DL Open Thread: Sunday, May 11, 2025
We start today with a Rorschach Test:
Thoughts? Comments?
Because Nothing In The Belichick/Hudson Saga Is Too Cringe-y For Me:
Inside the Holiday Inn Portland By The Bay, the contestants of both the Miss Maine USA and Miss Teen Maine USA pageants burst onto a stage and performed a dance routine. As it ended, the girls and women introduced themselves to the crowd. Last went the one who had been twirling and shimmying on the edge of the stage, only a few feet from Belichick.
“Jordon Hudson, 24, Hancock!” she shouted.
When it was her turn, after Miss Hampden, Hudson walked across the stage in a sparkly purple gown. “Woooo!” two women — who later identified themselves only as part of Hudson’s “Glam Team” — yelled from the crowd. The backdrop was a black curtain with holes punched in it, made to look like stars. Small, colored spotlights, the kind found at senior proms, rotated around the stage. Hudson received loud cheers — but not quite as loud as Miss Lewiston.
Loved the tone of that article–pure snark.
Nobody, But Nobody, Does Snark Better Than ShowerCap. Add him to your Sunday Must-Reads. A sample from today:
Wouldn’t want you to think that crack was directed at the trade war, though. No, that’s going swimmingly, at least for the billionaires with clearly designated bribe troughs. Elon Musk, for example, has stumbled into a lucrative side hustle, extorting Starlink contracts from developing economies desperate to get out from under the mad king’s tariff tantrum.
Of course, the real money’s in meme coins, as any grifting rapist’ll tell ya. Turns out, taking the global economy hostage is such a simple, effective get-rich-quick scheme, even a guy who bankrupted casinos can’t fuck it up.
As for the rest of you filthy takers, you have until Monday to select your five favorite pencils; the rest will be personally collected by Tom Homan, who will probably eat them right in front of you.
Friday Night News Dump: National Science Foundation Dismantled:
Science magazine this week reported the latest development in a growing pattern of political disruption to American science: the National Science Foundation is eliminating all 37 of its research divisions, restructuring its grant-making process, laying off staff and canceling over $1 billion in already-awarded grants. The changes follow the resignation of Director Sethuraman Panchanathan and coincide with a proposed 55% cut to the agency’s budget.
This is not reform. It is a dismantling.
The restructuring is widely seen as a response to political pressure from the executive branch, reflecting a broader effort to align federal science funding with emerging ideological priorities. In addition to diversity-related research, areas such as climate science, vaccination, HIV/AIDS and COVID-19 have all faced deep cuts. This shift has raised concerns within the scientific community about the potential narrowing of research scope and the implications for academic freedom and innovation. The economic consequences of restricting scientific inquiry on this scale could be far-reaching.
‘Homeland Security’ Threatens To Throw More Dems In Jail.
Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said arresting Democratic lawmakers, who were conducting an oversight visit at an immigration detention facility in New Jersey on Friday, “is definitely on the table.”
Among those who were arrested protesting the reopening of Delaney Hall, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Newark, was Mayor Ras Baraka. New Jersey’s interim U.S. Attorney and counselor to President Donald Trump Alina Habba said Baraka “ignored multiple warnings” from DHS officials.
The Mayor was released later that day and told CNN’s “The Source” “Not a single person, not an officer from ICE, not any of the security guards, nobody told me to leave that place.”
“Somebody from Homeland Security came in the end and began to escalate the situation, and we wound up being where we are today,” Baraka said.
Perhaps Baraka will someday get reparations. You know, like the family of Ashli Babbitt.
A Close-Up Of An ICE Arrest. Read it. Feel free to take action:
I’m driving five miles across the city to check out a tip that there’s an ICE rendition ongoing. I’ve got the scanner on the car stereo as I’m about to pull onto the street in question. It’s a quiet neighborhood, small houses on small lots, people walking dogs, the mailman waving, the lawnmowers running, and I hear the dispatcher: “We have an ICE officer over there who’s allegedly being surrounded.”
“On our way,” the officer responds.
As a local reporter for a decade now, I’ve learned that you can hear the cops at their most honest on the scanner. And as I’m hearing that “surrounded” comment I remember what the city’s police chief told the city council in January:
“We do not do civil detention arrests,” Police Chief Paul Saucier said at the time, reassuring them that they wouldn’t be party to the ICE assault Trump was about to unleash. The police, he said, “do not have the authority to affect a civil arrest.”
What he didn’t say is that if you try to stop the civil arrest, the police will stop you from stopping it.
This morning a few dozen of us here in Worcester, Massachusetts, got to see that unstated fine print in action firsthand. A woman was led by federal agents in cuffs away from her family, through a throng of community organizers trying to stop it, and into an unmarked car. The local police arrived to prevent the community from protecting their neighbor from an unlawful kidnapping. They succeeded, and in the process arrested two of the people who tried to stop it.
