onfocus

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.

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.

Jeff Jarvis, a journalist and professor at the City University of New York's Graduate School of Journalism, reacted to that column with scorn, tweeting, “What ‘press’? The broken and vindictive [New York] Times? The newly Murdochian [New York] Post? Hedge-fund newspaper husks? Rudderless CNN or NPR? Murdoch's fascist media? No. [Harris] can choose many ways to communicate her stands with others outside the old press and with the public directly. The old press can and should be bypassed.”

Amen. They treated Biden like garbage and give endless respect, admiration, and smoothing-over to Trump who calls for acts of violence against them. It makes no sense.

But the analysis discovered one major change: The incomes of the rich grew much faster in countries where tax rates were lowered. Instead of trickling down to the middle class, tax cuts for the rich may not accomplish much more than help the rich keep more of their riches and exacerbate income inequality, the research indicates.

Huge if true.

I'm joking. Wealth inequality makes this so obviously true it doesn't need to be said.

Instead of freeing up employment opportunities, findings from one study suggest that the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants could result in 968,000 fewer jobs available for US citizens, losses that would be compounded each year the policy remained in effect.

Almost as if the leading conservative intellectuals are just making things up they think their base wants to hear. After painting any moderating voices as the enemy, they have to take more and more extreme positions that don't match up with reality.

Data from the Michigan State Police, compiled by the Detroit News as Trump was preparing to visit the state, shows a similar drop in violent crime. Trump was arguing that violent crime was up in a state where violent crime is clearly down.

Lying about crime rates. His campaign is about convincing people they live in some sort of fantasy hellscape where everyone is out to get them.

The political party that’s been battered and bloodied in America’s culture wars since the end of the 1960s by not even really knowing how to fight them, finally decided to stop worrying about churning out policy papers and pleasing newspaper nitpickers and instead start playing to win — and on their terms.

And this is one traditional media outlet that isn't afraid to post a positive story about Democrats. Nice to see some small change happening in the media.

The initial elevation of Kennedy’s campaign on the right — including by Trump ally Stephen K. Bannon and House Republicans at a hearing last year — is now looking even more like a real potential blunder.

Finding out what happens when you run a 2nd Republican. Everyone looks like a "radical leftist" when you’re inside the Trump cult, but Kennedy isn’t even close to a centrist.

Update (8/23): Fin.

“If you’re not on board with helping implement a dramatic course correction because you’re afraid it’ll damage your future employment prospects, it’ll harm you socially — look, I get it,” Huff says. “That’s a real danger. It’s a real thing. But please: Do us all a favor and sit this one out.”

Good advice from Project 2025 training videos. If you don’t want to be ostracized from normal society, instead of secretly undermining the US government from within, sit this one out. Everyone else, please vote for people who care about other people so we don’t get all this garbage.

Being chill about menstruation is crucial if men want to be fathers of daughters, friends of women, or just people who wish to navigate the world comfortably, as it's heavily populated with people who get periods.

I guess we’re at a time in our culture when this has to be said out loud. Men are having trouble right now and Tim Walz seems like the kind of guy who can sit them down and gently explain things.