Gonna have to make this quick –Delmarva is doing maintenance work, and we’ll be w/o power starting at 8 am. I’ve poured myself a double (shot of TJ’s Cold Brew), so I should at least be semi-lucid.
The White House is targeting Democratic states with its first wave of cuts to federal projects following the government shutdown, impacting billions of dollars in funding for energy and infrastructure in New York, California and elsewhere.
Russ Vought (the real President), director of the Office of Management and Budget, said Wednesday the Trump administration is cancelling nearly $8 billion in funding for energy programs he characterized as part of “the Left’s climate agenda.”
The moves reflect Trump’s intent to undermine programs benefiting Americans in blue-leaning states, while leaders from both parties work to negotiate a government funding agreement. Trump has suggested the shutdown could offer a pretense to cut programs he doesn’t like.
“We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things,” Trump told reporters on Tuesday ahead of the shutdown.
War still requires extraordinary courage from the men and women engaged in combat — courage that, according to officers I’ve spoken with, is rooted in a sense of honor, not swaggering machismo. Combatants also have to be physically fit enough to endure incredible hardship.
But they don’t have to look like bodybuilders — and anyway, only a small fraction of a modern army engages directly in combat. These days, war is conducted largely with machines and ranged weapons, and most of an army’s personnel are employed, one way or another, keeping those machines and weapons in action and providing the intelligence that makes them effective. These noncombatants are every bit as essential to victory as front-line troops.
And the “warrior ethos” Hegseth touts is even less sufficient, on its own, to win wars today.
We don’t have to speculate about what a 21st century war would look like, because there’s ferocious, dare I say lethal, combat happening in Ukraine as you read this.
But it turned out that the Russian army was much better at looking tough than it was at actually waging war. All that non-woke masculinity didn’t prevent Russia’s initial attempt to seize Kyiv from becoming an epic disaster.
And while the war goes on, and on, and on, it’s now waged largely with drones and cruise missiles, not well-groomed guys with six-pack abs. As the military historian and analyst Phillips O’Brien wrote in a recent Substack post, technology has turned large parts of the Ukraine battlefield into “kill zones” — sort of like No Man’s Land in World War I, but 40 or more kilometers wide. Sending men into these zones, no matter how tough they look, is just a way to throw their lives away.
But Hegseth and Trump, not surprisingly, have learned nothing from this story. Here’s how O’Brien summarized it in a note yesterday:
Tyler Technologies did not collect permitting data while reassessing property values in Wilmington, state legislators learned at Tuesday’s General Assembly Special Committee hearing on the state’s first tax reassessment in 40 years.
Mass appraisals typically look at exteriors, comparable sales nearby and public information associated with parcels that the city stores, including permits.
But Wilmington Mayor John Carney’s Chief of Staff Cerron Cade noted that Tyler Technologies did not use permitting data for the city’s properties, which could have affected city valuations.
“And what this means is that properties throughout the City of Wilmington – many of them in some of our hardest hit neighborhoods – have been assessed at values that are much higher than their true market value, which means that those residents would end up having to pay more taxes on those properties then they should have to,” Cade said.
Tyler Technologies’ report on its mass appraisal of New Castle County said its performance in Zone 3, which represents Wilmington, did not live up to industry standards. (Oh.)
The coefficient of dispersion shows how spread out data sets are from one another. Wilmington’s COD was the highest of all eight zones at 22.68, with the acceptable maximum at 15.0, according to Tyler’s report.
Tyler acknowledged Wilmington as an outlier in its reassessment of the county, as the other seven zones did not see high CODs. (Oh. Maybe it’s an outlier, or…)
The Dover Police Department has faced competing controversies in recent months, including a mutiny against the chief from his officers’ union and accusations from activists of excessive police violence.
Those controversies have spilled into daily life, with yard signs and billboards calling for the police chief to resign, and a tip line set up by an activist group for city residents to report claims of police abuse.
It began in early July with Neighbors Organized for Credibility and Accountability in Policing (NOCAP) launching an online form for Dover residents to submit their experiences with local police. Then, Dover City Council President Fred Neil wrote an op-ed on July 8 in the Daily State News describing the police department as “under siege” by activists like NOCAP.
Five weeks later, Dover Police Chief Thomas Johnson released a statement defending his officers from misconduct allegations. The next day, the Fraternal Order of Police – the police officers’ union – called for the chief to resign, citing a 93% vote of no confidence in his leadership that the group took at the end of July.
In the wake of it all, the police chief has not commented publicly, though Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen expressed “full confidence” in the chief in a Sept. 2 statement.
“I think what’s happening now politically is making it a lot more fraught, and frankly, more dangerous,” NOCAP leader Rob Vanella said.
Vanella added that he finds it to be a “curious coincidence” that the union began broadcasting its vote of no confidence right after police reform advocates started talking more about misconduct in Dover.
The police union broke its four-year silence on social media in mid-August with a post calling for the chief’s resignation. Since then, the group has posted numerous letters and responses on Instagram and Facebook describing the chief’s alleged misconduct and the investigations into his behavior. (The article enumerates said alleged misconduct.)
Well, it’s 7:55, gotta post this before the lights go out.
if the dover PD is using excessive violence why dont they all quit and work for ICA – they are highly compensated and that is the only thing that needs be listed on the resume – very violent
My guess is that Tyler Technologies relied upon a “‘cost of replacement” regime for determining valuations for residential buildings in all three counties. The CoR figure is tied originally to square footage, rooms, baths, etc. The problem creeps in because such CoR tables and black box computer programs typically significantly undervalue the counter factors of depreciation and obsolescence for older buildings resulting in high valuations for older properties. When there is lack of large market sales data for the area (such as poorer ares of cities and small towns), this CoR regime tends to inflate assessments above “true” current market values for older homes,,
if the dover PD is using excessive violence why dont they all quit and work for ICA – they are highly compensated and that is the only thing that needs be listed on the resume – very violent
My guess is that Tyler Technologies relied upon a “‘cost of replacement” regime for determining valuations for residential buildings in all three counties. The CoR figure is tied originally to square footage, rooms, baths, etc. The problem creeps in because such CoR tables and black box computer programs typically significantly undervalue the counter factors of depreciation and obsolescence for older buildings resulting in high valuations for older properties. When there is lack of large market sales data for the area (such as poorer ares of cities and small towns), this CoR regime tends to inflate assessments above “true” current market values for older homes,,
That theory fits the anecdotal data from the city of Wilmington.
My assessment from Tyler was the exact amount which my home owner’s insurance listed last year as “cost of replacement”.