DL Open Thread: Friday, July 25, 2025
There is absolutely no analogy between this photo and the WWII concentration camps. Because there is absolutely no genocide taking place in Gaza:
A one-and-a-half-year-old child in Gaza facing life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and blockade.
Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images
Which Reminds Me: Just Shut Up. We’re talking Josh Shapiro and Rahm Emmanuel:
Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania has accused Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York, of failing to condemn “blatantly antisemitic” rhetoric by “extremists,” wading into a party-wide debate over the Democratic nominee and his views on Israel.
During the primary, Mr. Mamdani refused to condemn the phrase “globalize the intifada,” though he has denied using it himself. He has more recently appeared to soften his defense of it. Palestinians and their supporters have called the phrase a rallying cry for liberation, but many Jews consider it a call to violence, a direct reference to deadly attacks on civilians in Israel by Palestinians in uprisings in the 1980s and 2000s.
Rahm Emanuel, the former Chicago mayor and longtime Democratic official, also criticized Mr. Mamdani, saying bluntly in a podcast released Thursday that a politician unwilling to condemn use of the phrase has no place in the party.
Say it with me, motherfuckers: Israel is committing genocide. Won’t say it, will you? Meaning, you are complicit in the genocide. Ya feel me?
Just A Few Reasons Why Hulk Hogan Was A Piece Of Shit. Some worse than others. As in, he was a racist:
Both the pro wrestling world and entertainment world viewed the story of Hulk Hogan’s racism as a big deal. Hogan’s infamous sex tape was leaked with Hogan saying some heinous things about his daughter potentially dating a black person.
Objectively evil racism was shown by Hogan towards the black community. WWE reacted by firing Hogan a little over a year after he returned to the promotion in an ambassador role. Hogan lost a lot of fans and exposed his beliefs to the world, despite trying to apologize and claim he learned from the mistake.
And perhaps his final public act:
A new group of people outside of wrestling started criticizing Hulk Hogan for his appearance one of Donald Trump’s Presidential campaign events. Trump is controversial enough to make a celebrity receive blowback, but Hogan’s actions caused more controversy.
The Republican crowd reacted well to Hogan and his general antics of cutting his old promos to endorse Trump. However, Hogan went way too far when talking about body slamming Kamala Harris to receive negative backlash.
To me, though, his biggest sin was ‘inspiring’ a whole generation of kids to take ‘roids’ to look just like the Hulkster, preferably w/o the hair loss.
Extortion Wins In Fascist America. Paramount Merger Approved. Columbia University Blows Its Reputation Up Real Good:
Columbia University has reached a sweeping agreement with President Donald Trump’s administration, ending months of political and financial warfare that turned the Ivy League school into a high-profile test case for Trump’s authoritarian crackdown on higher education.
The university will pay $200 million over three years to settle federal claims tied to alleged discriminatory practices, plus another $21 million to resolve Equal Employment Opportunity Commission investigations. In return, the federal government will reinstate most of the $400 million in research funding it froze earlier this year and restore Columbia’s access to billions in future grants.
The deal also brings external oversight and forces Columbia to adopt Trump-backed policy changes, including a controversial federal definition of antisemitism that will now guide teaching and disciplinary reviews.
Betcha didn’t know about that last sentence, didja? Might I suggest a professorship for Rahm Emmanuel?
Could Those Brain Worms Have Been Caused By Venereal Disease? Yep, turns out that RFK Jr. was in the Epstein orbit:
In March 2024, Kennedy was roundly mocked online for defending his interactions with Epstein by, oddly, listing numerous other figures accused or convicted of horrendous acts with whom he’s also had run-ins, such as Harvey Weinstein, O.J. Simpson, and Bill Cosby.
That bizarre remark aside, the health secretary’s past connections to Epstein still were seemingly not as deep as the president’s, who had a storied friendship with the disgraced financier. In fact, Epstein once told journalist Michael Wolff that he “was Donald’s closest friend for 10 years.”
