Delaware Early Voting Starts Today! Here is everything you need to know. So…get out and vote!
Rethugs (And At Least One D) Go After Branden Fletcher. Again:
The Delaware Republican Party has challenged a progressive Wilmington Democrat’s eligibility to run for the state legislature — a month and a half after a Democratic operative did the same.
In response, the candidate, Branden Fletcher-Dominguez, has retained an attorney, who called doubts about his client’s residency “petty,” and said there is clear evidence that Fletcher-Dominguez lives, and has lived, in the district he seeks to represent.
The issue orginated early last month when Molly Magarik, a former state health secretary and longtime aide to now-Mayor John Carney, filed a complaint with state elections officials, suggesting that Fletcher-Dominguez had not lived for a full year at an address listed in election filings — a Hilltop-area house owned by his mother.
Let’s stop right there. Molly MAGArik, like John Carney, graduated from Dartmouth, and has been attached to the Body Politic of John Carney ever since. Remember when Carney was in Congress? She was his chief-of-staff. Carney named her Secretary of DHSS. She was also Director of the Delaware Democratic Party whilst Carney was governor. Anyway, anyone who has read her massive complaint (with Branden playing the role of Captain Ahab’s White Whale) can only be struck by its obsessiveness.
So, let’s trace MAGArick’s recent history, shall we? In February of 2026, MAGArick joined a political firm called Publicitics as a partner. They immediately rebranded themselves as Flashpoint Strategies. If that name sounds familiar, you’ve been scoping out the campaign finance reports. They were perhaps the biggest beneficiaries of the Musk Rats’ million dollar-plus campaign on behalf of its oligarch clientele, and provided all kinds of campaign services to the Axis Of Elon. Flashpoint Strategies consisted of the same three partners from Publicitics.
Wait! We’re not done yet. Guess what? The same three partners have rebranded again! One year, three names. This time as North Node. You will note the transition from the political to the corporate executive. Check out their mission statement:
North Node is a strategic communications, strategy, and public affairs firm built to help executives, leaders and organizations navigate complexity and lead with clarity. We blend sharp strategic counsel with compelling storytelling to navigate complexity, build trust, and create momentum. Whether shaping corporate strategy, advancing policy priorities, managing reputational risk, or guiding moments of change, we bring the insight, discipline, and creativity to align what you do with what people understand and trust—so your organization can influence outcomes, strengthen credibility, and grow with purpose. (I’ll have a double helping of word salad, please.)
Same team. So. Molly MAGArik is being paid by somebody (Et tu, Cassandra?) to go after Branden:
Two years later, Magarik said in the written complaint that she came across information about Fletcher-Dominguez “in the course of [her] professional work for a client.” She did not identify the client, but noted she had shared her findings with the Wilmington Democratic Committee.
Cassandra Marshall, head of the Wilmington Democratic Committee, did not respond to requests for comment.
Back to the story:
To support the latest claims, Magarik’s complaint cited recent renovations to the Hilltop home, as well as its listing on a vacant property database, and water meter records that show no usage until June. It also cited the home’s purchase date.
Property records show that Fletcher-Dominguez’s mother, Carla Dominguez, signed the deed for the home on Aug. 27, 2025.
In an interview, (Branden’s attorney) Darrell Baker dismissed the claims as “petty,” and said Fletcher-Dominguez had lived at a friend’s house around the corner from his listed address while his mother’s home was under renovation. The friend’s house also sits within the 3rd Representative District.
Baker further said he does not plan to file a lawsuit on Fletcher-Dominguez’s behalf, saying there’s no reason to escalate the situation. Instead, the next step is to submit an affidavit to Delaware elections officials, signed by Fletcher-Dominguez’s friend, to say he lived at his home during the renovations.
I’m sorry. I simply wonder how hired guns like Molly MAGArik can sleep at night. Is money her only salve? I also wonder–did Dartmouth drain Carney and MAGArik of their souls, or did Dartmouth appeal to them because they had no souls to begin with?
US And Israel Plan Post-Election Attacks On Iran:
The U.S. and Israeli militaries have developed specific plans for renewed strikes against Iran after the American midterm elections, according to U.S. officials and other people briefed on the deliberations.
As planning for a short but intensive operation progresses, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have stepped up exercises, flying planes over Iraq to practice strike maneuvers. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel this week to discuss new strikes, U.S. officials said.
The targets would likely include Iran’s energy infrastructure, nuclear facilities, and missile and drone arsenal. Some officials say one more big round of attacks could push Iran’s economy over the brink and force the country to make diplomatic concessions after nearly eight months of conflict.
Still, there are reasons to be skeptical that a renewed war would be any more successful than the first phase of intense U.S.-Israeli strikes between February and April. Those rounds of fighting drove up energy prices and inflation around the world, eroded security in the Middle East and severely strained the Pentagon’s supply of missile interceptors.
Netanyahu wanted the attacks to resume now so as to boost his reelection chances, while Trump wants to wait until after the midterms so as not to further damage Rethug chances.
Yet Another Trump Fascist–FCC Head Brendan Carr:
Brendan Carr, Trump’s attack dog at the FCC, is warning the polls are “fake,” and that he’s ready to do something about it.
“During this election season, there has been a significant surge in entirely Fake Polls and Suppression Polls designed to do nothing more than interfere with the regular functioning of the electoral process and alter the normal patterns of voter turnout and enthusiasm,” he claimed on X.
“Broadcasters are advised to avoid engaging in News Distortions or running Broadcast Hoaxes by airing Polls that would violate their regulatory obligations,” he added, adopting Trumpian terminology and capitalization.
But there’s also a long tradition of both sides — and especially Republicans — crying foul when they don’t like what polls are saying. Trump’s movement has taken this to a new level in recent years, denouncing information it doesn’t like as fake and a bid to, as Carr described it this week, “interfere” in the “regular functioning of the electoral process.” Trump’s ridiculous and now-dismissed lawsuit against Ann Selzer — the storied pollster whose very-wrong survey in 2024 showed Harris winning Iowa — is one recent, dramatic example of this.
Carr’s invocation of the term “news distortion” describes a real violation of rules on which the FCC is empowered to take action, but this is not that. “Pollsters who intentionally mislead the public should answer for it, but broadcasters who report publicly available polling data should never be punished when a poll is wrong,” FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, the Democratic commissioner on the FCC’s board, said. “FCC rules on news distortion or hoaxes do not apply to a station that reports this data in good faith.”
Gee, Could Disqualification Of Late-Arriving Ballots Hurt–Rethugs? That would be sad:
In recent weeks, concerns about mail-in voting disruptions have focused almost entirely on President Donald Trump’s now-shelved plan to sharply restrict who can vote by mail.
But a ProPublica data analysis shows that delays resulting from the U.S. Postal Service’s cost-cutting measures have endangered the validity of ballots cast in rural areas, not only in Washington, but across the country.
Over the past three years, as mail volume continued to plummet and annual deficits ballooned, the Postal Service started consolidating the processing of first-class mail at larger regional plants instead of at smaller hubs closer to local post offices. Then, in a little-noted switch that mostly took effect after the 2024 election, the agency cut the frequency of mail pickups in half at many post offices 50 miles or more from these processing plants, from twice daily to once.
The changes often added a day or more to delivery time and, most importantly for ballots, pushed back postmarking, which doesn’t happen until mail reaches the regional centers.
In this year’s primary, the effects of the cuts were clearest in five states that make detailed data on mail-in ballots available: Washington, California, Ohio, North Carolina and Oregon. All have or recently had grace periods allowing ballots to count if they come in after Election Day as long as they’re postmarked by the deadline.
Across the five states, the delays have had the most substantial effect in areas that voted for Trump in 2024, ProPublica’s analysis shows. In Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs, a Democrat, said he sees the service changes directed by Republican appointees leading the Postal Service as a way to undermine mail-in voting.
“I don’t think they realized how much it was going to affect their voter base,” he said, adding that Washington has “a lot of rural Republican voters.”
Sad.
What do you want to talk about?
