Author: Charles M. Jones, PE, CPA

It has been most interesting over the past week to try and get above the “trees” where it seems the attention of everybody in the media is focused since President Trump’s firing of FBI Director Comey and look at the “forest” in which those “trees” are growing — i.e., look for the bigger picture, the broader perspective. I think the effort has paid off, and in this post I’ll share some of that payoff.

Ignoring all the “spin” in the mostly liberal-leaning media coverage, it seems to me that the only questions that matter about the Comey firing are the following:

1. 1. Did Trump have the authority to fire Comey?
   2. Did Comey deserve to be fired [moot if the answer to question 1 is “Yes”]?
   3. Ignoring all speculation, are there any known, provable facts that would indicate that Comey’s firing was motivated by anything other than honorable intentions — e.g., to ensure that the FBI’s reputation gets out from under the “cloud” that Comey has created, to ensure that key principals in the current administration are the best people to have in their roles, etc?

Let’s briefly consider each of these questions.  On question 1, I don’t think I’ve heard a single person, even among Democrats, say that the President does not have the authority to fire the FBI Director [for any reason, whether with specified justifying rationale or not].

Although the “Yes” answer to question 1 makes question 2 moot, I’ll point out some things that I believe make the obvious answer to it “Yes” as well. I’m hearing almost nobody arguing that Comey did not deserve to be fired, and I certainly count myself among those that don’t think that’s an issue. All of the arguments regarding appropriateness are focused on the timing — i.e., why now? why not as soon as Mr. Trump was inaugurated? And, even those arguments relate to how the decision was made and how it was communicated — i.e., who communicated what about it, and when, and do all the statements from the Administration, including Mr. Trump’s, line up with each other?

For anybody interested in the details of Comey’s actions that strongly support the president’s decision to fire him, I’d suggest watching a video clip of the 7/5/16 announcement he made regarding the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server issue [click this link for a list of at least seven offenses Comey cited in that announcement: Comey – List of HRC Offenses]. … For the video itself, click this link: Comey – Video]. Many legal experts have since indicated that these seven and possibly other offenses cited in that announcement were law violations that would have resulted in indictments against any other public official.

So it comes down to question 3. … The only reasoning people behind all the commotion posit for their outrage is their suspicion about whether the action was part of a “cover-up” of the investigation into whether there was Russian collusion with the Trump campaign and whether any such collusion, if it existed, directly affected the outcome of the election. I would be among the first to say that an investigation into that issue [potential meddling by the Russians or anybody else into American elections] is needed if initial evidence-gathering suggests more than just “potential” meddling. However, it should be clear to anybody looking at all this objectively that this whole matter is being driven by the Democrats who still can’t accept the fact that they lost the election not because a boogeyman stole it, but because 1) their candidate was not the “least despicable of them all” [see my post Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall ,..] and 2) their campaign message and operational strategy were not as effective as Trump’s. If they hadn’t zeroed in on the story that Hillary Clinton’s loss was because the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians to undermine her credibility, they would have found some other boogeyman to blame and the media would be abuzz with that storyline today.

So Does This Really Compare With Watergate?

The short answer is “No, not by a long shot”. As usual on every hint of any issue that can continue to drive the Russian conspiracy narrative, the “all from the same script” unanimous cry from the Democrats is that this is “Watergate”, and it’s now clear that a special prosecutor must be appointed to get to the bottom of this “cover-up”. Some RINOs [establishment Republicans, or Republicans with an axe to grind, like those who were never pro-Trump from the get-go and are now only “non-resistant”, not actually “supportive” — or those who may be looking toward a run for the presidency themselves] are also throwing their hats into this ring [tepidly, to avoid showing outright support of that narrative].

Let’s back away and consider this comparison to Watergate objectively.

First, a special prosecutor was not appointed in the Watergate matter until AFTER: a) former Nixon aides G. Gordon Liddy and James W. McCord Jr. had been convicted of conspiracy, burglary and wiretapping in the Watergate break-in incident; b) five other men had pled guilty to charges stemming from the break-in; c) Nixon’s top White House staffers, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, and Attorney General Richard Kleindienst had resigned over the scandal; and d) White House counsel John Dean had been fired. These events occurred over a period of about four months in 1973. It has been six months since the 2016 election, and even now, the level of “smoke” generated by the current Russian interference / Trump campaign collusion investigation is nowhere near that level — even at this stage, not one actual piece of hard evidence has pointed to any “fire” [this is coming even from the mouths of Obama appointees like former Director of Intelligence James Clapper].

