one educational-material corporation an advantage over all others….
• Meanwhile, Delaware’s budget shortfall grows as the economy suffers under too low taxes and way too few government jobs.
• Meanwhile, Delaware is seeing global warming increase all costs statewide, while those wealthy who were to blame for it, get to keep a majority of their earnings off of it, tax free…
• Meanwhile, Delaware is giving far to much of our precious few resources to corporations who repeatedly, had always failed to deliver any return for our investment….
• Meanwhile, Delaware is destroying the 39th best teaching school in America, the educational department of the University of Delaware, to water it down to the abysmal Common Core standards…..

What this administrations sorely needs….

Is ” A Great Distractor”…….   “Look, Buzz, an alien!”

Instead we should be watching out for……..

• House Bill # 334
• HB #333
• SB #210
• Looking forward to the necessary modifications to SB 51 and HB 165.
• And the fact that during these 8 years… Delaware’s children in poverty…. DOUBLED!
• Meanwhile, our cronyism allows our top income earners, to pay little or nothing in taxes……

That last one…… is the real outrage.…. one future generations will hold us accountable for decades to come………

 

 

 

 

 

Meanwhile

Oddly Parallel?

I was talking to someone who was in favor of Common Core, and yet a vehemently against a power plant going up in her back yard. I was able to show them that both processes were similar, and that she was at different points of the curve on the two separate topics, but they were both curves that were parallel and would end the same……

I got this great idea off of Norquist and pulled out a napkin where we were eating…….

The x axis stands for truth… as in what we know about a topic goes from zero to infinity, and the y axis represents our feelings of favorability towards the project as we learn more…..

As you can see,  when someone says… “a data center” we have no opinion at first…  We are at (0,0)  As we learn of jobs,  taking up a brownfield spot,  helping out the university by educating engineers,  putting topmost technology into our home, Newark Delaware, as well as selling power to the grid, our favorability towards it rises….  Yeah we could use all those things.

But then as we learn more, our favorability sours.   WHAT!  248 MEGAWATTS!!!!!  Excessive pollution.  Dangerous pollution,  for 75 years, very loud noise.  Huge cancer signatures around gas turbines. poisoning water, digging new gas lines through wildlife areas from Hockessin. A 24/7 operation.  The TDC was to sell the power plant, not the power plant being there for the TDC.  We sour. Something else, almost anything else could still give us the positives, without the negatives.   All those negatives were hidden and still would be, if citizens hadn’t ferreted them out.  There was never any plan to mention them if at all, until absolutely necessary…..

We lose favorability based on how much we know…  So those still supporting it, even Al Mascitti (unless he changes his mind while on vacation), aren’t more stupid than the rest of us… in fact, they are exactly like us, back when we were at that same point on the learning curve… Instead of bemoaning that TDC supporters are jack-stupid, educate them…  Then, after they’ve been educated, if they didn’t change their mind, it was not because they are jack-stupid.  It’s because they are sinister.  But really, when it comes to dying, very few people are really sinister. It’s really all about knowledge…..

This is exactly the same with Common Core!… This person with whom I was in this discussion,  is a member of the Delaware Chamber of Commerce and she was at the milktoast breakfast thrown at the Hotel Dupont where the Grand Poobah of the national Chamber of Commerce came in to elevate support for Common Core.  One assumes the Grand Poobah would know what he is talking about… Alas, he is a common man. He is no expert.   Because really, very few people there are privy to the facts.  You readers happen to be  far more privy to what Common Core is really about, because you have seen it here, with your very eyes, and are certainly quite capable to make up your mind yourselves…

I assured my friend, that when I knew as little about Common Core as she did, I too believed in it. Of course it makes sense to have standards the same across the country.  Of course it makes sense to raise the bar so students can’t loaf as much as they do now I thought… Of course it makes sense that if we don’t teach our children well, then the jobs will go to those nations which do teach their children well.  Of course it makes sense to pay those teachers who do well more, and to weed out those who’s real calling is obviously not teaching…   of course it makes sense to train teachers better, instead of throwing them into a classroom and saying:  Good luck, here you go…

