Where were you 25 years ago today? I was at a nursing home reform meeting at Buena Vista when we found out. Drove back to the Carvel Building in a daze only to find out that everybody had been sent home. Drove to my daughters’ school where the principal suggested that it might be better if the kids stayed there as the teachers and staff were comforting them. Drove home on Foulk Road where the traffic was, if not bumper-to-bumper, uncharacteristically heavy. Was thinking about the ‘airborne toxic event’ in Don DeLillo’s ‘White Noise’, and the subsequent attempt to evacuate. Some things you never forget.
Will Wilmington Officials Finally Do Something About Sub-Standard Public Housing?:
Wilmington city officials are set to inspect several publicly supported high-rise housing complexes after residents brought a list of complaints to City Council last week, saying management entities, including the Wilmington Housing Authority, have failed to address poor living conditions that have persisted for months.
More than 50 senior residents came to last week’s Wilmington City Council meeting with complaints about months of living conditions in publicly supported housing, citing inconsistent hot water, rodents, bedbugs, flood damage, mold, broken elevators and unsanitary common areas.
“At my age, I shouldn’t have to live like this,” said Willette Taylor, a Wilmington senior living in the downtown Wilmington Windsor Apartments.
The City Council meeting was scheduled by Council President Ernest ‘Trippi’ Congo to discuss the “ongoing issues impacting seniors in high-rises.”
After hearing almost two hours of public testimony, Congo criticized the Wilmington Housing Authority, which manages at least three of the complexes that were discussed during the meeting. He said there may need to be a conversation around the ownership of the WHA buildings and that the agency “does not deserve to be the managers” of the buildings anymore.
“It’s obvious that WHA has failed in their responsibility as being decent landlords,” Congo said. “And I think at some point we have to kind of stop being so nice to them and put them on notice.”
But Caroline Klinger, spokeswoman for Mayor John Carney’s office, called Congo’s proposal “unrealistic.”
She noted that the city does not have the sole authority to take buildings away from WHA and transfer them elsewhere, as the entity is authorized and funded by the state and federal government.
“These buildings are heavily subsidized because of WHA’s ownership, and shifting that ownership would result in drastic, unaffordable rent increases for seniors and our most vulnerable residents,” Klinger said in an email to Spotlight Delaware.
Bureaucratic dismissiveness. Carney’s signature response. Carney never has and never will give a shit about ‘our most vulnerable residents’. Which reminds me, whatever happened to Wilmington’s homeless population?
Supreme Court Sides With Voters, For Once:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a federal judge’s order requiring Missouri to use a gerrymandered congressional map in November, putting the state back on course to conduct the election using districts drawn in 2022.In a one-page order, the court granted an emergency request from a political action committee called People Not Politicians and its executive director, Richard von Glahn, to stay a temporary restraining order issued Tuesday by Chief U.S. District Judge Stephen Clark in St. Louis.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who handles emergency matters from Missouri, referred the request to the full court. The unsigned order did not disclose the vote or explain the court’s reasoning, and no justice publicly dissented.
After the Supreme Court ruling, Secretary of State Denny Hoskins released a statement saying his office is “directing local election authorities to use the 2022 congressional map.” Attorney General Catherine Hanaway quickly followed suit.
The Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday found Secretary of State Denny Hoskins in contempt for directing local election officials to use an illegal congressional map, but ultimately ruled he remedied the contempt by reversing his directive.
The unusual proceedings Thursday were the first of their kind in living memory. The judges brought a statewide elected official in to answer for his actions that violated the court’s orders.
The court brought Hoskins in twice: In the morning to hear arguments on whether it should find him in contempt, and in the afternoon to find out what he had done in response.
Hoskins was trying to steal a House seat for the Rethugs. They’re doing it all over the country:
Less than two months before the midterms, Republicans are fighting roughly 200 legal battles to try to impact elections, including several cases in which the GOP isn’t officially participating but is paying legal fees or advising on strategy.
