Beto O’Rourke’s narrow Texas Senate defeat has top party donors and operatives waiting hesitantly to see if he decides to run for president. Prior to O’Rourke’s fast rise, funders were already apprehensive on committing to a candidate so early in the race with so many contenders to come. However, after learning of the charismatic O’Rourke who managed to easily raise $70 million for his campaign, party donors held off on contributions waiting patiently for O’Rourke’s decision to run. Mikal Watts, a San Antonio-based lawyer and major Democratic money bundler, says that “this kind of level of electric excitement about a candidate since Barack Obama ran in 2008.” It is predicted that if he runs, he will be in the top five. Beto’s campaign has been compared to ‘Bernie’s army’ from 2016 when Sanders led a similar fundraising tactic where small donors were the main source of funds. Read more at 2020frontrunner.com. ... Read More >
Archives for November 2018
Laudanum
Laudanum was a widely used medicine in the Victoria Era which contained opium and alcohol and was very addictive. The terms laudanum and tincture of opium are generally interchangeable. Laudanum is mentioned once in the Canon in The Man With The Twisted Lip: Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble ... Read More >