A Vampire preparing to perform the classic Kangaroo-Hop, famous in vampire lore for destroying their knee cartilage and enforcing a rough lifetime on vampires, after which they lay on the ground, squalling about the unfairness of life and their hunger for human blood, while small children taunt them with ketchup packets, and dingoes drag them out into the bush for feasts of their own.
Vampire Cleanup Department (2017) is a listless vampire-takeoff movie, using the device that, following a vampire feast, a cleanup must occur or the public may lose its lunch. Sometimes, too, the vampire is hanging around, and must “cleaned up” as well.
Sounds innovative? Or just a bit limp?
The problem may be that it’s filled with Chinese stereotypes, which may not be surprising for a Hong Kong-made movie, but is still irritating. Yes, even for ignorant Americans such as myself.
So, after a lot of dubious plot perturbations, a tragedy occurs, and then is maybe reversed, and we’re not sure why except the lead actor is sort of cute.
I was not impressed. You, on the other hand, may enjoy it. Maybe I was in a bad mood – the post-surgical blues, as it were.
I hardly ever see propinquity, and didn’t know what it meant when I encountered it this time. Still, this usage is a bit of a cheat on my part, as it’s actually used as a proper noun, but alluding to evocative properties of some homes.
Kansas City Confidential (1952) is a coolish sample of near-film noir. With World War II in the rear view mirror, Kansas City is rife with unemployed former soldiers. While most are harmless, a few are not. Mr. Big, a pseudonym, wants to pull off the perfect crime, so when he picks his three minions, one by one and vets each, he remains masked and unidentifiable; he specifies all should be masked for the actual crime in order to keep the perpetrators anonymous if one is picked up. The plan is an armored truck hit at its most vulnerable moment, open to pick up funds from the bank. In order to throw off the cops, they use a flower delivery truck that mimics a flower delivery truck that always shows up on the same route, every day, in front of the bank.
As the flower delivery truck glides away to deliver to its various customers, the heist occurs. All goes smoothly, if not interpersonally, as the four masked men have the usual clashes of men addicted to the quick fix, but they make it out and away, with Mr Big promising cuts when the heat drops off.
Meanwhile, the cops pick up the delivery truck driver, a World War II vet named Rolfe, with some minor offenses on his record, and the cops work him over. Despite promises of success by the cop, Rolfe survives the night and is released on evidence indicating his innocence.
But he’s not happy, and, working his own connections, he discovers one of the minions is headed for the gambling mecca of Tijuana, so off he goes. From here on in, the plot is dictated by the nature of the choices made by all these men, and I shan’t reveal more, except to say that, for some characters, there is a happy ending, and thus I can’t quite call it film noir.
But I can say that, if not fascinating, it was interesting and believable. Characters are worked out in careful detail, so each action-reaction is more than plausible – it just about had to occur as depicted.
But the nature of the story, and the unremitting greed of the bad guys, made it hard to connect with any of the characters in the gang, and Rolfe is also a bit cold and distant. A hook to motivate the robbers beyond sordid stupidity would have improved the story, and Rolfe, despite opportunity, did the story no real favors. The script needed a rewrite.
But it was an almost satisfying chunk of story. Hunt it down if you’re wondering what to do for an hour and a half or so. And then ask how you would have modified it to make it more interesting.
Donald Trump has picked a George Soros employee to be Treasury Secretary.
Is this draining the swamp?
Scott Bessent spent years working as George Soros’s right hand at Soros Investments. Trump now wants him to be Treasury Secretary.
If that’s not bad enough, he’s picked Rep. Chavez-Deremer [(R-OR)] of Oregon to be his Labor Secretary. This lady not only supports Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers who, by the way, is praising the pick, but Chavez-Deremer also supports the PRO Act, which would force right-to-work states to unionize.
But wait, there’s more. The National Education Association is also supporting Chavez-Deremer because she opposes school choice and cuts to the Department of Education.
Hey, Erickson, welcome to Trump-World, the domain of Mr Mendacity. Who may be afflicted to dementia.
How soon will Erickson advocate for VP-elect Vance to use the 25th Amendment to replace Trump with, ahhhhhhh, himself?
And how will that affect independent voters’ perceptions of the Republicans?
Or are we seeing Mr Trump deliberately stirring the pot, in his role of Head Drama Queen, just to see what comes popping out?
