The Shadow Government and The Deep State

By

M. Richard Maxson

    This is the first in a series of articles that will examine what the “shadow government” and the “deep state” are, what people and which corporations fall within it, and how they gained so much control over the U.S. government and our society.

     Shadow government and deep state are both political terms. They are separate entities each with it's own agenda but intertwined within their goals. The terms are used to define the groups of people who actually control the U.S. government. Their political agenda and true motives are completely hidden from the public. These aren’t the people you see on mainstream media, nor are they the people you vote for - they’re the individuals who lurk in the shadows, which is precisely how they’re able to maintain control over the population, feeding us the illusion of democracy. It is corporate Socialism wrapped up in red, white, and blue. For many years we here at the American Constituionalist have been using the term “the men in the shadows,” to describe these entities.

      Now, we are not referring to the President or Congress or people within political parties that supposedly control the system, but the individuals and corporations, both inside and outside of the United States, that actually control the government and influence policies and decisions and decide what we all see and hear and believe.

      First let us define the “deep state.” What is it? When did it originate? The American industrial revolution, also referred to as the second industrial revolution, began in the mid 19^th century. This period saw the mechanization of agriculture and textile manufacturing and a revolution in power, including steam ships and railroads, that effected social, cultural and economic conditions that changed our world. It is a period in time that left a profound impact on how people lived and the way businesses operated. Industrial production increased tremendously, bringing wealth and power to a relative few at the expense of many.

     Since the Industrial Revolution was so new at the end of the 19th century, there were initially no laws to regulate new industries. For example, no laws prevented businesses from hiring seven-year-old children to work full time in coal mines or factories. No laws regulated what factories could do with their bio hazard waste. Free-market capitalism meant that the government had no role in regulating the new industries and those who were becoming very rich liked it that way. To keep it that way for maximize profit controlling the government was a priority. It was not done by them but rather by their proxies. They would remain in the shadows gaining great power while reaping their profits.

    Past leaders of our country have painted a dire picture of our democracy, saying that the U.S. is under the control of an “invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people” and this “invisible government is the true ruling power in our country.” They go on to explain, “it is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.” They “virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties.”

    Once in office, many of our Presidents spoke out of

this menace. “Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.” 

- Theodore Roosevelt, 26^th President - 1913

  

   "Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men’s views confided to me privately. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. A great industrial nation is controlled .... all our activities are in the hands of a few men… we have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated, governments in the civilized world—no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government of small groups of dominant men.” 

- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States – 1913

      "The real menace of our Republic is the invisible

government, which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states and nation… The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish purposes. They practically control both parties, … and control the majority of the newspapers and magazines in this country. They use the columns of these papers to club into submission or drive out of office public officials who refuse to do the bidding of the powerful corrupt cliques which compose the invisible government. It operates under cover of a self-created screen [and] seizes our executive officers, legislative bodies, schools, courts, newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.” 

– New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, New York Times, March 26, 1922

     "....the people of the United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here… and that this country was to supply financial power to an international superstate — a superstate controlled by international bankers and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure.”

 – Congressman Louis T. McFadden, from a speech delivered to the House of Representatives on June 10, 1932

     "Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of

society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.” 

– Edward Bernays (“the father of public relations”), Propaganda, 1928

 

     This “deep state” has one goal – profit. The advent of WWI and it's effect on industry and the massive profits to be made producing war materials was the next stage in the evolution of the elite. The war only enhanced their grip on the country becoming stronger than they had ever been.

Next week: The Evolution of the Shadow Government.

“Our Republic is in Jeopardy"

 

By

       M. Richard Maxson

      There is something brewing in the nation's capitol. The House Intelligence Committee is holding back a report that is said to have sent shockwaves through Washington. It is a top secret memo detailing potential criminal conduct inside the DOJ and FBI during the 2016 elections. It appears that we suddenly have documentary proof that key elements of the U.S. intelligence community were trying to short-circuit the U.S. democratic process.

      An investigation published on Jan. 18 showed the web of connections related to the Trump dossier and a conspiracy between the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration, law enforcement, and intelligence community, to prevent Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders from being elected president.

