All The News the Media Care to Share

The Catholic Church defines two kinds of sin - sins of commission and sins of omission. It seems that the media commit both, but mainly sins of omission. They decide what stories to print and which not to.

They have stated repeatedly that Russian hacked into the DNC and turned the damaging emails over to Wikileaks. The Russians and Wikileaks have repeatedly denied this. Now it appears possible that a DNC staffer named Sean Rich was the guilty party. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange confirmed as much. Rich was murdered a few months ago. But the media want it to be Russia's fault, it makes for more interesting news and seems to confirm that Russia is evil.

None of the reports I have read tell what U.S did to interfere with fair elections in other countries doing more much more than trying to hack into our actual voting booths. The U.S. got rid of Chile's  elected president, Allende, and put Pinochet in control, for fear that Allende would be too far to the left. The U.S. got rid of Iran's elected official for fear that he would stop providing us with oil and put in his place the Shah of Iran, who arrested and tortured his own people. More recently we helped overthrow the longtime presidents

of Egypt and Libya turning the latter into chaos. We helped get rid of the the elected president of the Ukraine fearing that he would side with Russia and not join NATO. Then President Obama told the English that if they voted for Brexit, they would be last on his list for trade, trying to influence their election.

More recently the media has failed to report the misadventures of the DNC's former leader, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, for hiring IT brothers who were arrested as they tried to leave the country. They had all the correspondence of the DNC and its efforts to elect HRC by getting rid of her opponent Bernie Sanders.

In California, the media has not released the mindlessness of the CHP, which sent 18 officers to guard an unpopular Republican state congressman who backed an increase of the state's gasoline tax. There were about 15 peaceful protesters who left the building and a force of 18 CHP officers were there to guard against them. The Highway Patrol's duty is to patrol the highway. They came in about 18 patrol vehicles including cars, motorcycles and had a helicopter overhead. 

CBS news anchor Elaine Quijano when reporting on incidents involving undocumented immigrants like bus crashes or those crossing the border inside a sealed truck, refuses to call them undocumented immigrants as other stations do, preferring to just call them people, which of course they are.

They do not report that German chancellor Angela Merkel's tragic mistake of inviting all those wanting to leave their lands to come to Europe flooding Greece, Italy and going to England, France and Sweden, countries that have generous welfare programs. Many EU countries have closed their doors to them.

The media doesn't report that most of the 50 Muslim countries refuse to take these refugees citing security concerns. While Turkey and Jordan have taken many in, countries like Saudi Arabia will not accept their fellow Sunnis and Iran will not accept its fellow Shiites  and the other Gulf states have also closed their doors to these refugees. Many refugees who share common religious and cultural values do not seem to want to go to their neighboring countries because even if they were accepted, they would not get generous welfare programs. They also fail to report that the refugees coming to America are treated better than many of our 30+ million Americans who live in poverty, by getting free housing, food vouchers, and even employment opportunities. 

The media does not tell us how undocumented immigrants claiming asylum can wait years to get a hearing and when denied in appeal the  denial which also takes years and then appeal the appeal being denied asylum and ordered deported, they still get to stay to start families and raise American citizens. So millions of people ordered deported because their lives are not in danger in their home country can stay indefinitely. The media does not question the claim that if the parents leave, their American children would be left behind. The media fail to remind us that when parents move to different states or countries the children go with them. This is something we usually take for granted but not so with the undocumented, who also claim that they entered the country to help their family back home that they abandoned to have families here.

The media reports that the GAO guesses that 15 million people would lose their healthcare over 10 years if enrollment would become voluntary. Most of the reports on PBS had guests who said that 15 million people would lose their benefits making it sound like this would happen every year, leaving out the fact that is over 10 years meaning that 1.5 million Americans would lose their coverage each year. Most of these 1.5 million would be those who would drop it if they had a choice. 

The media fail to tell us that the undocumented immigrants are taking jobs that could be done by our poor, mainly hurting minority members, mainly blacks and Latinos who have the highest unemployment rate. They say Americans don't the jobs that are lost. But in most the named vocations the majority of workers are Americans.

The media were loathe to admit that the person accused of the so-called "Stand your ground" murder was found innocent by a jury of six mothers because it was clearly self defense and that the shooter was laying on the ground with young football banging his head into the ground. The police knew it was self evident almost immediately after it happened. The U.S. Attorney General went to investigate and also concluded the obvious - that it was self defense. Then when a young six foot five former high school football player who was thought to have had his hands up when he was shot by a police officer didn't. A grand jury after four months that the young man was coming to the police officer with intentions to kill him. The U.S. Attorney General investigated this and concluded it was self defense. The town's residents rioted for four months looting and even destroying businesses. 

They also failed to report that the young man who died in a police paddy wagon had been resisting his 20th arrest for drug dealing and while angrily protesting in the wagon, hit his head and later died. The Baltimore mayor awarded the young man's destitute mother $6.5 million dollars before juries found the police innocent. She wanted to avoid more riots. The media did report that 56 people were killed in the six weeks following the charges but failed to mention that 55 of them were and were black killed by fellow blacks. 

They also failed reveal that the six foot five man 300 plus pound who was obese and suffered from heart disease, diabetes and kidney failure died from a heart attack after he resisted his 30th arrest. 

The mainstream media continue to commit sins of omission. The New York Times should change their motto from printing "all the news that's fit to print" to "all the news we feel like sharing that reinforce our biases."

 

Fixing the Affordable Care Act -Again

The Affordable Care Act is in trouble. While 11 million people getting Medicaid are happy with it, those who have to pay for it aren't. Individuals without health care coverage must either choose a private insurance plan whose price increases every year, because insurers have a captive audience, or must pay a fine. For those who buy coverage, one in five have only one company to choose from. That means they have no choice at all. Insurers are dropping out because they have finally realized that they would need 10-20 healthy applicants to pay for one with serious conditions. Five percent of the population use 50% of out heath care costs. There are 19 states refusing to extend Medicare coverage to our most needy. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans seem able to fix these problems. It's not that hard. Here is the solution.

First make signing up ACA voluntary. Insurers will no longer have a captive audience and will have to compete for healthy applicants. This will bring down the costs.

Make insurers able to reject any applicant for medical reasons. This will increase their profit margin and bring insurers back in the market. It will reduce the need for the government to give them $70 billion to cover their losses. Also let them offer a scaled down plan to cover necessary hospitalization, drug costs, lab tests, and doctor visits. And insurers must stop using deductibles.

Let everyone who is rejected for medical reasons be eligible for the "public option" which would be 100% federally funded as is Medicare with a share of cost depending on income The states cannot opt out just as they cannot opt out of Medicare. This would mean that 100% of our neediest will have coverage and that every American who wants or needs coverage would have it at affordable prices.

Also the government should use its leverage to reduce drug costs that are excessive. Most are very inexpensive but some are ridiculously high.

This will cost the government more but would be offset by eliminating the $70 billion subsidy to insurers and by reducing $100 billion that are spent for waste and fraud by $10 billion a year.