MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”

LABOR DAY
The Labor Day holiday began in 1894 after president Grover Cleveland signed enabling legislation earlier in that year.   Republicans have been complaining about it ever since, except of course, those that have jobs that come with paid holidays that were negotiated by Labor unions.   Amazingly, even some of them complain about unions.  We should note that establishing a federal holiday doesn’t mean much at all unless you work for the government.   It doesn’t give anyone else the day off and especially the day off with pay.  It takes a labor union to make that happen.  If you are off work with pay today, thank a union, if you are working today with premium pay, thank a union.  If you are working today for straight time, you need a union.

BAD NEWS FOR EVERYONE
Russian hackers are trying to influence and disrupt elections in the U.S.  If they can’t get their preferred candidate elected, then they will sow the seeds of distrust, so that whoever wins will be treated as an illegitimate president by both our citizens and foreign governments.   Vladimir Putin says he has no idea who may have done any hacking.  U.S. intelligence believes otherwise.

BAD NEWS FOR TRUMP
Donald Trump paid the IRS a $2,500 penalty this year, an official at Trump’s company said, after it was revealed that Trump’s charitable foundation had violated tax laws by giving a political contribution to a campaign group connected to Florida’s attorney general.  The improper donation, a $25,000 gift from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, was made in 2013. At the time, Attorney General Pam Bondi was considering whether to investigate fraud allegations against Trump University. After receiving the donation, she decided not to pursue the case.  Earlier this year, The Washington Post and a liberal watchdog group raised new questions about the three-year-old gift. The watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, filed a complaint with the IRS — noting that, as a registered nonprofit, the Trump Foundation was not allowed to make political donations. The Post reported another “error”, which had the effect of obscuring the political gift from the IRS.  In that year’s tax filings, The Post reported, the Trump Foundation did not notify the IRS of this political donation. Instead, Trump’s foundation listed a donation — also for $25,000 — to a Kansas charity with a name similar to that of Bondi’s political group. In fact, Trump’s foundation had not given the Kansas group any money. The prohibited gift was, in effect, replaced with an innocent-sounding but nonexistent donation.  Along with the penalty, the Trump foundation was supposed to try to recover the donation from the Bondi campaign but there is no evidence that this has occurred.

BAD NEWS FOR HILLARY AND TRUMP
Hillary is being beaten half to death over the fact that the Clinton foundation had accepted donations from Saudi Arabia.   Now it has come to light that The Donald has done a little business with them too, such as selling one entire floor of Trump Tower to the Kingdom for 4.5 million.  Not only that, the money was supposed to buy him access – one of the things that make Hillary’s dealings with the Saudis so unforgiveable.    Trump has called upon Hillary to return funds to the Saudis. Trump and Hillary supporters all agree on one thing – that accepting money from Saudi Arabia is a terrible crime – it just depends on whether the money is for charity or personal profit. 

BAD NEWS FOR FOX NEWS 
The recently released FBI notes show that a criminal that claimed he had hacked into Hillary’s email was lying about it.  Nevertheless, Fox News believed him, even though he was in jail at the time, and ran with the story.  Of course, none of this damaged their credibility because they had so little to begin with. 

TODAY’S MEANINGLESS POLLS
If there is any truth to the NC poll, then Trump is in deep, deep trouble.   If he can’t win North Carolina, then he can’t win any swing states.   Also, yesterday, Trump’s Campaign co-manager Kellyanne Conway said that he can win without Pennsylvania and she noted that they have voted for the Democratic candidate the last 6 times.   So, is she conceding the Keystone State?   Meanwhile, the Trumpster keeps wasting his time campaigning in out-of-reach states like Michigan.

—More Good News and Bad News Tomorrow —