Fake News

[spot]

There's two sides to the expression, I believe.

On the one hand there's this so-called "news" is untrue, it is a conscious deliberate lie put out in order to steal headlines and deflect people from real news.

And on the other hand there's who cares whether that fake news is true or not, it's not what I want to talk about. It's not the agenda, it's distraction, it's annoying, I don't allow it.

So, since nobody can argue about the second, we'll focus just on the first. If anyone can offer a term for each which distinguishes them, say so.

The way to find out if news is true or untrue is often to check where it came from. Fortunately we have Google and it has date range selectivity.

So, I maintain, if I find an old enough story that it's before the issue became contentious, it's a good sign it's unbiased and true. It was news. It may now be embarrassing in today's context but that's okay. If it has words they're not made-up words, if it has photos they're not faked photos. They're too old to be faked up, given the source.

And yes, I'll give the source every time.

Game, are we? Fly low, take cover, go fast.

[LarsMac]

I'm in

[spot]

The president and his cabinet members are expected to tie pregnant women’s use of the popular medicine Tylenol (known as paracetamol elsewhere in the world) to the development of autism in children.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/liv ... ws-updates

I'm delighted to hear American research has established new facts in relation to this strange diagnosis. But I'm completely baffled as to why it's being announced at a Press Conference by President Trump. Did he fund the research? Or what?

[LarsMac]

I will go back and collect the info related to this, but as I recall from reading, last night, Autism was identified decades before Tylenol ever hit the market, which kinda steps on the connection factor.
But then he is working off info fed to him by RFK Jr, and some TV Doctor.

I think we can presume that Mr T did no actual research of his own.

[LarsMac]

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2817406

Key Points
Question Does acetaminophen use during pregnancy increase children’s risk of neurodevelopmental disorders?

Findings In this population-based study, models without sibling controls identified marginally increased risks of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) associated with acetaminophen use during pregnancy. However, analyses of matched full sibling pairs found no evidence of increased risk of autism (hazard ratio, 0.98), ADHD (hazard ratio, 0.98), or intellectual disability (hazard ratio, 1.01) associated with acetaminophen use.

Meaning Acetaminophen use during pregnancy was not associated with children’s risk of autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability in sibling control analyses. This suggests that associations observed in other models may have been attributable to confounding.

[spot]

US president Donald Trump has urged his fellow Republicans in Congress to vote for the release of files related to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, reversing his earlier resistance to such a move.

Trump’s post on his Truth Social came after House speaker Mike Johnson said earlier that he believed a vote on releasing justice department documents in the Epstein case should help put to rest allegations “that he [Trump] has something to do with it”.

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday: “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files, because we have nothing to hide.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ng-to-hide

A previously unseen video of one of Britain's most infamous spies describing his career as a Soviet agent has been uncovered by the BBC.

The tape is of Kim Philby giving a secret lecture to the Stasi, the East German Intelligence Service, in 1981.

"If they confront you with a document with your own handwriting then it's a forgery - just deny everything…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35943428

[spot]

I note President Trump is giving an April Fool's Address to the Nation at 9pm EST tonight.

When Donald Trump launched his dangerous and very illegal war against Iran, he broke with modern presidential tradition. Rather than give a live primetime address, as is customary, he posted a prerecorded video from Mar-a-Lago. Tonight, he will finally give his first live primetime address about the war… on April Fool’s Day…. begging the question: Is he messing with us?

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted Tuesday that “President Trump will give an Address to the Nation to provide an important update on Iran.”

https://zeteo.com/p/will-trump-surrende ... me-address

I'll watch it and report back.

[spot]

I note President Trump is giving an April Fool's Address to the Nation at 9pm EST tonight.

And here is is:

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s address to the nation on the war against Iran, delivered Wednesday, April 1, 2026, as transcribed by The Associated Press:

My fellow Americans, good evening. Let me begin by congratulating the team at NASA and our brave astronauts on the successful launch of Artemis II, it was quite something. It will be traveling further than any manned rocket has ever flown and will very substantially pass the moon, go around it and come back home from a distance that has never been done before. It’s amazing. They are on the way and God bless them, these are brave people. We want to — God bless those four unbelievable astronauts.

