Hate speech dramatically surges on Twitter following Elon Musk takeover, new research shows

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/02/tech/twitter-hate-speech/index.html

New Twitter owner Elon Musk declared last month that “hate speech impressions” had dramatically fallen on the platform since he took over.

“A safe space for hate is a hostile environment to most decent folks,” Ahmed added, “by means of comparison, who would want to sit in a cafe or pub where crazies are screaming expletives and bigotry, let alone have the chutzpah to claim that it was democratically-essential debate?”

Specifically, the Center for Countering Digital Hate said the daily use of the n-word under Musk is triple the 2022 average and the use of slurs against gay men and trans persons are up 58% and 62%, respectively.

And the Anti-Defamation League said in a separate report that its data shows “both an increase in antisemitic content on the platform and a decrease in the moderation of antisemitic posts.”

Elon Musk's 'hot take' on First Amendment reveals 'profound ignorance,' MSNBC anchor declares

 https://www.foxnews.com/media/elon-musks-hot-take-first-amendment-reveals-profound-ignorance-msnbc-anchor-declares

"If this isn’t a violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment, what is?" Musk wrote in reference to emails indicating Twitter staff responded "handled" to requests for tweets to be reviewed for removal by the Biden campaign in 2020. 

"This is what we in the cable business like to call a hot take. It reveals Elon Musk’s profound ignorance of the First Amendment. The First Amendment regulates government contact. It does not regulate public actors like Twitter. And in Musk’s example, not only was the Biden campaign not part of the government, but the ultimate decision to actually agree to honor the request to came from a fundamentally was a private decision taken by private company. The Biden campaign is not the government," Velshi said.

Top House Intel Republican condemns Trump’s calls to suspend Constitution over 2020 election

 https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/3761308-top-house-intel-republican-condemns-trumps-calls-to-suspend-constitution-over-2020-election/

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, on Sunday condemned former President Trump’s suggestion to suspend the Constitution over unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

During an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” moderator Margaret Brennan asked Turner if he condemned Trump’s post on Saturday calling for “the termination of all rules,” including those in the Constitution, over his election claims.

“Absolutely,” Turner responded. “And I believe, answering your question, that people certainly are going to take into consideration a statement like this as they evaluate a candidate.”

Denouncing antisemitism shouldn’t be hard; for some Republicans, it seems to be

 https://www.latimes.com/politics/newsletter/2022-12-02/antisemitism-trump-and-the-gop-essential-politics

Here’s the reality that ties the tongues of McCarthy, DeSantis and the like: Roughly 3 in 10 Republican voters still identify as “more a supporter of Donald Trump” than of the GOP.

Six years ago, after Trump won the Republican nomination, party leaders, with a few exceptions, decided they would overlook his bigoted statements, flagrant falsehoods and personal misconduct in order to maintain unity in the ranks. They re-upped that deal after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, closing ranks to save Trump from conviction on impeachment charges and ostracizing outspoken critics like Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.

Now, as always happens with such bargains, the bill is coming due. This week has shown Republicans just how costly it may be to pay.

The GOP’s same-sex marriage evolution: A slow, choppy tidal shift

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/11/30/gop-same-sex-marriage-00071258

This summer, 47 House Republicans’ surprising support for the same-sex marriage bill spurred a sustained push from Tillis, Portman and Collins to take action — a veritable GOP tidal shift. As former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) put it on Tuesday: “Times change. And senators change.”

Georgia Republican lieutenant governor deems Herschel Walker 'one of the worst' candidates in GOP history

 https://www.foxnews.com/politics/georgia-republican-lieutenant-governor-deems-herschel-walker-worst-candidates-gop-history

Georgia’s GOP lieutenant governor recently described U.S. Senate hopeful Herschel Walker as "one of the worst Republican candidates in our party’s history." 

Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan explained to CBS News why he chose not to vote for Walker ahead of Tuesday’s runoff election, where the Republican challenger faces off against Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock. 

"This wasn’t the right brand for Republicanism, and I think Herschel Walker will probably go down as one of the worst Republican candidates in our party's history," Duncan said in the on-camera interview.  

GOP Rep. Pushes Back as Fox Hosts Slam Bipartisan Bill: 'America Needs It'

 https://www.newsweek.com/gop-rep-pushes-back-fox-hosts-slam-bipartisan-bill-america-needs-it-1764410

McDowell pressed the GOP lawmaker about his vote on the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which she said was "fueling inflation."

