Our subtitle today is (appropriately) nothing short of a talking point. Democrats just won their biggest pickup in the House of Representatives since 1974, the first post-Watergate election. That's not only impressive, it's downright historic. But, for some reason, many Democrats and many pundits are concentrating solely on the downside rather than face the many ballot-box victories the Democrats just chalked up. We have no real reason why this is so, and we wonder why so many seek the dark lining to what is indisputably a very silver cloud. Democrats won, and they won big. They didn't win every race, and some rock-star candidates lost, but why dwell on it? There were so many other wins Tuesday night that more than made up for it, after all.

Once again: House Democrats just had their best midterm since Watergate. They have picked up at least 30 House seats, and probably more. There are still 13 races which have not been officially called yet, and Democrats are up in at least five of them. If they win every one of these races where they are now leading, Democrats will have 230 House seats to Republicans' 205. That is a major turnaround, any way you slice it.

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Democrats are poised to start setting the political agenda in the House of Representatives, beginning in January. This agenda will consist of three different types of actions: investigating the Trump administration, doing legislative deals with Trump where possible, and creating the Democratic Party platform for the 2020 election.

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Was it a blue wave, or (as one television commentator last night waggishly put it) only a "blue ripple"? The one thing everyone can agree upon is that it wasn't actually a tsunami, but I'm still kind of surprised at the bickering this morning over the precise amplitude of the Democratic victories last night (as measured in metaphorical ocean waves), because no matter how you spin it Democrats had a really good night pretty much everywhere but the Senate races. Since the Senate was always going to be tough, this wasn't all that big a deal, really, but some today seem overly dismayed by the fact that Democrats didn't run the table everywhere.

Personally, I am celebrating the numerous victories on the Democratic side. Because when you get beyond all the garment-rending over the Senate (and a few other high-profile losses), there was indeed a lot for progressives to celebrate.

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I miss Craig Ferguson on late-night television. I freely admit my own bias here, because watching Craig at night was always a surreal trip into the mindset of someone who obviously just didn't give a rat's ass about what anyone else thought, at all. Craig would say whatever was on his mind, completely undiluted. Watching him helped me to recover from all the political nonsense of the day, so I could sleep better at night.

So rather than sit down today and write out a "Get out there and VOTE!" column, I thought I'd re-run a column I wrote ten years ago. This was the first time I ever saw Ferguson, and when I did my jaw hit the floor. People (at least, back then) just didn't say stuff like this on television, no matter how late the hour. I was so enthralled by Craig's rant that I sat down and transcribed it the next day. It remains the best "get out and vote" rant I've ever seen, so while the political references are dated (this was during the McCain/Obama race), the sentiments are not.

One technical change I have to make, though. The link I provide within the column is now dead. However, the clip still lives on YouTube, so if you've never seen this before, check out both part one and part two of Craig's rant (there was a commercial break in between the two). You won't be sorry you did, I promise.

Oh, and, of course, GET OUT AND VOTE!

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It happens every time we have an election. The numbers-crunching uber-wonks among us have to work themselves into a frenzy for Election Night, because that's when the data will be coming in fast and furious, so they've got to be at their peak performance. But, unfortunately, before the polls actually close and the numbers start flowing, there is a dearth of data in the buildup period. There are last-minute public opinion polls to watch, but they don't say much that is all that different than other pre-election polling. So the temptation is to take the only hard numbers available and overanalyze them to death. But my experience causes me to issue the following warning to all who are obsessing over the midterm elections: Put not your trust in early vote counts.

Until the votes start to actually be tabulated, these are the only numbers made public by the people running the elections in each state. But early voting numbers are just not determinative of much of anything, even though all the wonks are having lots of fun making all sorts of predictions based upon these numbers. But when you get right down to it, the only thing early voting numbers really tell us is how many people voted early, period. Which, in and of itself, doesn't really tell us a thing about the likely outcome.

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Our subtitle today is an apt summation of the Republican Party midterm campaign message, in full. That's what they're running on, led by our Snowflake-in-Chief, Donald Trump. Fear. Naked, undiluted fear. "Be afraid!" they warn their voters. "Be very afraid!"

Be afraid of penniless refugees who are walking thousands of miles to legally make an asylum claim. That word bears repeating: legally. Because you won't hear it much from the GOP. To them, it's an "invasion." An invasion that demands sending more U.S. soldiers to the Mexican border at any time in the past century. More soldiers than are still fighting in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, (supposedly one of the "adults in the room") has gone along with this political nonsense, much to his diminishment. When the soldiers get to the border, they'll be firing live weapons at anyone who dares to throw a rock at them, Trump promises, and locking everyone up in tent cities (or "refugee camps," to give them their proper title). Oh, and don't forget to be afraid that the migrants are disease-ridden, full of "strong young men" who happen to be brown, and that they probably have some ISIS members among them. Also, be afraid that George Soros is paying for it all, for some inexplicable reason. Even Soros getting a pipe bomb in the mail has not dialed down the hatred and fear directed at him from the president on down.

