New Report: New Castle County is BROKE!

The News Journal is only 2 months late in reporting a startling fact that may have turned the tide of the November elections.  In an article printed today (January 5^th 2011), columnist Ron Williams laid out the news that New Castle County is flat BROKE!  This news did not come from the Caesar Rodney Institute or a conservative think tank but straight from the incoming County Executive Paul Clark’s own transition team.  A report from Dace Blaskovitz, a member of Clark’s transition team, shows that now Senator Chris Coons lied to the citizens of Delaware when he said that New Castle County’s finances were in good shape and misrepresented the job he did as County Executive.  Despite calls by Coons’ opponent, Christine O’Donnell to investigate the actual state of the county’s finances, the Wilmington News Journal ignored the obvious dire straits that New Castle County faces and instead relied on a report by credit rating agencies that New Castle County received a AAA bond rating  as proof of sound fiscal practices.  The same rating agency that gave New Castle County a AAA bond rating failed to anticipate failures at the nation’s top banks, AIG and GM/Chrysler. 

Williams goes on to point out that Clark’s transition team has recommended yet ANOTHER increase in property taxes.  Coons raised them three times during his terms in office including a 25% spike in 2009 coupled with a 5% pay cut for County employees.  The alternative to another tax increase is a combination of leaving open vacant positions and/or the laying off of more than 120 workers.  Blaskovitz confirmed what Ms. O’Donnell and her campaign staff had been saying though out the campaign, that the County’s fiscal situation was much worse than Coons was admitting to.  According to the report filed by Blaskovitz and former House Majority leader Wayne Smith, the county’s debt has more than doubled in the last 5 years while property taxes went up 55% and sewer fees went up 60%.  These numbers are in line with what the O’Donnell campaign had told the public and what the News Journal had refused to point out throughout the election.   Despite claims by Coons that he had cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the county budget, Blaskovitz points out that “government spending outpaced revenues”.   Blaskovitz writes, "while the county's unfunded accrued actuarial liabilities increased over $140 million. Retiree health cost is nearly $250 million," and he points out that pension assets went up by $9 million since 2000 when Coons took over as County Council President under Tom Gordon.

Coons had spent the campaign telling Delawareans that he had managed to keep New Castle County’s head above water despite a tumultuous economic time period.  In retrospect, Coons succeeded at simply burying the problems NCC faces.  Blaskovitz goes on to say, "So after years of delaying executive decisions hoping an economic bounce would magically undo the dilemma, dwindling reserves are now forcing a day of reckoning."  As O’Donnell had pointed out repeatedly throughout the campaign, much to the chagrin of those listening, Blaskovitz (whose financial resume is extensive), suggests that these problems cannot (and never could) be solved by raising taxes and fees but instead by “immediate belt-tightening”.   This report shows that Chris Coons and his Democrat comrades lied to the people of Delaware during the campaign and it shows what Coons will do as a U.S. Senator.  At a time when we need MORE fiscal responsibility, we have sent someone with less.  At a time when we need MORE openness and transparency in Washington, Delaware has added more deception and “creative accounting”.  At a time when we need real leadership in Washington, we have sent a man who buckles under pressure, lies to his constituents and buries the truth.  In the end, this may have been averted if the people of Delaware had heard this kind of unbiased information from an independent source like, the Wilmington News Journal.  Unfortunately, this information came 2 months too late for Delawareans to really understand the man they sent to Washington.  Perhaps they should have sent a woman.

Christine O'Donnell under fire again

Pick a "news source" (are there any real ones left?  I'm not sure there are any locally in Delaware anymore...maybe The Blaze nationally) this week and you'll see stories about Christine O'Donnell being investigated by the FBI, the FEC and perhaps even MI:6.  There are two things that I gather from this:

1.) The so-called media is OBSESSED with anything that can make conservative women look kooky, insane or fringe. 
2.) The last week of the year is a VERY slow news time.

The "investigation" is nothing more than following up on the FEC filing by CREW.  CREW is a Soros funded left wing "ethics group" who has levied charges against Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel (two obvious Democrat "crooks") to prove it's non-partisan roots.  However, roots are often found in funding sources and group leadership so let's look at those two pieces.

Funding
CREW was started in 2003 by Melanie Sloan (we'll cover her later).  In 2006, when George Soros' "Democracy Alliance" was coming under fire by the Washington Post, an article spotlighting the funding sources for left wing groups was published.

Likewise, a Democracy Alliance blessing effectively jump-started Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). It bills itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group committed to targeting "government officials who sacrifice the common good to special interests." Alliance officials see CREW as a possible counterweight to conservative-leaning Judicial Watch, which filed numerous lawsuits against Clinton administration officials in the 1990s. A CREW spokesman declined to comment.

