To the Editor:

I'm usually attentive to Deb Palmieri's editorials as I'm interested in her viewpoint.

I saw a red flag when she mentioned listening to Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas and Fox News conservative talk-show host. Fact checkers have given Fox News commentators many "Pinocchio's" over the years for their tendency to ignore the facts and create their own narrative.

According to Mrs. Palmieri, Huckabee was discussing a column by Washington Times national security columnist Bill Gertz who stated a 2010 Pentagon directive allowed a U.S. president to use unarmed drones against American citizens in cases of civil unrest.

He alleged various government entities are also forming SWAT teams.

In our time of unlimited assault weapons on our streets murdering school children and police, unarmed drone surveillance and SWAT teams may be in order to protect us.

I object to the accusatory tone Gertz set, slanting his viewpoint to support some dictated ideology.

The Washington Times is not credible. The Times was founded in 1982 by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate affiliated with the Unification Church founded by Sun Myung Moon.

Broadcast and print journalists today have not been taught to be fact checkers.

They say they want to get both sides of the story, which is not a search for the truth, but a quest for "fairness."

This journalistic tactic gives the politically powerful on both sides of the aisle a microphone. Fact checking is a journalistic responsibility. Edward R. Murrow said, "To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful."

I'm not a distracted American citizen.

I'm very much aware of the fear-mongering by the media that is dividing our country.

Jane Aylor Fretz

Lower Macungie Township