DL Open Thread: Thurs., June 23, 2022
Yep, Ron Johnson Is A Seditionist. And A Traitor:
This week, the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot revealed that Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver to Vice President Mike Pence a slate of fake electors backing Trump, raising questions about the Wisconsin Republican’s role in a deliberate and coordinated plan to block Biden’s win and give Trump the presidency.
The disclosure also underscores the extent of Johnson’s role as one of Congress’s most prominent election deniers and Jan. 6 apologists — spreading conspiracy theories about rigged votes and playing down the severity of the violent assault on the Capitol as mostly “peaceful,” while floating the idea that it might have been an inside job by the FBI.
Some Democrats and political experts say this latest revelation of direct communication in the form of text messages between Johnson and Pence staff on Jan. 6 could sway voters in a battleground state where elections are won by a slim margin.
“What happened in the last 24 hours is different. It’s one thing to articulate off-the-wall political positions, it’s another thing to possibly have assisted in a coup attempt,” said Kenneth R. Mayer, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.
Delaware Court Permits Defamation Lawsuits Against Fox To Continue:
Voting company Dominion Voting Systems’ defamation lawsuit against Fox Corporation—including Rupert and Lachlan Murdoch—can move forward, a judge ruled Tuesday, as Dominion and rival company Smartmatic pursue a dozen defamation lawsuits over baseless election fraud claims about their voting machines.
Delaware state Judge Eric M. Davis denied Fox Corporation’s motion to dismiss the case against it, which alleged Fox executives—namely the Murdochs—“exerted direct control over Fox News’ programming decisions” in the aftermath of the 2020 election and thus were responsible for the network’s false fraud claims involving Dominion machines.
I scoured the Delaware Online website. Didn’t see any reporting on this.
D Governors Angle For Presidency Should Biden Not Run. My pulse didn’t quicken. Thankfully, nobody was pitching John Carney. Could you imagine?
Bad News From TX. Cuellar defeats progressive challenger.
Ft. DuPont Update: It Still Stinks:
Just a week after Governor John Carney signed a bill that changes the make up of the Fort Dupont Redevelopment and Preservation Corporation (FDRPC) Board of Directors, land clearing work on the Grass Dale parcel, a swath of land local advocates have been fighting to preserve, has been paused.
Check out this ‘Who issued the permits’ clusterbleep:
Minutes from the FDRPC meeting do indicate a pre-construction meeting was held with Blue Water on March 29th giving them notice to proceed, however at the time, WDEL News was unable to determine which agency approved any permits.
On the question of permitting the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control (DNREC) referred WDEL to the FDRPC, but FDRPC attorney Richard Forsten told WDEL that FDRPC no longer owns Grass Dale and does not issue permits.
A local advocate was told through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to check with the New Castle County Department of Land Use.
New Castle County officials said that the State took the county’s land use authority on that project.
WDEL has obtained a DNREC letter dated October 26, 2020, (see below) to former FDRPC Executive Director Jeff Randol for sediment and stormwater plan approval for what was referred to as ‘the Fort Dupont Campground Site.’
As to Nicole Poore?:
Critics questioned if Poore should be voting on legislation that would place her on a Board for which she would then be providing funding.
In a response to WDEL, Poore’s office said she was not required to abstain from HB 355, nor did she violate any Senate rules.
You know what’s fucked up about local legacy journalism, not just in Wilmington but everywhere: The amount of coverage devoted to high school sports vs. every other facet of public education.
Each of the four school districts in New Castle County has a budget larger than that of the City of Wilmington. When’s the last time you saw a story about schools, other than around the attempted RWNJ takeover during board elections?
But the News Journal, like every still-existing newspaper, is chock-full of stories about high school athletes, stories of interest only to their families and the kid sports-industrial complex.
Not to mention all those pictures from proms and graduations. Each high school can pretty much count on getting a half page of each, but seldom a word about what’s going on in any of the classrooms.
When the last education reporter left about a year ago … well, I guess we can accurately say that she was the News Journal’s “last education reporter.”
Say what you will about the terribleness of the NJ but you have to give ryan cormier credit – he’s been milking the “where to drink, what to drink, when to drink” hard hitting journalism for nearly 20 years now.
He doesn’t assign stories to himself. I have no problem with the newspaper having a features section; bars, restaurants and entertainment venues advertise, or used to.
I edited some of his stories back in the day. He’s a sharp-eyed reporter. One memorable story was the opening of Tubman-Garrett Park down by the waterfront. Cormier was an intern assigned to cover what was intended as a fluffy feature about it.
It turned into more because he realized that the official sign didn’t call it Tubman-Garrett Park, it just had Garrett’s name (or maybe it was Tubman’s, it was long ago). I can assure you that not every reporter would have noticed it.
I know this is not breaking news, but photo galleries get clicks, whether those photos are of proms or graduations or some random Thursday afternoon soccer game. And The News Journal seldom does stories on any actual games unless it’s a state championship. Except for football.
You are correct, however. It would be nice for the state’s paper of record to actually report on education issues.
I agree that the News Journal’s high school sports coverage is excessive, but I think you overlook the fact that folks who didn’t go on to college and who maintain their community ties still identify strongly with their high schools, making the Sals or Bulldogs or Cavaliers essentially their local sports franchise, whose fortunes are of at least passing interest to their faithful alumni.
(Which also may at least partly explain why the NJ feels free to almost entirely ignore Wilmington’s two professional sports teams,)
For the newspaper it’s the equivalent of fast food: cheap and filling, requiring only one dedicated full-time reporter and a half-day of a staff photographer here and there, along with the occasional use of a freelance reporter or photographer, to fill hundreds of column inches and provide plenty of colorful images.
The cruel part is that the emphasis on high school sports partially comes at the expense of coverage of the myriad other high school activities and competitions, whose participants work just as long and hard as student athletes. (When, for instance, was the last time you saw an article about the All-State Band?)
Supreme Court rules in favor of more guns on the streets of major cities:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/supreme-court-scotus-new-york-guns-law-20220623.html
Were you maybe expecting anything else?
Hmm. Will it apply to Delaware? No more need to go to Superior Court for a concealed carry permit? No more having to place a classified ad in the NJ as part of the application process? (There goes another revenue stream, albeit tiny.)
Supreme Court: Cops don’t need no steenking Miranda Warning:
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/supreme-court-miranda-warning-lawsuits-20220623.html