Hi Daggers? Or Dagsters? Or umm, okay whatever you want to be called. 

First, I love you all, we've all fought tooth and nails over the years, and it's been fun sometimes and other times horrible, maybe because I mostly like you all. So right now I am not going to give into fear, I'm not going to relive this election either. What happened has happened. It sucks so much. But we need to move forward and quickly.

My father, Michael William “Brother Mike” Gural, was a pacifist humanist. But being born into abject poverty to factory worker immigrant parents in Newark, NJ., in 1926, he enlisted as a Medical Administrative Corps (MAC) Officer with Army Serial #12102416 at Ft.

After losing sleep and bouncing off walls for two days I am ready to fight back against Trump---to think about 2018 and beyond. Fighting back means getting the brain to avoid its propensity for "story" and focusing on facts and action plans. Trump can achieve big parts of his non-economy agenda through executive action and getting his nominee(s} confirmed in the Senate. Conservative judges will appease a large part of the religious right but not to suffer reverses in 2018 and beyond he has to deliver both additional red meat to his base plus economic success to everyone else. Obviously he can deliver red meat easily. But if he overdoes, and especially if he doesn't deliver on the economic front, 2018 might not be a cake walk for him and Republicans. 

As we were fretting whether 88% vs 92% of blacks would vote, we missed out on the "missing white vote". Ridiculous as Trump asking black voters to vote for him, he asked - directly if not obscenely.

Sure, we tackled issues that affected white lives, but we didn't directly address "hey you, over there, I'm talking to you".

We have advocacy for blacks, Hispanics, LGBT, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and so on. But advocacy for white Protestants, or "Evangelicals" always takes on the tone of talking to the Klan, an implicit distaste and condemnation.

The lesson of Brexit - the grudge candidate doesn't have to offer anything real, just the role of representing those with an axe to grind - he can represent more than 1 incompatible causes.

All Hillary's policy papers are useless - the people never cared, they didn't want details, they didn't want to know if it would even work. They wanted to feel someone was listening to them. Hillary halfway got there, but she kept shifting to answers, solutions - they just wanted a slavish advocate. Be clear: everything she did to make things more concrete hurt her. Trump could say anything and everything, in 1 sentence, and it didn't hurt him, while her details just provided more fodder to attack. Okay, even where he was specific they didn't care. You know how Bad Boys are - they can do anything.

My kid convinced me to hit a café at 3 or 4 am to watch whatever results roll in. Will be a brutal day tomorrow, but a memorable experience, so....

16 years ago I had a 2-day trip to a conference, and spent all evening in the hotel calling home, fretting over the results that kept changing... and then for the next 2 weeks... and then it was over. #NeverAgain

Saw a Bill Kristol piece talking about his pride in #NeverTrump. As the voting statistics roll in with Republican and Democratic votes close to even, I still wonder how much #NeverTrump is baked into the GOP side. I'd doubt there are that many people going to vote for Trump just cause they hate Hillary - stay home, Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, McMullin....

I remember watching and reading campaign and election coverage in 1984, and believing that Geraldine Anne Ferraro would become the first female vice president of the United States. Growing up in liberal Western Massachusetts, I had no reason to doubt it would happen. If not with Walter Mondale’s campaign, then in another four years we’d have a woman VEEP. Over the years, I grew increasingly confused by how our country seemed to tread backwards, as if Ferraro’s rise to prominence was just some blip in the system. As a 13-year-old in 1984, I never imagined that I’d have to wait until I had a child of my own to see a woman president.

“The polls indicated that I was feisty, that I was tough, that I had a sense of humor, but they weren't quite sure if they liked me and they didn't know whether or not that I was sensitive,” Ferraro said after the defeat.

I guess today’s feisty woman is nasty.

Live Election blogging with the one and only Dick Day...

Okay, as a sign of a true Political Junkie looking for that last minute relief, a sense that no more shakeups are going to drop, or if they do, in the right direction (Hillary says "stop clicking on 538" - easier said than done).

Does last minute news really change voter choices? Not really, but something blockbuster could, while turnout trends are much more important. Even early voting isn't as critical as who shows up on Tuesday, but with up to 40 million votes early this year, its significance is ever greater.

NYT: Right-Wing Book Was A Source For FBI Inquiry Into Clinton Foundation from TPM. A preliminary FBI inquiry into the Clinton Foundation initiated this summer was based in part on Peter Schweizer’s book “Clinton Cash,” the New York Times reported Tuesday. Peter Schweizer is a right wing political muckraker whose other books include Architects of Ruin. which blames The Poors for the 2008 world wide economic collapse, because liberals forced Wall Street to rake in billions in bonuses by making liar loans to people who couldn't afford it, and Do As I Say (Not As I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy, self explanatory on its right wing ideology.

Aside from politicized malfeasance, the last few days have also seen 2 contrasts in trade and business.

Elon Musk announced his intent to vote on merging his Tesla car company with SolarCity new energy, once again mesmerizing us with his audacity in rolling out new concepts and prototypes - Hyperloop, Gigafactory, and of course SpaceX. But it's not all hoops and mirrors - Tesla turned its first profit this quarter, despite all the risks. Amazon in comparison has taken years to turn eyeballs/user base into a profit, despite pioneering cloud computing and other distribution breakthroughs.

A heroic angel who permits us one of those occasional moments of pride in the species is currently charged with criminal mischief in Canada because she provided water to thirsty animals on the way to slaughter.