SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:55 P.M. ET: 

TAKING CARE OF MAMA – FROM BOSTONTRIBUNE.COM: Washington D.C. – First Grandma Marian Robinson, 79, will receive a lifetime 160K government pension when she leaves the White House next year, according to congressional budget statements.  According to documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Mrs. Robinson earned the lifetime pension for “services rendered as full-time/in-home caregiver” for granddaughters Malia, 18, and Sasha, 15, during President Obama’s two terms in office.  In January of 2009, it was reported that Mrs. Robinson was living in the White House full-time to tend to her granddaughters. She was the first live-in grandmother at the White House since Elivera M. Doud, the mother of Mamie Eisenhower, during the Eisenhower Administration.  What a racket.  A $160,000-a-year pension for doing what grandmas do all over America every day for nothing?  I guess appearances don't count any longer.

THE MAGIC OF THE CUBBIES – FROM THE NEW YORK POST:   Chicago Cubs fans are looking to swap one golden ticket for another.  Diehard Cubbies followers are trying to swap tickets for the Chicago run of “Hamilton” for National League Playoff and World Series tickets.  Jim O’Hara told Chicago’s WBBM-TV he wants to swap four December “Hamilton” tickets for two Series seats. His wife hasn’t signed off on the plan yet.  “I have floated the idea,” O’Hara said. “She thinks we’re still going to ‘Hamilton.’”  The first direct challenge to "Hamilton" that I've seen.  The Cubs haven't won a World Series in more than a century, so the excitement is deserved. 

PARTY OF THE PEOPLE – OH YEAH? – FROM FOX:   HINDMAN, Ky. – Jim Justice, a coal billionaire running for West Virginia governor, owes millions in back taxes to some of Appalachia's most impoverished counties, including one in Kentucky that is struggling to pay the debt on a new rec center and has turned the lights off in its parks and reduced hot meals for senior citizens, according to tax records and government officials.  Many of these counties have been devastated by the collapse of the coal industry over the past few years, and their financial struggles are not all Justice's fault. But county officials say things would be a lot easier if he paid up.  "It's just absurd that a billionaire wouldn't pay his taxes," fellow Democrat Zach Weinberg, the top elected official in Kentucky's Knott County, said as he thumbed through a folder of Justice's debts.  Justice, who is leading in the polls, makes no apologies for the debt owed by some of his coal companies, saying he is doing everything he can to keep his businesses running and workers employed while other companies go under.  Isn't the law going after him?  Well, I guess that law doesn't apply to billionaire Democrats.  I guess they're excused under the "has a good heart" regulations.

October 23, 2016