E Minus 13:  Donald Trump and other Republican candidates immediately pounced on the news that the cost of Obamacare insurance policies is going up.

Speaking in Florida Trump said, “Obamacare is just blowing up and even the White House, our president, announced a 25 or 26 percent. That number is so wrong. That is such a phony number. You’re talking about 60, 70, 80 percent in increase, not 25 percent. Obamacare should be repealed and replaced.”

The Obamacare price hikes could give a boost to Republican Senate candidates worried about going down the tubes with Trump.  It’s already being used as a wedge for Republican incumbent Sen. Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.

The job of fixing Obamacare is likely to fall to Hillary Clinton. “There’s a clear choice in this election: either we’re going to help American families and tackle health care cost issues, or we’re going to throw 20 million people off their coverage and let the insurance companies write the rules again,” campaign spokeswoman Julie Wood said in a statement. Note that it wasn’t Hillary who tackled the problem head on.

Character: The NY Times has published excerpts from two-year old biographical interviews with Donald Trump in which he reveals that one of his prime motivators is public recognition — and his primal fear is disappearing from the limelight.

The Times says, “The recordings reveal a man who is fixated on his own celebrity, anxious about losing his status and contemptuous of those who fall from grace.”

The interviews were done in 2014 by Michael D’Antonio, a Pulitzer-winning reporter who wrote the Trump biography, “The Truth About Trump.”

Trump loves attention and being the most famous man in the room. D’Antonioasked whether that ever unnerves him. “No,” Trump said. “I think what would unnerve me is if it didn’t happen.”

Asked who he respects, Trump said, “For the most part you can’t respect people because most people aren’t worthy of respect.” That includes himself. About self-examination he said, “I don’t like to analyze myself because I might not like what I see.”

Gilded Age: Curiously, Trump has been fitting time into his schedule to promote his luxury resorts. Reporters followed him yesterday to the Trump National Doral, his golf course in Florida, and today he will be at the ribbon-cutting for his new hotel in Washington’s Old Post Office.

Permawar: The Islamic State has killed as many as 200 civilians as Iraqi and Kurdish troops advance on the city of Mosul, according to the United Nations. The dead include 50 former Iraqi policemen who were being held outside Mosul.

The fighting is reported to be slow-moving, and savage. ISIS set a sulphur plant on fire to poison the air and has been sending suicide car-bombs into advancing units.

Nation: Volkswagen has agreed to spend $10 billion to buy back diesel-engine vehicles that cheated emissions tests. — Paul Beatty, author of “The Sellout,” a satire about race in America, has become the first American to win the Man Booker prize for literature. — The Cleveland Indians beat the Chicago Cubs 6-0 last night at home in the first game of the World Series. — The NY Giants have released kicker Josh Brown after revelations that he physically abused his former wife.

Pater Noster: The Vatican has issued new guidelines for the disposal of cremated remains of Catholics, discouraging the faithful from scattering ashes or keeping them on the mantle at home. The guidelines say ashes should be put in a sacred place like a cemetery and not distributed “in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way … in order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided.” Because there’s nothing that says “pantheism” more than sprinkling Dad at the 18^th hole.

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