Triad Today

Politics has become a dirty business. Campaigns are laced with mudslinging, and once in office, candidates spend most of their time harvesting money and votes for the next election. Mark Walker has proven to be a refreshing exception to the rule. A former minister from Greensboro, and now second-term Congressman for the 6th district, Walker has never run a negative ad, never spoken an unkind word about an opponent, and has never compromised his principals in order to stay in office. And, while many of his colleagues in Washington are avoiding town hall meetings, Mark meets regularly with constituents, and listens to their concerns. Moreover, his thirst for knowledge extends far beyond the borders of his district. An experienced missionary from his days as a minister, Walker now travels to global hotspots to observe first-hand, the kinds of human suffering and political tensions which can have a direct effect on American foreign policy. His dedication to the job is a big reason why Mark was recently elected to chair the powerful Republican Study Committee, and though he now enjoys direct access to the White House, Walker is anything but a yes man for the party or the president. Mark has appeared on my Triad Today television program numerous times, and last week he stopped by the studio during a break from Congress, to discuss a wide range of issues. Here are some highlights from our conversation.

JL: A new poll shows that 6 out of 10 Americans are fearful of a conflict with North Korea. Are their fears justified?

MW: I believe that some of that fear is legitimate. Just last year I was there at the DMZ, and it’s interesting as you look across the border and go right up to it, the posture of the North Korean soldiers each day is basically a stare-down, so it’s very tense. And you have to understand that we have Americans as well as American interests literally 20 kilometers away in Seoul, so there are some concerns when you’re dealing with somebody who is so irrational as Kim Jong Un.

JL: The President bombed a Syrian airfield recently in retaliation for Assad dropping deadly gas on innocent women, children, and babies. Most people agree it was the right action for us to take, but should the President have first sought the permission of Congress?

MW: I’m OK with the way he handled it. I felt like there was an immediate response that was needed. You can draw a direct line from that to our war against ISIS, and the President has promised to take them out. Having spent some time over there in refugee camps, I can tell you that these people have been begging for help for years. So I think it was legitimate to send a message that we’re watching what’s going on.

JL: But as a result of that bombing, tensions between the United States and Russia have increased. Are you concerned that we can’t do whatever we need to do to depose Assad because of what Russia might do?

MW: I think we always have to be concerned with Russia because what they say versus what they do, sometimes is not very congruent. I think we need to continue to monitor Russia’s actions, because they create an additional dynamic between them and Syria.

JL: The Guardian recently reported that there is “concrete evidence” that there was collusion between someone in the Trump campaign and the Russians in trying to affect the outcome of our 2016 election. Are you buying that?

MW: I don’t know if I’m buying the collusion, but do I believe that contact was made successfully? Potentially so. I’m confident that Mike Conaway and my friend Trey Gowdy are going to look at it very thoroughly from the House side, and that Senator Richard Burr will do a good job investigating the process on the Senate side.

JL: Let’s talk about healthcare reform. You and I spoke several times during the negotiations over AHCA, and I expressed concerns about what the Republican package was going to do to seniors, specifically imposing a rate hike in premiums five times greater for older folks than those for younger folks. Ultimately the package didn’t pass, so are we going to get some kind of healthcare reform in this calendar year?

MW: I believe that we are. And let me throw out a quick compliment. You were the first person who contacted me specifically with concerns about that 50 to 64 age demographic. We went back and looked at that, and there were some additional tax credits added for that particular age group, so I think we’re doing a lot better there. I’m hoping that we’ll get together this spring, but we’ve got some issues with the Freedom Caucus wanting to take away coverage for pre-existing conditions. The President and I feel that is a bit of an overreach at this point, but I’m hoping that we can repeal these trillion dollars worth of Obamacare taxes, and take out all of the mandates from individuals as well as employers. This is a huge thing, and the final thing it does is, it reforms Medicaid for the first time in 52 years, something we’ve been needing to do for awhile.

JL: You and I have always liked town hall meetings, but recently many of them have really gotten out of hand, and have been full of vitriol. I know that some of it is orchestrated by one political party or another. Regardless, I am reminded of what Captain Call said in Lonesome Dove, “I hate rude behavior in a man., I won’t tolerate it.” A lot of these folks in town halls now are just plain rude. What’s your take?

MW: My job is to remember that I don’t just represent Republicans or conservatives. I also represent Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents. So whatever their party may be, I love to have dialogue. I love to talk about the issues. I want to have a chance to share my beliefs, and then listen to those who may have an opposing view. But if you’re not able to even share, it makes it very difficult in these town hall formats.

JL: Are you going to do less town halls because of the increasing vitriol?

MW: We did a couple of them this year already, and we’re looking at ways to add some additional ones next month.

JL: Well, if it will make you feel more comfortable, I’ll be happy to interrupt everything you say for the rest of this interview.

MW: [laughs] It’ll be good practice.

JL: Are we going to get a tax reform bill this year?

MW: I think so. We are concerned about the delay in passing the AHCA. The reason why that has slowed down the tax reform is because there are a trillion dollars worth of Obamacare taxes that need to factor into this tax reform. Rep. Kevin Brady, the Ways and Means chairman, has promised that he will get it in this year. As of last week, I’m hearing August.

JL: But many Democrats say that unless Trump releases his tax returns, they won’t support any kind of tax reform. Isn’t that sort of cutting off their noses to spite their faces?

MW: It can be, and we’re asked about that a lot. As Congressmen, we have to reveal our taxes, so my personal opinion is I would prefer that he release his returns. However, it’s not illegal if he chooses not to do so, and it shouldn’t prevent us from passing legislation that benefits the American people.

JL: The President just signed an Executive Order, asking companies to “Hire American and Buy American”, yet his and Ivanka’s products are made mostly overseas. Does the hypocrisy of that bother you at all?

MW: It does a little bit. I get it, though. Our corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world, and it’s driven a lot of manufacturing jobs overseas, But if we’re bringing the corporate tax rate down 15 to 20%, then I want to make sure they’re leading by example, and bringing those products back to America.

JL: Are you concerned that the President’s repeal of many EPA regulations will leave our air and water unprotected?

MW: Not at this point. When you talk about draining the swamp, I think you have to start with some of these federal agencies, like the EPA. Our farmers have been damaged by these regulations, like when a puddle is considered a lake. We want to make sure that kind of overreach is pushed back.

JL:You have indicated strong support for Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Exactly how do you intend to support their mission?

MW: We’re already starting to support it, by becoming the first Congressional office to offer paid internships for HBCU students, who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to come and live in Washington for four to eight weeks. We also brought in 88 HBCU chancellors, and one of the things that came out of that meeting was a proposal to have year-round Pell grants, which, for many students, will provide a quicker opportunity to reach graduation. For me it’s personal because my wife did her undergraduate and graduate work at Winston-Salem State University. Since then she’s gone on to manage a Level I trauma unit, so it’s a great education, and we want to support it.

JL: Mr. Trump wants to allow churches to support political candidates. Are you OK with that?

MW: It depends on the definition. I think the focus of his plan is to roll back the Johnson amendment, where the senior pastor can’t talk about anything political. However, there are issues that sometimes cross over, like pro-life, so I believe the pastor should have an opportunity to speak. But if it gets to the point where entire churches are endorsing candidates, then that is a problem.

Upon his return to Washington later this week, Rep. Walker, now head of the 155-member RSC, will be faced with reforming healthcare and tax codes, and the prospect of a government shutdown if upcoming budget negotiations should fail. They are just several of the many challenges he must deal with on our behalf, and thus far, Walker has proven that he’s up for the challenge.
 
 

Once upon a time there was a six-year-old Louisiana Cajun who landed a job playing the son of a Cuban bandleader, and ended up running a ballet company.

Along the way, he was the sage of Mayberry, the most visible member of a Christian rock band, almost joined the Von Trapp family, and after struggling with substance abuse and depression, became a dedicated witness to God. Lucille Ball called him Keith. Ron Howard called him Johnny Paul. TV producers called him Richard, and millions of little girls just wanted to call him. But for the past 60 years, succeeding generations in nearly every nation have called him “Little Ricky”.

Keith Thibodeaux was born December 1, 1950 in Lafayette Louisiana where he displayed a proclivity for drumming while still in diapers. By age three he won a talent contest which landed him a job playing drums with the Horace Heidt orchestra for $500 per week. Three years later he joined the cast of I Love Lucy, playing Ricky Ricardo, Jr., then stayed with the show until it wrapped in 1960. From 1962 to 1966 he played Opie’s pal Johnny Paul Jason on The Andy Griffith Show, then left Hollywood and started touring with David and the Giants, one of the country’s first Christian rock groups. He met and married Kathy Denton, an accomplished ballerina, in 1976, and ten years later they founded Ballet Magnificat, an acclaimed dance company based in Jackson, Mississippi, which tours all over the world. I first met Keith in 1979 when he stopped by my morning television show in Richmond, Virginia. We reconnected recently, and spoke at length about his life and career.

