DL Open Thread: Thursday, April 17, 2025
Kevin Hensley Hands Over His Car Keys:
Delaware Rep. Kevin Hensley (R-Middletown/Odessa) pleaded guilty Tuesday to driving drunk in a case that saw him crash his truck into a car on Route 1 near Milford, sending a smaller vehicle into a roll that lacerated that driver’s hands and face.
As a result of his plea, Hensley will lose his driver’s license for a year, be mandated to take a DUI course, serve probation and pay a $500 fine. The judge also sentenced him to a suspended 18-month sentence, meaning he will avoid jail time as long as he doesn’t commit another crime in the near future. (Some might suggest that he commits a crime every time he pushes the Rethug agenda in Dover, but I would never stoop so low as to suggest that.)
I’m not a doctor, but I used to watch ‘House’, and this raised a question or two for me:
A news release announcing the plea said the victim of the crash died weeks later from “a separate medical issue.”
It was reportedly a stroke. The car that Hensley struck rolled over three times. How someone can determine that the stroke would have occurred even had the accident not taken place is beyond my pay grade.
The episode also included the requisite cop cover-up:
Spotlight Delaware previously reported on the reasons around why state law enforcement did not tell members of the public a government official was involved in a drunken driving crash.
According to a statement at the time, state police said its departmental policy is to not issue news releases for misdemeanor offenses, irrespective of whether the defendant holds a position of public trust.
Anyway, had Hensley not taken the plea, he faced up to two years in jail. Which pays much less than two years in Dover.
Hensley faces a real strong D challenger next year. Maybe that will scare him straight. Hey, how about a nice musical interlude?:
Harvard University stands to lose billions in federal funding,but the government’s actionsagainst one of the world’s top research institutions were applied with vague accusations and no proof of specific legal violations, documents show.
The Trump administration’s decision Monday to freeze $2.2 billion to Harvard after the school announced it would not yield to demands to change admissions, hiring and governance practices did not follow procedures set out in civil rights law, a Post review found.
The administration’s action skipped over requirements that say the government must identify and list violations, offer a hearing, notify Congress and then wait 30 days before applying penalties.
The actions against Harvard and several other elite colleges reflect the manner in which the administration is handing out other harsh penalties across the government, such as the growing number of undetailed student visa revocations, as well as how President Donald Trump is applying the Alien Enemies Act to deport immigrants.
The Trump administration’s alleged disregard for federal procedure is part of the basis for separate lawsuits filed by the faculty unions at Harvard and Columbia University.
“These procedures exist because Congress recognized that allowing federal agencies to hold funding hostage, or to cancel it cavalierly, would give them dangerously broad power in a system in which institutions depend so heavily upon federal funding,” attorneys for the American Association of University Professors wrote in the Harvard faculty union lawsuit.
Robert Reich is more confident about this than I am:
It was bound to happen.
Encouraged by the ease with which many big US institutions caved in to their demands, the Trump regime – that is, the small cadre of bottom-feeding fanatics around Donald Trump (JD Vance, Elon Musk, Russell Vought, Stephen Miller and RFK Jr) along with the child king himself – have overreached.
They’ve dared China, Harvard and the supreme court to blink.
But guess what? They’ve met their matches. None of them has blinked – and they won’t.
Trump Administration Faces Contempt Charges:
In a withering 46-page opinion on Wednesday, D.C. Chief Judge James Boasberg laid out how he came to believe that the Trump administration was acting in bad faith during its Alien Enemies Act removals.
Boasberg set the stage for potential contempt prosecutions in the order. He also detailed what he came to see as the Trump administration’s scheme to shield its plan to use rarely invoked wartime powers to remove more than 100 Venezuelans to a Salvadoran detention facility, depriving them of due process and the courts of the ability to review what was taking place.
Below are five points from Boasberg’s opinion. (Click on the article–read ’em all. This judge belongs on the Supreme Court.)
Just One More Example Why James Carville Is An Asshole:
James Carville slammed Democratic National Committee vice chair David Hogg on Wednesday after the activist backed plans to oust incumbent Democrats in solid blue districts.
