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When riots happen in Wilmington, which i’m sure they will, I hope they will learn from Ferguson Missouri’s mistake.
That mistake is to riot in your own neighborhood… That is just plain silly. Did we attack ourselves when the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor? Or did we wage war with Japan?
Why people would loot and burn in their own neighborhood, is beyond me. I write this now, so when the opportunity to riot does occur, those with above average intelligence will have a plan to move the crowd out of their impoverished neighborhood, and instead riot in neighborhoods where the a) the loot is much better, and b) those responsible for the policy that has kept you down since Clinton left office, are directly affected. If you are going to riot, you should do in on the enemies home turf. Republican Country.
A riot has a purpose. It is to change things. To make things better by creating a situation that is worse than doing nothing, therefore something has to be done. Blacks didn’t protest on the back seat of the bus. They sat in the white section. Black students didn’t do their sit-in at the black counter. They did it at the white. Black students didn’t march into Tuskegee Institute with the National Guard. They marched into the all white University of Alabama. Martin Luther King didn’t do his marches within all black neighborhoods. He marched across the bridge into downtown white Selma….
So battling police in your own neighborhood, looting your own corner store, burning out yours and your neighbor’s houses, kind of double hurts you. Not only are you being oppressed by Republican Policies, but you are also setting those who support you, back even more….
So I’m writing this to tell you where to protest so it will do you some good.
It is called Westover Hills. There aren’t many people living there, but those that do are rich and very old and feeble. They couldn’t stop a crowd breaking into their house if they tried. Plus, when you loot, you could actually get something you could sell. Whose going to buy all the banana flavored Laffy Taffy you stole from the corner market? But you could easily swipe a Bose Stereo, or maybe find a safe with a couple of hundred thousand in it.
And instead of hurting mom and pop, or Uncle Joe and Aunt Alice, you would be hurting those whose money is directly responsible for you not having a good job, a good house, a good future. Those in Westover Hills vote Republican and it is Republicans who have allowed all the money to go to the top 1%… and none to you…
If you remember the Clinton Democratic years, it was different. You, or your mom and dad, did get richer every year and if that had only continued, you would have been doing rather well by now. But you got lazy and enough of you didn’t vote for Democrats in 2000 and now, we are stuck with the rich getting richer, and you and your neighbors, getting poorer…
So take the number 20 bus from 10th and Market side of Rodney Square and in 8 minutes and 15 stops later, you will be just north of the riot zone. Do your peaceful protests there, in the middle of the streets, and shout how Republicans have ruined everyone’s lives but those of themselves… When the riot police arrive with their single tank and tear gas, make them fire it at you so all those rich billionaires have to breath it too. Then when all hell breaks loose, break into the houses and rob yourselves silly. Don’t even worry. Unlike those corner stores, everything you take here is fully insured… Destroying their property, will in days, put all Delaware’s construction workers back to work. These guys are rich. They don’t dilly-dally around.
The main point is this? When you riot in your own neighborhoods which these Republicans never venture into, it only serves to reinforce their notion of you as a sub-human race. “Look at those pathetic people”, they will say over their Maker’s Mark and Hennessey, “they’re tearing up their own neighborhood. Maybe we should keep them doing it so they move and haul their sorry asses elsewhere.”
They will not be in any hurry to lift one finger… “make them suffer more” will be their outcry. But … if you do it in THEIR neighborhood, they will at least wonder why? In their asking around, what’s the real cause of these people rioting, they will come to the conclusion that they, with all the money, need to invest more, need to hire more, need to pay more, and that if they had previously invested more in our people, this riot would never have happened. That is your key… Getting them to call their out-of-pocket legislators and say, “raise my taxes; we can’t afford any more riots like these, even if we are insured. It’s the third time this year. I’m too tired for another round of tax free shopping!”…
You can even walk there. So forget the bus. Just send the coordinates out on social media, and anyone with a phone app can get there…. It is pointless for you to have to bear the cost and trauma of what THEY caused. It makes such great sense for them to bear that cost, and after doing so, quickly create the changes you need to pull yourselves out of poverty…
So pastors and neighborhood watch leaders. Start talking your kids to riot in Westover Hills, instead of your own street. Isn’t it about time, the real criminals get to feel the heat?
They are the ones who put you there…. Make THEM pay, not those who are poor like you. And pick up something nice for me while you are there… A nice oriental carpet would be cool… blue and white if you find one.
