Instagram Scandal, Trump Indictment, Yellow Sky, Elon on the Economy
Instagram Scandal, Trump Indictment, Yellow Sky, Elon on the Economy
Twitter News Digest for the week of 6/7-6/13
Hey everyone!
This week’s news digest covers the latest Trump indictment, Instagram’s big scandal, the much-memed NYC airborne event, and Elon’s statements about the economy. Don’t skip the memes at the end!
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Trump Indicted
Donald Trump has been indicted again.
Last week, the Department of Justice announced it was charging Trump with illegally retaining national security documents after leaving the White House. Yesterday, Trump was charged with 37 counts under the Espionage Act.
In a four-minute video, Trump said the charges were politically motivated and accused the DOJ and FBI of “election interference.” He also released a two-part post to his social media platform.
Elon responded warning that politicization of the justice process risks losing the faith of the public.
He reiterated his concern in an exchange with Stephen King, who expressed hope that Trump would go to jail.
Trump supporters accused the DOJ of a double-standard, arguing that arresting political opponents is the kind of thing that happens in banana republics.
The timing of the latest legal action against Trump is interesting.
Trump has been under investigation by the FBI over handling of documents for at least a year. The FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago residence in August 2022.
By an amazing coincidence, just hours before the latest indictment was reported to the public, congressional Republicans obtained an FBI FD-1023 whistleblower document alleging Joe Biden accepted a $5M bribe from Ukrainian energy company Burisma in 2015, when he was VP.
On Monday, Senator Chuck Grassley told congress the Burisma executive who bribed Hunter and Joe Biden kept 17 audio recordings of their conversations as an “insurance policy.”
Trump said of the indictment’s timing, “It's no coincidence they indicted me the very same day that it was revealed the FBI hid explosive evidence that Joe Biden took a $5 million illegal bribe from Ukraine.”
When questioned about the bribe, Biden said the accusation was “a bunch of malarky” and asked reporters, “Where’s the money?”
In May, the Durham Report concluded that the Trump-Russia collusion accusations originated from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and the FBI acted unlawfully in obtaining surveillance warrants on Trump. Durham is scheduled to testify to Congress later this month.
Strangely, many of the same media outlets who credulously promoted the now-debunked Russiagate narrative for two years are pivoting to the idea that Trump should go to jail for allegedly mishandling classified documents—even as the President has unilateral power to declassify any documents he wants.
There’s a good argument to be made that the intelligence agencies and media owes the public full accounting of what it got wrong about Russiagate.
The biggest question no one asking is, what information do the documents contain?
Media outlets appear uninterested in pursuing this question beyond a surface level. None have reported that Trump declassified a raft of FBI-related documents on 1/19/21, his final day in office, or speculated if those are the documents in question.
For her part, Hillary Clinton capitalized on Trump’s indictment by bringing back a limited-edition run of “But Her Emails” merch.
If Trump’s possession of the documents is actually a national security threat, perhaps the public deserves to know what information the documents contain.
If, on the other hand, this all just a disagreement about where Presidential records should be archived, it’s worth asking if the rule of law should be undermined to keep Trump out of office.
So what do you think: is Trump hiding something about his time in office with the documents?
Or do they contain incriminating evidence on his political adversaries?
Yesterday, Trump was arrested and pled “not guilty” to 37 charges. Hours later, Tucker Carlson released the third episode of his Twitter show, arguing that Trump was arrested because of his opposition to the military-industrial complex agenda of endless war. The episode received eight million impressions in four hours.
In a speech to his supporters Tuesday night, Trump invoked the “Clinton Sock Case” to argue that “the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President during the President’s term, and in the President’s sole discretion.” He also accused the intelligence agencies of running “illegal psychological warfare campaigns against the American people” for the last seven years.
When asked if he had any role in Trump’s arrest, President Biden said, “I have not spoken to [AG Merrick Garland] at all. I’m not gonna speak to him and I have no comment on what happened.”
Instagram Scandal
Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported on a “vast network of accounts” using Meta’s Instagram for the “commission and purchase of underage-sex content.”
According to WSJ and Stanford researchers, Instagram’s algorithm promoted illicit content to pedophiles, who used pizza emojis as code for child pornography and map emojis as shorthand for “Minor Attracted Person.”
Instagram’s failure to shut down pedophile networks is curious.
The WSJ report comes days before Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged his company censored true information about the pandemic.
Clearly, Meta has the ability to identify and restrict forbidden topics. Why they turned this power against Covid dissenters, but not pedophiles, is an important question.
The Meta news dropped the same day that reports went viral claiming Mel Gibson will release a four-part documentary about the human trafficking trade.
A representative for Gibson denied the report, but that didn’t stop the rumor mill from churning.
Some people pointed to January remarks by Tim Ballard, founder of an anti-trafficking organization called Operation Underground Railroad, that Gibson was working with him on the film to raise awareness about trafficked children in Ukraine.
After the claim went viral, Trump posted a video segment on the supposed documentary to Truth Social.
The idea that Trump is working against traffickers dates back to his mostly unreported comments about trafficking being an “ancient art.” His supporters have argued his proposed border wall was designed to shut down on human smuggling routes.
