1. It’s Thursday, August 4, 2016. It’s 96 days until the election.

2. There’s reason to cheer the result of a Kansas Republican primary.

A three-term Congressman who has been part of the shut-the-government-down faction of the party was soundly defeated. His opponent, while railing about unnecessary spending, also campaigned on the idea that you can’t be against everything and expect government to function.

In particular, the people of the district that covers the western half of Kansas want help for the farms that a lot of them tend. It’s a simple, understandable idea, much as I want my congresswoman to look out for my interests in gun control, infrastructure rebuilding and education.

There’s little chance a Democrat will win this district; it’s only happened once in more than 140 years. But to the extent that the people of western Kansas will no longer be represented by someone who thinks government is always the enemy is a step in the right direction. 

3. The best thing I’ve read in the past 24 hours is a blog post by my friend and former colleague, Cara Reedy.

On her Infamously Short blog, she describes a subway ride from Hell. She shared a seat with a man who was slurring her the entire time – who was so abusive that she feared she wouldn’t be able to get off the train because he was seated in a way that blocked her egress.

It’s a story that gives any sane person the creeps. That’s due largely to Cara’s talent as a writer, but also to the fact that it’s hard to believe such people as her demon seatmate exist.

The tendency is to dismiss someone like this as mentally unbalanced, which is an illness which he’s likely not to have a lot of control over. That’s countered by the fact that he rides the New York subway system unaccompanied by a mental health worker or family member who can calm his obsessive hatetalk.

But there’s another possibility.

4. The worst thing I’ve seen online in the past 24 hours is a video posted on The New York Times site.

It is a compilation of scenes from Trump campaign rallies this year. Warning: Watch this on an empty stomach. 

It is horrifying. It is raw, unadulterated hate. It comes from the mouths of people who claim to be American patriots.

They are not. They do more to hurt this country than any ayatollah in Iran or communist apparatchik in China has ever done.

African-Americans, Latin American immigrants, women (mainly in the form of Hillary Clinton) and Muslims are the main targets of their venom. Given the chance, it’s easy to imagine the other bogeymen of the ignorant – Jews, Asians and LGBTs – getting the same treatment.

And here’s the thing: Trump is the motor vehicle bureau of intolerance. He gives his supporters a license to hate. The only test they have to pass is unfettered allegiance to him. He’ll supply the fuel with his rants about what’s wrong with this country, in code so that he and his sycophants can deny they meant to slander anyone.

Because he’s a “successful” businessman, these people believe there’s an air of respectability that give them the ability to go out and spread the crap that they may have harbored for years.

Which brings me back to Cara’s tormenter. Is he merely mentally ill? Or is he an echo of the hatred that Trump has now given him and others permission to spread?

If you’re a white person, you’ve heard people mouth this stuff for as long as you can remember. There’s almost a pathological need to blame someone else for your troubles. They believe they get special breaks. They believe they demand special treatment.

They stew as individuals – people who include President Obama and Hillary Clinton – succeed as you don’t, and you think there must be something sinister or crooked about it. They weren’t really born here. They conspire with who knows who to keep you down.

All this garbage is out in the open in 2016. Maybe we should give Trump some credit – he has unveiled America’s ugly secret of almost subliminally spoken hatred.

It’s why Hillary Clinton can’t just win. She has to crush Trump, and make it clear that if you want to harbor unfettered, unreasonable hatred, you have to keep it to yourself. The only harm should be self-inflicted.

In that way, we can look at the guy on the train with Cara as the mentally ill person he is. He won’t be another member of society given a license to hate.

1. It’s Wednesday, August 3, 2016. It’s 97 days until the election.

2. Until The Wall Street Journal weighed in on it yesterday, I had no idea anyone had a problem with men wearing cargo shorts. 

I’ve been retired from CNN for two years now. And I can say, without embarrassment, that I’ve worn cargo shorts on 90% of the days between Memorial Day and Labor Day in both years. Not to mention the one warm day I got to wear them this February at Walt Disney World.

