I stepped in poop this morning. It wasn’t outside, which would have made more sense, if I had been heading out in the dark to fetch the newspapers. I remember the days when I lived at home with my Mom and Dad. If I was the first one up in the morning, I would often go out and grab the newspapers—the Auburn Journal and Sacramento Bee. My folks used to spend the first hours of the day at the breakfast table, with coffee and newspapers. I would join them sometimes—my Dad would hand me the Bee’s Scene Section, which always had feature stories and Dear Abby and Ann Landers.

Nope. I stepped on poop inside the house, as I staggered out of bed and headed to the bathroom. I’m not sure which beloved pet left the pile for me. I’m guessing the cat.

Some days are like that.

Some weeks are like that, too.

It was yet another rough week in our national news cycle, marked by the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was killed at a college event he was hosting in Orem, Utah. His murder was tragic; all politically motivated shootings are, as are school shootings and domestic violence incidents. There was much initial vitriol from conservative commentators, who assumed that Kirk’s assassin was someone who identified with the political left. President Trump blamed the shooting on “the radical left.” Elon Musk posted that “the Left is the party of murder.”

The tone changed a little when it was announced that the alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, was actually raised in a Republican, gun-owning family. U.S Representative Nancy Mace, who repeatedly uses slurs against transgender people, initially said that “Democrats own this, 100 percent,” but later, after Robinson was arrested, wrote, “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.” Continue Reading…