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Eric Blair

@protecttruth.bsky.social

28K followers 1.5K following 4.6K posts

Status Quo Politics is holding us back. Who will call for a big fight, and big change? The status quo cannot hold. SCOTUS delenda est

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · Jun 22

Why push for impeachment?

Because politics is an exercise in moving public opinion as much as counting votes in the senate.

The Jan 6 Hearings were not a criminal proceeding against Trump that would end in jail, but they focused public attention.

Performative public investigations matter

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 9h

It's so bad over at NYT Opinion.

Soltis Anderson is a Repub operative. Nate Silver is... well, Nate Silver, a gambling-addled reactionary centrist who has been a bad pundit (if a decent data person) his whole career. And Marc Rowan profits from destroying universities.

This is misinformation.

Joe Berkowitz @joeberkowitz.bsky.social · 10h

Incredible things are happening, as ever, at The Paper of Record.

two articles in a row that feel like very 2025 slaps in the face:

Frank Bruni, Kristen Soltis Anderson and Nate Silver

‘Democrats Fumbled This a Bit’: 3 Writers Assess Where We Are With the Shutdown

Marc Rowan

Academia Is Broken. Trump’s University ‘Compact’ Can Help Fix It.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 10h

The problem is that normie Times readers will read and believe this, because they won’t have the context in the thread below.

Gregg Gonsalves @gregggonsalves.bsky.social · 13h

Thank you @nytopinion.nytimes.com for publishing this rot. Marc Rowan has run hundreds of companies into the dust to extract profits from their failure and bankruptcies. Now he wants to do the same to American higher education. Do not believe a word this man says. 1/ www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/o...

Opinion | Trump’s ‘Compact’ With Universities Is Badly Needed

www.nytimes.com

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mtsw @mtsw.bsky.social · 20h

Thiessen having a good chuckle about his fired liberal colleagues - some of whom he worked with for 15 years - is a good reminder that token conservatives at mainstream news outlets are/were there to destroy them, not to contribute to them.

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 23h

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Quinta Jurecic @qjurecic.bsky.social · 1d

I wrote legal editorials for the Post for a hot minute many years ago, and I was constantly anxious about making sure I got the details right. This editorial is just humiliating for everyone involved

Philip Bump @pbump.com · 1d

I spent more than a decade at The Post. It was good to me and I was proud to work there. I’ve largely refrained from being critical since I left. But this framing of the special counsel probe is embarrassing and flatly wrong. Stunning, but not. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Opinion | Jack Smith’s lawfare and James Comey’s arraignment on pathetically weak charges

Good people will be deterred from public service if they see a meaningful risk of winding up in jail afterward.

www.washingtonpost.com

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Will Stancil @whstancil.bsky.social · 1d

This is nightmarish and every Dem politician, every media figure who is silent is complicit. This is not supposed to happen here. Masked thugs with guns dragging moms away in front of their screaming children. Trump’s government must be destroyed and his accomplices must rot in prison

The Tennessee Holler @thetnholler.bsky.social · 1d

CHICAGO — Outside an elementary school during dismissal… horrifying. What have we become?

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Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

papers like the New York Times actively help right wing propagandists by introducing false claims as something that's open to debate and interpretation, instead of clearly framing them up front as lies pushed by unreliable operators

Turning Point USA is a right wing propaganda op aimed at kids

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

Great thread on civil rights history and labor

Erik Loomis @erikloomis.bsky.social · 1d

This Day in Labor History: October 9, 1961. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a Tennessee state Supreme Court order revoking the charter of the Highlander Folk School. Let's talk about the most important organizing space int he South for both labor and civil rights!

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

“The Gundo as the kids call it”

Karl Bode @karlbode.com · 1d

you get a real sense of FCC boss Brendan Carr's charm and humor from this intro to a blog post he wrote this week

Brendan Carr, attempting humor "This month is Spice Month at the FCC. I’ve already had several pumpkin spice lattes this season, so I’m particularly excited about this month’s agenda.

Wait. Hold on. I’m now being told that it’s actually Space Month. Apparently, the person who told me had a bit of an Australian accent. In any event, every month I say we’re keeping a rapid pace, and in that spirit we’re launching nine items this month.

One of the pillars of the FCC’s Build America Agenda is boosting our space economy. That’s why, today, I’m in El Segundo, California—or The Gundo as the kids call it—where I’m outlining the space portion of this month’s agenda."

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

It feels like we are seeing a shift happening, towards “fight.” Bravo.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

And this from @chrismurphyct.bsky.social is great too.

“ I think when you've been in politics, chmbed the ladder, gotten to a position of authority, sometimes, for whatever reason, some of the risk-taking instincts that you might have had earlier
in your career maybe disappear a bit.”

THENEW REPUBLIC
Sargent: Yeah. And I wonder whether that's really a dodge in many cases. Some Democrats just don't want the fight that you're taking on. They don't want to get into an argument like this one for various reasons. And then they just sort of say that this is the reason for it, the ones that you offered. It's not an easy argument to get into, because, one, it's hard to explain to people, people don't want to hear it-although I think more and more people do want to hear it in a sense. The Democratic base certainly wants to hear it. And a segment of independents want to hear people saying it. But it strikes me that Democrats are being evasive and creating excuses after the fact for it. Does that seem too harsh to you?
Senator Murphy: No, that doesn't scom
too harsh. I think when you've been in politics, chmbed the ladder, gotten to a position of authority, sometimes, for whatever reason, some of the risk-taking instincts that you might have had earlier in your career maybe disappear a little bit.
So yes, I think that there are some people that just aren't up for this fight. I get it.
There are some people who say a shutdown is really bad for people. And it is. People will get hurt in a shutdown. But they'll get hurt more if our democracy never recovers from this. They'll get hurt more if the oligarchs take total control of our government and are able to steal without any check, with total impunity, from the people. So, yeah, I think people need to understand that this is a fight worth having, and it's still a fight we can still win.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

This is great from @schumer.senate.gov : he is showing genuine emotion and he’s tying the long history of R attacks on healthcare to the present day - and the bad bill this summer. Bravo. Style AND substance.
And the conflict and anger drives attention. Good.

