DL Open Thread: Sat., Jan. 25, 2020
EPA To Permit Cities To Dump More Waste Into Rivers. While you were watching the impeachment trial:
The Environmental Protection Agency has made it easier for cities to keep dumping raw sewage into rivers by letting them delay or otherwise change federally imposed fixes to their sewer systems, according to interviews with local officials, water utilities and their lobbyists.
The actions are the latest example of the Trump administration’s efforts to roll back nearly 95 environmental rules that it has said are too costly for industry or taxpayers. That list grew on Thursday, when the administration stripped clean-water protections from wetlands, streams and other waterways.
34 Service Members Suffered ‘Traumatic Brain Injury’ From Iranian Missile Attacks. Remember when His Royal Orangeness downplayed the impact of those attacks? I do. These injuries are all on Trump. ‘Headaches’, my ass.
‘Take Her Out”. Trump orders, over and over again, that the last honest US diplomat be removed from Ukraine.
Progress In Connecticut To End Housing Segregation? The signs are faint, the first steps are halting, but maybe.
Memo To Hillary: Corporatism Is Not Feminism. My must-read of the day. Why do I think her ‘I Am A Victim’ Tour will not go so well?
Here’s Your Early Roundup Of Delaware’s Campaign Finance Reports. We’ve already talked about Sarah McBride. I’m also really encouraged by what Kyle Evans Gay has done. She raised $46K. Cathy Cloutier raised $33K in the same period. Yes, Cloutier has loaned her campaign an additional $45K. But Gay is at the least competitive, and she’s only just started. Also, Gay will be able to raise $$’s from the same donors twice, assuming she wins the primary. I would be real worried if I were Cathy. BTW, it’s time to send some $$’s Marie Pinkney’s way. She just started, but she could use a nest egg.
What do you want to talk about?
I just did a brief dive into Dave McBride’s campaign finance report, and one question sticks out:
Can someone please explain to me why virtually every liquor store up and down the state has contributed to his campaign? We’re talking tens of thousands of dollars from liquor stores, many of them TINY liquor stores. Anyone have the inside skinny on that?
Did he champion the Sunday opening law years ago?
That’d be my guess.
Doubt it. Trone wanted the Sunday opening laws, not the moms and pops.
Is he anti-grocery store sales?
Maybe. He got a contribution from the Asian American Businessmen’s Association, which represents a lot of the mom-and-pop liquor stores. But there’s a whole bleepload of small stores that anted up. Haven’t seen anything like it before.
What are his positions on issues facing that industry, and what issues face that industry?
What threatens tiny liquor stores most? Sales of beer and wine at grocery stores and, especially, convenience stores. From their standpoint it’s a valid concern. Anecdote time: I stopped at the Acme in Avondale just south of US 1 for a couple of things and presto! there’s a whole display of beer six-packs. It’s more convenient than I had conceived of it — I could see where that will cost those tiny liquor stores of enough sales to put them out of business.
See if McBride is being counted on to block legislation allowing that, is my best guess.
Another possibility. Makes sense. Anything that protects the interests of “the business owner” is key to them (and their orgs like the Chamber of Commerce) paying you bribes.
The proliferation of breweries/distilleries also squeezes mom and pops.
Nothing like Wawa selling beer would. And “mom and pop” own few if any of them.
Correct, in many states you get your booze at the grocery store like everything else, the liquor stores are reduced to just selling “the good stuff” like fine wine, higher end beer and hard liquor.
And in others you still have dry counties and have to “join” a “club” to drink. If the states are laboratories, they’re living amid a welter of failed experiments.
Which shows why anyone who expects a rollout of legal weed to be smooth, orderly or fair is probably already high on something.
I expect it to be the usual contest to cash in, it’s the core of the Delaware Way. I expect few outlets, long delayed in opening, shortages and high prices. I also suspect there will be attempts at meddling after the fact by the state police among others. But once the revenue starts rolling in the game is here to stay, money rules here, and we all know it.
WAWA actually sells beer for less than Total Wine where I live. In fact all the grocery stores sell for less.
In an archetypal down state Delaware voice : Must be nice!
No “moms and pops” own any Wawa. Wawa’s are not franchises. Everyone is owned by the corporation.
Never said they did.
Me Neither, just said they were cheaper, not social justice warriors, my man.