1. It’s Friday, May 26, 2017.

2. It’s the birthday of Miles Davis and Levon Helm.

Musically speaking, you’d have a hard time topping that duo. I’m trying to imagine a Miles arrangement of “The Weight” with Levon’s vocals – that would have been interesting.

3. It’s the gateway to the Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer.

4. It’s also about to be Ramadan.

This is another in a series of challenging Ramadans for Muslims in the Northern Hemisphere. The month begins tonight and ends June 24, which means it includes the summer solstice. And since Ramadan entails fasting during the day, those who celebrate can’t eat during the longest days of the year.

I imagined that this would be a real problem if you’re a Muslim in Alaska, where there is almost no night this time of year. But a Muslim colleague reassured me that, when that’s the situation, Muslims are allowed to go by the hours of Mecca’s day, which are more normal. This way, there’s no gorging at 1:30 a.m.

Wherever you are, if you celebrate, Ramadan kareem!

5. Some Democrats are in the dumps this morning after Republican Greg “The Slammer” Gianforte pulled out a 6-percentage-point win over Democrat Rob Quist in the Montana congressional election.

You would think getting arrested for assaulting a reporter the night before election day would be a problem for a candidate.

But Gianforte had a bunch of things going for him. One is that about 70% of Montanans voted before he broke Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs’ glasses on Wednesday night.

The second is that Gianforte had a lot of money to work with. His own – he’s a multi-millionaire – and that of the unbridled fountain that is the right-wing money machine.

By contrast, Quist was working with the modest resources given him by national Democrats and however much he’s made singing country songs.

So Gianforte won.

Democrats are torn. On the one hand, the 6-point margin is far narrower than the 20 points by which Trump won the state last November.

So it could be a sign that Republicans are in trouble – this is the fourth election since Trump’s inauguration that the GOP has underperformed. Perhaps 2018 can’t get here soon enough.

On the other hand, losing isn’t winning. It’s losing. That seat still belongs to the Republicans, and the size of their majority in the House remains intact.

6. But let me repeat something I tell fans of the team that loses the World Series every year: Yes, you can lose if you play. But you can’t win at all if you don’t.

For too long, Democrats have yielded these supposedly safe Republican seats. And not just in the House and Senate. In state legislatures and city councils and town councils. That’s why we’re in this mess – we didn’t compete, and we lost leverage when it came to such things as redistricting and setting local laws.

That’s gotta end. We need our voices heard every single time, whether we win big or lose 94-6.

It doesn’t feel great being on the short end of an election with a lowlife like Greg Gianforte. But at least Rob Quist tried. Maybe next time, people will remember that effort, and see how lousy things are with Republicans having a say.

And the outcome might be different.

1. It’s Thursday, May 25, 2017.

2. It’s the 40th anniversary of the release of “Star Wars” and the 70th birthday of Karen Valentine. You have to be around my age to know who Karen Valentine is.

3. If you think the Congressional Budget Office scoring of TrumpRyanCare – it’s not right just to blame this monstrosity on Trump – is meaningless, consider this:

It was the reporter’s question about the analysis that set off the moron in Montana who now faces six months in prison for bodyslamming the reporter.

What you can glean from the CBO report is that nothing about TrumpRyanCare is great for anyone other than the wealthy who would get the tax cuts that are its main goal.

Even the $119 billion in deficit reduction – assuming that deficit reduction when interest rates remain with a percentage point all-time lows is a bad thing – comes at a cost. That reduction reflects the idea that government will be paying less for coverage of the elderly and poor under Medicaid.

That means the cost to society is to make it almost impossible for those who need insurance the most to get it.

Remember those death panels Sarah Palin talked about when the Affordable Care Act was enacted. Well, here they are – seven years and a different piece of legislation later.

Overall, the CBO projects that 23 million people will lose health care coverage by 2026. Baby boomers – my generation – will stagger to the Medicare line at age 65. Assuming these ghouls don’t start tampering with that, too.

4. One would think this is going to be, at best, a hard political sell for the Republicans.

That’s probably why Greg Gianforte, the Trump wannabe running for the open House seat in Montana, didn’t want to answer questions about the CBO report. Especially from a non-Montanan reporter from a publication that leans left.

Between that, the pressure of a surprisingly tight race and who know what else going through the usually empty space between his ears, Gianforte appears to have lost it with Ben Jacobs of The Guardian.

