Donald Trump does best among people who have less access to reliable news outlets. Go figure.

Courtesy of Politico: 

President Donald Trump’s attacks on the mainstream media may be rooted in statistical reality: An extensive review of subscription data and election results shows that Trump outperformed the previous Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, in counties with the lowest numbers of news subscribers, but didn't do nearly as well in areas with heavier circulation. 

POLITICO’s findings — which put Trump’s escalating attacks on the media in a new context — were drawn from a comparison of election results and subscription information from the Alliance for Audited Media, an industry group that verifies print and digital circulation for advertisers. The findings cover more than 1,000 mainstream news publications in more than 2,900 counties out of 3,100 nationwide from every state except Alaska, which does not hold elections at the county level. 

The results show a clear correlation between low subscription rates and Trump’s success in the 2016 election, both against Hillary Clinton and when compared to Romney in 2012. Those links were statistically significant even when accounting for other factors that likely influenced voter choices, such as college education and employment, suggesting that the decline of local media sources by itself may have played a role in the election results. 

That gives new force to the widely voiced concerns of news-industry professionals and academicians about Trump’s ability to make bold assertions about crime rates, unemployment and other verifiable facts without any independent checks. Those concerns, which initially were raised during the campaign, were largely based on anecdotes and observations. POLITICO’s analysis suggests that Trump did, indeed, do worse overall in places where independent media could check his claims.

And as we know Trump also outperforms in places where the local news comes from Sinclair Broadcasting, and where Fox News is the favorite cable news outlet.

We always wonder how Trump can continue to simply make shit up all the time, and not have it destroy his credibility.

The answer is that people don't know that he is making it up unless a reliable news outlet fact checks him.

Which of course is also why there are so many attacks on the established mainstream media, and accusations of "fake news" directed at respected newspapers like the Washington Post and the New York Times.

So long as there are Americans isolated from fact based news reporting there will be a Donald Trump to take advantage of their ignorance.

If we want to help this country perhaps it's time to start buying our friends and family their own subscriptions to some of that "liberal" news media.

There is another Devin Nunes' memo coming, and this one attacks the State Department.

Courtesy of Business Insider:  

As Democrats and Republicans continue brawling over the Russia probe, House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes is gearing up to release a second memo as part of his investigation into perceived bias within the FBI and Department of Justice. 

Nunes's much-hyped first memo, which was declassified last week, purports to show the FBI and DOJ abusing their surveillance authority by omitting "material and relevant" facts when submitting an application for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page, a former adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign. 

Much of the Republican document also questioned the FBI's decision to use the Steele dossier — an explosive collection of memos by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele alleging collusion between Trump and Russia — as a "roadmap" in the Russia investigation. 

Nunes's next memo, meanwhile, will focus on alleged abuses at the Department of State and a second Trump-Russia dossier compiled by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist with close ties to the Clinton family, according to a Republican familiar with the details. 

Apparently Trump, and his attack poodle Nunes, will not be happy until they have undermined every government law enforcement or intelligence agency in the country.

The first memo by Nunes landed with a thud, and it is likely that this one will be just as pathetic.

Of course that doesn't mean Sean Hannity will not treat it like a smoking gun, and that Right Wing media will not go apoplectic over it. Because they will.

Already one of Nunes' newest allegations has failed the smell test.

Here is a Nunes' quote courtesy of WaPo: 

“The truth is that they [Democrats] are covering up that Hillary Clinton colluded with the Russians to get dirt on Trump to feed it to the FBI to open up an investigation into the other campaign.” —Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview on the Hugh Hewitt Show, Feb. 7, 2018

The Post's fact checkers went to town on that statement, and this is what they ultimately came away with:   

Was the dossier used to gin up media attention to Russia-Trump ties and bolster an existing FBI investigation? Perhaps. That’s certainly a question worth exploring. 

But the media needed little prodding to investigate when candidate Trump appeared unexpectedly solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin as Russian-linked entities leaked emails stolen by Russian hackers in the middle of a campaign. Meanwhile, the initial FBI counterintelligence probe was prompted not by Steele’s reporting but by the loose lips of a Trump campaign staffer. 

Finally, there is no evidence that Clinton was involved in Steele’s reports or worked with Russian entities to feed information to Steele. That’s where Nunes’s claim goes off the rails — and why he earns Four Pinocchios.

But those are facts, and facts have no impact on the Republican bubble, so this next memo is almost certainly going to cause yet another Right Wing freakout that will dominate conservative news outlets for several days. 

And all of this is clearly designed to undermine and ultimately foil the Robert Mueller investigation.

The Trump Administration is now restricting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using words like "science-based" and "evidenced-based."

Courtesy of WaPo: 

The Trump administration is prohibiting officials at the nation’s top public health agency from using a list of seven words or phrases — including “fetus” and “transgender” — in any official documents being prepared for next year’s budget. 

