Iowa Caucus Tonight: Predictions?

Yes, FH sources matter and they are not useless. Our Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution protections for the free press, and while they've never been perfect (even historically), ordinary citizens getting jobs as journalists and fact-checking government officials, writing about things that happened and issues affecting us without fear of reprisal is how we find out what's going on and make informed decisions moving forward. It's the basis of our democratic republic. There are sources that hold themselves to higher standards than others, and sources that are straight up propaganda - they should not be weighted equally, or we end up with an uneducated, sheeple society easily deceived and manipulated. Do any of you think that's a good idea? I sure don't.

If sources don't matter, then truth doesn't matter. Facts don't matter. We might as well give up all of our technology and go back to beating each other with sticks because we want the other person's cave.

If you want a right-wing or left-wing echo chamber, you won't find it here. That's boring, and serves no good purpose. This is where your information will be questioned and your argument weakened if it's from a less-than-credible source, no matter which side. It's not a dictatorship, I haven't forbidden anyone from posting links to those sites, I'm not insulting you personally; but, if you think I'm going to let you get away with posting sketchy info as a credible source, as rated by 3rd party reviewers, then you haven't been paying attention the past 10 years.

/Off soapbox

Election results updated here:
results.thecaucuses.org/

www.politico.com/2020-election/results/iowa/
fivethirtyeight.com/live-blog/iowa-caucus-2020-election-live/
apnews.com/65327a2b9acbc9c903ef7f906bfce1f4
www.foxnews.com/politics/iowa-democratic-party-caucus-results
www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/ele...ublished/4659581002/

I'm not seeing in any of these articles a mention that the DNC is in Iowa taking over the vote tabulation (matter of fact, they shared @IowaDemocrats Tweet that they were the only source for caucus results). Care to cite a source for that?


If you look at the Politico story, they have a map of the precincts that have reported, it looks like pretty well balanced sampling across the state - not heavily favored rural or urban to skew results.


And World Net Daily? Even worse than Zero Hedge for credibility. mediabiasfactcheck.com/world-net-daily-wnd/

QUESTIONABLE SOURCE
Reasoning: Extreme Right, Propaganda, Conspiracy, Some Fake News
Country: USA
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 48/180
A questionable source exhibits one or more of the following: extreme bias, consistent promotion of propaganda/conspiracies, poor or no sourcing to credible information, a complete lack of transparency and/or is fake news. Fake News is the deliberate attempt to publish hoaxes and/or disinformation for the purpose of profit or influence (Learn More). Sources listed in the Questionable Category may be very untrustworthy and should be fact checked on a per article basis. Please note sources on this list are not considered fake news unless specifically written in the reasoning section for that source.

Overall, we rate WND Questionable based on extreme right wing bias, promotion of conspiracy theories and numerous failed fact checks.

What changed is cyberwarfare. What changed is the volume and quality of information that is available to anyone and everyone who can create a large following yet spew complete and utter lies and it get amplified by millions of non-critical thinking fans. What changed is the realization that no matter how many verified facts can be shared to absolutely destroy a false claim, people will still believe bullshit because they are emotionally invested in their beliefs.

What changed is social media and those who run the social media giants aren't being held accountable like traditional media is on not spreading blatant lies. People simply go inside their own little bubble of what they agree with, join groups that re-affirm their world views and amp up their outrage not once considering that they are run by bad actors with agendas, and don't bother reading that with which is opposite of their beliefs and consider whether any of that information has merit. They mindlessly Share Facebook memes and re-Tweet the outrage of the day, and it satisfies their pleasure centers in their brains and they don't take a single g-damn second to consider the consequences of their actions.

The only way to combat this propaganda and disinformation hell is to avoid completely awful sources altogether, be extremely skeptical of those with strong bias (notice how I don't share MSNBC or Mother Jones), look at authors of every piece, and analyze everything you read for what they didn't say, the flaws in the article, and the credibility of the information shared. And, most importantly, to call out lies, falsehoods, and propaganda when it's shared.

We've already had a taste of Deep Fakes as a real thing to contend with, and the majority of our population has neither the technological understanding, nor the critical thinking skills to overcome the effects it will have on our elections, the widening (manufactured) division between us, and the weakening of our national security.

TM, I am disappointed that you would even consider in your brain, much less submit as a comment, that I'd never question a left-leaning source. Have you not paid any attention to what I've ever said over the past decade? Hell, even in the past year, regarding journalists and sources? Show me where I blindly accept ANY total source. I double-dog dare you. Good lord, even the journal Science and Nature have published false studies, and have issued retractions when they were discovered to have been faked. That's how it's supposed to work - be skeptical of everything.

I have always said I will consider any information if it's credible, verified, and you come back with a reasonable, logical argument. Step up your game if you want to change minds, but expect to be challenged if you're bringing information sourced from organizations that have nefarious agendas and known fake information. Left or right, IDGAF, it all gets burned if it's wrong.