It was fifteen months from the time a special prosecutor [Archibald Cox] was appointed [after all of the above-described convictions] until Nixon resigned. My guess is that Democrats know that if they are successful in getting a special prosecutor / independent counsel appointed, this investigation will probably consume that amount of time and continue to dominate the news. To the extent news coverage tends to wane at times because nothing new is being found [quite likely in my opinion], every little “discrepancy” in communication from different parts of the Administration and every tweet from Trump with even a scintilla of potential for filling in those gaps in consumption of media time can be exploited to the fullest. By then, the 2018 mid-term elections will be in last-few-months thrust mode, and Democrats will be able to continue campaigning on negatives alone, with no overarching directional message. It will be most interesting to see if that strategy works out well for them, or if it backfires.

All The President’s Men

A few nights ago, I was not sleepy at my usual bedtime, and I was channel-surfing for a movie to watch. I noticed All The President’s Men was about halfway through, and remembering it as a very good movie I tuned to it and watched approximately the last half of it [this was the movie about Watergate, starring Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein, the two Washington Post reporters who spearheaded development of that storyline]. One thing stood out to me as I watched it: the tenacity of their boss [Ben Bradlee, played by Jason Robards] in insisting that findings from their research be verified and corroborated before going to press in the next edition. Today, that kind of journalistic integrity is non-existent. Media outlets rush to print or broadcast stories based on the slimmest of source material — “It was reported in Newspaper X that Government Official Y said Z, according to ‘sources close to Y’ ” — and by the end of the day practically every media outlet is dedicating 25% or more of its print space and air time to that “issue”, with speculation from Legislators and panels of experts about whether Y really did say Z, and if so, what that may mean in their opinion.

A classic example of this lack of journalistic integrity consumed entire news broadcasts the evening of May 16. There was a New York Times article that day about Mr. Trump “allegedly” telling then FBI Director Comey to drop the Michael Flynn investigation. This entire story was based on third-hand information from one source about a Comey-written memo [the existence of which is based on this uncorroborated source’s discussion with the reporter] that the source read to the reporter over the phone. Even if the story turns out to be proven 100% true, the rush to go public immediately is a great example of the stark difference in journalistic integrity then [1970s] versus now.

Kudos To Steve Hilton!

Observations of Steve Hilton [former special adviser to former British Prime Minister David Cameron] on the 5/16/17 Special Report broadcast on Fox News provide a great way to close this post [particularly because of his ability to provide an “outsider looking in” perspective]. …

“I just think there’s a pattern emerging here in that President Trump does something or says something that is out of the realm of what a normal professional politician would do. Sometimes it’s serious, sometimes not so. But the reaction all the time is this eruption of pompous bloviating about a constitutional crisis and a threat to democracy. Most of the time I think that’s a misunderstanding. The real story here is likely to be cockup rather than conspiracy. It’s someone who’s not done this before and encountering the complexities of office. And you say, ‘Well that’s the point of having an outsider’. And the real question, I think, is ‘Is it even possible for an outsider to really lead and govern? Or are they going to be so consumed by the complexities of the job, and actually attacked and destroyed by the professional political class that can’t stand the fact that he’s there in the first place that we’re going to be stuck with professional politicians forever after Trump?’ ” … It’s another example, I think, of President Trump being treated differently because he’s an outsider. In my experience working in government, political leaders are indiscreet with each other and with people they shouldn’t be revealing things to all the time. You should hear the way that diplomats and civil servants talk about their political principals. They literally talk about going around with a poop scoop to clear up the messes they make. Not [just] President Trump, but people like Obama, like David Cameron who I worked for, Angela Merkel. This is normal. It happens. They’re human beings. But because it’s President Trump, and because he’s an outsider, the system — to use Lindsey Graham’s term — is just rejecting him. And I think we’ve got to get back some sense of proportion over the things that are really troubling and important, and those are frankly no different than things that go on all the time. … Now if something really nefarious was done by the president in this case, no one, I think, has any doubt that that will be handled appropriately — but no-one has established that yet. So the real point I’d like to leave our viewers with is wouldn’t it be great if we could just focus — to coin a phrase from Charles [Krauthammer’s] book —  on the things that matter — the things that matter to real people’s lives, which is none of this process that goes on in Washington, but it is the issues that [Senate Majority Leader Mitch] McConnell was talking about: tax reform; what are we going to do about healthcare; how are we going to get jobs back and incomes up. That’s what we should be discussing. … The American people put Donald Trump in the White House knowing his flaws. It feels to me very much like something is building among the political elite in the establishment. They want to get him out, and I think it’s going to be very interesting to see how that plays out. I think that is what we’re seeing here.”

