DL Open Thread: Thursday, January 29, 2026

Delaware State Senate Overrides Two Meyer Vetoes.  Not sure anybody wants this relationship to be fixed:

Longstanding tensions between Delaware’s governor and lawmakers within his own party revealed themselves again on Wednesday.

The State Senate voted to override Gov. Matt Meyer’s two vetoes issued on bills last year – one that would close what advocates call a wage theft loophole, and another that would limit where marijuana shops can be located. The House later sealed the override on the labor bill, but has not yet voted on the marijuana override.

Senate Republicans lambasted their Democratic colleagues before each override vote, particularly for introducing the measures without giving the minority party advance notice. According to the Senate rules, giving advance notice across party lines – or even putting veto override votes on the Senate’s publicly accessible agenda – is not required.

I’m amazed – dumbfounded – at the fact that we’re even here right now.” State Sen Eric Buckson (R-Dover) said. “This was thrown at me at this time. At this particular minute. And this, to me, is not process. A simple heads up would have been more than fair.”

Senate Rethugs wield no power other than the ability to fume in public.  Sad.

To The Washington Post–One More Reason You’re Getting No More Of My Money:

Jeff Bezos’s $40 million bribe of the Trumps, in the form of his Amazon-MGM-produced Melania documentary, is out in about 2,000 theaters across the country this Friday (5,000 worldwide, according to MarketWatch), backed by an inescapable $35 million advertising assault on the country’s airwaves and commuter transit. The Wall Street Journal reported that Melania will personally pocket $28 million.

On the day the nation reeled from her husband’s federal agents shooting and killing Alex Pretti in the streets of Minneapolis, Melania Trump herself hosted a ritzy private White House screening for execs, celebs, and Queen Rania of Jordan. There will also be a premiere at the formerly prominent arts institution once known as the Kennedy Center. All this, and let’s not forget the film’s director Brett Ratner is attempting a comeback after his career imploded in 2017 when he was accused of sexual misconduct (he denied the allegations and no charges were filed, according to People). He also appears in a photo released as part of the Epstein files.

Kash’s Kops Invade Atlanta Elections HQ– Because the 2020 election was stolen:

F.B.I. agents executed a search warrant on Wednesday for an election center in Fulton County, Ga., seeking to seize ballots in a significant escalation of the administration’s efforts to investigate a jurisdiction that President Trump has continued to criticize over his 2020 defeat in the state.

The move harnesses the investigative power of the Justice Department and the F.B.I. behind baseless claims by Mr. Trump and his supporters that the 2020 election was stolen from him. State and local officials and election experts have repeatedly refuted those assertions.

In an unusual twist, the prosecutor listed on the warrant is not from Georgia, but the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, Thomas Albus. It is unclear what would connect prosecutors in Missouri to Mr. Trump’s longstanding complaints about how the 2020 election in Georgia was conducted.  (The answer, of course, is ‘prosecutor-shopping.)

Adding to the federal presence on the ground in Fulton County was Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence. A senior administration official said Ms. Gabbard “has a pivotal role in election security and protecting the integrity of our elections against interference, including operations targeting voting systems, databases, and election infrastructure.”

Tulsi Gabbard has a ‘pivotal role’ in being a lunatic.  And in having a job for which she is uniquely unqualified.

A week earlier, the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, forced out the head of the bureau’s Atlanta office, though it is unclear whether the ouster was related to the search. (Puh-leeze.)

In Maine, ICE Goes After The Witnesses:

Community members began preparing for potential ICE activity in Maine back in September. On Tuesday, when the federal operation began, they started driving around the city on a daily basis.

There are similar groups in other communities all over Maine and the U.S. that are set up to monitor ICE activity, especially in the mornings and afternoons when children are going to school or coming home.

The First Amendment protects people’s right to observe, monitor and record federal law enforcement, according to the National Coalition Against Censorship.

Now, the volunteers in Maine say federal agents have started showing up at their homes and intimidating them or threatening arrest. Some of them, masked and wearing tactical gear, have issued stark warnings not to follow them.

Here’s one right here:

Planet-Heating Emissions Surge With AI Demands:

The US is leading a huge global surge in new gas-fired power generation that will cause a major leap in planet-heating emissions, with this record boom driven by the expansion of energy-hungry datacenters to service artificial intelligence, according to a new forecast.

