Ahhhhhh… the cool mountain air, a calm… ripple… of water peacefully moving over the lake. Oh… it’s you! While on summer break, I thought I’d offer a few links to commentaries that garnered the most attention by readers over the past seven months. First place, with the most views thus far, was my three-part series from April, Trust and Confidence,...

One of the many reasons I prefer non-fiction is the simple fact that truth often is stranger than fiction. Our latest example is that great national embarrassment, Donald J. Trump. Time after time, Trump has shown a breathtaking ability to see, read, hear and deduce things that the rest of us mere mortals are either blind to or cannot comprehend....

The day before the Democratic National Convention convened in Philadelphia, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, announced that she will resign after the release of thousands of internal e-mail exchanges among Democratic insiders that demonstrated a clear bias towards Clinton during the primaries. “Many of the most damaging e-mails,” The Washington Post writes (July 25), “suggest the committee...

It’s three days before the Democratic National Convention, one day before Senator Tim Kaine was selected as Hillary Clinton’s VP, and I had been invited to have lunch with the presumptive nominee, herself! Bob, a Clinton surrogate, picks me up at my hotel. “You sure are lucky, Jim. A lot of people would kill for a chance like this.” “Yes,”...

Before leaving on summer recess at the end of the month, here is an assortment to read and ponder. Ginsburg Guff – Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg had the temerity to exercise her First Amendment right of free speech by calling out Donald Trump as a “Faker.” As The New York Times reported (July 10), “I can’t imagine what this place...

It’s remarkable how many Republicans have come down from the mountaintop of conservative values and demonstrated a complete turn-around in their opinion of Donald Trump. One year ago this month, former Texas Governor Rick Perry had this to say of Trump: “…A toxic mix of demagoguery and mean-spiritedness and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition if pursued....

“It’s an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day, here in Cleveland, RNC fans!” “As you can see from our exclusive channel FOX-8 feed, crowds are beginning to feel THAT special buzz… “What’s that? …I’ve just been told that those are security guys on camera… but they’re feeling the buzz, too here at Quicken Loans Arena, home of the 2016 NBA Championship Cleveland Cavaliers,...

I began writing this while watching thousands gather for the interfaith memorial service held for the five Dallas police officers who were ambushed and gunned down by a lost and damaged army veteran. The shooter, Micah Johnson, said that he “…specifically set out to kill as many white officers as he could,” following the deaths of two black men by...

Twenty-four hours after the police shooting death of Alton Sterling outside a Baton Rouge convenience store, Philando Castile was shot and killed in Falcon Heights, Minnesota. Both men were black. Both were killed by police under highly questionable circumstances. Castile had no prior criminal record, was driving a car occupied by his girl friend and her four-year-old daughter. Castile had...

In a televised oral report on the investigation into former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server, F.B.I. Director James B. Comey summed up his department’s findings this way: While the F.B.I. could find no “clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence...