Greetings! Today’s required reading: J.D. Vance’s bestseller Hillbilly Elegy.  I read Vance’s memoir  when it was published in 2016 and was impressed by his inspiring story of a hardscrabble childhood and his drive to make something of himself. The book had an anyone-can-make-it-in-America vibe, yet doesn’t clearly reflect Vance’s MAGA world view that could land him a heartbeat away from the presidency….Not required viewing:  the Netflix  movie version of the book, which reduces Vance’s journey to routine soap opera… A Wall Street Journal columnist argues that one of the positive lessons of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump was that it allowed the world to see a tough leader in the U.S.  “It may be important to let foreign enemies know that there are still some strong American leaders that they may have to deal with,” writes Thomas Sowell of the conservative Hoover Institute…The right wing media watchdog NewsBusters showers CNN with rare praise for grilling Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas on the Secret Service’s conduct in the botched  assassination attempt…No matter how many serviceable interviews President Biden does with NBC’s Lester Holt, I can’t  unsee his disastrous June 27 debate performance…Dept. of Irony: while Biden and other political leaders call for “turning down the temperature,” the mercury is expected to hit 100 degrees in Washington today…If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard