Taibbi: "Democrats in general have lost the ability (and the inclination) to reach out to the entire population."

Fantasy Island for local DemoDisneyDixiecrats.

You know, the sort of superheroes who engineer secretive public housing putsches.

Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Will Be Renamed, by Ashley Southall (NYT; 8 Aug 2015)

An Iowa Democratic Party panel voted on Saturday to change the name of the popular Jefferson-Jackson dinner, joining several state parties in distancing itself from the legacies of the two former slave-owning presidents for whom the dinner is named.

Not here in Floyd County, and not on Mr. Sticky's (or Jeff Gahan's) watch. Meanwhile ...

The Democrats Need a New Message, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone)

After another demoralizing loss to a monstrous candidate, Democrats need a reboot

How low do you have to sink to lose an election in this country? Republicans have been trying to answer that question for years. But they've been unable to find out, because Democrats somehow keep failing to beat them ...

... The electoral results last November have been repeated enough that most people in politics know them by heart. Republicans now control 68 state legislative chambers, while Democrats only control 31. Republicans flipped three more governors' seats last year and now control an incredible 33 of those offices. Since 2008, when Barack Obama first took office, Republicans have gained somewhere around 900 to 1,000 seats overall.

There are a lot of reasons for this. But there's no way to spin some of these numbers in a way that doesn't speak to the awesome unpopularity of the blue party. A recent series of Gallup polls is the most frightening example.

Unsurprisingly, the disintegrating Trump bears a historically low approval rating. But polls also show that the Democratic Party has lost five percentage points in its own approval rating dating back to November, when it was at 45 percent.

The Democrats are now hovering around 40 percent, just a hair over the Trump-tarnished Republicans, at 39 percent. Similar surveys have shown that despite the near daily barrage of news stories pegging the president as a bumbling incompetent in the employ of a hostile foreign power, Trump, incredibly, would still beat Hillary Clinton in a rematch today, and perhaps even by a larger margin than before.

If you look in the press for explanations for news items like this, you will find a lot of them. Democrats may have some difficulty winning elections, but they've become quite adept at explaining their losses.

As an addendum, NAC has been unable to confirm whether New Albany Mayor Jeff M. Gahan or anyone working in the city's administration is under federal investigation or indictment for corruption, bribery or racketeering. It is standard policy of the U.S. Justice Department to refuse to confirm or deny the existence or non-existence of investigations or subjects of investigations. A similar policy exists at the F.B.I.