Still, Kennedy’s closet is full of skeletons, to use his own words. When Vanity Fair reported on a former babysitter’s sexual assault allegations against Kennedy, he did not deny them. Instead, the then-candidate said, “I am not a church boy.… I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that, if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”
Meyer Dumps Chief Of Staff. The rumors were true:
Three days before the end of the Delaware legislative session, Gov. Matt Meyer held an all-staff meeting to address what he has said were unfounded rumors about a personnel shakeup within his office.
In the day before the meeting, several lawmakers had told Spotlight Delaware that they had heard the claim that certain senior staffers in the governor’s office, including Meyer’s Chief of Staff Vanessa Phillips, had either been fired or reassigned.
About a week later, Spotlight Delaware asked the governor during a press conference what had happened during that all-staff meeting. In response, Meyer said he told his staff that “rumors travel around the world before the truth can put on its shoes” – an adage that illustrates how conjecture spreads more rapidly than credible information.
At the press conference, Meyer also said that “all the firing and reorganization rumors — that I found very entertaining — are not true.”
Two weeks later, on Thursday, the governor’s office announced that it is reorganizing, with Meyer having reassigned Phillips to a new role of senior advisor to the governor.
Which, let’s face it, is tantamount to a firing. She’ll be there until a better role comes along–outside of the Governor’s office–which it no doubt will soon. The new Chief of Staff?:
The Thursday announcement also revealed that Meyer had promoted his deputy legal counsel, Misty Seemans, to become his next chief of staff.
Seemans has performed legal analysis on multiple key issues and pieces of legislation, handled commutations and immigration policies for the office, and worked on a range of legal issues from criminal justice reform to social justice efforts, according to Meyer’s office’s announcement.
Before working in the governor’s office, she served as statewide Family Court Supervisor at the Delaware Office of Defense Services, the official names for the public defender’s office, where she handled multiple jury and bench trials, ranging from misdemeanors to capital murder. A native Delawarean, she also serves as an adjunct professor at Delaware Law School.
My favorite snippet from the article?:
In the statement, Meyer congratulated both Seemans and Phillips, who he called “an indispensable partner in advancing our agenda.”
“As Senior Advisor, Vanessa will continue to lend her strategic vision and counsel on our most complex challenges,” he said.
Meyer’s deputy chief of staff, Nick Merlino, said in an interview on Thursday that Phillips’ new role “lets her flourish more as a high-level driver of the governor’s mission.”
When pressed, he also said Phillips’ reassignment was not a demotion.
Hey, I believe ’em. What, you have doubts?
I searched high and low. Could find nothing on the Data Center meeting in Delaware City. Anybody have a report for us? And/or a link that I missed?
Far be it from me to insert gratuitous music videos only nominally related to a topic at hand (he lied), but could it be that the meeting turned into this?:
What do you want to talk about?
FWIW, Delaware Call has published several pieces by Misty Seemans calling for police reform. I wonder if that will be part of her charge in this new job.
It’s nice that she’ll be a “driver for the governor’s mission,” and it would be even nicer if the governor would state in something more than vague generalities what exactly his mission is.
Oh, you’re right. I KNEW that name was familiar to me. That’s–encouraging.
Wonder if the Chief Counsel will stay now that his employee will be his boss?
DE LIBERAL is on top of WHAT MATTERS. NOT THE CORPORATE PRESS.
I would say the overwhelming majority of the crowd was against Project Washington. of the 30ish people who got up to speak, I’d say 15 came out completely against the project, 10 had major issues they wanted addressed before they would even consider the project, 5 were union members looking for commitments (more on this later) and 1 person was for it and saw it as an investment (he was quickly heckled by some in the back).
Highlights:
1.A Decent amount of elected officials. Mimi jokingly tried to claim that Caneco was a host of the event all along. If you would like the full list I tried to write down as many as I could, let me know. They said “DNREC” is hear but I didn’t see Patterson and no one from DNREC spoke.
2. Starwood gave a powerpoint presentation during which they couldn’t stress enough that this is very early on in the process. That was also their default answer to any question to the point the crowd would expect it and begin to groan.
3. Starwood began by saying there is a lot of misinformation out there but then, as pointed out by one of the questions from the crowd at the end, there entire presentation was basically disinformation. Most of their numbers are based on average data centers. This would be the second largest data center in the country so it didnt really apply.
4. Caneco assured the crowd this would not go through the Jobs Now program and would follow the normal land use process. “Not breaking ground next summer. Not Happening” -KC
5. Many, many, many, questions about power but Delmarva was not there because “They could not get someone out to the meeting on such short notice. Too many people are on vacation.” People were not pleased.
6. Council will communicate with other communities that have dealt with data centers.
7. Starwood would not comment on if they are buying or leasing the land. “Confidential”. And would not comment on a purchase price. “Confidential”. Also would not comment on a tenant. “Too Early” Crowd not pleased.
8. They list the “unskilled labor” jobs (someone made a comment that no job is unskilled that got a round of applause) at $40,000, someone asked why they are promising 200 jobs when 1/3 of them are below the living wage for a single man with no kids.
9. Frank Burns wanted to know how long they have been talking to Veolia water (since about May they claimed) and Delmarva Power (About a year) since both miraculously just made upgrades at their facilities.
10. 3 top speakers/questoin-ers.
1. Rep Eric Morrison who called it like it was. “This is a dog and pony show. This was all just a sales pitch.” Said he knew a decent amount about this topic and was texting with other attendees about all of the misinformation through the presentation. “You just came here tonight to take what you want. Corporations lie all the time.”
2. A young lady who had very direct questions that Starwood would not or could not answer. How much water will you use? We dont know its very early in the process (Told ya). Well then how did Veolia water sign off and say they would be able to supply water for the site, what number did you give them? We used the average. Oh the average for data center 1/10th this size?
She also had a question regarding how many sites they built, which they just could not answer. The rep said he only handles the US. The young lady said, okay how many are in the US then. He was 1 and we are building another. He then later corrected himself about 15 minutes later nd said 3.
3. The best for last was James Maravelias, President Laborers Local #199. The union members who spoke were for the project IF they could get a commitment that if would be Delaware workers on the project. Starwood tried to brush this aside by giving nonanswers that again its early and theyll look at all options. Finally saying they’d do at least 70% union. James had an issue with Starwood going to Delmarva and DNREC before speaking with the unions and guaranteeing they would be involved. “This is my state. You want to get things done you go through me.” “You know what 70% gets you? An inflatable Rat and a picket line.” “You’ll be seeing me again.” LOUD applause.
11. Mimi did speak at the end and said that “Im not satisfied by this tonight. I’d be a No vote and I encourage the council to vote No as well.” Poore gave her stump speech by letting everyone know her family is union and wants them involved. Didnt really come out against.
The whole powerpoint WAS a sales pitch. They had no answers around if our energy costs will go up, how much water, how can our area support this when we are already getting text the PJM is at capacity. No real answers around noise just that they’ll bring in engineers. They even had a slip up when trying to defend the low traffic around the facility by saying “Not many people work at these facilities”
No real timetable as to when they will try to submit plans to council so we’ll just have to keep our eyes peeled.
Thanks for this. ^
About 30 spoke but there were I’d say over 100 people at the meeting as a whole.
The Blog Report Of The Year. Thank you for this!
The “young lady” was Jess Scarane and she did a fabulous job with her questions.
Thank you! I did not catch her name but wanted to give her credit. She killed it
I was there, pretty accurate account here, the “Young Lady” with the good questions was Jes Scarane and they were great. Eric Morrison was on fire.
El Som , there was a blast from the past, the Starwood Attorney was former “shadow county executive” Pam Scott!
Omigod. Although, to quote the parrot from Aladdin:
“Why am I not surprised?”
“I’m gonna have a heart attack and die from not surprise!!!”
A few more comments, there were people from Dover and Wilmington who spoke as well as officials and citizens from surround districts, not just the Delaware City community, which was nice to see. Questions were raised about the environmental impact, why won’t they produce their own power, claims by Starwood that there have been no reported noise complaints at other facilities in VA (which was fact checked on the spot as being wrong). Questions of haven’t we been squeezed enough on the energy and environmental side.
