DL Open Thread: Monday, December 29, 2025
Homelessness In Delaware: First of a five-part series:
This year’s homelessness point-in-time count – which, while flawed, is considered to be the foremost method used to track homeless populations across the country – showed Delaware’s homeless population rising by 16% from 2024. The count acts as a snapshot of the state of homelessness in Delaware on one night of the year.
From walking through the experiences of homeless people across Delaware, to examining the existing support services and gaps in available resources, and dissecting the complicated process of navigating affordable housing, Spotlight Delaware aims to paint a broader picture of the growing crisis – and the various approaches to address it.
Personal to John Carney: I hope you will read the upcoming article on homelessness in Wilmington. Perhaps you, or at least someone in what passes for your administration, will recognize that homeless people aren’t the problem, homelessness is.
Skeptic Alert–MTG Claims Her Latest Conversion Is Sincere:
Eleven days after Charlie Kirk was killed in September, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the third-term Georgia congresswoman, was watching his memorial service on TV as the luminaries of the conservative movement and the Trump administration gathered to pay tribute to the young activist.
What stayed with Greene long afterward were the last two speakers who took the stage. First there was Kirk’s widow, Erika, who stood in white before the crowd filling the Arizona stadium, lifted her tear-filled eyes and said that she forgave her husband’s killer. And then there was President Trump. “He was a missionary with a noble spirit and a great, great purpose,” he said of Kirk. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them.”
“That was absolutely the worst statement,” Greene wrote to me in a text message months after the memorial service. And the contrast between Erika Kirk and the president was clarifying, she added. “It just shows where his heart is. And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.”
It also, Greene said, clarified something about herself. Over the past five years, as Trump’s most notorious acolyte in Congress, she had adopted his unrepentant pugilism as her own. “Our side has been trained by Donald Trump to never apologize and to never admit when you’re wrong,” she told me in her Capitol Hill office one afternoon in early December. “You just keep pummeling your enemies, no matter what. And as a Christian, I don’t believe in doing that. I agree with Erika Kirk, who did the hardest thing possible and said it out loud.”
It’s quite the lengthy piece. I found it interesting, if not ultimately convincing. Worth reading, though.
Ukraine Peace Deal ‘95% done’? Not so much:
There is no sign that Trump is prepared to impose anything at all on Putin. He continues to give the impression that he merely tolerates the beleaguered Zelenskyy while remaining fascinated by the autocrat in the Kremlin. This was again in evidence during the weekend meeting with Zelenskyy: not a single US official met the Ukrainian president off the plane in Miami, in stark contrast to the red carpet and personal greeting from Trump that Putin was afforded in Alaska in the summer. It was also notable that Trump called Putin – a call that took place on Trump’s initiative, the Kremlin claimed – just before meeting Zelenskyy.
The Best Sentences Of 2025. A few that I liked:
In The Contrarian, David Litt questioned characterizations of President Trump’s furious first days back in the White House: “One CBS article about his immigration crackdown said Trump ‘invoked muscular presidential powers,’ which is a bit like saying Jeffrey Dahmer ‘displayed omnivorous taste.’”
In her newsletter, Joanne Carducci (a.k.a. JoJoFromJerz) scoffed at the peace prize that FIFA, the international soccer organization, awarded Trump: “It’s a participation trophy for geopolitical corruption. It’s so stupid, it makes my remaining sanity stand up, politely excuse itself and dive headfirst into oncoming traffic.”
David Brooks explained many Republicans’ affinity for Russia’s president: “One of the reasons MAGA conservatives admire Putin is that they see him as an ally against their ultimate enemy — the ethnic studies program at Columbia.”
In The Irish Times, Patrick Freyne reviewed a British dating show: “Meeting the contestants is also an opportunity to see job descriptions that the labor economist Richard Scarry never dreamed of. Ryan, for example, is a ‘tanning business owner.’ And Yolanda is ‘a Mel B impersonator.’ Fake tan and the Spice Girls are, of course, Britain’s main industries since Brexit.”
In The Times, Sapna Maheshwari examined how many college athletes like Jake Dailey are tempted by lucrative social media opportunities: “Dailey, who has 90,000 TikTok followers and 32,000 on Instagram, said he would be thrilled to become a full-time influencer. Otherwise, he plans to become a dentist.”
In The Pickup, John Paul Brammer took issue with a proposal to build the tallest skyscraper in the United States in flat Oklahoma City: “I don’t mean to say OKC doesn’t deserve iconic architecture. Far from! I simply think that buildings should reflect the character of a place, like how Santa Fe is all adobe and how Dallas looks designed by a sentient Ford F-150.”
In The Times, James Hamblin parodied the typical message and script of a television drug ad: “You will frolic on the beach at sunset psoriasis-free, with a golden retriever, smiling into the distance. You also may experience sudden loss of cardiac function, seizures of the arms or intermittent explosive ear discharge. Talk to your doctor.”
What do you want to talk about?
I have been making regular drop offs at the Carney Concentration Camp and documenting the complete lack of any sanitation and clean water. I encourage folks to take a ride over and see for yourself. The need is great but ready to eat food, water and blankets are always a good choice to take when you go.
I have been beating my head on this wall for 16 years in the city. Conditions are worse than ever and Carney is the 3rd of 3 really bad mayors on this issue.But more folks seem to be waking up due to a lot of good work by the Hones Campaign , Shyanne Millerband the faith community led by Rev Patrick Burke at Sam Church. Let’s make this winter the season of change!
The “best sentences” are hilarious. Artificial intelligence would twist itself in knots trying to match it.
Great reporting today by all. Especially on the homeless condition as well as the political atrocities by the last three blind mice, i mean Mayors. I am surprised the churches haven’t stepped up more.
Patrick Burke and several other Pastors have done great work Sam Church has been on the case for years, they host Friendship House on their property. I may be missing something but have not seen as much concerted effort from some of the predominantly Black Churches and I’ve seen not a peep from the State Senator who happens to be a Pastor and political ally of Carney, Darius care to prove me wrong?