JL: Is it fair to say that drums and music have been the common thread to everything in your life?

KT: Yeah, but another important thread was my faith in God. Even when I was younger I had a sense of God. I asked my Dad, “Why do you think God picked me to be Little Ricky?” because it was such a famous television show. And Dad said, “Well, God has a purpose for you, Keith.”

JL: But how many kids auditioned for that role?

KT: I think there were about 200 until they got to me, and then they said, “We’ve found Little Ricky”.

JL: But with all due respect, God had a purpose for those other kids too, so what gave you the edge?

KT: There were a couple of factors. I looked like Desi Arnaz and I looked like their child. And also I played the drums, which was a gift that the other kids maybe didn’t possess.

JL: How did Lucy and Desi treat you on and off set?

KT: I was treated like part of their family. On set I conducted myself as part of the cast, but then off set I was a trusted member of their real family who could come over and play with their kids on weekends, so in that regard, I was pretty much treated like one of their own children.

JL: Does that close relationship perhaps explain why you never received screen credit, in other words, they wanted viewers to think that you WERE Little Ricky?

KT: Yeah, back in those days it was a big story when Lucy was pregnant with Desi Jr., and so they wrote that into the show. It was such a big deal that when they had the baby and Little Ricky was introduced on the show, and Desi Jr. was born at the same time, they just created a story within a story and that became the fabric of Little Ricky with ties to Desi Arnaz Jr.

JL: I know you played the drums on the show, but you also sang quite a bit. Was that your own voice or was it dubbed?

KT: Nope, that was all my voice. Even on Babaloo when I tried to hit a high note, it was me, for better or worse (laughs).

JL: All kids get upset when their parents fight, but I heard that the strife between Lucy and Desi got so bad that you started to stutter and forget your lines, so Lucy arranged for a counselor to visit with you.

KT: I would see the strife at their home and was sensitive to it, so I started to stutter as a result of that stress, and being in that environment with them. So they brought in a hypnotist to see if he could create some therapy for me. I remember he used the classic watch and chain hypnosis. It was old school and kind of odd.

JL: Did it work?

KT: Well I continued to do the show, so yeah, I guess it did (laughs).

JL: I also heard that you had a lot of female fans who had a crush on you.

KT: They did, and I actually did a tour across the eastern seaboard to promote the show and my own clothing line, called “Little Ricky’s Chips and Twigs” (laughs). I was too young to sign my autograph, so I would give out photos with my thumb print on it for the little girls.

JL: You also had an impact on a lot of fans who were aspiring drummers.

KT: Oh yeah. One of them was the drummer from REO Speedwagon who credits me as one of his influences from when he watched me on I Love Lucy

JL: I know you kept in touch with Lucy and the kids over the years, but tell me about the last time you saw her.

KT: It was about 1985. My wife and her sister wanted to meet Lucy, so we drove up to her house and the maid came to the door and said there was nobody home. We were getting ready to pull out of the driveway and all of a sudden Lucy comes running out of the house, waving her hands, yelling “Keith!” All the tour buses stopped when they saw her, and fans ran up to my car and wanted to know who I was. I said, “I’m Little Ricky”, and they went crazy. We went into the house and spent about an hour talking with Lucy. It also happened to be her birthday, so it was very special.

JL: What was it like playing Opie’s pal on The Andy Griffith Show?

KT: It was a very easy going show to be a part of. It was fun hanging out with Ron on the set, he was one of the nicest kids in Hollywood.

JL: And he sort of looked up to you, didn’t he?

KT: He did because I was about four years older, and he always asked the writers to write me a part so I could be on the show.

But Keith was on the show even when he WASN’T on the show, because Opie would frequently quote one of Johnny Paul’s philosophies to his Dad.

Opie: Johnny Paul says tar is real good for your teeth.
Andy: That’s just an old wives tale.
Opie: Johnny Paul ain’t married.

But Johnny Paul DID get married eventually. After hitting a bad patch following his departure from Hollywood, Keith re-dedicated his life to the Lord and started touring with David and the Giants, then, in 1976 married Kathy Denton, an accomplished ballerina. Their two worlds of music and dance came together professionally in 1986 when they founded Ballet Magnificat, a Jackson, Mississippi-based company that tours throughout the United States and abroad. Today Keith serves as executive director for the company, and still tours with the band. But his days as Little Ricky and Johnny Paul are always with him.

JL: Do you still watch re-runs of Lucy and Andy?

KT: I occasionally watch Andy, and a little less occasionally I watch Lucy, but I still enjoy them. I appreciate them more now than I did when I was on them.

JL: Do any of the same girls from 60 years ago still write you fan letters?

KT: I still get a steady stream of fan mail and people who want photos, but you’d be surprised at how many little kids come up to me. Their moms have shown them DVDs, and tell them, “That’s Little Ricky”. And the kids look at this old man and go, “Really?” (laughs).

And with new fans getting born every day, I asked Keith what he meant when he once commented that HE had been born three times himself.

KT: Well I was born into the world when my mother had me. And then the Little Ricky character was born, and then I was born again in Jesus.

Having experienced multiple births, and taken on multiple personas, Keith Thibodeaux will always be part of the fabric of American pop culture. Episodes of Lucy and Andy are readily available on DVD and accessible via youtube. Meanwhile, CD’s of David and the Giants, and his autobiography, Life After Lucy can still be purchased from Amazon. Not a bad legacy for a little drummer boy from the Bayou, and the most famous philosopher in the history of Mayberry.
 
 

Like many folks in our subdivision, my wife and I proudly display a “welcome” mat on our front porch. That welcome extends to family, friends, neighbors, girl scouts, and authorized contractors. The welcome does NOT extend to people who break the law. It also does not prohibit, discourage, or hinder police from carrying out their sworn duty to protect my family and our neighborhood. Late last month, Winston-Salem councilman Dan Besse proposed that the City roll out a new welcome mat. It was designed to make legal residents more politically correct, but, in truth, it would have made them much less safe in the process.

Besse, like many ultra-liberals, sees nothing wrong with the concept of a Sanctuary City, a designation that protects illegal immigrants from being turned over to ICE for deportation. But Mr. Besse is also a political realist who knows that this region would never endorse a systematic obstruction of law enforcement. And so he offered up “Welcoming City” as a watered-down, less controversial version of Sanctuary City. His resolution stated that Winston-Salem would welcome “immigrants and refugees”. The proposal sailed through the City’s General Government Committee by a 3-to-1 margin (Robert Clark was the sole “No” vote). But it has since met with criticism and resistance from citizens, legislators, and public officials. According to the Winston-Salem Journal, Police Chief Barry Rountree said that his department will “cooperate with federal immigration officials when required.” And the Twin City’s delegation to Raleigh has made it clear that Besse’s proposal is in violation of state law. Said Senator Joyce Krawiec, “My colleagues are going to see this as a Sanctuary bill.” I asked Mayor Allen Joines if Besse’s resolution might be acceptable with a few word changes, such as requiring immigrants to be legal, and refugees to be properly vetted. “I don’t believe any type of re-wording will help address concerns brought up by the legislators. Therefore, it is my hope that we cannot pass this resolution,” said Joines.

Regardless of what becomes of Besse’s “Welcoming City” proposal, the fact remains that a growing number of cities and states are openly defying Attorney General Jeff Session’s demand for cooperation between local and federal authorities. A Massachusetts lawmaker recently admitted to tipping-off illegal immigrants to impending ICE raids. Meanwhile, Maryland is seeking to become a Sanctuary State. And just last week, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued an order forbidding state police from turning illegals over to ICE. But nowhere has the Sanctuary City debate been more heated than in Montgomery County, Maryland, where, last month, a 14-year-old girl was allegedly raped in the school bathroom by two illegal male immigrants.

One of the suspects is an adult who came here illegally from Guatemala. He had been stopped at the Mexican border three months ago, then released to appear before an immigration judge. But the wheels of justice turn slowly. Unfortunately, bathroom rapes happen swiftly. Since the Montgomery County incident, information has been released which suggests that the adult male student and the girl had a prior relationship. But emails between the two men prove that they conspired with pre-meditation, to assault the girl in tandem.

Parents whose children attend Montgomery County schools are outraged that illegal adult immigrants are allowed to attend classes with under-aged female students. But supporters of Sanctuary Cities, say that men like the alleged rapists, are merely victims of a broken system. Speaking with FOX news, New York Times columnist Mark Steyn said, “This rape is a failure of public policy.” I agree with Mr. Steyn, but for different reasons. He believes that our government has failed to protect illegal immigrants. I believe that our government has failed to protect legal citizens, like the 14-year-old girl in Montgomery County.

