Happy Belated New Year

Usually, the new year begins on January 1.  Though a quirk of nature, this year the new year begins today, on January 3.  Though it's somewhat like the Jewish calendar, where events fall in the Gregorian calendar we use on different days from year to year, it's another matter entirely.  This year, the new year starts today because that's when the Democrats take control of the House of Representatives and everything changes.

A Democrat becomes Speaker of the House, and sets the agenda for that body.

Democrats become chairmen of every committee -- most notably Judiciary, Intelligence, Oversight and Financial Services -- and set the agenda for their work.

Democrats get investigation power.

Democrats get subpoena power.

Democrats can request tax returns from the IRS.

Democrats have the majority for every vote taken in the House.

It's a new year.

I don't think Trump has a clue what he's in for.  I think other Republicans in Congress know.  But Trump has shown himself so clueless and uninterested about how Congress works, I suspect he only has a general idea that things will be more "difficult."  That it'll be harder to pass a bill.  That maybe there will be an investigation, but the Special Counsel seemingly is the only investigation that means anything to him.  It's just a sort of new bump in the road, perhaps a really big bump, but a bump..

But it's not, It's not even a big swerve in the road.  It's really more like a total detour away from fairy land along a road that is blandketed with jagged rocks and falling boulders and pockmarked with deep potholes along the entire route and covered with buried land mines heading into alien, unmapped territory which narrows into one, ice-covered lane as it curves around perilous mountain ledges and across deep ravines covered by rotted-out wooden bridges missing slats and passes through a Black Hole.

​Leading into a new year...