Folly? Sure it was. I consistently misread the polls and the national mood, believing the Democrats had the advantage, as demonstrated by their dominance in special elections. Between the horrid performance of Republican House and Senate members in 2022-2024, and the Democrats’ natural advantage on the abortion issue, I figured they’d gain the House, hold the Senate, and, heck, the Presidency, too. Who would vote for Mr. Mendacity?
Well, a lot of people, it turns out. I haven’t seen an authoritative analysis as of yet, although a lot of hobby horse riding is out there, and I’m fighting surgical after-effects and a head cold (yes, yes, it’s all minor, but bothersome), so I’ll just mention a few issues here:
It’s the economy, stupid. A favorite of folks who think Americans can’t think beyond the tip of their nose, but important in a nation where the favored economic stance is that you should be borrowed, mortgaged, and leveraged to the hilt. When you have no real margin, even minor inflation can enrage folks who think they have to buy the biggest house they can – and that makes the economy important.
Americans are fascists! I’ve seen this out of the progressive wing who can’t empathize more than half an inch. This is followed by a rancid screed about cutting ties with all MAGA friends and family. I do wonder if that’s just covert Russian propaganda, of course, but I don’t read the comments. This I’ve seen on Daily Kos. This is a CYA (Cover Your Ass) position.
Americans hate women and will never elect us! Presumably from female writers, there’s a hidden assumption that the Democratic policy positions on offer were at least as good, if not better, than the GOP’s positions. And some may be. But if the opinion of the policy aggregate, and the behaviors exhibited by the Democrats, is that they’re inferior or dangerous, then this position is inflated with arrogance. This is a CYA position.
The Democrats should have held a primary when Biden dropped out. I’ve seen this a couple of times, and the complaint seems to be that, rather than old-fashioned debate, Harris was simply anointed. I don’t know if there was really time to run a debate and a mini-primary, but that seems to have spread to enough of the citizenry that it may have cost the Democrats a Senate seat or two. And just how many intra-Party debates did Trump participate in?
Vote splitting. That is, where abortion amendments to state constitutions were on the ballot, opinion is that abortion rights voters voted for the amendment and against Harris and, where applicable, the Senate candidate(s) from the Democrats. I had not expected that. If it’s true.
Transgenderism! I didn’t see my own take on how the Democrats have botched the issue, but some reports have credited a single Trump ad for a two percent swing in voters, which in our system needs a lot more analysis before it can be proclaimed important – but remains an important signal of a political Party is desperate need of reform.
I’m sure I’ve seen more, but, if you want an executive summary, the Democrats need to hire and then take seriously the recommendations of a PR Firm. Their public image is much worse than I imagined, or they imagine, and, given their treatment of Rep Moulton’s (D-MA) quite reasonable remarks on transgenderism, they just don’t get it[1].
Once they figure out how they’ve come to grief, the Democrats will need to eject the dull-minded who let this disaster occur, and install those who will respect the citizenry, understand that arrogance leads to absolutist positions unacceptable to those citizens, as they should have learned in the wake of the 2021 Virginia Governor’s race, and that governance is complex and requires compromise.
Not that there’s much chance of that with the arrogant Republicans. That’s a challenge. Yes, a challenge.
However, there is a part of the news ecosystem that seems to be growing by leaps and bounds: nonprofit news, especially the juggernaut ProPublica, which has been responsible for buckets of scoops that for-profit media have missed.
How do they keep it local and, thus, relevant?
Moreover, ProPublica has pioneered an inventive partnership with local papers all over the country. ProPublica provides an enterprising investigative reporter with salary for a year plus the infrastructure necessary to report the story, including editors, research assistance and lawyers.
If this is true, then it becomes very promising in my eye.
It has partially filled the demand for local reporting that has resulted from the brutal realities of the newspaper industry’s consolidation. But it has also found relevance by being serious and focused, instead of giving way to many legacy media outlets’ impulse to lure back readers with games and frivolous lifestyle columns.
Money has to be part of the operation, of course, but this model of journalism may be better at limiting the influence of money on reporting and news sites than that used by, say, WaPo.
