Let's not be overly optimistic about the results of the Mueller investigation, and the

potential 'blue wave' in November. It is OK, I suppose, to be optimistic, to have hope in a better future. I do. I really do.

But to think everything will be OK come January 2019 when our party takes back the majority? Not so much.

The Republicans have steadily undermined everything we should stand for ever since Reagan slithered into the WH in 1981. They have implemented voter suppression measures all over the place, gerrymandered states to keep their majorities in legislatures even though their candidates actually get fewer votes.

And remember when the GOP refused to appoint most of Obama's appointments to federal courts? Well, now we see what the strategy behind that was: As of September 10, 2018, the United States Senate has confirmed 68 Article III judges nominated by the traitor president Trump, including 1 Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, 26 judges for the United States Courts of Appeals, 41 judges for the United States District Courts, and turtle McConnell has scheduled the vote for Kavanaugh on September 20, four days from now.

Of course, there's also the giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations they passed last year. The deficit has ballooned and the national debt is rapidly becoming unsustainable. In the meantime, they've transferred even more of our money to massive defense contracts and Pence wants a brand new shiny Space Force while at the same time GOP leaders are talking about cuts for Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.

Privatization has also run rampant. Prison industries, slave labor of convicts, systematic incarceration of minorities - a third of our whole population has criminal records, and these people are making billions in profits off that misery. In the meantime, we continue to make people with criminal records pay and pay and pay. They can't get jobs, and in desperation they turn again to crime to make a living. If a woman was arrested for soliciting because she had no other way to make a living, for instance, she now has to 'register' on what I think is a blatantly unconstitutional sex offender list and she is now essentially unemployable. Ever. No one will ever hire her. I'm in workforce development and sex offenders are nearly impossible to place.

Finally, we cannot but weep at the massive rollbacks of environmental regulations. For the sake of a few extra dollars in profits, the GOP has sold out our species and compromised our ability to live and thrive on this earth, which is our only home. That old CSNY line comes to me - horror grips us as we watch you die! All we can do is echo our anguished cry...

No, even after we take back power, it will take many years to reverse this damage. And the ku kluxers, nazis and white nationalists won't be going away. We might be able to force them back under their rocks but they will still be there, hating and teaching their children to hate.

My only solace is that I'm going to be very outspoken about trials for those who have committed war crimes and other crimes against humanity, such as the brutal separation of families at the border that still continues to this very day. Following orders will be the excuse of some, but we should not buy that any more than we bought it from the SS guards who killed people in places like Auschwitz.

No, when our people get in power, they will have to dramatically raise taxes, to pay for things that help us, like health care while at the same time servicing the debt. If enough of them are truly visionary, we might revisit Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution and rethink our monetary policy.

We'll have to put back all the regulations.

And we'll have to figure out a strategy to fight the reactionary majorities in our judicial system. There is incontrovertible proof Kavanaugh lied under oath, so he can be impeached, but what about all these other appointees? They will be quietly fighting against everything we are trying to do every step of the way.

We'll have to get away from Citizens United somehow, and Senator Warren's 'Responsible Capitalism Act,' which expands fiduciary responsibility of officers in publicly held companies beyond shareholder earnings to take into account the welfare of workers, consumers and the environment - that is a MUST. We have to pass that.

And we will need a twenty-first century Fairness Doctrine that ensures that Americans operate from the same set of actual facts, instead of the corporate-funded propaganda they are filled with every day on hate-talk radio and Fox and Breitbart.

We're going to have to put some social justice policies in place, too. I just saw a picture of some cops in Alabama (sigh) who were photographed after a 'bust' making the white power sign. They were suspended WITH pay for a week. Seriously. We will somehow have to work through a profoundly conservative law enforcement community to close down the 'open season' on black people that seems to exist now.

No, it's a long, hard road we have ahead of us. Sometimes I wonder if our party, if we as a people, will have the courage to make these repairs and take back our republic. This country really could be the light on the hill. Even now, as corrupt as we are, people still aspire to come here. But what if we could be a REAL leader in making the whole world a better place?

Yes, I admit it. Freely. I AM A SNOWFLAKE. A UNICORN. I look at things the way they are, imagine how they SHOULD be and ask...

WHY NOT?

THERE IS HOPE, but with it comes lots of WORK.