      The document is said to be a review of extensive abuses of the government surveillance program administered under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). At least six House members have officially called for a public release of the memo with some saying it will lead to the removal of senior government officials and criminal proceedings. While the contents of the memo remain classified, lawmakers who have seen it have reacted with shock, and have spoken to the disturbing evidence laid out in the memo.


      “I viewed the classified report from House Intel relating to the FBI, FISA abuses, the infamous Russian dossier, and so-called ‘Russian collusion.’ What I saw is absolutely shocking,” Rep. Mark Meadows wrote on Twitter. “This report needs to be released–now. Americans deserve the truth. 
 
     “Our republic is in jeopardy if we allow this type of a palace coup environment to continue to persist,” Congressman Matt Gaetz said in an interview. “I don’t think it’s appropriate for just members of Congress to be horrified by the memo – the American people have to see it. If we get this memo into the public square, heads are going to roll at the FBI and the Justice Department. No way every one keeps their job. I think that this will not end just with firings. I believe there will be people who go to jail.” Gaetz said. “You don’t get to try to undermine our country, undermine our elections, and then simply get fired. I think there will be criminal implications here. I think that there could be people who face criminal consequences as a result of the activities that are laid out in this memo.” 
 
      Lawmakers who have seen the memo, whose content extends beyond the information we already know, have described it as shocking, with one lawmaker invoking the KGB to describe what happened. 
 
      “I have read the memo,” Rep. Steve King wrote on Twitter. “The sickening reality has set in. I no longer hold out hope there is an innocent explanation for the information the public has seen. I have long said it is worse than Watergate.”


      “The classified report compiled by House Intelligence is deeply troubling and raises serious questions about the upper echelon of the Obama DOJ and Comey FBI as it relates to the so-called collusion investigation.” - Rep. Ron DeSantis 
 

      That puts in a new and dark context the year-long promotion of Russia-gate. It now appears that it was not the Russians trying to rig the outcome of the U.S. election, but leading officials of the U.S. intelligence community, the “Men in the Shadows” as we here at the American Constitutionalist have been refering to them for years. Today they are called the Deep State. There is now real evidentiary evidence of the suspicions that there indeed was a “deep-state coup” to “correct” the outcome of the 2016 election by ileagally using the FISA court to slander and remove a sitting President.

      The memo may answer questions on whether the discredited dossier about Russian meddling from Fusion GPS, which was financed by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was used by the Obama administration to get FISA warrants used to monitor communications of the Trump team. If the memo reveals that the FISA warrants to monitor communications of the Trump team were based on false information and therefore not justified, it could have a ripple effect throughout the government. “Then is our democratic system of a neutral judiciary undermined if prosecutors obtained FISA warrants based on defective affidavits.” stated Marc Ruskin, a former FBI agent and author of The Pretender: My Life Undercover for the FBI.

“Then is our democratic system of a neutral judiciary undermined if prosecutors obtained FISA warrants based on defective affidavits.” Then the question is, “ Are the prosecutors, in conjunction with senior FBI people, knowingly using defective affidavits to wrongfully obtain FISA warrants?”

      The next questions would be who signed off on the requests, who approved the requests, who called for requests, and were there any others tied into the scheme for personal interest? It’s possible that whoever signed the affidavits could be charged with perjury, since they are sworn to by whoever drafts and submits them—meaning those involved could be charged with perjury. Ruskin noted this could go even further if there is evidence of those involved attempting to prevent or cover up evidence.

      The silence from Democrats is telling. Based on past examples, Ruskin noted that had the information in the report been obtained properly, there would usually be outcries from both sides, “but when there’s silence or no defense, that doesn’t speak well to the content of what the affidavit is.” All members of Congress were briefed on the memo after the Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to release it to lawmakers. All of the Democrats on the committee voted against releasing the memo. All of the Republicans voted for the release.
 
