Saturday, November 29, 2014

Drawing: Faces #958 - Rhonda

By Jack Brummet


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Poem: [you can’t see earth]

By Jack Brummet


 
You can't see earth
From the dark side of the moon
But maybe that changes

With the accelerating deceleration
Of the moon and earth.
A waning Gibbous moon

Dangles 1.3 light seconds away,
The Sea of Tranquility
A menacing sinkhole.

2
The moon
And the fog
Are in cahoots

And the fog slithers in,
Wraps itself around houses,
Trees, shrubs, and churches,

And threads its way
Along the ground,
Like a horror movie fog.

I wonder if the fog and moon
Really trigger
Mayhem, madness, and murder?

3
Do our brains have tides?
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After the Elks football game, Springerville, Arizona 1972

By Jack Brummet

This is a pretty interesting photographic print I found in a Goodwill about 20 years ago.  I can't decipher the photographer's name, but the legend in pencil beneath the print says "Homecoming Springerville, Arizona.  Elks. 1972."

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Friday, November 28, 2014

"The Fish from April": let's go humaning!

By Jack Brummet

I can't find the book in which this originally appeared.  Wikipedia Commons, and Tineye.com show numerous people who have used the image, but so far, no hints as to what book where this first appeared.  In any case, we'll call it context unknown and share it with you.  There is a class of images that focus on animals turning the tables on their homo sapien oppressors, of which this is clearly one.

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Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Go get 'em Marshawn!

Cookin' with Jack, part 11: Roast Turkey

By Jack Brummet



Buy a fresh, unprocessed turkey (they call them "natural").  Or if you have the $$$, get a free range or free range organic heritage bird (which can cost about three times what a natch turkey costs). Remover the neck and giblets (make some stock with them for your gravy or to add to the pan).

Brine:
Two gallons water (or substitute half a gallon of apple cider for part of this).
1 1/2 cups of kosher or sea salt
Two cups of brown sugar
six bay leaves, crumbled (fresh if you have a bay tree)
a handful of fresh rosemary, stripped from the vine
the peel of one orange, torn into smaller pieces (sure, squeeze the juice in too)
four cloves of garlic, minced or smashed
3 shallots, sliced or diced
a handful of peppercorns (3 tablespoons)
a handful of coriander seeds (say 3 tablespoons).
ten whole allspice, smashed with the flat side of a chef's knife

Put all the ingredients above into a pot. Bring it to a boil. Turn off the heat.  Let it cool, and then put it into the freezer to get cold.

Brine the turkey for 36 hours.  This is enough for a 20 pound bird.  You can put all this into a brining or turkey cooking bag and then add the turkey. I don't quite get the bag thing. I have a lot of pots, and usually use a very large stainless steel pot.

36 hours later, remove the turkey and toss out the brine.  Give the turkey a good rinse, inside and out.

Don't salt the turkey (we already did that).  Stuff the cavity and vent very loosely with a mixture of onions, chopped whole lemons, rosemary, shallots and sage.  Whatever you like can go in there.  Add a cup and a half of stock to a roasting pan, and put the turkey on a rack (topping it up as it cooks).  Rub butter or olive oil over the skin.  Rub some more under the skin, and tuck bay leaves, sage and rosemary under the skin (which looks awesome as it cooks).

Crank the oven to 500.  When it hits 500, throw the turkey in.  In half an hour, turn it down to 350.  Turkey generally cooks at about 13 minutes per pound, or in about four and a quarter hours.  Start checking the temperature with a fast read thermometer at 3 1/2 hours.  When the temp in the center of the thigh hits 150-155, take the bird out and let it sit for 20 minutes.  It will rise to around 160 degrees.  Perfect.

Do not take a knife to it before that!  Carve and serve with all the wonderful side dishes.  Actually, I'm not a huge fan of most of them.  Except stuffing.  For me, the ideal Thanksgiving would be turkey, stuffing, a huge green salad, and a spoonful or two of fresh cranberry sauce: one bag cranberries, half a cup of sugar, one cinnamon stick, a couple of crushed clove berries, the juice of two oranges and two limes (and throw in their minced peels).  Cook ten minutes, until the cranberries pop.  Serve them at room temperature (not cold).   You can add ginger if you like (I have and it works), but it's perfectly fine like this,
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Monday, November 24, 2014

Budweiser, "The King of Beers" has been deposed. . .

