Elon Musk took a poll on Twitter to see how people would vote for bringing back President Donald J Trump.  The results of the poll finalized after 24 hours with 51.8% of Twitter users voting to reinstate and 48.2% voting no.

As a result of the poll, perhaps an exhibition in what Musk perceives as democracy, a short while ago the Twitter account of Donald J Trump was reinstated.

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I’m going to skip noting that Elon Musk Twitter is essentially unchanged, regarding the relationship between Twitter, the Dept of Homeland Security and the disinformation police, as many keep saying Musk Twitter has not had time to reformat.

That said, five days after our post-election review of the difference between ballots and votes, and within minutes of the controversial Arizona governor contest being announced by DHS media outlets, suddenly any discussion about “Ballots -vs- Votes” is considered a risk to democracy. [LINK}

The need for control is a reaction to fear.

Twitter specifically, and Big Tech writ large, has now placed a warning on the CTH article where we draw attention to the general difference between ballots and votes. The timing of the intervention, as related to the content discussed, is transparent. Sunlight is a great disinfectant and must be controlled at all costs.

In one sense this effort to block discussion is irrelevant, the discussion is now taking place; attentions are being paid; the horse is out of the barn; millions are now expanding the discussion and applying Occam’s Razor to the simple reality. This is why information providers and independent researchers must work with urgency and diligence to control their own platforms.

CTH is never going to stop discussing the uncomfortable stuff because Truth Has No Agenda, regardless of our personal feelings or opinions on the matter.

Yes, in this discussion there is a clear difference between two electioneering priorities, one focused on ballot assembly and the other focused on winning votes.  However, in the broader sense this censorship effort to control discussion of these distinctions shows just how far and fast we are collapsing into a totalitarian and Orwellian nightmare.

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There was always a strong suspicion the woke corporations were holding back negative employment intentions until after the midterm elections.

Well, as expected, the U.S. multinationals are starting to announce advanced downsizing.

(CNBC) – Tens of thousands of tech workers have been laid off within days, as tech giants including Meta, Twitter, Salesforce and others shed headcount going into the final stretch of the year. At least 20,300 U.S. tech workers were let go from their jobs in November, and more than 100,000 since the beginning of the year, according to Layoffs.fyi, which tracks layoffs in the field.

Tech workers reported huge drops in confidence in their job security through the summer, as news of layoffs, hiring freezes and rescinded offers put a damper on what’s so far been a worker-driven Covid pandemic recovery.

But the latest headlines are all converging at once as businesses course-correct on over-hiring and acknowledge how rising interest rates are thwarting their growth plans, says ZipRecruiter chief economist Julia Pollak. (more)

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In semi-related election news, this is interesting.  Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, a man of notoriously sketchy political disposition, has dropped the charges against Konnech CEO Eugene Yu, although leaving the door open to refile charges at a later date.

Eugene Yu, the CEO of Konnech Inc, was charged last month with two felonies for allegedly violating the company’s contract with Los Angeles County and transferring election workers’ personal information along with data files to computer servers in China.

(New York Times) – […] Los Angeles County dropped criminal charges against the top executive of an elections technology company on Wednesday, bringing to an abrupt end an unusual case that became the focus of Americans who distrust the country’s electoral system.

The district attorney’s office said in a statement that it had dropped the case against the executive, Eugene Yu, because of concerns about the “pace of the investigation” and the “potential bias in the presentation” of evidence in the case. The office said the county had assembled a new team to “determine whether any criminal activity occurred.”

The prosecutors did not respond to questions about the decision. (read more)

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Perhaps a little focus on the foundation of the issue is in order.

Ever since the professional Republican apparatus decided to target, eliminate and destroy the grassroots movement known as the Tea Party, there was always going to come a time when the battle for the heart and soul of the GOP Club would take place.

CTH has been calling this battle ‘The Big Ugly‘ for around a decade.

The Big Ugly battle is essentially the fight between the grassroots working class base of MAGA voters and the professional political snobs in control of the Republican Club boardroom.

Some call it the ‘base’ -vs- the ‘establishment’.  There are other names and catchphrases, but the essence of the dynamic is the same.  A scruffy voting base, who, prior to Donald Trump, had no visible leader to represent their internal interests around the mahogany table.

