DL Open Thread: Tuesday, December 3, 2024

Oh nos!  Will the General Assembly have to rewrite corporate law to protect the robber barons who keep Delaware’s economy afloat yet again?

Oxymoron (emphasis on ‘moron’) Of The Day: Carney calls for an ‘extraordinary’ Special Session of The Senate:

Gov. John Carney has announced a list of judicial appointments and renominations for Senate consideration ahead of the body’s Dec. 16 extraordinary session to vet such business.

The announcement, which was first released Nov. 22, features the nomination of the Honorable Bonnie W. David as vice chancellor of the Court of Chancery and four reappointments.

Those reappointments include Judge Eric M. Davis to Superior Court, Judge Paula Terese Ryan to Family Court, and Commissioners Paraskevi K. Wolcott and Sonja Truitt Wilson to Family Court.

Allow me to be that guy.  Shouldn’t these appointments/reappointments be left to the new Governor?  Nothing against the reappointments, and certainly nothing against Eric Davis, who has been extraordinary.  But why couldn’t these appointments keep for the new guy?  Which reminds me–why hasn’t Carney announced appointments to the Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board?  The response?  The typical bullshit we’ve heard from Carney for his entire career–none of your fucking business:

On Nov. 20, Delaware Healthcare Association President and CEO Brian Frazee penned a letter to Gov. Carney urging him to hold off on making appointments to the hotly debated Diamond State Hospital Cost Review Board, so appointments can be made by the incoming gubernatorial administration of Gov-elect Matt Meyer.

The Daily State News contacted the governor’s office after the letter was made public to media outlets, though no specifics were offered regarding the nature of the governor’s appointments that will be considered Dec. 16.

“The Governor has called the Senate into a special session to consider nominations for appointments that require Senate confirmation. Nominations will be made public when they are submitted to the Senate,” said a spokesperson for Gov. Carney.

Either you’re all-in or you’re all out. Unless you’re Carney.  In which case you’re just out of it.

Which also reminds me:  Jonathan Tate has withdrawn his candidacy for the 5th SD Democratic nomination and has endorsed Shay Frisby.  Jon is a true progressive and he wanted to help ensure that the nominee is a true progressive and a true Democrat.  I’ve supported Shay all along, and I think she would fit in perfectly with the increasingly-progressive Delaware State Senate.  The contrast couldn’t be starker–Shay worked with AFSCME to help organize child care workers;  Ray Seigfried and Dr. Bryan Haimes are carrying the banner for ChristianaCare in opposing the Hospital Care Review Board, not surprising since they both owe their livelihoods to ChristianaCare.  All of the public sector unions support the Hospital Care Review Board, so we can either choose a true progressive Democrat or a ChristianaCare lobbyist without portfolio for the seat.

“Are You, Or Are You Not, Still A Drunk?”  Man, this Pete Hegseth guy:

Pete Hegseth, the already embattled choice of President-elect Donald Trump to lead the Pentagon, faces a new magazine report detailing his alleged alcohol abuse, sexual impropriety, and mismanagement while he was running two veterans’ nonprofit groups.

The report, published late Sunday by The New Yorker, citing a previously undisclosed whistleblower complaint written in 2015, said Hegseth was drunk on repeated occasions while acting as president of the Concerned Veterans for America “to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.”

“At one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team,” The New Yorker reported, citing the whistleblower report, which the magazine said was compiled by several former CVA employees and sent to the group’s senior management.

“The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups — the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls,’” The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer wrote.

Hegseth was forced to step down as president of CVA in 2016 in part due to “concerns about his mismanagement and abuse of alcohol on the job,” the magazine said, citing what it called three knowledgeable sources, one of whom contributed to the whistleblower report.

Perhaps Trump nominated him due to nostalgia for forcing female military officers to ‘run the gauntlet’?  Completely unsuited for office, yet Rethug senators are mum.

The #1 Toxic Air Cancer Risk Is…: Formaldehyde:

As the backbone of American commerce, formaldehyde is a workhorse in major sectors of the economy, preserving bodies in funeral homes, binding particleboards in furniture and serving as a building block in plastic. The risk isn’t just to the workers using it; formaldehyde threatens everyone as it pollutes the air we all breathe and leaks from products long after they enter our homes. It is virtually everywhere.

Federal regulators have known for more than four decades that formaldehyde is toxic, but their attempts to limit the chemical have been repeatedly thwarted by the many companies that rely on it.

The EPA is moving ahead after setting aside some of its own scientists’ conclusions about how likely the chemical is to cause myeloid leukemia, a potentially fatal blood cancer that strikes an estimated 29,000 people in the U.S. each year. The result is that even the EPA’s alarming estimates of cancer risk vastly underestimate — by as much as fourfold — the chances of formaldehyde causing cancer.

The agency said it made the decision because its estimate for myeloid leukemia was “too uncertain” to include. The EPA noted that the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which the agency paid to review its report, agreed with its decision not to include myeloid leukemia in its cancer risk. But four former government scientists with experience doing statistical analyses of health harms told ProPublica that the myeloid leukemia risk calculation was sound. One said the risk was even greater than the agency’s estimate.

This only solidifies my decision to go the natural burial route that the General Assembly enacted into law this year.  Besides, jokes about turning me into fertilizer would inevitably prove too much to resist for those who know me well.  My afterlife as fertilizer–it suits me.  And them.

What do you want to talk about?