Category: Diversity / Inclusivity

This Is Very Seriously A Big Deal: Pro-Trump dark money network tied to Elon Musk behind fake pro-Harris campaign scheme

An initiative called Progress 2028 that purports to be Kamala Harris’ liberal counter to the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is actually run by a dark money network supporting former President Donald Trump.

Building America’s Future, the dark money group at the helm of the network, has steered money to a constellation of groups and initiatives boosting Trump’s agenda and spreading messaging aimed at chipping away voters from Harris. The dark money group reportedly received over $100 million in funding from billionaire Elon Musk, along with other donors, the New York Times recently reported. 

The newest effort to benefit from their largesse is Progress 2028. Building America’s Future registered to use Progress 2028 as a fictitious name on Sept. 23 and the website was created three days later, OpenSecrets’ analysis of corporate filings and DNS records found. 

The Progress 2028 site appears to be created by IMGE LLC, a firm run by Republican political operatives that the New York Times described as the “hidden hand” behind Building America’s Future, and a page on the Progress 2028 site includes the firm’s sizzle reel. 

IMGE LLC has also done work for Elon Musk’s America PAC and several other Republican political committees, including a super PAC funded by America’s Future Fund named Future Coalition PAC, as first pointed out by Brendan Fischer, Deputy Executive Director of Documented, an investigative watchdog and journalism project.

The Progress 2028 manifesto draws clear parallels to Project 2025, a controversial blueprint for restructuring the executive branch under the next Republican administration. The Project 2025 blueprint was developed by the Heritage Foundation and written by many conservatives who worked in or with Trump’s administration. Project 2025 has drawn intense criticism, and the former president has said it does not reflect his own priorities should he return to the White House.

Some of the policies listed in Progress 2028 highlight disproven and misleading claims about Harris’ positions. Policies listed include “Empowering Undocumented Immigrants, Building Our Future” and “Expanding Medicaid to Undocumented Immigrants.”

“Undocumented immigrants are the backbone of our country, and by removing barriers, we unlock incredible potential,” the document states. “Kamala Harris believes that every person, no matter their immigration status, deserves access to basic healthcare.”

Harris expressed support for allowing immigrants residing in the U.S. to obtain health insurance with her 2019 Medicare for All plan but did not indicate whether there would be a cost. Her 2024 running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, recently said that Harris does not currently support programs for undocumented immigrants to qualify for free government health care, free tuition at state universities or driver’s licenses.

The document claims Harris will “support policies that protect minors’ access to gender-affirming care and ensure that schools provide comprehensive LGBTQIA education.” 

“She’s committed to banning fracking, phasing out internal combustion engines, and rolling out the most progressive Green New Deal yet,” another section of the Progress 2028 plan reads. Harris has explicitly stated that she won’t ban fracking natural gas but her campaign has sent mixed signals about her own position on regulation of gas-powered cars.

Some individuals have received text messages directing them to the Progress 2028 page. 

“Kamala Harris will support a nationwide gun buy-back program that will take dangerous weapons off our streets,” one text message reads, noting, “A mandatory buy-back is the only way to keep our streets safe.” Harris expressed support for a mandatory buyback of military assault weapons in 2019 but has expressed a more lenient stance in 2024, highlighting her own gun ownership. 

(snip-graphics on the page)

Digital advertisement featuring Kamala Harris paid for by Progress 2028 (Screenshot from Meta Ad Library)

Progress 2028 has also started pouring money into digital advertising. Since Oct. 11, several digital ads on Facebook and Instagram have included the disclaimer “paid for by Progress 2028” — totaling over $36,000 in ad buys over just five days.

While the ads appear to include pro-Harris messaging, they lean into contentious issues listed on the Progress 2028 site that have created friction among different divisions of the party. 

“Let’s remove barriers for undocumented immigrants who are undocumented!” one ad states, adding, “Access to affordable housing, driver licenses, and fair wages creates a stronger America for everyone.”

Another ad reads, “A national, mandatory buy-back program means fewer guns & fewer tragedies. Kamala Harris gets it!”

Operating under a shroud of aliases, Building America’s Future has funneled tens of millions of dollars in dark money from anonymous sources into campaigns boosting Trump ahead of the 2024 election. The dark money network also has a history of fueling initiatives impersonating and parodying Democrats. 

Building America’s Future is the top funder of Citizens for Sanity, a dark money group that bankrolled inflammatory ads mocking Democrats and progressive policies in battleground states ahead of 2022 midterms, tax returns show. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Elon Musk secretly steered tens of millions of dollars through Building America’s Future to help fund the effort. 

