If Dems Successfully Message on News Outlets Lefty Pundits No Longer Read, Did It Ever Happen?
In the wake of a WSJ report that Democrats have fallen to a historic approval low, the usual suspects — in this case, David Atkins — have taken to Bluesky to blame everything on Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. Again.
Atkins demanded that Democratic leaders talk about Trump conspiring with his personal attorneys to cover things up.
People keep asking “what do you expect Democrats to do???”
I expect Schumer and Jeffries to hold a press conference and say: “Donald Trump is conspiring with his personal attorneys he corruptly installed at DOJ to cover up his close friendship and possible horrific crimes with Jeff Epstein.”
Let me stipulate that the messaging that Schumer and Jeffries do do is often feckless, though in this case, Schumer released a statement on both Xitter and Bluesky on Thursday first arguing that sending Donald Trump’s personal lawyer to meet with Ghislaine “stinks of high corruption,” which led a few articles. That followed around ten other social media posts, including his prediction on Wednesday that, “Maybe Speaker Johnson declared the Epstein Recess to give Trump time to prepare papers for the pardon of Ghislaine Maxwell. Disgraceful” (making Schumer a prominent early adopter of the theory that Trump will pardon the sex trafficker) and a post (again posted to both Xitter and Bluesky) elevating video of Markwayne Mullin admitting Republicans were trying to give Trump cover. And while Jeffries was more focused on redistricting and messaging on the Big Ugly last week, Epstein was a repeated focus in his press conferences (it was the initial focus of Katherine Clark’s comments), and he was mocking Trump on this even before it bubbled into a scandal.
Atkins’ complaints that Dems aren’t messaging on Epstein comes in the wake of three significant earned media wins by Democrats on Epstein in recent weeks:
- After Dick Durbin released a whistleblower’s description of the 1,000 people Pam Bondi pulled off their day jobs to review Epstein files, Allison Gill responded by releasing damning details of the search, followed days later by NYT. The details of this search will continue to feed the controversy (as well as FOIAs to get the spreadsheet of prominent names discovered in the search, so it can be compared to the list of names Todd Blanche asked Maxwell about in their cozy tête-à-tête). Update: Durbin sent a letter (with Sheldon Whitehouse) to Todd Blanche for information about the meeting, which NYT reported on.
- After Ron Wyden sent letters in March and June demanding that Todd Bessent and Pam Bondi release FinCEN files on Epstein and Leon Black, NYT did a story on the financial aspects. When Republicans accused Wyden of sitting on this during the Biden Administration, he sent another letter disproving that and mapping out what steps they should take. In a great story on Wyden’s efforts, Greg Sargent noted the value of such letters: “such trolling by lawmakers can be constructive if it communicates new information to the public or highlights the failure of others in power to exercise oversight and impose accountability.”
- And then there was Ro Khanna’s tactic that shut down the House by leading Mike Johnson to give up on a rule governing last week’s work, which led to follow-on efforts in committees and the Senate. This — which required working with Tom Massie (something lefties religiously disavow) — was a parliamentary score, with series of stories in the Hill beat press to follow.
Almost none of that appears in Atkins’ response to my question why he was ignoring other members. He said he had mentioned a Whitehouse interview, but he ignored the long thread from Whitehouse more directly addressing the corruption, as well as a Podcast with Jamie Raskin where they dedicate the last 5 minutes of to it.
The real tell to Atkins’ willful ignorance (or outright deceit) about what Dems have done is his claim, “I have highlighted [Dems who are pushing this]. But they get lost in the fray when leadership isnt backing them up,” [my emphasis] a day after RTing this story from Axios.
The social media card for the story, which uses Jeffries’ picture above two quotes, misleadingly suggests the Minority Leader said, “This whole thing is just such bullsh**t” … “I don’t think this issue is big outside the Beltway.” Which seems to be as far as Atkins got.
The entire story is premised on those quoted centrists opposing Jeffries’ encouragement to focus on it, and links an earlier story describing Jeffries’ affirmative focus on it.
Why it matters: Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ (D-N.Y.) leadership team has encouraged its members to maintain the drumbeat on Epstein,
The column goes on to list just some of what Dems are doing — with the encouragement of the Minority Leader (the earlier post describes that Ro Khanna worked closely with Jeffries in jamming the Rules Committee).
