onfocus

"Beyond Musk’s political affiliations, his actual political convictions—by which I mean the bedrock set of values, ideologies, and organizing principles through which he sees the world and wishes it to be structured—are a slightly different conversation. Here, I tend to agree with The Verge’s Liz Lopatto, who wrote recently that Musk doesn’t really have political beliefs, only personal interests. But one can have vapid or nonexistent political beliefs and still be a political activist. Political activism is about actions."

If someone behaves exactly like a far right activist it doesn't matter what they believe in their heart. Debate should center around known actions, not unknowable motivations.

"The likelihood that Congress will impose a deal along the lines of the presidential panel’s recommendations, or the tentative agreements, means that management has little incentive to agree to union demands."

Pretty wild that congress can just force a labor contract for rail workers. Knowing that congress will side with management means negotiating was never meaningful.

”Passing this bill is our chance to send a message to Americans everywhere: No matter who you are, who you love, you deserve dignity and equal treatment under the law. That’s about as American [an] ideal as it comes.”

More like this please.

"Democrats running on pro-abortion rights nearly swept the table, and every ballot initiative aimed at restricting abortion lost, while ballot initiatives strengthening abortion rights prevailed and even outperformed Democratic candidates in some cases."

Where is all the media soul searching and feature articles about abortion rights voters?

"There are various theories purporting to explain Musk’s hard right turn: a childhood in apartheid South Africa, his connection with Peter Thiel, disappointments in his personal life. Whatever the truth of the matter, whatever right-leaning tendencies he may have had before a couple years ago appear to have been latent or unformed. Now the transformation is almost complete. He’s done with general “free speech” grievance and springing for alternative viewpoints. He’s routinely pushing all the far right storylines from woke groomers to great replacement."

Billionaires are not immune to radicalization. Unfortunately society is not immune to billionaires.

"Every election denier who sought to become the top election official in a critical battleground state lost at the polls this year, as voters roundly rejected extreme partisans who promised to restrict voting and overhaul the electoral process."

So we’ve got that going for us.

"The political media has substituted polling analysis, which is something only people managing campaigns really need, for substantive analysis of the positions of the candidates, something that voters need. "

Dewey defeats Truman, but permanent and across all media. Why? My theory is that Republicans own and control all media and reporters want to please their bosses. There won't be consequences for journalists who got this election so wrong--there will be promotions for cheerleading Republicans.

"Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself, and there is no possible way to grow users and revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies."

It's like a heroin addict thought his best move would be buying the entire heroin supply chain. Congrats, now you have an addiction AND all the problems of being in the drug trade. But Musk's personal disaster aside, does every online social space need to be run by a weirdo right wing authoritarian? That seems bad for everyone.

"Salma al-Shehab, a Saudi student living in the UK and attending Leeds University, was sentenced to 34 years in prison for having a Twitter account and following and retweeting dissidents and activists. She was arrested and convicted after returning home for a holiday."

Saudi Arabia partnered with Elon Musk to become the 2nd largest investor in Twitter. It doesn’t look like Musk is building a free speech platform.

"Police have not identified a motive for the attack on Pelosi’s husband. Judging by social media posts, the suspect appears to have been stewing in a mix of conspiracy theories about elections and the coronavirus pandemic."

So he was motivated by the mainstream Republican Party platform.

"Exxon Mobil broke records with its profits in the third quarter, raking in $19.66 billion in net income. The Irving, Texas company said Friday that it booked $112.07 billion in quarterly revenue, more than double the revenue it received last year during the same period."

record profits? in this economy?

"Humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency. The scale of untold human suffering, already immense, is rapidly growing with the escalating number of climate-related disasters. Therefore, we urge scientists, citizens, and world leaders to read this Special Report and quickly take the necessary actions to avoid the worst effects of climate change."

Please vote for leaders who take our climate emergency seriously. We need large collective actions to help make environmental stress easier for people.