Triad Today

When the CEO of a company resigns, it doesn’t usually make the front page. But it’s a different story when that resignation involves the state’s largest health insurer, serious criminal charges, and corporate cover-ups. Thus is the saga of Patrick Conway, who had served as president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina since October 2017, before stepping down last week amidst a flurry of troubling developments.

On June 22 of this year, Conway reportedly became intoxicated, then loaded his two children into the family car, and went for a drive. After being pulled over by police for side-swiping a tractor trailer along Interstate 85 in Randolph County, Conway refused to take a breathalyzer test, so he was arrested for reckless driving and driving while impaired. He was also charged with two counts of child abuse, and his license was revoked for 30 days.

Early last week, after sitting on this information for over three months, the Blue Cross board finally decided to go public. Did they fire Conway? No. Did they dock Conway’s pay? No. Instead, the BCBS board issued a statement in which it praised Conway’s service to the company, saying, “Patrick’s strong leadership will continue to be an asset, and he will remain as president and CEO.” Are you kidding me? What leadership? You mean the kind of leadership in which a father endangers the lives of his own daughters and puts other motorists at risk? More likely, the board was referring to the kind of leadership in which a man spends his days figuring out how to increase our healthcare premiums, raise our deductibles, and deny our claims, so that he can improve the company’s bottom line.

In response to the Blue Cross board’s announcement, state Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey sent a letter to BCBS Board Chair Frank Holding, in which, according to Tribune News Service, he called the charges against Conway, “alarming.” Causey also wrote, “What is even more alarming is the appearance that the board and executive team worked to hide the arrest from the public’s attention…then was almost dismissive of the troubling charges when reported in the news media. One would expect the board and executive team to be much more accountable, responsible, and transparent to their policyholders and to the public at large.”

But Causey’s outrage grew when he began to learn even more details about the June arrest, which had been withheld from him by Big Blue’s board. For one thing, he wasn’t told of the accident, only the charges. Then came disclosure by WRAL-TV of the actual police report in which Conway told the arresting officer, “You had a choice. You could have let me go. You don’t know who I am. I am a doctor, a CO of a company. I’ll call Governor Cooper and get you in trouble.”

Causey then issued a new statement, saying “the Blue Cross board misrepresented to the Department of Insurance the actual arrest – telling me that [the arrest] was without incident, and was a routine arrest…the arrest was anything but routine…I cannot move forward with any type of trust and confidence in the CEO at BCBS NC.” Causey’s words were handwriting on the wall for Conway, who announced his resignation that same day.

Perhaps if Patrick Conway had worked in the mail room at Blue Cross, instead of the executive suite, then the charges against him wouldn’t have had as much public relevance. But the CEO of a health insurance company who endangers the health and lives of others, doesn’t deserve a second chance. Neither, by the way, does the Blue Cross board, who, along with Conway violated the company’s own Code of Conduct. According to the Blue Cross website, that Code requires “ethical and lawful conduct for every employee and member of our Board of Trustees.” So much for honoring a code.

Conway should have been fired three months ago and now he’s finally gone. But the Blue Cross board, who Commissioner Causey accused of a “cover-up”, is still operating, and that should be of great concern to every policyholder in the state.

There’s a particularly tense scene from the movie, Goldfinger, in which James Bond is strapped to a table, and about to have his genitals (and various innards) removed by a giant laser beam. “Do you expect me to talk?”, Bond asks the title character. “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!”, Goldfinger replies. As a boy of 10, I learned two things from that scary scene. First, I never wanted to have my genitals severed by a giant laser beam unless the situation was absolutely hopeless. And second, only a man can play the part of agent 007, James Bond. At least that’s what I thought until recent reports surfaced regarding an impending gender switch of Her Majesty’s top agent.

Call me silly, but I tend to believe that a writer’s intentions and specifications should be honored when it comes to the big screen portrayal of his or her protagonist. Certainly, there’s such a thing as artistic or dramatic license when adapting a novel into a movie, but that should only apply to things like condensation of plot points in order to accommodate time constraints. It does not, however, give a film producer the right to change things just for the sake of change. Can you imagine, for example, changing Moby Dick’s name to Moby Denise? Or, casting Tom Cruise to portray Lara Croft?

For some time now, there’s been talk that the next James Bond will be played by a man of color. In fact, ldris Elba’s name has been mentioned in that regard, and that’s fine with my wife Pam who met with the actor in L.A., and thinks he’s hot. But rumor has it that in the upcoming Bond flick, No Time to Die, Daniel Craig is called out of retirement for one last job, and he is introduced to a woman who is identified as “007”. She is played by British actress Lashana Lynch, who also happens to be black. This raises the question, “Is Lynch going to be the next Bond, or just the next 007, or both?” I’m now officially both gender and racially confused. Author Ian Fleming, on the other hand, was never confused about who James Bond is.

