Summations Only

Yesterday's Washington Post ran the opinion piece Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the lost art of shunning. As has been widely reported, Sanders and her party had been seated at the Red Hen in Lexington, VA, when they were asked to leave because she worked for Donald Trump in the role of a key enabler of his lies and cruelties.I disagree with this treatment of Sanders and her dinner party. I think a restaurant open to the public should serve all members of the public, just as I believe a baker should bake wedding cakes for all members of the public, the Supreme Court be damned. The Red Hen restaurant carried out a form of shunning, but a business open to the public shouldn't have that option.What should have happened is that the restaurant staff explain to each table of patrons that the restaurant does not support the policies of the Trump administration nor Sanders role in them, and that if they feel the same that their meal to that point is free if they get up and walk out. The restaurant would also call all with reservations and tell them that if they agree with the restaurant politically to please not come.Shaming is another tool, and we saw it in action on Tuesday when Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was loudly jeered while dining at a Mexican restaurant, prompting her to leave. And an insult was hurled at Stephen Miller while he was dining at a different Mexican restaurant last Sunday. A congressional intern yelled "Fuck You" at Trump as he walked through the Capitol Rotunda.I wonder if non-supporters of the Nazi party employed shunning and shaming in the years leading up to WWII. I doubt it. The Nazis were not a tolerant bunch, and those in opposition wouldn't have been treated delicately. Also, Hitler experienced success after success during the 1930's, with a dramatically improved economy, a renewed military, and the 1936 Olympic Games. What wasn't to like, even by detractors, as long as your weren't Jewish or retarded or schizophrenic or disabled.And so while we still live in a free country I think we should employ shunning and shaming as two arrows in our quiver of options for opposing Trump.Speaking of opposing Trump, I wasn't happy to learn that anyone living within a hundred miles of our national borders is in a zone where Border Patrol Agents have greater powers. This Zone includes all of New Hampshire where i live, and within the past week agents of the USCIS sep up road blocks on highways to check for illegal immigrants.I object. I am the son of an immigrant mother (okay, my mother was from Canada, not much of a foreign country, but still...) and an immigrant father by three generations (his grandparents entered Ellis Island from the Ukraine in the 1880's), but I am American through and through. I object to these checks. I have never been asked, "Show us your papers," and I'm not going to begin cooperating with Gestapo-style tactics now. I will speak Spanish (very badly) and I will not show ID unless they show cause. Perhaps while I distract their attention and waste their time some poor illegal will sneak through. The Border Patrol says:

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"Travelers have the right to remain silent," it said in a statement. "Travelers who cooperate are passed through quickly, unless the agent suspects they are in violation of federal law. Travelers who refuse to cooperate may be referred to a secondary examination area to allow agents to conduct additional questioning to determine the traveler's citizenship or residency."

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The region of enhanced border patrol power is extensive, since our coastlines are considered borders. All of New York City and Los Angeles are within this zone. Here's a partial map: The Republican Congress recognizes that we have an entitlement funding problem that they want to solve by cutting back on Medicare and Social Security benefits. The reason for the funding gap is too many old people and too few young people, and the problem will grow worse over the next couple decades, reaching a breaking point around 2050.But the solution is staring the Republicans in the face, literally. We need immigrants. Lots of them. Immigrants are mostly young, they follow the law (better than your average American), and they pay their taxes. To potential immigrants along our southern border I say, "Hola! Bienvenidos a nuestro pais." And they'd smile at my accent.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

Theresa May might be a lost cause - she's seeking stronger ties to the US as Brexit imposes chaos and uncertainty on longstanding ties with the EU.--Percy

From The Hill: Satellite images show North Korea upgrading nuclear research facility.Is anyone surprised by this? Of course North Korea is continuing on the nuclear path. Kim Jung Un played and is playing Trump and his administration for fools. A Washington Post editorial (Trump’s North Korea farce is now plain for all to see) used the right words: "snookered" and "taken for a ride". In return for essentially nothing Kim Jung Un got a legitimizing face-to-face meeting with the leader of the free world and a cessation of joint South Korea/US military exercises.Surprisingly, compared to the circumspect mainstream news outlets, Fox News was direct and to the point in expressing the clear questions and issues (Here's how Trump finds out if North Korea is serious about giving up its nukes):

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Can the Trump Administration avoid the mistakes and traps of the past when it comes to North Korea?

