Mark Zuckerberg’s $300 million donation to protect elections must overcome Facebook’s past
One of Zuckerberg’s largest-ever gifts became an immediate flashpoint in the debate over billionaire philanthropy.
Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are donating $300 million to protect American elections. It is one of the couple’s largest-ever single gifts, meant to bolster democracy during a pandemic. But it’s also one that critics say is brimming with irony given Facebook’s past failures in protecting the integrity of elections.
The Facebook chief said on Tuesday that he had sent the money to two civic organizations which in turn will direct it to state and local election officials so they can prepare for an unprecedented Election Day. The coronavirus pandemic has caused many states to radically shift — on short notice — how they will administer elections to ensure safety. A majority of Americans say they are anticipating that they will vote early or by mail this year.
The majority of the gift, $250 million, will go to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a nonprofit popular with many tech philanthropists, which will then regrant the money to local election officials so they can recruit poll workers, supply them with personal protective equipment, and set up drive-through voting. Another $50 million heads to the Center for Election Innovation & Research to be distributed to Secretaries of State across the country.
The money does not come from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, their joint philanthropy, but is a personal donation.
“Election officials across the country are working hard to ensure that everyone can vote and every vote can be counted,” Zuckerberg said, “and we want to help make sure they have the resources they need to do this.”
And while the money may be sorely needed, the announcement of the gift on Tuesday emerged as an immediate flashpoint in the simmering debate over billionaire philanthropy and whether donations are the best way to enact change. That’s because, to many on the left and to Facebook critics more broadly, it is Zuckerberg’s company that has harmed democracy by tolerating hate speech, failing to curtail disinformation, or allowing Russian operatives to mess with the 2016 election.
The fact that this criticism even exists is revealing. In an earlier era, a huge donation from Zuckerberg might be greeted with whoops and hollers, like his famous $100 million gift to Newark schools a decade ago. Even the creation of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, just dating back to 2015, was largely a PR win for the couple.
But in today’s America, where Zuckerberg is a pariah to many progressives and where billionaire gifts are scrutinized much more closely, the reaction was more complicated.
Here’s Raffi Krikorian, who has long worked at the intersection of tech and politics:
And here’s Tara McGowan, the head of one of the Democratic Party’s largest outside groups that has raised big money from Silicon Valley donors:
Facebook has stressed that it has learned the lessons from 2016 and is arguing that it is much better prepared for this fall. Alongside the announcement of the gift — and perhaps with an eye to this predictable criticism — Zuckerberg pointed out Facebook’s pledge to register 4 million voters and promote information on matters like vote-by-mail to its users.
Election officials were nevertheless ecstatic about the gift. Michigan’s secretary of state called it a “game changer.” Ohio’s said the money would “go a long way” to ensuring the public’s confidence in the vote.
But as always, two things can be true at once about billionaire philanthropy: The money may indeed fill an urgent gap that makes our lives better, but giving away these large sums represents a relatively minor component in the total assessment of how each billionaire is shaping our world.
I don't hate on Zuckerberg and think this donation was significant, worthy of praise. He is running a business, corporations make decisions based almost entirely on profits at all times, he was acting like an American CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world. Agree or disagree with his decisions, he was doing his fiduciary duty for the benefit of the company's shareholders.
I don't hate on Zuckerberg and think this donation was significant, worthy of praise. He is running a business, corporations make decisions based almost entirely on profits at all times, he was acting like an American CEO of one of the largest corporations in the world. Agree or disagree with his decisions, he was doing his fiduciary duty for the benefit of the company's shareholders.
Odd paragraph coming from you, when I just read this from you in a different thread:
Quote:
And I don't like the violence and destruction from those rioting regardless of who it actually is that is sparking the riots and looting in these racially charged hotspots. But I have to ask serious questions like how is the damage and cost of working class people rioting and looting any higher than the decisions made behind closed doors in corporate board meetings every day?
Corps sent jobs overseas to the detriment of the working class. Corps pay starvation wages to the detriment of the working class. Corps created the trade deficits with China and many other countries to the detriment of the working class. Corps buy and sell politicians to manipulate laws to the detriment of the working class. Corps are considered people but they don't go to jail or get shot in the back at point blank range. Corps don't vote or have citizenship. Corps commit fraud, sell products that destroy lives or kill, rig our political system, and run often criminal enterprises on a global scale with relative impunity! Corps can wipe out a person, family, community, economy, country, and even the world's markets knowing that even if they are caught it will only cost them pennies on the dollar to pay a fine! Rarely does anyone go to jail or even get called a criminal...
Which is it? Corp's. are good, and need to make a profit like facebook does?
Corps are just a document filing. They are not bad or good. BUT when decisions are made in boardrooms based purely on profit motivations, the results often have consequences that reach far beyond the profit motivation, yet the blame for those consequences and who ends up paying the price tends to politically and financially land in the laps of the working class. This is what is bad. Corps are not bad, profits are not bad, business is not bad... but bad actors doing sinister crap inside those corps in the name of those same profits oftens ends very badly for America and it's working class. Tell me you do not agree with that.
I was planning on treating my 86 y/o Grandma and 88 y/o Grandpa to a lunch cruise. They love the buttered rolls, broiled cod and assorted danishes b/c it's easy on their gums!
Trump Reportedly Cancelled Visit to War Dead in WWI Cemetery Because It’s ‘Filled With Losers’ And He Didn’t Want to Mess Up Hair By Sarah RumpfSep 3rd, 2020, 6:54 pm 3579 comments
In a report published Thursday at The Atlantic, editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg cited multiple sources who say that President Donald Trump made shockingly disrespectful comments when he cancelled a 2018 visit to a cemetery where American WWI war dead were buried, including dismissing the soldiers and marines interred there as “losers” and “suckers” — and complaining that the trip would mess up his hair.
The trip in question occurred during a presidential visit to France two years ago, and the trip itinerary originally included a stop at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery located on the edge of Belleau Wood, just north east of Paris. The cemetery contains the remains of 2,289 American war dead and includes a memorial wall inscribed with the names of an additional 1,060 missing. The majority of the casualties honored there were marines who fought a crucial battle there in in the spring of 1918 that is credited with stopping the Germans’ advance toward Paris.
Trump’s decision to skip the cemetery was decried as an “embarrassment” and stoked a fiery backlash at the time.
The hallowed ground apparently invoked no sense of respect from Trump, however, as Goldberg describes:
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Goldberg also reported that his sources told him that Trump expressed a lack of understanding about why America had intervened on the side of the Allies and asked his aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?”
In 2015, while seeking the Republican nomination for president, Trump infamously attacked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), saying “He’s not a war hero…I like people who weren’t captured.”
The White House did not comment for the story before publication, but after The Atlantic report came out, Trump administration spokesperson Judd Deere blasted the accusations in the anonymously-sourced story as “false.”
Not a soul brave enough to put their name on any of these accusations. That’s because they are false. Just another anonymously sourced story meant to tear down a Commander-in-Chief who loves our military and has delivered on the promises he’s made. What a disgrace! https://t.co/NInGxeDcI2
— Judd Deere (@JuddPDeere45) September 3, 2020
McCain was a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, who volunteered for service during the Vietnam War and was captured as a prisoner of war in 1967 when his plane was shot down. He was brutally tortured for years, enduring injuries from which he would never fully recover. During his captivity, he rejected an offer for his early release because his father was a high-ranking commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, fearful that accepting that privilege would violate the military Code of Conduct, which said that prisoners of war should be released in the order they were captured, with no favoritism for special status. McCain was finally released on March 14, 1973, after five-and-a-half years in captivity.
Trump’s birthday of June 14, 1946 was assigned a draft number that was “almost last” in the 1969 lottery, meaning that without a deferment he would have been highly unlikely to avoid serving in Vietnam. He had received four student deferments while in college, but that would not protect him once he graduated, but he was then able to obtain a medical deferment claiming a “bone spur” in one of his feet. In 2015, he was asked about the bone spur and said that he could not remember which foot.
Aw Hater, nobody can put a name on the accusation: and this has nothing to do with the General Election topic. I'm pretty sure Trump loves America, the democrats don't.
Aw Hater, nobody can put a name on the accusation: and this has nothing to do with the General Election topic. I'm pretty sure Trump loves America, the democrats don't.