We hail our fallen heroes. Hopefully many of you stirred some dull roots with spring rain today:… memories, both a blessing and a curse.
But for whom did they die?
Did they die for….
Top 5 Contributors, 2009 – 2014, Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC Contributor Total Indivs PACs
AstraZeneca PLC $71,550 $36,550 $35,000
JPMorgan Chase & Co $58,200 $33,200 $25,000
Ashland Inc $55,420 $25,700 $29,720
Blue Cross/Blue Shield $46,000 $6,000 $40,000
Bank of America $40,440 $3,940 $36,500
Those were Tom Carper’s top 5 contibutors……
Or did they die for….
Top 5 Contributors, 2009 – 2014, Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC Contributor Total Indivs PACs
Young, Conaway et al $121,300 $121,300 $0
Skadden, Arps et al $92,600 $87,600 $5,000
Grant & Eisenhofer $70,049 $70,049 $0
Comcast Corp $69,200 $44,200 $25,000
Morris, Nichols et al $57,550 $57,550 $0
Those were Chris Coons’ top 5 contributors……
Or did they die for…....
Top 5 Contributors, 2013 – 2014, Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC Contributor Total Indivs PACs
Investment Co Institute $12,500 $8,140 $2,500
Skadden, Arps et al $10,640 $8,140 $2,500
National Multi Housing Council $10,500 $0 $10,500
Bank of America $10,250 $750 $9,500
AstraZeneca PLC $10,198 $250 $9,948
These are John Carney’s top contributors……
Our state relative to nationally, is actually on the good end of campaign contribution spectrum. Nothing here, is really out of line. You should see some in other states…
But let us isolate by industry…..
For John Carney….
Top 5 Industries, 2013 – 2014, Campaign Cmte and Leadership PAC Industry Total Indivs PACs
Insurance $96,520 $2,820 $93,700
Securities & Investment $93,000 $1,500 $91,500
Lawyers/Law Firms $59,110 $45,610 $13,500
Commercial Banks $49,000 $1,250 $47,750
Finance/Credit Companies $43,250 $5,250 $38,000
For Chris Coons…….
Top 5 Industries, 2009 – 2014, Campaign Cmt Industry Total Indivs PACs
Lawyers/Law Firms $1,495,387 $1,341,519 $153,868
Leadership PACs $512,900 $0 $512,900
Lobbyists $345,302 $325,472 $19,830
Securities & Investment $296,800 $235,300 $61,500
TV/Movies/Music $228,157 $163,800 $64,357
For Tom Carper……..
Top 5 Industries, 2009 – 2014, Campaign Cmte Industry Total Indivs PACs
Insurance $371,710 $94,470 $277,240
Securities & Investment $320,340 $125,840 $194,500
Lawyers/Law Firms $294,382 $170,761 $123,621
Lobbyists $214,262 $207,042 $7,220
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $207,710 $50,300 $157,410
And now, in what I believe is the first time ever…. here is the combination giving you an idea of who influences our 3 man delegation… Compiled by adding together all three’s industry totals listed above and then ranking them top down…..
Lawyers/Law Firms …………….. $1,848,879
Securities & Investment ……………. $710,140
Insurance…..,,,,,,,,,……………. , …… $668,257
Leadership PACs ………………………. $675,400
Lobbyists ………………………………,…$568,779
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products $486,108
Commercial Banks …………………….$435,240
TV/Movies/Music……………………….$292,067
Finance/Credit Companies………….$208,865
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And that is who owns our delegation…. Just seeing the visual makes it clear why some of the anti-people votes cast by this delegation, … are ever cast at all…. No, contrary to how we exclaim… They are not insane. They are practical….
It will get worse with McCutcheon passed…
Already the amount of dark money as shown by tallies done by the Center for Responsive Politics show that nondisclosing groups have already reported spending more than three times as much as they had at this point in the 2012 elections — a presidential cycle when higher spending would be expected.”
Did you get that? The unprecedented spending done in 2012, a contested presidential year, as of now been tripled over the same point of time back in 2012…….. . And it is both sides. In the past dark money was 80% Conservative, 20% Liberal. Today (2014), it is 60% Conservative; 40% Liberal… Spending by liberal nondisclosing groups is more than four times higher than it was at this point in 2012, while their conservative counterparts have tripled their previous spending level……
Which means, no tv watching this summer… and social media will become a real turn-off…. Both mean that most of America will tune out this election… Thank you, Supreme Court….. What were you smoking?
