DL Open Thread: Friday, March 27, 2026

Personal To Mike Houghton: You’re Embarrassing Yourself:

Delaware state lawmakers and others are voicing concern about Gov. Matt Meyer’s sudden firing of former Delaware Economic and Financial Advisory Council chair Michael Houghton just two days after WHYY News reported his concerns about the lack of tax revenue data provided by the administration.

State Senate President Pro Tem Dave Sokola, D-Newark, blasted the firing as political.

“Delaware’s tradition of responsible budgeting is centered on DEFAC’s ability to do its job free from undue political interference,” he said. “The governor’s decision to remove Mike Houghton from DEFAC for publicly asking questions about our state’s corporate franchise tax revenue threatens a process that has benefitted Delaware for 50 years.”

Let’s stop right there.  I love Dave Sokola.  Love him.  However, the appointment of Houghton to DEFAC was political. (Just how many ‘tough’ questions did Houghton ask of Carney’s people?) As was the appointment of uber-lobbyist Bob Byrd to DEFAC.  Neither possessed any budgetary expertise that I’m aware of,  but both roamed the corridors of Leg Hall passing out campaign contributions literally by the hundreds.  Which is how they accumulated enough chits to be appointed to DEFAC.

Self-proclaimed victim Houghton created a PAC for the sole purpose of getting Bethany Hall Long elected.  She lost.  Were I Matt Meyer, I would have sent Houghton packing on Day One.

There’s a story here, but it’s not the one that reporter Sarah Mueller is telling. And believe me, she is one of my fave journalists.  The story is how DEFAC, much like the Delaware River And Bay, has been a desirable spot for Delaware Way insiders.  When you end up on the ‘outs’, you should be gone.  As is Houghton.

Did I mention the Delaware River And Bay?:

Houghton said he was waiting to see if Meyer would also remove him from the Delaware River and Bay Authority and the Delaware Marijuana Appeals Commission.

Hope you don’t have to wait long, Mike.

DNREC: No Data Center For You.  Hey, not all the news sucks:

The Starwood Digital Ventures lost its appeal to the DNREC’s Coastal Zone Industrial Control Board on whether its proposed data center in News Castle County is prohibited under the state’s Coastal Zone Act.

After three days of expert testimony, argument, and public comment the board’s five voting members in the appeal case deliberated for about forty minutes, upholding Secretary Greg Patterson’s decision that the data center should be considered heavy industry use and not allowed in the state’s coastal zone.

I guess that leaves Starwood Ventures with two options:  Continue to litigate, or peddle their data center elsewhere.

Dems (Pretty Much) Fold On Homeland Security Funding:

The Senate voted early Friday to fund the Department of Homeland Security except for its immigration enforcement and deportation operations, raising the prospect of an end to a weekslong partial shutdown that has strained federal workers and caused long waits at airports.

The measure does not include funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Border Patrol, nor does it contain provisions that Democrats had demanded for weeks to rein in President Trump’s immigration crackdown as a condition of funding the department.

The measure that the Senate approved around 2:20 a.m. contains modest provisions that lawmakers in both parties had already agreed to in January, including money for body cameras for immigration enforcement officers — but no requirement that they be worn.

It omits entirely the other restrictions that Democrats demanded after federal immigration officers killed two American citizens in Minneapolis in January, including barring ICE agents from wearing masks and requiring that they obtain judicial warrants to enter private homes.

Let’s hear from our august leader, Sen. Charles Schumer:

Still, Mr. Schumer contended that the resolution vindicated his party’s strategy during the weekslong fight.

“Senate Democrats were clear: no blank check for a lawless ICE and Border Patrol,” Mr. Schumer said after it passed.

Pathetic.

The Gradual–Then Sudden–Decline and Fall Of America.  As embodied in just one 24-hour period:

When the clock struck midnight on Monday, the day was already off to a horrific start. Rescue crews were racing in the dead-of-night darkness toward a runway at New York’s busy LaGuardia Airport. There, the cockpit of Air Canada Express Flight 8646 was a crumpled mess after it had collided 22 minutes earlier with a fire truck that had been speeding toward an unrelated emergency.

As the rescue workers frantically rushed more than 40 injured passengers to nearby hospitals, and recovered the bodies of two young Canadian pilots who died instantly in the crash, the frazzled air traffic controller who had been on duty poured out his emotions to an arriving pilot.

“We were dealing with an emergency earlier,” the controller said. “I messed up.”

“No, man,” the pilot responded, “you did the best you could.”

That pilot spoke for most of a nation, which understood that while human error might have caused America’s second fatal jetliner crash in 14 months, the true blame rests with a broken system in a broken nation whose priorities jumped the tracks a long time ago.

The rise and inevitable fall of great empires are the powerful sea currents that drive human history. Yet, unlike a world war (Sept. 1, 1939) or a massive attack (Sept. 11, 2001), there is rarely a specific time stamp for the end of great powers. The downfall comes in the Hemingway fashion — gradually, then suddenly.

If any one day could define the hazy transition from slow to rapid decay — 24 hours that truly defined the decline of the American empire from its pedestal as a global superpower — it would have to be March 23. This was morning in Trump’s America — from waking up to the jarring news of the jetliner crash to a daylong series of aftershocks, with much of the anxiety induced by the unsteadiness of the man at the top.

But make no mistake: The daylong gyrations from the Oval Office merely shook a nation already in a long tailspin, with a dysfunctional government refusing to fund basic human needs and infrastructure while pouring the vast wealth of what was once the world’s leading economy into endless wars abroad, a police state at home, and a billionaire kleptocracy devouring the societal food chain. All while clinging to a fantasy that the planet’s ecosystem isn’t rapidly collapsing.

I’ve gotten to the point where I just want to say, “China, we’ve carried the ball for far too long.  It’s your turn.”

Murderer Urges Trump To Continue Middle East Killing Spree:

Saudi Arabia has urged the US to ramp up attacks on Iran, a Saudi intelligence source has confirmed, while it is weighing a decision on whether to join the fight directly.

The Saudi source confirmed reporting in the New York Times that said the kingdom’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, has urged Donald Trump not to cut short his war against Iran, and that the US-Israeli campaign represented a “historic opportunity” to remake the Middle East.

The intelligence source said Riyadh was not just calling for the military campaign to be continued, but to be intensified. Trump appeared to confirm the report about the crown prince’s role, telling journalists on Tuesday: “Yeah, he’s a warrior. He’s fighting with us.”

Murderers gotta stick together.

What do you want to talk about?