Hegseth Tries To Make Admiral Scapegoat For His War Crimes. I don’t think this will go well:
Song of the Day 12/1: Cat Stevens, “King of Trees”
The march of development can seem unstoppable, especially in eastern Sussex County. Most protests about it take the form of debates about traffic impact and emergency response times, but sometimes the stakes are more sentimental.
In Milton, the site of increasing development as beach development spreads north, a convenience store that’s been approved for a lot on the northern edge of town has a group of longtime residents consternated. They’ve mounted a campaign to convince developers to spare a 100-year-old pecan tree that’s slated to go under the ax.
Skeptical as I am, I recall a similar effort that bore fruit – specifically, acorns – back in the day. IIRC, it was the early ’80s when DelDOT was widening East Chestnut Hill Road (Delaware 4) just southeast of Newark. A large, mature oak tree was slated for removal until citizens lobbied the agency to spare it. After much pleading, the road was rerouted and the tree was spared; it still stands in the improvised median. If DelDOT bureaucrats can be persuaded, why not executives at Royal Farms?
The tree Cat Stevens sang about on this track from his 1974 LP “Buddha and the Chocolate Box” met a grimmer fate. This live version, recorded that year in Japan, is better than the studio cut because Stevens gives it a more impassioned reading. He leaves no doubt – he really loved that tree. Better luck to Milton’s pecan protectors.
DL Open Thread: Monday, December 1, 2025
Yes, Honorables. Data Centers Are A BFD. Ignore at your own peril:
The Democratic sweep of gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and public service commissioner races in Georgia offers an early glimpse of what could be a sleeper issue in the 2026 midterm elections: the politics of AI infrastructure.
In Virginia, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger made data centers’ outsize energy demands one of her campaign planks, calling on tech companies to pay their “fair share” to strengthen the grid. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill won the governorship championing, among other issues, legislation that would require data centers to help fund grid modernization and renewable energy investments. And in Georgia, Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard unseated incumbent Republicans on the Public Service Commission, which sets utility rates, after Hubbard complained that big tech companies were being offered “sweetheart deals,” while residents paid much higher rates for electricity.
These wins underscore a striking new reality—that the physical infrastructure of the AI boom isn’t just transforming technology or the economy. As I reported recently, massive AI data centers are also quietly reshaping local and state politics—turning once-niche zoning fights into national debates over the future of energy.
I know that Janet Kilpatrick, who has almost always been on the side of EE-VIL, doesn’t give a shit. But she’s retiring. Perhaps the remaining slow learners on NCC Council might consider this: Those who want to give carte blanche to these data centers invariably lose.
Even Rethugs Are Saying It Out Loud–Hegseth is a war criminal:
Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September.
The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting.
While skeptical to concede that the Washington Post’s reporting may be accurate, Republicans also raised concern that Hegseth’s orders could have been illegal if they played out as reported.
Bipartisan leadership of the Armed Services Committees in both chambers vowed to probe the matter, with Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) promising “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances” on Friday.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told Cordes on Sunday that “if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that would be an illegal act,” and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that “if it was as if the article said, that is a violation of the law of war.”
Hmmm, is Trump looking to put some distance between himself and Hegseth?:
‘Bulo’s Fave Tunes: November 2025
I was able to cobble together a surprisingly-strong (if not long) list o’ tunes this month. ‘Surprising’ in the sense that I don’t include songs from projects that aren’t coming out until next year. ‘Not long’ for the reason I just mentioned.
Hope you enjoy:
De La Soul?? In 2025? That’s right!:
Jesse Sykes & The Sweet Hereafter?? In 2025? That’s right!:
Tommy Talton In 2025? Didn’t he die in December of 2023? That’s right. But he left us this song:
Day-um!
DL Open Thread Sunday Magazine: November 30, 2025
Gullah Geechee Families Seek Return Of Homeland Seized By Government:
A once thriving Black community along the Georgia coast called Harris Neck is now covered with greenery. During its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the area boasted a schoolhouse, general store, firehouse and seafood processing plants, and supported 75 Black households on 2,687 acres. The inhabitants were Gullah Geechee people, the descendants of formerly enslaved west Africans, who remained on the Sea Islands along the south-east US where they retained their distinct creole language and culture following the civil war.
In 1942, though, the community was razed to the ground when the federal government kicked the families off of the land using eminent domain to build an army airfield. For nearly 50 years, the descendants of the Harris Neck community have fought to regain their ancestral land through peaceful protests and lobbying local and federal governments to no avail.
Tyrone Timmons’ great grandfather’s oyster factory on more than 300 acres of land was one of the casualties during the government takeover. A few years ago, Timmons and his family walked the former oyster factory grounds for the first time in decades. A clearing lined with shrubbery and oak trees with low-hanging limbs led to a bluff that overlooked marshland. It was a profound experience for 52-year-old Timmons, “to be able to just walk on that property”, Timmons told the Guardian, “to just be able to feel that sense of being home, feeling complete”.
Now, as the president of the advocacy group the Direct Descendants of Harris Neck Community (DDHNC), Timmons has continued his family’s legacy of watching over the grounds, even if he doesn’t live on them himself. Two advocacy organizations composed of descendants – Harris Neck Land Trust established in 2005 and DDHNC started in 2019 – have worked to educate the public and petition the government to return the land.
