onfocus

Drone armies, expanded overtime pay and over-the-counter birth control pills are just some of the new things Biden has ushered in as president that you might not have heard about.

Things we might know about if we had a functioning media.

California Senate candidate and Congressmember Adam Schiff is calling for a major overhaul of American institutions, including getting rid of the Electoral College, expanding the Supreme Court and eliminating the filibuster.

More like this, please.

Ladapo’s colleagues in science and medicine face the challenge of understanding what drives someone with Ladapo’s credentials — a Harvard education and a stint on the medical faculty at UCLA — to descend so deeply into professional irresponsibility.

The death cult brain worms never rest. We need to continually work to remove dangerous people from positions of power. Please vote accordingly, even in Florida.

As North Carolina and Montana enact new age verification laws effective January 1, residents can’t view sites in Pornhub’s parent company network.

Interesting Republican effort to raise awareness and use of VPNs in red states.

Members of congress who supported objection to counting Biden’s electoral votes are running for reelection. Here they are, drawn together.

If you need a list of people not to vote for, this is a good start.

Helping Nazis grow subscription newsletter businesses is ultimately best for the world, reasons Hamish McKenzie.

Nazi sympathizers going bankrupt is ultimately best for the world. Please delete your Substack account and encourage people using it to go elsewhere.

I link to the Substack domain here a lot. There is a bunch of good indie writing there but I can’t link to it anymore. I know this site doesn’t drive any traffic anywhere, so no loss to Substack. But it is a loss to me to support these awful people in any small way. Anyway, the people at the top of these venture backed Silicon Valley companies are not helping create a better place for us.

The Colorado Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that former President Donald Trump is disqualified from holding the presidency under the Constitution's so-called insurrection clause and ordered the secretary of state to exclude his name from the state's Republican presidential primary ballot.

Finally some consequences for the top traitor. We should do the same for members of congress who provided support for the insurrection.

When one hears about the rise of elimination, one wonders how it was allowed to happen. How did people permit it? I think it looks exactly like the Huckinses. Perfectly nice people I’m sure, who have decided that the existence of other people is a danger they shouldn’t have to endure, and who, rather than paying the costs of creating a sustainable society that supports all, demands the elimination of everyone who compromises their comfort.

A.R. Moxon dissects the false equivalency the media uses to discuss political polarization. Once you buy into the idea that some people are victims because their violent demands aren't being met you're empowering supremacists.

“I think we’ve been conditioned, and we have no way of countering the idea” that crime is rising,” Asher said. “It’s just an overwhelming number of news media stories and viral videos — I have to believe that social media is playing a role.”

Crime is down but the perception of rising crime is up. Thanks a lot, media.

This overview of the historic origins of these Artificial General Intelligence boom or doom cults by Timnit Gebru should be required viewing. We have a real world with existing needs that these ideologies ignore. The result of these scifi inspired beliefs is promoting authoritarian politics. As mentioned in this video, the main question to ask: who benefits now?

See also: The Wide Angle: Understanding TESCREAL — the Weird Ideologies Behind Silicon Valley’s Rightward Turn.

It could have been a lot better. Trump didn’t just “raise eyebrows” with his vermin line; Welker should have said it was redolent of Nazism. Welker let it drop instead of following up. It also shouldn’t have been a yes/no question, but rather something like “how do you feel when he says something like this”?

Small signs the media is evolving on Trump coverage.

The code, which does not include any enforcement mechanism, comes after ProPublica and other outlets disclosed that justices had repeatedly failed to disclose gifts and travel from wealthy donors.

LOL, just a perfect non-binding 'code' for a corrupt court. Like a petulant child, "There, we have a code of ethics. Happy?"