Spadola Officially A Member Of Wilmington City Council. Ending a waste of time and money on a pointless court challenge:
Wilmington City Councilman James Spadola will keep his seat after the Delaware Court of Chancery sided with him over the rest of the council.
Spadola, an at-large member, sued earlier this year after the council moved to oust him for switching from Republican to a Democrat.
“It’s a major win for voting rights, for democracy,” he told WHYY News. “And for the people who voted to choose their representative and not let a legislative body overthrow that election and handpick a successor.”
Well, no, it’s not that. It’s a win for an insider who got elected as an R who then switched to D. Someone who obviously has greater political aspirations. Someone with the exact same constituency as Dan Cruce. Which is not to say the challenge wasn’t pointless, because it was:
Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick ruled Thursday that the city’s charter does not expressly prohibit post-election party switching, so the council did not have the authority to try to remove him for that reason.
Ladeez And Gentlemen, Your Rethuglican State Party:
Just days after the primary election, the state Republican Party is in revolt over its two most prominent candidates following one’s dismissal from a forum after repeatedly misgendering U.S. Rep. Sarah McBride.
During a candidate forum held Thursday by the Siegel Jewish Community Center in Wilmington, U.S. House candidate Joe Arminio twice misgendered the incumbent Democratic congresswoman, who is the first openly transgender member of Congress.
He was subsequently forced to leave the forum by organizers, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mr. Mike Katz, who was on stage at the time apologized for Arminio’s conduct, saying he didn’t condone it.
In a statement late that evening, Katz called on Arminio to drop out of his race.
The state Republican Party, which had hoped that a reformation of leadership, policy platforms and fundraising efforts could resuscitate the party’s chances in the midterm elections after a decade of failures, will now have to contend with a serious division at the top of the ticket.
Arminio and the party, which endorsed the more moderate Katz overwhelmingly this spring but backed an opponent of Arminio’s, has yet to comment on the episode.
Arminio and GOP Party Chair Gene Truono did not respond to requests for comment Friday from Spotlight Delaware.
By calling for his colleague’s departure from the party ticket, Katz has perhaps earned a modicum of respect from centrist Democrats and independents, but he has also angered many conservatives.
The comment section of his statement on Facebook was flooded by commenters who expressed disappointment in the Senate candidate and said he has lost their vote.
It exposed the new face of the Republican Party to the new level of fractiousness of the modern GOP in Delaware.
John Shulli, the retired U.S. Army Reserve colonel who ran against Katz in the Senate primary this week and had lambasted Katz’s former affiliation with the state Democratic and Independent parties before recently becoming a Republican, jumped on the criticisms, calling his former opponent “the Benedict Arnold of Republicans” in a Friday video.
“Katz is a Democrat, and a coward, and a traitor to the Republican Party of Delaware. He should either withdraw from the race or change his affiliation to Delaware,” he said.
For completists, Katz got 77% of the vote in his R primary against Shulli.
Guardian Exclusive–Stephen Miller Goes After Immigrant Children:
Stephen Miller is leading an unprecedented and intense White House drive across a host of government departments to accelerate the removal of undocumented immigrant children from the US, using tactics that critics say are cruel and racist and, in some cases, flout federal law, the Guardian has learned.
As deputy chief of staff at the White House, focused on immigration policy, Miller is seen as the mastermind and enforcer behind Donald Trump’s hardline anti-immigration agenda.
He is directing a whole-of-government approach that has been ramping up throughout Trump’s second term and is targeting a vulnerable population of undocumented children. Many abruptly find themselves denied access to legal immigration pathways in the US, with their applications fast-tracked and then rejected before being forced out of the country.
Almost 200,000 children have been ordered removed from the US by immigration judges since Trump returned to the White House, a doubling of such court orders since January 2025, according to analysis of data from the Department of Justice’s executive office for immigration review (EOIR) conducted by the California-based advocacy Mobile Pathways and shared with the Guardian. The advocacy group has focused its numbers on children appearing in immigration court, regardless of whether they arrived in the US alone or with family, and believes the total to be an undercount.
Miller has harnessed personnel and power for his task from at least five cabinet-level government departments, as described to the Guardian by several sources briefed on various initiatives, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The departments include Health and Human Services (HHS), which oversees the care of migrant children who are in the country without a parent or guardian; the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) are based; and the Department of Justice (DoJ), which houses the immigration courts – with the state department and the Department of Defense playing more subsidiary roles.
Pure evil.
‘Fake News’ Banned From White House. What any totally-sane President would do:
President Trump on Friday opened a new front in his ever-expanding battles with the news media, abruptly announcing a ban on CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, even as it remained unclear how his prohibition would be enforced.
“There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, shortly after he announced his ban, “effective immediately,” in a post on Truth Social.
“Now, if they want to write them, that’s fine, but I don’t have to let them into my — into the people’s house,” the president added.
What Mr. Trump’s ban would mean in practice was not clear. The president’s remarks were vague — “I don’t want them in my office; I don’t want them here,” he said — and his aides did not immediately provide clarity. Journalists from those news outlets were working as usual on the White House grounds on Friday, and there were no signs of an imminent eviction.
Shower Cap Makes Our Week. Read it for laffs. A snippet:
Almost everything I know about global shipping routes I’ve learned by watching them fall to Middle Eastern extremists on Petey Push-ups’ watch. They’re having a ball over there because they know he doesn’t have enough ammunition left to do anything about it, but don’t worry, the important thing is that the “no fatties” rule will be enforced at his big speech.
Somehow, it’s just easier to lie about casualties to thin people, y’know? Anyway, if a man’s socks are fun enough, who really cares how many bases he loses? Court-martial the warfighters who leaked those photos, by the way. They can bunk with those sailors who got so mouthy about their so-called “food shortages.”
Anyone else going as Mitch McConnell this Halloween? Don’t even have to go. Just post a photo, then disappear.
What do you want to talk about?
