August Begins: Campaign News Round-Up

From time to time, there are stories that probably don’t deserve our full attention. So let’s throw a bunch of them together in a “campaign tidbits” article. Let’s begin with the New York Post’s new interest in nudity. They posted nude photos of Melania Trump on the cover of the newspaper (NSFW). First, a full-frontal. The next day, a lesbian shot (NSFW). To be fair, these are from 1994, four years before she married The Donald. And why do they matter, anyway?

THE MELANIE NUDES
They’re worth mentioning when you “consider the source.” The New York Post (like the Wall Street Journal and Fox News) are Rupert Murdoch properties. So why would the staunch Republican want to run them? Maybe he wants to reward the old, folksy, white men who are Trump’s core constituency. . . But Breitbart took offense. Related to that, we kept seeing the acronym, NSFW. In case you’re wondering, it stands for “Not Safe For Work.”

OCTOBER SURPRISE
The Trump narrative is that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, it’s all Obama’s fault, and only Donald J can fix things. Well, Politico speculates that Barry may have something up his sleeve, to make us all think America is pretty great the way it is. That is, striking a big blow against ISIS shortly before the election.

AMERICANS WANT FREE TUITION
A new poll shows that 62% of Americans agree with Bernie Sanders that it would be a good thing for America to have debt-free university tuition. Not surprisingly, making college tuition free is most heavily supported by those in the millennial generation, the survey found.

WHAT CANDIDATES PAID PER VOTE
All the primary candidates have debt from their campaigns. For instance, Chris Christie had to pay $350k in June, even though he dropped out Feb 10. Of 16 candidates listed, Lindsay Graham got the worst deal, paying more than a thousand dollars for each vote he received. Next was Carly Fiorina, paying almost $300 for each vote, Pataki $275, Rand Paul about $170, Chris Christie just over $150, Jeb Bush about $125, Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee $85, Ben Carson $75, Martin O’Malley $55—and then a drop to just $18 for Bernie Sanders, $15 for Marco Rubio, $14 for Hillary Clinton, $11 for Ted Cruz, just over $5 apiece for Donald Trump, and just under $5 for John Kasich.

BREITBART DOESN’T “HEART” MEGYN KELLY
In what can only be called a “hatchet piece,” Breitbart is going after Megyn Kelly, even comparing her to the femme fatale in the 1950 movie, All About Eve.

First, they complained that she had a photo shoot with GQ in 2010 (you have to subscribe to see them at GQ, but basically, they’re here)

Perhaps they’re upset that Megyn grilled Trump early on or now—quiety—confirmed Gretchen Carlson’s charges of sexual harassment against former Fox chief, Roger Ailes, leading to his leaving the network.

CENK UYGUR PREDICTS TRUMP WIN
The “Young Turks” host, who was so hard on Mitt Romney in 2012, now predicts that Donald Trump will win in the Electoral College, by 179 to 159, saying, “No, listen, so in his life, he’s had a great track record of failure, bankruptcies, running from Vietnam, everything like that. But he’s a populist candidate when the country’s angry. . .and it’s the most establishment candidate we’ve ever seen against him.”

CORPORATIONS TALKING UP TPP
Caterpillar Inc. says workers will gain from the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Trade Benefits America, a leading business coalition agrees, as does the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. From a trade perspective, one should think about the fact that the partnership would be the United States and a whole bunch of Asian countries—ganging together against China. And from a personal perspective, as someone from Michigan, I’ve wondered why there wasn’t this kind of furor when low-income southern states stole OUR jobs with a combination of huge tax bribes and union busting.

DEAD GORILLA POLLS BETWEEN STEIN AND JOHNSON
You may remember Harambe, the gorilla who was killed when he tried to rescue the child who had fallen into his pen. Well, a new poll says if the dead gorilla ran for president, five percent of Americans say they’d vote for him. That’s twice the number who say they’d vote for Green Party candidate, Jill Stein.

CUBAN CALLS TRUMP A “JAGOFF”
Mark Cuban, billionaire star of “Shark Tank” has now, officially, endorsed Hillary Clinton. A year ago, Cuban said Trump was the best thing that ever happened to American politics—until he opened his mouth. Now Cuban calls him a “Jagoff.” The Dictionary of American Slang defines “jagoff” as a variation on “jackoff,” meaning “a stupid incompetent person.”

CANDIDATES ARE GOOFS, NOT GEEKS
Politico calls both Hillary and The Donald “Luddites,” that is, having no first-hand knowledge of modern technology. Mark Cuban had previously said that Trump didn’t know how to use email. And now we hear that Hillary needed help to run a fax machine. “Both of these people are wildly unrepresentative of the population as a whole,” said Aaron Smith, associate director of research at Pew Research Center, which studies trends in American life.

JUSTIN BIEBER TURNED DOWN THE RNC
Reportedly, “The Biebs” turned down a $5 million offer to do a 45-minute “non-political” concert at Donald Trump’s convention (face it, it wasn’t a “Republican” convention). He followed the advice of Lebron James. It would have been Bieber’s biggest (“Yuge”) paycheck for a single concert in his life—and was to be paid in advance.

TRUMP SIDES WITH ANTI-FRACKING
Trump says local communities should have every right to ban fracking in their area. That puts him in line with Hillary and Bernie—and against the Republican Party, which in recent years has worked to strip local communities from having a say in commercial/economic issues.

CATHOLICS A PROBLEM FOR TRUMP, KAINE
Trump does fine with Evangelicals (look it up in “Two Corinthians”), but church-going Catholics are going for Hillary at a rate 22% higher than they went for Obama—although they liked Obama better. It’s because they just don’t like Trump.

Meanwhile, a Washington priest says he won’t give Dem Veep Candidate Tim Kaine communion if he shows up. Why? Because Catholic Kaine is for women’s rights, even though he says he would not want to have an abortion in his family.

O’REILLY MAKES AILES LOOK GOOD
While Khizr Khan made the most memorable speech at the DNC, Michelle Obama made the most praised speech. It was the only thing about the Dem convention that even Donald Trump liked. But then, there was Bill O’Reilly. When Michelle praised America for letting her live in a White House built by slaves, O’Reilly grasped at straws to find a way to complain, but found it, saying, that slaves were “well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government.” Oh, well then, that makes slavery just fine.

And, finally, after all the effort Hillary has made, trying to extricate herself from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), we have this. . .

HILLARY PAL SAYS SHE WILL FLIP-FLOP ON TPP
Yes. . . Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, longtime best friend to the Clintons, said Tuesday that he believes Hillary Clinton will support the TPP trade deal if elected president. With friends like that, who needs enemies?