The Republican National Committee’s vast roster of cases includes efforts to tighten voter ID rules in Montana, decrease ballot drop-off locations in Georgia, increase scrutiny of voter lists in New Jersey and Delaware, and boost access for election observers and challengers elsewhere.
- Five RNC officials described the scope of the party’s nationwide “election integrity” effort to Axios. They said strict enforcement of voting laws and preventing noncitizens from registering and voting are top priorities — even as analysts say there’s no evidence of any systemic or significant voter fraud.
- Separately, the Trump administration is pursuing criminal charges for any alleged voting law violations. Executive branch offices have told state election officials they’re criminally liable for registering or allowing a noncitizen to vote. ICE also has been trying to obtain voter data to investigate cases.
- “We think we have better candidates, and therefore, if the rule of law is followed, we’ll win,” an RNC official said. “We just are there to make sure that you know officials are following what the laws are.”
Puh-leeze. Keep in mind, every case that the Rethugs win is a win for voter suppression.
Even the pathetic Joseph diGenova has had it with Trump:
Counselor to the Attorney General Joe diGenova abruptly resigned Thursday from a sprawling probe into former officials in the Obama administration, The Post has learned.
“I did resign today by letter to the attorney general. I said that it was a privilege and an honor to serve the president and the department, and I was very grateful,” diGenova told The Post by phone on Thursday night.
DiGenova was investigating Obama-era figures who allegedly pushed claims of collusion between Donald Trump and Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign,
Sources said diGenova had lost support from Department of Justice leaders and the White House amid his “grand conspiracy” investigation, with one source suggesting that the 81-year-old prosecutor and former Trump defense lawyer was “slow-rolling” indictments and getting lost down “rabbit holes.”
Asked whether he had lost focus, diGenova dismissed the accusation and shot back: “If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem.”
Saudis Have Reason To Be Royally Pissed At Trump:
The Iran-backed Houthi rebel group on Thursday took over Yemen’s port city of Mokha, an area vital to controlling shipping through the Red Sea, Houthi and Yemeni officials said.
The takeover gives Iran another potential point of leverage in its war with the U.S., analysts said, if the Houthis use their presence in Mokha to ramp up threats or attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.
The Bab el-Mandeb’s importance to global oil supplies has grown since shipping through the nearby Strait of Hormuz has been impeded by Iran during its war with the United States and Israel.
The Houthis kept mostly to the sidelines when the Iran war began, but over the summer the rebels increased attacks against Yemen’s internationally recognized government and declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia, which supports it. While the Houthis have their own reasons for fighting the Saudis, the conflict also serves Iran’s interests by ramping up pressure on the American-allied oil producer as Tehran seeks leverage against the U.S.
BTW, diesel’s up to $6/gallon. Will truckers be the next group to defect from Trump?:
The nationwide average price of diesel hit $6 per gallon Friday for the first time, an ominous record for the fuel that powers much of the U.S. economy.
The price was $6.05 as of Friday morning, according to data from motor club AAA. The national average price of regular gas was $4.29, up 15 cents since last week.
Since the war with Iran began in late February, the nationwide average diesel price has soared by 60%. (Cause, meet effect.)
“The cost of diesel gets into just about everything,” KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk said in a recent interview.
“From running a farm … [to the] cost of food, but also everything across the economy that’s shipped,” she said. When diesel prices rise, everything “gets that extra fee tacked onto it.”
Swonk predicted that the high cost of diesel will be an “inflationary problem” for months to come.
Since late July, diesel prices have been rising higher and faster overall than the cost of regular unleaded gas.
That’s because key refineries that produce it have been knocked offline or destroyed, both in Eastern Europe — where the Ukraine-Russia war still rages — and in the Middle East.
And while all forms of fossil fuels this year have been affected by the blockade of the Strait of the Hormuz, diesel differs somewhat from crude and unleaded gas because of the central role Russian refineries play in the global supply.
What do you want to talk about?
