I’ve been getting a lot of questions about whether Kanye West, who is running for President and getting on the ballots in at least a few states, is somehow breaking campaign finance law by doing so given the possibility that … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
WaPo: The Pinocchio Test Two of these photos fall under the category of “doctored” in the Fact Checker’s Guide to Manipulated Video. In the most egregious case, one image literally takes Biden from a nature preserve and puts him in a … Continue reading
Forbes: Amid various reports that Republican and Trump-affiliated political operatives are trying to get Kanye West onto various state ballots for November’s presidential election, the billionaire rap superstar indicated, in an interview by text today, that he was in fact running to … Continue reading
CNN: Republican operatives, some with ties to President Donald Trump, are actively helping Kanye West get on presidential general election ballots in states ranging from Vermont to Arkansas to Wisconsin.The effort is raising questions about whether Republicans are pushing for the … Continue reading
Buzzfeed: For at least the last two months, a key Instagram feature, which algorithmically pushes users toward supposedly related content, has been treating hashtags associated with President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in very different ways. … Continue reading
Tennessean: A group that wanted to skewer a Tennessee state representative as “literally Hitler” in a mailer has successfully challenged a law that blocked false speech, including satire, against candidates in campaign literature.Tennesseans for Sensible Election Laws created a mailer that lambasted Rep. Bruce Griffey, … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
WSJ reports. … Continue reading
NYT: American intelligence officials issued a public warning on Friday that China was “expanding its influence efforts” in the United States ahead of the presidential election, along with Russia and Iran, but Democrats briefed on the matter said the threat … Continue reading
CNN: After President Donald Trump posted an unfounded claim to Facebook (FB) on Tuesday that mail-in voting could lead to a “corrupt election,” the social network slapped a label on it. But the label did not attempt to fact-check the post as true … Continue reading
NYT Dealbook: Walmart calls its employees “heroes” for putting their health at risk to work during the pandemic. AT&T champions L.G.B.T.Q. rights. Microsoft is undertaking one of the country’s most ambitious corporate efforts to eliminate its carbon emissions.At a time when Corporate America is … Continue reading
Transcript of interview with Chris Wallace: WALLACE: Two–TRUMP: That’s going to happen here–WALLACE: Two final questions—TRUMP: If he wins–WALLACE: In general, not talking about November, are you a good loser?TRUMP: I’m not a good loser. I don’t like to lose. … Continue reading
Politico: A Senate committee released declassified documents Friday suggesting that senior FBI officials were initially skeptical of the emerging narrative early in Donald Trump’s presidency that his campaign was in contact with Russian intelligence officers.The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by … Continue reading
NYT: It was about 4 in the afternoon on Wednesday on the East Coast when chaos struck online. Dozens of the biggest names in America — including Joseph R. Biden Jr., Barack Obama, Kanye West, Bill Gates and Elon Musk … Continue reading
KC Star: Kansas Rep. Steve Watkins was charged Tuesday with three felonies and a misdemeanor related to an investigation into whether he illegally voted in a 2019 municipal election.Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay, a Republican, announced the charges about … Continue reading
Politico: The articles and Facebook ad dollars look like the efforts of a run-of-the-mill political group. But they are actually from a news outlet: CourierNewsroom.com, also known as Courier, which was created and funded by the Democratic-aligned digital organization Acronym. … Continue reading
NYT: A Republican Senate candidate recently declared herself “one of the thousands of digital soldiers” in service of QAnon, a convoluted pro-Trump conspiracy theory about a “deep state” of child-molesting Satanist traitors plotting against the president. A congressional candidate in Colorado who made … Continue reading
Details: TopicPandemic Propaganda: A New Electoral CrisisDescriptionHow will the misinformation pandemic inflamed by the coronavirus crisis reshape the political landscape? And how might domestic and foreign actors weaponize rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about Covid-19 against American voters in the … Continue reading
CNN: An anonymous group with ties to Republicans has just emerged with the apparent aim of targeting Senate candidate Kris Kobach of Kansas, according to sources familiar with the effort.Kobach is an anti-immigration firebrand and voter-fraud crusader whose primary campaign has … Continue reading
Important piece: Under pressure to combat the disinformation that politicians — most notably the president of the United States — are spreading on its platforms, Facebook recently announced a new effort to combat lies geared in particular toward misleading Americans about voting.Disinformation … Continue reading
NYT: Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party outraised President Trump and the Republicans for the second straight month in June, announcing a record haul of $141 million on Wednesday night only hours after Mr. Trump’s campaign had trumpeted his … Continue reading
