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Monday, July 18, 2016

Is There Something Wrong With The Truth?

Is there some reason why the government and the media have moved away from the truth?  I'm not talking about shading stories or announcements so that they favor one view or another.  I'm instead talking about announcements and stories that are intentionally deceptive and dishonest.  Just look at a few recent examples:

1.  We learned today that there is a secret side agreement in the Iran nuclear deal that removes restrictions on Iran's nuclear arms program many years earlier than the public version.  Think about that.  The Obama administration presented the deal to Congress for approval, but the public was not told the true terms of the deal.  We don't know yet if Congress was even told the actual terms.  I know that Obama wanted to get the deal approved no matter what the terms, but misleading the public is really a terrible thing to do.  It would be like pushing for passage of Obamacare while falsely telling the public that each family would save $2500 and also that they could keep their then current policies and doctors.

2.  Hillary Clinton got lambasted by the FBI director for extraordinary carelessness in handling national secrets.  Her immediate response was to claim that director Comey actually supported her view.  Even when Comey acknowledged to Congress the many lies told by Clinton, she still said that Comey's announcement supported her position.

3.  An Islamic terrorist acting in support of ISIS killed 80 people in Nice, and the media pretended to be confused about his motives and whether or not he really was an Islamic terrorist or some lone wolf deranged individual.  The initial stories all slanted towards his being a lone wolf despite there being multiple accomplices who have all been arrested by French police and despite the text and other messages sent by the killer that indicated his involvement for ISIS.

4.  A man who was a member of the Nation of Islam shoots police in Baton Rouge and the media just calls him a "former marine".  That's like describing the Fort Hood terrorist as an "army officer" rather than an Islamic terrorist with ties to al Qaeda.  (Okay, the media tried that lie too.)

5.  A Republican in the senate presents a bill to fund Zika research and treatment and the Democrats filibuster it and defeat it.  The supposed reason for the filibuster is that the bill makes permanent the transfer of some funds from Ebola research to Zika research which was first done by president Obama.  The Democrats ignore their filibuster of the bill and castigate the Republicans for "blocking" Zika funding.  The media reports the news just that way.  It's completely dishonest.

There's a lot more, but we get treated to lie after lie after lie by the federal government and the media.

Donald Trump's slogan is "make America great again".  How about we all, as a nation, adopt the practice of "make America honest again."

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