The Boy Who Cried "Wolf!"

Over 2000 years ago, Aesop wrote a fable about a boy, who tasked with guarding some sheep, continually alarmed the citizens by crying "wolf!" when there was no wolf. After a time of this falsity, the townspeople came to disregard the boy's cries. Then the wolf really did come, nobody believed it, and the wolf ate the sheep.

Most of us heard some version of this when growing up. It is pertinent now because much the same is occurring with our media.

The First Amendment protects freedom of the press because it was believed, correctly, at the time that a free and independent press was necessary to help guard our freedoms from those in government who would infringe upon them.

Ever since Donald Trump got the Republican nomination, the mainstream media has done everything it could to discredit and destroy him.

They have exaggerated, lied, invented stories, and falsely reported other stories. There has been a constant drumbeat of this from the entire spectrum of the media. If anything could be reported that would harm Trump or his supporters it has been done.

They even invented the term "fake news" to discredit sites which favored Trump. This apparently has backfired to some extent.

One can expect this to continue as long as Trump is President..

The Federalist recently ran a story about "16 Fake News Stories Reporter Have Run Since Trump Was Elected." This story only touches upon the tip of the iceberg.

Over the years, the media has remained free, but not independent. It is almost entirely owned or controlled by left wing establishment elites who almost exclusively support the Democratic Party. The result has been a lot of fake news, and failure to cover news that might be favorable to Trump.

The people are no longer fooled. A poll by Emerson College recently found that 49% of those polled viewed Trump as truthful, while 53% find the media untruthful. Last September, the Gallup Organization reported: "Americans' Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low." The poll found that only 32% of Americans trust the media "to report the news fully, accurately and fairly." This was the lowest in Gallup's history, and probably explains why the media effort to defeat Trump failed.

The knowledge of the corrupt media by the public leaves us in much the same quandary as the townspeople in Aesop's Fable. There is no longer any trust.

So who is going to help guard our freedoms now?

Donald Trump was elected while violating all of the old political rules in terms of tactics and strategy. He came out of the blue with a message that resonated with a lot of people in the great center (politically and geographically) of the country and won the Electoral Vote, though not the popular vote.

Many of his proposed policies are controversial

In addition, Trump may be a successful businessman, but he has absolutely no experience in governing. Running a government is far different that running a business. It is as much about leading as demanding, and Mr. Trump is unproven to say the least.

He will certainly make mistakes.

Unfortunately, there is nobody believable to call him on it. The Democrats, of course, are rabidly partisan. And with the constant crying of "wolf" by the media, there is no one left to guard the sheep.

The Mad, Lame, Duck

About ten years ago, Barack Hussein Obama was looking like a candidate for the Democratic Party's nomination for president. For those who were interested, there was a wealth of information available about him, if one were to look carefully.

His hometown newspaper ran a series on him in 2007 which were very revealing, yet kept the data of his prior years concealed, as Obama had continually fought to do ever since.

We have not seen his real birth certificate, though he released a fake one. We know very little about his schooling since he has religiously kept those records secret as well

There was, however, plenty of information available to anyone who really looked that told enough about him to raise grave questions about his suitability. Most of what he did as president could have been predicted. For reference, see the series in the Chicago Tribune here. Unlike in 2007, most of it is now behind a paywall, but it is there.

In addition, there were his books, rumored to have been ghostwritten by Weather Underground's Bill Ayers. What was there has been pretty predictive as well.

Then there was his membership in the church of Black liberation preacher and America hater Jeremiah Wright. Any person that heard or saw Wright's "God Damn America" sermon should have seen what Obama was part of, and where he would go.

Most voters didn't read about him, or did not care, so we ended up with him as our president for eight years.

Now, looking back on those eight years, we can see how his past has predicted his presidency. He was born to a black Muslim communist African from Kenya and a white mother who was the daughter and granddaughter of communists. He spent his early years in Indonesia with his mother and an Indonesian Muslim named Soetero. He attended Muslim schools where he prayed to Allah four times a day. Approaching his teens, he went back to Hawaii to be cared for by his communist grandparents, and be mentored by a known communist. He went to college first in California, then to Columbia and on to Harvard Law School. Records from those years have been scrupulously hidden.

