Elon Musk Loses Pathetic Defamation Case Against Hate Speech Watchdog

A California judge on Monday dismissed X owner Elon Musk’s pathetic lawsuit against a nonprofit that studies misinformation and hate speech for highlighting the social network’s flaws.

Musk sued the Center for Countering Digital Hate in August, accusing the research group of conducting “a scare campaign to drive away advertisers.” The group had shared research that hate speech had flourished on X (formerly Twitter) after Musk took over in the fall of 2022.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer struck down the lawsuit on Monday, ruling that Musk definitely isn’t the free speech champion he claims to be.

The CCDH “has met its burden at the first step of the anti-SLAPP analysis,” Breyer wrote in his ruling. Strategic lawsuits against public participation, also known as strategic litigation against public participation, are lawsuits meant to censor, intimidate, or silence critics by saddling them with legal defense costs until they drop their criticism.

“Sometimes it is unclear what is driving a litigation, and only by reading between the lines of a complaint can one attempt to surmise a plaintiff’s true purpose,” Breyer noted. “Other times, a complaint is so unabashedly and vociferously about one thing that there can be no mistaking that purpose. This case represents the latter circumstance. This case is about punishing the Defendants for their speech.”

“The Court notes, too, that X Corp.’s motivation in bringing this case is evident. X Corp. has brought this case in order to punish CCDH for CCDH publications that criticized X Corp.—and perhaps in order to dissuade others who might wish to engage in such criticism.”

Musk indicated he intended to take legal action against the CCDH in July, when X parent company X Corp sent the nonprofit a letter accusing the group of making “a series of troubling and baseless claims that appear calculated to harm Twitter generally, and its digital advertising business specifically.”

X Corp alleged that the nonprofit was funded by X’s competitors or foreign governments “in support of an ulterior agenda.” The letter specifically cited research on hate speech on X that the center published in June. One of the eight papers the organization published found that X took no action against 99 of the 100 Twitter Blue accounts that the center had reported for “tweeting hate.”

But Breyer found that X Corp’s allegations about the CCDH’s supposedly misleading publications “provide the only support for X Corp.’s contention that it has been harmed.”

Advertisers have left X in droves since Musk took over, promising to make X a bastion of free speech. The most recent exodus was in November, after an explosive Media Matters report revealed that X has been placing ads for brands including Apple, Bravo, IBM, Oracle, and Xfinity next to posts that promote Hitler and Nazi beliefs. But Musk has tried to blame any and everyone other than himself, accusing companies of trying to “blackmail” him by withholding ad dollars.

It may be, though, that companies just don’t want their branding next to hate speech. Since taking over X, Musk has allowed Nazis and the Taliban on Twitter—and even verified them. He also has done nothing to rein in antisemitic and transphobic speech on the platform. If anything, he’s one of the main sources of it.

As a result, the platform’s value has nosedived. X is worth just a fraction of the $44 billion Musk paid for it—by Musk’s own estimate, X’s value may have dropped 90 percent.

This story has been updated.

MSNBC reporters are in revolt against the network’s decision to hire former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel, publicly calling out their bosses on air.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, the co-hosts of Morning Joe, made it clear Monday morning that they disagreed with the decision and had no intentions of allowing McDaniel on their show.

“We weren’t asked our opinion of the hiring, but if we were, we would have strongly objected to it for several reasons, including, but not limited to, as lawyers might say, Ms. McDaniel’s role in Donald Trump’s fake elector scheme and her pressuring election officials to not certify election results while Donald Trump was on the phone,” Scarborough said.

Brzezinski echoed the sentiment, saying, “We believe NBC News should seek out conservative Republican voices to provide balance in their election coverage. But it should be conservative Republicans, not a person who used her position of power to be an anti-democracy election denier.”

They then played a compilation of the many, many falsehoods McDaniel has spewed on air.

McDaniel made her on-air debut during Sunday’s episode of Meet the Press, just days after NBC announced she would join the network to provide conservative political analysis. NBC News political coverage chief Carrie Budoff Brown explained that McDaniel was chosen because she can provide “an insider’s perspective on national politics and the future of the Republican Party.”

Before McDaniel appeared Sunday, Meet the Press host Kristen Welker told viewers the appearance was a “news interview” that had been scheduled for weeks. During the segment, McDaniel did finally admit that Joe Biden had legitimately won the 2020 presidential election. But when Welker asked why it had taken McDaniel so long to say so, McDaniel was quick to caveat her words.

“I’m going to push back a little because I do think it’s fair to say there were problems in 2020 and to say that does not mean he’s not the legitimate president,” McDaniel said.

Despite multiple investigations, many paid for by Trump himself, there is no evidence of fraud during the 2020 election.

Shortly after McDaniel’s interview, NBC anchor Chuck Todd tore into the network’s brass for hiring the former RNC chair.

“I think our bosses owe you an apology for putting you in this situation,” Todd told Welker. “Because I don’t know what to believe. She is now a paid contributor by NBC News, so I have no idea whether any answer she gave to you was because she didn’t want to mess up her contract.”

Todd pointed out that McDaniel has “credibility issues” and that many journalists at NBC were “uncomfortable” with the decision to bring her on board.

“Many of our professional dealings with the RNC over the last six years have been met with gaslighting, have been met with character assassination,” he said. “So when NBC made the decision to give her NBC News’s credibility, you got to ask yourself, ‘What does she bring NBC News?’”

Many NBC employees have been asking themselves that exact question. Multiple NBC political reporters, speaking anonymously, told Politico that had they been consulted, they would have advised against hiring McDaniel because she has nothing to offer the network.

McDaniel is not close to Republican leaders in Congress. She is unpopular with anti-Trump voters, who think she tipped the primaries toward the former president. And she has fallen out of favor with Trump himself, who ousted her from the RNC in March. So it’s not as if she can bring any insider information to the table.

