Fact-checking President Trump is important

With so much misinformation and outright lies spread by our president, his favorite entertainment news shows and Russian government internet bots, it is maddening to see the Daily Herald printing opinion letters in which the letter writer recites these lies as facts. When the Daily Herald does not fact-check before printing opinion letters, your publication is aiding and abetting the dissemination of misinformation.

The Grayslake letter writer citing "Iran has used that 100 billion Obama gave them …" clearly has taken Trump's misinformed rantings as fact. Certainly your editorial staff and anyone familiar with the facts of the Iran Nuclear Agreement know President Obama and our allies agreed to allow Iran access to their frozen assets provided Iran fulfilled their end of the agreement - the agreement which Trump reneged on did not give billions to Iran.

Trump's lies range from the petty (size of his inauguration crowd) to the seriously consequential (Russia's interference in our elections was a "made-up story" by the Democrats).

With Trump's limited vocabulary and overall lack of knowledge, whenever we hear him saying "billions" (the lie that Amazon causes the U.S. Postal Service to lose billions in revenue), "millions" (the lie that millions voted illegally in the 2016 election), "thousands" (the lie that he watched thousands and thousands of people in New Jersey cheering the 9/11 attacks) and "believe me" - it's probably a good idea to do some fact-checking.

It is vitally important to our democracy that our media provide facts and stem the flow of lies that spew from our White House.

Jane Cox

Wheaton