Fake News creator, who believed he helped get Donald Trump elected, found dead in Arizona.

Courtesy of the New York Post:  

Paul Horner, who penned debunked articles about Bill Murray running for president and President Barack Obama opening a Muslim museum, was discovered unresponsive in his bed Sept 19. 

There were no signs of foul play, according to the Maricopa County medical examiner, and there was evidence the death could be due to an “accidental overdose.” 

During the 2016 presidential election, Horner created a list of websites that appeared to be legitimate news sites to spread false information. 

One article that claimed protesters who disrupted Donald Trump rallies were paid $3,500 went viral on the internet and fueled endless rumors about the alleged conspiracy. 

Despite the fact that no evidence existed, Trump repeated the charge about the paid protesters while on stage during one of his rallies. 

Horner told the Washington Post last November that although the information was clearly fabricated, he made thousands of dollars each month from them because Trump’s supporters were “easy to fool.” 

In the same interview, Horner said he thought Trump won the White House because of him.

Man I am not going to go all Alex Jones here, but damn this is convenient. 

Horner was the face of 2016 fake news, but he was by no means alone.

Without the Russians helping to push his fake news stories, and without Donald Trump himself actually repeating at least one of them to his audience, he would have had virtually no impact at all. 

This guy made "thousands of dollars each month." Let me tell you, THAT is not easy to do.

In order to pull that off you have to have a lot of help from others who also want your articles to be spread far and wide.

And now that this guy is gone, I have a feeling that this is one investigative channel that is going to be a lot harder to explore.

Damn, I did go a little Alex Jones there, didn't I?

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. 

The Washington Post interviews Paul Horner, impresario of a Facebook fake-news empire about how easy it is to fool people these days.

Remember this?

Courtesy of the Washington Post:

On why it is easier to get fake news passed around than it was several years ago:  

Honestly, people are definitely dumber. They just keep passing stuff around. Nobody fact-checks anything anymore — I mean, that’s how Trump got elected. He just said whatever he wanted, and people believed everything, and when the things he said turned out not to be true, people didn’t care because they’d already accepted it. It’s real scary. I’ve never seen anything like it.

On whether or not he thinks his fake news helped get Trump elected:

My sites were picked up by Trump supporters all the time. I think Trump is in the White House because of me. His followers don’t fact-check anything — they’ll post everything, believe anything. His campaign manager posted my story about a protester getting paid $3,500 as fact. Like, I made that up. I posted a fake ad on Craigslist.

 Here is that ad. If it looks familiar it's because several trolls tried to pass it off as real here on IM as well.

On how easy it is to dupe Trump supporters:

I thought they’d fact-check it, and it’d make them look worse. I mean that’s how this always works: Someone posts something I write, then they find out it’s false, then they look like idiots. But Trump supporters — they just keep running with it! They never fact-check anything! Now he’s in the White House. Looking back, instead of hurting the campaign, I think I helped it. And that feels [bad].

On how great a Trump presidency will be for his fake news sites:  

It’s great for anybody who does anything with satire — there’s nothing you can’t write about now that people won’t believe. I can write the craziest thing about Trump, and people will believe it. I wrote a lot of crazy anti-Muslim stuff — like about Trump wanting to put badges on Muslims, or not allowing them in the airport, or making them stand in their own line — and people went along with it!

On how lucrative all of this is for him right now:  

Right now I make like $10,000 a month from AdSense.

Must be nice. I don't make anything even close to that.

I guess these days real news is just not as lucrative as fake news.

WaPo also has another story, about two guys who proudly call themselves "the new yellow journalists," and who also make a ton of money writing inflammatory false stories and shopping them to Facebook.

After reading these two articles, and then adding the Russian hacks, the Wikileaks data dumps, and the FBI putting their thumb on the scale, it is really not that surprising that Trump won the electoral college.

After all this was a perfect storm of stupid.

We thought that having so much information at our fingertips would improve people's ability to access facts, but instead we find that their lack of intelligence combined with laziness just makes many folks easy targets for propagandists, hoaxers, and shit posters who fill their heads with nonsense and confuse them on the difference between fact and fiction.

For his part Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg now says that he has a plan for filtering out the BS and only allowing REAL news outlets to post their stories, but how long will it be before these "yellow journalists" find their way around those new filters?

And ultimately is it kind of too late now that the worst outcome has already been realized?

The managing editor of Snopes thinks that the damage is likely irreparable: 

But as managing editor of the fact-checking site Snopes, Brooke Binkowski believes Facebook’s perpetuation of phony news is not to blame for our epidemic of misinformation. “It’s not social media that’s the problem,” she says emphatically. “People are looking for somebody to pick on. The alt-rights have been empowered and that’s not going to go away anytime soon. But they also have always been around.” 