Policy analysts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta were told of the list of forbidden words at a meeting Thursday with senior CDC officials who oversee the budget, according to an analyst who took part in the 90-minute briefing. The forbidden words are “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” “transgender,” “fetus,” “evidence-based” and “science-based.” 

In some instances, the analysts were given alternative phrases. Instead of “science-based” or ­“evidence-based,” the suggested phrase is “CDC bases its recommendations on science in consideration with community standards and wishes,” the person said. In other cases, no replacement words were immediately offered. 

The question of how to address such issues as sexual orientation, gender identity and abortion rights — all of which received significant visibility under the Obama administration — has surfaced repeatedly in federal agencies since President Trump took office. Several key departments — including Health and Human Services, which oversees the CDC, as well as Justice, Education, and Housing and Urban Development — have changed some federal policies and how they collect government information about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Americans.

Does your country feel any dumber yet? 

Well if not, just wait, it's about to.

John Oliver being sued by "coal king" over segment which included threats of just such a lawsuit.

So you guys might remember that on Tuesday I posted a story about John Oliver's brilliant take on Donald Trump's inability to actually bring back coal jobs.

Part of that show also featured references to "Coal King" Bob Murray, a close friend of Donald Trump's, who threatened to sue Oliver if he included him in the segment.

Of course Oliver did just that, and even mocked a story told about Murray that suggests he once had a conversation with a talking squirrel.

"Welcome, welcome, welcome to Last Week To-nut, I'm Mr. Nutterbutter. Just time for a quick recap of the week..." pic.twitter.com/Gsveb3PUfb

— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) June 19, 2017

Well for some reason Mr. Murray did indeed take offense, and now he is actually suing John Oliver and HBO: 

A Republican coal baron is suing John Oliver, HBO, Time Warner, and the writers for Oliver’s show over the most recent episode of Last Week Tonight. 

The suit, filed on June 21 in the circuit court of Marshall County, West Virginia, holds that Oliver and his team “executed a meticulously planned attempt to assassinate the character of and reputation of Mr. Robert E. Murray and his companies” by airing an episode that ripped into him. Murray runs the country’s largest privately owned coal company, Murray Energy Corporation. 

“They did this to a man who needs a lung transplant, a man who does not expect to live to see the end of this case,” reads the complaint, which also lists Murray’s companies as plaintiffs. 

The lawsuit isn’t a surprise to Oliver. In fact, the British comic said on the episode of his show that aired on June 18 that he expected it, noting that Murray has sued several other media outlets in the past (including, in May, the New York Times). In the episode, Oliver criticized Murray’s business practices, saying he doesn’t do enough to protect his miners’ safety. Oliver also noted that his team contacted Murray’s company before the episode aired, and that the company sent a cease-and-desist letter––the first time that had ever happened to his show. 

Parts of the complaint read like it had been written by President Donald Trump. One paragraph says Murray “has built a strong reputation as one of the as one of the staunchest defenders and most ardent champions of the United States coal industry and America itself.” The complaint also claims that “[d]efendants’ broadcasts have vigorously supported and advanced Mrs. Clinton’s agenda.”

God this is going to be good!

Personally I hope that the HBO lawyers put the giant squirrel on the stand to testify.

Speaking of lawyers HBO once hired 160 of them in preparation for the lawsuits they expected from Scientologists for broadcasting the documentary, "Going Clear."

Even the Scientologists were not crazy enough to go through with any lawsuits. But then again I don't think they talk to squirrels.

By the way if you have not seen the segment which inspired this hullabaloo you really owe it to yourself to do so. It is actually very good.  I anxiously await this upcoming episode, because you KNOW that much of it will focus on this lawsuit.

Stephen Fry uses the Dunning-Kruger effect to explain why some people believe Donald Trump.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Some supporters of President Donald Trump believe just about everything he says, even when he’s wrong. And Trump himself seems to have absolute confidence in his own beliefs ― again, even when he is demonstrably wrong. 

But there is a psychology lesson that could help explain it, according to Cambridge University-educated actor Stephen Fry, who was voted the most intelligent person on TV in the United Kingdom.

This actually fits in quite well with what we heard from that linguistics professor on Thursday.

Essentially the illusion of knowledge drives people to support Donald Trump despite all evidence which demonstrates why they should not.

And changing their minds means replacing what they think they know, with what is factually accurate.

No small feat. 

Neil deGrasse Tyson warns that due to a lack of trust in scientific fact America is "already kind of fading."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

“It’s the beginning of the end,” he told Yahoo News and Finance anchor Bianna Golodryga. “It’s the beginning of the end of an informed democracy, the moment people are debating whether an objectively established scientific truth is true. The moment that happens, there is no informed decision-making.” 

Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said he was disturbed that government leaders were ignoring the scientific reports from the National Academy of Sciences. 