The story of Harris Neck began after the civil war. In 1865, the plantation owner Margaret Ann Harris left in her will more than 2,000 acres of land to Robert Delegal, whom she formerly enslaved. Delegal later sold the land to 75 Gullah Geechee families. By the late 1800s, Harris Neck was a self-sufficient Black community.
“We knew the land, we were farmers and fishermen,” said Wilson Moran, who is Gullah Geechee and an adviser for the Harris Neck Land Trust. “We did the crabs, the shrimp, the fish, the horses, the clams, the conch. We did rice, cotton and other agricultural products. So we became quite successful … we had our own fire station at our own school, and we had our own community.”
The airfield was only in use for about a year. There really is no remaining reason for the land not to be returned to the ancestors whose families created this thriving community.
Highly-recommended.
‘Village Jill’ Makes Her Substack Debut! The village, of course, being Arden. I read the following piece at first out of a sense of obligation (after all, I inflict my song lists on her monthly), but then out of a sense of appreciation. Nothing I like more than an inquisitive mind who writes pieces that make me think. Like this one:
In a college sociology class, I first learned about the invisible labor of women—the unseen tasks that keep a household running: tracking birthdays, buying gifts, scheduling vet visits, keeping an eye on the milk. It was a new concept in the early ’90s, but once I learned it, I couldn’t unsee it—even in my own household. Mark and I started our own family soon after college. Mark was an engaged partner, we had been warned of the imbalance, and still, so many of those invisible tasks fell to me.
Now, thirty years later, the conversation about lopsided roles in heterosexual couples has expanded to include the emotional realm. Mankeeping, a term coined by psychologist Angelica Puzio Ferrara, describes the unpaid, often invisible social and emotional labor many women perform to manage the relational lives of the men they love. It’s the housekeeping of connection—checking in with his friends, smoothing over misunderstandings, remembering birthdays, keeping family ties alive. In short, it’s maintaining the social fabric, so he doesn’t have to think about it.
And because she often becomes the social bridge, she also becomes the emotional one—the sole outlet for his emotional processing. What begins as care can quietly become containment: her energy holding the charge of his inner world. Over time, that kind of emotional labor doesn’t just hold the relationship—it holds him.
It’s not that men don’t value connection—it’s that many have never been taught how to sustain it on their own. Women grow up surrounded by networks of care: we debrief with friends, process aloud, pass feelings around until they lose their sting. Many men, meanwhile, are taught that intimacy belongs at home, if anywhere at all. Their partners become their social planners, confidants, and emotional first responders—a system of one.
No, this isn’t a screed. It’s a statement of the issue, which she goes on to address:
I don’t think the world needs another essay telling men to open up or women to set boundaries. What we need are better spaces—and better scripts.
Research shows that men communicate more comfortably side by side than face to face. It’s why so many of life’s most honest conversations happen while driving, fixing something, seated at a bar, or walking a trail. That shoulder-to-shoulder posture lowers the stakes. You’re not performing intimacy; you’re simply inhabiting it.
So maybe the way forward isn’t more instruction, but design: creating environments that invite connection instead of demanding it. A weekly walk. A standing coffee meeting. A shared project. Places where silence isn’t awkward and emotions can surface casually and without announcement.
And then—time. These things don’t happen overnight. You can’t schedule one conversation and expect instant intimacy. Real connection is layered—built from repetition, reliability, and shared experience. Trust and the ability to be open accumulates in small but steady increments, like rings inside a tree. Over time, those layers become a living record of presence, vulnerability, and care.
The Kelce brothers didn’t redefine masculinity, but they reminded us that it can be nuanced; that laughter, tears, and loyalty can coexist with strength. My hiking group didn’t engineer emotional fluency for men, but it offered a space where it could unfold on its own.
This relationship insight is at the heart of what living in Arden is teaching me—and what I’m hoping to pass along: how community, in all its forms, can hold what no single person should have to carry alone. And how we might break broader societal issues into smaller, human-sized pieces—problems we can address at the community level.
They Are The Walruses (Walri?):
Scientists have discovered a new walrus haul-out on a stretch of shoreline in Svalbard – a remote archipelago in the Arctic Ocean, found between mainland Norway and the North Pole.
The enormous marine mammals, which can weigh almost two tonnes, were spotted using satellite imagery as part of Walrus from Space, a conservation project organised by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the British Antarctic Survey (BAS).
Question: If the walri can use satellite imagery, do they really need our help? But, I digress:
The walrus is what is known as a keystone species, meaning it plays a pivotal role in supporting the ecosystem it lives in. But today, melting sea ice as a result of climate change is putting increasing pressure on these powerful animals.
Being able to monitor them is therefore more important than ever. And that’s exactly what the Walrus from Space project aims to do, delivering a census of Atlantic walrus populations in Canada, Greenland and the Norwegian Arctic using satellite imagery – information which can then be used to explore what might happen to them as the climate changes.
“Walruses are big, powerful animals, but they are also increasingly vulnerable to the implications of the climate crisis, as the sea ice is literally melting out from underneath them,” says Rod Downie, Chief Adviser at Polar & Oceans for WWF.