Even if you are for Data Centers and wanted to be for the project, it was hard to be based on this presentation. They had no answers to any of the difficult questions and just deferred to Delmarva on the energy ones. As pointed out, their presentation as mainly on average data centers which this is not. Their main selling point was just that were in a good area for them basically with the existing station and where all the power comes into the east coast.
I cannot stress this enough, THIS WOULD BE THE SECOND LARGEST DATA CENTER IN THE US. This is not A data center, its essentially 11 data centers. We cannot handle this type of project with our current infrastructure.
Also, I didn’t really see this aside from one comment on an early post. It feels like the refinery is basically saying “screw you” to the community, selling the land to a major polluter and they will essentially take the profits and use them on the higher fines that were enacted.
Delaware has it’s own sustainability problems BARITC is right. I am sure that we can not handle this large of project. If they go through with it, property values will plumet. Why, my results are as follows:
Electrical infrastructure is shot & on life support.
Aquifers are weak and need upgrading since 1972.
DE, 25% wetlands can’t support anything like this.
To much risk no real rewards for the citizens of this state.
Health effects unknown DE already has too much CANCER.
I feel these Corporate Crabs will do anything for a buck including use political greed against our decision makes.
We have to know when to say no my fellow citizens.
Caneco seems to be refusing to take a position on Data Center.
Sounds more like he’s insisting that it not be railroaded through, which frankly was my concern about this hearing.
BTW, we might get a better sense as to if anyone on County Council is on the take when Council considers Councilman David Carter’s legislation to require a well-thought-out process for considering data center proposals. I think it’s scheduled for a vote on August 26.
Technically, as a member of council, it is inadvisable to publicly take a stand. You’d put some risk out there if you take a position on a project that will be coming to you as a vote, especially a vote on a rezoning. He is properly cautious about advocacy because he has to remain impartial until the cases are made before him in council chambers.
Baritc, you’re the best I hope DE Liberal ask you to work your magic on this issue so we shall be well informed about these “Conniving Corporate slicksters”?
Thanks DE Liberal for getting this out to your people.
The federal Reserve story with a clip, the chairman frosted 47’s stones.
And Chuck E Cheese got taken down on premises too funny.
Last but not least, The Hunter gets caught by the Game would be a great song to post with 47 and the dead molester. All that if you see fit?
This may be stupid but I am totally ignorant on the water usage of a massive data center – but if it’s in Delaware city why can’t a pumping station be built to use water directly from the river? Why isn’t one of the stipulations that solar panels be installed on the roof and grounds to supplement their required power?
I’m not a hydrologist, but we’re talking a shit-ton of water.
So where is this water coming from?
To be determined.
Just as a factoid, for every 100 words AI produces, it takes 1.5 liters of water. We are talking about a many metric shit-tons of water to cool this place.
Notice that the unions are all for this monstrosity as long as they get their beaks wet.
Unions are only very occasionally our allies.
This data center sounds atrocious but if Jimmy Maravelias is against it, then maybe it’s not so bad? I’m kidding but this guy really is the worst of the worst.
I know it’s “his state” and “and nothing happens without him” (BHL, was this your experience?), but he really does suck and opponents would be wise to get his ass out of the conversation.
Narcissistic blowhard but someone has to fill up the rat – and no one blows better than Jimmy!
He’s not against the project, he’s against building it if any non-union labor is involved. Believe me, if they committed to 100% union labor he’d be all for it.
Which, to be fair, is his job. This is far from the only case in which what’s best for a union is not what’s best for the state or the public.
This just might be a tad–what’s the word I’m looking for–hyperbolic:
“This is my state. You want to get things done you go through me.”
The key to any project like this is getting power centers, like construction unions, on your side. It doesn’t guarantee victory – see, for example, the 76ers attempt to build a downtown arena abutting Chinatown. The biggest, almost the only, boosters of that project were the unions. They have enough pull that the mayor was on their side. It still wasn’t enough, but they almost succeeded despite the damage it would have done to Chinatown.