“If you’re going to ignore their reports, there is no future for a country that wants to thrive in terms of its health and its wealth and its security,” he said. 

Tyson said competition in all those fields require “innovation and intelligent investments” in science, technology, engineering and math. 

“If you don’t have that, just watch America fade. We’re already kind of fading. Just watch it continue to fade and just disappear. It’s not a cliff, so you don’t know it. You don’t ‘oh, we’re stepping over the edge.’ No, no. It’s just, we’ll become less relevant. The world starts making decisions without us, where we used to lead those very same decisions.”

“I’m so disappointed that the country that I grew up in ― that put men on the moon, that developed the internet, that invented personal computers and smartphones ― that people are debating what is and what is not scientifically true.”

I actually do not think we need a famous astrophysicist to point this out to us, we are seeing it with our own eyes almost every day.

This is what helped to elect Donald Trump.

This is what is undermining our public education.

And this is what is potentially destroying the future of our country.

It is what the conservatives have been pushing us toward for decades.

If facts have a liberal bias, well then facts need to be undermined and stripped of their ability to shape the opinions and open the minds of the American citizens.

And here we are.

At a place where truth is a matter of opinion, and reality is open to interpretation.

Neil deGrasse Tyson explains how the evidence fails to support the existence of God.

Courtesy of DeadState:  

“The more I look at the universe, the less convinced I am that there is something benevolent going on,” Tyson said. 

“I look at disasters that afflict Earth, and life on Earth: volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, pestilence, congenital birth defects — you look at this list of ways that life is made miserable on Earth by natural causes, and I just ask, ‘How do you deal with that?'” 

Tyson said that if science and inquiry someday leads to evidence of a creator, then that’s “not a problem.” But that’s not where we’re at now. 

“There’s just no evidence of it.” 

“And this is why religions are called ‘faiths’ collectively,” he continued. “Because you believe something in the absence of evidence. That’s what it is. That’s why it’s called ‘faith.’ Otherwise we would call all religions ‘evidence,’ but we don’t for exactly that reason.”

It seems like I rarely get to touch on another of my favorite topics, which is religion and the existence of God these days.

This is STILL in my opinion an incredibly important topic, as religious faith continues to have a significant impact on our politics, foreign relations, and social interactions.

If I believe in anything, it is that what is very important to the survival of our species is that we stop looking for differences which allow us to hate and war against each other, and instead focus on what we have in common, which would then allow us to focus on solving the very real problems we face together.

It is my opinion that one of the main filters we use to find differences with each other in 2017 is still differing religious faiths, and that the very fact that it remains so indicates that we are allowing primitive superstitions to actively interfere in our ability to grow closer together as a community.

That is why I feel it is important to raise awareness about the lack of evidence to support any and all religious faiths, as well as how religion is used to separate and manipulate us into doing things that are ultimately not in our best interests.

I think this interview with NDT, helps to move us a little further in that direction.

With Bill O'Reilly out of the picture Rachel Maddow emerges as new juggernaut of cable news.

Courtesy of CNN: 

Fox News normally ranks #1 among cable news channels. But lately MSNBC's Rachel Maddow has been challenging Fox at 9 p.m., the centerpiece of the prime time schedule.

Maddow's surge is being fueled partly by her day-in, day-out criticism of the Trump administration. There is an increased appetite for the liberal arguments she has been making for years. 

"There's a reason Rachel is beating Fox and CNN," MSNBC president Phil Griffin told CNNMoney in an email. "She's a talented storyteller who's helping her audience cut through all the confusion coming out of Washington. She's connecting dots in ways no one else is.

"The week of April 10, for instance, Maddow just barely beat Carlson -- she averaged 542,000 viewers in the demo while he averaged 541,000. CNN ranked third with an average of 396,000 in the demo. 

Maddow's show has been MSNBC's tentpole, its highest rated program, for many years. The difference now is the competition with Fox News.

Maddow's increased popularity has even inspired one longtime Right Wing propagandist to become a little hyperbolic.

Macron. Flying cars. Maddow #1 in TV news. Welcome to hell.

— MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) April 24, 2017

(Wait, we have flying cars now?)

 I have long suspected that there is something hinky about Fox's ability to dominate cable news, but so far there has never been any revelations about paying off TV ratings services or anything of that nature. (Though let's face it, we certainly would not put it past News Corp to do just that.)

There ARE a few theories out there: 

Fox news enjoys betters ratings precisely because it is "biased, selfish, manipulative & hate-filled". It is exciting stuff for the irrational or ignorant whom would like to be politically involved, but do not have the proper foundation of studies (Economics/Politics/Government/Finance/Law). Therefore, they can push an agenda without corresponding facts to suit the theories and behavior promoted. 

Sounds reasonable to me.