We cannot be certain that Councilman Besse’s “Welcoming City” designation would result in rapes, robberies and murders by illegal immigrants, but it stands to reason that if we don’t cooperate with federal immigration officials, the chances of such crimes occurring would increase dramatically. That’s why I agree with Mayor Joines, who expressed hope that Besse’s resolution would never become law. I’m all for putting out the welcome mat, so long as I don’t become a victim of my own hospitality.
 
 

It’s a crime to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theatre when there is no fire. That’s because a prank like that can make people think there’s a crisis, and that can lead to panic and all kinds of collateral damage. Last year, Attorney General Roy Cooper, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts, and the inappropriately named Human Rights Campaign, sounded a false alarm when they created a transgender bathroom crisis that didn’t exist. One of their objectives was to put Cooper in the Governor’s Mansion, and to that extent, the prank paid off. But the collateral damage it caused was enormous. North Carolina became the butt of jokes and the object of national derision. We lost scores of high-profile sporting events and concerts. We also lost out on attracting prospective industries which would have created thousands of jobs. And former Governor Pat McCrory was thrown under the bus for a mess he didn’t create.

Prior to last year, North Carolina had an unwritten “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding the use of public bathrooms by transgender adults. There was no crisis, and no need for legislative action. But thanks to a handful of crusading parents in several other states, the rights of allegedly transgender children began to attract media attention. The epicenter was in Colorado where, in 2013, the parents of an eight-year-old boy said their child identified as a girl, and therefore, demanded that he be allowed to use the girls’ restrooms, showers, and locker rooms. Similar cases popped up in Illinois and Massachusetts, and, over time, the high court would have ruled on the issue of gender identity. But 2016 was an election year, so transgender rights made for good political theatre.

Here in North Carolina, first-term governor Pat McCrory, a moderate Republican and former coalition-building, seven-term mayor of Charlotte, had been busy resurrecting our state’s lagging economy. Under his administration, unemployment went down, federal debts were paid, and we outpaced the national average in economic growth. He also led a bi-partisan coalition to pass a $2 billion dollar bond for modernizing college campus facilities, and, in the weeks prior to election day, he helped thousands of homeowners in Eastern North Carolina recover from a devastating flood. Along the way there were bumps in the road, like criticism from the Left over a voter ID bill, and from the Right when McCrory said that magistrates should be made to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. Nevertheless, he was expected to win re-election over Democrat Roy Cooper, an Attorney General whose only claim to fame was waging war on people who needed sinus medicine. Cooper was in desperate need of a signature issue, and in March of 2016, Charlotte Mayor Jennifer Roberts handed it to him, gift wrapped.

Roberts, supported by the HRC, was poised to pass an ordinance that would have required private businesses to make bathroom accommodations in accordance with gender identity, or else face jail time and a stiff fine. Coincidentally, the day after Roberts held a fundraiser for Cooper, she called for a vote on the bathroom ordinance, and it passed. And, just to make sure that Cooper’s opponent would get pushed into a full blown controversy, Roberts designated the ordinance to take effect on April 1, giving McCrory just over a week to diffuse a politically charged bombshell. Last October, appearing on “Triad Today”, Governor McCrory told me what transpired when he first learned of the Mayor’s plans to order a vote.

“I begged Mayor Roberts not to pass the ordinance. I wrote her a letter saying, ‘You’re trying to find a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.’ “

McCrory’s pleas to Roberts fell on deaf ears, while Cooper turned a deaf ear to the impending debacle.

“The Attorney General should have declared the ordinance unconstitutional, and intervened immediately, but he refused to do it because he was in the pocket, doing fundraisers with Mayor Roberts.”

Conservatives in the General Assembly were incensed by the Queen City ordinance, but McCrory tried to discourage any legislative action, instead hoping that the matter would be settled in court. Nevertheless, legislators called a special session, and drafted what became known as HB2. It was filled with extraneous language that dealt with everything from minimum wage to denying state employees redress in state courts. But at the heart of HB2 was a requirement that people must use government owned restrooms that correspond to their biological sex. Overall, it was a poorly written bill which seemed to leave minorities and gays unprotected against discrimination, so I asked McCrory why he signed it.

“Because the Charlotte ordinance was going to go into effect within eight days if I didn’t sign our bill. I wasn’t going to allow an ordinance threatening a jail sentence to someone who doesn’t recognize gender identity, which is a whole new definition of man and woman, and of a boy and girl in our schools. But I did issue an executive order prohibiting any types of discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

Once HB2 became law, North Carolina faced a flood of boycotts and millions of dollars in lost revenue. Mayors and governors from other states even barred their employees from attending functions in North Carolina. The NBA moved its All-Star game from Charlotte, and major film companies refused to shoot here. McCrory was excoriated daily for signing a law that he didn’t seek, didn’t write, and tried to prevent. Even so, the gubernatorial race was still tight, but only because of HB2 and the perception that Cooper was a champion of transgender rights.

In July, a bipartisan deal was in the works that would have removed enough controversial language from HB2 to end some of the boycotts. It was endorsed by almost every House Republican and ten House Democrats, and was on the way to being passed. But according to a report by WBTV’s Nick Ochsner, one man torpedoed the erstwhile repeal of HB2. A source involved with the negotiations told Ochsner, “We started losing Democrats. We were told Cooper was making personal phone calls to the ten Democratic members, saying if they wanted to be on the team in November, they needed to vote against the bill.” Reacting to Ochsner’s story, state GOP Executive Director Dallas Woodhouse said, “This report raises serious questions about the ethics and motivation of Attorney General Roy Cooper.”

The WBTV report should have ended Cooper’s bid for governor. Instead, he ran hundreds of disingenuous TV ads in which he promised to repeal HB2. The scam worked. Cooper defeated McCrory by about 10,000 votes, and HB2 was cited as the reason for his narrow victory.

Fast forward to last week when Governor Cooper signed HB 142 into law. The so-called repeal of HB2 was rushed through the General Assembly in response to a threat by the NCAA to boycott North Carolina for the next two decades. The hypocritical sports body had given us until April 1 to act, or else. The problem is that HB 142 is not a repeal of HB2. Instead, it only restores the status quo, and prohibits localities from enacting their own bathroom ordinances until the year 2020, by which time, the Courts will have ruled on the legal standing of gender identity as an orientation equal to that of biological gender. In other words, Cooper’s HB2 replacement bill is exactly what McCrory had advocated. Not surprisingly, Cooper is now coming under fire from the same groups who once excoriated McCrory. They mistakenly thought McCrory created HB2, and they mistakenly thought Cooper would thoroughly repeal it.

Four years from now I hope voters will remember what really happened with HB2, and who was really responsible for stirring up a faux crisis that did a lot of damage. I also hope they’ll remember who could have prevented HB2, and then deliberately blocked an effort to repeal it, just so he could get elected. By supporting the Charlotte bathroom ordinance and helping to keep HB2 alive for political purposes, Roy Cooper is like a man who yelled “FIRE”, then refused to help extinguish the flames with one hand, while fanning them with the other. Pat McCrory deserved another term as governor, and because of HB 142, he might still get it.
 
 

Every day, newspapers, television, and the internet are awash with bad news. Even worse, there seems to be nothing we can do to make the bad news go away.

We can’t stop terrorism, we can’t escape racism, and we don’t have a cure for cancer. But if you look beyond the headlines, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that one person really can make a difference in preventing or solving some of our most serious problems. While hosting “Triad Today” over the past fourteen years, I’ve come to know some of those special people who make a difference every single day, and I’m particularly proud of three individuals who have dedicated their time and considerable energies to prevent drunk driving. They are Guilford County sheriff BJ Barnes, and attorneys David Daggett and Griff Shuler.

According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving, each year over 10 million people drive while under the influence, and almost half of all drivers who are killed in crashes had alcohol in their system. Moreover, one third of people convicted of drunk driving are repeat offenders. Shockingly, over 300,000 incidents of drunk driving occur each and every day, and every 51 minutes, someone dies in a drunk driving-related car crash.

Five years ago, sheriff BJ Barnes created a task force to reduce drunk driving in Guilford County. Cooperating agencies included the Greensboro police department, High Point police department, UNCG police, and the Guilford sheriff’s department. Late last month, M.A.D.D. presented Barnes with the “Heart of M.A.D.D.” award, accompanied by a glowing citation which stated, “He teamed up with sheriffs across the State and local police departments to continue his education efforts, focusing on the dangers of underage drinking.”

According to M.A.D.D., the award is given to individuals who, “embody our mission to eliminate drunk driving, support the victims of violent crime, and prevent underage drinking.” Certainly BJ meets and exceeds those criteria. For example, as the Greensboro News and Record’s Kate Elizabeth Queram reported, Barnes has also been working closely with the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission
and its “Talk it Out” campaign, which encourages parents to talk with their kids about alcohol and drug use.

