But Her Emails!!!!

I get annoyed at a lot of news stories.  I don't get distressed by many.

I am distressed that far too many journalists are creating a false equivalence by repeating Trump's lies about Joe Biden.  The original story is old and has been looked into and refuted.  The new attempt to make it a story again is Page 1 out of the old Trump Playbook.  We've seen it before.  The journalists have seen it before.  We all lived through the non-existent story of Hillary Clinton's email server "putting us all at risk" because she committed a crime and "Lock her up!" to the degree that FBI investigated and found that No Crime Was Committed, yet the cries of "Lock her up!" persist to this day, and is one of the reasons Trump is in office. 

We know this story.  It is in our bones.  And yet to seem "fair," too many journalists are putting a non-existent and disproven story about Joe Biden supposedly helping his son on the same level as the current president -- who has now admitted that he spoke to the president of Ukraine about Joe Biden, a political opponent -- blocking a whisteblower from speaking to Congress as required by law, presumably about Trump illegally pressuring Ukraine to investigate an American political opponent or the U.S. would withhold foreign aid -- or maybe something even worse.

And yesterday, too many journalists have reported on Trump's ridiculing charge of disbelief that Biden never spoke to his son about his son's business, calling him a liar without putting that into any sort of perspective.  After all, on this one, tiny point alone, consider --

The Washington Post has detailed that Trump has lied over 12,000 times since taking office.

Trump has repeated insisted his son Don Jr. never told him about 2016 Trump Tower meeting with Russians.

Trump has long-insisted that he and his children never discuss any ongoing business of the Trump Organization, so that there is no improper influence by him...

In a magazine interview a couple months ago, Biden's son Hunter said that he and his father spoke about his business one time only.  So, is that a "lie"?  What Hunter Biden said that one conversation was is that his father said to him, "I hope you know what you're doing."  And he replied, "I do."  That does not qualify as talking about the details of the business -- that is a comment making clear you are going to avoid talking about the business.

I am not going to repeat the Trump false charges (which have long-since been looked into and refuted) so as not to spread them.  But if anyone wants to know the background of the story, Politico has a good article on it here.

The very short version is – There was widespread condemnation in the U.S. and around the world that the Ukraine chief prosecutor was not going after corruption cases aggressively (including the company where Joe Biden's son was on the board of directors), and so Biden was sent to tell Ukraine to fire prosecutor, so that corruption investigations would proceed.
 
While I am distressed that far too many journalists are reporting on Trump charges as a false equivalence, I have at least glad that "far too many" is not all or most.  But for those journalists who are, who want to be fair and objective and honest, a good place to start would be fairly, objectively and honestly reporting on a U.S. president who has admitted talking to a foreign leader about a U.S. political appointment and who is blocking a whisteblower from coming forward with his or her story.  Not reporting on a story that was long-since looked into and refuted.

And every Democratic candidate to shout the same thing in defense of Biden, because they should know that if Trump succeeds in tarnishing Joe Biden in any way, no matter how big or small, then he will do the exact same against them.
 
Fortunately, distressed as I get by the far too many journalists making a false equivalence, I know that ultimately this about Trump talking to the Ukraine president is a political issue, it will be handled politically, we will find out more about the political reality, and I believe the results will be bad for Trump politically.

And -- I know that there will be another political and potentially criminal scandal by Trump and the Trump crime family coming along.  On a regular basis.