1. It’s Tuesday, November 29, 2016.

2. A lot of smart journalists point out that Trump likes the distraction method of dodging controversies.

Today’s case in point: When The Wall Street Journal put out a story about the massive loans from foreign and domestic banks given to son-in-law Jared Kushner, Trump’s misdirection play was flag burning. 

This morning, he not only tweeted how terrible burning the flag is, but suggested that the penalty for doing so could be loss of citizenship.

Up until now, the Constitution of the United States has banned the loss of citizenship for native citizens; unlike the Russia of Trump’s buddy, Putin, we don’t do exiling here. Yet. 

Now, whenever this furor rises on the right, you have to ask the question: Is there some sort of hidden epidemic of flag burning across the land? Is there anything stupider to protest something than burning the American flag?

But instead of discussing something off-topic like flag burning when we get bored -something unlikely between now and 2020 – Trump tries to distract us with a phony flag-burning crisis.

3. Why would Trump bring up flag burning today?

Well, it could be because there’s another big story about the financial entanglements of this pillbug, his spawn and anyone who embraces them. And how better to take attention from the real story with a agita-inducing discussion of something else inflammatory – literally and figuratively.

This is what he did with the “Hamilton” flap a couple of weeks back. The fact that he paid $25 million to settle the fraud claims against his Trump University got short shrift next to the president-elect’s irritation with the booing and lecturing of his running mate at the theater.

4. It’s how he rolls. It shouldn’t be how we roll.

According to the Journal, Jared Kushner’s real estate company has hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from financial institutions, sells condominiums to buyers in the United States and  abroad, and is part of a program that helps wealthy overseas investors get green cards to emigrate to this country.

The paper quotes a Kushner spokeswoman as saying he’ll resolve all conflicts if, as expected, he’s given a position of responsibility in the new administration.

But shouldn’t he have done that by now? Trump is making decisions about government positions and policies, and he and his family are doing so knowing full well that they could stand to benefit financially from those decisions.

That’s what the flag burning’s about. Let’s keep our eye on the prize.

5. It’s hard for any reasonable American to get choked up about the death of Fidel Castro.

But Cuba’s a complicated issue, which makes it hard to get as excited about it as those who celebrated in the streets of Miami early Sunday.

Here’s why those people in Miami were happy: Castro was vicious. He killed his enemies. He destroyed families. He repressed his people.

His policies were to the benefit, the enrichment of his family. In that way, he was no better than his corrupt predecessor, Fulgencio Batista, who Castro overthrew in the revolution of 1959.

And, because the United States wasn’t on his side, he did everything he could to screw us over. The Mariel boatlift in 1980 was aimed at dumping more than 100,000 people – some of them criminals and the mentally ill – in the U.S. And, before that, he helped bring the world the closest it’s been – until now – to nuclear war when he let the Soviets put missiles just 90 miles from Key West.

The reason many of those celebrating were in Miami in the first place was to flee Castro’s dictatorship. So their joy is understandable.

6. Here’s the problem: Castro died at age 90.

He survived numerous attempts to kill him launched by the United States government, organized crime and whoever else. He managed to keep power despite the U.S. economic embargo, partly because he kept people happy with free health care and improvements in the nation’s literacy.

He was going to die someday. Making it to 90 is pretty good. He wasn’t around to see all the celebrations, partly because – like him or not – he had the last laugh.

Now, his brother and the current Cuban president, Raul, is stuck. Not only did his brother leave him with this somewhat troubled country. But now, the guy who might have been able to help him untangle the mess – President Obama – is headed out of the White House.

And the jerk who’s taking over is listening, for now, to the bitter-enders who think the economic embargo – the most unsuccessful U.S. nonmilitary foreign policy ever! – should continue.

Obama’s logic was that if something doesn’t work for more than 50 years, maybe you should try something else. But Trump is indicating he’ll go a different way unless there’s some kind of deal ( the world might have spared the coming debacle if only Trump had gotten picked from the audience by Monty Hall on “Let’s Make a Deal”).

