2024 United States Presidential Election Megathread
- Thread starter CouldntBeMeTho
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Black Mamba
Superstar
When you've lost this piece of shyt you know your campaign is in a bad place. Trump has done nothing but lose voters, but let TLR tell it and Kamala has no chance.
Rasmussen
what if Kamala picks Beto O'Rourke as VP? 
would that sway white women votes her way?
would that sway white women votes her way?
Y'all remember the time Trump plagiarised a speech from the movie, legally blonde
this con artist has to be the emperor supreme of white privilege, just failed upwards in life.
Well when a bullshyt Republican polling firm like Rasmussen has Trump down that explains why that urnge idiot is freaking out.
How an Elon Musk PAC is using voter data to help Trump beat Harris in 2024 election
Published Fri, Aug 2 20249:56 AM EDTUpdated 2 Hours Ago
Brian Schwartz@schwartzbCNBC
Key Points
Tesla boss Elon Musk and other tech executives are funding a social media ad blitz to support the presidential campaign of Donald Trump.
The ads come as Musk uses his account on X, the social media platform he owns, to back the Republican nominee over the de facto Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Musk’s America PAC is collecting data in more than a half-dozen swing states that could determine the outcome of the 2024 election.
In this article
Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X speaks during the Milken Conference 2024 Global Conference Sessions at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 6, 2024.
David Swanson | Reuters
If a voter in Michigan performs a search on Google
, a somewhat shocking ad might pop up.
The ad shows a young man lying in bed late at night when someone else texts him, “Hey you need to vote,” and then sends the man a video of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump. The man can hear the gunshots and people screaming in the background.
As Trump is rushed off stage with blood pouring down his face, the man watching the video types in response, “This is out of control. How do I start?”
The ad then displays a website for a group called America PAC.
The website says it will help the viewer register to vote. But once a user clicks “Register to Vote,” the experience he or she will have can be very different, depending on where they live.
If a user lives in a state that is not considered competitive in the presidential election, like California or Wyoming for example, they’ll be prompted to enter their email addresses and zip code and then directed quickly to a voter registration page for their state, or back to the original sign up section.
But for users who enter a zip code that indicates they live in a battleground state, like Pennsylvania or Georgia, the process is very different.
Rather than be directed to their state’s voter registration page, they instead are directed to a highly detailed personal information form, prompted to enter their address, cell phone number, and age.
If they agree to submit all that, the system still does not steer them to a voter registration page. Instead, it shows them a “thank you” page.
So that person who wanted help registering to vote? In the end, they got no help at all registering. But they did hand over priceless personal data to a political operation.
Specifically, a political action committee created by Tesla
CEO Elon Musk, one aimed at giving the Republican presidential nominee Trump an advantage in his campaign against Vice President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee.
“I have created a PAC, or a super PAC ... the America PAC,” Musk said in a recent interview.
Musk also owns the social media platform X, and has a net worth of over $235 billion, according to Forbes.
The combination of owning a social media company that gives him an enormous platform to push his political views, and creating a PAC with effectively unlimited resources, has made Musk, for the first time, a major force in an American presidential election.
The America PAC has spent over $800,000 since early July on digital ads that target voters in the key battleground states of Arizona, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to AdImpact.
The ads appeared on Facebook, Instagram and Google through YouTube, and they all encouraged people to register to vote at America PAC’s website.
The PAC’s effort to collect information from people using the idea of “voter registration” is a critical piece to its plan to make personal contact with these voters.
“America PAC is focusing on door-to-door canvassing in support of Trump,” said Brendan Fischer, a deputy executive director at campaign finance watchdog Documented.
“I think it is safe to assume that the voter data gathered through these digital appeals are going to inform America PAC’s canvassing and other political activities,” he added.
Fischer pointed to the group’s privacy policy which says they can use the data they’ve collected on “other activities and/or fundraising campaigns.”
Since June, America PAC has spent over $21 million on canvassing, digital media, text message services and phone calls, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
The PAC’s website offers no indication one way or another what the group’s political leaning is. But in its federal filings, the group discloses that all of its work is designed to either help Trump or hurt his opponent.
Fischer said he has seen some other PACs try to use a “register to vote” message to gather people’s data.
But what is unique about America PAC’s project is who is backing it and the timing of its creation.