To their credit, the three members of a Fox News reporting crew is rebutting Gianforte’s version of the story – that Jacobs was overly aggressive in questioning the candidate. That’s probably why Gianforte was arrested and charged with misdemeanor assault.

But this is where I transition this piece from slam to slamdunk.

In a fair world, Gianforte would lose big time. Not just because he’s on the wrong side of the argument with Democrat Rob Quist, but because he’s clearly not temperamentally fit to serve in Congress.
But this is Montana and this is a big seat. The Republicans have spent a fortune to maintain it.

And many people have voted already – all of the main Montana news sites are reporting people calling their elections board to see if they can change their early votes. Which, of course, they can’t.

So there’s still a better than 50-50 chance that Gianforte wins. And when his mighty leader, Trump, returns from curtsying to the Saudis and shoving NATO leaders in a photo op, he can welcome Gianforte.

For Democrats there might be two consolation prizes: A picture of Trump congratulating Gianforte on his win, and the fact that folks in Georgia might get turned off by that as they prepare to vote on another open seat previously held by a Republican.

5. Sometimes it’s hard to be of good cheer in the America of 2017.

Trump has made us grumpy and sad. We don’t trust each other any more. Hatred and bigotry have been given license. Our place in the world as a moral beacon is being vacated by greed.

If you want to look for hope amid the Trump dystopia, read the speech given last week by New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu.

His city has been taking down monuments, built as the Jim Crow era began, aimed at giving a glowing patina to the Confederacy. There were statues to generals and the former political leader.

The fact they were coming down bothered Confederate apologists. These statues, in their eyes, represented a sacrifice made by those who stood up for their beliefs, and taking them down desecrated that history.

And what Mayor Landrieu did was call out the hypocrisy.

“These statues are not just stone and metal. They are not just innocent remembrances of a benign history,” he said. “These monuments purposefully celebrate a fictional, sanitized Confederacy; ignoring the death, ignoring the enslavement, and the terror that it actually stood for.”

The Confederacy wasn’t some romantic notion of states’ rights. It wasn’t an honest difference of opinion.

It was about preserving the enslavement of black people, often through brutality. And it was about treason, pure and simple.

I’ve always maintained the Confederate flag, which people even here in supposedly enlightened New York blithely stick on their pickup trucks, is the ultimate symbol of treason in this country.

Anyone who heralds it cannot, in any way, be considered a patriot.

I doubt there’s anyplace in this country with a statue honoring Erwin Rommel or Adolf Hitler. We don’t pander to those who trash our values.

That’s the equivalence.

Mayor Landrieu gets it. He runs a city that’s pretty diverse – we New Yorkers tend to think we have a slight edge in that department. And he is determined to make things right for all of them.

“Because we are one nation, not two; indivisible with liberty and justice for all, not some,” he said. “We all are part of one nation, all pledging allegiance to one flag, the flag of the United States of America. And New Orleanians are in, all of the way.”

That is a real slamdunk.

1. It’s Tuesday, May 23, 2017.

2. It’s the third anniversary of the Isla Vista tragedy, when a 22-year-old man stabbed three roommates, shot to death three University of California-Santa Barbara students, and injured several pedestrians with his car before killing himself. His problem was that he had trouble connecting with women, and resented anyone in a relationship.

3. Sadly, that seems like a good place to start a discussion about the horror of what happened last night in Manchester, England.

As a parent, it is hard to fathom the agony of those whose children perished. No words anyone wise or thoughtful can say could possibly mitigate that kind of pain.

Those of faith can offer prayer, those who aren’t can offer sympathy. Think about the parents today and whenever you can, and hope that the strength of our thoughts can help them handle more than they ever should bear.

4. But, inevitably, thoughts turn to how and why these things happen.

Here are the current headlines on the three news sites I most respect:

The New York Times: ISIS Claims Responsibility for Manchester Attack; Toll Rises to 22, Including Children

The Washington Post: ISIS Claims Responsibility for concert attack that kills at least 22 in Britain

CNN: ISIS claims responsibility for Manchester bombing

The first word in all three is ISIS. As if a bunch of clueless morons with beards in the Syrian desert knew there was an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, last night.

Whoever did this – alone or in a group – was homegrown. I’d bet 5 quid that the bomber was either born in the UK or became a UK citizen at a young age. He might be from a Muslim family; he might have converted when he wanted something to anchor his disaffection and discovered ISIS.

