States are now pushing for media literacy programs in public schools to battle the proliferation of "fake news."

Courtesy of the AP: 

Alarmed by the proliferation of false content online, state lawmakers around the country are pushing schools to put more emphasis on teaching students how to tell fact from fiction. 

Lawmakers in several states have introduced or passed bills calling on public school systems to do more to teach media literacy skills that they say are critical to democracy. The effort has been bipartisan but has received little attention despite successful legislation in Washington state, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Mexico. 

Several more states are expected to consider such bills in the coming year, including Arizona, New York and Hawaii. 

"I don't think it's a partisan issue to appreciate the importance of good information and the teaching of tools for navigating the information environment," said Hans Zeiger, a Republican state senator in Washington who co-sponsored a bill that passed in his state earlier this year. "There is such a thing as an objective source versus other kinds of sources, and that's an appropriate thing for schools to be teaching."

I am totally behind this effort, and see it as a complete necessity moving forward.

I think on the first day of class, lesson one should be do not listen to a damn thing this guy says.

It turns out the Syrian hoax meme was the result of Russian propaganda.

Ah you Americans are ever so easy to manipulate. You are like children.

Courtesy of ABC News:  

As Syrian president Bashar al-Assad called videos of last week’s chemical attack a “fabrication,” a piece of propaganda promoted by a Russian cyber operation and bearing the hashtag #SyriaHoax has gained traction in the United States, analysts tell ABC News. 

Following the chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians on Tuesday, Al-Masdar News, a pro-Assad website based in Beirut, published claims that "something is not adding up in [the] Idlib chemical weapons attack." Its author cited "holes" in the accounts provided by the "Al-Qaeda affiliated" White Helmets leading to the conclusion that "this is another false chemical attack allegation made against the government." 

That hoax story was promoted by a network of Russian social media accounts and ultimately picked up by popular alt-right personalities in the United States, including Mike Cernovich, one of the leading voices in the debunked 'Pizzagate' conspiracy theory. Cernovich popularized its new hashtag -- #SyriaHoax -- and sent it soaring through cyberspace. According to Trends24, within hours of the retaliatory missile strike President Donald Trump launched on Thursday night, #SyriaHoax was the No. 1 trending Twitter topic in the United States. 

J.M. Berger of The International Centre for Counter-Terrorism at The Hague, who studies propaganda and social media analytical techniques, said #SyriaHoax is "a clear example of a Russian influence campaign" designed to undermine the credibility of the U.S. government. 

"The point of an influence campaign is to get people involved who wouldn't otherwise be involved," Berger said. "A lot of people in the alt-right would not necessarily characterize themselves as being pro-Russian, but they're receiving influence from this campaign."

It should be noted that some of the people clearly influenced by this propaganda include Alex Jones, Tulsi Gabbard, and of course Sarah Palin.

We all need to keep in mind that the Russian attempt to spread disinformation and shape our opinions did NOT end with the election. They are still doing it, and it does not seem that it will stop anytime soon.

We just have to be vigilant and make sure that our sources are from reputable news outlets, and not some faux Russian backed news website whose sole purpose is to keep us off balance and make us question reality itself. 

Rachel Maddow explains the ability of Russia to sway American public opinion using bots. Everybody needs to watch this!

Look I know you are busy people but at some point today I implore you to take the time to watch his episode.

It is extremely important for all us to be as informed as possible about what happened in 2016 in order to inoculate ourselves from ever letting it happen again.

Let me just say this for the record, and yes I know it will probably offend some of you, if you were convinced not to vote for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election the chances are extremely high that your opinion was shaped by the Russian government.

If you thought that the nomination was stolen from Bernie Sanders, that was an opinion shaped by the Russian hack of the DNC and the misrepresentation of that stolen data all over the internet.

If you thought Hillary Clinton was going to jail, THAT was a meme pushed by Putin's disinformation bots.

If you thought she was a warmonger, THAT was also an opinion shaped and pushed by the Russians.

Simply put if you failed to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, you were quite likely played by the Russians and you helped them to achieve their agenda of putting Donald Trump into the White House.

I know that is a bitter pill to swallow, and that many of you will be in denial, but if you are still in doubt I suggest you watch that Rachel Maddow video again.

Because there is another election in two years and we ALL need to be aware of how easily we can be manipulated.

Neil Cavuto publicly apologizes for having fake terrorism expert and CIA agent on his show.

Courtesy of Mediaite:  

On Friday afternoon, Fox News host Neil Cavuto took the rather extraordinary step of delivering a lengthy apology over his show’s use of Wayne Simmons as a terrorism expert, after it was revealed that Simmons had been arrested for allegedly lying about his ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. 

Cavuto told viewers that “it has come to our attention that a frequent guest on this show might not have been who he purported to be” (which presumably means Fox News will no longer be booking “presidential candidate” Bobby Jindal), but he also made a valiant attempt to stop the buck:

“If it’s true that all our due diligence and vetting on Mr. Simmons missed this, that’s big, and that’s on me. And only me.”

