DL Open Thread: Wednesday, March 4, 2026

Talarico Takes Texas D Primary:

State Rep. James Talarico defeated U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, emerging victorious over the well-known congresswoman in Texas’ most hotly contested Democratic contest this century with a populist, “top-versus-bottom” message rooted in his Christian faith.

“This is a people-powered movement to take on this broken, corrupt political system,” Talarico said in a brief address to his supporters in Austin before the race was called. “Tonight, the people of our state gave this country a little bit of hope, and a little bit of hope is a dangerous thing.”

The Austin Democrat’s victory comes after a bitterly fought primary consumed by the question of which Democrat’s political and electoral strategy could take the party to its first statewide victory in over three decades. The Associated Press called the race for him shortly before 2 a.m. Wednesday.

Beginning with much lower name recognition than Crockett, Talarico made it a point to campaign in even the reddest parts of the state and work to build a big tent, putting forth a populist, faith-based message of a “politics of love” that he argued could counter the division stoked by billionaire political donors and form a winning coalition. That approach resonated with a majority of Democratic primary voters Tuesday, who chose his offering of a political reset over Crockett’s promise to unapologetically wage partisan warfare against the GOP.

Rethugs John Cornyn and Ken Paxton will take part in a Texas Death Match runoff in May.

More ‘Anecdotal’ Becoming The ‘Empirical’, this time in Arkansas:

Democrat Alex Holladay won a Republican-held seat in the Arkansas state House on Tuesday night, marking the ninth time Democrats have flipped a district from red to blue in a special election since the start of Donald Trump’s second term.

Holladay, a healthcare administrator, defeated businessman Bo Renshaw to capture the 70th District outside of Little Rock, a swingy constituency he had come close to winning in 2024.

In that race, state Rep. Carlton Wing held off Holladay by a slender 51-49 margin, just the latest in a series of difficult elections for the incumbent. With the possibility of another tough battle looming, Wing accepted an appointment to become head of Arkansas PBS last September, triggering a race to replace him.

The margin of victory is the real news–the D won by a 57-43 margin.

When You’ve Lost A Judge Who Trump Nominated Twice…:

The villain in that villainy is ICE. I’ve written many articles about scathing court decisions against the Trump Regime. However, this story, and this decision, may stand above all others. The quote in the title is just the start. But let’s start with a story that I think even the most hardened of brainwashed MAGAs would find to difficult to reconcile.

For the record, Judge Gary R. Brown, was appointed by Trump. When Judge Brown’s initial nomination was returned because the Senate adjourned without acting on his nomination, Trump renominated him. So this judge was nominated by Trump twice. You can read the judge’s decision HERE. I encourage you to do so. It is only 24 pages long.

The opinion is, um, not subtle:

“…as part of ICE’s recent surge in enforcement efforts, in violation of Constitutional safeguards, statutory guarantees and regulatory restrictions, agents arrested him without a warrant. He was handcuffed, shackled and detained in a facility designed to hold charged and convicted criminals. ICE officers targeted Garcia Lanza for arrest simply because he looked like someone else for whom the agents were purportedly searching. Having discovered their mistake when presented with proof that he had legitimate immigration classification . . . ICE agents nevertheless continued to detain him. As bureaucratic cover for the arrest, agents completed a post-arrest administrative warrant and then commenced baseless removal proceedings against him. Then, DHS proceeded to revoke the deferred action and work authorization associated with his SIJ status–a reprehensible act of unimaginable cruelty.”

“This isn’t how things are supposed to work in America. Unquestionably, the laws of human decency condemn such villainy. Equally, the laws of this nation, including the Constitution, statutory law and regulations, proscribe the illegal arrest and detention of the petitioner as well as the retaliatory termination, without notice, of the privileges associated with his SIJ status. While the Executive Branch retains the right – as it has done – to set policy regarding immigration matters, it is forbidden from trampling our system of laws – a system which has safeguarded this nation for close to 250 years.”

…“the revocation of Garcia Lanza’s deferred action and work authorization appears to have been pretextual and retaliatory: the only evidence as to the impetus for these decisions was an effort to rationalize his illegal arrest and detention.”

“The abhorrent and illegal practices identified in this opinion are not limited to this case but are seemingly being inflicted on a widespread basis.”

Can I get an Amen? And/or a segue?:

Let’s see…looks like Rubio never even thought about how to evacuate Americans in the war zone:

President Trump on Tuesday said there was no evacuation plan for Americans in the Middle East because the joint strikes launched on Iran by the U.S. and Israel “happened very quickly.”

“We thought and I thought, maybe more so than most, I could ask [Secretary of State Marco Rubio], but I thought we were going to have a situation where we were going to be attacked,” the president told reporters, when asked about the situation.

“They were getting ready to attack Israel. They were getting ready to attack others. You’re seeing that right now and a lot of those missiles that are hitting … those were aimed there for a long period of time at these other countries,” he continued. “So, I think I was right about that we attack first — and if we didn’t, it could have been, you know … look, we’re really decimating them. They’re being decimated.”

