Why call them fake news? Because they are.

Temperature. The left seems to be obsessed with it. No, not the global temperature, although they still flog that dead mule from time to time. The political temperature. They want you to believe pipe bombs and synagogue shootings are all the fault of President Trump. They’re not. And they use these mentally disturbed people to try and stifle his pointed concerns with inaccurate reporting in the media. Even Fox News has wondered aloud why the president won’t tamp down his criticism of ‘fake news.’ The reason is because fake news stories are one of the biggest threats to our country.

On the same day that Jim Acosta berated White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders for not having the “guts” to name names in the fake news media, a commentator on his own network was saying that Donald Trump had “radicalized more people than ISIS.” Think about that statement for a moment. The insinuation was Trump is responsible for the pipe bombs and the synagogue shooting. He’s no more responsible than Bernie Sanders was for one of his campaign workers shooting Steve Scalise on a baseball field. And, by the way, the synagogue shooter hated Trump because of Jews in his administration. That alone should put to rest accusations of anti-Semitism against the president. But it won’t.

Even before the pipe bomber was caught, the liberals were using the hashtag MAGABomber on Twitter. No one used #BernieShooter when Scalise was shot. Why? Because we understand that mentally deranged people on either side are not representative of those they supposedly support.

Eric Holder has said, “When they go low, we kick them.” Maxine Waters has encouraged her followers to hound and harass people they disagree with “in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station.” She screams, “They’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.” And they talk about the political temperature.

When crazy people scale the White House fence and try to enter the mansion carrying a dangerous weapon there’s no call from the left to tamp down the rhetoric against Trump.

He has called the fake news media the enemy of the people, and they are. No, not all the media, and not every reporter at every left-leaning network. Those who pose as journalists, but in reality are activists, are doing the public a grave disservice. The reason Sarah Sanders didn’t take the bait from Jim Acosta and list the fake news media is because she would’ve been there all day.

Reporting that Trump instructed Michael Flynn to meet with the Russians before the election was fake news. In fact, the entire Trump/Russia collusion story has been fake news. After two years there’s nothing to show for it. George Papadopoulos was sentenced to 14 days in jail for lying to the FBI about communications with a Russia-linked professor. After meeting behind closed doors with Congress, it now appears the professor was set-up from the government to try and link him with Russia. Papadopoulos is now considering withdrawing his agreement with the government concerning his case.

Justifiably criticizing your opponents has no connection whatsoever with deranged people who resort to violence. For President Trump to refrain from pointing out what his opponents are doing wrong just because of some crazy people would be admitting that his words have some connection to their actions. They don’t.

If the mainstream media want to lower the temperature, they can start with telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about President Trump. If they want him to stop calling them fake news then stop running fake stories.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Losing R-E-S-P-E-C-T for the left

Aretha Franklin’s funeral may have set a record for the longest celebrity eulogy. There were heartfelt tributes to the Queen of Soul. There was a long list of celebrities who came to pay their respects. Then there were the controversial moments, like when one reverend seemed to move his hand too close to Ariana Grande’s breast. Jesse Jackson, of course, chose to turn the event political when he chastised the crowd for lining up to see Aretha yet not showing up at the polls in Michigan in the 2016 presidential election. He also recognized Maxine Waters for the “work” she’s done, which was taken to mean her tireless rants against President Trump.

Al Sharpton lectured Trump on showing some R-E-S-P-E-C-T when several days before on his television show he didn’t even know how to spell it.

The event was marred with the presence of known racist and anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan sitting on the stage with Bill Clinton, Jesse Jackson, and Al Sharpton. One can only imagine if David Duke had spoken at the funeral of a white singer.

But none of that drew even a peep from the family. It was the words of Rev. Jasper Williams, Jr. that drew gasps of horror. The reverend described children in a home without their father as “abortion after birth.” He told the crowd,”Black lives must not matter until black people start respecting black lives and stop killing ourselves.” A Franklin family member called the remarks “very, very distasteful.”

So, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton bashing Trump from the pulpit and giving face time to one of the most famous racists of our time wasn’t distasteful, but a pastor urging black folks to stop killing each other was? It’s a sad commentary on where we are as a country.

