Who can you trust in the News Media? or Can you trust anyone in the News Media?

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Since facts, truth, and honesty all seem to be absent in the news media of today the question becomes who can you trust?  The answer was already provided by real Americans in polls undertaken by the news media.

With a variety of polls this past year showing trust in the news media has fallen to 7%, the lowest ratings ever, one must conclude you do not go to the media for truth.

First their is the obvious political bias with The New York Times leading the anti-Trump media establishment along with fellow progressive advocates NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, Washington Post, Politico, and on and on.

So why would you want to rely on any of these blatantly biased Trump haters?  Take The New York Times for example.

On February 13, 2017 they ran the following story based on a column by 2 psychiatry professionals.

The New York Times

 

The Opinion Pages | LETTER

Mental Health Professionals Warn About Trump

FEB. 13, 2017

To the Editor:

Charles M. Blow (column, nytimes.com, Feb. 9) describes Donald Trump’s constant need “to grind the opposition underfoot.” As mental health professionals, we share Mr. Blow’s concern.

Silence from the country’s mental health organizations has been due to a self-imposed dictum about evaluating public figures (the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater Rule). But this silence has resulted in a failure to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time. We fear that too much is at stake to be silent any longer.

Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).

In a powerful leader, these attacks are likely to increase, as his personal myth of greatness appears to be confirmed. We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.

LANCE DODES

JOSEPH SCHACHTER

Beverly Hills, Calif.

Dr. Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Schachter is a former chairman of the Committee on Research Proposals, International Psychoanalytic Association. The letter was also signed by 33 other psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers.

Correction: February 14, 2017 

An earlier version of this letter misstated the number of co-signers in addition to the two lead signers. There were 33, not 35.

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Hard core progressives seem to forget the credibility issues of our news media when they agree with the story.  Even the article shown ends with an acknowledgement the facts are inaccurate, note the correction at the end.

But they fail to tell the truth when they imply the opinion of two people means there is a national consensus among professionals, a conclusion nothing short of journalistic hypocrisy. At last count there were 50,000 psychiatrists, 170,200 psychologists, and 642,000 social workers in America.  This story represents the opinions of just two of the 862,200 professionals in the fields.

Follow the folly of fools and become a fool yourself.

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HARWOOD: Senator Rubio, 30 seconds to you.

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Johnson D

This week, bad news for adult men has plagued the internet in the United States. Experts found that a study from Northwestern University was based on false information reporting that the cases of advanced, aggressive prostate cancer had risen sharply from 2004- 2013.
A report from The New York Times claimed that there are several organizations that covered the study including Newsweek, NBC, CBS, Fox News and United Press Internationals. Their reports revealed that recent medical advice against routine screening may be the one to blame for the supposed rise in advanced cases because it causes diagnosis to be delayed until the cancer is already too late to be treated. Another factor that was pointed was the possibility that prostate cancer were more aggressive than it originally was.

However, on Wednesday, the American Cancer Society disputed the validity of the Northwestern researchers' findings. According to Dr. Otis Brawley, the society's chief medical officer, said the methodology used by the researchers was defective, leading to the study's false conclusions, upi.com reported.

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February 12 - Happy Birthday Mr. Lincoln

February 12 is Honest Abe's 208th birthday and he is as relevant today as he was during the Civil War.  So today we shall celebrate his humor, legendary as it was, with a fine report by Gordon Leidner of Great American Humor. 

Lincoln’s Humor

by Gordon Leidner of Great American History

Today we think of Abraham Lincoln as a great leader—perhaps our greatest. We recall his eloquent speeches, his dedication to the Union, and his superior leadership. We honor his devotion to duty, sacrifice, and honesty.

What we don’t think of today when we think of Abraham Lincoln is "a good joke." In Lincoln’s day, however, he was a well known humorist and story teller. The anecdote about two Quaker women discussing Lincoln and Confederate president Jefferson Davis at the beginning of the Civil War is illustrative: The first Quaker lady said, after some contemplation, that she believed the Confederacy would win the war because "Jefferson Davis is a praying man." “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the second Quaker lady protested. "Yes," the first admitted, "but the Lord will think Abraham is joking."

Lincoln inherited his penchant for jokes and story telling from his father, Thomas Lincoln. When Abe was a child he loved to listen to his father and other men swap yarns around the woodstove. As he grew older he became increasingly adept at telling and re-telling humorous stories, frequently modifying them to accommodate each situation. When Lincoln became a lawyer, he used his jokes and stories to gain the good will of juries, and more than once his opposing counsel would complain to the judge that Lincoln’s stories were irrelevant and distracting to the jury. The trouble for them was that Eighth Circuit Judge David Davis loved Lincoln’s jokes more than anyone else in the court room.

Typical of a joke Judge Davis loved was one which Lincoln told to poke fun at himself: I feel like I once did when I met a woman riding horseback in the woods. As I stopped to let her pass, she also stopped, and, looking at me intently, said: "I do believe you are the ugliest man I ever saw." Said I, "Madam, you are probably right, but I can’t help it!" "No," said she, "you can’t help it, but you might stay at home!"

Another one of Lincoln’s 8th Circuit yarns was the one about a man in Cortlandt county who had raised a hog of such tremendous size that people came from miles around to see it. One of the people saw the hog’s owner and inquired about the animal. "W’all, yes," the old fellow said: "I’ve got such a critter, mighty big un, but I guess I’ll have to charge you about a dollar for lookin’ at him." The stranger glared at the old man for a minute or so, handed him the desired money, and started to walk away. "Hold on," said the old man, "don’t you want to see the hog?" "No," said the stranger. "Lookin at you, I’ve seen as big a hog as I ever want to see!"

He told another story of a time he was splitting rails when a man carrying a rifle walked up to him and demanded that Lincoln look him directly in the eye. Lincoln stopped his work and obliged the man, who continued to silently stare at him for some minutes. Finally the man told Lincoln that he "had promised himself years ago that if he ever met a man uglier than himself, he would shoot him." Lincoln looked at the man’s rifle mischeviously and said nothing. Finally Lincoln pulled open his shirt, threw out his chest, and exclaimed, "If I am uglier than you, go ahead and shoot—because I don’t want to live!"

As a politician, Lincoln made excellent use of his humorous stories. His long time political opponent Stephen A. Douglas complained that Lincoln’s jokes were "like a slap across my back. Nothing else—not any of his arguments or any of his replies to my questions—disturbs me. But when he begins to tell a story, I feel that I am to be overmatched." More than once Douglas and other political opponents of Lincoln’s saw their eloquently presented arguments forgotten by the audience after Lincoln followed up their speeches with a homely story or anecdote. At Alton, Illinois, during the last of the “great debates” with Douglas, Lincoln told a story that illustrated how he felt about a political feud that was currently raging between Democratic senator Douglas and the head of the Democratic Party. He said he felt like the old woman that, not knowing who was going to win a brawl between her husband and a bear, decided to cheer for both of them: "Go it husband, go it bear!"

In another instance Lincoln got a tremendous laugh from the audience when he said one of Senator Douglas'’ arguments was “as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had starved to death.”

When Lincoln became president, he used his jokes for a different purpose. He would frequently use them to get rid of visitors that had over-stayed their alotted visiting time. In these situations he would use a funny story to illustrate a point he was trying to make, and then—while the listeners were laughing—would ease them out the door.

