Sabato isn't paid for TV time
From time to time, Larry Sabato appears on Fox News commenting on the presidential polls. Does he get compensated, and if so, is it per appearance or on contract?
Dr. Larry J. Sabato, 59, is director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics and is the Robert Kent Gooch professor of politics at the university.
The Wall Street Journal has called him "probably the most quoted college professor in the land."
According to Kyle Kondik, media relations director for the Center for Politics, Sabato "frequently appears on Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and other networks to offer commentary on American politics. His views are his own, but he appears in his capacity as the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
"He is not compensated for these appearances, nor is he under contract to any television network," Kondik said.
You can read more about Sabato at his website, larrysabato.com, or his election analysis website, centerforpolitics.org/crystalball.
Carrier named for legislator
How is it the U.S. Navy has an aircraft carrier, USS Carl Vinson, named after a staunch segregationist congressman from Georgia who signed the "Southern Manifesto," which was drawn up in Congress in opposition to racial integration in public places?
Carl Vinson, a Democrat, was a U.S. representative for more than 50 years in Georgia's 10th and 6th districts. Vinson was born in 1883 and first elected to Congress in 1914. He retired in 1965 and died in 1981 at the age of 97.
Vinson was a segregationist and a signer of the 1956 "Southern Manifesto," which declared opposition to racial integration in public places. Ninety-nine politicians from the South signed it, among them well-known senators J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, George Smathers of Florida, Richard Russell of Georgia, Russell Long of Louisiana, John Stennis of Mississippi, Sam Ervin of North Carolina, Strom Thurmond of South Carolina and Harry Byrd of Virginia. Most of the Democratic politicians in the South signed it.
If that was all Vinson stood for in the House, he never would have gotten an aircraft carrier named after him. But he was also a staunch supporter of the U.S. Navy and a high-ranking member of the House Naval Affairs Committee. In 1940 he authored the Two-Ocean Navy Act, which helped build the ships to match the Japanese strength in the Pacific. When his committee was merged into the powerful House Armed Services Committee, Vinson became the chair for most of the years between 1949 and 1965, and was a strong voice in the modernization of the Navy.
As recognition for that service, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was named after Vinson. It was launched in 1980. In 2011, Osama bin Laden's body was dropped into the ocean from its deck.