I was planning on treating my 86 y/o Grandma and 88 y/o Grandpa to a lunch cruise. They love the buttered rolls, broiled cod and assorted danishes b/c it's easy on their gums!
Commandeer the Goodtime III, pass around some red caps, play "Panama" on the ship's speakers, and join the festivities!
At DT, context and meaning are a scarecrow kicking at moving goalposts.
Why sample ballots in South Carolina didn't list Joe Biden as a presidential candidate Kirk Brown, Greenville News September 3, 2020, 8:26 PM EDT
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Sample ballots for the November general election in South Carolina did not include the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris until reporters started asking questions Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon, the South Carolina Democratic Party officially certified Biden and Harris as its presidential ticket. A short time later, their names appeared on the state Election Commission's online sample ballot along with the Republican presidential ticket of Donald Trump and Mike Pence and the presidential candidates for the Alliance, Green and Libertarian parties.
South Carolina Democratic Party Chairman Trav Robertson said his party had until Sept. 8 to certify Biden and Harris as its presidential ticket. He was livid that state election officials made sample ballots before that deadline.
A sample ballot for general election does not include the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. A sample ballot for general election does not include the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. More "The state election commissioners ought to be fired for this," he said. "This is complete malfeasance."
Chris Whitmire, a spokesperson for the state Election Commission, said in an email that sample ballots are prepared up to 100 days before an election to meet requirements for military and overseas citizens who may be voting a blank federal write-in absentee ballot, also known as FWAB. He said sample ballots are updated as candidates are certified.
"The online sample ballot provides voters with information about what their ballot content is at the time they view it," Whitmire said. "Military and overseas voters voting a FWAB need this information to know what their choices are at the time of completing the FWAB.
"While most know the major presidential candidates, the sample ballot, in many cases, is the only way for one of these voters to know about other candidates, local candidates and referendum questions. There is a disclaimer on the cover page that candidates may change at any time and a recommendation that voters check their sample ballot as close to election day as possible."
Whitmire said Trump and Pence were certified as the Republican presidential ticket in South Carolina on Aug. 27.
Follow Kirk Brown on Twitter @KirkBrown_AIM
Last edited by Jester; 09/04/2007:32 AM.
Am I perfect? No Am I trying to be a better person? Also no
Aw Hater, nobody can put a name on the accusation: and this has nothing to do with the General Election topic. I'm pretty sure Trump loves America, the democrats don't.
I put it here and in the military thread-it sure as hell does have to do with the election thread.
And fats nixon don't love nobody but himself.
and by the way, the Associated Press published the story, they found the story so hard to believe that they reached out to two military sources who confirmed the story in its entirety.
Aw Hater, nobody can put a name on the accusation: and this has nothing to do with the General Election topic. I'm pretty sure Trump loves America, the democrats don't.
Wacky Omarosa (Omarosa Manigault Newman) Cheatin' Obama (Barack Obama) Mr. Magoo (Jeff Sessions) Little Adam Schiff Crazy Jim (Jim Acosta) Dicky Durbin 1 for 38 Kasich (John Kasich) Crazy Bernie (Bernie Sanders) Crooked Hillary (Hillary Clinton) Cryin' Chuck / Fake Tears Chuck Schumer Low Energy Jeb Bush Little Marco (Marco Rubio) Little George Stephanopoulos Lyin' Ted (Ted Cruz) Pocahontas / Goofy Elizabeth Warren Rocket Man (Kim Jong Un) Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd Wacky (Frederica Wilson) Liberal Puppet Jones (Doug Jones)
The left reminds me of a bunch of guys who have the emotional maturity of middle school boys.
Ummm, the guy you are voting for makes up silly names for his opponents all the time. He talks horribly about the left just like you too. He's a buffoon, but you already know that.
Joe Biden’s Kenosha town hall marred by eyebrow-raising statements
By Joshua Rhett Miller
September 4, 2020
Joe Biden’s town hall event in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Thursday was marred by a number of controversial and eyebrow-raising incidents, including the Democratic candidate claiming that the light bulb was not invented by Thomas Edison, and a questioner refusing to adhere to a pre-written script she was “told to go off.”
Biden said during the event that a black man invented the light bulb — and “not a white guy named Edison.”
