The 10th Justice

The Trump debacle has taught us that the fourth branch of government is the most important: a free press. Journalism will rise from this mess as the beacon of truth amid the jumble of lies, spin, insinuation, rumor and malicious tweeting. It probably already has. More and more Trump is almost impossible to listen to; rambling, uninformed speech that sounds like the rumbling of a garbage truck in the morning, with just enough information that we know it for what it is, garbage, so that we can go back to sleep. Then we open the newspaper and read coherent English about the events of the day. What a startling contrast! A free press is ensured in the the first amendment to the Constitution. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. In the wake of Trump'...

This blog post is not an essay but a comment on my morning reading. If you want something more substantive read something else. Here goes... Not watching television has altered my view of America. I read newspapers, books, and an occasional  magazine. Every morning I read online the New York Times, Fox News, the Washington Post, Bloomberg and a bunch of technology websites. This morning I got a good laugh from one of the articles in the Times and was once again surprised at the foolishness of Fox news. If you want to get an idea of the difference between Fox News and the New York Times, just look at their online front pages. Today Fox had an article about Kavanaugh and his accuser, an article about Keith Ellison and the accusations of domestic violence, then articles about a murdered golfer, wooly mammoths, and the Emmys. So two sexual abuse charged cases, murder, mammoths, and the Emmys. On the New York Times front page one finds Kavanaugh, new tariffs on China, hurricane Floren...