This year is set to shatter the annual record for new gas power additions around the world, with planned and under-construction projects earmarked for 2026 set to nearly triple the amount of existing gas capacity, a report by Global Energy Monitor (GEM) found.

The US is at the forefront of a global push for gas that is set to escalate over the next five years, after tripling its planned gas-fired capacity in 2025. Much of this new capacity will be devoted to the vast electricity needs of AI, with a third of the 252 gigawatts of gas power in development set to be situated on site at data centers.

All of this new gas energy is set to come at a significant cost to the climate, amid ongoing warnings from scientists that fossil fuels must be rapidly phased out to avoid disastrous global heating.

Texas’ Corrupt AG Goes After Delaware Provider Of Abortion Services:

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against Her Safe Harbor, a Delaware clinic that provides remote women’s reproductive care and medication abortion services.

According to a New York Times article, Debra Lynch, a nurse practitioner who runs Her Safe Harbor, started the service in June 2024.

The civil suit, filed in the state’s District Court of Jefferson County, accuses Lynch of breaking its Human Life Protection Act, “by prescribing and mailing abortion-inducing drugs to Texas residents for the purpose of performing elective abortions.”

The Texas Attorney General’s office sent a cease and desist in August last year that demanded Lynch’s clinic stop, “…mailing abortion-inducing drugs into the State of Texas.”

Following the cease and desist, Lynch told media outlets that Her Safe Harbor did not plan to comply with the demand.

Her Safe Harbor’s website says it “offer(s) safe and discreet abortion treatments,” along with birth control, Hormone Replacement Therapy, and treatment for gynecological infection.

Delaware is one of more than 20 states with a “shield law.” These are state-enacted mandates that protect healthcare providers or patients from out-of-state investigation, extradition, or fines related to abortion rules in other states.

In 2024, Paxton’s office sued New York doctor Margaret Carpenter more $110 thousand, alleging that she sent abortion pills to someone in Texas.

Carpenter did not appear for the hearing in Texas, and the court ruled against her.

A New York court rejected Paxton’s filing to collect fines from Carpenter, citing the state’s shield law.

Did I mention Texas’ corrupt AG?:

The decision not to bring charges — which has never been publicly reported — resolved the high-stakes federal probe before Trump’s new Justice Department leadership could even take action on an investigation sparked by allegations from Paxton’s inner circle that the Texas Republican abused his office to aid a political donor.

The move came almost two years after the Justice Department’s public integrity section in Washington took over the investigation, removing the case from the hands of federal investigators in Texas who had believed there was sufficient evidence for an indictment.

Paxton is weighing a run for the U.S. Senate next year, setting up a potential primary against Republican Sen. John Cornyn, ambitions that reflect his political durability despite spending years under clouds that also included felony securities fraud charges and an investigation by the Texas state bar over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which Trump lost to Biden.

The federal investigation had been the most serious inquiry still facing Paxton, who settled the securities fraud case and was acquitted of corruption charges in the Texas Senate in 2023 following a historic impeachment. Paxton agreed last year to pay nearly $300,000 in restitution under a deal to end criminal securities fraud charges over accusations that he duped investors in a tech startup near Dallas.

The allegations against Paxton were stunning in part because of who made them.

Eight of his closest aides reported him to the FBI in 2020, accusing him of bribery and abusing his office to help one of his friends and campaign contributors, Nate Paul, who also employed a woman with whom Paxton acknowledged having had an extramarital affair. The same allegations led to Paxton’s impeachment on articles of bribery and abuse of public trust, but he was acquitted by the Republican-led Texas Senate, where his wife is a senator but did not cast a vote during the trial.

“After the November election, the DOJ accepted a guilty plea from Nate Paul and is apparently letting Ken Paxton escape justice,” TJ Turner and Tom Nesbitt, attorneys for two of the whistleblowers, said in a statement to the AP. “DOJ clearly let political cowardice impact its decision. The whistleblowers — all strong conservatives — did the right thing and continue to stand by their allegations of Paxton’s criminal conduct.”

Just trying to place this holier-than-thou miscreant in context.

What do you want to talk about?