The character Fleming created is a white male, born in Scotland, approximately 6 feet tall, who achieved the rank of Commander in the Royal Naval Reserve. Despite the fact that six different actors have portrayed Bond on film, the producers have, thus far, selected “men” who generally fit the Fleming bill, but that may be about to change. The late Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli must be spinning in his grave at the thought of a female James Bond. That’s because, as producer of the Bond series from its inception in 1962 until his death in 1996, Cubby had always been protective of the brand, and careful to nurture the Bond image. In later years, Broccoli began to give his daughter Barbara and stepson Michael Wilson more responsibility in the family business. That was OK so long as Cubby was alive, but after his death, the kids began to tinker with the brand, up to and including casting Craig, and turning him into Jason Bourne instead of a refined British spy. That was bad enough, but now, the Broccoli kids may be about to ruin the franchise if they cast a woman as the iconic secret agent.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m fine with a female spy in any other venue. Heck, I’m fine with just about everything having to do with the opposite sex. But if a woman is cast to play the next James Bond, then you might as well just strap me to a laser table and be done with it. I simply wouldn’t feel right about having a set of “gadgets” that are no longer available to 007.

Voter suppression has been an ugly part of the American fabric for our entire history. Slavery, of course, was the ultimate method of suppressing votes, but it was just one example among many. Long-standing misogynistic societal norms, for example, kept women in the home and away from the polls for more than 300 years after Jamestown was settled. And let’s not forget that our Founding Fathers, many of whom married into wealth, also intended to keep non-land-holding white males out of the loop when it came to voting. Theoretically, passage of the 15^th Amendment in 1870 (which gave every citizen the right to vote), was supposed to end all forms of voter suppression, but Jim Crow got around that by implementing poll taxes and literacy tests as a means of disenfranchising poor whites, former slaves, and Native Americans.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 were supposed to end voter suppression of African Americans once and for all, but it didn’t end voter intimidation, including the kind where white thugs would stand outside the polls and look imposing. It also didn’t foresee the extent to which racist politicians would gerrymander districts in order to dilute the black vote and, thus, limit the number of minorities who could be elected to state and federal office. In recent years, Republican lawmakers in North Carolina have been particularly brazen in their attempts to suppress the black vote, including eliminating polling sites, reducing the number of early voting days, and supporting a photo voter ID.

Earlier this month, the North Carolina legislature was ordered to once again re-draw our state’s legislative districts in a way that would not unfairly dilute Democrats and minorities from voting, so, at the very least, our judicial system is attempting to provide relief for disenfranchised voters. But now a whole new kind of voter suppression has reared its ugly head, and it has the potential to affect a wider population than any political maneuver we’ve ever seen before. As of last week, the Republican party in at least four states (South Carolina, Nevada, Arizona, and Kansas) announced they will suspend their 2020 presidential primaries and caucuses. Why? So that party officials can meet behind closed doors and award all of their convention delegates to Donald Trump. This despicable strategy prevents Republican challengers from getting on the ballot because there will be no ballot for them to get on. Moreover, these GOP officials are not in the least bit timid about admitting their motive. As far back as last December, South Carolina party chair Drew McKissick told the Washington Examiner that he would cancel the state’s 2020 primary if President Trump should face a serious challenge from a member of his own party.

As I noted in a previous column, cancelling primaries is not a new concept, but it is only supposed to be done when there is an incumbent president with no intra-party challengers. The South Carolina Democratic Party, for example, cancelled their primaries in 1996 and 2012 when no other Democratic candidate emerged to challenge Bill Clinton and Barack Obama for a second term. In contrast, McKissick and his Republican counterparts in other states, are preventing declared Republican candidates from being able to even compete with Trump. Concurrently, they are also effectively suppressing the votes of their own registered voters, and that is one for the history books.

To date, three legitimate Republican challengers have announced their candidacy, and, given the seriousness of this situation, those candidates must now join with voters in the offending states to involve legal counsel and the ACLU in proving that the Republican party is engaged in systematic voter suppression. Absent that, it’s possible we could see the cancellation of Republican primaries in all 50 states, and if that happens, Trump will have a coronation instead of a convention.

Last December, Drew McKissick, chairman of the South Carolina GOP, told the Washington Examiner that he would not rule out cancelling that state’s 2020 Republican primary if President Trump should face a serious challenge from a member of his own party. Last week he made good on that promise. As radical as that seems, keep in mind that South Carolina did the same thing in 2004 when incumbent President George W. Bush looked vulnerable after having invaded the wrong country the year before. Instead of letting folks decide a primary winner, Luke Byars, then serving as state chairman, convened a private meeting of the South Carolina Republican state Executive Committee, and passed a resolution which endorsed the President for re-election. Sadly that wasn’t the first time a political party had made an end-run around it’s own voters. The same thing happened in 1992 when the Iowa GOP cancelled their caucuses, for fear that challenger Pat Buchannan would embarrass George H.W. Bush early on. That brings us back to 2020 and Donald Trump, whose tariff policies are starting to erode his base, while folks like former Illinois Congressman Joe Walsh, former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, former Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld, and Ohio Governor John Kasich wait in the wings for a possible primary challenge. It could be a long wait, according to former South Carolina Republican chairman Matt Moore, who told the Examiner, “Pigs will fly before the South Carolina GOP allows Trump to have opposition.”