Shocking!  While CREW has denied Soros links in the past, intrepid bloggers gathered information about CREW sourcing when the leftist group filed ethics charges against who else but....Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.


Although CREW denies any ties to George Soros, they indeed receive funds from the Democracy Alliance, the Tides Foundation, as well as the Open Society Institute – all Soros front groups.

So, CREW has received money from almost every Soros front group on the map including the Democracy Alliance which takes money from rich Progressives and spreads it around to deserving progressive groups.

From their website:

We are a first-of-its-kind partnership of changemakers who are committed to a stronger democracy and a more progressive America.

Launched in 2005, the Democracy Alliance (DA) was created to build progressive infrastructure that could help counter the well-funded and sophisticated conservative apparatus in the areas of civic engagement, leadership, media, and ideas.

Today the DA provides an innovative opportunity for individuals to leverage their progressive philanthropy by connecting their own efforts with those of other investors/donors, high-impact organizations, and visionary political strategists and leaders.

We play a leadership role in building the movement infrastructure needed to execute and advance a progressive agenda. Our network helps form a more integrated and cohesive progressive community creating greater impact as a result of our collaborative giving strategy.

Leadership

As we talked about above, the second indicator of the ideals of an organization (funding being the first) is the leadership of the group.  *While doing research for this post, I found the following website which tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about CREW and their crew.  I have added some pictures to the bottom of this post.*

So let's look at the CREW leadership starting at the top with Executive Director Melanie Sloan. Sloan is a former federal prosecutor who made news representing Valerie Plame and Joseph C. Wilson in a civil suit against the Bush Administration (which the Obama Administration threw out on it's face).  She was publicly admonished by a judge int he Scooter Libby trial for attempting to try the case in the media (playing on public opinion is a tactic many liberal lawyers like to use).

Melanie has another hiccup when it comes to bringing this complaint against O'Donnell.  Sloan also worked for Joe Biden whose former seat was being contested by O'Donnell and Coons.  In fact, the CREW suit came after Vice President Biden had called and spoken with Congressman Castle after the September primary.  Congressman Castle and the DEGOP had filed complaints with the FEC to look into slanderous allegations of the misuse of campaign funds in a last ditch effort to entangle O'Donnell in a scandal and steal the Republican Primary election.  Fortunately the Republican voters in Delaware are not the stupid sheep that Castle and the DEGOP leadership must have believed they were.  (In fairness to the Delaware GOP, Chairman Tom Ross has stated that the FEC complaint lodged by attorney Michael Toner was on behalf of the national Republican Party and that he was FORCED to sign the document by party insiders.)  The DEGOP tried to pull back their complaint when they found the claims unsubstantiated and when O'Donnell became the GOP nominee but were told that ALL FEC complaints are investigated. 

O'Donnell won the primary on September 15th, Biden spoke with Castle on September 16th and CREW filed their complaint on September 20th.  The complaint was practically identical to that of the DEGOP complaint and contained testimony from two questionable sources. 

The first source was a disgruntled former campaign volunteer (a family member of O'Donnell's former boyfriend) with a grudge and a chip on his shoulder (apparently his complaint was over a reimbursement of $150 for which no paperwork was ever filed).  The other source is another disgruntled former campaign staffer who was replaced after just a week and a half due to incompetence. 

Next, let's look at how the CREW leadership defines itself:

U.S. Senator Conrad Burns of Montana charged that CREW was "maliciously false" and "partisan hacks" in calling him corrupt in 2005. The Billings Gazette reported that CREW defended itself:^[8]

"We are progressive," said Naomi Seligman, the group's deputy director... "We do work within a larger progressive infrastructure." Seligman suggested her group is the progressive counterweight to Judicial Watch, a group from the right that calls itself "a non-profit, public interest law firm dedicated to fighting government corruption"... "We've gone after a fair number of Democrats, even in this study," Seligman said, [and Burns] "should be answering the charges, not slinging charges."

In reality, CREW has "called out" some of the more obviously criminal Democrats (Maxine Waters and Charlie Rangel) but they have not sunk their teeth into them the way they have Republicans.  Apparently “a fair number of Democrats” is subjective….in 2005 the numbers were 10 R’s and 3 D’s although the GOP WAS in control then and so were more likely to be corrupt.  In 2010, with a Democrat leadership in place, 16 R’s and 10 D’s were targeted.  The self described "Progressive" group has also targeted Sarah Palin and just about every candidate that Palin endorses. 

*added content*