Too often our law enforcement officers only get to respond to crimes after they’ve been committed, but M.A.D.D.’s recognition of my friend BJ Barnes should serve as an inspiration to public servants and private citizens, to be pro-active in preventing drunk driving, and the fatalities they can cause.

About twenty miles up the road from the Guilford County Sheriff’s headquarters, are the offices of Daggett Shuler, attorneys at law. David Daggett and Griff Shuler have seen the tragic effects of car crashes involving alcohol, so it’s not surprising that they decided to sponsor an area wide campaign designed to prevent young people from drinking and driving.

David and Griff recently appeared on Triad Today to taIk about “Safe Sober Prom Night”.

David: This is the 27th year of the Safe Sober Prom Night program, and it has become the largest and longest running privately funded initiative of its type in the United States. What it is, is students sign a pledge card not to drink or use drugs on prom night.

Jim: How much of a problem is teenage drinking and driving?

Griff: Car crashes are the number one cause of death among teenagers, and of those car crashes, one quarter are directly related to underage drinking. That’s how bad the problem is.

Jim: What area do you cover?

Griff: We visit 47 high schools in nine counties, and get students to sign the pledge, then we give them a free t-shirt.

David: But it’s more than just “don’t drink or use drugs on prom night.” It has become a program of leadership, guidance, and direction for young people.

One student who took the pledge this year is 17-year-old Nestor Gutierrez Flores, a senior at West Forsyth high school. Nestor also designed this year’s commemorative “Safe Sober Prom Night” t-shirt.

Jim: Nestor, why did you want to take the pledge?

Nestor: The media promotes that alcoholis a way to have fun. Well, my design breaks free from that. We don’t need alcohol to have fun. Teenagers can have fun without drinking.

Over the years, David and Griff have made it possible for over a half million teenagers to take the pledge, and they have awarded nearly $50,000 to schools with the highest percentage of participation.

Griff: It’s unbelievable. We go out to schools to set up and give out t-shirts, and when the bell rings you better watch out because all of the students are going to run out and sign the pledge, and want the t-shirts.

David: Proms will be going on from now through the middle of May, so students can still take the pledge. We’re coming to a high school near you!

Griff: The reaction every year at every school is one of excitement, and we just love being a part of it.

Anyone interested in the “Safe, Sober Prom Night” program can visit www.safesober.com.

For more information about the Guilford County Sheriff’s department, visit www.gcsonc.com.
 
 

In a recent commercial for Geico, noted angler Bill Dance offers up a valuable tip for careless fishermen who break off the end of their rod in the car door.

Says Dance dryly, “Don’t do that.” Bill’s simple advice is priceless, more importantly it can apply to a myriad of situations.

If you don’t want your embarrassing emails to get hacked, don’t send embarrassing emails. If you don’t want to cause a wreck on the highway, don’t text while driving. If you don’t want to accidentally fall off a cliff, don’t play Pokeman while you’re walking. If you don’t want to pay higher taxes and healthcare premiums, don’t keep sending the same people back to Congress. If you don’t want your house broken into, don’t tell everyone on social media what day you’re leaving for vacation. If you don’t want to have a baby out of wedlock, don’t have unprotected sex. And PLEASE, for the love of Pete, if you don’t want nude photos of yourself showing up all over the internet, don’t take nude photos of yourself, or let anyone else take them.

Hardly a week goes by that we don’t hear about someone complaining that a nude photo of her has gone viral. In some cases, a girl lets her boyfriend snap a nude photo of her with his phone, and he sends that photo back to her phone. In other instances, a girl snaps a nude selfie and sends it to her boyfriend. Either way, when the girl breaks up with her boyfriend, he sometimes gets revenge by posting the nude photos all over the internet. But this so-called revenge porn isn’t always to blame for embarrassing posts. Sometimes girls take nude selfies and share them with their closest girlfriends. Then, either the girl or one of her friends accidentally hits “send” and voila! Instant viral nudity. And some teens take nude selfies for profit, then develop seller’s remorse after the fact.

Regardless of how nude photos originate, however, the posting of them has grown to almost epidemic proportions. Some teenage girls whose naked image has gone viral are forced to change schools, and others even contemplate suicide. And then there are the angry parents. Earlier this year, a father in New York was arrested for choking his daughter when he discovered that she had posted naked pictures of herself on Snapchat. But even when parents are understanding, the so-called victim can find herself in hot water. Here in North Carolina, posting of private nude photos is a class H felony under general statute section 14-190.5. In fact, posting of nude photos is illegal in all but 17 states. And in California, if a boyfriend posts revenge porn, he can go to jail for six months.

Dr. Brenda Murphy, an instructor in Gender Studies at the University of Malta, says posting of nude selfies without the consent of the nude person is a form of abuse, and borders on violence. But what about when a teenager gives her consent or posts the explicit images herself? Speaking with the Times of Malta, Murphy said, “I’m not blaming the girls. We are all subject to society’s current pressures. The message young girls are getting from the media is one of hyper-sexualization. Young girls are being told the only way to behave is in a sexual way.”

Personally I don’t buy some of Professor Murhpy’s bilge, but even if I did, how then does she explain grown women taking nude selfies? What should we do to punish those adult females, or the men who share their selfies? And what if more than one man is engaged in exposing private photos? Or what if those men did so institutionally? Such a scenario has recently come to light, and has gained national attention, not just because of what they’re doing, but because of who they represent.

According to CNN, a group known as Marines United operates a secret chatroom and facebook network with more than 30,000 members nationwide, who routinely post and share nude photos of female Marines. Marine Corps Commandant General Robert Neller has admonished his troops, and lectured them about honor and commitment. Meanwhile NCIS is looking into the matter. Again, though, the problem is that most of the so-called victims were not snapped without their knowledge. James LaPorta, a Marine vet has investigated Marines United, and he told CNN that most of the nude photos are “posed”, meaning that the female Marines either took and distributed nude selfies, or they gave some form of consent to the person who snapped the photos.

Can girls or women be considered victims if they take nude selfies or allow themselves to be photographed nude? Yes, but in most cases they are complicit victims, because if they had kept their clothes on and their iPhones turned off, then neither pimply faced boys or enterprising young Marines could do anything to embarrass them.

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not excusing men who post nude photos of any woman for any purpose. But ladies, if you don’t want your naked body to show up on the internet, then don’t get naked when there’s a camera around. That’s because today, nothing is private anymore, not even our privates. So next time you feel like showing off your birthday suit, remember what Bill Dance said. “Don’t do that.”
 
 

On the day my father died, a friend of mine 2,500 miles away stopped filming his TV show, and sent me a personal message: “Jim, I’m sorry about your Dad. I’m sure he must have been quite proud of you. Someone once wrote, ‘Flowers will wilt and tears will dry, but love lives on in reverent memory.’ My sympathy.”

That friend was Bill Paxton, a versatile, multi-talented everyman-turned-actor, -musician, -director, and -documentarian, who never lost sight of his Texas roots or core values, and always seemed to put the needs of others before his own. Billy had the biggest heart of just about anyone I ever met, and in a cruel twist of fate, it was his heart that failed him in the end. He went in for surgery on February 14 to repair a valve, then suffered a stroke eleven days later. He died on February 25. Bill was just 61 years old. He was survived by his wife Louise, and his children James and Lydia.

I first met Billy when he agreed to participate in “A Father’s Day Salute to TV Dads” which I produced and moderated for the Television Academy in June of 2009. He had already appeared in a slew of blockbuster films by then, (Aliens, Terminator, Predator 2, Twister, Apollo 13, Titanic, et al), and now, he was filming the groundbreaking HBO series Big Love in which he played a Mormon with three sister wives and a passel of kids. Joining Bill on stage were eight other iconic TV Dads: Dick Van Dyke, Bryan Cranston, Dick Van Patten, Jon Cryer, Patrick Duffy, Reggie VelJohnson, Stephen Collins, and Michael Gross.

It was a good natured group of guys, among whom there was great chemistry and mutual respect, so I knew I was on safe ground to poke fun at them during my introductory remarks. Of Billy I said, “As an actor his credits are impressive, and at the same time, pitiful. In Tombstone he failed to serve out his term as sheriff. In Apollo 13 he failed to reach the moon. In Titanic he failed to recover a prized jewel. And in one season of Big Love he failed to perform in bed with two of his three wives.” Billy entered the stage laughing, and underneath the thunderous applause he received from the capacity crowd, he said to me, “Thanks Jim. What a great introduction!” In my 45 years of hosting shows and events, no one had ever thanked me for poking fun at them. But that was Bill Paxton. He was not only a great performer, he was also a great audience, and the boy loved to laugh. Strike that. You can’t really call what Billy did, a “laugh”. It was more like a cackle, followed by a big Texas style “Woooo!”.