It should also be pointed out that the Fox News viewers are easily the MOST partisan group of cable news watchers out there, far more conservative than either CNN or MSNBC viewers are liberal.

And for years Fox News was their one stop shop to feed their confirmation bias.

On the other hand Rachel Maddow has an actual PHD and seems to be determined to follow the facts wherever they might lead her.

Her shows are incredibly informative, often containing history lessons, instruction about the way government works, and plenty of heretofore unknown trivia about both.

She also does not utilize tried and true Fox News methods such as inviting scantily clad blondes to discuss the news of the day, or yelling at her guests and calling them stupid when they have the temerity to disagree with her.

Instead she continues, day by day, to deliver the truth.

And in the era of Donald Trump the thirst for that truth has never been more deeply felt.

This was posted on Facebook by Sarah Palin, a fervent supporter of Donald Trump, without a hint of irony.

Source

I swear that kind of cognitive dissonance is enough to give one an aneurysm.

The irony of Sarah Palin attacking college students as being dismissive of facts almost breathtaking.

But this is a real indication of what we are up against when dealing with Trump supporters.

For them up is down, black is white, and truth is whatever tumbles out of Trump's orange tinted maw.

How does one engage in reasonable discourse with people who deny the existence of facts and label everything that disagrees with their point of view as "fake news?"

The Republican's predisposition to accept fake news, may have it origins in Fundamentalist Christianity.

Courtesy of Religion Dispatches:  

What is it about Republicans that seems to make them more credulous to fake news than Democrats? 

The answer to this question might have to do with the religious roots of today’s Republican Party in the Christian Right. Beginning with the Moral Majority, founded in 1979 by Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye, and continuing through church organizations such as Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, conservative Christians have helped reshape the Republican Party and its policies. Its “family values” positions on abortion, the sexual revolution, gender roles, pornography, and homosexuality have been heavily influenced by its conservative Christian theology. 

Voters have continued to “sort” themselves over the last few decades, as political liberals became less religious and political conservatives more religious. Sociologists call this the “God gap” in partisan religiosity. Conservative white evangelicals have formed a hugely important and highly motivated core group of the Republican electorate for several cycles. In 2016, Donald Trump garnered 81 percent of the white evangelical vote, higher than Mitt Romney, John McCain, and even the born-again George W. Bush.

.........

Christian fundamentalist Bible colleges and universities, publishers and bookstores, newspapers and magazines, radio and then television shows, museums and campus ministries, together formed a set of institutions that resisted elite, secular expert knowledge. Recognizing the power of expertise’s infrastructure, Christian fundamentalists created this counter-infrastructure to cultivate and curate its alternative forms of knowledge. 

This alternative knowledge—the forerunner of today’s alternative facts— took the form of creationism and an alternative Bible scholarship demonstrating the Bible’s inerrancy and traditional authorship. This alternative educational and media ecosystem of knowledge was galvanized and mobilized when the Christian Right emerged in the late 1970s to influence the Republican Party. There were two long-term consequences for our fake news world. First, theologically and politically conservative Christians learned to distrust the proclamations of the supposedly neutral media establishment, just as they had grown to suspect the methods and conclusions of elite experts like scientists or historians. And second, they learned to seek the truth from alternative sources—whether a church sermon, Christian media (newspapers, books, radio or television shows), or a classroom in a Christian college. 

The consequence is that theologically fundamentalist Christians have for years explained to themselves that what seems to be worldly wisdom and conclusions are really the results of conspiracies, biases, and misplaced human pride in academic, scientific, and journalist communities. This cognitive training to reject expert knowledge and to seek alternative, more amenable explanations has helped disarm the capacity for critical thinking and analysis.

Well this is essentially what I have been pointing out for the last twelve years. 

The acceptance of supernatural explanations for the world around us makes us more susceptible to every kind of bullshit that gets presented to us throughout our lives.

Astrology, phrenology, numerology, past lives regression, palm readings, fear of contrails, seances, "reality" TV shows about chasing freaking Bigfoot, all of it relies on the suppression of the critical thinking skills that we need to safely navigate through our lives,

And without the ability to sniff out bullshit we find ourselves living in a country led by a cross between PT Barnum and an Oompa Loompa.

So yes I do indeed have issues with religion.

And I cannot help but feel that if more of us rejected it we would be living in a much better world, with a much brighter tomorrow ahead of us.

Study shows that exposure to religion renders children unable to differentiate between fact and fiction.

Courtesy of Waking Times: 

A study conducted by researchers led by Kathleen H. Corriveau of Boston University examined how religious exposure affects a child’s ability to distinguish between fact and fiction. They found that religious exposure at an early age has a surprising effect: it makes children less able to differentiate between reality and fantasy. 

