1. It’s Thursday, December 15, 2016.

2. On this day 225 years ago, the Bill of Rights went into effect when Virginia’s legislature approved it.

The Bill of Rights. In the Trump era, is it about to become a museum piece?

3. There’s still a way for Trump not to become president.

It’s a hope clung to by Democrats and the straggler #NeverTrump types on the right who are still in shock that such a thing could happen.

It goes something like this: 37 of the 306 electors awarded to Trump on Nov. 8 must opt not to vote for him when the Electoral College convenes Monday. That would leave him at 269 electoral votes, one shy of the 270 needed.

What would entice those 37 to not vote for Trump?

Some might be troubled – as well they should be – by the indications that the Russians manipulated the election. In this reasoning, they hacked into both political parties and released damaging information about the one they wanted to lose – the Democrats.

Some might be troubled by the rampant conflict of interests that seem to lurk around this particular president-elect. There are few people who don’t seem to believe this guy is using the highest office in the land to get rich. It should be unsettling.

But 37 is a lot of electors. About one in eight.

Now, the second thing that would have to happen in the next four days is for there to appear some candidate who those electors believe would make a better president than Trump.

4. And there’s one other person who has to agree with them.

Hillary Clinton.

Yeah, remember her. The one who got 2.83 million more votes than the guy declared the winner.

What Clinton would have to sign off on is the idea that the 232 electors slated to vote for her should be freed to vote for someone else. Namely, the candidate that the 37 faithless Trump electors want.

And who would that be?

If you’re a liberal Democrat like me, or just a person who thinks there should be something noble about the USA, let me ask a question. Which would you prefer right now – Trump or either President Willard Mitt Romney or President John Sidney McCain III?

That, to me, is a no-brainer. Yes, Romney and McCain are conservative Republicans, and will probably act on the same agenda that Trump seems set to endorse. We’re going to have to fight for Medicare and Obamacare and a woman’s right to choose and who knows what else.

But at least we’d be dealing with someone proven to be above self-interest. Actual patriots who are not puppets of Vladimir Putin.

If Clinton checks off on the choice, that would give both Trump and either Romney or McCain 269 electoral votes. That would throw the election to the House.

5. In the 115th Congress, 32 state delegations are all or mostly Republican, 17 are all or mostly Democratic and one, Maine, is divided.

So the 17 Democratic delegations and, since we’re being fanciful, Maine, would have to flip eight Republican delegations from Trump to Romney or McCain.

Another tall order. But if we’re conducting this exercise, let’s take the final leap and say Utah, Arizona and six other states that would put country over party – with the help of patriotic Democrats.

On Jan. 20, Romney or McCain would take the oath of office. Trump would be apoplectic. Ditto his followers.

But a sane man would be in the Oval Office. Putin would be thwarted.

It’s a nice dream in the middle of our national nightmare.

6. Here’s why it won’t happen.

It is doubtful that one in eight electors is faithless. I know that there are reports that there might be 20 or so. I don’t believe it.

Republicans like one thing more than their principles – they like to win. And, despite putting up the least qualified candidate for president in American history, and being fully prepared to disown him had he lost as expected, the R guy won.

There’s another more principled reason why this is a fantasy.

Do we really want these electors to decide for themselves who should or shouldn’t be president when the people of their state have made their choice? Who the hell are they?

Yes, you could make the argument that we didn’t know the extent that the information upon which Americans were basing their choice was tampered by a hostile foreign power.

Perhaps the drip, drip of hacked e-mails that Putin’s tame pets, Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, released made the Democrats seem petty and untrustworthy.

But let’s face the facts.

While Hillary Clinton, as of the moment I’m writing this, got 2,838,506 more votes, 62,951,513 people actually voted for Trump. They actually looked at these two people, watched one of them campaign in hatred and pettiness, and said, “Yeah, he should be president.”

There’s no getting around that.

That more people in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania wanted the horse’s ass is something this country will wrestle with for perhaps the first half of this century. I believe I won’t live to see the damage totally undone – if it ever is.

It would be nice if Trump didn’t become the 45th President of the United States. Really, really nice.

But it’s just a dream.

