What's happened to the NEWS?

I realize that this complaint has been aired many times before, but this election cycle things have moved from bad to worse to a point where the news agencies actually defy belief.  I still watch TV news, but as little as possible. I read Washington Post headlines, mostly out of desperation, in the hopes that they will one day return to the reporting that made them justly famous. I don't watch CNN--it's not on my TV subscription. I don't watch Fox News or MSNBC (hereinafter called "the news"). I read their stories on their sites from time to time, so I know what they say.

Today, all of these news agencies are actually editorial agencies. There is no news. Instead of news, there is what might be called "newsivism" (news-activism). Whatever the cause of the day, the newspeople are there to celebrate it, whether it's transgenderism, gay liberals marching, or "black lives matter" folks looting to somehow prove that they are helping their communities by their "activism."  The news not only reports these things, it speaks of them in hushed tones, as if these people make up all the nation, and the nation is not being "heard."
Frankly, I've never seen or heard anything more ridiculous. The news ignores facts, makes up stories that they know are not true, biases everything the way they want, and generally tries to create a world that doesn't exist.
For example, here in San Diego, reporting about Mexican gangs is just about nonexistent, yet their influence is huge. Nobody discusses the effect of these gangs on sex trafficking, or their societal influence.  Instead, we see pictures of mothers holding babies, and crying about how they might get deported--and that is all. Nothing about the huge mess we face in society due to Federal and State inaction.
Regarding the mess in Ferguson, Missouri, I happen to have listened to the statements by the county prosecutor about what happened when Michael Brown attacked Darren Wilson. The entire (it was more than a half hour) series of statements, which were based on the investigations conducted at the scene were reasoned, carefully set out, and obviously true, including the evidence that Mr. Brown had tried to wrest Officer Wilson's gun from him, and was killed AFTER he did this.
So what did the news do? They ran statements from the mother, the father, the family, which all said that "Mike was a good boy..." A good boy, it happens who had just committed a strongarm robbery against someone about half his size, and who was walking down the street with a companion who was with him when he committed the robbery.  Which story did the news run? Obviously, the one about the poor family of "Michael Brown," who claimed that he was a "gentle giant" (who apparently roughed up smaller people at will). The news essentially concealed the real story, which was that a thug resisted arrest from a much smaller police officer, who fatally shot him when the thug charged him, intending to take him down and very possibly kill him. Had "Mike Brown" been white, the story would have been treated differently, for sure. Now, two years later, the Browns' "story" has been altered so much that the evil white cop shot the poor defenseless black teenager for no reason, and that has to stop. Well, it is true that something MUST stop. Perhaps it's biased reporting.

In another, and really unbelievable set of stories, I think Donald Trump must be the most misquoted man in America. Yes, he sometimes misspeaks, but it so happens that I listened to the news tell me many of the things he said. Problem is, I also listened to HIM. He did not say those things as the news told me. He said different things. Things that made sense (to me), but the news altered his statements substantially so that he appeared to have said something else, which didn't make sense. The so-called "Muslim ban" is one of the best examples of this. To this day, the Washington Post and New York Times insist that Mr. Trump is applying a religious test to see if people can be admitted here.  Nonsense.  He stated from the beginning that there must be a mechanism in place to see who we admit from Muslim countries. That makes absolute sense, yet the news says, "don't do that?" Why? Is it because they think he might win the election? Are they trying to alter history in favor of a candidate they like better? It's hard to come to any other conclusion.

Why does the news do this?  The only conclusion I can come to is that the news doesn't care about truth any longer, if they ever did.

The news is like the false prophets in the Bible, who say what they say in order to maintain or change society in the direction they want it to go. Every story is an editorial, and not one story that I've recently read is unbiased.  That's fine if you put your bias out where everyone can see it, but if your reporting is supposed to be the truth, or "fair and balanced," as some would have us believe, then you must use the opportunities afforded a free press to report the truth, and forget about what YOU want. Truth is pretty easy to find, if you look. Stories that are not reporting, those are opinions. Disguising opinions as news is wrong. Period.

