A Truly Embarrassing Spectacle
• Returning To The Scene of The Crime, By Invitation • ~ With Mitch McConnell As Representative of Today’s Republican Party ~ 3 February 2021, Mitch McConnell: “Former President Trump’s actions that…
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…
Whatever… Ms Murkowski
Reports are circulating that Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican from Alaska, has said she “absolutely” will not vote for former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Also, according to CNN, the senator…
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…
Still Stinking Up The Place
For years, many years, Republicans have been shitting all over the USofA leaving a toxic stench that has penetrated the minds and hearts of nearly half the nation's citizens, which is leading…
Yes, Some Stories Really Are ‘Must Read’
‘MAGA Mike Johnson’ Wants Commission to Cut Social Security Formed ‘Immediately’ Social Security Works said that the new House speaker’s “NUMBER ONE priority is to cut our earned benefits behind closed…
America Has A New Speaker: Danger Ahead?
Beliefs and Country: Contradictions On Display Mike Johnson, the newly seated Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, now second in line to the Oval Office, was first elected to…
Sleaze-Bag Kevin Gets Balls Cut Off, With The Whole World Watching
Kevin McCarthy has groveled and slithered his way around and through the U.S. House of Representatives for years; this is no big secret. But now he has been outed, by the very…
The Assault On U.S. Democracy Is Far From Over
~ When Fascists Tell You They’re Fascists, Believe Them ~ Talking Points Memo, one of the better websites for short and long-read news stories, yesterday posted ‘Our Slow-Moving National Crisis Is…
You’re Messing With The Wrong Woman
~ Stupid People Doing Stupid ~ ~ Make Big Mistake Going After DA Fani Willis ~ Let's forget the bullshit about whether or not it was a good move by Fulton County…
8 Cowards Plus 1 Disgusting Human Being
Well, they had their first gathering on a TV stage. Eight Republican candidates hoping for a shot at the nomination to be president of the United States of America. And they all…
It’s Not Me. It’s Them! So Give Me Your Money. UPDATED
UPDATED: 2023.04.04 Trump's campaign sent a fundraising email Tuesday morning with a note from the former president calling America "a Marxist Third World country that CRIMINALIZES dissent and IMPRISONS its political opposition."…
Face of the Republican Party, And It Ain’t Pretty
The Party of Lincoln Has Hit A New Low. How Low Can They Go? The creep known in the U.S. House of Representatives, in New York State, and now pretty much around…
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,…
Can’t Laugh. Can’t Feel Sorry For The Guy. But, Damn!!!
Here we go again: Trump, The GOP, and Crazy Time So, as expected, Donald ‘Can I Be More Pathetic’ Trump made his announcement – he’s running again for President of The United…
Flying Their True Colours
Last week 203 House Republicans voted against legislation preventing U.S. Presidents from using the Electoral Count Act to overturn the will of the People. The bill did pass 229-203: every House Democrat…
Is This a Trick Question?
Is There a Republican Alive Who Still Believes in Democracy? Republican state governments are currently passing laws to restrict Democrats from voting in the future, while taking care not to suppress the…
Shrinking Into Nothingness
In an opinion piece on Tuesday at The Guardian, Robert Reich poses a familiar, and some may say inevitable, Democratic Party policy outcome: Is Biden’s entire agenda about to shrink into nothingness?…
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
