1. It’s Monday, July 4, 2016.

2. Happy Independence Day!

3. Two thoughts about Trump’s idiotic weekend tweet:

I. When I say or do something that’s can be perceived to be wrong or offensive in any way, I’m blessed with people around me who without hesitation will say “Mark (or Dad), that’s not cool.” After a moment, I’ll say “Oh, OK, let me think of something else.”

And I don’t have hundreds of people traveling with me or hanging on to my every word.

Was there no one in Trump’s retinue of sycophants with a speck of awareness who could go to him and say, “Hey, your worship, that looks like a Star of David – it might distract people from your message”?

II. The tweet was Saturday. It’s Monday. It’s a holiday weekend. If he had just shut up, if he could have just resisted the impulse to recycle an anti-Semitic hit on Hillary Clinton, he could have made no news for three days. That would have helped rather than hurt him.

The impulsiveness doesn’t seem to be an attractive trait for someone who could possibly take this country to war.

4. Any moron who believes “radical Islam” is at war with the West should look at the past few days.

There was the airport attack in Istanbul that killed 41 people and the attack on a Dhaka, Bangladesh, restaurant that killed 22 people. And, the latest and worst, the attack on a Baghdad market that killed 200 people.

All but a few of the victims of these attacks were Muslims. Two of the three countries where the attacks took place have vast Sunni majorities, the other – Iraq – is more divided between Sunni and Shiite.

The victims were probably all looking forward to the end of Ramadan and the celebration of Eid al-Fatr, which is expected to take place tomorrow. Instead, they were killed wantonly, and they leave hundreds of families in unspeakable grief.

The scum that committed these attacks don’t worship Allah. They worship death. They worship pain. They worship thuggery. They worship subjugation of others.

And any time a politician in the West pays them the compliment of calling them a representative of Islam, by saying that they are “radical Islam,” they are adding to the pain of thousands of Muslims killed by people hiding behind their faith.

5. There is a tendency here to dismiss an attack such as the one in Baghdad as just one of those things that happens in that part of the world.

But 200 people dying for going shopping should offend us, whatever their nationality, race, gender, creed or where the hell it happens. It should offend us when it happens in Baghdad or Tel Aviv or Brussels or Orlando.

That’s simple humanity, which is supposed to be what our side stands for.

1. It’s Sunday, July 3, 2016.

2. It’s like the first of two Sundays this holiday weekend.

This really is Sunday. If you’re Christian and faithful, you’ve been to church today. Anyplace where stores usually close on Sunday has closed stores. Most of Major League Baseball will play day games. The talk shows were on this morning.

But this is a unique Sunday. Call it a Sunday with benefits. The sadness you feel, especially this time of the year, because the weekend is ending? Not today. The planning and shopping you do to get ready for a week of going to work and sending the kids to school or camp? You can pass.

That’s because you’re off tomorrow. Tomorrow is the Fourth of July. It’s Monday, but who cares. No work. No school or camp. Not even church.

Now, it’s going to feel like a Sunday, because you’ve got to get ready for the shortened workweek. But hey, you already had a pretty nice Sunday this weekend, so don’t get greedy.

It’s hard to beat having the Fourth of July on a Monday. Next year, it’s on Tuesday, when things get complicated. So enjoy this one.

3. Looking over the birthday list for July 3, I was struck by two names. Born on this date were Dorothy Kilgallen, in 1913, and Montel Williams, in 1956.

Ms. Kilgallen died in 1965 (which means, of course, that she never once in her life was called Ms. Kilgallen until perhaps this very moment). Mr. Williams, happily, is still with us.

What they have in common is celebrity. Both are creatures of the television age.

They’re famous – or at least they were in their time. Mostly because they’re on TV as famous people.

Ms. Kilgallen is best known for being a panelist on the TV quiz show “What’s My Line?” It ran in the late 1950s and early 1960s and involved guessing what some guest did for a living. It’s very quaint to see these shows – my Mom is obsessed with watching them on one of these vintage TV channels – on which the top prize was $100.

But she was a regular on the show.

It’s unfair to say that’s all she did. She was, in fact, a gossip columnist for The New York Journal-American, the Hearst paper. She also covered the occasional serious story, including the assassination of President Kennedy.