Thanks!

Charles M. Jones

I haven’t spent a great deal of time analyzing the details of the American Health Care Act [AHCA] passed by the House of Representatives on May 4. The reason? It is quite unlikely that this version of a healthcare reform plan [aka Repeal and Replace the ACA/”Obamacare”] will make it through the Senate, so I don’t want to spend a lot of time analyzing it until I see what “it” ends up being [i.e., until a compromised version can get passed by both Houses and sent to the President]. I should also point out that it’s probably safe to assume that Mr. Trump will sign into law whatever that compromised version turns out to be, because he will be actively involved in the Senate process and subsequently in the Conference Committee process [as he was in the House process], so House Speaker Ryan and Senate Majority Leader McConnell will know clearly where he stands on the bill throughout those processes. It’s difficult for me to imagine anything that would be more devastating to the Republican party than for the Republican president to veto a bill they managed to squeak through both the House and the Senate [or to allow the time limit to expire and let it become law without his signature].

I said in my 4/25/17 post that the not-yet-produced House-Senate compromise version I am now referring to again will ultimately fail, and I outlined the reasons I believe that is the case [see that post here: Repealing And Replacing The ACA – A Realistic View]. In a nutshell, those reasons boil down to failure so far for our leaders to recognize that success in this endeavor will require that the starting point be determining first what guiding principles can be agreed upon up front before hashing out of the details even begins [for more depth on this, see the full Some Basics First section near the beginning of my 12/13/16 post at this link: A Realistic View Of The ACA – Part 2].

First Things First

In predicting how this will all play out, all one needs to know are these facts [none of which have anything to do with logic about either what is the best way to maximize access to healthcare for more Americans or to strike the best balance between the cost and the quality of care]:

• [1] As depicted very well in the cartoon graphic I chose as the image for this post, some level of healthcare coverage is now viewed as an entitlement. In creating that mindset in a critical mass of the population, the ACA has been a booming success. That alone means that the evolution of any future healthcare delivery and financing system in America will be a political process, not a logical one — i.e., Republicans saying they are being realistic, and Democrats accusing them of taking healthcare coverage away from people [the entitlement angle].
• [2] It will therefore be politics, not honest focus on designing the best healthcare delivery and financing system, that drives the thinking of practically every Legislator during these deliberations. In the end, it may be politics that drives Mr. Trump’s thinking, too, but there is at least a glimmer of a possibility that his nonconformity to tradition will prevail and at least some logic will creep in [I honestly believe he wants what’s best for America].

The reason I’m saying “politics will rule” is simple. … The number of Americans who one popular radio talkshow host calls “low information voters” is several times the average margin of victory in most elections, These are the voters who can most easily be swayed by smear advertising, so whichever party has the most “ammunition” for their smear ads [or is most skillful in using that kind of information, or both] will fare the best in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

• [3] Anything that contains even a hint of characterization as “repeal/replace the ACA” will receive zero Democrat votes. If characterization terminology is more along the lines of “improve the ACA”, some Democrats may vote for it, but that may not matter if gaining their support causes loss of offsetting Republican support [e.g., due to inclusion of Planned Parenthood funding, more liberal language about religious freedom, etc.].
• [4] Regardless of the final form the new law takes [assuming “punt” is not the ultimate outcome], both parties will immediately begin factoring their spin into campaign ads and “video/sound/print bites” in the media — Democrats saying Republicans are yanking good policies from the hands of poor people and shoveling the savings into the pockets of rich people, trampling on “women’s health”, picking on black people, etc.; Republicans claiming they’ve saved America from the Obamacare disaster and put healthcare back into the hands of patients and doctors, protected religious freedom, etc.

