Tag Archives: Trump

How to stop AI deepfakes from sinking society — and science

Deceptive videos and images created using generative AI could sway elections, crash stock markets and ruin reputations. Researchers are developing methods to limit their harm.

By Nicola Jones, September 27, 2023

Illustration by Señor Salme

This June, in the political battle leading up to the 2024 US presidential primaries, a series of images were released showing Donald Trump embracing one of his former medical advisers, Anthony Fauci. In a few of the shots, Trump is captured awkwardly kissing the face of Fauci, a health official reviled by some US conservatives for promoting masking and vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was obvious” that they were fakes, says Hany Farid, a computer scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, and one of many specialists who examined the pictures. On close inspection of three of the photos, Trump’s hair is strangely blurred, the text in the background is nonsensical, the arms and hands are unnaturally placed and the details of Trump’s visible ear are not right. All are hallmarks — for now — of generative artificial intelligence (AI), also called synthetic AI.

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02990-y

The New Trump Indictment and the Reckoning Ahead

With the former President still far ahead of the rest of the Republican field, the American electorate is headed for a crucial test.

By David Remnick, August 1, 2023

The former President continues to attract millions of supporters who have such antipathy for Biden and the Democrats that they interpret Trump’s deviance as defiance and his fury as their fury.Photograph by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP / Getty

To read the stark criminal indictment, returned by a federal grand jury on Tuesday, charging Donald Trump with conspiring to steal the 2020 Presidential election is to realize more deeply than before that the country is headed for a great reckoning—in the courts and at the ballot box.

It suggests a question that cannot be escaped: Will the American electorate show itself capable of overlooking a conspiracy to undermine democratic rule and return the chief conspirator to power?

The third and latest indictment against Trump sets out four charges and makes the case against him in the plainest terms. “Despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power,” the introduction to the forty-five-page document reads—and where have you seen a more succinct summary of criminal intent?

Editor’s note: Featured image is mine, free to re-use.

Source: https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-new-trump-indictment-and-the-reckoning-ahead

When Americans Lost Faith in the News | The New Yorker

Half a century ago, most of the public said they trusted the news media. Today, most say they don’t. What happened to the power of the press?

By Louis Menand, January 30, 2023

Popular distrust of the news media has been traced to the coverage of the stormy 1968 Democratic National Convention. Photograph from Bettmann / Getty

When the Washington Post unveiled the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness,” on February 17, 2017, people in the news business made fun of it.

“Sounds like the next Batman movie,” the New York Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, said.

But it was already clear, less than a month into the Trump Administration, that destroying the credibility of the mainstream press was a White House priority, and that this would include an unabashed, and almost gleeful, policy of lying and denying.

The Post kept track of the lies. The paper calculated that by the end of his term, the President had lied 30,573 times.

Editor’s Note: Read more, see link below for original item…

Source: When Americans Lost Faith in the News | The New Yorker

Ways and Means Committee Votes to Release Investigation of the IRS’s Mandatory Audit Program Under the Prior Administration | Ways and Means Committee – Democrats

Dec 30, 2022, Press Release

WASHINGTON, DC—The Ways and Means Committee voted to publicly release the Committee’s investigation of the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) Mandatory Audit Program under the prior administration.

The Committee’s investigation found the mandatory program was dormant, at best, with only one audit opened while the former President was in office, and none have been completed.

Excerpts from Chairman Neal’s opening statement:

“Ways and Means is entrusted with great responsibilities. Today, the weight of our job is heavy. Congress serves as a check on the Executive Branch, and our Committee is entrusted with oversight of our revenue system. We all come to Ways and Means with the goal of creating a fairer tax code. Because at the root of it all, it is our federal tax system that funds the democracy we all cherish and love.

Our voluntary collection relies on the public confidence that our tax laws are applied evenly and justly, regardless of position or power. For four years, the Committee has been reviewing how the IRS enforces the federal tax laws against, and ensures compliance by, a president.

“A president is no ordinary taxpayer. They hold power and influence unlike any other American. And with great power comes even greater responsibility.

“We are only here today because four years ago, our request to learn more about the program under 6103 was denied. This was the first time that this key oversight function was hampered, and our Committee’s jurisdiction was challenged.

“The Committee expected that these mandatory audits were being conducted promptly and in accordance with IRS policies. However, our review found that under the prior Administration the program was dormant. We know now, the first mandatory audit was opened two years into his presidency. On the same day this Committee requested his returns.

“We anticipated the IRS would expand the mandatory audit program to account for the complex nature of the former president’s financial situation yet found no evidence of that. This is a major failure of the IRS under the prior administration, and certainly not what we had hope to find.

“But the evidence is clear. Congress must step in. I’ve proposed legislation to put the program above reproach. Ensuring IRS conducts yearly, timely examinations while publicly disclosing certain information.

“Our work has always been to ensure our tax laws are administered fairly and without preference, because at times, even the power of a president can loom too large.”

Neal’s opening statement is available HERE.

The Committee’s report is available HERE, and JCT’s report (Attachment I) is available HERE.

Neal’s Presidential Tax Filings and Audit Transparency Act of 2022 (Attachment J).

Attachment A, Attachment B, Attachment C, Attachment D, Attachment EAttachment F, Attachment G, & Attachment H.

The vote to go into Executive Session was 23-16, and the vote to transmit the documents to the House was 24-16.

Editor’s Note: The attachments to the article contain Trump’s tax returns, the .zip file Attachment E. I’m posting that attachment online here.

Source: Ways and Means Committee Votes to Release Investigation of the IRS’s Mandatory Audit Program Under the Prior Administration | Ways and Means Committee – Democrats

Biden attacks Trump and his Republican supporters as a threat to democracy : NPR

By Frank Ordonez, Updated September 1, 20229:31 PM ET

President Joe Biden speaks outside Independence Hall on Sept. 1, in Philadelphia.
Evan Vucci/AP

President Biden on Thursday warned Americans that democracy is under attack from a faction of the Republican party led by former President Donald Trump, and called on Democrats, mainstream Republicans and independents to “speak up, speak out, get engaged — vote, vote, vote.”

In a rare prime time speech, Biden attacked his predecessor, saying that “too much of what’s happening in our country today isn’t normal.” The speech came just two months ahead of midterm congressional elections, where Democrats are fighting to keep their slim majorities in the Senate and House of Representatives.

Biden said the Republican party is “dominated, driven, intimidated by Donald Trump” and his supporters, calling it “a threat to this country.”

Source: Biden attacks Trump and his Republican supporters as a threat to democracy : NP

Trump’s Truth Social Site Is Weaponized Against FBI and Their Families – Rolling Stone

By Adam Rawnsley, Asawin Suebsaeng, August 15, 2022

Former U.S. President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower to meet with New York Attorney General Letitia James for a civil investigation on August 10, 2022 in New York City. James Devaney/GC Images

Former President Donald Trump claims that he “will do whatever” he can to bring down “the temperature” following last week’s FBI’s raid of his Florida home and club, Mar-a-Lago. But even a glimpse of Truth SocialTrump’s social media company — shows that the MAGA website has been a haven for private, doxxed information not only about authorities involved in the federal raid, but also of their families.

A review of Truth Social postings by Rolling Stone shows Trump supporters have spent the past week doxxing both Judge Bruce Reinhart, the magistrate judge who approved the Mar-a-Lago warrant, and an FBI agent involved in preparing the request, as well as their families. The information includes their purported home addresses, phone numbers, places of worship, private offices, and similar information about the men’s families and junior employees.

Source: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-truth-social-fbi-mar-a-lago-violence-1397317/