Buckson Seeks New Home For Statue Of Racist. Fittingly, one of the proposed sites is a plantation:
On Tuesday, Sen. Eric Buckson, R-Camden, introduced Senate Concurrent Resolution 65, calling on the state, the city of Dover and Kent County Levy Court to join with the city of Wilmington to bring a historic Caesar Rodney equestrian statue to the county in which he resided.
The relocation of the monument would have a deadline of July 4, 2026, the date of the country’s 250th anniversary, when semiquincentennial celebrations will be occurring nationwide.
“We’re coming up on the 250th (anniversary), and with Caesar Rodney, his famous ride and what he meant to the state, I think it would be a disservice if, in doing that celebration, he was locked away in a storage bin somewhere,” Sen. Buckson told the Daily State News. (Or a crypt.)
The statue was erected in Wilmington’s Rodney Square in 1923, but amid widespread protests against police brutality and systemic racism in 2020, it was removed and placed into storage. There have been no plans publicized to relocate it back into Rodney Square since.
“I would welcome a full discussion because I think that’s what we should have, a full discussion about how we best tell history in all of its imperfections,” he said. “I think that’s what this resolution does. We can look past the statue and have a broader, deeper conversation of how we tell history.” (Omit Black people from history, revere slave-owners. You know, like Trump is doing.)
Inspector General Bill Stalled? Well, depends on whether the Joint Finance Committee includes funding for it:
This year’s bill has Senate leadership of both parties as additional sponsors, but lacks the names of any of the House Democratic leadership. House Minority Leader Tim Dukes is on the bill.
An obstacle to its passage, leaders in both chambers say, is the price tag. To establish the office, it’s estimated to cost more than $590,000 in fiscal year 2026, $1.4 million in FY 2027 and $1.5 million in FY 2028.
Creating an inspector general’s office has been discussed as far back as 2007. Bills introduced in 2022 failed to garner the support of leadership in both chambers. The issue gained renewed interest after recent scandals, including WHYY News’s exclusive reporting in May 2024 that a former state employee stole about $181,000 in 2023 from Delaware’s unemployment trust fund. It’s unclear whether the state has been able to recover any of the money that was taken.
The trust fund in 2024 remains “unauditable” as it was in 2023, and the Department of Labor did not respond to WHYY’s News request last month for an update on system upgrades.
What do you want to talk about?
Am I reading that endorsement correctly? Meyer is pledging to raise $100K for the party only if his chosen candidate wins chair?
Isn’t the chair elected by the rank-and-file party members? So he’s essentially extorting them (albeit in reverse): “Elect my choice or I don’t help you raise a bucketload of cash.” What happens if they choose someone else? Does he decide the party is on its own and sit out the next four years?
Maybe he didn’t intend it that way, but that’s certainly how it reads.
Which is exactly why I made this a Rorschach Test.
Yes, I think you are reading it correctly.
How much did Carney raise for the party?
Here’s the thing: Evelyn Brady has done a lot of outreach. I think the vast majority of our local RD committee members were really impressed with her presentation.
HowEVER, the idea that, if she’s chosen the Party Chair (as of now, I intend to vote for her), Matt will raise money for the party, strikes me as, um, tawdry? Will he really NOT raise money for the Party if she’s not chosen?
I almost think he’s trying to get more of a rub FROM her than he’s giving TO her.
I voted for Matt (well, more against BHL), but some of the stuff he does is just politically clunky.
Very interesting, Matt is publicly saying what every kingmaker I have ever been around has actually done. I can respect the transparency. It’s a bold move. I support Ms Brady as well but I gave up my minor party position over a year ago. I can say this that her opponent is not a person I would support for any political position. I don’t know that I would have made this move but I find it to be a strong and confident show of support for the best choice for a leader who can a minimum put a chink in the Delaware Way armor.
What if the $100K comes from Phil Shawe?
I think any literal monetary incentive to vote for a particular person is abhorrent. This is a terrible look for both of them. And, it exposes their knowledge level. I believe the party asks Governors for $200k in on years and $100k in off years to advance the coordinated campaign. Is he truly going to give $0 if someone else wins? Losing legislative races in 2026 could be big risks to his priorities and we also have statewides up that he relies on. At best, this is a ploy for Brady to play the hero and push him to give the money either way. But at worst it’s the two of them saying they can win but you might not like how they do it. And we saw enough of that last election. As a delegate, I’d like them to explain this. It’s giving off Musk.
Forcing us all to bow to corporations, throwing his weight behind fighting rent stabilization, and now this. Meyer hasn’t taken long to show his true colors, eh?
For every complicated problem, Mencken observed, there is a solution that is neat, elegant and wrong.
So it is with rent control. It sounds good in theory, but it is one of the best-studied issues in economics, and the rare issue on which virtually everyone agrees: Over time, they reduce both the quality and quantity of rental units.
I had to double check this was posted by Evelyn when I saw this because it feels so wrong. This is Matt telling down-ballot Democrats that he does not care about them. They’re on their own if he doesn’t get his way. This is beyond disappointing and deeply concerns me.