Here’s why I like them. I’m always carrying stuff. Especially electronics. When I go to a Mets game, there’s an iPad to keep score, a iPhone to communicate, a portable charger and the cord to connect it. There’s also my keys, my wallet and sunscreen.

Cargo shorts allow me to carry all except the iPad. Because they have secure pockets, I don’t lose anything – except when I forget to take the stuff out when I do laundry. That’s a different problem.

Cargo shorts are comfortable and practical. They don’t look any less stupid than anything else I would wear. I’m not wearing a tux to Red Robin.

I know this presidential campaign has been trying people’s nerves. And they want something – anything – else to talk about.

Even so, men wearing cargo shorts seems like a stretch. Which, by the way, is the only way cargo shorts could be better.

3. Does it occur to Donald Trump that a two-week vacation is the best thing he could do right now?

Not that I’m trying to help him out or anything. I’m on record as wishing we could add 10 states to the union before November so he could lose them and the other 50 plus Washington, D.C.

But it seems his obsessive need to have his name out there is spinning out of control. Chuck Todd and Carrie Dann of NBC News have a list of 15 Trump campaign disasters that took place yesterday alone. And now you’re seeing columns hinting that Republicans are looking for a solution to the idea that Trump might drop out of the race. 

So when things are going bad, you need to change them up. Going on vacation would do that.

And if Trump is to be believed – of course, he makes that harder by not releasing his tax returns – he has properties where he could just take it easy for a few weeks and not have to say anything.

We’ve gotten so used to Trump-filled news days that we’ve forgotten what it’s like not having him in the daily cycle. Yes, we’d still have the Zika virus and Syria and other real problems. In fact, we’d be able to focus on them without the daily distraction of Trump.

For a few days, we wouldn’t have the noise and hand-wringing and eye-rolling and the nagging worry that there’s some freakish way that this ignoramus could become president.

And he’d get a few days to get a real tan and save some of that whatever-he-puts-on-himself-to-make-him-look-like-THAT for the final stretch.

Otherwise, he’s just going to keep spinning out of control. And the election won’t get here fast enough.

So take a couple of weeks, Trump. Watch the Rio Olympics. Bring a knife and fork so you can have some pizza, fried chicken or a hamburger.

Just give yourself – and us – a little break.

1. It’s Tuesday, August 2, 2016. It’s 98 days until the election.

2. Here’s what a politician who knew what he was doing would have done: After Khizr Khan gave his impassioned speech at the Democratic National Convention, Trump would have either said nothing or that he’s sorry for Khan’s loss.

The story would have been one for Thursday night, when Khan gave his speech, and maybe Friday. By Saturday, we would have been on to something else.

No. Trump decided he had to strike back at a family for whom there’s an automatically powerful sympathy.

Thus, the lead story on The New York Times site halfway into the sixth day of this is about Trump’s five deferments from serving in the military during the Vietnam era.

The lead story on The Washington Post site is about how strategists believe Trump went to far with Khan and his wife.

The lead story on The Los Angeles Times site is a profile of the Khans.

The “Trump-Kahn feud” tops the News section of the USA Today site.

The point is that this whole flap would have been relegated to memory if Trump understood politics.

But he brags that he doesn’t. And as polls show Hillary Clinton continuing to surge after last week’s convention, that gain is being conflated with and accelerated by Trump getting into it with the parents of a slain soldier.

What a dope!

3. Yesterday, I wrote about prominent Republican defections from the party’s presidential nominee.

In retrospect, I should have realized that it won’t be the big names that make the headlines right away.

The big news this morning is that Rep. Richard Hanna, a Republican from upstate New York, became the first sitting Congressman to switch sides in this election. He says he’ll vote for Clinton, calling Trump “a national embarrassment.”

Now Hanna is a little more moderate than your typical Republican. He faced a primary challenger in 2014 due to his support of same-sex marriage. 

Before him, one of Jeb Bush’s top aides, Sally Bradshaw, said she’s leaving the Republican Party and that she’ll vote for Clinton if Florida is close. 

No, it ain’t Jeb or his ex-president relatives, or any other particularly well-known Republican.

But the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. In this case, let’s see who else crosses into the light over the next 14 weeks.

