SO, SO DEEP?
Years ago I predicted deep-fakes would mess up our elections and society, and I was not unique in that regard. This is now beginning to take place in the election arena:
Late last month, left-wing firebrand Hasan Piker showed his Twitch viewers a social media post quoting a supposed audio recording of a Jewish American politician saying that the primary objective of his campaign was to aid Israel.
Piker displayed the post during a monologue on American Jews and Israel that has since roiled the Democratic Party and upended a U.S. Senate race in Michigan.
But even now, weeks later, it is still not publicly known whether the audio recording in question is even real. [WaPo]
A “left-wing firebrand” uses this to take advantage of the conflict in Gaza, but …
The politician the audio is attributed to, Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss (D), has said the clip was manipulated or fabricated and “peddles in offensive tropes” about dual loyalty. Digital-forensics specialists who examined it for The Washington Post found no evidence that it was AI-generated or manipulated but could not establish who recorded it, whether the voice was definitively Moss’s or whether the excerpt had been stripped of relevant context.
This is deeply troubling, of course. Even if this is a false alarm, the future will surely feature such deep fakes, and we’ll need to understand how to detect them and minimize their effects on society.
And why is this important? Because, as a society, in order to come to best solutions, we need to use facts and honesty, and not treat this as a legitimate, yet frantic, race for power. Power motivates a lot of people, but that is not the predicate for our society – because such predicates often lead to mutual distrust and, consequently, violence.
Have you decided how to research such potential fakes?
OUR ANCHOR IS ON FIRE!
The good news is that we’ve taken another step towards blocking interference from the Post Office when it comes to mail-in votes. The bad news? The President’s hair seems to have caught fire.
It’s getting harder and harder to be a far-right Republican; the epistemic bubble has become toxic. The thing is, I suspect it’s toxic on both sides.
DOWN IN THE VALLEYS
- In a rare Montana poll, US Attorney and Senate candidate Kurt Alme (R) leads Seth Bodnar (I) and Alani Bankhead (D) by estimates of 38% to 30% to 16%, respectively, according to a Rutgers University Eagleton Center for Politics poll. The margin of error is ±4.2 points, and 11% were undecided or won’t vote. Naturally, it’s fallacious to believe that if Bodnar or Bankhead were to drop out, enough votes would accrue to the other to beat Alme, and at least Bankhead has made clear that she’ll not be dropping in any case. But if either did drop, there’s a fair chance the other might win, even though the dropper’s name would remain on the ballot. Alme’s share of the vote in the poll is unimpressive, at least to me, at this late point in the season.
Still, I expect Alme will win this in the absence of the black swan.
- Texas GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton (R) is the recipient of yet more funding:
Texas Republican Ken Paxton is getting a major infusion of financial help in his Senate battle with Democrat James Talarico.
A new super PAC linked to Senate Republican leadership has purchased at least $32 million in airtime to boost the controversial Republican attorney general, according to the tracking service AdImpact. And President Donald Trump’s super PAC threw $10 million into the race last week.
The wave of GOP spending comes as a number of recent polls have shown Paxton slightly trailing Talarico, including a recent AARP poll that Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio’s firm helped conduct. [Politico]
Yeah, and buying votes is a diminishing returns strategy, especially in this indirect manner. This is a clear signal that nominating Paxton was an unforced blunder. Cornyn must be gritting his teeth something fierce.
- Ohio incumbent Senator Jon Husted (R) is falling into a hole he may never climb out of – if Ohio voters care about issues such as this:
A top campaign staffer for Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio) once used a photo of SS soldiers as his Facebook profile photo and recently added to a public playlist of songs celebrating Rhodesia, a defunct White-minority-ruled nation often venerated by white supremacists, according to publicly available social media activity.
The staffer, 25-year-old Stephen Woytek, was tapped in August to serve as Husted’s political director in the closely contested Senate race between Husted and former senator Sherrod Brown (D).
In a statement on Friday, after being contacted by The Washington Post, a spokeswoman for Husted said the campaign had decided to “part ways” with Woytek. [WaPo]
Points for firing Woytek immediately. But could this have been avoided completely? The Ohio electorate will be making that decision in 6-7 weeks, and they may not vote for a political movement welcoming members who find such belief systems congenial.
- The AP has an unhappy news item concerning the GOP nominee for Senate in North Carolina, Michael Whatley:
A pastor kicked off a recent campaign stop for Michael Whatley, the Republican nominee for Senate, with a prayer that asked God to bestow “integrity and honesty” upon the event and to right wrongs “hammered down on the conservative movement.”
The prayer was hardly unusual by North Carolina political standards. What was surprising was the man who delivered it. Pastor Daimon L. King is a registered sex offender, twice sentenced to prison for convictions involving children, according to state and court records.
Whatley’s campaign immediately pointed fingers at the hosts, the Craven County Republican Party.
Whatley’s campaign must handle this unfortunate incident with delicacy or he could look doubly bad. Seeing as we’re talking about Republicans, this may be a major challenge.
Conservative pollster Trafalgar Group gives former Gov Cooper (D) a 48.2% – 42.3% lead over Whatley. The margin of error is ±2.9 points.
- Also from The Trafalgar Group is a poll for the Georgia Senate seat, giving current occupant Senator Ossoff (D) a 49.4% – 42.8% lead. Again, the margin of error is ±2.9 points.
- Last time we talked about Senator Marshall (R) of Kansas, it included a news item concerning his past billing practices when he was a practicing MD. Now, it appears he’s being booed for them:
Earlier in the forum [at the Kansas State Fair], Marshall got cut off mid-answer by chants of “shame on you” from the audience as he attempted to explain his approach to collecting on patients’ unpaid medical bills as a rural doctor in Great Bend. [The Kansas City Star]
Honestly, this is hard to evaluate because the environment and audience, if it’s anything like the Minnesota State Fair, is uncontrolled. In other words, the cards might have been stacked.
- Well respected SurveyUSA has a shocking result for the Nebraska Senate seat, with Dan Osborn (I) leading Senator Pete Ricketts (R), 46% – 42%. 4% claim they’re voting for someone else, and 7% are undecided. Is it a real lead? Can Senator Ricketts persuade the undecideds that he needs another term in office?
- Conservative pollster Cygnal has rivals for the to-be-empty seat of the Senator from Iowa, Josh Turek (D) and Rep Hinson (R), tied at 42.9% apiece, with a largish margin of error of ±4.38%. That’s large enough to make me doubtful about the result being useful, especially as Emerson College recently had Hinson up by 5 points.
- And finally, a bit of humor from an Alaska debate in the Senate race.
HONESTLY, NO
Some readers might ask if I’m playing favorites, above, with the bad news items for Republicans. No, if I ran across similar items for Democrats, I’d relay them, too. I don’t run across those as often.
RE-EVALUATING
Voters seem to be re-evaluating their sympathies. I suspect quite a few are looking at the fourth-raters on one side, shaking their heads, and considering the third-raters on the other.