That deal could very well be the one he wanted to make when it was illegal to do so – build a Trump property in Havana. Raul Castro might want to think about that. Right now, he’s got to ride herd on a deprived country that might just want to join the rest of the world’s consumers.

But Castro’s death is a reminder that good doesn’t always triumph over evil. Yes, he’s dead. But he died undefeated and peacefully in his own bed. Unfortunately, there are tyrants who get to say that.

It’s November 25, 2016. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, aka Black Friday, and time for this week’s edition of 20 Questions Friday.

All I do is put 20 questions out there. All you do is read them, answer them if you wish, and hopefully both of us feel better after it’s over.

Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

— Are you holiday shopping today? Why?

— If people stopped showing up at stores on Thanksgiving night, would stores that open on Thanksgiving night still open on Thanksgiving night?

— Are you as surprised as I am that stores haven’t started opening on Christmas Day yet?

— Just askin’ – did Mike Pence actually pay for those “Hamilton” tickets? Or, if they were freebies, isn’t the cast expressing itself a small price to pay for seeing the show?

— How’s that “Hamilton” boycott the Trump dolts called after last Friday going?

— I understand that there’s strong feeling about Common Core. But wouldn’t it have been nice if the subject came up during one of the presidential debates instead of, say, one more question about Hillary Clinton’s e-mails?

— Is it possible that Education Secretary-designate Betsy DeVos wants to teach the nation’s kids English literature by having them see what Oliver Twist’s life was really like?

— Do you find it hard to figure out how warmly to dress this time of year?

— Is it me, or are people driving worse since the election?

— Why do you think Jill Stein is the force behind the proposed review of paper ballots in Michigan, Wisconsin and, maybe, Pennsylvania?

— When do you think Jill Stein realized that she might go down in history as the Ralph Nader of 2016?

— Does anybody make mince pies anymore?

— Would Democrats be better off spending their money trying to elect Foster Campbell to the U.S. Senate from Louisiana instead of donating to a long-shot effort to reverse the presidential election? 

— Why is a dog show such a big thing to watch on Thanksgiving Day?

— Are supermarkets crowded the day after Thanksgiving?

— Will the Colombia-FARC deal stick this time?

— Do you think all the billionaires Trump seems to be employing for his cabinet secretly needed the jobs?

— Have you read Bruce Springsteen’s terrific autobiography, “Born to Run”?

— Is that all there is? (twelfth in a series of song-title questions)

— Have you started playing holiday music yet?

1. It’s Thursday, November 24, 2016. It’s Thanksgiving.

2. I just wrote a 935-word blog post that I put aside. I put it aside because I wanted you to be thankful that you didn’t have to try to read a 935-word blog post on Thanksgiving Day.

So I’ll keep it short.

I’ve struggled to think about thankfulness the last 16 days. The election has shattered my sense that justice always prevails, that good always triumphs over evil, that the arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward justice.

But I know too many good people to believe that the whole world is shattering. My wife and my children. My parents – who today celebrate 65 years of marriage. My wife’s parents. The rest of my family and all my friends. My former colleagues in journalism, under siege in this world gone bonkers. The people on the front lines of helping those in need.

Together, we’re going to make a big honking stink about stuff we’re not crazy about. We’re going to fight for what we believe – and that can never be wrong.

Yes, this is going to be a rough few years. But I’m thankful to be on this team – the side of the angels. I like our chances.

Happy Thanksgiving!

1. It’s Wednesday, November 23, 2016. It’s the day before Thanksgiving.

2. On this date 212 years ago, our 14th president, Franklin Pierce, was born.

As bad a president as he was – to give you a hint, he was a Northerner whose secretary of war was his friend, Jefferson Davis, and who sought appeasement with the South – even he has to be offended in his grave at the thought of Trump in the White House.

3. Hillary Clinton’s popular vote lead surpassed 2 million overnight.

Some of her prominent supporters were aflutter last night after a New York magazine article. The article quotes a group of prominent computer scientists and lawyers as saying that results in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin might have been manipulated or hacked. Those three states swung the outcome of the election in favor of Trump.

