A Message For Us All
Stand By Me (Studio Demo) by Muhammad Ali - (Recorded as Cassius Clay) (converted to MP3 - 320kbps)
It’s Not Complicated
Now Is The Time For All Good Women and Men To Come To The Aid Of Their Country
Words On Leaders and Politicians
Not Always The Same We cannot, of course, expect every leader to possess the wisdom of Lincoln or Mandela’s largeness of soul. But when we think about what questions might be…
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…
Felon and Flakes and Fairy Tales, Oh My
Far-right Republican Congressman Mike Johnson, who is Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and second in line to the Presidency, is at it again in his role as Supreme Lackey, conveniently…
Words On Politics and Truth: An Oxymoron?
~ News Media. Politics. Pop Culture. Truth. ~ News Media and Presidential Campaigns ~ The style of campaigning is symbolic of – and results from – the central role played by the…
Words On Prejudices, Citizens, Imbeciles, and Elites.
Robert Heinlein. Abhijit Naskar. Bertolt Brecht. Robert Reich. You can sway a thousand men by appealing to their prejudices quicker than you can convince one man by logic. Robert A. Heinlein.…
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…
Words On Decisions, Movements, Courage
Dolores Huerta. Angela Davis. Jasilyn Charger. We do need women in civic life. We do need women to run for office, to be in political office. We need a feminist to…
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.…
JRB Is Asking America
Joe's Good Thing. It's All About Love, And Finishing The Job (more…)
Da Dems. That’s Them!
Dems Fighting Over ‘Virtual Roll Call’ To Nominate Joe Biden Before Convention ~ The Democratic National Committee says its virtual roll call will start next month. Some elected Democrats say it’s an…
Saving U.S. Democracy, Still
Voter apathy this election cycle is another privilege Black Americans do not have The fight for freedom is once again at our doorstep, and we cannot afford to stay home when oppression…
Words On Accents, Access and Favoring Freedom
Ana Navarro. Stacey Abrams. Frederick Douglass. Why am I a liberal? Because I don't forget that I'm an immigrant and that I'm a Hispanic and that I have a Latin accent…
Words On Life, Women, and BS
Easy To Grasp (more…)
Making Hypocrisy A Virtue. It’s A Sickness
Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday rejected claims of hypocrisy with House Republicans pushing a contempt of Congress charge against Attorney General Merrick Garland when Rep. Jim Jordan and other Republicans refused to…
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…
Words On Pure Wind and Politics
George Jean Nathan. George Orwell. Shirley Chisholm. Politics. Pure Wind. Trivial Men. Politics is the diversion of trivial men who, when they succeed at it, become important in the eyes of…
Our Mother and The Future of All Things Living
“We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children” First Nations proverb. The Planet is under severe assault; by climate changes, extreme rains and heat, dying…
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…
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)…
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…
History: It Can Help You. It Can Hurt You!
~ The immediate former president of the United States of America - twice impeached, four criminal indictments, 91-charges, civil indictments, etc., etc., etc., Donald J. Trump - is the leading Republican choice…
Just Go Away
~ No Worry, History Will Remember You ~ Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat and multi-millionaire, yacht-owning, oil champion from West Virginia told the world Thursday that he will not run for reelection…
Words On Politics
~ 2023 – Lessons Not Learned ~ Armed Militias. Electoral Disaster. Church Burnings vs Voter Fraud. We have been studying the armed militias with a group of more than 100…
Ranting in All CAPS; A Familiar Scam
“They want to take away my FREEDOM” Former President Donald Trump responded with fury Tuesday after he was arraigned on dozens of charges over his handling of classified documents and his alleged…
We Still Need More Ruths
Newsday - Long Island, NY, March 1971 From Letters to the Editor Segregated Island Hurrah for Martin Buskin (Feb.15) and Harold Levine (Feb.22) for their incisive articles about the segregated nature…
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
