DL Open Thread: Thursday, March 19, 2026

Like commenter Paula (who really should be writing for us), I received the mailer from the Delaware Healthcare Association yesterday.  Had I been inclined to oppose SB 1 before I received it, I would now lean in the opposite direction.  The premise is absurd–a bunch of legislators got together and said ‘Let’s destroy the finest quality healthcare in the United States.’  The mailer paints a Doomsday scenario, most of it unproven, parts of it demonstrably false, as in ‘increases costs’.  To the hospitals, perhaps, but it lowers costs for patients.

As to the claim that Delaware hospitals provide the ‘finest quality healthcare in the United States’, they indeed cite a survey.  Having had time on my hands, I, um, surveyed the surveys.  Most of which place Delaware in the middle of the pack, often because of inflated costs.  Don’t take my word for it.  America’s Health Rankings (you’ll need to scroll down, but we rank 18th.).  US News & World Report (10th, 26th in Public Health).  WalletHub (29th.  27th in affordability).  The Commonwealth Fund (25th).  Moneygeek (33rd).  I’m not picking and choosing.  Delaware Healthcare cites the only survey that I could find that ranks Delaware highly, and that survey only ranks them highly in ‘quality care’.

The Delaware Healthcare Association is playing the role of Israel here.  I don’t think that rhetorically carpet-bombing legislators is the best approach.  In fact, it’s that arrogance that may do them in.

Lest you question whether the legislators are PO’d about said arrogance, check out Nick Stonesifer’s piece in Spotlight Delaware:

During the hearing, multiple legislators admonished the Delaware Healthcare Association, a lobbying group for the state’s hospitals, because of messaging it has used to oppose SB 1.

Specifically, the lawmakers homed in on statistics the group has used threatening the loss of 4,000 health care jobs if the bill passes.

During the hearing, Townsend also said the Delaware Healthcare Association had handed out maps to legislators with dots representing where health care workers lived in their districts. While he said he does not know if the hospital systems knew about this, he called the move “inappropriate” in an interview after the hearing.

Still, he said the needs of their constituents and the precedent set in other states by similar legislation is something that supersedes some of that opposition.

“I think that [the] need of everyday Delawareans who are suffering from high health care costs trumps a map that a lobbyist wants to put in our face,” Townsend said.

Brian Frazee, CEO of the Delaware Healthcare Association, said his organization was not “using” the workers. He said health care employees “understand the impact of these different policies” and advocated with the organization.

Oh, really?  Did Frazee notify these employees to see if they wanted to be pawns in his game?  If not, he’s ‘using’ the workers.

Was It–Sabotage?  Signs point to ‘possibly’:

The United States Navy is investigating whether sailors aboard the USS Gerald R. Ford — the most expensive warship ever constructed, a $13 billion floating symbol of American military supremacy — deliberately set fire to their own ship to end the deployment.

That’s not a rumour or Russian propaganda. That’s not an Iranian state media clip. That’s Kathimerini, one of Greece’s most established daily newspapers, citing sources with direct knowledge of the planned port call, reporting that one of the scenarios under formal consideration is that crew members deliberately set the fire to terminate their extended mission.

On March 12, a fire broke out in the laundry room of the USS Gerald R. Ford while the carrier was operating in the Red Sea as part of Operation Epic Fury. It burned for more than 30 hours, leaving over 600 sailors without berths and forcing them to sleep on tables or the floor.

Greek media is now reporting that “The Ford” is expected to return to the Souda Naval Base in Crete next week for refuelling and to investigate the fire — this from the carrier’s current position in the northern Red Sea. And here’s where it gets uncomfortable for the Pentagon’s PR department: Under examination? The blaze may have been deliberately set by crew members to end their extended mission for Trump’s Operation Epstein.

This is not a story about a laundry room. This is a story about what happens when an institution treats human beings like hardware.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is now entering its 10th month of deployment, and crew members have been told their deployment will likely be extended into May — which would put them at an entire year at sea, twice the length of a normal carrier deployment.

Eleven months. At sea. During the largest American military operation in the Middle East since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. With Iranian drones striking regional airports. With no rotation ship. No relief. No ceasefire on any horizon.

They were told they’d be home months ago. They were extended. Then extended again. Then redirected into a shooting war they didn’t sign up for — because the mission that was supposed to backstop convoy escorts and deter Iranian mining operations kept growing while the crew stayed the same size.

Let me say it:  If the fire was deliberate, then those who set it performed what we Jews call a mitzvah.

Cesar Chavez Was Not Who We Thought He Was.

In the days after Thanksgiving in 1986, Dolores Huerta was ready to celebrate. As one of the co-leaders of the United Farm Workers union, she had spent four months in Washington lobbying lawmakers to pass the Immigration Reform and Control Act, landmark legislation that granted amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants.

A news conference was scheduled to celebrate the victory, but Ms. Huerta said she was not made aware of the event. Instead, she said, her fellow U.F.W. leader, Cesar Chavez, told her there was a crisis in Florida that required her immediate attention. Ms. Huerta flew to Florida, only to realize that the emergency was nonexistent and no one was expecting her. She spent the next few days speaking at senior centers.

“I realized afterward they just wanted to get me out of the way so they could take credit for the work,” she said of her male co-workers in an interview last week. “Straight male-chauvinist trick, and I was really upset about that.”

In the interview, Ms. Huerta talked about the challenges she had faced as a woman in the machismo culture of the movement, which Mr. Chavez had come to dominate with the sheer force of his personality.

And in a stunning disclosure, she said that Mr. Chavez had sexually assaulted her on one occasion and manipulated her into sex on another, encounters that produced two children. A New York Times investigation detailed strong evidence that Mr. Chavez had sexually assaulted several women in the farmworkers’ movement, including two young teenagers.

Ms. Huerta and Mr. Chavez, standing together with raised fists at rallies and marches, were the public face of the Latino-led union organizing movement that swept through American farm fields in the 1960s.

Now 95, Ms. Huerta is often referred to as Grandmother of the Resistance. Her portrait hangs in some American embassies. She fought for years for better wages, maternity protections and basic safety measures for women doing the backbreaking work of planting and harvesting crops.

There is a Cesar Chavez Boulevard in Portland, Oregon.  Might I humbly suggest that it be renamed for Dolores Huerta?

Guess Who Will Likely Rescue The Nomination Of Markwayne Mullin.  It sure as hell won’t be Rand Paul:

A typically friendly setting for one of their own turned tense on Capitol Hill Wednesday with senators grilling Markwayne Mullin for roughly three hours as he vies to become President Donald Trump’s next Department of Homeland Security chief.

Republican Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rand Paul cast doubt on whether the Oklahoma Republican had the temperament to lead the department of more than 260,000 employees, reprising a long-simmering feud in which Mullin called him a “snake.”

Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the panel, pressed the senator on allegations of stolen valor and then put him on his heels, pressing for an apology over a previous comment that Alex Pretti was a “deranged individual.”

So. If all D’s on the committee, along with Paul, vote not to release his nomination to the floor, Mullin would not be confirmed.  However:

Notably, Paul’s opposition to Mullin’s nomination could jeopardize his confirmation, unless Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, who has said he will vote to confirm Mullin on the Senate floor, joins all other Republicans on the panel to advance his nomination out of the committee.

In other words, the nomination will be approved because Fetterman is the new, albeit more unhinged, version of Joe Manchin.  Why we can’t have nice things.

What do you want to talk about?