It’s been a cloudy, muggy week in the Valley of the Sun, but with temperatures only in the 90s we’ll take it. Here are a few thoughts about stuff goin’ on…

If he keeps this kind of thing up, Donald Trump is going to make it harder for his supporters who appreciate his bombastic style to keep supporting him. I mean, you can’t talk about a woman’s looks like that. If he had said that about my wife in public we would have words, believe me. I wish for once he’d just suck it up, ditch his ego for ten seconds, then apologize and forever after stick to the friggin’ issues. Perhaps that might be asking too much?

With so much misery going on in the world today it’s nice to read stories like this.

…It’s been more than three weeks since the plastic came off the pool and – knock on wood – there has been nary a bee sighting. I hope wherever they went they’ve found a more accommodating place.

…I sure miss hitting golf balls. Maybe in a few weeks as I prepare for a fall visit back home to Massachusetts.

I’m with National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg: we don’t need Hillary Clinton’s apology for keeping a private e-mail server for national security e-mailing – we need answers. And National Journal’s Ron Fornier – a die-hard liberal, BTW, who has been on Hillary’s case from the start, has just the questions he would like to see answered. If her initials weren’t HRC, the federal government would be preparing a very nice cell for her in Leavenworth.

And I’m with NRO’s David French on the pathetic, do-nothing body that the U.S. Senate has become. You can’t allow a minority to run roughshod over how a legislative body does business. And it requires a strong leader (something Mitch McConnell isn’t) to make things happen. Just like in Congress, there are too many fat and comfy elected officials feeding off the public trough.

I guess I don’t understand the whole Kim Davis / Kentucky / gay marriage licensing thing. If your religious beliefs prevent you from handing out marriage licenses to gay couples, then simply delegate the activity to someone else. After all, a) she’s a government official with a job to do, and b) like it or not, gay marriage is the law of the land. It’s one thing to have religious convictions; when they interfere with the job you’ve been hired to do you either find a way to work around it, or you find another line of work.

Found myself re-visiting Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk and enjoying it a lot – it’s one my top five albums of all time. I especially love the brashness of this Lindsay Buckingham tune.