Oh it's true alright. Not only that but I would be willing to bet money that a number of the other "experts" on Fox News are fakes as well.

And it should be remembered that Fox allowed this Simmons guy to do incredible damage during numerous interviews.

Think Progress has a list of just some of them.

Here are a few of the highlights:

A little more than a year after the 2008 presidential election, Simmons told Fox News that president Obama — who he called the “boy king” — was directly responsible for a number of recent acts of terrorism. 

Speaking on The O’Reilly Factor in 2005, Simmons defended then-President George W. Bush’s decision to go into Iraq, and said Democratic-controlled government would cause “9-1-1s unabated.” 

Employing another “guys like me” reference, Simmons in 2009 said that CIA operatives might abandon their posts because of then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, whom he called a “pathological liar.” 

Appearing on Fox News in March, he asserted that White House adviser Valerie Jarrett was actually running the country. But she didn’t know how to defeat ISIS. For Simmons, the solution was very simple. 

“We could end this in a week. And that’s not an exaggeration. That’s not hyperbole. We could run a number of sorties, thousands of sorties, locate, identify and designate absolutely decimate ISIS, ISIL, I.S., whatever you want to call them. They would all be dead,” he said.

There are of course many more examples of the constant stream of bullshit spewed by this phony asshole.

The thing is that while I hand it to Cavuto for at least making the minimal attempt to take some responsibility here, the fact remains that Fox News provides disinformation and outlandish fact free exaggerations on a daily basis.

And the truly frightening part is that their audience does not seem to care that they do.

The Hobby Lobby's "Museum of the Bible" a monument to misinformation currently being built within walking distance of the Smithsonian Institute.

Courtesy of TPM:

The museum will be a living, breathing testament to how American evangelicalism can at once claim it is under siege from secularists, the LGBT rights movement, or feminism—yet also boast of acquiring a prime private perch, strategically located at the nation’s epicenter of law and politics, and nestled among its iconic public monuments. If you ask its creators, it’s meant to protect American Christianity from persecution. But it may be the most strident example yet of how that expression of religion, which in many ways is running counter to trends in American public opinion, continues to flex its political—and financial—muscle.

The building is being built by the Green family, owners of the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts stores, and it is supposedly being built to educate people about the "facts" of the Bible and the history of its creation, so the building will of course be awash in misinformation, much like Ken Ham's Creation Museum in Kentucky.

Oh but folks will not have to actually visit the museum in order to be confronted with religious propaganda: 

“The subway stops in Washington are ugly, so we will put on there an electronic billboard talking about the museum,” he (The museum director.) said recently at an event for donors. “So when people are just coming to Washington, they’re going to hear about the Bible even if they’re just coming to see Congress.”

I can see the brochures now: "Come to Washington DC for the history and the politics, stay for the Christian indoctrination."

It just must be terrible to be so persecuted in this country that you are able to build a giant museum to celebrate your holy book.  

How do these people get through their days?

President Obama calls out Fox News for spreading disinformation about Obamacare. Fox News gets panties in a twist and demands to be shown when they have done that. Okay.

Okay so on Tuesday the President gave that rousing, and quite humorous, health care speech.

And you may remember that during that speech he said this: 

“If you talked to somebody who said I don’t know, I was watching Fox News and they said it’s horrible, and you can say you know what, don’t take my word for it, go on the website, see for yourself what the prices are, see for yourself what the choices are, then make up your own mind,” he said. “I promise you, if you go on the website and it turns out you’re going to save $100, $200, $300 a month on your insurance, or you’ll be able to buy insurance for the first time, even if you didn’t vote for me, I’ll bet you’ll sign up for that health care plan.”

Well apparently this chapped the asses of the propagandists over at Fox, and they got all pissy.

This courtesy of Raw Story: 

Personnel at the Fox News Channel put on a great show of being outraged Friday that President Barack Obama called them out by name in a speech about lies and distortions about the Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare — which goes into effect Oct. 1. 

Former CNN anchor turned Fox personality Bill Hemmer protested on Friday, “What have we reported that is inaccurate about this? What has been reported through the Fox News Channel that is not accurate?”

Seriously?

Okay so the folks over at Media Matters decided to show them what they had so conveniently forgotten:

There, now do you think they get it?

Yeah me either.

I thought this might come in handy.

Yeah, THAT clears a few things up.

Atheism as explained by student enrolled at a Christian school.

So, so, so very much wrong here, I don't even know where to begin.

I hate to break it to this poor misinformed child, but the number of "those who do not wish to be responsible for their actions" is growing.

Now if you will all excuse me I need to take a few minutes to bang my forehead on my desk in frustration.

(You can read more about this and see the ongoing discussion over at Reddit.)