Don’t spend too much time creatively carving up the data. And don’t ignore it altogether. Just compare the results to an appropriate baseline (like Trump’s performance or partisan lean), average it and look at the data in the context of important polls like presidential approval and the generic ballot. And a coherent picture emerges from that data: that Democrats are going to make big gains in the 2018 midterms, probably taking the House and possibly the Senate as well.

The cartel in this section of the border often kidnaps boys as young as 14 and forces them to work as foot soldiers. “I got a couple of nephews,” Julia told me, “they are already gone. Disappeared.” She says what’s really sick is that the drug lords live in the posh sections of McAllen, safely away from the violence they’ve created. Their kids go to school on the American side; they say to the teachers, “if you give me a bad grade my dad is gonna come and get you,” says Julia.

Seers at the Congressional Budget Office are guessing that due largely to the recent tax cuts, the economy will grow at an annual rate of 3.3 percent this year and 2.4 percent in 2019. Federal Reserve Board monetary policy gurus agree, and expect the tax cuts and the recent budget deal to give the economy “a significant boost” in the next few years.” That gives Republicans something they can shout about in this November’s elections, and the feel-good factor should last through Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign. It might not be enough to carry the day, but in his view it’s better if the economy parties now, the bills to pay coming later.

Like almost everyone who follows politics in the United States, we’ve grown weary of hearing about James Comey’s memos. The public has heard endlessly about these documents—from the media, from the very few politicos who’ve seen them, from Comey himself—but the memoranda themselves remain a mystery.

Free markets work through competition. Sellers offer an array of goods and services and buyers tell them what works. So when protectionist legislation favors one group of competitors over another, there’s a problem. That’s what’s happening to E. Glen Porter, who owns a cemetery in New Berlin, Wisconsin.