Understanding how the media is influenced

I want to suggest a book Obama should be reading on his vacation. I feel it is the most important paperback book he and the rest of the country should read right now. It is called “Killing the Messenger” by David Brock. You can get it at our local library or at Barnes and Noble.

Brock is a Republican attack dog who spent years spinning the truth, with short story lines or just one word, to control the media to convince the masses to believe lies about Hillary Clinton. Now he has switched sides and is telling everything on how they did it. It an amazing story about how billionaires and the media can influence us.

It all started with Richard “Mellon” Scaife, who funded the Heritage Foundation and the Spectator. His Mellon family made their money by owning banks, oil companies and ship building, and they used part of that fortune to reshape our political landscape.

Later, two billionaires known as the Kock Brothers took over running the Cato Institute, which is the nation’s premier right-wing think tank. They spent billions of dollars to lobby and buy votes to influence our government and Republicans who were running for office. They also know how to influence one network, and the other networks will follow. The next thing you know, the people have been brainwashed and they are repeating those lies.

So now Donald Trump has taken up the mantle of the right-wing attack dogs to try to hijack your government by using some of these one word tactics and lies to brainwash the American public. Once you read this book, you will finally understand how the right-wing Republicans have influenced the media the last 30 years.

PEGGY ROBERTSON, Lahaina

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We love ’em to death

Today’s ten highest-grossing box office releases are about animals, including: “Finding Dory,” “The Jungle Book,” “Zootopia,” “The Secret Life of Pets,” and “Kung Fu Panda.” Nearly half of our households include a dog and nearly 40 percent have a cat. Two-thirds of us view them as family members and cherish them accordingly. We love our animals to death. Literally…

For every cat, dog or other animal that we love and cherish, we put 500 through months of caging, crowding, deprivation, mutilation and starvation, before we take their very lives, cut their dead bodies into little pieces and shove those into our mouths. And that doesn’t even include Dory and billions of her little friends, because we haven’t figured out how to count individual aquatic animals that we grind up for human or animal feed.

The good news is that we have a choice every time we visit a restaurant or grocery store. We can choose live foods: yellow and green vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, grains, as well as a rich variety of grain and nut-based meats and dairy products. Or, we can choose dead

animals, their body parts, and other products of their abuse.

What will it be?

LEX NAKAHARA, Lahaina

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Know your Medicare rights

As a person with Medicare, you have important rights. One of them is the right to appeal.

An appeal is the action you can take if you disagree with a coverage or payment decision by Medicare or your Medicare health plan. For example, you can appeal if Medicare or your plan denies: a request for a health care service, supply, item or prescription drug that you think you should get; a request for payment of a health care service, supply, item or prescription drug you already got; a request to reduce the amount you must pay for a health care service, supply, item or prescription drug.

You can also appeal if Medicare or your Medicare Advantage plan stops providing or paying for all or part of a health care service, supply, item or prescription drug you think you still need.

If you decide to file an appeal, you can ask your doctor, supplier or other health care provider for any information that may help your case. Keep a copy of everything you send to Medicare or your health plan as part of your appeal!

How you file an appeal depends on the type of Medicare coverage you have. For more information on exceptions and your other Medicare rights, read the “Medicare & You 2016″ handbook at www.medicare.gov/Pubs/pdf/10050.pdf.

CATE KORTZEBORN

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Medicare’s Acting Regional Administrator For Hawaii

The numbers don’t lie… but Trump does

According to a Fox News poll taken this week, voters believe Donald Trump would do better than Hillary Clinton on the economy. This is a wildly poor assumption.

Look at the fair and reasonable indicators. We can surmise that Trump would continue his fact-free, shoot-from-the-hip predatory capitalist approach, and that his policies might look more like George W. Bush’s than anyone else’s. We can also logically guess that Clinton’s policies would resemble those of her husband and President Obama’s.

What do we know?

Bill Clinton inherited an unemployment rate of 7.3 percent from Bush the Elder in 1993. He handed off the low rate of 4.2 percent to Bush the Younger.

Obama inherited an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent from George W. Bush, with a loss of 632,000 jobs in Bush’s last full month of his economically disastrous presidency. Unemployment is now 4.9 percent, with 255,000 jobs added in July.

Financial analysts have shown that had Trump taken his wealth 30 years ago and invested it in a mutual fund, he’d be $10 billion richer today.

A man far richer than Trump – Warren Buffett – disparaged Trump’s business acumen, saying that “if a monkey had thrown a dart at the stock page” in the 1990s, that monkey would have seriously outperformed Trump.

Trump is widely regarded as a slow payer, a deadbeat, a bully and a liar in business deals, with many losses and approximately 3,000 lawsuits against him for his many failures to keep promises made in writing.

Seriously, my fellow voters? Do you believe for one heartbeat that Donald Trump would fix anything? Trump has zero public policy experience, of course, so we can never be sure, but I would suggest that the numbers do not lie.

Indeed, those who fight for the betterment of the American workers – the labor unions – have analyzed the candidates and have come to the obvious conclusion that the Clinton policies would favor working people far more than would Trump’s.

The Donald has earned the endorsement of just two of them: the National Border Patrol Council (in apparent excitement over The Trump Wall and a huge border budget) and the New England Police Benevolent Association. Trump can console himself with the helpful endorsements of Mike Tyson and Hulk Hogan.

Hillary Clinton has received an enormous number of endorsements from those whose “art of the deal” results in better pay for many millions more Americans.

Fortune magazine produced a slideshow of just some of Trump’s failures, documenting his accompanying falsehoods. Believing Trump is affirmation of P.T. Barnum’s putative aphorism, “There’s a sucker born every minute.”

Watching the polls is a head-shaking confirmation that, I hope, reverses itself before November. There is far too much at stake.

TOM H. HASTINGS, PeaceVoice.

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Pluta the main force behind the hospital

The West Maui Hospital had a grand groundbreaking with lots of local celebrities turning over soil. But they just forgot all about the guy behind this hospital for the last 30 years, and that is Joe Pluta.

He is the man that herded these cats into a feasible reality. He was given a loud clapping hello from all the local people – who know how hard he fought for our hospital – but was ignored when the “honors” were executed.

However, the people know that it was Joe. Many played a role, but it was Joe. Thank you, Joe.

PAUL LAUB

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Hawaiians have a Christian heritage

Restoring the Hawaiian Nation begins by coming together in agreement with God. It’s possible. A census in 1850 registered 96 percent Hawaiians as Christians, demonstrating unity in Christ.

If you have Hawaiian blood, it’s likely your ancestors accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. Return to Him. He “will make you a light to the nations of the world.” (Isaiah 49)

“‘Come let us reason together!’ says the LORD. ‘If you are willing and obedient you will eat the good of the land.’ ” (Isaiah 1)

“You are a chosen people, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” (I Peter 2:9)

Ancient Hawaiians worshipped I’o – Jehovah. Later, polytheistic influences resulted in centuries of suffering. The oppressive kapu system was abolished months before the arrival of Christian missionaries.

Hawaiians were receptive to the Gospel, returning to their first love: “If you had known Me (Jesus) you would have known My Father also.” (John 8)

Prayer, worship, and seeking knowledge during the “Great Awakening” from 1835-40 are evidence their faith was genuine. Temptations and atrocities committed in the name of Jesus with exploits against Hawaiians confirm a sincere spiritual revival occurred. Spiritual warfare exists with opposing forces.

“Jesus said, ‘I am the Light of the world.’ ” (John 8:12) “For you, who revere My name, the Sun of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings. And you will go free.” (Malachi 4)

MICHELE LINCOLN, Lahaina