"How are you not part of the problem, instead of being the solution?" McDowell asked.

Bacon responded that he believes the Republican Party should embrace infrastructure policy. Bartiromo, however, asked him about how much of the bill would actually be going to infrastructure. Former President Donald Trump has claimed only 11 percent of the funding goes toward "real infrastructure," but this claim was inaccurate.

Biden leveraged $1B in aid to Ukraine to oust corrupt prosecutor, not to help his son

 https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/10/21/fact-check-joe-biden-leveraged-ukraine-aid-oust-corrupt-prosecutor/5991434002/

While former Vice President Joe Biden oversaw foreign policy in Ukraine, his son Hunter Biden served on the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest gas company in the fledgling democracy.

Despite a recently concluded investigation by Senate Republicans that found no wrongdoing by the Bidens, claims to the contrary have continued to circulate on social media.

"VP Biden threatened to withhold 1 billion dollars from Ukraine to save his son's job," reads a meme posted to Facebook by Secure America Now. The meme has been shared more than 9,000 times since Oct. 18.

It's true that Joe Biden leveraged $1 billion in aid to persuade Ukraine to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, in March 2016. But it wasn't because Shokin was investigating Burisma. It was because Shokin wasn't pursuing corruption among the country's politicians.

Lawrence: Appeals Court Tells Trump Something He Never Hears

Trump calls for the termination of the Constitution in Truth Social post

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/03/politics/trump-constitution-truth-social/index.html

Former President Donald Trump called for the termination of the Constitution to overturn the 2020 election and reinstate him to power Saturday in a continuation of his election denialism and pushing of fringe conspiracy theories.

“Do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Trump wrote in a post on the social network Truth Social and accused “Big Tech” of working closely with Democrats. “Our great ‘Founders’ did not want, and would not condone, False & Fraudulent Elections!”

Quit Underestimating President Biden

 https://www.gingrich360.com/2022/11/30/quit-underestimating-president-biden/

We dislike Biden so much, we pettily focus on his speaking difficulties, sometimes strange behavior, clear lapses of memory, and other personal flaws. Our aversion to him and his policies makes us underestimate him and the Democrats.

But remember: Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan both preferred to be underestimated. Both wanted people to think of them as pleasant – but not dangerous. They found being underestimated was a major asset. While people laughed at them, they were busy achieving their goals and getting their programs implemented.

Rep. Greene Blasts 'Turncoat' Republicans for Not Fighting 'Election Fraud'

 https://www.newsweek.com/rep-greene-blasts-turncoat-republicans-not-fighting-election-fraud-1764422

After originally dismissing the reports as potential misinformation and casting doubt on its authenticity, The Washington Post and The New York Times later found that thousands of emails, which formed the basis of the story, did come from a computer that Hunter reportedly dropped off at a repair shop in Wilmington, Delaware, in April 2019, but never picked up.

However, The Washington Post said in March that the emails provide "little new insight" into Hunter's work for Burisma and that they do not implicate the president.

Musk’s revelations on Twitter censoring Hunter Biden laptop story prompt liberal rage: ‘Hack stuff'

https://www.foxnews.com/media/musks-revelations-twitter-censoring-hunter-biden-laptop-story-prompt-liberal-rage-hack-stuff

Liberal commentator Brian Tyler Cohen attempted to dismantle the thread’s entire argument, tweeting, "So Twitter was acting under orders of the government except Biden wasn't POTUS in 2020. And it's a First Amendment violation except Twitter can't violate 1A as a private biz. And the takedown requests from team Biden were nudes against Twitter's TOS. But going great otherwise!"

Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/12/elon-musk-and-tucker-carlson-dont-understand-the-first-amendment/672352/

Last night, on Fox News, Tucker Carlson also picked up the claim about the First Amendment. With characteristic breathless hyperbole, Carlson declared that the documents “show a systemic violation of the First Amendment, the largest example of that in modern history.”

Musk and Carlson are both profoundly wrong; the documents released so far show no such thing. In October 2020, when the laptop story broke, Joe Biden was not president. The Democratic National Committee (which also asked for Twitter to review tweets) is not an arm of the government. It’s a private political party. Twitter is not an arm of the government; it is a private company.