DL Open Thread: Sunday, September 25, 2022

Russians Stage Sham Votes The GOP Might Soon Emulate:

Ukrainians who are in contact with friends and relatives in the occupied territories describe groups of men armed with Kalashnikov rifles, accompanied by a person with a portable ballot box, going door-to-door in apartment buildings and houses.

“The referendum is taking place in the occupied city of Kherson under the muzzle of an automatic rifle,” said Galina Luhova, head of the Kherson City Military Administration, who now lives in Ukrainian-controlled territory. “They ring the doorbell of apartments, knock down the doors of those who don’t open them and demand that people come out and put a mark that they agree to join the Russian Federation.”

Ron DeSantis Hired Politically-Connected Firm To ‘Transport’ Immigrants.  Of course, the company couldn’t do the job, so…:

When Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration needed a company it could trust to carry out a controversial program to transport migrants to other states, it chose an unusual option. Although Destin-based Vertol Systems Company is in aviation, its primary business is training pilots for the military and providing helicopters across the globe. But the company was familiar to a key member of the DeSantis administration: Larry Keefe, the state’s “public safety czar” responsible for carrying out the governor’s anti-immigration programs. The company also has a private jet that flew from Florida to San Antonio a week before charter flights took 48 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard.

Vertol Systems Company doesn’t seem like an obvious fit to regularly fly dozens of people across the country.

The company’s business has focused on aircraft maintenance and support, training pilots and leasing its helicopters to fisheries and other companies around the world. From 2000 to 2020, the company received more than $25.7 million in defense contracts for flight training, records show.

Since news broke about the company’s involvement in DeSantis’ migrant flight programs, its website was taken offline. In April, its website said it operated four types of helicopters and three types of small planes with a maximum capacity of 12 people. (FAA records show the company has 55 aircraft.)

None of the company’s planes flew the 48 migrants to Martha’s Vineyard. Instead, flight records show Ohio-based Ultimate JetCharters flew them, apparently as a subcontractor. The state’s contracting websites show no payments to the company. Ultimate JetCharters, which specializes in corporate shuttles, sports team travel and casino trips, has not responded to repeated requests for comment about how it came to be involved in the program or whether it would continue the work.

How is Florida paying for all this anti-immigrant activity?  Why, with federal Covid relief funds, of course.  BTW, assuming DeSantis runs for President, I might just have to subscribe to the Miami Herald. They’re committing great journalism.

One last point: The immigrants that DeSantis was transporting?  They were in Texas, NOT in Florida:

COVID relevance aside, are the Martha’s Vineyard flights really “protecting the people of the state of Florida”? For one thing, the spending bill provides money for the transportation of migrants “from this state”—meaning Florida. But last week’s flights originated in San Antonio, Texas. DeSantis has defended the use of his state’s funds in this way by claiming Florida officials have been working in Texas “for months” to identify and divert individuals who were likely to eventually end up in Florida.

Oh.

The Mormon ‘Godly Act’ Of Creating Lush Green Lawns Challenged From Within And Without.  Good. Didja know?:

For many Mormons in Utah – who make up two-thirds of the state’s population of 3 million – the concept of being a good steward is wrapped up in a pioneer nostalgia that favors an artificial, irrigated landscape over the natural desert environment. This Mormon version of Manifest Destiny is at the heart of why Utahns suck up so much municipal water as well as why the state is moving at a dangerously glacial pace to deal with the climate crisis.

It explains why Utah uses more municipal water than any state in the country, except for Idaho. And why the state has long supported a heavily subsidized water pricing system and zoning laws that encourage, if not flat-out demand, a yard full of well-tended grass.

A paradigm shift may be coming, perhaps in time to save the Great Salt Lake:

In June 2021, Marlene and Emron Esplin stopped watering their front lawn. Given that the Esplins live in Utah, where maintaining lush green turf is often associated with the fulfillment of a biblical prophecy, the decision to let their grass go brown was a radical act.

“I just felt like it was morally wrong to be watering our yard so much,” says Marlene who, along with her husband, is a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

That sentiment is growing:

“It is total insanity that the Great Salt Lake is drying up and we are using hundreds of thousands of acre feet of treated culinary water to irrigate the totally useless crop of Kentucky bluegrass,” Zach Frankel, executive director of Utah Rivers Council, said of the thirsty emerald green turf that is the preferred lawn in Utah. Frankel, who is not Mormon, believes well-meaning Latter-day Saints have been co-opted by politicians and profit-hungry developers (are there any other kind?) to maintain thirsty lawns in order to justify the need for more water projects

“The grass lawn is not in anyone’s best interest except for those at the Utah state house who are seeking billions of dollars in unnecessary spending,” says Frankel.

Frankel and others are lobbying Utah government leaders to enact aggressive water conservation policies before it is too late. But what may ultimately carry the most weight are the efforts by Latter-day Saints like the Esplins who are seeking a paradigm shift in their community to undo the irrigation mentality. They want to convince fellow Mormons that the desert is already beautiful and has a divinely created ecological wisdom all its own.

An excellent article loaded with historical perspective.  Read it, you’ll learn something.

Judge Bars Delaware’s ‘Ghost Guns’ Law.   Apparently the most ambiguous of all constitutional amendments is the most absolute, according to the courts:

A federal judge has issued an injunction barring Delaware from enforcing provisions of a new law outlawing the manufacture and possession of homemade “ghost guns,” which can’t be traced by law enforcement officials because they don’t have serial numbers.

Friday’s ruling came in a lawsuit filed by gun rights advocates after Democratic Gov. John Carney signed a law last October criminalizing the possession, manufacture and distribution of such weapons as well as unfinished firearm components.

Judge Maryellen Noreika denied a motion by Democratic state Attorney General Kathleen Jennings, the sole defendant, to dismiss the lawsuit. She instead granted a preliminary injunction in favor of the plaintiffs to prohibit enforcement of certain provisions pending resolution of the lawsuit.

Pro tip to Randall Chase (who’s actually perhaps Delaware’s best political reporter):  I think you should mention who appointed the Judge, especially in cases like these.  It’s more germane than ever.  The answer?:  Donald J. Trump.

What do you want to talk about?