Demisexuality is a sexual orientation in which an individual does not experience primary sexual attraction – the type of attraction that is based on immediately observable characteristics such as appearance or smell and is experienced immediately after a first encounter. A demisexual person can only experience secondary sexual attraction – the type of attraction that occurs after the development of an emotional bond. The amount of time that a demisexual individual needs to know another person before developing sexual attraction towards them varies from person to person. Demisexuality is generally categorized on the asexuality spectrum. [Wikipedia]
For the benefit of any bigots who haven’t bothered reading up on what those particular identities are, let me help you out. Demisexual is an “umbrella term used to describe people who may only feel sexually or romantically attracted to people with whom they have formed an emotional bond”, whereas ‘greysexual’ (also known as Grey-A) is another umbrella term, this time describing people who experience attraction only occasionally, rarely, or under certain conditions.
Bindel’s use of the term bigot may be sarcastic or even ironic.
I suspect Rep Buddy Carter (R-GA) may find himself being primaried in 2026 as punishment for consorting with the enemy:
I submit that Congress would be more effective if every member slept in their office because there is inherent value in getting to know people across the aisle as people rather than as just the opposition.
Some folks might decry this practice as “rent-free living.” However, if it maximizes Congress’s productivity and camaraderie while respecting professional boundaries with staff, then it is a step worth taking. [WaPo]
Work with, exercise with, it all leads to socialize with – and realize that your political enemy who reputedly eats babies and laughs at God is actually … just another human being, warts and all. Combine that with a Republican Party still trying to accelerate to the right, with a leadership built on the myths about Democrats, not the reality, and it seems unlikely Rep Carter will be in Congress all that much longer.
To understand bombogenesis, you need to first remember the basics of high and low pressure. High pressure tends to clear the skies and calm the winds. Low pressure tends to pull in wetter air and gusty winds. Thus, the higher the pressure, the calmer it’ll be, and conversely, the lower the pressure, the stormier it’ll be.
Pressure? Yes, we measure the state of the atmosphere in millibars. “Static” or standard low pressure is about 1013 mb. Low-pressure systems tend to be in the upper 900 mb range.
As a storm forms, we refer to its “genesis” to borrow the biblical term – it is growing. If a storm grows quickly, it’s called rapid intensification. If a storm’s central pressure drops more than 24 mb in 24 hours, that’s bombogenesis. [krem2]
Sounds a bit silly. Noted in this Ryan Hall video.
The Portable Door (2023) is a whimsical little story concerning starting a new job that happens to involve goblins. It’s all very silly, and then it comes to an end.
The problem? There’s no real risk for the characters’ choices. Think of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Right from the start is a man driven by his ambitious moral choices in one framework, and how they collide with those of another – and the presence of the woman he loves as the background to it. By the time the Ark is opened, the audience is quivering in near-panic.
But this? A colorless Brit with magical powers that he hasn’t earned, another Brit in a fast track to division leadership, oddball management… it may be worth a laugh, but that’s it in the end.
So there’s a reason I’ve never heard of this movie: there’s nothing memorable about it.
The protests erupted into Parliament’s debating chamber Thursday when Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, a 22-year-old lawmaker for Te Pati Maori, or the Maori Party, was asked to state how her party was voting on the controversial Treaty Principles Bill, which seeks to reinterpret New Zealand’s foundational agreement between the British Crown and the Maori people.
Maipi-Clarke used the opportunity to perform a haka, or war dance. She tore up a copy of the bill in front of its author, as members of Parliament (MPs) from the Maori, Green and Labour parties, and people in the public gallery, joined in the haka.
The protections of the system FDR ushered in—the banking and equities regulation that killed crony finance, for example—are now under attack by the very sort of movement he warned against. Whether today’s lawmakers are as willing as their predecessors were to stand against that movement remains unclear, especially as Trump tries to bring lawmakers to heel, but Thune’s victory in the [election of Majority Leader of the] Senate today and the widespread Republican outrage over Trump’s appointment of Gaetz and Hegseth are hopeful signs.
And what if Senator Thune (R-SD) is trying to bring future President Trump to heel? Consider this from Erick Erickson on Gaetz:
Gaetz has burned every possible bridge in the House of Representatives, and his colleagues want him gone. The House Ethics Committee intended to vote in two days to release its investigation into Gaetz and human trafficking. Only one Republican on the Ethics Committee needed to vote yes, and that would happen. If the Senate holds hearings, that will still come up. Gaetz’s departure last night killed the investigation. That suggests that this nomination is to provide pre-text for Gaetz’s resignation, and the subtext is a congressional finding that Gaetz possibly engaged in sex trafficking of young women.
