News Bias

 "That's not fair. She did it too!"

   Many readers and viewers call a news outlet neutral and objective only when a report echoes their own opinion. If not, they complain of bias.
   Oddly, that works both ways. Conservatives allege left-wing bias, and liberals complain of rightist prejudice, even when the report is neutral and factually accurate.
   As an editor once said, when both sides object, that's proof the report was accurate and true.
   The problem journalists face is that each side wants a favorable report to help propagate their pre-judged message.
   That's why it's called propaganda and prejudice.
   Meanwhile, current news reports about Donald Trump are met with protests that "she did it, too," referring to actions by Hillary Clinton.
   This is the kind of reaction parents get from children caught in their errors. The adult response: "That means you're both wrong, and it doesn't excuse either of you."
   If  another politician is potentially guilty of something, he or she should be formally accused and taken to court.

  Meanwhile, that does not excuse a competing politician from a separate accusation of criminal activity. Both can be taken to court, and the judicial system can sort out the charges. One does not negate or excuse the other. If each is found guilty, each can be penalized. Meanwhile, both can and should be charged.
   One does not cancel the other.

Blame Game and Loaded Words

   Biden's FBI secretly raids, ransacks Trump home, plants evidence.

  That's a summary of the Fox network coverage of the day's big story.
   Problems: It was not a secret. The FBI notified the ex-president's Secret Service guard in advance, so it was not a surprise.

   Secondly, the president's office denies it knew about the planned operation. The FBI routinely does its own investigating, without asking permission from a president. Trump himself fired the FBI director who refused to take his instructions at the time.
   As for "planting" any evidence, there is only a Trumpian claim about that. The odds of the nation's premier investigative agency planting evidence against a former president protected by another premier government agency are somewhere between slim and none.

   And the term "ransack" implies a shoddy, messy rough operation the opposite of neatness.
   The FBI apparently did its best to keep the operation quiet, and its agents wore no identifying jackets. But Trump himself announced it on his Twitter web site, and his supporters have been very outspoken in their opposition, even warning of the possibility of warfare.
   Separately, the ex-president declined to answer any questions put to him during a New York grand jury investigation of his business dealings in that city. In the past, Trump has been outspoken in his criticism of anyone who cites the Fifth Amendment in their refusal to answer questions.

Power of Twelve Returns

   American history runs in 12-year cycles. Here's the latest example, which compares two U.S. presidents.
   Richard Nixon was elected in 1968. Six years later, half way through the cycle, on April 8, 1974, he resigned as president. Four cycles went by and Donald Trump was elected president, in 2016.
   Yesterday, exactly four cycles after Nixon resigned, the home of former president Donald Trump was searched by FBI agents, looking for material he should not have taken with him when he left the White House.
   Half way through the Nixon cycle, which began with his inauguration, he resigned. Half way through the Trump cycle, the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his home in Florida.
   What were they looking for? One guess is they went to find documents that he wrongly took with him when he left the White House. But it's possible they will also find evidence of criminal behavior. Even taking the documents was illegal.
   Either way, the federal investigators needed approval from a judge to exercise a search warrant, plus the cooperation of the Secret Service, which has armed guards at the home of every former president.

   The FBI did not announce the search. It was revealed by Trump himself in a computer network posting.
   Shortly after Nixon resigned, his successor issued a pardon for any wrong he may have committed. Currently, investigators are gathering evidence of possible criminal behavior by Trump under federal law, even as state prosecutors are moving forward with separate lawsuits.
   For those who say it's all coincidental, there are several books available, including my own, on how often the number twelve appears in human life worldwide.
   Beginning with a twelve month year and twelve items in a dozen, the list of "coincidences" takes up several pages, and includes a separate chapter on historical events in America that occurred in a twelve year cycle.

Message Control

Who controls the press, controls the nation.

Belief without thought endangers freedom.