Among the supporters who got revved up by this were Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist, and Keith Olbermann, who has been breathing fire against Trump in videos for GQ magazine. 

I am among those who would love to believe that this election was stacked against Hillary Clinton. It already had Russian hacking, selective WikiLeaks leaking, media focus on her e-mails and the FBI director’s thumb on the scale. So why wouldn’t it be plausible that somebody cooked the books on the vote totals in three Rust Belt states?

Well, first, there’s the math. Clinton trails Trump by 68,965 votes in Pennsylvania. That seems like a lot. The other two states have smaller margins, and maybe there’s a possibility. But without Pennsylvania, it doesn’t really matter – there aren’t enough electoral votes in Wisconsin and Michigan to sway the outcome.

Secondly, there’s the trend. If you looks at the numbers and the states in a line from Virginia through to Minnesota, you can see a regular streak of Clinton doing much worse than she expected and below what President Obama did when he ran in 2008 and 2012. There’s got to be some political reason for that.

And then there’s the third thing. Hillary Clinton is a patriot. She conceded defeat on Nov. 9, when there was no indication that anything about the election was going to change.

And because she’s a patriot, she knows it would be disruptive – almost to the point of civil war – to make the same kind of accusations of a rigged election that Trump and his supporters were preparing to make. Not unless she had overwhelming evidence – something like Putin, the governors of Michigan and Wisconsin, and some Republican operative in Pennsylvania all confessing at a news conference that yeah, they did it.

Because Hillary Clinton is a better human than Trump, this talk of a hacked election will likely remain that – talk.

4. But that doesn’t mean the 2-million vote margin is trivial.

It is something Clinton supporters need to remind folks every chance they get. The more votes in that margin, the less Trump can claim he has a national mandate to do the kind of damage he seems intent to wreaking.

(This is a point Ezra Klein makes really well on the Vox site this morning.)

The Democrats first need to get out of in-shock mode. They need to organize their sides of Congress – they’ve already picked Chuck Schumer as their Senate leader.

And as much as I think Nancy Pelosi is one of the greatest congressional leaders the Democratic Party has ever had, it might just be time to put somebody else in the leadership role in the House.

I’m not sure it’s Tim Ryan, the Ohio congressman who’s challenging Pelosi for the role. But he is younger and comes from one of the places that turned on Hillary Clinton on Election Day.

I frankly would rather see another woman take this spot – I just don’t know who she is. But the Democrats need to reaffirm that they believe some women are born to lead. That while Clinton didn’t break through to the White House, there’s some other woman out there who can.

The congressional changes would be coupled with the new DNC chairman. The Democrats need a fresh face, and I think either Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota or Labor Secretary Thomas Perez fits that bill – although I could see Perez as a potential Senate or presidential candidate. 

With a new team, they need to challenge Trump and the congressional Republicans when they need to be challenged. Especially on things that are core Democratic: Medicare, Social Security, immigration and health care.

Don’t pick fights without a purpose. The demonstrations against Trump and the hand-wringing about the election are already being reflected in a backlash against Democrats.

The guy to follow is the guy we’ve been following: President Obama. There’s a reason his approval is up while the party’s is down, according to a CNN poll out today. It’s what I articulated yesterday: People want this election to be over. It’s clear the president can’t stand Trump, but he’s not whining about it openly.

That’s what Democrats have to do. Act assertively on what they believe. Fight Trump when they must.

And remember which side got the most votes on Nov. 8.

5. Few have suffered as public a defeat as Ralph Branca.

He’s the former Brooklyn Dodger who threw the pitch that Bobby Thomson of the New York Giants socked for the most famous home run in baseball history – the one that gave the Giants the 1951 National League pennant.

But Branca handled that devastating setback with a grace that set an example for everyone in every field.

So much so that today, it’s the other things of his life – his eventual friendship with Thomson, his support of Jackie Robinson during the integration of the Major Leagues and his success off the field – that people are choosing to remember on the day of his passing. 