Flying pigs aside, what Iowa did in 1992 and South Carolina did in 2004 is nothing short of voter suppression because their actions denied Republicans and independents the right to vote. But, in fact, what they did was legal. Those state’s parties were merely playing hardball politics, something modern day Democrats don’t seem to know how to do. For example, an overwhelming majority of Democratic Congressmen want to impeach Trump, but Nancy Pelosi says the Senate wouldn’t convict, so no action is taken. Meanwhile, some Democrats say they are waiting for the Southern District of New York or other plaintiffs to run Trump out of office, but that probably won’t happen. Still other Democrats are content to just see what happens next November, but that’s way too risky. If Democrats really want to rid the nation of Trump, they don’t have to wait until next fall. All they have to do is be creative and play hardball ahead of the primaries. Here’s how.

In most states, if you are a registered Democrat, you must vote in the Democratic primary, and if you are registered as “Unaffiliated”, you must declare which party’s primary you want to vote in, on the day of the primary. But guess what? You can switch your party affiliation ahead of time, and vote in the opposition primary. Here in North Carolina, for example, you must switch your party affiliation within 25 days of the primary, which is on March 3, 2020. In other words, a Democrat can vote in the Republican primary by simply changing his registration in accordance with deadlines established in each state. So how is this a strategy to deny Trump a second term? It’s simple. You switch your party affiliation, walk into the booth on primary day, and vote for one of Trump’s leading Republican challengers.

Let’s take North Carolina as an example. There are just over 2 million registered Democrats in our state, and about that many unaffiliated voters. If a majority of them cast their ballot for, say, Bill Weld in the primary, then President Trump won’t have enough delegates to win the state. If Democrats in every state do the same thing, Trump would be denied a second term before he even gets to run for a second term. True, by switching parties, you forfeit your right to vote for your favorite Democrat, but the overwhelming majority of likely Democratic voters in the United States tell pollsters that any Democrat would be better than Trump. If that’s true, then what’s stopping you Democrats from becoming a temporary Republican during your state’s primary?

Of course, some Republican leaders could counter a Democratic Party-switching ploy by canceling their state’s primary, but, South Carolina aside, I can’t see today’s more engaged conservative electorate accepting a mass movement to disenfranchise themselves from the process. So Democrats, stop your whining and lamenting, and get ready to play hardball. I’ve even got a slogan for your end-run movement: “Pigs will fly in 2020!”

Each year, over 1.5 million shelter animals are euthanized nationwide, and North Carolina is, unfortunately, among the leading states who contribute to that statistic. In fact, according to a recent report by the NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, public animal shelters in our state euthanized over 71,000 cats and dogs in 2018 alone. The good news is that one Triad area agency is making great strides in significantly reducing the number of euthanized pets. Just last week, the Forsyth Humane Society received national recognition and a cash award from Best Friends Animal Society, for having increased its save rate from 28% to 81%.

Much of the Humane Society’s progress has occurred since becoming a contract partner with Forsyth County last year. At that time, FHS assumed responsibility for managing intake, care, and disposition of cats and dogs at two shelters, which can accommodate a total of 300 animals. I spoke with executive director Sarah Williamson about the Humane Society’s success, and where we go from here.

JL: How have you been able to improve the save-rate so quickly and so significantly?

SW: It’s because of our two, difference-making programs: Foster care and Transfer. Our community has really stepped up and opened their homes to foster animals. On any given month we have between 300 and 500 animals in foster care. We also partner with about 50 breed-specific rescue organizations, and we transfer animals to them that fit their programs. We also routinely transport animals to “no kill” shelters in northern states, who are seeking rescue animals. These programs open up kennel space in our shelters, making room for the next animal that comes to us.

JL: What role has the Humane Society Board and your staff played in the success of the agency?

SW: We could not perform this mission without the support of our volunteers, our donors, everyone who adopts, everyone who fosters, and everyone who donates supplies. We have a hard-working, dedicated staff and board that makes it all come together.

JL: Other than caring for animals and facilitating adoptions, what other services does Forsyth Humane Society offer?

SW: We offer subsidies that help people afford spay or neuter surgeries for their pets. We help fund about 200 of these important surgeries each year. We also manage a pet food pantry in partnership with five, faith-based organizations which help people in need to be able to keep their pets at home.

JL: Forsyth Humane Society was one of only eight agencies recognized nationally by Best Friends for your high save-rate, but they also awarded you $16,000. How will that money be used?

SW: In addition to the Best Friends grant, we also received a $16,000 grant from the James G. Hanes Foundation, and together, those funds will enable us to purchase a new vehicle with which we can safely and comfortably continue our life-saving transports to rescue organizations and no-kill shelters.

