DL Open Thread: Monday, October 12, 2026

Progressives Poised To Gain Seats In Delaware.  While most of this is not new, it’s a nice pick-me-up for a Monday morning:

Progressive candidates are poised to win big in Delaware’s 2026 midterm elections after making huge gains in September’s primary elections, unseating several incumbent Democrats.

The Delaware Working Family Party ousted four Democratic lawmakers in the state House and one in the Senate, its strongest election cycle to date. But to take those seats, these challengers must also best Republican and independents opponents in November.  (Spoiler Alert:  They will.)

The party, which has been successfully challenging and unseating Democratic incumbents for the past few election cycles, won eight of the 13 state or county races in which it endorsed candidates.

Working Families Party Political Director Karl Stomberg said their candidates are winning because they are connected to their communities and the issues they care about.

“We should have government work for working people, specifically things like free school meals, rent stabilization,” he said. “I think people are looking for something different, and I think the fact that many of our folks have been doing better the last few cycles is indicative of that.”

The September victories include five new House members, one incumbent state representative, a new state senator and a fresh face on New Castle County Council.

There are two competitive races currently held by R’s:

Marydel Republican state Sen. Dave Lawson and Rep. Kevin Hensley, R-Townsend, are not running for reelection. Democrats said that they want to flip those seats, with Hensley’s appearing to be the easier target. House Democrats could gain a two-thirds supermajority if they picked up that seat.

“That’s a seat that has typically gone blue at the state level, and then there’s a few other seats that Kamala Harris won that could flip this year,” Stomberg said. “It’s likely going to be a good year for Democrats.”

Community leader Nisha Lodhavia is the Democrat taking on Republican farmer Emily Thompson to replace Lawson.

Delaware Republican Party Chairman Gene Truono said they are confident that Republicans will hang on to both seats.

Also:

“I firmly believe that we’re going to flip some seats, and you know it’s going to show that the Republican Party has got some level of momentum in going to 2028,” he said. “We’re going to focus beginning in January of 2027 on creating the momentum off of the election cycle to do just that for the ‘28 races.”

Cue Tom Waits:

Trump To Zelenskyy:  Stop Bombing Russian Oil Sites.  If only Ukraine hadn’t invaded Russia.  Oh wait…:

Donald Trump has announced an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia, apparently without consulting Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who said the deal to stop long-range attacks was “news to me”.

In a social media post, the US president claimed the two sides had reached an agreement. “Effective immediately, there is an ENERGY CEASEFIRE in the War between Russia and Ukraine. Both parties have agreed. Do not break it!” he wrote on Truth Social.

He offered no further details. Zelenskyy said he was surprised by the announcement but would agree to it if Vladimir Putin did the same. “If President Trump negotiated it with Putin – please tell us when the ceasefire begins. We are ready and we will accept it,” the Ukrainian president told the Axios website.

Earlier, Zelenskyy rebuffed Trump’s demand made on Saturday that Kyiv stop bombing Russian oil refineries. Zelenskyy said Moscow had to first halt its own “brutal” attacks on his country’s energy infrastructure.

Any deal to end long-range drone strikes by Ukraine on targets inside Russia would have to be “reciprocal”, he said. It should be backed by “real guarantees” – meaning punitive measures against Moscow from Ukraine’s allies, including the US.

There was no sign that the Kremlin was observing Trump’s ceasefire. According to Zelenskyy, Russian drones took to the sky “throughout the day” on Sunday. There were also “unfortunately” several airstrikes, he said, including on energy infrastructure.

Who ever would have thought that Trump would side with Putin?  Besides everybody.

How Rogue Can DOJ Go?  It’s reached comedic proportions:

The Justice Department is investigating whether the major television networks — ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC and Fox News — violated federal antitrust laws when the group briefly suspended their pooled coverage of President Trump, according to six people with knowledge of the department’s action.

Officials from the Justice Department contacted networks on Friday and demanded communications and materials related to the White House TV pool, the people said. The pool is a longstanding system where the networks share the responsibility of providing footage of the president and distributing it to other news outlets.

Last month, the networks collectively suspended their pool footage of Mr. Trump for several days after the president barred CNN journalists from the White House grounds, which prevented CNN from participating in the pool. Video footage of some major events, including Mr. Trump’s greeting of President Xi Jinping of China, was not carried by any major news station.

In a statement on Saturday, a Justice Department spokeswoman, Emily Covington, described the five networks as having “proudly boycotted covering White House events.”

The inquiry by the Justice Department is a profound escalation of the Trump administration’s ongoing battles with the White House press corps. It also follows a pattern of the Trump administration using the levers of government against its perceived foes in the media. The Justice Department has subpoenaed reporters from The New York Times and seized a laptop from a Washington Post journalist.

Like so many DOJ actions before, this is not investigation, this is harassment.

How Many Seats Can $276 Mill Buy?  ‘Citizens United’ Run Amok:

Elon Musk has quietly funneled more than $276 million into Republican groups and his super PAC since the start of July, building a huge turnout operation to help the party battle headwinds in the midterm elections.

The staggering amount of money makes Mr. Musk, the richest person in the world, by far the largest known donor in the midterms. Representatives for Mr. Musk supplied the previously unreported figures on his political giving to The New York Times before a federal filing deadline on Thursday.

In an effort to save Republicans’ Senate majority, gave a total of $158 million this summer to the Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing the party’s candidates for the chamber, according to his team. In sum, that is one of the largest political donations in American history, and more than the group’s Democratic rival raised from all of its donors that quarter.

Thank you, Supreme Court.

Trump Is ‘Very Popular’:

Trump’s Middle East Strategy (such as it is) Falls Apart:

The US president’s plan had only been unveiled on Friday. He said it was the result of “a world problem” – spiralling diesel prices – which he blamed on Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s attacks on Russian oil refineries. He was going to keep the political temperature down on his war of choice in Iran and its spillover in Yemen until after the midterms.

In pursuit of this strategy, he claimed the Iranian blockade in the strait of Hormuz was in effect broken, producing figures on daily oil barrel exports to assuage the markets. As a further insurance he also claimed it was impossible to negotiate with the Iranians since there was no single leadership in Tehran.

Saudi Arabia, in conjunction with Turkey, and Pakistan, were largely to be left to sort out the Houthis along the Red Sea. The fate of Yemen, the poorest country in the world according to the International Monetary Fund, was not going to shift votes in Kansas or Alaska.

Now, after the Riyadh airport attack, it is doubtful, for a basket of reasons, that this anyway threadbare strategy, largely born of desperation, can hold.

For all the talk of the Gulf becoming responsible for its own security, it is doubtful that Saudi Arabia can be left to fend for itself after the carnage in Riyadh. One of the the 12 dead is an American and there may be more among the severely injured. Something is clearly wrong with Saudi defences since the Houthis are firing rockets from 500 miles away, and they are reaching their target too often.

The US has had a unilateral ceasefire with the Houthis since 2025, and once the hostilities between Saudi Arabia and the Houthis recommenced in the summer, the pact was quietly renewed. Trump has twice rejected Saudi appeals for help. Can he spurn them three times? The pressure to act as allies are expected to may prove overwhelming.

But “the blame Zelenskyy, trade with Russia” strategy is anyway unlikely to work. The amount of additional diesel Vladimir Putin will put on the market is not enough to bring down prices at the pump. Russia accounted for about 12% of global diesel shipped by sea. Exports have fallen by about a third, according to calculations by the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air.

The deal has also reawakened Europe’s worst fears about Trump’s relationship with Russia only weeks after Congress had passed a sanctions package against Moscow authorising Trump to penalise buyers of Russian energy.

What do you want to talk about?