So, Going On Record — I Predict …

So regardless of the yet-to-be-worked-out details, I think I already have the information I need to go ahead and lay out all the possible paths that lie ahead:

1. The Senate fails to reach enough consensus [even among Republicans] on a healthcare bill, so the entire effort essentially dies.
2. [A toss-up with #3 as most likely] The Senate passes a bill that differs so substantially from the House bill that a conference committee process reaches an impasse, so the entire effort essentially dies.
3. [A toss-up with #2 as most likely] The Senate passes a bill that differs considerably from the House bill, but a compromise is reached in the Conference Committee and the resulting bill is approved by both the House and the Senate, and it is signed into law by the President [or allowed to become law without his signature].
4. [Highly unlikely] The Senate passes an essentially equivalent bill with minor adjustments that are easily negotiated into a compromise bill that is approved by both the House and the Senate, and it is signed into law by the President [or allowed to become law without his signature].
5. [Extremely unlikely] The Senate approves the House bill as is, and it is signed into law by the President [or allowed to become law without his signature].

If the path that unfolds from here is #1 or #2 [what I referred to above as a “punt”], that will be most interesting to watch — because the ACA will continue to collapse under its own weight, and it’s almost impossible to predict who’ll be blamed for the resulting mess [the Democrats for passing it in the first place, or the Republications for failing to make the necessary “adjustments” to make it absolutely perfect]. I’d bet on the Democrats winning that battle of words for two reasons: 1) they are better at that game than the Republicans; and 2) the overwhelmingly liberally-biased media will always side with them [which yields the equivalent of hundreds of millions of dollars in free air time].

If the path that unfolds from here is #3, #4 or #5, I’m betting that the bill will be something President Trump will sign because he will have been actively involved in the Senate process and subsequently in the Conference Committee process [as he was in the House process], so Republican leadership will know clearly where he stands on the bill throughout those processes — and if they know he’s not with them, that will mean the same thing as knowing that you don’t have the legislative votes to pass it, so there won’t be any option but to “punt” and see if the pieces can be picked up next year or later [and whether or not there will be enough “pieces” to keep them from losing their majorities in the Senate and/or the House in 2018 will depend on how much more visible the ACA’s failure becomes between now and then].

In Closing …

If a path other than one of these begins to develop [very unlikely, I believe], I will take that development into account in future posts on this subject. Whenever one of these paths seems to be clearly developing as the frontrunner, I will spend more time “in the weeds” of that one and offer my thoughts on the future of Healthcare in America under that scenario.

Site Note. I have added an icon at the Repealing And Replacing The ACA page at this site entitled Resources: Content Related To This Page. Clicking on that icon will take you to an index list of links. Clicking on any of those links will take you to the associated item. The first entry in the index is an AHCA Summary that was passed by the House of Representatives on May 4, 2017.

Thanks!

Charles M. Jones

It is mind-boggling to me how already-complicated systems and processes become even more complicated — by orders of magnitude — when government gets involved. The “repeal and replace Obamacare” mantra used to describe the process that is needed to keep “Obamacare”  [the Affordable Care Act, or ACA] from collapsing under its own weight [which it certainly will in its current form] is a classic example.

In December 2016, I posted a four-part series to this blog entitled A Realistic View Of The ACA. In Part 1 of that series [Part 1], I introduced the series and covered the first part, Repeal.  In Part 2 [Part 2], Transition, I focused on a relatively simple transition plan for people currently covered under the ACA, including some of the financial math that would be associated with such a plan. In Part 3 [Part 3], Replace, I focused on essential elements that would need to be included in a system to permanently replace the ACA.  In Part 4 [Part 4], Looking Forward, I got into 1) how repeal and replacement of the ACA could potentially be the main determinant of the outcome of the 2018 mid-term elections and/or the 2020 presidential election, and 2) what the future will probably look like under the replacement law if it is successful.

In this post, I’ll get into what has transpired so far, what seems to be underway this week, and how all of that validates my point as expressed above — government seems to have a knack for making complicated things much more complicated.

