First, a quick note: In lieu of the Delaware Political Weekly, I’ll be writing about a major, and insidious, development in this year’s Delaware’s primary elections. But that’ll be a couple of cups of coffee, and the writing of this Open Thread, from now. You have been teased.
Blatant Lack Of Transparency Used To Fund Port Expansion. A must-read:
Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer’s administration publicly identified the source of state funding for a container terminal project for the first time Wednesday, after weeks spent dodging questions about it.
Secretary of State Charuni Patibanda-Sanchez confirmed to the lawmakers on the Joint Committee on Capital Improvements, also known as the bond bill committee, that the money was coming from unclaimed property.
The administration revealed last month that the phase one costs of the Edgemoor container terminal construction had ballooned from $415 million to $669 million. The state agreed to pitch in an additional $110 million to help cover a $189 million shortfall.
Patibanda-Sanchez said that while the Diamond State Port Corporation, the quasi-public entity that oversees the Port of Wilmington, had signed the amended joint finance development agreement earlier this month, it was still up to the General Assembly to approve the spending.
“Obviously, it is up to the legislature, up to you all, to appropriate the money. And so, I would not say that it was committed,” she said. “It was discussed, it was identified, and now we wait to see if it will actually be committed.”
Translation: ‘Gee, guys, I reallyreallyreally wanted to tell you the source of the money, but I just couldn’t.’ In other words, a flat-out lie.
If approved by the General Assembly, it would be the second time in two years that the state is using unclaimed property dollars to direct money to the Edgemoor project.
Unclaimed property is Delaware’s third-largest source of revenue. It’s earned the reputation of being a “slush fund” or “piggy bank” because it’s been raided for other uses, with past administrations using the money and declining to answer questions about it.
It’s that little-known fund that former Gov. John Carney tapped during his tenure, and the Meyer administration is using now. In fiscal year 2023, lawmakers added “maritime terminal” to the bond bill, so the state could later transfer nearly $200 million to the port. The language in the fiscal year 2027 bond bill, House Bill 500, appropriates $328 million in special escheat funding, including $110 million to the Diamond State Port Corporation.
A spokesperson with the Delaware Department of Finance declined to say how much money was in the surplus escheat fund. However, Controller General Ruth Ann Miller told committee members there was “a significant balance.”
So. Tell me again why the public isn’t entitled to know how much money the State has just sitting around. Just more suckitude from the Delaware Way.
One last quote from the Secretary of State:
The secretary of state said that while Delaware cannot match the massive port facilities of Philadelphia and other neighboring ports, it has to build the container terminal just to compete.
“If we were to do nothing, we will definitely fall way, way behind,” Patibanda-Sanchez said.
To paraphrase Samuel Beckett: ‘We can’t compete. We must compete.’
Welcome to the Sloppy Seconds Terminal. A boondoggle if ever I saw one.
New Castle County Council sided with Wilmington at its latest meeting, permitting the annexation of unincorporated land south of the city.
Wilmington City Council approved the annexation, which includes 7 parcels of land totaling about 4 acres. Wilmington is the only municipality in New Castle County that has to get annexations approved by County Council, which several Councilmembers said isn’t right.
Councilmember David Carter voted in favor of the annexation.
“After reviewing it, I have to agree with Councilman Hollins that our state law is fundamentally unfair in the way it singles out the city of Wilmington and not all the other municipalities,” Carter said. “I still have concerns over the revenue loss, but what’s fair is fair.”
Developers vouched for the annexation after releasing plans to build the only indoor track and field facility in the area.
Yes, the state law is fundamentally unfair, and has been fundamentally unfair for decades. It dates back to the plantation mentality with which the General Assembly treated Wilmington. You know who can change state law? State lawmakers. None of the drones in the current City delegation have even gone so far as to introduce a bill to do this. Just one more reason why what the City needs is better legislators doing their bidding in Dover.
The Supreme Court decision that will allow deportation of Haitians and Syrians protected under a federal humanitarian program was the culmination of a long campaign by conservatives whose efforts to dismantle it had been blocked by lower courts.
“This is a victory 10 years in the making,” Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, told Fox News on Thursday. “We can finally remove these Haitian illegal migrants from the United States.”
Immigration hard-liners in the Trump administration have long railed against the program, known as Temporary Protected Status, and have accused previous administrations of abusing it. They say the program allowed some migrants to stay in the United States for years even though the protections, as the name implies, were meant to be temporary.
