This should help to keep things straight.

A little simplistic, but accurate overall.

Stephen Hawking has now "slipped the surly bonds of earth" to touch the face of....truth.

Courtesy of the New York Times: 

Stephen W. Hawking, the Cambridge University physicist and best-selling author who roamed the cosmos from a wheelchair, pondering the nature of gravity and the origin of the universe and becoming an emblem of human determination and curiosity, died early Wednesday at his home in Cambridge, England. He was 76. 

His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Cambridge University. 

“Not since Albert Einstein has a scientist so captured the public imagination and endeared himself to tens of millions of people around the world,” Michio Kaku, a professor of theoretical physics at the City University of New York, said in an interview. 

Dr. Hawking did that largely through his book “A Brief History of Time: From the Big Bang to Black Holes,” published in 1988. It has sold more than 10 million copies and inspired a documentary film by Errol Morris. The 2014 film about his life, “The Theory of Everything,” was nominated for several Academy Awards and Eddie Redmayne, who played Dr. Hawking, won the Oscar for best actor. 

Scientifically, Dr. Hawking will be best remembered for a discovery so strange that it might be expressed in the form of a Zen koan: When is a black hole not black? When it explodes.

By any measure Stephen Hawking was an absolutely amazing human being.

And in fact a living lesson as to just what can be achieved by humanity itself once it steps away from superstition and fully embraces the miracles to be discovered by scientific exploration.

The challenges that Hawking faced in his life were the kind that would destroy most people, and yet he managed to not only adapt, but to overcome.

It kind of puts the challenges that most of us face into perspective doesn't it?

Remembering Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and ambassador of science. His theories unlocked a universe of possibilities that we & the world are exploring. May you keep flying like superman in microgravity, as you said to astronauts on @Space_Station in 2014 pic.twitter.com/FeR4fd2zZ5

— NASA (@NASA) March 14, 2018

His passing has left an intellectual vacuum in his wake. But it's not empty. Think of it as a kind of vacuum energy permeating the fabric of spacetime that defies measure. Stephen Hawking, RIP 1942-2018. pic.twitter.com/nAanMySqkt

— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) March 14, 2018

Have fun out there among the stars. pic.twitter.com/S285MTwGtp

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) March 14, 2018

I would say RIP, that would be an insult to the memory of this great man.

The Russians also infiltrated Reddit, one of the most popular websites on the internet.

Courtesy of the Daily Beast:  

Reddit admitted it has “found and removed a few hundred accounts” associated with Russian propaganda, one week after The Daily Beast confirmed the Kremlin-backed Internet Research Agency, or Troll Farm, used the platform during the 2016 presidential campaign. Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman, writing under the username Spez, outlined both direct propaganda, such as troll accounts using the platform, and indirect propaganda, like subreddits such as r/The_Donald repeatedly linking to Russian Twitter troll account @TEN_GOP. “Given the recent news, we’d like to share some of what we’ve learned,” he wrote. 

If you are a frequent visitor to Reddit this is not really news, since this was being called out during the election, but nothing was ever really done about it.

Like Facebook the moderators of Reddit seemed to ignore the problem altogether.

And that has really pissed off a number of Reddit users: 

Reddit users rebelled en masse against the site’s CEO for concealing Russian troll activity the site now admits it knew about, and for not working fast enough to ban dangerous and extremist communities. 

Reddit’s CEO Steve Huffman admitted the site has been targeted by at least “a few hundred” troll accounts in an announcement to Reddit users on Monday, four days after a Daily Beast investigation confirmed for the first time that Russia’s troll farm used the platform. 

Reddit has not responded to repeated requests by The Daily Beast for comment about The Daily Beast’s investigation, which showed Russia’s Internet Research Agency used American proxies to access the site. 

Based on that reporting, Senate investigators are looking into opening up probes on the troll farm’s use of Reddit and Tumblr, according to The Washington Post.

I only visited that r/The Donald subreddit a few times, but the stuff that was posted on there was outrageous, misleading, and consistently pro-Donald Trump.

Many of the talking points that you may have seen defending Trump during the election, or minimizing news stories about him, originated on these subreddits and then spread far and wide on Facebook, Twitter, and various other social media outlets.

By the way as of this post r/The Donald is still up and has over half a million subscribers.

Yes, I do.

Best President of my lifetime.

I think this is one "conspiracy theory" that I am totally on board with.

So true it almost hurts.

“Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

It should also be noted that none of Trump's family has served in the military, he aggressively attacked a former prisoner of war, and that he has done nothing to answer any of Russia's cyber attacks.

Just a reminder that this information exists.

Isn't it just like kids to screw up your best laid plans?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

When I think of all the faux scandals that the Right Wing drummed up to go after Obama and his administration, and compare that to the very real scandals that seem to pop up almost every day with this new guy, I am almost left speechless.

