"The Democratic Party is so short on cash that leaders at its headquarters have undertaken a new gambit to mask the severity of the problems: asking vendors not to send bills until after the midterm elections...."

"At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members. Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.... "

From "Inside the Phone-Throwing Drama at the Troubled, Broke Democratic Party/The Democrats should be well positioned to make gains in this year’s midterms. But inside party headquarters, every week brings paranoia, worries about money and, on occasion, emotional eruptions" (NYT gift link).

Just 5 days ago, we were talking about how unusual it is, in a work environment, for someone to throw something. I blogged a story about Troy Jackson, now the Democrats' candidate for Senator from Maine, who, according to WaPo, "once angrily threw a water bottle in a meeting after he couldn’t persuade a lawmaker to vote his way." I asked: "Have you ever thrown anything as a way of expressing emotion? Even in a private, non-work environment? It's some kind of red flag, throwing things. Who does that?"

Various answers in the comments over there, and now we have a new answer: Ken Martin.

"Ken Martin, the chairman of the D.N.C., said on Thursday that he had decided not to publish a report that he ordered months ago into what went wrong for the Democratic Party last year...."

"Mr. Martin will instead keep the findings under seal. He believes that looking back so publicly and painfully at the past would prove counterproductive for the party as it tries next year to take back power in Congress.... 'Here’s our North Star: Does this help us win?' Mr. Martin said in a statement. 'If the answer is no, it’s a distraction from the core mission.'... Some Democratic donors have demanded a more thorough accounting of how exactly the party and Ms. Harris spent $1.5 billion in 15 weeks en route to losing every battleground state in 2024...."

From "The D.N.C. Is Scrapping Its Report on What Went Wrong in 2024/Ken Martin, the Democratic National Committee chairman, ordered the autopsy months ago but is now said to believe that its release would be counterproductive for the party" (NYT).

"We do not have the luxury to fight amongst ourselves while that thing sits in the White House."

Said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, at a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Minneapolis last week, quoted in "Democrats let it all out at their party meeting" (Semafor)[SEE UPDATE BELOW].

But oddly enough, "that thing" is sitting in the White House after Republicans fought amongst themselves and Walz badly lost the election to him after Democrats went out of their way to avoid fighting amongst themselves. It would make more sense to use the epithet "that thing" to refer to the unwholesome agglomeration that is the Democratic Party.

The three-day meeting of the Democratic National Committee, held to welcome new members and start building the 2028 primary calendar, was the first under new chair Ken Martin.... The party, Martin vowed, was now bringing “a bazooka to a knife fight,” and would no longer “play by the rules” if Republicans broke them.

I'm guessing Martin deployed his "a bazooka to a knife fight" metaphor — in Minneapolis — before the the shooting of children that took place nearby. 

***

Bazooka (Wikipedia):

The name "bazooka" comes from an extension of the word bazoo, which is slang for "mouth" or "boastful talk"... 

That's fitting, for politicians.

During World War II, "bazooka" became the universally applied nickname of the new American anti-tank weapon, due to its vague resemblance to the musical instrument invented and popularized by 1930s American comedian Bob Burns.

Video of Burns playing the bazooka here.

UPDATE: In the comments below, Olson Johnson is right! observes that Semafor has taken Walz's words out of context: