Behind the Blogger: More Blogging Excuses, From that Twilighty Zone

I know. I've been gone a while. I'm a bit surprised HOW long, to be honest, but time flies in Trump's America, doesn't it? And simultaneously crawls. It's like that twilighty show about that zone. Nothing feels real. I'm still not utterly convinced that we haven't sidestepped into the wrong reality somehow.

Trump fans (god knows how or why they exist) can pretend that all of this is normal, somehow. They can insist that, hey, they made it through eight years of Obama. We'll make it through this. Which is a) a bad comparison for reasons I will articulate and b) not even a foregone conclusion. Given the insanity that goes on with our toddler president, we might not make it through this.

But let's get back to the bad comparison. Barack Obama was, to my way of thinking, an exceptional man and a fine president. I'm quite clear that other people didn't think so. That's fine. What can't be argued is that he was in some way unusual, or atypical from any other mainstream politician. He was black, and say what you will, I'm never going to believe that his race wasn't responsible for a large chunk of the outright hatred directed at him. But he was a smart, educated, contemplative, capable man. He understood the scope of the job, more than basic civics, how government works. Whether you liked him or not, it's hard to conclude that he wasn't capable of doing the job.

Donald Trump is different. Not just a little different. He's not different in the way he's most often presented, as in "not a politician." Even the most fervent Trumpster has to admit the man is uniquely and profoundly odd. For a while longer, perhaps, they can tout this oddness as a virtue. But more and more, the wheels seem to be coming off, lug nuts shooting willy nilly. It is very clear that Trump is at best winging it. The whole thing. He clearly has no "doctrine," no core belief system beyond "winning," something he's actually done very little of since the election. And even that very well may have been rigged after all. For him.

I want to write about this stuff. In years gone by, I very certainly would have, and very prolifically. I may actually revive that part of myself. But I'm at a bit of a crossroads here. More engagement in social media, more of a workload both at my official job and at my home business, and other factors have conspired to change the way I use my time. Couple this with the difficulty in concisely putting into words the insanity that's swirling around us, and blogging is just a different beast to me than it once was.


Still not ready to give the blog up though! I'm still here. And I'll keep coming back. Just hopefully more often than every two weeks.

TV Listing Previews Trump Inauguration as an Episode of The Twilight Zone

I've been saying for weeks and weeks that it feels like we've fallen into an alternate reality, alternate timeline, or into a false, matrix-like simulation. Moreover, it feels wrong, like we don't belong here, and we need Neo, the Sliders kids, Sam Beckett, Barry Allen or the Legends of Tomorrow to come set things right.

I'm not the only one.

[Excerpt]

Hysterical TV Listing Compares Trump Inauguration To A Nightmarish Twilight Zone

President Trump: The Inauguration

4pm, BBC One/ STV

After a long absence, The Twilight Zone returns with one of the most ambitious, expensive and controversial productions in broadcast history. Sci-fi writers have dabbled often with alternative history stories – among the most common is the “What If The Nazis Had Won The Second World War” setting – but this huge interactive virtual reality project, which will unfold on TV, in the press, and on Twitter over the next four years, sets out to build an ongoing alternative present. The story begins in a nightmarish version of 2017 in which huge sections of the US electorate have somehow been duped into voting to make Donald Trump president. It sounds far-fetched, and it is, but as it goes on it becomes more and more chillingly plausible. . .

Read more at: NewsCorpse

Right Wing World: Spinning Syria

Do you remember the run-up to the Iraq War? I do, but FOX "News" and other conservative outlets seemingly do not. In the period after September 11, 2001 all the way through "Shock and Awe" and pretty much up to "Mission Accomplished," President George W. Bush and his administration was given the kid glove treatment from the press, and much of the public. I mean, I'm a lefty liberal moonbat blogger, and I didn't much question the Iraq decision at the time. I was skeptical, but what the heck did I know? No, it was a very slow burn, a very gradual awakening of the press, the birth of the blogosphere, and the dawning realization that we were lied into war that shook us out of the"Freedom & Liberty" free pass we were giving Bushco.

Image from the fabulous NewsCorpse

But Right Wing World is revising history, or trying to. They're conflating Syria and Iraq, but they're not using what actually happened. . .which is completely expected of course. I'm also seeing in various places (Iowa radio host Steve Deace, for one) that the liberals who did speak out against the war are somehow now marching in lock-step behind President Obama. Which--if you pay attention to Left Wing World (such as it is)--is completely wrong. 10 minutes of The Ed Show should disabuse anyone of that notion. But again. . .to be expected.

