Courage Required
• It's About Choices • The election is over. We know the cabinet picks. The stress level has gone up. But, we do not have to fall victim to the incoming hate…
Laugh Now, Cry Later: UPDATED
Red Wave. Blue Collapse. Blue Wave. Red Collapse. The Battle is ongoing. The Bullshit continues. It's Nothing New... Or Is It: UPDATED 11/14 - SEE BELOW (more…)
With Honours 11.11.24
Good Luck, America
It’s Not Complicated
Now Is The Time For All Good Women and Men To Come To The Aid Of Their Country
Swing State Press: The Report
* Hard Times For Press Freedom and Journos * A new report just out from Reporters Without Borders (RSF) takes a deep dive into press freedom in four U.S. 'swing states' just…
Compared: List of 20
A younger Trump, according to his first wife’s divorce filings, kept and studied a book translating and annotating Adolf Hitler’s pre-World War II speeches in a locked bedside cabinet. (more…)
A Spelling Bee
How Do You Spell Coward In American English (more…)
Reminder, Part Infinity
~ Special Counsel Prosecuting Trump Shows Us A Revealing Brief ~ Jack's got a new brief. It’s a nice brief. It’s a good brief. It’s a brief brief; only a 165-page…
Still Doing The Heavy Lifting
~ Our Gratitude ~ The Violence Against Women Act Turns 30, Today By Professor Dale Margolin Cecka, director of the Family Violence Litigation Clinic at Albany Law School. Intimate partner violence…
For Some, No Labor Today
* What Is Labor Day In America About * Labor Day is an opportunity to celebrate you, the American worker! The founders of the holiday envisioned this day as a way to…
A Call For Action
A coalition of more than three-dozen journalism, civil-rights and consumer-rights organisations released a letter Thursday, 15 August, calling on news outlets to do a much better job reporting on rising authoritarianism and…
Something Strange In America
Across the country Americans are overcome with a strange feeling. For some, it’s a new Thing; for others it’s familiar but been buried in the shit pail of chaos and the fears…
2024: Warnings Continue. Maybe We Should Pay Attention
Latest warning (August 2) of assaults on U.S. democracy comes loud and clear from the American Bar Association’s Task Force for American Democracy. “Our country and democracy face a wide variety of…
To Make Looking Forward Easier, Take A Look Back
Sometimes it makes sense to look back at what was in order to erase any doubt of what is needed, or wanted, for the future - of our lives, of the country.…
Joe Biden, American Patriot
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand Statement On President Biden’s Decision Not To Seek Reelection Jul 21, 2024 “President Biden has served our country with courage, compassion, integrity and decency. I am honored…
JRB Is Asking America
Joe's Good Thing. It's All About Love, And Finishing The Job (more…)
Happy Fourth, America. And Good Luck
When An Image & A Song Tell The Story (more…)
Say His Name. Never Forget
“George Floyd should be alive today. His murder shook the conscience of our nation and reminded us that our country has never fully lived up to its highest ideal of fair and…
The GOP and Unified Horror
On Monday, a video was posted on the social media network of a person named Donald J. Trump that included multiple references to something called a “unified Reich”. Most of us know…
Sure, It’s Just A Song. But, Man, We DO Need This Song
America, Where Did The Blue Skies Go ~ Let's Bring Them Back ~ (more…)
Mike Johnson Is A Threat To America, Part Infinity
Mike Johnson, Republican, Speaker of the House of the United States of America, and second in line to the Presidency, on Tuesday led a group of dangerous red-tie sycophants to the New…
Hate. America’s Fatal Disease
America today is overwhelmed by HATE and HATE will bring an end to ‘The Grand Experiment’. Yes, HATE has been an integral part of the American experiment from its beginning, bringing with…
Mass Murder Still NOT Patriotic
A terrorist attack on 19 April 1995 at a Oklahoma City federal building killed 168 people including 19 children and over 850 were injured. The bomber Timothy McVeigh, a U.S. Army veteran,…
Words On Freedom, Choices and Politics
Audre Lorde. Utah Phillips. Martin Luther King Jr. (more…)
There’s No Cure For Stupid
…When This Guy Is Your Hero… You Are One Sick Little-Dick MotherFuc*er ••• Donald Trump’s dinner guest at Mar-a-Lago Nick Fuentes says that when the America First movement takes power, all non-Christians…
Stunning. Disheartening. Dangerous.
