Elon Musk’s Trying To Bully Advertisers Into Paying For Twitter Impulse Buy

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

Gimme Gimme!

Soon after completing his $44 billion Twitter purchase, Tesla CEO Elon Musk discovered that advertisers aren’t interested in playing along with his vision of “free speech” — not if that vision means gutting the platform’s content moderation policies that kept neo-Nazis from turning Twitter into 4chan.

• Musk’s new solution for convincing skittish advertisers to pay for the toy he bought on impulse: Mock them for allegedly supporting “political ‘correctness'” if they pull out from the platform.

• The billionaire also knows his plan to make verified users pay $8 a month for blue checkmarks (“Power to the people!”) isn’t going over so well either, so he’s trying to change their minds with D-tier memes he undoubtedly stole from some corner of the internet:

• Remember that Musk tried to worm his way out of this purchase. He finally went through with the deal because his court battles with Twitter to walk back the deal were going poorly for him.

Bolduc Whines About Being Confronted With Election Denier Past

Republican nominee Don Bolduc, a previously hardcore election denier who’s been watering down said denialism ahead of the general election, got upset when the 2020 election came up during his final New Hampshire Senate debate against incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) last night.

• “Thanks for giving [Hassan] a softball, that’s exactly what she needed,” Bolduc snapped at the debate moderator.
• Other takeaways from the debate by CNN, the Wall Street Journal, the Hill, and the Associated Press.

House Chair Demands Answers From USCP On Pelosi Attack

House Administration Committee chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), whose committee oversees the U.S. Capitol Police, wrote a letter to the USCP chief on Tuesday grilling him on the department’s security system for lawmakers in wake of the attack on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) husband, Paul Pelosi.

MAGA Coup Plotters Bet On Clarence Thomas To Help

Trump lawyers John Eastman and Kenneth Chesebro believed ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas would be their best chance for a favorable judicial ruling in their quest to overturn the 2020 election results, according to Eastman’s newly released emails.

“Realistically, our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by Jan. 6, which might hold up the Georgia count in Congress, is from Thomas — do you agree, Prof. Eastman?” Chesebro wrote on Dec. 31, 2020.

“I think I agree with this,” Eastman replied.

Kash Patel Granted Immunity To Testify In Mar-a-Lago Doc Probe

Kash Patel, a Trump loyalist installed at the Defense Department late in the Trump administration, is slated to testify in the Justice Department’s investigation into Trump hoarding government documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the Wall Street Journal.

• Patel is reportedly getting immunity for his testimony, meaning that so as long as he is truthful in front of the grand jury the DOJ can’t use his testimony against him.
• Patel was the first Trump official to claim the ex-president had already declassified the documents the FBI found at Mar-a-Lago.

Trump Org Suddenly Settles In Protesters’ 2015 Lawsuit

Trump’s lawyers have a lot on their plate right now with New York, the Justice Department, and Congress, so maybe it’s not a surprise that the Trump Organization abruptly settled with the protesters who were suing over the then-candidate ordering his security team to violently crack down on their protest against his racist comments outside Trump Tower in 2015.

• The settlement came after a mere three days of trial, when Trump’s legal team struggled to find jurors in the Bronx who didn’t already feel a certain kind of way about the ex-president.
• What are the terms of the settlement? No idea. Neither party disclosed them.

Key Analysis

“​​The hidden, unsolvable problem with polls — and people who love them” – The Washington Post

In past decades, elections were easier to call. One party often amassed a huge lead, and a pollster could make serious errors and still name the right winner. But as our country has become increasingly partisan and divided, swing voters are scarce. Easy landslide victories are rare, and close elections are the new norm.

Polls can’t handle this new reality. National polls typically miss the final result by two to four percentage points, and pollsters haven’t become more (or less) accurate over time.

Must Read

“When Your Neighbor Turns You In” – Wired

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