Legislators ‘Shocked, Shocked’ Over Vetoes By Governor. One, in particular, deserved to be vetoed:
The legislation, sponsored by Rich Collins, R-Millsboro, would have allowed the General Assembly to void a governor’s power to continue a state of emergency after six months. It would have taken effect after Meyer left office.
Meyer’s veto message argues that the bill is unconstitutional because the process does not allow the governor veto power if state lawmakers decide to end the declared emergency.
Collins, who is not seeking reelection, said he disagrees with his legal reasoning and is concerned about the legislature’s ability to constrain a future overreach of executive authority.
What if we get a truly oppressive governor someday?” he asked. “Current law allows a governor to declare anything a state of emergency and keep the state of Delaware in it for as long as they say, even if that technically could be eight years, and there is no recourse.”
Puh-leeze. We all know that the bill was MAGA’s way of getting back at the alleged ‘overreach’ of John Carney during COVID. I suspect that the other three bills will be modified and passed in January.
It sure would be nice, though, if Meyer didn’t go out of his way to antagonize legislators, some of whom would likely side with him on most issues. If he gets taken down, that will be the reason why.
Absolute Corruption: Trump, Russia, Oil Fields, and Trump Allies:
The Trump administration’s talks with Russia about ending the war in Ukraine have expanded to include a multibillion-dollar oil deal that would benefit Middle Eastern business executives with ties to the two main U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
The deal, which is contingent on approval from the U.S. government and the Kremlin, is for a sprawling set of oil fields, refineries and gas stations around the world owned by Lukoil, one of Russia’s biggest energy companies.
The leading group seeking the deal includes an American investor, Todd Boehly, who has donated $2 million to President Trump’s political causes; two Middle Eastern groups that have done business with Mr. Kushner or Mr. Witkoff’s family; and an arm of the U.S. government itself.
The monthslong negotiations, which were described by eight people familiar with them, shed new light on Mr. Trump’s latest approach to settling a four-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the negotiations.
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia brought up the deal when he met with Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner at the Kremlin on Sept. 5, according to three people familiar with the meeting. Mr. Putin proposed it get done as a way of showing Russians that they can do business with the United States, according to one of the people.
Under Trump, ‘doing business with the United States’ means ‘doing business with the Trumps’.
Rethugs Abandon North Carolina. Meaning, they’ve conceded a Senate flip from R to D:
A top Republican spending group pulled out of North Carolina on Friday and shifted resources to Kansas as the party fights to defend Senate seats in traditionally Republican states.
Senate Leadership Fund (SLF), the GOP super PAC tied to Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), has halted future spending in North Carolina and placed a seven-figure ad buy to support Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS), Semafor first reported. Republican-aligned Americans for Prosperity Action also left North Carolina out of its latest $22 million spending spree.
The retreat comes as Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee and former Republican National Committee chairman, trails former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper. Earlier this week, The Daily Wire reported that Whatley was behind by nearly nine points in recent polling.
Is Georgia Next?:
A similar story plays out in Georgia, where incumbent Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff holds an eight-point polling lead over Trump-endorsed Rep. Mike Collins, prompting conservative political consultants to sound the alarm.
“It’s pretty dire circumstances in both those states,” political consultant Ryan Girdusky told The Daily Wire, pointing to the Iran conflict and inflation. “And it’s not likely that the Republicans will manage to carry either one of them in November, and that’s bad for the GOP, but that’s just the facts on the ground.”
I think that Georgia is on the verge of becoming a pretty reliable blue state, much like Virginia. This election could pretty much seal the deal.
Tennessee’s prison chief is under fire for the failed execution of Christa Pike, which lawyers say was the fifth “botched” execution under his leadership across two states since 2022.
Frank Strada, the commissioner of the Tennessee department of correction, has faced mounting questions about the state’s highly secretive death penalty protocols since Wednesday evening when Pike became the first death row prisoner in the US to to be injected with lethal drugs and survive.
Witnesses said Pike, 50, was heard choking and struggling an hour after receiving the first injection of pentobarbital, a sedative, and after a second dose failed to kill her, she was hospitalized in critical condition.
The scrutiny on Strada comes as Pike’s failed execution has sparked international outrage, with lawyers and advocates calling for a national halt on executions in the US. Pike’s lawyers have called the process “cruel and torturous”, and one death penalty expert said it was the worst botched execution in modern history.
The journalist was pressing the governor on Strada’s history, which includes another failed execution in May of this year, when Tennessee officials struggled for more than an hour to locate Tony Carruthers’ vein, prompting the procedure to be called off. And when Strada was a deputy prison director in Arizona in 2022, the state carried out three executions that experts and attorneys said were prolonged and “botched”.
Death penalty lawyers said there were common threads in the five problematic executions under Strada, including the prisoners’ protracted suffering and questionable injection procedures, and argued Lee should never have appointed Strada given his Arizona record.
To be fair (I’m nothing if not a fair man), he only had three botched executions on his resume before Tennessee hired him. Two additional botched executions later, he’s at five. These aren’t coincidences. Read the entire article and you’ll see how Strada weakened training protocols, and hired people unqualified to even find a vein, which often led to the botched executions.
The United Arab Emirates has warned the government it could cancel billions of pounds of investment in the UK over the Premier League’s Manchester City ruling, according to reports.
Emirati officials said “the Premier League’s actions” would “have an influence on the bilateral state relationship”, Bloomberg reported.
The Telegraph said the UAE is threatening to scrap billions of pounds of private investment for a hi-tech Silicon Valley-style hub between Oxford and Cambridge.
On Thursday, Downing Street insisted the guilty verdict against City is “serious”, after Andy Burnham was accused of making a “frankly extraordinary” intervention in support of the football club’s owners.
(Manchester) City were found guilty of charges related to breaches of financial rules between 2009-10 and 2017-18.
The Premier League said an independent commission found City arranged “sham” commercial deals with a number of its sponsors during the period, which were part of a disguised funding scheme, whereby those companies were required to pay only a portion of the relevant sponsorship fees.
The commission found that the remainder was funded by Abu Dhabi United Group Investment & Development Ltd (ADUG), which owned the club.
What do you want to talk about?
Annnd, just like that, Tennessee’s prisons chief is gone:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/03/us/tennessee-prison-commissioner-resigns-rank-strada.html