The Austrian composer and sound artist Dorit Chrysler was at a marketplace years ago, in the Serbian town of Gornji Milanovac, when an Orthodox priest shoved a cross in her direction. She had been playing the theremin and “he thought it was the work of the devil,” Chrysler recently recalled.
His reaction wasn’t exactly unusual. Since its invention in the 1920s, the theremin, an electronic instrument that emits a beguiling, oscillating sound, has often been perceived by people as weird and uncanny. It was used extensively in the scores of 1940s and ’50s science fiction and horror films, for one thing. And thereminists appear to carve sound out of thin air, using their hands to prompt a distinct whir from its wooden, lectern-like body by manipulating the electromagnetic fields around its two antennae. (No touching is required.)
But according to Chrysler, who is a co-founder of the New York Theremin Society, a nonprofit that promotes the visibility and application of the instrument, the “distinct, scary vibrato” often heard in old Hollywood movies is only one of its “many sides.” The society is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and Chrysler is determined to prove that the theremin — which appears in music by Karen O, Aldous Harding and Erykah Badu — is as deserving of a place in the pantheon of “established musical instruments” as violins, keyboards and synthesizers.
Our musical fade-out is obvious. Cue the theremin:
Song of the Day 11/29: “The Rebels”
Guest post by Nathan Arizona
In his new PBS series about the American Revolution, Ken Burns doesn’t pull any punches when he describes many of the people who supported or fought for independence from England. They were not a glorious bunch.
He calls this faction ne’er-do-wells, teen-age runaways and felons, among other types. Many demanded unthinking loyalty to the cause and sometimes required oaths to prove it. They burned the houses and crops of insufficiently enthusiastic Americans as well as British officials. One poor fellow had tea forced down his throat until he vomited. But that was nothing compared to the tar and feathering. As one historian notes, the idea sounds kind of comic until you think about covering a person’s body with boiling tar. Rebels did this to fellow Americans and British alike.
“So much rascality,” John Adams observed.
Burns has called the American revolution the nation’s first civil war. This is not usually what we think about when we think of the revolution. The usual sense of unity and nobility lies in the words of enlightenment thinkers with the philosophical idea that men (most of them) had a right to rule themselves. Of course plenty of foot soldiers were idealists who understood the broader picture.
Loyalist civilians in the colonies were relatively wealthy and educated with the most to lose from colonial rebellion. Outnumbered, they were more likely to keep their heads down instead of calling attention to themselves by writing or singing anti-rebel songs. But a few loyalist tunes have come down to us, so let’s give them their due. Maybe it’ll make us feel a little better (if we need to) about how loyalists were treated when the correct side was not always totally clear.
“The Rebels” mocks the colonials for being what some call hicks, bumpkins, clodhoppers and so on. This song opts for “tatterdemalion.” It’s pretty vicious.
“Yankee Doodle” is probably the best-known rebel song, but it was an anti-colonial tune before that. The music itself long pre-dates the American Revolution. It might have come from an old Irish song. The first lyrics likely came from the Dutch, who sang something like “yanker dider, dooder down” — nonsense words that even the Dutch probably didn’t understand. The Brits took it up in the 1600s to mock some of their own. A doodle was a fool. A dandy was a fop. Nobody wore pasta on his head. A macaroni was a wig favored by fops.
“Yankee Doodle” was then altered to make it an anti-rebel song. This version is about a colonial who tried to buy a gun from a British soldier. As you can see, both sides enjoyed the tar and feathering.
Other British versions stayed with the clueless fashion angle, characterizing the Americans as so stupid they thought a feather in their cap would serve as a fancy wig. The Americans, with a surprising sense irony, decided to take it as a compliment.
I’m throwing in the following song even though it comes from a Broadway musical and they are not always well-received. “1776” was about the revolution and mostly the 1969 show is pretty fluffy, but it does get salient points right. In “Molasses to Rum” southerner Edward Rutledge chastises northerners for hypocrisy since they also benefit from the slave trade. It’s pretty dark for Broadway.
The singer is John Cullum, who was a popular Broadway performer at the time. He sang the original version of “On a Clear Day” (for those of you still reading). Surprisingly, he later played homespun bar owner Holling Vincoeur on television’s “Northern Exposure.”
DL Open Thread: Saturday, November 29, 2025
A missile screamed off the Trinidad coast, striking the vessel and igniting a blaze from bow to stern. For minutes, commanders watched the boat burning on a live drone feed. As the smoke cleared, they got a jolt: Two survivors were clinging to the smoldering wreck.
The Special Operations commander overseeing the Sept. 2 attack — the opening salvo in the Trump administration’s war on suspected drug traffickers in the Western Hemisphere — ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s instructions, two people familiar with the matter said. The two men were blown apart in the water.
Hegseth’s order, which has not been previously reported, adds another dimension to the campaign against suspected drug traffickers. Some current and former U.S. officials and law-of-war experts have said that the Pentagon’s lethal campaign — which has killed more than 80 people to date — is unlawful and may expose those most directly involved to future prosecution.
