A pro-Russian propaganda group is taking advantage of high-profile news events to spread disinformation, and it’s spoofing reputable organizations — including news outlets, nonprofits and government agencies — to do so.
According to misinformation tracker NewsGuard, the campaign — which has been tracked by Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center as Storm-1679 since at least 2022 — takes advantage of high-profile events to pump out fabricated content from various publications, including ABC News, BBC and most recently POLITICO.
This year, the group has focused on flooding the internet with fake content surrounding the German SNAP elections and the upcoming Moldovan parliamentary vote. The campaign also sought to plant false narratives around the war in Ukraine ahead of President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
McKenzie Sadeghi, AI and foreign influence editor at NewsGuard, said in an interview that since early 2024, the group has been publishing “pro-Kremlin content en masse in the form of videos” mimicking these organizations.’“If even just one or a few of their fake videos go viral per year, that makes all of the other videos worth it,” she said.
While online Russian influence operations have existed for many years, security experts say artificial intelligence is making it harder for people to discern what’s real.
Storm-1679 developed a distinct technique in 2024 for combining videos with AI-generated audio impersonations of celebrity and expert voices, according to Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center….
“$5,000-Per-Plate Dinner Tests Museum Ban on Political Fund-Raisers”
At a private event hosted by Senator Dave McCormick, Republican of Pennsylvania, donors wandered through a sculpture hall at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and partied with their cowboy hats on at a dinner where each plate cost $5,000.
The aftermath was less celebratory.
Dozens of employees at the Carnegie Museums sent an open letter to trustees, saying that the fund-raiser violated guidelines meant to safeguard the institution from partisan activities. The money raised was not directed to McCormick, who was elected in November, but to a nonprofit with ties to a political action committee he established. The organization supports conservative policy goals in energy and manufacturing.
Weeks after last month’s event, the museum network’s chief executive, Steven Knapp, acknowledged to employees that it was a violation of policy, accusing the fund-raiser’s organizers of providing misleading information and promising to contact McCormick.
“The people working for him have put us in a terrible situation, have really damaged our relationships internally and externally, and we didn’t deserve that,” Knapp said in a staff meeting, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times. He added, “I’m so outraged by what occurred to us that I would be just as happy to say, ‘No more politicians, period.’”
McCormick’s office did not respond to a request for comment….
“Meet the Lobbyist Fighting Against ‘Perfect Legal’ Corruption in DC”
Dave Levinthal profiles Craig Holman for the Washingtonian”
When Craig Holman first came to, he found himself in George Washington University Hospital hooked up to machines.
His ribs, hip, and knee were shattered. His ankle, too. He had suffered a brain bleed.
The victim of an early-March car crash—another driver struck Holman’s 2002 stick-shift Saturn after running a red light on Pennsylvania Avenue—Holman would spend a week in intensive care and three more in various hospital wards. Surgeries would follow surgeries. Much of the time, he couldn’t leave his bed without assistance.
And still he couldn’t stop thinking about Donald Trump.
For hours and hours, Holman would fixate on the newscasts emanating from the TV above his bed. Body broken, his mind seethed at what he saw as gross abuses of power by the President: firing thousands of federal workers, issuing massive tariffs, targeting law firms perceived to have worked against his political or personal interests, letting his Department of Government Efficiency run amok. Holman wasn’t happy with Congress, either, which he viewed as feckless, a legislature surrendering its constitutional clout to an overstepping executive.
“You’re sitting there, watching Trump on the news doing some obvious violation of the law, and you’re thinking, ‘I’d be filing a complaint right now if I were home!’ ” Holman says.
Of that, there’s little doubt. The 69-year-old Holman is a leading member of a peculiar Washington tribe: advocates for good government. Also known as “goo-goos,” they fight to regulate lobbying, limit the influence of money in politics, keep elected officials honest, and otherwise “drain the swamp” in the pre-Trumpian sense of the phrase.
For 23 years, Holman has been on the frontlines working as the government-affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen, the progressive nonprofit founded a half century ago by consumer advocate Ralph Nader. In the best of times, the job can feel thankless, even Sisyphean. Outnumbered and outspent, goo-goos perpetually push the rock of reform up Capitol Hill, only to be pulled back down by the stubborn gravity of wealth and self-interest.
And these are not the best of times. Between an ongoing explosion of political spending and Trump’s return to the White House, goo-goos are on their back foot, confronting a new crisis almost daily. To wit: As emergency workers rescued Holman by cutting through both his car and his beloved leather jacket, the President signed an executive order establishing a government Strategic Bitcoin Reserve, never mind that Trump is heavily invested in the World Liberty Financial crypto-trading platform and launched an eponymous cryptocurrency—$TRUMP coin—days before his inauguration.
“Newsom’s Gerrymander of California Has a Formidable Foe: Schwarzenegger”
A day after Gov. Gavin Newsom held a splashy campaign rally to debut his ballot measure to redraw California’s congressional map, Arnold Schwarzenegger walked into a Santa Monica hotel for breakfast on Friday.
