DL Open Thread: Monday, March 23, 2026
Will They Leave Their Masks On? So insane, only Trump would do it:
Tom Homan, the White House border czar, confirmed on Sunday that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents would be deployed to U.S. airports on Monday, casting the operation largely as an effort to ease long lines that have caused frustration among travelers during one of the busiest travel seasons.
ICE personnel, including agents from Homeland Security Investigations, are planning to be at 14 airports, according to a document obtained by The New York Times. The airports span the country, including Kennedy and LaGuardia in New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, New Orleans, Houston and Phoenix.
The agents are expected to conduct tasks to free up Transportation Security Administration agents to handle processing travelers, according to an official from the Homeland Security Department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the location of ICE agents.
President Trump announced the measure on Saturday, first as a threat aimed at pressuring congressional Democrats to agree to a deal to fund the Homeland Security Department, which includes the T.S.A., and then as an aggressive operation. He said on social media that agents would “do security like no one has ever seen before,” which would include “the immediate arrest of all illegal immigrants who have come into our Country.”
I read a report that the ICE agents will be stationed at, wait for it, exits. This sounds as well thought-out as Trump’s Iran ‘excursion’. Which reminds me:
Saturday:
If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait Of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States Of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP.
President Trump Monday said the United States and Iran have held “VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE” talks that could result in “A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION” to the war. In a post on Truth Social written in all caps, Trump said he had ordered the Pentagon to postpone any strikes targeting Iranian power plants and energy infrastructure for five days.
Here’s what I know for certain: Certain Trump insiders have already made a lot of money on this ‘reversal’ (stocks have surged). There will not be a COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION of the conflict. Wash, rinse, repeat.
However, Iranian media say there have been no talks between Tehran and Trump and have portrayed the president’s comments as him having “backed down”.
Iran’s foreign ministry reportedly said that Trump’s statements were “part of efforts to reduce energy prices and buy time to implement his military plans”, which could still involve a possible occupation or blockading of Iran’s strategically crucial Kharg Island.
“Every week, when markets open, Trump makes these kinds of statements to drive down oil prices. Even his five-day deadline aligns with the closure of the energy market,” Iranian academic Seyed Mohammad Marandi, who is closely linked to the government, wrote on X. “But in reality, there are no negotiations underway, nor does Trump have the capability to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s firm threat has once again forced Trump to back down.”
Ask yourself: With whom might Trump have had ‘productive talks’? Pretty much everybody in the Iranian government has been killed.
Quick aside: Would anybody have expected anything different from Trump’s response to Robert Mueller’s death? Didn’t think so.
Inside RFK Jr’s CDC–‘A Massive Disaster Non-Stop’. Suh-prize, suh-prize, we won’t feel most of the effects of this until Trump is out of office:
Since his confirmation in February 2025, Kennedy has taken particular aim at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a federal agency charged with safeguarding the nation’s public health. He has called the C.D.C. “the most corrupt agency at H.H.S. and maybe the government” and vigorously defended mass terminations carried out by Elon Musk’s DOGE. At least 2,400 employees, or 18 percent of the C.D.C. staff, have been fired or have resigned since January 2025.
Kennedy has said that the C.D.C. — which comprises more than 20 centers focused on a wide range of public health issues, including infectious diseases, food-borne illness, substance abuse and violence prevention — had grown unwieldy and that its size was undermining its mission. As proof, he has cited the agency’s failures during the coronavirus pandemic. “We literally did worse than any country in the world,” he said at a Senate hearing in September, “and the people at C.D.C. who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.”
Kennedy wants to move large parts of the agency to a new entity, the Administration for a Healthy America, while leaving the C.D.C. to focus on monitoring infectious diseases. The secretary’s critics say that his real goal is not to reform the agency but to dismantle the nation’s vaccination programs, in which the C.D.C. plays a key part.
I interviewed more than 40 people who work at the C.D.C. or who left during Trump’s second term. Some sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because they feared that speaking out would cost them their jobs or subject them to retaliation from the administration.
Many of them acknowledge that the agency’s initial Covid response fell short: Its labs failed to develop reliable diagnostic tests, its communications were confusing and sometimes contradictory and its disease-surveillance efforts struggled to stay ahead of the virus’s spread. But they say that the C.D.C. has made significant strides in the years since. Now, they argue, agency scientists are being sidelined, political appointees are taking charge and a vital public health institution is being remade into a vehicle for ideologues.
In June, Kennedy fired all 17 voting members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, a group of doctors and scientists that meets several times a year to develop vaccine recommendations for the nation, and largely replaced them with people who share his views. The former C.D.C. director, Susan Monarez, says she was fired for refusing to approve any changes to vaccine recommendations without first seeing the scientific evidence behind them. (Kennedy has denied this.) Monarez was the only permanent director to lead the agency in the past year. She lasted just 29 days. No one has yet been nominated to succeed her.
The civil servants who spoke to me worry that, instead, a century’s worth of expertise is being lost — leaving Americans increasingly exposed to a wide range of health threats.
That’s basically the story’s preamble. Must-reading, especially for those in the public health field.
What do you want to talk about?
Looks like the Delaware Online site is down. I’m on tenterhooks awaiting further developments in the ‘Best Pizza As Chosen By Our Readers’ competition.
Maybe the site is being rebranded “Delaware Offline.”
Not a bad idea.
Especially after that hard-hitting Sunday investigative piece on how the beach towns spend the money they collect from parking meters.
But, hey, that was a deeper dive than the essential reporting on whether it’s legal to drive a golf cart on Delaware roads.
Periodically I will email links of spotlight Delaware articles to NJ “reporters”, so that they don’t forget what real journalism looks like.
I liked the way they padded the real estate monthly sales report by breaking it into three separate stories, one for each county.
Nancy Cook died.
So sad. She was truly one of a kind.
What’s going to make it worse is a poor NJ reporter who never met her and knows nothing about her trying to write an obituary story that will read like someone who only read a Wikipedia page.
I suspect the News Journal will simply run the obit provided by the family.
I expect Bay To Bay, in particular, to have a comprehensive look at her career.