Comedy Is Now Allowed?
Elon Musk has owned Twitter for 5 days and already he’s fired the company’s board of directors and made himself the board’s sole member, fired the entire team of data engineers, fired the CEO and CFO, and the legal affairs and policy chief who kicked Trump off. He also fired other employees and is buying back their stock which is supposed to be part of their compensation. Twitter is now the private domain of the richest man in the world. He said he did it for civilization so we’d have a town square. After firing workers he tweeted: Comedy is now legal on Twitter.
On Musk’s first day, MAGAs were free to spread hateful, disgusting, inciteful lies, rumors, and conspiracy theories about Paul Pelosi, the husband of one of the most powerful women in the world who had been attacked in his own home. Elon Musk himself replied to a tweet by Hillary Clinton, condemning the attack. He said there was another side to the story and included a link to the Santa Monica Observer which claimed Paul Pelosi was on drugs and fighting with a male prostitute who ended up hitting him with a hammer. His reply was amplified by a lot of other nuts with large platforms and in no time the right wing was talking about Paul Pelosi being gay. The Santa Monica Observer is famous for this crap. They once published that Hillary Clinton was dead and that the Democrats used a body double in the 2016 debate. They also published that sunlight could cure COVID and Bill Gates is responsible for polio.
Elon Musk deleted his reply but the damage is done. Nobody could report him for spreading disinformation because he owns Twitter.
Twitter cost Musk $44 billion. He started talking about buying Twitter when the Babylon Bee, (the Onion for white supremacists and fascists) got permanently banned from Twitter. He wants to take Twitter back to the good old days when he, the Babylon Bee, Q, militia groups, right-wing media, hate groups, Christian nationalists, racists, and Trump can post whatever they want and call it free speech.
It’s doubtful that Trump would accept an invitation to come back. To do so would mean to admit defeat for Truth Social and his ego would never allow that. Trump said he was happy Musk bought Twitter but he is staying on Truth Social because it has “bigger numbers” than all the other social media platforms.
Twitter started out as a “power to the people” platform in 2006. Activists and pro-democracy movements around the world used it to organize. #BlackLivesMatter changed the course of history. Twitter gave ordinary people power and now it has been taken over by the richest man in the world.
Senator Chris Murphy wants an investigation into Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed, the #2 investor of Twitter, citing national security concerns.
Despite the official police reports and David DePape’s actual confession, conspiracy theories and outright lies have spread rapidly, helped along by five days of Elon Musk’s leadership at Twitter. MAGAs, Fox News, and Republicans are not only making light of an assassination attempt on the highest ranking member of Congress, but they have managed to deflect away from this being an actual consequence of Trump and the Republicans inciting violence and have blamed it on the Democrats. They’re making a hero out of David DePape just like they did Kyle Rittenhouse.
The assassin had 2 hammers, 2 pairs of gloves, tape, rope, and zip ties. He said that he was fighting tyranny like the founding fathers did with no option of surrender. A simple search of his social media sites and blog revealed that he was heavily influenced by QAnon/Fox News/Steve Bannon/Alex Jones, etc. The San Francisco District Attorney has charged him with attempted murder, residential burglary, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, false imprisonment of an elder, and threats to a public official and their family. He is being held without bail and is facing life in prison. The feds have charged him with one count of assault of an immediate family member of a United States official with the intent to retaliate against the official on account of the performance of official duties (maximum sentence 30 years) and one count of attempted kidnapping of a United States official on account of the performance of official duties (maximum sentence of 20 years).
Paul Pelosi is still in the ICU.
Attempted murder of one of their own is still really funny to MAGA Repubicans. Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake said on stage during an interview in Arizona, “Nancy Pelosi, well, she’s got protection when she’s in DC — apparently her house doesn’t have a lot of protection.” The crowd burst into laughter and the interviewer was laughing so hard he covered his face with his notes.
Kari Lake said back in May that she was going to take her sleeping bag and camp out at drop boxes to watch out for voter fraud and she encouraged others to do the same. They obeyed and have been showing up armed with cameras at drop boxes. Conspiracy theorist with a huge social media following, Melody Jennings of Clean Election USA, posts photos she receives from MAGAs of voters putting ballots in drop boxes then accuses them of fraud. Others repost them. Trump shares her posts on Truth Social.
Vigilantes follow people home after they have voted to scare the crap out of them so they’ll tell their friends and their friends will be too scared to vote.
MAGA Republicans are not only not condemning an assassination attempt and threats of violence at ballot boxes, they’re poking the bear and egging MAGAs on so they’ll not only keep others from voting, but they’ll show up and vote FOR THEM.