WaPo: Last week, a Ukrainian lawmaker who was once affiliated with a pro-Russian political party and has met with Giuliani released 10 edited snippets of what appeared to be Biden’s official vice presidential phone calls in 2016 with Petro Poroshenko, then … Continue reading
CNN: The Senate will incorporate the annual intelligence policy legislation into the National Defense Authorization Act — but only after stripping language from the intelligence bill that would have required presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign election help.Sen. Mark … Continue reading
OC Register: As she heads into the heart of her first re-election campaign, Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine is quickly becoming a power broker in the House of Representatives.She’s a Democrat in a flip district that still leans slightly red. But … Continue reading
Release: Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California settled a lawsuit with Fresno County over the chief elections official’s removal of a polling place at Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno – all because the church refused to cover up Black Lives Matter … Continue reading
WaPo: Facebook on Thursday deactivated dozens of ads placed by President Trump’s reelection campaign that included a symbol once used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.The marking appeared as part of the campaign’s online salvo against antifa and … Continue reading
The Atlantic: In what appears to be a signal of intensifying political warfare ahead of the November election, One America News Network, the Trump-supporting cable channel that has been promoting anti-Biden conspiracies for several months, says it has obtained several hours of … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump has relentlessly attacked mail voting, calling it a free-for-all for cheating and a Democratic scheme to rig elections.None of the charges are true.But as eight states and the District of Columbia vote on Tuesday in the biggest Election Day since … Continue reading
Laura Edelson and Sheila Krumholz oped in USA Today. … Continue reading
NYT: The Trump administration is preparing an executive order intended to curtail the legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for what gets posted on their platforms, two senior administration officials said early Thursday.Such an order, which officials … Continue reading
Detroit News: At least two judicial candidates who felt they were destined to be left off Michigan ballots this August for not meeting state requirements for collecting petition signatures got new life Wednesday, thanks to a U.S. District Court order.In … Continue reading
Cleveland.com: A federal judge in Cincinnati has ordered Ohio officials to allow state issue campaigns to collect the signatures needed to make the ballot electronically, granting a request from backers of two campaigns targeting the November election.Ohioans for Raising the … Continue reading
Odd ending to an odd story: Six ad-makers and advertising platforms listed in the filings said they’ve never heard of the super PAC and have no records of doing business with it. Since then, no ads from the super PAC … Continue reading
Rob Stutzman WaPo oped. … Continue reading
Rantt Media reports. … Continue reading
Franklin Foer for The Atlantic: Jack Cable is a small emblem of how the U.S. government has struggled to outpace the Russians. After he spent the better part of a semester shouting into the wind, officials in Chicago and in … Continue reading
Yasmin Dawood has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Ohio State Technology Law Journal). Here is the abstract: This Article argues for a multifaceted public-private approach to the challenge of protecting the electoral process from the harms of disinformation. Such … Continue reading
Politico: Coronavirus has campaigns rushing to put voting by mail at the center of their general election strategies — and some Republicans worry they’ve already fallen behind, as President Donald Trump dismisses the method and drives doubt about mail voting … Continue reading
NYDN: Already hedging his bets by running for two offices this year, Assemblyman Dan Quart is looking to boot one of his challengers from the Democratic primary ballot.Quart — who’s seeking re-election to the Assembly at the same time he’s running … Continue reading
NYT: Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party could raise almost $1 million every single day between now and November, and he would still barely catch up to what President Trump and the Republican Party had in the bank at … Continue reading
Politico: Mike Bloomberg ended his ill-fated presidential bid on March 4, but his campaign still shelled out nine figures last month anyway, taking his total spending over $1 billion in a losing run for the Democratic nomination.The billionaire’s campaign spent … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee said Monday they had raised $212 million in the first three months of 2020, a signal that despite a global pandemic that has put a halt on high-dollar fund-raising events, … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided to donate significant components of his shuttered presidential campaign to the Democratic Party, a historic bequest that includes an $18 million cash infusion to organize for the general election in swing states.The … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: An onslaught of political advertising is par for the course in any election year. The 2020 presidential contest proves to be no exception.So, on first glance, nothing was unusual when former vice president Joe Biden, who appears to be … Continue reading