Tag: Arrowflinger Al

Austin Rhodes’ Wag the Dog Strategy on Pam Tucker

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Opinion by The Arrowflinger

When things got too hot for Bill and Hillary Clinton with the Monica Lewinsky scandal in 1998, they trotted out a time-tested diversion – attack a defenseless made-up “Enemy” to divert public attention away from them! It was a classic Wag the Dog effort, with one bombing made on a Sudanese aspirin factory.

As Election Season 2018 neared, Augusta Radio Talk Show Host Austin Rhodes needed to Wag the Dog, too. With a father in law, later mother in law, who foisted a financially ruinous school bond in Lincoln County to fund an oversized new high school built under one of those nefarious Guaranteed Maximum Price Contracts by RW Allen, approaching property tax revolt proportions, Rhodes must have fretted it would come up. Beyond that, with a daughter employed by Congressman Rick Allen and a brother in law County Engineering Director, with an amusing history of political gamesmanship himself, in the mix of an upcoming hot Columbia County Chairman’s race, Austin Rhodes picked an old opponent, former Columbia County Georgia House candidate Joe Mullins, to be his Wag the Dog victim of the hour, minute, week and month. Rhodes went out incessantly for weeks tearing into Mullin’s personal life, intruding into a Florida political race Mullins had entered, and basically acting crazy in doing it.

He had to do something to occupy dead air, and too many issues could hit on Friends and Family, while he awaited in the grass to ambush Pam Tucker’s race for the Columbia County Chairmanship while heaping glory on the Establishment’s choice, first District Commissioner Doug Duncan.

The Columbia County Banking scandal is a NATIONAL STORY because the bank involved was the flagship bank of the American Banking Association (ABA). Another bank, the winning bank and an ABA member itself, got tricked out of getting the business. There was an obvious coverup, and when it was challenged on the air by yours truly in 2014, the Bank ran a whole slew of ads braying, “Doing the RIGHT THING!” Austin and his employer Beasley Broadcast Group must have made a fortune! Just Friday afternoon, Austin Rhodes started his attack on your old arrowflinger in an epic call in, that many wish he would replay.

Says here he doesn’t have the guts.

Remember this term out of the Arrowflinger School of Political Theory – DODI. If you are Friends and family of Austin Rhodes, you get a do over. If you are not, you get DONE IN.

All of Austin’s politically active, public figure relatives mentioned above are public figures with accessible records. Austin draws financial benefit and security in ways that can, and will, be shown. Over here is an old construction auditor who has heard every insult invented, with a thick hide and quiver full of ideas. Meanwhile, Rhodes attacks aimed this way can, and will, redirect to impact his cronies tenfold.

And for the cronies feeding money and rhetorical “ammunition” for Austin to sling, be very, very careful. What you think is a, “Gotcha Al!” might ricochet into an, “Aiieee… that HURT! … Somebody make it STOP!”

This ain’t an illusion. It is the key to many vaults and even more laughs. It is time to laugh and worry about money later.

Carry on.

Columbia County B.Y.O.B. Finances

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OPINION by The Arrowflinger

What you are about to hear in this poor quality audio recording is the last three minutes of The Austin Rhodes Show of Friday, May 18, 2018. Your arrowflinging protector shook things up, more than a little, one might think.

When GB&T Bank Board members Rick Allen and James G. Blanchard were mentioned in the present tense, it was in the context of a meeting with law enforcement several years ago, before the bank merged with South State Bank and that Board of Directors was disbanded. Also, neither was a voting member of the Board with management oversight.

As to former Columbia County Commissioner Scott Dean, who was the acting chairman of the county finance committee, he actually did not object AT THE AWARD MEETING, but just listen to what he said in making the astounding motion to let Ron Cross and Charlie Allen vote!

Dean’s conviction was on charges unrelated to this banking vote. Judge Blanchard being the judge who put him in prison and would not grant a retrial, despite recanted testimony, is more a demonstration of how weird events get twisted in Columbia County. The Arrowflinger tried to get Judge Blanchard, a former family business partner, to discuss this ugly banking matter back in 2014, but somehow we had trouble connecting. There is more there, perhaps, for a later date.

With respect to Edward J. Tarver, he was a member of the GB&T Audit Committee in 2008 and 2009, before becoming the US Attorney on December 17, 2009. Tarver had audit responsibility for the 2008 Financial Statements, which later became the basis for the Columbia County bank selection in April 2010. About a month before his nomination, The United States Securities and Exchange Commission sent the GB&T Chief Financial Officer Darrell Raines a letter expressing questions, possibly requiring a restatement of those 2008 financials.

Imagine that! A sitting US Attorney’s immediately preceding bank Audit Committee work was questioned by the SEC! None of this seems to have dawned on Columbia County Finance. Or did they know? Or did one of them know?

As for Rick Allen, perhaps he can confer with his cousins, who owned 40% of GB&T, and his brother, the GB&T shareholder who delivered the bank a timely $100 million cash infusion, and draft a banking bill like he wrote about in the Augusta Chronicle last year. We have the perfect title. We can call it the Rick Allen B.Y.O.B bill…..BAIL OUT YOUR OWN BANK bill.

-AF

Arrowflinger Sings in Georgia Senate Chambers – Ethics? Where?

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It’s hard to be humble when you are a Georgia legislator. The Arrowflinger Al tackles the hot topic of Ethics in the Georgia Legislature – There aren’t any. So he decided to put his frustrations over Georgia Gold-Domers to song. See his video serenade below.

After Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson went down in flames of scandal and personal ruin in late 2009, in the early days of 2010 Arrowflinger Al went on a local talk radio program, the Austin Rhodes Show, on WGAC in Augusta, Georgia to endorse David Ralston as a “Reformer.”

That summer Ralston took a $17,000 European vacation courtesy of lobbyists. More recently he received $5,000 from Affordable Equity Partners of Missouri who plopped down a public housing development, Magnolia Trace, in the middle of a sedate part of Columbia County.

There is also the matter of Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols, also touted by the Arrowflinger on the Austin Rhodes Show as a “reformer.” Then he went about soliciting sporting event tickets on PSC letterhead!

Then some months ago, old Al confronted Representative Tom McCall about the lack of ethics at a Concerned Citizens of Lincoln County meeting and got blown off. The newspaper reporter failed to report what was a heated discussion.

This seemed to be an appropriate response.

If the good men and women of the Georgia General Assembly don’t do something and fast, they will be laughed out of the state and shunned at home.

The Arrowflinger has been let down by politicians more often than a practice dummy at funeral training school.

The original footage was shady and a mite crooked. That is PERFECT!

Revenge is sweet?

(Note: The sounds, rendition, images, and execution of ideas within this post are entered under Fair Use, for the purposes of Journalism, Education, and Commentary. They are transformative in nature and protected in their entry under Fair Use).

Last Word: Former Rep. Tom Davis (R, Virginia) on Campaign 2010

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On July 13, 2010 former Congressman Tom Davis, a Republican of Virginia was on C-Span’s Washington Journal with host Paul Orgel to discuss the 2010 GOP election efforts. Rep. Davis was a prior Chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. The topic of the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000 came up. Since that day, horrendous consequences of the CFMA have become manifest, principally the M.F. Global bankruptcy.

The original C-Span interview appears below.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?461439-3/washington-journal-rep-tom-davis-r-va-discusses-congressional-oversight-executive-branch