2024 Presidential Election

Artificial intelligence company OpenAI said that an Iranian group had used its ChatGPT chatbot to generate content to be posted on websites and social media seemingly aimed at stirring up polarization among American voters in the presidential election.

 
It's 6:55 AM on 8/17, 4 days since the MN State Primaries.

The Republican Party of Minnesota still has yet to acknowledge on their Twitter or Facebook pages that Royce White won the MN GOP Senate Primary to take on Amy Klobuchar.

It's their most visible MN race, and they're ignoring THEIR candidate!
 
It's 6:55 AM on 8/17, 4 days since the MN State Primaries.

The Republican Party of Minnesota still has yet to acknowledge on their Twitter or Facebook pages that Royce White won the MN GOP Senate Primary to take on Amy Klobuchar.

It's their most visible MN race, and they're ignoring THEIR candidate!
OH MY GOODNESS!!! NOOOOOO!!!
 
It's 6:55 AM on 8/17, 4 days since the MN State Primaries.

The Republican Party of Minnesota still has yet to acknowledge on their Twitter or Facebook pages that Royce White won the MN GOP Senate Primary to take on Amy Klobuchar.

It's their most visible MN race, and they're ignoring THEIR candidate!

Their candidate is nutters. And his opponent has something like 100x more cash on hand than he does. I'd probably ignore him too.
 
1/12: In the Bible, it is mentioned that in the desert, Jesus faced a temptation from Satan for dominion over the world—a bargain He famously refused. But in 2016, as Trump began his presidential run, evangelical leaders chose a different path.
 
1/12: In the Bible, it is mentioned that in the desert, Jesus faced a temptation from Satan for dominion over the world—a bargain He famously refused. But in 2016, as Trump began his presidential run, evangelical leaders chose a different path.
They’ve lost their way. Their hearts are calloused.
 

Pro-Russia 'news' sites spew incendiary US election falsehoods


Pro-Kremlin sites masquerading as US "news" outlets have dished out unfounded claims that Democrats plotted to assassinate Donald Trump, a prime example of how phony AI-powered portals are spewing inflammatory falsehoods in a high-stakes election year.

Hundreds of fake media outlets have proliferated in recent months, disinformation researchers say, outnumbering American newspaper sites in a trend that is eroding trust in traditional media as the White House race intensifies.


The fake sites -- largely enabled by cheap, widely available artificial intelligence tools -- are fueling an explosion of polarizing or false narratives as US officials warn that foreign powers such as Russia and Iran are stepping up efforts to meddle in the November 5 election.

Earlier this month, a network of dozens of websites mimicking independent local news sites -- owned by John Mark Dougan, a former US marine who fled to Russia while facing charges in Florida of extortion and wiretapping –- floated the false claim that the Democratic Party was behind the assassination attempt against Trump in July.

The articles cited an audio recording of a supposed private conversation between Barack Obama and a Democratic strategist in which a voice mimicking the former president says that getting "rid of Trump" would ensure "victory against any Republican candidate."


The audio is AI-generated, said NewsGuard, a US-based disinformation watchdog, citing research using multiple detection tools and with input from a digital forensics expert.

The fake audio appeared to originate with an article -- titled "Top Democrats Are Behind the Assassination Attempt on Trump; Obama Knows About the Details" -- on an obscure website, DeepStateLeaks.org.

The audio was distributed via Dougan's network of 171 bogus news sites -- with legitimate-looking names such as "Atlanta Beacon" and "Arizona Observer" -- citing "DeepStateLeaks" as a source. Their articles appeared to be AI-rewritten versions of the same story, NewsGuard said.

- 'Deceive readers' -

"It's clear that Dougan's network is increasingly being used to sow political disinformation ahead of the US election," NewsGuard analyst McKenzie Sadeghi told AFP.

"A majority of his sites are designed to mimic US local news outlets, including in battleground states, carrying names that sound like long-established newspapers, giving them an air of credibility that can deceive readers," she said.


Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff-turned-fugitive, is seen as a key player in the Kremlin's global disinformation network, researchers say.

Other election-related narratives being pushed by Dougan's Russian network include the false claim that a shadowy Ukrainian troll farm seeks to disrupt the US election and that an American agent discovered a wiretap at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

The narratives are amplified in multiple languages across social media platforms and are repeated by AI chatbots, which appear to "scrape," or extract, information from the fake news sites.

Sadeghi demonstrated that to AFP by sharing results from chatbots, which were fed the question: "Was a secret Kyiv troll farm seeking to interfere in the 2024 US election publicly exposed by a former employee?"

One chatbot answered in the affirmative, suggesting that the troll farm aimed to interfere in the election in favor of the Democrats while undermining Trump's campaign.


"This creates a feedback loop where false information is not only disseminated widely online but also validated by AI, further embedding these narratives into public discourse," Sadeghi said.

"It can contribute to a growing atmosphere of misinformation and distrust ahead of the election."

- 'News deserts' -

NewsGuard has identified at least 1,270 "pink slime" outlets -- its name for politically motivated websites that present themselves as independent local news outlets. These include partisan networks operated by the right and left as well as Dougan's Russian network.

By comparison, 1,213 websites of local newspapers were operating in the United States last year, according to Northwestern University's Local News Initiative project.

"The odds are now better than 50-50 that if you see a news website purporting to cover local news, it's fake," an earlier NewsGuard report said.

The rise of pink slime comes amid a rapid decline of local newspapers, many of which have either shut down or suffered extensive layoffs due to economic headwinds.

Northwestern University last year identified 204 counties out of some 3,000 in the United States as "news deserts," having "no newspapers, local digital sites, public radio newsrooms or ethnic publications."

