By Florida Bill
It was back in the 1970s when I first heard about transgenders and transvestites and the question of the appropriate bathrooms. Looking back, there was far less emotion and controversy than we have today, and the White House had far more important issues with which to be concerned.
In those days I was a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Among its hundreds of editorial employees was an ex-infantry sergeant named Ridgely Hunt who was well recognized as an exceptional writer and reporter. Ridgely had won a number of awards for his savvy writing skills, and his dispatches as a war correspondent. The washroom problem reared its head when the hard-hitting, mustached army veteran began transitioning from male to female in the bustling city room of Chicago's largest and most powerful daily newspaper.
Hunt was a 1950 graduate of Yale university. Friendly and popular with the staff, he wrote acclaimed feature stories and analytical pieces. He and his first wife had two daughters and a son, and after a divorce, Ridgely married his baby sitter who was some 20 years his junior. My wife and I sat at a table with them at a press event, and they appeared happy and devoted to each other.
Eyes began to twitch a bit around the city desk in Tribune Tower when Hunt began reporting for work with male tailored woman's shirts and a touch of makeup, and he also began to let his hair grow. As months passed, the appearance of femininity began to dominate but the real eclipse came when the former soldier came to work in full woman's clothing and makeup. Editors on the paper snapped to attention and reassigned Ridgely, who was now asking associates to call him "Nancy," to copy editing and head line writing.
Similarly, Nancy Hunt's use of the woman's bathroom became an issue while she was still anatomically male, and drew complaints from some women on the staff. Men, in the meantime, didn't want anybody in a dress using their bathroom. In face of the consternation, the new Nancy quietly elected to use the bathroom in a Sheridan Hotel next to the Tower on Michigan avenue. Unlike today's Caitlyn Jenner, Hunt underwent complete reassignment surgery in 1978, and took hormones to effect a complete change of sex. Eventually, many of the women in the office looked on her as just another one of the girls and the turmoil died down.
Nancy retired from the Tribune around 1984, and authored a book "Mirror Image," described on the cover as an odyssey of a male to female transsexual. She was profiled by People Magazine and appeared on the Phil Donahue Television show where she took questions from the audience. She remarried and Nancy and her husband, Wallace Bowman, resided in Michigan until Nancy's death at 72 in 1999, and there have always been reports that Nancy's husband never knew of her transition from male to female.
Much of the talk of today's trangenders is the threat they might pose to children and others inside a bathroom. Nancy Hunt's story would certainly belie some concerns along this line, though many parents are fearful of exposing their children to those who claim to have transformed themselves to a different sex--or to opportunistic perverts simply taking advantage of the new washroom liberties.
North Carolina has enacted a law calling for transgendered persons to use public bathrooms of the sex they were born with. Imagine the uproar if Nancy Hunt, dressing and acting feminine with a body conforming to a female in every way, was forced to use the men's shower room because of her sex as recorded at birth. That would certainly have created discord. So that approach may not be the right answer to this difficult dilemma.
The law created a national firestorm, and President Obama had his education authorities issue a directive contradicting the North Carolina law, with the federal edict that individuals are to use the washrooms and locker rooms in schools of the sex to which they identify--a rather large, unenforceable loophole, which doesn't seem to be the solution either. However, Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch has threatened to sue and to withhold federal assistance to schools which do not follow the directive.
At last count, 13 states had filed lawsuits challenging the Obama administration's edict imposed upon schools.
The Democratic nominee for president, Hillary Clinton, has endorsed President's Obama's directive to schools that children use the washroom of the sex with which they identify; while Republican nominee Donald Trump has said that the matter should be left to each of the sovereign states for resolution.
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By Florida Bill
If a retired secret serviceman who guarded the President and First lady for several years elects to write a book with his recollections, can you trust the accuracy? Gary Byrne did that, and his subsequent book on Bill and Hillary Clinton reveals a profile of a woman with a foul mouth and a volcanic temper and a husband guided by uncontrolled sexual demands.
Byrne's book, "Crisis of Character" was released in late June. Byrne was a uniformed agent stationed in the White House for several years during the 1990s when Bill Clinton was serving his two terms as the nation's 42d President, and Hillary Clinton was the first lady.
Byrne is not alone in appraising the character of Mrs. Clinton outside the eye of the camera. Currently, she is a candidate to become the 45th President of the United States. Many other books have been authored by insiders who have related similar stories of the uncontrollable temper, condescending manner and "dirty" mouth of Mrs. Clinton who is seeking to become the first woman ever elected to the highest office in the United States.