This happened once when Lincoln was asked what he was going to do with a general that had failed several assignments. Anxious to get rid of his questioners, he told them that the question reminded him of a blacksmith he knew back in New Salem. One day, when the blacksmith didn’t have much to do, he started his fire and began heating up a piece of soft iron. When he got it hot he carried it to the anvil and began to hammer it, thinking he would weld it into an agricultural implement. He pounded away for some time until he got it fashioned into some shape, but discovered that the iron was not big enough for the implement he had in mind. He then put it back into the forge, heated it up again, and recommenced hammering, having decided to make a claw hammer. After a while he concluded that there was too much iron for a hammer. So again he heated it, this time thinking he would form an axe. After hammering and welding it into shape, he concluded there was not enough iron left to make an axe. He was now getting tired and disgusted at the result of his various failures. So finally he filled his forge full of coal, worked up a tremendous heat, and brought the remaining lump of iron to a white heat. With his tongs he lifted it from the bed of coals, and thrusting it into a tub of water near by, exclaimed with an oath, "Well, if I can’t make anything else of you, I will make you into a big fizzle, anyhow!" After he escorted his laughing visitors out the door, Lincoln decided to send the general out west to fight Indians.

Another example of Lincoln’s humor during the war was when he talked about Confederate General John B. Hood’s army after it had been annihilated in the battle of Nashville, Tennessee. Lincoln said "I think Hood’s army is about in the fix of Bill Sykes’s dog, down in Sangamon county. Bill Sykes had a long, yaller dog, that was forever getting into the neighbors’ meat houses and chicken coops. They had tried to kill it a hundred times, but the dog was always too smart for them. Finally, one of them got a bladder of a coon, and filled it up with powder, tying the neck around a piece of punk. When he saw the dog coming he fired the punk, split open a hot biscuit and put the bladder in, then buttered it all nicely and threw it out. The dog swallowed it at a gulp. Pretty soon there was an explosion. The head of the dog lit on the porch, the fore-legs caught astraddle the fence, the hind-legs fell in the ditch, and the rest of the dog lay around loose. Pretty soon Bill Sykes came along, and the neighbor said; "Bill I guess there ain’t much of that dog of your’n left." "Well, no," said Bill; "I see plenty of pieces, but I guess that dog, as a dog, ain’t of much more account." Lincoln concluded that although there were still pieces of Hood’s army left, the army, as an army, wasn’t of much more account.

As the responsibilities of the office of president became more unendurable, Lincoln used humor for self-therapy. He wanted to lessen the tensions in himself and those around him, and he frequently pointed fun at pompous generals when doing this. He said that he once saw a short, fat general that reminded him of a man he knew in Springfield whose name was Enoch. He said Enoch’s legs were so short that when he walked through the snow the seat of his trousers wiped out his footprints.

Lincoln told of the preacher that said, during his sermon, that although the Lord was the only perfect man, the Bible never mentioned a perfect woman. A woman in the rear of the congregation called out "I know a perfect woman, and I’ve heard of her every day for the last six years." "Who was she?" asked the surprised minister. "My husband’s first wife," came the reply.

Listening to two groups of men that came to argue as to whether or not a St. Louis church should be closed as a result of statements of disloyalty from its minister, Lincoln said that the situation reminded him of a story. He said that a man in Sangamon County had a melon patch that kept getting ruined by a wild hog. Finally he and his sons decided to take their guns and track the animal down. They followed the tracks to the neighboring creek, where they disappeared. They discovered them on the opposite bank, and waded through. They kept on the trail a couple of hundred yards, when the tracks again went into the creek, and promptly turned up on the other side. Out of breath and patience, the farmer said "John you cross over and go up on that side of the creek, and I’ll keep up on this side, because I believe that hog is on both sides of the creek!" "Gentlemen," concluded Lincoln, "that is just where I stand in regard to your controversies in St. Louis. I am on both sides. I can't allow my Generals to run the churches, and I can’t allow your ministers to preach rebellion."

One cannot truly appreciate Lincoln without understanding his humorous side. Lincoln certainly deserves the credit he’s received for what he accomplished in the way of preservation of the Union and freeing the slaves. But Lincoln had a lighter side, also, and he used his jokes and stories both for the purpose of winning over his audience and relieving the tremendous pressure he experienced as President during the terrible Civil War.

