onfocus

Donald Trump did not fire any commissioners from the FTC today. Donald Trump declared that he had fired the commissioners. That is, functionally, he announced a desire that he should have the power to fire FTC commissioners and named the commissioners that he would fire if he were to have that power—a power which he does not, within the bounds of the law and the constitution, possess.  

The media is creating the reality this regime wants by acting as stenographers rather than explaining or providing context.

These billionaires, Duran argued, “are fully in control of Trump’s MAGA party,” but their ambitions go beyond that. “The Republican Party is simply a host organism for the parasite of tech fascism,” Duran wrote, but “it’s not just the Republican Party that’s lost its soul. The tech authoritarians are also moving to co-opt leaders in the Democratic Party.”

Some rare mainstream analysis of the American oligarchy. We should be creating, using, and promoting alternative networks and services when we can. Having a thriving distributed infrastructure is more resilient than a handful of centralized points of failure.

Federal officials told the university it must immediately place its Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies Department under “academic receivership for a minimum of five years.” The demand was among several described as conditions for receiving federal funding, including $400 million already pulled over allegations of antisemitism.

The federal government telling a university which specific academic programs they have to give up control of is disturbing. This response from scholars at Columbia Law explains why this is an unconstitutional request: A Title VI Demand Letter That Itself Violates Title VI (and the Constitution).

I have collected here many (85) color palettes of Retro CRTs, LCDs, CROs, VFDs, Nixie Tubes, Numitrons, Calculators, Terminals, and Computers (in text mode). Most of these are high contrast and are easy to read.

These are fun!

“Just to see Senate Democrats even consider acquiescing to Elon Musk, I think is a huge slap in the face. And I think there is a wide sense of betrayal if things proceed as currently planned.”

Yep, feeling betrayed by the party. I have really been appreciating AOC who seems like the only person representing my views.

President Trump’s on-again, off-again tariff announcements sent stock markets plunging. On this week’s On the Media, how to make sense of the ever-changing news about the economy. Plus, the policy behind the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ rhetoric.

I thought this On the Media was a great tariffs 101 and the interview with Brown economics professor Mark Blyth was especially good.

Amid the aid freeze, FEWS NET has no funding to pay staff in Washington or those working on the ground. The website is down. And its treasure trove of data that underpinned global analysis on food security – used by researchers around the world – has been pulled offline.

Republicans want to maximize suffering. Please vote against them in the future.

Let us all—wherever and whenever—live on what the world’s timekeepers call Universal Time, or UTC (though “Earth time” might be less presumptuous). When it’s noon in Greenwich, England, let it be 12:00 everywhere. No more resetting the clocks. No more wondering what time it is in Peoria or Petropavlovsk. No more befuddled headaches crossing the International Dateline from Tuesday back into Monday.

I’m in. UTC for all sounds fine. It’d make programming easier.

Other data have also sounded alarms on the economy. Jobless claims were up last week as cuts by DOGE rippled through the labor market, pending home sales hit a record low, and consumer confidence indicators sank on rising fears of tariff-fueled inflation.

From a strong, growing economy to a garbage economy in one month. Please remember who caused this when you vote.

Even as Donald Trump has made his fealty to Putin clear, even as his Director of National Intelligence parrots Russian disinformation (protected now by the FBI), Elon Musk has been vacuuming up all the data of all the government. And every claim that he’s been modernizing networks or searching for fraud have fallen apart.

I’m not sure how direct sabotage would be different from what we’re seeing.

“TASS was not on the approved list of media for today’s pool,” a White House official told CNN in a statement. “As soon as it came to the attention of press office staff that he was in the Oval, he was escorted out by the Press Secretary.”

Sure, Jan.

The billionaire wrote on his social media platform X that 18F and TTS had been “deleted” weeks ago, re-posting another account that called the 18F a “far left government computer office” and pointed to its work on the  IRS’ free tax filing system, Direct File.

Anything that saves people time or money is considered far left by Republicans. I invite you to join the far left where people believe it should be easier to file your taxes. This is destruction of a government that serves the people.