The misinformation crisis, according to Binkowski, stems from something more pernicious. In the past, the sources of accurate information were recognizable enough that phony news was relatively easy for a discerning reader to identify and discredit. The problem, Binkowski believes, is that the public has lost faith in the media broadly — therefore no media outlet is considered credible any longer. The reasons are familiar: as the business of news has grown tougher, many outlets have been stripped of the resources they need for journalists to do their jobs correctly. “When you’re on your fifth story of the day and there’s no editor because the editor’s been fired and there’s no fact checker so you have to Google it yourself and you don’t have access to any academic journals or anything like that, you will screw stories up,” she says.

If she's right and journalism has been tainted beyond repair than what does that mean for all of us moving forward?

That's a question for which I am not sure I want to know the answer.

Ben Carson tries to defend a made up story of his honesty as a student, by posting a link to a parody article from 1970. Oh this guy's the gift that never stops giving.

"I got you guys now."

Courtesy of AmericaBlog: 

In his 1990 autobiography, “Gifted Hands,” Mr. Carson writes of a Yale psychology professor who told Mr. Carson, then a junior, and the other students in the class—identified by Mr. Carson as Perceptions 301—that their final exam papers had “inadvertently burned,” requiring all 150 students to retake it. The new exam, Mr. Carson recalled in the book, was much tougher. All the students but Mr. Carson walked out. 

“The professor came toward me. With her was a photographer for the Yale Daily News who paused and snapped my picture,” Mr. Carson wrote. “ ‘A hoax,’ the teacher said. ‘We wanted to see who was the most honest student in the class.’ ” Mr. Carson wrote that the professor handed him a $10 bill. 

No photo identifying Mr. Carson as a student ever ran, according to the Yale Daily News archives, and no stories from that era mention a class called Perceptions 301. Yale Librarian Claryn Spies said Friday there was no psychology course by that name or class number during any of Mr. Carson’s years at Yale.

Well Ben Carson has had enough of his good name being sullied by people bringing up those damn "facts" so he posted this earlier today on Facebook.

On Saturday a reporter with the Wall Street Journal published a story that my account of being the victim of a hoax at...
Posted by Dr. Ben Carson on Sunday, November 8, 2015

Did you happen to notice what is at the top of this story vindicating Carson?

Yep. That article, labeled under the header “parody,” is responding to a joke issue of the Yale Record, the college’s humor magazine, where the story about the hoax class first appeared. Carson is treating Yale’s equivalent of The Onion as a matter of historical record. 

Wow!  I don't even...I mean wow!

I think we may actually have to stop comparing Carson to Sarah Palin. Because at this point I kind of think he has left Palin in his rear view mirror as far as telling lies and batshit crazy statements are concerned.

Seriously....wow!

This is why I tend to stay off of Facebook.

(Read here for more on the dehydrogen monoxide hoax.)

I see this kind of thing all of the time on Facebook.

I have a few family members and followers who are easily sucked into the newest internet outrage and it is exhausting trying to straighten them out all of the time, so I tend to just ignore Facebook altogether these days.

I cannot even begin to tell you how many parody stories about Sarah Palin I have shot down over the years.

I almost missed this but apparently Bristol Palin (Nancy French) claimed that she was NOT duped by that ESPN award hoax.

First off for all of those who may not remember this, here is the post I wrote about Bristol's ghostwriter falling for the hoax.

However according to a post that came out later that same day there was a denial that Bristol aka Nancy was stupid enough to get duped.

In fact it was titled "Dear Liberal Media, I Didn’t Get Duped by the Noah Galloway/Caitlyn Jenner ESPY Controversy."  

Here’s the thing. I didn’t get “duped.” I know that ESPN did not publish who was considered and rejected for the award. But it is certainly obvious that Noah Galloway and Lauren Hill did not receive the award. 

Neither did any of the other athletes who deserved the award far more than Caitlyn Jenner. 

That’s all I’m saying. 

The so-called “hoax” was that he was perhaps “runner up.” Who cares? I never said he was the runner up. 

I’ll make it easy on you. Here are the two options: 

1. He was either considered and rejected 

2. Or — worse — not considered at all. 

The only hoax is the media’s weird inability to see the truth.

You know I am willing to give Bristol the benefit of the doubt. I think it is very likely that SHE was not duped by the story. 

The reason I say that is because it is more than likely that since Bristol did not write that post that she also may not have even known about the hoax.

After all Bristol had only arrived back in Wasilla two days earlier, and was apparently catching up on her sleep.

However Nancy French is another matter altogether.