. . .at least according to Beer Marketer's Insights and The Wall Street Journal.


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Saturday, November 22, 2014

Republicans now admit there was, and is, no "Benghazi Scandal."

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Ed.


The Republican dominated investigating committee, with far less fanfare and publicity than the previous attacks on the Obama Administration over the Benghazi attacks, has decided "never mind."
"Intelligence and military officials responded appropriately during the terrorist attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, a House committee concluded in a report released Friday evening.
"The report by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence also found no cover-ups and no deliberate misconduct by Obama administration officials following the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks.
"Nor were there intelligence failures before the attacks on the State Department’s temporary mission in Benghazi and the nearby CIA annex, the previously secret 36-page investigative report says." 
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The Walls Closing In

By Jack Brummet

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Friday, November 21, 2014

ATIT reheated: My worst job, ever

By Jack Brummet, Employment Editor

Someone else's worst job, ever

In 1983, I let an old college friend--McGoo--talk me into coming to work for him. I was desperate.  I didn't last long. It was one of the most painful and hilarious experiences of my life. We were a magazine for construction professionals with a plan center (where they could view blueprints and create bids for various open-bid projects). Our job: to sell subscriptions and advertising in the magazine.  They also tapped me to write some vanity articles. . .if you buy a series of ads, we'll write a nice puff piece about you in our magazine.

Jagetafuckinorderyet? 
McGoo tried for a short period to not allow anyone to leave the boiler room until they had "an order." You were not allowed to take a whiz until you got an order. "For the good of the order" was our watchword. I never quite knew if that meant for us, the brother- and sister-hood of salespeople, or just for the order itself.

Of the five salespeople under McGoo, I was the only one whose salary/draw was not garnished.

Leads
In sales, it's all about the leads (as you know from seeing or reading Glenngarry Glen Ross). Of course, McGoo got the cream of the crop, and only so many would come in per week; the rest were continually recycled.

When you called the marks, you wrote down on the cards how they responded. McGoo would erase what you wrote, and nothing would happen. Then the card would be handed back out on two weeks later on Monday as one of your 20 "free" leads for the week. I would call someone at a construction company and their wife would answer and tell me that her husband had died last week. I would apologize and write on the card—remove from lead pool, customer died. And then the card would be handed out again that week as part of out precious leads (after that you were on your own, which basically meant calling everyone you knew in construction (for me that was approximately no one). Or, you hit the yellow pages which were even more fruitless than the worthless leads Mcgoo handed out. After he cherry-picked any choice ones that happened to fall in there.

Someone would call the poor widow every Monday morning. One guy told me that if we ever called him again he would come down and break our faces. I wrote that on the card. And I called him a couple weeks later.
Someone else's worst job, ever

The cards came back again and again. Finally, one really brain damaged guy came down with steam coming out of his ears and McGoo had to do some mighty fast dancing (natch', blaming it all on "those fuckin' morons in the boilerroom"). When you wrote TD on a lead, it meant you had been seriously turned down. In theory, the lead would lay fallow for a couple of months. But not under the McGoo system. A turndown was merely a moment of temporary insanity on the part of a recalcitrant customer, coupled with gross salesman incompetence. So you would end up calling the same guy every Monday and he'd tell you "nothing has changed. I still don't want the magazine, creep. Now don't call me again."

Your twenty precious leads would almost always dwindle down to maybe three real, if remote, possibilities. By this time, with a stack of turndowns, you were so desperate to get McGoo off your ass, you didn't try to sell them the real ripoff. . .you sold them the lowball subscription ($100). A lot of the guys were so desperate to salve Mcgoo that they would write up a fake sale. That took the heat off. But a couple weeks later when the cancelled subscription meant there was hell to pay. . .McGoo got his commissions early, so a cancellation meant they would actually dock him too.