[Excerpt]

Fox News Dementia: Media Is Not As Hard On Obama/Syria As They Were On Bush/Iraq

On Fox News this morning there was a segment debating the media coverage of the “Crisis in Syria” (video below). On any other network this would have been a legitimate subject for debate and a fascinating topic. But leave it to Fox News to broadcast a version of history that makes Snow White’s adventures with seven diminutive forest dwellers look like a PBS documentary. . .

Read more at: NewsCorpse

Mitt Romney Claims He Didn't Make "47%" Comment

By now, we're not surprised by a politician who denies saying what he plainly said. Meet the Press not to mention The Daily Show have long made hay pulling old speeches out to prove a candidate is wrong or has lied. But when the statement in question is one of the most glaring, most obvious pivot points of the race? What point is there in lying about it now? I mean, I know that Mitt Romney had a truth-telling problem (especially for a Mormon), but this one really takes the cake.
 

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Right Wing World: Cheney and Palin and More, Oh My!

In my previous post, I ranted about the idiocy of presenting Dick Cheney (or countless others) on the Sunday political shows, and holding them out as some sort of authority on foreign policy. Or anything else. I left out John McCain and his swooning buddy, Lindsey Graham, both of who appear so often on those shows, they should be noted as the Senators from Meet the Press, rather than the states they allegedly represent. But my rant was just to let out steam. I should know by now that I am but a humble, hobbyist blogger, and that there are pros out there who do it better.

Image from source, NewsCorpse

But the nice thing is, I can share their work, and still feel like I did something! And oddly enough, it does make me feel better. This is from a great site that focuses mostly on FOX "News," but you can apply it across the board.

[Excerpt]

Fox News On Credibility: With Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, And Stuttering Jesse Watters

Bizarro World is contemplating a lawsuit against Fox News for infringing on their patented methods of presenting a worldview that is wholly inconsistent with reality. . .

Read more at: NewsCorpse

Blogiversary: SIX Years!

As I type this, we are in the waning moments of June 2, 2013. That means this is the end of the first day of my seventh year blogging at Greenlee Gazette. I started this blog--as I've often said--in frustration. Picture it: it was 6.5 years into the Bush era. Democrats, liberals and/or progressives were not just frustrated. We were the mush squeezed out of the end of a steam-rollered tube of left-wing ideology. The Karl Rove/Frank Luntz alternate reality machine had clobbered us pretty severely. We were standing up shouting "reality doesn't match what we're being told!," but we were largely ignored.

Feel free to scroll back in my archives, they're all there. It was a  vastly different time. We're now in a similar era for the opposing party, a second term (though not as deeply in), with a kinda lame-ducky vibe, and some "scandal," though nothing nearly so subversive as the Bush era crap. Nothing came of those, so that may have something to do with why Democrats aren't worked up over Obama scandal-ettes. But that's just the political backdrop. My mission as a blogger just got rooted in that fertile ground. That's not all there was to it.

An early dream, still unrealized.

Mostly, what the blog solved for me, was my a solution to my vast introspection. I'm a notorious "self talker," talking to myself to such an extent that it can be embarrassing when someone overhears. It comes from living until my early 30s on my own. It also comes from the discovery that if I say things out loud, I tend to remember them better. But once I had a blog? All of those spoken-to-no one thoughts were typed down, and--oddly enough--read by others! Woo hoo! I'm not crazy, I have readers!

Well, maybe you all are crazy too. But that's okay, we have each other. Over these last six years, the blog has been alternatively a catharsis, a burden, a diary, a platform, a creative outlet, an argument practice-zone, a lighting rod for controversy and a pet project. I have no plans of giving it up, though I often wonder if there's a way to have my cake and eat it too: keep the platform, but not be so shackled to it.

Who knows if blogging will still be "a thing" six more years down the line, or if it will be absorbed by something.  In the NewsFlesh series of zombie apocalypse books, blogging replaces journalism. I'd argue that we've already merged to a degree, possibly to the detriment of journalism. But it's also opened a world of discovery to people who needed an outlet, and helped inspire people who may not have sought out traditional journalism. I think on the whole it has been a positive development. I know that I'm inspired to carry on. And I'm sure I'll be here next year with another update.

In the meantime, thank you for reading, and please come back and bring your friends!

Does Anybody take NewsBusters Seriously?