1. It’s Monday, August 1, 2016.

2. Uh oh. Summer is near the halfway point. And, yes, I’m the wistful, half-empty type – or, in this case, half-over.

3. As gloomy as I get about summer speeding by, there are good reasons to fast forward to Nov. 9. That’s when, hopefully, this miserable election will be over and Trump will be sent sulking to his gold-plated lair on Fifth Avenue.

Or, I could go back to pessimist mode and hope Nov. 9 never gets here if there’s any chance in the world that this, as described by conservative foreign policy adviser Max Boot in the Times, “unapologetic ignoramus wins the presidency.” 

4. Sure, there’s a certain pleasure in watching conservatives wring their hands about Trump as he embarrasses the Republican Party.

But real liberals value patriotism over partisanship. We want to find a way for the remaining sane Republicans to help stop Trump.

As of now, only a few Republicans of prominence have endorsed Hillary Clinton. These are mostly the foreign policy professionals such as former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

The question is whether any of the prominent Republicans who have refused to endorse Trump would actually say out loud they’ll vote for a Democrat they’ve vilified for more than two decades.

I don’t think Mitt Romney will. He’ll support Libertarian Gary Johnson before Clinton.

And I don’t John Kasich will. To paraphrase an old song, he wants to be around to pick up the pieces when Trump breaks Republicans’ hearts by losing. Although the fact that the governor of Ohio, one of the most important states in this election, can’t bring himself to back the GOP candidate in a close race might be helpful enough to Clinton.

Will any member of the Bush family, for more than 20 years the first family of the party, endorse a Democrat for president? A sentence that would have made no sense a year ago now can’t be completely dismissed.

I think there are others. Moderate governors such as Hogan in Maryland and Baker in Massachusetts might do it. Maybe Susana Martinez in New Mexico.

So how do Democrats get sensible Republicans to come around?

I think we just let our best recruiter do the job. That would be Trump himself.

Every time he opens his mouth. Every time he presses that blue Tweet button.

He’ll be the one to drive Republicans who haven’t lost their minds to do something they couldn’t have possibly imagined when this campaign began. They might shed a tear. But that will be the first step toward getting their party on a path toward humanity.

5. ISIS is doomed, its territory dwindling rapidly. But its best recruiter was still hard at work this weekend.

Nobody, but nobody, helps terrorists more than Trump.

He proved his worth to his ISIS masters this weekend with his sniping campaign against the Khan family, whose son was killed in Iraq a decade ago. Trump doubled down on his criticism of Khan, whose speech at the Democratic convention condemning Trump’s anti-Muslim rhetoric has been the talk of the nation for four days. 

So far, Trump has implied that Khan’s wife, Ghazala, was muzzled for religious reasons because she didn’t speak when her husband did at the convention. He implied that Khan has no right to criticize him, and challenged Khan’s statement that he has not sacrificed for the country, citing his building prowess.

The latest from the Trump team has been an attempt to slur the Khan’s son by insinuating that he had ties to terrorists.

Prominent Republicans have joined with Clinton and running mate Tim Kaine in condemning the Trump reaction. Sen. John McCain, who has been insulted by Trump himself, issued a strongly worded statement this morning. Although, for some strange reason, McCain refuses to withdraw his endorsement of a man who seems less bothered by Trump’s comments about him than just about every Democrat.

Trump gave ISIS an opportunity to insult the Khans with a statement calling their son an “apostate” for helping protect his men when the car bomb that killed him exploded, according to The Daily Beast and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. 

All Trump’s anti-Islamic rhetoric does is drive the confused into the camp of evil. If you’re a troubled teen whose faith is being demonized, and you see how honorable people are being treated by a presidential candidate, that seems more conducive to going to Syria to fight for ISIS than going downtown to an Armed Forces recruiting station.

I wonder if ISIS will give Trump a plaque as Recruiter of the Month. It would go with the others he’s earned in a year of campaigning.

It’s July 29, 2016.

And that means it’s 20 Questions Friday, which also serves as my commentary about last night’s presidential nomination acceptance speech by Hillary Clinton. Because it might have just generated more questions than answers.

