DL Open Thread: Thursday, July 31, 2025

First, a question on the upcoming Special Session: Usually, when there has been a Special Session, pretty much everything has been prepared in advance.  Raising my concern: Will this Special Session merely provide an ill-considered patch, or will a thoughtful solution to the issue that has been discussed extensively and in detail here emerge? I, um, have my doubts.  Although, if legislators read Mediawatch’s piece and the responses, they will at least have an essential primer on the issue and how to proceed.

World Finally Wakes Up To Israel’s Genocide.  Tens of thousands innocent victims later:

Some of Israel’s most important Western allies, under political pressure from voters appalled by mounting evidence of starvation in Gaza, now say that they will recognize a Palestinian state. President Trump, himself convinced that Gazans are starving, has sent his Mideast envoy to Israel for the first time in months to look at the chaotic food distribution system.

More scholars are debating whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Opinion polls in the United States and elsewhere show an increasingly negative view of Israel. And there is no clear plan to bring the war against Hamas to an end.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has responded angrily to the growing skepticism. He has said that the reports of starvation are exaggerated, that Hamas must be destroyed, that critics are often antisemites and that Western recognition of a Palestinian state is a reward to Hamas for the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed more than 1,000 people.

“The usual Israeli view is that this crisis is another temporary problem,” said Natan Sachs, an analyst of Israeli politics. “But that’s a misreading of the world, because it’s accelerating a global turn against Israel that has dramatic effects, especially among young people.”

Making this a ‘dog bites man’ story:

At least 111 Palestinians, including 91 aid seekers, have been killed and 820 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 60,249 Palestinians and injured 147,089 since 7 October, 2023, the ministry said on Telegram.

The total number of aid seekers killed since 27 May, when Israel introduced a new aid distribution mechanism, has reached 1,330, with more than 8,818 injured, the statement said.

Hohum. Genocide as usual.

Elizabeth Warren:  No More Dems Playing Charlie Brown To Trump’s Lucy.  Which feckless D’s will fold?:

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) took to the Senate floor on Wednesday morning to call out Senate Republicans for helping President Donald Trump and the White House snatch away Congress’ power of the purse.

And, given that the Trump administration has so fully robbed Congress of its authority to make spending decisions, Warren expressed her opposition to participating in the appropriations process — the historically bipartisan, mammoth undertaking Congress attempts every year to compile the federal government’s budget for the next fiscal year — arguing that Democrats can’t trust Republicans and Trump to uphold any bipartisan government funding agreement.

“I voted no on that funding bill because even if this bill becomes law, I don’t believe Donald Trump has any intention of following that law,” Warren said on the Senate floor, referring to the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill she voted against last week. “And I’m not willing to be a helpmate on another one of Donald Trump’s scams.”

“Why should Democrats come to the table and negotiate in good faith and throw our support behind a quote-unquote bipartisan bill, only for Republicans to turn around after the deal is done and, somewhere down the line, delete any parts of the deal Trump doesn’t like?” Warren asked.

Warren also urged Democrats to use the power they have in the appropriations process — funding bills require 60 votes in the Senate, requiring some Senate Democrats to join the Republicans to successfully pass the bills — to get assurances that any government funding they will support would “include an agreement that they won’t take back that deal a few weeks later.”

Why would any Democrat oppose this?  Chris? Lisa?

Trump: ‘Epstein Stole My Sex Slave’.  Not in those words, but you judge for yourself:

The family of a key survivor of Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse urged President Donald Trump on Wednesday not to consider clemency for the late financier’s co-conspirator and confidant, Ghislaine Maxwell.

The family of Virginia Roberts Giuffre, a sexual abuse advocate who died by suicide in April, made their plea to Trump in a public statement after he told reporters that Epstein, a convicted sex offender, “stole” Giuffre from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where she worked as a locker-room attendant at age 16 during the summer of 2000.

“It was shocking to hear President Trump invoke our sister and say that he was aware that Virginia had been ‘stolen’ from Mar-a-Lago. It makes us ask if he was aware of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell’s criminal actions, especially given his statement two years later that his good friend Jeffrey ‘likes women on the younger side . . . no doubt about it.’ We and the public are asking for answers; survivors deserve this,” the family added.

