What to make of an abysmal year for truth? PolitiFact names 2025 the Year of the Lies

"The concept of truth feels particularly bleak in 2025.

Government leaders deploy up-is-down narratives at an exhausting clip. Online worlds drip with artificial intelligence-generated slop that incites rage. Chatbots answer questions with fabricated information, and the government folds it into a report card on America’s health.

What to make of an abysmal year for truth?
PolitiFact names 2025 the Year of the Lies

The last 10 years have been an ugly era for facts, marked by a drumbeat of untruths and near-constant charges of "fake news" from the decade’s most influential player, President Donald Trump.

The trouble with drumbeats is, as a matter of survival or sanity, we tend to tune out or grow numb to them. Even people with influence who might lament "misinformation" move on to other fights. The word itself is downgraded — at best it’s a red flag, at worst it’s a punchline."

Continue reading online -> http
s://www.politifact.com/article/2025/dec/15/lie-of-the-year-2025-winner/

The Guardian: Oil company execs raking in the cash; "‘What we now know … they lied"

"While gas prices soar for consumers, one group of people isn’t faring so badly.

Chief executives from the largest oil and gas companies received nearly $45m more in combined total compensation in 2021 as compared to 2020 amid the steep rise in gasoline prices across the US over the last year, a new report states.

Twenty-eight major oil and gas companies, such as Shell, Exxon, BP and Marathon Petroleum, gave out $394m in total to their chief executives in 2021, according to an exclusive analysis provided to the Guardian."

Continue reading the article (subscription may be required) 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/apr/25/us-gas-prices-oil-ceos-pay-analysis 

‘What we now know … they lied’: how big oil companies betrayed us all

"There is a moment in the revelatory PBS Frontline docuseries The Power of Big Oil, about the industry’s long campaign to stall action on the climate crisis, in which the former Republican senator Chuck Hagel reflects on his part in killing US ratification of the Kyoto climate treaty.

In 1997, Hagel joined with the Democratic senator Robert Byrd to promote a resolution opposing the international agreement to limit greenhouse gases, on the grounds that it was unfair to Americans. The measure passed the US Senate without a single dissenting vote, after a vigorous campaign by big oil to mischaracterize the Kyoto protocol as a threat to jobs and the economy while falsely claiming that China and India could go on polluting to their heart’s content.

The resolution effectively put a block on US ratification of any climate treaty ever since."

Continue reading the article (subscription may be required) 

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/20/what-we-now-know-they-lied-how-big-oil-companies-betrayed-us-all

A sign displays the price of gas at an Exxon gas station in Washington DC, in March. Photograph: Stefani Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images

The magic of truth and lies (video)

Labor Day, the traditional end to summer.

There are those among us who do work, very hard, at looking for work.

There are those among us who work very hard, at getting enough to eat.

There are those among us who have so much, they become careless.

This Labor Day, take a few minutes. Reflect on where you are, what you have, what you can help some one with.

Be aware of the lies and deceptions you tell your self. The lies that others tell you.

Marco Tempest has this brief TED video to help understand the difference between truth and lies, deception and magic.



Enjoy!

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