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A differentiated digital intervention to improve antiretroviral therapy adherence among men who have sex with men living with HIV in China: a...

Most of the complaints about Musk are meritless and tell us more about the cluelessness or hypocrisy of his critics than his alleged perfidy. At the end of the day, the case against him boils down to the criticism that he will allow too much unfettered speech on his social media platform, a plaint that would have made little sense to anyone a decade or so ago when the balance of center-left opinion was still robustly free speech.

As it is, a libertarian-ish business leader is saying he wants an important platform for political and social advocacy and argument to provide the widest possible latitude for varied, clashing views, and the reaction of a large segment of commentators is, This man must be stopped.

Musk cant catch a break. Bill Clintons former Labor Secretary Robert Reich tweeted, When multi-billionaires take control of our most vital platforms for communication, its not a win for free speech. Its a win for oligarchy.

As they say on Twitter, Whos going to tell him?

Successful social media companies arent typically owned and run by low-income individuals (at least not by the time they are out of their garages). The co-founder and former CEO of Twitter who was in place when Reich was much less alarmed by the direction of the platform, Jack Dorsey, is worth $7 billion by some estimates.

Although hes taken a beating lately, Mark Zuckerberg still has a net worth of something like $50 billion.

Suffice it to say that Musk is not single-handedly bringing income inequality to Americas social-media companies.

At the end of the day, the biggest problem that Musks critics have with him is that he is a threat to their de facto control of Twitter. Ben Collins of NBC tweeted that Twitter will change dramatically if Musk owns it, and if the takeover gets done early enough, based on the people hes aligned with, yes, it would actually affect [the] midterms.

The worry that Twitters policies under Musk might affect the upcoming election is an implicit acknowledgment that its current policies have political consequences, and they clearly do otherwise, it wouldnt be that so many Democrats and progressives happen to be absolutely desperate to protect the Twitter status quo.

Collins warned that if Musk takes Twitter private the rule-making could become capricious. Indeed, Musk can elevate any idea or person he wants through recommendations and UX [user experience] choices and there will be no oversight on this as a private company.

One wonders what has supposedly happened prior to this point? Was there accountability when Twitter tried to squelch a totally legitimate news story about Hunter Bidens laptop prior to the 2020 election? Has anyone blown the whistle as the platform forbids one side of the debate on trans issues from using its preferred terms and expressing its deeply held, sincere beliefs? Is anyone keeping it from suspending the account of a conservative satirical publication, or cracking down on an account devoted simply to reposting already public videos?

The worst case is that these decisions are made explicitly to disadvantage conservatives. The best case is that decisions about what constitutes harassment and misinformation and the like inevitably involve subjective value judgments and politics naturally enters into them.

It would be easier to believe that neutral criteria were used, say, to kick Marjorie Taylor Greene off the platform, if a member of the Squad were getting dinged, too. Itd be easier to take the flagging of conservatives for spreading misinformation or alleged misinformation, if, for instance, Stacey Abrams and her supporters were whistled for running down the Georgia election system with various provable distortions.

Twitter is run as if a workforce of hyper-online progressive employees overwhelmingly living and working in a deeply blue jurisdiction is calling the shots, and, of course, so it is.

Another count against Musk is that these employees hate him. But so what? If we all agree that Twitter is an important public forum, its rules shouldnt be set by a group of people who have a vested interest in vindicating their own ideological beliefs and fashionable obsessions.

The underlying belief of those who think Musk is about to ruin Twitter and blight the American political conversation is that Donald Trump wouldnt have won the 2016 presidential election if it werent for Russian bots and right-wing purveyors of misinformation running riot on social media. If these were all repressed, the electoral system would be restored to its senses meaning back to Democratic control.

The effect of the 2016 Russian information operation was always exaggerated, though, and the attempt to squash misinformation on social media has veered into misbegotten campaigns against entirely reasonable points of view that baffle or outrage progressive America (the idea that Covid might have leaked from a lab got this treatment for a while).

