A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.
10/10!
In addition to struggling with Twitter advertising, the new owner of Twitter dot com and purported free speech champion Elon Musk seems less than amused by the Twitter users with blue checks impersonating him in response to his Brilliant Plan to charge $8 a month for said blue checks.
- The not-at-all-thin-skinned Musk announced on Sunday that users impersonating others “without clearly specifying ‘parody'” would be permanently suspended.
(Also, he’s definitely not mad about the impersonations)
- The Tesla CEO has also threatened a “thermonuclear name and shame” of advertisers who dare to pull out of Twitter. So you corporations better give Mr. Space Man the money he needs for his new toy, or else he’ll call you out for something you … aren’t really trying to hide at all?
- Twitter is also asking dozens of the employees it fired in the massive round of layoffs (which wiped out half the workforce) to come back. Some of the employees were fired by accident, and others were fired before Twitter realized it actually really needed their experience to run the website the way Musk wants it to, according to Bloomberg News.
GOP Leaders Say Party Will Accept Election Results (With Asterisk)
Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel and Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, tacked qualifiers onto their “yes”s on Sunday when asked if they’d accept the midterm results.
- McDaniel told CNN that sure, Republicans will accept the results … after making sure the elections are “run fair and transparently” and letting “the process play out.”
- Scott said on “Meet the Press” that his party will “absolutely” accept the results, “but what we’re also going to do is do everything we can to make sure they’re free and fair, and if there’s any shenanigans, we are ready to make sure.”
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has refused to commit to accepting his potential defeat, saying on Thursday that “I sure hope I can, but I can’t predict what the Democrats might have planned.”
RNC Won’t Pay Trump’s Legal Bills If He Announces 2024 Bid
McDaniel made it clear on Sunday that if Trump launches a widely-expected reelection campaign for 2024, the RNC won’t be footing the bill for the legal fees the ex-president has amassed in court battles like New York Attorney General Letitia James’ (D) civil case against him and the Trump Organization.
- McDaniel told CNN that the RNC “cannot do in-kind contributions to any candidate right now,” plus “he’s certainly raised more under the RNC than we’ve spent on these bills.”
- The RNC has shelled out more than $2.3 million to pay for Trump’s defense.
UN’s Climate Summit Kicks Off
COP27, aka the United Nations’ annual climate change conference among global leaders, has begun in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
- Biden is expected to attend sometime this week, though it’s unclear when.
- Pakistan is leading a coalition of more than 100 developing nations demanding that wealthy countries pay for the “loss and damage” caused by the effects of climate change, including disastrous floods and droughts.
Must Read
“Conspiracy theories are predictable. Here are some of the ones you’ll see on Election Day” – CNN
“As climate change worsens, Egypt is begging families to have fewer kids” – The Washington Post
Key Analysis
“When Everything Happened So Much” – Slate
The joy and surprise that Twitter used to regularly bring has largely been replaced with anger, misinformation, and abuse. Aggrieved incels and white nationalists flooded the platform, wanting to make everyone as miserable as they are. Post–Jan. 6 changes to enforcement removed some of the worst accounts from Twitter, but by that point it was clear we were all miserable enough even without them. We wake up in the morning and stare into rectangles that just make us sad. No wonder Twitter’s most active group of users is shrinking.
Jan. 6 Panel Extends Trump Subpoena Deadline For Docs
The House Jan. 6 Committee announced on Friday, which was the day Trump was supposed to turn over the records the panel sought in its subpoena to him, that it had extended the deadline to sometime “no later than next week.” The committee’s deadline for Trump’s testimony remains Nov. 14.
Early Voting In Upcoming Midterms Eclipses That Of 2018
More ballots have been cast in the early voting period for the midterms tomorrow (!) than the total number of early voting ballots in 2018, according to the United States Elections Project.
- 39.2 million votes have already been cast as of Sunday. Early voting in 2018 reached a total 39.1 million.
- There’s been a consistent surge in early voting since 2014. About 31 percent of the ballots in that year’s midterms were early votes, and it jumped to about 40 percent in 2018.
ACB Again Slaps Down Attempt To Block Student Debt Forgiveness
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett rejected an emergency bid to halt Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Friday, the second time she’s done so in conservatives’ legal challenges against the program. In both cases, Barrett acted alone instead of bringing the matter to the full court.
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