What If They Expand The Port And No Ships Come? Y’see, it’s likely a fools’ (plural) very expensive errand:
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Tuesday announced the state will invest $371 million in the Port of Philadelphia, a commitment he said will help create thousands of jobs and boost the port’s capacity to handle container cargo and automobiles.
Shapiro said the state funding will “unlock” at least $200 million in private investment and $266 million in federal grants as part of what he called the largest expansion in the port’s history.
That expansion will nearly double the number of jobs at the port from 8,000 to 14,000, the governor said.
“These are family-sustaining jobs. These are jobs that allow people to have pride in their work and put food on the table,” Shapiro said at the Southport Auto Terminal along the Delaware River at the Navy Yard, where he was joined by Mayor Cherelle L. Parker, maritime industry executives, and leaders from the Teamsters and longshoremen’s unions.
The private investments include $100 million from Holt Logistics Corp (they’re among those suing Delaware). The Shapiro administration did not provide additional details about the private investments secured.
Philly is a major gateway for refrigerated cargo such as produce — it imports more fresh fruit than any other U.S. port, mostly from Central and South America.
The new investments will help build a new berth at Southport —a 155-acre auto processing center on the former Navy base where imported Hyundais and Kias are stored before heading to dealer showrooms. The berth will create more space for ships to dock at the port, officials said.
We can’t compete with that. Why try?
Delaware Public Media Is Doing A Great Deep Dive On Legislative Races. Here are three for starters:
Senate District 15–R Emily Thompson vs. D Nisha Lodhavia.
Rep. District 20–D Alonna Berry vs. R Gene Dvornick.
Rep. District 41–R John Atkins vs. D Ryan Stuckey.
All three races are at least to some degree competitive. Too many of these profiles just go through the motions. Not here. I learned a lot. So will you. Job well-done. More, please.
Traitor Trump Goes All-In On Russia:
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday night exempting Russia from a new sanctions measure that Congress passed last month, offering another economic lifeline to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin as the United States turns to Russia for help in lowering gas prices.
The sanctions were intended to target Russian officials, oligarchs and financial institutions, and were part of a law that was named after Senator Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina Republican who died in July after spending more than a year building support for the measure.
I suppose that Lindsey Graham’s sister, aka the Senator, could weigh in on this. Although…foreign policy isn’t really her ‘thing’.
Trump should be brought up on charges of treason for this.
BTW, Trump’s Completely Lost It. A Week Of Trump Rallies:
Syracuse, NY:
Trump was supposed to be in Syracuse to support Bruce Blakeman, the Republican candidate for New York governor, whom he introduced to the crowd in a confusing way. Trump told the crowd of Blakeman: “I’ve just known him just for a second. I’ve known him for a long time, years.”
Aside from his entirely contradictory explanation of his relationship with Blakeman, Trump went on to claim that, in New York: “You can no longer say: ‘Mother – hi, mom’. It’s: ‘Hi gestating – hi, gestating. I love you so much, gestating.’” People are still allowed to say mother in New York.
Clarksville, TN:
A day later, Trump appeared in Clarksville. There, he adopted a strange method of talking to the audience, saying there was “such love”, before adding: “I mean, it’s amazing. When you stand up here, it’s just like… the love. I could say the stupidest things and you clap: “Oh, I love you so … .’”
Well, that’s true.
Youngstown, OH:
“I don’t do this with men very often. I started examining [Husted’s] body, because I didn’t know he was a great athlete. And I looked and I watched up and down. I looked at his ass and I looked at the whole – and then I looked at his hands. Look at his hands. He’s got these, like, claws.”
Later, Trump praised Husted, 59, for having a good jawline, before turning his attention to insulting immigrants from Somalia. Trump claimed that those people “come from a part of the world that only knows how to kill each other” and said that in Somalia people were “low IQ” and “don’t have pants to wear”.
I suppose it could’ve been worse (better)–he could have asked Husted to take off his pants, you know, to send them to Somalia. Where they need pants.
Wasilla, AK:
“When you give somebody a pardon, they say that means – and I don’t know how this works and why it’s an expression, but it’s well used, that means you’re as clean as a newborn baby’s ass,” Trump said.
He added of that phrase: “I never understood that. Why is that so clean? But they – they – they felt that was the definition of cleanliness.”
I have absolutely no idea why Diaper Don is so fixated on unclean butts.
Bullhead City (really?), AZ:
During his remarks, Trump also managed to add to questions about his health, insult yet another person he knows, and let the crowd know their life was less important than his.
“I travel with more doctors than any human being. If people get sick in the audience, they don’t – they leave them alone,” Trump said.