Citizens for Sanity spent over $90 million on messaging pitting minority communities against each other and chipping away at traditionally Democratic voting blocs. 

Similar to Progress 2028, the ads hit on contentious issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, immigration and criminal justice reform. The ads have been accused of trying to suppress voting among minority communities.

(snip-embed video on the page)

Citizens for Sanity does not disclose its donors but other groups were legally required to report money they gave to it. That includes $43 million from Building AmerIca’s Future as well as $28.7 million from Freedom’s Future Fund, a sister group of Building America’s Future, and $13.4 million from American Commitment.

The many faces of Building America’s Future

Building America’s Future has also fueled other pro-Trump groups and was the sole funder of the Future Coalition PAC, new Federal Election Commission records filed Oct. 15 show.

The super PAC that has run ads targeting Harris in Michigan by highlighting her positions that are pro-Israel and the Jewish faith of her spouse, Doug Emhoff. The ads are reported to be pro-Harris but have been criticized as featuring antisemitic dog whistles. The PAC has been accused of attempting to use the conflict in the Middle East as a wedge issue to depress turnout for Harris in Michigan, a state with a significant Muslim and Arab American population.

Future Coalition PAC reported receiving $3 million from Building America’s Future through the end of September.

Another $16 million was steered through Building America’s Future to Duty to America PAC, according to new FEC disclosures filed Oct. 15. The super PAC has targeted young male voters and Black voters trying to persuade them to vote for Trump. 

Building America’s Future was also the top funder of Stand For Us PAC, OpenSecrets’ analysis of FEC reports filed Oct. 15 found. The super PAC received at least $3.8 million from the dark money group and has spent over $15 million on ads attacking Republican primary candidates in Ohio with divisive messaging tying a prescription drug program to immigration and transgender rights. 

In addition to funding a cluster of political groups, Building America’s Future operates under several fictitious names such as Americans for Consumer Protection. 

In August, Americans for Consumer Protection launched an ad campaign criticizing the White House’s proposal to ban menthol cigarettes. CNBC reported that the effort was intended to chip away at Harris’ key base of Black voter support in swing states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina and Wisconsin.

Building America’s Future reportedly raised and spent more than $100 million over the last four years, the New York Times reported. 

Building America’s Future is not legally required to report its finances, vendor payments or outgoing grants for 2023 until after Election Day and, even then, will not be required to disclose its donors.

OpenSecrets’ requests for comment to Building America’s Future and Progress 2028 were not returned prior to publication.

Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit OpenSecrets.
For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact OpenSecrets: info@opensecrets.org

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2024/10/pro-trump-dark-money-network-tied-to-elon-musk-behind-fake-pro-harris-campaign-scheme

Reblog from Janet

I think Janet makes important points about directness.

Transgender Rights: Tim Walz Takes a Stand Against Opposition

Please click on through-

-turns out FOX News viewers got a goodly dose of truth from our VP.

Harris v Fox News

Peace & Justice History for 10/16:

It is World Food Day. (Among other things; this is a busy date!)

October 16, 1649
The British colony of Maine granted religious freedom to all citizens the same year that King Charles I was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic church.
October 16, 1859
Abolitionist John Brown led a group of 21 other men, five black and sixteen white, in a raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
They had hoped to set off a slave revolt — throughout the south — with the weapons they had planned to seize.
 John Brown
Virtually all his compatriots were killed or captured by General Robert E. Lee’s troops; Brown was wounded and arrested, and hanged for treason within two months.
Read more
  
The Tragic Prelude (John Brown)mural by John Steuart Curry (1937-1942)
Former slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass said of Brown that he was a white man “in sympathy a black man, as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.”
October 16, 1901
President Theodore Roosevelt
President Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington, founder of the Tuskegee Institute and the most prominent African American of his time, to a meeting in the White House. The meeting went long and the president asked Washington to stay for dinner, the first black person ever to do so. Newspapers in the both the South and North were critical, but the South with more venom. The Memphis “Scimiter” said that it was “the most damnable outrage that has ever been perpetrated by any citizen of the United States.” Roosevelt claimed he had invited a friend to dinner with his family and it was no one else’s business.
Booker T. Washington
October 16, 1934
Dick Sheppard, who volunteered and joined the Army as a chaplain in World War I, started the Peace Pledge Union in England. In a letter published in The Guardian newspaper and elsewhere, Sheppard, a well-known priest in the Church of England, invited those who would be willing to join a public demonstration against war to send him a postcard. Within a few weeks he had received 30,000 replies. Members of the Peace Pledge Union vowed to “renounce war and never again to support another.”