Williams hosted a TV talk show around the turn of this century after a distinguished military career. He’s also a spokesman for the drug industry and an advocate for victims of multiple sclerosis, of which he’s one.

But for the most part, people familiar with both are unlikely to think of them in any way other than appearing on a small screen – although Williams was around for bigger screens.

Being famous seems a lot easier in the early 21st century. There are, I am told, YouTube personalities – people with large followings simply because they’re able to post videos that interest people on the Internet video outlet. There are online personalities, and people who have become famous because they let cameras show them doing whatever they do in the course of a day.

I suppose I could become famous for writing this blog. It would bother me a little if I obtained more notability for doing this than for anything else I’ve done in a 40-year journalism career. But those are the times we live in.

There must be a human instinct for seeking fame. But it was hard to reach fruition in the days before mass communication. Were there people perceived as being famous for being famous during the Revolution? Elizabethan England? The Ming Dynasty?

Why? Why are there people who believe it’s better to be known by millions than to be good at what you do?

Or am I just wrong about this? Are people as famous as they deserve to be?

Fame is not an easy master. Dorothy Kilgallen died at 52 of an alcohol and barbituate overdose. What was the pressure that drove her to that point – even in 1965, dying at 52 was considered dying young.

I’ll try to revisit this idea down the road. Probably before I’m famous. In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend.

1. It’s Saturday, July 2, 2016.

2. It’s 1 a.m. ET. That means that here in New York, where I’m posting this, it’s the exact midpoint of this year.

Huh?

Good question.

Yesterday, July 1, was the 183rd day of the year. There are 366 days in 2016 (quick, think of something you did on Feb. 29!), so 183 is half the days.

That dividing line would normally be midnight, the last moment of Friday.

That brings us to Daylight Savings Time. The hour we skipped on March 13 (quick, think of something you did on March 13!) got pushed to Nov. 6, which hasn’t arrived yet.

So that means the final moment of the year’s 4,392nd hour, half of 2016’s 8,784 hours, occurs at 1 a.m. on July 2.

Which is now.

Welcome to the second half of 2016.

3. If this were a football game, we’d be going over the highlights of the first half.

But “highlights” seems like too positive a word to describe the first 183 days.

When I think of the first half of the year, I think of Brussels. I think of a crazed gunman in Orlando. I think of what happened in Istanbul this past week. Three events that completely belie the idea that the human race is getting progressively better.

I think about last week’s Brexit vote, something akin to national economic suicide.

And, of course, it’s impossible to think about the first half of 2016 without the name Trump.

It’s hard to think of a single of the 183 days so far in which this maroon hasn’t opened his mouth and said something offensive to the idea that America is a diverse and intelligent nation. He has exposed the racism that some of us were blind to. He has embarrassed the city where he was allegedly born (Has anyone seen HIS birth certificate?).

The most you can say about the first half of 2016 is that it was inconclusive.

Sure we know won the Pulitzer Prizes and the NBA Championship and the Academy Awards.

But the second half of the year will reveal answers to a bunch of things hanging over us.

First, what the hell is Britain going to do now that 52% of its voters have indicated they want to disengage from Europe? How does that work? Who is the ultimate Machiavellian manipulator or lucky stiff that will emerge from the scrum to become the nation’s leader?

Second, can Rio actually stage an Olympics? Or is this going to be a 17-day scourge of civil unrest, shoddy facilities, doping scandals, overwrought nationalism? (Although it’s impossible to be an overindulgence in any way if we hear 17 days of the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim.)

And, finally, the big question: Will the United States of America throw away 240 years of being the beacon of freedom by electing Trump, a character out of a wretched political novel, as its 45th President? Or can Hillary Clinton, an imperfect hero, deliver the kind of electoral rout needed to reestablish this country’s place as the world’s moral leader?

Here comes the second-half kickoff. It’s going to be a tough 263,520 minutes.

4. By the way, if you ask me, the best thing that happened in the first half of 2016 was Bartolo Colon’s home run. What do you think?

1. It’s Friday, July 1, 2016.

2. Do you get the sense that Bill Clinton is getting a little dotty?

I’m saying this because, earlier this week, the 42nd President’s private plane stopped in Phoenix. He got out and realized that the plane was someone he knows was nearby.

That someone was Attorney General Loretta Lynch. And if this country were in a different state of being, Clinton stopping by to say hello to a former employee would be something you’d expect an ex-boss to do.

