News media hates Trump more than they love honest journalism

Last year as the pandemic swept the nation, and the presidential campaign heated up, the criticisms of then-President Donald Trump grew beyond fever pitch. Virtually everything the man said was met with denunciations and put-downs from the political left, stoked by the liberal news media that didn’t always probe the issue.

When Trump tested positive for COVID-19 in March 2020, he took a two-week regimen of the drug hydroxychloroquine, and praised it as being useful for treating the virus. The media criticism was immediate and vicious, with physicians and scientists, such as Dr. Anthony Fauci and the World Health Organization, saying that it wasn’t effective for the virus.

Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden joined in, saying at a Yahoo News town hall on COVID-19 and food insecurity, “C’mon, man! What is he doing? What in God’s name is he doing?”

And guess what? “A new study published by medRxiv shows hydroxychloroquine, combined with zinc, increased the survival rate of severely ill Wuhan coronavirus patients by 200 percent,” reported Townhall.com. 

Early on, Trump suggested that the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab in China, rather than from a nearby wet market. Again, the media had a field day ridiculing that suggestion. 

It is a known fact that these kinds of labs, wherever they may be, have leaks, so the possibility that Wuhan’s lab could have had one is not crazy. Furthermore, we now know that three researchers at the Wuhan lab suffered from symptoms consistent with COVID-19 in November 2019, before the virus was heard of.

On an episode of CBS "Face the Nation" last month, former head of the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, said that the case for COVID-19 originating in a lab has become increasingly likely, and the likelihood that it came from an animal is dwindling. 

Trump was also ridiculed and chastised for urging against lockdowns. However, generally, the states with the strictest COVID lockdowns caused huge losses of jobs, but those with less severe restrictions have experienced low levels of unemployment

And the New York Post reported: “The five states with the strictest lockdowns over the last year — Hawaii, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York — have an average unemployment rate of 8.06 percent. In the five states with the lightest restrictions, unemployment sits at just 3.48 percent — lower than the 3.5 percent national rate before the pandemic hit the US.”

“At the same time,” the Post report continued, “ample scientific evidence points to the fact that lockdowns did not save lives, regardless of the media force-feeding its preferred narrative to the public.”

Trump early on initiated Project Warp Speed to quickly create a vaccine. The Washington Post reported Trump’s statement on the vaccine’s early completion at a coronavirus roundtable meeting on March 2, 2020: “We’re moving aggressively to accelerate the process of developing a vaccine. … A lot of good things are happening and they’re happening very fast,” he said. 

“Trump is not wrong in saying that scientists are rapidly developing a vaccine to combat the novel coronavirus,” The Post article said. “However, he seems to be overstating when a vaccine will be available to the public. Experts have emphasized that actual deployment of the vaccine is more than a year away, not a few months, as Trump has suggested.”

And a headline on NBC News’ Website read: “Trump says, without evidence, vaccine could be ready by Election Day.”

While the vaccines were not ready by Election Day, they were ready five weeks later, and far ahead of the one-to-ten-year timeline that skeptics expected.

And then there is the situation at Lafayette Square where “peaceful” protesters were attacked with “flash-bang explosions and doused with tear gas,” according to The New York Times. This was supposedly done to clear the way for Trump to walk over to the St. John’s Church for a photo op. That is the same church that the “peaceful” protesters had set afire earlier.

The problem is that none of the country’s finest reporters did their jobs as professionals should. Had they done it right, they would have learned that the clearing of the crowd was decided before Trump even planned on going to the church.

“But an investigation released this week by Interior Department IG Mark Lee Greenblatt says U.S. Park Police and the U.S. Secret Service deemed it necessary to remove protestors from the park on June 1, 2020, in order to install anti-scale fencing,” as reported by Fox News. “The decision was reached after at least 49 U.S. Park Police were injured while policing protests days earlier.”

Other “journalists” also got it wrong. MSNBC’s Joy Reid and CNN's Anderson Cooper also parroted that it happened so Trump could have a photo op. 

Though you don’t have to be a big city newspaper or network TV reporter to actually think about what you are doing and seek out accurate information, you might expect those folks would be the ones that would. But, no.