You see in the post where she was impersonating Bristol Palin she also linked to HER post, the title of which was "ESPN Gave the “Courage Award” to Caitlyn Jenner Instead of Iraq War Vet and Amputee Noah Galloway."

And that post linked to her husband David French's post entitled " Yes, ESPN Did Pick Caitlyn Jenner Ahead of Iraq War Vet and Amputee Noah Galloway for the ESPY Courage Awar."

In his post Mr. French acknowledges that there was an internet hoax, whereas Nancy does not in hers, and certainly does not mention the hoax in Bristol's blog post.

Now here's the question. If they had not read, and at least briefly believed, the hoax about Noah Galloway having been a runner up to receive the award, why would they have even brought up his name?

I mean there are numerous athletes, ex-servicemen, and amputees who are certainly worthy of recognition. But for some reason all three blog posts centered on the one guy that had been referred to first by a Boston radio personality...

Caitlyn Jenner wins Arthur Ashe Courage Award. And the runner-up is .... pic.twitter.com/DKUdnPT8Gx

— Gerry Callahan (@GerryCallahan) June 1, 2015

...and then later had become the center of a controversy that evolved into conservative outrage over what they perceived as a slight directed toward the military.

You know what I think?

I think that both Nancy French and her husband fell for the story hook line, and sinker, and wrote about it with righteous indignation.

Then I think they later realized they had been duped and edited their blog posts so it looked like they knew it was a hoax all along. However unfortunately for them Bristol's post had already received national attention so Nancy was forced to leave it intact and then come back later and deny, deny, deny.

Hey all bloggers make the occasional mistake. But some of us, well some of us can admit them.

Bristol Palin's ghostwriter falls for internet prank, makes her employer's daughter a laughingstock. Again.

Yesterday after linking to her own blog post, which linked to her husband's blog post, which suggested that Iraq war veteran and double amputee Noah Galloway had been the runner up to an award being presented to Caitlin Jenner, Nancy French wrote this on Bristol's blog: 

Isn’t that crazy!!! I hate how everything in this liberal world is, “Oh equality for all, but not if you don’t agree with us!” 

 I hate, for example, how Tim Tebow is SOOO mocked for being a Christian!!!! If anyone says they don’t believe in gay marriage, they’re cursed. Here’s the thing. Caitliyn (Oops added an unnecessary "i") Jenner looks great! I don’t care what people do… honestly I have gay friends (Sure you do.), but it drives me crazy that people like Noah don’t get recognized for sacrificing their LIFE for our country, while being gay/transgender makes you a hero. 

But shouldn’t we let everyone have their own opinions? Without restrictions on them? 

We have way too many hypocrites.

The problem (Well one of the problems) is that the story of Noah Galloway being a runner up for the  Arthur Ashe Courage Award is a hoax:

Awkward. Like thousands of other Internet users, Bristol Palin, the daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, just got duped. There’s a popular rumor circulating around the Internet that U.S. Army veteran and double amputee Noah Galloway lost the Courage Award to former Olympian Caitlyn Jenner, but it’s just a hoax. Despite being debunked numerous times, Palin failed to do a simple Google search and wrote an ill-informed blog post about the rumor.

Snopes has all of the details about how this hoax got started right here.

Look I get it, conservatives are itching to go after Caitlyn Jenner, but they know that if they do they will get all kinds of flack. So when it looks like there might be an avenue of attack that is based on the snubbing of an Iraq war veteran and NOT on the fact that Jenner makes a more attractive woman than most of them or gives them a confusing boner, how can they be expected to resist?

However if I were Sarah Palin, and I were paying good SarahPAC money to this ghostwriter to make my daughter look like something besides a whiskey soaked floozy who could not string a coherent sentence together at gun point, I would be extremely angry that she did not do a little research before buying into a hoax that only attracts even more ridicule for her and the family.

After all, they really don't need any help in that department.

Following Palin's lead Fox News uses Trig Truther smear to discredit Andrew Sullivan's article in support of President Obama.

This is how Sullivan responded yesterday:

Fox News is now waging war on the essay. I'm not surprised. Megyn Kelly has declared that I am "not a real journalist." She has also just said that I have written that Trig is not Sarah Palin's child. As longtime readers well know, I took great pains never to state that and merely to ask Palin, given her insane story about the birth of her child, to provide some evidence for it, which she said she would but never did. The Beast has asked for a correction. Real journalists do not tell untruths on air without correcting them. 

What I want to know is why they cannot invite the author of an essay to debate it, rather than two random individuals (including Rich "Starbursts" Lowry) to discuss. Surely that's only fair - unless, of course, I am on a blacklist. So this is an open challenge to Fox News. 

If you want to trash my work, have me on to defend it. Any time, Megyn. Any time. What are you afraid of?

