DL Open Thread: Thursday, November 27, 2025

Happy Thanksgiving!  Made even better b/c my daughter and son-in-law are now hosting, and that we’re having pulled pork, not turkey.

BTW, you never know–you might want to read b/c this could be the best Open Thread I ever wrote…not likely, but still:

Two Guardsmen Shot In DC–The story is unusual, to say the least.  As is the suspect:

The gunman who shot and critically injured two National Guard members near the White House is an Afghan who worked with C.I.A.-backed military units during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the agency said on Thursday.

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot near a metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon by a lone gunman who was also injured and later detained, officials said.

The C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, said that the suspect had come to the United States in September 2021, after the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan, through a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans who had worked with the U.S. government. People familiar with the investigation identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.

Trump uses it as a pretext to:

In a video address late Wednesday, President Trump said he had ordered 500 more National Guard troops to Washington, though it was unclear when they would arrive or where they would come from. The president framed the shooting as an “act of terror” and launched a broadside against immigration, saying it “underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation” and vowing to redouble his mass deportation efforts.

The names of the two injured Guard members have not been not released. Before the shooting, some officials and National Guard members worried about the safety of troops that the Trump administration had deployed in American cities.

Keep in mind that the only reason why National Guard troops remained in DC was b/c the Trump Administration got a stay to delay a judge’s ruling that the deployment was illegal.  In other words, they would have not been at risk had Trump and DHS honored the judge’s ruling.

Pity Petit Pauvre Mike Johnson–The Job Is So Overwhelming:

After several bruising weeks for Speaker Mike Johnson, a soft-focus podcast interview alongside his wife, conducted by Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top advisers, had all the ingredients for a flattering reset.

What emerged from the interview instead was a portrait of a Republican leader barely keeping his head above water in a job to which he does not appear particularly well suited, a conversation full of tragically revealing details packaged as rueful humor but with the biting sting of truth.

“We have this joke that I’m not really a speaker of the House,” Mr. Johnson, who represents Louisiana, said in the latest episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast.”

The conversation that Ms. Miller facilitated with Mr. Johnson and his wife, Kelly, meandered from what time Thanksgiving dinner should be served, to how to raise children who don’t identify as transgender, to how to keep a long marriage strong. But the throughline was Mr. Johnson’s sense of being crushed by his workload and the demands of his job managing an unruly Republican majority.

“I haven’t had a vacation day in two years. I haven’t been off in two years, literally,” he said. “Last Christmas, I was taking calls from members with their drama. It takes everything out of whomever serves in the position — and by extension, their family.”

Later: “Even when you think the work of the day is done and you put the phone down, it can be 11:30 at night — ‘ring ring,’ another crisis. You’re sort of like a firefighter, in a way.”

When asked the odd question “What is a hill that you would die on that no one else would?”, Mr. Johnson responded not by naming a quirky obsession but by describing a management style that sounded highly dysfunctional: “There’s a hill every 10 minutes.”

“You die on hills all the time,” Ms. Johnson, a licensed pastoral counselor, interjected.

Sitting together in the speaker’s office, the Johnsons appear perfectly practiced and coifed. Ms. Johnson’s bright orange lipstick exactly matched her suit and her shoes. The two know how to do this; they used to co-host a podcast about religion and politics.

When asked about the daily routine at home, the answer was pure chaos.

“We’re in triage every day, and every day is different. There’s no pattern or schedule,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re kind of in survival mode right now. We order in food because we just don’t have the time or luxury of cooking.”

The biggest problem appears to be the sheer amount of incoming.

“I think literally 100,000 people have my cellphone number,” Mr. Johnson said. “The greatest challenge of my day is trying to keep up. Because I miss literally hundreds of calls and text messages in a day. The peril is, I don’t know how important it was, what I missed.”

Correct me if I’m wrong–wasn’t Nancy Pelosi something like 82 years old in her last year as Speaker?  Poor Mikey just isn’t up to the task.  Perhaps that’s why he kept the House out of session for over a month–Nap Time.

Darby And Owens Call For Halt To Plans To Close Plummer House:

The Plummer Community Corrections Center in Wilmington is set to close in March, but several Wilmington City Councilmembers want to see that decision walked back.

Wilmington City Councilmember Shané Darby called for a reversal of the state’s decision at a press conference outside Plummer Tuesday.

Plummer houses men sentenced to Level IV community corrections supervision, allowing residents to participate in a Work Release program.

Delaware’s Department of Correction announced it will send Plummer residents elsewhere, all to locations downstate.

City Councilmember Darby said the way forward is to keep residents close to their families.

“All the best practices, all of the national studies say for re-entry, for rehabilitation, you have to be close to home,” Darby said. “That is the best way for you to feel supported. A lot of times, these men are getting their food and their toiletries delivered by their family, by their grandmoms, by their moms, by their aunties.”

Plummer residents are largely Black and Brown men, and most will be sent to facilities in Smyrna or Georgetown. Some have already been moved.

Councilmember Coby Owens stood with Darby. He said no system is perfect, Plummer included. But he said it’s a step in the right direction.

“The people that matter the most are the people who have been through the program, the people who believe that their lives are back on track because of what they were able to get by being here and not just sitting in a jail cell,” Owens said. “And how they talk about that, it would be more difficult for them if they only had the monitoring system coming right out, and not having that kind of leeway.”

Darby called for Gov. Matt Meyer to pause all transfers, return Wilmington residents to Plummer and tour the facility before allowing its closure. Darby sent a letter to Meyer Tuesday morning with signatures from seven other Councilmembers.

C’mon, Matt, this is an easy one.  Do the right thing.

What do you want to talk about?