Donald Trump goes on early morning Twitter rant against unverified reports that Russia has embarrassing information about him.

Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is "A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE." Very unfair!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Really? You are going to cite denials by Russia as evidence?

Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

That is a patently false statement.

I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 11, 2017

Okay the fact that he cited Nazi Germany made me choke on my coffee.

Trump using lies and disinformation to defend himself against these allegations makes it hard to defend him, but to be fair he is not completely wrong.

The documents released by Buzzfeed, are indeed unverified, and by all accounts though numerous journalists have worked to verify them they have failed to do so.

So even though this story has been widely reported by a number of news outlets, most of them make sure to tell their visitors that there is no independent verification of the accusations.

However as for Trump claiming this is "fake news" it seems appropriate to share a story that Newsweek posted yesterday which contained this little tidbit:

Even as Trump was disputing the role played by the Kremlin in the hacking, his campaign was scouring sites publicly identified by American intelligence as sources for Russian propaganda. Ten days before the third debate, Newsweek published an article exposing how Trump had cited—as fact—a document altered by Russian propagandists and put out on the internet, suggesting (erroneously) that Clinton’s closest allies believed she bore responsibility for the attack on the American mission in Benghazi, Libya. 

Sputnik, which has been publicly identified by intelligence agencies as a key disinformation site of the Kremlin, published an article citing the document. The site, which later took down the article, published another one attacking Newsweek and essentially denying the news organization was controlled by the Kremlin. Before the day was out, the Trump campaign was emailing links of that article to multiple reporters, including at publications like The Daily Caller, urging them to pursue the story.

If you live by the fake news sword, you die by the fake news sword.

Trump may be correct that those unverified reports are complete BS, but the problem is that they fit quite well with stories that contain verified information which paint a picture of a man deeply beholden to Russia and seemingly controlled by that country's tyrannical dictator.

Personally I do not think that you need this newest unverified story to know that Donald Trump is completely unfit to lead this country.

New report finds there has been a 35% decrease in the uninsured since the implementation of Obamacare. Conservatives claim that math is a liberal trick.

Told you everything would work out.

Courtesy of Vox: 

A new report from Health and Human Services finds that the uninsured rate has fallen from 20.3 percent prior to the health-care law down to 13.2 percent at the start of 2015. This is a 7.1 percentage-point decrease in the uninsured rate — or, to put it another way, a 35-percent decline in the number of Americans who lack insurance coverage. 

"Nothing since the implementation of Medicare and Medicaid has come close to this kind of change," says Richard Frank, assistant secretary for evaluation and planning at Health and Human Services. 

The decline in coverage has coincided with two big Obamacare programs. First, there was the part of the law that required employers to offer dependent coverage up through age 26. Since that program began in 2010, the uninsured rate among young adults (Americans between the ages of 19 and 26) has dropped from 34.1 percent to 26.7 percent. 

Second, and much larger, was the start of the health law's insurance expansion in 2014. Federal officials estimate that since the expansion started, 14.1 million Americans have gained coverage, largely through Medicaid and the health law's marketplace for private insurance.

I think this is probably why we have not heard the conservatives going after Obamacare recently. 

Now it's all about the President's "weakness" on and his insistence, according to the conservatives, on helping Iran get an atomic bomb.

"Netanyahu says the President is making a bad deal. Netanyahu says there will be no Palestinian state if he is reelected. Netanyahu said my hair looked nice and I swooned!"

However despite all of the attempts to undermine this President for virtually everything he tries to do, his approval ratings just keep going up: 

President Obama's approval rating just hit 50 percent for the first time since the spring of 2013. That's the biggest -- and most surprising -- takeaway from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The gains are pretty even across the board, but the biggest are among Democrats (10 points), moderates (10), Hispanics (22), and even white evangelical Christians (10), who generally tilt heavily toward the GOP. Obama also has gained 19 points among adults younger than 30.

Gee not bad for a guy that just can't seem to do anything right. 

Lawrence O'Donnell virtually eviscerates Asa Hutchinson, head of the NRA's "School Shield Task Force," in an interview last night.

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Okay I am not going to lie to you, this interview is long (Just over 25 minutes). But do yourself a favor and watch it, because Lawrence REALLY puts this guy through the meat grinder, and does NOT allow him to bullshit his way out of ANYTHING.

There were a number of times that Hutchinson looked like he wanted to just crawl away, and a number of questions, such as on the extended clips, that he simply could not answer adequately.

This is one of O'Donnell's best interviews, and I think he deserves serious props for getting Hutchinson to come on, and then doing his job as a journalist once he did.

As much as it pains me I should also say that I am impressed that Hutchinson showed up for an interview that he had to know would be hostile, and then sat through it without ripping off his mic and running for the exit. I think a lot of people would have bailed.

By the way to go along with this there is also a report on Raw Story which undermines the very premise of the NRA's "School Shield" findings: 

The proposal appears to be based on a faulty — although widespread — opinion. The NRA has said schools are not safe places for children because gun-free zones make them “utterly defenseless.” However, the article contends schools are in fact safe places. Though gun violence is the second leading cause of death among those ages 5-9 and 15-24, nearly all of those deaths occurred outside of school. In fact, Stephen Brock of California State University, a leading expert on school violence, described schools as “the safest place for a student to be.” 

“To try and reduce something that already is rare… is tricky business,” Crews remarked, noting that there is only 1 homicide or suicide at school for every 2.7 million students. 

Crews and his colleagues found there was little evidence to suggest that placing armed guards in schools would actually prevent gun violence. About 27 percent of schools in the United States already have armed or unarmed security officers. Both Columbine High School and Virginia Tech had armed security guards, but that did not prevent two deadly mass shootings. A 2011 study found schools with armed guards actually had higher rates of violence than similar schools without armed guards. 

Having armed guards in schools also raises the troubling possibility that a student could get ahold of their firearms. 

“Ongoing research that we are conducting with incarcerated perpetrators of school violence also indicates that school shooters have easy access to weapons, often getting them (either as gifts or stealing them) from their parents, neighbors, or friends who may have purchased them legally,” Crews explained. “Putting more weapons in schools just makes more weapons available because inevitably, someone will forget to lock their drawer, misplace their key, or otherwise lose track of their firearm, making it easy for kids who want to have one to take it.”

Personally I think that just about anybody with critical thinking skills could have worked this out on their own, but nice to see a report by experts which backs our commons sense.