The other side: Other Democrats argued that going after Republicans on policy and slamming them on Epstein aren’t mutually exclusive. “I think all these issues are linked together,” Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) told Axios.
- “Trump is willing to lie and betray his own people, and he’s willing to take away your health care to give it to his rich friends. … I think it’s all part of one story,” said Casar, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
- Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former CPC chair, said similarly: “I’m talking about Medicaid, I’m talking about tax breaks to billionaires — and I’m talking about Epstein, because he fits right in there.”
State of play: Jeffries has surprised some of his members by bear-hugging rank-and-file efforts to force the release of the Epstein files despite his usual reluctance to engage on salacious issues.
- His messaging arm, the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, sent out several emails to members’ offices last week on how to message on Epstein, as Politico first reported.
- “We’ve encouraged members to lean into this, to talk to their constituents about it,” said Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), a DPCC co-chair. “It’s an opportunity to speak with people who might usually disagree with you.”
Atkins’ entire whine — based off a premise he would have known was outright bullshit if he had only clicked through to a ragebait story he RTed — was rewarding for Atkins; 17 people RTed it as if it were true, with one person even whining about Garland along the way. But the whole thing was either an affirmative misrepresentation or a confession that Atkins knows fuckall about what Dems have done and simply didn’t bother to check before whining about it.
I won’t lay out all that Dems have done — there are actually multiple stories out that I’m sure even Atkins could read if he bothered to click through on ragebait. It should be enough to say that Dems, with Massie, deprived Republicans of the tools of their majority for a week and have been mocking them relentlessly ever since. That Johnson ran away will continue to feed this story.
But one example is illustrative. Ruben Gallego — often attacked for his centrism and coddling of cryptograft — got into an extended spat with Trump mouthpiece Markwayne Mullin in the Senate last week (the appearance Schumer elevated), after Gallego tried to pass a resolution to release the files. Following that, Gallego appeared on Jim Acosta’s Substack show, where he described how this all reeks of a cover-up (and accused Republicans of revictimizing the victims and exploiting the vulnerabilities of their base). He played on populist concerns about rich people, and mocked Republicans for fleeing like they did when the Brits invaded DC. A centrist Dem delivered up precisely the kind of message Atkins claimed no one is delivering, and he did it two days before Atkins whined about it.
I’m not sure Atkins has an excuse for making a false claim belied by an Axios story he had RTed a day earlier. At some point, a pundit has to be responsible for clicking through to the stories they’re disseminating.
But — again stipulating that Jeffries and Schumer’s messaging is often feckless — I think there’s something else driving much lefty belief that Dems are not messaging, on top of pundits like Atkins making false claims belied by ragebait they’ve disseminated without reading.
In the last several years, fascist-supporting oligarchs have given people good reason to stop consuming a wide variety of media. After Elon Musk bought Twitter — the algorithm of which already disproportionately rewarded right wingers — he invited Nazis to overrun it. In a bid to cultivate Trump’s favor, Jeff Bezos has willfully gutted the WaPo and shut down anti-Trump opinion on the platform. NYT continues to frame most stories in ways that pitch Trump as the hero, with many outright framed to Dem- or trans-bash. Substack, where people like Paul Krugman and Terry Moran and Jim Acosta have fled after having been hounded out of traditional media, also platforms Nazis. Google has allowed AI to enshittify its search function, making it far more difficult to find breaking news.
One by one, lefties have abandoned those platforms, often in a failed attempt to force the oligarchs who own them to reverse course. The decision to abandon those platforms are, for most people, self-evidently ethical decisions.
But the consequences of those ethical decisions are that even if Dems do something great, you will be blind — blinded by ethical choices you yourself made.
Your blindspots might entail the following:
- You will see (and far too often, help to disseminate) the latest outrage Trump posts to his Truth Social account, as well as the uncontested disinformation in it. Those posts will often silence the moral criticism of Trump, as happened with Rosie O’Donnell.
- You will view Trump speeches and press sprays, as well as oversight hearings in which Democrats have been forcing real news that often is not getting picked up, through the lens of Aaron Rupar or Acyn, who make it easy but bring their own narrow lens. You might see clips from the traditional media. Not all of those clips will be easy to disseminate yourself without rewarding Xitter.
