Goodbye 2018. It's time to start seriously thinking about Donald Trump's replacement.

On this last day of Trump Year 2, Senator Elizabeth Warren is in the news for formally announcing the formation of her presidential exploratory committee. She won't be the last challenger throwing her (or his) hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination. Earlier this week, the Times ran an article focusing on four U.S. Senators who are likely early candidates: Massachusetts' Warren, New Jersey's Cory Booker, California's Kamala Harris, and New York's Kirsten Gillibrand.

That led me to post this early Twitter poll:

POLL: Which one of these probable presidential candidates mentioned in the @NYTimes do you prefer at this very early point in the 2020 campaign?

— True Blue Liberal (@TrueBlueLiberal) December 29, 2018

With a new Democratic House of Representatives and the beginning of the 2020 presidential campaign, I hope 2019 gives all of us much more hopeful news about Democrats and much less news about you know who.

Happy New Year (from Tennyson & Harrison)

In Memoriam [CVI. Ring out, wild bells]

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
   The flying cloud, the frosty light:
   The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind
   For those that here we see no more;
   Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
   And ancient forms of party strife;
   Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
   The faithless coldness of the times;
   Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
   The civic slander and the spite;
   Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
   Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
   Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

And George Harrison's 1974 variation on Tennyson's original:

Happy 2018 to all my fellow true blue liberalites.

"Ring Out the False / Ring in the True" George Harrison's Happy New Year Song from 1974

Could George's 'Ding Dong, Ding Dong' from the Dark Horse album really be 40 years old?
Happy New Year!

Happy New Year [1986] "IT'S GOT FDR! IT'S GOT FDR! IT'S GOT FDR!"

Somewhere in the basement of a house in which I once lived there may still be an old VHS tape with the whole second set from this concert sitting on a shelf (of course, I no longer have a VHS player).

If I remember correctly, we had just bought our very first VCR and this concert was broadcast on a New York UHF station (because I don't remember having cable at the time). We got home from a New Year's Eve party at 2am and this concert was being broadcast live from the Oakland Coliseum, long after all the other prepackaged time-shifted New Year's Eve shows had been off the air.
This video contains "In the Midnight Hour," which was the first song of the second set, preceded by the arrival of the giant New Year's cake and balloon drop at midnight (3am EST) with the classic commentary from Ken Kesey and Fr. Guido Sarducci (a.k.a. Don Novello). Brilliant! What was Ken on?