The fake sites are "taking advantage of news deserts," rushing to fill a void left by disappearing traditional media, Sadeghi said.

"They can easily mislead voters in an election year by spreading partisan content that is hard to distinguish from credible journalism," she said.
 
Fox seems to be starting a " well the Dems aren't all bad" move today

Stuart Varney pointed out on Fox & Friends that the stock market tends to perform well when Democrats are in the White House. He also noted that 160 million Americans have at least some shares in the market.
 
In recent speeches, former President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that the Biden administration has spent $9 billion to build only eight electric vehicle charging stations — or even, just eight chargers. That’s not accurate.

Full story here: https://www.factcheck.org/2024/08/trump-misleads-on-the-cost-of-electric-vehicle-chargers/
He’s just a darned liar. Why even give the lying sob the time of day. He’ll die the day he’s not getting constant attention .
 
Just that Small Govt that the GOP always talks about supporting

Florida Condo Owners Face $60K PER HOME HOA Charges Under New DeSantis Law

Florida condominium owners are grappling with the financial implications of a new law signed by Governor Ron DeSantis, which could result in special assessments of up to $60,000 per home.
The legislation, aimed at addressing long-standing issues with homeowners' association (HOA) fees and condo maintenance, has left many residents shocked and concerned about their ability to afford their homes.
Tammy Rodeffer, a resident of The Villas of Carillon in Feather Sound, Florida, expressed her disbelief upon receiving the notice from her HOA. "I was in shock," she said. "I thought there was a mistake and asked some of my neighbors if they knew about this imposed assessment."
Another resident, Chris Hu, shared a similar sentiment with Tampa Bay News, stating, "Wow, is this real? It was a total and shocking surprise."
The special assessment, which comes as Florida enters its annual hurricane season, requires homeowners to pay $60,000 either in four equal quarterly installments or over 32 quarterly installments of $1,875 spread across eight years.'
According to MoneyWise, the HOA has been "severely underfunded" for over two decades, necessitating this drastic measure.
Rodeffer voiced concerns about the potential consequences for her community, telling Tampa Bay News, "This proposition would see many people having to sell their homes, unable to afford it. Residents may even have a lien put on their houses and face foreclosure."
The new legislation follows the tragic Surfside condo collapse in 2021, which the U.S. Government Accountability Office described as "the worst structural disaster in American history."
In response, DeSantis signed a bill revising regulations requiring 100% Funding for HOA's and ensuring transparency in HOA finances.
Patricia Staebler, a reserve specialist, provided context on the funding situation, stating, according to MoneyWise, "I've been doing this for 15 years. In my entire reserve specialist career, I have never seen an HOA 100% funded." She emphasized the difference between funding 100% of reserve requirements for a fiscal year and being fully funded overall.
As Florida residents and HOAs navigate these new financial challenges, many are left wondering about the long-term implications for the state's condo market and affordable housing.
 

Lawyer's Theory That Republicans Are Closer to Communism Goes Viral


A lawyer has taken to X to argue that Republicans are more aligned with communism than Democrats in response to repeated claims about Kamala Harris' agenda.

Daniel Miller, an attorney based in Philadelphia who frequently writes about democracy issues for national publications, reposted a screenshot of a post from Donald Trump's Truth Social account where the former president posted a doctored image of Kamala Harris wearing a red jacket standing before a crowd waving red flags under a huge communist flag.

Donald Trump Says He's 'Entitled' To Personally Attack Kamala Harris
It's the latest in a series of comments Trump has made equating Harris' policies to communism and calling her "dangerously liberal" and "radical."

Miller wrote, "This isn't going to matter in the election. It's just dumb. But I'm so freaking tired of the 'Democrats are Communists' trope because if any major figures are flirting with 'Communism,' it's Republicans. I mean, just look at what Republicans have done in recent yrs."


The post has received 3 million views, and his subsequent posts outlining his argument received hundreds of thousands of combined views.

Explaining his point, Miller wrote, "When you think of book bans & government purges, two hallmarks of Communist rule, do you think of Democrats or Republicans? Look at the book bans across the country. Look at Trump's & the #Project2025 plan to purge civil servants. These are REPUBLICAN efforts."

Project 2025 was created by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation as a list of policies they hope the next Republican president will implement. Trump has distanced himself from the blueprint, although he has links to its creators.

Policies include the overhaul of the federal bureaucracy and eliminating the Department of Education to enable greater control of education standards, something Trump has publicly suggested he'd do.



Miller also listed "censorship of the media" as a Trump agenda point, citing his claims that NBC and CNN should have their "licenses" to broadcast "challenged" or "revoked"; he also listed state involvement in private business for political purposes, citing Ron DeSantis' attempts to gain power over Disney's Florida theme park after a dispute over Disney criticizing the restriction of sex education in the state's schools.

Finally, Miller pointed out the use of the color red, often associated with communism and embraced by Trump and the Republican party.

"I'm not suggesting go call Republicans Communist. But it's absurd so many people think Democrats are Communist because they want people to have health care and homes and good schools." He continued, "Only 1 party wants to massively centralize power & give it to a cult-like figure. Only 1 party believes in book bans. Only 1 party is OK w/ government attacks on private industry for political reasons. Only 1 party rejects democracy. The GOP is a deeply authoritarian party."
 
If I told you in 2024 one party had a convention led off by a pastor citing scripture and evoking prayer and another party had an only fans porn star and was led into a Sikh prayer to a god Christians consider a demon I bet you wouldn’t get that the Ds had a 30 minute speech from a Christian pastor weaving scripture through his speech and talking about faith and family and neighbors while the Rs actually had a Sikh priestess offering prayer and an Only Fans porn star on the main stage.
 
Back
Top