JL: I realize that you can never achieve a 100% save-rate because of animals who come to you, having been severely injured or with terminal illnesses, however, you have said that your goal is to reach 90% by 2023. What will it take to reach that goal?

SW: The last stretch, closing the gap between an 81% save-rate, and a 90% save-rate, will be hard. The gains will be smaller and harder-won. We will need to increase our community’s capacity and commitment to spay and neuter feral cats, and at the same time, work on saving animals with difficult behavioral and medical issues. It will take the support of our entire community to continue to save even more lives.

To inquire about adoption, make a donation, or purchase tickets to this year’s Furr Ball, visit www.forsythhumane.org.

I admit it. I was taken with Kamala Harris even before she announced her run for the presidency. I wrote a column in which I praised her prosecutorial record, and predicted she would be the first woman to sit in the Oval Office. She still might, but not in 2020. During the first round of debates with nine of her Democratic rivals, she attacked former Vice President Joe Biden for his stand against school busing in the early 1970s. Biden was unprepared for the attack, and subsequently stumbled his way through the rest of the debate. That, plus some verbal gaffes along the campaign trail, convinced me that Joe might be fading.

However, shortly after that first debate, it was revealed that Kamala’s busing attack was nothing more than a disingenuous ploy to raise her poll numbers, eat into Biden’s support among African American voters, and raise money for the campaign. Unbeknownst to debate watchers at the time, Harris’s team had already produced promotional t-shirts with a photo of her as a little girl, being bused to school. During the second debate, Harris ran out of gimmicks, and Biden performed much better. Since then, Harris has dropped 12 points in the polls (down to 5%) and Biden, at 29%, has maintained a double digit lead over Sanders (15%) and Warren (14%).

Last week, Biden’s wife Jill said out loud what everyone has been thinking. Speaking to a group of fellow educators, Jill acknowledged that a lot of folks may like other candidates more than her husband, and may even favor their healthcare policy over Joe’s, but the former VP has the best chance of beating Trump in 2020. Certainly a lot can change between now and next summer. For example, Sanders might throw his support to Warren at the convention, and Biden could find himself an also ran. Barring that, a surprise in New Hampshire or, God forbid, a serious health scare, Biden appears to be well on his way to the Democratic nomination. If that’s so, then Joe’s pick for a running mate could be especially significant in the upcoming election. That brings me to Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard from the great state of Hawaii.

Strangely enough, Joe and Tulsi would compliment each other’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, Biden received a student deferment during the Vietnam War, while Gabbard is an Iraq War veteran. Biden supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, while Gabbard is opposed to such “regime change wars” which unnecessarily cost human and financial resources. Gabbard supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 and was critical of the DNC’s favoritism to Hillary. Biden is a get-along-go-along politician who works and plays well with the Democratic establishment. Gabbard has come under fire for her earlier opposition to gay marriage, while it was Biden who pushed Obama into supporting same-sex marriage. Joe avoids political confrontations while Tulsi wades into them, as evidenced by her attack on Harris for locking up thousands of marijuana users while joking about smoking weed. Biden and Gabbard also compliment each other in terms of age. Joe would be 78 during his first year in office, and Tulsi, as his vice president, would only be 40. That’s important because, if elected, I don’t think Joe will seek a second term, and his stepping down could give Tulsi a chance to break the glass ceiling in 2024.

Joe Biden’s driving ambition is to right the ship of state by restoring dignity to the office of the president, and civility to public discourse. He wants to curb domestic terrorism, and rid our nation of assault weapons. And, he wants to restore our image abroad, by dealing with our allies and adversaries in a mature manner. I believe Congresswoman Gabbard would serve him well in that mission.

There are all sorts of qualifications that candidates must meet in order to run for office, such as minimum age and residency. It’s just too bad we can’t also require them to show proof of accountability. This past week, for example, it was reported that the budget stalemate between Governor Cooper and the GOP-controlled legislature is costing taxpayers $42,000 dollars for every day the session goes over. As of last Friday their overtime tab had exceeded one million dollars. In other words, they’ve gone way over budget while arguing to save money on the budget. That’s what you call an ironic absence of accountability. Soon, however, a new budget will go into effect and all of the money wasted in the process will be absorbed and forgotten. Sometimes, though, our elected representatives do things that can’t just be absorbed and forgotten.

In 2017, then-state Senator Trudy Wade introduced a bill that would allow municipalities to post legal notices on their own web sites, rather than publish them in local newspapers, as is required by our state’s constitution. She pitched it as a pilot program, but, in fact, it mainly affected four Guilford County-based newspapers: the Greensboro News and Record, the Jamestown News, the High Point Enterprise, and the Carolina Peacemaker. Coincidentally those papers had been critical of Wade, and had refused to endorse her candidacy, thus her legislation had the feel of a vendetta. Attorneys for the newspapers filed suit, claiming their clients “were specifically singled out for prior press coverage and editorials…involving certain acts by elected officials from Guilford County.” Attorneys Amanda Martin and Robert Orr also wrote that Wade’s intent “was to restrain the plaintiffs in their coverage of and editorializing about members of the General Assembly, through the diminution of plaintiff’s revenue from the sale of legal advertising.” To date, the Guilford newspapers continue to spend money on legal fees as they await appointment of a three-judge panel who could resolve the matter for good.