Recent And Current “Goings On”

Repeal/Replace “Plan A” was pulled from consideration on March 24 when it became clear that not even enough Republicans supported it to overcome a 100%-certain Democrat bloc vote against it. Why? Simple politics. The Republican leadership and Secretary of HHS Price created it in a vacuum, making two stupid assumptions: 1) that any plan they developed would have the support of all moderate or “mainstream” Republicans; and 2) that they had the “muscle” to overcome resistance they surely must have known would come from Freedom Caucus Republicans.  As they tried to “tune” the bill to satisfy both factions within their own party, they got into a quagmire — adding or taking away items that would have brought in more Freedom Caucus support caused them to lose support among moderates, and vice versa.  Had the leadership not made those two assumptions, there is not a doubt in my mind that something would have passed in March [that doesn’t mean it would have been good — it just means that Republicans would have been able to say they kept their repeal/replace promise and could now move on to tax reform, immigration reform, etc.].

“Plan B” [in its current form], announced on April 20 as being very near completion and having the support needed to pass the House, will “evolve” into what will no doubt be a Senate/House-compromise version of it. If that version gets passed by both houses and signed into law by the President, I predict that the resulting healthcare system will ultimately fail just as the ACA is failing, for one simple reason — the same reason that is one of the roots of the ACA’s failure [the “tap root” of the ACA’s failure, though, was a fundamental design that was financially unsustainable]. That reason is that nobody in the legislature is starting from the philosophical base I suggested in Part 2 of the above-referenced series [and still strongly believe] must be the starting point — determining first what guiding principles can be agreed upon up front before hashing out of the details even begins [see the full Some Basics First section near the beginning of that post at this link: Part 2].

Déjà vu?

Without getting into more detail here than I feel is appropriate in the space I allocate to these posts, I can offer a simple explanation of why comprehensive laws like the ACA and whatever it is replaced with, absent up-front agreement on guiding principles before negotiations over details even begin, ultimately either fail or force us into watering them down so we an afford them — i.e., this axiom: over time, politicians will find ways to get rid of the unpleasant parts of a law [generally, those parts that their constituents don’t like and/or cost their constituents more money] and add more benefits [“goodies” that their constituents want]. All you have to do is look at the history of Social Security and Medicare to see plain demonstrations of that simple fact.

This axiom is already manifesting itself in the current repeal/replace effort. The ACA requirement that insurers must allow children to maintain their coverage on their parents’ policies through age 26 [a “goodie”] is extremely popular, and appears to be among features that will surely make it into whatever version of the repeal/replace bill gets passed into law. While I’d be the last person to argue against the desirability of that feature or even its merits, the truth is that it is “on the table” for the wrong reason [many people like it].

In fact, operation of this axiom is exactly why the ACA is collapsing under its own weight. Poorly designed as it was, it did have some elements that at least in concept, theoretically might have worked, but several of those elements were very unpopular and were “tuned out” over the past few years [with bipartisan support, I might add].

New Healthcare Page At www.USAparadigm.com; Other Changes Coming

Simultaneously with this blog post, I am inserting a new page at this web site.  The purpose of that page is to outline what I honestly believe must be the framework of a new healthcare system to replace the ACA. Initially, it is the main content of Part 3 [Replace] of the four-part post mentioned above, with some additions and modifications I’ve made since that post.  If future developments suggest a need for additional changes to that page over time, I’ll make those changes and announce them in one of my Blog posts. This new page can be accessed through the new regular menu at this site, but this link will take you directly to it: Repealing And Replacing The ACA.

The static pages of this site were originally designed to focus visitors’ attention on the 2016 election that was still a few months away when the site was first launched, and Blog posts up to Election Day [11/8/16] were in that same vein. To transform the site’s original static page structure into one that reflects the new post-election environment [which I am certain is continuing confirmation that a New Paradigm is rapidly solidifying itself] and set the stage for content focused on the future, the following changes to the menu structure are being published simultaneously with this Blog post, just over three months into the new administration that began 1/20/17:

• The list of original pages in the sidebar menu, originally entitled WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?, was renamed to BACKDROP – SITE CONTENT LEADING UP TO 11/8/16 ELECTION.
• A new menu section entitled NEW PARADIGM “GOINGS ON” was added just above this renamed section.  The first “installment” in that section is the above-mentioned page entitled Repeal And Replace The ACA. As new static pages are published, links to them will appear in this section, and they will be announced in concomitant Blog posts.

By the way, I mentioned in Part 1 of the above-referenced series why I believe my educational and experiential background have given me some unique qualifications to write on this subject. I’ve included that paragraph in the footnote below*.

Thanks!

Charles M. Jones

* My Qualifications For Writing On This Subject

You can review my background in depth at the https://usaparadigm.com/who-i-am/ page at this site.  I’ve summarized here the content on that page that is most significant vis-a-vis my blog posts on this subject. … I was a “C-Suite” Healthcare executive for most of three decades, and after that I was a Healthcare consultant for about seven years. Among my executive oversight responsibilities for several of the “C-Suite” years was a centralized business office for a ten-hospital, seventy-clinic integrated healthcare delivery system that also included an insurance subsidiary. I say that to say that I have direct knowledge and experience that I believe enable me to write with at least some degree of authority on this subject.

On 11/22/16, I posted to this blog an item entitled An Alarming Development [that link will take you there]. The basic theme might be looked back upon as a caveat about screening of what individual citizens can see in the media [and more importantly, who decides what content is “allowed”]. The “alarm bell” for me that prompted that post was an article about “fake news” that basically said Google, FaceBook and Twitter [et al] were being pressured to screen out “fake news”.  While that may sound good on the surface, it raises the question as to who decides what is fake and what is real [I have since posted additional blogs on the subject of “Fake News”, e.g.: News [Or NNTN?] Circa 2017; Fake News Or Just Meaningless News?; Announcing My New App News4Me].

The reason I’m posting this item this week is that this is one of those insidious trends that can sneak up on us, as a society, and “grab us” before we realize what has happened [by which time it would probably be too late to reverse the trend because our culture would have already “adapted” to being manipulated in this way].

I chose the seemingly unrelated cartoon about United Airlines as the image for this post because, in my opinion, the media has correctly pounced on the recent incident of physical removal by force of a passenger from one of its flights as a way of enforcing their policies for dealing with overbooking situations.  All airlines overbook because it makes perfect sense financially to do so. All airlines use this technique to maximize actual passenger counts [and therefore profits]. United’s failure was not in using that technique; it was in not having policies in place [and employees trained and empowered to “do what is right” rather than just blindly follow procedures] to effectively manage a situation like the one that occurred that day [no volunteers to get “bumped” to another flight, even with incentives offered]. That incident will end up costing United at least millions, and quite likely tens — maybe scores, maybe hundreds — of millions of dollars, when simply letting incentives go as high as necessary to get the seats needed would have been, probably at most, a few thousand [or $10,000, or whatever] more than they had already offered [practically everybody has some incentive value at which getting involuntarily “bumped” is “an offer they can’t refuse”].

The operative phrase in the above paragraph is “in my opinion”.  Although all of the media coverage I’ve seen on this incident has been pro-passenger and anti-United, I’d be surprised if there are not at least some people of the opinion that the issue was overblown and United was within its rights to “do whatever was necessary” to enable the flight to proceed. The reason I’ve gone into this level of depth on this incident is because it relates directly to the broader issue I’m writing about — What is appropriate “news” coverage? and 2) Who decides what is “appropriate”?

What Is “Appropriate”?

So what content is “appropriate”?  Although it’s difficult for me to imagine how anybody could actually think posting a murder on FaceBook in real time [which was done just a few days ago] is “appropriate”, I suppose there are probably some people out there who believe it is the killer’s First Amendment right to post whatever he wants, including himself in the act of killing another person in cold blood. On the other end of that spectrum might be a newspaper editorial saying, in so many words, that we all need to listen to each other better and respect each other more regardless of our political leanings and party affiliations. Between these two extremes literally unquantifiable numbers of situations, each one no doubt garnering support from any philosophical direction one might pick [see the Loss Of A Common Value System page at this site for some additional insight from this perspective].

Who Decides What Is “Appropriate”?

And who decides what is “appropriate”? This is probably the bigger, more insidious issue.

An article in today’s USA Today [see it here: USA Today Article 4/18/17] about the above-mentioned posting of a murder on FaceBook, while sounding good on the surface [FaceBook says “We know we need to do [a] better” job of finding and deleting this kind of content], still sounds an alarm about over-censoring of content [not this content, in my opinion, but that’s my opinion].