      A group of 65 members of Congress are now calling on Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, to hold a vote to release the memo to the public. The memo is currently classified as top secret. Unless there’s information in the affidavit that would compromise national security, then disclosing its contents would be a benefit in terms of bringing into public scrutiny whether or not the system has been abused. Americans have a right to know if they are still living in a free country, or in a twenty-first century USSR wrapped in red. white, and blue.

      “Just read the classified doc re FISA abuse,” Rep. Lee Zeldin “I’m calling for its immediate public release w/relevant sourced material. The public must have access ASAP! While the report is classified as Top Secret, I believe the select committee should, pursuant to House rules, vote to make the report publicly available as soon as possible,” Zeldin added. "We should not hide the truth from them. They’ve waited too long. Do not pull the wool over their eyes. Show them the facts. They deserve nothing less.” This is a matter of national significance and the American people deserve the truth.”

Identity Politics - Marxism in America

by

        Zeno Potas

      The Leftist majority in the Democrat party has perverted the notion of free speech and poisoned the academic environment in American society today. It has turned the American political system on its head, creating a situation where opposing views are not only unwelcome, they're deemed to be signs of evil intent. It is pitted friend against friend and has caused rifts within families.

This is identity politics.

      The Left still, after the election defeat, believe that they have found it's an answer to destroying their opposition with identity politics. Using Marx's class struggle they have reformulated the ideal into an ethno-radical struggle. In this new version of Socialism, all of western civilization and it's history, is not analyzed through the use of a reason or judged according to standards been developed over centuries, rather it is viewed through the prisms of a race, class, and gender, and the record of modern civilization's oppression of various groups. It is hailed or condemned in accordance with certain political checklists.

      "What these radicals blandly called multiculturalism,” wrote Irving Kristol, “is as much a war against the west as Nazism and Stalinism ever were.” Ensconced in affluent city centers and their cozy suburbs, liberal elites tell themselves that identity politics will carry them to the progressive future of their dreams. We tend to view the stories as examples of the culture war. They were more than that; they are examples of a coastal, metropolitan, highly schooled upper class warring against the traditions and freedoms of a Middle American, ex urban and rural, lower middle and working class with some are no college education. In short examples of the privileged few attempting to impose their will on their elected majority. What is more, the Left rejects the natural rights theory of the American founding which is at at the core of our tradition. Under the guise of multiculturalism, their radical ideas often goes beyond the bounds of political into sheer fantasy.

      In the former USSR, censorship, (safe spaces) rewriting of history(the Founders were white save owners) and eliminating undesirable people (non-Progressives) became part of Soviets' effort to ensure that the correct ideological and political spin was put on their history. Deviation from official propaganda was punished. In our society today the punishment is name-calling ridicule and condemnation from the Democratic party and it's compliant media.

      The problem with identity politics is that it reduces

us. We are no longer human beings with individual hopes and dreams. We are commodities. We are groups to be labeled and courted in pandered two. Were told what it's thought we want to hear and we divide ourselves into pockets of groupthink will. We begin to speak only with others in our group, and we begin to believe that the only valid and true way to think is the way we think. This is identity politics. It is Marxism with another name - in twenty-first century America.

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Rebukes Biased US Media

As told to,

       George Sontag

      I've been a journalist for a long time. Long enough to know that it wasn't always like this. There was a time not so long ago when journalists were trusted and admired. As for a reporter's opinions, my former editor Abe Rosenthal didn't want them in the news pages and if you put them in, he took them out. They belonged in the opinion pages only, which were managed separately. We were generally seen as trying to report the news in a fair and straightforward manner.

      Today, all that has changed. For that, we can blame how some news organizations chose to cover the 2016 election. Among the many revelations that last year's election gave us was the revelation that most of the mainstream media puts both thumbs on the scale and that most of what you read, watch, and listen to, is distorted by intentional bias and hostility.

      I knew all of this about the media mindset going into the 2016 presidential campaign, but I was still shocked at what happened. This was not naive liberalism run amok. This was a whole new approach to politics. No one had modern times had seen anything like it. The behavior of much of the media, but especially the New York Times, was a disgrace. I don't believe it ever will recover the public trust it squandered.