Now Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
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An Open Letter to President Donald Trump from the People

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Dear President Trump

Unlike the news media, other politicians, and the far left wing of the progressive and liberal perspectives, I am a citizen of these United States first, and foremost.  Long ago, the two political parties stopped caring for me and began protecting their own special interests.

It is for that reason only that many American citizens decided they had enough of the media, the politicians, and the political parties.  Some were Democrats, some Republicans, and many Independents and we all shared a common concern for our nation.

You see, we believe the Constitution is a very sacred document and we believe Divine Providence guided our Fore Fathers in the drafting and adoption of this unique masterpiece.  This incredible Constitution is what makes America the shining light on the hillside beckoning the masses from throughout the world to our shores.

Peace, equality, individual freedom, and sacred rights are identified and protected by our Constitution, and citizens of our country are chosen to be representatives in order to continue to protect this sacred document.

You are the most recent one chosen by the people.  It was a most unusual election and the degree of polarization shocked even the most cynical of us.  There is great risk entrusting the most powerful and enduring nation in the world to one who has never known the pressures of holding an elected office.

Many doubt your ability to adjust to such a new reality and many more intend to make it so difficult for you they hope to drive you from office in a fit of anger.  The news media seems to think they have all the answers and are intent on proving you do not.

All of that is politics as usual.  Yet in the course of conducting politics as usual, whether it be you, the Democrats, the liberal news media, or us plain old citizens, you are our president and we are the people who elected you and empowered you to be the caretaker of our needs.

No one expects miracles and we all know you face many difficulties as you attempt to transition from working solely for your self and your interests, to working for a Board of Directors of 330 million people with a multitude of diverse needs.

You and your staff did not acquire the United States government for your own purposes, you have been entrusted by the people with our government.  Along with that entrusting, are some rights and responsibilities we expect of you.

Make certain every one in your organization understands they work for us. Running the United States government on behalf of the people, all the people, is a sacred trust in itself. It means being honest with us, being honest with yourself, and helping all people understand the meaning and purpose of your actions.

There is no room for, nor need for exaggeration, deception, misdirection, or outright fibs.  Treat all people with respect if you are to expect respect in return.  Be humble, you speak for us, and be thorough in managing the affairs of state.

You preside over the most powerful force in the world, the US government, and everything you do will reverberate throughout the world.  Understand the actions and consequences.

The election is over, you are the president, there is no need to obsess over polls or remind us of the path you took to victory.  Enough Mr. President, you are the president.

We want you to be our agent of change.  We want you to shake up the system and rattle the Establishment to remind them they have forgotten about the real America.  Any improvement in relations around the world would be nice as well.

No president in our history has such a free hand to bring about change.  You are the first.  Use that gift for good, not to demonize people, or make others look bad.  Those who fail to serve the public interest need no help in self-destructing.

All new Administrations make many mistakes when they first take office. Yours will be no different.  In fact, when so many of your inner circle have no prior experience in government, we understand the stupid mistakes already made by your people.

We will not hold that against you if you take responsibility for their stupidity and put an end to the mistakes.  Defending people prone to error is a big error in itself.

There is not a soul in America who does not expect you to make mistakes but most Americans can accept mistakes when they are acknowledged and when they stop being made.

If you take seriously the trust we have demonstrated in electing you, you will then be able to give us the vision of the future we need, the hope we have so long desired, and the trust in our elected officials necessary for a brighter tomorrow.

Is that too much to ask of an Ivy Leaguer who became president, a successful businessman who knows how to make money, or a disrupter who can turn the Washington Establishment on its head?

Just think of what Abraham Lincoln had to experience to become president without all the qualifications you bring, and then save a nation from Civil War.  You walk a mile in his shoes and we will have the president we hope to see.

Signed

The People
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CPT Twit - Liberal Progressive Women of the World Unite - Strike against America - Let Anarchy Rule

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2017 - 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution