Month: April 2017

The New York Times has long had a motto: “All the News that’s Fit to Print.” In this time when increasingly the line between news and entertainment is obscured, supposed “facts” are fabricated, candidates blatantly lie, adversaries engage in a pattern of disinformation, a confused and angry public falls back on listening and believing someone they trust even if the recipient of that trust is untrustworthy.

Exhibit A is Bill O’Reilly, the recently fired Fox News commentator who engaged for a long period in illegal sexual predatory behavior with regard to the women who worked for and with him.

He walked away with a $25 million settlement.

His show’s ratings did not suffer a whit. He was ousted by the results of an independent investigation conducted by a law firm hired by Rupert Murdock. Presumably, Murdock acted because the firm discovered a much longer history and pattern of sordid abuse. That, coupled with advertisers leaving in droves, brought about his downfall.

O’Reilly is a perfect example of someone the gullible public has posited trust in for long time. For these folks the source of news tends to be others who share their beliefs and reinforce their prejudices. O’Reilly reinforced their fear-driven view of the world.

Even a news gathering organization like CNN (Cable News Network) that proclaims in its advertising to be “the most trusted news source” in the world falls short of the full transparency they demand of all others.

How do they and others in the cable news business fall short? They more often than not will pay, sometimes a truly princely sum, for the video of breaking news. Savvy folks with hand held telephone cameras often happen to be at the scene of a police shooting or some other tragedy. They know they have an “exclusive,” as does the news editor sitting at the news assignment desk in Atlanta, New York or D.C.

He or she gets a call from the owner of the exclusive who has quickly compiled the list of phone numbers of major video news companies and literally starts dialing for dollars. The deal is usually reached rapidly and on the air it goes.

Of course there almost never is a disclaimer that has CNN or Fox or MSNBC saying they paid for the footage and how much they paid. Quite simply, the public should be informed when a news organization has paid for video, or has paid the witness to appear on their network.

It would be a good step towards restoring some credibility for tarnished news gathering firms.

Another step would be for the folks at CNN and their competitors to publish the list of non-full time contributors, especially the so-called expert analysts. Regular guests on various programs where “more expertise” is required (such as a military operation) don’t give away that expertise for free. They are paid on a per appearance basis or have an “exclusive” contract that ties them to the news organization.

CNN uses retired Army General Spider Marks for example, and former NATO Commander Wesley Clark as expert commentators. People like former advisor (to President Obama) David Axelrod, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum more likely than not are paid to opine. If a news gathering organization is big on transparency should not it walk the talk?

Sure there are guests who appear who aren’t paid – folks who know they can leverage an appearance into their advertising to differentiate them from their competitors. Probably it may even be a majority of those “talking heads.”

Try to find out whether CNN even has a written policy on this subject, or whether the news editor has a budget he or she can quickly commit to use to buy compelling video. Try to find out if they publish somewhere a list of subcontractors and what they are paid. More likely than not all one can ferret out may be an aggregate number and it will be accompanied by a statement that it is a private business matter.

Furthermore, they’ll say some gobbly-gook about standard business practice.

But it isn’t. Neither the Washington Post nor the New York Times pays one red cent to anyone for the news it prints. They intuitively understand that if a story has received money for outing there’s a natural tendency to play the story long after the legs may have dropped off.

The Times can still claim that it true to its motto. The video cable news networks sadly can only say they are bringing to their viewers the “best news that money can buy.”

Sometimes irony in life is simply too rich. And all too often even incredibly bright people do not see the train wreck they are headed towards. In such instances one has little choice but to sit back and laugh at the absurdity of it all, rather than cry.

For the most recent example of this unintended consequence of not thinking through a matter we have Idaho’s Senior U.S. Senator, Mike Crapo, a Harvard law product no less, to thank.

In going along with his party in rationalizing not even holding a hearing on President Barack Obama’s nomination of District Judge Merrick Garland, one of Senator Crapo’s expressed reasons was a perception on Crapo’s part that Judge Garland was weak on Second amendment rights.

In voting to secure Judge Neil Gorsuch’s nomination by President Trump, Crapo joined his majority Republican colleagues in doing away with the requirement that 60 votes is needed to end a filibuster. That they don’t see this as a precedent that will be invoked with regard to legislation sooner rather than later is stunning.

Without the ability to hold up the process by filibuster, defenders of the Second amendment are going to discover they have lost their greatest aid. In Crapo’s case it is so ironic that he invoked Judge Garland’s perceived weakness on gun rights only to turn around and vote for the “nuclear option” which literally shatters 2nd amendment protections.

All it will take will be for the Democrats to recapture the Senate (which will happen sooner or later), then do away with allowing filibusters on legislation, then ram urban-oriented legislation down the throats of small states and in particular western states. Turn about will be fair play in their game play book, just as it is in the GOP play book.

