State Sen. Vicki Marble of Ft. Collins “liked” a recent Facebook meme last depicting a woman getting a shot along with the statement, “5x MORE LIKELY to be diagnosed with a LEARNING DISABILITY.”

The image on the post comes from a YouTube video on how to administer a “flu vaccine.”

But Marble says her Facebook “like” does not necessarily mean she agrees with the post.

There are remote dangers associated with getting a flu shot, which are far outweighed by the potential benefits, according to the overwhelming consensus of scientific opinion.

Yet, each year, Facebook and social media sites become sickened with falsehoods linking the flu vaccine to various maladies. Snopes, along with other credible sources, have found these to be false, while acknowledging the remote risks.

There is no factual basis for the assertion that you are more likely to be diagnosed with a birth defect after getting a flu shot, much less “5x MORE LIKELY.”

Asked about the “like,” Marble said via email:

Marble: A “Like” on FB to many people, including myself, means “Thanks for the information” or “Thanks for posting”. There are things on FB I do not like reading, but, it
gave me heads up on a subject I may not have been aware of. Perhaps it gave a different look into the other side of the debate. I appreciate that. It’s pretty simple. Tweets/Blogs/FB/social media are where people voice opinions on events, other people, or, whatever they feel important. It isn’t considered investigative reporting. It may serve to perk the interest of the person reading the social media post to do more in depth research of the subject. That is a purpose served.

The Republican lawmaker once sponsored legislation affirming that parents can opt their children out of recommended vaccines in Colorado.

Marble’s comments on health issues have draw attention in the past.

Marble made national news last year for her dismissive response to a cub scout who asked Marble why she’d said that African-Americans suffer from poor health because they eat so much fried chicken.

Back in 2014, Marble asserted that immigrants bring previously eradicated diseases to the United States. She never provided evidence supporting this mean falsehood.

This post was updated after initial publication with a response from Marble.

Colorado State Sen. Vicki Marble (R-Fort Collins), who falsely claimed last month that she was misquoted by a Boy Scott, stepped up her complaints about the “liberal media” in a Facebook post last month.

“As the liberal media panders to its liberal base, they continue fanning the flames of hatred and racism against conservatives of all colors and American principles and values,” Marble apparently wrote last month in a Facebook post obtained from a source.

Specifically, Marble called KMGH-TV, Channel 7, “lame.”

Marble didn’t return an email seeking an explanation, but her attack on the media may stem from frustrations over press coverage of a speech she gave to a group of Boy Scouts in October.

Marble insisted that Denver media outlets were wrong to point out that she’d delivered a falsehood to a den full of Scouts, after one Scout told her that he was astonished that Marble had, as the Scout put it, “blamed black people for poor health and poverty because of all the chicken and barbecue they eat.”

Marble responded to the scout, fifth graderAmes Mayfield, that he she’d made no such statement.

“I didn’t, that was made up by the media,” Marble told Mayfield in the den. “So, you want to believe it? You believe it. But that’s not how it went down. I didn’t do that. That was false. Get both sides of the story.”

In fact, Marble made the following statement during a 2013 hearing: “When you look at life expectancy, there are problems in the black race. Sickle-cell anemia is something that comes up. Diabetes is something that’s prevalent in the genetic makeup, and you just can’t help it.

“Although I’ve got to say, I’ve never had better barbecue and better chicken and ate better in my life than when you go down South and you, I mean, I love it. Everybody loves it.”

The Scout was eventually booted from his den, but allowed to continue with another group of Boy Scouts.

Maybe we can’t stop Trump from promoting fake news, but we can at least try to stop our own leaders from spreading it. That’s the BigMedia Blog’s goal in bestowing Colorado’s first annual Fake News Awards to lawmakers and public figures.

Crusader for a Fact-Free Colorado! Award — State Sen. Ray Scott

It’s bad enough that State Sen. Ray Scott (R-Grand Junction) called the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel “Fake News,” but doing so while 1) promoting Sentinel articles he agreed with and 2) refusing to remove actual fake news from his own Facebook page earns Scott the award of Crusader for a Fact-Free Colorado. Scott refused to remove from his Facebook page a fake news item titled, “WikiLeaks CONFIRMS Hillary Sold Weapons to ISIS…Then Drops Another BOMBSHELL! Breaking News.” He also refused to delete a tweet with this ridiculous (and fake) quote from Ronald Reagan about Trump: “For the life of me, and I’ll never know how to explain it, when I met that young man, I felt like I was the one shaking hands with a president.” And that’s not all! Just for good measure, Scott recently promoted an ad designed to look like news (sponsored content) from Grand Junction Sentinel.

