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I will chastise any news organization that distorts the truth. But CNN took withering criticism from the president and dozens of conservative media outlets alleging that they scripted a Parkland High student, who did not appear on their town hall. No outlet was more relentless in attacking CNN than Fox News, especially Tucker Carlson.

Carlson said tonight that “there is no evidence” that CNN tried to script a Parkland High student’s question.

What Carlson needed to say…

What the president needs to say…

And what all those other media outlets need to say…

is that Colton Haab’s father has admitted that he distributed a doctored email thread between his son and a CNN producer.

What I don’t hear are apologies coming from the president or from Fox News. And that’s unfortunate because if you study fraud-based journalism, you’ll learn that people like W.R. Hearst helped goad the U.S. into the Spanish-American War.

You may have heard the phrase “yellow journalism” which was the term used then for “fake news”. Hearst sent a famous illustrator to Cuba, who reported that there were no hostilities there. “You send the picture, I’ll send the war,” was his reply.

Fast-forward a few decades and Hearst is publishing interviews with Hitler, Mussolini and Goring in the mid-1930s.

In other words, we’ve been here before. And when lies are allowed to be published without challenge and retractions use mealy-mouthed phrases, the danger of repeating past mistakes rises.

CNN sensationalizes a lot of content. But they didn’t take advantage of a Parkland survivor. The young man’s father did that. And Fox News beat the drums for a week. Their actions potentially harmed life-saving societal change that the Parkland kids are helping us see are necessary to decrease the amount of gun violence in our country.

And Fox News doesn’t seem to give a damn about that. If you’re a viewer, perhaps you should consider this a representative story of so much of the agenda that they push. If you’ve read this far, you clearly believe in truth. If you insist on watching Fox News, perhaps you can also balance it with information from other, non-partisan sources.

As for the president, his behavior continues to lead him down a path of becoming one of the most reviled people to ever hold the office. If you support him, you don’t care. If you oppose him, you simply add this lie about CNN that he repeated to a worldwide stage to the list of nearly 2,000 lies he has told while in office.

This should startle you:

Of the more than 360 access-related gun bills proposed by Congress since the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012, only one has become law, according to an Axios analysis (by Haley Britzky, Chris Canipe and Andrew Witherspoon) of congressional bill data from ProPublica.

The only bill to become law, the Federal Law Enforcement Self-Defense and Protection Act of 2015, declares that a federal law enforcement official is allowed to carry federally-issued firearms during a furlough.

— Axios

It’s time to end the NRA’s stranglehold on Congress.

Call your rep at 202.224.3121.  Tell the nice person who answers that you want common-sense gun legislation that protect us and our families.

North Korea made a diplomatic overture to South Korea this week at the Olympic Games. No one ever knows whether such a gesture is legitimate. All we know before conversations occur is that diplomacy and negotiation is better than heightened tensions leading to body bags.

“We will not allow North Korean propaganda to hijack the message and imagery of the Olympic Games,” U.S. Vice President and Jesus follower Mike Pence said while a guest in South Korea. “We will not allow North Korea to hide behind the Olympic banner the reality that they enslave their people and threaten the wider region.”

The words printed in my Bible don’t heap scorn on a peaceful gesture. They implore us to turn the other cheek. They tell us to seek and pursue peace. And they tell us that our greatest commands include that we love one another.

None of this is taught in Christian religions with the caveat that love, peace, and striving for good relations among the nations of the world does not apply to North Korea. Or to Afghanistan. Or to Russia.

Many Christians I know appreciated that Osama bin Laden was found and will not commit acts of terror anymore. They were also conflicted about the celebrations over his death. I was one of them. And two nights later, in a prayerful and respectful way, we asked each other, “How are we supposed to feel good and happy about another person’s death?”

Saber rattling wasn’t Jesus’ style. When he returned to face the authorities, he did so riding on a donkey, with people waving palm fronds instead of weapons.

Vice President Pence often speaks about his faith. I wish he would act more in accordance with its teachings.

You’re right to be outraged, but don’t be outraged about the words. Save your anger for the hate and the divisive nature of what the president says, not the profanity he uses.

