Welcome to Popular Information, a newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism.
Billionaire Elon Musk will reportedly spend $180 million to encourage former President Donald Trump supporters in swing states to vote absentee, a practice Musk has publicly described as "insane," "too risky," and a recipe for "large-scale fraud." Trump has advanced a variety of wild conspiracy theories to falsely claim that he won the 2020 presidential election. One of Trump's favorites is the false claim that supporters of President Joe Biden stuffed dropboxes with falsified absentee ballots. Right-wing polemicist Dinesh D'Souza created a 90-minute documentary, 2000 Mules, devoted to the baseless allegation about absentee ballots. D'Souza's documentary was so shoddy that its distributor, Salem Media Group, ultimately pulled the film from the market and issued an apology. Numerous studies have found that voting by mail is "safe and secure." A database maintained by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, which supports restrictions on mail-in voting, reported "1,200 cases of vote fraud of all forms" from 2000 to 2020. Of those cases, "204 involved the fraudulent use of absentee ballots." This amounts to "one case [of fraud using mail-in ballots] per state every six or seven years," or "about 0.00006 percent of total votes cast." Nevertheless, for months, Musk has used X to spread misinformation about absentee ballots to his nearly 190 million followers. Here is a sampling:
Musk's X account has become the social media equivalent of 2000 Mules, grasping to justify Trump's lies about the last presidential election. Musk's diatribes against absentee voting have occurred as Trump and Musk are reportedly "developing a friendly rapport and talk on the phone several times a month as the election nears." As a result, it's not entirely surprising that, on Tuesday, Bloomberg reported that Musk would be donating $45 million a month to a Super PAC supporting Trump's campaign. (Musk previously pledged not to donate to Trump or Biden.) The contributions to America PAC, which was formed in May, would make Musk the biggest financial backer of Trump in 2024 and one of the largest political donors of all time. How will America PAC spend Musk's money? According to the Wall Street Journal, America PAC will focus on "persuading constituents to vote early and request mail-in ballots in swing states." Already, America PAC has hired hundreds of workers who are "having conversations with constituents in swing states and urging voters to request mail-in ballots." The America PAC website encourages Trump supporters to "vote early in person or by mail." It includes a link for voters to request an absentee ballot. So, on the one hand, Musk is telling m In a March 20 advisory opinion, the FEC decided that "canvassing literature and scripts are not public communications, and as a result are not coordinated communications under Commission regulations." That means that America PAC, which is focusing on canvassing to increase absentee voting in swing states, can coordinate its messaging directly with the Trump campaign. |
Friday, September 13, 2024
Trump PAC can coordinate with his campaign
Monday, September 9, 2024
Federal election expenditures may run to $20 billion
A detailed look at how big money has exploded following the 2010 Citizens United ruling of the Supreme Court that invented a constitutional right for wealthy individuals and corporations to spend unlimited amounts to influence elections.
Trump making personal profit from campaign-linked merch
Autographed books, dinner with Trump, pieces of the suit he wore for the debate with Biden, hats, flags, and more. "His [for-profit] company's website also sells a variety of political merchandise at higher prices than his campaign charges for the same items."
Sunday, September 8, 2024
How the Powell memo catalyzed an era of corruption
David Sirota is interviewed by Ryan Grim. Sirota is part of a group that found direct links between the infamous Powell memo of 1971 and activities to organize corporate leaders into a political force. They found documentary evidence that has not been previously reported. Their planning led directly to the founding of the Heritage Society and to Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the Supreme Court decision that first equated political spending with First Amendment rights. This interview names specific people and events.
There is also a 4-part podcast on the Lever, Sirota's Substack site.
Saturday, September 7, 2024
Trump shifts policies according to who gave him $ recently
In the context of asking fossil fuel companies for $1 billion in exchange for favors. Trump then met with Elon Musk.
"Trump told a rally in Atlanta this month that he's for 'a very small slice' of cars being electric. "'I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly,' Trump said."
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
Ginni Thomas thanks right-wing legal org for trying to block ethics standards
Clarence Thomas's wife Ginni praised the work of the First Liberty Institute, which says it is the "largest legal organization in the nation dedicated exclusively to defending religious liberty for all Americans." The Institute's CEO attacked Justice Elena Kagan as "treasonous" and "disloyal" after she endorsed an enforcement mechanism for the [Supreme Court's] newly adopted ethics code. Later, President Biden endorsed term limits and ethics reform bill for the Court.
First Liberty takes cases to the Supreme Court that advance its right-wing agenda of promoting religious liberty. They worked actively to keep the Senate filibuster so that Democrats could not use simple majority votes to pass legislation. According to the CEO, the groups "conducted polling, ran advertisements, worked with social media influencers and urged Congress to oppose these changes. In particular, Shackelford said, his group focused its activities on convincing Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema to oppose filibuster reform." In January 2022, Manchin and Sinema cast the deciding votes against filibuster reform that defeated the Freedom to Vote Act -- GMOM's highest-priority federal legislation.]
Ginni Thomas wrote to the group: "'I cannot adequately express enough appreciation for you guys pulling into reacting to the Biden effort on the Supreme Court. . . . THANK YOU SO, SO, SO MUCH."
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