Barrett Rainey's Second Thoughts

If you’ve spent a goodly portion of life reporting/commiserating about politicians, you probably have some little hidden quirk about the species. I’ve got one. Mine is thoroughly enjoying the self-created angst as they stick a foot in a bear trap when what was called for was “mind your own damned business.”

If you watch a lot of Republicans recently – especially the subspecies of “born agains” – such enjoyable hoist-on-your-own petard moments are not hard to find. Especially in Texas.

That arrogant, too often mindless subspecies was on display from Austin to Chugwater regularly. There appears to be a sizeable cell of ‘em in Frisco, Texas. Frisco is a smallish burg of about 161,000 that stradles Collin and Denton counties, about 40 miles outside Dallas. It was the fastest growing city in the nation from 2000-2009.

Frisco, thanks to a high school principal with some smarts, is the site of my latest enjoyment of watching a completely off-base pol getting cut off at the mental pass. Actually, several pols.

Several years ago, teachers told Frisco’s Liberty High School Principal Scott Warstler Muslim students were missing several hours of class daily. Just getting up and walking out of classes a few minutes before noon and not getting back till after one. Warstler checked and ‘twas so.

What he found was the Muslim kids were going home or to mosque for midday prayers. In either case, they were traveling several miles going and coming. Warstler, ever resourceful, started thinking.

He remembered Room C112. It was a small, spare classroom that had been used for all sorts of other things for years. Teachers spent time there grading papers when they had a break. And Buddhist kids did their meditation in C112. Why not Muslims?

He did some checking. Kids were OK with that. So, C112 soon added another world religion and Muslim kids – and Catholics and Presbyterians and anybody with a faith claim – worked out a schedule with the Muslims and the Buddhists. Everybody happy!

Until a born again parent got wind of it and contacted the Texas Attorney Generals’ office. Not the principal. Not the school district. The ultra-right, GOP AG. And an overzealous deputy therein fired off a letter. He said “It appears the prayer room is dedicated to the needs of (only) some students.” He later admitted those “some students” were Muslim.

The Texas AG, already running for governor and anxious to slay a liberal, surefire vote-getting dragon, also sent out a news release to the media the same day the letter was written. He denounced the “prayer room for excluding other faiths.” “Texas Constitutional violation,” he publically opined. It wasn’t.

All this without any Texas AG legal eagle journeying from Austin to Frisco to check things out. “Fact finding,” as it were. Had a few hours been spent on the four-lane, he/she and the ultra-conservative “friends” would have known what the hell was going on. Not to be.

Oh, one more tidbit. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott – something of a loon himself – quickly responding to that same fringe group, firing off a very public tweet quoting his deputy’s letter and echoing the same Constitutional B.S. Again, no checking. I call it “Trump Tweeting.” Hang the subject – then have a trial.

Frisco School Supt. Jeremy Lyon did some research, then a little media work of his own. “The ‘press release’ appears to be a publicity stunt by the Attorney General to politicize a nonissue,” he wrote in HIS media update. “The Frisco District is greatly concerned this type of inflammatory rhetoric in the current climate may place the District, students, staff and community in danger of unnecessary disruption.” Period.

The plain fact is Room C112 is open to all students of any religion – as it had been from the get-go – for any purpose whatsoever. Pray. Meditate. Study. Read a Bible or a Koran. Do a religious crossword. And the state “investigation” didn’t start until two weeks after a story about the success of the “prayer room” appeared in the school newspaper.

Frisco administration is still trying to figure out what the hell the AG’s office was all excited about, what real information it had (if any) and who the “concerned citizens” were (if any). A letter to the AG went unanswered. Well, imagine that.

Frisco District Spokesman Chris Moore says the district still doesn’t know what all the fuss was about. “We hadn’t been contacted by any right-wing groups, left-wing groups or in-between groups so getting the questions from the attorney general was surprising.”

Whatever. Moore says Room C112 will be open for prayers as usual come Monday. Just as it has been for years. Until that little school newspaper story about its success caused a hubbub.

Don’t you just love it when some publicity-hungry politicians get caught with their shorts in a lock? And their clay feet are exposed up to that hole in their chest where most of us have a heart?

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The time has come to offer my Republican friends an apology. A really sincere apology. Like a lot of opiners, I’ve been guilty of painting the GOP with a very broad brush lately. And, to their oft-expressed dismay, these folk feel lumped in with the bad guys of their political persuasion. I really didn’t mean that. I’m sorry. O.K.?

It’s easy to do – this lumping. After all, there isn’t much of a Republican Party left that can be readily administratively identified. The “members” you hear most about these days are those in Congress. Or that dangerous, temporary President fella.

The intended recipients of my apology have nothing in common with those Potomac folk. They’re good people – living good lives – doing good works – raising good families – making good contributions to their communities. Nothing like those similarly labeled “Republicans” in Congress.