What if Thune sent the nomination to committee – and they sat on it? Trump doesn’t get his lapdog, and Thune sends a message: Nominations of grownups only.
The Senator was elected in 2005, so he’s pre-MAGA. Interesting times.
Or perhaps Trump sees Gaetz as a liability. hmmm hmmm hmmmm.
Quantum superpositions are typically fragile and fleeting, but one such state has now been maintained for a record-breaking 23 minutes. Keeping quantum states stable for this long could help make more robust quantum devices, or lead to discoveries of strange new effects in quantum physics.
This long-lived phenomenon is known as a cat state, named for Erwin Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment where a cat is placed in a box under such peculiar circumstances that it becomes impossible to tell whether it is living or dead. Cat states are superpositions where a quantum object can be in several mutually exclusive states, but it is impossible to tell which one it actually occupies – it effectively simultaneously occupies them all. [“Quantum ‘Schrödinger’s cat’ survives for a stunning 23 minutes,” Karmela Padavic-Callaghan, NewScientist (9 November 2024, paywall)]
It’s been a week since my last update on the price of DJT, the public stock of Mr Trump’s social media company, when the price/share was $27.69, and it had just dropped 30% in the wake of his victory in the 2024 Presidential Election. Have investors recovered their enthusiasm for the once and future President?
Hardly. While I’m sure the zealous base are convinced it’ll return to dizzying heights soon enough, and it may, the more experienced amateur and professional investors are staying away, as illustrated in the above one month chart.
I can’t help but wonder if Mr Trump’s choices for important government positions are dismaying for them. While the choice of former Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR) as ambassador to Israel might be simply a way to get a fellow grifter out of Mr Trump’s hair, such choices as Waltz, Gaetz, Gabbard, Rubio, and others may be big red flags that Mr Trump’s judgment is deeply suspect, if only for how he puts control of the House at risk by satisfying the ambitions of House members. There is more than just that here, but that’ll be revealed in the near future, I’m sure, and I don’t care to speculate here.
All this may tempt the ambitious investor to gamble. Between investors from MAGA-world risking all, the more sober investor risking a nickel, perhaps on the downside, and the unknown maneuvering of world leaders eager to buy the favor of a world power about to replace a strong leader with a weak leader, it’s very hard to say where this stock will go. I certainly think the fundamentals are terrible.
I’ll repeat from earlier posts on this thread: I’m not putting any skin into this game.
Perimenopause means “around menopause” and refers to the time during which your body makes the natural transition to menopause, marking the end of the reproductive years. Perimenopause is also called the menopausal transition. …
The level of estrogen — the main female hormone — in your body rises and falls unevenly during perimenopause. Your menstrual cycles may lengthen or shorten, and you may begin having menstrual cycles in which your ovaries don’t release an egg (ovulate). You may also experience menopause-like symptoms, such as hot flashes, sleep problems and vaginal dryness. Treatments are available to help ease these symptoms. [Mayo Clinic]
[Comedian Samantha Bee] had been suffering for over a year, she admitted. Bee, who debuted her limited-run off-Broadway show “How to Survive Menopause” in New York City this October, said she’d been scared she “was losing [her] mind … I was like, ‘something terrible is happening to me.’”
But the doctor offered another explanation. “She was like, ‘Hold the phone!’” Bee said. “‘How old are you? Oh honey, you’re in perimenopause.’”
Rep Seth Moulton (D-MA), age 46, speaks out on transgender sports, which may require a spot of searching on the reader’s part of this article:
Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton from Massachusetts said on Sunday that he stood by his opinion on transgender athletes, saying that Democrats are out of touch with majority of Americans.
Moulton, who recently won his reelection bid unopposed, told New York Times that the Democratic party should shift its approach to transgender issues, and that as a parent, he does not want his daughters “getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete.” [CNN/Politics]
Look for a few people to start shrieking bigot, as the Pavlovian training kicks in – but I’m not sure how many.
Rep Moulton is certainly young enough to be a long-time leader of the Democrats. This part is encouraging, too:
During the interview with CNN, Moulton said that he’s not an expert on this issue but is willing to engage in thoughtful debate.