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President Donald Trump just gave a speech today on immigration policy, which was notable for its lack of actual details, while being heavy on rhetoric and fearmongering. That's about par for the course for Trump. But the most interesting thing Trump said was, in response to a shouted question, that he wouldn't actually be signing any executive orders until "sometime next week." Since next week is a rather momentous one on the political calendar, that leaves open the question of whether Trump will hold such a signing ceremony before or after (or even, conceivably, during) the midterm elections on Tuesday.

Why would Trump delay such a ceremony, if he truly is interested in rolling out a new policy? There doesn't seem to be any good answer to that question, really. Why didn't Trump end his speech today by sitting down and signing an executive order? Even just looking at it through a political lens, that would have made the most sense. Trump is quite obviously only really interested in the political benefits of a new immigration policy, which is why he's rolling it out now -- he thinks it'll be a great closing argument for the Republican Party's midterm campaign. So why wait on the actual policy?

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Boo!

Yes, it's time once again for our annual frightfest, where we provide nightmarish scenarios for both left and right. These days, of course, we're always one step away from nightmarish scenarios, so it won't be all that far a journey!

Of course, it being an election year, both our tales of terror start out with what could happen next Tuesday. From this leaping-off point, however, these tales descend into very different pits of despair. One man's horror is another man's dream, in other words.

Our scary stories are presented for your frightful shiverings, as always, with our own attempt at pumpkin art. Since the themes were the same this year, we got away with only carving one design (only the colors needed changing, really). So sit back, relax, and prepare to be terrified right down to your boots. Our first tale of a macabre future should scare the left, and we're ending with a story to scare those on the right. We picked this order on purpose this year, so we could begin with a spooky homage to Dr. Seuss.

So, if you're ready, here we go: "One Wave... Two Wave..."

Red Wave

President Donald Trump announces four days before the election that anyone who votes for Republicans will be exempt from paying income taxes for all of 2018. Furthermore, anyone who votes for Democrats will have to pay double the regular income tax rate, to make up for the shortfall.

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President Donald Trump began his rollout of his "October Surprise" today, as the Pentagon announced it would be sending over 5,000 troops to the southern U.S. border. This was five times higher than anyone had expected, and would add to the 2,000 troops already there. Tomorrow, Trump is scheduled to give a major speech on immigration, although the main focus of it is already clear: the caravan of Central American refugees currently walking towards the border in Mexico. Trump has made the caravan -- or, more properly, fear of the caravan -- a central part of his closing argument in the campaign for the upcoming midterm elections. So this has to be seen as Trump's version of an October Surprise. The big question is whether it'll work or not, politically.

Now, the history of the October Surprise label shows a mix of events that were external and beyond any American politician's control (real surprises, in other words) and those that were carefully stage-managed to either break wide open (or, conversely, not bark in the night) at the end of October, right before an election happens. Planned surprises, one might call them.

Trump's newfound vigor towards immigrants is likely a mixture of both. Trump himself has been saying for months now that Republicans should focus their whole campaign on illegal immigrants, his border wall, and falsely accusing Democrats of being the "open border party." Hey, it worked for him once, why shouldn't it work again? So Trump has been focusing on it and urging other GOP candidates to do the same, for quite some time now.

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In 2003, Al Franken wrote a book called Lies: And The Lying Liars Who Tell Them, which was written about Fox News (Bill O'Reilly, in specific). Though the title now seems prophetic in the age of Trump, even Franken would have had a hard time believing back then how far the right wing would eventually go down this rabbit hole.

Case in point this week was pretty much everything Trump said all week long -- just like all the other weeks we've spent listening to his blatant lies. Most ironic were the statements his staff obviously forced him to make on the domestic terrorism unleashed by one of his followers. In a monotone voice reminiscent of a hostage video, Trump stated: "The bottom line is that Americans must unify, and we must show the world that we are united together in peace and love and harmony as fellow American citizens." Does anyone alive actually believe the president cares about "peace and love and harmony" anymore? The very idea is downright comic, even if the circumstances are not. Later in the same day, inside the White House, Trump led some of his supporters in a chant of "Lock him up!" in reference to George Soros, one of the bomber's targets. Trump even laughed as he answered back: "Lock him up!" How peaceful of him! How loving! How harmonious!

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