Meanwhile, of course, McGoo's stack of leads were from people who sent in the fallout cards saying "Yes, I am interested in subscribing. Please contact me." So by the time we rolled in Monday morning (McGoo having arrived early to shuffle and cherrypick the fresh leads), he would have four or five orders on the boards, and we would be in the hole. I forget what term he used for someone who didn't yet have an order, but it was something like shithead.

A conversation
"Jack get a godamned order on the books. Be a man."
"Christ, I'm trying, Jim."
"That's the difference between me and the rest of you shitheads. You're trying. You're dyin'. I'm doing. While you’re flogging the old salami, I’m soaking my hose in prime Grade A cooch."

Another Conversation 
"I'm going to lunch, Jim."
"J'get a fucking order yet Jack?"
"No, but I'm hungry."
"Get back on the phone. Hungry salesmen make the best salesmen. No one cares whether shitheads eat or not. Get a fawkin' order and I'll buy you a fuckin' T-bone!"

Bill Ryan
A second generation Irishman, who drove a 1966 Cadillac convertible. Didn’t go to college. Black sheep of his family. About a week after I started at Construction Data, his salary was garnisheed by some credit card company. One thing Bill needed was that monthly cash infusion to keep things juggled. . .he worked his debtors in some sort of bizarre pyramid scheme. He had a volcanic temper and was endlessly tailed by bill collectors, repo men, and rumpled private detectives. He thought Keelin was way too hot for a non-Irishman.

Pat Sherwin
He made Willy Loman look like a superhuman dynamo. “I had some fucking scores, I tell you Jack. I was salesman of the year twice, got a new Buick once and a trip to Hawaii another time. And here I sit with a sick wife, a fuckin' basket of picked over leads and a fuckin' punk kid tellin' me what to do and insulting me. Life is the green-apple shits, Jack."

My First Day On The Job
I rolled into the office at 8:30. McGoo, was, of course, glad to see me, chatting me up, introducing me around and he was truly happy to have some sort of lit brother working with him. After maybe an hour, he tossed me a pile of stuff to read. I read it in ten minutes.

“OK John, you’re ready to go.”

He handed me a freshly printed stack of lead cards.

“Well, it’s about time to get you on the books today. I want you to close one of these before lunch.”

“Jim, I’d really like to listen to some of the other guys do this for a while. I don’t know what to say to these people.”

“John, you can do it. You’re selling something they want that will make them money, and in return they give you theirs. You can listen to the rest of us all fawking night and it ain’t going to help you a bit. You’ve got to start working those taps and coming up with a magic script. It’s not really all that different from sex. You get them interested, you talk to them, you woo them. And then when things have heated up, you close. An’ you know what? Every time you close it feels every bit as good as when you finally get to stick the old salami in the jellyroll.”

My First Telephone Call
“I’ve told every one of you sonofabitches that I didn’t want your goddamned magazine. EVER! I’ve told you never to call me. AND YOU CALL EVERY FUCKING WEEK.”

“I’m, sorry, Sir, but I was working with some information that said you might be interested in knowing more about Construction Data. Possibly I could send you a free copy of our magazine. Maybe you would like to come down here and tour our plan center facility.”

“I’m going to come down there and tour your heads if I hear from you assholes again.”

“Sorry you feel that way. If you ever do decide. . ." [CLICK].

Turndowns
I started to write notes on the card—saying don’t call this guy back. McGoo grabbed the card from my hand.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Making notes. “

“You don’t need to write anything on that card, John. Just a note. This was a soft turndown, so you write STD on the card, date it, and put it on the bottom of your stack. We send the leads back in to the main office every Friday night.”

Under the McGoo system, a turndown was merely a moment of temporary insanity. You had to call back fairly soon. . .in McGoo’s theory, if you called back often enough, eventually the mark might think “Hey, these guys are persistent. They must have something good going here.”

McGoo plunged on with my indoctrination.

“So he says no Johnnie. Simply mark it STD. We’ll turn that piece of dog shit sooner or later. He’ll bare his sphincter and beg us to give him a poke. He will crumble and eventually beg for a solid rodgering at top dollar!”