••• A Story in Words and Images A stunning report by Thor Benson, staff writer at CommonDreams.org, reveals an absolute threat to the future of U.S. Democracy. Safe to say the piece…
Joy Amidst The Chaos
No doubt the US is teetering on the edge of the abyss. No doubt the whole world seems to be following close behind; or, is it the other way around. Really, it…
Emergency Call
Journalists in Ukraine Need Help
> Ukrainska Pravda <
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Those who cover the frontlines need first aid kits, medical supplies, flak jackets, helmets. Those trapped in towns and cities under fire need safe passage, relocation and humanitarian assistance.
More at International Federation of Journalists.
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Journalists in Gaza need your help. Here’s how:
International Media Support (IMS), the Danish-based media development organisation, is collecting donations for:
- Food, clothes, blankets and other utilities for journalists and their families
- Safety equipment and gear for journalists, such as press vests, helmets, cell phones and cameras.
- Psychosocial support for journalists
- Ongoing support to keep as many media outlets as possible operating.
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THE TRACKER
Freedom of the Press Foundation
Court says First Amendment means less free speech
[WHAAAAT ?!?!?!?]
If it sounds backward to use the First Amendment to undermine a law meant to protect free speech, that’s because it is.
Yet that’s just what a federal court of appeals did in a recent decision on Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act — the federal law that shields online services from legal liability for posts made by their users.
We explain on our website how the court’s nonsensical decision threatens online freedom of speech by journalists and everyone else.
Jobs & Events
Opportunity for Young Journalists
Rising D.C. reporters can apply for a yearlong reporting fellowship. The National Press Foundation is accepting applications for the 2025 Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellowship.
Fellows will learn more about the White House, the Pentagon, the Supreme Court, the Capitol and other key Washington institutions. They’ll review politics and policy with regulators, lawmakers, experts and the best reporters in the business.
To apply, submit two recent work samples, a letter of support from an editor or supervisor and a brief autobiography. Application Deadline is Dec. 2
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Color Of Change, in partnership with the National Education Association, invites you to watch “Educating for Equity: Brown v Board of Education 70 Years Later,” a short video featuring a range of young and older thought leaders talking about the groundbreaking case and the challenges facing our public education system today. Participants discuss what we need to do to protect education moving forward.
Issues
The Reading List
Lie Machines
How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Political Operatives
by Philip N. Howard
Lie Machines is full of behind-the-scenes stories from the world’s biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives.
Howard, not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and explains how to shut them down. Howard is a sociologist and communication researcher who studies the impact of information technologies on democracy and social inequality. Book Here:
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The ReMindEr
Speakables
The New Normal? ~ The first tool of authoritarian regimes is always informational control—both in the gathering of information on the public through surveillance and the filtration of information to the public through owned media. In its early days, the Internet seemed to pose a challenge to authoritarian regimes, but with the advent of social media, we are watching the construction of architectures that fulfill the needs of every authoritarian regime: surveillance and information control. Authoritarian movements are possible only when the general public becomes habituated to—and numbed by—a new normal. Christopher Wylie.
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What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. ‘What to a slave is the 4th of July’. 1852. Frederick Douglass.
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The First ~ Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870 – 1942)
The first published female photo-journalist in the United States and the first female night photographer. She is best known for her freelance news photographs, particularly of the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, and portraits of places such as Bohemian Greenwich Village. Her trademarks were her self-described “ability to hustle” and her tenacity in overcoming gender barriers in her profession.
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Repeat After Me
And it gets you elected