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One thing is for sure: Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile pledges are about as disposable as toilet paper.

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{A description of what denculearization requires us to do.}

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But, if history is any guide, I don’t think any of this comes to pass.

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While I hope North Korea has had its come-to-Jesus moment, my gut tells me Pyongyang will never give up its nukes. If I were Kim, I would utilize the old North Korean nuclear diplomacy playbook: declare your intention to give up your weapons but stall, lie and do whatever you can to make negotiations around the terms of such an enterprise bog down for years. All the while, Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile capabilities continue to be perfected.

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Now is not the time for months and years of endless talks. Now is the time to find out where North Korea standsonce and for all.

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Amazing - honest and straightforward talk out of Fox News.--Percy

As already mentioned, Justice Kennedy will be retiring. Often a swing vote, his vote was responsible for recent Supreme Court rulings on abortion, gay marriage and LGBT rights. A moderately conservative justice with a heart, he'll likely be replaced by a deeply conservative justice. The only hope is that Republican John McCain continues to not be present in Washington, and two Republican Senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, will likely make abortion an issue.In other disastrous news the Supreme Court upheld Trump's travel ban against anyone from Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somailia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.In yet more bad Supreme Court News, it also ruled against unions. Workers at union shops who are not union members can no longer be forced to pay union dues. The existence of unions is threatened.--Percy

Maybe a bit.--Percy

Non-union members benefit from the wages, benefits and work rules negotiated by the union, and under certain circumstances are represented by the union. If a small percentage of non-union members do not pay union dues then the union is minimally impacted, but if that small percentage grows too large then the union can no longer afford to carry out union activities, and the union dies.Those who believe unions are a net negative think this is fine.There's a strong analogy with the anti-vaccination movement. Remember quarantines: No, of course not, none of us is that old. But back in the days of quarantines the benefits of vaccination were unambiguously obvious. Today quarantines are no more, and increasingly people are concluding that vaccinations provide more harm than good. If that number grows too large then we'll return to the days of quarantines. This would obviously be a bad thing.It's the same with unions. Do you remember the days of no unions? No, of course not, none of us is that old. But back before unions workers' rights were violated willy-nilly and the benefits of unions were unambiguously obvious. Those days are long forgotten along with the the good that unions do, and increasingly people are concluding that unions provide more harm than good. If that number grows too large then wages, benefits and work rules will return to their pre-union state. This would obviously be a bad thing.--Percy

Just to clarify for myself and everyone else, I believe the images are a reference to company stores. Looking this up, companies, especially in remote areas, would pay employees in scrip that was only good at the company store which, since it had a monopoly, could charge monopolistic prices and funnel the worker's pay back to the company. They also extended credit at usurious rates.The degree of the exploitive aspect of company stores is debated among historians, but if one assumes that business owners then were as focused on making money as they are now, then defenders of the company store haven't a leg to stand on. It's true they were a necessity for company's located in remote areas, such as mines, lumber companies, etc., but they were also exploitive. In some remotely located companies with many workers company towns arose where all or nearly all the stores in town were owned by the company.Some might remember the song Sixteen Tons made famous by Tennessee Ernie Ford. Each stanza ended with the line, "I owe my soul to the company store." It's worth listening to just for the way he renders that line at the end of the song: Unions fought exploitation by company stores.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling.

Continuing the story about what a wonderful success was Trump's meeting with Kim Jung Un, newspapers are now reporting that North Korea is working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program. Quoting from the article:

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U.S. intelligence officials, citing newly obtained evidence, have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile, and instead is considering ways to conceal the number of weapons it has and secret production facilities, according to U.S. officials.

