onfocus

The star’s comments come amid a wave of anti-trans legislation in the U.S., specifically targeted at restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. While right-wing politicians claim that the risks of this kind of care do not outweigh the benefits, peer-reviewed research disagrees. Multiple studies show that gender-affirming care reduces the rates of depression and suicidality among transgender kids.

Guys like Carlos Santana think they're taking a lone wolf stand but they're really just joining an angry mob. If you're raising yourself up by dumping on vulnerable people you're on the wrong side.

A Georgia school board has voted to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.

Like this teacher, we should all resist this bigotry any way we can. As always, please register to vote and then vote for people who care about other people.

West Virginians, trapped in the clutches of economic hardship, find themselves mercilessly shackled to a state most can ill afford to abandon, left to suffer the full weight of the WVU administration’s harrowing decisions. We will learn only subjects aligned with the preferences of the rich, driven by their financial motivations.

I work for an R1 land grant university and I like to think those designations help keep the university on track. Seeing WVU make students pay the price for poor leadership is sobering.

The most popular alternative social-media site that respondents mentioned opening accounts with was the free, open-source software platform Mastodon.

4 out of 5 scientists agree, mastodon is ok.

Statement from Brewster Kahle, digital librarian of the Internet Archive: “When people want to listen to music they go to Spotify. When people want to study sound recordings as they were originally created, they go to libraries like the Internet Archive. Both are needed. There shouldn’t be conflict here.”

Argh, still mad about this. Scratchy 78s are not competition for Sony or Universal. These companies should be helping the Internet Archive preserve music.

The incomparability between the Trump and Biden “scandals” is almost too obvious to mention, but not mentioning it in a story about the Hunter Biden case is journalistically criminal. I’d recommend something like “Despite attempts by Republicans to liken the legal perils faced by Trump and Biden, Trump faces a slew of incredibly serious criminal charges including for conspiring to steal a presidential election; Biden has been credibly accused of nothing.”

Both sides journalism has become a parody of itself. What was once a way to maintain objectivity is now an offensive way journalists appease media owners and mislead everyone else.

Traditional and cable media deals negotiated by the Big Ten and the Big 12 conferences offered the five schools – University of Oregon, University of Washington, University of Utah, University of Arizona and Arizona State University – more guaranteed revenue than the Pac-12 could negotiate. It was simply a matter of money.

Incredible work, Ducks.

Starting in October, the ad-free tier of Disney+ will rise from $11 to $14 a month, while ad-free Hulu will increase from $14 to $18 a month.

Must be to offset the money they’re suddenly paying to writers and actors now. (Sarcasm)

The labels' lawsuit filed in a federal court in Manhattan said the Archive's "Great 78 Project" functions as an "illegal record store" for songs by musicians including Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Miles Davis and Billie Holiday.

Yes, because everyone today signs up for streaming services to listen to old 78s and if this history project is online it means no one will sign up for streaming. WTAF? These companies think they can lock up all of our history and culture behind a paywall. This makes me want to never buy anything from these music companies again.

This accounting of Thomas’ travel, revealed for the first time here from an array of previously unavailable information, is the fullest to date of the generosity that has regularly afforded Thomas a lifestyle far beyond what his income could provide. And it is almost certainly an undercount.

The corrupt court story gets worse and worse and worse. We need accountability.

Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has determined that Republicans who have repeatedly boycotted legislative sessions will not be allowed to run for re-election, reported The Oregonian on Tuesday.

Enjoying this new "finding out" phase.

[Trump] and the six unnamed co-conspirators told these GOP officials in seven states what illegal acts they should do and how they should do them. Those communications are not protected speech. They are instructions on how to commit fraud.

You can’t extend plausible deniability infinitely. We all saw this crime happen in real time despite the constant gaslighting posing as legal nuance.

About half of the people whose primary or secondary reasons fit into this category talked about content warnings, and most of those responses pointed to what they perceived as unreasonable—or in several cases anti-trans or racist—expectations for content warnings.

Lots and lots of work to do to make alternative spaces more welcoming.

"Grifters need people to harass and a mainstream discourse to counter. As traffic takes a nosedive and Twitter becomes less a part of the conversation, it's going to be harder for these folks to make money," Melissa Ryan, a strategist who helps counter online disinformation, told Salon.

Grifters and trolls will eventually show up where people are. One question we should all ask when we’re thinking about where to spend our online social time: how resistant is it to grifters and trolls? Do we have tools/moderation available to deal with them when they do?

Alito, and the kinds of people who can afford to pay Alito, are bristling merely because justices are being investigated like any other public officials with power.

A+ headline

It's been as much as 40 or more degrees above average, and as hot as it usually gets in summer, in some parts of South America.

This is the biggest WTF story right now.

I wonder sometimes if it’s because people assume you can’t be hopeful and heartbroken at the same time, and of course you can. In times when everything is fine hope is unnecessary. Hope is not happiness or confidence or inner peace; it’s a commitment to search for possibilities.

I needed to hear this.

The two men’s silence serves to obscure whether Justice Thomas had an obligation to report the arrangement under a federal ethics law that requires justices to disclose certain gifts, liabilities and other financial dealings that could pose conflicts of interest.

Yes, "friend" did some "financing" though I can think of other more accurate words. Corrupt court.