“If he doesn’t come down and cave our heads in first. . .”

“Ah, you missed it. These guys are more hot air than salesmen. And that’s why we eventually triumph. These guys are construction people, we’re pros. Ok. You’ve plunged in. Now, you gotta start with the lingo."

"They say you called them last month, ok, fine. You tell them you are calling back because they did seem interested and you are in a position this week to offer them significant price breaks on Construction Data, if they are able to act quickly.”

“I can’t say that. . .you know. . .it just doesn’t fall off the tongue. Significant price breaks sound phony.”

“Johnnie, me boy. There is no shame in making money. One thing you’ve got to get over is feeling self-conscious or embarrassed. Feel embarrassed at being a goddamned shithead!"

“But I feel like I’m running some scam on them. It’s hard to do…”

“The only people in this room who should be embarrassed are the people who don’t get an order. Now, I want you to get started again. Would a drink help? I’ve got five bucks. Let’s go across the street, I’ll have a club soda and you can have. . .what do you like to drink?”

So we went for a drink, McGoo, recently hooked up with AA, telling me all the while that I would make the breakthrough.

Some Advice from Mcgoo
“Once you get that first order. . .Johnnie me boy. . . you will become an inhuman selling dynamo.”

“I’m not quite there yet.”

“Johnnie, me boy, you don’t even need to sell this thing. . .it sells its fucking self. You are barely even a salesman! All you have to do is punch in a few numbers and start writing orders. You are going to get on the books big time.”

Back at the office, I glumly stare at my pathetic short stack of leads. OK. Number two.

“Like I said the last time, my husband died last year. I’m 75. Why would I need a five hundred dollar construction magazine?”

So I wrote STD on the card and put it at the bottom of the deck.

“John, my boy, you aren’t taking them all the way. You get their pants down around their ankles, and you don't stick it in! If you need a little hand on these, I’ll be your closer.”

The Business Cards, or, How I became Jack Brummet
The next day, McGoo handed me business cards.

“Jack Brummet. Circulation marketing and feature article writer?”

“I like that, yeah, Jack. John is a pussy name. Jack’s the name of a man's man. These are constuction guys. ”

I became Jack. And I still am.

My First Order
Later that day I closed my first order. I sold one year at the “full boat” price. I was “on the books” and flying high. 1 year= $549. 6 mos= $299. 6 mos=$100.

I was on the books and on top of the boilerroom board, until McGoo closed three in a row to remove me from my perch. I was on my second day. McGoo put the heavy pressure on Bill Ryan.

“Jaysus, Bill, Jack, a total frigging rookie comes in here and closed on a full boat. What have you done for me today?”

Within two hours, Bill had closed two big orders, put his name at the top of the board for the day, and departed work. The two orders were utterly bogus. Bill just signed up a couple of his leads for subscriptions.

"We'd Like To Put An Article About You In Our Publication"
As a fellow lit-brother to McGoo, I was ahead of the other salespeople in one regard. One regard I was never much able to capitalize on: we would write articles for our magazine, if we could get the contractors or suppliers to buy a large subscription or ad schedule. I would write absurd puff pieces on these various dimwits that they could pass around to their friends and family. Alas, my heart was in that even less than in selling overpriced subscriptions and advertisements.

Cancellations and deadbeats
Every two weeks, in came an accounting from the main office of people you sold to who had cancelled. Or who were deadbeats. Your commission was then deducted from your account, and you were in the hole. The Deadbeats, you called yourself.

It was always agony and explosions of anger on cancellation day. And whenever you lost a commission, McGoo lost his sales manager cut too. By the time half these cancellations rolled in, people had forgotten they had faked them in the first place. Bill Ryan specialized in writing up phony orders for corporations. The companies would actually pay the subscription about half the time. It was always a dark on cancellation day--especially for those of us who never made the nut, and were always underwater on our commissions.

