Facts, science, and fact-checks
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Facts

The Real Caravan of Rapists and Thieves Carrying Disease

Immigrants bring more revenue to the economy than they cost us. If you want to talk about immigrants as rapists and murderers, you have to look back to European settlers, who committed genocide against the native population.

Trump's grandfather was an immigrant who begged for exception to immigration law to get his family into the country. Clearly, his offspring are liars, crooks, and guilty of sexual assault. I don't know about disease, but clearly some sort of strange disease would explain the way Trump acts and looks.

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Stop Talking About Zina Bash, but Also Stop Defending Her

People are making fools of themselves over Zina Bash’s on-camera gestures during Kavanaugh’s supreme court hearings. Let’s talk some facts:

People are speaking as if they know she made the “OK” symbol as a white supremacist gesture. The assumption is because people like Richard Spencer use the gesture. She may have been making the gesture as in support of white supremacists. She may have been making the sign language symbol for “asshole”. She may have been trolling us, as her alt-right buddies are known to do.

But if you watch the video, whatever gesture she made was intentional. The first time, she received a text. Immediately after the text, her facial expression completely changed (to me, it looks “smug and guilty”), and she made the gesture. Her off facial expression remained as long as she held the gesture.

Besides working for a racist, misogynist like Kavanaugh, she helped craft Trump’s immigration policy. Clearly, she is willing to harm people of Mexican descent. Trump put three white supremacists in the White House and refuses to acknowledge anti-Semitism. Kavanaugh called birth control “abortion inducing”. The modern Republican party is full of Quislings like Ben Carson and Marco Rubio who will support policies that “hurt their own people”. She worked for and supported these men. Her ancestry proves nothing. Her husband racing indignantly to her defense could have been planned to people reacting to the gesture look foolish.

The second gesture doesn’t tell us anything about the first gesture. The first gesture could have been many things. It could have been nod to neo-Nazis. It could have been her indicating that Kavanaugh is an asshole. She could have been flashing the sign at the person who texted her for any number of reasons. Stephen Miller could have texted her and asked her to make the gesture explicitly to make a media fury. The second gesture could be of the same intent, or it could be her messing with people in reaction to the first. It doesn’t prove it was a white supremacist gesture. It does mean she is messing with us.

The use of the “Ok” sign as a white supremacist gesture started as a hoax. It was then was adopted by alt-right Nazi trolls. The whole idea of using the gesture was to troll liberals. If they use it and don’t get called on it, they got away with flashing “white power!” in the open. If people react, they play innocent and use it to make liberals look hysterical and paranoid. They troll us with it, and they win either way.

However it started, she is trolling us now; so, stop getting trolled. Don’t make assumptions. Don’t make conspiracy theories. Stick to the facts.

Regardless of the meaning of the gesture, here is the fact about Zina Bash that matters: she has worked for lying, corrupt, politicians who are racist, xenophobic, and misogynistic. That fact that she is a woman of Mexican and Jewish background doesn’t make her innocent - it makes her vastly more despicable for supporting the policies and politicians she has.

Zina Bash is a successful, intelligent woman getting a lot of attention for being “beautiful” and playing in the halls of power with ugly men. She’s a terrible person that has helped create terrible policies, and she has eaten up the attention. Quit feeding her brand and making her a star of the alt-right. Just call her the horrible person that she is and make sure that everyone knows that it has nothing to do with this hand gesture fiasco.

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Black Lives Matter for Dummies

Lately, there has been a lot of talk from the “right” about Black Lives Matter (BLM) and how they are a violent, “black supremacist” and even a terrorist organization. There has also been a lot of comparison of Black Lives Matter to the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacy movements stating Black Lives Matter is simply the other side of this racist fueled coin. However, those spewing this rhetoric are missing (or purposefully hiding) some very substantial points, one of the main ones being, Black Lives Matter was started to help stop people from being systematically oppressed, while organizations like the KKK, Nazis and other white supremacist groups are trying to do just the opposite.

The inception of Black Lives Matter

Black Lives Matter started as the social media hashtag #Blacklivesmatter, which was created by two African American women by the names of Patrisse Cullors and Opal Tometi. The women started this hashtag after George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed 17-year-old African American teen Trayvon Martin, was acquitted of Martin's murder.