Much or most of the major media outlets relinquished their professional ethics and replaced them with political interests. Feelings trumped integrity.

Honest, objective news journalism is not something we can rely on.

A truly serious health situation becomes a political football

Candidates working for a primary or a general election victory in the presidential race naturally chop each other down, and they also highlight what they see as the incumbent’s weaknesses and mistakes. This has reached new heights with President Donald Trump as the “enemy.” Everything he does, from relevant topics to the inane, is targeted by Democrats and their media friends. 

The only thing Trump could do that these folks would approve of would be to resign, or perhaps to drop out of the November election. And then he would be criticized for not doing that the “right way,” either.

Cutting taxes, getting rid of needless and harmful regulations, taking out terrorists who murder American military personnel, and strengthening the position of the United States on the international stage are among the things he’s been recently criticized for. And soon we will likely hear that he wears the wrong color socks and eats too much beef.

The emergence of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, has gotten the attention of nearly everybody in the United States and, of course, that includes those running for the Democrat nomination for president.

And not surprisingly, they criticize Trump’s official reaction to the threat of the coronavirus in the U.S. When Democrats claimed that his administration was doing a poor job in addressing the threat, Trump declared those criticisms a “hoax.” Not the virus itself, mind you, but the criticism of his handling of it.

The media then took his comment out of contest and ran off the rails. Dana Milbank of the Washington Post wrote: “Remember this moment: Trump, in South Carolina, just called the coronavirus a ‘hoax.’”

Another media mis-statement, by Politico: “President Donald Trump on Friday night tried to cast the global outbreak of the coronavirus as a liberal conspiracy intended to undermine his first term, lumping it alongside impeachment and the Mueller investigation.”

Both NBC and CBS ran similar misrepresentations of Trump’s comment.

Most Americans do not factcheck what they read and hear from news outlets. They trust them to be accurate and objective. As these examples illustrate, the media often fall short of that expected and needed purpose. Whether by shoddy work or deliberate intent, the result is the same: mis-information gets passed on as accurate news, which many automatically believe. Is that “fake news?”

As previously illustrated, this happens too frequently. Therefore, is the President’s charge that some in the media are “the enemy of the people” really so far-fetched?

And it’s not only the news media that gets things wrong. Candidates for the Democrat nomination also got it wrong. Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg said, “There’s nobody here to figure out what the hell we should be doing. And he’s defunded — he’s defunded Centers for Disease Control, CDC, so we don’t have the organization we need. This is a very serious thing.”

“We increased the budget of the CDC,” former Vice President Joe Biden said. “We increased the NIH (National Institutes of Health) budget. … He’s wiped all that out. … He cut the funding for the entire effort.”

But dang the luck, both are wrong. Trump is trying to reduce government spending to deal with the budget deficits and the huge national debt, which is badly needed. However, none of the cuts he has called for have been enacted; Congress did not pass them.

The Associated Press factchecked these criticisms, and defended Trump: “He’s proposed cuts but Congress ignored him and increased financing instead. The National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention aren’t suffering from budget cuts that never took effect.”

And just because budget cuts were proposed does not by itself indicate that they would have affected fighting the coronavirus. Further, there is an existing fund that was created specifically for health emergencies.

Trump also has asked for additional funding for fighting the coronavirus, but Congress did not grant the request, saying that more money is needed. If so, would it not make sense to grant the initial request and then pass additional funding, rather than turning down what the loyal opposition claims is critical funding?

As for who is on the job, overseeing the work, which Democrat hopefuls also criticized, the major players are Dr. Anne Schuchat, the CDC’s principal deputy director, and a respected veteran of previous outbreaks, Dr. Anthony Fauci, NIH’s infectious disease chief who has advised six presidents. 

These doctors provide the medical knowledge needed to protect Americans from this serious threat. And Trump has formed an administrative coronavirus task force to manage the government’s actions.

Trump has assigned Vice President Mike Pence to head the task force, which includes Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, Department of Homeland Security acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, and Domestic Policy Council Director Joseph Grogan. 