Musks classical-liberal view that false or unwelcome speech is best combated by more speech once was a matter of consensus. That it feels radical now and is so bitterly contested is a symptom of how the Overton window has shifted toward speech suppression in the name of content moderation.

By the way, allowing Trump back on Twitter, as Musk is expected to do, wouldnt be a partisan power play. First of all, its significance would probably be exaggerated. Trump getting kicked off Twitter diminished his influence over the hour-by-hour political and media conversation, but its not as though hes been bereft without it hes retained his hold on the GOP, the real measure of his power, just fine.

Also, his Twitter return would hardly be an unalloyed benefit to him or the GOP. There are a lot of people in the Republican Party who would prefer to look past his poisonous musings and its a little harder to do that if hes back Twitter. (His own platform, Truth Social, doesnt have nearly the sway.) And Democrats, who want Trump to be as prominent as possible as a foil for Biden and others, should welcome a steady diet of Trump tweets again.

There is no doubt that Musk will encounter significant challenges to implementing his vision. Lines have to be drawn somewhere and hell have to guard against being as arbitrary as the prior regime just in a different way. But no one should doubt that he is deeply anti-bot (hes complained bitterly about their prevalence and tried to use them as a way out of the deal), and hopefully he will find more ways to allow people to choose for themselves what they want to see or not, without Sanhedrin-like rulings on deeply contentious political and moral questions.

Obviously, not all of this will be to everyones liking, especially to progressives who have gotten used to working their will with Twitter. But the social media platform is, ultimately, a private business that can set any rules it wants. If a more free-speech-oriented Twitter is hateful to them, they can take the advice they threw at conservatives disenchanted with the platform in recent years and go out and, build their own Twitter.

Excerpt from:
Opinion | Liberals Currently Control Twitter. That Needs to Change. - POLITICO

WASHINGTON Members of Congress are fanning out to every district in the country, leaving the wonky floor debates on Capitol Hill behind for the campaign trail in advance of the crucial Nov. 8 midterm elections.

Democrats are fighting to hold their razor-thin majorities in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, citing two years of victories on infrastructure, climate and prescription drug coverage. Republicans whose early expectations that they would sweep the House were tempered after a Supreme Court abortion ruling are trying to convince voters they need to balance the scales by putting them in charge of one or both chambers.

GOP candidates are attempting to tie Democrats to inflation, crime, fears about immigration and an unpopular president. But theyre shying away from talking about a national abortion ban in the wake of the courts decision to overturn two previous cases declaring abortion a constitutional right while Democrats are seeking something of a nationwide referendum on abortion access.

Adding to the tension in an unusual midterm election, Republican election deniers are on the ballot in many states. Election officials have described threats and a spread of misinformation. Polls in the tightest races arent giving a clear indication of who voters want in office, often switching from one week to the next or putting both candidates within the margin of error.

The polling uncertainty has left party leaders to funnel as much cash and attention to key races as possible, with Senate battles in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin drawing the most media and cash. Spending overall is expected to top a record $9.3 billion by the time the election is over, according to Open Secrets.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican not up for reelection this year, pegs the chances the GOP regains that chamber as dead even.

Were in a bunch of close races. I think we have a 50-50 shot of getting the Senate back, McConnell said the last week of September.

McConnell sidestepped a question during the same press conference about whether he was being overly dismissive about the role abortion might play with suburban women, who tend to swing between voting for Democrats and Republicans.

I think that issue is playing out in different ways in different states, McConnell said, countering that the three biggest national issues Republicans will pound away at during the campaign will be inflation, crime and open borders.

In Kansasa state dominated by Republicans residents overwhelmingly voted this summer to reject a constitutional amendment that would have allowed state lawmakers to enact abortion restrictions.

Thats been the only ballot question about abortion since the Supreme Courts ruling in June, though California, Kentucky, Michigan and Vermont residents will vote on abortion ballot questions on election day.

A September poll by NPR, PBS NewsHour and Marist National, a survey research center, found inflation was the No. 1 voting issue for Americans, with 30% saying it was top of mind when they thought about how theyd vote in Novembers election. That figure was down from 37% in a July poll.