On Monday, unless there is some kind of thunderbolt, the Electoral College will confirm the people’s second choice.

1. It’s Wednesday, December 14, 2016.

2. On this day four years ago, a sick guy with a semi-automatic rifle walked into an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

He killed 20 children, all between the ages of six and seven, as well as six adults trying to protect them.

It makes me sick to my stomach to write that last sentence.

And yet there are things that make me sicker.

It makes me sick that 20 children – children! – could be massacred in a freaking American classroom. And the United States of America, through its elected representatives, did absolutely nothing to make as certain as possible this could never happen again.

That despite the exhortation of the President of the United States, Congress shrugged this atrocity off. And we, the American people, didn’t storm the offices of these clowns and demand they do what’s right.

Instead, these people listened to a goddamn jackass representing the nation’s seemingly insatiable lust for things that go bang.

He stood before cameras and – in response to the idea that maybe some weapons are unsuitable for civilian life or that some people aren’t psychologically capable of operating these weapons – said the following:

“The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

The idea being that these kids – everybody’s kids – would have been safer if there had been more guns. Not fewer. That there wasn’t one gun too many at Sandy Hook Elementary School eleven days before Christmas.

You know, in retrospect, the election of Trump shouldn’t have surprised us. We did nothing about this. Why wouldn’t someone try to find out to what depths we’d sink as a nation?

To their credit, the governors of New York and Connecticut, and the legislatures of both states, did respond. They enacted more restrictive gun legislation. With 48 other states complicit in shoot-a-mania, it’ll be hard for the legislation to have the full effect it should.

And, of course, the people who feel incomplete without lethal force at their disposal remain bothered by even the simple actions those states took.

In New York, where I live, I’ve seen yard signs demanding the repeal of the SAFE Act, which is the law passed in the wake of Sandy Hook. I’ve driven behind pickups with bumper stickers reading “Fuck Cuomo,” the F being in the shape of an automatic weapon, and Andrew Cuomo being our governor.

Now, with the election to a White House of a stooge who once said the “Second Amendment people” might have something influence on a Hillary Clinton presidency, the odds are the overarming of the United States will continue unabated.

And that’s especially true given that instead of throwing the mental midget from the roof of one of his gaudy buildings, the president-elect has embraced a guy who says what happened at Sandy Hook is a hoax.

A mental defective who has the gall to say that what happened didn’t. That it’s a tall tale aimed at taking away Americans’ right to shoot things – animate or otherwise – at will.

I feel sick writing that sentence. But I had to get it out of my system before I finish.

3. And here’s how I want to finish.

I can’t imagine being a parent of one of those 20 children. I can’t imagine the pain – especially when the holidays, the supposed happiest time of the year, roll around.

I don’t know what I would say if I met one of them. “I’m sorry” seems small. “Your child is an angel” seems cruel.

All I know is that there was a wrong committed on this day four years ago. It has never been righted. Maybe it never can be.

But forgetting is not an option. So I won’t, and I hope you’ll think of those kids and adults, and strive for something better than an armed-to-the-teeth society.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 13, 2016.

2. It’s the 380th anniversary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony founding what would eventually become the National Guard.

I have a sick feeling we’re going to hear a lot about the National Guard in the years ahead.

3. Trump could have quelled some of the unrest in American politics, including among some Republicans, about indications that the Russians may have influenced our election.

All he had to do is stand fully behind a thorough investigation by a bipartisan panel. And he could put off naming an apparent Russophile, ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, as Secretary of State.

And he could have held the news conference, the first since his election, that was scheduled for Thursday.

But that’s all too easy. Why end a potential constitutional crisis when its continuation keeps your name at the top of the news?

There are too many things bubbling. The fact that Trump refuses to turn them down to a mere simmer is a big flashing danger sign.

4. So how do people offended by a possible Russian intrusion into American politics respond?

Especially when the people you’d want to lead you don’t seem able or willing to do so.

Yesterday, I said I thought that if the Russians acted to foul our election, they did so for two reasons. One was to eliminate the influence of President Obama, whose sanctions against the Russians after their aggression in Ukraine caused problems.

