Politics Random, Random

[skatingfan]

Dr. Stein, how much money were you paid to attend dinner with Vladimir Putin?

[ponchi101]

Who?

[patrick]

Jill Stein needs to sit down and take a backseat. All she does is cause chaos which helped Mr Delay in 2016

[skatingfan]

Who?

I'm not sure if this question was facetious, but assuming for a moment it wasn't she is the Green Party candidate for President.

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Ricky Davila
@TheRickyDavila

You’ll notice that American state media gave little to no credit to President Biden for the arrests of two heads of the Sinaloa Cartel (largest supplier of fentanyl on earth) in El Paso days ago after his admin’s DEA tricked them into flying into that city...

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Kamala's Wins 24
@kamala_wins47
·
2h
It seems that Elon Musk is trying to shut down as many Twitter accounts supporting Kamala Harris as possible. I just received a warning that I violated Twitter's policy, and if it happens again, my account will be permanently suspended.

[ti-amie]

How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election
Published Fri, Aug 2 2024 9:56 AM EDT Updated an hour ago

Brian Schwartz
@schwartzbCNBC

If a voter in Michigan performs a search on Google
, a somewhat shocking ad might pop up.

The ad shows a young man lying in bed late at night when someone else texts him, “Hey you need to vote,” and then sends the man a video of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The man can hear the gunshots and people screaming in the background.

As Trump is rushed off stage with blood pouring down his face, the man watching the video types in response, “This is out of control. How do I start?”

The ad then displays a website for a group called America PAC.

The website says it will help the viewer register to vote. But once a user clicks “Register to Vote,” the experience he or she will have can be very different, depending on where they live.

If a user lives in a state that is not considered competitive in the presidential election, like California or Wyoming for example, they’ll be prompted to enter their email addresses and ZIP code and then directed quickly to a voter registration page for their state, or back to the original sign-up section.

But for users who enter a ZIP code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.

Rather than be directed to their state’s voter registration page, they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age.

If they agree to submit all that, the system still does not steer them to a voter registration page. Instead, it shows them a “thank you” page.

So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.

Specifically, a political action committee created by Tesla
CEO Elon Musk, one aimed at giving the Republican presidential nominee Trump an advantage in his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee.

“I have created a PAC, or a super PAC ... the America PAC,” Musk said in a recent interview.

Musk also owns the social media platform X, and has a net worth of more than $235 billion, according to Forbes.

The combination of owning a social media company that gives him an enormous platform to push his political views, and creating a PAC with effectively unlimited resources, has made Musk, for the first time, a major force in an American presidential election.

Musk PAC uses ‘register to vote’ data
The America PAC has spent more than $800,000 since early July on digital ads that target voters in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to AdImpact.

The ads appeared on Facebook, Instagram and Google through YouTube, and many encouraged people to register to vote at America PAC’s website.

The PAC’s effort to collect information from people using the idea of “voter registration” is a critical piece to its plan to make personal contact with these voters.

“America PAC is focusing on door-to-door canvassing in support of Trump,” said Brendan Fischer, a deputy executive director at campaign finance watchdog Documented.

“I think it is safe to assume that the voter data gathered through these digital appeals are going to inform America PAC’s canvassing and other political activities,” he added.

Fischer pointed to the group’s privacy policy which says it can use the data they’ve collected on “other activities and/or fundraising campaigns.”

Since June, America PAC has spent more than $21 million on canvassing, digital media, text message services and phone calls, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The PAC’s website offers no indication one way or another what the group’s political leaning is. But in its federal filings, the group discloses that all of its work is designed to either help Trump or hurt his opponent.

Fischer said he has seen some other PACs try to use a “register to vote” message to gather people’s data.

But what is unique about America PAC’s project is who is backing it and the timing of its creation.

In most cases, super PACs are not allowed to directly coordinate the ads they pay for with the campaign. But this spring, regulators ruled that door-to-door canvassing falls outside the scope of the ban because, unlike an ad, it is a person-to-person exchange.

“What makes America PAC more unique: it is a billionaire-backed super PAC focused on door-to-door canvassing, which it can conduct in coordination with a presidential campaign,” Fischer said. “Thanks to a recent FEC advisory opinion, America PAC may legally coordinate its canvassing activities with the Trump campaign — meaning, among other things, that the Trump campaign may provide America PAC with the literature and scripts to make sure their efforts are consistent.”

“Coordination is incredibly important: it ensures that the PAC’s activities are maximally beneficial to the campaign, and frees up the campaign’s own funds for other uses,” he said. “I suspect that the PAC’s ability to coordinate its data-driven canvassing activities with the Trump campaign made it very appealing for donors.”

Longtime Republican strategists Phil Cox, Generra Peck and Dave Rexrode are among those now guiding the PAC after a shake-up in mid-July, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. This person was granted anonymity to speak freely about a private matter.

The change suggests there could be a shift in tactics by the PAC come November. The New York Times first reported on the moves.

Musk is not the only tech executive backing this effort.

The America PAC raised more than $8 million between April 1 and June 30, according to FEC records. It has received donations from veteran investor Doug Leone, cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and a company run by longtime venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, according to FEC records.

Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software company Palantir, is also a leader of the PAC, and “serves as a political confidant to” Musk, according to the Times.

The records do not yet list Musk as a donor. He recently said on X that he is “making some donations to America PAC,” but did not say how much. The PAC is not required to file a third-quarter report until Oct. 15, the first time that Musk’s name could be listed as a donor.

A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment. Musk did not return emails seeking comment.

Musk on X mirrors Musk PAC
The PAC’s ads that have aired on social media platforms also mirror a larger message that Musk pushes out to his 191 million followers on X several times a day: the notion that America is in chaos and voting for Trump over Harris is the only way out.

″These PACs have often functioned as the alter ego of whatever billionaire is behind them,” said Daniel Weiner, a director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program.

Experts say Musk’s ownership of X and the lack of any real guardrails around how he uses it, are a sign the platform could be used by the Tesla boss as a political weapon to take on Harris and Democrats at large with fewer than 100 days left until Election Day.

“I’d say that it is somewhat concerning that the owner of one of the most important social media platforms is openly partisan (rooting for one of the candidates) and is using his platform ... as a vehicle for pursuing his openly partisan ends,” said Matthew Baum, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, whose research includes studying misinformation.

Baum said such ownership of a social media company like X leaves open the possibility of “capture of a major platform by a partisan actor, who would then be largely free to use the platform as they see fit, regardless of the potential negative social or political consequences.”

“There is a concern that Musk is weaponizing that platform to help his preferred candidate” in Trump, said Weiner.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/elon-mu ... r=sharebar

[Suliso]

When historians will get to rank Uncle Joe, we will finally see how good of a president he is.

It takes time for the policies of a particular president to be fully understood. Clinton looked really good when he left office, and so far history hasn't been kind to his record, and Bush Jr. was awful, but in light of Trump, he doesn't seem as bad. Things change with the perspective of time

Indeed... Obama's foreign policy was awful from today's point of view.

[ashkor87]

Is Harris Indian? Or Black? She is both, of course, genetically speaking ..
Just for context, the people of South India may be descended from Ancestral South Indians as evolutionary geneticists like Reich call them..ASI draw their ancestry from two sources- the Indus Valley people and the (essentially) Africans who now inhabit only the Andamans..Kamala Harris' mother is from South India...

Correction - the people of Andamans are more closely related to native Australians than to Africans.

[Suliso]

Possibly the first both from the first wave out of Africa BUT I think there is still a lot we don't know about early history of our species outside Africa.