NewsBusters is an outlet of the "Media Research Council." Sounds legit.

When I scroll through the headlines at NewsBusters, I'm often a really bad audience for them. Far from being outraged, my response to most of them is, "Yeah. So?!?"

NewsBusters is a "media watchdog"-type website, but unlike a left-leaning counterpart like Media Matters for America, this right-leaning outfit is all about editorializing and faux outrage. They bristle at any perceived slight against conservatism, Republicans, or Christianity. And they get particularly riled if a news report is favorable to abortion rights, gay people or gun control. But it doesn't have to be from an actual news source. They get all up in the business of sex columnists like Dan Savage, talk show hosts like Stephanie Miller and Randi Rhodes, and virtually anyone who makes a big enough splash to get their notice.

Most liberals would consider a rip from NB to be a badge of honor. Because the write-ups are so drenched in right-wing-world bias, it's hilarious that the site is supposed to be ferreting out bias.

Just for fun, here are just a few headlines from this goofy site, with my comments.

Grammy Award-Winner Michael Bolton: 'I'd Walk Across the Country to Get Hillary Into Office'

This one shows the hilarity of what NewsBusters thinks is a news bias item. Michael Bolton is an entertainer. A largely non-influential entertainer at that. Who cares who Bolton supports politically, besides people interested in reading about it? What news was busted here?

Global Warming Skeptics Rebut Face the Nation Segment on Climate Change and Moore Tornado

In this item, NewsBusters provides a forum to "global warming skeptics"--known to most of us as crackpots--since Face the Nation didn't provide one for them. Which sounds a lot less like "news busting" to me, than trying to make your own news. And on this, they should be busted.

Brit Hume Hammers Juan Williams for Saying Eric Holder's the 'Exact Right Person' to Probe His Own Department

This is a weird one. NewsBusters is spending its "media watchdog" time to keep tabs on the opinion portion (not that it isn't all opinion) of FOX "News" Sunday, a decidedly conservative media outpost. This isn't news busting, it's highlighting the side of an argument they agree with! Talk about goofy.

NYT Feminists Still Giddy About Hillary's Chances In 2016: Any Gender Problems Have Been 'Wiped Out'

This is just one of those "yeah, so?" ones. Not at all controversial. Who cares?

NPR’s On the Media Show Mocks Glenn Beck and TheBlaze

First, On the Media sounds like less than a "hard news" show in the first place, but mocking Glenn Beck and his internet presence, The Blaze is the only rational thing you can do with the subject matter. It isn't just mock-worthy, it is itself a mockery.

So, I hereby prounonce NewsBusters busted. Their site is unworthy of notice.

Conspiracy Corner: The Right-Wing Media Food Chain

This clip from Martin Bashir is an excellent deconstruction of how a crazy conspiracy theory goes from an ultra-fringe blog, to the bigger right-wing sites, to The Drudge Report, onto FOX "News," to crazy-ass questions at important press conferences, and sometimes--sadly--all the way up to and from Capital Hill. Kudos to Bashir, and his guests Ryan Grim of Huffington Post, and Jonathan Alter, who I've liked since his days on The Al Franken Show.

LBJ Knew Nixon Sabatoged End of Vietnam War

He was a crook. And a traitor? Image from The Atlantic

There have long been stories about the 1980 presidential election, and how Ronald Reagan engineered the release of the long-held Iranian hostages, but only after the election. The motive was that Jimmy Carter would be much less likely to win the election if the hostages were still held captive and/or that he'd get a boost if they were rescued. As it turned out, the hostages were freed immediately after Reagan was sworn in. I still remember the fuss made about it, though it was probably all kind of a setup.

As bad as that sounds, it would seem to be fairly small potatoes compared to what seems to have happened in 1968. Because preventing the end of a war, just to get elected sounds much worse than the nickname "Tricky Dick" is famous for. The Vietnam War went on for seven more years after that. Richard Nixon claimed to know how to end the war, but in truth seems to have deliberately sabotaged the early end of it when there was a chance. Lyndon Johnson thought Nixon's behavior was treasonous, but was restricted from saying anything due to the way the knowledge was obtained. Here's the big question: will history reflect this new knowledge? Or is it too unpleasant? And if Reagan and Nixon both pulled a fast one in order to get power, who else has?