On Monday, Rubio said Iran posed an “imminent threat” to the U.S., resulting in the offensive “Operation Epic Fury.”

“The United States State Department is actively working on plans to help Americans in the Middle East return home,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote Tuesday on the social platform X.

We weren’t about to be attacked, said Captain Obvious.  Please, just read those grafs over again.  Teh stoopid, it burns.

Assistant Secretary of State Dylan Johnson said the State Department is in direct contact with nearly 3,000 Americans who are stranded in the Middle East as commercial airspace in Israel, Qatar, Iran and other areas in the region largely remain closed.

Johnson on Tuesday wrote that the Trump administration is “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights for American citizens who wish to leave the Middle East” in a post on X.

Trump’s Worst Case Scenario:

During an Oval Office appearance on Tuesday with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one reporter asked Trump what plans he had made for a “worst-case scenario” in Iran, as the US and Israel continue to wage war on the country.

Trump replied that he had few worries from a military standpoint, but he expressed concern that Khamenei could be succeeded by another leader unfriendly to US priorities.

“I guess the worst case would be we do this, and then somebody takes over who’s as bad as the previous person, right? That could happen. We don’t want that to happen,” Trump said.

“It would probably be the worst. You go through this and then, in five years, you realise you put somebody in who is no better.”

In other words, the most-likely scenario is the worst-case scenario.  Genius!

Delaware Funding For Lead Paint Removal Woefully Inadequate:

The bottom line, WHYY News has found, is that while Delaware has created an ambitious program to identify poisoned children and relocate families until their homes are free of lead paint, the pace of remediation and the amount of taxpayer money allocated doesn’t come close to meeting the pressing need.

To date, lead paint has been removed or contained in just 30 homes statewide, at a cost of nearly $4 million, including administrative expenses, state officials said last week in response to inquiries from WHYY News.

Currently, three more pre-1978 homes are being remediated, four are waiting to be abated and another 76 are being evaluated to determine if they have lead paint.

Yet with the cost of each remediation averaging $95,200, according to the Division of Public Health, which runs the program, there’s only enough funding left to fix about 50 more homes.

That’s only a fraction of the homes where poisoned kids already live, state reports show.

In 2023 and 2024 alone, more than 550 kids under age 6 were confirmed to have lead poisoning, according to state reports. Meanwhile, hundreds of children whose initial tests showed elevated levels did not receive the required blood tests to confirm whether they were poisoned, the reports say. Testing results from 2025 have not yet been calculated.

Roe is part of the Action for Delaware’s Children coalition, a group of child advocates that includes leaders of Delaware’s nationally renowned Nemours Children’s Hospital near Wilmington. The group is calling for another $15 million cash infusion to the abatement program.

Gov. Matt Meyer’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 includes only $2 million more.

Meyer, whose budget proposal is currently being reviewed by the legislative Joint Finance Committee, would not agree to an interview about the state’s lead paint problem or his approach to ameliorating a crisis that affects the state’s health and education system and its future workforce.

“The Meyer administration looks forward to getting more lead out of more homes in communities across Delaware,” Mila Myles, the governor’s spokesperson, said in a statement.

Looks like Myles was schooled in ‘bland’ishments, aka banalities, by Carney’s peeps.  Pathetic.

Council Vote On Data Centers Next Week?  It’s possible, not certain:

Councilman Dave Carter, who introduced the ordinance in August, said he has done what he can to find a compromise, and he hopes to bring the ordinance to the full council for a vote on March 10.

One of the main points of contention on the new bill was the removal of a “pending ordinance doctrine,” which would allow the county to retroactively apply the proposed regulations to data center applications currently in the development pipeline.

After the hearing, Carter said in an interview with Spotlight Delaware that he hopes to bring the ordinance back to the 13-member council without the pending ordinance doctrine, but that if the council wants to vote on an amendment, that would be up to them.

“I think we’re as close as we’re gonna get,” he said.

Carter’s amended ordinance included a few concessions on noise regulations, but also clearly outlined how data centers are allowed to use water to cool their supercomputers. The new ordinance also establishes how close developers can build their often loud and bright data centers to residential homes.

In Carter’s new ordinance, he removed specific requirements developers would have to meet in order to dampen persistent noise from data centers. Instead, Carter’s ordinance says developers would have to defer to existing code that says they “shall not generate noise levels that exceed the pre-development noise level.”

He applied the same standard to lighting regulations, deferring back to existing standards for industrial projects.

Additionally, the ordinance says data centers must use closed-loop cooling systems, which are designed to reuse as much water as possible. By mandating these systems, Carter said during the meeting, data centers could reduce their water and energy use.

One can only hope that these compromises will yield a yes vote by Council.  Well, your contacts with council members will help as well.

What do you want to talk about?