1. It’s Wednesday, September 7, 2016. The election is 62 days away.

2. Today is mathematically correct.

3. Roger Ailes apparently doesn’t plan to just cash his $40 million Fox News severance check and retire.

The New York Times says Ailes’ lawyers deny what was widely reported yesterday, that the Dr. Frankenstein of right-wing TV news is paying part of the network’s $20 million settlement with Gretchen Carlson. She’s the former Fox News host who sued the network alleging that Ailes sexually harassed her. 

As part of the settlement, parent company 21st Century Fox apologized to Carlson for the way she was treated. That treatment was not explicitly attributed to Ailes, but since that was her allegation, it’s a pretty fair conclusion.

Ailes’ lawyers are also on an offensive – a good word to describe anything involving this overgrown slug – against Gabriel Sherman. His story for New York magazine details how Carlson got the goods on Ailes by taping incriminating conversations, and how other women at Fox described his harassment of them.

There are indications that Ailes is planning to sue Sherman and New York. He’s retained the same lawyer who successfully sued Gawker on behalf of Hulk Hogan, resulting in the demise of the gossip site.

Ailes isn’t saying anything himself. He has been counseling Trump ahead of the presidential debates.

You would think he would slink away. He’s been given the opportunity to hide somewhere with his money and live out his days.

I guess once you’re addicted to being a serial jackass, it’s hard to kick the habit.

4. President Obama’s trip to Asia didn’t go perfectly.

There’s confusion about whether he was dissed by the Chinese in his arrival at the G-20 summit in Hangzhou. And there was the whole flap with the moron who’s president of The Philippines.

But the President was there to sign the Paris climate change accord and put the United States on the roster of civilization trying to combat this scourge.

And he demonstrated our nation’s responsibility when he visited Laos, where the United States left millions of unexploded bombs during the Vietnam War era, killing and maiming thousands of people.

Obama didn’t apologize – I’m sure his critics will say he did, again. But he put this country on the side of doing right, something it hasn’t always done.

That will be his foreign policy legacy. The outreach to people and places that the U.S. has treated brusquely for most of its rise to empire. If those countries don’t want that outreach – we’re talking the Philippines and North Korea – it is their loss.