The paradoxes of Delaware politics and "journalism"--what we care about and what we don't

These are the things that strike me as darkly funny about Delaware politics and so-called journalism:

1.  That the News Journal prints a multi-day story  on the inept low-level antics of State Treasurer Chip Flowers and his entourage (which is, admittedly, entertaining), and while I don't expect any less of a newspaper that's in-the-tank for Markell, all my liberal friends go nuts about the story and feel like they are honing in on the First State version of Boss Hogg style corruption.  At the same time, Governor Jack Markell creates an illegal charter school committee (don't ask me, ask the Attorney General), consistently runs his administration through back room deals that subvert rules and regulations (new rehab hospital in Middletown), and runs major parts of his government--DPH and DNREC--via "secret" attorney general opinions nobody is allowed to see and which apparently cannot be FOIA'd.  Then there are the millions of dollars in our tax money that has been dispensed to private corporations to supposedly create jobs in DE like Fisker and Bloom and etc.  But Chip Flowers is a far more important story, right?

2.  The News Journal announced today that four people have signed up for insurance on the new ACA exchanges.  Oh, and 400 people have already lost their health insurance due to ACA requirements.  And the President apologized.  Let's do the math:  for every one person receiving new coverage, 100 people have lost their existing insurance.  Moreover, most of us in state or employer plans have already been formally notified that either our premiums, our deductibles, or our co-pays are going up.  But we are assured that this is all a necessary part of the process.  Meanwhile, the News Journal resolutely refuses to cover any of the issues surrounding the Highmark takeover of the private insurance market in Delaware, to include the ongoing plans to drive all competitors to MedExpress in the urgent care line out of business.  Neither the News Journal or my liberal friends, of course, has been willing to touch the fact that what ACA has done is create monopolies and near-monopolies for about six huge insurance companies nationwide.  Ultimately the ACA represents one of the largest wealth transfers from middle-class taxpayers to multi-national corporations in American history, brought to you by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

3.  Not that the GOP is anything to write home about.  They are jumping on the Chip Flowers story like it actually matters, and it has been, oh, several years since the DE GOP has actually offered any serious policy ideas.

4.  Then there is Delaware Education Secretary Mark Murphy who is angry because the 320+ public school principals across the state of Delaware won't join him and Rodel in condemning Delaware's teachers for everything that is wrong with the education system.  He's kidding, right?  Former gym teacher has got lots and lots of chutzpah here, trying to pass off "principals should be firing more teachers" as the answer to Delaware education problems.

5.  Finally, there's this:  after only a little more than a decade of illegal US internal spying, Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning, and Julian Assange, guess what?  One of our liberal friends has discovered that a surveillance state is a baaad idea, and has even discovered the Electronic Frontier Foundation.  Wow.  In a few more months they may discover that President Obama has a militarized foreign policy designed to benefit US corporate interests.  But don't hold your breath.

6.  Oh, and by the way, if you own a gun, that's now apparently proof that you are more racist than people who don't.  Or that owning a gun has caused you to become more racist (seriously, the study authors can't figure out between the two "possibilities").  Of course, according to the study being cited you are only a "symbolic racist," because their own survey found no correlation between gun ownership and "overt racism."  One of the fun parts--your racist "points" automatically rise in their survey if you don't identify yourself as more liberal than conservative, whether you own a gun or not.  It would have been simpler, I think, just to title the study "Only liberals are not racists."