How to deal with Trump’s lies

Donald Trump and his cohorts have found two ways to exploit the media, and made outrageous claims that won’t stand fact-checking.

First, the U.S. media is trained to avoid taking sides. Calling Trump a liar is considered taking sides.

Two, the media let the nation down by acquiescing to Bush’s phony election victory. Therefore, as Trump knows, the public does not believe the media will do the right thing, if it means breaking their rule of objectivity.

Pundits scratch their heads from CNN to MSNBC to the New York Times.

What to do about his making claims that are demonstrably not true.

Journalists must start by recognizing that the people are not all stupid, and they can tell that much of what Trump says it not true.

It is aimed for his base, and they would believe him if he claimed he saw Japanese Americans celebrating when Pearl Harbor was bombed.

This group cannot be dissuaded from supporting him.

Therefore, the concern must be about how the media looks when they constantly denigrate Trump, even if facts support them.

Take a cue from Humphrey Bogart’s “Rick” in “Casablanca.”

Don’t say Trump is lying. After all, he may believe what he is saying.

As Bogart told Major Strasser, when asked why he had come to come to a desert for water, “I was misinformed.”

Just state that Trump is misinformed. And perhaps reconsider how much airtime you give him for silly statements.

It will come back to haunt you.

The Republican establishment may be able to block Trump’s ascendancy.

In which case there could an independent Trump/Palin ticket.

This pair might focus their entire campaign on the terror threat from ISIS.

There is no guarantee the terrorists will still have the entire world terrified a year from now.

Syrian internment camps needed in U.S.

Time after time ISIS has surprised us. Sometimes, a la Hitler’s “Mein Kamp,” they have warned us what they are going to do.

Now they say they are infiltrating followers into the millions of refugees fleeing Syria and Iraq.

We will have blood on our own hands if we do not respond to these threats.

America is going to admit many Syrian refugees. It is our tradition.

But they should go in the same kind of internment camps we used in World War II. They must be well-treated, and taught English and our history. Call them refugee camps as they do in Europe.
Receiving thousands of non-English speakers is not like meeting a few hundred or even thousand foreign exchange students at the airport.

In addition, when they leave the camps they must be watched. Installing ankle bracelets would be a star.

We need to listen in their mosques.

And we need to return to widespread spying on all our communications.

It is only meta data, used when needed. No one will recording what we tell our spouses over cell phones when they are at Costco.

Ben Franklin’s admonition about the evils of security risking our liberty aside, Franklin did not leave in an era of social media, automatic rifles and C4.
Wesley Clark, the retired NATO commander,  has already suggested putting radicalized Muslim Americans into camps.

In fighting them, we must realize war has evolved. In this Fourth Generation the most important thing to do is win the war of morality.

If troops are sent in they must be prepared to endure higher risks instead of killing everything that moves.

We must seek to find out what is driving these people. ISIS would not have had such ease recruiting young people if economies had been so bad.

Corrupt state govenrments are responsible for much of this. But regime change needs to be limited to those at the top.

There must remain a government that can run a country so our troops do not have to do it. We will be hated the more we do, even if it is meant to help.

Are Paris attacks act of desperation?

Only time will tell, but Republican exaggerations of the prowess of ISIS aside, killing 100 people at a rock concert is not necessarily an expansion of their power.

The Obama Administration and other countries claim they are shrinking the size of the caliphate. The U.S. president meant with Russia's Vladimir Putin over the weekend, suggesting the two countries' relations are warming because of the threat the mostly Sunni Muslim group poses.

This is not the first time a country has dealt with terror attacks in urban areas, particularly France. The Algerian War was a training manual for Paris.

There are things that can be done, though annoying. Forcing people to run their bags through security check points only adds a few minutes to the daily shopping.

Though not impossible, even without much additional security it would be much harder for ISIS to attack a rock concert in the U.S.

Apparently, the GOP doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “contained.” Obama’s message that ISIS was contained meant they have been stopped from coming here in any major way.

Contained means they do exist somewhere.

The organization is relying increasingly on outliers. This a major step back from being able to move around Iraq and Syria at will on Humvees that the West had given client states.

They rely on communications that are routinely read by Western and Russian intelligence. Forced to plan attacks without consulting with the leadership limits their effectiveness.