As we speak this evening, it’s been just one month since the United States military began Operation Epic Fury, targeting the world’s No. 1 state sponsor of terror, Iran. In these past four weeks, our armed forces have delivered swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield. Victories like few people have ever seen before. Tonight, Iran’s navy is gone. Their air force is in ruins. Their leaders, most of them, terrorist regime, they led, are now dead. Their command and control of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is being decimated as we speak. Their ability to launch missiles and drones is dramatically curtailed. And their weapons, factories and rocket launchers are being blown to pieces. Very few of them left.

Never in the history of warfare has an enemy suffered such clear and devastating large-scale losses in a matter of weeks. Our enemies are losing and America, as it has been for five years under my presidency, is winning, and now winning bigger than ever before.

Before discussing this current situation, I also want to thank our troops for the masterful job they did in taking the country of Venezuela in a matter of minutes. That hit was quick, lethal, violent and respected by everyone all over the world. After rebuilding our military during my first term, we have by far the strongest military anywhere in the world. And now we’re working along with Venezuela and are, in a true sense, joint venture partners. We’re getting along incredibly well in the production and sale of massive amounts of oil and gas, the second largest reserves on Earth after the United States of America. We’re now totally independent of the Middle East, and yet we are there to help. We don’t have to be there. We don’t need their oil. We don’t need anything they have. But we’re there to help our allies.

Tonight, I want to provide an update on the tremendous progress our warriors have made in Iran and discuss why Operation Epic Fury is necessary for the safety of America and the security of the free world. From the very first day I announced my campaign for president in 2015, I vowed that I would never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. This fanatical regime has been chanting, “Death to America, death to Israel” for 47 years. Their proxies were behind the murder of 241 Americans in the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut, the slaughter of hundreds of our service members with roadside bombs. They were involved in the attack on the USS Cole, and they carried out the countless other heinous acts, including the blood — just horrible, bloody atrocities of Oct. 7 in Israel, something that most people, never seen anything like it. This murderous regime also recently killed 45,000 of their own people who were protesting in Iran, 45,000 dead. For these terrorists to have nuclear weapons would be an intolerable threat. The most violent and thuggish regime on earth would be free to carry out their campaigns of terror, coercion, conquest and mass murder from behind a nuclear shield. I will never let that happen, and neither should any of our past presidents.

This situation has been going on for 47 years, and should have been handled long before I arrived in office. I did many things during my two terms in office to stop the quest for nuclear weapons by Iran. First, and perhaps most importantly, I killed General Qassem Soleimani. In my first term. He was an evil genius, brilliant person, a horrible human being, however, the father of the roadside bomb. And he lived, just horrible what he did. Iran would have been perhaps in a far better, stronger position had he lived. We would have had probably a different conversation tonight. But you know what? We’d still be winning and winning big.

And then, very importantly, I terminated Barack Hussein Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, a disaster. Obama gave them $1.7 billion in cash. Green, green cash — took it out of banks from Virginia, D.C. and Maryland. All the cash they had. Flew it by airplanes in an attempt to buy their respect and loyalty, but it didn’t work. They laughed at our president and went on with their mission to have a nuclear bomb. His Iran deal would have led to a colossal arsenal of massive nuclear weapons for Iran. They would have had them years ago, and they would have used them, would have been a different world. There would have been no Middle East and no Israel right now, in my opinion — the opinion of a lot of great experts — had I not terminated that terrible deal. I was so honored to do it, I was so proud to do it, it was so bad right from the beginning.

Essentially, I did what no other president was willing to do. They made mistakes and I am correcting them. My first preference was always the path of diplomacy, yet the regime continued their relentless quest for nuclear weapons and rejected every attempt at an agreement. For this reason, in June, I ordered a strike on Iran’s key nuclear facilities in Operation Midnight Hammer. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Those beautiful B-2 bombers performed magnificently. We totally obliterated those nuclear sites. The regime then sought to rebuild their nuclear program at a totally different location, making clear they had no intention of abandoning their pursuit of nuclear weapons.

They were also rapidly building a vast stockpile of conventional ballistic missiles, and would soon have had missiles that could reach the American homeland, Europe and virtually any other place on Earth. Iran’s strategy was so obvious, they wanted to produce as many missiles as possible, and they did with the longest range possible, and they had some weapons that nobody believed they had. We just learned that, we took them out, we took them all out so that no one would really dare stop them and their race for a nuclear bomb, a nuclear weapon like nobody’s ever seen before. They were right at the doorstep. For years, everyone has said that Iran cannot have nuclear weapons. But in the end, those are just words. If you’re not willing to take action when the time comes.

