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Political Deepfakes Count as ‘Fraudulent Misrepresentation,’ Public Citizen Tells FEC
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) should clarify in its regulations that political deepfakes are covered under the law against fraudulent misrepresentation, Public Citizen said in a comment submitted to the agency today.
“Deepfakes pose a significant threat to democracy as we know it,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen and co-author of the comment. “The FEC must use its authority to ban deepfakes or risk being complicit with an A.I.-driven wave of fraudulent misinformation and the destruction of basic norms of truth and falsity.”
In August, the FEC voted unanimously to advance a Public Citizen petition requesting rulemaking to address the anticipated onslaught of deepfakes in the 2024 election. After the comment period closes on Oct. 16, the FEC will determine whether to take up a final rule. Members in both chambers of Congress circulated letters supporting the aims of Public Citizen’s petition and asking the FEC to begin the rulemaking process.
“An unregulated and undisclosed Wild West of A.I.-generated campaign ads will further erode the public’s confidence in the integrity of the electoral process,” said Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist for Public Citizen and co-author of the comment. “If voters cannot discern fact from fiction in campaign messages, they will increasingly doubt the value of casting a ballot – or the value of ballots cast by others.”
Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (A.I.) have given political operatives the means to produce campaign ads with computer-generated fake images, audio, or video of candidates that appear genuine, fraudulently misrepresenting what candidates have said or done. When A.I.-generated content makes a candidate say or do things they never did – for the explicit purpose of damaging the targeted candidate’s reputation – these ads are known as deepfakes. Deepfakes are currently legal in federal elections and most states. They are not even subject to a disclaimer requirement noting that the content never happened in real life.
Campaigns are already using deepfakes to shape their campaign communications. The presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, posted deepfake images of former President Donald Trump hugging Dr. Anthony Fauci. The hug never happened. And in a recent mayoral election in Chicago, mayoral candidate Paul Vallas complained that A.I. technology was used to clone his voice in a fake news outlet on Twitter in a way that made him appear to be condoning police brutality. It never happened, and Vallas lost the race.
Deceptive deepfakes fit squarely within the parameters of the FEC’s existing statutory authority, Public Citizen’s comment argues. The comment provides a detailed analysis of the FEC’s authority to prohibit “fraudulent misrepresentation” and how and why it should be applied to deepfakes.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. We defend democracy, resist corporate power and work to ensure that government works for the people - not for big corporations. Founded in 1971, we now have 500,000 members and supporters throughout the country.
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Pushing for Regime Change, Trump Accused of 'Asphyxiating' Cuba With Fuel Embargo
"Bus stops are empty, and families are turning to wood and coal for cooking, living through near-constant power outages amid an economic crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s steps in recent weeks."
Feb 09, 2026
The Trump administration's decision to tighten the decadeslong US stranglehold on the Cuban economy by depriving the island nation of its largest source of oil has plunged the country into a rapidly worsening energy crisis, forcing its government to take far-reaching emergency steps to avert catastrophe—from curbing transportation services to shortening work and school hours.
"We are not going to collapse," Oscar Perez‑Oliva Fraga, Cuba's deputy prime minister, said in an address outlining the emergency measures late last week as White House officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Cuba hawk—pushed for the overthrow of the Cuban government by the end of the year.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last month that President Donald Trump's administration is "emboldened" by its kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and is now "searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out" the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has expressed openness to talks with the US—but not under economic coercion.
"The Trump administration has assessed that Cuba’s economy is close to collapse and that the government has never been this fragile after losing a vital benefactor in Maduro," the Journal noted. "Officials don’t have a concrete plan to end the Communist government that has held power on the Caribbean island for almost seven decades, but they see Maduro’s capture and subsequent concessions from his allies left behind as a blueprint and a warning for Cuba."
Since its abduction of Maduro in early January, the Trump administration has vowed to bar any Venezuelan oil or money from reaching Cuba and threatened to slap tariffs on any country that sells oil to the Cuban government. Venezuela was previously Cuba's largest oil supplier, providing the island nation with roughly 70,000 barrels of crude oil and refined products last year.
In a January 29 executive order, Trump proclaimed—laughably—that Cuba "constitute[s] an unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security.
The Trump administration's increasingly aggressive economic warfare has been disastrous for the Cuban people, who have always been the primary victims of the illegal and globally condemned US blockade.
"Bus stops are empty, and families are turning to wood and coal for cooking, living through near-constant power outages amid an economic crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s steps in recent weeks," Al Jazeera reported Sunday. "The government says it will prioritize available fuel for essential services—public health, food production, and defense—and push the installation of solar-based renewable energy sector and incentives therein. It will prioritise shifting energy to selected food production regions and accelerate the use of renewable energy sources, while cutting down on culture and sport activities and diverting resources towards the country’s early warning systems."
A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned last week that the UN chief is "extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet."
David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, wrote Monday that "right now, Donald Trump is laying siege to the island of Cuba: asphyxiating its people, shuttering its hospitals, starving them of food."
"If you care about 'America', this is your fight," Adler added.
Over the weekend, the Mexican government announced that its Navy is sending more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, including "essential food items" and "personal hygiene products."
