Elon Musk’s super PAC awards $1 million prizes to 2 registered voters, despite DOJ warning
Elon Musk’s super PAC awards $1 million prizes to 2 registered voters, despite DOJ warning
Elon Musk’s super PAC awarded two $1 million prizes to registered voters in Michigan and Wisconsin on Thursday, after being warned by the Justice Department that the payments might be illegal.
It's a Good Thing he was only offering $1MILLION and not something HEINOUS like a Bottle Of Water! Then it would be ILLEGAL!
I get that reference. Harris needs to toss out Garland and Blinken if she wins.
Wishful thinking
Legal Eagle did a REALLY good video on this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waPngGP7Awk (also on Nebula)
Short of it is: Yeah, it is probably illegal. There is precedent along those lines. That said, whether the DOJ acts on it is anyone's guess (with most guesses leaning towards "Are you fucking stupid?" because of worries about "election interference").
THAT said: In some of that precedent, it was the recipients who were actually penalized. Which is probably the most likely outcome since musk might be a dipshit but he has a LOT of money and is in a weird "is on the board of a company we need" with the US government position. And going after just CAH would likely be too blatant even for the DOJ. But the people who got their 5 minutes of fame from getting a check in the mail...
This dipshit is full of himself.
The plutocracy will never target their own, otherwise they might be next.
The emperor has no clothes.
"Merrick Garland was quoted as saying "tisk tisk" and wagging his finger. When reached out for further comment on what the next steps are he replied "that was it. He feels bad now so we're done."
Once you dance on stage for the poop filled diaper Mussolini, you just can't help but break the law.
If she wins and successfully prevents him from overturning it, Lonnie is fucked.
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https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/politics/elon-musk-super-pac-winners-doj-warning/index.html
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An example of CNN's actual right-wing bias is when they put an obvious Trump Supporter on their televised panel of 'undecided voters'. According to Parker Molloy from The New Republic, this isn't "an isolated case of questionable representation in CNN’s voter panels. In fact, it appears to be part of a troubling pattern stretching back years." She suggests it could be "a potential willingness to mislead viewers for the sake of compelling television." - media ownership and their profit motive, and complicity of the media elite are sources of bias that MBFC does not adequately account for.
!politics and !world now appear to be willing to consider backing away from MBFC. The vote to "Kill" -- stop their bot from advertising MBFC in all of community posts -- appears to be leading in both communities.
If you upvote the Kill comment so that this lead becomes a landslide, you can make it even more embarrassing and difficult for them to claim 'bots' or backtrack.
The money was for a petition, so I still dont see what the problem is unless its because hes using PAC money specifically.
Musk is a tool regardless and a Drumpf simp
Federal law makes it a crime for anyone who “pays or offers to pay or accepts payment either for registration to vote or for voting.”
Musk's little lottery is shitting on the spirit of that law at best and is in violation of it at worst. AFAIK, that's why the DOJ issued a warning rather than something legally stronger.
Limp dick DoJ wont do shit about it... Again
The problem is that the premise is a vote buying scheme.
To win the $1 million prize, people must sign a petition affirming their support for the rights to free speech and bear arms. However, the fine print on the super PAC’s website specifies that only registered voters in seven battleground states are eligible to sign the petition – which experts said is the crux of the potential illegality.
Must be registered to participate means some people will register so that they can participate.
But yet it is fully illegal in some states to provide water to folks waiting in line to vote because it "can be considered" as a method of "buying votes". People can be standing in direct sun for 4+ hours with no coverage or protection from the elements.
Welcome to America. Leave while you still can.
Intent is harder to prove but just as much a part of the US legal system as anything else. Everybody knows what he's doing.
Iasip: "because of the implication"
It specifically requires that participants (who will inherently be pro-trump) be registered voters and was announced before the registration cut off date. It's not exactly a leap to come to the conclusion that this is buying Republican voter registration.
And if there's one thing we learned from the Cards Against Humanity thing, the information regarding registration is available to PACs. They can check up on you to make sure you really have registered.
And although the petition (as far as I know) doesn't ask for your party designation, I know a lot of Democrats who would willingly sign a plesde to protect the first and second amendments. But, the PACs can get access to your registered party, too. And do you really want to be giving your name and address to a bunch of people who consider you the "enemy of the state"?
Legal Eagle did a great video on this (where he also acknowledged it likely applys to the cards against humanity "joke" too).
If you actually care about the law and aren't just shilling for a fascist whose entire empire is built on daddy's slave mines I recommend watching that. There is a lot more nuance but there is very much precedent against this kind of stuff... that likely won't be acted on.
The money was for you to be Registered to Vote and sign the petition. You can't just sign the petition without being registered to vote.
He's incentivizing voter registration by making cash payments and a lottery contingent on being a registered voter. Adding a trivial requirement of signing a petition (a petition which doesn't function as a petition since they aren't publicly sharing the signatures) doesn't change the fact that it's illegally incentivizing registration. If I promise to pay anyone that votes for my candidate of choice and also sings I'm a little teapot for me, I haven't sidestepped the law. Musk is doing the same thing, he's just putting the petition requirement front and center in the hope that framing it that way will make people think it's legal.
If it was a nonbinding pledge to vote or to register to vote, that would be different. There'd still be all the rules that govern lotteries which could cause legal issues, but it wouldn't actually cross the line into paying people for being registered voters.