— So, can Trump really tell the difference between Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Michael Jordan? 

— Despite the fact that there’s no love lost on my part, is there any doubt that Michael Bloomberg would kick Trump’s ass in a fight? 

— Are there more Democrats who won’t vote for Hillary Clinton than Republicans who won’t vote for Trump?

— After seeing Khizr Khan’s speech about his fallen hero son, does everyone now understand why using the phrase “radical Islam” is stupid? 

— Was that the most over-the-top balloon drop at any political convention ever?

— Is there a drought where you live?

— Is there some way to make blueberries, Vidalia onions and corn on the cob grow all year round?

— What do you think Jeffrey Lord does when he’s not on CNN?

— Changing nothing else about her life, would Hillary Clinton do better or worse in the polls if she ran as Hillary Rodham?

— Why do you never see videos of Trump mingling with people the way Hillary Clinton does?

— Remember when everyone thought there’d be violence in the streets at both political conventions?

— Did you watch the conventions on your TV screen, your computer screen or your phone screen?

— How many people know that the Rio Olympics start next week?

— Do you take your summer vacation before or after August 1?

— Why is the U.S. economy growing so slowly, and isn’t that still better than contracting?

— At what point did men wearing a jacket with no tie become a norm?

— Is there any better music to write to than English classical?

— Who’s the better actor: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in “Airplane” or Scott Baio in anything he ever did?

— Do each of my remaining gray hairs reflect a time when the Mets left runners in scoring position?

— Is this summer going fast or what?

— So Bob, Luis and Gordon were still doing “Sesame Street”?

It’s Thursday, July 28, 2016.

Some thoughts after the third day of the Democratic National Convention:

— Yes, I’m blown away by the speeches.

The President was amazing. Joe Biden was great. And there was Bill Clinton on Tuesday night and Michelle Obama the night before.

But, to paraphrase, do they play in Peoria? Are people across the country getting the message?

Most of the people who watch the Democratic Convention are Democrats, as most of the people who watched the Republican Convention last week were Republicans. It’s an affirmation of your beliefs, the extension of why conservatives watch Fox News and liberals watch MSNBC.

So, are the speeches making independents think about voting for Hillary Clinton? And are they inspiring slightly less enthusiastic Democrats – including the Bernie Sanders backers – to get behind her candidacy?

We’ll start seeing the poll numbers next week. For about two weeks now, starting the week before the Republicans met in Cleveland, Clinton’s numbers have been sliding – a combination of the fallout from the FBI report on her e-mail and the GOP consolidating behind Trump.

If these were normal times, we would start to see a bounce in Clinton’s favor starting next week. If we do, the rhetoric worked.

If not, watch out.

— My god, the bar is high for Hillary Clinton tonight.

She has to give the best speech of her life, overcome her tendency to step on her best lines, and thread a needle to avoid saying anything that will piss off the Sanders people.

Over the past three nights, she’s watched her husband, her former boss and his wife leave the arena abuzz. Heck, even the second tier of speakers, including Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, have kept people engaged.

Clinton knows that speaking is not her long suit. She’s admitted it.

But, until the debates, this is her best chance to regain the lead in the polls and quiet the drumbeat of antipathy that beat strong in Cleveland last week.

One thing for certain: Before the convention, there was talk that she wanted to avoid the same negative tone about Trump that was sounded against her by the Republicans. She has let others do the dirty work.

Now, she needs to minimize the anti-Trump talk. She needs to give people reasons to vote FOR her rather than AGAINST Trump. That’s the big challenge tonight.

— I don’t know half the people in the Elizabeth Banks-produced music video that supports Hillary.

But I was thinking earlier this week that Clinton needs a song to galvanize support. And this video of “Fight Song” does a really good job. It’s very catchy, and the video is fun to watch.

“Fight Song” is a hit single by Rachel Platten. I, being the old man I vowed I’d never become, had never heard it until yesterday.

So while it might be fresh for me, there’s a possibility it’s a tired old song for some people.

