DL Open Thread: Friday, December 30, 2022
Coming tomorrow: A chronological voyage through 2022 as we recap The Good! The Bad! The Ridiculous!
Is Heather Honey Her Real Name? Voter fraud ‘investigator’, hired by Kari Lake, from Lebanon, Pa.:
When right-wing firebrand Kari Lake challenged her narrow November defeat in the Arizona governor’s race, her star witness was an obscure woman with the memorable name of Heather Honey, a murky backstory as a private investigator, and an equally unlikely hometown: Lebanon, Pa.
Honey’s courtroom testimony alleging voter fraud in heavily populated Maricopa County didn’t sway a judge who tossed out Lake’s challenge, but the certification of Lake’s 17,000-vote loss to Democrat Katie Hobbs didn’t stop Honey from gaining a new platform and fans. Last week, a video snippet of an exchange between her and Hobbs’ lawyer garnered hundreds of thousands of views.
Trump Tax Returns Released By House. Story worth following during the day as reporters comb through them.
With Democrats Like These…: Just check out who Gov. Kathy Hochul has nominated to NY’s highest court:
In a shocking betrayal of her constituents, New York governor Kathy Hochul has nominated an anti-choice regressive judge to fill a vacancy on New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals. If approved, Hector LaSalle’s appointment would result in the Court being controlled by a conservative majority for nearly a decade. Her inexplicable decision met with a combination of outrage and disbelief.
New York’s high court has been controlled in recent years by an astonishingly cohesive conservative bloc of 4 judges (of 7 total). This conservative majority, led by Chief Judge Janet DiFiore issued a parade of closely divided regressive decisions. Among other rulings, it struck down landmark tenant protections, made it more difficult to hold police accountable for misconduct, and enabled domestic abusers. Most famously, it stripped control of post-2020-census redistricting from an independent redistricting commission and the state legislature and gave it to a single partisan Republican judge. This legally unjustifiable opinion cost the Democrats several seats in the House of Representatives, which, given the narrow margin of the GOP’s victory in the House, may have ultimately accounted for the Democratic loss of that body.
A few months ago, DiFiore abruptly resigned amidst an ethics probe, leaving the ideological composition of the Court of Appeals hanging in the balance. Despite her resignation, DiFiore continued to wield significant power. As Sam Mellins reported in NYSFocus, DiFiore (probably illegally) broke a deadlock to ensure an ideological ally was elevated to be her interim successor. DiFiore’s fingerprints were all over the shortlist of nominations to be her successor.
Assuming that even a moderate D would be appointed to replace DiFiore, the balance of power on the court would change. NY’s Senate D’s are trying to stop the nomination. Who knows if it will succeed?
Why DeSantis Must Not Receive The Same Fawning Press That Trump Got:
And so these two behemoths of white power saddle up for battle. The masks are long off.
The explicit calling of Mexicans rapists, the pursuit of national registries for Muslims, the warning issued to the mob not to “monkey this up,” the overground railroad transporting the unwanted – the racists raise their lances to the stadium. The lynch mob responds with hurrahs. The colonised – pushed, prodded, and paraded – are forced to witness politicians serving their constituents.
There are minor players too, of course. Even Ye is pressing his pot helm on. He dons his white lives matter T-shirts and “I like Hitler” whimpers in the hope that he will be accepted by the big kids and the more traditionally skinned white supremacists in what has to be the most epic misreading of a room.
But he, and the hundreds of white supremacist politicians, can be no more than a sideshow for the coliseum’s main event: A rally in America’s New Nuremberg. A lynch mob showing. And a leadership contest for the reins of political white supremacy played out in an amphitheatre before a chanting crowd and a gaggle of note-taking reporters still asking questions about gas prices.
Man, This Andrew Tate…: I hope that Romanian jailers are inhumane:
The controversial online influencer and misogynist Andrew Tate has been detained in Romania on charges of human trafficking, rape and forming an organised crime group, authorities have confirmed.
The former kickboxer and reality TV star, who has been banned from a number of social media platforms for misogynistic comments and hate speech, was arrested alongside his brother and two other suspects.