The other was to jumpstart the oil market, which is a huge chunk of the Russian economy. It has been hurt by falling demand around the world, in part because the world is getting better about using alternative energy.

That’s particularly true in the United States, where more people are putting solar panels on their roofs and driving fuel-efficient or even non-gas vehicles.

So installing an American administration more friendly to the oil industry might seem to Putin and the Russians like a good way to help business.

And yet that makes the answer as to how Americans outraged by all this can respond a little bit simpler.

5. Don’t give in.

Try to use less oil and gas. Buy a more fuel-efficient vehicle. Install solar panels on your roof. Insulate your home.

Do all those energy-efficient things that you’ve been doing for the past few decades. Do them all the time.

It’s clear the country’s energy policy will favor the oil industry in the Trump years. So the American people need an energy policy of their own that’s probably at odds with the government’s.

It would help if some organization, say the Natural Resources Defense Fund or the Sierra Fund, took the lead and determined a civilian national energy policy. Come up with a plan that cuts fuel consumption without any help from the Trump administration.

It might be a tall order. I’m not an expert on energy policy.

But I’m going to drive less starting Jan. 20. I’m going to bring out my sweatshirts for colder days.

Because every time I don’t use a fossil fuel, I’m sticking it to Trump and the Russians. And if enough people do that, it’s going to thwart their get-rich-again plans.

1. It’s Monday, December 12, 2016.

2. It’s the 25th anniversary of the Russian Federation’s breakoff from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. At that point, it was a mere formality – the Soviet Union, the mortal enemy of the United States in the first half of my life, was history.

For a while.

3. Are you as shocked as I am that the CIA and other American intelligence agencies believe the Russians acted to help Trump win the presidency?

That’s a trick question. Nobody with a brain is shocked by this.

The Russians’ collective thumb on the scale was revealed every time their tame pets at WikiLeaks released something else that was hacked from Democrats.

That said, there’s a two-part question worth asking. 

4. Why would the Russians do it, and why now?

The Russians have been trying to unravel us since the days of the Soviet Union. Look at all the espionage cases of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s. Look at the Cuban missile crisis and the Berlin Wall. The proxy wars and the “revolutions” in Latin America and Africa.

This is nothing new.

Historians have always believed the Russians’ motivation for doing anything is self-preservation. Yes, Russia is the biggest nation by size on Earth, and it possesses enormous natural resources and a good number of people.

But it has constantly fretted about enemies. In the past, those were Germany, Turkey and China, or their predecessor states.

Now, it is the United States, and the threat is more economic.

5. Because what happened here is about two o’s. Obama and oil.

President Obama might have famously pooh-poohed the threat from Russia in his debate with Mitt Romney in 2012. But Obama has been pretty clear-eyed about Russia and its latest incarnation of the tsars, Vladimir Putin.

He knew he couldn’t stop Putin from his landgrab in Ukraine when the Russians felt that changes in the Kiev government were making them insecure.

But the sanctions imposed were a slap that Putin resented. And Hillary Clinton would have been more of the same – an unacceptable option for Putin.

Then there’s oil. The Russian economy plunged into a deep recession last year after oil prices dropped worldwide, according to the CIA.

That’s because the Russians are heavily dependent on oil and other natural resources.

And you know what nation is using less oil? The United States.

One Obama administration success that doesn’t get as much notice as it should is the fact that this country is weaning itself from oil imports.

Part of that is improved fuel economy in our nation’s automotive fleet. Part of that is the surge in solar and wind power – you now can’t drive more than a mile or so without seeing solar panels somewhere.

And part of that is a little more of a mixed blessing – the rise of fracking as a way to extract oil in places that weren’t known as oil depositories, such as North Dakota and Ohio.

6. This hasn’t been good for Putin and Russia.

It also hasn’t been good for the oil industry and those dependent on it. Profits are down, hurting many of the companies, who were flush during the George W. Bush presidency when two of their own – Bush and Dick Cheney – were running things.

So look at the opportunity presented to Putin. Undermining the U.S. election could make sure his nemesis, Obama, wouldn’t have his legacy pass to his Secretary of State and, as a bonus, could help kickstart his moribund oil industry.

Especially with a stooge like Trump.

