Where Is The Next Stop For This Crazy Train?

We've traveled so far off the map since 2016 that it's difficult to determine where we are, what is likely to happen and what is not. It hardly seems possible that we've reached the mid-point marker for the President's first/only term. As once was said about living in New York City, every day is a battle fought in an ongoing war. Yes to that.

The common themes to our post-2016 experience thus far have been the unpredictability of events, the disruption of norms, and the degradation of institutions. The Administration advances these themes through a firehose blast of shock and falsehoods. It overwhelms and numbs the public. It is also designed to create apathy and discouragement. If you've followed along reading past Kibitz posts, you'll know that this all adheres to time-honored techniques mastered by Soviet/Russian intelligence services. It's not an accident we're spinning around while our President and his allies spout contradictory statements, move perceptual "goalposts" and gaslight the nation.

Who can we depend upon for getting the straight story? Well, there are always your amigos here at the Daily Kibitz. (Stay tuned for our take on where the Mueller investigation is going, and how Trump is probably no longer the only primary target.) Well, you might say, where do you turn to, O Daily Kibitz?

Glad you asked. Here are some of the reliable sources we follow, and you should, too!

Marcy Wheeler is an influential, independent journalist specializing in National Security and Justice topics. Her probing and trenchant analysis of complicated topics like the lead-up to the Iraq War and the Valerie Plame - Scooter Libby debacle put her on the map. She is a Major Badass. Follow her on twitter for the very latest. For deeper dives into thoughtful and very fair essays/analysis, check out her website:

https://www.emptywheel.net

She is the best, The Goods. She doesn't suffer fools. And she strives to be objective, but won't back off of what she knows to be true. She has deeply placed sources. Other journalists look to her because she is a front-runner with her well-researched articles and reasoned opinions.

Another Go-To person for breaking news and analysis is Natasha Bertrand of The Atlantic magazine, formerly of Business Insider. You may recognize her from cable news appearances. I won't hold that against her. She has been a top-tier investigator for all things Russia-Trump. If she's not breaking news, she is retweeting/sharing pertinent news stories on her twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand

For a federal law enforcement perspective, I favor Asha Rangappa. Talk about an over-achiever: Princeton, Fulbright Scholar, Yale Law degree, FBI Special Agent, now Associate Dean of Yale Law. Sheesh. Rangappa has a much-followed Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_

Like Bertrand, Rangappa sometimes appears on cable news shows. It's a living, I guess (I hate cable news). But she also regularly writes articles on What's Going Down and comments prolifically on the news of the day. She, too, is a Major Badass.

Moving on out to the fringe, to the very outer limits of investigative journalism, there is our favorite loon, Louise Mensch. Except, gol' dang it, for as much abuse that has been heaped on her for really provocative, bewildering, false and yet-unproven articles, many of them appear to be blossoming into Truth.

She's a firebrand former Member of Parliament conservative who is obsessed with honoring The Law. It appears she has contacts within British intelligence. She is ardent and no-nonsense. And she takes no prisoners. But when reading Mensch, it's wise to bring along a 5lb. bag of salt. It's fun to be swept along by her claims. Some of them are even true. She is reliable, in her own way. Caveat emptor.

https://twitter.com/LouiseMensch

Finally, let's lighten up while doubling down. Molly Jong-Fast is a writer for Forward magazine and other publications. She is decidedly Hard-Left, not that there's anything wrong with that. Her political views are unyielding. She is also Very Funny. Her super snarky quips are perfect for the format of her Twitter feed:

https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast

The more you read her, the better she becomes. So, there you have a few of the Daily Kibitz sources. Oh, we have more... but we can't reveal them. Sorry.

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One source of inspiration left our world this week - former Poet Laureate Mary Oliver. She was a real People's Poet, even though she had achieved a shelf full of prestigious awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and The National Book Award. Her aim was simplicity and accessibility. She had no truck with poetry that made its way out of the Academic Torture Chamber.

She discovered her muse in the forest, in Nature. It was where she went to escape.  Her early life was not a happy one. But in her solitude, she found her voice in the vales and glades. Take a moment to read one of her poems:

The Ponds

Every year

the lilies

are so perfect

I can hardly believe

their lapped light crowding

the black,

mid-summer ponds.