Sadly, that wasn’t the first time Senator Wade’s actions had caused chaos and cost people money. In 2015, she introduced a bill that would have re-aligned Greensboro City Council by reducing the number of council persons from nine to seven, and stripping the Mayor of most of her powers. Some council members indicated that Wade’s bill was no more than an attempt to put a majority of Republicans on the city’s governing body. And yet, then-Governor Pat McCrory, himself a Republican, told me at the time that Wade’s interference in Greensboro government was “legislative overreach”. Realizing that a lawsuit against the State of North Carolina would be problematic, several Greensboro citizens and Greensboro City Council sued the Guilford County Board of Elections, as a branch of the State, and thankfully they prevailed. Then, earlier this month it was revealed that a Federal Appeals Court had ruled that Guilford County would have to reimburse plaintiffs’ legal fees, now totaling $600,000.

Many believe that Senator Wade used her office to wage war on and intimidate the press, and interfere with local government, so her failed re-election bid last fall was welcome news to those she had wronged. But here’s the problem. Wade is no longer a legislator, yet we’re still dealing with the fallout from her vindictive “legislative overreach.”

By all rights, Trudy should be held accountable for the havoc she has wreaked on us. She should be made to pay the $600,000 in legal fees incurred by City Council, as well as fees incurred by the Guilford newspapers, but that’s not likely to happen for two reasons. First of all, Wade probably doesn’t have $600,000 in ready cash laying around, and second, as a state senator at the time of the complaint, she is immune from civil claims, unless it can be proved that her actions were “malicious or corrupt”. Of course, Guilford County could sue Ms. Wade, and try to prove malice, but that would be difficult, and we taxpayers would just end up stuck with an even bigger bill to pay.

I’ve heard a rumor that Trudy may try to run for office again. If so, let’s hope that the Board of Elections will have revised the candidate qualifications to include “proof of accountability.” That would keep her off the ballot for sure.

During last week’s Triad Today program, I uttered the “C” word. I don’t just mean any “C” word, I mean the dreaded “C” word. The one word that makes 2^nd Amendment activists’ blood boil. It happened while our Roundtable panel was discussing what can be done to prevent mass shootings like the ones in El Paso and Dayton. That’s when I commented that no matter how many gun control measures are enacted, they will be ineffective unless accompanied by the “C” word: “Confiscation”. Why? Because there are more guns in America than there are people. Forty million more to be exact. And so, even if you ban the sale of assault-style rifles and semi-automatic handguns, anyone who is hell-bent on killing people need only to beg, borrow, or steal one of the 357 million guns already in circulation.

For the record, I believe in the spirit of the 2^nd Amendment, and I own several guns. Some of them are for home protection and others are collectibles. None of them are assault rifles. That’s because I don’t need an assault rifle, and neither does any other private citizen. Folks on the far right, however, argue that a ban on the sale of such weapons would be, in itself, an assault on the 2^nd Amendment. They say the Founding Fathers gave us the right to bear arms. The problem is that when James Madison wrote the Constitution, a single-shot musket was the weapon of choice, with which the finest marksmen of that era could only kill one person per minute. If a bayonet was affixed to the musket, the shooter might be able to kill two people per minute. In contrast, today’s assault-style rifles “affixed” with high capacity magazines can kill over a hundred people per minute. I hardly think that the framers of our Constitution would have wanted every citizen to own an AK 47. Another popular argument put forth by the Right is that mass shooters are mentally ill, but earlier this month the Washington Post published findings of a 2018 report by the FBI, which found that of 63 active shooter assailants studied, only three had been diagnosed with a psychotic disorder.

Let’s suppose for a moment, though, that folks who cling to these false arguments are suddenly outnumbered, and Congress finally votes on comprehensive gun reform legislation. Let’s say the reform package includes a ban on the sale of assault rifles, universal background checks, registration of all guns, mandatory metal detectors and electronic locking doors in schools and other public buildings, an SRO in every school, and a federal Red Flag law whereby police or family members can petition a court to take guns away from anyone ruled to be a threat to himself or others (at present, only 17 states have a Red Flag law). Such reforms would be meaningless unless they include a plan for confiscating all assault-style weapons and high capacity clips through a national buy-back campaign, along with serious prison time for anyone who doesn’t participate. Then and only then will we have a fighting chance to prevent mass shootings.

So don’t be lured to sleep by the sweet sounds of singular reforms being touted by presidential candidates and grand standing congressmen. Let your representative know that you favor confiscation of all existing assault-style rifles. Don’t be afraid to utter the “C” word because, given the growing number of mass shootings, an extreme solution is the only way to prevent extreme violence.

