I'm struck this week by all the lies... from we are not safe because of all the terrorists coming into our country, to Muslims celebrated in the streets of Boston after 9/11, and to the Bowling Green Massacre, and finally to the size of T-rumps....whatever. We have moved beyond the alt-right to alternate facts and on to alternate realities... upon which we will base our laws and policies. From my view the big news this week was the judicial branch upheld the constitution. I wasn't sure they would. However, they said the executive branch put forward no evidence at all that this ban was related to terrorism coming from these seven countries.

The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has unanimously refused to reinstate Donald Trump’s executive order that banned people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States and sparked nationwide protests. The judges ruled that the administration "has pointed to no evidence that any alien from any of the countries named in the order has perpetrated a terrorist attack in the United States." Trump has vowed to appeal the case, possibly to the U.S. Supreme Court (16 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeUj9-DN5oU

Now I'm no lawyer, but I do know how to read....from the justice site:
https://www.justice.gov/crt/federal-protections-against-national-origin-...

Federal laws prohibit discrimination based on a person's national origin, race, color, religion, disability, sex, and familial status. Laws prohibiting national origin discrimination make it illegal to discriminate because of a person's birthplace, ancestry, culture or language. This means people cannot be denied equal opportunity because they or their family are from another country, because they have a name or accent associated with a national origin group, because they participate in certain customs associated with a national origin group, or because they are married to or associate with people of a certain national origin.

...or is that another big lie?

Yes Emily, truth by its nature must be slant – it must be filtered through a human lens. That has been my lesson putting together this weekly collection...learning that perhaps omission is the most effective lie. Truth is often found in what is not said. But, maybe there are some speaking truth to power. There is a new documentary suggesting there are some honest journalists.

Fred Peabody and Peter Raymont discuss their film - All Governments Lie... a new documentary about independent journalists walking in I. F. Stone's footsteps (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EX2v7wHQhQ

It sure would be nice if there was wide media coverage of some big obvious lies. Let's start with terrorism. Is it really a major problem?

3,066 Americans have been killed in terrorist attacks from 9/11/2001 through 12/31/2014 (including perpetrators and excluding deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq.)
2,961 of these deaths occurred on American soil
2,902 of these deaths occurred during the attacks on September 11, 2001
https://www.start.umd.edu/pubs/START_AmericanTerrorismDeaths_FactSheet_O...

The White House is trying to increase fear about potential—and even imaginary—terrorist attacks in order to justify President T-rumps crackdown on immigration according to Harvard professor Stephen Walt. (1 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El7uhComic8

The White House is considering officially designating more groups as foreign terrorist organizations, including the Muslim Brotherhood—one of the Middle East’s oldest and most influential Islamic groups. We speak to Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKFlWpPOHyU

President Trump told yet another blatant falsehood, alleging that the media has covered up several terrorist attacks.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/donald-trump-keeps-pushing-alex-jones...

Mistrust is inherent with this administration and the media. (12 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv6UnrdTf28

T-rump wants to ensure that Americans think they are in danger of being hacked to death by deranged Muslims at any moment, but ignores the real risk of home grown supremists.
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/09/trump-and-terrorism-why-is-the-white-hou...

There was an actual threat from a white extremist in Bowling Green, Ohio, and the ongoing trial of a Christian minister in Tennessee for plotting to travel to upstate New York to kill Muslims there, using explosives, an M-4 assault rifle and a machete. (19 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4702Ndv4JE

Nearly 40,000 American lives lost each year make suicide the nation's 10th-leading cause of death, and the second-leading killer for those ages 15-34. Homicides have fallen by half since 1991, but the U.S. suicide rate keeps climbing.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/10/09/suicide-mental-heal...

Infographic looks at suicide data from around the world.
http://healthresearchfunding.org/many-people-commit-suicide-year/

Now why would so many folks here in the good ole US of A kill themself?
“There was a consistent pattern,” he said, which held for all ages between 25 and 64. “When the economy got worse, suicides went up, and when it got better, they went down.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30...

So what is our real problem? I would argue it is not terrorism. May be we need to address our economy and help everyone have security here in the richest country on Earth? But what is our economy based on?

The ultimate backing of the US dollar is not gold, nor is it oil, nor even plutocratic fiats; ultimately, the US dollar is backed by the might of the US military.
http://www.newslogue.com/debate/328/CaitlinJohnstone

The United States dominates the war business, the sale of weapons to other nations, the deployment of troops abroad, spending on its own military, and the number of wars engaged in. Only Russia is anywhere close to the U.S. in weapons dealing, and this pair of countries nearly splits the vast majority of the nuclear weapons possessed on earth.
http://worldbeyondwar.org/mapwar/

And of course you have to lie about it. Jimmy Dore explains (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxM0vctFcI0

Let's start a new war...Lee Camp covers how the petrodollar may be the REAL reason for possible war with Iran and there’s a long history to back that up. And more (26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65_GcK0g_VU

For the next lie... the answer to improving the economy is to reduce regulations and cut taxes. Boy, is that a whopper... that we need to cut taxes which expands the national debt. But, the debt is bad and we must address it, so reduce benefits and work more for less...over and over. We've been had!

Economist Mark Blyth offers some explanation with Jimmy Dore in another great series of interviews.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmmGTyXDcT8 (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0q_Ww1q1j8 (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGK3XkuGeLw (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzbH2YE4a24 (11 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylLqsQ5ym4c (6 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBQ4MLodVKU (13 min)

Stiglitz take on our current situation - the Republican/Trump agenda, with its tax cuts even more weighted toward the rich has never actually worked.
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/2017-economic-forecast-trum...