- You will see the stories about shitty framing or Dem- (or trans-) punching at NYT, but will miss better routine news stories, and even, sometimes, important breaking reporting.
- To the extent to which it still exists, you will not see the general access political reporting at WaPo.
- You will not see Capitol Hill beat reporting that is publicized almost entirely on Xitter, including reports admiringly explaining why chasing Mike Johnson away early took some tactical smarts, unless you subscribe to them.
- Because there’s not a viral algorithm at Bluesky, you may only see the content from electeds crafted for that platform if you follow them directly and even then only if you happen to be online when they post it; you will not see what they post — very often self-consciously crafted to be more confrontational — on Xitter.
- You will see rage-bait stories from Axios and Politico designed to drive depression among Dems and often, as Atkins did, you’ll disseminate it without clicking through to see what it really says.
- You won’t see what right wingers are saying on Fox or NewsMax or Breitbart, not even when they’re bitching about firey speeches Hakeem Jeffries made that didn’t filter into Bluesky.
- You may entirely miss what is going on on TikTok, which is where a great deal of messaging is happening (so will I, as I learned when I looked for the Rosie O’Donnell post that had been widely covered in right wing media before Trump threatened to strip her citizenship over it).
- You will have to work harder to find news stories that have been broadly reported.
In short, at least in part due to perfectly ethical decisions from people who used to have a radically different media diet before certain changes accompanying rising fascism, even activist Dems will be largely blind to a great deal of what Dems are doing.
I absolutely support that ethical decision (and after two weeks of doing a great deal of — sometimes very effective, IMO — messaging about Epstein and Tulsi’s disinformation campaign designed to bury it at the Nazi bar, such choices may be crucial for your mental health).
But it is not remotely ethical to make comments about what Dems are or are not doing if you have not checked your blindspots.
More importantly, we will not survive if you respond to the effects of oligarch takeover with passivity, demanding you get fed things as easily as you used to get. That is what they are counting on: that their efforts to make it harder to find important news will lead you to give up and assume it doesn’t exist.
I may be biased, but I’m also allegedly an expert on this, because it was the topic of my dissertation. Finding and disseminating oppositional news is an absolutely critical part of opposing authoritarianism; it can take work and risk your security. But it becomes a fundamental part of citizenship.
The oligarch-led assault on the press started long before Trump started implementing fascism but has accelerated during precisely the period when Democrats have demanded to have Dem messaging land in their lap. There are many things Dem electeds absolutely have to do better (though having spent far too much time on Xitter in the last week, it’s clear there’s a purpose to tailor messaging on both platforms, which I do too). I agree that neither Schumer nor Jeffries is great at this messaging (but am also acutely aware of how much time they’re spending off-camera trying to ensure Dems have a chance in 2026).
But Dems have done almost everything right on Epstein, down to forcing Denny Hastert’s successor to abdicate his power for a week to help Trump cover up his sex trafficking scandal. Yet whining pundits are winning clout on Bluesky by misrepresenting rather than learning from that fact.
Time to frame the Republicans as the party of Crime and Corruption
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Thank god for Feuilleton.
Trump’s name is in the EpFiles “Multiple” times. Wow. That word conceals a lot. I wonder what the over/under number is. Three digits is possible, four digits plausible. When it comes out as a headline that number is going to scream.
I appreciate Emptywheel staying on Twitter and leading messaging. imho, it is very effective.
Yes, it sucks that the town square became a Nazi bar, but it’s still the town square, and regular people are going to be influenced by which messaging is still there.
I am less familiar with Substack, but more and more that appears to be a town square. Even independent sites with their own name, such as the Allison Gill article linked above are hosted on Substack.
So regular people are more and more likely to be influenced by content over there.
Really good points here. Helped me feel calmer. Yes. Blind spots. Trying to stay open to what I don’t know. Suppression is happening.
Substack is a life saver. I can read in depth articles on politics and take a break and read in depth articles in anthropology. It’s a delight!
And I’ve heard lots negative about Tik tok and suppression is obvious there. I like that I can see it in how stories are circulated in my algorithm and what stories are languishing.