I would be very surprised if they had him on, especially since he can easily out talk them, and also reopen that Sarah Palin's birth story in a way that might be too much for the viewers of Fox News to handle.

I am a little surprised that Fox was willing to use Palin's impulsive response to Sullivan as their jumping off point, since it means that many people will start Googling "Sarah Palin's pregnancy" and that will lead them to all kinds of places that Fox may not want to to go. Including here of course.

So personally I would like ot thank Fox News for the increase in traffic.

Dumb-asses!

Beyonce releases questionable video "proving" she is pregnant.

 The following video was JUST posted that purports to have been filmed on September 23 of this year.

Check out how bizarre Beyonce is acting, and what method she chooses to "prove" that she is indeed pregnant, and as far along as she claims.

 Here is what Media Takeout had to say about this video:

Beyonce just released a NEW VIDEO, which was filmed two months ago. According to Beyonce, she is now 8 MONTHS pregnant (She claimed that she was 6 months in the video, which was filmed in September). 

We have a lot to say about this. First off, who starts off a video saying, "Today is September 23rd" unless it's not September 23rd. If you have the paper with you why wouldn't you say something like "This is today's paper". Second, if this video was filmed TWO MONTHS ago, why are we just seeing it now? 

But more importantly, if she is 8 months regnant, wouldn't her due date be JANUARY (Cause she'll be 9 months in December). That seems DD .. . since she told an Australian journalist a few months back that her due date was in FEBRUARY. 

Inconsistent belly size, fluctuating due dates, is anybody else getting an overwhelming a sense of deja vu?

I am finding myself more and more intrigued by this story, mostly because of how it parallels Palin's pregnancy hoax. Only THIS time people are on the ball and starting to call her out.

It keeps reminding me of what COULD have been if the Alaska press had paid more attention to the few rumors swirling around at that time saying she wasn't pregnant.

Just imagine ALL that would have been changed by a more courageous, and less self serving, local press.

By the way, for comparison here is Sarah Palin supposedly a little over six months "pregnant."

I would say that Beyonce is putting substantially more effort into her fake pregnancy than Palin bothered to do, and yet people are STILL not buying it. I wonder if Palin's hoax has made some people hyper aware of the possibility that things are not always as they seem?

And once again Beyonce, just like Sarah Palin before her, could put all of this to rest simply by showing her uncovered tummy as well. After all clearly she is aware of the controversy.

Psst, can you keep a secret? Good, because I have chapter three of "The Wild Ride" for you to read. But remember, don't tell Sarah!

"Dammit! I thought I stopped this book?"

I will not bore with all of the drama that has erupted around the release of this book (actually to be honest I CAN'T bore you it yet), but have no fear as it is still on track to be released in the very near future. 

There are still last minute pieces of information being added and some behind the scenes dealings with the assholes currently trying to keep it out of your hands. But I have been assured that, come hell or high water, the book is ABSOLUTELY going to be released!

I have been very fortunate to have read seven chapters so far, and personally I am psyched!

I asked if I could share some of it with you and was told that I could, but that I needed to avoid giving away the more hush hush portions.  So I chose to share Chapter Three which is an overview of the mountain of evidence that leaves no doubt that Palin faked her last pregnancy, and then offers the pathetic excuses offered by Palin-bots to refute that evidence.

So with no further ado, let me present Chapter Three of The Wild Ride entitled "The Devil's Details."

"I'm telling you a lie in a vicious effort that you will repeat my lie over and over until it becomes true" – Lady Gaga 

There are multiple irregularities in Palin's pregnancy story and birth history. Some of these irregularities are simply curious (for example, her abruptly canceling her security detail less than 24 hours before she went to Texas on April 16th, and taking only Todd) and others border on the inexplicable (for example, the failure of the flight attendants to notice that she was pregnant as she returned to Alaska on April 18th,, in spite of the fact that a photo allegedly taken only five days earlier showed an advanced stage of pregnancy.) 

Any of these taken alone might be no more than an odd footnote retained in the memory of a few Alaskans. However, when all the anomalies are taken together, presented coherently, and dissected matter-of-factly, one gets a story that becomes so unlikely, so implausible, and so bizarre that it defies all statistical odds that it might be true. 

Is Beyonce attempting a fake pregnancy ala Sarah Palin?

Courtesy of Sandra Rose:

Tweets are talking about Beyoncé’s prosthetic baby bump on last night’s Sunday Night HD. At first we couldn’t believe that she would actually wear her prosthetic on a show with HD — high definition — in the show’s title. But you know what they say about narcissists who think they are smarter than everyone else around them. 

So there was Bey sitting down on the set — and there was her prosthetic baby bump, folding, crumpling and collapsing in full, vibrant high definition! 