Tate, whose popularity has increased enormously over the past year, has been kicked off numerous social media platforms for posting hate speech and misogyny. Domestic abuse charities have characterised Tate’s views as extreme misogyny, with the potential of radicalising men to commit violence against women. In numerous videos, Tate gives graphic descriptions of violence against women.
He was banned from Twitter in 2017, after stating that victims of sexual violence should bear some responsibility for the acts. His account was reinstated in November after Elon Musk’s takeover of the company and now has 3.5 million followers.
He was out of his league when he went toe-to-toe with Greta Thunberg recently:
Over the past week, he has been engaged in a Twitter standoff with the climate activist Greta Thunberg, attempting to troll her by telling her about his large collection of emission-heavy cars. Thunberg responded by implying Tate had “small-dick energy”.
This prompted Tate to release a two-minute video during which he asked somebody out of shot to bring him pizza and to make sure the boxes were “not recycled”.
Following online speculation that the brand of pizza featured in the video helped police confirm Tate’s presence in Romania, Thunberg quipped on Twitter that “this is what happens when you don’t recycle your pizza boxes”.
Pro tip to would-be criminals: Always recycle your pizza boxes.
Coming To Delaware: Warehouses, Warehouses, More Warehouses. Color me-unenthused.
What do you want to talk about?
Will the corporate media salivate at the thought of following DeSantis around like a lost puppy? Yes, their a reminder that Murdoch’s tabloid mentality lives on and long ago drove the journalists out. Tate? A super creepy POS to say the least., notice it took Romania to do something about it. I mean he just could have gone to Florida and be a free man, worked for Jeff Epstein and Rick Scott.
Pay attention – tune in.
New Castle County to debate warehouse moratorium
https://delawarebusinesstimes.com/news/new-castle-debate-warehouses/
“While these projects started by reclaiming neglected auto plants, exhausted mining pits, and dilapidated shopping malls, they are increasingly being pushed to undeveloped spaces and farm fields, sometimes raising the ire of local residents who complain about noise, air and light pollution from warehouse tractor-trailers they didn’t know could locate near them.
That led County Councilman David Carter to recently introduce Ordinance 22-135, which would implement a one-year moratorium on any new warehouses larger than 150,000 square feet – a move that already has the business community lining up in opposition.
The ordinance is due to be discussed at the state’s Preliminary Land Use Services meeting in January for input from state agencies but will likely begin deliberations in the county in February. If approved, those projects that enter the planning and permitting process before the moratorium is enacted would likely have to be grandfathered in.
“There are places where [warehouses] are very appropriate,” Carter told Delaware Business Times. “But then we have other areas where they’re just popping up amongst new developments like Whitehall and Bayberry. We don’t have really clear zoning that really looks at some thoughtful criteria about where they are best placed.”
“I guess because of our ‘business-friendly’ mindset, instead of a ‘business-responsible’ mindset, we don’t tend to be proactive on these things, and we really should have been addressed this through the Comprehensive Plan,” he said, referring to the decennial plan approved in July that reassesses zoning and land use issues. “There’s no doubt this is a pretty draconian move, but in my four years on council and in the six years we’ve had this administration, there really hasn’t been any willingness or interest to modernize our zoning, which is just woefully out of date.”
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Didja see this article that I linked to in yesterday’s open thread?:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/29/e-commerce-warehouses-amazon-ups-fedex-california-pollution
One more thing–if we’re gonna allow all these warehouses to be built, usually with taxpayers’ $$’s going to the corporations that will house them, then we should put an end to Delaware’s status as an ‘at-will’ state.
In order to end the inhumane conditions many workers are subject to. It’s only fair. Which also reminds me, any would-be governor seeking my support must pledge to end the privatization of state funds going to these projects w/o public scrutiny. Don’t think I’m the only one.
I said early on that the charges against Cuomo were less massive than a breath of fetid air. A true witchhunt. now his “approved” successor tturns away from liberalism and nominates a creature who should have become extinct by now…just desserts to the women surrounding Cuomo with Brutus knives out.