onfocus

The star’s comments come amid a wave of anti-trans legislation in the U.S., specifically targeted at restricting gender-affirming care for trans youth. While right-wing politicians claim that the risks of this kind of care do not outweigh the benefits, peer-reviewed research disagrees. Multiple studies show that gender-affirming care reduces the rates of depression and suicidality among transgender kids.

Guys like Carlos Santana think they're taking a lone wolf stand but they're really just joining an angry mob. If you're raising yourself up by dumping on vulnerable people you're on the wrong side.

A Georgia school board has voted to fire a teacher after officials said she improperly read a book on gender fluidity to her fifth grade class.

Like this teacher, we should all resist this bigotry any way we can. As always, please register to vote and then vote for people who care about other people.

West Virginians, trapped in the clutches of economic hardship, find themselves mercilessly shackled to a state most can ill afford to abandon, left to suffer the full weight of the WVU administration’s harrowing decisions. We will learn only subjects aligned with the preferences of the rich, driven by their financial motivations.

I work for an R1 land grant university and I like to think those designations help keep the university on track. Seeing WVU make students pay the price for poor leadership is sobering.

The incomparability between the Trump and Biden “scandals” is almost too obvious to mention, but not mentioning it in a story about the Hunter Biden case is journalistically criminal. I’d recommend something like “Despite attempts by Republicans to liken the legal perils faced by Trump and Biden, Trump faces a slew of incredibly serious criminal charges including for conspiring to steal a presidential election; Biden has been credibly accused of nothing.”

Both sides journalism has become a parody of itself. What was once a way to maintain objectivity is now an offensive way journalists appease media owners and mislead everyone else.

Oregon Secretary of State LaVonne Griffin-Valade has determined that Republicans who have repeatedly boycotted legislative sessions will not be allowed to run for re-election, reported The Oregonian on Tuesday.

Enjoying this new "finding out" phase.

Alito, and the kinds of people who can afford to pay Alito, are bristling merely because justices are being investigated like any other public officials with power.

A+ headline

Taranto showed up at Obama's residence on Thursday after former President Donald Trump posted screenshots on his Truth Social platform that featured a purported address for Obama's home in Washington. Taranto's account reposted Trump's post.

This should be the headline: Former President Incites Followers to Violence Again.

“Treasurer Read and I believe that Fox’s board of directors breached its fiduciary duties by allowing Fox News to broadcast false claims that Dominion and Smartmatic rigged the 2020 presidential election,” said Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum in a statement. “We hope to hold the board accountable and protect the long-term value of Oregon’s investment in Fox Corp.”

In related news, the State of Oregon is in hot water today for investing public servant pension money in known hucksters Fox Corp.

To Chung, the Republicans’ defiance is symptomatic not just of an aversion to reproductive and LGBTQ rights, but of a larger anti-democratic rot in our politics. “There’s no way that the Republican senators can win by actually engaging in our democratic processes, and so it very much appears they’re willing to, basically, burn everything down … I don’t know what winning is when you burn everything down.”

Best summary of the Republican "platform" I’ve seen. They win by threatening and ensuring the existing system fails.

Finally some decisive action you can take locally if you're uncomfortable.

Indeed, the article does not even bother to inform readers what the Republican demands are. The audience is left to assume that whatever it is Republicans want, Democrats should meet halfway or thereabouts.

This is a good explanation of the artificial debt ceiling media story that blames both sides for political dysfunction when it’s clear Republicans want a broken government.

First, and most importantly, it uses a delegated power from Congress in a way that is explicitly authorized, in contrast to using a Congressional power in a way that is explicitly unauthorized. That side-steps the separation-of-powers fight that the 14th Amendment plan would otherwise involve entirely.

Minting a coin the size of the debt is a clever hack that would stop the Republicans from taking the country hostage and keep the political fight out of the corrupt Supreme Court.