I feel powerful when I can boost the algorithm by following, commenting, sharing and reposting. Maybe an illusion but good for some seratonin.
Along with the letters, the phone call, the marches, the talks with clients, the group discussions with opposing parties using connection and emotions instead of cognitive content, and finally the constant focus on the evils of power and control on the human brain and society. My way of fighting back.
The donations. The family discussions. All important.
I’ve had lots of therapy to help calm my trauma brain to be a better mom, grandmother, wife, and therapist.
But nothing has triggered me more powerfully than the current landscape.
It’s hard enough to watch this fascism build for those with stable mental health but the challenge for trauma survivors is enormous. And yet we carry the truth.
The guardians of evil vs guardians of truth. We have the force on our side. We need to keep using it every where we can. Thanks for reminding us of the increasingly daunting work against the lies.
“it’s still the town square”
No, it’s not. You clearly haven’t been paying attention to the shift away from Xitter. You’re also normalizing the Nazi bar being “the town square.”
And unfortunately, Substack is another Nazi bar people are blindly using without thinking about the monetization flowing toward Nazis, ie, when Marc Andreesen complains about universities’ DEI while collecting cash from Substack.
Re: Twitter
What platform out there has the most engagement on any given topic?
Here’s a quote from Emptywheel (after bringing up research by Kate Starbird), that I agree with based on my digital and irl interactions with people.
Ball of Thread titled Trump Trolls’ Turn, 6/24/25
https://youtu.be/h4-bW7Rmmnc
Re: Substack
When this website supports a Substacker or links to an article hosted on Substack, what should readers do? Should we ignore that content?
How nice of you to lop off the context before “shows why we cannot leave the Nazi bar entirely.” Never mind the narrow, strategic use Marcy has employed at the Nazi bar while she has migrated to Bluesky and bridged to Mastodon, which is wholly unlike your unquestioning embrace and promulgation of the Nazi bar.
Read Substack, whatever, just like you’re still reading Xitter. You do you. But you have been told how this supports Nazis, and you’re surely not unaware that Substack being funded by several rounds of venture capital is ripe for enshittification taking any personal data you’ve shared with it along the way.
Reply to Rayne
Your characterization above is false that I “unquestioning embrace and promulgation of the Nazi bar.” Of course I questioned it and whether its worth it to stay there. and I don’t pass judgement on people who left.
For me, it left too many “blindspots” in following news and narratives.
The portion of the emptywheel quote that I really emphasize is that ”Entire masses of people are coming to understand really central events, and they’re coming to understand them based on what white supremacists tell them to believe.”
Would it be fair for me to characterize your point of view that you “unquestioning embrace” that people come to understand really central events based on what white supremacists tell them? Since that is an effect of lefties leaving Twitter.
As far as Substack, I’ve seen your comments before and I tried to avoid Substack. I respect your opinion and the info you shared. I only sought it out in the past 10 days, to access specific content from a left wing post.
More and more I keep seeing mainstream or left leaning posters going to Substack. And when I looked, I saw engagement by left wingers. Previously, a lot of the times I ended up on Substack was after clicking on links from this site.
Overall, I am a bit confused by the content I read in this article and the pushback I am getting in the comments.
I must be the only person confused here.
When you call Xitter “the town square,” you most certainly are legitimizing a white supremacist platform, normalizing it. I’m sure Musk will mail your check for marketing promotion right away. You’ve even ignored that Marcy shared Bluesky links in her post because you’re so certain Xitter is where it’s at.
If you think Xitter’s algorithms support anyone left of center trying to get their message out, you’re kidding yourself. If Marcy didn’t have a large audience before Musk bought the platform, her strategic approach would likely be a waste of time. And you’re ignoring both the algorithm and the strategy because you’ve got your own blindspot.
Gee, why would you get pushback.
Brava, Ms Wheeler. Most people don’t see media consumption as a job or obligation, and almost everyone prefers to have their priors confirmed rather than challenged. It’s the old people read the headline but not the story problem. Regarding forcing Johnson to shut down the House, this is exactly the kind of obscure procedural fighting that Democrats do but never get credit for, because it doesn’t look like the kind of loud, splashy “fighting” liberals crave, rending of garments and lamentations that reaffirm their fears this is an existential fight. They’re not wrong as such, but as you note everyone has a role in this fight and everyone needs to act as they think best.