Something to think about:
I read something the other day (can’t find it now) suggesting that big data centers could become targets for unfriendly military or terroist attacks. If some terrorist organization thinks it might be fun to cripple business activities on the Eastern Seaboard, having the second-largest data center in the US in Delaware City might make the state an attractive target.
That was the subject of one of the commenters last night. No one responded to it.
Glad you called out Meyer for that bullshit on his staffing changes. A good administration still *in the first half of the first year* does NOT shitcan the chief of staff unless they seriously fudged up.
Word on the street is it apparently had something to do with Meyer being pissed off that ‘his’ budget wasn’t passed in its entirety.
As if the JFC can’t be expected to mark up and change any Governor’s budget? Matt needs to brush up on his people skills (I know, coming from me, that’s rich, but then, I’m not governor). Otherwise, I might be knocking doors again for Kyle Evans Gay in 2028–if I can still knock doors by 2028.
I don’t mean this as an insult to the neurodivergent community but Meyer clearly has Aspergers and it has been the crux of all his political miscalculations. Also accounts for his short temper and reactionary moments.
I don’t know anything about these people other than I’ve heard good things about misty seemans. To be determined if Meyer will be a good governor or not but being able to make decisions when things aren’t working is not in my view a mark against an executive. Bethany hall long never fired a soul and see how that worked out for everyone.
But you’re right. A good administration hires someone who shoplifts at Home Depot to run the state budget. Because stability is more important than competence.
Great back-hand to a clueless wonder trying to dredge-up the Noonday Devil.
Most accurate comment on this thread.
Josh Shapiro served in the IDF as an intelligence officer. He is 100% okay with Zionism and everything it entails, including the photo El Som posted. Zionism is a disease that needs to be eradicated.
You’d know, puck. Zionist Nazi scum
OK,kids, it ends now.
Puck, you have been placed in moderation. I don’t know whether you’re getting paid for your pro-Israeli remarks, but, if you are, there’s another blog you can post them on. Granted, nobody responds because nobody reads said blog, but at least you’ll continue to get paid, if you’re getting paid.
Should you choose to comment on anything other than Israel, I will post those.
In my opinion, there simply aren’t two sides to your position, at least not two acceptable sides. And, yes, I find your ongoing propaganda on behalf of starving and bombing people unacceptable. As, I think, should all humans.
Where will the water come from? A very important question indeed. The other important question. Where does it go? After the water has been used for cooling it will be at a higher temp than it was when it was born. The introduction of super heated water into any aquifer or river can have far reaching consequences. What if contaminants are introduced into the water during cooling prior to re introduction?
Water for thought.
The deeper we get into this reassessment scandal, the more convinced I am that Meyer knew something in the months leading up to his primary and general election.
Cannot put my finger on it 100%, but my gut is rarely wrong.
Here’s my Facebook comment on the Spotlight article – (Alby will remember the Pam Scott-Paul Clarky era).
We’re fortunate to have legislative leadership get this ball rolling in the right direction by hosting this showdown. Wasn’t Dustyn Thompson great when he stood up at the end and gave the project representative the JEROME POWELL TREATMENT, fact-check correction in real time. Dustyn came with the reciepts that in fact, noise complaints from their VA facilities were well documented despite these rep.s claiming otherwise. HAAA HAA!
Transparency was key at this early “sketch” stage to show how very little this project has to offer and how much it has cause to harm our state.
As many in Delaware know, I am painfully aware of the deceptive nature of land use attorneys in the manner of presenting a “sketch” whilst drumming up support behind the scenes to force a distasteful and destructive project through to recordation.
That is the exact saga of FOHG, La Grange farm in Glasgow, and Pam Scott trying to ram her development “sketch” in early small meetings through Chris Coons’ first year as County Exec while her hubby Paul Clark sat in the Council President’s seat.
And now Scott has the ear and loyalty of yet another county elected: our CE Marcus Henry. So lets beware. We even have Dave Culver back in the saddle as DLU GM! (not that I’m mad at Dave these days.)