Category: Politics

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”  –Theodore Roosevelt

Today is President’s Day, a holiday in which

we celebrate and appreciate US Presidents from history’s past. Originally George Washington’s Birthday, it was turned into a general holiday to celebrate all Presidents. One of the things that we appreciate the most as American citizens is criticism in addition to praise.

After all, no one official is supposed to have all the power and for good reason.

President Trump has referred to media that he disagrees with as the enemy of the American People. This goes beyond the simple accusations of bias, which all venues have regardless of how they try to downplay it or eliminate.

In reality, objectivity doesn’t actually exist; the only way for it to do so is if somebody were to live in a vacuum.

With that said, today is as good as any to call the President out for his foolhardiness. Not all aspects of media is inherently evil. Yes, major venues have made huge mistakes, and these companies and entities have themselves to blame for losing a tremendous amount of trust.

Whether it was not truly giving the full story regarding the Gulf War until well after the fact, pushing No Child Left Behind while taking money from the Department of Education, or falsely claiming that Kevin Mitnick was on the FBI’s Most Wanted list, there is plenty of blame to go around.

That is why competition actually exists in the realm of free thought and free expression.

The problem with Trump referring to certain media venues as an enemy of the American People is that it bolsters this “us vs them” mentality to the point where we become even more divided than ever.

When a major player of Fox News is balking at such a statement, it’s time to pay attention.

If it weren’t for any media that operates freely in this country, we wouldn’t know certain unpleasant truths. One of those truths is the fact that Trump is using an outdated Android Phone to tweet, thus leaving him vulnerable to those who want to obtain state secrets.

The additional problem is also two fold. For starters, it can potentially create an adversarial divide between the people and media in general. The other issue is that it could potentially cause independent venues to be blamed for this, whether they had a hand in it or not.

In other words, what Trump is doing is attacking the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. This is not a good sign, no matter who is inside the Oval Office.

Mr President, that was not an acceptable statement.

Thomas Holbrook II | The *Nixed Report

This article will be brief and to the point. There has been drama surrounding the electoral college, and it is certainly understandable that many are hoping for a rebellion against President-elect Trump. For full disclosure, I did not vote for him.

Before we drone on about the “will of the people,” a timely reminder is in order; we are not a democracy, nor were we meant to be one in these United States.

All one has to do is read Article 4, Section 4 of the US Constitution. It reads:

The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.

There are elements of democracy, which does include voting. However, the majority can not run roughshod over the entire country. There’s a reason it’s called Tyranny of the Majority.

Our representative form of government has checks and balances not just in the three branches but all throughout the country. The electoral college was designed to prevent Tyranny of the Majority.

It’s an unfortunate shame that faithless electors are not able to rebel against that of the blind masses should the need arise.

The idea is supposed to be about having checks and balances to prevent anyone from having too much power over others. In other words, the electoral college is not the real problem, though giving electors more autonomy would make things a bit better.

Regardless of what happens, we need to focus on the real problem with the election cycle and that’s the fact that two political parties do not want other party to come to the table or be involved in the process.

We need to change the conversation about the fact that there are only two perceived choices in any given election cycle, and push for more than three.