To Blog or not to Blog.... that is the question

Say, have you seen my democracy?  You know the land of the free and the home of the brave with liberty and justice for all?  It seems like every day there is a new assault on every right we have except the right to bear arms, and even that right doesn't apply to all.  EYE am scared to Blog but EYE am more scared not to Blog so here goes.  

From the Files of Freedom isn't Free

Trumpsters can dish it out but they can't take it.

This Colbert joke was the bridge too far for Trumpers. Sure, they were on board when during the campaign Trump mocked a disabled reporter. And when Trump demonized Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and stoked hate versus Muslims by saying “Islam hates us.” Many of them defended Trump’s bragging about grabbing women by the genitals as “locker room talk.” And Trumpers literally cheered at his campaign rally in October when he called the courageous women who came forward to report that Trump had sexually assaulted them “horrible liars”.

So they call on the government to take care of it for them 

Late night talk show host Stephen Colbert’s controversial joke about President Trump drew the attention of the Federal Communications Commission. The agency received “a number” of complaints about Colbert’s commentary earlier in the week, according to the FCC’s chief.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai promised to “take the appropriate action” following a comprehensive investigation of Colbert’s remarks.
The FCC's response will depend on whether Colbert’s remarks are considered “obscene.”

In Case You Missed It

The Trump administration is making Fox News into official State TV

The televisions in public areas at the Health and Human Services Department headquarters in Washington have been switched to Fox News. Now the same change appears to have applied to other HHS buildings, including Food and Drug Administration buildings in Maryland.
According to two people who work at the agency, the televisions at the Hubert Humphrey building had previously rotated among the three main cable channels every three days or so. But since shortly after the Trump administration took over, the televisions have been on Fox News.
One of the sources suggested that the information came from "high up" in the agency. (Our colleague Dan Diamond first pointed out in January that the televisions were tuned to Fox.) Now, a new internal email that appears to be from the agency's White Oak campus in Silver Spring, posted to Twitter by several reporters, says current administration officials ordered the change.

They hate us for our freedom 

To be black in America means to live in a state of constant vulnerability. 

So far in 2017, black people have constituted 25 percent of the police shooting victims, according to the Washington Post.
Out of the 339 people shot and killed by police this year, 85 of them are black—and it’s only May.

And we dare not protest 

We are in an era where the White House considers Black Lives Matter to be a terrorist organization. Deliberate attacks against black people who are fighting for justice—whether the Rev. Clementa Pinckney of Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., or half a dozen other activists killed by white nationalists in the last decade—are not far-fetched.

If you are scared then say you are scared 

Don't underestimate Trump

As far back as 2006, Lakoff saw the writing on the wall. “A dark cloud of authoritarianism looms over the nation,” he wrote in his book Thinking Points, A Progressive’s Handbook. ”Radical conservatives have taken over the reins of government and have been controlling the terms of the political debate for many years.” The progressives couldn’t hear him, either.

Why we can't wait

Am I just paranoid—or perhaps merely still sufficiently medicated—to wonder if these giddy omadhauns who went to the White House kegger on Thursday afternoon did so because they have faith unbroken in voter suppression, gerrymandering, and other activities within the margin of chicanery that has come to mark close elections in this country?

RedEye tiptoeing away from the computer to go pray....

Update: If journalistic intergrity means anything to you read, sign, and share this petition

 Update:  The Fox 45 reporter and the photographer are taking the fall for the news director.

The reporter and the photographer responsible for misquoting Tyrone West's sister, Tawanda Jones, at a protest rally in Washington, D.C., reporting she and others chanted "kill a cop," have been let go by Fox 45, according to two sources confirming a report that first appeared on the site FTVLive.com. - See more at: http://www.citypaper.com/blogs/the-news-hole/bcp-the-fox-45-crew-behind-the-bogus-kill-a-cop-story-has-been-let-go-20141231,0,2353761.story#sthash.OqidMFY0.dpuf

For those who remember the recent Baltimore-based Fox News affiliate WBFF’s deplorable attempt at misrepresentation of peaceful protests in the midst of the Black Lives Matter movement dominating the country since the murderers of Michael Brown and Eric Garner were cut loose of any charges, a petition is now being circulated calling for those responsible for the devious misrepresentation to be fired and for the station to receive large FCC fines. 

RedEye's Week in Review

This is something we all need to remember, especially with an election year coming up. Far too many politicians think if they tell a lie enough times, it will essentially become the truth. It won't!
h/t jobsanger RedEye's addendum, far too many media outlets enable far too many politicians to lie to us. It's time to occupy the FCC!

What do we call a government agency created to manage telephony, Internet, wireless, cable, and broadcasting in the public interest, but has been the captive of greedy corporations for decades? We call it the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission. What can we do when corrupt authorities like the FCC utterly forfeit their legitimacy, and just aren't listening? We can raise our voices. We can withdraw our consent. We can occupy their public space, which is really ours anyway.

What's that you say? Senate Republicans chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans? Who knew? Not we the people that's for sure thanks to the latest media enabled weapon of mass distraction.

