Parade’s End:President Trump officially cancelled his promised military parade, blaming the mayor of Washington for setting a “ridiculously high”  price on hosting it. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city’s costs would be $21.6 million, less than a quarter of the total estimated cost of the parade.

Trump responded with tweeted insults. “The local politicians who run Washington, D.C. (poorly) know a windfall when they see it,” he wrote. He said he would instead go to Paris Nov. 11^thfor a parade celebrating the end of “the war.” We think he means World War I. He said, “Maybe we will do something next year in D.C. when the cost comes WAY DOWN. Now we can buy some more jet fighters!”

Bowser taunted Trump in return, “Yup, I’m Muriel Bowser, mayor of Washington DC, the local politician who finally got thru to the reality star in the White House with the realities ($21.6M) of parades/events/demonstrations in Trump America (sad).”

The Jury’s Out:The jury in the Paul Manafort tax evasion and financial fraud trial is taking the weekend off after two days of deliberations. They did send out a question about the meaning of “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Don’t they watch “Law and Order”?

President Trump in an off-the-cuff comment on the South Lawn said, “I think the whole Manafort trial is very sad. When you look at what’s going on there, I think it’s a very sad day for our country. He worked for me for a very short period of time. And you know what? He happens to be a very good person. I think it’s very sad what they’ve done to Paul Manafort.”

The Reality President:In a column in The Washington Post, Michael Gerson wonders whether American democracy can survive Donald Trump’s rule of celebrity. “The problem is a defect of spirit,” Gerson writes. “The founders generally believed that the survival and success of a republic required leaders and citizens with certain virtues: moderation, self-restraint and concern for the common good. They were convinced that respect for a moral order made ordered liberty possible.

Gerson says, “The culture of celebrity is the complete negation of this approach to politics. It represents a kind of corrupt, decaying capitalism in which wealth is measured in exposure. It elevates appearance over accomplishment.

He concludes, “We are seeing a drama with one hero, pitted against an array of villains. And those villains are defined as anyone who opposes or obstructs the president, including the press, the courts and federal law enforcement. Trump’s stump speeches are not a call to arms against want; they are a call to oppose his enemies. This is not the agenda of a movement; it is the agenda of a cult.”

Rookie Mistake:Congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who became an overnight sensation after upsetting a powerful incumbent Democrat representing the Bronx and Queens, banned the press from two community meetings that were open to the public. Her campaign said she was trying to protect attendants from being mobbed by the press, but it’s the press that made her a national figure.

The Obit Page: Kofi Annan, a diplomat from Ghana who was the well-regarded seventh secretary general of the United Nations, has died at age 80.Annan was the first black African to head the UN. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.

The Roundup:As many as 324 people are dead after monsoon flooding in the southern Indian state of Kerala.  — Eleven months after Hurricane Maria, the Federal Emergency Management Agency says the island’s emergency is over and the agency is dialing back on financial assistance. Amazingly, power has still not been restored for everyone on the island. — Cara Mund, the reigning Miss America,accused the pageant organization of systematically silencing her in a letter made public. Mund said that the pageant’s leadership had “reduced me, marginalized me, and essentially erased me in my role as Miss America in subtle and not-so-subtle ways on a daily basis.” In response, they are limiting her appearance at this year’s pageant to 30 seconds.

The Sports Beat:For the first time since 1912, when a house was $750 and bread was a nickel, a Major League Baseball team pulled off a triple play — getting three men out — without putting out the batter. With bases loaded against the Texas Rangers, The Angels’ David Fletcher hit a ground ball to third, resulting in a tagout. The ball was thrown to second for an out, and the runner between first and second was tagged. Sadly, the batter had nowhere to go but the bench.

Branding:The Mormon Church is embarking on a re-branding effort to stop people from referring to it as the Mormon Church.

They would prefer “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” or simply, “The Church,” which is going to have them running headlong into the Catholics.

The name “Mormons” comes from their holy book, “The Book of Mormon,” not the play, which got its name from the book. It doesn’t help that The Church, as they’d like to be called, once ran an advertising campaign in which the tag line was, “I’m a Mormon.”

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