onfocus

Biden had a horrible night Thursday. But the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

I’ll take an ethical guy who cares about people over a destructive sociopath every time.

The odds grow stronger every day that everything won’t be OK. A radical right-wing faction now fully controls one of our two major political parties and a super-majority in the Supreme Court. Its presidential candidate, a convicted criminal without an ounce of honor or conscience, has made clear his intention to be a dictator if elected. Supporting them is an army of activists who see the finish line in their long march to create an authoritarian — or outright fascist — regime that mocks the will of the majority with increasingly harsh minority rule.

Dan Gillmor is asking journalists to meet the moment.

A president should be of decent character. A president should be entrusted to faithfully execute the law. The trial made clear that Trump is not of decent character and has no fealty to the law.

It’s so rare for someone in the media to state the obvious.

In Alito’s telling, he not only won’t recuse but in fact can’t recuse himself from the insurrection cases. Why? Because, he suggests, the nonbinding and entirely subjective ethics code to which the nine justices half-heartedly committed themselves this past fall requires that they remain on cases when they personally decide there’s no legitimate reason to recuse. Alito therefore asserts an “obligation” to hear the Trump-related cases.

This brazen corruption would be comical if it wasn't a Supreme Court that’s taking away fundamental human rights and enabling authoritarianism in America.

Since 2015, there has been this strong desire to make Trump more complicated than he is, as if his power and influence mean that he must have depth and substance. But he doesn’t. Trump is a glorified bully. And like all bullies, he wilts in the face of anyone willing to stand up and say no.

This is a rare good reminder in the NYT. The media needs this invincibility narrative but it doesn’t match reality.

One student I met outside the Low Library after Johnson’s speech, who only identified himself by an initial, K, summed up the dissonance between Johnson’s description of the protesters and the reality of the encampment: “It’s as if there’s some kind of armed insurrection here—there isn’t,” K told me. “There’s maybe, like, 100 students sleeping in tents on a lawn.”

I think it’s good to keep in mind who really has power in these situations. Is it the administration and politicians who can direct militarized police or college kids? Showing up on campus to get some headlines while punching down is awful.

It’s a rogue court, a thoroughly corrupt one, one that is so far gone in its corruption that it feels free even from the practical obligation to clothe its corruption for the sake of appearances.

Hard not to be completely depressed about the state of things. This is the consequence of having a billionaire class and a large number of non-billionaires voting for their chosen sociopath. Please vote for people who care about other living people.

…in the meantime, you have tens of thousands of people who are pregnant or will become pregnant who will either need to drive or fly or get sick in order to receive care and their health will be very much at risk." 

As I always ask, please vote for people who care about other people and want them to be healthy. Please help living people here and now. Abstract ideas will continue to be ok but real living people might not be ok.

"Relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes," according to a 2020 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

It's good to see fact checking like this happening in the media. It's very difficult to correct lies when the media is flooded with bs, but the attempt to correct the record is important.

The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.

I know it’s true, but it feels rare to see it in print because media organizations typically don’t acknowledge this truth. They usually smooth over reality so they don't offend potential customers and make their owners happy.

“When Americans see a case like this – so clearly concocted and motivated by special interests, and with evident connections between those interests and the judges on the case, it does tremendous damage to the reputation of the courts, and to the public trust in their ability to give all litigants an even shake,” said Alex Aronson, the executive director of the nonpartisan group Court Accountability and a former chief counsel to the Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse.

"It’s not technically illegal" is the first refuge of scoundrels.

In the wake of Louisiana's abortion ban, pregnant women have been given risky, unnecessary surgeries, denied swift treatment for miscarriages and ectopic pregnancies, and forced to wait until their life is at risk before getting an abortion, according to a new report first made available to NPR.

We wouldn’t find this acceptable in another country but it’s happening in Louisiana and other states with abortion bans. Please register to vote and vote for people who don’t find medical malpractice acceptable.