Republicans of course blame the Democrats for starting this downhill slide when Harry Reid of Nevada was the Senate Majority Leader. Reid did invoke and utilize a modified form after getting fed up with Republican stalls on lower court nominees. Two wrongs do not make a right, however.

To the extent there is shared blame, though, there is some truth, but the historical comity of the Senate will be lost and a pure form of hard, harsh partisanship will result with a minority no longer having any rights or an ability to influence legislation.

Welcome to this Brave New World where the winner takes all and the opposition is totally and cruelly crushed, and thanks Senator Crapo, as well as thanks to his equally blind colleague, Senator Jim Risch. It is truly sad that neither of them demonstrated any ability to look down the road to see the inevitable turning of the worm.

This abject failure to protect the rights of the minority is simply disgusting. Its an action that belies any talk by Crapo, Risch and their Republican colleagues that they believe in bi-partisanship and fully respect and dutifully honor Senate traditions. Pure balderdash.

Robert Byrd (D-WV) and Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), two former majority and Senate Pro Tempore leaders, are rolling over in their graves at the stupidity of their former colleagues and the damage they have done to the institution as well as the smaller, western states in the Union.

By utilizing this “nuclear option” (It was dubbed this by Republican Senator Bill Frist of Tennessee for a reason), Republicans are virtually guaranteeing the Senate will become as dysfunctional as the House. It is a win at any cost strategy that destroys the check and balance role of the Senate and thwarts the purpose of the Founding Fathers in setting up a bi-cameral legislature. The fact that they could pull it off regardless of the cost to the institution does not make it right unless one believes absolute power has absolutely unchecked rights.

Don’t be taken in by Republican rhetoric, either, that this is just hard-ball politics. It is the first time in American history that the Senate deliberately stalled on even holding a hearing on a Court nomination until after the result of a coming presidential election was known. On the contrary, there were 13 instances where the Senate did its duty even when an administration was expected to change.

The really sad thing is that in Idaho Crapo and Risch will never be held acccountable to the voters for their unconscionable role in diminishing the influence of the body in which they sit and its historical respect for the rights of the minority. Remember that when an increasingly urban and suburban dominated senate starts riding roughshod over your second amendment rights or your property rights.

They’ll rant and rave as if they are the unknowing victims of this terrible perversion of the process of which they consciously aided and abetted. One wishes they had a sense of shame for what they’ve done but don’t hold your breath.

The illusion of comity and bi-partisanship has gone the way of the dodo bird.

A few years from now political scientists and historians may look back on Idaho’s 2018 gubernatorial election as one of the most significant, game-changing elections since Cecil Andrus knocked off
Republican incumbent Governor Don Samuelson in 1970.

It will mark 24 years of the Republican hold on the governor’s chair following the 24 years before that of Democratic hegemony under Cecil Andrus, John Evans and Andrus again. Andrus’ first election, incidentally, ended another 24 year period of Republican rule.

Might there be a pattern emerging here?

For now, though, virtually all political pundits in Idaho already concede whoever wins the GOP primary will be the next governor of Idaho. The primary promises to be one of the more spirited contests in years.

Making it especially interesting is the expected entry of Tea Party darling and Freedom Caucus conservative member of Congress, Raul Labrador, who represents Idaho’s first congressional district. He is expected to announce around June 1st and may be crowned as the “favorite” because of name id and his affiliation with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS).

Incidentally, conventional wisdom speculates that former state senator Russ Fulcher, who gave Governor C. L.“Butch” Otter such a tough run for his money before narrowly losing in the 2014 primary, is just a place-holder for Labrador. Think otherwise. Fulcher ran a smart 2014 campaign, has learned from his loss and is no placeholder for anyone.

Labrador will be surrendering his safe seat to whomever wins the GOP primary here also, with conventional wisdom establishing former Idaho
Attorney General and Lt. Governor David Leroy as the early favorite.

The other complicating factor is the entry of developer Dr. Tommy Ahlquist. A multi-millionaire with friends on both sides of the political aisle, he is traveling around the state attending Lincoln Day dinners and calling the political influentials in each county to introduce himself and make his pitch.

He has one of those rare political gifts, much like Cecil Andrus has and George Hansen had – the ability to listen carefully to what a constituent is saying and do so in a manner that leaves the constituent feeling at that moment he or she is the most important person in the world. There’s no looking over the constituent’s shoulder to see if there is someone more important in the room.

Add to that his piercing blue eyes and the message is clear – he’s smart, hard-working and wealthy. He also does his homework. His “elevator speech” is short and sweet. He is campaigning on job creation, tax reform and the state taking the lead on health care reform.

