Amen.

This.

This.

This.
More women than ever elected to the U.S. senate.

This. Marriage equality in three states, and a refusal to ban gay marriage in a fourth!!

This.
Portlanders voted to keep their libraries open more hours, finally repair our falling-apart schools, and institute an arts tax. That will probably increase our personal property tax by $850, according to the Oregonian. But it will go a long ways toward maintaining the vitality of our city and supporting our kids. No one expected all three to pass. Guess it's true that I never met a tax increase I didn't like. (Oregonians still have a much lower tax burden than most other U.S. states, not to mention Europe and Canada.)

This.

The Oregon Legislature now has a Democratic majority in both the senate and the house. Maybe we can finally reform our antiquated school funding process.

This.

Not only did we elect more women to the Senate than ever, but we elected the first openly gay senator and the first disabled female veteran to the Illinois House (who beat a Tea Party candidate)!

And this.
Todd Akin? Loser! Richard Mourdock? Out! And out of my uterus, while you're at it!!

Seen on Twitter: A black president, a gay Senator, and how many rape-accepting men voted out tonight? DEMOCRACY WORKS.

Oh, and let's not forget this.

Karl Rove also loses big time (and loses his mind). And Fox News nearly self-destructs.

And Donald Trump pitches a hissy fit. Poor baby.

Oh, and Rush Limbaugh. And let's not forget Bill O'Reilly, who went off on his own little racist rant. You're damn right, Bill, we are no longer a "traditional America." Poor baby.

And this.
Americans say "Hell no!" to big money, in spite of multiple CEOs telling their employees how to vote, churches distributing voter guides and urging members to vote for Republicans (I've never heard of a church telling its members to vote for a Democrat!), a huge wave of voter suppression, insanely long lines at polling stations designed to reduce the number of people allowed to vote, voting machine errors and unreliability, robocalling to mislead voters, and the list goes on. I find all of these dirty tricks to be extremely depressing and dismaying.

The voter suppression tactics by the Republicans this year are especially hurtful to African-Americans, who have a history of having to fight to vote.

In spite of it all, justice triumphed. I don't remember such a happy election night, ever. The only two disappointments were (1) the Republicans retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and (2) DAAP Michele Bachmann barely squeaked by and got re-elected.

Thank you! To all the people who worked on behalf of these individuals and ballot measures. To those of you who got people registered and called to get out the vote. To those of you who standed in line for hours to vote...and to those of you who had to go out of your way to register to vote (my young friend in WSU had to drive to another town to register and brought several sorority sisters with her). Thank you for standing up for justice.

And I'll close with the words of my president, who I was so proud to vote for!

"Young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states. We are, and always will be, the United States of America." – President Barack Obama, 11-07-2012

Amen.