If President Obama had one, even ONE, of the scandals orbiting around Trump they would have literally locked him up and thrown away the key.

I bet his lawyers will be arguing against it.

"Come on, you've read his tweets, do you really think my client is a fully functioning adult?"

I have heard of people who cannot hold their liquor, but this moron cannot even hold his water.

Such a fucking embarrassment.

Fox News

Fox News almost destroyed journalism in this country.

But journalists fought back.

If it continues it may yet destroy our democracy.

Will we have the courage to fight back?

Well what do you know, Donald Trump is finally right about something.

Trump supporters will continue to say that Trump is not who Mueller, and his team of FBI agents, are ultimately targeting, but at this point you would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb not to realize that he is absolutely the target.

Today is going to be a tough news day so let's take a moment to enjoy warm glow of the Obama-Biden bromance.

ME: Joe, about halfway through the speech, I’m gonna wish you a happy birth--
BIDEN: IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!
ME: Joe.

Happy birthday to @JoeBiden, my brother and the best vice president anybody could have. pic.twitter.com/sKbXjNiEjH

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 20, 2017

I saw this yesterday on Twitter and it just made me feel good again, for a little while.

We were so blessed once, I just wish we had taken the time to enjoy it more.

I read an interview with Biden recently where he said that all of those Obama-Biden memes on the internet are all true. Not literally of course, but they reflected the relationship that he had with his boss and best friend.

Damn I really hope that some of these are true.

Could work.

Yeah, you know this is coming.

Everything that goes wrong in Trump's world is somehow, someway Obama's fault.

So if this Mueller investigation ends his presidency he will obviously blame our last real president.

That's cool with me by the way.

I am good with giving Barack Obama credit for taking down his toxic presidency.

Russian operatives used Facebook to organize armed anti-Islamist protest and targeted military vets in 2016.

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

Last May, nearly 100 demonstrators gathered around the Islamic Da’wah Center in downtown Houston, squaring off against one another in competing camps. 

The “Stop Islamization of Texas” protest was, on its face, largely similar to any number of other tense, vitriolic demonstrations that percolated through 2016. On the one end: a crew carrying Confederate flags, #WhiteLivesMatter banners, and heavy weaponry. On the other: counter-protesters with signs decrying Islamophobia, calling for communal unity, and a bubble machine going at full blast. 

Despite the presence of AR-15s, the demonstrations ended without violence. The white supremacists screaming “Fascist and proud!” dissipated, as did those supporting the Islamic center. 

The organizers behind the anti-Islam protesters, however, never showed. And now, over 16 months later, we know why. 

As CNN reported last week, the protest was put together by the “Heart of Texas” Facebook page – a page that was revealed last month as one of the fake accounts operated out of Russia. Unlike the November anti-Hillary Clinton, pro-secession rallies the page attempted to organize across Texas, the May protest not only brought armed protesters, but a raft of counter-protesters to face down those calling for “white power!”

Just let that roll around in your mind a little.

That means that the Russian government used an American social media platform to organize a situation where American people could easily have been shot and killed.

Who needs more bombs and bigger armies when you can so easily accomplish something like that?

And the Russians clearly knew which Americans were most susceptible to their manipulations.

Courtesy of McClatchy:

Russia has exploited social media networks to target current and former U.S. military personnel with propaganda, conspiracy theories and other misinformation, achieving “significant and persistent interactions” over Twitter during a one-month period last spring, a British research team found. 

The Oxford University study, which traced the reach of three websites with clear ties to the Russian government, adds a new dimension to revelations of a Kremlin cyber campaign aimed at undermining Americans’ trust in democracy during last year’s U.S. elections and helping Donald Trump win the presidency. 

“We’ve found an entire ecosystem of junk news about national security issues that is deliberately crafted for U.S. veterans and active military personnel,” said Philip Howard, a professor of internet studies who led the research. “It’s a complex blend of content with a Russian view of the world – wild rumors and conspiracies.”

Remember when I told you about that buddy from the gym who claimed that his opinion of Hillary was altered when he saw a meme on social media showing Hillary standing among a bunch of dead bodies and calling her a "war monger?"

Yep, you guessed it, he is ex-military.

I remember at the time wondering how he was targeted as he is essentially apolitical.

Now I know.

And we are still everyday learning more and more about how easily the Russians manipulated the American people.

It is enough to make you feel disgusted that you have to share the planet with such fucking morons.

Presidents comforting people in their time of need.

There you go.

From the plantations to the NFL, those brown people must be reminded to know their place.

Right Donnie? 

Of course in this case the owners are kneeling right alongside of them.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was the only NFL owner who hadn't responded to Trump's comments. Tonight, he joined the entire team to #TakeAKnee. pic.twitter.com/uiMaYr2LbJ

— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) September 26, 2017

The other side of the coin.

So true I cannot even laugh at it.