“Trump’s commission seems clearly designed to present fraud as a significant threat to the electoral system, a claim that’s belied by any number of studies, including one looking specifically at New Hampshire, and the lack of nearly any actual uncovered examples of it. More …
Elections
The Russian “Firehose of Falsehood” Propaganda Model: Why It Might Work and Options to Counter It
“The Russian propaganda model is high-volume and multichannel, and it disseminates messages without regard for the truth. It is also rapid, continuous, and repetitive, and it lacks commitment to consistency. Although these techniques would seem to run counter to the received wisdom for successful information campaigns, research in psychology supports many of the most successful aspects of the model. Furthermore, the very factors that make the firehose of falsehood effective also make it difficult to counter. ” More …
U.S. Conservatism Expands to Final Frontier: City Hall
“For decades, a well-funded conservative group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) , has helped state lawmakers across the U.S. write legislation to rein in unions, expand charter schools and lower taxes. Now, it’s expanding to the final frontier: normally nonpartisan city halls and county governments, which have become a bastion of liberal resistance to President Donald Trump.” More …
Trump’s Russian Laundromat
“How to use Trump Tower and other luxury high-rises to clean dirty money, run an international crime syndicate, and propel a failed real estate developer into the White House.” More …
Trump’s Election Commission Has Been a Disaster. It’s Going Exactly as Planned.
“Less than two weeks after its attempts to extract voter information from every state, including birth dates, voting histories, and the last four digits of voters’ Social Security numbers, the commission has been stymied by varying degrees of resistance in almost every state. In addition, lawsuits have ground the commission’s work to a halt.” More …
American Democracy Is Now Under Siege by Both Cyber-Espionage and GOP Voter Suppression
“The same Republicans who benefited from Russian hacking in the 2016 election have been suppressing the vote for years.” More …
What the Heck Is a Russian ‘Crown Prosecutor’?
“Technically, there’s no such position. But the man who holds the office’s nearest equivalent in Russia is a Putin loyalist of long standing.” More …
Trump-Russia Investigators Probe Jared Kushner-Run Digital Operation
“Congressional and Justice Department investigators are focusing on whether Trump’s campaign pointed Russian cyber operatives to certain voting jurisdictions in key states – areas where Trump’s digital team and Republican operatives were spotting unexpected weakness in voter support for Hillary Clinton, according to several people familiar with the parallel inquiries.” More …
Trump’s Voter Fraud Endgame
“His “election integrity” investigation is a pretext to repeal the National Voter Registration Act. ” More …
The Federal Voting Agency Republicans Want to Kill
“GOP lawmakers argue the Election Assistance Commission, created in 2002, has outlived its usefulness. Democrats say that in the age of hacking, it’s needed now more than ever.” More …