He was 90 years old, and he’s to be congratulated for living a life well led.

6. The day before Thanksgiving is often referred to as the worst travel day of the year.

In fact, it’s not yet noon and it’s already been tough for me. I scraped up against an SUV in a parking lot for the local cake baker that draws crazy crowds at holidays.

Fortunately, the guy didn’t want to exchange insurance cards or phone numbers. The scrape is minor.

But it was a reminder to me, and now from me to you, to be careful out there. There are a lot of people on the road and their concentration isn’t nearly as focused as mine actually was trying to avoid this guy.

It’s a holiday. You’re supposed to enjoy it. Please do.

1. It’s Tuesday, November 22, 2016.

2. President Kennedy was murdered 53 years ago today.

He will mark the day in the same way as the other 37 deceased presidents – turning in their graves at the thought of No. 45.

3. There’s so many things to loathe about Trump that it’s hard to know where to either start or stop.

But here’s what sticks in your craw the most. He won.

It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Two weeks later, it’s turning out that this is not just a bad dream, and that you can’t just wish this away.

Now here’s the other problem.

Winning has its rewards.

I bring this up because of the new CNN/ORC poll out this morning. The poll shows that 53% of the country believe Trump will do a good job as president. 

Considering that a little less than 47% of the American electorate thought enough of Trump to vote for him for president, that’s a sign that he’s getting at least the majority of the country behind him.

It’s hard to believe for those of us who see him as an unspeakable creature. The guy who has picked a racist as attorney general, a white nationalist as his strategic adviser, picked a fight with the “Hamilton” cast and the TV networks, and offered just muted resistance to the idea that his election has spurred neo-Nazi sentiment in the United States.

But the thing is that this is a natural tendency after a presidential election. Even one as cantankerous as this one.

The country has had to deal with election crap for the better part of two years. It’s sick of it. It wants to get on with its life.

And so the people who are not as nearly invested emotionally in this fall in behind the guy who won. Only the true believers – my hand is raised here – dissent.

Believe it or not, the same dynamic would have occurred if Hillary Clinton had won. In fact, there’s a chance the optimism rate would have been higher than 53%, since she would have started from the higher base that comes from getting – as of this moment – 1,754,867 more votes than he did.

4. Does that mean the anti-Trump forces should just throw in the towel?

Hardly.

It just means that demonstrations like the ones that have taken place for two weeks – and which are completely understandable given the despicable way Trump campaigned – are nonetheless counterproductive. Right now.

All they look like to the people on the other side or in the middle is sour grapes. There hasn’t been anything new or substantive to protest.

Now, that’s about to change. We have the identity of some of Trump’s cabinet and chief advisers and revelations about policy direction. We have disclosures about his conflicts of interest and the admission to the IRS revealed today that the Trump Foundation did – as the Washington Post has intrepidly reported – that the charity’s money has been used to benefit Trump, his family or his business. 

The policy disclosures are the big thing.

Because his campaign was pretty much a few broad ideas and trashing Clinton, lots of what Trump stands for is unknown.

For example, I highly doubt that Trump voters, many of whom either are Medicare recipients or close to that age (again, my hand is raised), signed up for wholesale changes in a program they rely on for their health care. And yet, that’s what the Republicans in Congress have up their sleeves.

While there are people who grouse about Obamacare, they’re generally not the people who benefit from it. The backtracking began early when the transition team floated the ideas of keeping the no-preconditions and the cover-kids-until-they’re-26 provisions – which probably can’t be sustained if the rest of the Affordable Care Act goes.

And so it goes.

Not to mention that today it seems Trump broke one of the biggest campaign promises: He doesn’t want to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton.

All those people shouting “Lock her up”? It ain’t gonna happen – unless Trump cowers, as he often does, in the face of protests by Breitbart and the like.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, there will be actual things to protest that can garner support from the people who voted for this turkey.

When that happens, when it seems as though the people protesting are more than sore losers, the honeymoon – as limited as it is – will end.

