Greetings, West Coast, Messed Coast™ readers. It’s been quite a week. Governor Hair Gel managed to lose $98 billion of state funds and put the state into the red, but – luckily for him – the news was kept from Californians by the media until after Election Day. Phew! However, the economic fortunes of Taxifornia could be getting worse as CISCO announces layoffs and Twitter employees have chosen to resign rather than go “hard core” at their jobs.
Hard Core
New owner Elon Musk sent out a Thursday night missive to employees to go “hardcore” at work or take a three-week-paid permanent vacation. When employees found out it wasn’t the hardcore they thought they were being promised, they left in droves.
That’s only half right. Here’s what really happened.
Twitter’s West Coast, Messed Coast™ offices are closed until Monday “after ‘hundreds’ of Twitter employees took up the new CEO’s offer of three weeks’ severance, rather than commit to his ‘hardcore’ work motto by a Thursday deadline,” LinkedIn News reported.
#HardCore@elonmusk @Twitter https://t.co/TSSBTu4kMZ pic.twitter.com/3fQou03psO
— Victoria Taft, The Adult in the Room (@VictoriaTaft) November 18, 2022
The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and The New York Times all reported the exodus using anonymous sources in service of the “get Elon Musk” op. These are from The Post.
Twitter is shifting to an engineer-driven operation — one that “will need to be extremely hardcore” going forward, according to the midnight email, which was obtained by The Washington Post.
By mid-Wednesday, members of Twitter’s Trust and Safety team — who are responsible for keeping hate speech and misinformation off the site — were discussing a mass resignation, according to three current employees who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
…according to a person with knowledge of the internal discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution.
According to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal matters, as well as internal and externally compiled data…
Musk and Twitter did not respond to requests for comment.
I can see why these West Coast, Messed Coast™ employees would worry about losing their jobs. One can’t imagine how Musk might do without these great and loyal employees. No wonder he closed the office.
Twitter Blue Ballyhoo
The Twitter Blue verification system has been beset by hoax and imposter accounts, forcing Musk to close Twitter HQ until Monday to attack the problem.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 18, 2022
Musk is retrenching, vowing to sleep on the floor at Twitter until the verification feature is fixed or it’s dead. Musk has reduced his Twitter headcount by half already.
Everything’s Fine at Facebook
After Mark Zuckerberg announced layoffs, we learn that the Silicon Valley Meta corporation was home to employees who used the back door available to employees to impersonate users, change content, and do it in exchange for bribes.
“Two dozen employees and contractors over the last year whom it accused of improperly taking over user accounts, in some cases allegedly for bribes,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Meta says that in some cases workers accepted thousands of dollars in bribes from outside hackers to access user accounts,” reported the WSJ.
Breaking: Meta fired or disciplined employees it accused of improperly taking over user accounts, in some cases allegedly for bribes, people familiar with the matter say https://t.co/7WpKyvKUb7
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) November 17, 2022
TikTok, Time’s Up
As long as we’re in the high-tech groove, former Attorney General Bill Barr and President Trump would like their reputations back, thank you very much, after their warnings about Chinese CCP spyware on the social media TikTok app have yet again been proven true.
FBI Director Chris Wray sounded the alarm this week about the spyware. Maybe the FBI doesn’t like the competition or something.
As a result of the warnings by the Trump administration, Joe Biden embraced TikTok, inviting TikTok to the White House to influence opinion on Democrat issues, including the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. That’s what you call a spyware three-fer.
Knock, Knock
Here’s the worst “knock, knock” joke not overheard at Nancy Pelosi’s West Coast, Messed Coast™ house after I made it up. Ready?
Police: Knock, Knock.
Media: Who’s there?
Nancy’s Police: What are our latest orders from San Fran Nan?
The Bay Area NBC outlet says sources who saw the San Francisco Police body cam video captured when they responded to 82-year-old Paul Pelosi’s home shows the former House speaker’s husband answered the door himself. The Department of Justice says he didn’t answer the door. Why is it important? Read about it in my PJ Media piece.
Related: It’s Free Lunch Time for Transfranciscans in San Francisco
Collateral Cop Damage
A man who investigators believe “intentionally” drove the wrong way into a class of 75 LA Sheriffs Academy recruits, injuring 25, was released the next day from jail due to lack of evidence. Five of the recruits were critically injured. The incident was captured on video.
A disgusted LA County sheriff, Alex Villanueva, told News Nation, “We operate under prosecutor George Gascón. We definitely have grave concerns about his ability to prosecute. We are actually going to provisionally release him (Gutierrez) until we can have the case iron clad, iron proof, and submitted to the DA for filing consideration. Right now, we want to tie up all the loose ends on the case and then present it to the DA.”
If he stays around to be prosecuted, that is.
Antifa Justice in Portland
Elsewhere in another woke county that hates cops and loves their Antifa, authorities let off a man I know as “Antifa John,” who attacked journalist Andy Ngo and stole his wallet three-and-half years ago. Justice delayed really is justice denied, as I explained at PJ Media.
And in the cold Pacific Northwest, anti-woke citizens were perhaps wishing this monster fireball would have hit so we could start all over again.
Ok, that was insane. Dead center screen, there had to be others that saw that monster #Meteorite #Washington #Seattle #Fireball 10:18pm looking west from Normandy Park, WA #Space pic.twitter.com/Mp8vKjsquD
— Michael Snyder (@SeattleWXGuy) October 13, 2022
But we’re still here. So, until the next time, be well and give thanks.
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