He was wearing a new custom-made T-shirt. It was emblazoned with an image of a raised fist, an expletive aimed at politicians and the phrase, “Terminate Gerrymandering.”
As governor of California from 2003 to 2011, Mr. Schwarzenegger led the charge to do just that. He fought to overhaul how the state draws political maps, ultimately winning when voters passed a pair of ballot measures that took that power away from politicians and gave it to an independent commission.
Now, Mr. Newsom is asking voters to set the independent commission’s work aside for the next three elections in favor of a map drawn to help elect more Democrats. He’s pitching it as a temporary pause on California’s bipartisan system that’s necessary to counter a Republican gerrymander President Trump is seeking in Texas.
And Mr. Schwarzenegger, a moderate Republican, finds himself fighting to preserve a key plank of his legacy as governor, a reform that has allowed what he calls his post-partisan style of politics to endure in California even as a brawling hyperpartisanship has become the national norm.
“I hate the idea of the Republicans redrawing the district lines in Texas, as much as I hate what the Californians are trying to do,” Mr. Schwarzenegger said in an interview at the Fairmont Miramar Hotel and Bungalows.
“But I’m thinking now about California, and about the people of California. I promised them that we are going to create a commission that would be independent of the politicians, and there will be an independent citizens commission drawing the lines. So I’m not going to go back on my promise. I’m going to fight for my promise.”…
“NY state Senate candidate allegedly paid homeless people to lie about donations to net matching funds: report”
An upstate GOP state senate candidate’s campaign allegedly paid homeless people to claim they made donations to him, allowing him to net matching taxpayer funds, a report says.
Several homeless men in Auburn told the Albany Times Union in a story published Friday that Caleb Slater’s campaign offered them $30 a pop to sign paperwork saying they donated $250 to his run in November.
This way, Slater, who ultimately lost his bid for office, could allegedly receive public funds from the state that match contributions up to $250, the paper noted.
At least seven people who spoke to the outlet say they never contributed to Slater‘s campaign but were paid to submit contribution forms. One man said he was asked to recruit other straw donors as well.
“Democrats’ Proposed New California Map Puts Five GOP Seats in Danger”
As Texas Republicans appear poised to thwart Democrats’ brief quorum break and pass a brutal new gerrymander, California Democrats’ plans to retaliate with their own aggressive map are coming into view.
Democrats’ California proposal is a mirror image of Republicans’ Texas plan in the sense that it flips three of the other party’s seats into solid Democratic pickups and makes two other GOP seats much more winnable, though still competitive. The plan would also shore up support for Democrats in the state’s competitive blue-held districts, including two rated as Toss Up and two rated as Lean Democrat by the Cook Political Report.
But unlike in Texas, where the GOP legislature can draw the state’s map however and whenever it wants, Gov. Gavin Newsom and Democrats in Sacramento must first convince voters to permit them to enact a gerrymander — something that’s far from guaranteed….
The Roberts Court Has Applied the Unitary Executive Branch Doctrine Consistently Across Administrations
As most separation of powers/administrative law scholars know, the Roberts Court has consistently applied the unitary executive branch theory (UET) across Democratic and Republican administrations. That theory maintains, at a minimum, that the President must have the power to remove… Continue reading
“Missouri Republicans appear headed to congressional redistricting special session”
St. Louis Public Radio reports.
Texas calls second special session for redistricting
Gov. Abbott called a second special session Friday morning, calling the legislature into action for a second shot at redistricting maps (and, at least in theory, other issues).
The call for the first special session asked the legislature to consider… Continue reading
“Is Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act Unconstitutional?”
Bradley Smith and I talked about Callais and the future of Section 2 in the National Constitution Center’s “We the People” podcast with Jeffrey Rosen.
In this episode, Bradley Smith of Capital University Law School and Nicholas Stephanopoulos of Harvard… Continue reading
“Democrats are fighting fire with fire over redistricting – but will democracy burn?”
Sam Levine for the Guardian:
“Gerrymandering is bad enough once a decade,” said Richard Pildes, a law professor at New York University. “But if we open the door to continual efforts throughout the decade to squeeze out every additional seat… Continue reading
“Texas Democrats say they will return to state once session ends, California unveils retaliatory map”
Texas Tribune:
Texas House Democrats who left the state in protest of proposed congressional redistricting said Thursday they will return to the state after the Legislature adjourns Friday and California’s state lawmakers introduce a retaliatory redistricting map in their… Continue reading
“Justice Department presses Texas for list of registered voters, and the officials who check it”
The TBD details on California’s redistricting special election
Justin here. Today, California Gov. Newsom announced what he’d been foreshadowing for a while now — an effort to seek voters’ approval for new congressional district lines in a Nov. 4 special election. (Rick noted the border patrol “escort” for… Continue reading