Weaponizing the coronavirus threat into a political issue is both a cheap shot and dangerous. It unnecessarily raises fears among the public where good sense is needed, and it shifts the focus of the Democrat campaign away from the radical political positions the Democrats propose.

Training school shooters; election oddities; fires; and the media

Did you see anything in the news of the compound in New Mexico where 11 young people ages one to 15 years old were being held in squalid conditions, and at least one of them was being instructed on how to shoot up a school? This is not just speculation; the information came from court records filed last week.

News reports – which were fewer in number than the situation called for – said that one of the five “extremist Muslims” arrested at the compound, which had neither electricity nor plumbing, was training one or more of the children to commit school shootings. And, the children and captors are all related.

Prosecutors allege that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam, also named Siraj Wahhaj, who was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, according to the New York Post.

One report noted that Taos County officials became tired of waiting for the federal government to act against the compound, and took matters in their own hands. Sheriff Jerry Hogrefe said the children “looked like third world country refugees not only with no food or fresh water, but with no shoes … and basically dirty rags for clothing.” The remains of one child were found at the compound.

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Ohio’s U.S. House special election featured Republican Troy Balderson versus Democrat Danny O’Connor in a race Balderson was expected to win handily, as O’Connor had been trailing Balderson in the polls and early vote counts.

And then, “Ohio election officials on Wednesday found 588 previously uncounted votes in the hotly contested special election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District,” The Hill reported, narrowing the lead to only 1,564 votes.

Still left to count at that time were 3,435 provisional ballots and 5,048 absentee ballots, meaning the final result was sure to change.

Some wondered where these votes had been hiding since Election Day, and it was explained that “the votes from a portion of one voting location had not been processed into the tabulation system,” at the polling place, according to the Franklin County Board of Elections. No one explained how or why this irregularity occurred.

Further casting a shadow on the legitimacy of the vote from this Buckeye State district was the revelation that there are 170 registered voters over 116 years of age still on the rolls of the 12th District, and 72 of them cast ballots in the 2016 election.

This raises legitimate questions of how many votes are still floating in electoral space, waiting for someone to discover them, as well as how many other voters are on the roles improperly.

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The horrible wild fires in California are inflicting misery and causing great damage to thousands of state residents. Unfortunately, this tragedy has once again been used by the politically motivated Left to push one of their favorite themes: Climate change/global warning.

With an estimated 600,000 acres already destroyed by fire, and thousands of residents displaced because their homes have been destroyed, or face that very real and urgent threat, the radical environmentalists are heeding the words of former Obama White House Chief of Staff and now-Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”

But someone with actual knowledge of effective woodlands management takes a different view. Forester Bob Zybach said that when President Bill Clinton introduced a plan that was aimed at saving the spotted owl and ancient trees back in 1994 by restricting logging in the old-growth forests, that plan was a mistake. 

He knew how ecosystems thrive, flourish, die and are reborn. “We knew exactly what would happen if we just walked away,” he told The Daily Caller. Years of mismanagement have served to turn the forests into a ticking time bomb. 

Zybach said that when Native Americans lived on the land and practiced human management of forests, they used controlled burns to clear pastureland and undergrowth for hunting. Without human management, nature will do the pruning, and we see now how that works. “You take away logging, grazing and maintenance, and you get firebombs,” Zybach said.

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The news media in general may not be the “enemy of the people,” as President Donald Trump’s words have been twisted to suggest by some in the media, but many in the industry are the enemy of the president. The troubled Boston Globeis working to organize a “day of editorials” on Aug. 16 denouncing what the newspaper called a ‘‘dirty war against the free press.’’

And then there’s the opinion piece by Tina Dupuy in USA Todaysuggesting amending the U.S. Constitution to abolish the presidency. She wrote that since this president is a tyrant who will not be removed through the constitutional process of impeachment, the presidency must be abolished.

The only way to get rid of Trump is to get rid of the presidency itself?

Clearly, many in the news media have abandoned journalistic ethics, and now believe it is just fine for them to become the story rather than to merely report the story.

More and more one word is becoming especially applicable in politics today. That word is “unhinged.”

Do we still have freedom of speech? Well, yes; sometimes we do.