But this attack is not about ISIS. I don’t doubt the evil that ISIS is – and I hope it’s wiped off the map in Syria and Iraq.

And this attack is especially not about Islam. Anyone who blames a religion for this is an accomplice to the evil this bomber unleashed.

5. No, this guy’s spiritual kin showed up twice this past week in the United States, and neither time had anything to do with ISIS.

In New York last Thursday, police say a 26-year-old Navy veteran with a history of violence, mental illness and substance abuse deliberately attempted to run down pedestrians in Times Square. He’s accused of killing an 18-year-old Michigan girl – her parents fully understand the feelings of parents in Manchester – and injuring 20 other people.

Last Saturday, on the University of Maryland campus in College Park – where my daughter got her bachelor’s degree – a young African-American was stabbed to death at a bus stop. The 22-year-old suspect in custody supposedly belongs to a white supremacist group and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.

So two things can be gleaned from this.

One, if you think Islam is responsible for what happened in Manchester, by your logic the Navy is responsible for what happened in Times Square and white people are responsible for happened at UMD.

Second, Western society – including the United States and United Kingdom – is doing a terrible job confronting problems that often doesn’t even register on our radar: disaffection and mental illness.

The people who committed atrocities in Manchester, Times Square and College Park – whoever they are – were sick. And they conveniently found anchors – Islam, white supremacy, PCP – for what they did.

Something drove them to the point of committing acts of madness. Maybe it was poverty. Maybe it was being bullied or teased as a child. Maybe it was conflict between their actions and their families’ own moral values.

In time, we will know more about who committed the wanton act of violence in Manchester. British authorities are downplaying the name in an admirable effort to deny this killer his blaze of glory.

6. For now, we need to commit ourselves to three courses of action.

One is to fight the scourge of mental illness. We need to identify people with problems and get them help before they succumb to the temptation of easy scapegoat philosophies. How did the guy who plotted the Isla Vista nightmare evade detection or notice from those who knew him? Fighting mental illness will do more to end terrorist attacks – whether they’re politically or socially based.

Second is to figure out how to minimize the opportunities. How did this guy in Manchester get the explosives? How did these people who shot up Sandy Hook Elementary School and the Century 16 Cinema in Aurora and Norris Hall at Virginia Tech get access to the weaponry? Who gave the Times Square guy the car keys and the PCP?

Third is tolerance. Anti-Semitism didn’t die with the end of World War II. But it’s become less acceptable because we’ve embraced our Jewish brothers and sisters, and told them we will never let what happened in the Nazi death camps ever happen to them again.

We need to be that way with everybody, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or gender. We can not let there be any glory in hatred.

ISIS could be wiped out in the Middle East. But, in the rest of my lifetime, sick people will claim acts of horror like Manchester in its name.

Yes, ISIS is a problem. But solving the problem of mentally ill people will do more to end the Manchesters, the Sandy Hooks, the Isla Vistas, the Times Squares. And so on.

7. I had wanted to write about the remarkable speech the mayor of New Orleans gave yesterday. I’ll save that for next time – when hope is back in bloom.

1. It’s Monday, May 22, 2017.

2. It’s the 161st anniversary of an incident in the House of Representatives in which a South Carolina congressman beat a Massachusetts senator who had spoken passionately against slavery.

Just a reminder that evil in this country is not restricted to the second decade of the 21st century.

3. I’m rebooting these blog posts after a long absence. There were two reasons for the hiatus.

One that was I was in the throes of teaching my two journalism classes. And while giving my students a lot of homework doesn’t endear me to them, it also doesn’t endear me to me – I was consistently about two weeks behind on my grading.

But the semester ended last week. I’m still recovering from reading 31 final projects and – more tiring – judging them. Making decisions is wearying business.

The second reason is one I’ll write about in more detail sometime soon but one of the last things I mentioned – the deaths of my father and father-in-law on consecutive days. As you all do when you face the loss of loved ones, I’ve thought about them in the past three months – and, at some point, with your help and indulgence, I’ll try to sort this out.

It might sound weird to say not much has changed since my last post on April 19, in the wake of Jon Ostoff’s first-place finish in the Georgia 6th Congressional race.