Chuck Schumer @schumer.senate.gov · 3d

The government is shut down because Trump and the Republicans are hellbent on taking health care away from you.

And they won’t even come to the table to talk to us about it.

This is not about politics. It's about people.

Let’s break it down:

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 1d

I have been hard on Congressional Democratic leaders the past few months. So I want to make sure to be positive here. This is seriously good from @hakeem-jeffries.bsky.social.
Conflict drives attention and reaches the low-engagement public.

It feels like we are seeing a real shift from Dems! 1/

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 1d

Jeffries to Lawler: "You're a complete and total embarrassment. You're embarrassing yourself and your district right now. And you're going down to defeat next year."

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

We don't need another Fairness Doctrine. But we do need to revive its spirit - we need policies that reduce billionaire control over media, increase news independence, and reduce the impact of money and concentrated power on the marketplace of ideas.

That's what the FCC creators wanted.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

The Fairness Doctrine was about increasing speech diversity and preventing billionaires from filling the airwaves with one kind of speech.

It was one of many tools the FCC used to prevent the wealthy and powerful from controlling our media.

take a step back to see why the Fairness Doctrine was created

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

When we take over control of our government again from the fascists, we MUST HAVE a media strategy that involves preventing media ownership by a handful of billionaires.

True freedom of the press comes from diverse voices, not control by a few.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

Billionaire control of media through ownership was the issue back in the 1920s when the Radio Acts were being debated, it was the issue in 1934 when the FCC was created, it was the issue in 1968 when Nicholas Johnson wrote that, and it is the issue today.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

This FCC commissioner, Nicholas Johnson, is explicitly warning, more than 50 years ago, about exactly the Ellison-CBS-Bari Weiss problem.

The issue is billionaire ownership of media that constricts free and open public debate.

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

[emphasis mine]

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

"Threats to the free exchange of information and opinion in this country can come from various sources, many of them outside the power of the FCC to affect...

But one aspect of the problem is clearly within the purview of the FCC — the impact of OWNERSHIP upon the content of the mass media."

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

This was a few decades after the creation of the FCC — 1968 — but this FCC commissioner outlines how a main function of the FCC is to stop "Media Barons" [billionaires] from harming the public interest.

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/arc...

Explore

The Media Barons and the Public Interest: An FCC Commissioner's Warning
The message aside, the medium may be turning into a quadruple threat, argues Federal Communications Commissioner Johnson. Local monopolies, regional baronies, nationwide empires, and corporate conglomerates are more and more in control of the nation’s communications media — newspapers, TV, radio, magazines, books, the electronic “knowledge industry.” The commissioner offers a brief in protest against the trend and in favor of steps to stop it. At thirty-three, Mr. Johnson already has one spirited David-Goliath role behind him: the President named him head of the Maritime Administration in 1964, where he fought for shipping industry reforms over the protests of both management and labor. He became one of the seven members of the FCC in 1966.

By Nicholas Johnson

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

Contra Trump Censor-in-Chief Brendan Carr, the purpose of the FCC is NOT to censor speech or punish people based on what they say.

The purpose of the FCC, as created, was to stop billionaires from controlling our media.
The famous Fairness Doctrine aimed to block billionaire speech domination.

Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 3d

The root problem is the Ellisons, and billionaires.

We are going to have to use the FCC in the future to stop billionaire control of our media — as it was designed by its creators to do.

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Self-Described "Deal Guy" @danancona.bsky.social · 2d

Not the main point here, read the whole thread, but it is astonishing that it took children getting dragged out of apartment buildings and ICE shooting pastors for Dems to realize we are in fact in an information war. And Dems, post Obama, have ceded enormous advantages to their opponents in it.

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 2d

Stephen Miller believes that if he supercharges the debate over Trump's abuses of power with enough propaganda, he can polarize it and force low-info voters to embrace authoritarianism. Pritzker/Newsom have accepted that this requires an information war in response.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

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Jessica Pishko @jesspish.bsky.social · 2d

In a fight between Pritzker and and police, who is going to win? This is what happens when both parties allowed law enforcement to become one of the most powerful political actors in the country -- a taxpayer-funded political movement that wants to kill people.

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Renee DiResta @noupside.bsky.social · 2d

Sens Ted Cruz and Eric Schmitt are holding their hearing on the Biden Censorship Regime of 2018. Watch live here as they try to figure out: who was president in 2020?

Witnesses: Alex Berenson, Sean Davis of the Federalist,
Eugene Volokh, Gene Kimmelman

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QRu...

LIVE: Ted Cruz Leads Senate Hearing About 'How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans'

YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News

www.youtube.com

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Eric Blair @protecttruth.bsky.social · 2d

Wait, political actors DON’T have to do what polls well? Public opinion can be shaped by their actions and some people who respond to polls have opinions that can be changed?

Wow. Someone call the quantbrain centrist consultants

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 2d

Miller has a real theory of the case: A latent majority out there can be sleepwalked into authoritarianism with enough numbing agitprop. Polls show majorities reject the autocratic abuses but Miller plainly thinks voters in the middle lack conviction about any of it.

newrepublic.com/article/2014...

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