onfocus

The Trump administration has laid off the entire staff of a $4.1 billion program that helps millions of low-income households pay for heat during the winter, unnerving state officials who are now wondering whether they will still receive millions of dollars in expected federal payments.

Just your regular reminder that Republicans want suffering and they are making it happen. This money will go to Musk types instead so they can upgrade the pool on their backup yacht.

Over the next decade, advances in artificial intelligence will mean that humans will no longer be needed "for most things" in the world, says Bill Gates.

LOL, man these billionaires are telling on themselves by promoting the idea they don't need labor anymore. AI's primary function is to devalue labor and it's not much more than that. These sorts of predictions are part of that devaluation process. Your work is valuable! Join a union.

Waltz, who invited Goldberg into the Signal chat, said yesterday that he was investigating “how the heck he got into this room.”

We’re all looking for the guy who did this.

There's almost no precedent for the heads of Defense, State, Intelligence and National Security to be sharing such sensitive military intelligence in a forum that was known to be unsecured.

Bad boys don't play by the rules. Operational security is for sheeple.

This all goes to the fundamental point Trump has never been able to accept: that the US government is the property of the American people and it persists over time with individual officeholders merely temporary occupants charged with administering an entity they don’t own or possess.

If there's no record, there's no crime.

How much poop is in our water? The Supreme Court says “not enough.”

I really enjoy the 5-4 Podcast about Supreme Court decisions and this latest episode is a great example. Maybe "enjoy" is the wrong word. I guess I appreciate some gallows humor with my legal analysis.

Reference to due process first appeared in a statutory rendition of clause 39 in 1354 thus: "No man of what state or condition he be, shall be put out of his lands or tenements nor taken, nor disinherited, nor put to death, without he be brought to answer by due process of law."

People have been working to curb our worst human impulses for a long time. Let’s learn from history and keep that going instead of continually rediscovering why people have been working on it.

None of this will be easy. This is Google, after all. But as a great leader once put it, nothing in the world is worth doing unless it means endless suffering that only benefits the ownership class. That was me, I said that. But someday very soon, a humanoid powered by AGI will be the one saying it, as it denies your insurance claim.

Too real, SF Standard. Sometimes I wonder if these tech leaders can hear themselves. Just truly disconnected from working people.

"The American people are saying loud and clear, we will not accept an oligarchic form of society," Sanders said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "We will not accept the richest guy in the world running all over Washington, making cuts to the Social Security Administration, cuts to the Veterans Administration, almost destroying the Department of Education—all so that they could give over a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the wealthiest 1%."

34,000 people for an off-season rally is pretty surprising. Seeing pictures from this event is a relief, highly recommended.

Trump has never had the majority of this country behind him. He has no genuine overwhelming support for his ideas because all his backing comes from fear, not inspiration or agreement. Americans overwhelmingly reject what he and Musk are doing to our government.

"We get to save the country." Some good framing advice from the framing folks.

Instead of admonishing Trump for directly violating a court order, Roberts invoked the “normal appellate review process.” It may sound like Roberts was saying that Trump should litigate his disagreements with Judge Boasberg in the normal way, but what he’s really saying is that Trump should feel free to ignore lower-court orders until the Supreme Court has a chance to weigh in.

Chilling read on the Roberts letter to Trump. Elie Mystal sees less of a rebuke and more of a, "just send it my way."

He twisted himself in knots to argue that this wasn't Trump's fault, insisting, "He didn't create the system, but he does have an opportunity to improve it. Hopefully, all this attention will bring to light how broken it is." This is, of course, delusional.

If only Stalin knew how much the people are suffering, surely he would help them.