Asked about the sale of federal public lands a month ago he confessed he had not yet studied the issue but promised he would. Last week a Republican lobbyist told friends they’d heard the good doc discuss the issue and thought it was as knowledgeable and thoughtful as anything he’d heard.

So where does this leave Lt. Governor Brad Little? A year ago many had already bestowed the crown on his head. Today, many are revisiting that prediction. Writing off Little would be terribly premature, however. He has traipsed all over Idaho introducing
himself, displaying his thoughtfulness on the issues and his understanding of the state. It’s Idaho retail politics at its best.

Little knows he has to differentiate himself from Otter and start talking about his vision for Idaho’s future – and he must do so without appearing to be an ingrate. He also knows he has a solid base of support that will stick with him during the primary and he will be able to raise plenty of money to finance a first-rate campaign.

Common political sense says he ought to be urging four-term Attorney General Lawrence Wasden to get into the race, also, which in theory would take away more from his challengers than from him.

Predictions months ahead of the 2018 G OP primary are always risky especially when there are more than three candidates in a race. Right now, though, I’d still bet that when the smoke clears Brad Little will be the GOP nominee.

Two decisions were made this past week that will have reverberations across Idaho. One was made in Pocatello. The other in Washington, D.C. Neither is easy to understand and a case can be made that the decisions were not necessary, that that they fall under the rubric “hope is not a strategy.”

The decision in Pocatello was made by Jeff Tingey, the athletic director at Idaho State, to force football coach Mike Kramer to announce his “retirement.” If he did not, Tingey would announce Kramer’s firing.

The forced retirement, at the start of spring football, fooled no one. To this observer it was a classless way to treat a coach who has brought respectability back to the ISU football program. And he did it while upping the student athletes grade point averages and class attendence.

Yes, he made the “mistake” of producing a winning team in four years, one year ahead of the five years he said it would take. In 2014, when ISU almost beat the league’s best, Eastern Washington’s Eagles, in their first league game, it was clear Kramer had achieved the inachievable.

That team went 8 and 4 and almost made the play-offs. Kramer was the toast of the town and the Big Sky coach of the year. The former high school coach at Colton, a bump on the road between Pullman and Lewiston, has turned three Big Sky programs around, starting with EWU in the mid-90s, then Montana State in the early 2000s, and then Idaho State.

As the 2015 season arrived, expectations on the campus, around town and among Bengal alumni soared exponentially.

Anyone who has watched a Kramer coached team knows the key to his offense is a smart quarterback with a quick read ability, a quick arm and an accurate throw whether short, mid-field or long. Unfortunately, Kramer had not been able to recruit his kind of quarterback for the following season.
To his credit, he did not blame his quarterback. Instead he deflected to himself the criticsm. Tingey even rewarded Kramer for the break-out season with a contract extension. Kramer still had more to offer. He should have been given a vote of confidence for the coming season. He should have been allowed to retire gracefully at the end of next season assuming it was not consistent with his standard of success.

Bottom line is ISU will never have a better football coach than Mike Kramer.

Former ISU president Bud Davis once said the two most important decisions a university president makes are to hire or fire football and basketball coaches. He believed it was smart to hire a former head coach with a proven record rather than some hot shot phenom assistant. Jeff Tingey is going to find out just how much he should have stuck with a coach with a winning record.

The other “game changing” decision last week was made in Washington, D.C. One of the outfalls from the Freedom Caucus’ decision to vote nay on “TrumpCare” was a calling out by name the members of the Freedom Caucus, including Idaho’s First District congressman, Raul Labrador, who voted no and would not support the president.

Any hope Labrador might have landed a major position dealing with immigration reform in a Trump Administration flew out the window. Likewise, any chance he might land a lucrative job with a conservative foundation or association also flew out the window as it is unlikely they would pick someone who makes Trump see red.

Labrador could easily stay in Congress another three terms (he supports term limits of 12 years for Congress) but he is devoted to his wife and children, flies home every weekend, and reportedly is tiring of the grind and living out of his Congressional office.

Sources in D.C. and in Boise, have started to let people know he is seeking the govenorship, relying heavily on a six month old poll that gave him almost half the Republican primary vote with no other candidate busting out of the single digits.

The poll was taken though before developer Dr. Tommy Ahlquist decalred his intentions and pledged to spend from his fortune one dollar more than it takes to win.

Labrador’s entry may inspire former State Senator Russ Fulcher, a friend of Labrador’s, to withdaw and turn to the Lt. Governor’s race. One thing for sure is Labrador has no intention of giving up his congressional seat while running for governor. Thus, there will be no special election.

Two questions remain: where’s he going to find the money to run and why does he even want to be governor?