According to the Black Lives Matter website, after the hashtag took off, a number of cultural workers, artists, designers and techies offered to help expand #Blacklivesmatter beyond a simple social media hashtag. From there, the organization has continued to grow and gain momentum and morph into what it is today.

So, what is the goal of Black Lives Matter?

The goal of the organization is to start a dialogue about and to bring awareness to the way black lives are continuously devalued and mistreated at the hands of a white, hetero-patriarchy. Black Lives Matter strives to right the wrongs of oppression and discrimination, to end the militarization of our police officers and establish training methods that are not meant to incite violence or cause discrimination, and to give the lives of black people across the country a voice when injustice is thrust upon them.

“When we say Black Lives Matter, we are broadening the conversation around state violence to include all of the ways in which Black people are intentionally left powerless at the hands of the state. We are talking about the ways in which Black lives are deprived of our basic human rights and dignity.” Blacklivesmatter.com

In other words, it’s the organization’s goal is to stop the systematic maltreatment of black people living in poverty and violence, the mistreatment of the black LGBTQ community and the LGBTQ community as a whole, to establish the rights of black women and girls, black immigrants and black people with disabilities, and to end the systematic persecution committed by law enforcement and the American judicial system against the black community.

BLM Principles:

On Diversity - "We are committed to acknowledging, respecting and celebrating difference(s) and commonalities."

On Globalism - "We see ourselves as part of the global Black family and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black folk who exist in different parts of the world."

On Black Women - "We are committed to building a-Black-women affirming space free from sexism, misogyny, and male-centeredness."

On Collective Value - "We are guided by the fact all Black lives, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or dis beliefs, immigration status or location."

On Trans people - "We are committed to embracing and making space for trans brothers and sisters to participate and lead. We are committed to being self-reflexive and doing the work required to dismantle cis-gender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence."

On Black "Villages" - "We are committed to disrupting the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, and especially “our” children to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable."

On Empathy - "We are committed to practicing empathy; we engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts."

On Black Families - "We are committed to making our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We are committed to dismantling the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” that require them to mother in private even as they participate in justice work."

On The Queer community - "We are committed to fostering a queer-affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of hetero-normative thinking or, rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual unless s/he or they disclose otherwise."

On Loving engagement - "We are committed to embodying and practicing justice, liberation, and peace in our engagements with one another."

On Inter-generational - "We are committed to fostering an inter-generational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, shows up with capacity to lead and learn."

On Restorative Justice - "We are committed to collectively, lovingly and courageously working vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension all people. As we forge our path, we intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting."

**"We are un-apologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a necessary prerequisite for wanting the same for others."**

Meaning this organization is not only in existence to make black lives better, part of their goal to help the community as a whole.

Controversy

Some argue Black Lives Matter is a violent organization that are looking to murder police, start riots. loot, vandalize, and establish a black hierarchy in the United States. However, nothing could be further from the truth. What Black Lives Matter does strive for is equality for all those who are oppressed. And while some members of the group tend not to mince words when it comes to expressing anger at police violence and other injustices, that’s about as engaged in violence as the group gets, unless of course the need to defend themselves arises, which they try to handle accordingly.

One of Black Lives Matter's main goals is to establish a peaceful, public dialogue and bring about awareness of injustices. It's not ever to incite violence as that would only defeat their purpose. As a matter of fact, part of what Black Lives Matter does is to help prevent violence from happening. Violence like the kind that took place in Los Angeles in 1992 after four police officers were acquitted of beating a black taxi driver by the name of Rodney King. The mere presence of Black Lives Matter activists at a protest is usually a sign of assuredness that that kind of violence will not take place, so to accuse them of violence or terroristic acts is not only careless, untrue and manipulative, it’s frankly abhorrent.

Of course, there are always going to be a few bad apples that say they are or think they are associated with the organization. Bad apples such as Micah Xavier, a military vet (who incidentally was dishonorably discharged for sexual mis-conduct and who had a slew of other issues), who ambushed and killed five police officers in Dallas last July. Because this man took place in some Black Lives Matter protests, some people were very quick to jump to the conclusion that Black Lives Matter were directly involved. However, that is simply not the case. After this incident, not only was Xavier quickly denounced by the Black Lives Matter organization, because committing physical violence is the antithetical of what the organization is all about, but they also issued a statement calling for "an end to violence, not an escalation if it."