      For most of the media, bias grew out of the social revolution of the 1960s and seventies. Fueled by the civil rights and anti Vietnam movements, the media jumped on the anti authority bandwagon. The deal was sealed with Watergate. After that, people became journalists because most of them wanted to be the next one to become famous by bringing down a Republican president.

      In the beginning, Donald Trump's candidacy was treated as an outlandish publicity stunt, as though he wasn't a serious candidate and should be treated as a circus act. But television executives quickly made a surprising discovery, the more they put Trump on the air, the higher their ratings climbed and ratings are money. So news shows started the devoting hours and hours sampling to pointing the cameras at Trump and letting them run.

      As his rallies grew, the coverage grew, which made for an odd dynamic. The candidate nobody in the media took seriously was attracting the most people to his events and getting the most news coverage. Newspapers got in on the game too.

     Trump, unlike most of his opponents, was always available to the press, and could be counted on to say something outrageous or controversial but may to headline. He made news by being a spectacle and the ratings soared so Trump was given more and more air time. One study estimated that Trump received so much free air time that if he had to buy it, the price would have been two billion. The realization that they had helped Trump's rise seem to make many executives, producers, and journalists furious.

      By the time he had secured the nomination and the general election rolled around, the media were gunning for him. Only two people now had a chance to be president, and the overwhelming media consensus was that it could not be Donald Trump. They would make sure of that. The coverage of him grew so vicious and one sided that last August I wrote a column on this unprecedented bias. Under the headline “American journalism is collapsing before our eyes,” I wrote that the so called cream of the media crop was engaged in a naked display of partisanship designed to bury Trump and elect Hillary Clinton.

      The evidence was on the front page, the back page, the culture pages, even the sports pages. It was at the top of the broadcast and at the bottom of the broadcast.

Day in, day out, in every medium market in America, Trump was savaged like no other candidate in memory. We were watching a total collapse of standards, with fairness and balance tossed overboard. Every story was an opinion masquerading as news, and every opinion ran in the same direction - for Clinton and away from Trump.

      Consider this, the country is roughly divided 50-50 between people who will vote for a Democrat and people who will vote for Republican but our national media is more like 80-20 in favor of the Democrats. While the media should, in theory, broadly reflect the public, it doesn't. Too much of the media acts like a special interest group. Detached from the greater good, it exists to promote its own interest and the political party which is it is aligned.

     Let me be very clear again, The behavior of much of the media, but especially the New York Times, was (and is) a disgrace. I don't believe it ever will recover the public trust it squandered. 

     The future of fair journalism isn't all gloom and doom. If we accept the new reality of widespread bias and seize the potential it offers, there is room for optimism. Support fair and factual media outlets. Put your money where your heart and mind are. An expanded media landscape that better reflects true public preferences would, in time, create a more level political and cultural landscape. That would be a great thing.

Michael Goodwin-chief political columnist for the New York Post. Pulitzers prize winner, he worked for 16 years at the New York Times.

Propaganda, Why Do We Believe the Falsehoods?

By

       M. Richard Maxson

      Have you ever thought about how much of your thoughts are truly and authentically your own and where did these ideas come from? Given the fact that only a handful of corporations control everything we read, see, and watch, it’s easy to see how public opinion and desire gets shaped even when what we take in is not true. The fact of the matter is that we are subject to propaganda, false advertising, opinionated news, and other methods of manipulating our thoughts and perceptions every day.

     Why do we accept and give credence to “false information or so-called fake news?” It's because our brains are wired to believe information automatically—even if it’s false. “It’s a useful skill for us to accept what people tell us, because often what people tell us is true,” says David Rapp, PhD, a psychology and education professor at Northwestern University.

      "When we hear new information, those fresh facts don’t override what we already knew before. Instead, both the new and old information live together in our minds. A few factors determine which one we’ll draw on when the situation comes up. Oftentimes, we’ll quote the information you heard most recently—even if it’s wrong. Because they’re fresher in our minds, short-term memories are easier for our brains to access than facts we heard longer ago.”

