When we were kids, the older folks taught us a very valuable lesson. How do you know when a politician is lying? The answer? Their lips are moving. In all seriousness, lying and politics have gone hand in hand for the length of this experiment we call democracy. So, why is it so difficult for the mainstream media to do the basic job of vetting comments before running with them?

Apparently, Donald Trump has “agreed” to debate Kamala Harris on Fox News on September 4th. It will be beautiful in front of a packed MAGA house. It will be the best debate anyone has ever seen with fair and balanced moderators straight from Fox News. You won’t believe how great it will be. There is only one problem you have probably already guessed. Neither Fox nor Kamala Harris have agreed to anything.

Despite this, most mainstream media outlets initially reported that the two would debate on September 4th. Why? Simply put, Trump said so on his shitty little app. Of course the mainstream media ran with the story because of course Trump wouldn’t lie about something like this. The guy that told over 30,000 documented lies as president is the perfect kind of guy to take at his word no matter what he says.

That is until the try to cover up what he said and make it sound more palatable. The headlines only changed after they received a ton of pushback from readers and viewers. The media has never been able to figure out how to treat him as a whole, but we have occasional pockets of reporters that get things right. His appearance this past weekend before a group of African-American journalists was a masters class in holding him responsible for inflammatory rhetoric and dubious claims.

This is very simple and I can’t believe I have to write this down. He’s lying. If he’s arguing anything anywhere near policy he’s lying. He’s not even particularly good at lying. Imagine a second grader BS’ing their way through a copy of “Where the Red Fern Grows” and you have a good mental image. One good targeted question and that second grader goes running back to their seat with tears in their eyes. You know, big strong men with tears in their eyes.

The Trump way is to overwhelm you with a tsunami of lies. The hope and expectation is that you won’t catch them all. You don’t have to report on him in real time. You can stop and verify it simply because if it sounds like a load of crap then it probably is. Did he really agree to a debate on Fox? Does it make sense for Kamala Harris to agree to go on conservative sponsored media with conservative moderators and a conservative crowd? Of course, since the MSM bought it hook, line, and sinker, the Trump team gets to run with the narrative that Harris is backing out. It’s a really simple lie that a second grader could work through. I just wish the mainstream media were smarter than a second grader.

It occurred to me that I made a New Year’s resolution to offer more constructive suggestions in the new year. It’s hard not to complain these days, but at least we can offer some suggestions in the meantime. I talked about concentric circles yesterday without offering any constructive ideas to fix that. That’s on me. I need to do better.

Our mainstream media also needs to do better. They are caught up into a both sides narrative where they feel the need to give exposure to all points of view. In normal circumstances that seems okay. Furthermore, the idea of covering the horse race nature of this thing makes sense. It sells ad space. It sells newspapers. It gets subscriptions to the subscription only services. There is a reason why Steve Kornacki is a thing.

When we were going through journalism school, one of the things they taught us was that it was the journalist’s job to call balls and strikes. Somehow that evolved into making sure there were as many balls as there were strikes. We had an equal number of walks as strikeouts. That has been the case whether it was Greg Maddux on the bump or Nuke Laloosh (from Bull Durham).

Someone came up with another analogy that made more sense. Let’s say that it is pouring rain outside. It makes no sense to run a story where you have one expert saying it’s raining and another ”expert” saying it’s not raining. Look outside. You can see it’s raining, so why in the hell are we quoting some jamoke saying that it isn’t raining? Why do we need to both sides objective reality?

What that does is allow people to believe that objective reality isn’t all that objective. In a free society it is difficult to do anything about right wing media. That toothpaste is out of the tube, but this falls into another false narrative. People just naturally assume that both sides do it. Left wing media may distort the importance of things. They are certainly guilty of overhyping certain stories and ramping up the hysteria, but they generally don’t make shit up.

It’s about pushing back. Both sides don’t operate the same way. One side lies and the other side doesn’t. Period. End of discussion. Then, the mainstream media simply reports what is actually going on. The economy is doing well. Report it. Immigration is not nearly as bad as what it seems. Report it. The so-called crime riddled cities really aren’t all that crime riddled. Report it. Unfortunately, both sidesing this thing just isn’t creating an informed public.

Again, you aren’t reaching everyone. You have a segment of the population watching a steady diet of Fox News, OANN, and Newsmax. They might be reading Breitbart on the interwebs. There is no way you can watch a steady diet of that stuff and come away informed. Still, you can inform everyone else. You can at least allow them to have access to accurate information. If the right isn’t producing truth or building arguments on facts then don’t give them a lifeline. If they aren’t participating in substantive debate then they don’t get coverage. There’s only one serious party right now and they are the only one worthy of coverage.

There is a famous bit in the Peanuts cartoons that probably best describes what many of us are feeling at this point. Lucy Van Pelt repeatedly convinces Charlie Brown to try to kick a football. Each time she promises that she won’t move the football at the last moment. Every time he barrels full speed ahead and every time she moves the football. Charlie Brown will lose his balance and land on his backside.

On a seemingly weekly basis we are told that Donald Trump is about to be indicted. He has been sued well over 100 times in his lifetimes. Sometimes he is forced to pay a minimal amount, but he has never been held truly responsible for any his financial crimes. He has committed fraud, treason, and has been credibly accused of numerous sexual crimes as well. As we sit here, he has a grand jury looking at his “perfect” phone call where he blatantly tries to interfere in an election and strongarm the secretary of state into falsifying the results. Then, there was the theft of hundreds of documents he had no rights to. The Justice Department could charge him with illegally possessing those documents, obstruction of justice when he refused to return them, and probably much more. Then, there was the illegal campaign expenditure where he paid off a porn star and former playmate.

Of course, because he is a brazen jackass he didn’t stop that. He released a post on social media showing himself holding a bat next to a picture of the district attorney. Legal experts have said that this broke an additional four laws by itself. Obviously, apologists will argue that he really wasn’t being serious. That’s what they all say before someone actually attempts to harm the district attorney. He did the exact same thing when he called for his followers to storm the capitol. It wasn’t serious until it was.

Here in Texas we know this story all too well. Our attorney general has been under indictment every day of his term. He then was able to run for reelection and was given another term. He will never go to trial. Donald Trump will never go to trial. We know this too. In this situation we find ourselves being the sucker and shill. Yet, every week we see the reports that an indictment is imminent. The mainstream media is playing the role of Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown at the same time. Even if indicted, there will be no perp walk. There will be no jail time. There will be no justice.

This is where we need to reframe and readjust. Partisan media will frame this as a right vs. left issue. Fox will point out all of the crimes that the Bidens have supposedly committed. MSNBC will continue to tell how a Trump indictment is imminent. Whether the Bidens have done anything wrong is not really the issue. The issue is that there has always been a two-tiered aspect to our justice system. Some are able to buy their way out of facing justice. The rest of us must face the music when we screw up. If the mainstream media focused on that and admitted what all of us know to be true then they could simply outline the crimes that the rich and powerful commit and just move on. They could look at the disparate results that depend on how much any one person has to shirk their culpability. Don’t cry wolf. Don’t hype up a possible indictment we know isn’t coming. It never does. That’s more the point.

Okay, I am sort of ashamed to say this but … I know lots of lawyers.  However, they are a worthless lot of writ twits because not even one of them can explain to me what this means.

“Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch of agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a long established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations.”

That’s Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein explaining God only knows what.

One lawyer suggested that it mean that Rosenstein can take presidential dictation very well.