If there is no screening of content, it’s completely up to the reader/listener/viewer to decide. If there is any screening, the potential is there for “somebody” to determine “appropriateness” based on his/her ideological beliefs, thereby screening out content that the reader/listener/viewer never even has the opportunity to read/hear/see. Leaning too far toward the latter [any screening] would no doubt end up with the worst-case ultimate outcome — totalitarianism. Leaning too far toward the former [no screening] causes all of us to have to filter through the barrage of content and decide for ourselves what is “appropriate” [see my post News [or NNTN?] Circa 2017 for a guideline for personal self-screening].

So …

I know I may sound overly skeptical or even paranoid about this, but to me, this is something we all need to not only be keenly aware of, but to “monitor” closely these days. Otherwise, George Orwell may have been off on the date in his 1949 book 1984, but right on the money in his subject matter!

Charles M. Jones

This week, I heard about a 3/26/17 60 Minutes [CBS] segment on Fake News [a subject I’ve gotten into in some of my blog posts — e.g., Fake News Or Just Meaningless News? and News [or NNTN?] Circa 2017]. Somehow, this turned out to be a kind of epiphany for me. Thanks to 60 Minutes, I now know how to become a much more widely read blogger and draw millions of hits to this web site. I’m writing this post to let my current followers know about this early on so you’ll be able to say you knew me before I was famous.

If you’d like to watch the video, you can follow this link: 60 Minutes – Fake News – 3/26/17 [whether this plays automatically depends on your computer operating system and which web browser you use — I think it may do a commercial first; once you’re in the broadcast replay, you can drag the positioning bar to get to this segment, which is from 16:09 to 29:15].

One of the most interesting [and eye-opening] parts of the segment was the information about “bots” — computer software agents that generate large volumes of “likes” on FaceBook and “retweets” on Twitter [and similar replicators on other social media like Instagram]. There was actually a guy interviewed on the segment who utilizes this technique and sometimes gets over 100 million “hits” on his posts. That, in turn, gets him on the radar screens of Social Media companies and makes his posts show up on their “trending now” lists. That, in turn, results in mention of him by talking heads on TV programs, and … well, you get the picture.

So Here’s The Plan

I’ve only had a few days to think this through, and I’m sure I’ll need to make some refinements, but here’s the plan as I see it at this writing. …

• First, I’ll learn all about bots and work out the details of how to use them.
• Next, I’ll proceed with some content ideas that would probably be sure-fire “go-viral” hits on their own — but with the bot technology will no doubt be catapulted to major “trending now” items on Social Media platforms. One example of an arrow in this quiver is self-accompanied “performances” of a verse or two and the chorus from a ballad-style song I wrote during the 2016 campaign [some of the verses need modification, since they were written before the election outcome was known]. I never got around to putting any of that into finished form for posting, but with lyrics to over 30 verses and several tune ideas already done, this one is almost “shovel ready” [to pick up on Barack Obama’s famous “misstatement” from his 2007 campaign, which he later qualified by saying those projects turned out to be “not quite as shovel-ready as we thought”].
• Next, I’ll pick one of these content ideas, develop it into specific blog segments, and begin posting them. After each post, I’ll turn the bots loose and let them do their thing.
• Once my posts are being seen by millions, I’ll identify specific causes I want to promote and develop content around those causes. Examples might include helping our leaders in Washington use common sense in repealing/replacing Obamacare and getting our fiscal situation under control [common sense seems to be an unknown concept in those circles these days].
• This is where it really gets interesting, because at this point, I’ll be able to use both real news — and when it furthers my cause, fake news — to gain traction and produce content that can flood the media.

Observing how the media operates over the past year to year and a half has shown me how easy it is to create a fake news story and have it proliferate coverage for days at least, sometimes weeks or even months. The 60 Minutes segment was kind of like icing on the cake in that it helped me understand more clearly the methodology for using the media to push an agenda. With my site and blogs now attracting millions of followers, anything I post will at least be noticed by media outlets that will now include my offerings in the stuff they sift through each day [actually, hourly or even realtime by the minute] for their next “Breaking News” graphic.

All I have to do is write a post that says I’ve learned that “it has been reported” that “X did Y” or “X said Y” [X could be a person, an organization, a government agency, etc.; Y could be an action or a statement]. The media picks up on it within days [if not hours], and it’s a major “news” story because it’s “juicy” and fits into various agendas within the media. From there …

Day 1: “Reports from ‘undisclosed sources’ indicate that X did Y. We’re researching this and will report more details as we uncover them. Stay tuned.”