The researchers presented three different types of stories – religious, fantastical and realistic – to a group of 5 and 6-year olds. Religious children were divided into three groups: children exposed to the Christian religion either as churchgoers who attended public school, non-churchgoers who attended parochial school, or churchgoers who attended parochial school. The fourth group of children included non-churchgoing children who attended public school and had no exposure to religion in either church or school. The goal of the research was to find out if religious exposure would affect the child’s ability to identify if the lead character in each of the stories was real or make-believe. 

The study found that children who attended church services and/or were enrolled in a parochial school had a much harder time differentiating between fact and fiction when compared to children of non-religious background. The study, published in the journal Cognitive Science, states: 

“The results suggest that exposure to religious ideas has a powerful impact on children’s differentiation between reality and fiction, not just for religious stories but also for fantastical stories.”

I am still often puzzled that there are people who do not simply recognize this by casual observation.

There is a reason why scam artists often target deeply religious people, they are the most gullible.

And that is the same reason that politicians invoke god, religion, and the Bible in their speeches.

They know that religious people are predisposed to accept things without the benefit of evidence.

Let's face it, without religious indoctrination there would be NO president Trump.

It requires the dulling of critical thinking skills to convince people to vote for idiots, assholes, and criminals.

And religion serves that purpose quite nicely.

So I stand by my contention that introducing religion to children is in fact a form of child abuse. But will add that in the long run it is also an abuse of our basic human right to use our intellects to protect ourselves as adults.

Teachers take on the herculean task of teaching their students the difference between fake news and real journalism.

Courtesy of AP: 

Teachers from elementary school through college are telling students how to distinguish between factual and fictional news — and why they should care that there's a difference. 

As Facebook works with The Associated Press, FactCheck.org and other organizations to curb the spread of fake and misleading news on its influential network, teachers say classroom instruction can play a role in deflating the kind of "Pope endorses Trump " headlines that muddied the waters during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

"I think only education can solve this problem," said Pat Winters Lauro, a professor at Kean University in New Jersey who began teaching a course on news literacy this semester. 

Like others, Lauro has found discussions of fake news can lead to politically sensitive territory. Some critics believe fake stories targeting Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton helped Donald Trump overcome a large deficit in public opinion polls, and President Trump himself has attached the label to various media outlets and unfavorable reports and polls in the first weeks of his presidency. 

"It hasn't been a difficult topic to teach in terms of material because there's so much going on out there," Lauro said, "but it's difficult in terms of politics because we have such a divided country and the students are divided, too, on their beliefs. I'm afraid sometimes that they think I'm being political when really I'm just talking about journalistic standards for facts and verification, and they look at it like 'Oh, you're anti-this or -that.'"

Leave it to our heroic public school teachers to take on yet another almost impossible responsibility that the children's parents are ill equipped or simply unwilling to take on themselves.

Fortunately for the teachers there is also some help coming from both Google and Facebook who promise to do their part in identifying and rejecting fake news sites and making it harder for impressionable young minds to stumble upon them.

Would have been nice to have all of this happen before the 2016 election put that shitgibbon in the White House, but I guess it's better late than never.

Ricky Gervais gives greatest answer ever concerning the existence of god.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

“I know that you’re an atheist,” Colbert began during Wednesday’s episode of the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “Do you want to debate the existence of god?” 

After Gervais signaled he was up for the challenge, Colbert asked his fellow comedian, “Why is there something instead of nothing, why does the universe exist at all?” 

Gervais protested the premise of Colbert’s question, insisting the argument for religion isn’t over why the universe exists, but how. He explained that he’s “agnostic atheist,” meaning while he doesn’t know for sure whether there is a god, he doesn’t think anything outside “science and nature” created the universe. 

“Atheism isn’t a belief system,” Gervais said, arguing it is “only rejecting the claim there’s a god.” 

“You don’t believe in 2,999 gods,” Gervais added. “And I don’t believe in just one more.”

This has become my go to response to the question about god, except that I now say that there are actually over 100,000, and then suggest the insanity in simply accepting the existence of only one while rejecting so many thousands that don't meet your simple standards.

Which are typically that you have never heard of them, or that the argument for their existence has not been drummed into your head since birth.

Later in the conversation Gervais added his about science: 

"Science is constantly proved all the time. If we take something like any fiction, any holy book, and destroyed it, in a thousand years’ time that wouldn’t come back just as it was. Whereas if we took every science book and every fact and destroyed them all, in a thousand years they’d all be back, because all the same tests would be the same result.”

Yes, this....so much of this. 

Rachel Maddow sounds the alarm concerning Donald Trump's threat to the environment.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

Rachel Maddow said scientists who scrambled to save their data and copy it to non-government databases in the final days of the Obama administration weren’t being paranoid. 

 “Now we know, day four of the new administration, those people were not wrong to be freaked out,” Maddow said on her show Tuesday night. “And they probably, in the interest of science, were not wrong to be downloading and trying to save data privately because the data is disappearing.” 