At the same time, when they brag of their exploits they reveal what they are planning.

These are not revolutionaries capable of taking power. Concentrating their forces makes them drone targets.

Even before the latest attacks Obama’s war planners had said they would destroy operational oil fields funding ISIS operations. Although attacks that destroyed hospitals suggest Western jets do not draw any lines, they can simply ignore all rules of engagements and destroy any village thought to support or be used by ISIS, killing even their goats.

The U.S. was launching more air strikes while ISIS was killing civilians in Paris. Washington claimed to have killed the leader of ISIS in Libya. Can ISIS provide a list of the people they kill. Of course they do not have to because the media does it for them.
Is Obama likely to relax security on ISIS -- not likely. With their numbers of mindless devotees it is always possible that a few will get through any defenses.
As for the French, in their long history this will be a small note. During the French Revolution the streets were constantly bloody, and the killers were the French themselves. They survived and democracy prospered.

Conservative Koch-backed school board ousted

The school board in a wealthy suburban county west of Denver was recalled Tuesday despite getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in support from the Koch brothers and winning the endorsement of the Denver Post.

Three members who had been able to decide issues on the five-member Jefferson County board were recalled by nearly two thirds of the voters, KUSA TV reported. About 150,000 votes were cast. So much for evangelical brainwashers who want to rewrite not only science but history.

"I believe we sent a crystal clear message tonight to reformers and their supporters (e.g., Americans for Prosperity and the Koch Brothers). The election results we are experiencing in Jefferson County, Douglas County and Thompson all show that our public schools are not for sale! We expect transparency, respect, fiscal responsibility, and most of all, collaboration from our elected officials," said recall organizer Tina Gurdikian.

Charter schools, which have become a favorite of conservatives who want to make religion a part of the curriculum, was a major issue. They are an issue across the country.

Opponents say they take tax money from public schools.

Jefferson County has a virtually equal number of Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliated.

Tuesday’s vote could be another sign that evangelical and far-right conservatives are out of touch with the majority of Americans.

Republican state Sen. Tim Neville, seeking to oust Democrat Michael Bennet from the U.S. Senate, told Al Jazerra:" It's for the control of our future as a country. It is going to be relating to the presidential election.” Al Jazeera

Critics of the three recalled members said they held closed meetings, wasted money, and were focusing too much attention on charter schools and driving good teachers from the county. They also had supported performance-based teacher pay, a favorite of conservatives who oppose unions.

"The citizens of Jefferson County said enough is enough. This is a non-partisan position," said Ali Lasell, who was elected to the new board. "We need to restore respect back in that boardroom. And that's what going to happen," she told ABC Denver.

Opponents of the recall got $500,000 from conservative groups, including Americans for Prosperity, founded by Charles G. and David H. Koch, the New York Times reported.

The Koch group was attempting to organize recalls in other states.

Nothing is dearer to the heart of conservatives than making pro life and same-sex teaching the core of education.

They also seek to incorporate patriotism, minimizing references to social strife and civil disorder. It reached such a level in Jefferson County that thousands of students walked out of classes in last year.

The teacher’s union contributed $15,000 to the $250,000 raised by supporters of the recall.

It became a nasty with death threats on the Internet and pro-recall signs ripped down or vandalized.

“It’s a fight to the death,” Gurdikian had told the Times.

Ballotpedia reported 205 recall efforts since 2006.

Jefferson County is the second-biggest school district in the state with nearly 90,000 students and pupils.

Jeffco School Board Watch issued the following statement:

"Tonight, after two years of Ken Witt, John Newkirk, and Julie Williams obviously answering to outside financiers and ideology, rather than to the real needs of a majority of Jeffco residents, Jeffco voters rejected an advertising onslaught and decided to oust the three of them in a statement heard loud and clear throughout our country.

Although the statement was loud and resonated across the nation, the most important outcomes will be heard in the more hushed tones of classrooms from Westminster to Littleton and from Wheat Ridge to Evergreen, where teachers may once again feel valued and respected, and the students are freed from extremist political agendas.

Beating back a wildly unprecedented $1 million-plus in advertising to prop up the failing WNW, Jeffco voters made a major statement about their independence and the power of real grassroots. Jeffco voters decided that they’d rather do the hard work of struggling through their own differences, rather than be guided by the bankrolled fantasia of strangers and outsiders.