And if most of America tunes out this election, it again begs the moral and serious question…. for whom did they die? Certainly not us.
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…….
Courtesy of Newark’s True Residents
If anything is clear over how things have moved with the establishment of the power plant across the public’s eyes these past nine months, it is how the Newark Public is being manipulated by outside interests.
When one finds why they are being manipulated, they must first ask why? Why did you not tell us the truth up front in the beginning?
In the beginning for those who an still remember, there was just a Data Center, that to insure constant coverage, would have a small auxiliary clean natural gas fired do-generator to supply electricity to the facility in case of power failure….
Why were we lied to?
The answer is simply, like the reason anyone lies, ever, that if they told us the truth they would never get the power plant opportunity.
The truth is that the largest gas fired generator in the state will be built 200 yards away from someone’s back yard. The truth is that one of the largest polluters in the state, will be within a mile of a University of over 15,000 students. The truth is that two miles from Delaware’s largest single output smokestack, lies a Main Street that has just seen over 100 million in renovations, both public and private… The truth is, that the air of Northern New Castle County, will now be dominated entirely by a burner larger than any single burner in Millsboro, or Foxmoor, or anywhere else in the country…. This one is right in the middle of town.
So of course if the truth had been told, it wouldn’t pass…. Duh…. Why are you shocked, shocked you were lied to?
Silly Newark people. What did you expect? Openness? Honesty? C’mon. Were you all just born yesterday?
So you lost two close fought battles….
The US lost Pearl Harbor and Subic Bay, but signed the Armistice in Tokyo Harbor. The Allies lost all mainland Europe, but ended the war in the middle of Berlin… So don’t even think this is over. The last meeting in Newark showed some interesting opportunities….
One. Those supporting the power plant have used all their resources. Ads, mysterious PAC’s, back-room deals, imported activists, bribes?, sponsors, promoters, all the best that money can buy… and they have just barely squeaked by with very narrow victoreis…
Two. These opponents are just getting warmed up. At their advantage is the feeling of a whole city, a whole county that will have to breathe the results of this decision for 75 years hence… The information, or truth, is on the side of the opponents. That this will be killing you seventy five years from now, is a very effective argument… It is an argument that seems distant if glimpsed from far away, but one which grows in importance with every step closer to that mark… Except for 50 assorted jobs, all short-termed economic benefits will be gone in 3 years.
Here is where it stands.
Short Term Gain at the price of Long Term Suffering….
Fact: if Newark does choose to go forward with this power plant it will pay for its consequences for the rest of its life. Liken it to this scenario…..
Imagine two teenagers exploring each other for the first time. Making out, the usual things, and trying to figure if they want to go all the way…. Hormones are flowing and the thought processes have pretty much been shut up into a box…. They decide to go for it, and take off their clothes, and jump into the bed and continue making out… Then just as one of them swings over and gets on top, the other see the rash….
Newark is there now; it has just seen the rash… (It’s in the images up top, if you still don’t “get it”.) The cost of going forward will, like the rash, last forever. Question is, will just the sight of it dissuade Newark from continuing its momentary psychological fantastical rush? Don’t know. Can’t say. That is up to Newark. But there are a lot of people out there in society today who are presently wearing rashes and wish they weren’t, is all I will say….
But it should not be lost that the opposition has put up everything they have, and still it barely came out of the last confrontation with more than a draw. Once it truly becomes apparent to those locals deciding this issue, that they will become Newark pariahs if they continue supporting TDC, the decisions currently being made will fall in line differently. Right now to those deciding, that vision is not crystal clear. If the power plant opponents are truly serious, it would seem that a door to door campaign with red signs in hand, handing out the charts above, and asking permission to put signs in each property owner’s yards, would be their most effective weapon towards keeping that lifetime rash away from Newark….
Call it a public education campaign if you want, but if so it is one that bypasses our media-whores too afraid to turn away free cash for each trick they get to turn….
“We should work towards gun laws that are similarly configured, out of an abundance of caution and recongnition of the preciousness of schoolchildren…. “
New York is exploding. Not only with the mayors race which is centering now on the Bloomsberg educational policies, but the debacle of test scores across the state, those same ones that failed 70% of all kids in New York State, have driven passions up to a feverish pitch.
If you thought Rodel has always been on the right track, you need to see what is happening in New York State.