"Make America SAFE again." About the Dallas Police shootings.

You need to think carefully about your vote in November and here's why:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement

If you want a video on the same subject, here it is:

LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAYS, NOT WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT HIM. HE'S RIGHT.

One of the greatest tragedies of the last 8 years is that we now have a divided country, filled with tribalism, where everyone is at everybody else's throats.

SNIPERS? IN DALLAS??
Remember the national reaction when the Oklahoma Federal Building was blown up by white supremacists? NOBODY marched in the streets defending them, despite the fact that the Feds had managed to overstep in Waco and Ruby Ridge. EVERYONE came together, and said, THIS IS WRONG. It's still wrong. Doesn't matter who does it, black or white or blue.

Remember the national reaction to airplanes flying into the World Trade Center? WE CAME TOGETHER.
We need to do that again. We live in a wonderful country. We have amazing freedoms. We have good lives,, for the most part.

The politics of division are bad politics, and the efforts that some make at dividing the country have to stop.
We don't need to "Make America Mexico again;" We don't need to make America Black, we don't need an "all White America," or an "Asian America." We need to come together as a free people, with one set of goals so that we can build our nation and make it strong and prosperous. Whether it's a Wall Street Banker or hedge fund manager who takes away our jobs and sends them to China, or a politician who panders to one or another political group, or a religious group that demands special privileges and the right to have "other laws" than the laws of our nation, it's wrong.
Let's be one, though many. Let's do that now.

About Orlando and the Massacre...

Since everyone else is "weighing in," I guess I better do so as well.  There are calls for gun control. Calls for more police. Complaints the FBI didn't do enough,  and so on. In the midst of this, we've forgotten the single most effective tool that we have against these maniacs, and that's...

PROFILING.

Why we won't use this methodology is beyond me.  I know that black people, Mexican people, Cubans, etc. believe that profiling is evil, but used properly, profiling protects the rest of us from the madmen. This is a tool that has been proscribed (opposite of PREscribed) since the 9/11 attacks, and when the Feds refused to use it, I couldn't understand. It made no sense. Yes, people are improperly identified, and so on, but it's a more reasonable solution than "gun control." If there are no guns in the hands of reasonable people, given the level of crime in our nation, you and I both know what will happen.

Remember, every public person who advocates for gun control has personal protection. Guards. Security. In other words, other people with guns who protect them. You and I have no such protection. In fact, one might argue that gun control caused this dance club scene, since if half a dozen of the attendees had guns, the murderer might well have been one of the few people killed there. 

The problem with "gun control" is that it really applies only to those who are willing to obey the law. If the shooter in Orlando could not get a gun, he could easily have used explosives. Same damage, different method. That's what the Islamic killers do in Israel. 

The answer? Figure out who these people are before they do their evil. That's the only answer that will work. 

Additionally, last year we heard multiple cries against the militarization of the police. Sorry, but cops need weapons equal to or greater than the criminals. If they don't have them, you can expect two things:

1.  More crime, more heinous murders.
2.  Fewer cops.  Nobody wants to put his life on the line for a society that won't support him. Nobody.

Finally, we have to recognize that our society has become terribly splintered. It's white vs. black, Mexican vs. Asian, etc. etc. We must come together as reasonable people and stop this. We have to stop listening to the people among us who want to divide and destroy our society. On the one hand, we have a President who makes heroes of "Black Lives Matter," and who also refuses to "out" radical Islamists, even when its clear that their intentions are destructive.

On the other, we have a mostly silent populace. 

Time for that to end.

National Review and the Elitist Class...GRRR...

So who's really on YOUR side?


Link to National Review Article saying, "Die, Middle Class, Die!"

