DL Open Thread: Thursday, September 10, 2026

Cris Barrish Conjures Up Controversy Where None Exists.  Great reporter, pathetic story:

When Kyle Grantham, a first-time candidate for the New Castle County Council, read a WHYY News article last week about another county candidate being recorded as he offered a potential election foe a job, the encounter rang a bell with him.

Grantham, who is facing Kira Alejandro in the Sept. 15 Democratic primary for the vacant seat that includes the Pike Creek and Hockessin areas, said Councilwoman Dee Durham tried to dissuade him from running by saying he’d be perfect for a job with County Council that doesn’t even exist.

Durham countered that she was merely posing “a theoretical” for Grantham’s future should he lose, and wasn’t offering him anything.

Grantham said he met with Durham for about two hours at the Brew HaHa cafe in Greenville on Feb. 26 — the same day he issued a press release announcing his candidacy.

Grantham said he had been told by another council member that Durham supported Alejandro but still wanted to meet with her and as many council members as possible to discuss his platform as he campaigned for office. Unlike Tackett, Grantham did not record the conversation.

Grantham said Durham asked repeatedly why he was running for office and kept trying to gauge his interest in a nonexistent job as County Council’s communications specialist and said she hoped to create along with fellow council members.

Under state law, if such a media relations job was created and Grantham was hired, he could not also serve on County Council.

Grantham was fired from his County job by Marcus Henry.  His former boss, Matt Meyer, chose not to bring him with him to Dover.  Anyone who knows Dee Durham knows that she is the least likely councilperson to try to ‘bribe’ someone to stay out of a race.  The way I read the article is that Grantham asked for the meeting.  Whenever I meet with someone who is thinking of running for office, the first question I ask is “Why are you running?”  You know, like Durham did.

Durham said her remarks about the possibility of Grantham becoming the communications specialist “was only theoretical” and that the creation of any job takes seven votes of Council.

“It wasn’t an open position,” Durham said. “It’s just something we have talked about over the last three years, or even longer, about possibly hiring a communications person, and there hasn’t been agreement about it on Council.

“So nothing was imminent. I certainly never offered him a job or promised him a job or suggested that anything was imminent in exchange for him not running.”

Here’s the real story–Grantham is about to get his ass handed to him by Kira Alejandro. All of a sudden, kind of like a victim ‘recalling’ something from before, he twisted this into something insidious and convinced a reporter who should have known better to run with it. Far from Cris’ finest hour.  BTW, vote for Kira.

Humans Extinct By 2030?  Now they’re talking about regulating AI?

Artificial intelligence could kill off humanity within the decade, according to three researchers with the industry giant Anthropic, one of whom has quit his job in protest.

The latest doom-laden predictions came in posts on social media on Tuesday by a researcher who said he resigned because Anthropic and his previous employer, OpenAI, were ignoring or, at best, mishandling their response to the threat.

“Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives,” wrote Jacob Coxon.

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt. If anything, many executives and senior researchers will couch their phrasing in the press to sound sensible – but I hear the same people express fear privately. No other human activity poses this level of danger.”

The post garnered responses from at least two other Anthropic employees who backed up Coxon’s dire predictions.

In the first, Evan Hubinger, who describes himself as a lead in the company’s alignment division, which works on ensuring Anthropic’s AI models function in line with human goals, said his former colleague was “correct”, and that the industry was falling behind in attempts to deal with the apocalyptic potential.

“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Hubinger wrote. “I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

In a statement to the Guardian, an Anthropic spokesperson defended the company’s strategy.

“We have always been transparent that AI will bring both enormous benefits and unprecedented risks. To address these risks, we continue to build models with some of the strongest safeguards in the industry,” the statement said.

Yep, Fetterman Goes There.  ‘There’ being the Trump-a-palooza. The Inquirer chronicles just how checked-out he is:

News flash: U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is still an embarrassment.

The Pennsylvania Democrat enjoys one of the cushiest jobs in America, but he can’t perform basic duties like voting, attending committee hearings, or meeting with constituents.

Fetterman’s disdain for the job — which comes with a $174,000 annual salary, free healthcare, and months off at taxpayer expense — has been well documented. He whined about missing a family beach trip during a lengthy debate last year over Donald Trump’s costly and harmful One Big Beautiful Bill.

Several major media outlets have chronicled the senator’s dysfunction. In May 2025, New York Magazine detailed Fetterman’s erratic behavior as staffers expressed concerns about his mental health since suffering a stroke. The New York Times quoted staffers who feared his mood swings and were warned not to get in the car if he is driving.

The Inquirer disclosed last year how Fetterman lashed out at representatives from the teachers’ union, and cited a half dozen former staffers who said he skipped meetings and spent hours alone in his office scrolling on his phone.

“It’s pretty impossible to overstate how disengaged he is,” a departed staffer said.

Last week, a devastating story in the Wall Street Journal underscored the senator’s disregard for voters and his job in a story headlined: “Behind Closed Doors, John Fetterman Shows Little Interest in the Work of a Senator.”

The story included text messages between Fetterman and staffers that showed him dismissing executives from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) who wanted to discuss Medicaid cuts and changes to vaccine policy.

“Why do I have to keep having to meet with chop,” Fetterman texted an aide.

“Because they’re worried about Medicaid cuts,” the aide wrote.

Fetterman responded, “Well, I’m not,” before adding, “I’m convinced they just want free trips to DC.”

Ho-kay.

For Completists, Trump’s Latest Bribe Offer To American People:

President Trump delivered an extended director’s cut on Wednesday of his pitch to keep Republicans in power. He spoke for nearly two hours at this year’s unusual midterm convention. But his message could also be summarized in a single line.

“Please pretend that I am running,” he said.

The president had used the line before, as he had many other parts of his speech. But he did roll out a potentially $1 trillion surprise: a questionable offer, light on details, to send $5,000 to every adult citizen — only if Republicans keep control of Congress.

What do you want to talk about?