Spurred by anti-Trump sentiment, the Republican’s so-called “War on Women”, and the #MeToo Movement, women turned out in droves last year to vote in the mid-term elections. The result was an historic number of women winning local, state, and federal offices. Then, during Trump’s subsequent State of the Union address, the House chamber was replete with rows of Congresswomen adorned in all-white outfits to demonstrate solidarity. It was a significant moment for women. But the 2018 election was also significant for another reason. That year, Illinois became the 37^th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, leaving women just one state shy of the promised land. Unfortunately, no other states followed Illinois’ lead. ERA bills were introduced in Virginia, Florida, and Arizona, but failed to pass. The same thing had happened the year before, here in North Carolina.

The good news is that there is still a path for ratification. Back in 1972 when the ERA was proposed, Congress required that, in order for the Amendment to become law, 38 states would have to ratify within a specific deadline. However that deadline has long since expired. Even so, the ERA can still be revived if Congress votes to extend the deadline again. But is that likely? The answer is “Yes”, if women become the majority in Congress, or if enough enlightened men are elected to both chambers. In either case, a vote to extend the ratification deadline would be almost assured. That’s step one. The next step would be for one more state to ratify. This may seem strange to say, but of the thirteen states still opposed to the ERA, I think North Carolina is the most likely to change course, and do the right thing. For that to happen, we’ll need a few more progressive legislators to invade Raleigh, and they will need to present a compelling argument for giving ERA another look. Fortunately, there is no shortage of reasons for ratification.

First, there are the obvious disparities that have yet to be corrected, chief among them, the pay gap that exists between men and women. As I noted in a previous column, nationally, white women earn about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns for doing the same job. That statistic falls to 61 cents for black women, and 53 cents for Latinas. Here in North Carolina, women earn slightly better than the national average (about 84 cents for every dollar a man earns), but our pay gap isn’t expected to close until the year 2060.

Second, women have little say in how large corporations are run, or in who gets hired for upper management positions. According to a 2015 report from ThinkProgress.com, there are only 48 female CEOs heading up the top 1,000 companies in America. The trickle-down from those numbers translates to more male executives being hired, who then hire more male executives.

Third, men still write the laws that affect women. Yes, women made great progress during the 2018 mid terms elections, but while they are waiting to win more seats, or for more of their male colleagues to “get woke”, there are injustices occurring every day which could be stopped if the ERA became law.

For example, an increasing number of states are telling women that they cannot have an abortion, even in the case of rape or incest. Speaking of which, there’s even a new law in Alabama that allows a male rapist to pursue custody of the child who was born of his assault. And then there’s the woman in Orlando who, earlier this year had been severely beaten by her husband. While her macho spouse was serving six days in jail, she confiscated his cache of guns, and turned them over to local police for safe keeping, so that her jailbird husband wouldn’t shoot her upon his release. But guess what? The wife was arrested for taking her husband’s guns from the marital home without his permission.

We will never be able to fully eradicate misogyny and prejudice, but these kinds of injustices and disparities would not be tolerated under the ERA. That’s why North Carolina lawmakers need to step up to the plate next year and re-visit the Equal Rights Amendment. Let’s become the state that puts ERA over the top, and gives women what should have belonged to them in the first place.

During this 50^th anniversary month of the Apollo moon landing, I watched a number of NASA-related movies, and while most of them were top-notch productions, it occurred to me that hardly any of the actors actually looked or sounded anything like the real-life astronauts they were portraying. Tom Hanks, for example, neither looked nor sounded like Jim Lovell in Apollo 13, and Ryan Gosling was a total wash-out as Neil Armstrong in First Man, for the same reasons. These anti-doppelganger experiences prompted me to think back on all of the films in which someone was decidedly miscast, and, since we are now obsessed with presidential politics, I thought I’d share my thoughts on some of the more egregious screen portrayals of political figures.

JFK:  To date, dozens of actors have portrayed John Kennedy, including William Devane in Missiles of October, Martin Sheen in the mini-series Kennedy, and Rob Lowe in Killing Kennedy.  But it takes more than a Boston accent to make the 35^th president come alive on screen. Late-night TV host-turned-actor Greg Kinnear did that for me when he appeared in REELZ channel’s The Kennedys. It wasn’t a very good series, but Kinnear made me believe he was JFK.

RFK:  Among the men who have donned flop hair and a Boston accent in trying to portray Bobby Kennedy, were Steven Culp in Thirteen Days, Martin Sheen in Missiles of October, and John Shea in Kennedy. The worst of these was Barry Pepper in The Kennedys. Again, Pepper is a fine actor, but totally miscast as JFK’s younger brother. On the positive side, I thought the most convincing Bobby was Law & Order’s Linus Roache in FX’s RFK. What Roache lacked in cosmetic accuracy, he made up for with his authentic passion.

