LATE 4TH QTR GIVES BULLDOGS WIN OVER LF, CLINCH SOUTHERN CONFERENCE; GIRLS LOSE
Laurel Bulldog coach Kevin Walmsley said its been 17 years since Laurel won the Southern Conference basketball title, but his team delivered another one tonight with a hard fought 65-58 win over Lake Forest, thanks to a 4th quarter surge by the Bulldogs.
Laurel led at the end of the first quarter 16-12, but trailed at halftime 27-25, went ahead in the 3rd quarter 47-43. The Dogs out played Lake in the fourth quarter 18-15 for the win.
After losing their first two games under their new coach then winning 18 straight for an amazing 18-2 record over all and 13-2 conference.
Congratulations coach Walmsley, the conferences coach of the year and his Bulldogs.
Our girls did not fare as well, droping a close 45-40 game with LF. Their record 9-6 conference, and 13-8 overall.
FLAGSHIP/NAUTILUS SHIP RESTAURANT BEING DEMOLISHED
The old ship in Blades formerly known as the Flagship and Nautilus restaurant in Seaford once known for its fine dinning was demolished today.
Some 50 years plus, a group of businessmen from the Seaford area purchased the former freighter, floated it up the Nanticoke and buried the haul and transformed the ship into an elegant dinning place. The upstairs had a bar, the food was served at the bottom of the boat.
We dined there many times and enjoyed the food and service.
Since the original owners sold, the ship has seen many owners, some successful some not.
The ship has sat vacant for years and for the past decade has shown neglect. A recent buyer 5 years ago promised restoration and a reopening which never occurred. I imagine the ship was beyond restoration.
The ship has been a land mark in the area to many, and the memories dinning there are also many.
FACTCHECKING LAST NIGHTS DEBATE
Fact-checking the Democratic debate in Las Vegas
Democrats rumbled at their debate in Las Vegas, and most of the blows were aimed at the newest candidate on stage, Mike Bloomberg. Here are our fact-checks.
“A billionaire who calls women ‘fat broads’ and ‘horse-faced lesbians’ — and no, I’m not talking about Donald Trump. I’m talking about Mayor Bloomberg.” — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
These descriptions came from a booklet distributed in 1990 as part of Bloomberg’s 48th birthday, and were reported as words said by Bloomberg.
Images of every page have been posted by the Washington Post. The booklet was produced by Elisabeth DeMarse, Bloomberg L.P.’s former chief marketing officer. She wrote in the introduction, “Yes, these are all actual quotes. No, nothing has been embellished or exaggerated. And yes, some things were too outrageous to include.”
In the booklet, the remark is described as referring to members of the British royal family. In full, the quotation reads, “The Royal family — what a bunch of misfits — a gay, an architect, that horsey faced lesbian, and a kid who gave up Koo Stark for some fat broad.”
The Guardian, the British newspaper, translated the identities of the royals cited in the quotation as being, in order, Prince Edward, Prince Charles, Princess Anne and Prince Andrew. (We had to refresh our memory on who Koo Stark was. She is an American actress and photographer who once dated Prince Andrew.)
So it’s clear that the quotation appeared in the booklet. However, Bloomberg and his spokespersons have disputed that he actually said it, though with somewhat evolving explanations over time.
Neither the Bloomberg campaign nor the Warren campaign responded to PolitiFact on debate night. But Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser told the Post, “Mike simply did not say the things somebody wrote in this gag gift, which has been circulating for 30 years and has been quoted in every previous election Mike has been in.”
The Post also reported that a Bloomberg spokesman said in 2001 that Bloomberg apologized to “anyone that was offended by” the comments, which Bloomberg himself once referred to as “a bunch of Borscht Belt jokes.”
— Louis Jacobson
“From the moment we passed that signature legislation (Obamacare), Mike called it a disgrace.” — former Vice President Joe Biden
Bloomberg said exactly that in a speech at Dartmouth College a few months after the Affordable Care Act passed in March 2010. This claim rates True.
In a video of the speech we reviewed, Bloomberg was unsparing. “We passed a health care bill that does absolutely nothing to fix the big health care problems in this country. It is just a disgrace,” he said. “The president, in all fairness, started out by pointing out what the big problems were, but then turned it over to Congress, which didn’t pay any attention to any of those big problems and just created another program that’s going to cost a lot of money.”
Those aren’t standalone remarks. As recently as 2014, Bloomberg called the law “really dysfunctional” during remarks to a financial industry trade group.
It is worth noting that Bloomberg’s current health care plan would build on the Affordable Care Act, largely by increasing subsidies for people buying private insurance on the exchanges, and by installing a Medicare-like public option.
— Victoria Knight and Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News
“Our party has a tradition that includes excellent presidents like Barack Obama who Mayor Bloomberg opposed.” — former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
You might not know it from watching Bloomberg’s ads, but Bloomberg did not endorse Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign. Bloomberg, who was registered as an Independent at the time, did not endorse Obama or Republican John McCain in that race.