But the problem is that Lynch’s department is involved in investigating whether Clinton’s wife, who wants his old job, was involved in a crime when she set up a separate e-mail server as Secretary of State.

Now you and I probably believe what Hillary did is, at worst, a case of bad judgment but hardly a crime.

But not the nuts who believe she is evil incarnate – probably because she’s this close to the White House.

They’ve been wailing about the Bill Clinton-Loretta Lynch meeting, seeing it as his way to try to influence the investigation.

That’s why Lynch (full disclosure: she’s my brother’s ultimate boss at the Justice Department) is announcing today that she will not interfere if the FBI brings charges against Hillary Clinton or anyone else regarding the e-mail server. That’s probably what she was going to do anyway, but now she’s got to make a statement. 

Bill Clinton is supposed to be a great politician. But he doesn’t seem to have a clue about appearances. It’s hard to believe there was no voice in his head, no voice among those traveling with him, screaming “If you go over there, the nutcases’ sirens are going to go off.”

Those are the kinds of shoot-off-your-own-foot things that get the Clintons, both Hill and Bill, in trouble. It’s not evil or malicious. It’s just plain eye-rolling.

3. And as if you need a reminder about why Hillary Clinton needs an untarnished path through the next four months, here’s today’s Trumpidity:

In New Hampshire, 2,235 miles from the Mexican border, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate was addressing the lemmings excited by the winking racism of his campaign.

All of a sudden, a plane flew overhead. And Trump, who was foaming about trade, said, “In fact, that could be a Mexican plane up there. They’re getting ready to attack.”

Classy.

What a freakin’ jerk! There might be some differences with Mexico. But we are blessed to have a neighbor so reliable and peaceful, and taking cheap, stupid shots at it and its people is not what any leader would do.

It’s a reminder that this guy has gotta lose. Big. I want all 50 states; I was heartened by the first fivethirtyeight.com election forecast that makes states such as Mississippi and South Carolina more of a tossup than Ohio or Florida.

But I want Hillary Clinton to run the table on this horse’s ass. And her husband would do well to think three times before acting on impulses.

4. Every now and then, there’s an act of op-ed courage that needs support – especially since the world is about to crash on the writer with a level of opprobrium he couldn’t have imagined.

So I want to second the sentiments of Gersh Kuntzman of The New York Daily News: “God Bless America” should not be played in the 7th-inning stretch of Major League Baseball games.

To be fair, 29 teams play it only on Sundays, holidays and Opening Day. The Yankees, of course, insist on playing it every game, usually cranking up an old, tired recording of the song’s most famous singer, Kate Smith.

In his column this morning, Kuntzman says “God Bless America” is an awful song. It invokes the deity – remember, this is a country that’s supposed to be neutral when it comes to religion – to bless just us.

Anyway, didn’t God already bless the country with the mountains, prairies and oceans white with foam? It would be nice if the people singing the song actually took care of those things themselves, but I’ll save the environmental rant for another time.

The song also changes the flow of the game for the people in the ballpark. You’re cheering loudly and interacting, and then all of a sudden comes this mock-solemn moment incongruous with what’s come before and will come after.

You’ve got to stand up – and you’re told to do so by the PA announcer – and remove your cap (which, by the way, I’m wearing to help protect against a recurrence of skin cancer). Then the players – not all of whom are from the United States – stand on the field for this pseudo-patriotism.

It’s as though Baseball feels its patriotism is questioned and it needs to prove it. So it coughs up this song to show it’s in line.

Anyway, I’m on Kuntzman’s side in this. I’m old enough to still second-take the thought that the Daily News, which once stood for the type of conservatism that Trumpists would embrace, published this column. One that is going to anger the people who believe how the flag is displayed, instead of acting on the values that make America special, is the be-all and end-all of showing patriotism.

I’m afraid, though, that what Kuntzman’s column will do is solidify the position of those who think this is a good idea. That’s generally what happens when someone dares to question this kind of orthodoxy.

But, hey man, thanks! It takes guts to go against the foam.

1. It’s Thursday, June 30, 2016.

2. Now that I’m retired from CNN, I’m free to be politically active. On balance, that’s a good thing – it’s really hard to be objective when one side can be summed up in two odious words: Donald Trump.

