TwitterTV, Media Danger, A 60-year Coverup
Twitter News Digest for the week of 5/3-5/9
Hey everyone!
This week’s news digest looks at Tucker’s move to Twitter, the evolving Twitter debate about race and the media, and RFK’s claim that the CIA killed his uncle. Be sure to check out the meme bank at the end.
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Last Free Platform in the World
Tucker Carlson is coming to Twitter.
Two weeks ago, Tucker was fired by Fox News despite having the highest-rated news show in America. The network has yet to give an official explanation for its decision.
Days later, he broke his silence with a video posted exclusively to Twitter, stoking speculation that he’d chosen his next platform.
On Sunday, Axios reported that he was planning a lawsuit against Fox News for breach of contract. The article also claimed Tucker and Elon had spoken about working together.
Yesterday evening, Tucker tweeted a three-minute video with the words, “We’re back.”
He explained his decision in terms of the first amendment: “You can’t have a free society if people aren’t aloud to say what they think is true. Speech is the fundamental prerequisite for democracy […] Amazingly, as of tonight, there aren’t any platforms left that allow free speech. The last big one in the world, the only one, is Twitter, where we are now.”
Elon wrote that Carlson would be treated like any other creator on Twitter.
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Reaction to the news was varied. CNN called Carlson an “extremist.”
Jimmy Dore praised Tucker for criticizing the war in Ukraine, big pharma, and the media itself.
Saagar Enjeti questioned why Tucker would go to Twitter, which has limited video functionality.
Elon hinted that Twitter TV and other video improvements are in the works, including an app.
Twitter could increase Tucker’s reach.
His recent videos have been watched tens of millions of times, after averaging around three million viewers a night on Fox.
Viewership for Fox News has sharply declined since Tucker left. His move to the Internet feels like a key moment for the balance of power between old and new media.
Tucker said his show is “starting soon.”
Great Danger
A big Twitter topic this week was media depictions of race and crime.
The discussion began with the death of Jordan Neely, a 30-year-old black man.
A U.S. Marine put Neely into a chokehold for 15 minutes. Neely was later pronounced dead.
Neely’s death was picked up by the legacy media. Three politicians called it a “lynching.”
On Twitter, the counter-narrative developed that Neely had a history of mental illness and crime, including attempted kidnapping of a 7-year-old child and a felony assault conviction for punching an elderly woman. Stories conflict about whether he was threatening passengers or not.
Over the weekend, hundreds of protestors occupied subway tracks demanding justice for Neely’s death. The Marine has not been charged and the story is still unfolding.
The topic of race and media came up again when a newspapers reported a Dallas-area shooting was tied to white supremacy while ignoring that the shooter was hispanic.
The story grew weirder when an online outlet called Bellingcat published what it claimed were screenshots from a Russian social media site with the shooter’s writings.
The events sparked a larger discussion about how media has changed over time.
In February, Elon tweeted, “For a *very* long time, US media was racist against non-white people, now they’re racist against whites & Asians. Same thing happened with elite colleges & high schools in America. Maybe they can try not being racist.” On Saturday, he highlighted data to support his stance.
Arguably, the focus on divisive cultural issues has kept the left and right from uniting around economic populism that benefits 99.9% of citizens.
Identity politics has been around since at least the 70s, but Wokeness only broke into the corporate mainstream in the last decade.
The media started getting more woke at the end of Occupy Wall Street. It’s fair to ask if these two things could be related.
Whether this was deliberate plan by corporations to shape public perceptions, or just a coincidence, banks and other mega-corporations seem oddly comfortable with wokeness.
Woke politics should pose an existential threat to exploitative corporations, yet they have consistently embraced it.
The last time race and crime were consistently front-page issues in America was George Floyd’s death in 2020.
It will probably stay in the headlines this week in some form. The Texas National Guard is preparing for thousands of migrants to cross the border on Thursday as the US drops asylum restrictions known as Title 42.
