While J.D. Vance has his own controversies, his close connection to billionaire Peter Thiel, who is poised to have unprecedented influence in a new Trump administration, should deeply unsettle every American who cares about freedom, privacy and reining in the surveillance state.
Wikipedia’s editors have voted to declare the Anti-Defamation League “generally unreliable” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, adding it to a list of banned and partially banned sources.
Economist Gabriel Zucman’s analysis reveals that for the first time, U.S. billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans, sparking a renewed debate on wealth tax.
American tech giants Tesla and Apple are suffering as they face intense competition from Chinese competitors. Elon Musk’s EV company reported a 55% drop in profit and 9% drop in first-quarter revenue Tuesday, its biggest year-on-year fall since 2012. Analysts began forecasting trouble for Musk’s EV empire after Tesla announced price cuts in China. Apple, meanwhile, saw a 19% dip in smartphone shipments to China this quarter, its worst performance since 2020, as it lost ground to local competitors like Huawei. Chinese smartphones are cheaper than iPhones, and have gained traction with more premium design and software features.
An interview with Estela Aranha, who forced Michael Shellenberger to apologize after exposing his manipulation of data to build a false narrative about “totalitarian” Brazil
By Brian Mier
On April 3, Michael Shellenberger tweeted a series of excerpts from emails by X executives dubbed, “Twitter Files Brazil”, which alleged to expose crimes by Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Moraes, he claimed, had pressed criminal charges against Twitter Brasil’s lawyer for its refusal to turn over personal information on political enemies. Elon Musk quickly shared the tweets and they viralized and were embraced by the international far right, to the joy of former President Bolsonaro and his supporters. A week later, Estela Aranha, former Secretary of Digital Rights in the Brazilian Justice Ministry, revealed rot at the heart of Shellenberger’s narrative. The only criminal charge filed against Twitter Brazil referenced in the leaked emails was made by the São Paulo District Attorney’s Office, after the company refused to turn over personal data on a leader of Brazil’s largest cocaine trafficking organization, the PCC. Shellenberger had cut the section of an email about a São Paulo criminal investigation and mixed it with communications complaining about Moraes on unrelated issues. Pressed by Brazilian reporters, Shellenberger wrote, “I regret my my mistake and apologize for it. I don’t have evidence that Moraes threatened to file criminal charges against Twitter’s Brazilian lawyer.”
Elon Musk claims to be a “free speech absolutist,” but almost every time we look more closely at that claim, we discover that he’s one of the most censorial, free speech suppressors around. He just got called out by a judge for filing a SLAPP suit seeking to punish an organization for its speech. And then earlier this year, he funded Gina Carano’s SLAPP suit against Disney.
An Argentinian court of second instance declared as unconstitutional the labor reform contained in the Decree of Necessity and Urgency (DNU) issued by President Javier Milei, which intends to modify or repeal 366 laws to deregulate various sectors of the economy.
On Monday, Elon Musk tweeted “To fear parody or criticism is a sign of weakness.”
If true, then this is Elon admitting to an astounding level of weakness. I mean, we’ve been chronicling for nearly two years now how Elon Musk talks a good game on free speech, but at every opportunity he’s had, he has not embraced actual free speech. Instead he’s worked hard to silence or punish those who say things critical of himself. This includes filing ridiculous lawsuits against two vocal critics.
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
You must be logged in to post a comment.