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The evidence, collected in the wake of the June 12 summit in Singapore, points to preparations to deceive the United States about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea’s arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, the officials said.

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The findings support a new, previously undisclosed Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize.

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Focus on that last paragraph. How many people actually needed a "Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize"? I can actually answer this question. It's approximately the same as the number of people who believe what Trump says at campaign rallies.The Trump meeting with Kim Jung Un was for Trump to reference and attach untrue claims of making the US safe from North Korea. It's worth reminding people that we got nothing nuclear out of the meeting while giving up the periodic military coordination exercises with South Korea. A state of war still exists between North and South.--Percy

I was checking the coin images more closely and noticed some odd incongruities. The coins are stamped with "MA", "C" and "+", and the information on opposite sides doesn't match: I think I figured this out. I think all the coins are from Anderson Cotton Mill, which was located in Anderson, SC. It's in the middle of nowhere halfway between Charlotte and Atlanta. Central, SC, is just a short distance away, so I'm guessing that that coin is for the same company, since no name is on it.Two of the coins were minted by The Osborne Register Co. in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the other by Ingle-Schierloh Co. in Dayton, Ohio. Tokens minted by companies like these were widely used by merchants of the period (I think from roughly the late nineteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century) to ease the tracking of credit. They would issue a customer tokens in an amount recorded in a ledger, which was the customer's debt to the merchant. The customer could then use the tokens to buy items from the merchant. The customer's debt remained on the books until paid off in actual cash.The system was open to abuse, which is the issue you've raised. Companies could pay their employees in coupons or tokens that were only good in the company store or stores. Company stores could charge whatever prices they wanted since employees couldn't use their wages anywhere else. Reading up on this, scrip could be exchanged for cash at a discounted rate, maybe 90 cents on the dollar at the store, but 75 cents at other places, and apparently as low as 25 cents on the dollar.--Percy

You questioned what I said, then agreed with me, except you said "maybe". There's no "maybe" about it. If you reduce the income of any entity sufficiently, be it a business, a union, a non-profit, a church, then it dies (or if you prefer some other term, then it goes bankrupt or decertifies or disbands or ceases operations or whatever). That's just a fact. Never underestimate the influence of ignorance, nonsense and flim-flam. Let's rephrase your question into a different context: "But if a large percentage aren't getting vaccinated - isn't this an indication that vaccination isn't effective?"Where people are involved nothing is perfect, but we need both employers and unions. Abuse of power is a problem everywhere, and we could tell stories about abuse of power in all human endeavors, including government, commercial companies, unions, non-profits, charities, churches, and on and on. Examples of abuse of power only tell us that people are the same no matter where they work, not that the entities they work for are bad ideas. A better question might be why there is much less enthusiasm for unions today than 50 and 100 years ago.
Part of the answer must be that the times are different today. Unions rose to power during a period when socialism was also receiving a lot of attention, which isn't true today. Also, too many people see the abuses unions opposed in the past as solved problems, when the reality is that eternal vigilance is necessary to protect the hard won victories of the past. Actually, the way you've expressed this, there's a perfect analogy with the anti-vaxers. Anti-vaxers think the problem of disease is solved, and anti-unionists and union agnostics think the problem of worker exploitation is solved. Of course, now that Trump is in charge we don't have to worry about growing corporate power and abuse. It's scrip, not scripts. I think Jar raised it as an example of past company abuse, not current, but at the bottom of that Wikipedia page you linked to it cites an example of Walmart using scrip in Mexico in 2008. Anyway, scrip isn't the point. The point is that it's in the company's best interest to get the most work from workers at the least cost. This is an unrelenting motivation for abuse. Unions protect against that. The analogy with anti-vaxers pokes its nose out again. We don't need an epidemic to tell us we need vaccines. And workers shouldn't need a return of company abuses to tell them they need unions. Right, and I'm sure nothing could ever happen to erode these laws and regulations, especially with Trump at the helm.--Percy

Returning now to the issue of denuclearization of North Korea, NBC reports this morning that Pompeo shrugs off North Korea's 'gangster' comment, claims progress:

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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday brushed aside North Korea's accusation of "gangster-like" demands, maintaining that his third visit to the country was producing results but vowing that sanctions would remain until Pyongyang follows through on leader Kim Jong Un's pledge to get rid of his nuclear weapons.