But today’s a bad day to be a partisan, and I’m imagine this is true whether you’re a Democrat or Republican.

Today is the final day of June, which means it’s also the final day of the quarter. And thus, it’s a key deadline for political campaigns and parties to report how much they’ve taken in this month and quarter.

Because winning in politics is about having enough resources to get out your message, the parties want to make sure the amounts of money they report sound really good. They should be more than the last quarter, or the same quarter last year, or the same quarter in the last presidential election campaign.

And so what they do is badger.

My phone has rung a good eight or nine times a day the past few days as the deadline draws near. The few times I’ve answered some earnest voice comes on, identifies her/himself, says the call might be recorded, and then thanks me for my past support.

Then he/she tells me how important it is to stop Donald Trump/the Republicans/both and how, for a limited time, some donor will triple-match my contribution.

I try to get a word in edgewise to say I’ve donated. But that donation apparently wasn’t nearly enough. Because they keep coming, like the brooms in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” except that instead of dumping money on me they want to keep extracting it.

It’s not like I don’t want to help. I won’t have to worry about money if Trump wins, because a guy who’s willing to default on the nation’s debt and print greenbacks would make anything I have virtually worthless.

But last I looked, I’m retired. Not making big bucks. Not nearly rich enough to make the quantity of donations these folks seem to need.

So this is not a good day to reach me on the phone. Unless the caller ID is someone I know, I’m not picking up. Hopefully, everybody understands.

Also hopefully, this country will find a better way to finance its political campaigns. But I’m not waiting around for that phone call any time soon.

3. One bad hairdo down, one to go.

Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who helped lead the campaign to extract Britain from the European Union, said today he won’t stand for Prime Minister.

He said that after finding out that Michael Gove, the Justice Secretary and one of Johnson’s partners in the Leave campaign, wouldn’t support Johnson’s bid to succeed David Cameron. Gove kinda wants the job himself.

This is just one more in a serious of misadventures in Britain following the vote to leave the E.U.

While the Conservatives – one year out from a substantial general election win – are trying to figure out who’ll run the country, Labor is reeling as well. An overwhelming majority of the party’s MPs voted against leader Jeremy Corbyn, who for some reason won’t quit.

With Johnson gone, Trump is now the undisputed world leader in miserable hairdos among potential leaders. Hopefully, we’re 131 days away from dispatching him from the scene as well.

1. Yup, it’s still Wednesday, June 29, 2016.

2. When you’re schlepping from Long Island and southern New Jersey, and cutting through the mess that is Staten Island, you might be curious about the Outerbridge Crossing.

It goes from the southwest part of Staten Island to Perth Amboy, N.J., and connects to the Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and Interstate 287, which goes all the way back to New York state.

The temptation is to think that the bridge is named because it’s the furthest from civilization – meaning Brooklyn and Manhattan.

3. But it turns out the Outerbridge Crossing is actually named for somebody.

I know this because once, while sitting in one of those traffic jams that make traveling through Staten Island like one of the levels of the Inferno that Virgil showed Dante, I saw a plaque. The plaque said the bridge was named for Eugenius H. Outerbridge – yes, that’s his name. He was the first head of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the bridges and tunnels that connect the two states.

When they built the bridge, they named it the Arthur Kill Bridge. While that, in fact, does sound like a bridge named for someone, it wouldn’t have been. Arthur Kill is the translation from the Dutch name for the body of water between Staten Island and New Jersey.

It opened on this date 88 years ago, along with its twin, the Goethals Bridge, about 10 miles up the kill.  

When Outerbridge died a few years later, they renamed the bridge for him. But the Outerbridge Bridge sounds like something out of a British children’s story. So they came up with the Outerbridge Crossing.

4. And, by some chance, if you ever take one of my  journalism classes, the Outerbridge Crossing and the Goethals are correct answers to the extra credit question I ask every semester: Name three bridges between New York and New Jersey other than the George Washington. The third is the Bayonne Bridge.

To my students, the Lincoln Tunnel and Holland Tunnel remain unacceptable answers. Because they’re tunnels.

1. It’s still Wednesday, June 29, 2016.

2. It’s 85 degrees right now, late in a summer afternoon.

3. So, yes, it’s an odd time to bring up the holiday season song “Sleigh Ride.”

Actually, it’s not. On this date 108 years ago, the composer of the song, Leroy Anderson, was born.

