It would be nice for his staff to confiscate his phone, maybe they can for "national security " reasons.

Thinks otherwise

Jill Stein may actually believe that demanding a recount of presidential tallies in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania will ensure that "democracy" is served.

More likely, she believes the Green Party will be served by her audacious PR stunt.

Either way, the Stein recounts are a colossal waste of money and energy when there is not a shred of credible evidence of fraud or error and when the final vote in these three states likely will not change very much.

As of 10:00 p.m. EST tonight (5:00 p.m. HST), 62,623,869 U.S. voters have now been verified as having had their heads up their a$$es and admiring the view on Election Day.

The truly painful irony here is that Hillary Clinton looks to presently be on track to receive the second highest number of votes cast for president -- 65,145,375 of them thus far -- in U.S. history, surpassed only by Barack Obama's total of 69,498,516 votes received in 2008. Unfortunately for us, we don't elect our presidents by the popular vote, but rather indirectly via the Electoral College.

So, yes, we do deserve it. Not you and I as individuals, obviously, because we've supported Mrs. Clinton from the outset. But collectively, the people of the United States may well be about to learn a very bitter lesson about being careful what you ask for, because you just might get it.

And yes, we did ask for it -- even if many of the aforementioned 62,623,869 Americans who voted for Trump, aka "Trump's Chumps," likely didn't realize that they were actually voting for a de facto restoration of the 1890s-era Gilded Age, and were thus being played for the fools that they so obviously are.

That's because it was their responsibility and job as citizens of this country to summon forth at least a minimal effort to first learn about the respective candidates for president, regardless of all the white media noise out there, and then make an informed decision. Those 62,623,869 citizens did neither. Instead, they treated this year's election like a TV reality show and at their chinchilla-haired host's urging, they voted the best and most qualified candidate in decades off the island.

So, yeah, we'll likely pay a fairly steep price for this month's collective folly, because we failed to heed the true essence of George Bernard Shaw's observation about democracy.

Because here's the unspoken dirty little secret about that observation: In a democracy, citizens also enjoy the right to indulge their fears, revel in their own ignorance, choose frivolously and unwisely, and be terribly wrong. And as a nation, we will have to take and share collective responsibility for this appalling breakdown in American civic education and duty amongst our citizenry.

What we experienced on November 8 was the logical result of a very determined and apparently successful effort by our country's wealthy self-interests, carried out over the course of four-plus decades, to dumb down and polarize the U.S. electorate, so that we'll be too busy squabbling amongst ourselves over often-nonsensical social issues to notice that our nation's pockets are being picked.

And to be perfectly blunt, we all got so caught up in our own lives and consumerist tendencies that we allowed them to do this to us, without even noticing or realizing it. The question now before us is this: What are we prepared to do to correct our current course and alter our present trajectory?

Speaking for myself only, I believe it's up to each and every one of us to learn from this bitter experience, and start taking positive, proactive and forceful measures and steps in our own respective communities to reverse this dubious civic trend.

And yes, that will require each of us to now get involved personally, and not leave it to others to act on our behalf, as far too many many of us have been content to do of late. Rather than further disengage from the process, we need to actively re-engage and further do so collectively, with both vigor and purpose.

Finally, we need to instill and reinforce within our own children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews that collective and pervasive sense of civic obligation and pride, which presently seems to be wanting in so many of our own peers. Otherwise, I fear that when they reach our age, our future generations may well find themselves flailing helplessly under the heels of an entrenched, uncaring and oppressive oligarchy.

I, for one, am not ready or willing to let that happen. But honestly, my friends and I can't do it alone. We'd love to have some company on this journey back. And with sufficient numbers to reach critical mass, what might otherwise be a hard and difficult slog can instead become a rewarding adventure and sense of renewal.