In most cases, super PACs are not allowed to directly coordinate the ads they pay for with the campaign. But this spring, regulators ruled that door-to-door canvassing falls outside the scope of the ban because, unlike an ad, it is a person-to-person exchange.
“What makes America PAC more unique: it is a billionaire-backed super PAC focused on door-to-door canvassing, which it can conduct in coordination with a presidential campaign,” Fischer said. “Thanks to a recent FEC advisory opinion, America PAC may legally coordinate its canvassing activities with the Trump campaign — meaning, among other things, that the Trump campaign may provide America PAC with the literature and scripts to make sure their efforts are consistent.”
“Coordination is incredibly important: it ensures that the PAC’s activities are maximally beneficial to the campaign, and frees up the campaign’s own funds for other uses,” he said. “I suspect that the PAC’s ability to coordinate its data-driven canvassing activities with the Trump campaign made it very appealing for donors.”
Longtime Republican strategists Phil Cox, Generra Peck and Dave Rexrode are among those now guiding the PAC after a shake-up in mid-July, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. This person was granted anonymity to speak freely about a private matter.
The change suggests there could be a shift in tactics by the PAC come November. The New York Times first reported on the moves.
Musk is not the only tech executive backing this effort.
The America PAC raised over $8 million between April 1 and June 30, according to FEC records. It has received donations from veteran investor Doug Leone, cryptocurrency investors Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, and a company run by longtime venture capitalist Joe Lonsdale, according to FEC records.
Lonsdale, a co-founder of the software company Palantir, is also a leader of the PAC, and “serves as a political confidant to” Musk, according to The New York Times.
The records do not yet list Musk as a donor. He recently said on X that he is “making some donations to America PAC,” but did not say how much. The PAC is not required to file a third-quarter report until Oct. 15, the first time that Musk’s name could be listed as a donor.
A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment. Musk did not return emails seeking comment.
The PAC’s ads that have aired on social media platforms also mirror a larger message that Musk pushes out to his 191 million followers on X several times a day: The notion that America is in chaos and voting for Trump over Harris is the only way out.
″These PACs have often functioned as the alter ego of whatever billionaire is behind them,” said Daniel Weiner, a director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program.
Experts say Musk’s ownership of X and the lack of any real guardrails around how he uses it, is a sign the platform could be used by the Tesla boss as a political weapon to take on Harris and Democrats at large with fewer than 100 days left until Election Day.
“I’d say that it is somewhat concerning that the owner of one of the most important social media platforms is openly partisan (rooting for one of the candidates) and is using his platform ... as a vehicle for pursuing his openly partisan ends,” said Matthew Baum, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, whose research includes studying misinformation.
Baum said such ownership of a social media company like X leaves open the possibility of “capture of a major platform by a partisan actor, who would then be largely free to use the platform as they see fit, regardless of the potential negative social or political consequences.”
“There is a concern that Musk is weaponizing that platform to help his preferred candidate” in Trump, said Weiner.
When you've lost this piece of shyt you know your campaign is in a bad place. Trump has done nothing but lose voters, but let TLR tell it and Kamala has no chance.
Like I said, Donald Trump only cares about Donald Trump. Which is why I don't understand why so many white people like him, when he's thrown a countless amount of white people under the bus, including his former VP Mike Pence.
White people that support Trump are going to have to learn the hard way he's not their savior.
Anyway I hope Kamala wins, I'm voting for her.
DetroitEWarren
Superstar
Democratic leadership better completely stop the country if all these schemes take effect and they try to force Trump on us. People will start shooting folks over shyt like that 
.
.Democratic leadership better completely stop the country if all these schemes take effect and they try to force Trump on us. People will start shooting folks over shyt like that
I think if Trump loses they're gonna start shooting, I hope you're strapped by November, I know I will have my guns ready, I don't trust Trump, nor his white supremacist cult followers
Trump complains that Kamala Harris calls him a felon in latest bid to get hush-money judge to recuse himself
In a new legal filing, Trump, a convicted felon, complains about the former California attorney general's "prosecutor vs. felon" campaign taunts.
www.businessinsider.com
Trump complains that Kamala Harris calls him a felon in latest bid to get hush-money judge to recuse himself
Laura Italiano
Aug 2, 2024, 1:37 PM ET
In a new legal filing, Donald Trump complains about Kamala Harris' "prosecutor vs. felon" taunts.
