‘Tis A Puzzlement’. I scoped out the song from ‘The King And I’, and no, I’m not linking to it. However, we at Delaware Liberal are puzzled. In the past three days, someone, or some someones, have been going through literally thousands of old articles from our archives. Hey, we love the page views, but it’s not normal. Could it be ICE? Could it some newbies who just can’t believe their good fortune? Why are so many page views coming from England, Australia and–Chile? There is no unifying principle behind the articles that have been chosen. Many different authors, some articles worth reading, many (mostly written by me) that are not. My theory: It’s AI (not Al) mining our archives to up their (its) snark quotient. What’s yours?
It’s Official. Democrats Suck:
The breakthrough came after eight senators in the Democratic caucus broke their own party’s blockade of spending legislation Republicans have been trying to pass for weeks to reopen the government, prompting a bitter backlash in their ranks.
They said they had done so after concluding that Republicans were never going to accede to Democrats’ central demand in the shutdown fight — the extension of federal health care subsidies set to expire at the end of the year — while millions of Americans continued to suffer amid the federal closure. (That, right there, DEFINES the term ‘caving’.)
“We had no path forward on health care because the Republicans said, ‘We will not talk about health care with the government shut down,’” said Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia. “And we had SNAP beneficiaries and those relying on other important services who were losing benefits because of the shutdown.”
You remember Tim Kaine–Hillary’s choice of a running mate because he, like her, is/was a corporate shill. But ‘he speaks Spanish’! Plus, he wasn’t Bernie. Which is why she lost. On merit.
BTW, Al (not AI) was right. If not these eight, there were several more turncoats waiting in the wings.
Supreme Court Delays The Striking-Down Of Gay Marriage Until After The Election. To some, this headline might strike you as cynical. Not when we’re speaking of this most political of Supreme Courts.
This Fucking Headline From The Washington Post:
Much better ruthlessness than toothlessness.
Are The Epstein Files Even Worse Than We Imagined? Guess it depends on what we imagined:
A few conservative representatives with ties to the FBI and the Justice Department have spilled that the true details of the Epstein files are “worse” for Trump than previously reported, according to journalist David Schuster.
Michael Wolff, a longtime chronicler of Trump’s White House who conducted extensive interviews with Epstein prior to his death, told The Daily Beast last month that Epstein had shown him photos of Trump with half-naked “young girls” in his lap.
These rumors have galvanized into a legitimate movement among Republicans, who are now, Schuster wrote on X Wednesday night, clamoring for the files’ full release.
For months, just four Republicans had penned their signatures on a discharge petition demanding transparency into the investigation of the pedophilic sex trafficker and his potential associates. Those conservative lawmakers include Representatives Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert.
Representative-elect Adelita Grijalva, who won the special election in Arizona in September, has also vowed to sign the bipartisan petition. She’s the last signature that the House needs to force a vote on the issue—and Speaker Mike Johnson has conveniently refused to swear her in for more than a month.
But the disturbing new rumor has dredged up far more support, with “more than 100 Republicans” planning to vote alongside Democrats in an effort to “get in front of what’s coming,” reported Schuster.
A question: Is the fact that the ‘young girls’ were only ‘half-naked’ a defense?
‘A Classic Authoritarian Tactic’:
Donald Trump’s unprecedented pardoning spree for political and business friends since returning to the White House has prompted warnings from ex-prosecutors and legal scholars of “corrupt” pay-to-play schemes, conflicts of interest and blatant partisanship.
It has included hundreds of Maga allies, a cryptocurrency mogul with ties to a Trump family crypto firm, disgraced politicians, and others who could yield political and financial benefits.
Trump’s political and business driven pardons spurred strong rebukes from his first day in office, when he pardoned or commuted sentences for some 1,500 Maga allies who attacked the Capitol on January 6 and tried to block Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s election.
Since then, critics of Trump’s pardon policies have also leveled heavy fire at Trump’s radical move in May to make Maga loyalist Ed Martin, who has pushed false claims about the 2020 election results, the pardon attorney at the justice department.
Legal experts say that although other presidents, including Democrats Biden and Bill Clinton, have received criticism for granting some controversial pardons, Trump’s use of pardons to boost political and financial interests has been egregious and part of his extensive weaponization of the justice department to go after political foes and help Maga allies.
“The corruption of the pardon process is one of the less visible but nevertheless important aspects of Trump’s sullying of the Justice Department,” said Philip Lacovara, who was counsel to the Watergate special prosecutor.
Lacovara called the commutation of Santos’ sentence after only a few months in prison “bewildering”. He stressed that Santos “never exhibited any remorse for his chain of frauds, and his sentence was well within the federal guidelines for his crimes”.
Similarly, Lacovara condemned the pardon of Zhao as part of Trump’s “pay-to-play policy approach to pardons”, and was skeptical of Trump’s vague explanation that “people whom he trusted recommended this otherwise incomprehensible exoneration. The Trump family connection with crypto based fortunes suggests a likely source for that recommendation.”
Other legal experts see Trump’s pardon abuses as akin to a “form of bribery”.
I know, you already knew that. So did the senators who caved.
This Deal Really Stinks. BTW, I was really impressed with Olivia Marble, who I got to meet at the Spotlight Delaware members’ event:
Following a Spotlight Delaware inquiry, Delaware Department of Transportation officials launched an internal investigation into a taxpayer-funded land deal that turned a million-dollar profit for a state transportation planner’s business partner.
In 2015, Four C’s Properties LLC, owned by businessman Charles Messina, bought a half acre of land off Route 1 near Lewes for $225,000.
Eight years later, the LLC sold it to DelDOT for $1.6 million – a seven-fold increase agreed to by the agency that also employs Messina’s business partner, Todd Sammons, as a chief planner.
Last month, Spotlight Delaware emailed DelDOT seeking details about the deal. In a response, agency spokesman C.R. McLeod said officials had opened an internal investigation into “claims of a business relationship influencing a property acquisition.”
Asked on Friday about the status of the inquiry, McLeod said, “The investigation is ongoing.”
McLeod declined to provide details about the investigation. But public records show that Messina owns a company, called SS Investments of Delaware, with Sammons, DelDOT’s assistant director of development coordination. The two appear to have been business partners since at least 2005, when they jointly sold a Kent County property.
While they are business partners through SS Investments, Spotlight Delaware did not find evidence that Sammons is part of Four C’s – the company that sold DelDOT the land off Route 1. Still, he did serve as a witness on a signed property record involving the company in 2023, suggesting that he is familiar with it and who owns it.
DelDOT has considered building a road on that property since at least 2011, agency documents show. Sammons has worked for the agency since 1999, McLeod said.
Oh. This is a classic example of the casual corruption of the Delaware Way. It’s also why we need reporters like Olivia Marble.
What do you want to talk about?