2016 June 22^nd

Cal Thomas titles his column in today’s paper, “You are now entering the logic free zone.” He is certainly right about that; there is very little logic in his column about gun control laws. Thomas writes, “Name one law that deters someone intent on breaking the law. Murder has been prohibited since the beginning of civilization but people still murder. You might as well outlaw human nature.” Mr. Thomas apparently believes that murder is just a part of human nature and there is nothing we can do about it. This is a strange position for a former vice president of the Moral Majority. Does he believe the Biblical admonitions given in The Ten Commandments and elsewhere in the Bible are all simply useless? No, I don’t think he believes that at all. Thomas only believes that laws restricting firearms are without effect and he must believe that because the income from his politically biased column would be in jeopardy if he didn’t believe it.

Later in his column, he sites James Kallstrom, a former FBI assistant director, who, on Megyn Kelly’s Fox News program, declared that “Orders had come down from the White House that the bureau cannot investigate anything to do with Muslims and that agents are “petrified” of losing their jobs.”

Two points are at issue here: If Megyn Kelly is supposed to be reporting news, as in Fox’s claim, “We report; you decide,” then why was there no corroboration of Kallstrom’s claim…and there has been none. Kallstrom has been retired from the FBI for a total of 19 years, since 1997. He is now 73 years old and when he was with the bureau investigating the TWA flight 800 that blew up shortly after takeoff killing all 230 passengers and crew, he was known to be a publicity hound. Was this comment just an attempt to get himself back in the limelight? We’ll never know.

Then we have Fox News. This has now become an arm of the Donald Trump campaign. There is no pretense of objectivity. As the election campaign moves forward you will find little or nothing positive about the President or about Hillary Clinton, but there will be lots of negative pieces. The Megyn Kelly report about the FBI agents not being “allowed” to investigate any Muslim activities is an example of this bias. Responsible journalism would find support and if none could be found that should be announced; that isn’t the Fox News way.

This really amounts to Donald Trump having his very own national TV network dedicated to pushing his candidacy and charging him nothing for the publicity. Why would he need to raise money?