In the ongoing war between the Trump administration and the left-wing media, the American people are witnessing an unprecedented power struggle between someone they voted for because they want to make America great again and a cartel committed to keeping that from happening.  

We need an independent press that has no ties to a political party.  That was what the Founding Fathers intended, but it's not what we have today.  Instead, we have a news syndicate infecting our country with an odious doctrine the way a prostitute infects her "customers."

Ever creative in their malevolent pursuit of dirt, these muckrakers make productive use of rumors.  Like gossip-mongers, leaning against the backyard fence and trashing their neighbors, they'll conjure up a scenario and foist it upon a susceptible audience.  Using "confidential sources" as their cover, they'll ask, "Is it true what some inside the administration are saying the president has not disavowed support from former KKK member David Duke?"  What you have to understand is that it doesn't matter how many times the Klan member has been denounced by Trump.  What matters is that the fake news media get another chance to make the assertion, thereby implanting the suggestion over and over until it is perceived as true.

Here's another example of the contemptible tactics of the liberal media: during a recent press briefing, secretary of state Rex Tillerson was asked if he had called President Trump a moron.  He said he refuses to answer petty questions like that because they serves only to divide the country.  Minutes later, the headlines in the left-wing media proclaimed: Tillerson refuses to deny that he called Trump a moron.  By putting it this way, the media have achieved another bite of their rotten apple, because people have heard the statement again.  This is why Trump refers to them as fake news!

First, they start a rumor by saying it was "overheard" by someone on the president's staff.  When asked who said it, they claim it's a confidential source, which allows them to make up any story with impunity.  Once the rumor gets aired, they know that it will be absorbed by the public, causing concern and doubt about the stability of the administration.  When a dignified man like Tillerson rejects the question as too petty to warrant a response, they can say he "refused" to deny the charge.  But Tillerson is smart enough to know that he's being baited into a controversy that doesn't exist.

It's a tactic so old, it has hair on it!  You ask a question that assumes a fact, as you put the person on the defensive trying to answer it.  "When did you stop beating your wife?"  Anything you say after that is merely perpetuating an image of something that never occurred in the first place.

What I'd like to see is a new way of dealing with these false stories.  To wit: reporter: "It's been overheard among the president's staff that so-and-so said blah, blah, blah."  Response: "Overheard by whom?  Unless you can tell me who said what you're alleging, I view it as nothing but a rumor designed to divide the country.  Next question!"

If the public were a bit better informed and a bit less self-absorbed, they'd be capable of separating the chaff from the wheat.  What the hate-Trump media count on is a public that feeds on sound bites, which, if heard often enough, become facts they can impress their friends with at social gatherings.  "Did you hear that President Trump is planning to end the food stamp program and let millions of poor people starve?"  "Really?  Where did you hear that?"  "It was on CNN a few minutes ago.  A reporter said it was overheard by a guy who knows a guy who works with a guy who has a cousin who works in the White House cafeteria."  Hmmm...how can you question such a clearly defined fact?