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Sitting with an accumulation a large number of people gathered for the holidays, and the feature is an old Star Trek move… “The Wrath of “something or other….
Someone surprisingly about 25 years old piques up… “Oh look! It’s that guy from .;… Priceline.!….”
Oh my….
Social Security despite its dislike by the wealthy class, finally became law. It now appears Obamacare has passed it’s last and final trial by fire and will soon take it’s place next to Social Security as a basic American right…. it is so funny that it was invented by Romney, isn’t it? I wonder how soon until he starts taking credit for the idea.
There are 8 working days left in the House of Representatives… Although 47 bills repealing Obamacare have already passed the house, none have been put on the floor ever since the October 1st government shutd0wn…
The only bill exiting the House, was the one to delay it for only a year on the pretense of fixing the computer errors. It turned into a giant misfire for the Republicans….
The head of the Republican leadership, is beginning to see it is impossible now to derail Obamacare…. It is one thing to get rid of a potential bugaboo which no one has any idea of what it does… It is a totally different thing to take away 2 million American’s insurance plans, and leave them stranded with no insurance. Acts like that play poorly during election time, and an election is only 11 months away.
The House ends the year in 8 working days. When they return after New Year’s, all those insurance plans for which they shut down the government to prevent…. will be in effect…
So the fight is done,…over,….. finished,….. caput. The Republicans will still keep close tabs on Obamacare, looking for any stories that discredit it, then trumpeting those ad nauseum… But their aim in doing so is not to remove Obamacare. At this point, they are solely looking to fan any flame possible in order to drive their voters to the polls next November….
As for Obamacare, it appears the fix is in.
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….
Please read Steve’s reports on Delaware’s offshoot of Homeland Security here, here and here….
We are getting our money’s worth with this bunch, that’s for sure… I wonder when they’ll let civilians drive it? I think the monster mile would be a good test track for civilians to get the opportunity….
Can you imagine seeing this thing pass you on the Delaware Memorial Bridge and at the apex it goes sailing off into the sky? What will they think of spending our money on next…
(I want one btw. )
As one progresses through life one becomes more humble. When young, one believes it is his own actions that create his or her success. Old age tells us it was just luck. We see others come later, more talented, smarter, better looking, not achieving what we once did. We have to accept we were just simply in the right place at the right time to grasp an opportunity.
Being thoughtful people, as one sees more, one ponders more. Similarities do take place on opposite sides of the globe. Similarities that perhaps could be random, but for them to occur in non random frequencies, belies something else might be in play.
It is with that in mind, I notice that across the red states of the United States, primarily a bastion of fundamentalist conservative theocracy, the weather is changing. Basically, there is no rain…. Secondly I have noticed that the weather in Oklahoma is every year, corresponding more and more like those dry, hot , sandy climes on the other side of our planet, which coincidentally, are also occupied by a bastion of fundamentalist conservative theocracies, practicing something very similar to Oklahoma policy but over there it is called Shara Law…
The unproven theory, one derived deeply out of the forges of possibility from quantum mechanics, is that as we evolve to think like Muslims, our weather evolves to behave like we are Muslims.
Currently there is no difference between those thought processes and actions of legislatures of Oklahoma, and those existing in Muslim countries like Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen…
The climate is racing to catch up to the Middle East with this three year drought in Oklahoma….
As any follower of monotheism well knows, when a people sin and go the wrong way, the weather catches up to punish them. I simply am offering that is what is happening in Oklahoma….
Unless you read one of the big newspapers you will never hear of this… From yesterday’s sequestration hearings on Capitol Hill:
United States Army Chief of Staff Raymond T. Odierno elaborated on the impact that these indiscriminate, across the board cuts would have on military readiness in the Pacific and the United States Pacific Command.
“First, as I talked about 80% of our force having to stop training this year that includes our forces in Hawai’i, that includes our forces in at Fort Lewis that are in PACOM so they will be significantly degraded capabilities that they would have to respond to anything that goes on within Pacific Command. Additionally, the Army is responsible for providing a significant amount of communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater. Their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 but beyond. We have tried to fence our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that. But the cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well. So for us it has a significant impact on our ability in the Pacific for the next several years,” said Odierno.