That night, the Academy audience also discovered that Billy was a master storyteller who could talk about poignant childhood memories or hilariously bawdy incidents with equal aplomb. For example, when asked to recall his favorite TV Dad, Billy went on an hysterical rant about unwed fathers.

Paxton: All the TV Dads I grew up with, something happened to the mother. The wife was out of the picture. The Rifleman. What was the deal there? Did he shoot her by accident? [laughter] And what was the deal with Andy Griffith and Opie? I mean was he a bastard kid? And there was the Courtship of Eddie’s Father. And Uncle Bill on Family Affair. Was he really their uncle or their father? What the hell happened to Aunt Dorothy?

Longworth: You’re really wound up about this.

Paxton: And you’ve got My 3 Sons and William Demarest as Uncle Charlie. What did he do? Knock off the mom to get on the payroll? I mean, you could keep going with this stuff. Ben Cartwright. What was the deal with the cook? [more sustained laughter as Bill’s story built to a crescendo]

And then there was his show-stopping answer to my question about sex ed.

Longworth: Who talked to you about the birds and the bees?

Paxton: I remember I was about 16 years old and I wanted to talk to my dad because I had heard this term, “premature ejaculation”, and I thought I was the only guy on earth who had this problem. (laughter from the audience). So one Saturday morning I rode downtown with my dad who went to pick up his mail at the office. Now I could talk to my dad about anything, so I said, “Dad I think I’ve got this problem.” He said, “What’s the problem son?” And I said, “I think I’ve got premature ejaculation.” Well my dad liked to describe things very graphically, and he said, “Oh son, you don’t have to worry about that. Hell, I used to go off on the nest all the time.”

Academy members were nearly falling out of their seats laughing, while Patrick Duffy, who sat next to Billy, feigned a comic look of shock at what he had just heard. “Woooo! That’s a hard one to follow!” said Billy. And so it was.

The event was a celebration of fathers, both on screen and off, so each TV Dad got to tell something serious about his own real-life father. For Billy that meant talking about his hero and best friend, John Paxton.

Paxton: My dad is the person I measure everyone by. And I’m one of the luckiest guys I know because my dad is still my closest confidant. He was a lumber salesman, always traveling, and one thing he taught me was, “take time to talk to somebody”. He was a social man with great humanity.

The same could be said about John’s son Bill.

In the years following the TV Dads event, Billy and I stayed in touch regularly. Sometimes we saw each other, sometimes we talked by phone, and most times we emailed each other. Sometimes we talked about people we admired, or old TV shows we used to watch. On one occasion, I wrote Bill and told him that Pam and I were spending the evening with Shirley Jones. “I’m so envious,” he said. That scene in the cat house in Elmer Gantry is unforgettable. Talk about sex appeal!” And there was the time I told him that the game show Password had just been released on home video, and our buddy Dick Van Dyke was in one of the episodes. “The Password DVD sounds great. I watched a lot of hours of that as a kid,” he wrote. Billy often talked with me about his work, but never about his individual performances. He always hoped that the Big Love team would win an EMMY, and when the show was cancelled, he wrote, “Jim, we went down swinging for the back fence.” He was also proud of his kids, and gave me a heads-up when James was about to show up in an episode of Billy’s Alamo opus, Texas Rising.

And then there was the formal interview I did with him to promote his Hatfields and McCoys mini-series. For Billy it was a bittersweet experience because mid-way through filming in Romania, he was called back home to attend his father’s funeral. He was back on a plane the next day to continue working. Seems like Billy was always going somewhere or coming back from somewhere. His emails read like a travel log: “I’m on my way to Toronto”, “Jim, I’m in London”, “We just wrapped in Romania”. He was a perpetual motion machine when it came to work.

Billy’s last email to me was on February 11. He told me how much he liked the memorial tribute I wrote about our hero Mike Connors (Mannix). And he talked about his new series Training Day. “I’d like to think I’m carrying on what Mike started as a TV Crimefighter”, he said. And in his last sentence he wrote, “Hope you’re watching Training Day!” I told him that Pam and I loved his new show, and that Mike would have loved it too. He didn’t say anything about feeling bad. He didn’t mention being scheduled for surgery on February 14. Eleven days later he was gone.

I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the fact that my friend had died. I put off writing this column because I couldn’t find the words. I turned to some of the folks that Billy and I knew, and they also found it difficult to talk through the shock.

Bruce Dern: Bill was a prince of a guy.

Patrick Duffy: Too good, and way too soon.

Bryan Cranston: Just devastating. He was such a great guy, and a talented actor. Huge loss. Rest well my friend.

Stephen Collins: Such a terrific guy, and incredibly humble about all his success.

Michael Gross: He was indeed a lovely man.

Mary Kay Place: Bill was such a down to earth guy, so kind to everyone. A great human being, no Hollywood BS about him.

Kurt Russell: I don’t know anyone who didn’t love being with Billy. He was flat out one of the good guys. I sure hope it’s in the cards for us to get together again. ‘Till then, I’ll miss him.

Fact is, anyone who knew Billy or watched him perform, will miss him too. Cowboy or cop. Soldier or scamp. William “Bill” Paxton could play them all. But as great as he was an actor, he was an even better person. He was the kind of person who once comforted me by writing, “Flowers will wilt and tears will dry, but love lives on in reverent memory.” Now, I hear Billy speaking those words to me again, only this time, the tears are for him. And when they dry, my memories of Bill Paxton will be of his smile, his compassion, his talent, and that distinctive Texas laugh. “Woooo, Billy!”…you’re a hard act to follow.
 
 

The Ides of March are upon us, and like Julius Caesar, many of us are about to be stabbed in the back unexpectedly. House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have their daggers at the ready, and together they are hatching a secret plan to stick it to us. They have mesmerized us with chants of “Repeal and Replace” so often that we believe them when they say they’re going to reduce insurance premiums and give us all more choices. But if you study what Ryan has advocated all along, and what he is reportedly likely to propose now, you’ll see that we’re about to be assaulted by the very people we trusted to serve our interests.

By now we all know that the Affordable Care Act was a failed experiment. Former President Obama told us that our premiums would go down. They didn’t. He told us we could keep the plan that we had. We couldn’t. He said we could keep our doctor. We couldn’t. And he promised that we wouldn’t be denied coverage due to a pre-existing condition. He was right, but his promise was hollow. That’s because premiums and deductibles were so high that people with a serious illness couldn’t pay for the premium or the procedures they needed.

OK, so Obamacare needs to be replaced. Unfortunately, though, we’re about to jump from the frying pan into the fire.

Last week Kaiser Health News reported that the Republican plan will drastically increase premiums for older Americans. Under the ACA, insurance companies were allowed to charge an older man three times more than a younger man. But last year, Ryan said he wanted to increase that to five times! In simple math that means if a 25-year-old is paying $500 per month for health insurance, a 55-year-old would pay $2,500 per month for the same coverage, regardless of his health and with higher deductibles. All of this is designed to make insurance more affordable for the people who don’t need it and rarely use it, while making it less affordable for people who need it, and are more likely to use it. Can you feel the knife going into your back yet?

But the rationale is disingenuous on both ends of the age spectrum. First of all, even though a young couple might be more able to afford monthly premiums, they won’t be able to afford the co-pay on expensive diagnostics and surgeries. Meanwhile, under Ryan’s likely plan, the insurance companies will make money from increasing premiums on some older folks, and save money by not having to cover other older folks who decide to drop their coverage. In fact, according to NBCNews.com, a Rand study says companies like Blue Cross Blue Shield will pick up 3 million new customers under age 35, while 700,000 people over age 47 will drop their coverage.

To use President Trump’s favorite phrase, Americans age 50 to 64 are about to be screwed “big league.” And look for Ryan to also decrease Medicare premium supports for people 65 and older. Writing for the New York Times, Indiana University professor Aaron Carroll said, “We need to acknowledge that one of the easiest ways to cut premiums is to shift more health care costs to older Americans.” So there you have it. Republicans in Congress are poised to pass a healthcare plan that will make it legal for insurance companies to price gouge anyone over the age of 50.

But why? Why would any politician want to help bankrupt a family because they can’t afford premiums or procedures? And if these politicians really wanted to make healthcare affordable for everyone, why wouldn’t they vote to either cap premiums, or embrace Bernie Sanders’ “Medicare for All” plan? The answer to all of these questions is that many elected officials are beholden to insurance companies for donations and other forms of assistance.

According to CNN/Money.com, BCBS alone spent over $21 million dollars on lobbyists in 2009 and 2010 in order to make sure Congress wouldn’t enact any legislation that might negatively impact Big Blue’s profits. And while it’s true that BCBS cut back on its donations to and lobbying of Congress in recent years, they have re-focused their efforts on lobbying state lawmakers and commissioners who have the power to green-light increases in premiums, once the federal law is enacted. But BCBS can also protect its turf by serving as de facto legislators. According to the National Academy of Social Insurance, Obama’s health exchanges were mandated to “promote effective competition for health insurance, and offer a wide selection of coverage options to individuals and businesses.” But in 2011, iwatchnews.org reported that BCBS of North Carolina was helping to draft a bill that would allow their company to control the governing body of our state’s health exchange. The exchange went into effect in 2014, and by 2016, BCBS was the only company offering health insurance in North Carolina. In other words, Blue Cross has been working behind the scenes for years, making donations, lobbying, and writing regulations that guarantee their millionaire executives will continue to prosper regardless of how the economy, or even their own company, is performing.

The Ides of March are upon us, and very soon Brutus Ryan and his cronies will take action to bleed us to death, with Blue Cross supplying the daggers. But if we all take heed of their plot now, there will still be time to put pressure on our elected officials, and let them know that they can’t get re-elected if everyone over 50 votes against them. Hopefully they’ll get the “point” before we do.
 
 

The other day I was watching a morning news show on which Dr.Mehmet Oz was interviewed.  The famous TV doc was asked how to recognize fake news, and then what to do once you’ve read it. Said the all-knowing Oz, “Be aware before you share.”  I’m not a big fan of Dr. Oz, but I was struck by the profundity of his simple catch phrase. Clearly he was warning us about the dangers of fake news, and how fabricated stories can cause harm when re-tweeted or regurgitated. But his warning could also apply to inflammatory news.
 
Inflammatory news is news that may be technically true, but is not totally accurate because it either inadvertently or deliberately omits proper context. Even worse, it can incite the public unnecessarily, create panic, and cause collateral damage in its wake. Last week Jordan Green, a reporter for Triad City Beat, was guilty of writing an inflammatory news story.
 
He showed up uninvited at the banquet room of a Kernersville restaurant, where a private dinner of the Forsyth Constitutional Patriots was taking place. The group, which holds regular meetings at the popular restaurant, is comprised of some 20 senior citizens whose charitable work includes adopting homeless vets. They also invite guest speakers to their meetings, like Hamody Jasmin, an Iraqi patriot who aided our troops in the Gulf.  Last Thursday the guest speaker was Tom Jones, whose presentation was about the “Islamification of America.” Group organizer Beverly Lung recognized Mr. Green and asked Mr. Jones if he had any objections to having a reporter present. Jones told Beverly, “Not at all. I’m not going to say anything that’s not true.”  Neither Jones nor Lung, however, knew that Green was recording the meeting.
 
In the course of the evening, Islamic terrorism was discussed, and references were made to public executions. One of the attendees, Frank Del Valle, a 74 year old exile from communist Cuba, reacted to what he thought was a hypothetical scenario in which an Islamic terrorist threatened him with death. Frank said the only way to stop them, “is to start killing them.”  Moments later he added, “I’m ready to start taking people out.”
 
Unlike Jordan Green who slipped in the back door, then slipped back out again without questioning people about their statements or motives, I actually interviewed several principal participants, including Ms. Lung and Mr. Del Valle. Frank made it clear to me that he was referring to what he would do if his life was threatened. “The people in our group knew what I meant,” he told me. Unfortunately Mr. Green didn’t want to take the time to know. Two days later the headline above his article read, “Local conservative activists prepare for violent confrontation with Islam.”   
 
The result was public outrage at Ms. Lung’s group, at Mr. Del Valle, and even at the owner of the restaurant, who one blogger misidentified as the guest speaker. CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations, was made aware of the article and called on the FBI to investigate Del Valle’s supposed death threats. Meanwhile, the Annoor Islamic Center in Clemmons (which Mr. Jones had said was “operating a Madrassa”) put its children’s Sunday school classes on virtual lock-down. The Winston-Salem Journal even devoted a front page story to the lock-down, and to the fears and safety precautions being taken at the Center. That was followed the next day by Susan Ladd’s inflammatory column in the Greensboro News and Record in which she likened Ms. Lung’s group to Nazis and the KKK. She ended her column by warning us not to discount the actions and words of dangerous groups like the Forsyth Constitutional Patriots, writing, “We ignore it at our peril.”   Thanks to inflammatory news coverage, the FBI did not ignore it.
 
Last Sunday, two FBI agents showed up at Mr. Del Valle’s home, accompanied by two Winston-Salem police officers. But the agents also visited Ms. Lung and the restaurant manager, neither of who had anything to do with what Frank said at Thursday’s meeting. Beverly told the agents that Frank was not a threat to anyone, and said what Jordan Green had done was pathetic. I asked Frank what the agents asked him, and he said “They wanted to know if I thought all Muslims were the same. I said,  ‘No, and that I don’t generalize about people.’ ” Del Valle then told the agents he thought they were wasting their time coming to investigate him on a Sunday morning. “One of the agents agreed, saying, ‘Yeah, I was getting ready to go to church.’ ”
 
Was it appropriate for the FBI to act on a complaint by CAIR, and interview Mr. Del Valle? Absolutely. And even though Frank didn’t commit a crime, perhaps the FBI visit will cause him to be more circumspect the next time he’s trying to articulate a hypothetical statement. Should Ms. Lung and the restaurant manager have had to endure FBI questioning? Absolutely not. But they were collateral damage, thanks to Mr. Green and Ms. Ladd. And by the way, if Jordan Green really believed anyone was in danger, he would have called the police or FBI himself, and waited to file his story following an investigation. Instead he chose to frighten and inflame the Muslim community without regard to the consequences. 
 
Beverly’s group of senior citizens is pretty right wing. They’re paranoid about things that may never happen, and they are certainly not politically correct. But if they posed a threat to Muslims or any other peace-loving people, they’d all be behind bars now. So what’s the lesson to be learned from this fiasco? Old guys like Frank Del Valle need to choose their words more carefully, and so do journalists and columnists like Jordan Green and Susan Ladd. In today’s volatile world, context is very important. Ignore it at your own peril. 
 
 

Ever since 1928 there has been a full time physician attached to the White House (not the same one, of course). These medical professionals perform routine check-ups, prescribe medication, and monitor the President’s overall health. Presumably the White House doctor would also help to determine if the President has become physically incapacitated and is, therefore, unable to serve. But what if the Commander in Chief was “mentally” incapacitated?

Lately that question has been raised by reporters and members of Congress alike, so much so that, earlier this month, Representative Ted Lieu (D-CA) proposed a bill that would require a psychiatrist to be attached to the White House. He also called for the current President to undergo a mental evaluation. The bill stands little chance of advancing, but that won’t deter the chatter around D.C.

On the February 10 edition of Real Time, Senator Al Franken told Bill Maher that he had spoken with members of Congress, including some Republicans, who feel that President Trump is mentally ill. Franken, a former comedian, wasn’t joking. In fact he repeated his claim on a network morning show later that week. Meanwhile, Lieu himself told the Washington Post that he had become “increasingly alarmed at Trump’s erratic behavior.” But such behavior is not a recent phenomena.

During the campaign Trump mocked a disabled reporter, implied that Megyn Kelly was hostile to him because she was on her menstrual cycle, referred to a Black man at a rally as “My African American”, claimed that P.O.W.s are not heroes, and said the world would be safer if more countries had nuclear weapons. He also advised women who are sexually harassed in the workplace to change jobs, and when asked what sacrifice he had made in comparison to a dead soldier, Trump said, “I’ve made sacrifices. I’ve hired thousands of people.” These and other remarks led then President Obama to say that Trump was “unfit to be Commander in Chief”, and Libertarian VP candidate Bill Weld to conclude that Trump “has a screw loose.”

Not surprisingly, these same kinds of offensive remarks have continued now that candidate Trump is President Trump. Shortly after taking office, Mr. Trump visited CIA headquarters and held court in front of the agency’s memorial wall which honors fallen agents. But instead of praising their sacrifice, Trump went on a rant about his electoral victory and the size of the crowd at his inauguration. So much for sensitivity. He also recently claimed that 5 million illegal aliens voted for Hillary, he boasted that his cabinet nominees had the highest IQ of any Cabinet in history, and he said he had been on the cover of TIME more than anyone else. All false statements. Ed Rollins, co-chair of Trump’s Great America PAC, said, “I don’t think he’s deliberately lying. I think he actually believes this stuff.” Alternative facts aside, Trump has also spent his first month in office attacking judges, Congressmen, and members of the news media. And that brings me to last Thursday’s bizarre press conference.