Nobody could count all of them -

the muskrats swimming

among the pads and the grasses

can reach out

their muscular arms and touch

only too many, they are that

rife and wild.

But what in this world

is perfect?

I bend closer and see

how this one is clearly lopsided -

and that one wears an orange blight -

and this one is a glossy cheek

half nibbled away -

and that one is a slumped purse

full of its own

unstoppable decay.

Still, what I want in my life

is to be willing

to be dazzled -

to cast aside the weight of facts

and maybe even

to float a little

above this difficult world.

I want to believe I am looking

into the white fire of a great mystery.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing -

that the light is everything - that it is more than the sum

of each flawed blossom rising and fading. And I do.

2019 or 1969?

Imagine that you have access to a time machine, a Tardis or some H.G. Wells-ian device. And you were given a one-way ticket choice: continue to live your life onwards from January, 1969 or January, 2019. Which year would you choose?

It's the known past versus the unknowable future. We know what went down in 1969. But it's kinda intriguing to think of what one's choice would be if you were presented this choice in January, 1969: continue in '69, or jump to 2019 for future frivolous lifestyle pursuits. We'd all be traveling by rocket-jetpack by now, surely!

The present day is always bogged down with the baggage of the past. It frames our perception of reality. But the future appears as open-ended. And unless one is a fan of dystopian films or literature, the future is seen as an escape from the problems of the current age. It's "what if" versus "what it is".

We all know the quandries and dangers of our time. Runaway climate change that threatens our future existence. An ongoing autocratic assault on democratic institutions that will take, at best, years to repair. A ruthless, unregulated and unsustainable capitalism that will teeter and crash down all around us. Out loud racism and misogyny that passes for acceptable dialogue. Bad pop music and the dismal Chicago White Sox. Pick your poison. It's all enough to pine for a different time.

And if we were living in the now of January, 1969... well, it was not a happy time as I recall.

We had survived 1968, so there was that. The murders of Dr. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy seemed to have damned the country to some sort of long-term karmic retribution. Cities were burning. Civil rights appeared to have stalled out in the hatred. The Peace Movement staggered into the violence of Chicago, resulting in Richard Nixon being elected by 500,000 votes.

The awful war in Vietnam raged on, with over 1500 soldiers killed just in 1/69, or 375 a week! Also, the wounded: nearly 2300 hospitalized in that January. Nearly 17,000 had died in 1968. Meanwhile, there were 550,000 servicemen stationed in that country.

The Cuyahoga River caught fire in 1969. A major oil spill fouled the environment all along Santa Barbara. Air and water pollution poured forth across the nation, unabated. The natural world seemed hopelessly vulnerable.

It was The Cold War, too, with thousands of Soviet nuclear warheads aimed at us, poised to launch. Between the Hot War of Vietnam and the Cold War, the sense of unrelenting doom was heavy, every day. Does anyone else have memories of nuclear nightmares?

Richard Nixon began his tumultuous reign, following a tempestous and self-defeating Johnson era. He went on television to make a nationwide address seeking support for his policies, coining the term "the silent majority" for that portion of the public that quietly accepted his positions in our torn-apart nation. (Nixon's "silent majority" and Trump's base have a strong Venn-diagram crossover.)

Nixon's Vice President, Spiro Agnew, launched his attacks against the press. "The nattering nabobs of negativism" and "an effete corps of impudent snobs" are phrases that galvanized Nixon's base. Whenever the press coverage turned bad for Nixon, Agnew would be called on to charge forth with new insults that resonated with the party. He even popularized "generation gap".

Tensions with North Korea continued to escalate. The USS Pueblo, a spy ship with 83 crewmen, had been captured by the North Koreans in 1968 and was still detained. The propaganda war really heated up again when the North Koreans shot down a US spy plane, an EC-121, killing 31 on board.

There were skyjackers! And lots of airplane crashes! Rupert Murdoch began his march towards world domination! Later in the year there was Woodstock! And Altamont! And the Manson Family murders! The Cubs collapsed and the Mets won it all! We even made it to the moon!

That was the year that was, 1969, in a ridiculously brief synopsis.

So... if you were given the choice in January, 1969 to continue life then or to hop up to 2019, it would be completely understandable to bite the bait for the future. Things didn't look good, but a 50 year jump-ahead could be enough time to heal those late-60's wounds.

But if you took that ticket, what would you find?

The Vietnam War hit its apex in January, 1969. It took far too long, but from that point on the war declined. Now you have the forever War on Terror. Military casualties are much reduced, but civilian totals are awful and so is the worldwide stress caused by hundreds of thousands of refugees. We're still dealing with effects of the Iraq War foreign policy debacle, far greater than that of the Vietnam mess (Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and - waiting in the wings - Iran).

Our society remains in major turmoil, but widespread rioting and destruction is absent. Yay! Civil rights that had advanced since 1969 are being challenged, blocked and scaled back. Ugh.

The environmental crisis of 1969 found a solution that same year with the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and the passage in the next years of the landmark Clean Air and Water Acts and subsequent regulations. Today, though, we are scrapping that progress and are the only nation not a part of the Paris Climate Accord. Climate scientists' ugly prognosis for the planet is back to Full Crisis Mode.

North Korea returned the Pueblo and its crew. Since then, it has fortified its defenses, created a nuclear arms program, and continues to play games with our presidents.

The Cold War ended peacefully. The loser, Russia, is now a major player in the governance of our country.

You avoided the crash and burn of Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew, and now will witness the crash and burn of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.

The bad pop music of 1969 has been replaced by the bad pop music of 2019. Air travel is much, much safer. Skyjacking went away for decades; however, made an unfortunate resurgence in September, 2001. The Chicago White Sox remain bad. Bad. Just bad.

So, if you're offered a one-way trip into the future, maybe you should hold off. The issues that drive you into the unknown may change quickly, dramatically, and for the better. Also, there are constants with humankind, therefore expect new but similar problems awaiting your arrival.

We can't escape the past. The present holds us forever in its Now. And the future, though unknowable, is nothing more than a collection of remixes in new packages. Except... except...

Well, listen to the #1 single from mid-January, 1969 versus the #1 single from mid-January, 2019. Marvin Gaye, "I Heard It Through The Grapevine" and Halsey, "Without Me". Different tastes, different times, different styles... but one easily surpasses the other.

Adios y buen viaje, 2018. Bienvenido, 2019.

Today's Kibitz features the value of saying Goodbye/Good Riddance and why Immigrants are not the boogeymen. We also review our 2018 predictions, and boldly post what's going to happen in 2019!

Good Riddance Day! What could be a better idea for the closing moments of 2018? This has become a tradition in NYC Times Square, where the public is invited to write down what they most want to say 'Sayonara' to. Then, after being posted briefly for everyone to read, these thoughts are placed into a shredder and away they go! Yes, good riddance and it's so therapeutic; if only it could be that simple.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nydn-people-shred-their-2018-bad-memories-at-good-riddance-day-in-times-square-20181228-photogallery.html

Vying for the top spot of The Daily Kibitz's own 'Good Riddance' note is Fox News and specifically Tucker Carlson. In a year that featured a Fox fleet of supertanker's worth of BS being broadcast every day, Carlson finished the season strong with his recent comments about immigrants. They "are making our country poorer, dirtier and more divided" was a just-in-time-for-Christmas feel-good statement.  And before there is any question, Carlson spoke of Immigrants. No "illegal" or "undocumented" qualifiers.

