...by a razor thin margin, but not thin enough to require a recount. It can be made to appear that a 3rd party candidate shaved off enough disgruntled voters to kill off Democratic votes. It can be made to appear that certain states or districts were bafflingly more "red" that polls showed.

It can be made to appear that for the first time in the history of elections, exit polls were wildly wrong, so lets not do those any more rather than figuring out what actually went wrong. As happened when Bush "won" over Gore.

Or it can be made to appear that someone was having a little fun, as when Max Cleland's results came in 181818 all over the place.

Talk of a blue wave makes my teeth itch. Lawrence O'Donnell gloating awhile back made me want to throw things at the tv.

...and all but destroy it. They tried hard to destroy us. Somebody had to care enough to do that--whether it was alt-right hatred or just a little demonstration on the side from one of Russia's hacking groups, I have no way of knowing.

It had the feel of someone saying: See how casually we can disrupt you?

Within the same period of time a Congressional hearing or meeting being broadcast on CSPAN was flipped to the RT newsroom. You know them, right? It happened the moment someone in the meeting said "Russia." How did that happen? Why? What earthly connection could there be between the two locations?

Again, that feeling of: See how easy?

It's not about inflating the importance of DU in the grand scheme of things, it's about America. All of our infrastructure is vulnerable. With apologies to John Donne, DU is only a part of the continent, a piece of the main -- but like CSPAN, the continent we are a part of is America.

As with 9-11, I was still sleeping. That day my daughter called me from her workplace and ordered me to turn in CNN. After awhile I went out into the front yard to get the newspaper, still clad in my fuzzy pink bathrobe. I saw my neighbor across the street and called out to her that we had been attacked.

Today a friend called me to in essence cry on my shoulder -- altho maybe ranting might be a better description. I Turned on MSNBC and muted it. After nearly an hour she rang off and I turned on the sound. Stephanie Ruhl was in full cry, God bless her.

On 9-11 I was still capable of shock. Today I am benumbed.

July 16, 2018, a day that will live in infamy.

Who did I call? One of my oldest friends, who lives on the other coast. I left a voicemail message: "Was just watching the Trump-Putin press conference. Just wanted to hear the sound of your voice." To my surprise, my voice shook a little.

And, to put it politely, your posts are full of inaccuracies. Once again I will point out that, by the numbers, HILLARY WON -- and that means her policies and those of the Dem Party resonated with more people than did Trump.

May I ask -- again -- what you propose to do about the cyberinvasion by a hostile foreign power? What do you propose to do about Jim Crow laws? Gerrymandering?

Are you aware at all of which of our Democratic leaders are working hard on these issues?

No? Can you name any? Are you on their email lists?

Oh, and by the way, last time I saw you you were complaining about our "message" and seemed to think we had none to speak of and that's why we "lost." I recommended you read the Democratic Platform. Did you find it enlightening?

...lie about them and use them for a punching bag. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEADER IS A WOMAN. In that case, being used as a punching bag and butt of mockery will continue after they leave office and beyond the grave.

See: Hillary Clinton.

At this juncture, why on earth would the Dem party or leadership even think about replacing our best in the vain hope of pleasing the GOP? We would be fools to do so.

So what you need to do is figure out how to PROTECT THE VOTES THAT WE ALREADY HAVE by stopping Russian hackers, Chinese hackers, bots, trolls, New Jim Crow laws, Old Jim Crow voter suppression tactics, and all the rest of it.

We HAVE the message. We've negotiated. We've expanded the tent.

So what are you going to do about the voters' rolls that got ethnically cleansed? Hm? You do know about that, right? In places where Hillary "lost" by a narrow margin, up to 200,000 lkely Democratic voters had been purged from the rolls.

...and from her high and very privileged perch, she wants the rest of us to know we should have a "revolution," which I take to mean blood and fire and destruction.

She has told us who she is -- and when people tell you who they are, believe them. She needs to be politically neutralized, not courted.

They lie.

The restrictions placed in Roe were based largely on common societal attitudes of the time, oddly enough, in which there were no restrictions during the first trimester, then increasing restrictions as the second trimester advanced, and only for profound medical reasons in the third trimester.

Throughout history, the 4th month was considered the time of "quickening," when the fetus first makes itself felt in little flutterings. What happened before then was generally a private occurance.

Medical reasons that were part of Roe had to do with life and health of the mother, the viability of the fetus, rape, incest, and so on.

Never has there ever been a legal-abortion policy or law that allowed women to walk into a clinic and demand an abortion of a healthy fetus a week before her due date. Never.

Third trimester abortions are vanishingly rare, but have been demonized by anti-choice fanatics as "partial birth abortion" and infanticide. They are for when the mother will die if she is not delivered immediately; they are for when the fetus is already dead, or is so profoundly deformed that it will die in days. Anencephaly is one such condition. There literally is no brain: most die immediately, some live a whole week. They aren't "retarded" or "developmentally delayed" -- they have NO brain and soon forget to breathe.

...and passive resistance.

The entire movement was not about saying "Howdy do, folks, thanks for breaking my skull and firehosing my friends into the street."

It was about expressing your right to live in civil society, go to school, ride a bus, and be served coffee at a public counter -- standing, sitting, walking where racists do not want you to be, and passively letting them hurt you and arrest you in front of cameras for the whole world to see.

This is street theater where people get hurt and even die. It does not work without mass media present to inform the world of the appalling injustice of the larger society.

Mahatma Ghandi developed it and used it for this exact reason, and ultimately the British couldn't take it any more and let India go. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. studied Ghandi and adapted the method for use in this country -- and the rest of the country was appalled. I was a little kid when the images of snarling police dogs and faces twisted with hate came into our living room via TIME, LIFE, and a b/w tv.

Civil disobedience is not the same as civilly passing the crumpets to a racist in your home. By the same token, you get to decide what sort of behavior you are willing to speak out against wherever you are. Publicly Shaming a member of this nakedly fascist regime seems like an idea whose time has come -- just be prepared to take the consequences.

NB: The issue of passively taking the beatings got to be old for some in the movement after several years. See: Malcolm X, Huey Newton, et al.

They have energy, grit, determination, heart, and tremendous intelligence.

And for some reason, way back in Arkansas when they were young the Right Wing took a dislike to the both of them. Not just a dislike, a real contempt, a hatred. And the RW nurtured, cultivated, and distorted that hatred until it crossed State lines and became what Hillary called (accurately, it turns out) a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.

And here we are today, with all of the Republicans and a chunk of the Left having been infected with Clinton Derangement Syndrome. The RW (and some on the Left) projects every vile thing possible on Hillary, year after year after year. I hate to see this poisonous crap regularly showing up on DU.

I am not a Southerner, and God knows I've never been in Arkansas, but I have watched this bizarre show since the Clintons came to Washington in the 1990s.

All I can say is: speak up, oppose the lies, teach the younger generation what really happened.