But none of those are true I found out as I learned more… I learned that poverty is what makes students not perform well, otherwise we are all born equal… I learned that if you give someone a harder test who is relatively impoverished, they will flunk it worse than they flunked an easier test their society wouldn’t provide the necessary safety net to  enable them to study.  I learned that Common Core was all about money and politics.  I learned that Common Core was the brainchild of a mad scientist, David Coleman. Not a group of top educators.  I learned that Common Core actually shut out teachers, and was made with one goal: to make more money. When teachers objected, they were summarily dismissed.  I learned that it was getting rid of Shakespeare, and subbing in text on how to install a ceiling fan.  I learned that students in all of Delaware’s pilot programs were tuning out of Common Core subjects, saying they learned that stuff 5 years earlier.   I learned from inside the DOE that in the Common Core pilot classes of 2013, every pilot class had depressed scores.  I learned that this administration, co-oped the favor of the teacher’s union, whose leadership jumped in with both feet, and now the rank and file who see Common Core up close, have said loud and clear, they have no confidence in this administration’s roll out..  I learned that grown up professional adults, most of America’s leadership, could not pass a third grade math test.  IT is that hard!…  I learned that though the test is impossibly hard, but the standards will not even include 8th grade algebra, or trigonometry, or geometry, or pre-calculus, or calculus, all of which are offered now.  I learned the meat of Common Core is a crock of shit. Basically.

My friend is looking at me now with a dumb-ass deer expression…  sort of like… “Gee, I’m a dumb-ass deer…. I wonder what I should do now….”

“But, but, but, none of that can be true,”  she blurted out.. ” I was at the meeting with the Grand Poobah..  None of this stuff was mentioned. Common Core is our future… It is good, It is necessary for this nation……”

All I simply said was this:  “And on the power plant they didn’t tell you about the carcinogenic radon and sulfuric acid that would be dropping on your lawns, pets and cars, or the horrendous noise that never stops, or the amount of cancer rares that go up because of a power plant in your back yard, did they?…  And… when did you find out how big the 248 MW power plant really was?  That didn’t grow on you, you know… That was planned from day one… And…You only found out because other people told you.  Just like with Common Core, you need to see what other people are saying about it instead of taking the official side, and then make up your own mind…”

“I need to learn more about Common Core”, she said….

And if you dear reader still think Common Core is all good, then so do you……

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As an after thought, it struck me how this pattern has played out rather often since Markell’s second term began…..   Kinder-Morgan, Common Core, Delaware City expansion, Coastal Zone eradication, Charter School expansion.   Always a very dark undercurrent that only benefits the top 1% at the expense of 99% of the rest of us… It is sugar coated, given the Editorial Board approval, rushed in secret through the GA, where any dissent is squashed by Pete Schwartzkoph and Valerie Longhurst, and the signature gets applied, and commemorative pens are then handed out….   And it bears mentioning that in the first term there was also Fisker…. and Bloom… How much are we paying for Bloom right now with each electric bill?  How much did we pay for Fisker?

Well if you still think Common Core is good… do some reading…   If you don’t do your reading, (and who has time) you should not give it your support, but instead, … say you prefer the current system until you have time to find out more….  Because as the graphs above show, if you state your opinion too early… as you continue to hear more and  learn, you will be forced to change your mind…….

 

 

 

 

 

Disadvanteges Of Gas Turbine Power Plants

• Cost is very high
• Less efficient than reciprocating engines at idle speed
• Longer startup than reciprocating engines
• Less responsive to changes in power demand compared with reciprocating engines
• Characteristic whine can be hard to suppress

Translated to a loud jet engine larger than that on planes, sitting on the Chrysler Site running 24/7….  once it gets turned on, it stays on until it breaks down.

Remember those sissy’s who lived in Brandywine Hundred who were always bitchin’ bout those planes coming into Philadelphia International?  At least they got breaks between planes…..

Nominations for Delaware’s Person/Place/or Thing Of The Year

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….

Are Newark Voters Now Up For Sale?

It used to cost 40 pieces of silver. Now it costs $45,000 dollars.

Apparently there was a giant rally at the Chrysler Plant in support of the power plant. A quick check of car plates (and bumper stickers) showed that Union members from Philly, New Jersey, Maryland were there. Surprisingly, none identifiable from Delaware were there. The surprisingly few Delaware plates that were there, all were black, and stuck on the back of $70,000 cars or trucks…

It appeared to be an attempt to show Newark that lots of people still support putting in the largest power boiler in the state right next (only 20 Wal*Mart aisles or 200 feet) to houses with kids and dogs and cats playing in the yard….

But none of this crowd came to all the public sessions. All those were 20 to 1 against installing the power plant.

So vans of strange people who talked funny were roaming Newark neighborhoods last Saturday and Sunday. They put on two door hangers... One in support of the power plant. One in support of Polly Sierer, candidate for mayor.