“Well, it’s the most insane thing,” said Carville, a longtime Democratic strategist, in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper.
Hogg — a school shooting survivor who has since become the first Gen Z’er elected as a DNC vice chair — predicted he’d get pushback as Leaders We Deserve, an organization he leads, announced a $20 million effort to elect younger Democratic primary challengers in traditionally safe, blue districts next year.
“This is going to anger a lot of people,” said Hogg, who predicted a “smear campaign” against him in an interview with The New York Times.
He stressed that the organization isn’t telling older Democrats that they “need to go,” instead, he hopes to make way for a new generation that’s “most acutely impacted by a lot of the issues that we are legislating on — that are actually going to live to see the consequences of this.”
Clinton, Carville And Corporadems: 3 times zero=zero.
What do you want to talk about?
If James Carville had any useful advice to give he’d be working for candidates instead of TV.
I would think that Harvard, Columbia, etc would have one or two pretty prominent constitutional lawyers who may not even be maga who would answer a call for pro bono work for their schools. we see what the eu is doing, china, etc. why dont these schools band together and put their collective might to work?
“Clinton, Carville And Corporadems”
For all their failings, I’m glad we elected them instead of their opponents.
The Clinton 1993 economic plan would be a pretty good answer for today’s issues.
Democratic failings came later as a result of not building on and maintaining their own successes.
Wrong. By my math, 1993 was some 32 years ago.
Democratic failings come from tying the party to the corporations who willingly funded them while the Party ignored its core constituencies.
Meaning, once the corporations went en masse for the Rethugs, all the D’s had left were the politicians who embraced said corporations. They can’t and won’t change, which is why we need people not stuck in that Third Way world.
I suggest we start with Chris Coons.
Perhaps in 32 years some have forgotten Bill Clinton won a contested Democratic primary. The electorate was still enthralled by Reagan and had no appetite for anyone to the left of Clinton.
Which condemned us to never rewarding anyone to the left of Clinton. Biden arguably was more anti-corporate than anyone since and you see how he was rewarded for it.
Joe Biden’s anti-corporate stance (tepid at best) will not be a defining feature of his presidency or his overall legacy. He was “rewarded” for an uncompromising hubris that lead him to think 4 more years was the best choice for America, and for selling out to the judeo-facists (who are tied in with the worst corporatists themselves).
Democrats failing started with Carter, continued for 50 years, and directly lead to Trump.
https://delawarecall.com/2025/04/16/who-says-it-cant-happen-here/
Really? You’re going to give LBJ a pass?
You really can’t say something that took 50 years to germinate was a “direct” result of anything. Too many twists and turns along the way. If SCOTUS doesn’t interfere in 2000 history would look quite different.
Author is an esteemed professor and FDR scholar. Take it up with him I guess. Or you know read his piece I don’t know.
Since LBJ did Civil Rights, Voting Rights and Medicare, yeah I guess he gets a pass.
Doesn’t get a pass for Vietnam.
Never will.
Obviously. I’m talking about in the context of 50 years of class war from above, the normalization of austerity, and so forth.
Carter, Clinton and Obama accelerated this.
FDR doesn’t get a pass for Japanese concentration camps.
It’s been a long time since I heard someone raise the specter of the Trilateral Commission.
So I guess there’s never been decent U.S. president of any stripe.
Lincoln still tops. Then FDR. 2 decent ones. That’s pretty much it, yeah. I’m sorry you’re confused by this.
I’m surprised even Lincoln meets your high standards.
It’s actually not that complicated, with all due respect.
Nothing complicated about it. You’re apparently an ideological purist and sometimes people like you make it hard to win elections against the really bad guys. Maybe this past election for president. This annoys me (and I realize a proper response to that might be, Who cares?). There is such a thing as a pragmatic progressive. Many of them comment on this board. You have not sounded like one of them, but maybe your tone has something to do with it. I think you might have fit well on that San Francisco school board.