     "We are also inclined to buy into the facts that seem more plausible. Often, this means they fit better with what we want to believe, which could explain why people quote such different facts in political debates. “Both candidates said something that was objectively true or not, but people would ignore that information and go with their hopes, wishes, biases, preferences, or gut responses because it aligns with what they hope to be true,” says Dr. Rapp.

      Why do you think everyone seems to own the same things? How much of what you like to wear or eat is actually because you like it, and how much because you’re being told to like it? Everyone wants the newest iPhone or the latest pair of Nikes. We live in a consumerist world, a fact that has become so blatantly obvious that Americans are starting to look like clones of one another. Those who control the media controls what people purchase, talk about and think about.

      For a long time, the elite have used these tools to

influence our thoughts and actions, a tactic often referred to as frequency control. The use of repetition in the media is the tool that solidifies the false narrative. To quote Lenin, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” That works the majority of the time.....unless they get caught.

      That brings us to December 8^th 2017 which was one of the most embarrassing days for the U.S. media in quite a long time. It was kicked off by CNN, with MSNBC and CBS close behind, and countless pundits, commentators, and operatives. By the end of the day, it was clear that several of the nation’s largest and most influential news outlets had spread an explosive but completely false news story to millions of people, while refusing to provide any explanation of how it happened.

      It’s hard to say exactly how many people were swamped with this “false news” or as some call it “outright propaganda” by the CNN story. But thanks to Democratic-loyal journalists and operatives who decree every anti-Trump claim to be true without seeing any evidence, it’s certainly safe to say that many hundreds of thousands of people, almost certainly millions, were exposed to these false claims and many believed them and still do!!!

       How often do we step aside and question what we’re actually hearing? How often do we it for ourselves and use our own critical thinking skills instead of blindly believing what we’re told. The elite control so many aspects of our lives that it can sometimes be difficult to even think of our lives as being our own anymore. So, if you find yourself surrounded by billboards or listening to propaganda on the news, ask yourself: How is this affecting my decisions and my life? We must be vigilant. By raising our consciousness and educating ourselves, we can shield ourselves from this type of manipulation.

Truth Never Sleeps

by

       M. Richard Maxson

 

      For our year end publication we have compiled some unedited, truthful, thought provoking comments from people of various backgrounds, that have been marginalized in the western media. If any of these find you confused than thiese are a little food for thought as we approach the new year.

ON TODAY'S AMERICA

  "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling.” -Thomas Sowell

"In a profound miscarriage of justice, federal law permits FBI agents to lie to us but makes it a crime for us to lie to them.”

- Judge Andrew Napolitano

"The blacklist against conservatives in Hollywood is very real.” 

 - James Woods

"As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: You liberate a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests.”

- Gore Vidal

"In the America I grew up in, cities didn't shield people who violated the law," 

- Immigration and Customs Enforcement Acting Director Thomas Homan

ON MEDIA

"President Trump has been good for business."

-Tony Maddox, head of CNN International

"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.” 

- Edward R. Murrow

"Western media has allowed itself to become a conduit for propaganda for one side..."

 - Patrick Cockburn

"We live in a nation where we see exponentially more racist hoaxes than actual racism.” 

- Brian Hendrix

"Coverage of the Syrian war will be remembered as one of the most shameful episodes in the history of the American press,” 

- Stephen Kinzer

"I just fear that the public is continuing to be fed propaganda that unassuming Americans don’t realize they’re being fed.” 

 - Amber Lyon three time Emmy award winning journalist.

FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S.

"We did an amazing job in the first decade of Putin’s rule of creating the illusion that Putin controls everything in Russia, now it’s just funny how much Americans attribute to him.”

- Gleb Pavlovsky, a political consultant who helped Putin win his first presidential campaign, in 2000.

"You're kidding, right?”  

- When Russia Today's top editor read the newly released report from the director of US national intelligence on Russia's hack of the U.S. election.