Who the Fuck Cares about the Facts? Award — State Rep. Patrick Neville and Casper Stockham

Sometimes we ask people to remove fake news, once determined to be false by outside fact checkers, and lawmakers ignore us (e.g., former State Rep. Shawn Mitchell, former State Sen. Laura Woods (R-Arvada). Other lawmakers talk about it with us in a civil manner and we agree to disagree (former GOP State Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt of CO Springs, Republican State Sen. Tim Neville of Littleton) And still, others say, essentially, who cares if it’s false? Take, for example, Republican State House Minority Leader Patrick Neville. Told about a falsehood on his Facebook page, he tweeted that we should “stop being such a #snowflake. End the #fakeoutrage #growup #moveoutofmomsbasement.” Meanwhile, the fake news remains on his Facebook page. A similar who-the-fuck-cares attitude toward the facts was revealed by failed GOP congressional candidate Casper Stockham, who posted a falsehood about a Muslim Target cashier refusing to sell pork, even though Stockham himself wrote that the meme is “probably not true.” It wasn’t. But there it sits on his Facebook page to this day.

Warriors Against the Fake News Darkness Awards

It’s been a depressing year on the fake news beat, but there’s hope on the home front. A growing number of Colorado officials are removing fake news, once they are alerted to the fact that it’s rotting on their social media feeds. Yay for these current and former lawmakers from both parties, who posted fake news and then removed it: State Rep. Polly Lawrence (R-Roxborough Park), State Rep. Susan Lontine (D-Denver), former State Rep. Marsha Looper (R-Calhan), U.S. Rep. Jared Polis (D-Denver), former State Rep. Kit Roupe (R-Calhan), Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tancredo, Former Democratic Mayor of Denver Wellington Webb, and Elbert County School Board Member Scott Wills. Joshua Hosler, Chair of the El Paso County Republican Party, also gets credit for removing fake news from his Facebook page, once he was alerted to it.

Let Me Deceive You — State Rep. Dave Williams

Despite the fact that immigrants are much less likely to commit crimes than the rest of the U.S. population, you’d think they were responsible for 83 percent of crimes committed on American soil if you only got your news from the Facebook timeline of state Rep. Dave Williams (R-Colo. Springs). Williams, who is a strong opponent of sanctuary city policies and even pushed a bill that would have punished politicians who enact them, almost exclusively highlights crime committed by immigrants. The only exceptions, making up 17 percent of crime-related posts on his timeline over the past 14 months, are an accusation that Hillary Clinton broke the law, a few posts expressing condolences after mass shootings, some promotion of his law to crack down on squatters, and an erroneous claim that an Antifa member stabbed an innocent man. Williams’ vastly disproportionate focus on immigrant crime deceives his Facebook followers into believing that undocumented immigrants are dangerous, when in reality, they’re more likely to be law-abiding citizens, and may actually cause crime to decline in their communities.

Mr. Congeniality Award — State House Candidate Raymond Garcia 

A failed GOP candidate for Colorado’s House of Representatives, Raymond Garcia’s offensive, inaccurate, and downright cringe-worthy Facebook timeline earns him the satirical title of Mr. Congeniality. His social media activity often reveals bigotry, like when he called Harvey Milk a pedophile and suggested that black people should feel guilty for slavery. He also repeatedly attacks Hillary Clinton, whom he refers to as “Hitlery”, and once even posted a poorly photoshopped image of her in which Donald Trump appears to grope her with the caption “OMG this is perfect!!!” What a charming fellow!

The “Earth Is Nearly in Its 21st Year Without Global Warming” Fake News Award — State Sen. Tim Neville

Global warming is a big priority for us fake news cops, so naturally we were alarmed when we saw State Sen. Tim Neville (R-Littleton) spreading fake news headlined, “Satellites: Earth Is Nearly in Its 21st Year Without Global Warming.” The linked article cites satellite data allegedly showing a “prolonged hiatus” in global warming. The mainstream scientific community, as reported by Factcheck.org, has found no hiatus in global warming on Earth. Yet, Neville has refused to remove the falsehood from his Facebook page.

