2016 July 23^rd

Now we have a complete playbill; the cast of characters in this tragedy are now all known; Tim Kaine, the Spanish speaking, certified “nice guy,” is Clinton’s VP pick.

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party is not jumping with joy about this. Kaine is well qualified to become President if he needs to; he has been a Senator, a Governor, the head of the DNC (Surely the most challenging of all his previous positions.), but he is also a fan of the Trans-Pacific Partnership which is unpopular with the Bernie wing of the party. Likewise is his friendliness toward the banking industry and his personal views on abortion.

To add to the angst of the Bernie people, the right wing has released some emails the DNC sent in an attempt to scuttle Bernie’s chances in West Virginia and Kentucky. There were two of these featured on “Fox and Friends” this morning. The attempt was made in one of these emails to make much of Sander’s religion, or lack of it. I doubt that the fact that Sanders was Jewish, or perhaps an Atheist, would come as a great surprise to anyone. On the other hand, the scathing attitude of Debbie Wasserman Shultz toward Sanders and her obvious bias against his candidacy is shameful. Not only that, but it does not help Clinton for Wasserman Shultz to alienate Sander’s supporters and this she has surely done. This was a stupid move.

Trump has been quick to jump in to this email controversy and also to try to besmirch Senator Kaine. Kaine received some gifts that Trump maintains were inappropriate if not illegal; they weren’t of course, because there is no evidence at all that the giver got any favorable treatment in return.

Trump is in some trouble on several fronts, none of which is getting much press at the moment but that will change once the Clinton campaign gets started: There is that pesky issue of “Trump University.” The State of New York’s Attorney General Eric Schneiderman shut down this bit of fraud. (As an interesting sidelight, Florida’s Attorney General, Republican Pamela Bondi was considering joining this action against Trump until she got a 25 thousand dollar contribution to her re-election campaign from him, whereupon she decided there just wasn’t enough evidence to proceed.) The hoodwinked students who were bilked out of thousands of dollars to learn Trump’s secrets of real estate success want their money back. They’ll get it too, if they live long enough.

How about Trump’s income tax returns: Trump hasn’t submitted them to the public because he says he can’t submit them while he is being audited. The IRS says being audited is no problem if Trump wishes to disclose what he has submitted. It might not be a problem for the IRS but it might be for Donald J. Trump. We’ll also hear more about this from the Clinton campaign.

The author of Trump’s “The Art of the Deal” has come forth to tell us that he, Tony Schwartz, is actually the author of this book. An infuriated Trump is suing Swartz for 10 million dollars plus all the royalties Swartz has received so far. There is an article in “The New Yorker” by Jane Mayer telling us about Swartz’s experiences dealing with Trump while he was trying to get enough information to write the book. The article makes the spectacle of Trump as President even more frightening.