Biden, 77, made the claim while speaking Thursday at Grace Lutheran Church, where he met residents following a 90-minute private session with Jacob Blake’s family, a meeting that Blake joined by phone, according to attorney Ben Crump.
“I cannot guarantee everything gets solved in four years, but I guarantee you one thing: It will be a whole heck of a lot better” if he’s elected in November, Biden promised. “We will move a lot further down the road.”
Biden then insisted that “people fear” anything that’s different before launching into a critique of the American education system.
“We gotta, for example, why in God’s name don’t we teach history in history classes?” he told the crowd through a mask. “A black man invented the light bulb, not a white guy named Edison. OK? There’s so much. Did anybody know?”
American inventor Thomas Edison is credited with patenting the first commercially successful incandescent light bulb in 1879, using a paper filament that burned out quickly. Three years later, Lewis Howard Latimer, a black inventor who worked as one of Edison’s researchers, patented a light bulb using a carbon filament, which was much more durable, according to a Massachusetts Institute of Technology profile.
Latimer also holds patents for the electric lamp in 1881, four years before he teamed up with Edison to begin “improving upon his boss’s invention,” Grist magazine reported in a 2015 profile of Latimer, who first worked as an assistant to inventor Alexander Graham Bell.
Some accused Biden of trying to “rewrite history.”
At another point, while talking about law enforcement, Biden said that while a “significant portion” of police officers are “decent people,” there’s “a lot of bad folks” in every organization, before abruptly cutting himself off to introduce his wife.
“And so we gotta give a chance to change things, and we can,” Biden said. “There is not a single solitary reason in the world why, why, as I said, we shouldn’t be in a position that everybody — and that’s my wife Jill, hey Jilly … I’m Jill’s husband, actually.”
While talking about potential tax plans if elected, Biden promised not to raise rates on anyone making less than $400,000, but stopped short of divulging specifics, saying “they’ll shoot me.”
Biden was assailed by critics for that turn of phrase, which was slammed as inappropriate in the aftermath of Blake’s Aug. 23 shooting in Kenosha.
Participants at the event, meanwhile, appeared to have been screened prior to the town hall, where they were “told to go off” a prepared script, according to one woman’s remarks.
“My name is Portia Bennett. I’m just going to be honest, Mr. Biden, I was told to go off this paper but I can’t. You need the truth, and I’m part of the truth. I was born here, raised here,” the woman said. “I have to give you the truth of the people.”
And they never mention what a great plan Trump said he had for his second term...
"But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we'd have a very, very solid, we would continue what we're doing, we'd solidify what we've done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done," Trump told The New York Times' Peter Baker.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
And they never mention what a great plan Trump said he had for his second term...
"But so I think, I think it would be, I think it would be very, very, I think we'd have a very, very solid, we would continue what we're doing, we'd solidify what we've done, and we have other things on our plate that we want to get done," Trump told The New York Times' Peter Baker.
Bill Barr Mocked After 'Playing Dumb' Over Legality of Voting Twice
Attorney General William Barr was mocked for "playing dumb" after he claimed to be unaware of what state laws said on the legality of voting twice after President Donald Trump appeared to tell people to try and commit the crime.
Appearing on CNN on Wednesday, Barr said the president was trying to make the point that election monitoring was not good enough to prevent people from voting at polling stations if they already cast their ballots by mail.
But when he was pressed on the fact that such an action would be illegal, he said he was unaware of what state laws said about the legality of voting twice.
"I don't know what the law in the particular state says, and when that vote becomes final," Barr told CNN.
The network host Wolf Blitzer then asked: "Is there any state in which you can vote twice?"
"Maybe you can change your vote up to a particular time, I don't know what the law is," the attorney general replied.
Barr went on to say questions about the president's suggestion people vote twice were "cheap talk" surrounding concerns about mail-in voting being prone to acts of fraud. The administration has regularly floated theories about mail-in voting leading to mass voter fraud without evidence.
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Reacting to Barr's remarks on Wednesday night, CNN host Chris Cuomo told viewers: "You're not allowed to vote twice. Like you need me to tell you that. Can you believe the attorney general of the United States is playing dumb about something like that? And why? Just to help his boy, because he's a trumpet. He's a pawn."
He later added that Barr knew "exactly" what Trump was trying to tell his supporters yesterday, and said the administration had no proof to show mail-in voting was more susceptible to abuse and fraud.
