With all due respect to my colleague Rachel Alexander and her weekly Fake News Update, what the mainstream media and its political partners are practicing is not “fake news.”

Fake news is “Elvis Spotted Playing Golf at Mar-a-Lago,” or Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update, or planted rumors of a Hollywood romance to boost publicity for a movie. Fake news is the work of hucksters and humorists. The P.T. Barnums of the press. Fiction presented as reality for entertainment or personal profit.

No, what we are seeing now is something more sinister. We are seeing the deliberate distortion of truth with the intent to deceive, deflect and destroy.

Reddit with its Trump dossier, Time with the removal of the MLK bust, Samantha Bee and the men with the Nazi haircuts, coast-to-coast hoaxes of violence against Muslims and women played out on front pages, campus violence blamed on the victims, vandals played up as brave warriors. “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot.” Every day the toll from the toxic venom grows. 

Dateline: Garden of Eden

It’s actually nothing new. In fact, its first practitioner can be found in the Garden of Eden. (Genesis 3) The serpent, more crafty than other animals (no one is saying the media doesn’t know its craft), first raises an issue with Eve that hadn’t even been an issue, misquoting God in the process: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” She corrects him, noting that if she eats from the tree in the middle of the garden, she’ll die. The serpent then deceives. “You will not die,” said the serpent. What you’ve been told by God is not true. Before Eve can consider or ask herself “Why would this serpent know better than God?” the serpent deflects. Accept what I’m saying and you will have knowledge of good and evil. You’ll sound smarter on Facebook.

There’s no talk of consequence. (How often does the media play out the true consequences of what it’s pitching?) Eve swallows the report, bites the apple and the rest, as they say, is misery.

It was our first case of “Snake News.” Today, Snake News is alive and well on our airwaves. Perhaps it’s no surprise that Satan is called the “ruler of the power of the air.” (Ephesians 2:2)

Snake News

It is now impossible to scroll through a Twitter Feed of major media and political sites, along with media suppliers like the Associated Press without hearing the rattle of Snake News. 

Let’s just dissect a single example from the past 72 hours: 

As with every president since the days of disco, President Trump asked the U.S. attorneys appointed by his predecessor to resign. Immediately, it was treated by the media as if it was a brutal, bloody purge worthy of Stalin (Snake News #1). The Stalin reference is fitting because Trump is enamored of Russian dictators, in fact dictators of all kinds (Snake News #2).

However, one of the U.S. attorneys, Preet Bharara, refused to resign. Naturally, he was fired. Remember the phrase “serves at the pleasure of the President”? It doesn’t apply to President Trump. Bharara, an Obama-appointee, is being played as a victim (Snake News #3).

Bharara, whose ambition and ego are about as secret as Trump’s conversations with foreign leaders, is going around trumpeting his “absolute independence” and suggesting political influence was behind his ouster. Two quick points: First, he’s in Manhattan. You won’t advance in New York politics by saying Trump had every right to ask you to step down.  Second, his antics fall under the category of “fake news” rather than Snake News because, as mentioned above, the narrative he’s peddling is for his own benefit. 

However, Bharara has given the media and Trump’s enemies an opening. The Associated Press, in its article announcing the prosecutor’s firing, included multiple quotes suggesting Bharara was canned because he is the guy who’d be heading any NY investigation into Trump’s alleged Russian ties. (Incidentally, of all the possible cases the US Attorney’s Office Southern District of New York is handling, including the investigation into the Clinton Foundation — the AP saw fit to mention Bharara’s investigation of the sexual harassment allegations against Fox News. Why that case? But I digress.)

Rep. Elijah Cummings repeated the charge Sunday on ABC’s This Week, saying the firing of Bharara “may very well” be connected to a Trump-Russia investigation. The story was quickly retweeted by The Hill, among others. Sen. Elizabeth Warren also chimed in with the media eagerly singing backup. 

Cummings: There "very well may be" connection between firing of US attorney and probes into Trump https://t.co/UirrufArhl pic.twitter.com/BNbppWuuml

— The Hill (@thehill) March 12, 2017

So now the story line is “Trump Fires US Attorney to Thwart Investigation Into Russian Ties” (Snake News #4). Does it really matter if they put a question mark in the headline? Innuendo is the devil’s plaything. 

Meanwhile, a Russia spokesman revealed Sunday that the Russian ambassador also met up with advisers for Hillary Clinton during the campaign. Also, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper says there’s no evidence of any wrongdoing by Trump or any of his associates in connection with Russia. 

Unfortunately, truth doesn’t kill this snake. Let’s see how. Also this weekend, former Obama press secretary Josh Earnest told the Associated Press we should expect more information to come out about Trump and Russia. 

How clever of the Obama machine to deny any involvement in the surveillance of Trump yet to continue perpetuating the story that was the alleged basis of the surveillance in the first place. Surveillance that has turned up nothing. 

But we shouldn’t be surprised. 

The Rules

It is a lot easier to understand Snake News when you read the media and their progressive political partners in light of Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are disciples. Obama actually taught and spread the Alinsky method. His legions learned well. 

Here are some of Alinsky’s rules:

1. “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” Personal destruction.
2. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” Personal mockery.
3. “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Peddle a false narrative until its ingrained in the public consciousness. 
4. “Keep the pressure on. Never let up.” 24/7 negative coverage. Every act has an evil intent. Every gesture is a confirmation of manufactured memes. Non-conformity is a sign of mental illness.  Kneeling on a couch is racist. Even a daughter is “complicit.” 

In short, you lie, steal and destroy. And that brings us full circle. 

Who did Alinksy offer special acknowledgement to in The Rules for Radicals? Lucifer. The first and reigning purveyor of Snake News.