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This reinforces several things that we've already long known:

• North Korea will never give up its nuclear weapons.
• Trump gained nothing when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jung Un, except to give up military coordination exercises with the South Korean military.
• Trump lied about the success of the meeting.
• Officials of the Trump administration, Mike Pompeo in this case, also lie.
• North Korea is just stringing us along.

More from the NBC article:

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The North's statement, coming so soon after Pompeo's trip, was sure to fuel growing skepticism in the U.S. over how serious Kim is about giving up his nuclear arsenal.

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Growing skepticism? What growing skepticism? There's been total skepticism since Trump's meeting with Kim Jung Un and even before. The only people stupid enough (sorry) to believe Trump's making progress with North Korean denuclearization are the Trump base, the Trump administration, and Republicans in Congress. Stringing us along is what North Korea does, and their recent nuclear progress was just the most recent opportunity for beginning another round of leading us around by the nose ring. To those who believe there's progress, learn a little history, much of it very recent.Said Pompeo, "People are going to make stray comments after meetings. If I paid attention to the press, I'd go nuts."Mr. Pompeo is referring to the statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry and carried by state-run news agency KCNA. Mr. Pompeo is telling reporters to ignore statements by official outlets of the North Korean government. The truth is that Trump meeting was not a success, the Pompeo meetings were not a success, and any future meetings will not be a success. The Kim dynasty views nuclear weapons as their key to maintaining total power and invulnerability against outside pressures. The Trump administration views "doing stuff" like holding meetings and then declaring them a spectacular success as a tried and true formula for pumping up the base while accomplishing nothing.--Percy

Yesterday's Guardian ran an opinion piece declaring Trump not welcome in Britain. I'll let it speak for itself with a few excerpts, but apparently the Trump malevolency is as apparent there as here:

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Mr Trump does not come with a message of peace...but with messages of conflict and disruption. He arrives not as the optimistic upholder of an international order but as its casual potential destroyer. Mr. Trump arrives...as the vengeful tribune of might and injustice.
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There are many reasons for feeling the unusual sense of outrage and violation that attach to the Trump visit to Britain. Mr Trump’s personal character and behaviour are more than enough reason for many. They certainly belong on any list of objections to his presence here, for he is one of the most unsuitable people to hold his great democratic office in American history. But it is Mr Trump’s politics, his expressed views, his actual actions, and above all his effect and his intentions that are the fundamental issues.

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The charge list against Mr Trump is long, unignorable and impossible to tolerate. Morally, it is headed by the racism of the immigration policies he was so proud of in Brussels on Thursday, the cruelty of their enforcement, especially in the separation of children from their parents, the racism to which he gives encouragement at home, and the taunting and visceral threat to the rights and dignities of women, people of colour, and LGBT people, who are all now directly threatened by his latest supreme court nomination. He has ignorantly spurned the threat from climate change, has sucked up to tyrants, has conducted an unprecedented campaign against the free press, launched a trade war, insulted America’s allies, praised America’s enemies and made dangerous mischief in the domestic and regional politics of countless parts of the world. Only this week, heading for Europe, he insulted Germany and said meeting Vladimir Putin would be easy work compared with his meetings in Brussels and Britain.
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Mr Trump...is unique in his egotistical disrespect for international order and agreement, his overt malice towards long-term allies and institutions, his shameless disregard for truth, and his clear willingness to make trouble and do direct harm to European nations like ours.
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When such a leader spits on the foundations of that alliance and actively promotes values and interests which are hostile to ours, the tough lesson of history is that he should not be honoured and must not be appeased.
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Before leaving for Britain on Thursday, Mr Trump told the press: They like me a lot in the UK. Fake news again. We don’t like him at all. He is not welcome here.

