Call Your Dad; the Government is a Cult!

This week we explore the broken branches of this fake news family tree - our current man child president and his Igor...I mean his VP. Trump and Pence may have literally nothing in common, but boy, are they willing to do anything to hang on to their current power. Lying is apparently perfectly fine, as long as you have God in your corner! 

We begin with Donald Trump. Sorry. From the beginning of his campaign Trump surrounded himself with great big fake news makers. Bannon, Conway, Flynn, Manafort, Stone - the list just keeps going. His fake news meters are off the charts, as seen in the Politifact chart below:

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That's right, Trump's true statements are at a whooping 5%. Which may be high. 
Glenn Kessler, fact checker for the Washington Post, wrote that Trump was the most fact-challenged politician that he had ever encountered and lamented that "the pace and volume of the president's misstatements means that we cannot possibly keep up."
We also discuss the difference between cults and fascists. Turns out, they are pretty much the same, one just has a much larger membership. Can we call our dads now, please?

Let's move on to Mike Pence, aka Race Bannon from Johnny Quest. No, really, look:

Just kidding, Race Bannon was a good guy. Something Pence is decidedly not.
Where to even start? Should we start with his hatred of gays? His campaign finance scandal? His victimization by the Disney film Mulan? 
Nah, let's tell a story that describes why this guy is such a noxious gas hole.
There’s a story about Pence that when he was a sophomore at Hanover University he was in the Phi Gamma Delta house, a frat that kept getting in trouble for their wild antics emulating the recently released Animal House. 
“One night, during a rowdy party, Pence and his fraternity brothers got word that an associate dean was on his way to the house. They scrambled to hide the kegs and plastic cups, and then Pence met the administrator at the door.
“We know you’ve got a keg,” the dean told Pence, according to Murphy. Typically when scenes like this played out, one of the brothers would take the fall, claiming that all the alcohol was his and thus sparing the house from formal discipline. Instead, Pence led the dean straight to the kegs and admitted that they belonged to the fraternity. The resulting punishment was severe. “They really raked us over the coals,” Murphy said. “The whole house was locked down.” Some of Pence’s fraternity brothers were furious with him—but he managed to stay on good terms with the administration. Such good terms, in fact, that after he graduated, in 1981, the school offered him a job in the admissions office.”
So, maybe he’s always been like this.
For those who think maybe the US would be better off if Trump were impeached and we were left with a President Pence, The Atlantic said it well just last week:
“The country needed Pence to keep himself clean, as Ford did, and instead—whether out of raw ambition or some weak personal impulse to subservience—Pence plunged into the deepest ooze of the mud.”

Beth's Jam of the Week: Hazy by Rosi Golan

Kelly's Jam of the Week: Hail Satan? 

Hail Satan? offers a look at a group of misunderstood outsiders whose commitment to social and political justice has empowered thousands of people. The documentary is now streaming on Hulu.
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THERE ARE SEVEN FUNDAMENTAL TENETS.
​-One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.
-The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.
-One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.
-The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one's own.
-Beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one's beliefs.
-People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.
-Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

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Sources:
Mike Pence Failed in His Most Important Duty
What’s wrong with a President Pence?
Mike Pence's Ukraine denial stuns Anderson Cooper
Woody Harrelson Went to College with Mike Pence
Mike Pence Said Calls to Ban Muslims Are ‘Offensive and Unconstitutional’?
Did Mike Pence Support ‘Gay Conversion’ Therapy?
Global Warming Disaster 
Trump's Choice of Pence Adds a Conservative Fossil Fuel Backer to GOP Ticket
VP Pence once wrote an op-ed calling '90s Disney movie 'Mulan' liberal propaganda about women in the military
The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence
No, Mike Pence is not stranded in the Philippines
6 Totally WTF Mike Pence Stories Nobody Ever Brings Up
God’s Plan for Mike Pence
​President Trump’s First 100 Days: The Fact Check Tally
'Fake news' went viral in 2016. This expert studied who clicked.
Fake News
Fake news has been enabling fascism for a whole century
Veracity of statements by Donald Trump
Politifact: Donald Trump's file
Donald Trump​

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