Because if you experienced the past week, and all the blockbuster events that occurred each day, you’d think things are changing at supersonic speed. (For a great summation of last week, see John Oliver’s brilliant take in last night’s “Last Week Tonight”)

4. But if you’re really think about it, what has really changed in the four months since Trump was inaugurated?

He’s still president. He’s still tweeting stupidity at all hours. He’s still doing his damnedest to minimize how much the Russians helped him get where he is. He’s still doing whatever he can, in cahoots with the quisling Republicans in Congress, to shred the social safety net and give those who have more.

Despite all that has happened in the past few months – the firing of Comey, the meeting with the Russians, the effort to sabotage Obamacare, the reign on terror on those who’ve come here seeking a decent life – the basics remain the same. Trump and his Republican henchman are in power and trying to expand it.

The approval ratings are about as low as they’ve been all along – maybe a little lower than Inauguration Day. And they might get lower still, because a few of Trump’s supporters will come to their senses and realize how much this travesty is hurting them.

But as long as Republicans crave office, as long as Fox News can draw people to watch propaganda and fabricated scandals, as long as people choose to ignore what legitimate news sources are reporting, there’s nothing that is going to change between now and Nov. 6, 2018, when the next Congressional election takes place. And even then, it’s unlikely.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be fighting this crap. Democrats should be focused on winning every single election in their sights – from seats on a sanitation commission to town council to county executive to congressman to governor.

And don’t accept what’s going down. I have no doubt Republicans are ready to pass their act dumping Obamacare and replacing it with all the things that make health care nearly impossible for people who can’t afford it. Anybody who believes the Senate isn’t going to cave is deceiving themselves.

But we gotta keep fighting. Impeachment is unlikely, and is no solution with craven jerks such as Mike Pence and Paul Ryan next in line. Trump would just take our money and run, and then spend the rest of his miserable days at one of his gilded properties tweeting potshots that his sycophants cheer.

It’s a bad time, and it’s hard to be optimistic. The question is whether we who still cling to the idea that America should be a beacon of freedom to the rest of the world believe restoration of that notion is possible after the last four months.

I’ll expound on all this in the days ahead.

5. One quick thought on the students who walked out at Notre Dame yesterday.

Good for them.

It’s not an easy decision. Commencement, especially at a school as impressive as Notre Dame, is a big deal. If you’ve earned a degree from the school, it’s not just for watching football games – this is one of the best institutions of higher learning in this country. Their families are rightly proud – not to mention somewhat lighter financially.

For these students, Mike Pence flies in the face of what they think they’ve learned in South Bend. He’s an intolerant fool, and fools aren’t suffered lightly by those who believe thinking is a big deal.

So the students made a statement that they would not listen to someone who is not worthy of them tell them how to live their lives. I’d hope I’d have the guts to do what they did.

1. It’s Wednesday, April 19, 2017.

2. It’s the 242nd anniversary of the Patriot victory at Concord, Mass. It’s the 74th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It’s the 22nd anniversary of the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City.

A lot of stuff has happened on this day in history.

3. I haven’t written a lot lately. I’m trying to keep up with my two journalism classes, spending a lot of time grading my students’ work.

It’s not that I’ve gotten any less frustrated at the state of the world, particularly our nation. It’s that one of the ways I’m trying to deal with it is to help a new generation of journalists illuminate the world.

When I see my students, I feel better about stuff. Some of them are going to do great things.

Once I’m through with grading final projects in May, I’ll write a lot more. And I’ll try to develop some ideas I’ve been pondering this winter and spring.

4. Some Democrats are disappointed that Jon Ossoff didn’t grab the House seat for Georgia’s Sixth District.

He got 48% of the vote, well ahead of any of his rivals.

But you need a vote more than 50% to claim the seat outright, and he missed by just 3,653 out of 192,084 votes cast.

So Ossoff faces a June runoff against Republican Karen Handel, who finished second after getting just below 20% of the vote.

That seems like a big gap. But this is a Republican district – the election seeks to replace Tom Price, the drug stock wizard http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/16/politics/tom-price-bill-aiding-company/ who’s now Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Who knows what will happen in the next two months?

5. But here’s the thing: Even if the numbers were reversed, and Ossoff was only the No. 2 vote getter, Democrats should be fighting for this seat.

They should be fighting for every House seat. They should be fighting for every election, state and local.

National Democrats apparently thought it was a waste of money to contest the Kansas Fourth District race last week. But Democrat James Thompson lost by just seven percentage points in a district that went Republican by 31 points in November.

You can’t know if a bigger investment would have put Thompson over the top.

But they should have found out.

