I encourage you to read the entire story that Chris Barrish wrote about the PAL investigation. There’s so much more than what I excerpted yesterday. Of particular note:
Longhurst told WHYY News this month that raising money was a key (the only) reason she was hired. Regardless of whether she used her clout to get public grants, under her leadership PAL didn’t hesitate to seek taxpayer money from her fellow lawmakers and then-Gov. John Carney to install air conditioning in the gyms and make other renovations to the Hockessin and Garfield Park facilities.
“It kind of hurt my bottom line of doing rentals to help sustain the PAL because we would rent those facilities out, we also have programs there,” Longhurst said. “But in the summertime [rentals] would go down because it was like 102 degrees in the gym. It was brutal for those kids. It was just bad.”
So PAL sought money from not only from Grant-in-Aid, which has provided about $200,000 annually to the nonprofit, but from two other lucrative pots of taxpayer money.
One is the Delaware Community Reinvestment Fund, which allocates tens of millions of dollars annually to nonprofits and local governments for “community redevelopment, revitalization and investment capital projects,” according to the fund’s website.
Awardees are chosen by the co-chairs of the legislative Joint Committee on Capital Improvement after reviewing applications. The entire General Assembly votes for the total amount awarded, but not individual recipients.
The committee’s co-chairs, Rep. Deborah Heffernan and Sens. Nicole Poore and Jack Walsh, have awarded PAL of Delaware a total of $3.8 million since June 2022, state records showed.
Poore also runs the Jobs for Delaware Graduates nonprofit that has received $34.2 million in Delaware taxpayer dollars allocated by fellow lawmakers since 2017, a WHYY News review recently found.
Heffernan and Poore allocated $1.5 million in June 2022 for PAL’s “gym air conditioning project to support public health” at the two facilities, state records show.
Heffernan, Poore and Walsh would not speak with WHYY News about the grants to PAL while then-powerful lawmaker Longhurst headed the agency.
To be fair, what could they say, other than ‘That’s the way we do things around here’?
Wow, This ‘Peace Deal’ With Iran Really Sucks:
An initial agreement by the United States and Iran to halt their war grants Iran major economic benefits while delaying, for now, the thorniest areas of disagreement between the two countries and the toughest concessions Iran would have to eventually make on its nuclear program.
The agreement lifts the U.S.-imposed naval blockade of Iranian ports and, most crucially, grants Iran waivers to begin exporting its oil even before the negotiation of a final agreement on its nuclear program. That will give Iran a critical economic lifeline. In recent years, its economy has been in a tailspin, with a collapsing currency and sky-high inflation.
The one major step to be taken by Iran is reopening the Strait of Hormuz to free passage for the next 60 days, though the agreement seems to leave open the possibility of charging fees after that period.
Iran hawks are alarmed by the oil sales clause in particular, in part because it also commits the United States to temporarily lifting banking restrictions to help facilitate Iran’s oil trade.
“Broadening authorization to financial transactions would crack the core architecture of U.S. oil and financial sanctions against Iran, arguably the most powerful economic leverage the U.S. holds over this regime, absent the naval blockade,” Miad Maleki, a former U.S. Treasury official and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote on social media.
Some analysts (‘some’ analysts?) were puzzled over why a similar agreement could not have been made before a monthslong war that has killed Iranian civilians, destroyed parts of the country’s infrastructure and enabled Iran to exert leverage over the global economy.
That’s a very ‘New York Times sentence right there. The correct sentence?: ‘The President engaged in a monthslong war with Iran that left the United States in a significantly-weakened bargaining position.’
“It’s difficult to escape the conclusion that these negotiations could have taken place without a three-month war,” said Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute. “Much of what is outlined in the agreement — including the Strait of Hormuz, which has historically remained open — could have been addressed through diplomacy.”
And she pointed out that the agreement left the most difficult issues, including the precise limits to be imposed on Iran’s nuclear program, for later talks.
“I’m skeptical that the next 60 days of talks will produce concrete results,” she said. “This is merely kicking the can down the road.”
The first point in both versions of the draft agreement: the US, Iran, and all of their allies will cease fighting on all fronts “from now on.” The text specifically cites Lebanon, a country that Israel has continuously bombed throughout the war—and for decades prior.
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump criticized Israel’s bombing campaign at the G7 summit, saying it was “unnecessary” to destroy large numbers of residential buildings in pursuit of Hezbollah members, that the fighting was “too long and too many people are being killed,” and that Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu needed to “be more responsible.” (As my colleague Sophie Hurwitz pointed out Sunday, Trump wouldn’t be the first president to condemn Netanyahu while materially supporting his wars.)
Israel, meanwhile, has reportedly been denied access to the text of the US-Iran agreement, and on Monday, Netanyahu vowed to ignore the agreement and continue to occupy Lebanon “for as long as necessary.”
If Israel—or any of the other countries involved—do not comply with the agreement, then its next thirteen points will not hold. It doesn’t matter whether the US is actually genuine in its commitment to respect Iran’s sovereignty, lift all of its sanctions, and source at least $300 billion in investment to fund rehabilitation and economic development in Iran. That’s assuming Trump doesn’t simply walk back his commitments, particularly if the US doesn’t get an answer it likes on its demands around the country’s nuclear capabilities.
And perhaps more blatantly from Trump on Wednesday: “If [Iran doesn’t] behave, we’ll go back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head.”
Ruben Bolling
What do you want to talk about?
So, you mean to tell me that the two Bond Bill chairs have sole discretion over the CRF grants? The other committee members have no say other than to vote Yea or Nay? Wow
No. But, pretty much all the members carry water for pet projects, and there is little reward in challenging someone else’s Christmas tree lest your Christmas tree gets axed.
The system sucks.
Hmmmm, witkoff and kushner were the main “diplomats” for the deal in Iran. Now there is 300billion for reconstruction. When will we see the names of people involved in that?