Image from LibertyRoulette

[Excerpt]

Newly Released Secret Tapes Reveal LBJ Knew but Never Spoke Out About Nixon's 'Treason'Rumors and whispers of Richard Nixon's 'treason' -- sabotaging Vietnam peace talks to help his Presidential campaign -- have floated around for years, but newly released tapes from Lyndon Johnson's Presidency confirm that LBJ knew about Nixon's behaviour and didn't bother to report it.. .

Read more at: The Atlantic

And now, a purely ponderous sidebar: Aside from the lives that would have been saved, and everything else that would have been spared as a result of a much shorter war, consider the following. The sixties were a time of great upheaval, and an amazing amount of cultural and pop cultural change. Though much of that change came from the "British Invasion" in pop culture, and the assassinations of JFK, RFK and MLK, Vietnam was a huge motivating factor. If the war had abruptly ended in 1968, what would be different about our history? Without protests, would the counter-culture and hippies have died out? How would the soundtrack of the war, the evolution of music have changed? If Nixon had lost, what would the entire 1970s have looked like? Without the post-Watergate years, and the following Carter malaise, would there have been a need for Reagan's "morning in America?"

I think it would make a great novel, the diverging path of history at that moment in 1968. Especially if it was written by someone who was really knowledgeable of not just the history but of politics at the time, and what really might have been. The only thing I'm sure of is that I'd have seen some of it, since I was born in 1966!

2012 Reality Check: From Rove to Adelson to Las Vegas Water Woes

Since the beginning of this blog, I've railed against the Karl Rove anti-reality machine. I prematurely experienced schadenfreude at what I thought was the machine's demise. I lamented its reconstruction as a Citizens United/corporate-money-fueled "unstoppable force," and then had a full-fledged schadenfreudegasm when Rove himself was undone on election night. Live on  the GOP-TV that is FOX "News," no less!

It was really nothing short of amazing that Mitt Romney, right-wing talk radio, the right-wing blogosphere, the afore-mentioned FOX "News" and all of the rest of right-wing world undone by reality. They'd believed their own hype, own pundits, own predictions, own polls, own data and own bullshit for so long; breathed nothing but the air in their own closed-loop bubble, that they were stunned by the November election. Romney hadn't even prepared a concession speech, and the Romney/Ryan wives were reportedly in disbelieving tears.

"Thanks for the $150 million, bro!"      "You better watch your ass!"
Aren't these beautiful people? In an earlier time, Adelson would
have had Rove sleeping with the fishes!

Also since the beginning of this blog (and for years before), I've been a regular reader of Las Vegas City Life magazine, of the best of the local weekly newspapers. More often than not, City Life has at least three articles that hit home for me, and usually I learn something I didn't know. For instance--at what makes this a What Happens in Vegas feature--Sheldon Adelson's hilarious undoing by the Ron Paul supporters. Read on to see how Shelly's anti-reality bubble was popped by the Paulites, and other popped bubbles at the link below.

[Excerpt]

From Karl Rove to the Southern Nevada Water District, it was a year of bubbles bursting

Back in 2004, at the apex of the Bush era — that eight-year compost heap that fertilized so much of today’s right-wing gestalt — a Bush aide who turned out to be Rove spoke to The New York Times Magazine about the administration’s awareness of its manifest destiny. He introduced us to the mocking phrase “the reality-based community”…

Read more at: City Life

Reality Chasm Between GOP Rhetoric and Actions

The GOP alternate reality machine usually chugs along, on message between its official mouthpieces, the elected officials, and what "some say" on FOX "News." Lately, they way the GOP has been depicting itself to the beltway press has differed greatly from what they're actually doing though.

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Mitt Romney's Transition Team Website!

After Al Gore won the popular vote, but lost the Electoral College in 2000, there has been a cottage industry of alternate reality fiction, wherein Gore became president. Think of the potential storylines there. What would have happened differently? Would 9/11 have happened? Would he have gotten two terms? Where would that have left Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama? Would we still have a war on terror, and a Great Recession? Yeah, well, I'm guessing there will not be a lot of Mitt Romney alternate reality fiction.  There is however, an alternate reality transition team! And an alternate reality motto! It's all very pretty, and official looking. And it makes me think that Romney really, really thought he was going to win.

[Excerpt]

Mitt Romney Transition Website Draft Uncovered

Mitt Romney really was all ready to go if he'd won the election on Tuesday.  For a while on Wednesday, a draft version of his transition website was visible to the public on a server belonging to the company that designed it, a Utah software shop called SolutionStream. The site, located at romney.solutionstreamcreative.com, was titled: "Mitt Romney Elected the 45th President of The United States of America. . ."