Polly Sierer denies she knows who is doing it… “I wish they’d stop she says…” Well, one person whose name is on the pamphlets, is Mike Mullens. The pamphlet says for further information, contact the Delaware Department of Elections. A lot of people did.

The Department of Elections said…”we know nothing of this. Nothing at all”… Most politicos just shrugged and said, “well they got us; they filed under the window of the 8 day reporting, so we will have to wait for the year’s end filing to see who was putting up all this money… It has to be a lot of money.

Very late Sunday night,last night, someone actually looked up the code and discovered that Bob Gilligan changed it last year. And it was signed by Jack Markell. After my memory was jogged, I can now remember El Sonambulo discussing it on Al Mascitti’s show… They have 24 hours to contact the Department of Elections upon either spending or receiving money.

They scrambled all night and most of the day, trying to create a political action committee, get officers in line, get everyone’s story straight, and then file with the Elections Office… There is nothing still on the websites. The election is today….

Finally just before closing yesterday, around 4:46 pm, those who emailed request, begin to get their answers….

The PAC is worth $45,000! Prior to this notice, Polly’s 8 day report shows the total expenditures at around $5,000.… The PAC IS SPENDING 9 TIMES THE AMOUNT OF ANY CANDIDATE TO THROW THE ELECTION….. It may be throwing it your way if you are a Polly supporter; it is throwing it against you if you are not….

Polly still says she has no idea. The man she is pictured with on the PAC’s piece of literature, former Mayor Vince Funk, also says he has no idea of who is running the PAC that features him on the front page…

Here is what the Department of Elections told us….

Among its founding board members is Andrew Lubin, University of Delaware’s real estate director, who is responsible for the development of the STAR Campus….

It is safe to assume, that the University of Delaware is probably putting in $45,000 dollars to swing Newark’s election, in order to get the go ahead from Newark to build the largest gas boiler in Delaware…. nine times the amount any other candidate can raise….

The University of Delaware put up the money, and for cover, had the Delaware and New Castle Chambers of Commerce, the 100 Club, the Delaware Contractors Association, the Home Builder’s Association, Delaware Realitors Association, and a dummy corporation called DEED, for Delawareans for Environmental and Economic Development… a shill sounding name and website if I’ve ever knew one…. It had all these companies pile on…

Why not, to them it was free.

But they all got caught because of Gilligan’s law…

The question is, Newark… what are you going to do about it? Stand there and take it, let the University buy your vote as if you don’t matter, without you even considering any of the alternative?

Or……. you can set them back by voting for Amy Roe…. She is not for sale… nor is she someone who can be pushed around or bullied, she will have your backs…

I happen to think it is a pretty easy choice, but the beauty of democracy is that each one of you gets to decide… Your decision sets in stone a power plant for 75 years… Good luck Newark… As of 7am this morning, everything is riding on you…..

Penning At Will

Sometimes one gets so sad they just write what comes down.  I got that way reading Delaware Way which alerted me to the fact that Newark City was told the ancillary power plant would be very small,  the size for an IKEA….

It is really a gigantic contraption that will be the 5th largest power generator in the state.  It will run 24/7 under the pretense of keeping the data center running.  It will produce 248 MWh and will use 1MWh to power the accompanying data center, and will spin 50 MWh to the City of Newark for its power., which leaves it 197 MW to sell to the grid…

That is a lot of power.  According to Delmarva Power, it would cover 69% of  Delaware’s combined Residential, Small Commercial and Industrial customer’s electrical needs.

So by attaching a data center, Delaware gets to build a new power plant, this one built 200 feet from the nearest homes and neighborhoods, that operates 24/7.  No power plant attached to the grid, ever operates 24/7.  They all have downtime, but this one, because of the data center attached, will be allowed to operate at full capacity 24/7…. an investor’s dream.

So as I look back at Markell’s legacy across 5 years…  I see Fisker, Bloom, Delaware City refinery, and now the data center….  The Fisker was a bad deal.  In his defense, no one knew how bad.

But the Bloom deal with its attachment to our electric bills, the back-room manipulations regarding the Coastal Zone Act with the refinery, the medical facility outside of Middletown,  the snow job on the Kinder Morgan’s acquisition of the Port, and now lying in regards to this data center, make it look like the only way Markell can bring jobs into Delaware, is to trick the public into accepting it…..

There is a definite trend.  Very much like keeping the details of common core out of sight until too late…

Sadly openness and honesty do not abide here.