And with the selection of Rex Tillerson, the Exxon Mobil CEO and someone who has worked with Putin in the past, the deal is complete.

The effort to get oil flowing again, boosting Russia’s economy, can start. The national average for gas is $2.21 a gallon, and while that’s up about four cents since Trump’s election, it’s still well below what it was when Obama took office.

With oil-industry friendly policies and the recent OPEC decision to cut production, the slump might be coming to an end.

That helps Russia. A lot.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about how to respond.

It’s December 9, 2016, Kirk Douglas’ 100th birthday (the title of this absolutely does not apply to him!), and time for 20 Questions Friday.

I’ll ask questions that are on my mind. Maybe you have a good answer. Maybe you don’t. It’s a good way to pass a December Friday, and a chance for me to wish you a terrific weekend.

So here goes:

— Does it make any sense to pick an Environmental Protection Agency director who doesn’t have much use for the Environmental Protection Agency?

— Does it make any sense to pick a Labor Secretary who wants to replace human workers at his fast-food chains with robots?

— After most presidential campaigns, don’t the winners usually make efforts to reconcile the country rather than continue to divide it?

— Is there any doubt Trump will end his presidency richer than when he started it?

— Why does it seem as though the head of a Steelworkers’ local in Indiana is the wrong guy for Trump to pick on? #ImWithChuck

— Who, besides me, is a fan of white pizza?

— Is there any nonvirtual store that still sells 3.5-inch floppy disks? Or the 5.25-inch ones, for that matter?

— What is it about women that makes the Ohio Legislature so contemptuous? 

— What other kinds of nog are there other than egg?

— Bruce Springsteen and U2 showed up at Obama’s inaugural concert in 2009. Who do you think Trump will cough up?

— Isn’t it amazing that they can still work on big construction projects when it’s cold?

— Do you hate snow?

— Do you wonder if when Vince Guaraldi wrote the music for “A Charlie Brown Christmas” in 1965 that he thought people 51 years later would think there couldn’t be a holiday season without it?

— What do you think we’re doing wrong that the nation’s death rate went up last year?

— Did you share that Facebook video of your year in review?

— What big city is as hard to get to from its suburbs as New York?

— What’s your favorite Kirk Douglas movie? (I would answer “Ace in the Hole,” the darkest movie made about journalism) 

— Do you miss baseball?

— What’s the use of wond’rin’? (fourteenth in a series of song-title questions)

— Has there ever been an American who lived up to this country’s image of a hero as John Glenn? 

1. It’s Thursday, December 8, 2016.

2. It’s the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, a Christian holy day.

The immaculate conception, in this case, does not apply to Jesus – it applies to his mother, Mary, who needed to be conceived without original sin so she could deliver the son of God.

That’s as much theology as I care to get into right now. In fact, it’s more.

3. With Trump’s pick to run the EPA, Oklahoma’s oil-nuts attorney general Scott Pruitt, here’s what I expect next Earth Day:

I expect a parade of Trumpophiles to march to the nearest river, preferably one that has remained pristine, and each dump a gallon of gas into it.

Good old polluted water, just like America had the last time it was great.

4. This jackass’ Cabinet picks are Orwellian in their awfulness.

So here’s a reminder: Concentrate on one thing to get upset about – AND THEN DO SOMETHING TO TRY TO STOP IT.

If what Trump is going to do to the environment bothers you most of all, focus on the environment. Let someone else focus on abortion, Medicare, Obamacare, education and all the other things they want to destroy.

Here’s why: As of this writing, there are 2,676,029 more of us than there are of them. Remind Trump and his sycophants of that every chance you get.

5. A lot of Trumpophiles were in awe of Trump’s Carrier deal last week.

He had saved all those jobs from going to Mexico. What a hero! Working like a President even before he takes the oath.

But there’s always fine print.

And that’s what the head of the United Steelworkers Union local found out. Of the 1,100 jobs Trump claimed to be saving from heading south, 300 were administrative positions that were never Mexico-bound in the first place.

Furthermore, Carrier is still taking 600 jobs to Mexico.

The union official, Chuck Jones, dared to complain about this arrangement on CNN last night. 