His presidency has been about a fundamental transformation of America, and he has pulled out all of the stops to get it done.

The America we have all known and loved had learned through long years that a strong America was necessary to peace. Obama apologized to the world for the strong America, and set out to make it weak. And he has succeeded. He has turned our military into a hollow shell, and has them engaging in social experimentation to the detriment of readiness.

He has offended our friends, and bowed and apologized to our enemies.

He left a political and military vacuum when his red line in Syria meant nothing, and paved the way for Russian and Iran to fill the vacuum.

He has enabled Iran to get nuclear weapons, and provided them the money to finance that, and terrorism, around the world. He has allowed Iran to become a regional power and a formidable enemy.

Essentially, he is leaving the United States a much weaker nation than it was when he took office. There cn be no argument that this was deliberate.

Since the election of Donald Trump, Obama has engaged in multiple acts to try to make certain that American remains weakened.

Probably the worst thing he has done is stab America's friend Israel in the back. For decades, the United States had a commitment to veto UN resolutions affecting Israel. Jimmy Carter made a commitment as part of the Oslo Accords that Israel relied upon in making concessions to the Palestinians. Every president since has honored that until December, when Obama not only failed to veto the resolution that made Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem "occupied" (and therefore Palestinian) territory, his administration actually orchestrated it all.

The worst part is there will likely be more to come. There is strong evidence that another resolution will be rushed through before Trump takes office that would recognize the Palestinian state and give them a seat in the UN.

This is shameful to the extreme. It is also something that one would expect from a man that was raised a Muslim, who in his book said he would side with the Muslims, and who was mentored by communists.

Anybody who wanted to do the research could have seen all of this coming. What will his last fifteen days reveal? We will see him continue to do as much damage as he can.

The Trump Phenomenon------Falling Into the Trap

After he had lost a lot of momentum after the conventions by taking on the Khans and other errors, Trump got things back together. He did very well most of August and into September, gaining momentum back and even edging past Hillary Clinton in a number of the polls.

The came the debate. It was watched by around 90 million Americans. It was Trump's opportunity to really put Hillary away.

Of course, everyone knew the debate was going to be set up for Hillary, and Trump should have known it as well, and prepared for it. Instead, he was an amateur and did not do the hours of preparation necessary.

The moderator, of course, did not ask Trump important questions. Instead Trump was asked about completely inconsequential things like birtherism and tax returns. Trumps answers were off the cuff and unprepared....just as one might expect from an amateur. There was no effort to turn the questions back on the moderator as he probably should have done.

On the other side, Hillary was asked softball questions that allowed her to give canned responses consisting of the age old Democratic gobbledygook that they have been saying for decades without there ever having been any positive change. Trump was unable to really inject himself into that side of the debate.

This gave the advantage to Hillary, and she ran with it. She clearly was the "winner" of the debate.

The most important part of the debate from her standpoint was that she was able to lay a trap for Trump by asking him about "Miss Piggy." Trump fell for it. This move got Hillary inside Trump's OODA Loop just like he got inside the loops of so many of his Republican opponents in the primaries

Not only did he fall into the trap, like with the Khans, he kept doubling down on the issue instead of moving on. It became the "news" on the mainstream media for a week or more.

Trump lost all of the momentum and gains he had made. He is now back to the post convention situation with a lost lead and lost momentum......and just a bit over a month to go.

There are two more debates. Trump has to take them seriously and prepare while still getting out and campaigning. He also needs to get off Twitter. It only makes him appear to be not serious.

Can he do it? Maybe. There will be a lot more attacks on him from all directions. Will his ego and nature allow him to respond properly, or will he over do the response?

He is doing a lot of advertising into the election as he should. Most of the ads seem effective, but will be only if they are well placed and reach enough undecided voters.

This is an election between two very flawed candidates, one a rank amateur in politics and the other an experienced, hardened politician with a very shady, perhaps even criminal, background.

Who will win?

It is pretty easy to see who will lose.

The Trump Phenomenon.......Reality Strikes

As noted before, Donald J. Trump achieved the Republican nomination for President while breaking almost all of the rules for politicians that have been developed over history.

