onfocus

They pursue the appearance of fairness and balance by treating the true and the false, the normal and the outrageous, as equally valid and by normalizing Republicans, especially Donald Trump, whose gibberish gets translated into English and whose past crimes and present-day lies and threats get glossed over.

Continual normalization across all media is the problem. How can we have an informed electorate if the information isn’t accurate?

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?

Artificial intelligence is worse than humans in every way at summarising documents and might actually create additional work for people, a government trial of the technology has found.

WHAT?!?! (sarcasm)

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.

“Elon’s done a tremendous amount of wealth destruction since he’s purchased Twitter,” said Ross Gerber, who said he invested less than $1 million, a stake he now considers worthless. “For the people who put capital into him for any amount,” Gerber said, “ … trying to explain to people how he lost” so much money “is not a fun conversation.”

What’s the German word for Schadenfreude? I think Musk is getting the cultural damage he wanted by forcing normal people to read right wing propaganda all day at X, but at least he isn’t also getting economic rewards.

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.

The deck does not say where CMG allegedly sources this voice data, be that a particular brand of smart TV, a smart speaker, or smartphone loaded with a particular app. It says that once it has used the voice data to identify an audience that is “ready-to-buy,” CMG builds a list of those audience members and uploads it to ad platforms to then target advertisements.

It sure sounds like CMG is selling advertising based on the idea that our smart devices are picking up our conversations and reporting them back to their company.

Loans of around $13 billion have remained ‘hung’ for nearly two years, bringing in interest payments but weighing on banks’ balance sheets

Just top notch business decisions from all the best business minds of our generation.

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.