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--Percy

How would I know? What we do know is that the power of unions has been greatly reduced in the 40 years since Reagan took office. Here's an interesting graph for you showing declining union participation coincident with declining middle-class income: Same answer. Hard fought-for rights and laws gained by unions are being continuously eroded. I think that anyone who believes employer/worker relations is a solved problem and that unions no longer deserve their support is being shortsighted and is ignorant of the erosion of worker rights over the past 40 years. The importance of unions is a function of the degree to which workers are commodities. Truck drivers, for example. I worked in a non-union industry, but it was only non-union because workers were not commodities. By the time I retired that was no longer true. Run-of-the-mill programming is no longer a rare skill. Employment in hi-tech is generally "at will", meaning you can be let go without reason at any time. It's always been that way, but it didn't matter back when programmers were hard to replace. Now it matters. Programmers can no longer sign on to a company expecting a 40-year career of growth and advancement. Except for those with the more rare skills, employment is a continuous cycle of work/layoff/job-hunt. Hi-tech could use a union. That path leads to the end of unions. Not likely. While I wouldn't use your language, all entities operate under laws and regulations that strive to represent everyone's best interests. Unions are no different. Abuse of power exists everywhere and so cannot be used as a reason to target unions. That's a fair conclusion given your support of policies that would reduce both union influence and the existence of unions. Yeah, sure, you don't have a problem with unions, you just don't want them to have the resources necessary to exist. So do I. That's already happened. Learn some history. Just how far do you want the pendulum to keep swinging toward reduction of union power? But you don't agree that people should pay for that representation. Then your position is contradictory, since you believe that unions are important but giving them the means to survive is not. That's like saying you want the benefits of insurance coverage but you don't want to pay insurance fees. I agree that there will be cycles of good times when workers think they don't need the union, and bad times when they realize they do, causing union power to wax and wane. This is the shortsightedness and ignorance I referred to before. Worker abuse is not a solved problem.--Percy

