Some Liberal Networks Replace “Fact Check” With “Reality Check”: Former Term Became Too Politicized, And So Will the New One

I see that NBC News and CNN both replaced their “fact checks” with “reality checks.”  I thought something like that was going to happen as “fact checks” and all the variants had become political hot potatoes.   And since President Trump is openly treating the news networks as an opposition party, the fact check terminology was not working to their advantage anymore.

A lot of people would instantly start to bristle if they heard a news anchor even say “fact check” or read it on an openly biased news network’s web site.    I looked at CNN’s evaluation of the President’s address to Congress last night, and the only thing that changed was the title of the piece.

They still issued verdicts of Trump’s statements as being “true”, “true but misleading”, “mostly true”, and “false.”

The problem with these kinds of checks is that the statements of CNN and other news organizations in their fact checks also have to be checked for accuracy.  They got into a nasty habit of misleading readers with inaccurate statements in their own fact checks.

For instance, the following on-screen fact check was put on the air on August 11th, 2016, in response to Trump’s political statement that Obama founded ISIS:

See the fact check?  It’s wrong.  ISIS was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, while al-Baghdadi was the leader of ISIS after al-Zarqawi’s death.   I found it particularly funny that CNN had “He’s Not” in parenthesis in their defense of their Great Leader.

Trump was making a political statement that because the Obama Administration pulled troops out of Iraq too soon, it became possible for groups like ISIS to fill the vacuum as the still-in-training Iraqi Army wasn’t up to the task of fighting off ISIS.   (The Iraqi Army was badly beaten in 2014 and ISIS took over a large swath of Iraq).   Trump was saying Obama should be credited for making the conditions possible for ISIS to flourish, but it didn’t come across right and the left tried to make political hay about it with….mixed results as the photo above shows.

And then there’s the question of one news outlet saying that a statement is true, and another one blasts the same statement as being absolutely false, especially if both news outlets are of the same political color—such as CNN vs. MSNBC.   Throw both fact checks out and go to a third, fourth, fifth or sixth source.

I couldn’t help but notice that the Washington Post’s fact check piece focused in only on statements it considered false and ignored everything else from the rest of the speech, including statements that CNN said were true. 

“Reality checks” will take on the same hue as “fact checks” did, and possibly faster, even without a red-hot political campaign raging across the country.  They’re mostly political attack articles from the Democrats, who really need to get over themselves.

What? The Second Round of the Celebrity Democratic Pity Party Was On Last Night? Oh, Gee, I Missed It When I Turned Off the TV and Went to Bed: Did Anything Happen Other Than the Usual Bull?5

Not that I care.

The news people keep talking about some kind of a screw-up at the end of the show, but I think the entire show is a screw-up.   If they kept the politics out of it and would cease their unending meltdown over the election, I’d probably stay up to watch it or at least DVR it.

I’m not remotely interested in anything that a melting/melted down celebrity has to say about politics.  Get over it.

Quick Repeal of Obamacare Was Never Realistic: GOP Needs to Slow Down, Take a Good Look at Existing Health Care Law, and Proceed One Step at a Time

The GOP is finally realizing that a quick repeal of Obamacare was never a realistic goal.   To quickly repeal it would lead to even more chaos in the health care insurance field than there already is, and no Republican wants to be responsible for large numbers of American losing what they already have.

This is why I’m in favor of a slow examination of  the law, and gradual implementation of a new system, which may or may not involve keeping the better parts of the ACA.

Caution is warranted, not speed, when it comes to health care.  The repeal of Obamacare cannot be done by Executive Order alone, which is as it should be.   It took an act of Congress to pass the ACA, and the repeal or replacement has to follow the same course.

Whatever they do, at the end of the process, people need to have access to health insurance, whether by mandate or by their own volition, and it can’t involve raising premiums much higher than they are now.   A decrease in premiums would be very welcome news, especially in states that have had huge increases in premiums.

Oh, and an $89,000 medication?   I think not.  A $600 epipen injector that’s available in Britain for $69?  That kind of health care robbery has to end.  The $89,000 drug is available overseas for $1,200 and has been for years.