Luckily, the prosthetic is that memory foam type that bounced right back into shape. Rumor has it that Beyoncé is wearing a fake prosthetic while her unknown surrogate carries her baby to term.

Gee where have we all seen THIS movie before?

However it looks like Beyonce had the sense to purchase a more convincing baby bump. (Though she apparently failed to read the directions concerning how to carefully sit down so that it does not fold over on high definition TV.)

Still you have to admit that it is a far cry from the methods used by that pioneer in the field of faking a pregnancy, Sarah Palin.

Such an amateur.  If she had not been surrounded by imbeciles there is NO way she could have pulled it off.


P.S. you can see the video of Beyonce's tummy folding over by clicking here. (Just forward to the 0:58 mark.)

The Grizzled Mama, drops her facade, and virtually admits that she has NO intention of running for President in 2012. That wailing sound you hear are little hearts breaking over at the Sea O'Pee.

 Video courtesy of Mediaite:

 If you watch the interview you cannot help but come away with the feeling that Palin is becoming bored with the tease, and much of her body language, and talk of having an impact "without a title," is clearly her way of saying she has no intention of running in 2012. 

I also tweeted during the interview.  Here were my observations.

There are rumors that Palin has lost her commenting job at Fox. Anybody hear confirmation? (I still have not heard if this is accurate.)

Palin on now looks angry. (Glowering, working her mouth, and looking tense.)

Attack on Obama five minutes in. Off her game.

Palin speaking for the little people. Who have charter jets, multiple homes, and millions in the bank.

Palin kissing up to Herman Cain. Now would a racist do that? Yup! (I actually heard this wrong. More at the end of my tweets.)

Palin compares CNN to Fox and finds CNN more favorable. Check temperature in hell.(For some reason Palin has been leaning more toward CNN, ever since they co-hosted that CNN/Teabagger debate.)

Greta asks the question she has to ask, but Palin plays coy again. Claims campaign would be too "shackling." (I had to replay the video this morning to make sure I heard that right., Yup, I did!)

"Shackling?"

Palin claims she took action on Israel by having dinner with prime minister. WTF? (When asked what she could do from the sidelines, instead of running for President, Palin talked about having this dinner with Netanyahu, apparently believing that since she did not eat with her feet that Netanyahu now has a much better impression of America.)

Greta is challenging her. Ask her about Joe's book Greta! (She didn't.)

Greta: "do you think you could win?" deranged idiot: "I do!" So sad. (No hesitation. Not one bit. Easy to be full of confidence when you have no intention of putting your ass on the line to prove it.)

Who had "time tested truths" on their Sarah Palin Bingo cards?
And she's off! (Interview over.)

Not one question about McGinniss book. Fox News, where journalism goes to die.

Palin changed Herman Cain's name to "Herb?" I wonder how Herb feels about that? (I had missed this earlier, but apparently like every good plantation owner, Palin had decided to change the African American man's name to her liking. Hey at least she did not change it from "Kunta Kinte" to "Toby.")

As bizarre as I found this interview, the folks over at the Sea O'Pee apparently felt as if their entire world had just fallen away beneath them as Palin left virtually NO doubt that she was NOT running in 2012.

Here are some of their comments:

She better think so is all I have to say. She is already doing a lousy job at campaigning. 
O4P steps up their game and Sarah does this. Good job. /s 
She owes us a decision now. 

Many of us have poured hours and even days and our own money into this and I can't stand this draggig out thing. Tonight I was sick to my stomach watching it and my wife just said "I told you so." I have to say I agree with her after tonight. I cannot speak for Sarah and she is free to make up her own mind about her future. I will say prayers that she gives this decision a lot of thought. 

I willl say that this site is a great thing, and we should not give up on it if Sarah decides not to do this. The information, the mods, everything is all great. Please do not give up if Sarah does not run. 

The one thing I tell myself when doubt creeps in is this: If she was not running she would have told us long before now. This Patriot has and is willing to sacrifice much more so please cut her some slack. 

Just watched the clip on RightScoop as well. My thoughts: Zero hint, actually negative, talking about alternative. She seems very dour, serious, almost resigned. Tense or wound up; even a bit angry. I'm not happy but recognize there may or may not be more going on. Overall, leaves me with a very unsettled feeling. I do think this should give everyone cause for pause, sit back, wait.

I remember when I first stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy. Devastating!

I think these people are virtually too ignorant to effectively figure out how to fill their lungs with air, but even recognizing that what Palin is doing to them is cruel beyond measure.

I believe when people are trying to assess just what kind of a person Sarah Palin is, examining her treatment of the people who literally fawn over her every word is most instructive.

