Greetings! It’s been a year and a day since Trump was grazed by a bullet in a failed assassination attempt in Butler, Penn.  I believe he would have captured the presidency even if it hadn’t happened.  But it certainly put wind in his sail and it burnished the aura around him as an invincible almost superhuman populist who overcomes any obstacles in his path. Worth noting: the Victory Girls blog thinks Butler was the day Trump won the presidency...Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump interviewed POTUS for 41 minutes on her Saturday Fox News program.  It was a predictable tongue bath. Here’s the video...Thanks for nothing Trump! Food banks are sounding the alarm that food is running short in their pantries just when Americans are most needy.  The culprit, according to the Wall Street Journal: slashed budgets at food stamps and other federal programs....Launch day: Conservative CNN commentator and controversy magnet Scott Jennings is expanding his footprint.  His new daily one-hour talk program, “The Scott Jennings Show,” launches today on the Salem Radio Network...Who’s moving to Ohio  (not that there’s anything wrong with it)? The Gateway Pundit reports that Buckeye state gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy will unveil a billboard in NYC’s Times Square today advising Big Apple residents to leave the city and head to Ohio. The billboard positions Zohran Mamdani, who’s running to be mayor, as a radical socialist, while  Ramaswamy “protects freedom”... Spell check: The NEA, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, tripped on its dictionary.  It misspelled “fascism” in a resolution against President Trump.  (Not the Bee)...If  you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard

Greetings! Don’t read before bedtime:  Flame-throwing ultra-right-wing Townhall columnist Kurt Schlichter has a new novel coming out July 17.  American Apocalypse: The Second Civil War offers a fictional look at America after the president is assassinated and left-wingers take control of the government.  The promo copy on Amazon says the novel “unsparingly describes the hell awaiting at the bottom of America’s slippery slope”... Speaking of books, NY Times columnist David Brooks has a particularly perceptive column about When Novels Mattered.  His central thesis, and I completely agree with him, is that “literature plays a much smaller role in our national life.”  In case you’re wondering, I read about 25 books a year on my Kindle and about 10 are novels.  Haven’t read on paper in more than 15 years....New Podcast Alert: Oliver Darcy and Jon Passantino, the brains (and voices) behind the excellent Status newsletter, launched their new weekly podcast today. It’s called “Power Lines.” You can listen on Apple podcasts or Spotify, or watch here on YouTube.  They are among the best media reporters and wordsmiths working today...Weekend Watch: I’ve just finished the first part of the Netflix four-hour documentary Attack on London: Hunting the 7/7 Bombers and I’m hooked.  This week marks the 20^th anniversary of the 2005 terrorist incident in London that claimed 52 lives and injured hundreds others.  The fast pace and relentless tension often makes the program feel  more like a Tom Cruise thriller than a sober-minded documentary.  But it reminds us that the threat of a terror attack remains a constant presence in our lives...If you keep reading, I’ll keep Righting. Howard