Stay with me here, it may sound crazy but it just might be that Tucker Carlson and his like-minded friends at Fox are simple-minded, nationalist racists. If they aren't, they are broadcasting messages that connect with a simple-minded, nationalist racist audience. You know, the Trump base.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2018/12/15/tucker-carlson-said-immigration-makes-america-dirtier-so-an-advertiser-took-action/?utm_term=.31624a0ce056

The overwhelming majority of economists agree that we need immigrants. Our country consistently experiences significant socio-economic churn. Our population ages. We need a constant labor and brain supply to fill the gap of what we can't provide on our own. Immigrants represent the needed "in-take" for our economic engine to expand and thrive. Cutting them off would be like pinching off the gas line of your car. Here's what our friends at the Brooking Institute have to say about this issue:

https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/in-defense-of-immigrants-heres-why-america-needs-them-now-more-than-ever/

Immigrants come in all colors and classes. From Laborers to CEOs. When we place an "Immigrants Not Welcome" sign at our door, well... guess where the next generation of non-American doctors, engineers, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc. are NOT going to go. Our colleges are a major destination for overseas students - for now. But other countries have great colleges too and will be seen as more welcoming. This "No Immigrants Allowed" idea has been a policy goal within the Trump Administration since ever (see Steven Bannon and Stephen Miller). It's nothing new for hard right wingnuts who want a White Christian Nation.

So... Good Riddance! I shredded my note, and I feel a little bit better.


As you may recall, at this time last year I went into a trance and uttered out a brief series of events/scenarios called The Daily Kibitz 2018 Predictions. Let's take a quick peek at what kind of prognosticating skills I have:

-- Trump is not impeached, but may not remain in office past early 2019. His criminal culpability will be revealed. There may be an arrangement made for him to just go away...

-- Jared Kushner and Donald Jr. are toast. Ivanka cuts a deal and skates.

-- Congress does not act to impeach because some GOP-ers are complicit with Russian money, influence and "kompromat". Republican leadership is "circling the wagons" to prevent damning details from emerging.

-- November Mid-Terms will be tumultuous and see Democrats winning back the House by a slender margin. Senate remains Republican by one vote. There will be enormous problems with voter suppression and tech-based voting "glitches". Epic long lines of people waiting to vote.  Russia continues its bot and disinformation campaign in service for the GOP.

-- Threat of war in North Korea (there may even be a coup that ousts Lil' Kim), but the real action takes place in the Persian Gulf region.

-- Many more present and past Members of Congress revealed as sexual harassers/predators... both parties. In fact, the whole #metoo movement will upend virtually every corner of American life. Long overdue!!

-- More drought out West, working its way to the East. Ocean and Air Temps continue to rise.

-- The Chicago White Sox finish last in their division in 2018, but will win the Wild Card in 2019.

OK... not bad. A little wobbly here and there, but what the hey. Some of these happened and others may yet occur. I continue to think that Trump won't be impeached, but he won't finish his term, either. Kushner and Jr. will face a judge at some point, and Ivanka will not.

What I didn't see coming was how a Supreme Court nominee confirmation process could distill the #MeToo movement into a month of outrage, galvanizing both bases which resulted in a historic 40-seat Blue Wave in the House of Representatives.

Another event not foreseeable was the super fun Trump-Putin Helsinki summit. Spending hours with Putin with just a translator - no records were kept and no review of the meeting was ever released - was bad enough. But when The President took Putin's side against all 14 U.S. intelligence agencies... well, I can't imagine any other President remaining President for very long. But then, he had a complicit Congress to protect him.

Oh, I could bore you for hours about other events transpired that were unforeseeable... but instead, let's turn to future unforeseeables - The Daily Kibitz 2019 Predictions!

-- There will be a major reveal through the Mueller investigation that makes everyone say, "huh". By mid-year or so, we see that Mueller, the SDNY and other investigations have plenty on Trump, but he is not the primary target.

-- Chief Justice John Roberts will disappoint the GOP this year. Watch him "manage" Kavanaugh and Gorsuch.

-- There will be some sort of Bump between militaries in the South China Sea, near the artificial islands that China has been constructing.

-- As the US exerts more pressure against Iran, there might be some retaliatory Iranian/Russian cyber shenanigans involving US infrastructure.

-- More Cabinet members will get canned. Likely next on the block: Dr. Ben Carson of H.U.D.

-- There will be a tumultuous confirmation process for Bill Barr as Attorney General. He will get confirmed, but it will be a Pyrrhic Victory with no trust or confidence in his actions or office.

-- The U.S. economy goes into serious wobble mode by Halloween.

