DSmith_Tucson @DSmith_Tucson@mastodon.tucsonsentinel.com

The guy who complained about bots on the platform used a poll knowing full well that bots would vote to reinstate 45.

And we know what a stickler Trump is when it comes to following federal regulations and ensuring shareholders’ rights are upheld

The Awesome and Powerful Musk has decreed -- after floating a meaningless "poll" guaranteed to come out the way he wished -- that Trump will return to Twitter.

Silver lining: It'll burn the sucker investors in Trump's laughable "media" company.

Colorado’s 8th congressional district was expected to lean Republican but went blue by fewer than 2,000 votes. Far outstripping that margin was a left Libertarian metalhead who netted a surprising 4% of the vote: https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-heavy-metal-candidate-dan-ward-screwed-up-a-tight-midterms-race-in-colorado-for-the-gop

Lane Brown offers accurate and perfectly understandable explanations to a 5 year-old, a ten year-old, a crypto-newbie, and a crypto-sophisticate.

Finally, a delicious kicker: "Explain it to me ... like I'm into Shakespeare."

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-bankruptcy-what-happened.html

But perhaps with some modifications one-touch QTs could be tolerable. Here’s a long thread debate: https://mastodon.social/@taylorlorenz/109367113323652765

Claytoonz: Bonesaw dreams https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/111922_claytoonz_bonesaw/claytoonz-bonesaw-dreams/

Donald Trump, who made excuses for MBS’s murdering and has hosted his golf tournaments while his son-in-law, Jared, has been gifted $2 billion from the crown prince, is more likely to see the inside of an American prison before the Saudi ever will.

"What I’m finding most satisfying about Mastodon, and I’m seeing a lot of other journalists feel this, is that it actually forces you to ask and confront some of these questions and to make active choices. Even if Mastodon were to remain Twitter’s very tiny stepbrother, I would still like to be part of a Mastodon journalist community because I think we got lazy as a field, and we let Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, and, god help us, Elon Musk decide..."

—@adamdavidson

https://themarkup.org/newsletter/hello-world/mastodons-moment

With the announcement that AG Merrick Garland has appointed a special counsel to oversee the criminal investigations related to Donald Trump and decide whether he should be charged, I wanted to share this document I obtained via #FOIA 2 years ago that few people realize exist: an actual criminal referral filed on Trump by the ODNI that at the time alleged Trump committed crimes related to his phone call with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/7338219-LEOPOLD-ODNI-FOIA-Ukraine-Whistleblower-Criminal.html

Two years of exhausting sideshows may not be the strongest recipe for keeping the American public on your side. Does the GOP realize this, or will they plow ahead following their worst political instincts? And if they do, how should Dems respond? I dive into this question in today’s piece.

https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/governance-or-grievance-the-house

Washington Post editorial board calls for members of Congress to donate contributions from @SBF_FTX@twitter.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/17/sam-bankman-fried-ftx-campaign-money-return/

Non-racist explanation: Kimberly Yee was the only incumbent Republican on the ballot and didn’t run as an election denier.

"CBS News Suspends Twitter Posting ‘In Light of the Uncertainty’ About Musk-Owned Social Platform."

https://variety.com/2022/digital/news/cbs-news-pauses-twitter-posting-1235437572/

"In light of the uncertainty around Twitter and out of an abundance of caution, CBS News is pausing its activity on the social media site as it continues to monitor the platform,” Jonathan Vigliotti, CBS News national correspondent, said in a report about the latest chaos at the company on the “CBS Evening News” Friday.

Quoting Elon Musk:

"As Twitter pursues the goal of elevating citizen journalism, media elite will try everything to stop that from happening."

My definition of citizen journalism— 14 years ago:

"When the people formerly known as the audience employ the press tools they have in their possession to inform one another, that’s citizen journalism."

http://archive.pressthink.org/2008/07/14/a_most_useful_d.html

I still like that definition.

But: that citizen journalism can or should replace the professional kind is a crazy claim.