U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu of California (D) also weighed in on the attorney general's remarks to Blitzer yesterday.
"Dear anyone at [the Justice Department]: Can you please educate Bill Barr that it is illegal to vote twice," he tweeted. "And it's really, really easy to get caught since you are giving the evidence directly to the state."
Newsweek has contacted the Department of Justice for comment. This article will be updated with any response.
Barr claimed to be ignorant of laws against voting twice after Trump told North Carolina voters to send off their mail-in ballots and then try to vote at a polling station.
"Send in your ballots, send them in strong, whether it's solicited or unsolicited... and you send them in, but you go to vote," he told reporters. "And if they haven't counted it, you can vote."
Barr gives false recounting of Texas voter fraud case in effort to cast doubt on mail-in voting
An attorney who worked the case says Barr's description was highly inaccurate.
Attorney General William Barr gave a false recounting of a voter fraud case in Texas during an interview Wednesday as he sought to bolster his unfounded argument that mass expansions of mail-in voting in 2020 will increase the risk of widespread fraud.
Barr incorrectly said in an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer that elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion, before launching into the false account. "For example, we indicted someone in Texas, 1,700 ballots collected, he -- from people who could vote, he made them out and voted for the person he wanted to. OK?"
Barr added, "That kind of thing happens with mail-in ballots and everyone knows that."
But Barr's description was not even close to what happened in the case, which was never under the Justice Department's purview in the first place -- according to Andy Chatham, a former assistant district attorney who worked on the investigation in 2017.
"I was like, 'What? Why would he talk about that case?'" Chatham told ABC News Friday when asked about his reaction to hearing Barr invoke the investigation. "This wasn't a case of voter fraud. This was a case of what we think was a political consultant trying to scam candidates."
In a statement Friday, Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec acknowledged that Barr's description of the case was incorrect.
"Prior to his interview, the Attorney General was provided a memo prepared within the Department that contained an inaccurate summary about the case which he relied upon when using the case as an example,” Kupec said.
The Washington Post first reported the news of Barr's false description of the Texas case.
In May 2017, Chatham opened the investigation after hearing a host of complaints from Dallas County residents who were notified they would be sent mail-in ballots even though they hadn't requested them. According to the Dallas Morning News, more than 600 mail-in ballots were also identified that bore the signature of 'Jose Rodriguez,' which was believed to be a fake name of an individual who purportedly assisted voters in filling out their ballots.
Chatham described an exhaustive process that officials in his office ultimately undertook to contact the individual voters and ensure that the mail-in ballots they had sent in were accurate.
"The statistical percentage of ballots that were returned were almost exactly what the election result was," Chatham said.
Twenty-eight-year-old Miguel Hernandez was eventually found guilty in the investigation for forging a voter's signature on a mail-in ballot he returned. Chatham described Hernandez as the "fall guy" in the scam, being paid by a still-unknown consultant to contact individuals who had received mail-in ballots and return them so they could potentially be tampered with.
"He violated the law but not for voting, it was for procuring mail-in ballots under false pretenses," Chatham said. "The other thing that Barr got very wrong about the case is that we knew about this thing before it even happened, and prevented any potentially fraudulent ballots from being cast."
"It was a tremendous success story for the office," Chatham added.
Barr's false description of the case comes as officials in the intelligence community are warning Russia is seeking to "amplify" concerns over the integrity of U.S. elections by promoting allegations that mail-in voting will result in rampant fraud.
Analysts with the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence arm issued a bulletin to federal and state law enforcement partners Thursday after finding with “high confidence” that “Russian malign influence actors” have targeted the absentee voting process “by spreading disinformation” since at least March.
Barr's comments mark the second instance this summer that he has spread misinformation regarding a law enforcement matter.
In July, Barr claimed at an event at the White House that the pilot launch of the 'Operation Legend' law enforcement initiative in Kansas City, Missouri, had yielded "200 arrests" in just two weeks.
Local officials told the Kansas City Star they were not familiar what he was referring to, and a DOJ official later corrected Barr, saying that he was actually speaking about 200 arrests by both the state and the FBI dating back to December 2019.
In fact, at that point Operation Legend had only resulted in a single publicly announced arrest in Kansas City.
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