The EPA has been “effectively stopped” with no official announcement from the agency or the White House. 

“The scientists are being told they are not allowed to speak or publish, it is already happening,” Maddow said. “It’s day four, it is already happening.” 

I think this may be one of the most important stories that MSNBC is covering right now, and we all need to pay attention.

And it gets worse: 

A leaked copy of the Trump team’s plan for the EPA calls for slashing its budget, “terminating climate programs,” ending auto fuel-economy standards, and executing “major reforms of the agency’s use of science and economics.”

Donald Trump is a 70 year old conspiracy theorist with no respect for facts or science.

He is quite literally the WORST person to be put in charge of agencies that help to protect this planet.

And yet thanks to James Comey and Russia, there he is. 

In his very first press briefing Trump press secretary, Sean "Baghdad Bob" Spicer, lies about inaugural crowd size and attacks the press.

H-o-l-y shit!

Courtesy of TPM: 

5:39 PM: After a delay of about an hour we appear to be moments away from what is expected to be a White House statement on the crowd size issue. 

5:40 PM: Spicer complaining about MLK bust and giving various excuses why the inaugural crowd was much bigger than anyone said. 

5:41 PM: Spicer claims crowd was the largest crowd ever to witness a presidential inauguration. 

5:43 PM: Spicer is basically in primal scream mode now. 

5:46 PM: Verbatim quote: "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period. Both in person and around the globe."

This lunatic literally used his very first interaction with reporters as the official press secretary to scream lies at them.

This was NOT the first time those floor coverings had been used, they were also used during Obama's 2013 inauguration.

There were NO magnetometers used.

And there were more metro rides during Obama's inauguration in 2013, than on the day of Trump's. (Also don't forget that a number of those rides on the 20th were actually protesters.) (Source.)

So THIS is how the Trump administration begins.

By the way Kellyanne Conway had this exchange with Chuck Todd on Meet the Press today:

"Alternative facts are not facts. They are falsehoods," Chuck Todd tells Pres. Trump's counselor Kellyanne Conway this morning. WATCH: pic.twitter.com/Ao005dQ13r

— Meet the Press (@MeetThePress) January 22, 2017

Damn, this is going to be a long four years!

Actor Michael Sheen abandons his profession, and his life, to fight fascism full time. And in doing so shames us all.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Michael Sheen is so disturbed by the rise of far-right populism he is quitting acting to become an activist, and says he does not know if his relationship with Sarah Silverman will survive. 

Sheen will leave Silverman, his partner of two years, and family in Los Angeles and move to Port Talbot in south Wales to combat the wave of “demagogic, fascistic” politics he believes has engulfed the West in the past decade. 

He told The Times: “In the same way as the Nazis had to be stopped in Germany in the Thirties, this thing that is on the rise has to be stopped. 

 “It’s not going to look like this in 10 years’ time. Everything has shifted. The dice are being rolled again.” 

His steel-making hometown, population 37,000, voted for Brexit and the Welsh actor says his frustration at this has formed, in part, the impetus for his decision to begin his activism back where he began. His fears were exacerbated by the ascension of Donald Trump and the tensions stoked by his divisive rhetoric. 

You know I would like to think that the hours that I put in on this blog have some meaning, and that I am doing my part to fight the good fight and push back on the fascism that we see invading our country. (And let's not bother lying to ourselves to say that fascism is not coming, because we are already seeing it in North Carolina.)

But truth be told I am not sacrificing nearly as much as I should, and neither are most of us.

Make no mistake, despite interference by James Comey, and hacking by the Russians, American voters are ultimately responsible for casting the votes that helped Trump win the electoral college.

Even if we assume that some voting machines were hacked the election still has to be close enough for that to matter.

So We the People are ultimately responsible for helping to usher in fascism and for defying the will of the Founding Fathers.

To rectify that, to save what is left of our republic, we need to rise up and fight.

No, I am not suggesting that we start shooting each other in the streets, or plan assaults against Washington, I am suggesting that we fight back with the same tools used to cripple us in the first place.

If fake news and Right Wing propaganda got us here in 2016 then real information and Left Wing fact checkers can steer us back to where we need to be in 2017.

For starters if you are a Facebook fan of this blog then promote it to all of your friends and family every single day. Or if you are more comfortable with Twitter than by all means use that.

And no not just this blog, but every blog and news site that is working to get information out to the masses.

If we want to make real change, if we want to rescue this nation that we love so much, we must be ready to irritate, frustrate, and ultimately educate the people we love until they see the reality of what is happening in the world.

We should present a deafening roar of facts and figures, a cacophony containing compilations of vital statistics, a constant drumbeat that shatters any illusion that this is business as usual and awakens people to the danger we face as a nation.

I know we cannot all just up and quit our jobs to make activism a full time occupation, but I also know we can always do more.

