onfocus

"There are many reasons why the tide has turned like it has, of course. But it is hard to think of another recent instance in which one human being has defied the collective expectations for his behavior and provided such an inspiring moment of servitude to the people, clarifying the terms of the conflict through his example."

Truly inspiring how Ukraine has met Russian aggression.

"A Substack spokesperson referred the Guardian to an essay published on Wednesday by the platform’s co-founders, Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie and Jairaj Sethi, in which they said silencing vaccine sceptics would not work. “As we face growing pressure to censor content published on Substack that to some seems dubious or objectionable, our answer remains the same: we make decisions based on principles not PR, we will defend free expression, and we will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation,” they said."

Translation: we at Substack make too much money to be responsible citizens. Let's see how this 'hands off' approach works out for them.

“With an estimated 11 million listeners per episode, JRE, which is hosted exclusively on Spotify, is the world’s largest podcast and has tremendous influence,” the letter reads. “Spotify has a responsibility to mitigate the spread of misinformation on its platform, though the company presently has no misinformation policy.”

Yes, cranky Neil Young, haha yes! This would remove most of what I listen to on Spotify. If Pink Floyd could get in on this they could wipe out everything. I should get our family to quit Spotify anyway.

Update: Spotify stands by their man. Everybody knows this is nowhere.

Nevertheless, I am left today primarily thinking of all who have died, as well as those suffering from long covid, and those who may suffer in the years ahead in ways we cannot predict. This could have been a moment when we decided to step outside of our divided camps and come together. That the blame for this not happening is so asymmetric along the political divide does make me very angry, but it doesn’t make me any less sad.

Dan Rather on the lack of grieving for the people the pandemic has hurt or killed.

"'This year, what's happening is off the scale,' he said. 'There's been a new billionaire created almost every day during this pandemic, meanwhile 99% of the world's population are worse off because of lockdowns, lower international trade, less international tourism, and as a result of that, 160 million more people have been pushed into poverty.'"

Awful dynamic alert: the pandemic has been very positive for a select group of individuals who have enormous influence over how our society works.

"The obvious people to blame for this gross behavior are Republicans themselves. But what's the fun in that? So, instead, far too many in the media are letting Republicans off the hook and instead fixing the blame on Democrats for somehow not doing more to make Republicans less evil."

It’s not fun for journalists to hold Republicans responsible because their bosses are Republicans.

Marcy Wheeler is an independent journalist writing about national security and civil liberties.

By the way if you want more context and detail about the January 6 Insurrection investigation, tune into Marcy Wheeler on the emptywheel weblog. There's more happening than you hear in the news. Also @emptywheel on Twitter.

"By this point, those lies have been circulating for what feels like forever. But at tonight’s rally, as Trump’s fans called for the arrests of poll workers and the reinstatement of the rightful president, I got the sense that this might be just the beginning."

This can only happen in a society with elite criminal impunity. We should all demand real consequences for crimes no matter how much money the perpetrator has. Our culture of billionaire worship is garbage.

"Reporters feared for their lives because of authoritarianism from Republicans. But to cover the legislative process, they now must interact with and quote the same people who helped unleash forces that put them — and the country’s democracy — in danger."

How should journalists cover politics when Republicans want to do away with democracy?

"Matt Masterson, a former senior U.S. cybersecurity official who tracked 2020 election integrity for the Department of Homeland Security, said Powell’s fundraising success demonstrates one reason so many people continue to spread falsehoods about the 2020 election: It can bring in cash."

The Big Lie is so profitable that fines won’t even make a dent in it. Only criminal charges will slow it down. I’m not holding my breath.

"The main reason for the big increase in total wage and salary income is that 5,675,000 Americans who were unemployed when this year began had found new jobs by November. With support from the rounds of pandemic stimulus enacted in December 2000 and January 2021, the jobless rate fell from 6.3 percent last January to 4.2 percent in November, or by one-third over 11 months. Following the Great Recession, it took six years for the jobless rate to fall by one-third."

Democrats can't get a message out. Even if all mass media outlets are owned by Republicans (they are) there should be a way to interrupt the media cycle with this kind of news. Instead we just hear about how terrible the economy is over and over.

"It's a remarkable foreign policy reform, but also a remarkable failure of both government communication and media coverage. A hugely significant change in foreign policy has happened — and almost nobody is paying attention."

This was news to me.