Democrats have been conceding races to Republicans for way too long. That’s one reason the country is in the predicament it’s in. We let idiots run uncontested or with little opposition.

Next thing you know, you let a jackass with conflicts of interest up to his ridiculous hair into the Oval Office.

It’s ridiculous to concede the Midwest and South to a party that does nothing for the people who live in those regions except pander to their fears. Democrats should have a vision of a nation that works for everyone, on the coast or inland. And they should present it everywhere.

The argument made against investing in races where Republicans are strong is that it wastes money. Democrats don’t have the same resources, especially given the dark money raised by the likes of the Koch brothers and other wealthy Republicans – who have bought state legislatures and Congress.

6. One solution might be what I call a St. Rita Fund.

Democrats should specifically contribute to a fund that only supports candidates in congressional districts and states that are traditionally Republican. If a Republican has won the district or state by 10 or more points for three or more straight elections, the fund would give money to the Democrat running.

St. Rita is a saint for lost causes. Among her miracles, it is said she was asked to prove her faith by tending to a dead piece of vine. Eventually, the vine yielded grapes, supposedly because she believed. 

This is a lesson for Democrats. Unless you demonstrate your faith in the ideals of the party, there’s no chance you’re going to reap anything but tears and anger.

7. So Democrats should roll up their sleeves and get Ossoff over the 50% hump. 

They should work their tails off for Rob Quist, the Democrat trying to win the at-large Congressional seat in Montana on May 25.

They should support the winner of the May 2 primary in the June 20 election for the vacancy of a Republican seat in South Carolina.

And that’s just one part of what they need to do.

Democrats need to win state legislatures. They need to win county executive races. They need to win town councils. They need to win mayor’s races.

Every election. There should be no uncontested Republicans – especially as long as that party is represented by something as heinous as Trump.

They should pay a price for their cravenness.

1. It’s Wednesday, April 5, 2017.

2. It’s the birthday of the founder of the Burpee Seeds company and actor Michael V. Gazzo, who played the Corleone mob captain Frank Pentangeli in “The Godfather Part II.”

3. The world always combines the beauty of flowers and the violence humans do to each other. What makes it tolerable is that you’d like to think there’s at least a balance, if not a tilt toward the peaceful and admirable.

You’d be hard pressed to feel that way today.

In Syria, children were among at least 69 people gassed to death in a rebel-held community by forces loyal to the bastard president Bashar al-Assad. The chemical attack was so bad that rescue workers fell ill from the after effects.

To be fair, the world has been at odds about Syria since this civil war began six years ago. Barack Obama couldn’t see his way through to a resolution – his refusal to attack Assad after a chemical attack in 2013, crossing the red line Obama had drawn, is seen as his biggest failure in the White House.

(For some great background about this, here’s Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview with Obama from The Atlantic.)

But at least Obama was clear about how evil Assad is. And, short of committing American forces to a conflict that both Congress and the general public didn’t want, he tried to do what he could to condemn that evil.

4. Now you have a cetriolo in office who, if he sends forces to Syria as he intends, will actually help Assad fight one of the forces opposing him. That would be ISIS – which, of course, doesn’t like us much either.

What Trump is really doing is what Russia, his patron, wants. Putin supports Assad, and he knows Trump can’t come out and say he supports Assad without looking like more of a traitor than he already is. So if the U.S. battles ISIS, Assad can focus on the more rational rebels who have challenged his authority.

That’s what he did in Idlib Province. And as Trump feels about nuclear weapons, Assad figured that if he has chemical weapons, he might as well use them.

5. So here are the options if you’re a Syrian:

You can support Assad and the idea that it’s OK to use whatever force necessary to crush people who oppose you.

You can oppose Assad and fear what happened in Idlib.
You can flee.

But if you do, you understand that few countries – and certainly not the Trumpian United States, which has abdicated its stature as the refuge of the wretched – want you. You’ll risk your life to get to the West, where you’ll be exploited or shunned.

It’s a nightmare with no end in sight. It’s cruelty, magnified.

1. It’s Wednesday, March 29, 2017.

2. It’s the birthday of English composer William Walton and American businessman Sam Walton. Yes, you can buy a recording of William Walton’s work at Sam Walton’s walmart.com.

It’s also the 122nd birthday of my grandfather, Joseph Loscocco. I think of him all the time and wish he were here to come up with some really good phrases to use against the Trumpian Intrusion.