Having done so, he failed to recognize that once he was nominated, the strategy and tactics used during the primaries would no longer work. Once he got in the big arena, the mainstream media put him in their sights, and proceeded to parse every word he said and use them to beat him up.

And he provided them plenty of ammunition in the first weeks. It cost him a month in which the media and the Democrat they serve did their best to brand him however they wanted. In those weeks, his poll numbers fell accordingly. No surprise there.

In August, he has seemed to get things under better control, and he has stopped making the undisciplined statement and tweets that we saw during the primaries. This appears to have helped with the poll numbers.

To have a chance of winning the election, he is going to have to get the branding the media and his opponent have done to him reversed. This is difficult to do now. One cannot do it with rallies, however well attended. There he is preaching to the choir.

To reach the biggest part of the electorate, he is going to have to do it with media. During the primaries, he got free media from everyone. Now, only Fox and a few others report on him positively. The rest of the media, best described as Democrat operatives with bylines will only report him in a very negative way.

That means he will have to buy advertising, and therefore do a lot of fundraising. He has taken some pride in self funding much of his campaign so far, though he has been raising money since the nomination.

He will need to do much more in order to buy the advertising he will need.

Perhaps his biggest issue from the beginning has been illegal immigration. During the primaries, he was able to get by with generalizations. We are going to deport all illegals is very easy to say, and appealing to many, but again ugly reality raises its head.

Trying to deport 12 million illegals immediately is just impossible to do. Even if that is what is wanted, the resources to do so do not exist, nor will they. We have a system of laws in place that deal with the procedures for doing so, and although they are not being used by the current administration they would have to be followed by a Trump administration. The hope that the laws could be changed to facilitate mass deportation is not justified because Democrats would filibuster it in the Senate even if Republicans would pass it.

Trump appears to have realized that, and is modifying the policy a bit. We do not know how much change there would be, but he has said that he would follow the law. That is at least something that Democrats have failed to do for many years.

Some Trump supporter will be critical of any change, but my view is that the change is necessary and proper. Of course, many of those critics are people who would drive the bus over the cliff to stand for "principle." A good leader would not do that.

Trump is meeting today with Enrique Pena Nieto, the President of Mexico, in what is a very interesting development. That will be followed shortly with what is billed as a speech giving details about his immigration policy going forward. These things could very well make or break his candidacy.

Whatever he says and does today, Trump must face the reality that in order to get his ideas into the body politic, he cannot rely on the media for free publicity. He has to raise the money and buy ads.

So, we will see how it goes.

The Trump Phenomenon-----The Conversationalist

In my 58 year experience in politics, I have found that one thing that is learned by practicing politicians is to be careful and precise in the language used in a campaign. If one does not, then the candidate leaves oneself open to misconstruction of what is said. And opponents will leap at the opportunity.

The prior two posts talk about how Donald Trump has broken all of the rules of politics, and yet he has emerged as the nominee of the Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. Given the circumstances, that is an amazing feat for someone who is clearly a novice at retail politics.

Once he secured the nomination, he needed to pivot a bit away from the style of campaign he had been running. During the primaries, the media really gave him a lot of exposure that other Republican candidates didn't get. The reason, of course, is that the media is almost entirely Democratic, and they viewed Trump as the easiest for their candidate to beat.

Prior to the nomination, Trump's approach to the campaign was more conversational than a prepared group of talking points. When he spoke, it was right off the top of his head. He talked more like he was having a conversation at a cocktail party (after a couple of hours of drinking). His statements were broad and imprecise. He got away with it because the press let him.

Trump's big mistake has been not realizing that the minute he got the nomination, the press would turn on him with great vigor. He should have seen it coming, but he clearly did not.

Instead of turning his attention toward Hillary and Obama, the morning after he attacked Ted Cruz. Then he gets involved with criticizing the Khans.

He has not seen yet that he must have some discipline over his mouth or let the media destroy him. They will happily do so, and are proceeding with that as I write.

Every undisciplined thing he says will be parsed, misconstrued, and misquoted by almost every media outlet in the world.

Get smart, Mr. Trump. Put a governor on your mouth. Get on message and stay there. Let petty stuff go. You are on the big stage now. Act like it, or you will make Hillary Clinton the next President of the United States.