DL Open Thread: Tuesday, Feb. 17, 2026
“I may be poor …” began the call-and-response Rev. Jesse Jackson led in various forms before rapt audiences for more than half a century. “But I am … somebody! I may be on welfare. But I am … somebody! I may be in jail. But I am … somebody! I may be uneducated, But I am … somebody. I am Black. Beautiful. Proud. I must be respected. I must be protected. I am … somebody!”
That, in essence, is the message Rev. Jackson devoted his life to championing — for Black people in general and himself in particular. From leading Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s open housing campaign in Chicago in 1964, through his close association with the great civil rights leader during the last three years of King’s life, to the tumultuous 1970s, when Jackson started what became the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, to the 1980s, when he ran the first viable presidential campaign by a Black candidate in the United States, to the 1990s, when he traveled the globe, to free hostages, advise leaders, join picket lines and lend his internationally famous name to often desperate causes. To his later years, when he settled into the role as a revered elder statesman of Black Chicago and an unceasing voice for social justice.
One of my all-time favorite legislators. A truly decent and humble man. He got a lot done without seeking notoriety. Self-effacing with so much empathy. The obituary linked above is excellent (I suspect my old friend Dick Carter had a hand in writing it). My deepest sympathies to his family and to all those who were privileged to have known him.
Jeremy Carl, President Trump’s nominee for a senior State Department post, struggled at his confirmation hearing on Thursday to answer what should have been an easy question, since he wrote an entire book about it: What is white identity and why is it under threat?
After nervously rambling about white food and Black food, white music and Black music and white worship styles, Mr. Carl told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that a loss of a dominant white culture is weakening the country. That notion has become an intellectual framework animating much of what has been described as the New Right, and Mr. Carl, who would if confirmed be the assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, is one of its most prominent proponents.
But Mr. Carl’s halting defense of his theory on “white erasure,” along with previous statements about race and Jews, has put his nomination in danger. A Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee chairman, John Curtis, Republican of Utah, came out in opposition immediately after the hearing was gaveled closed.
A mere reminder that racism is at the poisoned heart of all of Trump’s ongoing vendettas.
Cali Doesn’t Need No Steenkin’ Trump:
Governor Gavin Newsom today announced an expanded partnership between California and the United Kingdom to tackle climate change and promote sustainable development together. During the visit, the Governor also met with leaders in the UK to advance partnerships in climate, business, and trade.
He concluded the trip at UK clean-tech unicorn Octopus Energy, which is committing nearly $1 billion to California companies and projects focused on clean technologies and nature-based solutions.
“The U.K.’s got enough trouble without getting involved with Gavin Newscum,” Trump said in a brief interview with POLITICO, using his derogatory nickname for Newsom. “Gavin is a loser. Everything he’s touched turns to garbage. His state has gone to hell, and his environmental work is a disaster.”
Another One Bites The Dust Due To Epstein Ties:
Pritzker said he had exercised “terrible judgment” in maintaining contact with the sex offender and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 for her role in recruiting and grooming underage girls.
Files released by the US Department of Justice showed that Pritzker, 75, was in regular contact with Epstein after his 2008 plea deal for procuring a minor for prostitution.
“I condemn the actions and the harm caused by Epstein and Maxwell and I feel deep sorrow for the pain they inflicted on their victims.”
Documents released by the Justice Department show multiple communications between Pritzker and Epstein over many years.
In one email exchange between Maxwell and Pritzker in 2003, Maxwell listed expected guests at a dinner party and noted five models who would be “serving girls”. Pritzker suggested that the invited guests should be servers and the models should be guests. He wrote: “This would be far more fun.”
Ha. Ha.
Delaware City Refinery Appeals Fines. Which is what happens once penalties with real teeth have been enacted into law:
State environmental regulators said last week that the Delaware City refinery has appealed their recent orders to install air monitoring equipment, and to pay a $300,000 penalty for releasing hazardous pollutants into the air.
The appeals will be considered by the state’s Environmental Appeals Board. No hearing dates have been scheduled.
The refinery’s appeals came in response to two state orders, issued in December, that included penalties for an 18-day stretch of emissions that sent nearly a million pounds of sulfur dioxide, and thousands of pounds of other toxic chemicals, such as carbon monoxide, ammonia and hydrogen cyanide, into the air in the spring of 2025.
Less than six months after the spring emissions, the Delaware City Refining Company told DNREC that a “mechanical failure” at the facility had caused another pollution incident – this time an overnight release of 1,000 pounds of butane. The refinery company later revised the report, stating it actually released more than 100 tons of chemicals, including nearly 50,000 pounds of butane alone.
A spokesperson for the refinery, which is owned by New Jersey-based PBF Energy, declined comment for this story, but shared a Dec. 31 statement from the company that said it would be “technically infeasible” to meet the timeline DNREC set to install fenceline air monitors.
Less than two weeks after the first December order, DNREC issued a second order that outlined multiple air pollution violations spanning 2024 and 2025, including the stretch of continuous emission from May 25 to June 11 of last year.
In the order, which landed on the Sunday before Christmas, DNREC Secretary Gregory Patterson fined the refinery company $300,000, as an administrative penalty. The order also noted that ongoing problems with boilers at the refinery’s coking unit were supposed to have been resolved following a settlement the facility signed in 2023.
The refinery has flagrantly violated clean air standards for years, if not decades. The damage that those violations have caused people who live in proximity to the refinery far exceeds $300,000. State government has for years, if not decades, overlooked those violations because of ‘jobsjobsjobs’. No more. Make the plant safe for humans, or pay for your misdeeds. No more serial scofflaws at the expense of public health.
What do you want to talk about?
You could always count on Senator Bunting to do the right thing for the right reasons 98% if the time. The 2% things were understandable and forgivable.
He was the only politician I ever met who really seemed to take time to listen to what you had to say and to then really then think about it.
One of Delaware’s best ever.
He truly was.
As a first-term legislator in 1984, George Bunting was the the only Sussex County legislator who voted for the Martin Luther King holiday. A year earlier, he and Vince Meconi were the only white male legislators to vote to repeal the death penalty.
As Joe Biden said, there has to be an issue that you value enough to lose an election over. He lost in 1984, but regained the seat in 1986. He was honored for valor in Vietnam but spoke about the experience rarely and with reticence.
When Jake Kreshtool was campaigning for governor in 1988, he recalled, “People were telling me about George Howard. ‘Who is George Howard?,’ I’d ask.” Eventually, he learned they meant George Howard Bunting.
There are people who are first-name famous. Sen. Bunting was middle-name famous.