3. You knew when this idiot was elected president and the Republicans held Congress that there would be days like yesterday.

Trump spent his day crowing about how he’s ending the war on coal. By lifting the restrictions on its use and mining, what he’s really doing is pandering to coal mining companies and people who’ve decided they’d rather work in a mine than figure out something safer to do.

In the process, he’s taking the United States out of a leadership role in combatting climate change, which Trump and morons like him deny exists. Now, the world is in the precarious position of relying on China to save it from a future environmental disaster. To their credit and against expectations, the Chinese seem determined to take this leadership seriously.

Yeah, it’s infuriating – not to mention short-sighted.

And it’s a sign that the Trumpians suffer from memory loss.

Because if you’re their – which, by the way, is my – age, you should remember what it was like to travel to big cities in this country when coal was dominant. How routine it was to smell something in the air and to have your eyes tear and itch as you got closer to the industrial center.

I remember my father driving through a yellow fog of smoke in Gary, Indiana, on our way to Chicago in 1971. You couldn’t see anything except for the open flame of the steel plants that glowed beneath the – to put it benevolently – haze.

Yesterday, Trump bragged that he was putting Americans to work. If his brain was wired normally, he would realize that the future is in developing energy sources that are sustainable – that there are real, good jobs in alternative power and fuel.

Instead, like a lot of older people, he thinks the old ways are the only ways. Positive thinking saved America once, when leaders of both parties – hell, Richard Nixon was a visionary compared to what we have now – got together to solve an obvious problem.

When this orange jackass is gone, will normal intelligence be able to save American again?

4. Then you have what the pillbugs of American politics, the Republicans in Congress, did with your Internet privacy.

The House voted to lift rules that barred Internet service providers from selling your browsing data and app usage. All that stuff is now highly marketable material for whoever you get your online service from.

What’s the advantage to consumers?

Well, you have the usual schpiel about how government regulations inhibit creativity.

But I suspect the creativity will be more along the lines of finding more ways to send you e-mail solicitations you don’t want, bug you with telemarketing calls and otherwise intrude on whatever it is you do.

And now there is a serious question about whether or not what you see online can be seen by people you don’t want to see it.

Yes, there might be prurient reasons why people wouldn’t want that. But there’s also the woman in a dangerous relationship or the guy with a mysterious ailment who’s been searching for ways to get help.

Is it a good idea to let ISPs sell your data who might be able to exploit the vulnerable?

I don’t think so. But Republicans do, because anything they can do to help someone who donated money to them make more money to donate to them, they’ll do.

Pillbugs.

1. It’s Saturday, March 25, 2017. It’s the birthday of Howard Cosell and Gloria Steinem.

Some quick thoughts about the Republican American Health Care Act Debacle of 2017:

2. For seven years, we’ve heard Republicans say they had a better idea about health care than the odious Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

Seven years of playing on the biggest perceived flaws in the ACA – that people weren’t able to keep their doctors, that slowing the pace of premium increases didn’t end premium increases and that forcing young people to get insurance or pay a penalty

Seven years of claiming that government overreach was infringing on people’s freedom.

Seven years of winning elections by telling people that they had a better idea. Something that preserved their choices and saved them money.

Nothing. These bastards – led by Trump and Ryan, make no mistake – had nothing. They tried to throw something together as a bandage to cover the wound they wanted to inflict.

It was never about providing people with health care solutions. It was always about capitalizing on their anxieties.

Shame on them. Shame on the American people for believing them.

3. Because here was the Republicans’ big miscalculation:

Before the ACA, even people with fairly good health plan attained through their employer had anxieties.

Remember that pre-existing conditions weren’t covered. Remember that a lot of the care special to women – pregnancy prevention comes quickly to mind – wasn’t covered. Remember that, if you’re a parent, your kids were no longer covered the day they finished college – sooner if they didn’t go.

And all those polls that showed Obamacare was unpopular were misleading.

At times, a plurality of Americans didn’t like it because it was an intrusion on their lives.

But if you added the percentage who liked Obamacare to the percentage who didn’t like it because it didn’t do enough, you usually crossed the 50% mark.

A solid majority of Americans doesn’t want to go back to the days when it was a completely free market.

When they saw a bill that would do that, they went crazy. They told the Republicans that their idea was ridiculous.

The result was yesterday.

4. What happens now?

Well, to hear Trump, he’s saying he will let Obamacare die of its faults and then Democrats will come running to him, begging for a deal.