-- Another record year for high temperatures world-wide. More droughts here and more rainfall deluges there. Greenland will continue to be in the news as its ice blanket melts. The House of Representatives will hold high-profile hearings on climate change and the immediate socio-economic negative impact it brings.

-- The 2020 primary season kicks in after Labor Day. Trump keeps others out of the GOP race. It's his party. The Democrats squabble and scrabble, looking for messages and candidates. By the end of year, it's Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Beto O'Rourke, Cory Booker and Amy Klobucher at the head of a crowded pack.

-- The Chicago White Sox will finish last in their division. Injuries and front office screw-ups keep them from progressing. This prediction is on repeat.

Wow. That's a lot going on for 2019. I won't even tell you what I see happening in 2020, because you wouldn't believe me... and I don't believe it, either. Regardless, we're in for a helluva ride this next year. Hope it's safe and healthy and fun for you, and - as always - thanks for reading!!

Merry Chrismahanukwanzakah

Season's Greetings! May 2019 be better than 2018. May our 401Ks recover. And may the president get a lump of beautiful clean coal in his stocking.

For your holiday soundtrack, Bob Dylan (!!!) swings out with a fantastic version of "Must Be Santa". This is my kind of Christmas party:

Can We Cross The Finnish Line?

We at The Daily Kibitz spent the previous week in sun-kissed Southern California. Happy for us? After spending a couple of days at Disneyland for business (weird and kinda fun), we witnessed first hand the conditions that create the infamous California wildfires. While hiking up a Mt. Hollywood trail, we observed wide swaths of recent burns. Fires happen in this kind of terrain because of parched plant growth and dry hot air; when a combustion event happens, it travels fast.

Climate change is the primary culprit, creating long term drought patterns and shifting, strong Santa Ana winds that create classic cases of widespread wildfire catastrophe. Climate change also plays into the overpopulation factor of the region and the ongoing water management dilemma of People v. Crops.

The area was still reacting to President Trump's recent visit to the state. He had memorably toured the  awful Camp Fire site, twice referring to the incinerated town of Paradise, California as "Pleasure." After viewing the charred remains, he commented on how firefighters were working hard to retard the fire. He then remarked on how, as a technique, some firefighters were raking burning leaves on the ground away from trees. On a roll, Trump invented a recent conversation he had had with the Finnish president regarding Finland's lack of mega-wildfires. "They spend a lot of time on raking and cleaning and doing things and they don't have any problems," Trump observed. This lead to much ridicule after the Finn Prez denied ever saying anything like that.

Trump shouldn't have stopped with seeking Fire Fighting Tips. Considering how Finland leads the United States in many Quality Of Life categories, he really let an opportunity slip by. We should be getting Finnish tips on improving our Health Care (#6 vs. USA #29), Education (#6 vs. USA #24), and their premier Social Safety Net programs. Also, how they are world leaders with the all-important Happiness rating (#1 vs. USA #18).

Trump famously questioned why there aren't more Norwegians immigrating to America, instead of people from Shithole Countries. Why should they? Scandinavian countries in general rank at the top of any QOL listings. They are taxed much more than here, because, you know, Socialist. But... you get what you pay for. And their citizens seem to think it's just fine.

What is definitely NOT fine is the Trump Administration's stance toward Climate Change. This is the most important issue the world faces, bar none. Trump and the GOP are lockstep in their moves to deregulate and defenestrate environmental standards and policies that affect Business. For example, the new EPA head, a former coal industry lobbyist, announced plans to do away with CO2 emission rules. (To number similar instances of anti-Environment practices supported by Trump/GOP would be much too long, mind-numbing and enraging for our purposes here.)