So it was nice that Cain was getting attention. But the primaries are drawing near, and today he leads in some polls as the Republican nominee, the bulk of his support those very tea party types that conservative stalwarts could rely on to “get” their most decipherable dog whistles, such as Reagan announcing his run for the presidency in Mississippi, near where those legendary anti-state rights workers were killed.

Meanwhile under the radar..."You're Going To Detention!" Takes On A Sickening Sense Of Permanence

On Tuesday an ugly coalition of Republicans and mostly conservative Democrats beat back an amendment by Mark Udall (D-CO) to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012. The amendment, defeated 60-38 would have been a slap in the face to Obama, who threatened to veto it, so it may seem off that virtually all the Republicans backed up the president. It called for replacing the current rules on detention of terrorism suspects and called for military and intelligence officials to come up with their own blueprint on how to interrogate and hold detainees.

Psst! Occupy Austin, I know how it it feels when your Allotted Amount of Free Speech Has Expired!"

The Republican party believes government doesn't work and sets out to prove it when they're elected. Unfortunately, the more they demonstrate their thesis, the fewer people vote, making it ever easier for Republicans to get elected so that government functions even less ...

Vicious cycle, and we need to find a way out of it. h/t mooncat

I agree, but suppressing effective progressive voices is NOT who can counter the right wing, spin, machine is NOT the way out.

You can be sure: Republicans are willing to use legislation, our language, and our emotions--and not so much our intellect--to achieve their ends. We don't have to operate in the same fashion as they do, but we do have to be willing to expose their tactics, and deploy a counterattack to their attacks, lest the whole nation ends up in an oversize body bag. h/t Black Disapora

RedEye over and out..... for now.

I want my @#$^ HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in back!

Two years into President Obama's historic election I'm wondering how in the world HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in got hijacked by the gop infused, media enabled, Tea Baggers? I mean, really...how and why did we (Democrats/Progressives/Liberals) let this happen? There are more of us than there are of them as proven by President Obama's landslide 2008 victory. What the hell happened???

This is what I believe happened...President Obama didn't control the message, the gop infused, media enabled Tea Party controlled the message. He who controls the information controls the outcome.

Until and unless the democratic party comes up with it's own television network like Faux News and nationally syndicated talk radio shows/hosts like Limbaugh, Hannity and Beck, the republicans are always going to control the message.

President Obama can help us help him by reinstating the Fairness Doctrine.

What has not changed since 1987 is that over-the-air broadcasting remains the most powerful force affecting public opinion, especially on local issues; as public trustees, broadcasters ought to be insuring that they inform the public, not inflame them. That's why we need a Fairness Doctrine. It's not a universal solution. It's not a substitute for reform or for diversity of ownership. It's simply a mechanism to address the most extreme kinds of broadcast abuse.

It ought to be against the law to use the public airways to diseminate hate and misinformation.

"The FCC has a responsibility to set standards, to say the public can not be offended based on their race or their gender in this country and use federally regulated airwaves that they give licenses to that are very competitive and the FCC is very selective based on standards."

Then we have the Media Lobbying Complex, distoring what we decide.

A four-month investigation into the covert corporate influence on cable news found that since 2007 at least seventy-five registered lobbyists, public relations representatives and corporate officials have repeatedly appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN, CNBC and Fox Business Network with no disclosure that they are paid by corporate interests.

The passage of the the Local Community Radio Act is a start.

The Local Community Radio Act will expand the low power FM (LPFM) service created by the FCC in 2000 – a service the FCC created to address the shrinking diversity of voices on the radio dial. Over 800 LPFM stations, all locally owned and non-commercial, are already on the air. The stations are run by non-profit organizations, local governments, churches, schools, and emergency responders.

The bill repeals earlier legislation which had been backed by big broadcasters, including the National Association of Broadcasters. This legislation, the Radio Broadcast Preservation Act of 2000, limited LPFM radio to primarily rural areas. The broadcast lobby groups claimed that the new 100 watt stations could somehow create interference with their own stations, a claim disproven by a Congressionally-mandated study in 2003.

Lost Hope?

When America elected Barack Obama, cynicism seemed in retreat, beaten back by a wave of ordinary people staking their time, money, and spirit on the prospect of significant change. We seemed to have reached a major historical turning point, offering the chance finally to address our country's root crises. Now, cynicism and despair have bounced back on steroids, as if to mock any new hope that we can help create a better world. Last year's soaring expectations seem distant memories, leaving a bitter taste. Obama's campaign made grassroots participation central, and he's invited us to help him do the right thing in office. But his compromises and the failings of Senate leaders to overcome the resistance of their obstructionist colleagues have destroyed much of the grassroots enthusiasm that existed a year ago. Meanwhile, those of us whose passionate engagement helped elect Obama haven't stepped up to help define our national debates (while the Teabaggers have). Most of us have done little in the past year beyond signing online letters or petitions, and watching shell-shocked from the sidelines as the country's politics spiraled steadily downward. Yet I still believe that we can help transform America through what Nelson Mandela called "the multiplication of courage," as I explore in "Soul of a Citizen." But for that resurgence of courage to bloom, we need to get past the cynical resignation that assumes change is impossible.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Let's get going in 2011 and take our @#$^ HOPE for CHANGE we can believe in back!

Yes
We
Can