Read more at: Huffington Post

In Case You Missed It: National Review Alters Obama Photo "Abortion" Signs

Yeah, their signs didn't really say, "ABORTION."
Image from source, JimRomensko.com.

While right-wingers complain that every single media outlet except for FOX "News" and right-wing talk radio is horribly, liberally biased, we keep finding evidence that their side is the guilty one when it comes to skewing the truth. We've had selective Obama quotes in Romney ads. We've had very dodgy "quotes" and "facts" in Karl Rove's (and others') SuperPAC ads. We've had out-of-context quotes turned into the overriding slogan of the Republican National Convention: "You didn't build that!" And, we basically have an entire right-wing bubble running against a cartoonish, exaggerated, alternate-reality version of President Obama.

That alternate version is far more literal when it is presented as the real version, as it was in this National Review cover.

[Excerpt]

National Review: By the way, our Obama cover was altered

Todd Sumlin writes: “I am a photographer at The Charlotte Observer. I was on the photo platform directly behind the President at the Democratic National Convention. Attached is a photo from that same angle. As you can see, the posters the North Carolina delegates are holding were changed from ‘Forward’ to ‘Abortion.’. . .” 

Read more at: JimRomensko.com

President Obama is Such a Meanie. . .

I mean, just listen to this blistering, vicious attack ad. I warn you, it's kind of hard to take, and may not be safe for work. . .

See what I mean?

Honestly, I really want to know where these claims of nasty, out-of-bounds crap are coming from. Just because Mitt Romney responds to difficult questions with mock horror that it the President would have the temerity to ask it, doesn't mean he's mean and nasty.

What if Newt Gingrich Won?

Brilliant illustration from Mother Jones.

This is of course not a serious post. I'm not asking if by some weird record-keeping anomaly that Newt Gingrich may have actually won the primary. Ha! No, what if--in an alternate timeline and/or reality (as in Fringe)--Newt won the Presidency? What would that look like? I think we can count ourselves fortunate that we will never, ever know. But what if?

[Excerpt]

Gingrich Wins! (An Alternative History)

Wolf Blitzer blinked, blinked again, and tried, for the fourth time, to read the script in front of him. The news had come across the wire just a few minutes earlier, and it still didn't seem real. More like a magical illusion, like the hologram projector they had unveiled in 2008 and then scrapped a week later. He had really liked that hologram projector. To hell with it, Wolf thought. Just tell them what you know. He took a long pause and looked into the camera. "We're watching this very closely," he said. . .

Read more at: Mother Jones

Rush Limbaugh (and his supporters) are Inside the Bubble

I don't know how Rush fits in there.

There's something odd going on right now. First, it's odd that Rush Limbaugh and his vile self have overshadowed the GOP presidential contest. But second, it's odd that the whole episode is being argued by Rush and his supporters from an alternate universe. They are all inside the bubble, using their own "facts," irrespective of what is actually going on.

I was just listening to Kevin Wall, the local Las Vegas drive-time host on KXNT radio. He started with a clip from Don Imus about Rush, calling his "apology" insincere. Wall then asked his listeners to vote on that topic. Then, he launched into a diatribe about how Sandra Fluke wanted "us" to pay for her birth control. That she was 30, and should buy her own, not expect it for free, with "us" footing the bill.

Fluke wanted nothing of the kind. She was--first of all--not arguing for herself, but for a friend of hers. And that friend--a lesbian with no need for contraception--needed the pill for ovarian cysts. And because her insurance--which she must buy as a student at their school--didn't cover it. Even at her doctor's request. This has nothing to do with Fluke's sex life, which she never discussed. This has nothing to do with "us"--taxpayers--paying anything. Here's a link about the whole thing, if you want to know more.

But how can Rush turn this into a now nearly week-long battle (losing now nine sponsors), when the actual meat of the story is 100% wrong? How can simpleton Kevin Wall continue the discussion with no idea what the story is actually about? And how can Rush's fans and supporters be standing with him, still insisting that Sandra Fluke is a "slut?" This is astoundingly stupid.

Eric Cantor's Press Secretary Thinks Reagan Didn't Raise Taxes

I assume the machine works a little like this.

