Okay, given results from the 2018 midterms, albeit with a few close races still potentially not decided at this moment, here are my predictions of what to expect over the next 2 years.

• GOP members of the House of Representatives will rediscover suddenly that deficits are bad
• Beltway pundits will warn House Democrats not to "overplay their hand" in holding hearings and investigations, or otherwise providing what used to be considered Constitutional check and balances and oversight of arguably the most corrupt Administration in American history
• Addendum to above: media will focus on optics and who is being helped or hurt by Democratic oversight and largely ignore the scandals or issues that are the subject of the oversight; Hint: they will always opine it's hurting the Democrats; bonus points if they can use the word "disarray"; I'd turn this into a drinking game but it would put people into a coma
• The media will begin focusing largely on 2020 politics and ignore issues
• The sorry state of American democracy - gerrymandering, voter suppression, long lines in largely minority areas, malfunctioning machines, machines vulnerable to manipulation and hacking, will be ignored by the media, or will only be viewed within the framework of tactics, not of what it means to a functioning democracy, or I know, a "representative republic"
• Paul Ryan will make more Sunday morning news show appearances than Nancy Pelosi
• Mitt Romney and Bernie Sanders will be regulars on said Sunday morning shows, bashing of Democrats encouraged
• Whenever Hillary Clinton speaks out on an issue, people, especially pundits, will wonder why she doesn't just go away
• People we will seldom, if ever, see on Sunday morning news shows: Kamala Harris, Corey Booker, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley, Elizabeth Warren, Amy Klobuchar, Maxine Waters
• Nancy Pelosi will be lectured and chastised for not doing more to "reach across the aisle" and work with Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump to "get something done"; this criticism will be unidirectional
• The Beltway media will not take Trump to task for threatening to investigate House Dems for, you know, doing their jobs
• There will be several more caravans of desperate asylum seekers from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador who will make their way towards the United States; we will not hear about them, or even the current one, ever again until the final months of the 2020 election; at that time the media will use the word "crisis" to describe the situation
• Water will continue to invade Florida's coast and streets; in response Marco Rubio will tweet Bible verses and Rick Scott will ask "What climate change? We've always had high tides and water"
• Indictments will be handed down against even more people from Trump's campaign and administration; in response crowds at his rallies will chant "lock her up" at the mention of the following names: Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, because you know, something or other;  all while holding signs that read "Drain the Swamp"
• Crimes against synagogues, mosques, Muslims and Jews will increase; the media will suggest House Dems cool it with the rhetoric and return to civility
• Nobody, except the media and Fox News, will pretend Donald Trump even has a day job

Feel free to add your own predictions.

 Apparently recently our nation crossed a line many felt would never be crossed. For those who believe in American Exceptionalism, who view the USA as that shining City on a Hill, who actually believe the Statue of Liberty shines a light unto the rest of the world, these are dark days indeed.

Now you might think I'm referring to the government of the United States, yes that United States, separating parents and children, transporting the children, some as young as three months old, around the country and putting them in camps. 

You might think I'm referring to the President of these very same United States advocating for tearing up the Constitution and due process to kick as many people he doesn't like out of the country as quickly as possible.

But no that's not it at all. Apparently, according to our esteemed guardians of democracy, the Washington press establishment, these are truly dark days because one of the faces and voices of the administration and its policies was denied service at a restaurant in Virginia.

I'm sure you've heard the details of the story by now. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's press secretary, who lies to the press and the American people on a daily basis (well the days they actually hold press briefings), and has spun the various stories and explanations for this policy that violates American and International laws, was asked to leave a restaurant. The owner asked her to leave after her staff told her they felt uncomfortable serving Sanders. Much of the staff are either LGBTQ and/or immigrants. Since this Administration is expending a lot of time and energy trying to insure LGBTQ people can be treated as second class citizens, and are referring to immigrants, and beginning to treat them the same way the Nazis did the Jews, they were not inclined to break bread with and serve the face and voice of these policies.

You can agree or disagree about this. Reasonable people already have. I can't say I'm 100% certain how I feel about it myself, both from a philosophical viewpoint and the practical stance of tactics.

What I am sure about though is the entirely hypocritical and outrageous screaming from both the right wing, the Administration and the press about the incident. And yes the usual mealy-mouthed, let's all play nice together reactions from the usual Democratic suspects - I'm looking at you Axelrod, Schumer and Pelosi.

The hypocrisy of the conservatives in this matter is neither surprising nor stunning. We've come to expect nothing less from these snowflakes. They have spent years championing the rights of businesses to refuse service to gays in the name of religious freedom. They rallied to the cause of the County Clerk, Kim Davis, in Kentucky who refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples because it didn't square with her personal religious beliefs. But a private business owner doesn't want to serve a member of the Trump Administration because of how they treat the groups of people many of her workers are drawn from, and it's the end of civilization as we know it.

The media is even worse. We are putting kids in cages. In the United States. In 2018. We are ripping families apart. The President is advocating for the end of due process when it comes to immigration. He is stopping attempts at asylum, a violation of laws and treaties the United States is party to. He advocates violence against protesters and calls both the press and his opponents "treasonous". He lies every time he opens his mouth. 

But the real calamity for the Washington press corps is a restaurant in Virginia refusing to serve Sanders, or Rep. Maxine Waters calling for public protest and shaming of Trump Administration members to combat the policies that have us sliding towards authoritarianism. 