Ordinary voters were in an abusive relationship with the people around the GOP boardroom.  The Club needed our votes, and our money (less so after the Citizens United decision) but had no intention of ever actually delivering on the priorities of the voters.  The Republican political establishment played Lucy with the football for years, and We The People always ended up flat on our backs, continually frustrated and feeling used.

In the same year the Tea Party rose up, the Supreme Court gave the GOP Club legal access to unlimited corporate money with the 2010 Citizens United decision.  Mitch McConnell used the newly unrestrained campaign finance mechanism to further diminish the influence of the unwashed masses and eliminate the movement; it’s all well documented.

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At 10:22am today, billionaire businessman and new Owner/CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, has recommended that voters choose republican candidates for congress this midterm election cycle.  [Source]

Democrats and left-wing political activist groups are going bananas.

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is planning to lay off people after the midterm election next week.  Meta has lost 70% of its stock value after announcing poor user engagement and financial support last week while investors fled to the exits.

In the big picture, those companies who were ideologically aligned with the Biden administration’s larger political efforts will all likely start announcing layoffs soon. There’s a better than reasonable likelihood some companies have deferred layoff announcements in an effort to help the employment stats for the Biden Administration.

(Via Wall Street Journal) – […] The layoffs are expected to affect many thousands of employees and an announcement is planned to come as soon as Wednesday, according to the people. Meta reported more than 87,000 employees at the end of September. Company officials already told employees to cancel nonessential travel beginning this week, the people said.

The planned layoffs would be the first broad head-count reductions to occur in the company’s 18-year history. While smaller on a percentage basis than the cuts at Twitter Inc. this past week, which hit about half of that company’s staff, the number of Meta employees expected to lose their jobs could be the largest to date at a major technology corporation in a year that has seen a tech-industry retrenchment.

The cuts expected to be announced this week follow several months of more targeted staffing reductions in which employees were managed out or saw their roles eliminated.

“Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here,” Mr. Zuckerberg told employees at a companywide meeting at the end of June. (read more)

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The media pearl-clutching over changes to the Twitter social media platform has become detached from reality.  During a Face the Nation discussion today, a very serious Margaret Brennan and Kris Krebs, former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) outline the national security risks created by Elon Musk’s change to the “verified Twitter user” system.  The “blue checks.”

Mr Krebs outlined how bad actors from Russia, Iran and China could potentially write mean words on Twitter and create social collapse in the United States as a result of election interference, defined as misinformation and disinformation.  Additionally, the unified western military order is at risk from the national security threat posed by allowing random unmonitored discussion on a social media platform.  With the midterm election this week, people could die if Elon Musk removes the control filters on the global conversation.  WATCH:

[Transcript] – […] BRENNAN: We return to our conversation now about election security with CBS News, cybersecurity expert and analyst Chris Krebs. Chris, I want to talk about something that’s happening right now. Social media has already changed the way we communicate and, certainly, our political world. President Biden said a few days ago that he has concerns about billionaire Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter- said, “the platform spews lies all across the world. There’s no editors anymore in America, there are no editors, how do we expect kids to be able to understand what is at stake?” It’s not just kids, right? What concerns do you have about this happening just days before the election, these changes to Twitter?

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As anticipated, Blue Check Twitter is big mad today….

(Politico) – Elon Musk began firing hundreds of Twitter employees on Friday, four days before the midterm elections, including members of the teams that work on U.S. elections and content moderation on the high-profile social-media platform.

Tweets flooded the platform on Friday, many using the hashtags #LoveWhereYouWork and #OneTeam, as employees let others know that they had been let go. Many of those posting had previously worked in roles including public policy, trust and safety, communications, engineering, marketing and human resources.

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Elon Musk has sent an internal memo to company employees notifying them of layoffs to begin tomorrow.  The Verge obtained a copy of the memo:

Team,

In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday. We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.

Given the nature of our distributed workforce and our desire to inform impacted individuals as quickly as possible, communications for this process will take place via email. By 9AM PST on Friday Nov. 4th, everyone will receive an individual email with the subject line: Your Role at Twitter. Please check your email, including your spam folder.

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