Abortion came in second, with 22% of people surveyed citing it as a top issue, up from 18% in July.

The Supreme Courts decision on Dobbs this summer has had a major impact on electoral politics heading toward the midterm elections, Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, said in a statement accompanying the poll.

Abortion has likely been the most significant factor in improving Democrats chances in the past few months, Erin Covey, an analyst with the forecasting group Inside Elections, said in an interview.

Yet the inflation issue is powerful.

The consumer price index, which is the average market of consumer goods and services bought by a household, has found a continued increase in the cost of shelter, food, medical costs and education. The CPI determined that food has increased 11.4% over the last year the largest 12-month increase since May 1979.

But despite economic concerns, the poll still found that Democrats have a 4-point advantage over Republicans in this upcoming election, primarily due to the Supreme Courts decision.

Democrats have seized upon abortion as an issue to motivate their base and get new voters to the polls, but its unclear if those new voter registrants, particularly women, are due to the Supreme Courts abortion ruling and if that will help Democrats win tight races.

In every election since 1980, women have always outnumbered men in regard to voter registrations, according to data compiled by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

The Democratic data firm TargetSmart, which tracks voter registrations, found that there was a spike in registrations of women voters following the early leak of the Dobbs decision, but voter registrations in 2018 and 2020 were still higher than voter registrations when Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24.

Republican leaders in the U.S. House, despite their struggles dealing with the abortion issue, still expect theyll regain control. But key Democrats have become more outspoken in recent weeks saying voters will keep them in the majority.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal have all said they expect to hold onto the House.

Pelosi, a California Democrat, said last week on CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert that overturning Roe v. Wade had a significant impact on how Democrats are approaching the midterm campaigns, leading to a whole different attitude on the part of some about whether we could win.

I feel just watching each of the races forgive me for saying this, in a very cold-blooded way, as to which races we can win, to ensure that we not only hold the House, but we increase our number, Pelosi said.

Jayapal, of Washington state, said on a call with reporters she plans to campaign for at-risk progressive Democrats in the coming weeks, noting that many of the CPCs members are also in the so-called Frontline program, which directs resources to Democrats in swing districts.

We think progressives can win in tough districts and have shown it over and over again, Jayapal said.

Democratic candidates are running on what they call a raft of accomplishments over the last two years of unified government, touting infrastructure, climate change and prescription drug prices, among others, said Tommy Garcia, a spokesman for House Democrats campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. They are also focused on what they call Republican candidates extremism.

A Democratic majority will build on this historic progress, continue fighting to lower the cost of living for working families, and restore Roes abortion protections that Republican judges ripped away, Garcia said in a written statement. Voters will reject the GOPs plan to ban abortion nationwide, throw out votes if they dont like the results of an election, gut Social Security and Medicare, and stir up fear for their own benefit.

President Joe Bidens approval has ticked up since Democrats notched a few victories this summer, passing bills on gun violence and climate, health and taxes, as well as granting student loan debt relief. Moderate drops in gas prices from record highs earlier this year have also helped, Covey said.

Still, polling in individual races has not shown a massive shift toward Democratic candidates, she said.

Bidens approval has gone up a bit, the generic ballot a little bit better. And obviously, we have seen Democratic over-performance in special elections, she said. In terms of the polling on an individual level, there hasnt been a significant shift towards that.

Analysts still rate a Republican takeover of the House as the most likely outcome, though the prospect of a landslide election is less probable, she added.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has 39 members in its Frontline program, naming them as at risk of losing reelection. The Houses current party breakdown is 220 Democrats, 212 Republicans and three vacancies.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the House GOPs campaign arm, placed 75 Democrats on its target list after all states completed their redistricting processes in June. The cohort includes all of the Frontline Democrats, except Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey and Pat Ryan of New York.

The Cook Political Report with Amy Walter, however, has 30 House races in the toss-up category, with 20 of those held by Democrats, nine controlled by GOP members and one new district in Colorado.