Pat Sherwin, probably about 65 or so, was the hardest hit. He had an invalid wife and was just barely holding it all together. When he got cancelled, he was utterly gripped with panic and fear. And McGoo felt that those twin emotions were the best sales motivational tool ever developed. Pat would nearly be crying, having just lost $500 in commissions. McGoo would always offer to buy you a drink and tell you his solution to the problem. The solution was invariably "sell more!"

“Ain’t nothing going to happen here boys, ain’t nothing going to happen until I hear those phones dialing Dialing DIALING!!! I’ve walked in here about five times this morning and no one is on the motherfucking phone. NO ONE IS ON THE PHONE!!! What the fuck do you think? You think the fuckin’ customers are just going to call in and throw money at you? I’ll listen to you The Fuckin' Sales Force complain just as soon as I see they are actually working. I got three orders this morning while you were shaking off your goddamned hangovers!"

"I want every phone nigger in this room to book at least $250 by lunch. The orders are out there. The only question is are you men enough to close them? Or are you going to stand here all day blubbering about a bunch of goddamned cancellations? You could be halfway out of the hole if you just got on the phones. Dial for dollars, boys, starting now.
 ---o0o---

Thursday, November 20, 2014

Police decoys in Brookyn, 1969: NYC policeman in drag

By Jack Brummet

Back before there were (m)any women officers on the NYPD, they used Patrolman Wm. R. Winter as a decoy to attract muggers and sex offenders.  The passers by look just about as skeptical as we are. The caption on back of the morgue photo (not clear if this was internal or if it was actually the text printed in the 'paper) describes him as a "voluptuous broad" and,  of course, mentions that he "is married and is the father of one child."


click to enlarge
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Monday, November 17, 2014

All This Is That Turns 10 Years Old Today

By Jack Brummet, Mona Goldwater, and Pablo Fanque, Eds.



We've published 7085 posts since starting in 2004, and have published every single day for the last ten years, mostly from Seattle, but also from India, China, Russia, Mexico, England, Turkey, Greece, Canada, Korea, Idaho, Montana, New York City, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Arizona, and Wyoming.

All This Is That is often syndicated , purloined, linked to, and referenced by other blogs and websites, and our articles and art have been reprinted in books and magazines about The Web, alien lore, folk lore and folk ways, poetry, and politics.  We've even published a few recipes by Jack.

All This Is That began ten years ago with a poem by Jack Brummet posted the morning of November 16, 2004:

Poem: Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer 
Drink from the Skookumchuck River


by Jack Brummet

A rainbow loops over
the alder cathedral.
Dark clouds are sinking.

The Lamplighter
loans them a patch of land
and a heartbeat.
---o0o--- 

The one rule of ownership

"You don't really own anything you can't carry on your back at a dead run." — Daniel Keys Moran

---o0o---

Drawing: Faces #953 - pigpile

By Jack Brummet

click to enlarge
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Saturday, November 15, 2014

Thursday, November 13, 2014

Five Poems: The Golden Rule; The Glass Is Not Half-Full; It's Getting Crowded; Limits; Surviving

By Jack Brummet 


The Golden Rule

Listen to the songbirds
Trill
But keep an eye 
On the buzzard section. 



The glass is not half-full

I saw our dreams
Disappear 
Like a white pony 
Over 
A low grassy hill. 




It's Getting Crowded

We cover the earth
With Venn Diagrams
As our steps
Bisect old steps. 



Limits

We like to believe
We could endure anything for five minutes 

But that theory, cooked up 
In your hermetic study or bedroom, 

Comes apart at the seams 
When you imagine being on fire 

Or having crows feast 
Upon your eyes. 



Surviving

Salvation lies
In remaining unblinded 

To the treachery 
Massing around you:

The enemy without,
Calculating your fall 

And the traitor within,
Beating in your chest.
---o0o---

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Science!: A feather and a bowling ball fall in a vacuum

By Jack Brummet, Amateur Physics Ed.


I remember from physics class that all objects fall at the same rate in a vacuum.  But I'd never seen it.  The money shot starts at 2:50 on this YouTube video. . .

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Five crazy GIFs from Russia

By Jack Brummet, Russian Ed.