 

Thank goodness for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects what our Founders viewed as our God-given rights to free exercise of religion, free speech, freedom of the press, peaceable assembly, and to petition the government for redress of grievances.

However, while efforts to infringe upon those and other rights are not unheard of, the attacks on them currently form a far more serious threat than perhaps at any other time, and certainly the most serious in many decades.

There has been ample news coverage of instances where Christian bakers and florists were forced to bake cakes or produce flower arrangements for gay weddings, contrary to their religious beliefs.

A decorated Army chaplain is facing what his attorneys are calling a “career-ending punishment” after he explained to a soldier that he could not conduct a marriage retreat that included same sex couples, but was willing to find someone else to do it.

Somehow, no matter how many people are available and willing to provide these services, those wanting a particular service view it as a horrible crime if a person refuses to perform it on religious grounds.

These days, certain “preferences” held by relatively small groups are thought to be of even greater importance than those rights set in stone by our Founders.

Some small efforts at balancing these breaches have occurred, but one’s ability to practice his or her religion in the customary fashion is only sometimes protected, these days.

These breaches of the First Amendment’s protections are serious enough, but what is happening on social media, on college campuses and elsewhere regarding free speech and free access to information is much worse, if for no other reason because of its broad swath of free speech encroachments that are being slashed through our culture.

Burgess Owens, a conservative African-American entrepreneur and 10-year veteran of the NFL, appeared at Hobart and William Smith Colleges recently. He told the audience, “I grew up in the Deep South during Jim Crow segregation laws. I can tell you how racism looks, how it feels, and what it means. You guys today can go anyplace you want to — any restaurant, any college.”

Well, that was too much for the audience. A female attendee asked him to repeat his first name, and after he did so, she said, “Oh, I thought it was ‘Tom,’” as in Uncle Tom. Cute.

Student activists at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, made good on their threat to disrupt an address by conservative Christina Hoff Sommers. What makes this one worse is that it was at the Law School. Yes, that’s right: students studying the law denied Sommers her free speech right.

The Leftist operators of Google, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube social media platforms think the way to persuade people to their ideas is to cheat them out of contrary opinions. 

The Media Research Center has produced a report titled “Censored” on how and to what extent popular social media are trying to “persuade” people to their way of thinking, not through the common sense of their ideas or the power of their argument, but by keeping people from seeing other points of view.

Authors Ashley Rae Goldenberg and Dan Gainor tell us that social media influences our worldview and can even influence elections. “Americans are seeing the results everywhere online. Conservative spokespeople, political candidates, even members of Congress, are falling victim to censors and the top tech firms are to blame.”

The article addresses claims of liberal bias and censorship against Twitter, Facebook, Google and YouTube individually, listing the claims and evaluating them, showing that the claims are supported by evidence.

These include such things as that Twitter censors conservative tweets pro-life ads, and censors content that governments find objectionable.

Liberal attitudes are at the core of Facebook and it censors pro-life advertising. Facebook’s algorithms filter what things its members can see, and it also blocked the “Diamond and Silk” girls’ posts, calling their content “dangerous.” Have you ever seen Diamond and Silk? Dangerous?

Google’s fact-checking system and algorithm contain an anti-conservative bias, and its News Lab partners with the radical Southern Poverty Law Center to identify “hate.”

Charges against YouTube mirror those previously mentioned for the other three media.

Is it that these folks have so little faith in their way of thinking that they don’t trust it to stand up against contrary ideas? Or do they not want to go to the trouble of actual debate and take a chance on losing in the marketplace of free ideas?

Whatever the motivation, using their ability to control what their customers or users see is truly otherworldly.

Liars, cheaters and cowards, oh my!

Faced with unpopular ideas, so many in our country are convinced that the appropriate reaction is to hold their breath, sob uncontrollably, stomp their feet, run to their safe space and demand that the speaker of these ideas shut up.

Private businesses or organizations can control what their Websites show. No argument there. The question, however, is not whether they can, but whether they should? Politics and business is a bad combination, and in these instances is quite dangerous.

