DL Open Thread: Thursday, April 16, 2026

Spotlight Delaware on The Plummer Center:

A month after state officials shut down Wilmington’s only prison work release program, the transition to a Smyrna substance abuse treatment center has garnered mixed reactions from lawmakers and inmates.

On Tuesday, the Senate Corrections & Public Safety Committee held a hearing to understand the current state of the program. During the meeting, officials from the Department of Corrections gave updates, calling the transition from the former Plummer Center to the Community Corrections Treatment Center in Smyrna “successful.”

The DOC’s New Castle Work Release Program now utilizes extra space at the Smyrna center located adjacent to the Vaughn prison, where low-risk offenders are housed and offered programming when they are not working, DOC spokesperson Jason Miller said.

Still, the Tuesday meeting presented more questions and confusion, as some residents and advocates say individuals are being treated improperly at the Smyrna center, where harsh restrictions and inadequate resources limit them from finding work and being with their families.

State Sen. Ray Seigfried (D-Claymont), who chairs the Senate committee, told Spotlight Delaware he wants to make reforms to the program to ensure it’s “working the way it should.”

Seigfried said the Smyrna facility is not equipped to handle a work release program and also noted concerns around individuals being treated unfairly at the facility.

But another lawmaker on the committee, State Sen. Marie Pinkney (D-Bear), did not share Seigfried’s concerns.

Pinkney said she was not worried about the Smyrna center’s ability to manage the work release program after Plummer’s closure.

“​​It didn’t sound like there was actually too much of a significant difference in how the [Plummer and Smyrna] programs were run,” she said.

DOC officials maintain that Smyrna’s new work release program is being run as it should. Individuals in the program receive counseling and assistance with resumé preparation, job applications and interview preparation, Miller said.

“This decision [to close the Plummer Center] was ultimately about strengthening services, not reducing them,” DOC Commissioner Terra Taylor said during Tuesday’s hearing. “We did not eliminate or reduce the work release program.”

During Tuesday’s Senate hearing, Taylor highlighted improvements that have been made to the program under the Smyrna facility, like new transportation services that help individuals get to their jobs across New Castle County and in some parts of Kent County.

Miller noted that, depending on how many individuals require transportation per shift, drop-offs are either door-to-door or to public transportation hubs.

Taylor also said the department has expanded its behavioral cognitive therapy program at the Smyrna center, allowing people in the work release program to use it in addition to individuals who are there for treatment.

Rachelle Wilson’s son has been incarcerated for 17 years and is currently residing at the Community Corrections Treatment Center in Smyrna.

Wilson said she prepared her statements three days before testifying at Tuesday’s hearing. She had not heard of many DOC initiatives prior to attending the hearing, and she questioned when those programs were put in place.

Instead, Wilson said she has spoken with other residents and parents at the Smyrna facility, and has heard of people who have lost job opportunities because of the center’s regulations and strict policies.

Residents are doing what is required of them, but they are unable to rebuild their lives because of “internal programming conflicts, a lack of transportation, understaffed and inflexible policies,” she said.

Ultimately, Wilson said the facility is a treatment center and is not equipped to function like the former Plummer Center.

Y’know, when I think about it, a lot more people read Spotlight Delaware than read Delaware Liberal.  Articles like the one linked above are why.

Chis Coons Once Again Votes To Enable Ongoing Genocide:

Senate Democrats on Wednesday refused to rally behind a joint resolution sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders to block nearly $660 billion in weapons sales to Israel.

Seven Democrats joined every Republican in the Senate to vote against the resolution, which failed by a vote of 59-40.

This was the latest in a series of efforts by Sanders to halt weapons sales to Israel, which is bombing Lebanon and Iran with U.S. weapons and continues to kill Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank despite a ceasefire, exacerbating an ongoing humanitarian crisis. Israel is also accused of encouraging ethnic cleansing against Shia Muslims in southern Lebanon.

 Here is the full list of Democrats who voted to continue sending bombs to Israel:

1. Richard Blumenthal (CT)
2. Chris Coons (DE)
3. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
4. John Fetterman (PA)
5. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY)
6. Jackie Rosen (NV)
7. Chuck Schumer (NY)

Isn’t, or wasn’t, Coons one of the leaders of the National Prayer Breakfast?  I guess their prayers for more genocide from Netanyahu have just been answered.  Because, they answered them.

Sen. Dave Lawson Would Be Proud. Remember his bill to outlaw ‘Sharia Law’?  Looks like Texas Rethugs are doubling down on this idiocy:

On a cold spring morning in this tony Dallas suburb, dozens of activists had heard the call. They had read the posts; they understood the stakes: America was in crisis, facing a threat from within. It was time for action, and time to take a 5 a.m. bus to the state capital to protest Sharia law.

The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the group that organized the trip, the True Texas Project, part of the “antidemocratic hard right.” Its leaders have expressed fears of white genocide; the woman who funded the trip runs a right-wing-themed cell phone company called Patriot Mobile.

This handful of activists, composed of a range of people — from retirees to Texans in their 30s — is part of a statewide campaign against Islam. In primaries and now the runoffs for the midterms, the Texas GOP placed a bet on using rhetoric about the supposed threat posed by Islam as a means to scare and motivate voters. It’s paid off. Almost 95 percent voted in favor of a proposition on the Texas GOP primary ballot telling the state to “ban Sharia law.” The prospect of being weak on Islam has become the subject of intra-Republican Party attacks, and, increasingly, inspired repression by state officials. Now, some argue that the party can take that strategy to the national level, making it a theme for the midterm elections in the fall.

Powerful officials like Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) have made targeting Islam and the Muslim community a priority. Abbott has singled out a Dallas-area mosque with ambitious expansion plans, the East Plano Islamic Center (EPIC), while Paxton has followed up with investigations into EPIC as he promises to fight “Sharia law.”

Local activists cast their fight against Islam as a crusade to preserve the Christian America that they know and love. Several of them told TPM that Islam poses a threat to their future. They’re not only echoing messaging from national politicians about the threat of Islam; they’re acting on it.

“This has national potential,” Vinny Minchillo, a Republican consultant based in Plano, Texas, told TPM. “If you are a Republican candidate, you would like to not be talking about the economy right now. So this gives you an opportunity to control the debate and move it from economy to problems with Islam. That’s something you are gonna want to do.”

That’s something they want to do.  Because, as the consultant pointed out, they can’t talk about anything else.

He Can’t Really Build That Arch–Can He?:

Donald Trump’s design for the triumphal arch he wants built at an entrance to the US capital comes up for a review and possible vote on Thursday by a key federal agency. It is one of several projects the US president is pursuing alongside a White House ballroom to leave his lasting footprint on Washington.

Trump said on social media that the arch “will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World” and a “wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come!”.

The arch would be built on a human-made island managed by the National Park Service on the Virginia side of the Potomac River at the end of Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The arch would dwarf the Lincoln Memorial, which stands at 99ft (30 meters) tall.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said on Wednesday that the 250ft height will honor the US’s 250 years of existence.

But it is already the subject of litigation. A group of veterans and a historian have sued in federal court to block construction on the grounds that the arch will disrupt the sightline between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House at Arlington National Cemetery, among other reasons.

What do you want to talk about?