The alleged traffickers pose no imminent threat of attack against the United States and are not, as the Trump administration has tried to argue, in an “armed conflict” with the U.S., these officials and experts say. Because there is no legitimate war between the two sides, killing any of the men in the boats “amounts to murder,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer who advised Special Operations forces for seven years at the height of the U.S. counter terrorism campaign.
Even if the U.S. were at war with the traffickers, an order to kill all the boat’s occupants if they were no longer able to fight “would in essence be an order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Huntley, now director of the national security law program at Georgetown Law.
Not to mention that nobody in the Trump Administration has provided even a scintilla of evidence that the targets of any of these US attacks were engaged in drug trafficking.
Which Reminds Me–Trump Pardons This Guy:
President Trump announced on Friday afternoon that he would grant “a Full and Complete Pardon” to a former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who, as the center of a sweeping drug case, was found guilty by an American jury last year of conspiring to import cocaine into the United States.
The news came as a shock not only to Hondurans, but also to the authorities in the United States who had built a major case and won a conviction against Mr. Hernández. They had accused him of taking bribes during his campaign from Joaquín Guzmán, the notorious former leader of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico known as “El Chapo,” and of running his Central American country like a narco state.
The judge in his case, P. Kevin Castel, had called Mr. Hernández “a two-faced politician hungry for power” who masqueraded as an antidrug crusader while partnering with traffickers. And prosecutors had asked the judge to make sure Mr. Hernández would die behind bars, citing his abuse of power, connections to violent traffickers and “the unfathomable destruction” caused by cocaine.
Am I the only one getting mixed messages? No:
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent, who worked on the investigation into Mr. Hernández and spoke anonymously because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, called the pardon “lunacy.”
Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations at the same agency, also reacted with disbelief to the news of the pardon. Mr. Vigil said the move imperiled the reputation of the United States and its international investigations into drug trafficking.
“This action would be nothing short of catastrophic and would destroy the credibility of the U.S. in the international community,” Mr. Vigil said on Friday.
Oh, turns out that this narcoterrorist belongs to the same political party of the man Trump has endorsed to be Honduras’ new president.
‘Trump’s Campaign Of Retribution: At Least 470 Targets And Counting”. Your one-stop shop to the insanity that is Trump’s second term, Award-worthy:
A tally by Reuters reveals the scale: At least 470 people, organizations and institutions have been targeted for retribution since Trump took office – an average of more than one a day. Some were singled out for punishment; others swept up in broader purges of perceived enemies. The count excludes foreign individuals, institutions and governments, as well as federal employees dismissed as part of force reductions.
The Trump vengeance campaign fuses personal vendettas with a drive for cultural and political dominance, Reuters found. His administration has wielded executive power to punish perceived foes – firing prosecutors who investigated his bid to overturn the 2020 election, ordering punishments of media organizations seen as hostile, penalizing law firms tied to opponents, and sidelining civil servants who question his policies. Many of those actions face legal challenges.
At the same time, Trump and his appointees have used the government to enforce ideology: ousting military leaders deemed “woke,” slashing funds for cultural institutions held to be divisive, and freezing research grants to universities that embraced diversity initiatives.
Reuters reached out to every person and institution that Trump or his subordinates singled out publicly for retribution, and reviewed hundreds of official orders, directives and public records. The result: the most comprehensive accounting yet of his campaign of payback.
Please read–then demand that our so-called congressional delegation (and every bleeping D federal officeholder) show a spark of, if not outrage, concern.
A historian who spent more than a month in Gaza at the turn of the year says he saw “utterly convincing” evidence that Israel supported looters who attacked aid convoys during the conflict.
Jean-Pierre Filiu, a professor of Middle East studies at France’s prestigious Sciences Po university, entered Gaza in December where he was hosted by an international humanitarian organisation in the southern coastal zone of al-Mawasi.
Israel has blocked international media and other independent observers from Gaza but Filiu was able to evade strict Israeli vetting. He eventually left the territory shortly after the second short-lived truce during the war came into effect in January. His eyewitness account, A Historian in Gaza, was published in French in May and in English this month.
In the book, Filiu describes Israeli military attacks on security personnel protecting aid convoys. These permitted looters to seize huge quantities of food and other supplies destined for desperately needy Palestinians, he writes. Famine threatened parts of Gaza at the time, according to international humanitarian agencies.
UN agencies at the time told the Guardian that law and order had deteriorated across Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers, who guarded aid convoys. Israel considered police in Gaza, which has been run by Hamas since 2007, an integral part of the militant Islamist organisation.
TOOLS: Spiegelman, Brown, Shupe, Paradee, an unknown individual, and Ross-Levin representing Delaware at a tree planting in Ofakim Park, southern Israel.
Delaware is seeking applicants for a new statewide inspector general position.
The application period runs through Dec. 15. A selection panel has been formed to review applicants and recommend three candidates to the governor, who will choose the nominee. That person must be confirmed by the state Senate.
The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Laura Sturgeon, D-Brandywine Hundred, created an independent inspector general office tasked with finding instances of fraud, waste and abuse within state government and the General Assembly. Once chosen, the appointee will hire a staff, which is required to be certified in investigation, auditing or evaluation within three years. The inspector general has subpoena power authority to compel document production and issue public reports exposing corruption and wrongdoing.