As I stated in my announcement of Operation Epic Fury, our objectives are very simple and clear. We are systematically dismantling the regime’s ability to threaten America or reject power outside of their borders. That means eliminating Iran’s navy, which is now absolutely destroyed, hurting their air force and their missile program at levels never seen before and annihilating their defense industrial base. We’ve done all of it. Their navy is gone. Their air force is gone. Their missiles are just about used up or beaten. Taken together, these actions will cripple Iran’s military, crush their ability to support terrorist proxies and deny them the ability to build a nuclear bomb. Our armed forces have been extraordinary. There’s never been anything like it militarily. Everyone is talking about it. And tonight, I’m pleased to say that these core strategic objectives are nearing completion.

As we celebrate this progress, we think especially of the 13 American warriors who have laid down their lives in this fight to prevent our children from ever having to face a nuclear Iran. Twice this past month, I have traveled to Dover Air Force Base, and it’s been something, I wanted to be with those heroes as they returned to American soil. I was with them and their families, their parents, their wives, their husbands. We salute them. And now we must honor them by completing the mission for which they gave their lives. And every single one of the people, their loved ones said, “Please, sir, please finish the job,” every one of them, and we are going to finish the job and we’re going to finish it very fast. We’re getting very close.

I want to thank our allies in the Middle East: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain. They’ve been great, and we will not let them get hurt or fail in any way, shape or form. Many Americans have been concerned to see the recent rise in gasoline prices here at home. This short-term increase has been entirely the result of the Iranian regime launching deranged terror attacks against commercial oil tankers and neighboring countries that have nothing to do with the conflict. This is yet more proof that Iran can never be trusted with nuclear weapons. They will use them and they will use them quickly. It would lead to decades of extortion, economic pain and instability worse than we can ever imagine.

The United States has never been better prepared economically to confront this threat. You all know that. We built the strongest economy in history. We’re going through it right now, the strongest in history. And one year we’ve taken a dead and crippled country. I hate to say that, but we were a dead and crippled country after the last administration and made it the hottest country anywhere in the world by far, with no inflation, record setting investments coming into the United States, over $18 trillion and the highest stock market ever with 53 all-time record highs in just one year. It all positioned us to get rid of a cancer that has long simmered. It’s known as the nuclear Iran, and they didn’t know what was coming. They’d never imagined it.

Remember, because of our drill baby drill program, America has plenty of gas. We have so much gas. Under my leadership, we are No. 1 producer of oil and gas on the planet, without even discussing the millions of barrels that we’re getting from Venezuela. Because of the Trump administration’s policies, we produce more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. Think of that. Saudi Arabia and Russia combined. And that number will soon be substantially higher than that. There’s no country like us anywhere in the world, and we’re in great shape for the future. The United States imports almost no oil through the Hormuz Strait and won’t be taking any in the future. We don’t need it. We haven’t needed it, and we don’t need it. We’ve beaten and completely decimated Iran. They are decimated both militarily and economically and in every other way. And the countries of the world that do receive oil through the Hormuz Straight must take care of that passage. They must cherish it. They must grab it and cherish it. They could do it easily. We will be helpful, but they should take the lead in protecting the oil that they so desperately depend on.

So to those countries that can’t get fuel, many of which refuse to get involved in the decapitation of Iran — we had to do it ourselves — I have a suggestion. No. 1, buy oil from the United States of America. We have plenty. We have so much. And No. 2, build up some delayed courage. Should have done it before. Should have done it with us as we asked. Go to the straight and just take it, protect it, use it for yourselves. Iran has been essentially decimated. The hard part is done, so it should be easy.

And in any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It’ll just open up naturally. They’re going to want to be able to sell oil because that’s all they have to try and rebuild. It will resume the flowing and the gas prices will rapidly come back down. Stock prices will rapidly go back up. They haven’t come down very much, frankly. They came down a little bit. But they’ve had some very good days over the last couple of days. We’ve done actually much better than I thought. But we had to take that little journey to Iran to get rid of this horrible threat.