Shortly thereafter, the world’s most dangerous Twitter account sprang into action.

Trump took to the phone to blast Jones, saying he’s done a terrible job representing the people who voted him to run their local. A while later, Trump – who pundits call the voice for American workers who feel disenfranchised – told the union to spend more time working and less time talking.

That’s hardly a populist message. That, by definition, is oligarchy.

That also is not surprising. Trump is out for Trump. The business elite are his kind of people. What else do you expect?

Someday, Trump will shove the wrong person. Maybe it’ll be Chuck Jones. Maybe it’ll be someone else.

I was waiting for Trump’s Lonesome Rhodes moment to come during the campaign. Perhaps it’ll come in his administration.

1. It’s Wednesday, December 7, 2016.

2. It’s the 75th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Until September 11, 2001, it was the most fatal attack on American territory by an outside force.

And perhaps this Pearl Harbor Day is a reminder that as horrible and despicable what happened that day was, the bloodiest day in American history remains the Battle of Antietam in Maryland. On that day, more than 3,500 Americans were killed by other Americans.

Which just goes to show that it seems the worst thing that can happen to us is what we do to ourselves. That’s what makes 30 days ago so scary.

3. Movies that you think about five days after you’ve seen them are the best.

Into that category falls “Loving,” a film about the interracial couple whose marriage was held as constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court – thereby ensuring that my marriage and the marriages of many friends and family members are legit as well.

For those not familiar with the case, Loving is actually the family name involved – Richard and Mildred Loving of rural Virginia. He was white, she was black. They grew up in a part of Virginia where the segregation of society in the Jim Crow days wasn’t quite as enforced.

And the point this movie subtly but surely made was that these people were in love. Which is the most important reason to get married.

But the laws of Virginia and several other states barred interracial marriage – what they called “miscegenation” – for the usual reasons of that era. Hatred. Prejudice. Stupidity. Racism. The laws rendered the normal benefits of marriage useless – women couldn’t inherit property from their late mate, and any children of such a union were considered illegitimate.

The Lovings were married in D.C., but were arrested when they returned home to Virginia. Faced with the possibility of imprisonment, they accepted exile in the nation’s capital – a place where two country folks felt out of place.

So they clandestinely lived in Virginia while the American Civil Liberties Union took up their case. After eight years, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in their favor.

That’s the recap. The acting, the camera work, the pacing of the film are impeccable. Having seen the HBO documentary about the Lovings, the resemblance of the cast to the real people and the use of their actual words give this film its enormous power.

4. What also gives the film enormous power, inadvertently, is the time of its release.

I tend to notice interracial couples. I think of them, no matter what the combination, as kindred spirits – people who overlooked, ignored or just didn’t even think about the fact that the person they love is of a wholly different race.

In the 30-plus years since we became – as my daughter puts it – a Chitalian family, the number of mixed-race couples has grown sharply. You notice that especially in places where there are a lot of tourists – Times Square, Walt Disney World, the Mall in Washington.

What has made me smile, up to now, is the idea that America is becoming even more of a melting pot than it’s traditionally been. We are combining cultures and ways of life, and the results should be greater tolerance, awesome art and funky interesting food.

And I guess I thought that other Americans were accepting this idea, maybe even embracing it.

But then again, maybe not.

You watch “Loving” as it depicts the Virginia sheriff and judge as the racists they are, and casts them as the villains that you believe they are.

And then you think about the election and what’s happened in the 29 days since, and you wonder whether there’s been a backlash brewing all this time.

That the people who want to make America great again see the “again” part as the time when everybody knew their place. The time before Obergefell v. Hodges, which gave same-sex couples the right to marry. And the time before Loving v. Virginia.

To those people, the sheriff and the judge were upholding standards and defending the American way. To those people, mixed-race couples are a threat, not a virtue. To those people, tolerance is weakness, mixture dilutes what they know.

5. My wife and I have been fortunate – to a point.

We don’t encounter a lot of overt prejudice. Our friends have remained our friends, our families have shown their love throughout our entire marriage.