And truly what ultimately is more important than our future, the future of our families, and the future of this great country?

Right Wing media, and Wikileaks, are pushing back hard against the Russian hacker story and suggesting that it never happened. The facts say otherwise.

I have been watching the folks on Fox News denying the Russian hacking stories and reading it at most, if not all, of the Right Wing online news sites. (And yes that also includes the Mat-Su moron.)

According to them the leaked e-mails did not come from a hack but rather from a Democratic insider who hates Hillary Clinton.

This from something called Biz Pac: 

On Sunday, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, said he has met the person who gave the DNC emails and it was not the Russians.

“I know who leaked them,” Murray told The Guardian. “I’ve met the person who leaked them, and they are certainly not Russian and it’s an insider. It’s a leak, not a hack; the two are different things.

Murray, who is a close associate of Wikileaks head Julian Assange, explained it further on his website. 

“As Julian Assange has made crystal clear, the leaks did not come from the Russians. As I have explained countless times, they are not hacks, they are insider leaks – there is a major difference between the two,” he wrote. “And it should be said again and again, that if Hillary Clinton had not connived with the DNC to fix the primary schedule to disadvantage Bernie, if she had not received advance notice of live debate questions to use against Bernie, if she had not accepted massive donations to the Clinton foundation and family members in return for foreign policy influence, if she had not failed to distance herself from some very weird and troubling people, then none of this would have happened.”

Now I don't know much about this Craig Murray fellow, except for the fact that the US denied him access to the country earlier this year, but his information runs contrary to what intelligence agencies seem to believe.

Intelligence agencies that also included the FBI back in 2015:

When Special Agent Adrian Hawkins of the Federal Bureau of Investigation called the Democratic National Committee in September 2015 to pass along some troubling news about its computer network, he was transferred, naturally, to the help desk. 

His message was brief, if alarming. At least one computer system belonging to the D.N.C. had been compromised by hackers federal investigators had named “the Dukes,” a cyberespionage team linked to the Russian government. 

The F.B.I. knew it well: The bureau had spent the last few years trying to kick the Dukes out of the unclassified email systems of the White House, the State Department and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one of the government’s best-protected networks.

The DNC did not react as quickly or as aggressively as they should have to that warning from the FBI, an agency that now claims they do not have the facts to support the idea of a Russian hack of the DNC, and it was not until around seven months later that they hired a cyberexperts to deal with the attacks.

And what did those cyberexperts find?

Funny you should ask.

Okay so the Russians really WERE caught red handed infiltrating the DNC computers.

And that of course is backed up now by the CIA, and the head of the NSA who said this: 

Michael S. Rogers, a Naval officer and NSA director since 2014, said on stage at a Wall Street Journal conference that Wikileaks was furthering a nation-state’s goals by publishing hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and Clinton’s presidential campaign weeks ahead of the election. 

 “There shouldn’t be any doubt in anybody’s minds, this was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance, this was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect,” he said.

I know this must burn the asses of every one of those Trump supporters, but the facts are that Russia chose him to be our president. And Wikileaks, James Comey, and the useless idiot voters helped them to achieve that goal.

And those....are the facts.

Rachel Maddow reveals what we kind of already knew, Trump voters are really, REALLY stupid!

Now it starts to make sense...a series of findings from new @ppppolls cited now on @maddow
In a series of tweets...

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

2. Stock market rose 11,666 points under Obama, but 39% of Trump voters think Dow is DOWN under @POTUS@ppppolls @maddow pic.twitter.com/Cx684knA7j

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

3. Unemployment fell in half under Obama, but yet 67% of Trump voters think unemployment went up!@ppppolls @maddow pic.twitter.com/oFrW7fCh5o

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

4. Incredibly, 40% of Trump voters think Trump won popular vote (though of course Clinton did)@ppppolls @maddow pic.twitter.com/U3Jc3htL3G

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

5. 50% of all voters approved of Obama, yet only FIVE PERCENT of Trump voters approve of @POTUS @ppppolls @maddow pic.twitter.com/0td3cV6NHH

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

6. Most incredibly (maybe) 29% of Trump voters don't think California's vote should be included in popular vote@ppppolls @maddow pic.twitter.com/uBjmsuRTMO

— Timothy McBride (@mcbridetd) December 9, 2016

If you visit the Maddow Blog you will also find these fun facts: 

Voter Fraud: Even Trump’s lawyers concede there was no voter fraud in the presidential election, but PPP found that 60% of Trump voters apparently believe “millions” of illegal ballots were cast for Clinton in 2016 – which isn’t even close to resembling reality. (A slight correction here. While the vast majority of people do not think there was voter fraud, there is a growing number of us who suspect election fraud.)


Soros Conspiracy Theory: A whopping 73% of Trump voters believe George Soros is paying anti-Trump protesters – though in reality, George Soros is not paying anti-Trump protesters.