A 60-year Coverup
Last Friday, the All-In Podcast released an interview with RFK Jr.
The episode became the 13th-most downloaded podcast in the world.
Kennedy repeated his claim that the CIA killed his uncle JFK. He also said the CIA has a history of fixing elections.
He repeated the claim about his uncle in an interview on Monday, telling Sean Hannity “it’s a 60-year coverup.”
Elon’s Memes
Was the drone attack on the Kremlin a Russian false flag?
Censorship and content moderation
Canadian Broadcast Corporation returns to Twitter after having been labeled ‘69% government-funded media’
Dogey Treats: News Bites
Tesla/SpaceX/TBC
Tesla plans to offer a free one-month trial for Full Self-Driving software to car owners. The company broke ground on a lithium refinery outside Corpus Christi, Texas.
Starlink reached 1.5M users and is bringing in $140M a month in revenue. How long until it becomes the world’s largest Internet service?
Clark County Nevada approved a major expansion of The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop, adding 18 stations and 25 miles of tunnel.
American Politics
At Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder meeting, a man called for Warren Buffet to be removed from his position based on Buffet’s connection to Bill Gates, and Gates’ connection to Jeffrey Epstein. The man was put in handcuffs and removed from the auditorium. The NY Post reported that Jeffrey Epstein managed Bill Gates’s money and met with Gates several times in his Manhattan apartment, according to another philanthropist. A court filing accused former JPMorgan and Barclay’s executive Jes Staley of rape at Epstein’s private island. Breaking Points covered recent Epstein disclosures.
Congressmen James Comer and Chuck Grassley released a statement claiming the FBI has proof the Biden family accepted foreign bribes in exchange for favorable policy. They are expected to release more information soon.
The White House held a meeting of AI industry leaders but neglected to invite Elon. It also put out a statement about AI. Elon said, “If the intern who was asked to write this used ChatGPT, that would be amazing.” In response to news that Kamala Harris had been appointed to the role of the Biden Administration’s AI Czar, he tweeted, “maybe someone who can fix their own wifi router wouldn’t be too much to ask.”
Global Financial System
Pakistan began purchasing Russian oil with Chinese Yuan, making it the latest country to ditch the petrodollar.
Elon said the official tally that US banks had $680B in unrealized losses was “probably an understatement.” He repeatedly warned that the incentives for bank customers to withdraw cash from banks (offering <1% interest) and put it into money market/Treasury funds (4.5% interest) could pose systemic risk for banks.
Louisiana Senator John Kennedy told Fox News banks are “sophisticated Ponzi schemes”
The SEC gave $279M to a whistleblower, its largest reward ever.
Elon said the debt ceiling should not be raised and tweeted, “America has a lot of gold!”
Russia-Ukraine
Russia claimed a Ukrainian drone attempted to assassinate Vladimir Putin by attacking the Kremlin. Elon said the attack could be false flag by Russia.
Colonel Douglas McGregor told RFK that the Ukraine war was making Russia’s military stronger, contrary to the US’s goals.
Crypto
A court ordered the SEC to respond to a Coinbase request for regulatory guidance.
Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse praised the United Arab Emirates for offering clear crypto regulation. Ripple is set to expand its operations into Dubai.
PayPal disclosed nearly $1B worth of crypto on its balance sheet.
A group of analysts said that Russia could account for up to 18% of Bitcoin hashrate as a result of anti-crypto policies by the US and other countries.
The Bitcoin network experienced a large transaction backlog over the weekend, causing Binance to suspend withdrawals.
Covid
Rochelle Wollensky resigned as director of the CDC. The WHO declared the pandemic over. New Jersey is proposing to make the Covid vaccines mandatory to attend public school. Chelsea Clinton announced “The Big Catch-Up” initiative, “the largest childhood immunization effort ever.” She lamented the rise of “vaccine hesitancy” and “questioning.”
Memes of the Week
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