In Vegas, everyone is the pooch. The business model depends on bringing in mindless money carriers who think they have a chance of leaving with more money. Does it happen? Well sure, otherwise pooches would become disillusioned and stop coming. When it does happen, it is heavily advertised as though it is something available and easily attainable. The psychological hook of intermittent reward. And then there is the pampered pooch. Those with the most money who are willing to play like there’s no tomorrow and for some there will be no tomorrow. Vegas has broken more gamblers than have been made wealthy. Pampered gets them comped (free) meals, comped lodging and in the most pampered cases, comped transportation.

The point here is that unless you own the casino, you are the pooch. Which brings us to our nation writ large. A nation of pooches. Remember the Vegas model. Trump owned a casino. He bankrupted it. Not because the business model was flawed. He went bankrupt because he couldn’t cheat. Casinos are highly regulated to ensure the games are fair. Well that’s no fun. A guy’s got to have that extra edge. We can extrapolate this tendency to cheat to his penchant for degrading the election process; his desire to rule with an iron fist, you know, like Putin; his desire to cast doubt on every institution of government to bend and stretch government to his desire for unfettered power and control. All the while feeding the pooches just enough slop to keep them sated but always wanting more. Pooches are incapable of controlling their own destinies, and realizing this, they allow the master to care for them. It’s a kind of sickness born of ignorance and selfish laziness. And like most efforts to subvert life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it won’t happen all at once. But rather it will be a gradual erosion of liberty meant to keep only the pampered happy and fed.

If you find this fantastical, you are not paying attention. It’s happening right now. The mechanisms are in place to not just subvert the next presidential election, but to cheat. Wake the fuck up. There is nothing for you here.

Let us suppose for the moment that the most important function of a free and unfettered press is the dissemination of truth. To establish what is true, there must be agreement of fact. For instance, a journalist in attendance at a White House press conference will record what the press secretary says, without omission or embellishment. Fact. Truth.

Regardless of political ideology, the press are the defacto eyes and ears of the citizenry. Their sole purpose is to report to us what we cannot be there to witness. The role of the press in democracy cannot be understated. The Fourth Estate indeed.

There is much opining as to the state of our democracy and the impending doom of it. But erosion of our democracy can be pinpointed to a singular, pivotal event. William Paley’s decision and goal to transform CBS news into a moneymaking entity. The transformation, while seemingly subtle, from journalists to stars marked the beginning of the end of integrity in journalism. The emphasis shifted from substance to appearance. From news cast to news show. It blurred the line between reporting facts and reporting about facts. We have gradually become conditioned to rely on news personalities to not just tell us the news, but tell us how we should react to it.

So now, truth is merely a matter of perspective. Your truth cannot be my truth unless you agree with me. And rather than being discerning consumers, we lap up whatever they’re pouring in the trough without a thought of questioning whether it’s accurate or OMG whether it’s true. Jake Tapper, while conducting an interview just this morning, actually quipped, “isn’t it our job to educate the public.” What? NO!!! Your JOB is to report facts so that the public is equipped to educate ourselves. Geez, Halloween aside, these are scary times.