But – and my kids made me more aware of this – this isn’t true with everyone. The people in the community where we live have always seemed wary of us. And there have been times when I sensed that people were treating us differently because we were a Caucasian-Asian couple.

I have to think, though, that prejudice is far worse for couples in which one partner is African-American – just because African-Americans encounter enormous prejudice even without a white person at their side.

I’ve been hoping this has been changing. That the fact that the people of the United States chose a mixed-race President twice showed that acceptance had arrived.

Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe this change in our demographics has overwhelmed people who fear all the other changes in their lives, such as technology.

And maybe that fear that they are living in a world that embraces mixing things up may have led them to the worst possible decision – the chance to stop it in its tracks with a demagogue in the White House.

6. I highly recommend “Loving.”

It’s a wonderful movie. It’s a reminder that love is the ultimate power, and that true love is standing there and taking the awful with the good next to someone you can’t be without. 

What hangs in the balance is whether the film is a light into the American future or a reminder about what some of us want to go back to.

I’m on the side of the Lovings.

1. It’s Tuesday, December 6, 2016.

2. Today is the feast of St. Nicholas aka Santa Claus. In many places around the world, this – and not Christmas Day – is when kids get the gifts.

3. Juries don’t videotape their deliberations. Efforts to get that to happen have fallen flat.

And that’s a shame, because it might help bring some understanding to the mistrial of the police officer who shot Walter Scott in cold blood.

Michael Slater, the now-former North Charleston, South Carolina, officer who was on trial, shot Scott in April of last year. Scott, who was unarmed, was fleeing a traffic stop.

Slater, who claimed Scott had threatened, wasn’t that far away from Scott when he shot him in the back and then tried to plant his weapon near Scott’s dead body.

We know all this because someone was secretly videotaping it. We see the whole thing unfold – Scott running, Slater shooting him, Slater planting the gun on the ground and calling his fellow officers.

But even with what seems like overwhelming evidence, one juror couldn’t bring him or herself to convict a police officer.

4. So far, no one’s giving up.

The state says it intends to prosecute Slater again. The governor, Nikki Haley, issued a statement advising that justice will come – an indication she still believes in the tightness of this case.

Even so, you have to wonder what in the world it’s going to take for a police officer in this country to be held accountable for killing an unarmed black man.

And, as a corollary, how are you going to get African-Americans and other minorities to buy into the idea that police officers are on their side?

Situations such as this can’t reasonably be expected to inspire confidence in the system. Why trust or respect a cop when any mistake you make could be your last?

This is not something, contrary to Trump and all the folks trashing Black Lives Matter, that’s going to be solved with giving police more power and demanding respect. And yet, that’s what we’re going to see for the next four years.

If the jury in the Slater trial had been videotaped, at least people would understand that it was one obstinate person blocking the way. The other 11 understand.

Yes, it would still be vexing, but at least those who believe justice was denied in the mistrial would understand that it’s not everyone – it’s not even the overwhelming majority.

It’s one person who couldn’t see his or her way to what seems to the rest of us to be the truth.

5. After their meeting two days after the election, Trump indicated a new-found respect for President Obama.

He has spent the 26 days since showing his disdain for his soon-to-be predecessor.

Every pick he has made for his Cabinet reeks with antipathy for the policies of the past eight years. In fact, not only do these picks diss Obama, they seem to diss what the departments these people are going to head stand for.

Yesterday, it was Ben Carson, a guy who early in the process was said to have refused a Cabinet position because he didn’t know enough to run a government department.

Now, a guy who’s not a fan of public housing gets to run it. He’ll be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

That goes along with an Education Secretary pick who seems to hate public schools; a Defense Secretary pick who compromises the idea that civilians – and not generals or former generals – should run the military; and an Attorney General pick whose idea of justice doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the people the department is created to protect.

Because of the way this election turned out, there’s little Democrats can do to stop this 180-degree turn on the course of the Obama years. They can hope there are some reasonable Republicans in the Senate – you keep thinking about Susan Collins of Maine – but that’s about all they’ve got.

6. But here’s a thought: Democrats can’t just lie down and roll over. And they have the folks to do that.

When Jeff Sessions has his confirmation hearing to be attorney general, among the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee who will question him will be Al Franken of Minnesota.