Right-wing pundit and radio host Erick Erickson has an important message for Democrats and the left, and it’s Honesty Is The Best Policy.
You lost, in part, because your side of the aisle engaged in a cover-up of the sitting President’s cognitive decline. His staff, Cabinet Secretaries, members of Congress, and senior members of the press with access to Biden told everyone he was fine. They lied, and Biden got exposed on a debate stage.
If you are not willing to hold your own side accountable for engaging in a coverup of the President’s decline, don’t expect Republicans to take you seriously about holding Donald Trump accountable.
In 2008, I launched an effort to find, identify, and drive from politics those people who were leaking damaging information about Sarah Palin to the press from inside the McCain campaign. Nichole Wallace herself told me my effort pushed her out of Republican politics.
If you’re still feeling bewildered by the loss of the Democrats in the recent elections – I’m not so much bewildered as frustrated with myself for underestimating the effects of the immigration problems[1], the utter botch the Democrats made of the management of the transgender issue under President Obama[2], and the misjudgment of simply making Harris the nominee when Biden dropped out, although exactly what they were supposed to do is not clear to me – then give this Erickson column a read[3]. It seems mostly spot on, outside of the religious bit, which I consider so irrelevant that I skipped it after reading a couple of sentences.
The American public needs honesty and adherence to the tenets of liberal democracy, otherwise you look like a pack of autocrat-wannabes. Funny, this message applies to both major political Parties.
2 Yes, I knew about it, but now I suspect it was one of the pillars on which many voters chose learned to mistrust the Democrats, and that I could only suspect and not really believe. Truly, neither Party is a Party of honor these days, a remark that would no doubt outrage some in each Party, but cause most just to shrug. If the Democrats want to know honor again, a good first step would be to identify all those who pushed to bypass a public transgenderism debate, and expel them.
3 If all you can think is to shriek, But Erickson’s a right-winger!, try holding your breath until you turn blue in the face and pass out. Remember, he’s a fellow American, and he’s convinced that a better Democratic Party will improve the Republicans as well – and that’s something we all need. The arrogance of thinking your opinions are perfect and all those bad Trump supporters are wrong needs to be left behind; what are needed are people who actually have a connection to A) reality and B) logic. Or can you tell I’ve been reading Daily Kos of late and am running short on patience? Too much CYA riles the ol’ liver, you know.
George Will never liked Kamala Harris, I think, but in the process of condemning her, he’s made the sort of prediction that leaves toothmarks in the wannabe prophet, so deep it’s worth quoting:
A minimally articulate Democratic nominee would have contrasted nicely with Trump’s rhetorical style of digressions piled upon previous digressions. Instead, Harris got lost in her syntactical labyrinths. And she spent too much time belaboring two subjects: Trump’s boorishness and abortion.
The former is familiar to everyone and appealing to many. The latter issue was heated to a red glow by the Supreme Court’s June 2022 overturning of the constitutional right to abortion. But by 2024, it had cooled somewhat as various states, including some red ones, passed pro-choice laws and/or state constitutional amendments, and sentient people recognized that it is politically impossible for Congress to pass a national abortion ban.
It has been said that the future is a mirror without glass in it. But Trump’s scatterbrained approach to almost everything makes it likely that he will fail to do much of what he has vowed to do. Then, in 2028, Americans get to do this again. That is the good and bad news.
A national abortion ban won’t happen? Will may be right, but I will put no money on it.
Comments Off on Is That Your Finger Or Actual Evidence?
The Democratic Party reformers had best be in love with good, hard evidence, and not the wild-eyed finger pointing (“America hates black women!”) that I’ve seen in places. I consider it little more than CYA (Cover Your Ass) if it lacks any kind of backing.
So I think that this report from a WaPo reporter on the ground is an important testimony:
… A lot of voters I [Yvonne Wingett Sanchez] talk to – from Democrats to independents to moderate Republicans who supported Joe Biden in 2020 – feel like it was super unfair and hypocritical for the party that has spent so much time talking about democratic norms to simply up and replace Biden with Harris. It turned off a lot of independent and GOP voters who had been open to voting for the Democratic ticket up until then because it felt like their party was being hypocritical. It just didn’t feel fair to them.
Sure, it’s informal evidence, and should be vetted and confirmed.