What’s more, MSNBC President Rashida Jones told multiple anchors over the weekend that they would not be forced to book McDaniel, The New York Times reported, citing anonymous sources. So if McDaniel has nothing special to offer the network and no one is required to bring her on air, why is she even there?

Ohio Representative Jim Jordan completely shut down while answering a simple, direct question about who’s still listening to MAGA ramblings about the proven-to-be-baseless 2020 election lie.

During an interview on 60 Minutes on Sunday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee couldn’t defend the campaign that he and his Republican coalition have spent the last four years failing to prove.

“Well what about this idea that the 2020 election was stolen? You think that these companies should allow people to say that, and individuals can make up their own minds and that there should be—” said anchor Lesley Stahl, before being interrupted by Jordan.

“I think the American people are smart. I’ve not said that, I’ve said there were concerns about the 2020 election, I think Americans agree with that,” Jordan said.

“No they don’t,” Stahl retorted. (Several polls conducted over the last year indicate that roughly two-thirds of the country believes that Biden was fairly elected and don’t believe the conspiracy holds any water.)

“You don’t think there were concerns with the 2020 election?” Jordan shot back.

“Most people don’t question the result. That’s all I’m saying,” she responded.

“Oh, they’re there,” Jordan interjected

“They don’t question whether Biden won or not. Right?” Stahl continued, before insisting against Jordan’s blank expression. “Right?” she prompted.

“Oh, OK. Right,” Jordan said, seemingly agreeing.

Watch the bewildering exchange below.

More than five months into the horrifying conflict, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has finally called Israel’s war on Gaza a genocide.

On Friday, the New York lawmaker echoed language that President Joe Biden used during his vice presidency, reminding the lower chamber that “preventing genocide is an achievable goal.”

“Too often these efforts have come too late, after the best and least costly opportunities to prevent them have been missed,” she said during a harrowing speech on the House floor.

“As we speak, in this moment, 1.1 million innocents in Gaza are at famine’s door. A famine that is being intentionally precipitated through the blocking of food and global humanitarian assistance by leaders in the Israeli government,” she continued.

“This is a mass starvation of people, engineered and orchestrated, following the killing of another 30,000, 70 percent of whom were women and children,” she said. “There is hardly a single hospital left. And this was all accomplished, much of this accomplished, with U.S. resources and weapons.”

“If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes,” she added. “It looks like thousands of children eating grass as their bodies consume themselves while trucks of food are slowed and halted just miles away. It looks like good and decent people who do nothing or too little too late.”

Also on Friday, Ocasio-Cortez voted against a $1.2 trillion federal funding package that will gut U.S. funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which sends aid to Palestine. On Thursday, she called the cuts “unconscionable” and “highly political.”

Friday also saw another failed vote at the United Nations Security Council supporting an immediate cease-fire in Gaza. The resolution was the first one proposed by the U.S. calling for an immediate cease-fire, even if it wasn’t legally binding. Ultimately, the effort was torpedoed by Russia and China.

Last week, a cohort of senators in the Democratic caucus called on Biden to immediately suspend military aid to Israel so long as the Western ally continued to block humanitarian aid efforts into a starved Palestine.

More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, in which Israel has weaponized mass starvation as well as blocking or destroying access to critical resources such as water, food, fuel, electricity, and medical aid.

Mike Johnson may not be out of a job just yet, but staying on as House speaker is going to cost him.

Several House Democrats indicated Friday that they would be willing to shield Johnson from Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate. In exchange, the speaker must bring a Ukraine aid package to the floor for a vote.

“If Taylor Greene puts forth a motion to vacate because there’s a bill on the floor that we have the ability to vote on—the Senate-passed Ukraine bill—I would absolutely vote to table,” Representative Abigail Spanberger told Politico.

She was referring to a $95 billion aid package that has already passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support. The measure includes $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, an increasingly unpopular issue among far-right Republicans, as well as aid for Israel and Taiwan. If the package were to go up for a House vote, it is widely expected to pass, but Johnson has so far refused to bring the measure to the floor.

“I think Speaker Johnson should demonstrate a willingness to govern in a way that is helpful to the plight of democracy and our allies across the world,” Spanberger said.

Representative Jamie Raskin said that voting to table the motion to vacate would not be about “saving Mike Johnson.”

“I’ll make a common cause and an alliance with anybody in Congress who will try to save the Ukrainian people at this point,” the Maryland Democrat said.

The lawmakers are likely taking their cue from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who said recently that his caucus would be willing to support Johnson if he brought the aid package up for a vote.

“It does seem to me,” Jeffries told The New York Times in late February, “based on informal conversations, that were Speaker Johnson to do the right thing relative to meeting the significant national security needs of the American people by putting it on the floor for an up-or-down vote, there will be a reasonable number of people in the House Democratic Caucus who will take the position that he should not fall as a result.”

Johnson has previously refused to consider the aid package because it does not include regulations for the U.S.-Mexico border that he considers strict enough. But in recent days, he privately told some Democrats that he would prioritize foreign aid next and would put a Ukraine aid bill to a vote after Easter recess, according to Politico.

Other Democrats, including Tom Suozzi and Jared Moskowitz, indicated Friday that they would back Johnson’s efforts to remain speaker. Moskowitz made it clear on social media that he does not actually support Johnson but just wants to ensure that Greene does not “take over the people’s House.”

Greene revealed Friday that she had filed a motion to vacate Johnson, just moments before the House voted to approve a $1.2 trillion omnibus spending bill. The Georgia Republican, who just four months ago backed Johnson for speaker, said she wanted him to view her motion as a “warning.” But Greene said she intended to bring the motion to a vote, she just wasn’t sure when that would happen.