“What kind of idiots does one have to take Americans for to think that they can believe that stupid and incompetent [and] absurd (report)"

- Natalia Veselnitskaya - The Russian attorney who met with Donald Trump Jr. in a highly scrutinized meeting last summer

"Rogue state America needs to stop pursuing its ruthless agenda, defiling rule of law principles, waging war on humanity at home and abroad, operating extra-judicially worldwide..” 

 - Stephen Lendman

"I'm all for the Russians not interfering in Ukraine, if indeed they actually are, when the US stops interfering int he Ukraine, Scotland, England, France, Germany, Cyprus, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Puerto-Rico, the Marshal Islands, the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and on and on and on and on. While the US exists none of the rest of us will ever be free.” 

- Jacqueline Brunder 

 

"America objectively poses a greater threat to peace than North Korea,” adding that “the entire world is scared and left guessing if it strikes or not.”

  - Konstantin Kosachev

       As you can see from the comments from outside the U.S. - the world view of America is quite different than what we are told here in this country. That is why I urge every citizen to read news from outside the western elite's sphere of media control. In doing this and using your critical thinking, not believing everything you read, your eyes should be opened to a new and different view of the world and ourselves. One that is not controlled by state induced propaganda.

A Journalist Laments the State of the News Media

As told to:

         George Sontag

     Journalism is broken and we can't agree on how to fix it. The theme that you hear constantly is that 90% of the media identifies as Democrats, Progressives, or Socialists and slants all news towards a Leftist philosophy and the other 10% that are not, are ignored. Consider the contrasting views of former New York Times reporter Linda Greenhouse and Emmy Award-winning former CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson. Each has written a book detailing her experience as a journalist and their thoughts on where the profession is headed.

      In Greenhouse's book, "Just A Journalist: On the Press, Life and the Spaces Between," she writes: “a journalist doesn't just have the right to express opinions but the obligation to do so.” This is the definition of “fake news” I.E. “Fake news is news reported with opinions and speculation. It is when a journalist selectively chooses and ignores facts, and interprets or paraphrases those facts to reach an unwarranted conclusion that conveniently validates his own views.”

     Attkisson sees things differently. As she spells out in "The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote," she thinks the media is in a mess of its own making. The public doesn't trust the media anymore, she says, because journalists have violated their own standards. "We in the business of journalism have exempted ourselves from the normal rules that used to govern us, and so the most egregious kinds of reporting errors are becoming more common." She added that most Americans "want their news straight up," and they're not getting it that way.

      Why is it this way? Is true journalism dead? Is tabloid journalism now the norm as Dan Rather has stated or is what we have today deliberate propaganda? The reasons for the descent into so-called fake news can be attributed to our own failings because....

• We've broken our own rules. Reporters are supposed to keep their opinions to themselves. Anchors are supposed to tell you the news, not tell you what to think.

• We're surrounded by the like-minded. Many journalists are white and come from the same socioeconomic backgrounds and live in large urban areas.

• We've become too comfortable with hypocrisy. The recent wave of sexual harassment scandals involving media figures — Charlie Rose, formerly of PBS and CBS News; Mark Halperin, formerly of ABC News and NBC News; and Michael Oreskes, formerly of NPR and The New York Times, etc. — shows that journalists don't do a good enough job of policing their own backyard.

• We try to be social workers and social engineers. We've gotten sidetracked into the idealistic mission of making better people and building a better society. That's not journalism.

• We take our cues from Washington and New York. These big cities have been given free rein in shaping the national discussion, while paying too little attention to what matters in small towns and rural areas.

• We let our bias show. Most all of us are anti-Trump and pro-Democrat. We don't even bother to hide it anymore. In fact, many of us seem proud of our activism and partisanship, which has no place in journalism.

• We tell ourselves that the ends justify the means. This is especially true in our battles against "deplorables," including the one in the White House. We cannot or refuse to be objective.

• We don't differentiate clearly the difference between editorials, columns, and news articles. Television viewers confuse reporters, anchors, and commentators. We've mixed it all together.

       To get back to real journalism we need to look in the mirror and confront what we've done wrong. We have to stop being defensive, be more introspective, and admit we have a problem. If we can do this, in time, the public may begin to believe us again.