PERRY: All this really happened last week. Only readers of real news media knew the truth

Last week was a perfect example of why you need a strong, vibrant — and credible — news media.

After weeks of rhetoric, hyperbole and discredited assertions, President Donald Trump made good on threats to impose a chaotic and confusing mass of tariffs against most every nation outside the United States. Despite dire and consistent warnings from respected, non-partisan economics experts, Trump insists the exploding trade war will benefit the nation and all its taxpayers.

Some day.

If you watch Fox News, or just scroll through the social media posts of the president and his allies, you would think Trump had been right all along.

“Trump says tariffs going very well” Fox News headlined on its website last week as the stock markets began deflating much like they did when news broke that the “novel coronavirus” this was certain to become a global pandemic. “Markets and the United States going to boom. Countries crawling back to negotiate.”

Beyond distortion, it’s all lies.

The debacle is well on its way to becoming yet another saga in the “Ready-Fire-Aim-For-The-Foot” presidency of Trump.

“Dow drops 1,600 as US stocks lead worldwide sell-off after Trump’s tariffs cause a COVID-like shock,” was the headline in the Sentinel later that day, on top of the deeply reported story by the Associated Press.

Since then, economic experts from across the political and industry spectra, don’t-make-eye-contact billionaires and growing number of House and Senate Republicans are stepping up to warn all Americans, this will not end well for anyone, but especially those Americans who aren’t rich.

Louisiana GOP Sen. John Kennedy, a staunch Trump supporter, said he, like almost all of Congress, wants to see better trade deals for the United States. But he’s worried that what Trump has called “good medicine” through tariffs and trade wars will ruin the economy.

“We don’t know if the medicine will be worse than the disease,” Kennedy told the Associated Press. “This is President Trump’s economy now.”

Whether you agree with Kennedy or Aurora’s Democratic Rep. Jason Crow — who said, “Donald Trump is crashing our economy and increasing the price of nearly everything you buy… Meanwhile, President Trump advances in a golf tournament. Complete failure of leadership.” — getting the straight story has never been more critical, for everyone.

Neither Fox News nor any of the Trump propaganda organs are going to seek comment and information from the hundreds of experts that work for multi-billion-dollar companies and disagree with what Trump and his sworn allies are doing.

You have to look to real journalism and undaunted news media for truthful reporting, and you know you need the truth.

These aren’t relatively esoteric quagmires that Trump is trotting out so fast it makes you queasy. This is your money he’s messing with now. Your jobs. Your healthcare, and even your rights. 

As a measles outbreak — here in the United States, not some far away remote place on the globe — kills a third child and moves into Colorado, the most ludicrous person ever appointed as Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., will bend only slightly to absolutely rock-solid, decades-strong proof that the measles vaccine is safe and critically effective. Rather than tell misguided parents to run to get their children vaccinated, long a staunch anti-vaxxer, he said it’s a “personal” choice.

It’s child abuse.

Instead, he offers that big doses of Vitamin A are a suitable treatment.

Every real doctor here and across the nation is adamant that there is no treatment for measles. None. Zip. 

Now, children in Texas, where the measles outbreak is worst, are being taken to hospitals with not just measles, but suffering from Vitamin A overdoses as well.

With Trump’s approval, Kennedy’s quackery reached new heights this week when he announced that he would tell the Centers for Disease control to quit recommending drinking water fluoridation as a decades-long way to prevent tooth decay.

He does this with absolutely no definitive proof of human danger at prescribed levels of fluoridation. Here in Aurora, the drinking water has now, and has always had, therapeutic levels of naturally occurring fluoride that, if Kennedy were correct about, would cost millions every year to remove from the water, local water experts say.

Trump, and those who he allows positions in the government only if they swear allegiance to him, are anxious to ignore or disengage from decades of miraculous scientific progress, offering only quackery and hucksterism.

Because this is your life and health at risk, you want and need a news provider that is determined to vet sources and seek out people and institutions whose mission it is to stand fast to critically important scientific standards and methods. Infomercials, influencers, Fox News and Trump’s “they say” rhetoric are not dependable places to get information affecting your life, your money and your future.

Trusted news sources that seek out data-driven expertise not only assure you of what the world really knows at the time, but that kind of journalism acts preventatively, putting government officials on notice that behavior like Kennedy’s or Trump’s will be outed and scrutinized.

It happens close to home, too.

Whether the Sentinel and other legitimate media are covering back-to-back and exhausting crises, or just telling you when you can expect to get your street cleaned, you want accurate news based on reality.

Over the past several days, the Sentinel has offered factual accounts and details about a growing domestic violence court-system conundrum in Aurora. Most local news sources ignored the issue. Or they provided a “he said, she said” account of arguments around the choice of closing the city’s domestic-violence court system to save some money.

The Sentinel, however, brought readers expert opinion, data, and facts from city and county sources to help the community understand what’s really at stake, and what’s not. 

The Sentinel has also helped the community understand the details and nuance behind months of regular protests inside city council meetings.

Last week, the Sentinel shed light on how a 19-year-old Venezuelan refugee ended up in a notorious El Salvadoran prison, without any provable cause at all.

Also last week, the Sentinel explained in detail how the owners of embattled apartments in northwest Aurora are trying to defend themselves against criminal nuisance complaints by saying Aurora officials pursue them because they’re Jewish.

And just days ago, the Sentinel provided a comprehensive look at the battle between state lawmakers refusing to allow cities like Aurora and Pueblo to disregard 14th Amendment protections against unfair and unequal prosecutions, and what Aurora and other cities say is their right to local control, even of the courts.

It doesn’t matter what your opinion is about those and hundreds of other controversial and consequential stories are, you need facts.

You need trusted news. Trusted news needs you.

The Sentinel needs you to help us keep providing all that to you, and everyone, without a paywall or requirement.

Whether you prefer the Sentinel, or any of the dozens of reliable, credible news sources across the state, support them. Today.

Buy advertisements. Subscribe. Donate.

If you’ve generously contributed to the Sentinel, a community-guided, non-profit news group, thank you.

If you can add to your contribution, thank you again.

If you just haven’t seen a good enough reason to contribute $5 or more, this week’s headlines were convincing.

Click here for details and to contribute. It’s fast, easy and secure. And it’s important.

Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com