The list of criteria for evaluating candidates includes requiring applicants to have 10 years of expertise in areas such as law, financial analysis, accounting, ethics or auditing. The ideal candidate would have prior experience in an office of inspector general.
Submitted Without Comment–Council Resolution Seeks To Limit Liquor Stores In Wilmington. Please read this, then comment. Otherwise I might feel compelled to.
What do you want to talk about?
Song of the Day 11/28: Jesse Welles, “Join ICE”
Jesse Welles might seem like an overnight sensation, but like most overnight sensations it took him more than a decade to get to the big night. Now he’s there, capturing four Grammy nominations, equalling the number of albums he’s released this year.
The nominations are for “Horses” as the best Americana performance, “Middle” as best American Roots song and its LP as the best Americana album, and “Under the Powerlines (April 24-September 24)” as best folk album. But he’s arguably gained the most attention for his series of political protest songs, which have drawn comparisons to Woody Guthrie and early Bob Dylan.
Like those two forebears, Welles writes quickly, and his sardonic sense of humor has made him the Randy Rainbow of the second Trump administration. When Steven Colbert had Welles on his show last week, he didn’t ask him to play any of his Grammy-nominated tunes. He played his recruiting song for the most hated agency in the country.
DL Open Thread: Friday, November 28, 2025
Idle Thought: Every single day, Trump says and/or does stuff that show he is unfit to be President. Some enterprising Democrat with a platform (Newsom is doing it to some extent, but not particularly related to the 25th Amendment) should hold a daily press briefing calling out Trump’s unfitness for office based on the stuff he did that day (or the day before). Drive the point home while driving Trump even crazier. If the enterprising Democrat has a sense of humor, more the better.
The Trump administration on Thursday blamed Biden-era vetting failures for the admission of an Afghan immigrant suspected of shooting two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., but the alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. government file seen by Reuters.
FBI Director Kash Patel and Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, both Trump appointees, said during a press conference on Thursday that the Biden administration had failed to conduct adequate background checks or vetting on Lakanwal before allowing him to enter the U.S. in 2021.
Neither official provided any evidence to support their assertion.
Under the Operation Allies Welcome program, Afghans evacuated to the U.S. were granted a two-year “parole” that allowed them to live and work legally and then apply for a more permanent status.
The document reviewed by Reuters said Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 of this year, three months after Trump took office. Lakanwal, 29, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official said.
The government file on Lakanwal said he had been vetted by the U.S. because of his work with U.S. government partners during the war in Afghanistan, and no potentially disqualifying information had been found.
“This animal would’ve never been here if not for Joe Biden’s dangerous policies which allowed countless unvetted criminals to invade our country and harm the American people,” said Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman.
Blahblahblah.
The man suspected of shooting two National Guard members near the White House this week — one of them fatally — is an Afghan national who came to the United States in September 2021 because of his work with the U.S. government, including the CIA, according to authorities.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Lakanwal had been a member of a partner force in Kandahar, a province in southern Afghanistan that saw significant fighting during the war.
Lakanwal was part of one of the CIA’s “Zero Units” that were involved in combat missions to seize or kill suspected terrorists, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.
The Zero Units, also known as National Strike Units, were involved in dangerous and often deadly night raids and other missions to kill or capture members of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorist groups. The CIA and U.S. military provided intelligence and logistical support to the squads.
The CIA has never publicly acknowledged its work with the Zero Units,which have been shadowed by allegations of human rights violations, including a 2019 Human Rights Watch report that found they had conducted summary executions and other abuses.
Lakanwal and other Afghan paramilitary members would have undergone extensive vetting before joining the Zero Units and were supposed to be monitored closely once in service, people familiar with the matter said.
U.S. officials have said the Zero Units were effective fighters and that they played a critical role in assisting with the chaotic American evacuation from Afghanistan in late August 2021, probably saving U.S. lives.
We created ‘this animal’.
Josh Marshall sums it up. Briefly:
No one should lose sight of the fact that the National Guard was only in Washington, DC as part of an extended political messaging stunt. They are there because of a legal lacunae created by the district’s non-statehood and consequent lack of democratic sovereignty. The shooter (the man in custody is suspected of but not proven to be that person) is guilty of the attack and the carnage surrounding it. Donald Trump is responsible for them. This episode is the collateral damage of, downstream of Trump abusing his powers as President.
Israeli Troops Murder Palestinians Who Surrendered:
Video of an Israeli military raid in the West Bank shows soldiers summarily executing two Palestinians they had detained seconds earlier.
The shooting on Thursday evening, which was also witnessed by journalists close to the scene, is under justice ministry review, but has already been defended by Israel’s far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who declared that “terrorists must die”.
Somebody be sure to give Rep. Melanie Ross Levin a pat on the back at Shabbos services.
Delaware’s Wetlands At Risk. Because of (a) Trump; and (b) a lack of state protections. You can guess who’s on both sides of the issue, and you’d be right:
Delaware’s “whale wallows,” also known as Delmarva Bays, provide homes for rare and endangered frogs, salamanders, plants and birds.
But these ephemeral wetlands that appear each spring could disappear as the Trump administration proposes to rescind Clean Water Act protections for certain waterways in an effort to expand landowner rights.