For those who don’t still know, the idea behind school reform is that you implode the public educational system, destroying it so badly, that private schools or charters, can move into the vacuum and educate children for a profit…. That is the underlying premise behind educational reform. If a school is doing well, you say it isn’t, you force it to do test after test until it really isn’t doing well, and then you close it.
Philadelphia, Chicago, and DC all shut down tremendous numbers of public schools this year. They intend to give the empty buildings to their friends for free, and allow them to open schools on those premises. Their friends stand to make a lot of money.
Charter schools thrive on choice. Every parent wants to choose the best for their child, and charter schools sell that well. “Our student are good “they say, “for if they get low scores we kick them out. That is why our scores are so high…”
And it is true. If one looks at Delaware’s highest scoring school, it is a Charter. but it is a Charter with hardly any blacks, and hardly any children on free lunch… So duh… it’s scores are higher. The problem in such a comparison, is that public schools, with the same amounts of rich white kids sprinkled with a few Asians, do better than charter schools of the same mixture. Public schools have more resources; public schools teach better. Likewise upon looking at the low end, where almost all the students are on free lunch, public school low income students, score significantly higher than do their counterparts in Charter Schools. Again, more resources.
But charters still argue with choice. If your school is failing they say, why should your kid be forced to remain in a failing school? That argument is very deceptive and certainly rings true upon first hearing…. Why would we keep a genius in a bad school, when a great one opened up a block away?
The answer to that question is simply not every child is a genius. As there is a ying to a yang and a Laurel to a Hardy, their is a Sith Lord to the aura of choice… (Dark Side; get it?) 🙂
That is that 40% of kids in Charter Schools get kicked back to public because they are bringing down the test scores.
So… 40% is the same as 2 our of 5, or 4 out of 10…. Choice is ruining the lives of 2 out of every 5 kids, … They got pulled out, and pushed back; losing a whole year because their parents “choiced” them into a school that taught by test scores…
So offering choice, ruins the lives of 2 out of 5 students. That is two who are ruined to three who make it. Now if there is nothing wrong with the public school to begin with, we just created a negative situation out of one where none occurred.
2 people our of 5 would have learned had that Charter not opened. Actually all 5 would have learned. But now, 2 people out of five are remedial, simply because the Charter School wants to lie about their high test scores…
So when someone pulls a Diller and starts screaming that children need a choice…. let them explode and while their insides are dripping off the ceiling, … say “by your figures, two out of 5 students will be forced to transfer out to keep your schools test scores up. Where is their choice? Those people don’t have a choice. They can chose to go into a charter school, and you’ll get to keep the money, but they can’t choose whether or not they get to stay.
Better to have all students succeed in a good public school, than force 2 our of 5 to become the Lost Society…
Photo Courtesy of The Atlantic
My guess is yes. Remember how the election of 2000 forgot all about the national debt headed towards zero. It forgot all about the greatest economic boom in America’s history. It forgot about the prosperity that every quintile of the American Public experience growth from one year to the next. It forgot about the peace that was in the Balkans. It forgot about the curtailing of Welfare. The election in 2000 was decided on morality. More people in those good times were interested in “morality” than what was good for the economic future of this country. Because of “morality” (translated as sexual immorality) even smart people could not bring themselves to vote for more of the same, and instead switched to something completely different. It was close. Florida proved it, but had that immoral incident never been brought to light, … things would have been so much different today. it affected that many voters, enough to throw an election in the middle of the biggest boom times ever, to the minority party.
That is a valuable lesson. Now for a known Obama supporter and guide, to have severe misgivings over this use of secrecy and reading all data on all citizens, and keeping them for future reference, (one can only think for sinister reasons), is very telling. This is a gut mover; one like having the president dally with an intern which sets a lot of people off. Both are impossible to justify. The simple fact that all this information is for sale to prospective employers, competitors for the next promotion, or spouses wishing to exit a relationship, has grave consequences to a lot of American’s private lives. And it is not that they did something bad. It is that accusations (unfounded) can be made on piecemeal information (as was done by Issa in the IRS hearings) and the citizen of the United States cannot defend his actions. In fact, he never knows of what he was accused. He gets turned down for this, or for that, and it is all from a mistake…
The Obama Administration is in grave danger of losing his place in history. His legacy will be shadowed by his upholding of this secret spying. He has only one out, and it must take place now; surprise everyone, and his legacy will be saved, as well as create a democratic administration which will not undo, as was promised by Romney, everything the current president has put in place.