It is working out great. We can take our weapons surplus and militarize our police so we can put more people in prison. We are a cruel and inhuman nation caught in a whirlwind of denial.

A free country should not have 1.6 million people in prison, and a fiscally responsible country cannot afford to (3 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUt_fIB6A_Y

The for-profit prison companies whose business models essentially depend on locking more and more people up (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQxtRcfBIXY

Overall, the prison system in the United States costs American taxpayers nearly $39 billion. California, New York and Texas are the three states that pay the most to maintain their prisons. How much does your state spend? http://mashable.com/2014/05/05/prison-map-interactive/#EDHgIe4JMuqh

In Alabama prison situations like this are common
https://itsgoingdown.org/emergency-alert-free-alabama-movement-press-rel...

It is "the beginnings of what we are calling a blue lives matter regime," explains our Vincent Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Trump signed three new executive orders addressing crime and immigration – a dream list for police. (2.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oypvAfLPW-4

Chris Hedges and Matt Tiabbi discuss T-rump (26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rf37rwgnwLU

We speak to Harvard professor Stephen Walt. His recent piece in Foreign Policy is headlined "Trump Has Already Blown It." (13 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHUBaeB57T0

Betsy DeVos squeeks in as secretary of education (51 to 50) although she was never a student, a parent, an educator or school board member of public schools. It has been her life’s work to tear down public education. https://dianeravitch.net/2017/02/07/betsy-devos-confirmed-despite-massiv...
But maybe there is a silver lining http://educationopportunitynetwork.org/progressives-lost-the-vote-on-dev...
Protesters block DeVos from entering school
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/10/watch-betsy-devos-initially-blocked-from...

Jeff Sesions..
Minutes after he was sworn in as attorney general, Jeff Sessions said he believed the recent uptick in crime in America was a “dangerous permanent trend”. But criminologists said he had “no evidence” to support this contention. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/10/jeff-sessions-crime-rate...

He and many Americans are mistaken
https://www.brennancenter.org/blog/americas-faulty-perception-crime-rates
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC4ZrMHaQZg (1 min)

Rethugs infighting about public lands
http://www.salon.com/2017/02/06/bizarre-gop-infighting-over-federal-land...

There are plenty of lies to go around. The demorats have been lying too!
Jordan at TYT talks with Glenn Greenwald about the lies of the democrats and others
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t85IB238708 (13 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfqK2NBb0PI (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zop-VJuvAgI (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7f3gvat_vQ (4 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRvbppjXR-A (4 min)

Standing Rock
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it will greenlight the final phase of construction for the Dakota Access pipeline, prompting water protectors to call for a "last stand" against the $3.8 billion project. Tribal Council Chair Dave Archambault responds (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3P27m-etfE

Chase Iron Eyes and Dallas Goldtooth share their views. (8 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJ_BFMizTdU

Filmmaker Josh Fox discusses the situation with Ed Schultz (4.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H2kzVDWRqc

Tangerine Bolen, executive director of the civil liberties group Revolution Truth, talks about her plan to sue Energy Transfer Partners – the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline – to prevent the pipeline from being built on what they call treaty land. (7 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkIg3wFWFnY

Thousands rally across the country to oppose the Dakota Access Pipeline as two city councils have voted to divest billions billion from the project (6.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42aFHs5Gers

Just deny reality. Make climate change go away. Just pretend it doesn't exist. Take it from the house science committee. (5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orvMkrUvsm4

I'm surprised to still see the NASA climate change page up and rational
http://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/

Volunteers face a race against time to save hundreds of pilot whales who became beached in a remote corner of New Zealand's South Island. (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRqc0tY9SZQ

The revolt of Canadian scientists against former prime minister Stephen Harper can serve as a model for U.S. scientists facing Trump’s attacks on climate research, says professor Chris Williams (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYkP3hhWIHg

Daphne Wysham warns that a carbon tax plan proposed by Republican elder statesmen would roll back critically important environmental regulations (14 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgGXS45PyQk

With the new Trump administration questioning the existence of climate change, The National Science March has turned into a fully-fledged organisation. (2 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdrbV_uNars

Luke Sussams discusses renewable energy and the jobs it creates (10 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIvbeHzaWC8

Movements must play a role
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/02/03/the-left-needs-to-be-a-movement-n...

Victory for people power. Romania protesters demand more, as government scraps corruption bill (1.5 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDdgoJxjZhk

Lee Camp talks with Nick Brana, former national political outreach coordinator for Bernie Sanders. Lee learns why Brana resigned from progressive political action group Our Revolution and his current effort to draft Sanders to lead a new political party, the People’s Party. (26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f28dVrtEWA
https://draftbernie.org/

Tallahasse Mayor wins fight with NRA
http://www.alternet.org/activism/how-tallahassee-beat-gun-lobby-florida-...

Among the thousands of anti-Trump demonstrators who gathered outside the Stonewall Inn in New York City’s West Village was actress Cynthia Nixon - nice speech. (7 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPyTlX7KU9g

Not a movement, but a local moment in my neighborhood. I was surprised to learn this week that a few seconds mention of our little local march in Mentone, Alabama made Samatha Bee's Full Frontal.(8 min with a nice take of the song “I can't keep quiet”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pEcvteQo9g

The weather was wild and scared us away, but this clip gives the flavor of the march. Here in the backwaters these sorts of movement moments have meaning. (15 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFOEt8_he1U

How lucky we have air to breathe. Enjoy this HD view of Earth from space (1.5 min)

Once I started this theme of lies and truth it was difficult to stop. My friends, we are surrounded by misrepresentations of reality that suit other purposes...mainly profit, power, prestige. I appreciate this community and the group effort to shine a light on the hidden truths around us. Thanks JtC for steering the site, and I hope the kitty is growing.