Having been criticized for not taking questions from CNN and other hostile news outlets, Trump went head to head with his detractors, and did so for over an hour. At one point he displayed a sarcastic sense of humor, referring to his private phone conversation with Putin. “It was classified so I’m sure you all know what was said.” But for the most part, his presentation can only be described as a disjointed stream of consciousness. He spoke in sentence fragments and rarely answered the question being asked. He interrupted his own thoughts with other thoughts, and, as always, he bragged about things that just weren’t true. He said he had high approval ratings, when every major poll says just the opposite. He said his roll-out of the travel ban was flawless, even though members of his own party said it was botched. And he repeated his claim that his was the biggest electoral college margin since Reagan. When a reporter pointed out that Obama and Clinton had higher totals, Trump said, “I was referring to Republicans.” To which the reporter said, “George H.W. Bush had 426 electoral votes.” Trump said, “That was what I was told.” But he KNEW his figures were wrong because he’s cited them repeatedly and been corrected repeatedly.

Following the press conference, a number of pundits weighed in. Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta commented that, “He wanders between the real world, and the world of Donald Trump.” Meanwhile, iconic investigative journalist Carl Bernstein said, “What we saw was a road map of his mind, and it’s a very disturbing road map,” Former White House advisor David Gergen said, “We got a look inside the head and heart of Donald Trump, and what we saw was very murky. It showed us a President who is frequently unhinged. He’s living in a different reality.” Bernstein also referred to Trump’s performance at the press conference as “free association”, where he said whatever popped into his head, whether it made sense, or was even appropriate. It’s a performance that led one Republican Senator to tell CNN’s John King, “He (Trump) should do that with a therapist, not on live television.” And that brings us back to Lieu’s proposal for a full time psychiatrist to be assigned to the White House.

Last August I wrote a column about how Donald Trump displays all of the symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) as defined by the Mayor Clinic. Some of those symptoms include:

• Having an exaggerated sense of self-importance
• Expecting to be recognized as superior without achievements that warrant it
• Being unable to recognize the feelings of others

If Trump truly suffers from NPD, he cannot be cured, only counseled, which is all the more reason to give serious consideration to Congressman Lieu’s proposal. And while the bill is backed by over thirty leading psychiatrists, the American Psychiatric Association warns its members against making an armchair diagnosis of anyone, least of all the President of the United States. After all, it’s not crazy to want to protect our borders and thwart terrorist attacks. It’s not crazy to want to bring jobs back to America. It’s not crazy to want to rid our inner cities of crime and poverty. And in this unstable nuclear age, it’s not crazy to want to try and get along with Russia.

We can all use some counseling from time to time, and we all need someone to talk with about our innermost fears and concerns. And so, having a psychiatrist in the White House might not be a bad idea. I find it ironic, however, that the very week Congressmen were calling Trump mentally ill, they also voted to allow mentally ill persons to purchase guns. In a world where Republicans and Democrats are always going off half cocked, I guess it makes perfect sense.
 
 

In the Fall of 2010 the Television Academy asked me to produce and moderate “A Salute to TV Crimefighters”. The panel of prime time cops and detectives included my buddies Matt Bomer (White Collar), and Mary McCormack (In Plain Sight) along with Marg Helgenberger
(CSI), Thomas Gibson (Criminal Minds), Angie Harmon (Rizzoli & Isles), Matt Passmore (The Glades), and newcomer Boris Kodjoe (Undercovers).

But a salute to TV gumshoes wouldn’t be complete without honoring the man who helped pioneer the genre, first on Tightrope, then with Mannix, in a career spanning more than half a century. And so at the end of our panel discussion I brought Mike Connors up on stage. Pointing to the young actors who stood behind him, Mike commented, “There’s a lot of talent back there, I’ll tell you that.” “There’s a lot of talent standing next to me too,” I said, pointing to Mike.

Mike greeted each of the panelists, then singled out Boris. “I really would have liked to do the show he’s doing because he starts each show in bed with a beautiful gal, then closes the show in bed with a beautiful gal. I used to open my show running down the street, and close the show by getting hit on the head.” The capacity crowd at the Academy’s Goldenson theatre roared with laughter.

Next it was time to present Mike with a beautifully inscribed plaque. To do the honors, I asked my friend Lee Meriwether (Barnaby Jones) to come up on stage and read the inscription to her long-time pal. But Lee couldn’t resist reminding Mike about the time she was a guest star on Mannix. “Mike you DO remember that you and I DID get into bed. I mean, you weren’t running down the street or being shot at that day.” More laughter from the audience. “I’m glad my wife didn’t show up tonight,” Mike quipped.

Lee read the inscription, then Mike made a prophetic joke. “You know when Jim called and told me about this, I was thrilled, and then I got a little worried because I thought, ‘I wonder if they know something about my health that I don’t know?’ ” [laughter] “So I immediately hung up from talking to Jim and called my doctor.” That remark elicited the biggest laugh of the night. Little did we know that some six years later, Mike would be diagnosed with leukemia, and a week after that, he would be gone. Mike Connors died on January 26. He was 91.

Mike was born Krekor Ohanian, a name he shared with his Armenian father, but in high school he was given the nickname “Touch” by his basketball teammates. After a stint in the Air Force, Touch Connors attended UCLA on a basketball scholarship , where he played for the legendary John Wooden. Hollywood producers began to take note of Mike’s rugged good looks and athletic ability, which he put to good use in one of his earliest films, Five Guns West. The western also marked Roger Corman’s directorial debut. I asked Roger to tell me about Mike.

Longworth: Why did you cast Mike in your first film?
Corman: There was an audition, and I was impressed by him for a number of reasons. First, for a young man with not a great deal of acting experience, he was a very good actor. He was also a tall, good-looking guy with strength, which is what I wanted. And what impressed me was his total dedication to the job. I remember he didn’t know much about riding a horse, but he learned very quickly.
Longworth: You must have liked working with him, because you also cast him in Swamp Women.
Corman: I would forget Swamp Women. Mike wouldn’t want us to talk about Swamp Women. [laughs]

Mike settled down early in his career, marrying Mary Lou Willey in 1949 (they remained together until his death), and he stayed busy throughout the 1950’s, appearing in over a dozen feature films and several TV shows before landing his own series, Tightrope in 1959. The crime drama, about an undercover agent who always bested bad guys by hiding a snub nose pistol in the back of his pants, only lasted a year, but Mike’s three dimensional tough guy persona set a standard for the genre.

Mike returned to the big screen in the early 1960’s, co-starring with actors like Jack Lemmon and Robert Redford, but it was his portrayals of a spy in Kiss the Girls and Make them Die, and a gallant gambler in the remake of Stagecoach, that established him as a leading man. I spoke with my friend Stefanie Powers about her co-star in the stylish 1966 Western.

Powers: I loved working with Mike in Stagecoach. He was so generous as an actor, and so solid in his professionalism. I leaned on him, and he supported me with all his talent.

Ann-Margret also appeared in Stagecoach, and she echoed Stefanie’s sentiments.

Ann-Margret: Mike was such an elegant gentleman, always warm and so kind. He was a good man and wonderful to work with.

A year later, Mike landed his second and most successful TV series, this one about a suave, but tough private eye. Mannix would run for eight seasons under the Desilu banner, and it cemented Connors as a cultural icon. I caught up with several actors who had guest starring roles on Mannix, including M*A*S*H star Mike Farrell, Batman‘s Adam West, Eric Braeden (The Young and the Restless), Clu Gulager (The Virginian), St. Elsewhere‘s Ed Begley, Jr., Bob Colbert (The Time Tunnel), and Dynasty star Linda Evans.

Farrell: I was a fan. I always admired Mike, so I was thrilled as my career began to develop, to get the chance to work on Mannix. And imagine how excited I was to learn on the set that Mike the man was everything he brought to his character on the show.

West: One of my first guest shots after Batman was on Mannix. Mike was a fine and warm friend to many.

Braeden: Mike was one of the nicest guys to work with.

Gulager: Mike was a real professional, and he had a big heart. He had a real kindness and gentleness about him, and he was also a great actor.

Begley: I did a Mannix episode in the early ’70’s, and to say Mike was helpful and kind to me is an understatement. He was way nicer than a star of his stature needed to be, and I’ve been thankful for that many times over the years.

Colbert: Mike was a class act, and I never had a moment with him that wasn’t pleasant. He would under-act. He let the character’s warmth and truth come through. His performance was always subdued, and that gave it power, strength and integrity because of his gentle delivery. Working with Mike was one of the most wonderful experiences of my career.

Evans: Mike lightened the lives of everyone who knew him with his outrageous humor and love of life. He was truly one of a kind.

One celebrity who never appeared on Mannix was Mike’s neighbor and close friend Peter Marshall, long time host of Hollywood Squares. Yet Connors frequently showed up on Marshall’s show.