Reverend Sheppard had been the first ever to broadcast religious services on the radio and, when Vicar of St. Martin-in-the Fields, Trafalgar Square, he had opened the building to the homeless of London.“Up to now the peace movement has received its main support from women, but it seems high time now that men should throw their weight into the scales against war.” -Dick Sheppard
Read more about the Peace Pledge Union 
October 16, 1964
China detonated its first atomic bomb, becoming the fifth nuclear-armed nation. The 20-kiloton fission device (equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT) was detonated in the vicinity of Lop Nor, a lake in a remote region of the Central Asian province of Sinkiang.
” To defend oneself is the inalienable right of every sovereign State. And to safeguard world peace is the common task of all peace-loving countries. China cannot remain idle and do nothing in the face of the ever-increasing nuclear threat posed by the United States.China is forced to conduct nuclear tests and develop nuclear weapons . . . In developing nuclear weapons, China’s aim is to break the nuclear monopoly of the nuclear Powers and to eliminate nuclear weapons.”
Chou En-lai, the Chinese Prime Minister, sent messages to all heads of government for a world summit conference on nuclear disarmament. U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk told a news conference that the United States did not regard Communist China’s proposal “as having any practical value.”Deng Jiaxian. The father of the chinese bomb.
TRINITY AND BEYOND™ (The Atomic Bomb Movie), a documentary by Peter Kuran
October 16, 1967

Joan Baez the day after the arrest
Folksinger Joan Baez was arrested in a peace demonstration as rallies took place across America during “Stop the Draft Week.” 1158 young men returned their draft cards in eighteen U.S. cities. Baez was among 122 anti-draft protesters arrested for sitting down at the entrance of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California; she was sentenced to 10 days in prison.
Read more 
October 16, 1968
During medal presentations at the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City, winning sprinters Tommie Smith (Gold) and John Carlos (Bronze) raised their black-gloved fists while the U.S. national anthem was played. They were suspended from the team at the insistence of the International Olympic Committee, and expelled from the Games two days later.
Smith later told the media that he raised his right fist in the air to represent black power in America while Carlos’s left fist represented unity in black America.
They were wearing just socks to represent
world poverty.

Peter Norman (silver medalist, left) from Australia also wears an OPHR (Olympic Project for Human Rights) badge in solidarity with Smith and Carlos. He was castigated upon return to Australia and throughout his life for his support of these two brave athletes.
Read more 
October 16, 1973
Henry Kissinger
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, though accused of war crimes by some for the massive bombing of Laos and Cambodia, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize jointly with North Vietnam’s Le Duc Tho (who refused the honor) for the cease-fire agreement they had negotiated. This occurred just a month after the bloody military coup, fully supported by the Nixon administration and aided by the CIA, that overturned the democratically elected government of Chile, and installed General Augusto Pinochet as military dictator for the next 17 years.
October 16, 1984

Desmond Tutu, the archbishop of South Africa, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in fighting apartheid. He has gone on to be a relentless advocate for justice around the world.
Desmond Tutu – Nobel peace prize recipient 
October 16, 1998
In a human rights and international law breakthrough, British authorities, after receiving an extradition request from Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, placed former Chilean dictator, and senator-for-life, General Augusto Pinochet under arrest for “crimes of genocide and terrorism that include murder.”
Augusto Pinochet and Margaret Thatcher
Chronology of Pinochet’s rule 
October 16th every year
United Nations’ World Food Day is recognized every year.
About the annual day of hunger awareness

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october16

Peace & Justice History for 10/15:

October 15, 1965
In demonstrations organized by the student-run National Coordinating Committee to End the War in Vietnam, the first public burning of a draft card in the United States took place.

David Miller burning his draft card, 1965.
These demonstrations drew 100,000 people in 40 cities across the country. In New York City, David Miller, a young Catholic pacifist, became the first U.S. war protester to burn his draft card, doing so in direct violation of a recently passed federal law forbidding such acts. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation later arrested him; he was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment.
Memoirs of a Draft-Card Burner 
October 15, 1966

Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California. Its revolutionary agenda, and the fact that its members, all U.S. citizens, were armed, prompted FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover to refer to it as as “the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.”
First 6 members – Top Left to Right: Elbert “Big Man” Howard; Huey P. Newton, Sherman Forte, Chairman, Bobby Seale.
Read the Panthers’ Ten Point Platform and Program:

Bobby Seale(L) and Huey Newton(R)
Black Panther Party Legacy and Alumni 
Black Panther Party pin
October 15, 1966
The “Endangered Species Preservation Act” became law. It allowed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to identify plant and animal varieties threatened with extinction, and to acquire land to preserve their habitats.
How the law has evolved 
October 15, 1969
22 million took part in the National Moratorium, a protest against the continuing war in Vietnam. This was an effort by David Hawk and Sam Brown, two anti-war activists, to forge a broad-based movement against the war.The organization initially focused its effort on 300 college campuses, but the idea soon grew and spread beyond colleges and universities. Hawk and Brown were assisted by the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, which was instrumental in organizing the nationally coordinated demonstrations.