   The motto of this newsletter has been displayed at the top of every issue for years. In recent months, however, the warning it conveys has become more urgent as political candidates increase their attacks on journalism outlets that expose their lies.
   Part of their strategy has been to block neutral reporters from attending their supposedly "public" rallies so they have more control over their message.
   But that means the event is not really open to the public -- only to those willing to accept and spread the political message.
   Often, a candidate will verbally attack TV camera operators, ignoring the fact that they are part of a pool of workers serving all networks. Moreover, some may even be supporters of the candidate, but their job is operate the camera.
   Historically, one of the first things a government intent on full control does has been to control the news media, and thus to control the message, even if the intended message is a lie.
   This was the reason why the founders of America emphasized freedom of the press and banned Congress from making any law restricting it.
   Warning: We are facing new efforts to control the news media and the facts it reports to the public.

Faith and Politics

 "That's a stupid question." -- Candidate to journalist.

"There are no stupid questions. Only stupid answers."

                                                -- Journalist's response.

"Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel."

                                                  -- PR motto.

   Faith and belief are sometimes two different things, especially with politicians.
   Spiritual faith and belief rely on concepts that may not be provable in the real world, but political faith relies on what a chosen official says and does, which can be easily verified.
   However, many politicians routinely expect belief and obedience from the public regardless of fact or reality. The current cry from some political candidates is that voting is "rigged" and the results will be "fake."
   But what happens if they win? Does that prove the election really was "rigged" and that they did the rigging?
   Conclusion: If they lose, that proves the election was rigged. But if they win, that proves the election was fair.
   Huh?

Whither, Whether, Weather

   The current worldwide question is to ask which way the economy will go -- up, down, or stall for a while.
   Politicians are fond of taking credit for prosperous years, even as they blame their predecessors for any downturn. This week, however, statistics offered mixed signals as to where we are and where we're going.
   Part of that is the mixing of different sets of data marking different aspects of the economy over different time periods and using different methods of data collection. Count 'em. That's four different sets of numbers, each collected differently.
   Unemployment  data comes from a telephone sample survey, while the numbers of people actually working is a solid collection of payroll data.
   Meanwhile, jobs data are measured monthly, but spending habits are counted quarterly. In between, many things can happen, and often do.
   It has been reported that the retail price of gasoline, as drivers go to their local pumping stations, nearly doubled after war broke out in Ukraine. Never mind that most of the gasoline sold in America comes from America and other parts of the world, or that it takes many months for the product to travel from the drilling site, through refineries and eventually to the local filling stations.
   No surprise, then, that petrol companies reported a huge jump in profits in the first few months after the war began.
   It's called greed.
   As for the demand that government step in to control this greed -- massive instant price hikes after a prediction of long-term shortages, limited ones at that -- either free enterprise rules the economy or government controls business activity.
   You can't have it both ways, so somewhere in the middle would be the better solution. This is what corporate America fought labor unions about -- fair treatment versus greed.

Freedom of Belief

   The founders of America, including those who wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, were targets themselves of the demand that a single belief system be held by everyone, specifically the religion followed by the earlier settlers. 

  The problem, of course, was which set of founders, and therefore which system of belief. For many years, Catholicism was a particular target of those wanting everyone to believe as they did, and part of this was based on politics as well as ethnicity. Loyalty to the nation, as they saw it, prohibited loyalty to anyone else, especially the Pope in Rome.

   But it was time for change, the founders said.That's why many came to America, even as some of them tried to impose their own system on others who also came to America for a similar reason, the need for freedom of religion.

  This continued for centuries, from 1620 through the 19th Century bigotry against newcomers from Ireland and Italy, as well as 20th Century attempts to limit immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia.

   Even today, in the 21st Century, there is a continuing effort to stop immigration from Latin America and from Far East nations spoiled by war.

   When will it stop? I don't know. Such political bigotry is contrary to the teachings of brotherhood espoused by many spiritual traditions. Perhaps it will come to an end when people practice the preaching they make to each other.

   As for defending their talk by saying they answer to a Higher Power, this is true for all of us. The Higher Power they refer to does not discriminate among creations, so why should any of the creatures impose their own bias?

   Yet we see this every day, in all parts of the world. What better place to start to change this than here at home? If we are indeed created equal, as was written by America's founders, then we today must live up to that, and treat others as we wish our ancestors had been treated. Indeed, how we wish we ourselves are treated today.