Again, I apologize for speaking/writing so loosely that it appeared to conflate one group with the other.

Nearly all of us were raised to understand we lived under a “representative” system of government. We were taught it began with us voting for a member of a governing body who most closely represented our thinking about issues. Further, we were expected to keep them informed of how we wanted things done and they were expected to respond accordingly to a majority of us. Representing us, as it were. And it really worked as designed for a very long time. Always seemed a good and efficient way to run a country.

But, in recent years, that governing concept has disappeared. It went from us telling them how we wanted things handled to them telling us to “go to Hell” and doing whatever they damned-well pleased. It’s happened in both parties to some degree. It’s happened most completely with Republicans in Congress. Which is why I feel obligated to apologize to my GOP friends at home who, like me, still believe in that representative system we were raised with. They’re not part of the problem. They’re being ignored just like the rest of us.

I could take up a lot of column inches enumerating all the issues in which GOP members of Congress have told us lately to “stick it!” But you already know a lot of ‘em. No, let’s just deal with the largest one – the one they’re hellbent on running with – the one they haven’t got a chance of winning on their present course. Health care reform.

More than eight in 10 of us, according to several years of national polling, have said “Don’t – DO NOT – repeal the Affordable Care Act Don’t do it!” “FIX IT,” we told ‘em. We’ve even told ‘em which parts we want to keep – insure the previously uninsurable – keep kids on parent’s policies – remove lifetime dollar caps – stop increasing premiums until they’re unaffordable – no Medicaid denial to selected individuals, etc.

But, instead of listening and acting appropriately, they’ve raised a collective middle digit, turned their backs on us and literally demolished what we told them we wanted and wrote something certain to die aborning. They even came up with personal tax breaks just for CEO’s of health insurance companies already making millions in self-enrichment.

What they created was so grotesque doctors, hospitals, financial institutions, labor unions, patient advocacy groups – just about everybody involved in anyway with health care – rejected the “Rosemary’s Baby” they created.

Did they hear us before acting? Sure they did. But they also heard the siren’s song of billionaires with money. Lots of money. Money to finance primary elections. Money to build up campaign coffers. Money to assure their continued, uninterrupted federal employment as “the peoples’ representatives.”

The fact is, many of these GOP “peoples’ representatives” fear a healthy, balanced primary contest more than they do a few angry voters. It’s that fear – coupled with fat cats with fat checkbooks – that’s killed what was our representative form of government.

These are the same “public-be-damned” S-O-B’s who backed an ignorant and dangerous President by affirming the most seemingly corrupt, most intellectually vacant governing cabinet in our history. They did it with the same “facts be damned” attitude they exhibited when violating our instructions to be careful with health care reform. And with the same extended middle digit!

My Republican friends deserve an apology. Not being billionaires, they’re suffering the same congressional contempt as the rest of us. And, ironically, they’re the only ones who can fix it. ‘Cause they’re the only ones who vote in the Republican primaries. They’re the only ones who pick the Republican candidates. They’re the only ones who can cut the idiots and self-servers out of the herd.

So, I’m sorry. Now, get up off your collective Republican ass and go to work!

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Awaiting the eventual end of an American Presidency is a rare experience for the younger of us. Only other such occasions in my lifetime were the death watches for Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon. You knew it was coming. Only date and hour were missing.

As we hold the same “wait-for-the-hour” session for Trump, I’ve come to a new appreciation for his seemingly random method of operation. Misdirection, it’s called in the craft. While making an ass of himself in the headlines, his minions – and those similarly inclined in the leadership of what was the Republican Party in Congress – are quietly gutting some very important programs. With the daily melodrama of his “presidency,” we hardly notice. He’s that good.

You could make a good list of what’s being undone as we look the other way. Gutting EPA regulations (thus protections), slashing important and necessary professionals off the payroll at the State Department (thus much-needed experience and expertise), gagging all federal personnel down to the cleaning crews in agency after agency with threats of job terminations for violators, ending major research projects dealing in science and health and the list goes on.

One such misdirection play of recent days is likely to cause serious harm to some of us in Northwest states. Especially Idaho and Oregon. And that’s the Muslim immigration ban. Ironically, it’s likely to hit a lot of Trump supporters in small towns therein.

Our part of the country has benefitted greatly from a federally-backed program which brings a goodly number of foreign doctors to our most rural and low income areas. And by rural, the feds are including some pretty good-sized places like Salem, Boise, Yakima, Spokane and Nampa-Caldwell. One of my own current physicians is from Ethiopia and he’s a good one.

Foreign doctors are offered some very good enticements to come to America and practice for several years in rural and medically under-served communities. Enticements like paying off medical school loans and other benefits. But a new survey by Harvard Medical and MIT has found the Muslim ban is going to greatly reduce the flow of applicants. Not just from the six banned countries but several others who worry about overall changing immigration policies. The Association of Medical Colleges is projecting the loss of hundreds of new docs yet this year alone.