Cook places 194 House seats as leaning toward Democratic control while 211 seats are favored for Republicans. That means the GOP needs to win fewer of the 30 toss-up races to reach the 218 seats needed to control the chamber.

While every House seat is up for reelection for another two-year term, just one-third of the Senate will face voters on Nov. 8, since members are elected to six-year terms.

In the Senate races, Cook rates the Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin races as toss-ups. The Arizona, Colorado and New Hampshire races lean towards a Democrat winning. And the Florida, North Carolina and Ohio races lean toward a Republican victory.

Nine Senate seats held by Democrats are expected to stay blue, while 15 seats up this cycle that are held by Republicans are in the solidly GOP category. The Utah Senate race is classified as likely going to a Republican, according to Cooks ratings.

Pennsylvania, where Democrat John Fetterman faces Republican Mehmet Oz for an open seat, was rated as lean Democrat, but was moved to a toss-up this week, with Cooks Senate and Governors Editor Jessica Taylor writing that it has become a margin-of-error race.

Republicans and Democrats alike admit the race has tightened and that Pennsylvania could be the tipping point state for the Senate majority, she wrote.

Philip Chen, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Denver, said that in the Senate, Democrats have a better chance of picking up more seats because Republicans are defending a lot of seats, and Democrats are fairly solid in the ones that theyre holding.

He added that the popularity of the president does come into play. A Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll this month found that Bidens approval was only 40%, which was actually up from his May low of 36% approval in the same survey.

We really will have to see how much the national mood dissatisfaction with President Biden and (how) things like that really do influence things, (and) how much of it is just the Senate is a tougher battle for Republicans this time around? Chen said.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has spent millions of dollars against Democrats in key states. In Arizona, this election cycle the NRSC has spent more than $9 million against Sen. Mark Kelly, and more than $4 million against Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has spent $10.5 million against Kellys Republican opponent, Blake Masters, and $3 million against Warnocks Republican opponent, Herschel Walker.

Biden, speaking at a Democratic National Committee reception in New Jersey on Thursday, cited the tendency for the presidents party to lose some power in the first midterms.

Based on statistics, the Democrats are running uphill because of the fact that, with only a couple exceptions, the first term of an incumbent president on the off-year election has been not a good deal most times, Biden said.

He then predicted that Democrats would hold the Senate, possibly picking up a couple seats, though he didnt seem as optimistic about the partys chances of keeping the House, blaming trends at the state level. Biden pointed out theres been a lot of gerrymandering in the House across the country, because a lot of governors arent Democratic governors.

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The battle for control of Congress: Abortion, inflation, crime and Biden - Nebraska Examiner

Lachlan Murdochs role as the controller of his familys media conglomerates in the US and Australia was inseparable from the reputation of those organisations, the federal court has heard.

The relevance of Murdochs leadership of the US Fox Corporation and its role in the January 6 riots was discussed at length in a preliminary hearing for the upcoming defamation trial against Private Medias Crikey.

Lawyers for Murdoch say the article falsely claimed, among other imputations, that Murdoch illegally conspired with Trump to overturn the presidential election result and knowingly entered into a criminal conspiracy with Donald Trump and a large number of Fox News commentators to overturn the 2020 election result.

Murdochs barrister Sue Chrysanthou SC wants parts of Crikeys defence struck out because she says they are irrelevant, embarrassing and will waste time at the trial.

Chrysanthou argued on Monday it was not necessary for the court to watch an incalculable number of hours of Fox News coverage to establish whether Crikey could successfully use the new public interest defence.

She argued the new defence which has not been tested in a case yet was not applicable to Crikey. The new dawn promised to the media by reason of this defence is not going to happen, she said.

But Private Medias barrister Michael Hodge KC said the context of Murdochs role at Fox and the lies told by Donald Trump and Fox News commentators about the US election were relevant to the public interest defence.

It is either true or untrue that Rupert Murdoch, members of the Murdoch family who control these global media conglomerates and Lachlan Murdoch have not disavowed the lies about the US presidential election, Hodge said.

Justice Michael Wigney said the issue of what could be argued as a public interest defence under the new defamation laws was complex and he reserved his decision.