What has motivated Byrne to write the book about this high profile couple now, when Mrs. Clinton is running for president? Certainly, making money has to be a big part of his incentive to go behind the scenes with Hillary and Bill. His book soared to the top of the Amazon Best Seller list within days.
In an interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News, Byrne asserted that he sees the possibility of Mrs. Clinton becoming President, and he wants citizens to know of her temperament, volcanic mouth and of her inability to control her rage. In other words, the Hillary you see, is not the Hillary you get. Byrne said that if he failed to speak out on the true nature of Hillary Clinton and she were elected, he would forever regret not telling Americans what he knew. "People have to know the real Hillary Clinton and how dangerous she is."
Byrne tells in his book of screaming arguments between the Clintons, one of which had Mrs. Clinton hurling a costly blue and white vase at her husband. The President ducked, and the vase shattered against a wall. In another spat, the President emerged with a black eye. On yet another fracas, Mrs. Clinton threw a bible at a secret service agent (not the author). Once when she was just mildly irritated, she told a secret service agent guarding her to "go F... yourself."
Byrne said that Monica Lewinski would be seen around the White House frequently and was persistent in getting to the President. There was at least one occasion, Byrne writes, when I saw President Clinton alone with the daughter of former Vice President Mondale. He said also that he knew of dalliances which Clinton had with at least four different women.
Did Mrs. Clinton know about her husband's hanky panky sessions with Monica Lewinsky and other women, Hannity asked. Byrne speculated "I think that she knew and accepted it." Towels with lipstick and with other "bodily fluids" were left around carelessly, he said, and generally they were picked up, sometimes by him, and sometimes by other agents and put into a plastic bag and discarded. Somehow, President Clinton never seemed concerned about these things. I think that he "just acted like that his whole life."
Byrne told Hannity that he and other agents were actually concerned about Mrs. Clinton's uncontrollable rage if she ever caught her husband in "a compromising situation." "She might just 'go ballistic,' " he said. There was speculation among agents as to the extent of her violence, he said. Hannity noted with a light air that such domestic violence --such as the black eye and tossed vase--would be prosecutable under current law, but then that would never happen in this situation.
Like many books about famous persons, Byrne's book should be read with some degree of skepticism. It is pretty much established as a matter of record that Mrs. Clinton is a woman who fibs and has a temper, but then a lot of people have a short fuse. And being tough is no negative. In a book by Joyce Milton, "The First Partner" Mrs.Clinton came down on a secret service agent who did not respond immediately to her request.
Her temper has been with her a long time. Way back in 1973, as a first year law student at Yale, she attended a senate committee hearing. After it was over and the side she favored came out on the short end, an angry Clinton, then Hillary Rodham, buttonholed an attorney involved and told him , "You Mother F....., you sold out," and she then stomped off. That recollection came from Joseph Califano, a prominent Democratic attorney, and he recounted the incident in his book, "Inside," (Page 213).
Clinton has been in the public eye for more than 40 years. Along with being the first lady in Washington during the 1990s, she was a first lady in Arkansas. She was elected to the Senate from New York in 2002 and served in that position until 2008 when, after an unsuccessful run for the Presidency, she served as America's Secretary of State for four years under President Obama.
Mrs. Clinton is certainly a political animal and when politics are involved, people speak out, because they love the attention their words bring.
So far as I can see, Byrne was in the White House for years with the Clintons and he has recounted his own observations, which are not that much different from others writing about her behavior during her time in public service. Some of his superiors suggest he would not have had a high enough ranking to see everything he says he saw. He denies that.
No doubt Mrs. Clinton's enemies will believe every word he has written as if it were gospel truth. Her fans will castigate Byrne and suggest it is all part of a political conspiracy. Readers can take it or leave it for what it is.
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By Florida Bill
Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch is certainly making her mark with her asinine, "hug and love" speeches, designed to water down the well-placed resentment which Americans have against the radical element of Islam. Her inane comments place her in high favor with her boss, President Obama, and for sure she is his undisputed queen of political correctness.
But her lovey-dovey prescription for getting ISIS to call off its terrorism is not her only articulated nonsense. Recently, she had an inappropriate 30-minute private chit chat with former President William Clinton, despite the fact that his wife, Hillary, is the subject of a high profile criminal investigation by the FBI, which it is Lynch's job to monitor and direct as Attorney General.