“I may be biased, but I’m also allegedly an expert on this, because it was the topic of my dissertation. Finding and disseminating oppositional news is an absolutely critical part of opposing authoritarianism; it can take work and risk your security. But it becomes a fundamental part of citizenship.”
^^^THIS^^^
If a Dem speaks, do the media cover it?
What I do know is that if Hunter Biden speaks, Chuck Todd lies about it.
It’s impossible to find unbiased news sources, but one can try to understand the bias and find reputable sources that provide links to source materials.
Unfortunately, a huge amount of well-researched, unbiased and reliable reporting is behind paywalls while misinformation, disinformation, and sensationalized content is freely available.
At least AP and Reuters are good places to start for ‘free’ news you can trust, and there are others.
Thank the gods for ground.news.
Democrats and the rest of folks left of center need to understand how news business models work if we want to ensure continued access to fact-based reporting.
Neither AP or Reuters are free — yes, you said ‘free’ not free — but let’s be serious that at some point we need to pay for news.
AP is a nonprofit; the bulk of its funding is donations from broadcast and newspaper outlets which in turn run the AP content. If we as consuming individuals don’t also contribute, it would be too easy for toxic right-wing entities that own broadcast/newspapers to both fund and influence AP, ex. Sinclair Inc., 2nd largest operator of broadcast TV stations in the US.
Reuters offers limited free access to its content since 2021; it is a for-profit subsidiary of Canadian conglomerate Thomson Reuters — my emphasis on foreign owned. It offers a relatively inexpensive subscription at $45/year, a bargain compared to NYTimes, WaPo, and LAT.
As for ground.news: it’s a privately-held foreign-owned business operating as Snapwise Inc. of Ontario, Canada, and subscriber funded. It does not allow free access to all content without a subscription. The business will last about as long as subscribers ensure Ground.News is profitable, or until the two owners cave into pressure to enshittify the business, likely by spinning it off.
Trust all you want, but the well informed should know the risks.
Simon Rosenberg and his Hopium Chronicles interviews, posts
and podcasts are always good mind food for their focus on what’s being done and what more we can do to turn the tide against Trump and his merry band of foolish fascists. Most of his stuff is on Substack; you can also find him @hopiumchronicles.bsky.social, Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. I find his commentary informative, constructive and encouraging. https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/things-are-bad-for-trump-now-they?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
(Note to Rayne: Since I have permanently moved from Florida to Alabama would like to change my moniker to AL Resister.)
Thanks for the heads up on the name change. Go ahead and start using it with your next comment, just overtype the Name field with your new name if your browser fills it in. It will take a while for the system to recognize you by your new name, please bear with the auto-moderation this change will trigger.
Much appreciated, thanks!
Once I land a little part-time job to supplement my income can start contributing to this site and a few others again. (Had to pay a bit more for a house and renovations than anticipated.) AfterTrump’s election knew he would screw the economy so made the dash out of Florida while I had the opportunity.
Just like DJT, the more ANY person pushes away, plays down, or ignores, the Epstein issue, the more I think there’s a higher than average chance that person (or someone they are covering for) is in the Epstein files.
I want to point out there’s an important data point about David Atkins readers may miss if they don’t read deeply and critically the references provided in Marcy’s post.
David Atkins says he’s an “Elected DNC Member from CA” — check his Bluesky profile. As such he has a higher duty to represent the party accurately. He should have better resources than Axios’ article headline to begin with and yet he doesn’t rely on them.
Atkins’ commentary looks more like outright deceit given his role in the party; one might ask his motivation for failing his own party in this way.
I take Marcy’s (and your!) point and she’s been adamant about it on socials. Party representatives should certainly understand the stuff leadership is doing and refrain from mischaracterizing it.
I will quibble with the poll, however, because regardless of their efforts, Dem leadership is not breaking through to the larger Democratic Party, much less the public. Even the headlines noted above highlight the Speaker’s actions, not what precipitated them. It’s that lack of visibility itself that leads to the anger and disillusionment.
There are Dems who have broken through with my friends and family who aren’t constantly online: Mamdani (I live in SC!), the AOC/Bernie tour, Jasmine Crockett, (for better or worse) Newsome, and Van Hollen’s trip to CECOT. With the exception of Newsome (who minimized CECOT himself), all of those folks have been kept at arm’s length from leadership tactics.