Other types of permanent freshwater wetlands are scattered throughout coastal Delaware, providing critical habitat and buffering flood waters in the state. These are also at risk of being impacted by development.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Nov. 17 announced proposed changes to the definition of “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, that would limit the types of waterways protected under the landmark law.
The change would codify a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision that removed federal protections for wetlands that are either seasonal or aren’t connected to streams, lakes, rivers and oceans. The case was brought forth by Michael and Chantell Sackett, an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near a lake.
In Delaware, that leaves freshwater wetlands, many of which are on private land, vulnerable to development, said Steve Gold, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School. Property owners are more likely to fill in a wetland before selling their land, because wetlands degrade overall property values.
“If somebody owns a piece of swampland that is not connected by surface water to some nearby river or lake, then under federal law, as it’s now being interpreted, the owner of that swamp would be able to do anything they wanted to that without getting a federal permit,” Gold said.
Builders, developers and farming organizations praised the move. In a statement, Associated Builders and Contractors said the move would alleviate delays and provide a “clear definition of WOTUS.”
But environmentalists say the move could impact critical habitats, and increase the risk of flooding in areas like coastal Delaware, which are vulnerable to sea level rise and increasingly intense storms caused by climate change.
As a result of the Sackett decision, about 75,000 acres of Delaware’s wetlands were taken out of consideration for protection by the federal government. It wasn’t the first time nontidal wetlands in the state faced challenges. In fact, federal regulations for wetland protections have been declining for the past 20 years.
Delaware is the only state in the region without broad protections for these waterways. Both Pennsylvania and New Jersey have state laws that provide protections that supersede federal regulations.
What do you want to talk about?
Delaware Political Weekly: Week Ending November 27, 2025
“We are kings of our bikes. So, we are again really lucky to live in Rehoboth, when we park a car, we have to get back into the car. We can hop on our bikes and our ritual is that we are always biking from our home to L(ewe)s. We do a little bit of walking around, a little bit of margarita, a little bit of good food – there’s amazing food then bike right back. So the ritual, on our bikes, every chance we can, any place we can go, and eliminate the cars.”–Dan Cruce.
A Random Factoid Totally Unrelated To Anything That May Appear In Today’s Column: When a sociopath tells you that they’ve changed, just remember that they are lying because sociopaths, by definition, are incapable of telling the truth.
The week’s big news: Two incumbent R legislators announce their retirement.
1. RD 33: Rep. Charles Postles announces that he will not seek reelection:
State Representative Charles Postles (R), who has served the 33rd District since 2016, says he will not seek reelection in 2026. Postles, 76, made the announcement after recovering from a recent illness and says he wants more time to focus on personal family matters.
The 33rd District covers parts of southeast Kent County, including Milford, Frederica, Bowers, Magnolia and Houston.
We had already gotten a clue that perhaps Postles might retire with the filing of a campaign committee by R Morgan Hudson. Hudson has previously run for office twice before. She ran in the 2016 33rd RD primary that was won by Postles. Hudson finished third in the three-person race with slightly over 19% of the vote. She then ran for a Kent County Levy Court seat in 2022, and lost to Robert Scott by a total of 61 votes. Scott, BTW, had finished second in that 33rd RD primary with about 35% of the vote. So, it’s not a foregone conclusion that Hudson will have the R field to herself in 2026. In fact, that’s officially the case. R Matt Bucher, Milford School Board Vice-President, filed this week for the seat:
The reason I am running is I believe we need representation in the 33rd District from someone who knows how to fight, knows how to win, and believes, as I think most of you do, that we need to speak our values clearly and protect our area’s interests when faced with a state government that doesn’t always seem to have us in mind. I also think, at this point in time, I am that person.
The current registration figures in RD 33 are as follows: 6145 D; 6481 R; 7018 I. I’m not yet aware of any D who is running. Postles’ last contested race was in 2020 (before redistricting). He defeated Rachael King by a 58-42 margin.
2. RD 41. Rep. Rich Collins announces that he will not seek reelection. Two candidates have officially filed for the seat, R Doug Conaway and D Ryan Stuckey:
Two local business owners have already filed to run for Collins’ seat in House District 41, which covers Millsboro, Dagsboro, and Gumboro. Republican Doug Conaway, who runs Douglas Builders, and Democrat Ryan Stuckey, owner of a coffee shop in Dagsboro, are seeking the open seat.
However, the big story is the Scurvy Dog Who Hasn’t Barked. Or, to be more precise, the scurvy dog who hasn’t stopped barking but hasn’t yet filed. We’re talking John Atkins who, during his two stints in Dover, was first rejected by the Republican Caucus, and later rejected by the Democratic Caucus, including by Atkins’ ‘rabbi’, Pete Schwartzkopf. The online lovefest between Collins and Atkins suggests that a handshake hand-off between the two is what they both want. Can’t think of two people who deserve each other more.
Raising the question, is someone with the following record (according to Wikipedia) even eligible to serve in the General Assembly?:
On October 29, 2006, Atkins was caught drunk driving and used his representative identification to gain leniency from the Ocean City, Maryland police officers and avoid arrest for the incident. An investigation by the House Ethics Committee found that Atkins had continued to drive across the Delaware state line after being instructed to refrain from driving and was arrested later that morning on a charge of offensive touching following a physical altercation with his then wife.
He had attempted to avoid the domestic violence arrest by making “several attempts to speak with Millsboro police chief.”[13] Fellow Republican Richard C. Cathcart sponsored House Resolution 13 to censure Atkins, and it was approved by the House Ethics Committee. The proposed sanctions included requiring him to forgo use of his legislative identification card and legislative license plate, be removed as chairman from any legislative committees, pay a fine, receive an alcohol evaluation, and comply with court-ordered counseling. Atkins resigned from his seat on March 27, 2007, before the official censure took effect.[13][14]
He subsequently switched his party registration and was reelected in the next election as a member of the Democratic Party.
In 2012, Atkins resigned from the Public Safety and Homeland Security Committee after attacking a police officer in an angry email.[15] He had received a verbal warning from the police officer after being caught speeding and sent the email to a state police captain to complain.[16]On June 5, 2014, the Delaware Family Court issued a restraining order for Atkins to stay away from his estranged wife and children due to allegations of violence and abuse.[15][17] The next day, Atkins filed a petition against his wife claiming she was the one being abusive.[18] As of June 13, 2014, Atkins and his wife were sharing joint custody of their children, although his wife maintained allegations of harassment and abuse.[19] In June 2016, Atkins was arrested after a physical altercation with his ex-girlfriend. He was charged with offensive touching and criminal mischief, and decided against a bid to regain his seat that he had been considering.[20] The charges were later dropped on the basis of insufficient evidence.[9]
In July 2018, Atkins was arrested and charged with felony strangulation and assault after an argument with his then girlfriend where he squeezed her neck until she could not breathe.[15][21] He was arrested two more times that month for domestic violence and harassment that violated a no-contact order.[5][22] On August 17, 2018, he pled guilty to misdemeanor assault and breach of release charges, and was sentenced to time served, which was 22 days in prison, along with one year of probation. He remained incarcerated until he received an electronic GPS device and was prohibited from possessing a firearm for five years.[7]
I’m well aware of the decision by then-AG Charles Oberly that enabled Herman Holloway Jr. to seek office after having been found guilty of an ‘infamous crime’, albeit a non-violent misdemeanor. But Holloway never assaulted anybody. It’s incumbent on the Attorney General to determine whether the Sussex Strangler is similarly eligible to run. To me, strangulation is a huge step up from fiscal impropriety, but what do I know?
BTW, take a look at the timeframe for Atkins’ legal misadventures–2006 to 2018. How many times during that period did his defenders claim that he had changed? Including Pete Schwartzkopf.
Atkins is a proven threat to those who dare cross him. When even mildly provoked, he resorts to violence. The Attorney General should determine that he is ineligible to serve in the General Assembly. Or at least require that he include on his campaign lit: Vote For John Atkins–Woman-Beaters Deserve Representation Too.
Speaking of who should be ineligible to run, it is past time for someone to question whether Dan Cruce resides in his district. They changed the law after Dave McBride was defeated. We have almost the exact same situation here. I think a legal challenge is essential.
That’s all I’ve got this week. What’d I miss and whaddayathink?
Song of the Day 11/27: Big Star, “Thank You Friends”
Finding stuff to feel thankful for might be more difficult than usual this year, but you can take some inspiration from Alex Chilton, who wrote “Thank You Friends” for Big Star’s third album and then saw it sit on a shelf unreleased for years.
Big Star’s first two albums were widely admired but sold miserably due to record company incompetence, so “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you” isn’t the compliment it might seem on the surface. It’s Chilton’s snide middle finger to an industry that him let down. That’s not the spirit in which people hear the song nowadays – public stations end pledge drives with it – but sometimes it fits the situation.
Just a week ago, Jeff Tweedy played in Memphis, where he closed the show with “Thank You Friends.” Big Star drummer Jody Stephens sat in on drums while Tweedy’s usual drummer, his son Spencer, took the lead vocal.
https://www.jambase.com/article/big-star-jody-stephens-jeff-tweedy-thank-you-friends
DL Open Thread: Thursday, November 27, 2025
Happy Thanksgiving! Made even better b/c my daughter and son-in-law are now hosting, and that we’re having pulled pork, not turkey.
BTW, you never know–you might want to read b/c this could be the best Open Thread I ever wrote…not likely, but still:
Two Guardsmen Shot In DC–The story is unusual, to say the least. As is the suspect:
The gunman who shot and critically injured two National Guard members near the White House is an Afghan who worked with C.I.A.-backed military units during the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the agency said on Thursday.
Two members of the West Virginia National Guard were shot near a metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., on Wednesday afternoon by a lone gunman who was also injured and later detained, officials said.
The C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe, said that the suspect had come to the United States in September 2021, after the American military withdrawal from Afghanistan, through a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans who had worked with the U.S. government. People familiar with the investigation identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.
Trump uses it as a pretext to:
In a video address late Wednesday, President Trump said he had ordered 500 more National Guard troops to Washington, though it was unclear when they would arrive or where they would come from. The president framed the shooting as an “act of terror” and launched a broadside against immigration, saying it “underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation” and vowing to redouble his mass deportation efforts.
