DL Open Thread: Friday, July 16, 2021

Stoopid Baseball Player Trix.  Phillies.  Red Sox-Yanks.  Awww, are they a-sceered of the vaccine, or are they just vax-deniers? Doesn’t matter.  The Big Lie, Part Duh, has taken hold:

What began as “vaccine hesitancy” has morphed into outright vaccine hostility, as conservatives increasingly attack the White House’s coronavirus message, mischaracterize its vaccination campaign and, more and more, vow to skip the shots altogether.

The notion that the vaccine drive is pointless or harmful — or perhaps even a government plot — is increasingly an article of faith among supporters of former president Donald Trump, on a par with assertions that the last election was stolen and the assault on the U.S. Capitol was overblown.

Appearing at CPAC, lawmakers like Reps. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) took aim at Biden’s push for “door-to-door” vaccine outreach, framing efforts to boost inoculations as a creeping menace from big government.

“We’re here to tell government, we don’t want your benefits, we don’t want your welfare, don’t come knocking on my door with your Fauci ouchie,” Boebert said, referring to Biden’s top medical adviser, Anthony S. Fauci, her voice rising as she paced the stage and shook her finger. “You leave us the hell alone!”

God Has Spoken, Sort-Of.  Manchin signals support for D budget resolution.  As long as, of course, he has final sign-off on everything.  Progress, of a sort.

A Primer On How The Wealthy Avoid Taxes.  Take some time, read the whole thing.  You will then be armed in how to tackle these inequities.

Step 2 In The Battle Against Forever Chemicals?  Maine leads the way, and bans them. An ideal follow-up here in Delaware to the recent legal settlement?

REPORT: DNREC Has Consistently Underpaid Women For Doing The Same Work As Men.  DNREC’s response? ‘If you don’t like it, file a lawsuit’.  Somebody finally did:

By 2018, when the salary database was published, they were all still being paid at or about $1,000 more than the minimum salaries for their job classifications.

The complaint claims that DNREC discriminates against women when applying the salary policy by overlooking and underrating the qualifications and experience of female candidates, putting women behind from the start.

In the weeks after the salary database appeared, the three women asked for salary analyses, but none were performed, according to the complaint. They asked for rubrics or formulas the state used to determine salaries based on experience, but none existed, they were told.

As their conversations about the gender pay gaps hit roadblocks, the complaint claims that the state simultaneously upped the salaries of all employees in a male-dominated job class, after complaints that they were being paid less than employees in another state department performing similar work.

In a meeting days after the salary database was published, Spagnolo asked if anything was being done about the known disparities.

“Call your legislator,” a DNREC official at the time answered, according to the EEOC complaint. “Nothing is going to change until someone files a lawsuit, and if you can’t accept that, maybe you should look for a better opportunity somewhere else.” 

This institutional discrimination goes back at least to 1994, according to the article.

Make ’em pay.

Knollwood Suffers Another Shooting Tragedy.  It is, indeed, a ‘forgotten community’. Originally home to the millworkers at the steel plant in Claymont.  Although it’s right near I-95 and Philly Pike, most people don’t even know it’s there.  Which is precisely the way it was designed. To be invisible:

The small, three-street loop with only one road in and out of the neighborhood off Philadelphia Pike once served as a settlement to mill workers at nearby Worth Steel Co. and their families. Now, it remains a working class neighborhood of people who say their community has changed – and not for the better.

In the early 2000s, county and state officials tried to move people into some of the vacant two-story homes. They made promises of a community renaissance and support for first-time homeowners.

But the area, set back from Philadelphia Pike near Interstate 495, has long been plagued by drugs. Cars with out-of-state tags come and go, often in the area for narcotics.

Needles and heroin baggies are a common sight on the street and in a playground that was renovated several years ago.

“They’ve emptied out the streets of Chester (Pennsylvania) and Philadelphia into Knollwood,” said one woman who mulled around where Wednesday’s shooting occurred. “It’s crazy, and almost becoming a weekly thing where (police) are here for something or the other.”

Attention must be paid to this forgotten community.  I’ll be watching.

What do you want to talk about?