This doesn’t even mention that at the moment of maximum leverage and attention, the CR fight, Schumer gaslit Dems nationwide about what his plan was then folded like a cheap suit. In that moment he had every mic and camera trained on him but he squandered it. Then the Republicans predictably reneged on their own partisan CR by rescinding funding that was in the CR. Going on CSPAN in an empty chamber will not reverse that. The gaslighting is probably irreversible, at least in my eyes. Not to mention it’s not clear that they have a strategy going into the *next* budget fight.
If Dems want to break through, they need to trust the folks already breaking through. Everyone shares mostly the same goals, but some are better at articulating and communicating them. Look at how much sincere righteous anger, vulnerability, and moral clarity helped Hunter Biden’s interviews go viral last week. Our current leadership would never……
1) It’s outright false that Dems have kept anyone but Mamdani at arms length. Such claims are built on ragebait and a misunderstanding of politics.
2) There’s a really easy argument to make that 232 men are free right now because Schumer allowed GOPers to keep government open. Yup. He failed the messaging on a very hard question. I increasingly believe he got the answer to that question correct, and most people simply can’t be bothered to consider that.
3) This post makes the case lack of visibility does this. It splits the blame. But pundits are precisely the kind of person who can help bridge that (and do, in the GOP), making false claims all the more toxic. Thank you for your TedTalk.
The establishment dinosaurs hated AOC as well. However, the special elections really don’t lie because the trend is very clear: progressive political views work, triangulation does not.
On another topic, I note the news out of LA’s federal grand jury refusals (making the Bondi DoJ go nuts) showed that in many cases it was due to ICE agents engaging in misleading (or outright false) testimony. Color me a Philistine, but isn’t that a crime to lie on official reports? It didn’t work for Durham, so the conclusion that seems most likely to me is that these are really bad lawyers at DoJ now.
Lying under color of authority should be treated the harshest. IIRC, the French law has a provision that a prosecutor that railroads someone using falsified evidence gets to serve the same time as the defendant did when the misconduct was discovered. The problem we have with the current WH is a complete lack of accountability at all levels.
Gavin Newsom has taken the gloves off. One would hope that other Democrats are emboldened to speak up as well.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMojakzJxqb/ [removed tracking]
I don’t Instagram, Molly. Does that link include any tracking — is everything after the b/ part of the URL or does it identify you/source/etc?
Everything after the b/ is tracking – this IG post loads just fine without it.
This clip is from Brian Tyler Cohen’s IG account, the full interview with Newsom is available on BTC’s YT channel.
Thanks Matt, I will exclude from there on in the future.
That goes to postings by Brian Tyler Cohen. I do not know about tracking. I have chosen to accept whatever comes with IG because there is so much to be gleaned from what is posted there. I fully understand your reluctance. At this point I just assume I am already on lists.
It’s not just about you, Molly, it’s about whomever opens the link you shared and the path they took to get to that material.
I saw that interview with Newsom agree other Democrats should follow his lead. And since there is a decent chance Newsom will become our 2028 nominee for the WH, I want to see him push back against authoritarianism.
Newsom should retire while he’s still ahead of the 40% approval level.
He’s not doing himself any good in CA, with his moves to the right.
Agree completely. He totally lost me on the anti-trans thing, and we Californians have reason-enough to believe the guy is pretty corrupt. If I gotta I’ll hold my nose and vote for the guy, but I’d really rather not!
Newsom is unlikely to become the nominee for a bunch of reasons.
He should, however, push back against the fascist regime as should all other governors, particularly Democrats.
What do you think of Pritzker ?
In that Instagram reel URL, the printer’s pie after “reel/” probably simply selects the reel. It’s 11 bytes long, which is a big number, but in my opinion it’s smaller than one would use to track, i.e. to describe the intersection of every possible person with every possible reel. Because that’s not just a big number, it’s a huge number.
I think what you’re saying about Democratic messaging is that they managed to somehow screw up their courage to cooperate with Republicans on showing outrage about child molestation.
A miracle, to be certain. Now if only they could be as brave about anything else!