I'm not a huge fan of John McCain. Mostly because I believe he was one of the most hawkish Senators around pushing America's disastrous foreign policy. But still, I didn't want to say much because you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead and all.

But then the endless media charade about this "great American patriot" who was a "war hero" and "maverick" and "stood up to Trump" or something. Indeed, it seemed like much of the praise of McCain was little more than a rebuke of Trump. As this indescribably embarrasing headline from Susan Glasser in The New Yorker made clear:

Yes, a funeral attended by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Henry Kissinger is a #Resistance meeting. Give me a break!

But more than just the never ending media praise, this whole charade made me think more about the whole "fake news" debate. It's not really that the media lies all the time (although they do plenty, check out this list of retractions and false stories by CNN).  More often than not, it's about what they omit and what they push. Think of this whole Russiagate thing. The media could just as easily (and by that, I mean much, much more easily) make a narrative about Saudi Arabia influencing American politics with the petrodollar and overt bribes/blackmail. Or they could do the same with Israel, the neocons and AIPAC. Yet they focus on Russia. 

So back to John McCain. During McCain's 2000 campaign against George W. Bush, there was a "conspiracy theory" that McCain was actually a Tokyo Rose figure who broadcast communist propaganda and wasn't even tortured. He even confronted Bush about sharing the stage with someone who claimed McCain "abandoned American veterans."

As far as not being tortured, or abandoning veterans goes, there is evidence for that conclusion, but it is by no means proven and I would never say it was a fact. But the claim that McCain broadcast communist propaganda during the Vietnam war (a claim that was hotly denied for decades) has been undeniably confirmed. A few years ago, they found this recording in the national archives:

While this very well might have been done under duress, why is the media ignoring it? And why is it acceptable that McCain lied about it? Again, I would prefer to let bygones be bygones. But this semi-religious and seemingly endless praise for McCain cannot be left to just stand on its own since, it would also seem to quite obviously be an attempt to justify and vindicate America's indefensible foreign policy.

When you define every conservative-leaning person other than John McCain as a white supremacist, you start having to answer really, really stupid questions like this:

And my response:

In my latest article on BiggerPockets (that many have misunderstood as judged by the comments) I make the case that the goal of "financial freedom" is overrated. I first note that the mortality rates for those who retire is substantially higher than for those of the same age who don't. I believe much of the reason is that people who retire often (although not necessarily) lose their purpose and become aimless. Then I ask the question, is financial freedom really that important if you don't like what you're doing to become financially free?

Yes, financial freedom is great, but only if you enjoy what you're doing to get there. Otherwise, you have the same problem as you do with goals; namely, you'll always be in a state of presuccess failure until you succeed and set a new goal to be back in a state of presuccess failure. Systems are much better. With systems, you can enjoy the path.

And financial freedom is only worth it if you can enjoy the path to get there.

In this livestream, my father Bill joins me to talk about why student housing is such a lucrative niche for real estate investors as well as how student housing differs from other buy and hold investments:

For more, check out my article on student housing here, or my dad's interview on the BiggerPockets podcast here.