I don’t care. It’s going on my playlist. It’s the song I’ve been looking to play to overcome the blues every time I see a goddamn Trump sign on the highway.

— Yeah, my jaw is still on the floor from Trump’s exhortation to the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s e-mail.

Hey, Trump chumps, watch the video of what he actually said before you deny that he said it.

As they say in the glassware stores where my wife loves to shop: You break it, you own it. That’s where Trump is with Russia right now, and I don’t see how that isn’t something abhorrent to any American.

Also, a note to my fellow Democrats: I know it’s meant as a joke, but I think even saying that the Russians should hack into Trump’s unreleased tax returns is a mistake. It undermines the seriousness of the treason Trump has introduced.

And, yes, what Trump said yesterday is treason. Plain, simple and despicable.

— I understand that Michael Bloomberg spoke.

Having worked for him, I’ve heard his voice as much as I intend in this lifetime, so that was a good time to do something else.

I suppose I should be glad that he’s on the side of the good guys.

By the way, the fivethirtyeight.com people were speculating what role Bloomberg could play in a Clinton adminstration. Is there a cabinet position for him?

The answer is simple. Michael Bloomberg doesn’t work for anybody. With $48 billion and that ego, why would he?

It’s Wednesday, July 27, 2016.

Some thoughts at the midway point of the Democratic National Convention:

— I guess the idea was for Bill Clinton to make his wife seem more relatable.

The whole thing about Hillary looks for drawers in Chelsea’s dorm room to line with that paper. Until last night, I thought that was only something that happened in my family.

But Bill Clinton was trying to intertwine the mother and lover with the career public servant. Eighteen years after we found out about Monica Lewinsky, the lover part remains awkward – although he addressed those problems so briefly that I’ll bet a lot of people missed it.

After describing a walk to a Yale art museum in law school, he said, “We’ve been walking and talking and laughing together ever since. And we’ve done it in good times and bad, through joy and heartbreak.”

Did Bill Clinton succeed?

He gave it a good 50-minute-or-so shot. He actually looked at his watch at one point, a striking change for a guy who doesn’t seem to be affected much by time. It’s also an interesting juxtaposition from 1992, when his opponent -George H.W. Bush – looked at his watch during a debate, making it seem as though he wanted to be anyplace other than there.

I’m thinking Clinton did some good. People who actually watched the speech probably learned a lot more about this possible president than they would have otherwise.

But a lot like last week in Cleveland, the only speech that matters this week in Philadelphia is the one Thursday night. A lot is riding on how well Hillary Clinton can tell her own story.

The fact that her former president husband thinks she’s up to the job is great. And her former boss, Barack Obama, will surely give her a great reference tonight.

But while voting against Trump will be a big motivation, it can’t be a complete victory unless Hillary Clinton gives people a reason to vote FOR her.

The stakes are getting raised.

— Poor Tim Kaine. Tonight, he’ll become the Democratic vice presidential nominee – and he’ll be an afterthought.

The man who he would succeed, Joe Biden, will speak tonight to party faithful who love him like an eccentric relative. The best political orator of my lifetime, Barack Obama, speaks as well.

And, over the last two nights, Bill Clinton and Michelle Obama have electrified the crowd in Philadelphia. Throw in Bernie Sanders, with his gruff passion, and you see Kaine’s problem.

I’m sure he’ll do OK. He’s that sort of guy. But it must be daunting to have to speak to a crowd that’s heard some impressive oratory.

— If Hillary Clinton is elected, one of the little things I would push for is some sort of memorial to those killed in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan since 1990.

For one thing, it’s the right thing to do. These people sacrificed for this country – even if we now realize that it was stupidity to send them to Iraq in 2003.

For another, the memorial should be a reminder of the folly of just thinking you can send American troops somewhere to solve problems, real or imagined.

If Trump is elected, of course, it’s doubtful that any such tribute is forthcoming. The way he sees it, those folks didn’t win. Why would we honor them?

It’s Tuesday, July 26, 2016.

Some quick thoughts on day one of the Democratic convention:

— Michelle Obama’s words are about to be lifted again. By any politician with half a brain.