Link to Breitbart's Article re: National Review article


If you ever wondered "Whose side we're on," National Review's article provides the answer.  The problem with this article is that it is, like all politically motivated articles, aimed at protecting a group of people who definitely don't need protection. It's a sort of "in reverse" effort, but the real power in some branches of the conservative movement comes from the export of jobs and technology outside of the US.  It's almost as if the entire movement had conspired to desert the people who brought us out of WWII, who gave us great electric utilities, water utilities, and the like, and to say, "Well, you helped us out. Now go away. It's time for you to die." Unfortunately, this is true of elitests of all stripes. Conservative or liberal, they use the "multitudes" until they are through with them, and then want them to go away, so that the elites can go on and have their nice life.
This is just as true of the elitist liberals, and if you read between the lines, every "race war," every court appointment, every move is about just one thing: consolidation of power. If the conservatives are "out," they seek power. If they are "in," they seek to consolidate power.
If the liberals are "out," they seek power. If they are in, they seek to consolidate power. Perhaps the greatest fear either group has is that someone might arise who can't be bought, and the people might vote for him or her.
Don't look for that person any time soon. We are left voting for "the lesser of two evils" as we see them.
In these times, it's wise to remember several Bible verses:
1. "My Kingdom" (said Jesus) "is not of this world." If you want someone who actually cares for you, whoever you are, He's just about IT. Nobody else.
2. "The devil took [Jesus] up to a high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time;" (and then the devil said to Jesus), " Worship me, and all this will be yours; for this is delivered to me..."
If you want to know who's really behind the current political situation in ANY country, look at Luke 4:5-7.
3. If you want to know if "your" political candidate is on your side, refer to the above passage. Being able to understand the likelihood of altruism in political candidates is essential to the process of deciding who you'll vote for.
4. Should you even bother to vote? Yes.  Christians have a grave responsibility, to vote for people who most truly represent the things in which they believe. However, you should not be so foolish as to believe that these people actually care. What they care about is the power.
5. There's almost always some human agency, or agencies, "behind the throne." In the case of liberal politicians, it's often someone like George Soros, who acts in HIS OWN BEST INTEREST; he supports politicians because they will do what he pays them to do. In the case of conservative politicians, there are often multiple "benefactors," but they all resolve into an elitist group of wealthy people who want to protect their income and status.  That's why tax laws are written the way they are. In short, please don't fall for the idea that someone will "help you." He/she will help themselves. If you benefit as well, that's nice. Otherwise, too bad.

This is why I believe Christians should be exceedingly careful about political endorsements, whoever it is they endorse--whether black ministers endorsing the current president, or white pastors endorsing one of the conservative candidates.

It sounds pretty dismal, doesn't it?  But it's not.  One day, all heaven will sing. "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Messiah."

It's for that day that we wait.

The GOP wants to "Dump Trump;" Why?

GOP and Tech CEO's meet to Stop Donald Trump

Interesting goings on; now why would they do this? (see the link above) Simple answer: Mr. Trump will change the way they do business. The CEO's of the various tech companies are petrified that Mr. Trump will force them to behave as proper corporate citizens; they see evaporating profits because of changes in the laws if he's elected, and they really don't like it. the GOP establishment, which has argued for "free trade" all these years, is terrified, too, since to them "free trade" has meant exporting American jobs via American companies so that we could all work at WalMart. Mr. Trump will be bad, very bad for the establishment, but possibly very good for the middle and lower classes, who, I think, would rather have actually good jobs than work at KFC for a "better minimum wage."

Now this is just my opinion, but when the wealthy vote no, it might be wise to look at why they are doing it. Today, we have one of the lowest employment participation rates since the '50's, one of the highest unemployment rates we've ever had (22.5% or so, if you look at ACTUAL unemployment), and the GOP and DEM establishments want to convince us that "more of the same" is good for us. In reality, it's only good for THEM.