Here is what he has to do.
1) Fire and replace the current director with someone Constitutionals trust.
2) Declare all NSA actions will now be open. FOIA will apply to the NSA.
3) Remove all objections to lawsuits in court, which seek clarification over whether the Constitution was violated or not.
4) Since the NSA is in charge of domestic spying, (the CIA does International), the NSA rules need to change to that of the FBI. Though not perfect, secrecy is still kept, but the super-secrecy is stopped.
5) Warrants will be required for all searches. That is the minimum of what the Constitution requires.
6) Encourage all internet providers not to cooperate unless they have a court order requiring them to do so for each person. Outlaw blanket searches. Outlaw phishing.
7) Admit the NSA went overboard, and take the responsibility for it. Say it was a mistake, which you plan and hope it will be fixed long before you hand over the White House keys to your successor.
Mark my words. If a very moderate Republican (Christie) ran and said he would “shut down the NSA”, he would get my vote as of now. This is serious and you had better listen to those outside of Washington, before you listen to those within. if you are skeptical, I don’t blame you. But I have to tell you, we survived Bush; we can survive a moderate Republican who is far more clear headed and able to stand up to nut case conservatives, which was Bush’s biggest personal fault; he caved. You need to understand that all that damage by Bush, affects my children far less than having them be slandered for something they know nothing of, or did not do because it is attached to their name. Our privacy is of utmost importance to us. Just like America sent a signal that sex in the White House would not be tolerated, you are in the same boat now. Clinton won the impeachment battle. It cost Gore the next election.
The Republicans have something on you here; you are guilty; this is scary stuff. Any dodging, or keeping the status quo, hurts your legacy every day it exists in its current form. You know what you have to do, and the sooner it gets done, the sooner all talk among our citizens goes back towards getting rid of Republicans completely, so we finally can fix the economy.
It would be one more thing.. you got right.
It is clearer now that the biggest benefactors for the NSA spying were commercial enterprises. The Obama administration went along with the Bush plan and accelerated it, primarily to give American companies a heads up, and keep jobs here. It worked too.
One can’t argue with success. But one can find how American businesses were co-opted to assist the NSA. From the Guardian, the following, allegedly from Snowden himself.
• Microsoft helped the NSA to circumvent its encryption to address concerns that the agency would be unable to intercept web chats on the new Outlook.com portal;
• The agency already had pre-encryption stage access to email on Outlook.com, including Hotmail;
• The company worked with the FBI this year to allow the NSA easier access via Prism to its cloud storage service SkyDrive, which now has more than 250 million users worldwide;
• Microsoft also worked with the FBI’s Data Intercept Unit to “understand” potential issues with a feature in Outlook.com that allows users to create email aliases;
• In July last year, nine months after Microsoft bought Skype, the NSA boasted that a new capability had tripled the amount of Skype video calls being collected through Prism;
• Material collected through Prism is routinely shared with the FBI and CIA, with one NSA document describing the program as a “team sport”.
it is revealing that the beneficiaries of the Patriot Act and probably one of the reasons it has been intact long after terrorism faded offshore, are the exact same who are suing each other left and right, using the anti-piracy laws as their barrage. It appears that laws are not for people anymore; they are for corporations. It is corporations who want the US to fund listening posts for every American word and sentence.
The only way to fix that, is to divide the corporations Teddy-Roosevelt-style, thereby giving We, the People a little more clout. …
This is old news actually. It closed the 25th of February after being open for a month. Originally it was to be open for two weeks, then with a lack of participation, was extended for two weeks more.
To understand education in Delaware you need to see the results here….
Originally the anticipated rate was 50%. Some of us encouraged more to participate, in order to get a fuller picture of what problems were being faced with the corporatization of Delaware’s school system. Otherwise known as the “Pay To Learn Plan”…(PTLP)..
6025 out of 10731 educators completed the survey. That is over the target by 10 percent.
There was another contingent of educators that was encouraging teachers not to take the test. It was a trust issue, and to be valid, if the results were changed from negative, and switched over to that of supporting by those now with access to the raw data, a favorable outlook could then be presented without it really being true. Having a majority appear to sign on to something done in secret, and no one really knows if the data is accurate, could be damaging to our students if the data were not trustworthy and true…
Granted, this manipulation is easily done in a digital age…
However, some of us realized that if the concerns of our teachers were not met, our children were doomed. We understood that the test could be manipulated to show wrong data. There existed this option where if the data was being manipulated, we were damned if we did, and damned if we didn’t.
Tennessee is undergoing terrible times right now. They rushed into the RTTT with Republican Legislatures and a Republican Governor, and immediately unions were dissolved. Although now its structure is in place with testing out the gazoo, they are in dire straits to fill teaching positions that are rapidly being vacated by disillusioned educators heading out for other states.
Tennessee’s children will now suffer worse with RTTT than had their state not opted to Race To The Top.
That is why, only a true representation of teacher’s views toward the handling of the imposition of Common Core, (this race to scrap our entire current public educational system and instituting a brand new corporate one), could lead us away from Tennessee’s fate.
It was the only defense against having Tennessee’s trauma inflicted upon us.
If they choose to manipulate the data, our children are doomed as well. If they don’t, and our surveys are taken to heart, and teachers have a role at the table, and the administrators listen to them for once, our children will probably get the best possible education available.
However not filling the survey out as a protest, I believe, left an avenue that not taken, could never bring the possibility of positive results….
Anyways, …. here are just some of the participation rates…
Christina 47.13%
Red Clay 56.50%
Brandywine 64.82%
Cape Henlopen 40.00%
Colonial 66.76%
Capital 73.50%
Every parent should go on site, click on their district and it expands so they can get a read-out of each and every school. I would then encourage you to have a dialogue with their teacher to find out in depth why they chose to go the way they did. Remember, whether a teacher went for it or against, it as with the child’s welfare first at heart… The one thing that is not at issue is every teacher’s care and concern for every child… What is important is that you, the parent, has a buy-in to this new educational system by sharing your concerns with your child’s teacher..
There is no good or bad here; there is only progress, … and that is something all will agree is necessary to have…
Jump out squads are the new topic. What a dumb name. I glad Mayor Williams is distancing himself from such. It is funny how names get formed. I think it was Mayor Baker or Sills whose press agent when pressed, was the person who named them such? It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but a better name would be something that is less aggressive.
Of course sounding tough as an intimidating factor always makes one feel big. But it also acts in a different way. It imposes upon a community their powerlessness. First against the criminals, Then against the justice system.
Both Williams and the Police Chief know this!.
A city’s police force is there as part of the city residents life experience, and their job is to protect the good of which they are apart and diminish the power of the bad, the criminal element.
A better name would be something like: “Citizen’s Response Team”. For after all, they are there only at the behest of citizens who want their neighborhoods to be safe. Let the criminal elements call them “jump out squads”;… let that be the word on the streets. But officially, a name that conveys the idea that the police are just an extension of society at large, they are there to do what society wants, is far more appropriate in this case than one of surprise and intimidation.
Neighborhood society has no problem with these individuals involved. Most grew up there; they’ve known them since they were little kids. The problem is crime, and every individual in a neighborhood has a choice on whether they want to side with crime, or side with stopping it….
The election on September 11th, I think emphatically gave a mandate that a very large majority of Wilmington sides with those forces stopping it.
Now there is something every citizen can do….
I messed up. As I pulled of the side street and onto the main street, a parked car held me up, It was some type of SUV with New Jersey plates. Leaning into its passenger window, was a big black dude, scruffy beard, Army issued overcoat, black pants, who as I pulled up, backed away, and as the car pulled off, the crossed the street in front of me….
If I’d been thinking, I could have pulled my phone, looked like I was talking or texting (as do 99% of Delawareans when they are behind the wheel anyways), and clicked a picture of the car complete with plates and the guy doing the drop.
I could have then sent that to police.
Police later show up at the house of the car’s owner, Ask what they were doing at that location. Who was in their window? Then monitor any call going out from that house that says: “Dude, you better be careful…someone’s on to you… Really man? What did they say?”
So, what if the police advertised a hotline or email address or account where anonymous picture of licensed plates of drug deals in progress, could be drop loaded? How many citizens of Wilmington would love to turn in the street bully they’re deathly afraid of, but can’t because no system exists where the information is completely untraceable?
Why hasn’t this been thought of before?
Rule is: these pictures can never be used as court evidence and be traceable. They can only serve as probable cause, upon which all secondary evidence can then be admitable….
And it would cost nothing.
.
kavips 