Editor's note: For those who are unfamiliar with the Kunta Kinte reference I suggest you read the book "Roots." Or at least watch the mini-series, like I did. Alex Haley did an amazing job of educating Americans about this country's shameful history of slavery.

Your questions answered about upcoming babygate book: "The Wild Ride."

March 16, 2008. The "nail in the coffin" picture.

I received this e-mail earlier today in response to some of your questions about Fred's book:

Question: What's the story on the book's publication?

Answer: Final publication details are still being worked out. 

Q: So there'll be a website? 

A: Yes, within a week - ten days. 

Q: Will the book be hard copy or an e-book? 

A: The book will be available in all formats, hard cover, soft cover and all ebook formats. 

Q: Any more details about timing? 

A: As soon as I know for sure, I will tell you. The delay has been caused because of my fervent belief that the answer to the story is in Palin's emails. We have found several that are highly damning. Reviewing emals and going down various paths has taken a huge amount of time. I have a research assistant that has probably read more of the emails, and more carefully, than anyone on the planet. 

Q: Can Fred come back and update us? 

A: As soon as the blog is up and running you can look for info from there. 

Just let me just add a few of my own answers to this list.

No I am not author. Neither is Andrew Sullivan. (Though he might have some association.)

Yes there new bits of information in this book, that should satisfy and fascinate even the most jaded "Trig Truther." (As a matter of fact I just learned of one yesterday that might move this from the realm of probabilities, to the land of certainty. And I would give my eyeteeth to be able to post about it, but that is NOT how I treat my friends and fellow investigative journalists.)

I actually look forward to hearing about more attempts to defame the people who say that Palin did not give birth to Trig on April 18, 2008.  Because the  amount of crow they are soon going to have to eat is guaranteed to almost choke them to death.

Professsor Scharlott introduces the Palin Birth Truthometer!

NOTE: DO NOT SEND MONEY! ONLY IF SOMEONE WINS WILL MONEY CHANGE HANDS – THE WINNER HAS TO CONTACT YOU. BUT THE WINNER MUST PROVIDE VERIFIABLE AND IRREFUTABLE PROOF THAT SARAH GAVE BIRTH – A VERY HIGH BAR FOR SOMETHING THAT PROBABLY NEVER HAPPENED. 

AS THE MERCURY RISES, SARAH'S FUTURE SINKS 

The Truthometer shows the reward that will go to the first person to provide verifiable and irrefutable proof that Sarah Palin gave birth to Trig Paxon Van Palin on April 18, 2008, at Mat-Su Regional Medical Center, as she claims. Individuals may pledge money to the Truthometer reward. By doing so, they agree to pay the pledged amount should proof be provided. An attorney will judge if any submitted proof meets the requirements of being verifiable and irrefutable. If no such proof is ever provided, pledgers pay nothing. 

To add to the pledge amount, send your name and postal address to brad.scharlott@gmail.com. That information will be kept confidential, to be turned over to the winner only if there is one. Questions? Call 859-572-5645. If you have evidence Sarah gave birth to Trig, send it to: Dr. Brad Scharlott, PO Box 17772, Fort Mitchell, KY 41017.

Wow! When it rains it pours doesn't it?

Didn't somebody just recently accuse me of no longer doing any posts about babygate?

Silly, silly rabbit!

Professor Scharlott finally has the opportunity to publish his carefully researched article over at the Business Insider.

Courtesy of the Business Insider:

Three years ago, a sitting state governor and candidate for the vice-presidency of the United States, Sarah Palin, told a story about how she had given birth to her fifth child, Trig. 

Some details of this story quickly struck many observers as strange. As more information came to light, some observers came to suspect that, for unclear reasons, Palin had fabricated her pregnancy and lied about it--initially to her Alaska constituents and later to the country. 

Palin reacted angrily to this theory, and it was quickly dismissed as "nonsense" by much of the mainstream media and ignored during the 2008 Presidential campaign. Since then, attempts to settle the question once and for all have been met with silence or anger by those affiliated with Palin. 

Although Palin's supporters have successfully framed lingering questions about the Trig pregnancy as politically motivated attacks, the fact is that legitimate questions remain. And the one person who could instantly and forever put an end to the questions, Sarah Palin herself, has refused to address them. 

This article looks at some of the questions that remain about Palin's story. In my opinion, given that Sarah Palin was a vice-presidential candidate at the time she told this story--and is still often mentioned as a Presidential candidate--the world deserves a final, definitive answer to this question.

(To read the rest of this article please click the link at the top.)

Professor Scharlott left out a few portions that he considered might be too much for the average reader to absorb, including the different babies presented as Trig, but if you want to read the article in its entirety (Including a preponderance of foot notes) you can visit Scribd by clicking here.