ICE Shatters Windows, Bloodies Children.  Caught on camera. They are the ICE-stapo. Sickening:

A month into the new Trump administration, on the predawn streets of suburban Maryland, a high-ranking ICE official stood alongside a Mazda sedan that his officers had just stopped.

The official told a local TV reporter at the scene what was about to happen. “He can either give us a license,” he said, “or we’ll smash the fucking window out and drag him out.” Then, as the driver refused to exit the car, officers broke the glass.

It was one of nearly 50 documented instances of immigration agents breaking vehicle windows that ProPublica has identified from social media, local news accounts, lawsuits and interviews since President Donald Trump took office six months ago. Using the same methods, we found just eight in the previous decade. Neither number is comprehensive. The government releases no relevant statistics.

Use-of-force experts and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement insiders say the tactic was rarely used during previous administrations. They say there is no known policy change greenlighting agents’ smashing of windows. Rather, it’s a part of a broader shattering of norms.

There are arrest quotas, and they are increasingly aggressive. “There’s been an emphasis placed on speed and numbers that did not exist before,” says Deborah Fleischaker, who served as ICE chief of staff under President Joe Biden.

This Is A Win-Win:

Delaware announces a partnership with nonprofit Undue Medical Debt to eliminate $50 million in debt for an estimated 17,000 residents.

Gov. Matt Meyer secured $500,000 in state funds last month that will be leveraged to eliminate medical debt for Delawareans with an annual household income at or below 400% of the federal poverty level.

This is an income of roughly $100,000 for a family of three, or a resident will qualify if they have medical debt that equals 5% or more of their household income.

CEO of Undue Medical Debt Allison Sesso explains there is a large for-profit market for medical debt because debt collectors can purchase that debt from hospitals for pennies on the dollar.

“We, as a nonprofit, have seen that and said, ‘You know what, if we take donated dollars, government funds, and we take those funds to the market, we can buy those debts too,’ but we’re not gonna follow up and try and harass people for that money, we’re just gonna send them letters and let them know that they are free and clear of those debts, and they do not owe them anymore,” she said during the partnership announcement Wednesday at the New Castle County Hope Center.

The governor also signed a bill prohibiting the reporting of medical debt to consumer credit reporting agencies in an effort to keep medical debt from disqualifying individuals in accessing housing, credit or jobs.

The legislation, spearheaded by State Sen. Spiros Mantzavinos (D-Elsmere), was signed into law just weeks after a federal judge ruled that medical debt can remain on Americans’ credit reports.

What’s not to love here?

Nemours To Trans Youth: ‘Drop Dead’.  Yes,  I’ve overstated the situation for effect.  But it flat-out sucks:

In June, amid threats of Medicaid cuts from the Trump administration that have been looming over providers offering gender-affirming care services, Nemours Children’s Hospital officially stopped accepting new patients into its gender-affirming care clinic for medical treatment.

The clinic, which has provided services for transgender youth since 2018, will continue to treat existing patients and offer behavioral health services to new ones.

But its decision to halt new admissions leaves many Delaware families, and those who relocated for care, without vital access to the only known facility in the state that administers puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans youth.

The heightened oversight from federal agencies, among other policies implemented by the new administration, has created significant uncertainty for health care providers like Nemours, which rely on federal funds.

In the fiscal year ending December 2023, Nemours Delaware Children’s Hospital generated approximately $700 million in revenue. Meanwhile, the Nemours Foundation, which operates facilities across Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, reported over $2 billion in revenue. Of that, more than $780 million came from Medicaid and about $30 million more came from other federal funding sources, according to Nemours’ financial statements.

Amid Nemours’ decision, Delaware has taken steps to protect its transgender residents.

Gov. Matt Meyer signed an executive order to protect gender-affirming care around the same time that Nemours made its decision.

But officials from the governor’s office said that they were informed by hospital officials the night before the signing that no final decision on care had been made yet.

Fascists love going after ‘The Other’.  After labeling them as such.  If you listen to so-called ‘centrist’ Democrats, supporting trans rights is a political liability.  Don’t listen to them.  They are every bit as morally-bankrupt as MAGAts.

What do you want to talk about?