Continued propagation of 'fake news' may be our collective fault

President Trump has repeatedly railed against 'Fake News'

President Donald Trump may not have coined the phrase "fake news", but it absolutely seems as though the practice has exploded since he took office.

Just last week during his speech in front of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the President delivered the statement “it wasn’t until I became a politician that I realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious, and how fake the press can be.”

The statement was greeted by a loud chorus of booing. At least it sounded that way to those watching on a popular German news program. 

However, the broadcaster 'ARD' later admitted that it had "boosted" the sound clip to make it appear louder than it actually was, per Chris Tomlinson at Breitbart. When originally heard on CNN, for instance, the booing was moderate, and obviously came from media in the back of the room.

The ARD editor-in-chief then made the following statement as part of his defense for the move:

"By the way, newspapers also make comparisons when they enlarge image sections and may even mark them with a red circle – nobody would come up with the idea of calling this manipulation, but rather journalistic precision."

Journalistic precision? Now there's a new one.

But this statement perfectly sums up the tactics repeatedly used against the President by the former "mainstream" media here in America, which include cherry-picking from quotes and highlighting stories with unflattering photographs.

In a 2017 year-end article, Georgina Rennard with the BBC did a nice job defining "fake news" as follows:

• Completely false information, photos or videos purposefully created and spread to confuse or misinform
• Information, photos or videos manipulated to deceive - or old photographs shared as new
• Satire or parody which means no harm but can fool people

Liberal news outlets such as CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, NPR, and more have consistently been violators. This is particularly so in their coverage of the President, his team, and his programs.

Dan Gainor at Fox News did a nice job breaking down the media's 2017 anti-Trump efforts in a piece characterizing their "round-the-clock journalistic insanity":

"...the media have been claiming Republican politicians are evil, racist, crazy or stupid (or all four) for years. Journalists and their lefty partners in slime are running that game on Trump more aggressively than they ever tried with President Ronald Reagan. None more than CNN. The network’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter was freaking out about his view of Trump’s mental health back in August. “Is the President of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? And if he's unfit, then what?” He began 2018 with a claim the year was starting off with “madness.”"

Sunday Sermon: Are Catholic Schools 'Better' Than Public?

"See to it that no one captivate you with an empty, seductive philosophy according to human tradition, according to the elemental powers of the world and not according to Christ" ~ St. Paul's Letter to the Colossians (New Testament, Colossians 2:8)

It's a question that does not have a simple answer: are Catholic schools "better" than public schools here in the United States?

You will hear and read many Catholic school parents and students make the claim that they are indeed better in every way.

But you can also find many proponents of the American public school system who will claim that there is nothing inferior about the education they provide.

There have been a number of formal studies made on the issue. Mai Miksic with the CUNY Institute for Public Policy took on the question in his June 2014 piece "Is the 'Catholic School Effect' Real"?

Miksic's piece concludes that "there is no lack of rigorous research...indicating a possible Catholic school advantage."

However, Miksic also correctly points out that many proponents of Catholic schools point to simplistic statistics such as higher standardized test score results achieved by their students.

Education is, in the end, about much more than test scores.

Islamic Terrorists Aren't Poor and Ignorant

Nearly everyone on earth is aware that Islamofascism is one of, if not the biggest, problems facing today's world.

Here in America, the iconic Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York were bombed in 1993 before finally being collapsed in the attacks of 9/11.

What some are not aware of is that the United States continues to be attacked, more than a dozen and a half attempts (at least) since that infamous date in 2001.

Included among these were Jose Padilla's plans in 2002 to set off a 'dirty bomb', Dhiren Barot's plan to attack the New York Stock Exchange in 2004, Kevin James and the plot to attack the National Guard facilities in Los Angeles in 2005.

There were Narsearl Batiste and his crew and their 2006 plot to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago, and the mammoth plot in summer of '06 to simultaneously blow up numerous airliners flying from Britain to the U.S. using liquid explosives.

Right here in our own backyard in the Philly Tri-State area, we had the May 2007 plot to attack the soldiers at Fort Dix, New Jersey.

Who are these terrorists, and what do they want? Contrary to theories pushed by certain sociologists and liberal thinkers, terrorists are not poor, stupid, and ignorant.