In a July 2008 speech to the Independence Party Of Minnesota, Bloomberg said that both Obama and McCain had shown “on at least some issues, that they are capable of thinking and acting independently of the special interests.”
Bloomberg did endorse Obama’s re-election in 2012, but not until a week before the election. And the endorsement included criticism. Bloomberg said Obama failed to develop and sustain a coalition of centrists that could work on key issues, including immigration and tax reform. Bloomberg also said Obama “engaged in partisan attacks” and “embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it.”
— Miriam Valverde
“Mayor Bloomberg was busy blaming African Americans and Latinos for the housing crisis in 2008.” — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
This rates Mostly False.
The Warren campaign pointed to what Bloomberg said at a forum in September 2008 at Georgetown University. At various points in the hourlong interview, Bloomberg spoke broadly about loose lending as a factor in the financial crisis. Bloomberg identified pressure by Congress to expand lending after the ban on redlining as one of those causes. The term “redlining” comes from when bankers would draw lines on maps indicating poorer neighborhoods where they would avoid offering mortgages. Those areas often include large minority populations.
Bloomberg did not talk about the racial aspects of redlining or bring up any minority groups. He seemed to define redlining narrowly as excluding loan applicants in poor neighborhoods. And he described a system in which, by enacting a ban on redlining, Congress encouraged banks to give mortgages to people whether or not they could afford them.
In the same interview, Bloomberg talked about how the mortgage crisis accelerated after mortgages were approved too easily for borrowers who didn’t have the means to repay them.
“There was pressure to open up the spigot and to sell mortgages to everyone,” he said.
— Amy Sherman
“When we discovered, I discovered, that we were doing many, many, too many stop and frisks, we cut 95% of it out.” — former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg
The number of stop-and-frisk searches ballooned 600% while Bloomberg was mayor. They later declined 95%. We rated Bloomberg’s claim Half True.
Bloomberg’s campaign told PolitiFact his claim relied on data for the first quarter of 2012 and the last quarter of 2013. From January to March 2012, the New York Police Department recorded 203,500 stops, compared with approximately 12,500 stops from October to December 2013. That’s close to a 95% drop.
What happened in the years before that while Bloomberg was still mayor?
The New York Civil Liberties Union compiled data using NYPD’s annual reports and found that, in Bloomberg’s first 10 years in office, stop and frisk numbers increased significantly. In 2002, there were 97,296 stops recorded — that increased more than 600% by 2011, when there were nearly 686,000 stops. Stops fell dramatically in 2013 to just under 192,000.
— Miriam Valverde
“You don’t start out by saying, I have 160 million people, I’m going to take away the insurance plan that they love.” — former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg
It is true that Medicare for All, Sanders’ signature health proposal, would eliminate private health insurance, replacing it with a single public plan that covers everybody. That would include the roughly 160 million Americans who get employer-sponsored insurance
But Bloomberg’s argument that those people “love” their plans is complicated. We rated a similar claim Half True.
Cursory polling suggests people with that coverage are mostly satisfied. But most isn’t all. And once Americans try to use that coverage, many find it lacking. In a Kaiser Family Foundation/ Los Angeles Times poll, for instance, 40% of people with employer-sponsored insurance still reported having trouble paying for medical bills, premiums or out-of-pocket costs. In that same poll, about half said they skipped or delayed health care because, even with coverage, they couldn’t afford it.
— Shefali Luthra, Kaiser Health News
“Amy, I looked online at your (health care) plan. It’s two paragraphs.” — Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
This is highly misleading.
Warren’s campaign told PolitiFact that she was referring specifically to Klobuchar’s plan for “universal health care.” It pointed to the two paragraphs at the end of this Klobuchar campaign web page, which come under the heading “Propose legislation to get us to universal health care.”
But that ignores most of Klobuchar’s health care plan, which she outlines in quite a bit of detail on four different web pages — a main health care policy page, a more detailed sub-page, a sub-page on prescription drugs and a sub-page on mental health. Klobuchar supports building on the Affordable Care Act and adding a public option that expands Medicare and Medicaid.
— Louis Jacobson
LAUREL’S WALMSLEY HENLOPEN BASKETBALL CONFERENCE COACH OF YEAR
Laurel Bulldog varsity basketball coach, Kevin Walmsley was named by his peers as Henlopen Coach of the Year.
Walmsley who left a winner with the girls basketball team is in his first year of coaching the boys team. He took over a program which had seen some not too good seasons and had his work cut out for him.
The season jumped off to a poor start with the Bulldogs losing their first two games, then the team jelled and won 15 straight games with a current record of 17-2 over all and 12-1 in the Henlopen South Conference, tied with Dover with the most wins.
A Laurel native and Laurel graduate our hats are off to Kevin and our heartfelt congratulations.