“Sleigh Ride” is Anderson’s best-known work. It’s far from his only one.

In fact, the piece I associate him with most is “The Syncopated Clock.”

4. If you’re from the New York area and are my age or a little older, you’ve heard “The Syncopated Clock.” You just might not know its name.

You know it because it was the theme of “The Late Show,” the movie that WCBS-TV, Channel 2, aired right after the 11 p.m. news. It’s what the station put up against “The Tonight Show” with either Steve Allen, Jack Paar or Johnny Carson.

Here’s a link to a YouTube video showing the opening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3cl6QoZSDw

“The Late Show,” of course, is now the name of CBS’ talk show that follows the local news at 11 or 10, depending on your time zone. First, it was David Letterman’s show and now it’s Stephen Colbert’s.

It’s strange that I encountered the Leroy Anderson birthday. Because I’ve been thinking a lot about what has changed in my life in 62-1/4 years (minus 3 days).

The first thing you always think of is the technology. I’m writing this not at my desk at home, but in beautiful Rockland Lake State Park.

I’m using a 5-1/2-year-old iPad – Apple calls it “vintage” but in the late 1960s or early 70s I would have called it a miracle. I would have been able to sell tickets so that people could watch me use it.

I’m also listening to a playlist of 70 songs on my iPhone – back then, I would have need a giant turntable, speakers, some kind of receiver, six or seven vinyl LPs and a place to plug all this in. It would have taken me about four trips to the car just to get the stuff to listen to.

You get the idea.

And yet, a lot of the radical changes in our life are tangental to the technology. You can’t say they’re divorced from it, because tech influences everything.

Here’s a case in point:

Look at your neighborhood or the town where you live. In the 60s and 70s, you could avoid shopping malls, which were a relatively new phenomenon, by buying stuff around the corner. Shoes. Clothes. Toys. Records. A baseball glove.

Now, the only communities where those types of stores exist are crafts communities, places aimed at attracting tourists or day trippers. Now, the only commerce conducted in villages is usually take-out food, convenience stores, beauty salons and places to work out.

That change, the decline of the local merchant, is partly due to the efficiency of the mall, the big-box stores and the warehouse clubs, and partly to the full blossoming of online shopping. A world of Amazon boxes on doorsteps.

We used to need phone books and the Yellow Pages. When was the last time you used one?

We used to deposit mail in corner mailboxes. About the only place to drop off mail now is the local post office.

So here’s how “The Syncopated Clock” and “The Late Show” come in.

It might come as a shock to those of you in your 40s or younger, but when I graduated from high school 44 years ago this week, TV stations went off the air in the middle of the night. And, of course, all stations were local – there was no cable.

Most of them broadcast until 1 a.m. or so. Then after whatever they played last was done, there would be a booth announcer – a guy who read stuff on the air live – who would first read that the station followed the broadcasting standards of good practices. Whatever they were. I assume now that they meant that people weren’t going to curse on TV, but who knows.

That was followed by some sort of sermon, usually – but not always – delivered by a Christian minister (I could swear that I saw a rabbi once). Then the announcer would say that the station had concluded another broadcast day, and that programming would resume at 6 a.m.

Then there was a film of an American flag with “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing in the background. Sometimes, the film got creative and included places such as the Capitol, Mount Rushmore and the Statue of Liberty before ending with the fluttering flag.

Then there was silence and a gray fuzzy screen.

And then came the test pattern. For most of my childhood, it was in black and white, since my family got its first color TV set in 1968. The test pattern showed the name of the station and was accompanied by a high-pitched tone.

And it would run for the next several hours.

When I was little, and would wake up early. I would scamper to the TV and turn it on just before the station came back on the air. Somewhere around 6 a.m., there would be that wonderful moment when the test pattern all-of-a-sudden ended.

Just like that. It wasn’t that hard to make me happy back then.

First, there was the gray fuzzy screen. Then a different announcer would tell you it was the start of the station’s broadcast day. Then there would be that “Star-Spangled Banner” film, the reminder about the mysterious good practices, another sermon and then the early morning programming – I seem to remember a lot of education films for the farmers, of which there were few even back then in metropolitan New York.

“The Syncopated Clock” symbolizes the end of that world to me.