All of this data was based on a PPP poll that Rachel shared last night.

Which of course means it is made up of those facts and figures that Trump supporters find so confusing and mistrust completely.

And that is part of the problem, because as Rachel pointed out in her show last night it is ONLY Trump supporters who misunderstood the facts this completely.

Even third party voters, or those who did not vote at all, had a better grasp of the facts.

But Trump supporters are in almost a completely fact free bubble which makes it virtually impossible for their minds to be changed, and also seems to make them highly suggestible to anything that Trump says, tweets, or has a surrogate say on his behalf.

In other words for them the only truth is the "Trump truth."

And you thought you were frightened of these people before. 

The Weather Channel's message to Breitbart: "Science doesn't care about your opinion."

Courtesy of The Weather Channel: 

Global warming is not expected to end anytime soon, despite what Breitbart.com wrote in an article published last week. 

Though we would prefer to focus on our usual coverage of weather and climate science, in this case we felt it important to add our two cents — especially because a video clip from weather.com (La Niña in Pacific Affects Weather in New England) was prominently featured at the top of the Breitbart article. Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it. 

The Breitbart article – a prime example of cherry picking, or pulling a single item out of context to build a misleading case – includes this statement: "The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare." 

In fact, thousands of researchers and scientific societies are in agreement that greenhouse gases produced by human activity are warming the planet’s climate and will keep doing so.

The Weather Channel then goes on to bury Breitbart under a mountain of scientific data and facts that demonstrate the inaccuracies of their claims. 

And that is the inherent problem.

The Weather Channel is using facts and data to reach a group that only responds to factless hyperbole prefaced by explosive headlines.

If the folks at Breitbart understood facts they would not be the folks at Breitbart.

We could dismiss all of this with a derisive chuckle, if it were not for the fact that Breitbart, along with Alex Jones, is now the place where our new president gets all of his "news."

No that cold chill you feel right now is not the end of global warming, but it could be the end of civilization as we know it.

The Washington Post attempts to understand how Donald Trump's disdain for the truth earned him the White House.

“Since the liar is free to fashion his ‘facts’ to fit the profit and pleasure, or even the mere expectations, of his audience, the chances are that he will be more persuasive than the truth teller.”

That is a 1967 quote from Hannah Arendt included in this WaPo article which may help to explain Trump's bizarre popularity more than just about anything else.

Since Donald Trump fashions his message for the audience he is addressing, and tells them what they want to hear, they could not care less if it is all bullshit or not.

Somebody is speaking their language, reinforcing their prejudices, and essentially complimenting them on their lack of education and poor critical thinking skills.

It must feel like heaven to them.

This from the article: 

First, quasi-fired Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski at Harvard University, making the astonishing assertion that the media’s failing during the campaign was not that it scorned Trump — it was that it believed him. 

“You guys took everything that Donald Trump said so literally,” he said. “The American people didn’t. They understood it. They understood that sometimes — when you have a conversation with people . . . you’re going to say things, and sometimes you don’t have all the facts to back it up.”

Translation: The press expected their future president to tell the truth, and that was just silly of them.

Trump supporters however did not care about the truth, only that what was said made them feel validated.

Another example:

Second, this eye-popping assertion from Trump supporter/CNN commentator Scottie Nell Hughes on the Diane Rehm Show: 

“People that say that facts are facts — they’re not really facts . . . there’s no such thing, unfortunately, anymore of facts. And so Mr. Trump’s tweet amongst a certain crowd . . . are truth.”

Translation: The truth is no longer determined by facts, but rather by who said it and the number of people who are willing to accept it without scrutiny.

Then there was this: 

Finally, the president-elect himself, who at a rally to celebrate his successful bribing of Carrier to keep some jobs in the United States, explained that he was impelled to act by a Carrier-employed supporter who had been naive enough to take Trump’s promises seriously. 

Watching the evening news, Trump said, he saw the Carrier worker say “‘No, we’re not leaving, because Donald Trump promised us that we’re not leaving,’ and I never thought I made that promise. Not with Carrier.” 

Then, Trump said, “they played my statement, and I said, ‘Carrier will never leave.’ But that was a euphemism. I was talking about Carrier like all other companies from here on in.”

So now we know that if Trump is caught in a lie by a supporter, he will simply fabricate another lie to cover for that lie.

This the reporter behind this article labels "truthphemisms."

And THAT is what it will be like to report on a Donald Trump presidency for the next four years.

Fact checking will have no value, and lies will only matter once they pile up high enough to tumble over the wall of ignorance his supporters have erected to protect themselves from the truth.

In the meantime those of us firmly planted in actual reality will stare aghast at virtually every decision made Trump and his "Cabinet of Deplorables" while actively trying to find a future candidate with the skill set to repair the damage left behind by this administration.

Hopefully there will still be something left for them to repair.