memeorandum: Ron Johnson fought for a tax cut as his family was amassing luxury real estate around the country (JSOnline)

2:05 AM ET, November 5, 2022

Top Items:

Days before the midterms, Twitter lays off employees who fight misinformation — Mass layoffs at Twitter on Friday battered the teams primarily responsible for keeping the platform free of misinformation, potentially hobbling the company's capabilities four days before the end of voting …

Discussion: Stop Hate for Profit, The Post Millennial, Reuters, The Guardian, Mother Jones, The Information, Al Jazeera, Mashable, New Republic, TechCrunch and One America News Network, more at Mediagazer »

New York Times:

Confusion and Frustration Reign as Elon Musk Cuts Half of Twitter's Staff — The layoffs hit across many divisions, including the engineering and machine learning units, the teams that manage content moderation, and the sales and advertising departments. — SAN FRANCISCO …

The Verge:

Elon Musk's Twitter layoffs leave whole teams gutted — About half of Twitter's 7,500 employees are now gone, with teams focused on trust and safety issues hit the hardest. — Elon Musk has now purged roughly half of Twitter's 7,500 employee base, leaving whole teams totally or near completely gutted …

Jason Koebler / VICE:

Twitter Recommends Ye as Top Follow on ‘The Jews’ as Company Does Mass Layoffs — “The Jews” and “#IStandWithKyrie” are trending on Elon Musk's Twitter. — Jason Koebler — “The Jews” is trending on Twitter, and its algorithm has selected Ye as a “Top” person to follow …

Discussion: Bloomberg, ABC7, Mediaite, Morning Martini and New York Times

Washington Post:

Twitter layoffs gutted election information teams days before midterms — With half of the company gone, political campaigns are gripped with anxiety over how to address election misinformation and potential threats — Devastating cuts to Twitter's workforce on Friday …

Discussion: Twitchy and Slate

Tiffany Hsu / New York Times:

Twitter's Advertisers Pull Back as Layoffs Sweep Through Company — Elon Musk, Twitter's new owner, acknowledged that ad spending on the platform had slumped. He blamed the drop on pressure from activists. — Tiffany Hsu, based in San Francisco, has written extensively about advertising for The New York Times.

Discussion: Bloomberg, CNN, The Guardian, The Times of Israel, NDTV, RedState, Rolling Stone, The Hill, Mashable and DNyuz, more at Mediagazer »

Edward-Isaac Dovere / CNN:

New York Democrats are bracing for stunning Election Day losses, and they already have a fall guy — Democratic officials and strategists in New York tell CNN they are bracing for what could be stunning losses in the governor's race and in contests for as many as four US House seats largely in the suburbs.

Discussion: HotAir, Breitbart, National Review and Frontpage Mag

Brian Steinberg / Variety:

MSNBC Cuts Ties Unexpectedly With Weekend Host Tiffany Cross … Tiffany Cross, the MSNBC weekend host who was known for running the freewheeling Saturday commentary program “Cross Connection,” is leaving the NBCUniversal-owned cable-news outlet. — Her production staff was informed …

CNN:

House January 6 committee interviewing Secret Service agents in Trump's motorcade on day of attack — The House January 6 select committee is getting a window into former President Donald Trump's motorcade on the day of the US Capitol attack, interviewing on Friday the Secret Service agent …

Discussion: Washington Times, The Guardian, New York Post, Reuters, Politico, Daily Kos, NBC News, Raw Story, PoliticusUSA and Mediaite

CNN:
House January 6 committee gives Trump more time to turn over subpoenaed documents

Discussion: HuffPost, NBC News, New York Times, UPI, Letters from an American, Bloomberg, Insider, The Hill, Associated Press, Washington Post, Raw Story, USA Today, DNyuz, CBS News, NPR and Political Wire

Camille Mumford / Emerson Polling:

Ohio 2022: Vance Extends Lead Over Ryan for US Senate — Home Polls Ohio 2022: Vance Extends Lead Over Ryan for US Senate — The final Emerson College Polling survey of the Ohio Midterm Elections finds 51% of voters support Republican JD Vance for US Senate, while 43% support Democrat Tim Ryan.

Discussion: Breitbart, PolitiFact, The Hill and Insider

Camille Mumford / Emerson Polling:
Oregon 2022: Independent Candidates' Support Melts As Democrat Tina Kotek Leads Republican Christine Drazan by Four for Governor

Discussion: The Hill, Fox News and Herald and News

Reuters:

What if Biden does not run again? — The U.S. midterm elections on Tuesday will do much more than shape the next two years of Joe Biden's presidency. They will also help determine whether he will run in 2024 as well, political analysts and advisers believe.

Discussion: Associated Press

Andrea Cavallier / Daily Mail:

NBC News mysteriously PULLS its exclusive report on how Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul, 82, calmly opened door to cops in his underpants - and then walked TOWARDS ‘hammer intruder’ who bludgeoned him — The NBC News report cited sources close to the investigation and was published on Friday morning, but was pulled down by the afternoon

Discussion: National Review, New York Post, TheBlaze, Townhall, Fox News, The Free Press, Washington Free Beacon and Breitbart

TODAY.com:
Paul Pelosi released from the hospital six days after intruder attack

Discussion: Fox News, Mediaite, The Wrap, The Daily Wire, The Daily Signal, The Gateway Pundit, The Post Millennial, IJR, Twitchy, New York Post, RedState, NBC Bay Area, TheBlaze and Raw Story

Asmita Pant / cnbctv18.com:

Some of world's biggest brands have quietly paused ads on Twitter — The advertising giant Interpublic Group has also reportedly recommended that IPG Media Brands agencies' clients suspend all their paid advertising on Twitter for at least a week. — General Motors last Friday temporarily …

Discussion: The San Francisco Standard, Breitbart, The Hill, NBC Boston and The Post Millennial

Dylan Byers / Puck:

Can Licht Make the Cuts? — A brutal $100 million financial engineering effort begins at CNN. — When Chris Licht became chairman and chief executive of CNN, back in May, his boss David Zaslav asked him to conduct a six-month review of the 4,500-person global news business.

Discussion: Mediaite, more at Mediagazer »

U.S. Department of Justice:

Former CEOs of MoviePass and Parent Company Charged in Securities Fraud Scheme — An indictment was unsealed today in Miami charging two Florida men for their roles in a scheme to defraud investors of Helios & Matheson Analytics Inc. (HMNY), a publicly traded Florida- and New York-based company …

Discussion: Variety and The Verge, more at Mediagazer »

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:

Why isn't Trumpism hurting the GOP? Some Democrats see vexing answers. — Something extraordinary just happened: In the space of just this week, a president and an ex-president warned that the opposition poses an existential threat to our political way of life.

Discussion: Florida Politics, The Daily Caller, The Guardian, Montana Free Press, New York Magazine and Media Matters for America

Washington Post:

Investigators search for pricey gifts to Trump from foreign leaders — Golf clubs, diamond earrings and a soccer ball from Putin are among the gifts that House Oversight has asked the National Archives to find. — Congressional investigators are looking for dozens of pricey mementos gifted …

New York Times:

F.B.I. Locates Suspect After Warning of Security Threat at New Jersey Synagogues — Officials said the man holds “radical extremist views.” On Thursday, they had alerted congregations across the state to be on alert. — Hours after issuing a rare warning about a security threat at New Jersey synagogues …

New York Times:
Between Kanye and the Midterms, the Unsettling Stream of Antisemitism

Discussion: Chocolate-Covered Lox, Denver Post, National Review, The Joe Down, Los Angeles Times, Associated Press, ABC7 and One America News Network

Amudalat Ajasa / Washington Post:

A total lunar eclipse will turn the moon blood red on Election Day — The total eclipse will last for nearly 90 minutes from coast to coast across the U.S. — Hours before citizens across the country cast their votes in a contentious midterm election, a sinister red moon will loom in the sky.

Discussion: Mercury News, Watch the Skies, FOX8 WGHP, Twitchy, PBS NewsHour, One America News Network, ZDNet, CBS News, NDTV, DNyuz, UPI, Washington Examiner, Union-News and Basin Now

Erica Werner / Washington Post:

How to be a widow: A guide from a wife who doesn't know either — When I lost my husband to brain cancer, I learned there is no road map for grief — Since my husband, Bill, died of brain cancer in June, I've found myself unclear about what it means to grieve.

Dan Diamond / Washington Post:

Clock runs out on efforts to make daylight saving time permanent — Early this Sunday morning, Americans will engage in the annual autumnal ritual of “falling back” — setting their clocks back one hour to conform with standard time. — If some lawmakers had their way …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, DNyuz, HotAir, 6abc, The Hill, CBS News, Sacramento Bee, Associated Press, FOX8 WGHP, Union-News, Pluribus News, WPRI-TV, CNN and NPR

T. Keung Hui / Raleigh News & Observer:

NC Supreme Court orders state to increase funding for public schools in Leandro case — Just days before North Carolina's midterm elections, the state Supreme Court's Democratic majority ruled Friday that state officials can be ordered to transfer funds to try to provide students their constitutional right to a sound basic education.

Discussion: Carolina Journal

Alec Karam / The Daily Beast:

Nike Cuts Ties With Kyrie Irving Over ‘Hate Speech’ — JUST DID IT — Nike has halted its relationship with Kyrie Irving in the wake of the Brooklyn Nets suspending the player for promoting an antisemitic film. “At Nike, we believe there is no place for hate speech and we condemn any form …

Discussion: The Hill, Associated Press, NBC News, CBS News, Raw Story, WPRI-TV, DNyuz, UPI, Sports Illustrated, TMZ.com, New York Post, The Comeback, ABC7, abc7NY, Denver Post, Rolling Stone and Union-News

New York Post:

Ex-NYC buildings boss Eric Ulrich spent $40K at eateries with past reported links to mobsters: records — MORE ON: — Former Buildings Commissioner and onetime political candidate Eric Ulrich spent nearly $40,000 in campaign funds at several food businesses with past reported links to mobsters, a review of records shows.

JSOnline:

Ron Johnson fought for a tax cut as his family was amassing luxury real estate around the country — The small corporations and trust controlled by U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson's family members own about two dozen properties around the nation with assessed values of $21 million.

Discussion: Associated Press

Josh Gerstein / Politico:

Psaki, DOJ fight social-media speech suit subpoena — Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki and the Justice Department are fighting an effort to force her to testify in a lawsuit accusing the Biden administration of violating the First Amendment by pressuring social media companies …

Shannon McCaffrey / Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Walker, Warnock both men of faith — Herschel Walker begins every campaign rally the same way. “I want to start by acknowledging my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,” he says. “Because if you don't acknowledge him, he's not going to acknowledge you.” For Raphael Warnock …

Discussion: The Comeback, PolitiFact and Deseret News

The Hill:

Barrett again denies emergency bid to block student loan forgiveness plan — Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Friday denied an emergency effort to block the Biden administration's student loan forgiveness program, her second such ruling in recent weeks. — Barrett, who handles emergency matters arising …

Discussion: NBC News, CNBC, Axios, NBC Boston, Bloomberg, New York Post, The Gateway Pundit and Washington Examiner

Timmy Facciola / The Intercept:

GOP Candidate Playing Up Veteran Status Finds Loophole for His Claim … In the race for New York's 18th Congressional District, the only shared element in the political biographies of Democrat Pat Ryan and Republican Colin Schmitt may be their military service.

Philip Bump / Washington Post:

The big-stack-of-paper strategy comes to House Judiciary Republicans — News broke early Friday: The Republican minority on the House Judiciary Committee was releasing a “1,000 Page Report” on alleged politicization of the FBI and the Justice Department. The length was mentioned …

Discussion: RedState, Raw Story, Talking Points Memo, Sputnik News, House Committee … and The Daily Caller