One of the largest of the many events involved 100,000 people converging on Boston Common, but activities nationwide also included smaller rallies, marches, and prayer vigils. The demonstrations involved a broad spectrum of the population, including many who had never before raised their voices against the war. This was considered unprecedented: Walter Cronkite (then CBS news anchor) called it “historic in its scope. Never before had so many demonstrated their hope for peace.”
Later, a declassified Kissinger (then Nixon’s National Security Advisor) file revealed that these protests discouraged a plan by Nixon to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam.
Read more  
Reissued: The original Vietnam Moratoium Peace Dove button

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october15

Peace & Justice History for 10/14:

October 14, 1943
As the result of an uprising at the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, about 300 of its Jewish prisoners escaped, though only about 50 survived until the end of the war.Following the escape, the remaining inmates were killed and the camp was promptly closed by the Germans. Though Sobibor’s six gas chambers could exterminate 1200 people at a time, it was the smallest of the death camps.
Some of the people who took part in the uprising at Sobibor (picture taken in 1944).
The story of Sobibor 
October 14, 1979

The first national gay and lesbian march for civil rights in Washington, D.C., drew over 100,000 demanding an end to all social, economic, judicial, and legal oppression of lesbian and gay people.
More info about the March 
October 14, 1981
Dock workers in Darwin, Australia, began a seven-day strike, refusing to load uranium on board “Pacific Sky” for eventual use by the U.S. military. After a week, the ship was forced to leave without its cargo.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october14

Vote Blue-From Janet

Understanding the Threat to Trans People: A Call to Vote

Peace & Justice History for 10/12:

October 12, 1492

Natives of islands off the Atlantic shore of North America came upon Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, who was searching for a water route to India for Spanish Queen Isabella.
October 12, 1945
Pfc. Desmond Doss became the first conscientious objector ever to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Doss, a Seventh Day Adventist, enlisted in 1942 but refused to carry a rifle or train on Saturdays. On the island of Okinawa, under heavy Japanese fire, he saved the lives of 75 sick and wounded soldiers by lowering them, one by one, down a 400-foot cliff.

The guest house at Walter Reed Army Medical Center is Doss Memorial Hall in his honor.
Read more (includes movie trailer)
October 12, 1958
A Reform Jewish Temple in Atlanta (the city’s oldest) was firebombed with fifty sticks of dynamite in retaliation for Jewish support of local black civil rights activists. The Temple’s Rabbi, Jacob Rothschild, was outspoken in his support of civil rights and integration, and was a friend of Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. before he became well known nationally.

From Georgia PBS 
October 12, 1967
British zoologist Desmond Morris stunned the world with his book, “The Naked Ape,” a frank study of human behavior from a zoologist’s perspective. Morris had earlier studied the artistic abilities of apes and was appointed Curator of Mammals at the London Zoo.
Read more 
October 12, 1967
“A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority” appeared in The Nation and the New York Review of Books. 20,000 signed it, including academics, clergymen, writers. It urged “that every free man has a legal right and a moral duty to exert every effort to end this war [Vietnam], to avoid collusion with it, and to encourage others to do the same.”
This document became the main basis for the federal government’s criminal prosecution (for encouraging draft evasion) of five of the signers: Dr. Benjamin Spock, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, Michael Ferber, and the Reverend William Sloane Coffin.
Read the Call 
October 12, 1970
Lt. William Calley was court-martialled for the massacre of 102 civilians in the Vietnamese village of My Lai; far more actually died during the incident. 
The full sad story 

   
Lt. Calley
October 12, 1977
“Regents of the University of California v. Bakke” was argued in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. The question: Did the University of California violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by practicing an affirmative action policy that resulted in the repeated rejection of Bakke’s application for admission to its medical school?
Read more 

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryoctober.htm#october12

ABC’s Bird Library 

Rock Wren

“Pebbled Pathways”

Rock Wren

OT Distraction Stuff About A Good Human/Genius I Admire

Kurt Vonnegut’s Lost Board Game Is Finally for Sale