Gerald Brady Goes National. Congrats to Speaker Pete, Our PAL Val, and Delaware Democratic Chair Betsy Maron for making Delaware even more of a laughingstock than usual. Hey, I’ve got it: Gerald can switch parties and immediately challenge Lauren Witzke to be the xenophobes’ champeen. Better yet, he can run on a ticket w/Witzke. He can attract the Trump construction trade dead-enders to the Rethugs. They might even get to 38% of the vote statewide.
The FBI ‘Investigation’ Of Brett Kavanaugh–Wasn’t. Had this been reversed, Rethugs would call for FBI Director Wray’s immediate resignation:
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has now admitted that it failed to investigate even the most “relevant” of the 4,500 tips it received during an investigation into sexual assault allegations against Brett Kavanaugh, then a Supreme Court nominee, now a Supreme Court justice. That was in response to a two-year-old letter from Democratic Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Chris Coons. “We apologize for the extended delay in responding,” says Assistant Director Jill C. Tyson.
Wray was the original recipient of the Aug. 19, 2019 letter from the senators. A letter which was ignored until June 30, 2021. Wray was the person ultimately responsible for how the FBI handled the background investigation with that “tip line,” which ended up apparently just being a dumping ground. Whitehouse and Coons first pressed Wray on this in a July 2019 hearing.
“During the hearing, Wray echoed Republican claims that the FBI conducted the investigation ‘by the book,’ while asserting that supplemental background investigations are less rigorous than criminal and counterintelligence investigations,” the senators say in a press release following the revelation that the FBI did nothing more than send the tips to Trump’s henchmen.
So, not only didn’t the FBI investigate a bleeping thing, it sent the bleepload of tips to the White House. I can’t even…
‘Bama Governor Tells The Truth. Maybe this tough love will make a difference:
A Republican governor in one of the states hit hardest by the delta variant of the coronavirus called out those who’ve refused the vaccine on Thursday.
“It’s time to start blaming the unvaccinated folks, not the regular folks,” said Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, per CBS 42 in Birmingham. “It’s the unvaccinated folks that are letting us down.”
Ivey, who was vaccinated in December, also seemed to throw some shade at Fox News and other right-wing media outlets.
“Media, I want you to start reporting the facts,” she said. “The new cases of COVID are because of unvaccinated folks. Almost 100 percent of the new hospitalizations are with unvaccinated folks. And the deaths are certainly occurring with the unvaccinated folks.”
My Kind Of Natural Selection: Branson MO Latest COVID Incubator. Perfect. The ‘Freedom’ mouthbreathers wipe themselves out, AND Yakov Smirnoff’s dinner theatre is forced to shut down. What a country!
NYPD Teaches Officers How To Break Law. What is it this time?:
NYPD has been training its officers to break a long-standing law that bars police from snooping in the sealed arrest records of millions of innocent people, according to court papers filed in a lawsuit last week.
The news comes in a class-action lawsuit concerning the police department’s practice of flouting a state law designed to protect people from discrimination, harassment, and further legal consequences over old arrests that didn’t result in a conviction. The Bronx Defenders, a public defense organization, brought the legal action against New York City and the NYPD.
Defense lawyers in New York say they regularly find NYPD printouts of their clients’ old sealed arrests in prosecutors’ paperwork, and police sources often leak the sealed arrest histories of people killed by police and political enemies to the media. The leak of Eric Garner’s sealed arrest history after he was killed by police in 2014, for example, is now the subject of a judicial inquiry.
Business as usual. The new mayor is guaranteed to look the other way.
Fishin’ Feud: Surf Fishermen Vs. Everybody Else. Factions fight while state–flounders:
A deeply rooted Delaware tradition, surf fishing has changed a lot over the years as four-wheel drive vehicles became more popular, and other factors motivated people to buy surf-fishing permits – not just to fish, but to swim and spend time with family and friends.
Add on the COVID-19 pandemic, where the popularity of social “fish-tancing” and outdoor activities skyrocketed, and suddenly the State Parks system faced unprecedented need: 17,000 tags sold out in just a few months, and the one-time release of an additional 1,000 tags had people lining up overnight to snag one.
Charles Turnbaugh, who owns property in a community off Delaware Seashore State Park, started the Beach Access Coalition specifically to address these concerns and advocate for more access for pedestrians rather than surf-fishing vehicles.
“Who wants to own or rent a beach house,” he said, “if every holiday and Saturday and weekend that there’s good weather it’s wall-to-wall trucks and you have difficulty getting to the beach?”
May they continue to make life miserable for each other.
What do you want to talk about?