- 80% of our forces will have to stop training this year.
- Communication support, intelligence support, logistical support to the PACOM Theater; their ability to do that will also be affected by sequestrations specifically in the Fiscal Year 13 and beyond.
- Our capability in Korea to make sure they are at the highest readiness level. We will continue to do that to the best that our finances will allow us. But cuts in family programs, cuts in soldier programs, cuts in our civilians will also impact Korea as well…
- Just as we trim the forces in South Korea, North Korea puts us on a Defcom 4.
It is obvious with yesterday’s nuclear explosion on the northern half of the Korean Peninsula, we can’t cut the Pacific. If we try we are going to run cost overruns. This is just as silly as your boss setting financial goals that have never been proposed before and you simply know you will go over them. You accept that because it is impossible to meet them.
So how can we fix it?
We need just $86 billion extra per year. That is a lot for you and me, but for the wealthy, that is nothing. In fact Kinder Morgan just bought out Caldone for 8% of that: $5 billion. Prior to that, it just spent $21 billion on El Paso Gas. One company buying another company it didn’t need. Comcast just bought NBC for $13 billion. That’s almost half the total amount needed, thrown away on another company that would have been fine if left alone. See how easy it is?
Just a few more companies like that, and we could pay enough to keep our military in top shape. We don’t need sequestration.
Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, $86 billion is nothing to them. Each alone could cover the cost of our military.
Point is, we have the money just sitting there. Sitting out there all alone, saying “take me, take me.” All we have to do is go get it, and we can cut our deficit at the same time as we keep ourselves protected by having a first rate defense.
It is no different than a family of four on a tight budget, stopping beside a field of wild strawberries and picking their next few meals.
We can do this… $86 billion on just the top richest 400 people is only $215 million each… That is nothing, nothing to them. What farmer will miss having wild strawberries getting picked out of his hay crop? As a nation, let’s just take it; it is there, it is begging for it, and we’d be doing an awful lot of good for everyone involved….
Tom Gordan has a chance to show what he is made of. If he comes down against Abbot’s developer, Frank Acierno, we will know he is the real thing back in action supporting the wills of residents over the wills of Pam Scott’s friends Briefly here is the deal. On one hand you have:
- Developed floodplains.
- Horrendous traffic intersections.
- Change in the actual character of the Community
- Shopping Center across from church and school
On the other hand:
- More money for Frank Aceirno and Rich Abbot.
You know who is for it; here is a list of those who are against it….
- City of Newark; City Government
- Holy Angels School and Church
- McDonalds Main Street Newark
- State Rep. Mike Ramone
- State Rep. Paul Baumbach
- State Rep. John Kowalko
- State Rep. Edward S. Osienski
- State Rep. Joe Miro
- State Sen. David Sokola
- Windy Hills Community Association
- Every single human being whose commute takes them through Possum Park intersection.
This is a healthy reminder as to why we have democratic government. The tract includes some nice forests – a 60 acred piece that is
almost totally wooded and has WCC frontage and 2 blue line streams with
forested buffers. All in all some great habitat.
The perpetrators are attempting to sneak through a rezoning of a piece of property considered green, consisting of protected resources – eg. Critical Natural Area, Creek, Stream, Floodplain, Wetlands, Steep Slopes, and Mature Forest and have it rezoned into Regional Commercial. Once that rezoning is complete, anything can be done to that property at any point into the future, no matter what the current assurances by the developers are. With this month’s rezoning if it takes place, in 10 years, with a more favorable administration, a hot, drippy sex club could be built on that property. Who knows!
However, a wall of bipartisanship has swelled up against this project. Every one, Democrat, Republican, Independent thinks it is a bad idea….. This again is the classic tale of people versus big money.
We know who should win; but we don’t yet know who will win….
Call Tom Gordan and let him know. We had an election. Developers don’t run New Castle County any more.
kavips 