To rely on the public interest defence, Crikey needed to show politics editor Bernard Keane held a reasonable belief that what he wrote was in the public interest, Chrysanthou said.

We are saying there was no matter of public interest that connected my client to that [US Capitol hearing] evidence, Chrysanthou said.

In August, the co-chair of News Corp filed proceedings for defamation against the independent news site over an article by Keane headlined: Trump is a confirmed unhinged traitor. And Murdoch is his unindicted co-conspirator.

Chrysanthou on Monday said the only co-conspirators identified were persons with my clients surname and Fox News commentators.

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In the final paragraph Keane out of nowhere compared her client with Richard Nixon, an unindicted co-conspirator in the Watergate controversy, the barrister said.

The article was about a criminal who had committed an indictable offence and got away with it. And the reader is told there is extensive evidence of my client engaging in a plot with the unhinged traitor [Trump], so-called. Thats what this article is about.

Murdoch is also claiming Keane and Crikeys editor-in-chief, Peter Fray, were motivated by malice, predominantly acting to harm Murdoch.

Private Media has applied to have that claim struck out. It has denied the article defamed Murdoch as alleged and will argue it didnt cause serious harm to him.

Murdoch is seeking aggravated damages and an injunction to prevent Crikey from republishing the article and its imputations.

A nine-day trial is due to start in late March 2023.

More here:
Whats in the public interest? Murdoch v Crikey trial could test new defamation defence - The Guardian

October 10 is World Mental Health Day, and the 2022 World Mental Health Day theme is, "Make mental health and wellbeing for all a global priority."

Finances are a huge stressor for many, and if you want to make mental health a priority, alleviating some of the anxiety surrounding money management is a good place to start.

42% of U.S adults say money is negatively impacting their mental health, according to a recent survey from Bankrate and Psych Central.

The survey polled 2,457 adults about how finances affect their mental state. Feeling stressed is the top response to finances, according to 70% of survey respondents.

Other emotions people associate with money include worry, anxiety, feeling overwhelmed and insecurity.

These are the money-related activities that triggered negative feelings, from most to least common:

Of all age groups, millennials, aged 26 to 41 years old, experienced the most financial anxiety, at 48%.

"That's when we're first having children, first starting out or are insecure around our jobs because we haven't done it long enough. We haven't built up savings," says T.J. Williams, a regional president and financial advisor at Wealth Enhancement Group, an independent wealth management firm.

"Those are normal experiences that we've had for generations, but society's put a different spin on it. Social media's put a lot of pressure that's undue."

Gen X, ages 42 to 57, doesn't lag far behind at 46%, and 40% of those aged 18 to 25 in Gen Z say money problems cause mental health concerns for them, too.

Women, more than men, indicate that money significantly impacts their mental state, "with 46 percent selecting it compared to 38 percent of men."

When income is factored in, low earners experience more emotional distress due to finances than higher earners.

Just 30% of people who make at least $100,000 annually say money negatively affects their mental health, compared to 48% of earners making less than $50,000 a year.

To feel more secure in your finances, Williams suggests following these three steps:

Following this step-by-step process can decrease how often you need to look at your bank account throughout the week, Williams notes. He only recommends checking the status of your finances once every week to monitor fraudulent activity.

You can also consider getting an accountability partner who you can share your finance goals with, he adds. This person should be non-judgmental and supportive, Williams emphasizes.

Also, keep in mind that everything you see on social media isn't always what it seems, says Williams.

Comparing your financial situation to others because they post images of themselves traveling or purchasing a new car will only make you feel worse, he says.

"Their financial situation could have been different from the start," says Williams. "You [also] don't know if they're actually living above their means. There's a lot of that, just for show."

Above all else, "give yourself grace," says Williams. Financial challenges are normal, especially when you're just beginning to manage your own money, he notes.

"When we talk about planning and budgeting, you can't account for everything. Life happens," he says. "There's things that are outside of our control, and we need to be okay with that."

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42% of Americans say money negatively impacts their mental health. Here's what an advisor suggests for financial security - CNBC