Channel 2 used it to introduce “The Late Show” at 11:30. My Mom, from whom I get my abysmal sleeping habits, would stay up to watch it.

When I was a teenager, and could stay up with her, I remember being introduced to some classic films by “The Late Show.”

One was called “The Big Carnival,” a movie about a shady reporter that was released in theaters as “Ace in the Hole.” It starred Kirk Douglas and, if you haven’t seen it, it is in many ways one of the darkest films ever made.

Another was “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Watching it on “The Late Show” in the weeks around Christmastime was how most people were introduced to it. The intimacy of the small screen probably helps its impact on an audience.

At some point, though, WCBS started showing a movie after “The Late Show.” It was “The Late Late Show” and it also used “The Syncopated Clock” as its theme. And then, sometime in the early 70s, it ran another “The Late Late Show” around 3 a.m., again with “The Syncopated Clock.” And then it added another around 4:30, again with the song.

And finally, it reached the next day. TV was on 24 hours a day. Other stations followed suit. Local stations left movies mostly for the cable channels. The test pattern and fuzzy gray screen and sermons and national anthem all disappeared. 

Or maybe they didn’t. I don’t watch TV much, and especially at 3:30 a.m. If I did, I’d watch live news on CNN or a movie on HBO or the prior evening’s Mets game. I wouldn’t watch infomercials or old sitcoms, but they’re around, too. Maybe there’s a test pattern I haven’t come across yet.

So “The Syncopated Clock” is kind of a Rosebud for me. It reminds me of a different time when I was younger and things were different.

Notice I don’t say better. I can’t say better. Somebody must want to watch TV at 3:30 if all these channels are on the air at that time.

For those people, all today is is the 108th birthday of Leroy Anderson, who wrote “Sleigh Ride.”

And they’re ticked off that I’m putting a holiday song in their head six months ahead of Christmas.

1. It’s Wednesday, June 29, 2016.

2. Yesterday’s attack that killed 41 people at Istanbul’s airport was horrific, but hardly unique. It is similar to the attacks that have killed dozens in Brussels and Paris in the past year, and all are odious to anyone with even a trace of humanity.

But what the Turks seem to be noticing today is that while there have been condemnations of the attack from around the world, there doesn’t seem to be the outpouring of sympathy and rage that follows attacks in western Europe.

And yet, what happened in Istanbul is much more representative of the evil confronting the civilized world, and why it’s really important that politicians in the West follow President Obama’s example and not equate the attackers with Islam.

Right now, there’s an assumption that the vermin who committed this atrocity were backed by the self-proclaimed Islamic State. ISIS – or Daesh, the name the group itself hates, which makes me wonder why we don’t use it more often – hasn’t claimed responsibility for the attack. That’s unusual, because it took credit for the Orlando nightclub shooting even though evidence points to Omar Mateen being a sick jackass acting alone.

But whoever did this, for whatever reason, wasn’t striking a blow for Islam and against infidels. Because most of the victims in Istanbul were Muslims, traveling during the start of the final week of Ramadan.

In fact, despite the wailing of the Trumps and others who see a war against Christianity, most terrorism committed by people claiming to be Muslims is against other Muslims. It’s not even close. 

4. Whoever did this didn’t give a damn whether or not the people in the airport were Sunni or Shiite. They didn’t give a damn, period.

They’re nihilist thugs. Giving them any kind of credence by calling them rebels or radical Islamists gains them more credit than they ever deserve.

They have no legitimate grievances. They have no noble or religious purpose. They’re evil because they can be. They’re losers in life who have hidden behind some gang colors and want some sort of domination. When they can’t have that, they want to show that they can disrupt the peace of people who are not nearly as miserable as they are.

So yes, I feel as bad today as I did in November when Paris was devastated and in March when it happened in Brussels. That it happened in Istanbul, with mostly Muslims involved, doesn’t make it less heinous. It just shows this kind of thing for what it is – unadulterated murder.

And I hope that after the bastards blew themselves up, they were condemned to the hell they so justly deserve. 

1. It’s Tuesday, June 28, 2016.

2. I don’t get the sense that Pat Summitt was warm and cuddly. And she most assuredly could have cared less what I thought.