I wonder sometimes how politicians can say something that is blatantly untrue, and maintain its validity even in the face of evidence to the contrary. I have a hunch it has something to do with the Karl Rove/Frank Luntz Alternate Reality Machine™. The machine ran nearly perfectly for the first several years of the Bush Administration.  You know, like a "Clean Air Act" that allows more pollution, or the always shifting reason for the Iraq War.  It didn't work on Democrats generally, but it was almost flawless on pundits and journalists.

The Machine started creaking and sputtering in the waning Bush years, and wasn't nearly effective by the time Grampy McCain and Caribou Barbie tried to take over. Occasionally, it flares up, and a totally bullshit meme will set the beltway press on fire. But even though it doesn't work very well anymore, it would seem that a lot of conservative politicians think it still has them covered with its conversion ray. Case in point, Eric Cantor. Or rather--at least in this case--Eric Cantor's press secretary, who interrupts an interview with Leslie Stahl in order to fact check her. The problem of course is that Stahl was right. Ronald Reagan raised taxes. And no amount of alternate reality warping is going to change that.

Between Real World and Republicanland, the Bridge is Out

It's been a while since I posted a Rachel Maddow post, so I'm overdue. In the following clip, Rachel performs a great service to reality by analyzing the dodgy statements made in the GOP/Tea Party debate. As Rachel notes, there is a whole list of "facts" accepted by most of the Republican presidential candidates. . .that aren't facts. Every time I hear "the stimulus didn't create a single job," for instance, I want to scream. Of course it did. But they seem to think that saying something makes it true.

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Reality is Flexible, Especially if You Have Koch Brothers Money

If you've got an unpopular government policy that you really want to have passed, it's always a good idea to have at least a quasi-reasonable sounding argument for it.  And often, they do. Like the Voter ID laws: even though they want to pass them to keep groups of likely Democrats from voting, the argument that it will cut down on voter fraud sounds persuasive (except for the fact that this type of voter fraud is vanishingly obscure). Or state pensions: states can only continue to pay so much. . .do you know how much they're making?!? (forget that these pensions were a form of deferred payment, part of their agreed to employment contracts).

But if a reasonble argument is a little elusive, an alternative is to seed the media with people who agree with you. "Experts" from many and varied organizations singing your song. The Koch Brothers are two of the very richest people in the world. But they want more. So, they've created "The Cato Institute" and "Americans for Prosperity" and countless other organizations with authentic sounding names. You get enough of those groups to get people on cable news, or talk radio, or advertisements saying the same thing over and over again, and it starts to become a conventional point of view, whether it's "popular" at first or not:



Hmmm. . .we may have to raise the retirement age. . . .wha??? Anyway. . .

I'm not saying that there aren't Democratic think tanks, there are. Right-wing World would claim that George Soros is the equal to both Koch brothers, but that isn't really true. Soros, for example, doesn't push agendas or policies that would tend to enrich himself. The Koch brothers cannot make that claim, not by a long shot.

The Democratic process is being hijacked in lots of subtle ways, much more proveable than those supposedly thwarted by Voter ID laws. There is large-scale stuff like what the Koch Brothers are doing, and then there are more targeted things like companies that pay people to comment on internet forums to advocate their product or view. Or trash a product or view. Companies that have voice actors who (for a price) will call in to, for example, C-SPAN or The Rush Limbaugh Show or NPR or Crazy Ira and the Douche to do the same thing. There is FreeRepublic.com, where members encourage others to "FReep" a poll, meaning to hijack it to sway the results. And then there are anti-FReepers who have learned to do the reverse.

All of this was inspired by the Brave New Films video by Robert Greenwald in the clip, so I'm off on a slight tangent, I know. But it is fascinating what we're becoming as a country. We've long been accused of being shallow people. And a lot of this subterfuge is helped by a populace that isn't very concerned with digging deeper or turning over rocks. But it's getting so insidiously creative that even those of us who fancy ourselves as "plugged in" are probably at least occasionally deceived themselves. I for one have had to "talk down" a few liberal friends who were--clearly unknowingly--parroting something that sounded good, but was FOX "News"-bred claptrap.  It's tricky to know what--or who--is real these days.

Reagan's Famous (Ridiculous) Nine Words

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'" -- Ronald Reagan

Unless a hurricane just hit your state. Or a flood. Or tornadoes. Or an earthquake. Or. . .  St. Ronnie is a construct of right-wing revisionist history. This guy was not as popular as they claim he was. Does anyone remember the Ollie North/Iran Contra hearings? Reagan was affable, and telegenic for an old guy. But he probably could not be elected to dogcatcher in today's Republican Party.