And he can do a lot to push Obamacare down. That health.gov website can get worse. He can cajole some more insurers to pull out of the exchanges, offering fewer choices – there are already lots of areas where only one company is involved, driving premiums higher.

So the first thing supporters need to do is to cut the celebration short. Focus on what changes can be made to ACA to help sustain it.

And then they need to sell that. Big time. That should be a big focus of the next year. Go on the air and explain ACA 2.0 – how they’re going to solve the problems that have cropped up.

It’s hard in this environment to think there are people on the other side to reach out to. There’s hope – read the thoughtful Atlantic piece by David Frum, a conservative now scorned by the right, who believes there’s a way to better health care in this country through some form of government intervention.

There probably are others like him. Clearly, Mitt Romney used to be – it’s the Massachusetts health care plan that he shepherded that’s the model for Obamacare.

And I’ll bet he didn’t do it alone – there are others on the Republican side who are likely still crowing – as they can – about what a success they pulled off.

Democrats have a choice. They can see the Republican failure as a sign that it’s time to push for the real dream – a single-payer system that would put the U.S. in the same league as Canada, Britain and other Western democracies. Personally, I’m cool with that.

Or, even though they’re out of power, they can govern. They can come up with the Obamacare improvements in league with those Republicans who also believe the idea of the United States should work. That compromise and innovation still have a place in this country, despite the small-minded jackass in the White House and his counterpart in the Speaker’s chair.

The Republicans punted on health care yesterday. In football, punts are notoriously hard to field. Sometimes, the returner bobbles it, and the other side grabs the loose ball and ends up closer to its end zone.

But sometimes, the returner catches the ball, finds an opening and scores.

That’s what the Democrats need to do. It’s not easy. But it’s better for everyone if they succeed.

1. It’s Thursday, March 16, 2017.

2. It’s the birthday of Henny Youngman, Jerry Lewis and Curtis Granderson. That last name is there because he’s a great New York Met and occasionally as funny as the other two.

3. It’s the day Northwestern plays its first game ever in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. We play Vanderbilt.

If this were a contest of journalism alums, we’d blow them out. Hopefully, that translates to hardwood. Go ‘Cats.

4. Usually, when a president announces a budget proposal, like the one Trump unveiled this morning, it’s declared “dead on arrival” by somebody in Congress.

This time, it’s hard to do that. Trump’s party has control of both houses of Congress, and you still get the sense that these people are begrudgingly beholden to him.

So while there are those who might say that what Trump proposes – increased military and homeland security spending and draconian cuts for diplomacy, health care, education and the environment – are subject to drastic revision, I’m not betting big bucks on that.

If anything has held true since Nov. 8, it’s that there isn’t some hidden moderation lurking in Trump’s craven mind. And Republicans are more than happy to go along if it means realizing their long-held dream of dismantling government.

So Democrats and other people who believe the United States shouldn’t become an armed camp of unhealthy idiots are right to fight this budget proposal with all the passion they can muster.

5. Wow, Muslim Ban Lite got quite the slamming from two judges.

Here’s the bottom line from the judges in Hawaii and Maryland:  When Trump and his henchmen went around the country badmouthing Muslims, it was easily translated into the idea that a ban of people from Muslim-majority nations was religious in nature.

And that’s unconstitutional.

Trump whined about it last night at one of his gatherings of the humanity-challenged in Tennessee.

But, as The Times reports, to get anything like he’s proposed, his administration has to go to court and prove that he and his people don’t hate Muslims.

That’s going to be very hard to do. The video is everywhere.

6. Speaking of last night’s rally, like an old rock star concert, Trump decided to get the crowd going with one of his greatest hits: the “lock her up” chant.

Yes, the idea that Hillary Clinton got 2,864,974 more votes than Trump still sticks in his craw and those of the worms who support him.

And they are worms. Everybody stop trying to make the case that these are people who are hurting and felt they had no other choice.

You might see that. I see people who have seethed at the fact that people of color, women and anyone else who isn’t them made some sort of progress in the last eight years. It drives them crazy.

So when they had an opportunity to relive the good times when they thought Hillary Clinton was a criminal for having a private e-mail server – even though their vice presidential candidate did, even while people on their team were cozying up to Russian operatives – they took it.

And Trump, nostalgic for the good old days, sucked it in like the leech he is.

