What is it with right-wing grifters and yachts? Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon was arrested on a yacht owned by a Chinese billionaire. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre is accused of spending $500,000 in member contributions for eight trips on private jets to carry him and family members to the Bahamas to loll about on a 108-foot yacht.
Bannon bilked gullible Trump supporters after he announced the building of “The Wall” on the Mexican border. Bannon is accused of skimming $1 million after assuring contributors that all the money would go for post holes and no administrative costs.
Frank Cagle
Forbes says the 152-foot yacht where Bannon was arrested is for sale for $28 million.
The NRA is being sued for diverting millions of dollars in member dues to top executives. LaPierre spent almost $20,000 on a one-day shopping spree in Beverly Hills. He spent $1.2 million on gifts to friends and for golf memberships. He arranged a $17 million post-employment contract for himself. All this from that liberal rag called the Wall Street Journal.
Given the number of NRA members in Tennessee, including most Republican legislators, the paucity of news coverage on LaPierre is mind-boggling.
The NRA sends out desperate pleas to members for contributions because the gun grabbers are coming and only the NRA can stop them. Then they hired an advertising agency and paid it millions of dollars and in return the ad agency diverted millions to NRA top executives and then billed the NRA for “expenses.” A closed circle with everyone getting his beak wet. This arrangement was revealed earlier when a coup attempt to remove LaPierre was thwarted and LaPierre got rid of Oliver North and Chris Cox who had raised questions.
Bring back civics courses: I grow weary of Trump-hating reporters and cable news sites gleefully reporting, with a straight face, that President Trump is trailing Joe Biden by double digits in national polls. I have no reason to doubt the veracity of the polls, but what they carefully ignore is that IT DOESN’T MATTER.
Surely 2016 taught them how the electoral college works. The polls had Hillary Clinton winning and she did indeed win the popular vote by a three-million-vote margin. But all together now, in unison, let’s say it one more time: IT DIDN’T MATTER.
If Joe Biden garners three million more votes in California than Hillary got, he will still get the same number of electoral votes. The states elect the president, as they should, not population over-loaded East and West coast metropolitan areas. This is not a nefarious Trump plot. It has been that way since the constitution was ratified in the 18th Century. Evidently Democrats, reporters and the Clinton campaign never had a civics course.
President Barack Obama’s team, David Plouf and David Axelrod, from the Midwest, knew how to count what counted.
Unless a poll is conducted in a stand-alone battleground state, let’s stop wasting money and stop presenting a skewed version of the race.
Skewed polling lulls Democratic voters into believing it’s a slam dunk. That’s what happened in 2016.
DNC Convention: The Democrats had a smooth-running four-night infomercial, except for a few caveats. The party is now the party of Barack and Michelle Obama, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and Nancy Pelosi. Why in hell would they allow Bill and Hillary Clinton to speak? A Jeffrey Epstein friend and a woman half of America despises. Hillary the feminist and her sexual-assaulting pervert husband. What a pair.
When will the Democratic establishment wake up to the fact that those two toxic individuals should not be allowed anywhere near an official Democratic Party event? Do they think young people, which they badly need, are impressed by those two after Hillary and Co. screwed Bernie Sanders in 2016?
While rank and file Democrats still have affection for Barack and Michelle Obama, their position as being iconic leaders of the party was undermined by the Arkansas Two.
The “convention” put up Republican John Kasich to speak for no reason I can fathom. Your average Republican voter has no idea who he is; he’s ancient history. If anyone remembers Kasich it is as a traitor to the party. Did they think Republicans would slap themselves on the forehead and suddenly realize they need to follow Kasich’s advice and vote for Biden?
The virtual convention was a slick production and we’ll see whether the GOP convention this week will be as effective. Without Eva Longoria. And Kelly Washington. Can even Scott Baio match that?
Pay cut: Kudos to University of Tennessee Athletic Director Phillip Fulmer who announced last week he would take a 15 percent pay cut in light of a shortfall in football revenues. That comes to $150,000. Best summation of the problems with game cancellations is a headline from the satirical Babylon Bee. A fan wants to sue because canceling football interferes with his right to worship.
Frank Cagle is a veteran newspaper editor and columnist.