While the newcomers tend to settle most in Indiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia and Michigan, we Westerners attract our share. In 2010, more than 25 percent of doctors and surgeons practicing in this country were foreign-born.

Oh, and something else. Trump’s also ended an expedited process which sped up approval of H1-B visas granted to highly skilled foreign workers. That’s part of the entry hurdle for physicians who complete their medical residencies and ultimately go into practice here. It also affects a lot of high tech folks.

Here’s another personal medical experience that relates. I’ve been referred to a neurologist for an examination over in the Willamette Valley. The earliest appointment? Three months out no matter the symptoms! Clinics are closing. Physicians are quitting. Others will take no new patients. Uncertainty about the political future has got to figure into some of their decisions.

The loss isn’t only in medical students. Grad departments in science and engineering claim student applications for many programs have declined by 20 to 30 percent for 2017. Partly because of the ban but also because of the uncertainty of what the hell Trump will do next.

This is just one of the important government functions being gutted by Trump and Republicans in Congress. He keeps the media mystified with craziness on the nightly news while the GOP bandits behind the scenes do their dirty work. The fine art of misdirection.

And finally, if you think no detail is too small to get the attention of government-castrating Republicans with budget knives to our throats, I give you exhibit ”B.” An excellent example of whose “health” concerns them. Not you and me. That’s for damned sure!

No, it’s those millionaire health insurance company CEO’s. The ones just struggling to get by. Tucked inside the GOP health care “replacement” is a special little gift for these indentured “servants.” A personal income tax reduction on their “paltry” earnings.

Misdirection? Not on your life!

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There used to be a fun, entertaining social fixture on the Washington D.C. annual event calendar called “The White House Correspondent’s Dinner.” A night to get duded up, shove some job resume’s in your breast pocket, enjoy some good food and a show at the Shoreham Hotel, have a toddy or two and mingle with the Who’s Who of the national media business. Alas, no more.

The fun, the entertainment, the food and drink, the job hunting and a few hours rubbing shoulders with network news big shots effectively died when some idiot – maybe more than one – turned it into a televised prime time “special.” “Special” it ain’t.

Really enjoyable professional media comradery left the room the first time that happened. “Celebrities” became the focus. Some on the way up – many on the way down – and some you never heard of. Too many of ‘em with no firsthand knowledge of the edgy relationship between politicians and media. So a lot of comedic material with a good bite to it went right over their coiffed heads.

Media and politicos used to make up the audience. You’d put on a tux – mine were always rented and looked like it. You were allowed – but not especially encouraged – to bring a guest. Entertainment was always first class. For the two I attended, headliners were Pearl Bailey and George Carlin.

But, for many reporters in the large crowd, the most interesting hours came after the formal event ended. That’s when many of us in the ranks toured the suites sponsored by CBS, NBC, ABC, and many large, regional broadcasters. The hors d’oeuvres were good and the booze free. You could spend a few minutes chatting with Mike Wallace or Harry Reasoner, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings or others from the “nets.” You might even get a resume’ in the hands of just the right producer or corporate news VP.

It’s been many years since my “tour of the suites” and I’d guess not a lot of that goes on now. What was a damned good evening is now a TV “reality” show meat market for those who like reality unreal.

The spotlighted guest at the head table for many, many years has been the President of the United States. Only one in the last 70 or so years that didn’t show up was Reagan . His limp excuse – somebody tried to kill him. But, even then, he called in from his hospital bed to crack a few one-liners and receive a lot of warm applause. A pro. Never had done a standing ovation for a phone call till that time.

Even Nixon – a guy who hated the press and who generally reaped the same feeling from most of us media folk – even Nixon showed up. He took a lot of shots. And he gave a lot. Most in the audience had little regard for the man. But they had to give him a lot of credit for just being there. Especially toward the end of his White House days. It couldn’t have been fun. Or easy.

Trump says he won’t go this year. Which is fine. And not unexpected. He’s been in the audience for a couple previously. Took some public jabs and hated it. You could see it on his face. The ego he carries is huge and tender as a baby’s butt. If he can’t have top billing and the final word, he won’t play. Again, that’s fine.

The Association is talking about inviting Barack Obama. I hope they don’t. He made several dinners while in office. Good writing, a natural sense of humor and excellent timing made his moments very entertaining. Something Trump could never do. They’re also talking of cancelling the evening. Again, hope they don’t.

No, what I’d like to see is an empty chair right next to the podium where Trump would normally sit if he had the guts. Might even put a spotlight on it. Just the empty chair. That would say more than any comedian. Just a hot light. And that empty chair.

The Association raises a lot of bucks with this annual event. After expenses, most of the money goes for scholarships at journalism schools. Good program. Helps a lot of deserving kids.

No, “the show must go on” as Irving Berlin said. With or without a POTUS. If the nation can struggle through without one, so can the Correspondent’s Association.

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