Thousands of parents banded together with students, and yes, teachers, to remove these three from their seats. The narrative that this was all run and manufactured by the teachers’ union was obviously false to anyone that was paying any attention. In the end, the truth won out. Yes, the teachers’ union supported the recall, but that’s an easy call when the actions of the elected officials regularly evoke disdain for the governed. Teachers had been working on pay for performance already in 2013, and had collaboratively taken pay freezes and pay cuts. They are not the monsters that the advertising campaign conjured up, and the majority of voters saw through that false narrative.

There is hard work to do now for our new board. There is a fractured community to unite, and to show that a range of interests and ideas really can be represented through excellent governance, and truly putting kids first.


We have high hopes."

Gun killings stretch thin media weekend staffs

                                                     Image of Noah Harpham from Heavy.com

At least two weekend shootings stretched thin the staffs of media outlets.
A witness told the Colorado Springs Gazette the first incident, which claimed three lives and resulted in police killing the shooter, looked like “it was a Halloween prank."
Witness Teresa Willingham said she and her 7-year-old son saw the shooter murder a bicyclist.
The Gazette said witnesses said the bicyclist begged unsuccessfully for his life.

Colorado Springs Gazette

The shooter, later identified as 33-year-old Noah Harpham, was seen walking into and out of a house with a rifle, pistol and a gasoline can before the shooting spree began. He had started a fire.
He then shot two women, reportedly on their front porch the killings apparently were random.
A news release Monday from Colorado Springs police said: "The El Paso County Coroner’s Office completed the autopsies on the three victims from Saturday’s incident.  The first victim is identified as 35 year old Andrew Alan Myers of Colorado Springs.  Mr. Myers’ cause of death was from a gunshot wound and his manner of death has been ruled a homicide. Mr. Myers is the male who was on a bicycle in the 200 block of North Prospect Street. 

The two victims who were located in the 500 block of East Platte Avenue have been identified as 42 year old Jennifer Michelle Vasquez and 34 year old Christina Rose Baccus-Gallela.  Both of these victims are from Colorado Springs.  The cause of death for both of these victims is from a gunshot wound.  The manner of death has been ruled a homicide."
It was later revealed that Myers had survived three Army tours of Iraq.

 The Gazette, which had earlier identified Harmpham, also reported he had written rambling blogs about religion and his family, as well as fighting addiction.
https://www.facebook.com/updatemind/?fref=nf
Westword of Denver said there may have been a connection to a Satanic cult.
Meantime, CBS and others reported police had identified a man who killed one person and wounded a second at Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina. The man, Jarrett Jerome Moore, was arrested Monday on separate charges.
Despite the fact that more than 12 million Americans have permits to carry concealed weapons once again no one intervened in the latest shootings.



Colorado Springs is a center for evangelical Christians and home to thousands of Army and Air Force servicemen and servicewoman has one of the highest rates of gun ownership. But despite the fact that the shooter was attacking people at a busy intersection near downtown around 9 a.m. he was only stopped when police arrived and killed him in a shootout.
It is often argued by the NRA and gun rights’ proponents that shooters are drawn to so-called gun free zones, such as schools.
Nine people were shot dead at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., earlier this month
without any intervention although there were a number of students present carrying concealed weapons. One student said he heard the shooting but feared that if he tried to intervene police might mistake him for the gunman, who killed himself when police arrived.
A headline on the Daily Tar Heel of March 18 said a new law allowing the carrying of permitted concealed weapons on North Carolina campuses would curb assaults.

Daily Tar Heel.

Although politicians like Donald Trump have argued that arming the population would stop massacres the facts show otherwise.
There are several reasons no vigilante has stopped a massacre, and in one case such an individual was shot dead because he did not realize he was contending with two attackers.
There have been reports that armed civilians have shot killers as they were fleeing.
Some off-duty police officers or other trained individuals have successfully intervened.
In most massacres the attackers plan their assaults so that by the time police have arrived they will have killed many people. They also sometimes have carried automatic weapons, and in general have more powerful weapons than someone with a concealed carry permit could possess.

Colorado Springs Gazette

Heavy.com Five Facts You Need to Know About the Alleged Killer