DL Open Thread: Tuesday, April 7, 2026

Carney Uses Fiscal Notes To Kill Legislation.  I’m With Shané Darby On This:

New corner convenience stores may soon be prohibited from opening in Delaware’s largest city.

Last week, the Wilmington City Council unanimously passed an ordinance that would place a moratorium on the businesses. The measure now awaits a signature from Mayor John Carney, whose office has not revealed whether he supports it.

Nevertheless, the City Council’s passage of the ordinance reflects growing concerns among city leaders that an over-concentration of corner stores is contributing to issues related to crime and  public health.

The concerns add to those around smoke shops in Wilmington, which prompted city leaders to approve a similar moratorium on those businesses in February.

Councilwoman Shané Darby said a moratorium on corner stores would give city officials time to conduct a formal assessment of the societal impacts of corner stores, many of which are located in Wilmington’s lower income neighborhoods.

Darby — who sponsored the corner store ordinance — asserted that many corner stores attract illegal activity, including groups of people who loiter outside them. She also noted that the stores sell relatively unhealthy products, such as processed foods, alcohol, tobacco, and lottery tickets.

“I think that our focus as a council should be … looking at these properties and saying, ‘how do we create healthy food options, grocery stores, cafes,’” Darby said about the formal “equity assessment” that would be completed if the ordinance is signed into law.

The council’s passage of the corner store moratorium comes more than a month after the city approved the similar moratorium on smoke shops.

Like Darby’s ordinance, the smoke shop moratorium was designed to give city officials time to assess the impact of the stores on communities.

Unlike Darby’s ordinance, the smoke shop moratorium does not come with a fiscal note, which is an estimated cost to the city of the proposed legislation.  

According to a city estimate, the Wilmington Department of Land Use and Planning would be in charge of completing the corner store “equity impact assessment” at a cost of $250,000.

During Thursday’s City Council discussion of Darby’s corner store legislation, Councilmembers Chris Johnson and Alex Hackett expressed concerns about why it included a fiscal impact while the smoke shop moratorium did not.

In a response during the council meeting, Darby claimed that the steep cost estimate came from the Carney Administration’s dislike for certain council members.

“They use this as a weapon. I’m telling this to the public. They’ll use fiscal impact notes as a weapon so that you can’t get things passed through,” Darby said.

Yes, yes they, I mean ‘he’, does.  He’s never been more than a blinkered green eye-shade guy who Carper adopted as his nepo baby.  He sucks multitudes.

Will Trump Officially Become A War Criminal Tonight?:

If Iran does not agree to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, Mr. Trump has threatened to launch a massive attack targeting bridges, power plants and other civilian facilities that would, in his words, send Iran “back to the Stone Ages.” But the president has also extended self-imposed deadlines in recent weeks, and diplomats around the world were asking whether Mr. Trump would find an off-ramp again or if he would follow through this time with what could be a gigantic conflagration.

Here’s his latest pronouncement:

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World. 47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!

I’ll say it again:  If all Democrats can do is to scream bloody murder, then they should all be screaming bloody murder.  I mean today could indeed yield a truly-cataclysmic event in world history brought on by our madman of a President.  Where the fuck are the Democrats? If there’s a Blue Wave this fall, it will only be due to a resounding public rejection of Trump and the Rethugs, it will have nothing to do with the virtue and strength of the Democratic Party, which is close to non-existent.

Without being aware of it, I’ve sort-of morphed into something of an isolationist.  We haven’t really been a democratic country at least since Citizens Unite.  Capitalism seems to benefit pretty much the same people who have used Citizens United to pollute the idea of free and fair elections.  We have demonstrated that we’re no longer trustworthy–to the extent that we ever were.  I’d have no problem if China took the lead for awhile. Any thoughts?  What could they do that’s worse than what Trump has done?

More From Our Bizarro World:

Across the country, Republican-led state legislatures are passing a slate of laws that effectively shield oil and gas companies from legal claims that they are responsible for the destruction and mounting toll caused by climate change. Fifteen laws have either been passed or are currently being debated in 11 states. Together, they threaten to remove long-standing tools for the public to hold corporations accountable.

A ProPublica investigation has found that most of these bills are part of a coordinated effort, orchestrated by a constellation of groups that share staff or have funding ties to the prominent conservative activist Leonard Leo, who is credited with placing conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. These groups have drafted state legislation, planned its dissemination and engaged a well-connected lobbying firm to get them signed into law.

Y’see, they know, just as we know, that these oil and gas companies were well aware of the environmental destruction that they caused.  At some point there will come be a reckoning.  Unless–they do this.

Trump’s Incompetence Might Be The Only Thing That Saves Us.  Take California, for example:

Donald Trump endorsed former Fox News host Steve Hilton on Monday morning, a move that’s likely to diminish the GOP’s chances of locking Democrats out of the general election for governor of California.

Democrats have spent months fearing that Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff ​​Chad Bianco, who is the other prominent Republican in the race, could both advance out of the June 2 top-two primary if the large field of Democratic candidates divides up the state’s considerably larger bloc of liberal voters too much for any one of them to move forward.

While such a nightmare scenario has always been unlikely, as The Downballot explained in a January analysis, those worries have overshadowed much of the conversation about the race to replace term-limited Democrat Gavin Newsom.

The Los Angeles Times last month published a column titled, “Scary time for California Democrats,” and other state, national, and even international outlets have also focused their coverage on whether the Golden State’s unusual election laws could result in a GOP pickup in June.

Trump’s decision to back Hilton, though, gives Hilton the opportunity to consolidate Republican support and to make Bianco an afterthought—an outcome that would make it almost impossible for the sheriff to deprive Democrats of a spot in the general election.

Oh, the guy who didn’t get Trump’s endorsement?  He’s leaning heavily into–wait for it–transphobia:

Bianco, for his part, responded to Trump’s snub by using transphobia to question Hilton’s conservative credentials. The sheriff tweeted a picture of Hilton and Newsom embracing with the caption, “Find someone who looks at you like Gavin Newsom looks at Steve Hilton when they attend events for charities promoting gender confusion in children together.”

What do you want to talk about?