Madeleine Schmidt contributed to this post.

U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona is a “media whore.” Fact-check journalism is “largely phony.”

Those quotes, which I included in recent blog posts, come from the personal Facebook page of Colorado Senate GOP spokesperson Sean Paige.

Going forward, he wrote on his Facebook page, he does not want people like me, who are not his Facebook friends, using quotes like those.

No doubt Paige does not want me to quote his polite request to stop quoting his Facebook material, but here I go anyway:

Paige: “Please note that these are my private and personal thoughts, which I post on this invite-only Facebook page for friends and associates–and which aren’t meant to reflect the views of clients I may have in the professional realm. I’m forced to add this because social media bottom-feeders, in a desperate bid for cannon fodder, relevance and clicks, have been stealing content from this page and republishing it on partisan attack blogs without my consent or permission, which I deem not just a violation of copright and an act of harassment, but a despicable effort to curtail and chill my privacy rights and rights to free speech and expression. So if you are here uninvited, with such aims in mind, please unfriend this page and stop misappropriating and misusing what I post here. Surely there must be better, more honest ways for you to get attention.)” (emphasis added)

When Paige complained on Twitter a few months ago about my quoting his Facebook posts, I responded by asking him if he thought Clinton’s private emails were out of bounds or Obama’s comments about Pennsylvanians who cling to their guns. Or Rep. Mike Coffman’s (R-CO) comment that he was unsure if Obama was an American in his heart.

Paige didn’t respond, but he’s gotta know, as a spokesman for politicians, how journalism and public debate works. Private information gets out. If it’s verifiable and relevant, it gets published. Trump gets mad but that’s life.

You sympathize with politicians and people like Paige who are scrutinized, but it’s tough to keep your thoughts private these days, especially when you blast them out at private fundraisers or post them on your personal Facebook page, which has hundreds of friends.

But now Paige, who did not immediately return a call for comment, is taking a different tack, with new accusations about people who quote his stuff:

An act of “harassment.” Not. It’s closer to bearing witness. In my case, I just quote him and try to explain it or challenge it.

“Curtail and chill” his privacy rights and rights to free speech and expression. Nope. I’m interested in debating him freely and letting his speech blossom into the sunlight.

“Violation” of his copyright. Again, no. Sharing is the way of social media, but Paige actually has an important point that copyright protections exist. But, per fair-use standards, you’re allowed to reproduce portions of copyrighted material for criticism and commentary. So my selective quoting of his Facebook page is ok.

If Paige is serious about trying to keep his stuff personal, he should de-friend all his Facebook friends, except the ones who won’t pass on his posts to me or others. But the person who shares my Facebook posts the most is my mother! She even prints them out and puts them on her fridge for all to see! So if I were Paige, I’d have a hard time keeping my posts under wraps. I mean, I’d never de-friend mom.

Rep. Patrick Neville, the leader of the Colorado House Republicans, has called me a “snowflake” for politely asking him, in a blog post last week, to remove news from his Facebook page that’s been retracted by CBS and the Associated Press.

Before being hit with the snowflake accusation, I thought Neville and I would quickly agree that he should cleanse the Kaepernick “news” from his Facebook page. It was thought to be accurate when he shared it Oct. 17, but not anymore.

But, alas, no, he didn’t agree. Instead, he tweeted this at me:

Neville: @BigMediaBlog needs to stop being such a #snowflake. End the #fakeoutrage #growup #moveoutofmomsbasement

So I’m a snowflake because I don’t want to see falsehoods on the Facebook page of one of the state’s top Republican lawmakers? I need to man up and accept fake news?

On Twitter, Neville called my blog post “fake news,” and he wrote that on Facebook he was “agreeing with and sharing someone’s post” about Kaepernick.

Neville referred to an an “update” on the Kaepernick “news” that he posted, saying there “are conflicting reports now on whether Kaepernick would or wouldn’t stand for the national anthem.”

But, again, both AP and CBS retracted the Kaepernick news, so it’s false to assert that “Kaepernick tells CBS he’ll stand during national anthem.” So the news is demonstrably false, even if you don’t want to accept Snopes’ identical conclusion.

I reached out to Neville again for this blog post, and I’m still hoping to hear back from him. It’s unusual for him to back off from any debate, especially with snowflake like me.

In an editorial this week, The Denver Post coined the term the “Colorado Obamacare lie” to describe repeated statements by GOP gubernatorial candidates that Obamacare is gobbling up the state budget when, in fact, it has “very little impact” on the state budget.

Nicely done.

And the phenomenon goes beyond GOP gubernatorial candidates, to Republicans in the state legislature and beyond.

For example, last January, State Sen. Tim Neville (R-Littleton) told the “Americhicks,” Molly Vogt and Kim Munson, on KLZ 560-AM, that the Obamacare, also called the “Medicaid expansion,” is “eating every single dollar that we have,” that could be spent on other priorities.

Neville: I believe it’s time for the government to re-prioritize, and of course the 800-pound gorilla in the room is the Medicaid expansion, which the governor did several years ago, eating every single dollar that we have in increased expense.

Also last year, we got this Tweet from the Colorado Senate GOP (@ColoSenGOP), linking to a chart of state and federal Medicaid expenditures: “Maybe Colo could afford FullDayK if #Dems weren’t pouring every spare $ into Obamacare #choices #copolitics #coleg pic.twitter.com/zrS1L6v5KO.”

The Post’s reporting, followed up by its editorial, should put an end not only to this kind of talk on the campaign trail, but in the state legislature as well.

The Fake News Pledge has now been signed by seven state lawmakers, all Democrats: State Representatives Mike Foote of Lafayette, Susan Lontine of Denver, Michael Merrifield of Colorado Springs, and Michael Weissman of Aurora as well as State Sen. Irene Aguilar of Denver, State Senate Minority Leader Lucia Guzman of Denver, and State Sen. Dominick Moreno of Commerce City.

The Pledge is a promise not to spread fake news on Facebook. It defines fake news as a story “deemed false or inaccurate by Snopes, Politifact, Factcheck.org, or by a respected news outlet.” It also must be “packaged to look somehow like news.” Everyone who supports factual discourse, Dem or Republican, should support it.

Westword’s Michael Roberts’ post on this topic today shows why the Pledge isn’t an empty gesture: Colorado state lawmakers and candidates spread obvious fake news on their Facebook pages. Look at the Westword piece, take a step back for a moment, and you realize realize how unbelievably crazy it is for elected officials and candidates to post this kind of stuff.

As far as I know, this is the only tangible step by state lawmakers nationally to fight fake news.

So the signers deserve our thanks for having the guts to try to do something.

And please note those who wouldn’t sign: Sen. Kevin Lundberg (R-Berthoud) and Sen. Tim Neville (R-Littleton). Neville told me that “each individual has to be the arbiter of fake news. Lundberg said the term fake news “smacks of a new censorship.”

Overall, I’ve found six Colorado state legislators who posted fake news on their Facebook pages (See here and here). Two removed it (State Rep. Polly Lawrence and former State Rep. Kit Roupe). Two told me they would not remove it (former State Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt and State Sen. Tim Neville). Neville posted this: “Earth Is Nearly in Its 21st Year Without Global Warming.” And two lawmakers did not respond to my request that it be deleted (State Rep. Ray Scott, and former State Sen. Laura Woods).

After launching the Pledge, I was accused of being a “fake reporter” by former State Sen. Greg Brophy. And other conservatives attacked me, as if my being progressive somehow undermines the pledge. I am progressive, and I’m paid by progressives. I don’t hide it. But I’m committed to being factual in my writing–and we all can expect the same from our state lawmakers of any political stripe. So I’m hoping more of them sign the Pledge.

Jon Caldara’s sniffling Denver Post op-ed last month, decrying fellow Republicans who voted to save rural hospitals via a budget maneuver, prompted ColoradoPols to write a post headlined, “World’s smallest violin plays for legislative loser Jon Caldara.”

But, in case you missed it, Caldara took heat from fellow Republicans too, such as State Sen. Larry Crowder (R-Alamosa), who wrote a letter to The Post in response to Caldara, who heads up the conservative/libertarian Independence Institute.

Crowder pointed out that doing nothing would have resulted in “demise and closure of a vast number of these rural hospitals.”

Crowder took issue with Caldara for thanking Republicans who voted against the measure, which reclassified the “hosptital provider fee” as a business under TABOR.