All I want is Al Franken to be Al Franken. And let the cameras roll.

Hold Sessions’ and Betsy DeVos’ and James Mattis’ and Ben Carson’s feet to the fire. Make them commit to what they’ll do. Show America what it’s really getting.

It’s not a lot. But it’s a start to a comeback.

Gee whiz, a lot went on the past few days. Two quick thoughts before this day gets away:

7. If Sunday’s incident at a Washington pizza place doesn’t scare you, you’re probably in numb-enough shape for the next few years.

A man entered the place with assault-style rifle looking to rescue kids from a child sex ring.

Except that the ring was non-existent, the plant of somebody trying to ratfuck Hillary Clinton’s campaign by planting a fake story online. The story said she and her campaign manager were involved in the ring.

The guy was arrested; he didn’t shoot anybody, but he sure as hell wrecked the peace of a lot of innocent people for who knows how long.

How many of these fake-story booby traps are out there, being read by less-than-developed minds and taken as gospel?

This isn’t just political chicanery. It’s an act of war. It’s potentially more devastating than anything the Russian Army could have tried to do during the Cold War. And somebody better figure it out. Quickly.

8. If you haven’t seen the absolutely chilling new video put out by Sandy Hook Promise, which is led by parents whose children were killed nearly four years ago in perhaps the most heinous shooting incident ever. (Here’s a link to the home page: http://www.sandyhookpromise.org/)

The video is so powerful that I won’t describe it. You need to see it to get the impact. It allows the message – that there are kids out there who pose a threat – to resonate loud and clear.

And it’s a reminder that despite what some of the deplorables who support Trump say, Sandy Hook is a real American tragedy.

I’ll have more to say a week from tomorrow – the fourth anniversary of this nightmare.

It’s December 2, 2016, the 15th anniversary of Enron’s bankruptcy filing, and time again for 20 Questions Friday.

I’m not so much interested in the answers to these as I am thinking about what’s going on that makes me want to ask them.

Enjoy the weekend.

— Should we make as though we’re at some sort of perverse commencement and wait until all the names are announced before we go into full-scale terror mode about Trump’s cabinet?

— Did you buy an extra box of Carr’s crackers or Pop Tarts in order to make up for some dolt who’s boycotting Kellogg’s because it stopped advertising on white-nationalist rally site Breitbart?

— Why is the National Christmas Tree outside the White House so weird looking?

— Does picking a former general to run the Pentagon compromise the principle of civilian control of the military?

— Do Americans really want to go to war with Iran?

— When you heard Trump had picked someone named “Mad Dog” as Defense Secretary, were you relieved for a moment that a screaming sports broadcaster couldn’t do that much damage to our military?

— How happy is the guy who runs Carrier, having just fleeced Trump, Pence, the people of Indiana and about 1,000 people who are still going to see their jobs go to Mexico?

— Should the Democrats go all-in on trying to capture the Senate seat from Louisiana next week or, as the Atlantic’s Clare Foran points out, should they squirrel their resources for races more winnable over the next two years? 

— Have you seen a lot of holiday shoppers so far this season?

— Is Starbucks’ retiring CEO, Howard Schultz, the greatest marketer of all time for getting us to drink vastly overpriced coffee and tea?

— Who knew there was a world chess championship going on?

— Three weeks after the election, why does Trump continue to overshadow important news such as the ongoing tragedy of the fire that killed 11 people in Gatlinburg, Tenn.? 

— Did you read the story in the Times about why 21 people were killed in 1919 when an explosion released a wave of molasses through the streets of Boston? 

— Are you swamped with holiday catalogs that feature gifts you can only imagine buying someone because you just need to buy someone a gift?

— Who or what determined what people eat for breakfast as opposed to the rest of the day?

— Is Trevor Noah’s evisceration of The Blaze’s Tomi Lahren his breakthrough moment, or was it so overpowering that he elicited sympathy for her? 

— When can I get tickets for “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” on Broadway in 2018?

— How many Americans are aware that South Korea is about to force its president out of office?

— When will I see you smile again? (thirteenth in a series of song-title questions)

— Will the green lights Trump gives Wall Street and big business lead to another Enron?