And that is just really sad.  Why do we have to trick everyone and why are we only getting shady offers to begin with?  Are we selling companies as a positive, our current administration’s ability to trick everyone?

It seems so long ago, I can’t even remember who said… “sunshine is an amazing disinfectant.”

Learning About the Quality of Education Through Violent Rape

Some title, huh?  If you can’t guess, this will be about the News Journal.   We are discussing credibility.

We know what credibility is; we don’t have to define it here for this audience…  Those of you who read the News Journal on a regular basis are aware of the violent rape that occurred in one of the Parks, and yesterday the two perpetrators, young boys of fourteen and fifteen were arrested, and are being held without bail….

I remember hearing the story, I didn’t read it, but was horrified that gangs of bottom level teens were marauding women in our parks.  What has Dennis William wrought upon us?

The real story is that two known prostitutes talked friendly to the boys, and offered them their services.  The boys thought they were getting turned on for free because they were hot stuff, and accepted.  Afterwards the girls tried to exhort payment.  Fourteen and fifteen year old boys in the inner city, don’t have that kind of money.  A fight broke out. The guys tried to get away but were held, and finally broke loose. The girls pressed the rape charge and told their story of being held down by large numbers of black men and raped.

The News Journal knew all this; yet didn’t print any of it.  The story became public through the good reporting one always finds on WDEL (where all the news is free btw).

What the News Journal did is called libel; when you print a lie, and hold it to be the truth.   Apparently the truth was too inconvenient for the News Journal to publish.  It destroyed “their” version of the story (We Can’t Have That), which will sell more papers.  To hell with two boys, incarcerated currently as we speak,  probably raped themselves by now, for agreeing to make out with a couple of girls who seemed friendly and to like them….  It is not rape when the girls initiate the action expecting payment;  if they’d gotten paid, no rape charges would be filed….

One should be infuriated at the actions this poorly reported story has caused.  The heads of the News Journal were reckless in publishing hearsay evidence without asking both sides; simply taking the prostitute’s views only.  All damages inflicted on these two young men, are the result of one false and poorly researched News Journal sensationalized story.

What does this have to do with their educational reporting?

Those familiar with the comings and goings of education reform incorrectly being reported in the News Journal, should immediately recognize the motif...  Tell only one side, Cream it up,  Do not, Repeat, do not, research anyone else who disagrees and knows the real truth…..

As goes rape, so goes educational reporting.

Only the official side gets told.  There is tremendous opposition among parents regarding the implementation of Common Core, based on the damage it did to school children in the 2012-2013 school year.   None of this has come to light.   There is a full court press of opponents to Common Core, so much it almost derailed HB 165, the Charter School legislation, because of the reform policies sneaked into them.

Has the News Journal even mentioned that serious harm is being done to children taking Common Core Classes.  Has it published the documentation demonstrating that Common Core is dumbing down our educational system instead of revamping it?  Has the News Journal mentioned that New York FAILED 70 percent of their students, and that is coming to Delaware?  Has the News Journal even mentioned that college ready is officially defined as being able to pass two years of the lowest grade community college in a row?  And that any student who learns only  Common Core, can never get into a top college or university, especially one of Ivy League status, no matter their IQ?  They simply lack the tools?  Has anyone mentioned that Common Core is separating us into two classes of education. Those privileged in private schools who will get all the good jobs, and everyone else in Public Schools who will fight over everything else?

These reports are all documented across the web.  In fact, there is more scientific evidence across the globe, done by professional evaluators, that speak ill of Common Core than speak well of it.   In fact, because I wanted to believe in it, I have been looking for one single study or example showing any positive results from Common Core teaching over the past 9 months… If it is out there, it is hiding from Google.  Meaning that, for the News Journal to print only one side of the Common Core debate, is on the same level as completely denying that Climate Change exists, ignoring all the mounting evidence to the contrary, and just reporting only what gets said by oil company executives.

I used to blame the new reporter on the Education beat for his one sided-ness.  I now apologize. With the inside knowledge on how this rape story is being mishandled,  I now understand all one-sidedness comes straight from the top… it is forced upon the reporters! The top management of the the News Journal, are sick, sick, sick.  Nothing they clear for publishing anymore is trustworthy….   It is a shame when Kim Kardashian’s alien love-child pictures in the National Enquirer have far more credibility than any of the News Journal‘s reporting on Educational Policy or a rape in a city park.

Period.