With a thump.

It’s November 18, 2016. It’s the 38th anniversary of the Jonestown massacre that gave us the unfortunate expression “drinking the Kool-Aid.”

And it’s time for 20 Questions Friday, my weekly attempt at wit and wisdom in interrogatory form. Instead of straightforward pearls of wisdom, I couch them in questions that you can answer if you wish.

Have a good weekend:

— Why do I think of Gen. Buck Turgidson when I see that Michael Flynn is going to be Trump’s national security adviser?

— Did you know that there’s still one Senate race – Louisiana – to be decided, and that the Democrat in the race is State Sen. Foster Campbell? 

— Do you think if the presidential debates hadn’t spent so much time on Hillary Clinton’s e-mails that there might have been a discussion about Republican plans to privatize Medicare?

— When will Trump announce that the official language is now Swedish, everybody has to change their underwear twice a day, and that to make sure they do, they have to wear it on the outside?

— Is it me or has there been a rash of bad driving since the election?

— Do you think Trump will ever have a post-election news conference?

— Will the Confederate flag fly outside the Department of Justice during the Jeff Sessions era?

— Will burning the Confederate flag be outlawed?

— How cool is the head of the Anti-Defamation League for saying that as a proud Jew he would register as a Muslim if Trump’s minions bring that about?

— What other non-Muslims will join him?

— What ways can you think of to show support for Jewish people in the face of this wave of anti-Semitism?

— Has the Tuesday before Thanksgiving become a more difficult driving day that the day before Thanksgiving?

— Ever since I can remember, the winner of the presidential election has met the loser in an effort to bring about reconciliation. Will Trump meet with Hillary Clinton?

— Do you still think he won’t go through with his threat in the campaign to prosecute her?

— Have you ever called the Butterball hot line?

— What are the chances the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be politics-free?

— Is deep-frying turkeys still a thing?

— Who can I turn to? (11th in a series of song-title questions)

— Did Kate Upton make her point well in protesting her boyfriend Justin Verlander’s not winning the American League Cy Young Award? Or was that TMI?

— Is the insidiousness of fake news the biggest threat to global security?

1. It’s Thursday, November 17, 2016.

2.On this day 48 years ago, I was watching the New York Jets play the Oakland Raiders. The Jets had just taken the lead in a tough contest, and there was about a minute to play.

My sister, who had just turned seven, was excited about the prospect of a TV special scheduled after the game. It was a production of “Heidi.”

I could, of course, care less. The Jets were close to a big win against a big rival.

But as the Jets kicked off to Oakland at exactly 7 p.m., the black-and-white football field – we didn’t get our first color TV set until a month later – instantly became some black-and-white Swiss Alp village.

NBC, which was airing the game, had committed to airing “Heidi” at 7 p.m. sharp. And that’s what happened.

That didn’t sit well with me and other Jets fans. Being only 14, I wasn’t going to make a fuss beyond complaining to my unsympathetic parents – they weren’t into football then.

Apparently, people who did make a fuss fried the NBC switchboard with complaints. The network was forced to apologize – particularly after it turned out the Jets would go on to lose the game and everybody who rooting for them in New York missed it.

Nowadays, that would never happen. In fact, nowadays, that doesn’t happen because this happened. Games run until they’re over.

During the games, the play-by-play announcer will occasionally interject that whatever non-football thing you were planning to watch will air immediately after the conclusion of this 42-7 blowout involving two teams you could care less about.

If you want to buy the DVD of “Heidi,” click here.

3. I hadn’t thought about the anger I felt about the Heidi Bowl in a long time.

I don’t imagine that will be the case with the 2016 election. Although, given that I’m 62, I doubt I’ll be around in 2064 to know if the anger of 48 years past ever subsided.

The anger gets restirred anytime I see a story about who Trump is considering for his regime. Although I have to say I wasn’t as upset to see South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s name bandied about for Secretary of State – I certainly would rather have her than Giuliani the deranged or Iraq War cheerleader John Bolton.

4. Last night, the other emotion of the past nine days – sadness – resurfaced. That’s because Hillary Clinton spoke.

She appeared at a Children’s Defense Fund ceremony in Washington honoring children who have fought through personal adversity with the organization’s help.

Clinton began her career working with the fund when she was a student in law school. She and fund founder Marian Wright Edelman are obviously very close – although I seem to remember some friction when Clinton was First Lady.

The speech was mostly about the children – as it should have been – and what people can and should do to focus on making the kids’ lives better.

But there were moments when she reflected on the campaign. She urged her supporters to keep working toward their goals.

“We need you. America needs you, your energy, your ambition, your talent,” Clinton said. “That is how we get through this.” 

She also got a little emotional talking about her late mother, who was orphaned when she was eight, placed on a train with her little sister and sent to live with relatives in California.

Clinton said he imagined going back in time to talk to her mother as a little girl in order to give her strength.

“I dream of going up to her, and sitting next to her and taking her in my arms and saying, ‘Look, look at me and listen. You will survive. You will have a family of your own: three children,'” she said. “And as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will grow up to be a United States senator, represent our country as Secretary of State, and win more than 62 million votes for President of the United States.”

That last phrase got a roar from the crowd. And it was a not-so-subtle reminder that Trump got more than 61 million – at this writing, 1,232,214 fewer votes than she did.

In introducing Clinton, Edelman referred to her as the “people’s president.”

There is usually no such thing. But these are not usual times. 

The idea that there are people who are going to suggest that Hillary Clinton really won last week isn’t going to sit well with the thin-skinned guy who won the Electoral College. It will be interesting to see how he deals with her and those who still raise her banner in the coming days and weeks.

1. It’s Wednesday, November 16, 2016. The month is past the halfway mark.

2. It’s the 109th birthday of actor Burgess Meredith.

He, of course, was among the most accomplished performers on the stage, screen and on TV.

The veteran character actor is best known for playing Mick, the battle-scarred trainer, in the “Rocky” film series.

3. Right now, those of us devastated by Trump’s win could use a Mick.

We’re watching this freak show of a transition, with the names of one horrible human being after another being bandied about for positions of major responsibility.

We’re seeing this clown, who didn’t even get the most votes eight days ago, attempting to give his children access to the essential cogs of the government.

And that’s not all of it. There’s the Congress in Republican hands. Led by the supposed Mr. Responsible, the Speaker of the House, who has plans to gut Medicare and other similar destructive impulses.

So why do we need a Mick?

4. We need to focus.

We need to divvy up responsibilities and protect the things that the people who voted for Trump somehow forgot.

That, if they’re 65 or older, or getting close to that, it has been a promise for half a century that most of their health care is taken care of.

That, if they’re 62 or older, they’re entitled to get back the money they poured into a system for the purpose of giving them security in retirement.

That, if you’re a poor woman in Texas, you shouldn’t have to scrounge up the money to get to New York or California if you feel the need to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

That, if you’re an undocumented immigrant, somehow who has lived in the shadows while doing jobs that Americans didn’t want, that you’re not about to be part of a heartless forced exodus that will be the shame of the world.

5. There’s going to be a slugfest for at least the next two years to determine the fate of America’s soul.

Mick made Rocky chase a chicken to get faster.* He made him tie up his left hand, his natural punching hand, so that he would surprise Apollo Creed with a strong right hand.

We need to be as ready as Rocky was. We need to be organized. We need to show discipline.

And we need to stick together. We need to show the people who voted for Trump that they screwed up. Big time.

We need to show Trump and Pence and Ryan and McConnell and the menagerie of discredited, addled jerks that will hold the job titles that they don’t really have the power they think they have.

Through our campaigning, our protests, our demonstrations of our own strength of conviction, we can try to stop them.

Like Rocky, we might go 15 rounds and lose. But these miscreants need to know they’re going to get bloodied. This is going to hurt them, too.

As Mick might have said, “Keep hitting ‘em in the ribs…Don’t let those bastards breathe!” 

*Corrected to reflect that the sequence didn’t take place in “Rocky,” but “Rocky II.” Thanks to my brother and noted Rocky Balboa student, Seth Adam Meinero, for the fix.

1. It’s Tuesday, November 15, 2016.

2. It’s the 71st birthday of character actor Bob Gunton.

He played the evil warden in “The Shawshank Redemption” who decides to take matters into his own hands before getting his comeuppance.

Unfortunately, at the same time this classic film about a wrongly imprisoned man came out, we acquired a “Sesame Street” VHS tape about a visit to a firehouse. And the kindly fire chief in the video was played by – yup, Bob Gunton.

My father and I have the same problem – we have difficulty disassociating an actor from the first role in which we see them.

In my dad’s case, he could never watch a Folger’s coffee commercial with the actress who played Mrs. Olson without thinking that she played a Nazi in some World War II movie (he might have had her confused with another actress, but that would ruin the story). And anytime Mrs. Olson tried to get someone to drink her coffee, my dad would yell at the set “Get away, you lousy Nazi!”

With Gunton, I had the dissonance of having seen the “Sesame Street” tape first. So I bemoaned the fact that a guy who could be so nice to Muppets could turn out to be the religious-zealot louse that he is in “Shawshank.”

So here’s wishing Bob Gunton a happy birthday, and hoping he’s back helping Big Bird learn about fire trucks.

3. I’m a big Keith Ellison fan, proudly signing Bernie Sanders’ online petition to urge him to run for chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Ellison is a Democratic Congressman from the Twin Cities. He is a leading voice for the progressive wing of the party, having backed Sanders in the primaries but becoming a full-throated backer of Hillary Clinton when she won the nomination.

Ellison is African-American and Muslim. There will be detractors, to be sure, and the fringe end of the people who just elected Trump will jump on Ellison’s background as a sign that the Democrats are out of touch with “real” Americans.

He’s not. He saw Trump’s rise before others in the party, and understands what happened as middle-income voters abandoned Clinton and the Democrats last week.

He’s also unapologetic about what Democrats are supposed to stand for. People of all backgrounds, coming together to form a coalition to change everyone’s life for the better.

Today, Ellison said he’s in. Besides Sanders, he has such high-end support as current Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid and pending leader Chuck Schumer.

So, with the tragedy of Clinton’s defeat a week in the rearview mirror, it’s time for Democrats to start their comeback by looking at Ellison and saying I’m with him.

4. I’m almost always impressed when Barack Obama speaks. And yesterday’s news conference was nothing if not impressive.

When the nearly one-hour session was over, the commentary on CNN was how restrained and graceful the President was. How he seemed to be urging Americans to give Trump a chance. That, because Trump doesn’t seem to have an ideology, he might see his way to understanding why Obama did some of the things he did.

That’s nice. But if you look at the transcript of the first few minutes, you realize that Obama isn’t Mr. Nice Guy – and that’s a good thing. 

This part seemed like a dig at Trump to me:

“This office is bigger than any one person and that’s why ensuring a smooth transition is so important,” Obama said. “It’s not something that the constitution explicitly requires but it is one of those norms that are vital to a functioning democracy, similar to norms of civility and tolerance and a commitment to reason and facts and analysis.”

Am I right? Civility. Tolerance. Facts. Those were words we heard a lot eight days ago, when the campaign against Trump was still going.

Obama also talked a lot about turning over the keys with the car of state running smoothly,

“We are indisputably in a stronger position today than we were when I came in eight years ago,” the President said. “Jobs have been growing for 73 straight months, incomes are rising, poverty is falling, the uninsured rate is at the lowest level on record, carbon emissions have come down without impinging on our growth.”

By doing that, Obama is trying to lay down markers. Here’s what I did. Let’s see what your numbers are in a year or two. I already made America great – there ain’t a lot of upside.

The news conference itself was kind of a dig at Trump. It’s traditional for a president-elect to talk to reporters within a couple of days of election. Obama did that three days after his win in 2008.

Trump hasn’t done that. He talked to “60 Minutes” – and that’s it. Part of it might be his way of spiting the media, as he did all campaign. Part of it might be the fact that he’s going to have some embarrassing things to talk about – see: Bannon, Steve.

Finally, I was struck by Obama’s comments about his signature achievement, the Affordable Care Act, widely expected to be extinct not long after he gets in the limo for his new home in D.C.

Obama said he would offer congratulations if Republicans find a way to get rid of Obamacare and improve on its results: 20 million Americans with insurance, kids getting coverage until they’re 26, free mammograms and more.

“If, on the other hand, whatever they are proposing results in millions of people losing coverage and results in people who already have health insurance losing protections that were contained in the legislation, then we are going to have a problem,” he added.

He mentioned the American people would too. But the fact that he had to add them to the statement is a subliminal reminder of the following:

In Britain, the opposition party has what’s called a shadow cabinet – people who holds positions comparable to the official ones, such as a shadow chancellor of the exchequer.

We haven’t done that in the United States. But given the nature of this election, that could well happen.

Democrats and even those Republicans who couldn’t stomach the idea of voting for Trump will look to someone for guidance on how to deal with whatever the administration coughs up. Until the Democrats figure out their next group of leaders, there might very well be a shadow president.

His name is Barack Obama. He’s just 55 years old. And, man, does he have a way with words!

1. It’s Monday, November 14, 2016.

2. On this day 75 years ago, between 9,000 and 10,000 Jews were slaughtered by Nazi occupiers in what was then Slonim, Poland – the city is now in Belarus.

Some accounts say people were machine-gunned 300 at a time. Some say women, children and the elderly were drowned in a nearby river.

Unfortunately, it’s never really hard to find some historic abuse of the people of the Jewish faith.

3. So about one in four American Jewish voters might be a little conflicted this morning.

Steve Bannon, the former head of Breitbart “News” Service and the last guy in charge of Trump’s campaign, will be the dolt’s chief strategist in the White House.

Breitbart has a reputation for disparaging the Judaism of people it opposes – conservative commentator William Kristol comes quickly to mind (I will not ever link to a Breitbart “story” – I will in no way add even one page view to their count).

And Bannon’s ex-wife, in court documents for their divorce, said he told her he didn’t want their daughters going to school with Jews.

And that follows the rash of anti-Semitic tweets from supporters of Trump during the campaign. Most notably, there was the tweet going after Hillary Clinton that used anti-Semitic imagery – which was retweeted by Trump himself.

But, according to Pew Research, 24% of Jewish voters overlooked all that. They voted for Trump.

So if you’re among that 24% – and, living in my liberal bubble, I’m proud to say that none of my Jewish friends fall into that category – it must a weird morning.

Either you must want the kind of cataclysmic change that’s about to befall the United States.

Or you got punk’d.

4. So the first Trump slap of the majority of American voters who didn’t pick him goes to those of us who are Jewish.

They weren’t as high on the radar as others, but they’re a historic favorite of the bigots.

The second slap looks like it’s headed for Hispanics, with Trump’s declaration on “60 Minutes” that he plans to go ahead with the immediate deportation of up to 3 million undocumented immigrants.

Who knows how the hell he intends to do it? For all we know, this is something he and his people have been working on for months. It should be quite a plan he rolls out.

In fact, that seems like it would be appropriate for his Christmas message to America. Peace on Earth? That’s media elite stuff. The thought of rounding up 1% of the population will really get people singing the praises of baby Jesus.

Trumpistas are going to love the optics of this. The crying. The screaming. The violent protests. The disruption to the nation’s economy.

It’s going to make America look like the Soviet and Nazi and other totalitarian states that we were not supposed to be. The ones who were the bad guys in the John Wayne movies that Trump supporters supposedly love.

There’s no joy in this. There’s only pain. And it’s all been there for the past year and a-half – Trump never hid any of it.

What you saw is what you’ll get.