First of all, Aretha’s funeral should’ve been about Aretha. The race-baiters and their divisive rhetoric should’ve been stopped at the door. The fact that the family allowed them to speak sullied the event. But if you’re purposely making it a political event by inviting lightning rod figures to speak then you shouldn’t be shocked by anything that’s said. And you certainly shouldn’t be shocked by someone naming the problem for what it is.

We have an epidemic of black-on-black crime in this country. Half of all murders are committed by primarily black males. Over 90 percent of their victims are also black. It’s easy for white folks to ignore the problem. Chances are it will never affect them, but part of our American family is hurting. It’s going to take the majority to change it. It’s not at all helpful when blacks themselves not only ignore the problem but are outraged by anyone who doesn’t.

Colin Kaepernick divides a country with his refusal to stand for our national anthem and is rewarded with a Nike ad. Why don’t we do this? Why don’t we start a dialogue on how to solve the problem? If you think the judicial system is racist and turning loose black convicts from prison until prisons looks like America is the solution then you obviously don’t understand the problem. And kneeling is not the solution. It’s actually part of the problem too. It’s whistling past the graveyard. 

Rev. Williams had the courage to speak the truth to a room full of people who weren’t ready to hear it, in front of men like Sharpton, Jackson, and Farrakhan whose rhetoric has largely contributed to the problem. And it’s Rev. Williams who’s the embarrassment? We have a long way to go.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.

Trump Derangement Syndrome is a disease

They first tried to keep Donald Trump from being president. That conspiracy reached the highest levels of the FBI, maybe the highest levels of our government. When that didn’t work they demanded a recount. Then they demanded the Electoral College not seat him. That failed and they moved to impeachment talk, impeachment over nothing remotely resembling an impeachable offense. Then they tried to shout down his policies. The tax cuts would be ‘Armageddon,’ remember? Again they were wrong and the economy is at the best place it’s been in decades.

They thought they had created a lethal issue in family separation at the border. The left-wing media have been exposed for lying to the American people about it. They didn’t tell them that Obama detained children in far worse conditions. They didn’t tell them that 80 percent of the children held in detention came with no parent at all. They didn’t tell them that the viral photo of a little boy in a cage was a fraud or that the little girl, looked down upon menacingly by the president on the cover of Time, was never separated from her mother. In fact, her mother had kidnapped her from her father in Honduras. They didn’t tell them, but word got out. Now a majority of Americans, according to a CBS poll, favor building the wall. This isn’t how this issue was supposed to end.

What’s more troublesome to the left is now, according to a CNBC survey, the majority of Americans favor the president’s handling of the economy. That’s a tipping point in American politics. Pocketbook issues usually hold the strongest sway over American voters. Pretty soon some of the staunchest opponents of Trump will say, “I still think Donald Trump is a vulgarian, but…” Once that ‘but’ creeps into the conversation, it’s all over.

So, there’s only one thing left for those with Trump Derangement Syndrome to do. Sow utter chaos in the country.

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, is kicked out of a Virginia restaurant because the owner says she works for an ‘inhumane’ administration. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen is screamed at and harassed out of a Mexican restaurant in Washington, DC. Florida’s AG, Pam Bondi, can’t even attend a screening of a Mister Rogers movie without being accosted by deranged anti-Trump fanatics. Maxine ‘Mad Max’ Waters throws gasoline on the fire by encouraging everyone everywhere to harangue Trump administration officials. “If you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.”

They’ve lost. Not just their minds, they’ve lost the cause. It’s no coincidence that the better the country does the more deranged they become. America’s prosperity through tax cuts and capitalism is the worst news these people could get. They felt they were so close to fundamentally transforming this country under eight years of Obama only to see most of what he built on sand washed away in a torrent of supply-side economics.

If you’ve been waiting for these Never-Trumpers to calm down it should be clear to you that they’re not going to. The more they see their precious socialist utopia slipping away the more hysterical they become. Many of these people are ashamed of what made this country great. They think capitalism is cruel and capitalists are evil. They despise the direction we’re going.

They see only one option left, and that is to burn society to the ground.

Phil Valentine is the host of the award-winning, nationally syndicated talk radio show, The Phil Valentine Show.