It is very possible that Trump just doesn't care. Shocking, right? Like other business honchos, he prolly figures that the environment's collapse won't happen until after he is dead... so it just doesn't matter and in the meantime, let's maximize profits! Certainly, his dismissive reaction to the recently released (mandated) report from the EPA, the National Climate Assessment, which portrays a truly dire picture for our world, was Classic Trump. Subsequent follow-up studies are similarly damning. Take two minutes to peruse this powerful thread from the Washington Post environmental writer:

https://twitter.com/chriscmooney/status/1070715518963904514

Yep, Greenland ice melt has kicked into overdrive. Thanks, carbon emissions! Oh, and how is more CO2 affecting other accelerent factors to Climate Change, like methane gas release from thawing permafrost in Alaska, Canada and Siberia? As a "greenhouse gas" methane is 30 times more powerful than CO2. And a whole bunch is already seeping into the atmosphere, with a critical mass more poised to enter, thanks to rising atmospheric temps. Add methane to carbon to spike the atmosphere, which melts the ice, which causes more drastic changes in our world. Refugees by the millions abandoning uninhabitable lands. Widespread drought, crop failure, famine, insect infestation and disease. It's the planet's way of trying to shake off the thing that is hurting it, which is us.

"I don't believe it" just doesn't cut it. The current climate crisis is what our military has been planning for and warning about for years. It's what the Paris Accords are all about, with the US being the only nation to withdraw. It's what oil companies have known for decades, and sought to cover up.

According to the National Climate Assessment, we have a slender window of opportunity to seize the day. No more than a decade or so. After that, the tipping point becomes unstoppable. Meanwhile, our White House, its agencies and the GOP Senate are set to cement their retro-climate policies to 1950s standards, the age they see as When America Was Great. What we really need is to Make America Finnish.


On Thursday, Pete Shelley passed away at age 63. He was the frontman for Buzzcocks, my favorite band from the late 1970s. There were other bands that were more popular and carried greater cachet with pop culture opinion-makers. But Shelley never seemed concerned with being This Year's Model. Buzzcocks emerged with the Sex Pistols in the early British punk scene. But they weren't really Punk, except in their Do It Yourself attitude. Power Pop, oh yes. Shelley's songs were about things falling apart, the frustrations of the everyday, the constancy of romantic despair. Downers? Nope. They were witty and super-smart.  Shelley took his strong sense of poetics and harnessed punk's energy with terrific melodies. Here is a typical song that plays as well today as it did in 1979:

"Everybody's Happy Nowadays". Somewhere in an alternate universe, on Planet Earth X, where everything we always wanted exists, Shelley and Buzzcocks rule the airwaves. They ruled here, too, but too few knew of their realm.

Waving "Bye Bye" to our Dunning-Kruger country?

It is a good start. The Midterm elections are now over. And what seemed, early on, like another version of the 2016 election night debacle has since played out in a satisfying way. But it felt really ugly for a short time.

Mrs. Daily Kibitz and I were at a fun and fancy Election Night Party when the results began to manifest on the TV screens. The crowd was of a decided political Blue persuasion (and I helped provide some "blue" commentary). Expectations for the long-predicted "Blue Wave" were very high. After two years of living in TrumpWorld, everyone wanted to see the electoral push-back that would certify that our country wasn't going anywhere near 1932 Germany.

But by 11pm, the party was experiencing a collective sense of dread in the pit of our stomachs. Florida, which polls had Dems taking for Senate and Governor, was going Racist Red. Polls had also looked good for Indiana, but it flipped from Blue to Red. Missouri and North Dakota flipped Red. Even an indicted Republican Member of Congress was beating his opponent in upstate New York. Texan Beto O'Rourke, though a long-shot, conceded to Ted Cruz.  Everything we knew or hoped for  was wrong, again. Why, O Lord? Was Job a Never-Trumper?

TV talking heads spoke of a No-Wave, even a Red Tide. The Senate races had become a rout against the Democrats, with some experts suddenly predicting a GOP bump of 5 - 8 seats! The presumed House lock for Democrats was not assured. It was going to be a long night. Party glasses of prosecco were exchanged for tall tumblers of vodka and bourbon. Several attendees quietly left.

And then something happened. The results from the Mountain and West Coast time zones began to find their way onto the screens. Blue began to flip Red. Close House races in Virginia and Georgia went to the Dems. The lock on the House was secured for the Democrats. And then, it began to build.

