THURSDAY, JULY 28, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”

GOOD NEWS FOR HILLARY
The third night of the Democrat Convention went exceptionally well last night. Many big-names appeared, including the President, the Vice President, as well as the candidates themselves. Everyone had had a great time blasting DJT and trying to make Hillary look presidential. Most of the speeches were well-received by the Hillary-loving media. This was in stark contrast to the Republican’s third night which was marked by the backstabbing speech by Ted Cruz, A.K.A. Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger. Both conventions had a rough start but Democrats claimed the Blue Team has had far more home-run hitters than the Red Team, who had to rely on subs and utility players, including several of the candidate’s children by two different ex-wives.  

Tonight will be Hillary’s turn and how well she does will greatly affect the ultimate outcome. She is not known as a great public speaker, so she had better be at the top of her game.   

BAD NEWS FOR TRUMP
The Trump-Russia connection scandal resulting from DNC email scandal is in full force. Yesterday, Democrats and their supporters in the press believe Trump made a huge unforced error by inviting Russia to get involved (as if they weren’t already) by calling for them to find Hillary’s missing emails. No presidential candidate has ever done this before – publicly asking a foreign country— and one that is not especially friendly to the United States— to spy on a former top-ranking U.S. government official and release possible confidential information. Literally, he said: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails (from Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State) that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Clinton immediately accused Trump of asking an adversary of the United States to spy on the country and be rewarded for doing do. Liberals argue that Trump has now opened a whole new line of attack on himself based on the idea that he supports a Communist dictator against America. For some moderate Republicans and “America Firsters,” this might be “a bridge too far.”  For Democrats, it is treason.   Even if it is not treason, it may actually be a crime to encourage anyone, especially a foreign country, to engage in computer hacking. Although he is unlikely to be charged or indicted, because it would be considered a political act, Democrats believe it may make it harder now for Republicans to say that Hillary should be locked up. The Democrats probably will have a new chant too, – “Lock Him Up.”  No one, even most Republicans, thinks that Russia should be encouraged to meddle in our elections. In the next couple of days, we will see which Republicans really put country before party by looking at who supports Trump on this one and which ones think he has finally gone too far. Fox News and most of the rest of the right-wing echo chamber are doing their best to spin this bone-headed error, but, so far, only Rush Limbaugh appears to be publicly pleased about the situation. Privately though, you have to guess that the Hillary Campaign is not too unhappy with it. Democrats hope and pray the DNC email leak, which looked so bad a couple of days ago, will turn out to be a good thing for them, thanks to DJT.     

Trump made his statement just in time for former CIA chief Leon Panetta to include mention of it in his speech to the Democrat convention.  In addition to declaring Donald Trump dangerously unfit to be commander in chief, he accused Trump of inviting Russian spies to help him defeat Hillary Clinton. The mind boggles.

For his part, Trump claimed that he never met and didn’t know Putin, but that is in opposition to statements that he made earlier, when he said that he knew Putin very well and that they were stable-mates once on 60 Minutes.  Also, it is certain that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, knows Putin pretty well too, as he has a lot of ties with Russia. It is to be expected that the Hillary campaign is already working on the ad that shows both of Trump’s statements put together, along with Trump’s call for Russia to keep on hacking.

TRUMP WILL NEVER RELEASE HIS TAX FORMS   
Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort has reiterated that Trump will not release his taxes. This means that there is something, or maybe a lot, in there that is worse than the fact that he will not release them.  He has apparently calculated that although not releasing them will cost some votes, releasing them may cost far more votes, or even the election. Speculation about what’s in there runs from deals with Russian billionaires, the idea that he is not as rich as claimed, doesn’t pay much at all in taxes, doesn’t give anything to charity, has IRS liens on properties, owes back taxes and a lot more. Whatever it is, we will likely never know.

TODAY’S MEANINGLESS POLL
A new poll from RABA Research (whoever the hell they are) has Hillary leading in Ohio, the Mother of Presidents, and the graveyard of Republican presidential candidates, by 41 to 38.  Take this one, like most others at this point, with a large dose of Metamucil.

More Good News And Bad News Tomorrow