Now the administration can unwind the status, not only for the nearly 350,000 Haitians and hundreds of Syrians directly affected by the ruling, but also nationals from several other countries in the coming months, including El Salvador and Ukraine.
When asked by reporters outside the White House whether immigrants who lose T.P.S. would be vulnerable to deportation, he was blunt: “Well, of course, if you no longer have status in this country, then you’re supposed to be deported.”
Mr. Miller was unmoved when asked whether the administration considered Haiti a safe place.
“Haitians live in Haiti,” he said. “I mean, it would be crazy for us to say that Haitians couldn’t live in Haiti. It’s their country.”
There’s, of course, more:
It was a bad, bad week for immigrants at the nation’s highest court, a naked display of power and xenophobia where the Supreme Court conservatives started with their—well, President Donald Trump’s—desired result and worked backward.
In a brutal series of 6-3 decisions, the conservatives upended settled law in favor of making Trump’s brutal anti-immigrant crackdown the law of the land.
With these three decisions, in the space of just a few days, the Supreme Court removed due process protections for green card holders, functionally eliminated asylum claims at the U.S.-Mexico border, and ensured that the Trump regime can deport people who have legally lived and worked here for years.
Thursday’s majority decision in Mullin v. Al Otro Lado—it cannot be overstated—is going to kill so many people. But for Trump, that’s a feature, not a bug.
In the ruling, Justice Samuel Alito goes through a tortured bad-faith reading of immigration statutes to get to his decision that the administration doesn’t need to process asylum claims if it doesn’t feel like it.
That reminds me–speculation is rampant that Alito will soon announce his retirement. That, like virtually all of his votes, is political. He wants to enable Trump to sneak through another nominee lest the Democrats take control of the Senate in November. We’ve seen this movie before. The ending always sucks.
He Can Teleport Back To That Waffle House Now. Just remember, ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’:
A top FEMA official who had drawn scrutiny for bizarre past remarks — including claiming he teleported to a Waffle House — has been pushed out of the agency, four sources tell CNN.
White House officials appointed Gregg Phillips in December to lead FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery, one of the agency’s most consequential leadership roles, despite his history of promoting election conspiracy theories, particularly in the aftermath of the 2020 election. He came under national scrutiny in March after CNN reported on a cache of outlandish comments from his appearances on right-wing podcasts, including the teleportation claim.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees FEMA, confirmed Thursday that Phillips is leaving the agency, saying he is taking leave for personal reasons. But sources tell CNN the departure was not voluntary: New DHS leadership had grown weary of the embarrassment surrounding Phillips’ public image and of his periodic clashes with the department’s other leaders.
JD Vance does not think the era-defining Watergate scandal would have lasted more than a single news cycle in today’s fragmented, hyper-partisan political environment – and certainly would not have led to a president’s downfall.
Speaking at the Richard Nixon presidential library in Yorba Linda, California, on Thursday to promote his new book, Communion, Vance discussed his spiritual journey from atheist to Catholic convert before declaring his admiration for the 37th president.
“If Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be a 12-hour news story,” the vice-president said during the discussion. “The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
Y’know, he might be correct–because this administration has flouted the rule of law so blatantly and relentlessly that Watergate seems relatively benign in comparison.
What do you want to talk about?
My favorite thing about JD Vance is that he’s so dumb he doesn’t realize that he was admitted to those fancy schools because they have quotas that go beyond skin tone. Most of them save a few slots for people from Bumblefuck, Ohio, too.
So it’s no surprise that he’s dumb enough to not realize that before little shitweasels like him were born, people expected leaders to live up to what were then standards of morality.
The obvious idiocy of the comment is belied by the long-running Epstein Files story, which is how Watergate unfolded – it didn’t dominate the news every day, it often lingered in the background, but it just wouldn’t go away.
Delaware’s population estimate just passed the 1 million mark, which makes it easier to do the math: Every $100 million the state spends amounts to $100 per Delawarean. The state has so far spent $325 million on the port.
This isn’t all, or even mostly, tax money. In the case of escheat, it’s money the state has stolen from individuals all over the country. But it’s money that isn’t being spent on the state’s other needs.
We have an increasing number of people living on the streets. I think it’s unconscionable to spend that kind of money to expand the port when there’s no guarantee that spending the money will produce the promised jobs, because other ports are just as eager for the business – and have much larger states, with much larger budgets, to tap into. The only guarantee that comes with building out this port is … golly, jobs for construction unions. Who would have guessed?