Yes, you're correct. It is not a position that you're proposing. It's not a position anyone is proposing. It's simply a fact that anyone in a union shop who believes they're not benefiting from the union is being both shortsighted and ignorant. Do non-union members get raises the union negotiates? Yes. Do non-union members have access to work environment improvements the union negotiates? Yes. Do non-union members receive benefits the union negotiates? Yes. If non-union members stop paying union dues are the answers to these questions still yes? Yes.Now if non-union members didn't receive any of the benefits the union negotiates then I'd say they shouldn't have to pay union dues, though of course who would refuse to pay union dues if it meant lower pay, lesser insurance, no representation in disputes with management, no access to some things like perhaps the company cafeteria, workout room, exercise classes, basketball court or volleyball court, and no side-benefits like company paid activities (annual party, outings, clubs, etc), gym memberships, discounts, etc.But ignorance and shortsightedness will likely win out, and with dues optional the ability of unions to represent workers effectively will continue to decline and diminish coincident with their declining income. Once unions are a mere shadow of their former selves it will take a repeat of the same great effort made to establish the union movement during the first third of the twentieth century to make unions strong again. Well, sticking with the medical metaphor, compared to the 1950's and 1960's the unions of today are sickly, and if we keep letting their blood they *will* eventually die. More accurately, your argument about abuse of power was beside the point. That's your criteria for when an entity or office has too much power, that power has been abused? And that fallacy aside, how, exactly, are unions in general abusing their power today? Again, abuse of power is not the measure of whether there's too much power. Part of the determination, perhaps, but not the measure. Given the decline of union power over the past 40 or 50 years I don't know how anyone could conclude that unions today have too much power. I'm sure we're all in favor. Huh? Are you saying mandatory union dues are an example of power corruption? I've missed neither of your contradictory claims: a) that you're not anti-union; and b) that you're in favor of policies that will further weaken unions. I think the former is what you'd like to believe about yourself and that the latter represents a disconnect in your thinking between the policies you favor and the effects they'd cause. And you deny the effects of that policy. As long as you pretend the policy has no seriously ill effects you think the policy justified, despite the fact that it's more akin to government authorized theft of services. But that's not what this is. It's actually a case of, "Can I get the benefits of unionization without suffering any of the costs?" And the Supreme Court's answer for public sector unions is, "Sure, fine." This idea comes from your denial of the negative ramifications of the policies you advocate. I don't recall implying an instant effect, nor any specific timeframe at all, but this will certainly accelerate the already significant decline of unions. Here's a graph in case you doubt there's already been a decline: Notice that the decline was already underway in 1983 when the graph begins, and the decline corresponds with middle class wage stagnation. Again, I don't recall implying an instant effect. It's common for the effects of policy changes and court rulings to play out over time. So of course the ultimate impact of this Supreme Court ruling isn't instantaneous, I don't recall ever saying it would be, but the effects begin whenever the judges' ruling takes effect. But you don't think they'd weaken enough that it would matter. But it already matters and will continue to matter. For another example, did you know many union pension funds are in trouble because of declining union membership, and that pension funds that are in danger of running dry within 10 years have the right to cut benefits to retirees who are depending upon that money? The policy you favor will accelerate this process. The Republicans in Congress and the current administration both favor reductions in the social safety net, making things even worse for retirees. Who said they would? I can't imagine what I said that led you to ask such a question. Well now you're contradicting yourself again. Your position is that workers should not be compelled to pay union dues even though they still reap all the benefits of working in a union shop. But your position is that the minority of workers who didn't want a union shouldn't have to pay the fees while still reaping all the benefits of unionization. This seems a strange thing to say. Wouldn't it make more sense that when a majority of workers do not want a union that they would vote the union out? I'm sure you're right that a 2% freeloader rate would have negligible effects. Is that the rate you think will be typical in the long term as a result of this Supreme Court ruling? About this compensation that the 80% of employees not paying union dues are happy with, would that be the compensation negotiated by the union? Did you know that by law unions are required to negotiate with management for the benefit of all workers, whether they pay dues or not? I don't have any statistics to back me up, but a union where only 20% of the workers pay dues seems like one that would be in a precarious position financially, one serious enough that it would significantly hinder the union's ability to effectively represent their members (and the non-members, too, as required by law). While looking for statistics I did discover that workers in union shops make about 25% more than those who don't. Union shops also tend to have better health plans. Eh, maybe the union survives, maybe not. 20% is a pretty low participation rate.By the way, a low membership rate does not mean a low opinion of the union. All it means is that people aren't stupid and tend to avoiding paying for things they can get for free. Check out Supreme Court rules against paying for union representation in Janus v. AFSCME. It's full of good information, and at one point it says:

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Across the border from Illinois, AFSCME Iowa Council 61 enjoys an overwhelming 83 percent support among covered workers -- but only 29 percent of those workers are dues-paying members, according to On Labor.

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Got that? Only 29% of workers pay dues, but 83% of workers support the union. Your mistake is in thinking that workers not paying dues means they have a low opinion of how well the union represents their interests, and that's not true. In this particular case, which seems representative, the low dues-paying rate seems to indicate an economic decision: why pay for something you can get for free? Workers already have the right to decertify (through a vote) a union's representation. What doesn't make sense is drawing a connection between your position on union dues and how workers perceive their union's performance. Not paying dues for benefits you get anyway is just a smart economic decision, though shortsighted and indicative of an ignorance of both the history of labor/management relations and of the simple fact that representing workers' interests costs money. I think you meant that if paying union dues were optional but that the workers loved the union then union income from dues would not decline. The example I cited above says this is untrue. I'll say it one more time: people tend not to pay for what they can get for free. It was an analogy, not an equivalence, and I was not analogizing unions to insurance policies. I was analogizing wanting to get insurance benefits for free to wanting to get union benefits for free. I think most English teachers would roll their eyes at you. Risking another analogy, that's like saying you shouldn't have to pay income tax because you didn't vote for it. Groups of people, whether clubs or workers or geographic regions, usually decide things by votes, and everyone abides by the outcome. In their ruling the Supreme Court has just thrown a monkey wrench into this time honored principle. No one's claiming unions are always needed. See above about your misinterpretation of the analogy. If a majority of workers don't want the union then the obvious course of action is to hold a decertification vote.--Percy