1. It’s Thursday, December 1, 2016.

2. Miserable November 2016 is finally over.

3. Today is the first day you can open an advent calendar.

I used to love them – forget the “used to,” I still do. When you’re young, you’re so excited that Christmas is coming – and the opening of a little door to reveal some little picture of a toy helps build and harness that thrill.

One of my goals for next Christmas is to put together an interactive advent calendar for grownups. Not sure if it will have coupons or links to cool stuff or just really good things I’ve read in the year that will have passed.

Definitely working on it.

4. Kellogg’s unlikely evolution from kid-targeted marketer of sugar-coated cereal to conservative bête-noire is complete.

Sensing that maybe being linked to a hot bed of racism and anti-semitism doesn’t help sell Pop Tarts, Kellogg announced this week it was pulling its ads from the right-wing Breitbart site.

This, of course, is the latest outrage for people who aren’t satisfied with winning an election despite getting 2.5 million fewer votes than their opponent.

Breitbart and the dolts who read it now want a boycott of Kellogg, calling a company’s decision to embrace a broader audience than them “bigotry.” 

Here’s hoping this goes as well as the boycott of “Hamilton” they sought after the cast urged VP-elect Mike Pence to take the play’s open-minded message to heart. Last week, “Hamilton” posted the biggest weekly gross in Broadway history, more than $3.3 million. 

The white nationalism espoused by Breitbart and embraced by Trump supporters is ascendant. So, to be sure, Kellogg deserves some credit for doing the right thing – even if it is probably good business in the long run.

5. So, as a service to those of us fighting the good fight, here are Kellogg’s brands in case you want to add them to your shopping cart in the next few days.

Because why shouldn’t Snap, Crackle and Pop get the same kind of love as Alexander Hamilton?

— Kellogg’s cereals include Rice Krispies, Corn Flakes, Special K, Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops

— Special K also has brands of frozen breakfast sandwiches and snack bars

— Keebler cookies

— Pringles snack foods

— Cheez-It crackers

— Austin snack foods

— Mother’s cookies

— MorningStar Farms meat substitutes

— Carr’s crackers

— Gardenburger veggie burgers

— Murray Sugar Free cookies

— Famous Amos cookies

— Pop Tarts

— Eggo frozen waffles

All brands: http://www.kelloggcompany.com/en_US/brandportfolio.html

6. The founder of the liberal blog Daily Kos is, understandably, irritated these days.

Markos Moulitsas decided last night to let it all out. He raged at all the people and organizations he’s holding responsible for the debacle of the Trump election. 

He blamed Hillary Clinton. He blamed the Clinton campaign. He blamed Democratic consultants. He blamed Bernie Sanders. He blamed Sanders’ supporters. He blamed the news media. He blamed President Obama. He blamed himself. He blamed Trump supporters. And he blamed Trump and the Republicans.

Moulitsas didn’t really leave anybody out. And that was his point. It seems as though he wants to get the anger out now, because the future is about fighting the horror show we’re about to endure.

Twenty-three days on, it remains very hard to swallow what happened. You and me and Moulitsas and anyone with a brain are justified in worrying if the future of civilization hangs in the balance. This election is proof that time travel will never be invented – no one from the future has come back to save us.

But 23 days is enough. It’s now December, the final full month of what now seems like the halcyon days of the Obama administration. We should relish the good that’s been done over the past eight years and gird for the fights ahead.

7. And there are fights.

It is time to square up on Medicare. People have planned their lives (my hand is raised!) around the idea that, at age 65, their health care will become less of a concern thanks to one of the greatest federal programs ever.

Now, with this ignoramus Tom Price ticketed for Health and Human Services, that guarantee faces the gravest risk since the inception of Medicare in 1965.

Medicare is worth fighting for. The people who voted for Trump were told he wasn’t going to take it away from them. Imagine their surprise when he, Price and Paul Ryan do exactly that.

Don’t get mad. Get even. There’s no tactic too dirty, no stratagem too over the top. It has to seem to the people in favor of this that changing Medicare in any way will come at a heavy price.

I’m game. The election is over. The fight for the future is on.