The next morning, Trump held a bat-shit press conference where he announced the Midterms were "very close to a complete victory" for him, despite the House would soon be controlled by Democrats. Evidently, he had gone to bed when the TV pundits were suggesting that the GOP had staunched the Blue Wave. In fact, as time went on, Trump clung to the belief that the votes counted on Election Night were the only ones that mattered. Then he spun some inane BS about voter fraudsters changing disguises, and needing an ID to buy cereal. (As historian Douglas Brinkley has observed, Trump is a bull who brings along his own china shop.)

But Trump was wrong, as usual. In the days following Election Night, the Democratic vote continued to swell. Absentee ballots, provisional ballots and military ballots were added to the mix. Recounts were held. More and more House races went to Democrats. What seemed like a humble ripple early on Election Night has since swelled into a massive Blue Wave.

How big is Big? Pretty damn big.

Before the election, the House was 242 - 193, advantage GOP over Democrats. Today, the sides have switched: 235 Democratic seats to 200 Republicans. The Democrats picked up 42 seats, many more than predicted during Election Night and the most they've achieved since the days of Richard Nixon. Moreover, looking at all 435 House contests as a single nationwide popular vote, the Democrats amassed an 8% surplus over the GOP. That is significant in a democracy (although our Electoral College has something to say about whether we live in a democracy).

Here's a personal benchmark for this being Big: In my hometown of Glen Ellyn, Illinois, there hasn't been a Democratic Member of Congress representing it since... 1938. Yup, since the Great Depression. Since before World War 2. Since before Television. Well, say hello to Democratic Representative Sean Casten!

"OK, but what about the Senate?" The Republicans have added a couple of seats to their Senate total. Their advantage will be 53 - 47.  But the Senate electoral map here was especially tough to contemplate anything better than a "hold" for Democratic best case scenario. The GOP had to defend 9 seats, all in Red States. They lost two of them. The Democrats had to defend 35 seats, including 15 in Red States that Trump won handily. They lost four of them. The Dems did well here, considering the radically uneven playing field.

So... what does it all mean?

It means that beginning January 3, 2019, Democrats will control the House of Representatives. They will chair all House committees. These committees have wide-ranging abilities to conduct oversight and investigations with subpoena power. The potential for unearthing what has been covered up/ignored since the 2016 election campaign is enormous.

The current hallmarks of the GOP Kakistocracy in DC are rank, grifting greed and amoral/unethical  power politics applied to achieve long-standing ideological goals at the expense of the nation's health. These goals have been to kill the ACA/Obamacare, kill Roe v. Wade, kill watchdog regulations across the board, and kill government entitlement programs like Social Security. With a Democratic House, these GOP platform planks become very unlikely.

And despite Mueller-loathing Matthew Whitaker acting as a "temporary" Attorney General, the Special Counsel investigations will continue. There are nearly 36 unidentified sealed indictments on the DC Federal Court docket. There are other ones resting on the Eastern District of Virginia court docket, too. These could drop very soon; moreover, there will many new ones to compile.

And the House Judiciary, Intelligence and Foreign Relations Committees will now be acting as collaborative agents of Justice with the Special Counsel as the investigations continue. As I've suggested before, there will be a TON of shocking revelations as time goes on. Prison sentences. Careers will be ruined. Businesses will be destroyed. The GOP will be staggered. Some Democrats will be affected, too. It's not wrapping up anytime soon - the scope of these investigations is too enormous for a quick wrap-up. Spend a few minutes with this (pre-Helsinki Conference) extraordinary analysis of Trump as Russian Asset to better envision the real enormity of things:

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html

Wowzers. Now use this info to understand the behavior of certain individuals over the last two years... Deny, Deflect, Push Back, Double Down. Repeat.

Anyhow, yes! Big Blue Wave!! If we survive the next six weeks, our country is poised to begin turning things around. Appreciation for quaint and neglected values like integrity and expertise will seep back into the system. We're not near the end. We're not at the beginning of the end. But we are past the end of the beginning.

To help celebrate the Blue Wave, check out this hilarious picture! When a couple posed recently for a Wedding Proposal photo, they were joined by some "significant otters." Sorry about that... Should be quite a wedding party!