Money...or the REAL reason people hate Donald Trump...Especially Mitt Romney

I have often maintained that if you want to find the "why" of something, you need to look beneath what people say, to their motivations, because these are often the real reasons for their words and actions, as opposed to what they are saying.
In politics, motivation is relatively easy to discover, and I'll talk about that in a moment.
But in the first place, please don't think that this is really an argument for or against a particular political candidate. I'm going to discuss him (Mr. Trump), though, because he represents a sea change in the way the US acts.  You will certainly decide what you plan to do by the first part of November, if he's a nominee. Please vote your conscience. Always.
In the first place, let me talk briefly about Mitt Romney.  I voted for him in the last election, because I didn't like the other choice.  I believed, and history seems to bear me out, that Mr. Obama was not good for the country--not good for citizens' rights, not good for minorities, not good for our nation's business, not good for the military. So I voted for the "less worst thing"--Mr. Romney. I've grown accustomed to voting for what I believe is the lesser of two evils, because the candidates have really not been much different, however they represented themselves, and whatever their press releases said.

However with Mr. Trump (and Mr. Sanders, on the other side of the aisle), there's a huge change coming.

Mr. Trump is avowedly a nationalist.  In other words, he plans to act in the best interests of the citizens of the US (assuming this is not just campaign rhetoric). Which would be us.  You and me. This really is a first in a long time.

For generations, elections have been bought and sold with lies and bribes. I know this because of multiple sets of facts, but let's use Obamacare as an example.  I'm not as much against it as some of the people I know, but imagine a system in which insurers are guaranteed money, in which the pharmaceutical companies can charge what they please, and in which the American taxpayer is required to purchase insurance to pay them. That's Obamacare in a nutshell. There are cost savings, and people can have insurance without reference to their pre-existing conditions, but Obamacare is a system almost wholly made up for the benefit of the people who put in the money to get it passed. Any benefits we get are side benefits.  If you doubt my words, look at what happened to insurance company stocks, and pharmaceutical stocks, once it was passed.

This leads me to a conclusion.  We will be lied to by the politicians.  Most of them, maybe all of them. Mr Sanders is complicit in this, as is Mrs. Clinton.  Mr. Sanders because he promises a minimum wage, which is set up to make low paying jobs well paying, and Mrs. Clinton because she is really a creature of the people who pay her, Goldman Sachs being a good example. The Republican candidates are almost all the same.

If you put them all, Republican and Democrat, in a huge basket, and bread them and fry them, you wouldn't be able to taste the difference.  They are virtually the same, despite what you hear.
We will be lied to because we don't bother to follow the money, since money is the chief requirement to get elected in these days.  The various pundits also seek money, and they want to be "in on the party," so they help elect people they like--or at least dislike less.

So what happens if we follow the money, in say, Mitt Romney's diatribe against Donald Trump?
Very simply, Romney is a creature of the stock market, and of his former company, Bain Capital. What Bain Capital did was to purchase and sell off companies that it deemed "unprofitable;" the jobs in those companies often disappeared, because one of the ways you make a company "more efficient" is to "outsource" your workers (i. e., you have your stuff made in other countries).

Mr. Trump is very much against (at least in his campaign words) against the very things that made Bain Capital and Mr. Romney rich, and indeed made all the moneymakers on Wall Street wealthy beyond their dreams.

Mr. Trump is FOR U. S. citizens getting jobs from American companies. He's FOR removing, if not reducing, the incredible impact of foreign workers on jobs here in the US.

This, whatever else it is, will be a giant shock to the system.  "Bring jobs back here? NO WAY!!! Make companies actually pay a living wage to their workers, HERE, rather than outsourcing everything from sweatpants to cell phones? NEVER!" That's what all the stock market folks are screaming, giving money hand over fist to whoever else they can find to keep the status quo going.

I am old enough to have seen the slow erosion of virtually all the moneymaking jobs in this country, except for finance, technology development, energy production, medicine, and government. The companies, by the way, who've been at the forefront of this are just about all against Mr. Trump, if not vocally, at least quietly, and they are donating money like crazy to whomever they think can challenge him.

The thing that terrifies them all is that this person, who has made his money locally (yes, I know he or his contractors employed foreign workers, but real estate is by definition local), actually HAS THE MONEY to fight them. And he's doing it.

