onfocus

"Over eight days, starting April 8, troopers conducted more than 4,100 inspections of trucks. Troopers didn’t find any contraband but took 850 trucks off the road for various violations related to their equipment. Other truckers were given warnings, and at least 345 were cited for things such as underinflated tires, broken turn signals and oil leaks."

Oh man, I can’t imagine the amount of paperwork generated for this vanity political project. Keeping law enforcement busy at least!

"These people on this ascendant right don't just have different ideas about the role and function of journalism; they don't just believe journalists are biased liberals; they don't just believe the media is too hostile to conservatives; they are hostile to the concept of journalism itself."

When journalism upsets the right’s outrage pipeline you don’t get rational criticism and debate.

"Authoritarian and fascist communities, this is what they always go for, they always burn the books. It actually shows the power of books. If they didn’t have any power, they wouldn’t be burning or banning them. So that’s one thing to remember and celebrate: The power of books."

Cancel culture is at it again.

"We’re constantly told the American people hate Washington dysfunction. Yet McConnell knows he can cheerfully threaten something this obscenely destructive without fearing any political downside."

Republicans elect people to cause dysfunction in the government. As long as Republicans deliver conservative judicial appointments, corporate welfare, and tax cuts for the wealthy there's no serious threat of losing support. Breaking everything else in government is the plan—not a symptom of a method of working. Getting mad about this situation in public like Brian Schatz is a reasonable response that I'd like to see more.

"Fox and CNN are not different flavors of news, they are different things entirely. News organizations with any legitimate claim to that title do not keep important information from the public based on which party it benefits. CNN — or primetime MSNBC — may be opinionated, but they remain fundamentally fact-based. Fox does not."

Fox is an imitation of the news style but it's something different in substance that makes viewers less informed about the world.

“I think that there is a sense among more senior members of Congress, who have been around in different political times, that we can get back to this time of buddy-buddy and backslapping and we’ll cut a deal and go into a room with some bourbon and some smoke and you’ll come out and work something out. I think there’s a real nostalgia and belief that that time still exists or that we can get back to that.” But those days, she says, have been over for a long time.

Every word of this resonates.

"Americans don’t have, and have never had, any right to be free of shaming or shunning. The First Amendment protects our right to speak free of government interference. It does not protect us from other people saying mean things in response to our speech. The very notion is completely incoherent. Someone else shaming me is their free speech, and someone else shunning me is their free association, both protected by the First Amendment."

The Media is really struggling to find a middle ground between rational and fascist and failing miserably.

"This week, Congress nixed $15 billion in coronavirus funding from a $1.5 trillion spending bill, which President Joe Biden then signed on Tuesday. The decision is catastrophic, and as the White House has noted, its consequences will unfurl quickly."

Republicans are trying to maximize deaths as they always have.

"They discussed how various platforms, from Twitter to TikTok and Telegram, are moderating the content coming out of Russia and Ukraine right now; the costs and benefits of Western companies pulling operations out of Russia during a period of increasing crackdown; and how the events of the last few weeks might shape our thinking about the nature and power of information operations."

Good discussion of the state of global social media moderation during an information war.

"The inflow of cash hasn’t exactly been small, either. A separate tally by the watchdog group Accountable.US shows that these companies and many of the trade groups to which they belong have donated more than $8 million to Congress’s 147 objectors since January 6."

hIsToRy wIlL ReMeMbEr

"Beginning Saturday morning, NetBlocks saw failed or heavily throttled connections across every major Russian telecom provider, including Rostelecom, MTS, Beeline, and MegaFon. Russians are still able to access Twitter through VPN services, but direct connections are restricted."

Twitter should stop carrying Russian media outlets.

"So far, even as the U.S. and U.K. have ramped up sanctions on more than 100 Russian individuals and entities, these assets of the country’s elite -- which can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars each -- have avoided any direct hit. So too have their high-end real estate holdings, which in London range from Chelsea penthouses to Highgate mansions."

Elite impunity is the problem.