Trump also complains that his hush-money judge's daughter worked as a consultant for Harris.
It's Trump's third try at asking the judge to recuse himself.
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Vice President Kamala Harris framing the presidential race as "prosecutor vs. felon" may have touched a nerve with Donald Trump.
Such framing is "false" and "inaccurate," says a new defense filing that asks the judge in Trump's hush-money case to voluntarily step down prior to a pending sentencing that Trump has also challenged.
"Harris immediately framed her candidacy with a specific false reference to this case as a contest of 'prosecutor vs. convicted felon,'" Trump's filing says.
Harris' framing is an "inaccurate attack," it adds, without describing an inaccuracy. Harris is a former district attorney for San Francisco and attorney general for California; in May, Trump became the first former president convicted of a felony.
Trump's one-page letter, made public Thursday, is his third try at asking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to recuse himself, this time as the case nears the sentencing tentatively set for September 18.
Like his earlier failed recusal attempts, this new one centers on the judge's daughter, Loren Merchan, a political consultant who has worked for Democratic campaigns, including Harris' 2019 run for president and the 2020 Biden-Harris campaign.
Harris running as Trump's direct opponent adds new fuel to the recusal argument, the defense attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove now say.
"In light of the long-standing and extremely beneficial working relationship between Your Honor's daughter and Vice President Kamala Harris, who recently became the presumptive Presidential nominee of the Democrat Party, we respectfully submit this pre-motion letter to renew our request that the Court recuse itself," the letter begins.
Trump is "the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election," Blanche and Bove continue.
And Harris, they say, "emerged as his presumptive opponent after it became apparent to the public that the Biden Administration's lawfare against President Trump was motivated by President Biden's alarming decline."
The letter says Trump's now four-month-old gag order, which he has also challenged, somehow prevents him from freely addressing Harris' "prosecutor vs. felon" gibes.
"Your Honor has insisted on maintaining an unconstitutional Gag Order, backed by threats of imprisonment made during the trial, that prevents President Trump from responding fully to that inaccurate attack," the letter says.
The gag bars Trump from attacking by name a limited set of people involved in the trial, including jurors, prosecutors, court staff, and their families.
The gag was upheld on Thursday by a mid-level New York appellate court.
Trump's letter to the judge reiterates that Merchan's daughter "has a long-standing relationship with Harris, including work for political campaigns."
"She has obtained—and stands to obtain in the future—extensive financial, professional, and personal benefits from her relationship with Harris," it continues.
In brief response papers filed Friday, prosecutors called Trump's latest recusal effort "vexations and frivolous."
Trump's "regurgitated" complaints about Loren Merchan's work with Harris have already failed twice, including at the appellate level, and amount to little more than "overheated, hyperbolic rhetoric," prosecutors added.
In addition to the recusal request and his battle against the gag, Trump has asked Merchan to throw out the hush-money case in its entirety on US Supreme Court presidential-immunity grounds.
Merchan has said he'll issue a decision on the immunity request on September 6.
Also Thursday, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Jim Jordan, sent a letter to Loren Merchan demanding all contracts, invoices, and communications from her Chicago firm, Authentic Campaigns, relating to her work for the campaigns of Harris and President Joe Biden and for the Democratic National Committee from January 1, 2023, to the present.
The letter also seeks all documents and communications involving Authentic Campaigns and the Trump hush-money case. The letter gives her one week to turn the material over to the committee, as part of its "oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials."
The letter alleges that Authentic Campaigns earned "over $7 million in compensation" for its work on campaigns involving Harris. The letter doesn't allege that Authentic Campaigns' work for Harris ever overlapped with her father presiding over the hush-money case.
In May of 2023, the New York Advisory Committee on Judicial Ethics found that Merchan wasn't compromised by his daughter's political activities, writing, "A relative's independent political activities do not provide a reasonable basis to question the judge's impartiality."
August 1, 2024: This story has been updated to include details of the Jordan letter and its demands on Loren Merchan. This story was updated on August 2, 2024, to add details of the prosecution's response filing.
Bryan Danielson
Jmare007 x Bryan Danielson x JLova = King Ghidorah
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