High crimes and misdemeanors? No. But some very odd courtroom occurrences

Last week was certainly interesting. With a high profile guilty plea, and a surprising not guilty verdict, among other things, it was quite a week.

Michael Flynn, who served as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in the Obama administration, then briefly as President-elect Donald Trump’s national security advisor, on Friday followed predictions that he would plead guilty to one count of making false statements to the FBI about conversations he had with Russian officials during Trump’s period of transition to the presidency.

This has gotten the Russia-obsessed left all excited in its so-far frustrated grand hopes of showing that Trump should be impeached for interfering in the election. This incident, however, will not satisfy those desires.

As a transition team member, Flynn’s talking to representatives of foreign governments is not illegal, and in fact is routinely done. Sorry, Trump haters, it is not evidence of collusion in the election.

Given all of that, why did Flynn lie about what he discussed with the Russian ambassador? Who knows? He hadn’t done anything illegal, and could simply have declined to talk with the FBI. It’s a mystery. A report in National Review, in fact, says that Flynn’s lies were so small and insignificant a crime that the FBI didn’t think it would prosecute him. And then, the FBI already had transcripts of Flynn’s discussion with the Russian ambassador, so why question him? Could it be they did it in hopes of trapping him in a lie?

A source close to Flynn said that said the investigation has taken a toll on his family’s financial condition and has been emotionally draining, and that he pled guilty to end the process, according to a Fox News story. Following the guilty plea Flynn agreed to cooperate with the FBI’s continuing investigation.

The news of the plea spawned an ABC News story that Flynn would be testifying that he was directed by then-candidate Donald Trump to reach out to Russia during the campaign. As you can imagine, this story created some crazy reactions. The Dow Jones Industrials took a 300-plus point drop. And, Trump-hater Joy Behar on ABC’s “The View” delightedly told the TV audience that, “ABC News’ Brian Ross is reporting Michael Flynn offered full cooperation to the Mueller team and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians! Yes!” Her excited announcement drew enthusiastic responses from her co-hosts and the studio audience.

Unfortunately for all those Trump haters, it was “fake news.” Ross’ report was incorrect, which ABC finally acknowledged after eight hours, and later suspended Ross for his incompetence.

Moving from that fake news to an incomprehensible jury verdict in a tragic death: on a pleasant San Francisco evening a couple and their 32 year-old daughter walked leisurely on Pier 14, when the daughter fell to the ground. Seriously injured, she begged her father, “Dad, help me!” as he held her in his arms. He couldn’t help her and shortly thereafter Kate Steinle was declared dead of a gunshot wound.

At the time the gun went off, it was in the possession of an illegal alien who had been previously deported five times, and had seven felony convictions. Jose Ines Garcia Zarate’s answers to police questions had at least two very different accounts of what happened, but he said the shooting was an accident. One account held that he simply found the gun, which had been stolen from a federal law enforcement officer’s car a week earlier, under a bench wrapped in a tee shirt, and that the weapon accidentally discharged. Another account claimed the gun accidentally discharged. Three times. Another had him shooting at seals in the ocean. The shot, or one of the three shots, ricocheted off the ground and hit Steinle.

CBS News reported “Garcia Zarate had been deported five times and was homeless in San Francisco when he shot Steinle. He had recently completed a prison sentence for illegal re-entry to the U.S. when he was transferred to the San Francisco County jail to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge. 

“Prosecutors dropped that charge,” the CBS report continued, “and the San Francisco sheriff released Zarate from jail despite a federal immigration request to detain him for at least two more days for deportation. The sheriff's department said it was following the city's sanctuary policy of limited cooperation with federal immigration authorities.”

Zarate was charged and tried for first-degree murder, second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, assault with a semi-automatic weapon, and possession of a firearm by a felon. He was found not guilty of all but the possession charge.

A person who was in the country illegally for the sixth time and had seven felony convictions was breaking the law by handling a weapon, during which time that weapon (accidentally?) discharged and killed an innocent person.  That is pretty much the definition of involuntary manslaughter.

Many people bear some responsibility for this tragedy. First, Zarate; then, in no particular order, the sheriff; those operating and supporting sanctuary jurisdictions; and the defense attorneys, who put saving their client from his just rewards above their duty to achieve justice.

