President = POTUS?

This is going to be a quick one. I have become increasingly annoyed at people who no longer say "The President", but use the acronym "POTUS". Of course I know that POTUS stands for President Of The United States, and it makes sense to use when brevity in print is necessary, like on Twitter. I'm not just referring to Trump, I started noticing this when Obama was President. It was illustrated during President Obama's last year in office; the White House was hosting Trick or Treat at Halloween and Obama & Michelle were personally greeting kids and handing out candy. A little boy looked up, realized that Barack Obama was giving him candy and said to his mother "That's POTUS!", his mother responded "Yes, that's POTUS". I just got done reading an article about the Trump White House where a White House aide offered the reporter an opportunity to meet...not "The President", but "POTUS".

How freakin' ridiculous! It's only takes one more syllable to say "president" than it does to say "POTUS". And it doesn't sound so juvenile.

What's Up With This Russia Thing?

President Trump repeatedly calls the accusations that he or his campaign colluded with elements of the Russian government to influence the 2016 presidential election "fake news", "made up", and "an excuse for losing an election". To be clear, no one is saying that Russia "hacked the election", that is, actively changed votes or "erased" votes for Secretary Clinton. What has been said, is that several agencies within the intelligence and law enforcement community, including the Director of National Intelligence, representing all 17 agencies, have concluded that Russia attempted to interfere in our presidential election by hacking into the databases of both the Republican and Democratic National Committees, as well as the emails of the Clinton campaign and the election databases of several states. The analysis was high confidence, which means, to us laypersons, that they didn't just pull it out of their asses. This is longer even arguable, despite President Trump's varied and often contradictory statements about their assessment. Trump, without any basis for his statements, has cast doubt on what his combined intelligence agencies have concluded.

Emails and other information obtained by Russian operatives was subsequently leaked via Wikileaks, but only information that was damaging to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party. All the while this was going on then-candidate Trump, who regularly accuses others of precisely what he is guilty of, was railing about how the election was rigged against him.

Little by little information came to light about Trump campaign officials and advisors who had off the books meetings with Russians and then either lied about it or neglected to report it when required to. Michael Flynn, who was nominated and confirmed as National Security Adviser, despite his loose cannon, conspiracy theorist ways that got him fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), not only improperly met with Russian officials, but lied to the FBI about it and received $45,000 from the Russians for a speech, also not reported. Son-in-law Jared Kushner, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and personal lawyer Michael Cohen all had suspect contact and...you guessed it...lied about it or concealed it. Trump himself denies that he has any business dealings in Russia, but his son Donald Junior is on record as saying that they do a disproportionate amount of business with Russia. And now we find out that Donald Junior took a meeting with a Russian lawyer who gained access to him because she claimed to have some dirt on Clinton. Again, concealed until he found out that the New York Times was going to publish his emails.

And let's not forget that James Comey was fired as FBI Director, Trump yucking it up with the Russian Ambassador the next day about what a "nut job" Comey was, and how his firing took the pressure off with regard to the Russian investigation. As the Deputy Attorney General appointed a special counsel to spearhead the investigation, Trump to took to Twitter to denounce the move as a witch hunt.

And the latest - Trump initially denies bringing up the election interference to Putin, until Tillerson says that he did. Then Trump "pressed" Putin, taking his word that Russia didn't interfere, adding "you know my opinion". How can we believe that Trump was forceful with Putin when Trump has cast doubt on what our own intelligence analysts have concluded? Then Trump announces that he wants to set up a joint "impenetrable" cyber-security unit with Russia , although he backpedaled the next day.

Everything that Trump says reminds me of a little kid who lies, but lies badly, not knowing what a plausible lie sounds like, because no one has ever had the balls to call him on his bullshit before. He accuses, not only his opponents, but the press and even the investigators, of being out to get him; he throws wild accusations around, many which make no sense and are often in the category of "he did it, so it's okay that I did it".

There might be nothing underneath all of this, it might just be the gang that couldn't shoot straight, a bunch of incompetent neophytes. But then again, there's an awful lot of smoke for there not to be a fire.

Fake News & Bias in the Media

Since I'm using the word "bias" in the title, I want to emphasize that a person who exhibits bias is "biased", you don't (or aren't supposed to) say "That person is bias". Okay - done with the grammar lesson!

I don't think that it's arguable that there's bias in the media. When I say "bias" I'm not talking about "spin", or willfully misrepresenting facts, I'm referring more to the below-the-surface inclinations that we all have to emphasize one thing over another, to prioritize what's important and what's not. Decisions have to be made at every newspaper, television and radio station or internet blog about what gets covered and in how much depth. Much was made last week of a CNN employee who gave his opinion that a certain story was being pursued because of ratings. Why would the fact that ratings factor into corporate decisions surprise anyone? If news organizations continually feature content that nobody is interested in, pretty soon they will be defunct news organizations.

I'm not a journalist, nor have I ever been one. I worked for a newspaper for twelve years back in the nineties, but not in a reporting capacity - I was a circulation manager - we made sure that the paper that the reporters and editors worked so hard to put out and the advertising department worked so hard to pay for got delivered to the people who wanted to read it. I knew some reporters back then and know a handful of journalists now, and I don't know any for whom the truth isn't paramount and make an effort to report accurately, overcoming their own personal biases. But what about the big, bad corporations? Sometimes they get it wrong. Sometimes individuals within those corporations act unethically. Sometimes they jump the gun and have to backtrack or retract stories. But for these organizations, their reputation is all important. Their reputation for getting it right. Their reputation for digging up information that those in power are trying to hide, for exposing corruption.

And mostly they do get it right. For all the accusations from the Trumpists that the mainstream media is corrupt, fraudulent and biased, they generally get it right. Pressed, Trumpists usually fail to come up with any concrete examples.

Then there's the term "Fake News". Initially the term referred to bloggers or commentators who literally made up news that they knew was false in order to further an agenda or affect a political race.  The term was quickly co-opted by President Trump to describe any news organization that had the temerity to publish stories that painted him in an unflattering light. He escalated to calling out individual news organizations and then individual reporters. On at least one occasion he referred to the mainstream media as "the enemy of the people". As if it wasn't bad enough that a paranoid president, lashing out at his enemies, tweets out conspiracy fantasies, but the legions of Trumpists who automatically disbelieve everything from the mainstream media and reflexively swallow everything that Trump says, indicates the willful ignorance that is infecting this country.

There is a reason that freedom of the press is included in the first amendment. For all the chest beating about The Constitution from the Trumpists, for all that the second amendment is equated with Holy Writ, they don't seem to have much respect for the freedom of the press and the important part that a free and unfettered press plays in maintaining the other freedoms that we hold so dear.

I am not suggesting that we should, without question, believe everything that we see or hear in the media. What I am suggesting is that we shouldn't disbelieve everything either. What we should do is use our reasoning faculties and weigh the evidence. We should stop assuming that every reputable news organization is out to get the President and is willing to lie and invent "facts" in order to make him look bad.