memeorandum: Elon Musk dissolves Twitter's board and makes himself ‘sole director’ (Andrew Griffin/The Independent)

4:55 PM ET, October 31, 2022

Top Items:

Andrew Griffin / The Independent:

Elon Musk dissolves Twitter's board and makes himself ‘sole director’ — Board had previously been made up of nine directors, including ousted chief executive Parag Agrawal — Twitter To Start Charging $20 a Month for Verification … Elon Musk has dissolved Twitter's board and made himself the “sole director” of the company.

Discussion: The Hill, Bloomberg, Washington Examiner, Washington Times, TechCrunch, The Post Millennial, The Wrap and NDTV, more at Techmeme »

Alex Heath / The Verge:

Twitter is planning to start charging $20 per month for verification … Now that he owns Twitter, Elon Musk has given employees their first ultimatum: Meet his deadline to introduce paid verification on Twitter or pack up and leave. — The directive is to change Twitter Blue …

Washington Post:

Musk's inner circle worked through weekend to cement Twitter layoff plans — The first round of layoffs, led by his lawyer Alex Spiro, will target 25 percent of the workforce — SAN FRANCISCO — Members of billionaire Elon Musk's inner circle huddled with Twitter's remaining senior executives throughout …

Siva Vaidhyanathan / The Guardian:

Like Trump, Elon Musk reveals a vapid mind super-charged by wealth and ego — Musk, despite his wealth, good fortune and global influence, is not a serious person - but he is toying with dangerous ideas — t took less than 48 hours for Elon Musk to reveal just how dangerous his new toy can be to this world.

Discussion: NBC News, Media Matters for America, Washington Examiner, The Hill, DNyuz, Quartz, The Hill and Al Jazeera, more at Mediagazer »

Michael Tomasky / New Republic:
Paul Pelosi Almost Died, and Most Republicans Don't Have a Big Problem With That

Discussion: Washington Post, TheBlaze, Newsweek, Boing Boing, HuffPost, The Wrap, Fox News and Newsbusters

Lisa Mascaro / Associated Press:
DA dismisses conspiracies in Pelosi attack, charges expected

Discussion: Associated Press, ABC7, KRON4, DNyuz, NBC Bay Area, Political Wire and NBC4 Washington

Washington Post:
Feds charge alleged Pelosi attacker with attempted kidnapping

Discussion: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NBC News, Bloomberg, CNN, Insider, Metro.co.uk and Political Wire

Politico:
POLITICO Playbook: The next big precedent SCOTUS is set to overturn

Discussion: American Errata

New York Times:

Senate Control Hinges on Neck-and-Neck Races, Times/Siena Poll Finds — The contests are close in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Many voters want Republicans to flip the Senate, but prefer the Democrat in their state. — Control of the Senate rests on a knife's edge …

Discussion: National Review, CNBC, Raw Story, DNyuz, Politico, New York Post, Washington Times, Outside the Beltway, PoliticusUSA, Bloomberg and The Forward

Greg Bluestein / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Final AJC midterm poll: Kemp leads Abrams, deadlocked Senate race — Gov. Brian Kemp maintains a solid lead over Democrat Stacey Abrams in the latest Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, while the race between U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker remains a neck-and-neck contest that could be headed toward a runoff.

Discussion: Sabato's Crystal Ball, The Hill, Mediaite, Breitbart, New York Magazine, FiveThirtyEight, Washington Examiner and Political Wire

Nate Cohn / New York Times:
Times/Siena Polls Show Democrats Slightly Ahead in Key Senate Races

Discussion: The Nevada Independent, DNyuz, Just The News and Raw Story

The Intercept:

Leaked Documents Outline DHS's Plans to Police Disinformation — The Department of Homeland Security is quietly broadening its efforts to curb speech it considers dangerous, an investigation by The Intercept has found. Years of internal DHS memos, emails, and documents …

Discussion: HotAir, The Post Millennial, Reason, Washington Examiner, Carrie's Gazebo, Clandestine's Newsletter, Twitchy, The Daily Caller, Ace of Spades HQ and Steve Bannon's War Room, more at Techmeme »

Adam Wren / Politico:

Prominent conservatives share online disinformation about Paul Pelosi assault — Even as Republican leaders condemn the brutal assault on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, other GOP figures are broadcasting a much different message on social media — at turns downplaying, mocking and trading in disinformation about the attack.

Discussion: The Daily Beast, HuffPost, The Hill, RedState, The Daily Caller, Gizmodo, Rolling Stone, Raw Story, Mediaite, The Gateway Pundit, Washington Examiner and Twitchy

Matt Gertz / Media Matters for America:
The right-wing ecosystem that created the Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory

Discussion: Mother Jones, The Daily Caller, Raw Story, The Nation, Jezebel, PinkNews and CBS News

Brett Samuels / The Hill:
Trump: Attack on Paul Pelosi a ‘terrible thing’

Discussion: Fox News, Mediaite, CNN, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, CD Media, New York Post, HuffPost, Insider, Lucianne, FOX8 WGHP and BizPac Review

Axios:

Scoop: Musk team working to reboot Vine this year — Elon Musk has instructed Twitter engineers to work on a Vine reboot that could be ready by year end, multiple sources tell Axios. … - Twitter reportedly tried to sell Vine shortly after. … - One source says “it needs a lot of work.”

Discussion: The Wrap, The Western Journal, New York Post, Hollywood Unlocked, TechCrunch, Mashable and Bloomberg, more at Mediagazer »

NBC News:

Biden lost temper with Zelenskyy in June phone call when Ukrainian leader asked for more aid — It's become routine since Russia invaded Ukraine: President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy speak by phone whenever the U.S. announces a new package of military assistance for Kyiv.

Discussion: HotAir, Politico, The Daily Caller, DNyuz, National Review, New York Post, The Western Journal, Insider, Breitbart, Mediaite, Washington Examiner and IJR

U.S. Department of Justice:

Man Charged with Assault and Attempted Kidnapping Following Breaking and Entering of Pelosi Residence — A California man was charged today with assault and attempted kidnapping in violation of federal law in connection with the break-in at the residence of Nancy and Paul Pelosi in San Francisco on Friday.

Discussion: Semafor, Washington Examiner, CNBC, The Hill, UPI, Mercury News, National Review, KARK-TV, Washington Times, The Daily Caller, Rolling Stone, The Gateway Pundit, Forbes, NewsNation, The Guardian and CBS News

Ally Mutnick / Politico:

The Michigan race testing the limits of a GOP wave — GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — John Gibbs is a Harvard- and Stanford-educated computer scientist and Christian missionary. He is also a pro-Trump conservative who years ago suggested that women should not have the right to vote …

Discussion: Raw Story and Reason

Ben Mathis-Lilley / Slate:
I Watched J.D. Vance Try to Charm Voters in Ohio. I Finally Get Why He's So Angry.

Discussion: New York Times, Breitbart, New Statesman and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Rolling Stone:
Dr. Oz's Campaign Is Stocked With Jan. 6ers

Discussion: Raw Story and The Hill

Washington Post:
Election denier Mark Finchem's sleeper campaign closes in on MAGA prize

Discussion: NBC News, Raw Story, Election Law Blog and CBS News

Max Tani / Semafor:

ProPublica scrambles to check translation in COVID origin story — In the days after ProPublica published a searing expose based on a close reading of Communist Party memoranda in Mandarin, it called in at least two translators, according to three people familiar with the exchanges.

Discussion: DNyuz, more at Mediagazer »

Mike Allen / Axios:

First look: Mike Pence's new book reveals key moment before Jan. 6 — In former Vice President Mike Pence's “So Help Me God” — out Nov. 15 — he describes a scene in November 2020, just after the election, when he and former President Trump met in the Oval Office to review legal challenges with the campaign's lawyers.

Discussion: USA Today, The Guardian, Mediaite, Raw Story, HuffPost, Washington Examiner and The Hill

Nora Mishanec / San Francisco Chronicle:

Ex-girlfriend of suspect in Paul Pelosi attack says he struggled with mental illness, drugs, believed he was ‘Jesus for a year’ — The imprisoned longtime partner of David DePape, the suspect in the attack on U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband, Paul, said Sunday that mental illness …

Discussion: HotAir, The Daily Caller, National Review, The Federalist, Twitchy, The Post Millennial, Commentary Magazine and CBS News

Tierney Sneed / CNN:

Trump asks Supreme Court to stop IRS from turning over his tax returns to the House — Former President Donald Trump has asked the Supreme Court to put on hold the release of his tax returns by the Internal Revenue Service to a Democratic-led House committee.

Discussion: Insider, CNBC, Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, The Hill, Associated Press, UPI, Washington Examiner, Law & Crime, Raw Story, Fox News, New York Times, New York Post, Metro.co.uk, PoliticusUSA, Reuters, Washington Times, Axios, Just The News and DNyuz

Associated Press:

AP source: Biden to float windfall tax on energy producers — President Joe Biden on Monday will raise the possibility of imposing a ‘windfall tax’ on energy companies, as his administration aims to combat high gas prices just days before the midterm elections.

Discussion: CNN, The Hill, USA Today, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, The Daily Caller, New York Post, One America News Network, Washington Post and Fox Business

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

GOP bracing for Trump indictment soon after Election Day — Republican aides and strategists privately expect Attorney General Merrick Garland to pursue an indictment of former President Trump within 60 to 90 days after Election Day, predicting the window for prosecuting Trump will close once …

Discussion: Washington Examiner, The Torch Report and Raw Story

David Weigel / Semafor:

Happy Halloween, there's a candy-colored fentanyl scare on the campaign trail — MESA, Ariz. - It was the talk of Republican candidates over Halloween weekend: A rumor that their trick-or-treating kids might get candy-colored fentanyl from strangers. — “The cartels, they're dressing …

Discussion: Capitol Fax.com, NPR, Florida Politics, Mediaite and Tampa Bay Times

Alex Burness / Bolts:

‘The Arpaio of the East’ Faces His First Opponent in 12 Years. Is Anyone Watching? — The official line was that Mark Trafton's suicide came out of nowhere. — A guard found Trafton hanging in his cell just before 5 a.m. on May 3, 2019, inside the Ash Street Jail in New Bedford …

Washington Post:

Why Bolsonaro's stunning loss should give humans a glimmer of hope — One of the ugliest pathologies in global politics at the moment is the bizarre connection between climate denialism and right-wing authoritarianism. With some exceptions, authoritarian politicians are the ones most prone …

Discussion: The Economist, Bloomberg, Axios, Washington Press, New York Times, DNyuz, Gizmodo, Fortune, Vox, Al Jazeera, Latin America Daily Briefing, New Statesman, Balloon Juice, CNBC, Politico, Eschaton and Reuters

Sam Jones / Financial Times:

Swiss veto of weapons re-exports to Ukraine angers Germany — Bern politicians say transfer of ammunition to Kyiv would jeopardise nation's neutrality — German politicians have called for an end to arms deals with Switzerland as a political dispute deepens over Bern's refusal to allow arms to be shipped to Ukraine.

Greg Bluestein / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

In final debate, Kemp won't say whether he'd sign new abortion limits — Gov. Brian Kemp wouldn't say at Sunday's Channel 2 Action News debate whether he would sign new abortion limits into law if he's elected to a second term, weeks after he said at a previous showdown that he “would not” …