As Gibson trended, America First politician Kari Lake tweeted her support for his anti-trafficking work.
The topic of border trafficking came under the Twitter microscope again this month when RFK Jr visited the US-Mexico border following a tweet about the “humanitarian nightmare” of “Human trafficking.”
Elon also spotlighted the Gibson story by responding to a post comparing Gibson favorably with Joe Biden.
The news about Instagram and Gibson comes as a larger debate is taking place about the role of sexuality, identity, and transgenderism in children’s lives.
The political left has has warned of a rising tide of hate and fear directed at the Pride movement.
More moderate Americans have questioned why so much LGBTQ+ content seems to be aimed at children through the public school system, and why multinational corporations have embraced what was once a movement of marginalized outsiders.
Transgenderism has become another political flashpoint.
Some American states have passed laws outlawing gender transition surgery and puberty blocking drugs for minors.
A number of European countries, including Sweden, Norway, Finland, and the UK are also in the process of restricting “gender affirmative care” for young people.
On Saturday, President Biden warned of “dangerous anti-LGBTQ laws […] targeting transgender children, terrifying families, and criminalizing doctors and nurses. These bills and laws attack the most basic values and freedoms."
Pride month is always a controversial time. This year, it seems especially contentious.
What do you think: is it hateful/fearful to demand boundaries to protect children from sexual content, or has the 2SLGBTQ+ movement gone too far?
Airborne Toxic Event
Last week, wildfires in Ottawa caused a wave of smoke to blow across the eastern United States, notably turning the NYC sky a yellowish-orange for a day.
Predictably, Twitter was filled with speculation about the true cause of the atmospheric disturbance. Between Coronavirus, Chinese weather balloons, East Palestine, and now the Ottawa fires, airborne events have become a regular feature of life on Earth in 2023.
But more striking than the theories were the memes.
When something like this happens, memes make light of the absurdity of it all. Here are a few favorites:
Elon on monetary future
Over the past few weeks, Elon made several pronouncements about the global financial system.
Though he is just one man, his role as the head of multiple international corporations gives him unique access to financial information—none more than Twitter, which functions as a global hive mind. This, combined with his background in digital finance, make his opinions worth listening to.
Below are a few of his recent observations and predictions.
While wearing a Doge shirt, he told the Babylon Bee that the $44B he paid for Twitter won’t be worth much pretty soon:
He responded to an AOC parody account about money printing and inflation:
He also commented on the inexplicable resilience of the stock market:
Home sales have been declining for more than a year. Prices are starting to reflect the tepid market, and he predicted the trend will accelerate.
A decline in stock market sentiment may be reflected in short selling data
Elon’s Memes
Dogey Treats: News Bites
US Politics
Trump vowed to investigate the rise in childhood chronic diseases, including autism. RFK tweeted, “I love this brand of plagiarism and invite all other presidential candidates to follow suit.”
The Wall Street journal announced that George Soros was handing over leadership of his $25B empire to his son Alex, who said he was “more political” than his father. Elon tweeted to Alex Soros: “destroying public safety by electing DAs who won’t prosecute violent criminals needs to stop.” He also said the leadership change was “just a formality” and suggested doing a Twitter Spaces event with Alex and journalist Brian Krassenstein to discuss their differences of opinion.
Elon questioned CNN’s history of hiring intelligence agency officials with a history of dishonesty
RFK returned to the popular political news show Breaking Points.
The Winklevoss twins predicted the Democrats’ war on crypto will hurt them in the 2024 elections
Global Financial System
Janet Yellen predicted a slow decline in the dollar’s use as the world reserve currency.
Kenya’s President urged African countries to use their own currencies instead of the dollar to settle international trade. Pakistan began using the Yuan for Russian oil trade. Egypt will settle trade deals with local currencies instead of the dollar.
Elon tweeted he was looking to hire VP of witchcraft and propaganda.
According to Elon’s biographer Walter Isaacson, Twitter will soon implement micropayments for individual pieces of content. Elon hinted at launching a LinkedIn competitor on Twitter.
Jack Dorsey told Breaking Points he was surprised by some of the revelations from the Twitter Files and explained his endorsement of RFK Jr.
Russia-Ukraine
The US will provide Ukraine with depleted Uranium munitions and F-16 fighter jets.
Veteran journalist Seymour Hersch said more than half the world supports Russia rather than the US.
Misc
Actor Tyrese Gibson said Hollywood has a pro-Satan agenda. Someone on Twitter asked Actor James Woods, “how evil is Hollwood?” Woods tweeted (and then deleted), “Multiply your worst fears by 100.” Elon took note.
JPMorgan Chase reached an agreement to settle a lawsuit concerning its relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. The bank will pay $290M.
Donald Trump said the worst photos from Hunter Biden’s laptop “haven’t been exposed yet.” Last week, the website Bidenlaptopmedia.com went live with over 10,000 photos from the laptop.
GameStop executive chair Ryan Cohen purchased $10M more worth of $GME.
Elon floated the idea of buying the WHO.
Memes of the Week
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