And here’s the kicker: right now, I want you to think of two people you know–friends, family, coworkers–who share the president’s philosophy, but don’t express it in such crude terms.

You might make excuses for those people, but that doesn’t change the fact that millions of Americans share the president’s feelings about immigration. That’s especially true of immigration of non-white people.

Two of the three women the president has married were immigrants, but their skin was pretty white so that must be okay. And the president’s mother was also an immigrant, but she was pretty white too. Friends, it’s clear to me that immigration doesn’t bother the president or those people you thought of. It’s non-white people moving here.

Look, you can believe that isolationism is good foreign policy. We probably won’t agree, but we can have that discussion. But it’s not your country, fellow white people.

White European settlers overran the people living here and stole the land. So unless you’re ready to tell me from which indigenous people all of your ancestors originated from, we can agree that your ancestors took the land and you really have no position to be screaming that others can’t move here. That’s still going on today so we are all complicit.

People in other countries don’t laugh at us or hate us for our freedom. They mock us because we don’t acknowledge our racism or the way that we treat most other people as inferior. That’s done in other countries too. We just don’t acknowledge it. In fact, we deny it.

But watch the videos from Charlottesville again. Those were our neighbors and families marching with swastikas and torches. The vision horrified any American who lived through World War II and the rest of the world where there are everyday reminders of that horror.

Are you really grateful that Martin Luther King shared his dream of children of all races playing together or do you just want another Monday off?

I love Last FM and the way it tracks all of my music listening at my computer or on my phone. My account is now 11 years old, and looking at the data tonight was a real treat. So I downloaded the whole history again. 🙂

Here are my 20 most listened to tracks for 2017, my top 20 albums listened to in 2017, and the top 20 albums. It’s not a critique or anything more than fun to look at.

I voted with my ears.

1.  Shape of You – Ed Sheeran
2.  Castle on the Hill – Ed Sheeran
3.  American Soul – Phil Vassar
4.  Havana – Camila Cabella
5.  It Ain’t Me (with Selena Gomez) – Kygo
6.  Something Just Like This – The Chainsmokers
7.  Galway Girl – Ed Sheeran
8.  HUMBLE – Kendrick Lamar
9.  That’s What I Like – Bruno Mars
10.  24K Magic – Bruno Mars
11.  I’m The One – DJ Khaled
12.  Rockabye (feat. Sean Paul & Anne-Marie) – Clean Bandit
13.  Stay (with Alessia Cara) – Zedd
14.  There’s Nothing Holding Me Back – Shawn Mendes
15.  …Baby One More Time – Ed Sheeran
16.  Closer – The Chainsmokers
17.  I Never Cry – Alice Cooper
18.  New Rules – Dua Lipa
19. Shut Up and Dance – Acoustic – Walk the Moon
20. 1-800-273-8255 -Logic

Top 20 Albums

1.  ÷ – Ed Sheeran
2.  Title – Meghan Trainor
3.  24K Magic – Bruno Mars
4.  American Soul – Phil Vassar
5.  DAMN. – Kendrick Lamar 
6.  Thank You – Meghan Trainor
7.  Havana – Camila Cabello
8.  Happy Endings – Old Dominion
9.  Grateful – DJ Khaled
10.  VHS 2.0 – X Ambassadors
11.  Back from the Edge – James Arthur
12.  Memories…Do Not Open – The Chainsmokers
13.  … Still On the Levee – Chris Smither 
14.  Illuminate – Shawn Mendes
15.  Meat and Candy – Old Dominion
16.  Stay – Zedd
17.  ballads – Paula Cole
18.  Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa
19.  Future – Future
20.  Attention – Charlie Puth

Top 20 Artists

1.  Meghan Trainor
2.  Ed Sheeran
3.  Phil Vassar
4.  Bruno Mars
5.  Kygo
6.  The Chainsmokers
7.  The Rolling Stones
8.  X Ambassadors
9.  Old Dominion
10.  Kendrick Lamar 
11.  Clean Bandit
12.  The Beach Boys
13. Walk the Moon
14.  Camila Cabello
15.  DJ Khaled
16.  Dua Lipa
17. Tyler Ward 
18.  Straight No Chaser
19.  Alice Cooper 
20.  Bonnie Raitt