Joe McGinniss really brought the babygate story out into the national spotlight so now is the perfect time to start writing about it and talking about it, to introduce the idea of the hoax to as many people as possible.

Personally THIS is what I have been working for, lo these many years, and I am beyond thrilled to see the story addressed by so many people, at so many different venues.

Wow, is September great or what?

Laura Novak and Professor Scharlott discuss the difficulties of getting the "babygate" story into the mainstream media.

Courtesy of Laura Novak's blog:

LN: Anyway, I know that in this time since we’ve worked together, you’ve re-written your paper and pushed it out into the world a few more times. Tell us where you are with all of that. 

BS: I’ve rewritten it in magazine format. The original format was as an academic research paper, but it was in truth always more of a journalistic expose than a theoretical paper. The theory part, about the spiral of silence, was only the last five pages; the first 20 pages was an expose of Babygate. So in rewriting it, I have made its form true to its overriding original purpose: to expose the shortcomings of the press in covering Babygate, which necessitated exposing Babygate itself. 

LN: They go hand in hand don’t they? And I can say having read all the versions that you make an excellent case for both. Your writing is tight and sophisticated. And it’s also evolved as you’ve worked through the story. Explain what your goal was with that. 

BS: The rewrite is shorter, bolder, and much more forceful than the earlier paper. In the original paper, I avoided any mention of Gryphen’s “Tale of Two Trigs” theory. In the rewrite, I include that stuff. And I think the multiple Trigs idea has probably spooked some magazines from accepting the article. That does not surprise me. In April, I would not even mention in radio interviews the possibility of different babies being shown as Trig at different times. I did not have a strong sense then that that part of the story was almost certainly true and crucial to understanding what happened. But now I do feel that way. 

LN: And yet, the editors you’ve submitted to are still not biting. What kinds of things are they saying? 

BS: Here is part of a nice rejection note I got from a British publication: “Thank you for your interesting read. I am sorry but I am not sure that it is something we would take on as I would need to start from scratch to satisfy myself of all sources etc. and I am not 100% sure that even this would get to the bottom. What is needed is a whistleblower. Her daughter's doctor – or something.” The online editor of a different publication, one in the U.S., indicated he definitely would use my article, in fact would feature it, based on seeing my original paper. After I sent the revision, he decided he’d better check with his publisher, who said no. 

LN: How did you react when you heard back from both these editors? 

BS: Their reactions did not surprise me. If you haven’t really familiarized yourself with the facts surrounding the hoax, it does sound a bit surreal. 

LN: In your paper you are very critical of the press for being timid and easily manipulated by Palin. Now you sound sympathetic to those who will not accept your revised article for publication. Aren’t you being inconsistent? 

BS: Well, I need to draw a distinction. It was the press corps covering Palin in 2008 that deserves the most criticism. There were red flags back then that a hoax had probably happened. When the McCain campaign responded to the fake-birth rumors by throwing Bristol under the bus and claiming she was five months pregnant – and thus could not be Trig’s mother – the journalists’ bullshit sirens should have been blaring. (As it turns out, since more than one baby has almost certainly been displayed as Trig at different times, there’s no telling what relation Bristol has to the current “normal ears” Trig with Down syndrome.) As for current editors who are encountering much of this Babygate stuff for the first time, I can understand how they might find my revised paper on the very edge of believability, despite all the evidence I present. 

LN: So isn’t this a Catch-22: Many editors find the Babygate saga unbelievable because no one in the mainstream press has written about it, but no one in the mainstream press will write about it for fear that people will find it unbelievable? 

BS: Yep. That sums it up nicely.

There is much more and I do encourage you to to click the link at the top and read the rest at Laura's blog.

As most of you who have been visiting here at IM know all too well, this problem with being taken seriously by the MSM  is one of the most frustrating parts of this campaign to reveal, what may in fact be, one of the most amazing political hoaxes of all time.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciate the efforts of Brad and Laura to find a way to present the evidence in the most palatable way possible so that newspapers and periodicals will find it impossible to resist.

 I would also like all of you to know that they are not alone in their struggle to get the truth about this perplexing mystery out to the public.  Fred and his researchers have also been working their fingers to the bone trying to craft a book that will be difficult, if not impossible, for the MSM to ignore.

And toward that end they have started to carefully comb through Palin's recent email dump and discovered some very interesting inconsistencies. As many of you know, contrary to what Palin supporters and journalists at large seemed to think, there were things to discover in those emails.

I personally was able to find some very interesting emails myself which demonstrated Sarah's lack of compassion, proved she orchestrated fake letters to the editor, and convinced at least one holdout that she most likely faked her last pregnancy.

Fred and his researchers have dug even deeper, and hope to bring out some information that will impress even jaded "babygate" experts like us.