Caldara: Let me thank the courageous Republican senators who stood up to leadership and the pressure cooker of the takings coalition and voted no: John Cooke, Chris Holbert, Kent Lambert, Kevin Lundberg, Vicki Marble, Beth Martinez-Humenik, Tim Neville, Ray Scott and Jim Smallwood. Heroes all.

Crowder: The lawmakers Jon Caldara thanked for voting against the bill all happen to represent metropolitan areas, where hospitals are big business. But that isn’t true for rural hospitals, many of which are just trying to stay open. Closure of these facilities would mean real hardship for rural Colorado.

But Republican state senators who voted against the reclassification of the HPF were doing more than rejecting the painful cries from rural hospitals.

They were turning their backs on pretty much the entire business community, with deep ties to Republicans, which stood together in favor of the HPF reclassification. Recall this list of biz groups that backed the HPF reclassification last year.

So, it’s no surprise that State Sen. Ray Scott (R-Grand Junction), is apparently a persona non grata at the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce these days.

In a recent Facebook post, Scott wrote that the GJ Chamber “refused” to read his statement at their annual breakfast because, Scott wrote, he’s “chopped liver or they wanted to see how many would notice.”

Scott posted his rejected statement, which stated that “cities and counties put immense pressure on legislators to help fulfill their budget demands especially in the 44 counties that are distressed as Mesa County is. It was so hard to say no to many times but the reality is the state budget has been a runaway train for 12 years are we are tasked with holding the line.”

Scott, who was unable to attend the Grand Junction Chamber’s event, went on to blame Democrats for the budget problem, but he didn’t mention that some of his fellow Republicans, like Crowder, inched toward a solution. While Scott’s success was getting thanked by Caldara in The Denver Post.

Despite the example set by Trump, it seems that public figures in Colorado are being more careful about posting fake news on their Facebook pages than they were prior to the last election.

And to their credit, some officials in Colorado are removing fake news, if they are convinced it’s inaccurate.

But former State Rep. Laura Woods (R-Westminster), who lost her state senate seat in November, apparently hasn’t gotten the memo about how fake news rots civic discourse, not to mention representative government.

She apparently posted this fake news item, provided to me by a source, last week, headlined, “Trey Gowdy Breaks Silence After 2 of His Investigators Were Found Tortured and Killed-Proud Patriots.”

Woods apparently commented, “OM gosh…The Clintons’ trail of dead bodies is unbelievable. Hopefully Attorney General Sessions will take them down.”

It appears that Woods refused to remove the fake news, even after a someone on her Facebook feed pointed out that it was debunked by Snopes.

Woods doesn’t return my calls, but I invite her to sign the Fake News Pledge for Citizens here.

But it appears she may have found her own way to deal with Fake News, with a site offering right-wing radio host Mark Levin, right-wing columnist Michelle Malkin, and others:

Last month, Rocky Mountain Community Radio’s Bente Birkeland broke the news that Colorado Republicans are taking concrete steps, including more frequent press briefings, to improve their relations with Colorado journalists.

In response, I offered the free advice that GOP lawmakers should consider a halt to sweeping accusations of liberal media bias.

State Sen. Vicki Marble (R-Ft. Collins) didn’t take my advice–or she isn’t one of the three people who read my blog posts–because she hit reporters with the salvo in a recent Facebook post, forwarded to me by a source.

Marble apparently “liked” a meme that read:

THE MEDIA ARE THE ENEMY. FIGHT THEM, OR LOSE AMERICA.–Ben Shapiro.”

“Do you believe the lies of the liberal media? LIKE if you agree we need to fight back,” reads the comment atop the meme, sponsored by the Daily Wire, founded by Shapiro, who’s a former Breitbart editor.

Marble, the state Senate majority caucus leader, isn’t alone, as 1.5 million others also liked the meme, according to the ad, if you can believe that. You’d be excused doubting it, given that a Daily Wire headline last week read, “Trump Is 100% Vindicated On Wiretapping, and 7 Other Things You Should Know.”

It’s one thing to “fight back” with reporters over facts; it’s another to suggest that they are the enemy.

In any case, I can understand if you’re wondering why I’d bother writing this post about a small deep-swimming fish like Marble, when we have Trump regularly calling professional journalism fake news.

But that’s why I’m writing about Marble. Marble is the fish in our tank, and her colleagues, who seem to want to respect journalism more, should talk to her about whether suggesting the media are the enemy helps their cause or anyone’s. She didn’t return an email from me.