But you have to be an idiot not to recognize her great accomplishments. Elevating women’s basketball. Winning eight NCAA championships. And the standard I set for excellence in college athletics: Seeing to it that all her players left Tennessee with a diploma to go with those on-the-court memories.

As someone with family members afflicted with dementia, I sympathize with the coach’s family, and imagine that her death this morning brings not only sadness but relief. I hope they find solace at this awful time.

3. Now that the House Benghazi Report has issued its report, revealing virtually nothing that we didn’t already know about the September 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Libya, what is Fox News going to obsess about now?

Yes, there were mistakes made. But none of them bordered on the kind of malfeasance that might have justified a 2-year, $7 million investigation whose purpose, as one of its proponents indicated, was to hurt Hillary Clinton’s chances to become president.

I’m sure Trump will tweet about it once someone explains to him where Benghazi is.

As for the folks at Fox News, Benghazi has been the dog whistle for stoking Obama and Clinton hatred the past four years. It’s their equivalent of Norma Rae holding up the union sign. Every time you think you can have a logical discussion about the nation’s direction with these folks, they cough up “Benghazi” and that’s the end of it.

I’m guessing the calls for a deeper investigation will emanate from Fox any day now. Gotta fill that airtime with something.

5. If I were a European Union member, I’d want a response to the British vote to leave like the one given by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

She’s basically saying that she’ll do what she can to keep the EU together. And she’s telling the British, who want a sweetheart trade deal, that they can’t have the privileges of EU membership without the obligations.

I mean, I don’t know what the Brexiters were expecting. In fact, I don’t think they knew what to expect. They seem to believe that the EU will take the decision to bail with a stiff upper lip and they’ll all be mates after all.

But if I’m not mistaken, there are Italians in the EU. So I’m guessing that live-and-let-live thing is a non-starter with those folks.

1. It’s Monday, June 27, 2016.

2. A new poll out this morning shows Trump with an 8-percentage-point lead over Hillary Clinton.

In Texas.

That’s a state where you’d expect Trump to be double digits ahead. It seems to be the perfect Petri dish for the racist, isolationist germs he’s been spreading for the past year.

But Texas is also Austin and good-sized Latino and African-American populations. It’s a bellwether for the changes in our population that we expect to see over the next half-century.

There’s been lots of talk that Texas, which turned solid red after native-son Lyndon Johnson pushed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights acts, could become purple in the next few years as the population changes.

I’ve been hoping that would happen in 2016. That Trump could actually lose Texas. It’s still a bit of a dream. But eight points in four months isn’t impossible. 

3. But here’s why today is a tough day for the white yahoos who give Texas its bad reputation: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-3 to strike down the ridiculous law imposing onerous restrictions  on places where abortions are performed.

Among the things the law did was require buildings where abortions are performed meet the standards of a hospital emergency room, with ultrawide hallways so that two surgical gurneys could pass each other. This, despite the fact that most abortions are not surgical procedures.

The proponents of this law, and others like it around the country, all parroted the same line – that  they were only looking out for the health of women.

Which is crap. By limiting the places where women can deal with their health issues – these places aren’t just for abortions – they put women at far greater risk.

The High Court ruled wisely in striking down the law, calling the provisions a violation of the Constitution.

Advocates for women’s health and safety cheered the ruling, of course. But it’s a costly victory – in the three years since Texas passed the law, many of the places where abortions have been performed shut down because of their inability to meet the regulations.

4. And it’s a reminder that the abortion issue has been a pain ever since the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

The opponents of Roe v. Wade cloak themselves in the term pro-life so as to present those who favor unlimited access to abortion as pro-death. But they don’t seem so pro-life as to care much about the women affected by them. These same people tend to be opposed to making contraception and prenatal care readily available, to making sure women who go through with a pregnancy get adequate time to care for a new child before returning to work.

Making abortion nearly impossible to get won’t end abortions. Hardly. Women, especially those who’ve become pregnant due to rape, are going to find ways to end that pregnancy if they don’t want to be sentenced to forced motherhood. They’ll put their lives at risk to do – and that’s hardly pro-life under any reasonable standard.

Those who cheer today’s ruling need to remain vigilant. Don’t think for a second that the people who came up with these cockamamie building restrictions and hospital residency rules aren’t plotting some other stupid thing. Don’t think they’ve given up on demonizing Planned Parenthood, an organization that helps women and men deal with health and family planning.