View this post on the web at [link removed]
Blue Letter
Folks, The Number of New Paid Subscribers has Dramatically Slowed this Past Week. Without Them, We Can’t Continue to Expand The Soundcheck Fund—Just as Trump Kills the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Please Consider a Paid Subscription to Support the Growth of Independent Media
Cliff’s Note: Yes, Our System is Most Definitely “Broken”
Kamala Harris sat across from Stephen Colbert—himself recently fired [ [link removed] ]to make the slovenly golf-cheat [ [link removed] ] happy so he’d “allow” Skydance Media to take over Paramount Global (doesn’t this even sound Orwellian?)—and admitted our political culture, our system, is broken [ [link removed] ]. She wasn’t talking hypotheticals.
She was talking about what the American republic looks like right now, July, 2025.
This is why, former Vice President Kamala Harris explained, she had chosen not to run for Governor of California. Because our entire system’s been hijacked. By James-Bond-villain-billionaires and mid-talent hangers-on, who’d throw momma from the train for that multimillion dollar penthouse.
Assisted by dweeby, cocksure incels who concocted Project 2025 in their Spongebob PJs, and gyrating, tongue-talking religious cultists so frightened of reality, they became beguiled by funhouse mirrors. All tied together sloppily by Trump [ [link removed] ]—the gaudy-Biff-Tannen inspiration with piss-cotton-candy hair and the greed of Genghis Khan running through his circulatory system.
The corruption by these forces combined, so thorough, that it’s become the beating heart of our federal government. So Kamala Harris feels she can do more outside the system to help democracy than by existing in it.
That’s a helluva statement about that system, isn’t it?
I keep hearing a whisper of those famous words in my ear as I contemplate all of this, Benjamin Franklin’s statement about what kind of government the Constitutional Convention had produced in their secret meetings in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787. “A republic…if you can keep it.”
Well, we’re sure working on the not keeping it part. As you may have seen, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting—home to PBS, NPR, some of the only independent journalism still funded by our government and not in indentured servitude to quarterly profit statements and shareholder value—announced it will shut down operations in the face of Trump’s devastating funding cuts.
“A republic, if we can keep it.”
This, of course, is what authoritarians do. They gut the referees [ [link removed] ]. They destroy any free and independent reporting [ [link removed] ]. They leave you with nothing but mooks and Morlocks taking in Murdoch propaganda and a Musk algorithm.
And we’re watching it happen in real time. Today.
You think this is just about PBS? Well, it wasn’t just about USAID, Paul Weiss, Paramount or Columbia University. No. It’s about every remaining institution not bowing to Trump or filling his pockets [ [link removed] ], not enriching the oligarchs who support him or willing to be a megaphone for his fascism.
Here are some kinds of stories NPR and PBS won’t be around to report on in the near future. All of which would’ve shocked the conscious a year ago.
Now? It’s called “Friday”:
🚨 Ghislaine Maxwell is being quietly moved to a Texas prison camp [ [link removed] ]—despite Bureau of Prisons rules that are very much supposed to prevent sex traffickers from being able to be moved to low-security resorts. And, why, one close to the Mexico border too, in case states want to prosecute her after she gets her federal pardon. Quelle suprise! Well, who pulled strings on this? Why? And what is this administration hiding?
🚨 Attorney General Pam Bondi, through human side-eye Kash Patel, had 1,000 FBI personnel in Trump’s Justice Department remove Trump’s name [ [link removed] ] from Epstein files by blackening it out, we found out from a FOIA request via Bloomberg today. One thousand FBI agents working 24 hour shifts for two weeks in March.
I’m totally sure no crime, cartel activity or terrorism was missed to protect the President from showing up in the files of a pedophile [ [link removed] ]—even though we all already knew he was in there. Wonder if anyone in an independent-media capacity could look up what went on while all these agents were busy protecting Trump’s FBI-headquarters-sized rear during those two weeks?
Or under what legal authority Bondi or Patel acted? Why did they lie about it? [ [link removed] ]
🚨 Today Trump’s job numbers were revised, and they absolutely sucked—and when I say sucked, I mean like Josh Hawley stick-figure flaccidity as he dashed away from a January 6th coup he helped encourage kinda sucked—wiping away nearly all our job gains—258,000—in May and June. And July?? Only 73,000 f*king job. 73. Total.
How pathetic.
And how did Trump fix it? He fired the statistician at The Bureau of Labor Statistics, of course, saying it was fake. Oh, but it’s real, you see. Because when some stink-bomb ignoramus keeps threatening tariffs, then pulling back on them [ [link removed] ]—TACO Trump, it’s called—there’s no stability in our markets to companies don’t hire.
John Maynard Keynes could’ve figured this out—and I mean he could do that today—but not the burnt-okra-colored birdbrain we call “President.” Again, can Trump just fire the BLS statistician? Well, that’s a question NPR and PBS won’t be around to ask, soon.
This, again, is why we created [ [link removed] ]Blue Amp’s Soundcheck Fund [ [link removed] ]—to build a people-powered, independent media army that answers to you, not monopolies or Trump donors.
This is why we need YOU to step up. [ [link removed] ]
I’m asking in the strongest language I’ve ever used:
👉🏽 If you believe in democracy…
👉🏽 If you believe the truth still matters…
👉🏽 If you don’t want every news source to be bought by billionaires…
Become a paid subscriber to Blue Amp today. And support the Soundcheck Fund.
Because I can’t promise you that independent media alone will save our democracy.
But I can promise you this:
Without it, we will absolutely lose it.
Let’s fight back. Let’s build back. Let’s amplify good.
—Cliff
THIS WEEK ON AMPED UP! [ [link removed] ]
Billionaire Stephen Cloobeck, running for California Governor as a Democrat. You can certainly say he did not lack confidence! Cloobeck Said things bound to piss Democrats off, attacking everyone unions to “Bernie Bros.
He harshly criticized Kamala Harris. He’s suing a former girlfriend who was an OnlyFans model, and former Los Angeles Mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, who he mocked for “not being able to get a job” after being Mayor (Villaraigosa is also running for governor).
He had a big personality, so this was entertaining, but as you can see above, he also had a lot of criticism to offer. He talked about fixing housing issues using empty office buildings and cutting regulations to make it easier to start businesses. Yes, we were fair to him, but we also pushed back when questions weren’t answered, and even found time for jokes. Because, ya know, life.
He’s been called the “Democratic Donald Trump.” Watch and judge for yourself, and let us know your thoughts in the comments!
VIDEO ON DEMAND!
One last time, my friends, with PBS and NPR gone, independent media is going in the opposite direction it needs to be headed. If you want us to keep doing what we do. And if you want us to continue to be able to support the Soundcheck Fund to build independent media, please consider a paid subscription.
Thank you, again. And thank you for all you do for our democracy.
Unsubscribe [link removed]?
