Welcome to the morning brief. If this email was forwarded to you, be sure to sign up (free or paid), so you don't miss a beat.
Today's stories
REP. JOHN RATCLIFFE was confirmed as the intelligence chief yesterday, vacating his East Texas congressional seat, awkward timing with an already set November ballot.
In cases like this, party leaders select a substitute, and while two candidates have already announced, more are anticipated.
Any number of heavy hitters could be drafted, but this type of ascension bypasses a costly campaign and, therefore, cash flowing to consultants.
Likely due to this dynamic a hack attorney yesterday floated the idea that this replacement shouldn't happen because Democrats might sue.
It's a clownish move from a goon signaling his preferred candidate isn't going to get the nod, and if he and his feckless friends can't win, he's happy to empower Democrats.
FACEBOOK is pulling content that it disagrees with or deems inaccurate relating to the coronavirus. In many instances, the material is a matter of opinion and subject to change.
Take, for instance, don't wear a mask morphing into everyone wear a mask all the time, or this spreads like wildfire on surfaces flipping to it hardly spreads on surfaces.
When information is in flux, censorship is more clearly about driving an agenda.
In addition to pulling information, Facebook is adding banners to some content to counter persuasive intent. This could get legally interesting if groups (maybe anti-vaxxers) pay to promote content that FB undermines with banners.
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS is still peddling the debunked Russian-disinformation-campaign-to-interfere-in-U.S.-elections narrative (see the Ratcliffe link above).
Russiagate has been exposed as a failed attempt to remove Trump from office, a farce the media propagated past its expiration date.
Social media activity did not have any marked impact on the 2016 election, and coders probing election systems failed in all but one attempt.
American elections are more vulnerable at this point (and were in 2016) of being unduly influenced by a diseased American media, Democrats scrambling to fundamentally alter votes during the pandemic and Mark Zuckerberg's censorship.
JAMES CARVILLE minus the weird fat-shaming rant has done an excellent job projecting onto Trump what is true of the Clinton/Biden universe headed into November
“You don’t have to worry about [Republicans] winning the election,” Carville later said on the podcast. “You have to worry about them rigging it.”
“Trump is weak, he is fat, he is slow, he is being stolen from,” Carville added. “…They’re just sucking off of him. They’re going to steal everything to the last moment. At some level, Trump knows that.”
TEXANS are choosing freedom. A waterpark in Houston is opening for Memorial Day in defiance of Governor Abbott, and his arbitrary ordered limitations on commerce.
Related: Air travelers okay to enter TX from hotspot regions
Hit the links
TX Supreme Court Justice has COVID19
CA doctors: we've seen more deaths from suicide
Kamala: saying "Chinese virus" is racist
Attack at TX Naval based was terror-related
* $ denotes subscription needed
Thank you for reading
Please feel free to contact me (reply to this email or email me at pushjunction@gmail.com) with questions, comments, suggestions, or tips.