Lock up kids. Do away with civil liberties and civil rights. Threaten the press. Make nice with Nazis and dictators. Lead your crowds in threats against political opponents while you call them disparaging names. Question the birthplace of the first black President. But yeah civility died when someone told the bully "enough!"

Which is what makes the reaction of the inside the Beltway Democratic leadership even more infuriating. The media and Republicans have been playing a one way game for decades now. The GOP has been saying nasty things about Democrats, have been trampling the norms of our democracy for a long time without being called on it. Stealing a Supreme Court seat, unprecedented use of the filibuster, playing into fear and prejudice and using every tragedy as an excuse to go after Democrats. 

But the Democratic leadership still acts like this is high school civics class. If they take the high road and make good principled rational arguments and act like the reasonable adults, they will win the day and democracy will be saved.

Well it ain't working. The GOP was nasty as nasty could be over the last decade. The press never called them on it and they were never punished at the polls for the behavior. 

If democracy in America is worth saving, then it's worth taking off the gloves for. Show some spine and some grit Beltway Democrats. The rank and file is already way ahead of you on this. Listen to your base for once instead of the pundit class.

People have been beating up on journalists and journalism pretty well the last couple of days and deservedly so. I mean you expect Fox News to misrepresent and distort the Congressional Budget Office report on the impacts of healthcare reform ("Obamacare") on the economy. But it was very disheartening to see how many members of the traditional, mainstream, mythical "liberal" media fell right into line with the right wing talking points. And yes I realize in the preceding sentence the word "mythical" can be modifying the words liberal, media or both. I'll leave it up to you to decide which is more appropriate.
As hopefully you realize by now the assertions that the CBO report stated that Obamacare would "kill" 2.5 millions jobs was totally wrong. The report concluded that in fact Obamacare would:

• create jobs
• lower unemployment
• reduce the deficit

What it did say about those 2.5 million fewer people working, was just that. Thanks to being able to find affordable health insurance on the exchanges, approximately that number of Americans would voluntarily decide to leave their jobs. Jobs that in the past they would have been chained to because it was the only way they could obtain affordable health insurance for themselves and/or their families. Now they would have the freedom to retire early and bridge the gap until they qualify for Medicare, leave a job to start a business, switch to a part-time job for a period of time to be home with young children or an ailing parent. The lock between job and health benefits is broken. The jobs don't go away, some of the people who would have filled them in the past, do. Which of course makes room for others needing work.
Even Republicans used to believe that was a good thing. Rep. Paul Ryan even laid that out as needing to be a key component of any healthcare reform when the work on healthcare reform began to get underway in early 2009. The CBO is simply confirming that yes, Obamacare accomplishes that goal. 
Eventually most of the media (the usual suspects excluded of course) got around to reporting the correct conclusions of the report. But of course damage had been done as far as the impression given to the casual observer/voter who may have only heard the initial reports and postings. But in usual media fashion they didn't blame themselves for having totally misinterpreted the report (or more likely not bothered even reading it in the first place and simply reporting off the assertions of others). It was all the Democrats and the White House's problem that it was being misrepresented. Healthcare reform is just too complex so they need to do a better job explaining this "stuff", you know the facts.
Silly me. I guess I'm getting old and hearken back to the good ol' days when reporting facts and making sense of things to the general public was the job of, oh I think the word for them used to be, "journalists". You know an informed citizenry being the lifeblood of a democracy and all that quaint stuff. Now they are content to sit back and be glorified stenographers. They paint every issue as having two (and only two) sides. They simply transcribe what each side says, and then voila their work is done. No context, no facts to help the general public interpret the competing statements. Just a "he said, she said" and you decide which side to believe.
So that brings me to what set me off this morning. I hesitate to pile on since journalism has given itself such a bad black eye recently. And compared to the CBO report fiasco this is really a minor thing. But I heard something this morning that I found infuriating and is emblematic of the level of reporting America receives today.
It occurred on the Today Show on NBC. Of course they are spending most of their time and energy promoting the Olympics, but in between they take time to give the other news of the day.
First up today in the "rest of the news" was a not more than 30 seconds item regarding the vote on extending unemployment insurance. The lead in was along the lines of "Another major loss for Democrats". Then described how they failed by one vote to get the extension of unemployment insurance to come to a vote. That they failed to satisfy Republicans that there was enough of it paid for along with other deficit reduction measures. And then simply stated that as of December 31, 2013 when the extended UI expired 1.7 million Americans lost their unemployment payments.
"There", I thought, "is everything that is wrong with the modern media in a nutshell." 
Notice what the focus of the story was, not the lost unemployment and it not being brought back. No, the focus was the horse race aspect of it. The Democrats lost. The Republicans won. The 1.7 million Americans without unemployment? Bit players in the political drama apparently. No need for context as to the vote itself, the issues involved, the historical context of emergency unemployment insurance in tough times having been a bipartisan, no brainer, didn't have to be paid for, issue in the past. No discussion of how from an economic standpoint extending unemployment on the one hand, and cutting back in other areas, makes no policy sense. Because facts like that just get in the way, and besides then it might appear you're taking sides rather than being balanced.
Which is ultimately one of the major failings of today's traditional media. Their job should be to accurately inform the public. When "balance" trumps accuracy, then everyone in the democracy is in trouble.