With our historic tax cuts, where people are just now talking about receiving larger refunds than they ever thought possible, they are getting so much more money than they thought. That’s from the great big, beautiful bill. Our economy is strong and improving by the day, and it will soon be roaring back like never before. It will top the levels that it was a month ago. I made clear from the beginning of Operation Epic Fury that we will continue until our objectives are fully achieved. Thanks to the progress we’ve made. I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America’s military objectives shortly. Very shortly.

We are going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks. We’re going to bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong. In the meantime, discussions are ongoing. Regime change was not our goal. We never said regime change, but regime change has occurred because of all of their original leaders’ death. They’re all dead. The new group is less radical and much more reasonable. Yet if during this period of time no deal is made, we have our eyes on key targets. If there is no deal, we are going to hit each and every one of their electric generating plants very hard and probably simultaneously. We have not hit their oil, even though that’s the easiest target of all, because it would not give them even a small chance of survival or rebuilding. But we could hit it and it would be gone. And there’s not a thing they could do about it. They have no anti-aircraft equipment. Their radar is 100% annihilated. We are unstoppable as a military force. The nuclear sites that we obliterated with the B-2 bombers have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust. And we have it under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none.

It’s very important that we keep this conflict in perspective. American involvement in World War I lasted one year, seven months and five days. World War II lasted for three years, eight months and 25 days. The Korean War lasted for three years, one month and two days. The Vietnam War lasted for 19 years, five months and 29 days. Iraq went on for eight years, eight months and 28 days. We are in this military operation, so powerful, so brilliant against one of the most powerful countries for 32 days. And the country has been eviscerated and essentially is really no longer a threat. They were the bully of the Middle East, but they are the bully no longer. This is a true investment in your children and your grandchildren’s future. The whole world is watching and they can’t believe the power, strength and brilliance, they just can’t believe what their seeing, they, leave it to your imagination, but they can’t believe what they’re seeing, the brilliance of the United States military.

Tonight, every American can look forward to a day when we are finally free from the wickedness of Iranian aggression and the specter of nuclear blackmail. Because of the actions we have taken, we are on the cusp of ending Iran’s sinister threat to America and the world. And I’ll tell you, the world is watching. And when we do, when it’s all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.

May God bless the men and women of the United States Armed Forces, and may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very much, and good night.


https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump ... 650bda56a9

For consistency, here's the variations:

1. June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer)
Trump said that Iran's key nuclear facilities had been "completely and totally obliterated." Hegseth went further, claiming Iran's nuclear ambitions had been obliterated.
2. Feb/March 2026 (Operation Epic Fury)
Witkoff told Fox that Iran was "probably a week away from having industrial-grade bomb-making material". Trump told congressional leaders on March 4: "If we didn't hit within two weeks, they would've had a nuclear weapon."
3. Gabbard, giving Intelligence Committee evidence, claimed Iran's enrichment programme was obliterated by Midnight Hammer and that there had been no efforts to rebuild. She omitted that section when reading aloud. When pressed, she said "time was running long." Democratic Senator Warner suggested she had chosen to omit the parts contradicting the president. Her deputy Joe Kent resigned, stating Iran posed "no imminent threat." When pressed on whether the IC had found an imminent nuclear threat, Gabbard said determining imminence was solely the president's function, not the intelligence community's.
4. Arms Control Association: Iran retains a stockpile of near-weapons-grade uranium. Gabbard testified the IC had high confidence in knowing its location. The IAEA chief said Iran may be using decoy canisters and that knowledge and capabilities cannot be destroyed by military strikes.
5. Trump told Fox on March 10 that Iran had not moved the HEU from Fordow or Esfahan, suggesting some access to tunnel entrances had been made but not proceeded with, given the risk of further strikes.
Last night's speech
6. Last night. Trump says the nuclear sites "have been hit so hard that it would take months to get near the nuclear dust" and that satellite surveillance will catch any move toward it.

Claims: obliterated when justifying Midnight Hammer's success; days from a bomb when justifying Epic Fury; now it's described as contained and under under surveillance. Three incompatible positions in play in parallel.

Then he notes - factually - that America is the world's largest oil producer, declares America doesn't need Middle East oil, imports almost nothing through Hormuz, but then blames Iran for domestic price rises because of tanker attacks in the Gulf.