I don't think Trump was ever a drunk, but he's definitely been drunk. See How often does President Trump drink alcohol?. As in most things, Trump lies about his drinking, too. He has claimed many times that he doesn't drink. This is a lie. There's nothing wrong with speaking bluntly. The problem with Trump is his lying. Trump has turned the old joke, "How do you know he's lying? His lips are moving," into a truism. It's pathological with him. Even when no lie is necessary he lies anyway. Trump didn't coin the phrase fake news, he merely uses it with a different definition. Check out The (almost) complete history of 'fake news' for details of the phrase's origins, but here's a few brief excerpts:

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It was mid-2016, and Buzzfeed's media editor, Craig Silverman, noticed a funny stream of completely made-up stories that seemed to originate from one small Eastern European town.
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And so the Macedonians and other purveyors of fakery wrote stories with headlines such as "Pope Francis Shocks World, Endorses Donald Trump for President" and "FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide".

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They were completely false. And thus began the modern - and internet-friendly - life of the phrase "fake news".
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But to say that President Trump was the first politician to deploy the term would itself be, well, "fake news".

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On 8 December 2016, Hillary Clinton made a speech in which she mentioned "the epidemic of malicious fake news and false propaganda that flooded social media over the past year."
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President-elect Trump took up the phrase the following month, in January 2017, a little over a week before taking office. In response to a question, he said "you're fake news" to CNN reporter Jim Acosta. Around the same time he started repeating the phrase on Twitter.

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Got that? Fake news means actual for-real fake news, i.e., news that is made up out of whole cloth. The phrase entered the lexicon when many websites and Facebook pages promoting fake news began gaining attention in mid-2016. Hillary used the phrase first, correctly.Trump used the phrase a bit later, incorrectly. To Trump, fake news is any news unfavorable to him. For instance, if CNN were to report:

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Sen. John McCain released a powerful statement Monday criticizing President Donald Trump, calling his news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory."

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Trump would call this fake news, even though it is completely true. Don't believe the CNN report? Here is Fox News reporting the exact same thing:

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In a lengthy and fiery statement, Senator John McCain of Arizona called the Finland summit a "tragic mistake" and "one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in recent memory."

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So Marc, do you understand what I said earlier, that Trump is using the term fake news incorrectly, that when he uses it means any news unfavorable to him? Do you understand that when he calls something fake news that he is usually lying? He used a golf cart. You never hear about his handicap, so I assume he's a poor golfer shooting between 90 and a 100. So to play a round he has to climb in and out of his golf cart a hundred times, and swing a golf club a hundred times, about half of which are putts. Christians would really love me, then. I'm older than you and I play tennis for a couple hours four times a week. A couple weeks ago during the heat wave I played 2 hours in 94 degree heat. I doubt Trump would hold up for 10 minutes.More reasons why Christians should love me more than Trump: I've been married and faithful to the same wife for 34 years, none of my children are being investigated by a special counsel, I've never gone bankrupt, I've never cheated people out of money I owed them, I've never said anything misogynistic like about about grabbing women by the pussy (let alone being recorded saying it), I never lie because I conduct my life in a way that means I never have to, I'm not a racist or a bigot, and I haven't alienated our allies while chumming it up with brutal dictators. My main flaw from a Christian standpoint is is that I don't believe in the Christian God, but then neither does Trump. Trump mainly deals with criticism by lying. I don't think that's the "Christian way." His current public life doesn't indicate a passion for Christianity, either. It does indicate a passion for the Christian vote. He is older and more paranoid and more adversarial and more chaotic and more resistant to detail and truth.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.