Delaware Task Force–No Nukes–For Now:
A group of stakeholders have decided, after months of deliberation, that small modular nuclear reactors — recently touted as a possible solution to Delaware’s growing energy demands — are not a feasible option to meet the state’s immediate energy needs.
The task force, made up of lawmakers, industry experts and community representatives, reached the same conclusion in its 50-page report that many had suspected even before the group began meeting last fall.
The group concluded that turning to small modular reactors — a largely unproven technology that relies on novel fuel types and compact, factory-built designs — is not a viable option in the short term.
“No duh,” said Martin Willis, one of Gov. Matt Meyer’s appointees to the state’s Nuclear Energy Feasibility Task Force, in early August. “… I told them from the beginning you cannot say we’re only going to go after small modular reactors. You have to say nuclear power. We’re going after nuclear power.”
And that is essentially what the task force concluded. While the group, tasked only with evaluating small modular reactors, ruled them out as a short-term solution, its report said more research and outreach needs to be done to figure out whether nuclear power more broadly could fit into Delaware’s energy future.
‘More research and outreach’. Could a Task Force appointment be in your future?
I Liked Last Night’s Election Results. Did You? Yes, I even admit that I was relieved when David Crowley edged out Francesca Hong in Wisconsin. Why? Because I remember how Ron Johnson and a Rethug-controlled legislature tried out many of the anti-democratic tactics that Trump has taken national. Progressive Peggy Flanagan romped over ‘moderate’ Angie Craig in Minnesota. Just you watch, though–when Amy Klobuchar is elected governor and vacates her Senate seat, I betcha that Craig is first in line for that seat, at least temporarily. Progressive Luke Bronin, who challenged a long-term incumbent’s unwillingness to stand up to Trump, easily won a House primary in Connecticut.
Here is Downballot’s excellent as always rundown of what happened.
Who Was On The Death Plane? You know, the one too unsafe for Trump to fly on. Let’s see–Little Marco, Scott Bessent, the White House press pool, the plane’s crew…BTW, how’s this for duplicity?:
The last-minute switch has raised questions about whether those left on the decoy plane were in danger, but Trump said on Tuesday the jet he boarded instead could have been at “greater risk… because that would be the plane, I think, that they would be more likely to go for”.
Officials told the BBC’s US partner, CBS News, that the US had detected a credible Iranian threat to fire a missile at the plane. The New York Times reported that US intelligence had information of a person near the Nato summit who had been seen with a shoulder-fired missile.
Journalists and some White House staff on board did not know the US president had been smuggled out as part of an elaborate ruse in response to a possible Iranian threat.
Remaining on the original aircraft were members of Trump’s cabinet, according to the New York Times. The outlet, citing two anonymous officials, reported that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were on board.
On their way back to the US from Turkey, the American group stopped off in the UK at the RAF Mildenhall air base.
During the stop-off, Trump transferred from the C-32A back to the legacy jet, though it it not clear how as this manoeuvre similarly unfolded in secret.
Trump was next seen descending from the legacy jet as if he had been travelling on it all along. He then transferred to the new, Qatari-donated plane, before completing the journey back to Washington.
The $533 Million Artillery Plant That Made–Nothing:
It was the summer of 2024, and the cutting-edge robots inside General Dynamics’ sweltering artillery factory near Dallas were catching fire with startling regularity, according to four former workers there. This wasn’t ideal, as the plant was supposed to be churning out urgently needed artillery shells for Ukraine. The robots, giant metal arms with clamps for hands, would end up drenched in oil, which would then — no surprise — combust as they moved steel blocks heated to 1,800 degrees into and out of a machine that periodically erupted columns of fire. One blaze that summer melted a robot’s cables, putting it out of commission for a week.
Only weeks earlier, defense officials and executives had touted the factory’s innovative new machinery, imported from Turkey, at a gala opening ceremony. But employees were already used to spectacular mishaps, fiery and otherwise. “After the second, third, fourth time, it just became almost normal,” one former worker said. “It got to the point where I was not surprised by anything that happened there.”
The situation never improved. The U.S. Army, which funded the factory, ordered work halted on two of its three production lines in August 2025. By then, General Dynamics had blown eight deadlines. Work on the third production line continued, but the facility never produced a single usable shell, according to a report from the Department of Defense’s inspector general in July.
The fiasco has cost American taxpayers $533 million, according to the Army. But the Army has not held General Dynamics or a key Turkish subcontractor — which provided the factory’s much-hyped but little-proven equipment — publicly accountable for the failures. Nor has it made General Dynamics pay a penny back.
Just the opposite: General Dynamics, one of the world’s largest defense companies, has been showered with new contracts, continuing its track record as one of the greatest beneficiaries of Pentagon spending. The company is still in charge of the factory. It recently announced that it will fix things there by bringing in another much-hyped but little-proven technology.
Why am I not surprised?
How Trump Plans To Rig The Census:
The Trump administration is planning to dramatically reshape the data the Census Bureau collects, setting the stage for an audacious effort to curtail crucial information used in voting rights complaints and revive a right-wing effort, pursued in Trump’s first term, to exclude undocumented immigrants from the count used to determine how many members of Congress represent each state in Congress.
TPM has obtained a draft of a notice of proposed rulemaking from the Census Bureau that is being circulated within the administration. The proposed rule, under consideration by the Department of Commerce, attempts two things: to exclude broad categories of noncitizens from the count in the 2030 Census, and to eliminate the collection of race and ethnicity data for the first time since 1790.
It’s the latest move in the GOP’s decade-long push to use the census for a partisan end: diminishing political power in blue states while boosting representation in red ones. To achieve that goal, the Trump administration is seeking to exclude undocumented immigrants and other categories of noncitizens from the 10-year census count, chipping away at the census-recognized population that forms the basis for the size of congressional delegations. This isn’t the first time this has been tried: During Trump I, the Supreme Court struck down the Census Bureau’s attempt to skew the population count by adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census.
Why am I not surprised?
What do you want to talk about?
Luke Bronin is NOT a progressive, though he’s taken to calling himself one. The American Prospect:
This is exactly the kind of thing the Third Way is doing: Bankrolled by “moderate” “Democrats” who are merely Republican Lite – in other words, Vichy Democrats.
Here is the article from The Lever that is referenced in Al’s post:
https://www.levernews.com/how-a-hedge-fund-billionaire-became-the-democrats-new-kingmaker/