TODAY’S HOLLER: THE (CONSTITUTION) TERMINATOR

It has to feel weird to be one of those MAGA folks out there calling themselves a “strict constitutionalist” these days while supporting a defeated ex-president who just called for the constitution to be “terminated” because of a Twitter thread with no actual news in it.

To bring you up to speed, new Twitter chief Elon Musk, who has been embracing the far right lately in a big way – bringing even the worst Nazis and insurrectionists back into the Twitter fold and even posting Nazi memes himself (and amplifying Kanye West hours after he expressed his love for Hitler) – teased the release of what he called the “TWITTER FILES”.

Elon said it would be a series of internal docs that delivered the goods on the company’s throttling of the Hunter Biden laptop story in the run-up to the 2020 election. Instead the thread (posted by Matt Taibbi, who has a problematic history of misogyny that goes back to his time in RUSSIA, of all places) really just showed that Twitter was making a good faith effort not to allow yet another attempt at election tampering by foreign actors to sway a presidential election in Trump’s favor AGAIN.

Was it the right decision? Maybe, maybe not. But was it understandable that Twitter was wary of allowing that sketchily-sourced story that originated with Rudy Giuliani, who was up to his eyeballs in lies and surrounded by shady foreign players, not to proliferate on their platform? It absolutely was.

To this day it’s still unclear what the source of the laptop really was, and the mac store guy – who will only talk to Newsmax, etc. – has changed his story more than once. This Extremely IMPORTANT piece from wash post (with NO PAYWALL) reminds us how shady the sourcing of the Hunter Laptop was/is, and why Twitter and other outlets had EVERY REASON to be suspicious of the Mac store dude, Giuliani, etc — EVEN FOX PASSED ON IT.

None of that context was included in the thread. Instead it was couched as evidence of government interference in an election, even though as FRANKLIN, TN conservative DAVID FRENCH points out the Biden campaign was not the government, so the tweet Taibbi posted of an email where they ask to have Hunter’s dick pics removed was by definition NOT “government tampering”.

French says “Elon Musk & Tucker Carlson Don’t Understand the First Amendment”  – and he’s right. Twitter is a private company—not the federal government, which means they are allowed to make editorial decisions with an eye towards their bottom line.

It’s not a free speech violation, it’s capitalism.

FRENCH: “no amount of misguided rhetoric can transform a Twitter story into a government scandal.”

Ultimately nothing in the Taibbi thread was really news. We knew Twitter had agonized over what to do about the laptop story. We’ve even heard their executives concede that throttling it may have been the wrong thing to do. What it really showed was a company stressing over how to do the right thing.

The lack of revelations led to Rolling Stone calling it a  “SNOOZEFEST”   and NBC rightly framing it as a “rehashing” of old news.

 Another conservative Tim Miller sumned it up by saying “In reality, all they really had was a digital erection.” – pointing out that nobody has a constitutional right to share Hunter’s dick pics.

The problem is, none of these criticisms will pierce the bubble. It’s already being taken for granted in MAGA circles that this thread is the smoking gun, because their Dear Leader Trump has told them as much – and is now literally saying the constitution must be “TERMINATED” over it, so he can be installed as president once again.

As LIZ CHENEY says. “No honest person can now deny that Trump is an enemy of the Constitution.” 

Project Lincoln (former/current Republicans) rightly say “Trump’s comments should have been immediately condemned by every Republican in the nation… Trump and the MAGA movement must be defeated of the  experiment will come to a crashing end.”

Yet as Conservative Charlie Sykes points out, he is still the 2024 GOP frontrunner: “The last 2 weeks: Trump pledged solidarity with 1/6 rioters, dined w/ fans of Hitler, called to terminate the Constitution— And remains the clear GOP nomination favorite. No wonder they’d rather talk about Hunter’s dick pix.”

Meanwhile Elon Musk is out there acting like he’s some sort of hero of free speech, even though he just banned Kanye West for posting a Swastika, and he won’t reinstate Alex Jones because he personally lost a child and knows how that feels.

Elon didn’t pay $44 BILLION to erase the lines around free speech. He did it so he can be the one to draw them.

Question for FOX NEWS — Does this count as election theft also or is it only when it happens against Trump? We’ll hang up and listen.

OH HEY TUCKER: As they go after Hunter for his laptop/emails, important to remember one of them is Tucker Carlson asking him to help his kid get into college.

NORTH CAROLINA: After a gunfire attack on electrical substations caused a regional power outage, the sheriff answers “anything’s possible” if it was related to a drag show happening at the time. BUT THE SHOW WENT ON  

WHAT IS “WOKE” ANYWAY?: Y’all— Desantis suspended a state attorney for being “WOKE”, so his lawyers had to define it. Their answer: “The belief there are systemic injustices in  and the need to address them.” Translation: they’re fighting to suppress an OBVIOUS TRUTH.

NOT PRO-LIFE:  has higher maternal mortality rates than other countries (because we don’t have universal health care) — and Tennessee is at the bottom (because we haven’t expanded Medicaid) If you don’t support those policies, stop calling yourself “pro-life”

HAMILTON COUNTY: “It hurts… but I’m not leaving. I want a better future for my children.” HAMILTON COUNTY in the national news for extremist School board member Rhonda Thurman calling Latino students a “burden” — leading to harassment & threats towards families.

SECRETLY WOKE SOUTHERN MEN: We can’t get enough of these “Secretly Woke Southern Men” videos from Shane Hartline, please never stop .

HOSPITAL STATEMENT: “a temporary pause to review current practices” Methodist Le Bonheur in MEMPHIS finally goes public with why they suddenly canceled treatment for transgender patients (as Republicans attack them).

HAMILTON COUNTY JUDGE: “THIS IS ABSURD… I WILL NOT SIGN THIS.” Remember road raging Michael Harvey, who followed a woman & son home and threatened them? DA Coty Wamp’s office tried to give him a plea deal the victim was against (and he blamed Crohn’s disease)

ALSO IN CHATTANOOGA: CHARGES DROPPED — DUI, drug possession charges against Davis Lundy (ex-adviser to Hamilton  County Mayor Weston Wamp DROPPED despite an open bottle of wine, failed test, 23 grams of what he says was CBD. Wamp’s sister Coty Wamp is the DA. She handed it off to Marion County ADA Cara Sapp.

Seems Rep. Matt Gaetz did not get a warm welcome in Nashville this weekend…

Can someone ask Marsha Blackburn if we’re supposed to credit Biden with this? Or does he only get blame when it goes up? Just so we’re all on the same page.

Ruth covers authoritarianism for a living.

Stuart worked on 5 Republican presidential campaigns 

PSA: If you can’t see how true this is, you’re probably not a moderate. 

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