And if that was not enough to wake you up this morning, I also have a potential lead that may finally answer one of the biggest questions surrounding the "babygate" saga.

Stay tuned.

Julia O'Malley of the ADN addresses Professor Scharlott's research. Update!

I will give Julia props for at least reading the paper, however like most of the media she immediately dismisses its findings. (But how nice is it to see the story in the Anchorage Daily News again?)

She does provide some new, heretofore unreported "information" for us to mull over.

But, of course, there was no silence spiral. The journalists, including me, who covered Palin at the time believed she was pregnant because she was pregnant. Even before the announcement, she seemed to be putting on weight. She wore baggy jackets and scarves. Before the announcement, she acted nervous when photographers tried to take her picture. Later on, her face filled out. Her fingers swelled. She had a noticeable belly. And it wasn't made out of foam.

Palin also ran all the time at the gym in Juneau. People I know saw her on the treadmill sweating in workout clothes. She had a belly. I repeat: she had a real pregnant belly. Are you going to tell me she was wearing a prosthetic abdomen on the treadmill?

Really?

"Her fingers swelled."  "People I know saw her on the treadmill sweating in workout clothes. She had a belly. I repeat: she had a real pregnant belly."

I have to say that this is new to me.  I have interviewed, and had casual conversations, with dozens of people who saw Palin during her "pregnancy."  Not ONE of them ever said that she appeared pregnant. (Well to be honest there was one potential source that a friend said they were in contact with who claimed to have seen Palin with her shirt up, and her pregnant belly exposed, between March 2008 and Trig's birth.  But when I asked if I could interview them, they quickly disappeared into a puff of smoke.)

So what do I make of Julia's claims?  I am a fan, and absolutely do not believe she would lie, so I want to take her at her word. So does that mean her friends lied to her?  Seems odd if they did, and if so, why?

I have a few faceless "friends" that have had something to say about this as well.  Here are a few who left some very interesting comments about a "tubal ligation" that Palin complained about after the birth of Piper (Scroll down to read what they had to share.) 

I also have a friend in the Valley who has been in contact with somebody, once very close to the Palins, who says unequivocally that the pregnancy was faked.

Then there is the "major news outlet" who revealed that they have pictures proving beyond a shadow of about that Palin was not pregnant. (And yes I have contacted them and told them that "Now is the time to spring their story!")

Not all of these people are anonymous or faceless.  There is also Shailey Tripp, who is the only person I know who saw Palin in some stage of undress and actually felt her stomach, who says that "there was nothing at all" to indicate that she was with child.

I have a few more sources who are not yet ready to have their stories shared, but all in all the cumulative anecdotal evidence is virtually impossible to ignore.  And THAT is without the added proof of the various photographs which show Palin looking much, much too slim to be as pregnant as she claims, or even pregnant at all.

Speaking of pictures the Mail Online has posted this picture as proof that Palin WAS pregnant:

Is anybody convinced by that?

If not, you are not alone. Joe McGinniss was not exactly bowled over by that evidence either.

So here we are on day three of this new frenzy over babygate, and I have to say I am really enjoying seeing people examining the evidence. Many for the very first time. 

I know that there are still those who will never agree that Palin faked the pregnancy, but I am noticing that there are a whole lot who have seen the light, and even more who are at least expressing interest in the possibility that a whole nation was hoodwinked.

For this tired old Trig Truther, that is music to my ears.

And by the way there are STILL no tweets from the Grizzled Mama herself telling us all how foolish we are for talking about this again. Which is kind of interesting in and of itself.

Don't you agree?

Update: By the way another major mystery, besides why Palin did not seem to gain any weight until the last three weeks of her "pregnancy," is the fact that she seems to have lost all of that sudden weight gain even quicker.

Here is the famous picture taken in the Palin kitchen on Levi's birthday, May 3rd, which is only two weeks after Trig's "birth."

Where is the round face everybody is commenting on?  Or the bulky shoulders shown in the ADN photos? Or the fat fingers?  Or the discomfort in bending over, that my wife dealt with for almost two months? None of that appears evident here.

I will put the photographs I have in my collection against anything the ADN or the Daily Mail have any day of the week.  I have every confidence that if this evidence were put in front of a jury, that Palin would be convicted of faking her pregnancy in a heartbeat!

Update 2: Here is Andrew Sullivan's take on this pathetic article:

She also seems to believe that the job of journalists is to adjudicate not just what's fit to print, but also what's fit to report. Based on what her friends say they saw in a gym.

Actually the job of journalists is to seek factual resolution of legitimate empirical questions. This should be easy. Why has it been so insanely hard?

Now THAT is a very good question.  You know, the kind an actual journalist might ask.