I was actually at the first ever meeting of the IT department for my company from all over the country and about half of them did not understand why I do not like Windows 8...confirming the contempt I have developed for them based on the interactions I have had with them.

You are correct that it is motivated reasoning. However, not in the way you seem to think. Farmers are highly motivated to understand what the weather is going to be like from year to year (how hot is it going to be, how much is it going to rain, etc), because if they get it wrong they go broke and starve. If enough farmers get it wrong, we all starve. In summary, it is more important to a farmer to get it right than it is to a climatologist.

If you believe that, than what you really believe is that no one makes decisions. Everything you do is determined by external stimuli.

Except that detailed studies have suggested that, because they tend to die significantly younger, smokers actually put a lesser burden, over their lifetime, on the healthcare system than non-smokers.

Um...actually, no. The public conversation about universal healthcare goes back to the late 1800s, coincidentally about the same time that the march towards the government telling people how to live their lives started (actually, not so coincidentally, it was part of the same "progressive" movement which believes that we would be better off if "scientific experts" made our decisions for us).

Well, if he meant Democrat he should have said so.

I thought we were talking about Amazon. Jeff Bezos is a Democrat, or at least, the overwhelming majority of his political donations are to Democratic Party candidates and causes.

Yes, but what if the law firm received it from someone other than me because of a court order (or for some other reason)?

I do not trust my doctor because they are a doctor. I trust my doctor for the same reason I trust my mechanic, because they have proven themselves to be trustworthy. The primary reason I do not trust my insurance company is because I do not actually know any of the individuals who work there, let alone the ones who might be making decisions about what to do with my personal infor.

It does not matter. There is no reason to suppose that Neanderthals preferred vegetables, nor that they preferred meat, since they ate both. While it is possible, probably even likely, that their diet consisted primarily of whatever they could find that was edible, it is unlikely that they chose vegetables ONLY because that was all they could get or because they preferred them to meat.

You are asking the wrong question. There is no reason to suppose that Neanderthals preferred vegetables, since the conclusion is that they ate both vegetables and meat. I like meat, but I also eat vegetables. I do not eat vegetables because I prefer them to meat. Nor do I eat vegetables because I have nothing else around to eat. I eat vegetables because I like them (and sometimes because they are good for me).

UM, this story is about the U.S. Marshalls Service telling the police to lie in court. The U.S. Marshalls Service is part of the Department of Justice, which answers to the President, who is a Democrat. How exactly is this the Republicans doing anything?

Citizen's United brought the case because they believed, correctly, that campaign finance rules, as they existed at that time, were unconstitutional. Citizen's United did not want to "reform" campaign finance rules. They wanted to overturn unconstitutional campaign finance rules. This Mayday Super PAC wants to do more of what gave us the situation we have now.
Citizens United was a group of people who pooled their money in order to campaign against Hillary Clinton. The campaign finance reform said that they could not do so. So they went to court. Their win means that other groups of people may do the same. Their loss would have meant that only those already wealthy would have a say in political campaigns because only the wealthy would have enough money to launch coordinated campaigns to win or defeat electoral contests. Those with less money would have been forbidden from pooling their money in order to do so.

How do you get that Citizens United was part of campaign finance reform? Citizens United was a case where the Supreme Court found that the last "campaign finance reform" law over-reached and violated the Constitution. You may not know if this will work, but I've seen this same song and dance played before, so I know that it will not work. None of the people who cry about the money in politics want to do what it takes to actually fix the problem. The only way to get money out of politics is to reduce the power of government. If government has less power, the return on investment for buying access to politicians goes down and people with money will always choose to spend their money where they get the best return on investment. Right now, if you don't invest in politics, your return on investment for everything else approaches zero (or negative).

We've had campaign finance reform in the past. It made matters worse, not better. So what makes you think that this time will be different?