LBJ:  Some actors seem to think that being tall, speaking in a fake southern accent, and wearing prosthetic ears automatically morphs them into Lyndon Johnson. Woody Harrelson fell into this trap in LBJ, as did James Cromwell in RFK, and Tom Wilkinson in Selma. Randy Quaid attempted the role in LBJ the Early Years, but he just looked goofy, and, as his character aged, his hair looked like someone painted white-out on it. Thus far, the best Johnson interpretation has come from my friend Bryan Cranston in All the Way, for which he won a Tony before taking his play to the big screen in 2016.

Nixon:  Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella are world-class thespians, but both came up short in their portrayals of Richard Nixon, Hopkins in Nixon, and Langella in Frost/Nixon.  Hopkins looked nothing like the controversial president and sounded like Hannibal Lecter doing an impression of Nixon. Langella also looked nothing like Nixon, and his speech cadence was way off the mark. Strangely enough, my favorite Nixon was Beau Bridges in TNT’s Kissinger and Nixon. Bridges understood his subject and expertly captured Nixon’s nuances.

41 & 43:  Both George H.W. Bush and son George W. have been memorialized on film. Our 43^rd president was played by Josh Brolin in Oliver Stone’s production, W, in which Brolin’s mannerisms and speech patterns were pretty accurate, although he was nowhere near a dead ringer for Bush. Meanwhile, Brolin’s on-screen dad was played by James Cromwell who neither looked nor sounded like our 41^st president. Being tall wasn’t enough to make us believe Cromwell knew anything about voodoo economics.

Obama:  In 2016, two films were released about a young Barack Obama. Devon Terrell played the lead in Barry, and Parker Sawyers starred in Southside With You. Neither actor looked like Obama, but Terrell at least managed to get the voice right.

The others:  James Whitmore hit a home run with his televised one-man show as Harry Truman, while Ralph Bellamy and Edward Herrmann are captivating as FDR in Sunrise at Campobello and Eleanor and Franklin, respectively. Dennis Quaid also deserves high marks as Bill Clinton in The Special Relationship. Meanwhile, stay away from Tom Selleck’s turn as Eisenhower in IKE: Countdown to D-Day.  He just looked like Magnum without hair. And don’t bother with Sam Waterston’s Lincoln, but check out Hal Holbrook’s two turns as the 16^th president, one in 1974’s Lincoln, and again in 1985’s North and South. He’s even better than Daniel Day-Lewis. 

Finally, my highest praise goes to James Brolin in Showtime’s The Reagans. Brolin made me believe that he was Reagan, and he should have won the Emmy that year.

Thus far, no major films have been made with Trump as the lead character, but if that ever happens, we can only hope that Ryan Gosling doesn’t get the role.

A couple of weeks ago in this column I advocated against setting off fireworks. This week I may be ignoring my own advice by stating the following: Transgender athletes need a reality check, and the transgender community needs to be more tolerant of others. Let’s begin with the reality check.

An increasing number of males who identify as female are competing in high school, college, and international athletic events. Not surprisingly, these trans male athletes are besting the biological females with whom they are competing, so much so that earlier this year Alliance Defending Freedom filed a complaint with the United States Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, protesting the policy of the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference. Connecticut is one of 17 states that allows trans athletes to compete at the high school level without restrictions (this is in contrast with, for example, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association which contends that “a student’s gender is denoted by what is on the birth certificate”). Simply put, female athletes in Connecticut believe that trans male athletes hold a distinct advantage over them, a sentiment that is shared by noted lesbian activist Julia Beck, who told FOX News:

“In many states, men can legally identify themselves as female and gain access to women’s single-sex spaces. Sports is just one institution where men are taking titles, scholarships, and this is a problem. Many women like myself have been pushed out of spaces that WE built—spaces that are intended to include us simply because we acknowledge biological reality.”

Where high school and college athletics are concerned, the primary argument and complaint advanced by the transgender community tends to focus on so-called violations of Title IX. The problem is that Title IX never guaranteed the rights of biological men to compete as women. Instead, Title IX was enacted to guarantee that female athletes had access to the same facilities and opportunities as male athletes. But regardless of how one chooses to interpret and apply Title IX, the fact remains that, for the most part, biological male athletes are stronger and faster than biological female athletes. Even Caitlyn Jenner agrees, telling Piers Morgan that she holds an unfair advantage over the women she plays golf with.  So much for the reality check. Now to the issue of tolerance.

18-time Grand Slam tennis champ Martina Navratilova dominated her sport in the 1980s, and is still considered to be the greatest women’s tennis player ever. She was also a champion off the court, having made the courageous decision to come out as gay in 1981, and then become a fearless advocate for gay rights thereafter. In February of this year, Martina penned a column for the New York Sunday Times in which she wrote:

“It is insane that hundreds of athletes who have changed gender by declaration and limited hormone treatment have already achieved honors as women that were beyond their capabilities as men…It is insane, and it is cheating. I am happy to address a transgender woman in whatever form she prefers, but I would not be happy to compete against her. It would not be fair.”