So my point is this.  We need people, whomever they may be, who are willing to tell the truth in politics--the truth being that it is NOT good to invite people from another country into our country when we don't know who they are; The truth being that we need good jobs here for US citizens, and no amount of welfare, unemployment insurance, or fast food jobs that pay $15 an hour will replace the good jobs lost to outsourcing. After all, who pays for welfare? YOU DO.  Wouldn't it be better for the country to restore the jobs that we lost over the decades with good new jobs, and a nationalist policy that puts us first in trade negotiations, etc. than to have a host of fast food or retail jobs paying $15 an hour?

When I was a little guy, my parents bought and paid for two homes on my Dad's salary alone. They owned cars. They provided food. We had lobster sometimes (San Diego had a clean ocean then!), and we always had fresh fruit and vegetables. All this on ONE paycheck until I was about 15, when Mom went to work in real estate.  This was the real world back then. The country made its own stuff. We decided who would come into our country.

Please don't tell me it can't be like this again. That's been the mantra for decades, that we "needed to enter the global economy," that we needed to "once again become a nation of immigrants," that we were "going to enter times of change," that America would be OK, and that people would "find new jobs."

Sorry. It was all a smokescreen, beginning about 1964, and it was almost all lies.  The same people who told you, "We have to have less expensive foreign products" laughed at us as they cashed their ever-larger paychecks, and got us all to vote for people who systematically destroyed our way of life. And I'm NOT just talking about one political party or the other.  It was, unfortunately everybody. That's the sad part.
Perhaps saddest of all, though, with the political guarantees that they have of free speech, is that the various news organizations did not have the courage to stand up against the lying bribery, and to say, "enough!" In fact, with the rise of the internet, and the availability of information, they all railed against anyone who challenged their hegemony, and called them "Bloggers...not real reporters," and the like--but if you followed the money, you'd find the same thing to be true of them as of the politicians. They were not after truth.  They wanted the same "in" as the moneymen had. Truth was not just secondary. They created an untrue "reality" in the service of money.

How do we fix this?  Is it Donald Trump? I really don't know.  I DO know that if we maintain the course we've been on, we'll be a third world country much sooner than we realize. Mr. Trump, for all his faults, represents a genuine change in the way America does business. This, at least, commends him to me. Not one of the other candidates really proposes to do that. Even Mr. Sanders proposes "more of the same," meaning, "tax more people so that folks can get a free lunch;" (I'm for a free education, by the way, but an education that really means something, not an education that focuses on useless information. I'm for reasonably priced medical care, which is something we still don't have now, after years of Obamacare). I'm for a lot of things that probably won't happen for a while--but we have a chance.

What I want is that very elusive person: an HONEST politician--someone who works on behalf of his own constituents, and who has the commonsense to see that what we need to do is institute change that will give our country back to us.

Vote for whomever you think is most likely to do that, and you will give yourself and your children a shot at the future. 

Here I go again...Chiropractors!

I still remember my daughter calling chiropractors "ChiroQuacktors." She had evidently heard that nonsense from someone.

I only wish I had started sooner with a good chiropractic Doc. All the ones I've seen have been competent. They've all helped me.  They are not good for everything, but in general, they have knowledge far beyond their basic training, and that knowledge includes nutrition, posture, all the joints (not just the back--one of my chiropractors healed my shoulder with manipulation), and lots of other "stuff."
Most chiropractors today work on a per-appointment basis (in my view, and after ONE negative experience, it's not good to pay for a series of treatments up front), and my medical insurance sees enough benefit in chiropractic to include it in their plan for me.
One thing about chiropractors--they actually are interested in their patients (at least the ones I've seen are); My chiro spends as much time as necessary to 'fix' me when I go. So...if you haven't tried chiropractic, and if you hurt (but not if you have osteoporosis), you might find the same thing I have. Here's an article on Chiropractic that you might enjoy:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/02/28/wellness-chiropractic.aspx