In her amazing speech last night, many of the turns-of-phrase that she and writer Sarah Hurwitz came up with were epic.

The one that stood out was her describing what happens in her home when people nastily criticize her husband. “Our motto is when they go low, we go high.”

You will hear that phrase in campaigns for the next 20 years. It’s a brilliant way to go after a negative campaigner, made more so by the fact that a woman of such obvious intelligence and compassion is who you’re aligning with when you say it.

— During the primaries, Bernie Sanders was often compared with Trump because both seemed to tap into the national anger.

But last night, early in his speech, we were reminded why Sanders is very different. 

“This election is not about, and has never been about, Hillary Clinton, or Donald Trump, or Bernie Sanders or any of the other candidates who sought the presidency,” he said.  “This election is about – and must be about – the needs of the American people and the kind of future we create for our children and grandchildren.”

Sanders and Clinton ran on issues. They fought, hard, more on the ways to achieve their goals than on the issues themselves.

The two of them didn’t run on personal matters. “I don’t care about your damn e-mails,” he told her in the first debate. They never spoke about physical attributes or their spouses’ characteristics.

In his speech last night, Sanders stayed true to those issues, repeating his positions on income inequality, campaign finance reform, college costs and climate change, among others.

He also forcefully endorsed his rival. Unlike Ted Cruz a week earlier, he left no doubt who he wants to see win on Nov. 8.

— Sanders is in the exact opposite position of Cruz in the Democratic Party.

If Clinton wins, it will be seen as testimony to the fact that he put his ego aside and worked for the good of the party and the country. If Clinton loses, he will – because he’s being a good soldier – have a lot to say about how the Democrats recover from this disaster.

That’s probably why Trump spent a lot of time last night tweeting negatively about Sanders.  And when it comes to Trump, Sanders isn’t going to be afraid to stand up to him.

After Trump tweeted “Bernie Sanders totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. All of that work, energy and money, and nothing to show for it! Waste of time,” Sanders dismissed him with a simple “Never tweet” – the Twitter version of “Drop dead.”

— Are you as nervous as I am about what Bill Clinton is going to say tonight?

He is such a freakin’ wild card out there. Will he make things better or worse?

Four years ago, he gave one of the most interesting long-winded speeches in American history in support of President Obama’s re-election.

But what he can say about his wife without raising unspoken subtexts? Can he actually accomplish something akin to what Michelle Obama did for his wife last night?

It’s what makes these things interesting.

1. It’s Monday, July 25, 2016.

2. Mets fans welled with pride yesterday with Mike Piazza’s enshrinement into Baseball’s Hall of Fame. That there was a large orange-and-blue contingent among the approximately 50,000 gathered at Cooperstown was yet another reason for Piazza to break out his handkerchief.

I’ve gone from watching the stars of my childhood get enshrined to watching the stars of my sportswriting years get enshrined to now watching the stars of my kids’ childhoods get enshrined. It is part of the baseball continuum, the beauty of a sport that spans generations and ties families together.

Way to go, Mike!

3. I can’t say I was super excited about Hillary Clinton’s choice of running mate. It’s not that I had anything against Tim Kaine. It’s just that I wanted some out-of-the-box thinking – my choice was Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg.

Apparently, I wasn’t alone. The reaction to the Kaine selection has been tepid at best. Some of the people who backed Bernie Sanders aren’t happy because Kaine isn’t progressive enough.

But Kaine’s been pretty good so far. He’s a ray of sunshine after the gloom that marked the Republican convention. And I appreciated his telling his story – his early career, his days as governor of Virginia.

One of the things I thought impressive was his dismissal of the insults of Hillary Clinton that seemed to dominate in Cleveland. According to a transcript of a “60 Minutes” interview with CBS’ Scott Pelley, Kaine and Clinton both said they wouldn’t respond in kind. 

“Because we got real serious problems to solve,” Kaine said. “And look, most of us stopped the name-calling thing about fifth grade.

Kaine could be the antidote to the meanness of this campaign. That would be quite a contribution.

4. Fifth grade was when kids passed notes back and forth slamming other kids. That’s sort of how I see the contents of the Democratic National Committee e-mail leak.