Martina’s column followed a controversial tweet last December in which she said, “You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard.”

Following those remarks, it didn’t take long for the transgender community to turn on Martina for speaking her mind. TransActual, the nation’s leading transgender rights group, tweeted “We’re pretty devastated to discover that Martina Navratilova is transphobic.”

TransActual’s tweet takes name calling, labeling, and intolerance to an absurd level, considering the target of its derision. The tweet was also disrespectful to a woman who once risked everything by announcing to the world that she is a lesbian. I had the honor to meet and interview Martina during that difficult time, and back then, despite the stress, she held it together with strength and dignity. Martina is a successful woman who can endure the name-calling and nasty labels, but in today’s overly PC world, not every gay or straight female athlete can afford to speak their mind. In a recent interview with Bill Maher, Dr. Deborah Soh explained why: “I am sympathetic to the other female competitors. They can’t really say anything, but they say things behind the scenes. They can’t say anything in public because they are afraid of being called transphobic.”

It’s going to take some time for the courts and the states to resolve the gender identity dilemma in athletic competition, but until then, the transgender community needs to practice what it preaches, and stop demonizing people for their beliefs. Intolerant is something none of us should identify as.

My Republican father went to his grave in 2010, still blaming me for the outcome of the 1992 election. “It’s your fault that Bill Clinton got elected,” he would say. Dad was referring to my support for Ross Perot, a self-made Texas billionaire who ran as an independent candidate for president against Clinton, the Democrat, and George H. W. Bush, the Republican incumbent. To many, Perot was nothing more than a spoiler who cost Bush the election. “You wasted your vote,” Dad would say. I didn’t believe that then, and I still don’t believe it 27 years later. What Perot accomplished and contributed that year is nothing short of phenomenal, and I can’t help but feel that America would be better off had he been elected. Perot made another run for the White House in 1996, but after a disappointing showing, he dropped out of the public eye. Ross Perot passed away last week. He was 89 years old.

Political junkies and journalists under the age of 50, only know Perot by googling him, but for those of us who covered or participated in the ’92 election, he will be remembered as an unforgettable force of nature, and the most successful third party presidential candidate in history. Yes, I’m aware that Teddy Roosevelt fared a little better in 1912 than Perot did in 1992, but by the time Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket, he had already served two terms as president. Perot, on the other hand, though widely accomplished, was not a household name when he entered politics.

After having served in the Navy for four years, Perot borrowed a thousand dollars from his wife Margot, and created Electronic Data Systems, which he later sold for over $2 billion dollars. He then started Perot Systems, which he sold for $4 billion dollars. In 1969, Perot traveled to North Vietnam to negotiate for the release of POWs, and ten years later when two EDS staffers were held hostage in Iran, Perot mounted his own successful, private, para-military rescue mission.

Ross Perot was tough-minded and business-savvy, but he was best known for his plain speaking and oftentimes humorous phrasings. During their three-way debate in October, 1992, Perot stole the show from Bush and Clinton when he uttered his now famous warning about what would happen if Congress passed NAFTA:

“We have got to stop sending jobs overseas. It’s pretty simple. If you’re paying $12 an hour for factory workers, and you can move your factory South of the border, pay a dollar an hour for labor, have no health care, have no environmental controls, no pollution controls, and no retirement, and you don’t care about anything but making money, then there will be a giant sucking sound going south.”

In fact, Perot was the only candidate who made the economy and our growing deficit a central focus of that campaign. And while history will show that Perot got nearly 20% of the popular vote in 1992, that doesn’t tell the real story of his rise to prominence, and how much of a threat he posed to Bush and Clinton early on. Lest we forget, after Perot officially entered the race in February, he quickly became the front runner, and by June he was still in the lead, polling 39% to Bush’s 31%, with 25% for Clinton (source: NYT, 6/11/92). But less than one month later, Perot suddenly and mysteriously dropped out of the race. His official reason for the pull-out was that he believed the Democratic party had become unified, and he didn’t want to hurt Clinton’s chances. Only months later did we learn the real reason for Perot’s retreat. He cited multiple sources who told him that Bush’s campaign was plotting to disrupt his daughter’s wedding by, among other things, distributing lewd, doctored photos of her. Bush’s press secretary denied Perot’s charges and implied that the Texan was crazy. Nevertheless, the Perot wedding went off without a hitch, and Ross’s daughter, who had known nothing about the threats against her, urged her father to re-enter the race. Despite a winning debate performance, however, Perot was never able to regain his earlier momentum, and he finished third on election day.

We’ll never know what kind of president Ross Perot would have been, but we know what kind of a person he was. He was a dedicated husband and father, a fair and courageous employer, a military man who hated war, an unlikely, plain-speaking politician in the Harry Truman mold, and a candidate who wasn’t afraid to tell us the truth. Sorry, Dad, but I have no regrets for voting for Perot in 1992. As far as I’m concerned, the Bush and Clinton supporters wasted THEIR vote that year. R.I.P., Ross.