Proceed with caution, GOP.

John McCain Pulled a Bill Clinton-Like Stunt With a Twist: Protesting Against the Government He’s Overseas Representing?

I jumped all over Bill Clinton in 1992 when it came out that he participated in anti-Vietnam War protests against his own country (while he was a student living overseas) in 1969, and now it appears I must jump all over a United States Senator for pulling a Clinton-like stunt over the weekend.

John McCain also made waves during the 1992 campaign, criticizing Bill Clinton’s choices while he (Clinton) was protesting overseas as a student (and at the same time that McCain was being tortured in North Vietnam for information), so I’m having a hard time believing that John McCain would do this.

McCain made a mistake when he traveled to Germany and delivered a speech that was critical of the Trump Administration.

I’m sorry, but a senior Senator like McCain should know better than to pull a Bill Clinton.  He has every right to say what he did, but not off American soil.  He’s over there representing the United States government, and he just slapped it in the face in the presence of a foreign audience.  Gee, thanks for nothing, Senator.

It was a bad decision, and one I can’t support.   And I don’t care how mad he is; American domestic politics stops at the waterline.   Politicians should know better than to air their laundry away from home.
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Just how many of Senator McCain's Arizona constituents live in Munich, anyway?

If the Mainstream Media Still Thinks It’s Part of the Government After Yesterday’s “Press Conference”, Then They’re Delusional: A Free and Independent Press Cannot Be Joined At The Hip With the President The Way That They Were During the Obama Administration

The liberal headlines about President Trump’s impromptu press conference yesterday were exactly as expected.  Terms that they used were mostly negative (epic rant, unhinged, rambling, media-bashing, unplugged, crazy, scorched-earth, wild, shock, bluster, bravado, exaggeration (that’s the one term I agree with), and about a dozen other terms that they looked in the thesaurus to find). 

I called it brilliant, and exactly what the arrogant elitist press needed to hear: a sitting President putting them into their place.

Some of the elitists still believe that the press is part of the federal government, which is dead wrong.  A free, independent and healthy press must not seen to be a part of the government, or they run the risk of becoming presidential spokespeople, which is what they were for the Obama  Administration, and for the failed Obama heir-apparent . 

I believe Trump served them up a big helping of humble pie yesterday.  And the press is still trying to figure out what it is they’re dealing with.   They withered under Trump’s fire, and that’s a good thing.   He’s treating the media as political opposition, which is what they’ve allowed themselves to become.  And it’s a good strategy for now.   He needs results when the public gets bored with his current antics. 

Now, there are still a lot of unanswered questions that President Trump hasn’t answered yet, and he said some things that were blatantly incorrect during the press conference, like his Electoral College being the biggest one since Reagan.   Nope.  Not even close.  In the eight Presidential elections after the 1984 Reagan landslide, five of the victors had more electoral votes than President Trump’s 306 electoral votes.  He really needs to get with the program, stop putting out incorrect information and be honest about how rough things have been so far.

And it is the media’s job to ask probing questions. but as the free press, and not the political opposition, and certainly not as the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party.

The real free press has been missing in action for a long time.  I wonder if we’ll ever see them again, without all the liberal bias that currently exists in today’s news media.

In the meantime, the liberal press can have fun with the monster that they themselves helped to create.  

White House Chief of Staff, National Security Advisor and Press Secretary’s Jobs Are in Varying Degrees of Danger: Chief of Staff and Press Secretary Will Probably Be Able to Hold On, But National Security Advisor is Likely to Resign or Be Fired

Three members of the Trump Administration appear to be in danger of being forced to resign or being fired outright.

The National Security Advisor appears to be in very hot water as he may have misled the White House on his communications with the Russian government prior to President Trump taking office.   This is not good.   If something happens here, it will happen in the next day or two.

The Chief of Staff doesn’t seem to have a handle on the White House staff.   A good Chief of Staff not only manages the staff, but also the message being put out by the staff as representatives of the Executive Branch.   He/she also controls who gets access to the President.   With so many contradictory statements coming from the Executive Branch, they need to get things under control fast.  This is a very disorganized White House.

Finally, the Press Secretary is a fool and is putting on quite the side show, and given the President’s reputation for being a no-nonsense businessman, he may be forced to find someone else who will more accurately represent him to the media, which he doesn’t particularly care for.

It’s likely that the Press Secretary and the Chief of Staff will keep their jobs, but I’m not so sure about the National Security Advisor.   He’s in big trouble.

Before Questioning Trump’s Mental Health, Liberal Snowflakes Should Get Their Own Heads Into Order Before Making a Sound About What’s Rattling Around in Trump’s Head

Ultra liberal Al Franken made the rounds on the Sunday news shows, saying that President Trump’s mental health needs to be examined.

Um, which side organized cry-ins, therapy dogs and free grief counseling services across the country to our dear dear precious snowflake population after the election?   It wasn’t the Trump people, those deplorable people who got tired of liberal hypocrisies and whining and voted the way they really wanted to just to stick it to the Democrats and Hillary Clinton.

It turned out that being called a deplorable was like being awarded a badge of honor.

Trump’s White House IS very disorganized, and he may need to clean house three weeks into his Administration and bring in some new people to correct some of the big screw-ups.

But for the king of hypocrites telling the President to get his head examined?   Al Franken should tell his side to go get their heads examined first.  After all, one of those snowflake basket cases needing free grief counseling over a lost election might be President down the road.  (God help us if we have a crybaby for a President!)

We knew going in to the campaign that Donald Trump might not be temperamentally suited to be President; are the libs just figuring this out?

Usually When a Circuit Court Rules an Act of Congress Unconstitutional, It Throws the Law Out: 9th Circuit Did No Such Thing When It Refused to Reinstate Trump’s Executive Order

Something’s very wrong here.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals refused to reinstate President Trump’s travel suspension on Constitutional grounds, but left the law being quoted by the Executive Order intact instead of throwing it out like it’s supposed to.

In fact, it barely mentions the law, 8 U.S. Code § 1182, in its ruling.  That law was passed in 1952 by the Democratic-controlled House and Senate, vetoed by Democratic President Truman, whose veto was then successfully overridden by his own party in both houses of Congress. 

It’s ironic that a law passed by the Democrats with such decisiveness (including overriding their own party’s President) is being used by a Republican President under the exact circumstances that prompted the Democrats to pass it in the first place.

The 9th Circuit has definitely screwed something up.  And as huge a problem that was created by the failed rollout of this EO, the Supreme Court will have to look at the 9th Circuit decision and decide if judicial activism has inserted itself into a (seriously fouled-up) national security situation.

I look forward to hearing what the Supreme Court has to say on the matter.

Where is the President Getting His Information? Is He Even Bothering to Look Up The Facts He’s Getting Wrong? FBI Records Show That The U.S. Murder Rate is Among the LOWEST in Fifty-One Years, Not Highest in Forty-Seven Years As He Claims

I can’t believe what I’m hearing the President say on an almost daily basis.   He keeps getting facts wrong, to an extreme level.

For example, today he told a law enforcement group that the U.S. murder rate was the highest in forty-seven years.  Yet a simple Google search clearly shows that the murder rate is among the LOWEST in almost fifty-one years.

I don’t know where President Trump is getting his information from, but if it’s from someone other than himself, he needs to fire that individual for misleading him.

He’s been claiming that during the campaign too, but he’s just plain wrong.  

President Trump needs to start looking up information himself and quit parroting back false information.  In a way, he’s spreading the very kind of false news that he’s accused others of doing.  He isn’t helping his Presidency.

Still waiting.

DeVos Confirmed: Disappointing, But Not the End of the World

As anticipated, the Senate tied 50-50 on voting for the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as the Secretary of Education, and Vice-President Pence cast the deciding vote.

While this did not go the way many were hoping, it’s not the end of the world.  Hopefully she helps all students in all forms of education, and not just her failed system.   With any luck, the Michigan Department of Education will take care of her mess in western Lower Michigan.

Moving on.

Senate Should Vote Against Betsy DeVos and Send Her Back to Michigan to Clean Up the Mess She Created: There Are Much Better Potential Nominees for Secretary of Education Out There

The Senate is scheduled to vote on the Secretary of Education nominee, Betsy DeVos, around noontime today.

She’s created quite the mess back home, and hopefully the Senate will not confirm her, so that she can return to Michigan and clean up her huge mess that she made in the years prior to her nomination.

We don’t need a rich lobbyist as the Secretary of Education….we need someone who was the Superintendent of a highly successful public school district with a proven track record of turning a failing system around, which is something that DeVos has failed at.

Republicans have a reputation for not rewarding failure, and to have them vote for someone with a track record like hers would be downright discouraging and a huge black mark against that reputation.

I hope the Senate votes wisely today and turns her nomination down.

House Bill HR861 Will Eliminate the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Not Sure if This Is Good Or Bad, But It’s Likely That the Next Democratic President and Congress Will Revive It

It looks like the EPA itself is becoming a hot potato, with threatened termination of the agency.  A GOP Representative introduced HR861, which calls for the termination of the Environmental Protection Agency.

I’m not sure how to react to this, but I’m enjoying the initial reaction to the news from liberals, who are melting down again.   One of my associates wrote on Facebook that…“we ought to get our Representatives on speed dial, ‘cause they’re going after the f’ing EPA!!”

Relax, liberals.  Agencies come and go and come again, depending on who’s in power.

I have mixed feelings on this topic.  On one hand, the EPA has done a lot of good to help protect the environment and the public, but they’ve made some critical mistakes in their interpretation of various acts of Congress, such as the Clean Air Act.  In one such instance, the Supreme Court ruled the EPA was in error with their interpretation of the Act in regards to cost.  I also am wondering if the EPA is effective against major polluters.

Many of the EPA’s functions can be transferred to the states if this proposed bill becomes law.

This is still in the early stages, and it may not advance, but I’ll be watching with great interest.

Trump Still Hasn’t Got It Together: He’s Still in “Impulse” Mode, Still Tweeting, and Still Acting Un-Presidential While Things Are Going From Bad to Worse

Still waiting for President Trump to start acting like he won the election, waiting for him to get off Twitter and start using traditional Presidential communications mediums, and waiting for him to act like he’s the President and not a petulant child who’s just been denied something at the supermarket or on a school playground.

We also don’t need a part-time President.  We need and expect a full-time President who does the job he was elected to do.  And he doesn’t need to comment on everything in sight, whether it’s Ah-nold’s ratings, what this celebrity or that celebrity was wearing on the red carpet, or anything else.  

(Non-emergency) Executive Orders (EOs) that are intended to take immediate effect need to be disseminated to the agencies that will be responsible for carrying them out so that they can explain to and train their personnel in how to handle the myriad of issues that are sure to arise.  This needs to be done before any EO comes into force.

As we saw with the non-vetted travel ban, and now which has a nationwide injunction against it, the government was ill-prepared to execute this plan, because it was drafted by political people, and not shared with the right agencies.   And the result was almost beyond belief. 

The TSA and Immigration/Naturalization people did the best they could given the limited information that they had.   The blame for the disaster that unfolded rests with the Trump Administration, not the rank and file trying to do their jobs.

Now President Trump’s EO is unenforceable by court order, and we’re left with the petulant child syndrome taking center stage again.  The President took to Twitter and attacked the judge who did his job better than President Trump is doing his.   If he had vetted this EO first, the President wouldn’t be in this very bad political spot.

The travel ban EO is and remains a self-inflicted wound that cannot be repeated by President Trump if he has any hope of getting stuff done and fulfilling his pledges.  

He also needs to get with his party in Congress and talk to them to get them on his side, because right now, everybody’s on their own side: Trump, the Republican House, and the Republican Senate act like the other doesn’t matter and Congressional Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump’s self-inflicted injuries. 

I encourage the President to change his strategy.  He’s got a lot of stuff to get done.