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Drawing: Faces #945

By Jack Brummet

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Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Betty and John Brummet, Veterans of the Navy, Army, and Marine Corps

By Jack Brummet, Military Ed.

Seaman and Corporal John Newton Brummet, Jr. (I'm the 3rd). He was in the Army before the war, and in the Navy during. That's him on the left. I only have three pictures of my dad in the army. This is, of course, my favorite.  He died in 1964.

Below this is a drawing of my mom, Corporal Betty Echo Jones Brummet, U.S. Marines in 1945 (she's still here at 91).



Happy Veteran's Day, veterans.
---o0o---

Monday, November 10, 2014

The Throne Thrusters are about to launch a rocket powered outhouse

By Jack Brummet, Rockets and Jet Propulsion Ed.

In a couple of weeks, these guys are launching a rocket-powered outhouse/honey bucket.  They don't provide a lot of details, but I assume it won't make it into near space (12 miles up ish).

Three Oaks, Mich. (AP) — "A group of Michigan rocket enthusiasts is preparing to conduct an experiment involving a modified porta-potty."

"The group, dubbed "The Throne Thrusters," plans to launch the portable restroom thousands of feet into the air near Three Oaks. The group is mainly composed of members of Michiana Rocketry, a local high-power rocketry club that frequently launches rockets, according to Larry Kingman of The Throne Thrusters. The project has been in the works for about two-and-a-half years."
"In this Oct. 26, 2014 photo provided by The Throne Thrusters, members of the a group calling themselves "The Throne Thrusters" work on their modified porta-potty rocket in LaPorte, Ind. The rocket has been equipped with cameras, parachutes, seven motors and measuring equipment in preparation for a planned launch on Nov. 22 near Three Oaks, Mich. The group is mainly composed of members of Michiana Rocketry, a local high-power rocketry club that frequently launches rockets, according to Larry Kingman of The Throne Thrusters. (AP Photo/The Throne Thrusters, Larry Kingman)"
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Sunday, November 09, 2014

Papa Francisco a/ka Pope Francis's one man mission to spread love, compassion, and inclusion

By Jack Brummet, RC Church Ed.




Some on his list are obvious, but still sweet and thoughtful. I'm not a Catolico (about 150 people in my family are), and thus have no real standing to speak of, but it feels Il Papa is pushing the church into Century 21 with a holy turbo bulldozer.
With the wars, and elections, and distractions (e.g., Too Many Cooks), we sometimes miss this one-man revolution. Every other day he comes down on the right side of things and cajoles his church--and the rest of us--to step up. This Holy Man is for real. The Papacy has slumbered since Pope John left in 1963; it's making up for lost time at a furious pace. inclusion, forgiveness, Inclusion, love and compassion, INCLUSION. ¡Excelsior Papa Francisco! Long may you run.

---o0o---

Too Many Cooks - an 11 minute, stunning 80's sitcom parody

"Too Many Cooks" - It is a humorous, original, parody of the 1980's sitcoms that descends into complete insanity. It was created on Adult Swim.  Highly recommended. Watch it through--don't give up early.  It gets extremely twisted.



---o0o---

Friday, November 07, 2014

2014 Mid-term post-mortem: we effed up

By Jack Brummet, Democratic Party Ed.

This rout had to happen.  It happened because the Democrats let negative campaigning from the GOP and its many PACs dominate the discussion.  They failed to capitalize on the adversaries' lunatic fringe that has become the center.  They failed by every possible measure, actually.

It happens every so many years (and far less to the Dems over the last 60 years).  We've gotten sloppy, and weak. We didn't capitalize on some of the amazing recoveries during the Obama years,  They pretty much kept him bottled up in the White House.

Now we have our slap in the face and can rally for 2016.  The Republican Family Values Party will do far less damage than you think.  And don't forget. . .we still have the filibuster we've bitched about for years.  And now we're going to need it.  Don't kid yourselves, the GOP are spooked.   Things have been going reasonably well and they're not quite sure how to make that continue.  They have to lead now instead of lobbing potshots from the sidelines. There's a big difference.

It may take a while, friends, but soon this will all be in the rear view mirror.


---o0o---