However, and in contrast, when white supremacist/Nazi James Alex Fields Jr. drove his car into a crowd of anti-protesters in Charlottesville VA, immediately after a Ku Klux Klan rally, killing 32 year old Heather Heyer and injuring several others, the response of white supremacists was not to blame or denounce Fields but to put the blame on the city of Charlottesville and the counter-protesters that were run down.

Some would say this is incredibly ironic considering it's white supremacists that are the first people to call Black Lives Matter violent and terroristic and I would agree wholeheartedly, it is incredibly ironic. However, it's not actually irony at all, it's something called "gas-lighting" (see reference link below) and it's a tactic that's been used by vindictive narcissists and sociopaths for about as long as they've existed... but I digress.

The point here is that the Black Lives Matter movement is not the violent, oppositional, black-supremacist organization some people try to make it out to be. It's an organization that wants to raise awareness and stop the systematic oppression of not only black people, but the poor, disabled, LGBTQ community, women and immigrants.

So, the next time you hear someone say "all lives matter" in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, gently remind them, "No they don't actually but the goal of Black Lives Matter is to see to it that one day, they all eventually they will."

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Facts: Debt and Deficits

"Fiscal Conservative" Republican Presidents have increased the deficit every Presidency since Carter. Democratic Presidents in the same period have reduced the deficit consistently.
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Loyalty Day - Cutting Through the Hype

Trump proclaimed May 1, 2017 to be Loyalty Day. Fox News is using this as some sort of a cattle call for patriotism. In truth, every President since Eisenhower has issued a Loyalty Day proclamation every year for May 1.

Traditionally, May 1 was the pagan spring festival of May Day. In 1886, May 1 was adopted as International Workers Day by communists and socialists, in response to the Haymarket Massacre (where pro-union protesters were bombed in Chicago). After the Russia revolution, the United States began celebrations of Americanization Day and then Loyalty Day on May 1st as an anti-communist (at best) and anti-labor (at worst) distraction from the worker's holiday. During the fifties, when fears of Soviet communism were at a peak, the day was made an official celebration, and it has been every year since then. I suspect embarrassment over McCarthy-era anti-communism is part of why the annual event has been largely unobserved in much of the country.

The Fox News hype that this is something special that Trump is doing is nonsense. It just shows that Fox isn't smart enough to Google for 30 seconds before calling something news. Similarly, the liberal backlash is also needless hype. This isn't some weird Orwellian Trump step. He is just doing what every liberal and conservative President has, without much notice, for decades.

What is ironic about the Trump proclamation is that this is a holiday setup to fight Soviet communism, and Trump has likely colluded with Putin -- the man most like a Soviet dictator since before the fall of the Berlin Wall. I am sure Trump supports undermining workers rights and unions, which was also part of the goal of taking over the May 1 holiday.

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March for Science

Crowds massed in the US capital and around the world Saturday to support science and evidence-based research -- a protest partly fueled by opposition to President Donald Trump's threats of budget cuts to agencies funding scientists' work.

At the main March for Science, demonstrators gathered at Washington's National Mall to hear speakers laud science as the force moving humanity forward, and rail against policymakers they say are ignoring fact and research in areas including climate change.

"Today we have a great many lawmakers -- not just here but around the world -- deliberately ignoring and actively suppressing science," one of the event's speakers, TV host and scientist Bill Nye, told a rain-soaked crowd from a stage.

"Their inclination is misguided and in no one's best interest. Our lives are in every way improved by having clean water, reliable electricity and access to electronic global information."

Besides the Washington march, organizers said more than 600 "satellite" marches were taking place globally in a protest timed to coincide with Earth Day.
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Syria Airstrikes Add Nearly $5 Billion to Missile Stock Value, Guess Who Owns a Chunk of it...

"Raytheon stock surged Friday morning, after 59 of the company's Tomahawk missiles were used to strike Syria in Donald Trump's first major military operation as President. Trump ordered the airstrike on the Syrian government Thursday night in retaliation for a deadly chemical weapons attack on civilians earlier this week that killed as many as 100 people."