Longworth: Mike did Hollywood Squares a lot. Is that because you invited him?
Marshall: No, in fact I used to have friends call me all the time wanting to get on Squares, and I told them I had nothing to do with booking.
Longworth: So did Mike not invite you on Mannix
Marshall: Toward the end of the series he said there might be a part for me. And I said, “Is it a good part?”, and Mike said “No.” [laughs])

After Mannix ended its run, Connors himself became a much sought-after guest star in other TV shows, such as Murder She Wrote, and The Love Boat. I asked Angela Lansbury and Gavin MacLeod about working with Mike.

Lansbury: Mike was a joy to work with, and enhanced the quality of every show he appeared in.

MacLeod: Mike was the most “unactorish” actor I ever worked with. He was just like a regular guy who just happened to be making a living acting, and falling into it. He was a joy to be around.

In 1993 Mike re-united with Stefanie Powers for a Hart to Hart movie, but it was also the first time he ever worked with his closest friend, Robert Wagner. Fourteen years later the two men appeared together again, this time in Two and a Half Men. I spoke with RJ a few days after Mike died.

Wagner: We had been friends since the 1950s and had a great relationship. We spent a lot of time together, and played a lot of golf. Everyone had such great respect for Mike. He was a very genuine person, and he gave us all a lot. As an actor, he was dedicated and brought so much to whatever he did. Mike worked hard and was always trying to make it better.

I also spoke with some of my friends who were big fans of Mike Connors, but never had a chance to work with him. Among them, Breaking Bad‘s Bryan Cranston, Matt Bomer (White Collar), and Bill Paxton, whose detective series, Training Day recently premiered on CBS.

Paxton: Mike was great as Mannix. You never caught him acting. When I watched Mannix growing up, I never thought I was watching an actor in a role. Mike Connors WAS Mannix, period. I’d like to think I’m carrying on what he started as a TV crime fighter.

Bomer: Mike was a real role model in the television detective genre. His work was influential on the entire television industry, and he certainly influenced me in the work I did on White Collar.

Cranston: I developed a phone relationship with Mike a couple of years ago, and I told him I was thinking of developing an idea that would bring back one of his TV series, except turning the melodramatic hour long show into a half-hour nostalgic comedy. When I said the only actor we would replace would be him, Mike laughed. He encouraged me to take liberties with his material. He said, “If you can make a show out of an old jalopy, I’m all for it.”

That’s Mike Connors for you. No ego, no professional jealousy, no turf to protect. He exuded strength, and was devoid of pretense. He was also pretty direct, and eternally optimistic, as was evident in the last phone call he made to Peter Marshall.

Marshall: He said “I’ve got leukemia”, then he asked when we could go grab lunch at Lakeside again. The leukemia spread quickly, and he died a few days later.

Reflecting back upon the “TV Crimefighters” event, and talking with Mike’s daughter Dana recently, I’m convinced that Mike was genuinely surprised by the adulation he received that night six years ago at the Academy. That’s because he never put himself up on a pedestal, nor did he want anyone else to do it for him. Still, he was one of my heroes, so it was an honor for me to honor him. His peers felt the same way.

Powers: He was an adorable person with a lovely personality, and a rye sense of humor from which his decency as a human being radiated.

Wagner: Mike was a stand up guy as a father, as a friend, as a husband, and as an actor. He was very special and he gave it a good run. I loved him.

Cranston: His character in Mannix was a formidable guy with a sweet soul. That sums up Mike too.

MacLeod: Nothing seemed to have ever changed him. He was like an old shoe, a handsome old shoe (laughs) but an old shoe.

Colbert: He was a class act. God bless Mike Connors.

Ann-Margret: Mike was a good man. He will be missed.

Marshall: Mike was one of a kind – Krekor Ohanian. I loved him.

Angie Dickinson: I simply adored Mike… handsome, charming, a hunk all the way, and funny as hell. Now he can rest in peace, at least until we all get there to laugh and love again.
 
 

“All Americans, not only in the states most heavily affected, but in every place in this country, are rightfully disturbed by the large numbers of illegal aliens entering our country. The jobs they hold might otherwise be held by citizens or legal immigrants. The public services they use impose burdens on our taxpayers. We are a nation of immigrants, but we are also a nation of laws. It is wrong and ultimately self-defeating for a nation of immigrants to permit the kind of abuse of our immigration laws we have seen in recent years, and we must do more to stop it.”

That statement didn’t come from Donald Trump, it came from Democratic President Bill Clinton in his State of the Union address from January 25, 1995, and it was met with bi-partisan applause and support. President Clinton went on to call for strengthening our borders, hiring more border agents, deporting criminal aliens, and issuing no welfare benefits to illegal aliens. Twenty-two years later, our problems with illegal aliens and immigrants are even worse, first because of terrorists threats which have escalated since 2001, and second because of increased numbers of refugees fleeing from war torn Muslim nations.

To address that problem, former President Obama identified seven nations (Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) known to have terrorist training camps, and who lacked proper vetting of and documentation for people leaving from or through their respective countries. Further, in 2011 he issued a six month ban on all refugees from Iraq. Yet when Syria began to flood western Europe with refugees, Mr. Obama rejected the idea that those refugees posed a threat to our national security, so before he left office, he authorized acceptance of 10,000 refugees to settle here beginning in 2017. Hillary Clinton went further, promising that if she was elected, we would let in 65,000 Syrian and Iraqi refugees. All this, despite the fact that Obama’s own intelligence officers admitted that Isis terrorists were posing as refugees in order to enter other countries.

Throughout the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump pledged to do what three former presidents failed to do. He promised to strengthen and protect our borders, not just with a wall, but with policies that would control the flow of illegal immigration, and keep us safe from radical Islamic extremists who might try to enter our country, legally or otherwise. And so, on January 27, President Trump issued an executive order that would ban residents of Obama’s seven nations from entering the United States for 90 days, ban refugees from Syria indefinitely, and ban all other refugees for 120 days. In point of fact, the President shouldn’t have called the order a “ban” because it is actually a moratorium, but that’s water under the bridge.

On Saturday, January 28, some 325,000 people attempted to land in America from foreign countries, and of those, only 109 were detained for extensive questioning. Meanwhile, some 60,000 visas were lifted, but with the proviso that the Department of Homeland Security could issue waivers for military personnel and other legitimate travelers. Trump’s order created chaos in several airports, which morphed into full blown protests. That led James Robart, a federal judge in Seattle, to issue a nationwide stay of the President’s executive order. But Robart is only one of about 3,000 federal judges who can issue such rulings, and so the White House immediately began looking for another judge who would issue an emergency stay of the Seattle ruling.

Crusading bleeding hearts like Judge Robart, believe that we should accept anyone who wants to settle in America. That same belief is shared by many church leaders and neighborhood groups around the country who say they will sponsor the refugees. But sponsoring is one thing. Monitoring and supporting them is quite another. Howard Shultz, the CEO of Seattle-based Starbucks says he will hire 10,000 refugees to work as baristas. But a refugee family can’t subsist on minimum wage. Meanwhile, taxpayers are stuck with the bill for educating the refugees and providing them with medical care and other social services. But the economic burdens we face are only part of the problem. Safety and security is the other.

In 2012, right after President Obama lifted his temporary freeze on entry to the United States from the aforementioned seven countries, Mohammed Al-Jayab, an Iraqi refugee was welcomed here with open arms. One year later Al-Jayab traveled to Syria to join a murdering terrorist group, then returned here in 2014. Despite his public postings, proving his status as a terrorist, Al-Jayab was allowed back into America, no questions asked. His was not an isolated case. Last year, Senator Jeff Sessions and the Senate Judiciary Committee gave examples of forty other terrorists who entered our country posing as refugees or translators. The committee concluded that the incidents they reported might just be the tip of the immigrant terrorist iceberg.

I am troubled by the protests of ill-informed, naive folks who don’t grasp the economic or security risks posed by an open-door immigration policy, but I’m also repulsed by the hypocrisy and partisanship of Washington Democrats who feign outrage over President Trump’s executive order. Senator Chuck Schumer is the worst offender. Last week he sobbed during a press conference as he proclaimed that Trump’s refugee ban was, “mean spirited and un-American.” That’s the same Chuck Schumer who, in 2014, pushed for a re-set on our refugee program until we could insure proper vetting.

If folks like Schumer, Robart, and Schultz really want to help those in need, then they should start here at home first, by helping our own down trodden and disenfranchised citizens, like homeless veterans, hungry children, battered wives, and the elderly who can’t afford their medicines. But then, that would cost money that politicians would rather spend on foreign aid, bank bail-outs, and Congressional pensions.

Bill Clinton had it right in 1995, and Donald Trump has it right in 2017. We can only accommodate a finite number of legal immigrants, and we shouldn’t accommodate illegal immigrants at all, especially those who might do us harm. To do otherwise is “wrong and self-defeating.”