Yes, Crying Clowns Can Be Dangerous
On February 2, 1653, New Amsterdam became a city in North America. For those who don't know, the city was later renamed New York City. Anyway, little known about the city's 1653…
Words On Dangers To America
We Must Start Urgently Talking About The Dangers Of A Second Trump Presidency With Trump’s victory in New Hampshire, the battle lines are drawn for November. Unless something very weird happens,…
Damn, America, Come In Out Of The Rain
DoJ Releases Devastating Report On ‘Cascading Failures’ Of Uvalde > The Justice Department’s report is a damning 575-page catalogue of confusion, lack of courage and their deadly consequences. Full Report here (pdf)…
Answer: Obviously Not
Question: Have You No Shame ~ Sometimes, Somethings Just Make You Vomit A Little In Your Own Mouth ~ ~ After A While, Some People Get To Like The Taste and…
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Honours, All Days
His Words Continue To Shine A Bright Light On America ~~ “We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools” ~ “Injustice anywhere is a threat…
Words On Politics and Freedom
Enchanted Gardens. False Promises. Immoral Flaws. Lewis. Malcolm X. Davis. Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant…
America Day 365: One Free – All Free
America Will Not, Can Not, Be Free Until All Are Free One Of Us - None Of Us None of Us Are Free / Solomon Burke
When Allowed, History Can-Will Repeat
~ One Word ~ The True Character of a So-Called ‘man’. On Veterans Day, Donald Trump, a one-term, twice-impeached, four-time indicted, 91-count charged criminal, publicly labeled rapist by judge in civil case,…
Veterans Day 2023. Honors
Thank You For Your Service and Sacrifice
America, A Day
Lafayette. Obama. Roosevelt. Colbert. The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty,…
American History; Yesterday Is Our Today
Nixon. Berlet/Lyons. Nichols. The knock on the door in the summer of 1995 surprised the Rev. James Carter. He wasn’t expecting company. It was a Sunday evening, and he’d planned to…
Do Not Let Hope Die
America: It's Now or Never ~ That all beings are great and all are part of and responsible to the Whole is a world view based on the concept of Reciprocity and…
Truth, Wisdom and Courage
Frederick Douglas Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob…
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; American
His words shine a bright light on America of today, 2023.01.16 ~~ (more…)
Same Game. Same Players. Same Playbook. Same Danger.
They Keep Trying. They Inch Closer. And Corporate Media Plays Its Role. Good Luck, American Democracy
The Threat From Inside The Asylum, It’s Real
Yes, of course, we lead with the latest shit-story about that Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene. A guest speaker at the Young Republicans gala this weekend,…
Democracy Can Be Messy and Ugly. Doesn’t Mean It Can’t Clean Up
America: Pass or Fail On Tuesday, 8 November, Americans will be tested: Does the Experiment continue – flawed as it might be – or will America fall in to the…
Hey Joe! You’re Being a Nero. Stop Fiddling!
'Fight for Us Goddamnit': Frustration Grows Over Biden Fecklessness Amid GOP Destruction via CommonDreams.org We simply cannot make promises, hector people to vote, and then refuse to use our full power…
Welcome to the Country of Death With Politicians Who Don’t Give A F*ck! … UPDATED
Fourth of July in a Dying America UPDATE: Police Confirm 7th Person Dead A 22-year old male using a high-powered rifle shooting from a rooftop at a Fourth of July parade in…
America At That Crossroad. Again. What’s Next?
Americans Have A Decision To Make. Choose Love and Respect, Succeed. Continue Choosing Hate, Devolve. (more…)
Never Forget: 1995.04.19
A terrorist attack on 19 April 1995 at the Alfred P. Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City killed 168 people including 19 children and over 850 were injured. It was the deadliest…
American Experiment, Crushed By Minority Rule
We Have Journeyed Far From Here ~ Supreme Court Blocks Biden The Supreme Court blocked the Biden administration from enforcing its emergency rule mandating that workers at large businesses get vaccinated or…
Adults. Guns. Kids. Guns. Mass Murders. Guns. America’s History. Guns!
Parents Of Oxford High School Shooting Suspect Charged With Involuntary Manslaughter ~ Ethan Crumbley’s mother and father face charges in the wake of a Michigan school shooting that left four students dead…
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
