2016 Sept 4^th

I begin today with a question; it’s rhetorical so do know this is not a quiz. How much money do you suppose someone requires as compensation for going in front of cameras on national television and making a fool of themselves?...Professional comics excepted.

Governor Pence is one of those who has the job of cleaning up after Trump and Pence is still paid by the state of Indiana whose governor he is. How much of Indiana’s business do you suppose he has conducted in the last six months? Just this morning on Meet the Press, the man, when asked about Trump’s obvious switcheroos on his immigration position said, with a perfectly straight face, “I think Donald Trump has been completely consistent.” When a candidate for the vice presidency says that, he winds up with the credibility of Spiro T. Agnew, another famous con artist and a Republican to boot, who actually got elected to the vice presidency.

We wait to see if Trump finds the debate moderators satisfactory. If he doesn’t like them, or if he believes they will treat him “unfairly,” or if he simply needs an excuse to avoid debating Hillary Clinton, he will not debate. He also has no intention of releasing his income tax records before the election. His excuse that he is being audited and that he can’t release his returns until the audit is finished is bogus and has been so declared by the IRS.

Pence has put his congressional papers into “hiding” not to be available until after his death. Now we have both Trump and his VP concealing stuff. Pence is a tea party stalwart who supports a bill to change the 14^th Amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in this country. He is on record claiming that restricting Muslim immigration would be unconstitutional. Trump’s change to banning immigration from “unsettled” countries with rebellious Muslim populations would keep out all of those awful French, but that might not be unconstitutional according to Pence.

Alex Castellanos participated in Chuck Todd’s ‘Meet the Press’ this morning. Alex is a right wing advisor and seems to be willing to do a bit of distorting if it serves the purpose of his employer.

Castellanos says in describing the Clinton Foundation, “Because that idea that somehow the Clinton Foundation is this wonderful thing that helps people, most charities give 75 percent of their money in direct aid. The Clinton Foundation gives less than ten. In 2013, they raised 140 million bucks, gave 9 million to people in direct aid. It's a slush fund for the Clintons.”

Castellanos provides not a shred of evidence that the Clintons have ever taken a penny from the Clinton Foundation. Note also the weasel word “..given to people in direct aid…” Why not tell us the total disbursements? (FactCheck gives the total charitable disbursements as about 85 percent.) This 6 percent figure paints an unfavorable picture of the Clintons and that is Castellanos goal. Castellanos is right up there with Steve Bannon, ex-Mayor Giuliani and other truth tellers helping Donald Trump.