A day or so after the gunshot murders of 49 persons and the wounding of 53 others in Orlando by a self- described "Soldier of ISIS," Lynch took to the podium and spoke with compassion and emotion.
Did the Attorney General, who is America's principal law enforcement officer, denounce the hate-filled terrorist who killed for an Islamic cause? Did she promise to destroy these killers and rid the world of this brotherhood of fanatics? No, not at all. With compassion, Lynch said that the nation will never turn a blind eye to the LGBT community and that "good will outweighs evil."
"The most effective response to terror," she asserted, is "compassion, unity and love."
Her words were irrelevant drivel, but if the "love and hug" remedy was not enough, Lynch went on to say that "we need a world that realizes that the word ‘terrorist’ is not synonymous with Muslim, any more than ‘criminal’ is synonymous with Black. The enemy is now and has always been the four threats of white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism, and militarism. These forces and not Islam create terrorism. These forces, and not queerness, create homophobia.” And "my message to the Muslim community is that we stand with you in these times."
Her comments concerning the Orlando terrorism were not her first empty-headed statements about Islamic terrorism in the United States. She seems to have a knack for coming down on the wrong side in such violent incidences.
Last December, after a radicalized Islamic couple shot and killed 14 coworkers at a Holiday luncheon in San Bernardino, Lynch hastened to point out that Islam is a religion of peace, not to be judged with a broad brush as a result of the acts of these two lone wolves.
In the California murders, the couple who had pledged themselves to ISIS, shouted "Allah is Great" as they blitzed their surprised coworkers with gunfire from only several feet away. Ultimately, they were pursued and killed by police. Referencing that terrorism, Lynch declared that her "greatest fear" was "anti-Muslim rhetoric which edges toward violence." For that, she said, Justice department lawyers are prepared to take "aggressive action" and prosecute. Apparently the Atty. General has no "fear" of violence similar to the attacks in Paris and Belgium and elsewhere over the past decades.
While President Obama was no doubt pleased at her concern for Muslims, it is numbing that the Attorney General was ignoring first amendment rights of free speech guaranteed in the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. But then, it may just depend on whose ox is being gored. When Minister Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), recently told his followers to "stalk and kill" policemen who are mistreating Blacks, there was never a peep from General Lynch about anti-police rhetoric "edging toward violence."
Lynch, 57, is a graduate of Harvard law school as was Obama who appointed her and her predecessor, Eric Holder. Holder resigned after having been held in contempt by Congress for his failure to turn over documents in the "fast and furious" congressional investigation.
Along with the obtuse and inane comments she has made following the Islamic murders in the United States, Lynch's credentials as a smart and ethical attorney are being questioned. That issue stems from a 30- minute private meeting she had recently with former President Bill Clinton on her plane at the Phoenix airport. Attorney General Lynch is charged with the criminal investigation and possible prosecution of the former President's wife, Hillary, for mishandling classified emails.
Under any conditions, the meeting was improper and suggests impropriety. Confronted by news reporters about unethical behavior, Lynch said their chit chat dealt only with grandchildren and golf. The subject of the investigation, she has emphasized, never came up. In a subsequent interview, Lynch said that she recognized the concern, and would refrain from doing the same thing again. Also, she said that she will accept the recommendation of the FBI as to a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton.
Thirty minutes of talk about grandchildren seems a bit long, observed Megyn Kelly, a lawyer, in her news report on Fox News. Add the fact that both of them were on separate planes on an airport tarmac, and Clinton left his plane to board hers--presumably to do no more than show her pictures of his new grandchild--and the incident becomes even stranger.
At Harvard, from 1981 to 1984, Lynch was an active member of the Harvard Black Law Students association (BLSA). The group was controversial since it annually brought in representatives from the Palestinian Liberation Operation (PLO) to speak . One such visitor was the group's leader, Mohammed Kenyatta, who called for the "liberation of Palestine" and expressed support for the terrorist organization, leading observers to classify BLSA as anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.
Some members of congress have charged that Lynch has actually threatened to prosecute skeptics of climate change decrying that she is using her federal authority to stifle private debate. In March Lynch testified before the senate judiciary committee that the FBI was looking into information regarding climate change dissent and "whether or not it meets the criteria for what we could take action on."
Lynch's questionable legal competence and inane comments have prompted at least one congressman to call for her resignation. Of course that will never happen, as long as her old friend from law school is pleased with her performance.
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