onfocus

During an event billed as a speech about the economy, Donald Trump was addled and confused, rambled incoherently, and launched into strange non sequiturs. Yet The New York Times’s initial news story made the event sound far more normal than it was. Is the press doing an adequate job of analyzing Trump’s deteriorating mental state?

Great episode of The Daily Blast discussing the failure of media to accurately discuss Trump. Greg talks with journalist Meredith Shiner.

It is not a divided America. Patriots are gathering together and putting past differences aside to forestall a next civil war, to support and defend the Constitution. The movement that matters is not Trump’s and the Republicans’ fascist insurrection, which is the one that gets attention in news media. The movement that matters now is this one: the movement for democracy.

The NYT isn’t giving this story any weight. Will any other mainstream press outlets?

Now, as Harris energetically lays out how she wants to improve the country, Trump’s bizarre speeches look even more concerning than they did before. After all, during his first term, Trump’s imprecise, impulsive way of communicating  made him exceptionally dangerous when speaking about sensitive diplomatic and national security issues, such as in his policies toward North Korea. Those risks will only be greater if he becomes president again.

Mental fitness is also a concern—in addition to the fascism, grifting, and love of dictators.

Thus far, horserace journalists have been absolutely loathe to hold Trump accountable for the bad things that happened when he was President: his failures on COVID as well as jobs lost for reasons other than pandemic, the spike in crime, his corruption of rule of law.

But Kamala has finally made Trump own something, his role in stripping women of their bodily autonomy.

A good summary of how Harris is forcing Trump (and voters) to look at his real record as President.

Sure, the right is still calling it radical and socialist, but when the right’s plan is to keep pregnant folks under surveillance and restrict their travel, as just one example, its ability to call anyone else’s plans “radical” is, shall we say, diluted.

John Scalzi has a nice post-DNC state of the race summary.

“What’s good for workers is good for business, and as California’s fast food industry continues booming every single month our workers are finally getting the pay they deserve,” Newsom said in a written statement. “Despite those who pedaled lies about how this would doom the industry, California’s economy and workers are again proving them wrong.”

Interesting, restaurants didn't go out of business after minimum wage went from $15.50 to $20.

Harris “understands that most of us will never be afforded the grace of failing forward,” Obama said. “We will never benefit from the affirmative action of generational wealth. If we bankrupt a business or choke in a crisis, we don’t get a second, third or fourth chance. If things don’t go our way, we don’t have the luxury of whining or cheating others to get further ahead. No.”

“We don’t get to change the rules so we always win,” she continued. “If we see a mountain in front of us, we don’t expect there to be an escalator waiting to take us to the top. We put our heads down. We get to work.”

It's shocking to see real populism in action after years of billionaire-fueled simulation.

Jeff Jarvis, a journalist and professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, reacted to that column with scorn, tweeting, “What ‘press’? The broken and vindictive [New York] Times? The newly Murdochian [New York] Post? Hedge-fund newspaper husks? Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch's fascist media? No. [Harris] can choose many ways to communicate her stands with others outside the old press and with the public directly. The old press can and should be bypassed.”

Amen. They treated Biden like garbage and give endless respect, admiration, and smoothing-over to Trump who calls for acts of violence against them. It makes no sense.

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

Huge if true.

I'm joking. Wealth inequality makes this so obviously true it doesn't need to be said.

Instead of freeing up employment opportunities, findings from one study suggest that the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants could result in 968,000 fewer jobs available for US citizens, losses that would be compounded each year the policy remained in effect.

Almost as if the leading conservative intellectuals are just making things up they think their base wants to hear. After painting any moderating voices as the enemy, they have to take more and more extreme positions that don't match up with reality.

Data from the Michigan State Police, compiled by the Detroit News as Trump was preparing to visit the state, shows a similar drop in violent crime. Trump was arguing that violent crime was up in a state where violent crime is clearly down.

Lying about crime rates. His campaign is about convincing people they live in some sort of fantasy hellscape where everyone is out to get them.

The political party that’s been battered and bloodied in America’s culture wars since the end of the 1960s by not even really knowing how to fight them, finally decided to stop worrying about churning out policy papers and pleasing newspaper nitpickers and instead start playing to win — and on their terms.

And this is one traditional media outlet that isn't afraid to post a positive story about Democrats. Nice to see some small change happening in the media.