“Poor Donald, he can’t help it. He was born to do things wrong!”

A president’s true effect on his country can’t be fully and accurately assessed until some time after his or her term ends. But looking at Donald Trump’s record so far indicates his effect will be almost 100 percent negative, as is plainly demonstrated by media coverage and the estimates of his Democrat and liberal enemies.

Sure, he’s been in office only seven months, but all that really means is that his negative record is ultimately going to be absolutely YUGE and unparalleled!

How could so many American voters have been so wrong last November?

Trump is a man who has become famous only because his father gave him money, right? Daddy, we are told, provided gifts of $1 million or maybe $100 million. Detractors say that is why he is now worth $3.5 billion, according to Forbes, only 35 times the highest reported level of help of $100 million. What’s special about that? Surely any or all of the rest of us could have done that well?

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., saw this coming and wisely wanted to save the country all this pain by impeaching him before he ever got sworn in as president. Perhaps she was in such a hurry because she wanted get it done before her trial for ethics violations begins. And some of her patriotic Democrat comrades are still working toward that end. Bless their hearts!

And CNN’s “reporter,” Jim Acosta – who has benefitted from his own journalistic failures since Trump made him famous by noticing and publicizing them – acted on an assumption. Immediately upon hearing the dire predictions of catastrophe of Hurricane Harvey advancing on the Texas coast, Acosta apparently assumed Trump was watching baseball rather than acting in advance of the storm to deal with the developing crisis. He texted Trump with the question “what is your administration doing about the hurricane to keep Texans safe?” By then, Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott had already talked by phone and the federal government was already acting, and Abbott has praised the federal response. Oops!

No doubt Al Gore will soon publish another book or make another movie with withering criticism of Donald’s failure to remain in the Paris Climate Accord, that “doctrine with no teeth,” which he’ll swear could have turned the storm to the south, sparing America altogether.

Sure, former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is a hero to many Arizonans for his unwavering enforcement of federal immigration laws the federal government refused to enforce. The feds’ abdication meant great harm and discomfort to the people of Sen. John McCain’s home state.

But how could Donald dare to pardon the man before he was even sentenced for the misdemeanor charges he was found guilty of – by a judge, not a jury – and robbing that judge of the pleasure of punishing a man she convicted of upholding federal law?

Shouldn’t a president’s powers of pardon and commutation be reserved for people convicted of serious federal crimes, as Bill Clinton did on his last day in office for 140 such criminals, some of whom were his relatives and friends? Or, for releasing 1,500 federal prisoners and Gitmo detainees, as Barack Obama did over eight years?

Even some so-called Republicans, like the aforementioned John McCain, are critical of Trump. McCain said the timing was bad and especially so because “Mr. Arpaio has shown no remorse for” doing the job the federal government refused to do to protect Sen. McCain’s Arizona constituents.

With these acts Trump has joined the ranks of previous presidents, doing things their enemies dislike. Remember Barack Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor,” bragging on the Affordable Care Act, or “The police acted stupidly” trying to protect personal property, or when he curtsied to Muslim leaders upon meeting them?

Many people do not like Donald Trump, a condition he readily contributes to by some actions, but also because he doesn’t do things the way they expect a president to do them. However, being different isn’t necessarily being wrong. Remember, in 1532 it was a certainty that the Earth was the center of all things. But Nicholaus Copernicus revived an ancient theory saying the Sun was actually the center and Earth revolved around it. According to the existing beliefs, he was wrong. But he wasn’t.

Many in the media and the public take Trump’s words literally without thinking about what he was trying to communicate. Yes, that may be hard work, but reporting accurately is also hard work, and the media needs to step up its game.

Of course, Trump should do a better job of making sure his words convey their intended meaning; but the media must remember that their job is to convey the true message, the intended message, and leave their petty, adolescent feelings aside.

Reporters and media outlets are charged with accurately, objectively and fairly informing the public. Report what happens, good, bad and ugly, and let the people decide how to respond. Americans don’t need you to tell them what to think.

America’s future is far more important than the hurt feelings and emotional upheavals of Trump’s enemies.