“You know what they call them? Collateral damage. If that person right over there, a friend of mine – he looks like shit, actually, he looks – he looks like he’s ready to have a heart attack. If he actually had a heart attack, you know what my doctors would do that follow the president, all presidents?
“They would leave him alone. I’d say please help him. No, sir, we can’t leave your side. I said but he’s dying of a heart attack. Sir, he’s collateral damage. Can you believe it? They got, like, six ambulances and they won’t use one for anybody else. Anyway – but let’s hope we never have that problem.”
I can’t even…
Kalispell, MT:
“You know who would love that to happen? Some of the wild animals you have up here that like – that like eating you,” Trump said.
“We talked about that with Tim [Sheehy, US senator for Montana] and Steve [Daines, the other US senator for Montana] on the plane. That was my first question, I say: ‘When you walk out in the woods here, do you always have a gun, Tim?’ He said: ‘Actually – actually, yes.’ I said: ‘What about you, Steve?’ He said: ‘Yes, we’re intelligent people.’
“You know, the animals would be very, very happy to see you without guns. They would gain a lot of weight. And leave the law-abiding Americans defenseless while they set loose the savage criminals into your communities.”
Two more weeks of campaign appearances. Please stay healthy, Mr. President.
The Intriguing Senate Race That Hardly Anybody Is Thinking About:
Raphael Warnock knows something about winning a Senate seat in the Deep South, and he says Mississippi’s race looks awfully familiar to his Georgia election five years ago.
That’s what he said at a meeting with faith leaders and to an electrified crowd in Jackson on Wednesday, urging voters to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and replicate his successful Georgia election that sent a Black Democrat to the Senate from a Southern state and delivered a Democratic majority to the U.S. Senate.
“I’m here because I’m tired of the South being overlooked or diminished in terms of its electoral importance,” Warnock told reporters. “We ignore the South at our own peril. Democrats are investing here. I would like to see more, for the sake of the country.”
Warnock shares similarities with Scott Colom, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Mississippi. Both faced steep electoral odds and several national Democratic figures believed victory in a reliably red state impossible.
The race is competitive, with polls showing Hyde-Smith with about a 5% margin. Here’s one reason why that margin might be overstated:
But Warnock said Mississippi, the state with the highest concentration of Black voters in the nation, is ripe for the Democratic Party to flip the Senate seat if only they’ll consistently spend money in the Deep South state and keep working to register voters.
“We lose elections by the margins of our disengagement,” Warnock said. “Mississippi is a blue state. It just doesn’t know it yet.”
Who turns out to vote is always difficult to predict with any accuracy. But, if Black voters turn out disproportionately, that 5% margin might prove illusory. Not to mention, Hyde-Smith is a weak candidate, and, yes, she said something stoopid which has gone viral, thanks to this brilliant ad:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Tv7cPgYIb1w
Oh, did I mention that Hyde-Smith is a cattle rancher, and that cattle ranchers have been hammered by rising costs thanks to Trump?
BTW, a major shout-out to Lisa Blunt Rochester, who has campaigned on Colom’s behalf. Keep an eye on this one.
It’s–Witchcraft. Man, these Rethug candidates:
Witch hunts are back in vogue with Kansas Republicans—literally.
Ty Masterson, the Republican candidate in the Kansas gubernatorial race, accused his Democratic opponent, Cindy Holscher, of being an actual witch capable of “demonic” magic, while speaking at the Praise Chapel in Wichita on Sunday.
“Like I said, my opponent, she didn’t even hide it,” Masterson added. “She talked—they had witch—I mean, they’re doing like witchcraft spells on TikTok so she can win the governorship. I mean, they’re like … it’s like demonic stuff that they’re doing, right? Just in your face that way.”
The state senator had seemingly drawn his conclusions from a series of playful TikTok videos posted by Holscher’s 20-year-old daughter, Maddie, who had shared clips of her and her mom brushing their teeth set to a song from the Wicked soundtrack.
“Casting a spell so my mom wins Kansas Governor except she’s so done with me,” Maddie Holscher captioned one clip from April, in which she waves her arms around her mother.
The unserious memes offered voters a fun porthole into the Democratic candidate’s family life. In May, Holscher said that the “goofy” videos her daughter makes “mean a lot” to her, and encouraged people to check them out.
The younger Holscher responded to the Republican backlash on Tuesday, facetiously declaring alongside a childhood Halloween picture that “unfortunately the allegations are true.” In the image, Holscher and her sibling are dressed up as witches, wands at the ready. “I’ve been practicing since elementary school … and I guess my sister has been, too.”
Repeat after me: ‘There’s no place like home’.
What do you want to talk about?