Day 2: “X vehemently denies that he/she did Y, but we’re finding more and more reports that he/she did. Our investigation is continuing.”

Day 3 [maybe 4, 5, …]: “Let’s bring in our panel of experts to discuss this ‘issue’ “.  …

And there you have it.

Again, I felt that those who already follow me deserved this pre-production notice of this endeavor. Once I’ve executed this plan and am being followed by millions, I won’t forget those who followed me when I was still one of the “little people”.

Thanks!

Charles M. Jones

“Dear President Trump” Letters …

On March 15, President Trump was here in Nashville. Late last week, David Plazas, the Opinion Editor of the Tennessean asked his readers to submit letters to the President for publication the day of the President’s visit. I’m honored that mine was among those that “made the cut” and was published.

According to Mr. Plazas, 160 letters were received. He categorized them as follows: 65 (41 percent) directly criticized the president and 38 (24 percent) praised and welcomed him; supporters wrote that they are praying for him and hoping for his success; critics generally said they want him to stop tweeting and release his tax returns; the remainder consisted of requests, questions and suggestions on a variety of policy matters; the top five issues addressed were the Affordable Care Act and the proposal to replace it, the president’s behavior and his fitness to serve in office, the environment and climate change, immigration reform, and holding Mr. Trump accountable to fulfilling his campaign promises.

Also included in this section was an excellent “Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump” by Jon Meacham, a widely-known presidential historian, contributing writer to The New York Times Book Review, contributing editor at TIME, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who now lives in Nashville. The letter basically drew from President Trump’s apparent fascination with President Andrew Jackson [the 3/15 visit to Nashville coincided with Jackson’s 250th birthday, and included a tour of the Hermitage, Jackson’s residence, now a museum], drawing both parallels and differences. In my opinion, it was very well written — and should be well received by President Trump if he reads it.

For anyone wishing to see the entire section of the Tennessean referenced above, click on this link: Letters to Trump – Tennessean 2017-03-15.

Some Observations

I’m writing this post to offer some observations about the President’s visit, the kinds of letters that people wrote, and the Tennessean‘s coverage the following day.

Mr. Plazas’ categorization of the letters from readers was pretty accurate.  As usual, there was a fair number of “You need to do this on Issue X” and “You need to do that on Issue Y” letters as well as “We’re with you 100%” and “You need to resign” letters.  I tried to take a higher road approach.  Here’s the letter I sent [that was published]:

Dear President Trump:

Thank you for visiting Tennessee, and welcome to our state! And thanks to The Tennessean for allowing its readers to offer letters to you. Although I voted for you, I would be writing this same letter to Mrs. Clinton had she been elected and visited our state as president now.

I honestly hope that our country can get over the extremely polarized atmosphere that currently exists and move on in two ways: 1) support you as our duly elected president, whether we voted for you or not, in your efforts to do what you promised you’d do if elected; and 2) shift any of our collective energy currently going into protests and demonstrations into planning and executing a strategy to elect somebody else in 2020 if that’s what we want.

That’s the way this country is supposed to operate.

Charles M. Jones, Franklin 37067

The next-day issue in the Tennessean was VERY encouraging. The overall “tone” was like that for any presidential visit to our state might have been, and the content was focused on what the President actually said, without the ever-present left-skewed bias in phraseology. Although there were references in some of the coverage to what some of the protesters were saying, those references were simply stated as part of the overall “flow” of the text, not magnified and expanded on as is so often the case in the media’s coverage of President Trump these days. In all, 4 of 15 pages in the front section of the paper were on the Trump visit, and only one article in one corner of the third of those four pages carried a headline about protesters — “President’s Rally Draws Crowd Of More Than 2,500 Protesters” [that article was only about 20% of that page’s content, making it only 5% of the total coverage]. Hats off to the Tennessean!

From where I sit, it would be great if there was more coverage these days with the overall “tone” in these two editions of the Tennessean [which, I might add, is a generally very liberal newspaper]. That would indicate to me that the media is finally coming around to realizing that things are not the way they have always been, and that they need to re-think who their readers are [i.e., that a whole lot of people don’t fit into the liberal mindset most of them seem to have].

I realize that there is some risk the other shoe may drop tomorrow, and I may have to retract my kudos to the Tennessean if they have “the other side” dominating tomorrow’s paper — let’s hope not!

Thanks!

Charles M. Jones