As for pollution at sea, the US claims to have sunk at least 43 ships of Iran's navy which are all pollutant sources. Iran caused major damage to one tanker and trivial damage to up to 15 others. Hegseth also claimed "The first sinking of an enemy ship by a torpedo since World War II" which caused incredulity in the UK which recalls one of our nuclear attack submarines torpedoing and sinking the USS Phoenix, CL-46, a survivor of Pearl Harbour, in 1982, on the direct orders of Margaret Thatcher. Hegseth's grasp of reality is marginal at best, he appears to be more of an enabled "influencer".

[spot]

And, while I don't often descend to personal abuse, Donny really is human waste...

Trump sparked anger in France on Thursday after making fun of the French president and his wife, imitating a French accent and saying Emmanuel Macron's wife "treats him extremely badly".

The US president on Wednesday unleashed his latest broadside against Macron during a private lunch as he lambasted NATO allies for not joining the war against Iran.

[...] "I call up France, Macron – whose wife treats him extremely badly. Still recovering from the right to the jaw," Trump said.

The US president was referring to a May 2025 news video that appeared to show Brigitte Macron shoving the French president's face on a trip to Vietnam, which Macron later rejected as part of a disinformation campaign.

At the time Macron denied any "domestic dispute" with his wife, saying that they were "joking as we often do".

"And I said, 'Emmanuel, we'd love to have some help in the Gulf even though we're setting records on knocking out bad people and knocking out ballistic missiles. We'd love to have some help. If you could, could you please send ships immediately,'" Trump continued.

He then mimics a French accent to give Macron's alleged answer: "'No no no, we cannot do that, Donald. We can do that after the war is won,'" he said.

"I said, 'No no, I don't need after the war is won Emmanuel,'" Trump said.

"So I learned about NATO – NATO won't be there if we ever have the big one, you know what I mean by the big one," Trump said, without elaborating.

https://www.france24.com/en/france/2026 ... ger-france

The point, Donny, is that NATO commits all members to assist any member calling for assistance after being attacked "in Europe or North America". Not after going into Asia and attacking a nation, that's not when you can invoke NATO assistance. No member nation has ever invoked Article 5 to summon aid other than the US. You've never been called on in 75 years. On what do you base "NATO won't be there if we ever have the big one" other than ignorant uninformed bias?

Article 5

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognized by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

The current US President is not a reliable figure at all.

Put up or shut up, Donny. Leave NATO any time you like, America's political direction under any US President makes US membership a liability.

[spot]

This is the current state of play on Wikipedia. I think it's time to update the rules on Internet comparison with Fascism. Godwin appears to agree.

Godwin has denied the need to update or amend the rule. In June 2018, he wrote, in an opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times: "It still serves us as a tool to recognize specious comparisons to Nazism – but also, by contrast, to recognize comparisons that aren't." Additionally, when a potential subject of Godwin's law seems "intent on making the Hitler comparison", the comparison with fascism may be appropriate rather than devaluing the argument; a "MAGA" corollary to the Law recognizes the pernicious embrace of Nazi-inspired tropes and phrases by the "alt-right".

As an illustration, in an interview with Politico published on December 19, 2023, Godwin pointed out that Donald Trump might actually be using Hitler's rhetoric on purpose, for instance when accusing immigrants of "poisoning the blood" of the country or calling his political opponents "vermin":

You could say the 'vermin' remark or the 'poisoning the blood' remark, maybe one of them would be a coincidence. But both of them pretty much make it clear that there's something thematic going on, and I can't believe it's accidental."

In an opinion published the same day in The Washington Post, Godwin stated: "Yes, it's okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don't let me stop you." In the article, Godwin says that "when people draw parallels between Donald Trump's 2024 candidacy and Hitler's progression from fringe figure to Great Dictator, we aren't joking. Those of us who hope to preserve our democratic institutions need to underscore the resemblance before we enter the twilight of American democracy."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

So, after this last couple of months, yes, he's right. And it's not President Trump who's persuaded me, is that gang of sycophants churning around him who make it credible. It's the playbook - 2025 Presidential Transition Project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025 and the extent to which it's being implemented. America may now be a shadow but it's also a fascist state today with a Christian-literalism racist base, capable of permanently re-electing MAGA Republicans as a majority given ever-adjusted rules for voting. Without the rule changes I don't think that would be true, but they're also being implemented.

Trump is the 80 year old performing clown guaranteed to run out of road. The thing being built is the inheritance. One can only hope they fight over it in public.