The insomnia was pretty fierce last night. So, that meant that I was squinting into my iphone at 3:00 in the morning reading articles about politics. David Remnick’s piece in the New Yorker is long, but excellent.

Hobbled by lack of sleep, I have to prepare for a pasta dinner for the cross country team tonight (should I make homemade meatballs?), wait around for my editor to look at the article that I wrote yesterday, and make a quick run to Old Navy for new pants for Ian who keeps growing and growing.

As I’ve been doing the usual juggling between work and mom responsibilities this week, I’ve had CNN on the background all day. I still feel like we’re in crisis-mode. Like I’m watching the country unravel. I have some hopes that Trump is going to pick some establishment Republicans for his cabinet that will keep the lid on the insanity and keep our basic democratic institutions in place for four years.

But then there’s the Steve Bannon character in the background whispering his ear. He scares the crap out of me.

The proliferation of lies by the alt-right press is disturbing. I saw it a bit of that on my Facebook feed last month. Someone posted a link to some article that claimed that Hillary was running a child prostitute ring that serviced Anthony Weiner and her husband. With Donald Trump as a mouthpiece for the alt-right, will there be any checks on this group?

When did Fox News become a voice of reason? When did Mitt Romney become the savior for normality?

The utter lack of checks on Brietbart, Drudge, and even more disreputable sources is a real problem. We, who work for the mainstream media, have become too cautious, fearful of lawsuits and hobbled by a devotion to truth, to properly counteract them. Sensational stories, like Hillary’s porn ring, have too much power, while Remnick’s TL;DR articles for the New Yorker are ignored.

The truth is important. Call me a cornball, but I do value facts. We need to do a better job of challenging our friends and family who are suckered in by sensational news stories and supporting news organizations that operate with integrity and ethics.  I feel so strongly about the need to buttress the fifth estate that I’m going to keep writing for little money for a news organization that I respect. I’m also going to keep blogging and tweeting, even if I sometimes feel like I’m spitting into the wind.