"Through these actions, the government of Mexico reaffirms the humanistic principles and spirit of solidarity that guide it, and its commitment to international cooperation among peoples, especially with those who require humanitarian assistance in situations of emergency and vulnerability," the government said in a statement. "Cuba and Mexico are sister nations, heirs to a long history of solidarity that we honor today."
In a social media post during the National Football League Super Bowl in the US, Drop Site journalist Ryan Grim wrote that "there are obviously a lot of shameful moments in American history, but Mexico being forced to send militarily protected humanitarian relief to a Cuban population we are starving for no reason, while we all stuff our faces with chicken wings, has to rank among our low moments."
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Leaked DHS Document: Tiny Fraction of Immigrants Detained Under Trump Have Violent Criminal Records
The DHS report shows only 14% of immigrants taken into custody by ICE in 2025 had either been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses.
Feb 09, 2026
A leaked document obtained by CBS News reveals that only a tiny fraction of immigrants detained by the Trump administration last year have violent criminal records.
According to CBS News, the internal US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document shows that just 14% of immigrants taken into custody by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in 2025 had either been charged with or convicted of violent criminal offenses.
The DHS report also shows 40% of immigrants detained last year have no criminal record at all except for civil immigration law violations, such as living unlawfully in the US or overstaying a visa, which CBS News noted "are typically adjudicated by Justice Department immigration judges in civil—not criminal—proceedings."
The internal document undermines President Donald Trump's past claims that his administration is focused primarily on deporting "the worst of the worst" undocumented immigrants, such as those belonging to criminal gangs. In reality, the document shows, less than 2% of immigrants detained last year had any sort of gang affiliation.
As noted last month by Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, ICE during Trump's second term has grown more aggressive in detaining people with no prior criminal offenses save for civil immigration law violations.
In January 2024, for example, immigrants with no prior criminal record accounted for just 6% of ICE detainees. By January 2025, that percentage surged to 43%.
ICE has drastically ramped up its arrests of immigrants in the last year, as White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller has demanded that the agency hit arrest quotas of at least 3,000 per day.
While ICE has not yet reached that goal, they did make an estimated 393,000 arrests during Trump's first year back in the White House, an average of more than 1,000 per day.
CBS News notes that the internal DHS document "does not include arrests by Border Patrol agents, who the Trump administration has deployed to places far away from the US-Mexico border, like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis," where they "have undertaken aggressive and sweeping arrest operations, targeting day laborers at Home Depot parking lots and stopping people, including US citizens, to question them about their immigration status."
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'Everything Is for Sale': Trump Exploits 250th Anniversary of US Independence for Yet Another Grift
"Donald Trump and his henchmen have sabotaged what should be a unifying moment and appear intent on instead creating a highly divisive, corporate-funded, ideologically extremist exercise."
Feb 09, 2026
Allies of the Trump administration, in partnership with the White House, are reportedly using the upcoming 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence as another opportunity to solicit deep-pocketed donors, enticing them with promises of access to the president and other rewards.
The New York Times reported Sunday that donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250—a group announced by President Donald Trump in December—have been promised a path to "gain access to, and seek favor with, a president who has maintained a keen interest in fundraising, and a willingness to use the levers of government power to reward financial supporters," including through his crypto scam and ballroom project.
Trump has described Freedom 250 as a "public-private partnership" dedicated to organizing "a celebration of America like no other" later this year. Listed as official corporate sponsors of the initiative are prominent corporate names, including ExxonMobil, Mastercard, and Palantir.
The Times obtained a donor solicitation document circulated by Meredith O’Rourke, Trump's top fundraiser. Donors who give at least $1 million to Freedom 250 "will receive prominent logo placement at Freedom 250 events," which are expected to include UFC fights and an IndyCar race.
Freedom 250 appears to have been created to dodge oversight that applies to America250, a bipartisan congressional commission formed to plan official celebrations of the nation's semiquincentennial.
"American history is being subordinated to Trump’s cult of personality," Dan Friedman and Amanda Moore wrote in Mother Jones last week. "The president’s face is suddenly everywhere—next to George Washington on America250-themed National Parks passes; alongside Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt on giant banners hanging from federal buildings; on a $1 coin under consideration by the US Treasury."
"Faced with sporadic pushback from a congressional commission overseeing America250 and from career officials at various agencies, Trump is now seeking to evade even these modest constraints," they added, pointing to the launch of Freedom 250.
Park Service employees are being bombarded with guidance telling them to promote Freedom 250, the Trump-run org, in place of America250, the statutorily-bipartisan congressional commission. They were even urged to add the Freedom 250 logo to email signatures. www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
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— Dan Friedman (@dfriedman.bsky.social) Feb 8, 2026 at 2:35 PM
Public Citizen demanded a congressional probe of Freedom 250's activities, which the watchdog organization's co-presidents described as a "potential diversion of taxpayer funds for highly partisan purposes." According to the Times, roughly $10 million in taxpayer funds has "already been redirected to Freedom 250 from America250 for a fleet of six mobile museums called 'Freedom Trucks' that rolled out last month."
" Donald Trump and his henchmen have sabotaged what should be a unifying moment and appear intent on instead creating a highly divisive, corporate-funded, ideologically extremist exercise," said Public Citizen's Lisa Gilbert. "Once again, nothing is sacred in the Trump administration, not even the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Everything is for sale to corporate and potentially foreign interests."
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