1. It’s Wednesday, March 15, 2017. It’s the ides of March.

It’s the birthday of Andrew Jackson and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. People who like one generally don’t like the other.

2. I haven’t done a post in a while. The last one was written the day my father passed away.

The very next day, my wife’s father – another great man – passed away.

So, yeah, there’s been a lot to deal with the past two weeks. I’m planning something more specific about the circumstances in the next few days.

3. Some folks who watched the Trump tax reveal on Rachel Maddow’s show last night feel let down. They were hoping for some shocker about how much Trump is in the Russians’ pocket, or whether he paid off some mobsters or even that he isn’t as rich as he says he is.

That only the front two pages of Trump’s 2005 return surfaced guaranteed that what was revealed was a mere sliver of the information.

I have a business (this) and I know how complicated my return is. I’m certain Trump’s 2005 return is about as long as “War and Peace.”

I’ll get to the hyping of the reveal in a sec. Here’s what I take away from the tax revelation:

— The Alternative Minimum Tax is a curse phrase for any individual or couple that reaches a modicum of success.

I’ll go to my accountant, Kathleen, and we’ll start calculating our IRS status. And we’ll reach a reasonable figure – until Kathleen says “Now we have to figure out AMT.” That’s when my checkbook twitches.

The idea behind AMT was to make certain that people who make a solid income pay a fair share of taxes.

And when you see the Trump return, you understand the logic of it.

If Trump didn’t pay $31 million in AMT, he would have paid less than 5% of the $152 million he claimed in income. And he paid less than 15% if you take into account the $103 million in business losses the supposedly great businessman claimed on his personal return.

I would take that deal in a heartbeat. I – and other people who make 2% or less of Trump’s gross income – should be able to take that kind of deal in a heartbeat.

Trump wants to abolish AMT. People like me usually cheer that idea. We shouldn’t. AMT should be reformed, not abolished, if only to hold accountable people who make more money in a year than I’ll make in 40 or more lifetimes.

I’m more than happy to pay my fair share in taxes. And I most certainly believe I should pay at a higher rate than someone making less than me.

But I should pay at a lower rate than a guy making 1,000 times my income.

— Is there any doubt in your mind that Trump is behind the reveal of this tax return?

Forget the “CLIENT COPY” stamp on the return. In the Trumpian mind, this return passes for doing civic duty. In his eyes, he paid $38 million in taxes on $49 million in income. That left him with a measly $11 million.

And it’s a distraction. Damn, I’m falling for it right now.

I’m not writing about the abomination of a Republican health care plan. I’m not writing about connections between Trump’s people and Russians. I’m not writing about how he plans to gut one of the cornerstones of America’s success in the past decade – the fuel-efficiency standards that have made U.S.-made vehicles competitive with those from other countries.

I guess I believe that other media will stay focused on the other pitches coming at them. The Times is leading with Republicans nervous about their health care debacle. The Washington Post is leading with the pending indictment of Russian government officials in the Yahoo hacking case. The WSJ is leading the Federal Reserve about to raise interest rates.

So I feel better.

4. All right, I’m biased. I’m proud of my CNN career and the folks I worked with proudly for 16 years.

So, full disclosure, you should keep that in mind as I complain about Rachel Maddow on MSNBC.

Politically, I’m in sync with Ms. Maddow – much as I’m sure her audience is. I don’t have a beef with her opinions – I share most of them.

But the way she presented that tax return last night troubles me.

I understand that her show usually features a 15-minute open of her riffing on the story of the day. That’s fine – if you’re interested in that – when she’s not breaking news.

But to hold the reveal for as long as she did, and to find out it’s only the first two pages of the 2005 return, had to disappoint the thousands – if not millions – online who were expecting some great disclosure that unmasked the idiot in the White House.

Ms. Maddow oversold a story. I understand that – TV people need viewers.

But had she just broken the news at the open, and expounded on what she revealed later in the show, she would get more credit than she’s going to get now.

Especially if Trump is behind the reveal. The more she hyped it, the more she lets Trump come off as an aggrieved citizen whose private information lay naked before the wolves of the media. That’s a bunch of crap, but she opened herself to it.

Rachel Maddow’s fans are devoted to her. Just like Sean Hannity’s on Fox. And that’s the comparison to make. Both are amen corners for their followers, and they compromise any journalism they commit when they can’t stop themselves from preaching to the choir.

I just wanted to get that off my chest. I’ll deal with more personal matters later in the week.