Not enough people focus on facts. Sigh... You would really think that after all the focus on Fake News that has been tossed back and forth, people would maybe do a little more thinking and digging... but... they do not. It seems folks still tend to believe what they want to believe, facts be damned. Such is the present state of education, business and politics. No one has put a focus on the problem of fake news, deserved or not, quite like the ever blustery, shooting from the lip, king of the early morning tweet, Donald Trump. Yet that focus has exposed the fact that there really IS a problem. It's not a matter of believing him every time he says, "Fake News." Instead, it's a matter of fact that the social media giants and regular media all over the world are trying to figure out how to stop fake news. It really is a problem. The problem with the 2016 US election was not Donald Trump and his team colluding with the Russians. Out of all the digging that has been done into that, so far, there has not been a single speck of evidence to support that conspiracy theory, although ample money has been spent trying. However, there is plenty of evidence of the Russians using propaganda to mess with voters' minds on all sides of the political spectrum. But that's not the biggest issue: The day has come where people right inside the country meddle in elections using fake news. Before a bunch of finger pointing begins, all sides use it. The evidence is there. And just recently, it has reached the mainstream that liberal operatives, not necessarily working for anyone but themselves, were able to sway public opinion A LOT in one Senate race in Texas, by creating a considerable number of fake conservative accounts to "support" the conservative. You guessed it: The accounts were those of right wing extremists, created mainly on Facebook and Twitter. The reality is, they were neither conservatives, nor even real. They were all fake accounts, made to look like strong extremist supporters of the conservative candidate. They also created shocking "evidence" of his terrible misdeeds and leaked it to the press (remember the charges of a conservative candidate being a pedophile?) and then rallied to his defense with the fake accounts. But don't think it's only the left that does such things. There are those on the right making very slick videos that play to those who are swept up by conspiracy theories. They are very good, carefully choosing their speakers, calmly presenting video "evidence" of things we already know, or think we know, then when the hook is well place, set it and lead the unsuspecting in a directing that isn't so, at all. Now, in this 21st century, we have access to communication like we've never had, before. But those who control communication really control communication, and even they are not immune to manipulating "facts" to fit their own agendas. Just spend a few hours comparing Google and Bing on the same political search terms and see what happens. Something very fishy is going on there, but how do you know who's rigging the system? The bottom line is, it simply isn't good enough to believe that those who say what you want to hear are telling the truth, while everything else is fake news. There are things you can know for certain. Find them! But test everything else. Do not assume that because the person telling you is on the "right side," that they are telling you the truth. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. If it seems too bad to be true, it probably is! What do you think? Do you think you really know the truth? I would be most interested in your comments!