But it’s sensible and, more importantly, has no CYA value. Clearly, a competitive, foreshortened primary should have taken place. And I did see, in print, complaints of this nature prior to the election. I didn’t consider them all that important – and I suspect that I was wrong.
But, and more importantly, Joe shouldn’t have run at all. The media didn’t seem to be reporting that he has in a state of decline, as a friend of mine reported, so that’s a ding on them. I think a properly run primary at the start of the primary season would have produced a viable candidate.
I’ll be keeping an eye out for other evidence that isn’t just CYA fingerpointing.
(especially of a person) appearing attractive on television: The producers of the show decided they needed a more telegenic host. [Cambridge Dictionary]
In the end, that’s probably good news for America. While some voters were undoubtedly voting on democracy, or immigration, or race, or gender, most of them seem to have been participating in a pretty normal anti-incumbent election in which a telegenic candidate beat a weak opponent who was tied to an unpopular administration and following a suboptimal playbook. Obviously, that’s disappointing if you supported Harris and think Trump’s character is unworthy of the office. But it also means that in four years, you’ve got the normal chance of taking that office back.
In case you guessed it, the only reason for this post is to gag over Mz McArdle’s assertion that Mr Trump is, somehow, telegenic. Is she kidding?
If you’re feeling down after the election, or even if you’re feeling up, I wish I could deliver a real live introduction to this dude Stanford referenced in this Daily Kos post. This hits it on the head:
“I’m afraid of living in world that’s gotten crueler!” I burst out. “I don’t want to live in a world in which daily cruelty is normal. I don’t want to live in a world that hurts vulnerable people. I don’t want to live in a world that is mean.”
“Then be kind,” he said.
He reminded me that he and [his late husband] Mac had lived through a world much meaner than this. Those who are kind will continue being kind, and we will carry on fighting. Assholes may be emboldened for a while, which will suck, but that is the way of the world. You win, you lose, you win again, and you do your best.
Sometimes you take backwards steps. The only thing is, taking backward steps with nuclear weapons on hand is unsettling.
I’m not sure the author of the post, SeattleProgressive, fully understands:
Today, I think I was hoping my hatred and fury for the world’s mean people would have some kind of magical power to make other people see how horrible this is and feel bad about it. But mostly, I realized, I am grieving and raging at a world that was always mean getting a bit meaner despite our efforts. We’ve been rejected. The beauty and empathy of our way have not won people over. We’ve been rebuffed. It hurts, and it hurts badly. It is humiliating and frightening. But that’s the way it is, and we don’t stop. We’ve been through this before, and far, far worse. Consider what was normal in 1924. Our work is the work of centuries. This is a battle lost, but we’re still here, and there are still a freaking lot of us, and we’ve got a long string of wins behind us.
It doesn’t appear that he’s begun the self-examination to see why what he believes to be beautiful may seem, oh, autocratic to others.
But, taking a page from his friend Stanford, he’ll probably get there.
For me, I think some of the grief comes from the realization that I do not understand the country as well as I might. 300+ million people can be hard to grasp, but some of the reasons given for Mr Trump’s victory, such as legal Latinos’ anger at the illegal immigrants being permitted to enter, I’ve been hearing for years, and it seems I didn’t give it proper weighting in my analysis. No where close.
Since the last update on DJT, former President Trump is now future President Trump, and his company’s shares must have surely skyrocketed.
Right?
Here’s a monthly chart.
Yeah. Yesterday, which was Wednesday after the Democrats met reality in an alley and never got their knife out of its sheath, it had a mediocre gain, which I’ll admit surprised me.
So I figured that, surely, today we’d see skyrockets after Mr Trump’s surprise victory. The market gained some more, the Fed dropped interest rates, all was good.
Instead, DJT is down somewhere in the range of 30% in a single day.
It makes you wonder if the investment world is looking at the future, at the quality of the people who may be influencing their investing lives soon – and not liking it. Not liking it at all.
As I’ve said many times before, the Republicans are made up of fourth-raters, and now they’re about to get another grip on the levers of power. Sane people should be very worried, now.
Oh, and now I’d say at least half the membership of the Democratic Party are fourth-rate campaigners and strategists. No, no, accept your laurel wreaths, grit at your teeth at the poison ivy I’ve substituted for the laurel – you’ve earned it.
