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60-Second Window

Fred Showker‘s editorial column “60-Second Window” in 1987 as part of a syndicated news service distributed, via diskette, to computer user groups all over the country. The 60 Second Window explores issues surrounding technology and it’s effects on people and society.

The #4 lie of the decade: “Not exonerated”

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We all rely on the Media and their journalists to help the public understand what actually happened. They need to purvey clear, concise separation of fact from fiction. CNN political analyst Steve Cortes, writing about the “Charlottesville Lie” spells it out for Prager University in no uncertain terms:

When they get a fact wrong, that’s bad. When they get a fact wrong, and know it’s wrong, and don’t correct it, that’s worse. That’s not getting a fact wrong, that’s a lie — and that’s journalistic malfeasance!

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Here, Mr. Turner brings out the truth that Mueller cannot exonerate anyone, even if he wanted to.

What he cannot do should not color the conversation.

We know now, that Donald Trump was in fact exonerated by virtue of the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation stating that “This report does NOT conclude that the President committed a crime.” They found “No evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign and Russia.” Releasing from charges or claims of wrong doing is the very meaning of exoneration.

exoneration — An act of disburdening, discharging, or freeing morally from a charge or imputation. The state of being disburdened or freed from a charge.

However, Mueller lied with a very clever and deceiving twist on the use of the word exonerate. The report exonerated Trump, then Mueller said it does not exonerate Trump. He intentionally contradicted his own report’s findings. He was probably counting on the press shouting it to the ends of the earth. They did, and it turned into the 4th lie of the decade.

Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz explains :

“Exoneration is not the job of our legal system. Mueller’s attempt to introduce it is an extraordinary and dangerous innovation that would endanger the presumption of innocence we all have under the law.”

Senator Michael Turner researched this and reports :

In our criminal justice system there is no power or authority to exonerate. The inclusion of the word exonerate in the report has no legal meaning and it colors the investigation.

The Attorney General, nor Robert Mueller have the power to exonerate anyone because in the criminal justice system there is no power to exonerate. Mueller should not have used term.

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The reason it’s called “The 4th Lie of the Decade” is that all the media adopted the phrase and then repeated it hundreds of thousands of times. At some point, it became the truth.

This opinion piece in the New York Times not only repeats the lie, but then explains the lie with more lies.

Paul Joseph Goebbels was a Nazi politician and was appointed by Adolf Hitler as the Reich Minister of Propaganda. It is widely accepted that both Hitler and Goebbels believed the principal of “the big lie” …

A lie told once is but a lie. But a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth.

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Again, Harvard law professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz

“There is a grave and frightening danger in introducing the concept of exoneration into our legal system. It suggests that a person may still be presumed guilty even if the decision was made not to prosecute him or her, or even if a jury rendered a verdict of not guilty.”

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At the end of the day, we all need to be vigilant to not fall prey to the big lie. We know that the media will run away with any news-byte that gets clicks, whether it’s true or not. When Chuck Todd repeats it 19 times in the first 15 minutes of Meet The Press on Sunday morning, you know it needs fact checking. Just remember the 5th lie of the decade, The Charlottesville Lie!

Watch carefully as the media delivers the news. Listen carefully to C-Span videos. We can no longer rely on the main stream media to bring us true and balanced news, so it’s up to us to dig out the truth, if we can.

… and thanks for reading . . .

Go ahead and fact check it :

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Fred Showker
Fred Showker

Design, Typography & Graphics Magazine and 60-Seconds exploring technology since 1987

60-Second Window
60-Second Window

Fred Showker‘s editorial column “60-Second Window” in 1987 as part of a syndicated news service distributed, via diskette, to computer user groups all over the country. The 60 Second Window explores issues surrounding technology and it’s effects on people and society.