2016 Sept 1^st

Cal Thomas, in his column today, takes serious issue with Secretary Clinton’s comment about activities now called “pay for play” when she was Secretary of State. Thomas writes, “She added, ‘I know there‘s a lot of smoke, and there’s no fire.’” In response to Clinton’s comment about there being just smoke and no fire, Cal Thomas presents us with no less an authority on fire than his firefighter son who assures us that if there is smoke there is, or there has been, a fire of some kind.

It is not surprising that Cal Thomas, past vice president of the Moral Majority, would take a metaphor like, “Where there’s smoke there’s fire,” literally. The Bible is chock full of metaphors all of which our fundamentalist friends believe are literally true, even to the point of searching about on Mt. Ararat for the remains of the mythical ark.

So far there is no evidence that Mrs. Clinton provided any benefit, except introductions, to those who donated to her foundation. Keep in mind that since the founding of the Republic those who donated to successful Presidential candidates have enjoyed ambassadorial appointments with all of the splendid amenities associated with those posts; now that’s really “pay for play.” None of that was mentioned on Fox. President Bush appointed 50 friends and supporters to ambassadorships. I wonder what they paid. We’ll never know.

Trump managed to look presidential in Mexico when he shared the stage with Mexican President Pena Nieto. Trump has been criticized for not insisting on camera that Mexico would have to pay for his wall. Unfortunately, we weren’t privy to the discussion between the two men off camera, before their joint statement. While there was no discussion of the wall in the joint statement, President Pena Nieto insisted that there had been a statement by him refusing to pay for the wall when the two were talking privately. Who knows?

Later in the evening, in his Arizona speech, Trump managed to mend his sagging immigration fences at least with Ann Coulter. His previous immigration softening had dampened her new book’s coming out party. Ann had been quite vocal in her unhappiness about that perceived change on immigration. Now with Trump’s return to his familiar attack persona, Ms. Coulter is once again a happy camper. Ms. Coulter’s TV appearances convince all who hear her that she firmly believes aggressive loudness trumps logic. It’s not surprising that she is a Trump fan.