Most of this stuff seems to consist of snippiness. About how the Democrats are covered on the networks. About Sanders, who wasn’t the choice of party regulars. It was probably the kind of cattiness that should have stayed in the office break room, but not been committed to e-mail.

Because, as any of us who’ve worked in big organizations know or should know, there’s no guarantee that someone you don’t want to see your e-mail will see your e-mail.

Is this a scandal that should impact the election?

Well, the fact that the Democrats have some of the same disorganization that we saw last week with the Republicans isn’t reassuring. So it shouldn’t be swept under the rug during the convention.

One way not to do that is to announce, during the convention, a new chairman or chairwoman who is acceptable to both the traditional and the insurgent wings of the party. And announce a restructuring that will make certain that all views in the party are represented.

There must be Democrats who bridge the gap, which is nowhere near as big as the one between the Trumpsters and the old-line GOP conservatives.

Get this resolved before the Democrats leave Philadelphia, or else we get to hear about this instead of infrastructure, gun control, the economy and the other real issues in this campaign.

5. When I was in the fifth grade, in 1964, the Russians were the bad guys.

It’s 52 years later. And, if the reports are true, the Russians are finding ways to subvert our institutions that the old Soviet Union couldn’t even imagine.

The Times says that researchers believe the Democratic computers were hacked by two Russian intelligence agencies, who then disseminated the e-mails through WikiLeaks.

It’s not going to be easy to get definitive proof. But the fact that Trump has, at the very least, shown some positive inclination toward Vladimir Putin has to make folks a little uneasy.

Let’s see if Trump and the Republicans condemn Russian hacking or just try to make hay of the e-mails without considering how they got them. If they’re so willing to get ahead that they’ll let a country that doesn’t seem too inclined to be an ally influence their behavior.

Now, I know what Trump supporters will say: This is nonsense. You Democrats are just embarrassed by both these e-mails and your crooked presidential candidate.

But that’s what the mean boys and girls in the fifth grade would have said.

It’s July 22, 2016, and time once again for 20 Questions Friday.

Why do I do this? Because I’m looking for a shtick. (And, no, that wasn’t the first question.)

Here we go:

1. Do you think Jon Stewart is bothered by the idea that he might not to be the guy to take Trump down? 

Why doesn’t Trevor Noah get more credit for making over “The Daily Show” to his personality and being really funny? 

Is it possible for people who don’t watch “Game of Thrones” (hand raised) to get political references to “Game of Thrones,” or are those analogies lost on them (us)?

Did any Republican politician emerge as a star from this week’s convention the way Barack Obama emerged from the Democratic convention of 2004?

Will any politician ever explode on the scene quite the way Obama did?

Why does a heat wave sound worse when it’s called a heat dome?

When was the last time you saw a sugar cube at a restaurant?

Will Ted Cruz face a primary challenge when he runs for re-election for his Senate seat in 2018?

Is it me, or is there an outbreak of really bad driving out there?

Where were all these animated films that are out in theaters now when my kids were the   right age for them?

Is there a chance Hillary Clinton will give her acceptance speech in Parseltongue?

Is it obnoxious to follow a dig at “Game of Thrones” references with a Harry Potter reference?

Are there other people as excited as I am for the release of the “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ script a week from Sunday?

Am I the only person who believes TV cooking shows are a sign of civilization’s decline?

Is someone who says “Believe me!” a lot really believable?

Do you think Justin Trudeau can handle the title of Leader of the Free World if Trump wins?

Right now, I’m listening to the late Mulgrew Miller – a wonderful pianist. Who is your favorite jazz pianist?

What percentage of drug ads is taken up by disclaimers warning of possible ill effects from the drug the company is trying to get you to ask your doctor about?

Despite their team’s lackluster play of late, is this a great weekend for Mets fans watching Mike Piazza get inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame?

Despite Trump’s hour of doom acceptance speech, is it possible to feel bad after listening to Stevie Wonder, or Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, or even Michelle Obama and James Corden sing “Signed, Sealed and Delivered”?