The names of the two injured Guard members have not been not released. Before the shooting, some officials and National Guard members worried about the safety of troops that the Trump administration had deployed in American cities.
Keep in mind that the only reason why National Guard troops remained in DC was b/c the Trump Administration got a stay to delay a judge’s ruling that the deployment was illegal. In other words, they would have not been at risk had Trump and DHS honored the judge’s ruling.
Pity Petit Pauvre Mike Johnson–The Job Is So Overwhelming:
After several bruising weeks for Speaker Mike Johnson, a soft-focus podcast interview alongside his wife, conducted by Katie Miller, the wife of Stephen Miller, one of President Trump’s top advisers, had all the ingredients for a flattering reset.
What emerged from the interview instead was a portrait of a Republican leader barely keeping his head above water in a job to which he does not appear particularly well suited, a conversation full of tragically revealing details packaged as rueful humor but with the biting sting of truth.
“We have this joke that I’m not really a speaker of the House,” Mr. Johnson, who represents Louisiana, said in the latest episode of “The Katie Miller Podcast.”
The conversation that Ms. Miller facilitated with Mr. Johnson and his wife, Kelly, meandered from what time Thanksgiving dinner should be served, to how to raise children who don’t identify as transgender, to how to keep a long marriage strong. But the throughline was Mr. Johnson’s sense of being crushed by his workload and the demands of his job managing an unruly Republican majority.
“I haven’t had a vacation day in two years. I haven’t been off in two years, literally,” he said. “Last Christmas, I was taking calls from members with their drama. It takes everything out of whomever serves in the position — and by extension, their family.”
Later: “Even when you think the work of the day is done and you put the phone down, it can be 11:30 at night — ‘ring ring,’ another crisis. You’re sort of like a firefighter, in a way.”
When asked the odd question “What is a hill that you would die on that no one else would?”, Mr. Johnson responded not by naming a quirky obsession but by describing a management style that sounded highly dysfunctional: “There’s a hill every 10 minutes.”
“You die on hills all the time,” Ms. Johnson, a licensed pastoral counselor, interjected.
Sitting together in the speaker’s office, the Johnsons appear perfectly practiced and coifed. Ms. Johnson’s bright orange lipstick exactly matched her suit and her shoes. The two know how to do this; they used to co-host a podcast about religion and politics.
When asked about the daily routine at home, the answer was pure chaos.
“We’re in triage every day, and every day is different. There’s no pattern or schedule,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’re kind of in survival mode right now. We order in food because we just don’t have the time or luxury of cooking.”
The biggest problem appears to be the sheer amount of incoming.
“I think literally 100,000 people have my cellphone number,” Mr. Johnson said. “The greatest challenge of my day is trying to keep up. Because I miss literally hundreds of calls and text messages in a day. The peril is, I don’t know how important it was, what I missed.”
Correct me if I’m wrong–wasn’t Nancy Pelosi something like 82 years old in her last year as Speaker? Poor Mikey just isn’t up to the task. Perhaps that’s why he kept the House out of session for over a month–Nap Time.
Darby And Owens Call For Halt To Plans To Close Plummer House:
The Plummer Community Corrections Center in Wilmington is set to close in March, but several Wilmington City Councilmembers want to see that decision walked back.
Wilmington City Councilmember Shané Darby called for a reversal of the state’s decision at a press conference outside Plummer Tuesday.
Plummer houses men sentenced to Level IV community corrections supervision, allowing residents to participate in a Work Release program.
Delaware’s Department of Correction announced it will send Plummer residents elsewhere, all to locations downstate.
City Councilmember Darby said the way forward is to keep residents close to their families.
“All the best practices, all of the national studies say for re-entry, for rehabilitation, you have to be close to home,” Darby said. “That is the best way for you to feel supported. A lot of times, these men are getting their food and their toiletries delivered by their family, by their grandmoms, by their moms, by their aunties.”
Plummer residents are largely Black and Brown men, and most will be sent to facilities in Smyrna or Georgetown. Some have already been moved.
Councilmember Coby Owens stood with Darby. He said no system is perfect, Plummer included. But he said it’s a step in the right direction.
“The people that matter the most are the people who have been through the program, the people who believe that their lives are back on track because of what they were able to get by being here and not just sitting in a jail cell,” Owens said. “And how they talk about that, it would be more difficult for them if they only had the monitoring system coming right out, and not having that kind of leeway.”
Darby called for Gov. Matt Meyer to pause all transfers, return Wilmington residents to Plummer and tour the facility before allowing its closure. Darby sent a letter to Meyer Tuesday morning with signatures from seven other Councilmembers.
C’mon, Matt, this is an easy one. Do the right thing.
What do you want to talk about?
Song of the Day 11/26: Darrell Scott, “The Day Before Thanksgiving”
Some years you just can’t get into the holiday spirit. Darrell Scott knows just how that feels, and he wrote a song about it that appeared on his 2010 album “A Crooked Road.” He uses his doubts about the Thanksgiving story to express doubts about his own. There’s not much chance of it turning up in a Hallmark holiday movie.
Scott is best known as a busy Nashville sideman and thoughtful songwriter, but he’s also an intensely emotional performer. He recorded this video at the Americana Music Festival in Nashville in 2010.