Alternative facts?!?!?!

Are you kidding me?

First there isn't anything I know of called alternative fact. You may have additional facts that complete a picture. Or alternative viewpoints to enhance a theme you are telling. But alternative facts?!?!?! In this case they were just what you would think.... lies.

Finally, this issue is really what you want your first press conference to be about. Really? there wasn't anything else you would like the country to focus on? You chose to pound this home?

Look, I get the dislike of our current state of journalism. I have said many times that journalistic integrity is nearly extinct. But this is beyond silly.

It is going to be a rough 4 years if this is how it gets started.

Which is why I said this:

" In this case they were just what you would think.... lies."

Copying from a friend with permission.
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It is like 1984 has come to pass.

If you are puzzled by the bizarre "press conference" put on by the White House press secretary this evening (angrily claiming that Trump's inauguration had the largest audience in history, accusing them of faking photos and lying about attendance), let me help explain it. This spectacle served three purposes:

1. Establishing a norm with the press: they will be told things that are obviously wrong and they will have no opportunity to ask questions. That way, they will be grateful if they get anything more at any press conference. This is the PR equivalent of "negging," the odious pick-up practice of a particular kind of horrible man (e.g., Donald Trump).

2. Increasing the separation between Trump's base (1/3 of the population) from everybody else (the remaining 2/3). By being told something that is obviously wrong—that there is no evidence for and all evidence against, that anybody with eyes can see is wrong—they are forced to pick whether they are going to believe Trump or their lying eyes. The gamble here—likely to pay off—is that they will believe Trump. This means that they will regard media outlets that report the truth as "fake news" (because otherwise they'd be forced to confront their cognitive dissonance.)

3. Creating a sense of uncertainty about whether facts are knowable, among a certain chunk of the population (which is a taking a page from the Kremlin, for whom this is their preferred disinformation tactic). A third of the population will say "clearly the White House is lying," a third will say "if Trump says it, it must be true," and the remaining third will say "gosh, I guess this is unknowable." The idea isn't to convince these people of untrue things, it's to fatigue them, so that they will stay out of the political process entirely, regarding the truth as just too difficult to determine.

This is laying important groundwork for the months ahead. If Trump's White House is willing to lie about something as obviously, unquestionably fake as this, just imagine what else they'll lie about. In particular, things that the public cannot possibly verify the truth of.

It's gonna get real bad.
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The Lying B****' follow-on of "alternative facts" -- commonly known as "lies", as has been noted -- is simply more of the same. Repetition after repetition is fundamental to the process.