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With 2024 Election Cycle Underway, FEC’s Silence on AI Deepfakes is Unacceptable
It has now been three months since the FEC closed its comment period on Public Citizen’s petition for a new rule to regulate the use of generative AI deepfakes in election ads. Despite the urgency posed by the rapidly approaching 2024 election, the FEC has yet to make a decision on whether or not to proceed with rulemaking.
Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, issued the following statement in response:
“Do we have a real Federal Election Commission, or is the FEC just a computer-generated illusion? The entire political world knows that a torrent of fraudulent deepfakes threatens to destabilize our fragile election system — maybe even decide elections — but so far the FEC hasn’t managed to use its existing authority to head off the problem.
"It’s time, past time, for the FEC to act. There’s no partisan interest here, it’s just a matter of choosing democracy over fraud and chaos.”
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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New Reporting on Campaign Giving in Illinois Exposes Increasingly 'Sophisticated Methods' of AIPAC
The "impressively coordinated" AIPAC operation features individual donations given "on the same day, by the same donors, for the same amounts" for pro-Israel candidates, according to Drop Site News.
Feb 06, 2026
The largest pro-Israel lobbying organization in the US has become increasingly toxic among Democratic voters, and a Friday report from Drop Site News revealed how the organization has gone to great lengths to conceal its support for candidates in the party's primaries.
Drop Site examined campaign donations in competitive Democratic primaries in Illinois and found that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) "is resorting to ever more sophisticated methods to support its preferred candidates while cloaking its own involvement."
According to Drop Site, AIPAC appears to have pioneered its concealment tactics during a 2024 Democratic primary in Oregon, when it funded super political action committees (PACs) that dumped money into the race to benefit Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Ore.), who was challenging Susheela Jayapal, the sister of Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.).
"The main super PAC in question (named 314 Action) explicitly denied that any funding came from AIPAC—a claim revealed as a flagrant lie once disclosure records finally became public," the report noted. "But by then, Dexter had triumphed and was on her way to Congress."
The same tactics are being used in Illinois, Drop Site continued, where AIPAC has been quietly spending to benefit the campaigns of Democratic candidates Laura Fine, Donna Miller, and Melissa Bean, who are all facing off against progressive challengers who have been critical of Israel.
What is notable about the Illinois operation is that many past donors to AIPAC and its major affiliated super PAC United Democracy Project (UDP) have been lining up to give individual contributions to the Fine, Miller, and Bean campaigns.
"A whopping 237 former AIPAC/UDP donors have given to both Miller and Bean, contributing $396,288.01 to Bean and $429,083.00 to Miller," the report found. "Forty-four of these donors have given to all three candidates, sending a total of $208,753.33 to them. Several of the donations were given to the candidates on the same day, by the same donors, for the same amounts."
Like in Oregon, the three campaigns have also been propped up by AIPAC-funded super PACs that have been taking out ads that do not mention Israel and instead focus on generic biographical information on the candidates.
Of course, these operations, which Drop Site describes as "impressively coordinated," do not guarantee victory.
AIPAC's UDP super PAC recently spent heavily in a New Jersey Democratic primary that concluded on Thursday to take down former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who earned the group's displeasure when he came out in support of putting conditions on US aid to Israel.
But as Forward reported Friday, the campaign proved ineffective against Malinowski, who at the moment is in a dead heat with Analilia Mejia, a progressive candidate who has been even more critical of Israel.
"Whether or not Malinowski ultimately wins, AIPAC will have failed to achieve its goal of electing a Democrat in the primary who it views as being more supportive of Israel," wrote Forward, "either Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill or former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way. And if Mejia wins, AIPAC will have helped elect a progressive who is less supportive of Israel."
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Mamdani Signs Executive Order Requiring ICE Agents to Get Judicial Warrants in NYC
"ICE is more than a rogue agency—it is a manifestation of the abuse of power," the mayor said.
Feb 06, 2026
As the Trump administration claims federal agents have the authority to raid Americans' homes and carry out arrests without a warrant, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order on Friday barring Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other agencies from entering properties without getting a warrant from a judge.
It was part of a suite of policies Mamdani announced at an interfaith breakfast to reaffirm New York's status as a sanctuary city amid President Donald Trump's surges of immigration agents to other US cities, which have resulted in extrajudicial killings and rampant civil rights violations by agents.
"Across this country, day after day, we bear witness to cruelty that staggers the conscience. Masked agents, paid by our own tax dollars, violate the Constitution and visit terror upon our neighbors," Mamdani said. "That is why this morning, I am signing an executive order that will strengthen our city's protection of our fellow New Yorkers from abusive immigration enforcement."
As part of what the mayor called "a sweeping reaffirmation of our commitment to our immigrant neighbors," federal agents will not be allowed to enter city property—including parking garages, parking lots, schools, shelters, hospitals, and other public spaces—without a judicial warrant.
The order comes after the publication last week of a leaked memo from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) telling agents they had the authority to indiscriminately round up people suspected of being undocumented immigrants without obtaining a warrant from a judge, instead using "administrative warrants" signed by agents themselves.
A previous memo issued in May to all ICE personnel by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons asserted that agents had the authority to forcibly enter private residences without a judicial warrant, a claim that legal experts roundly condemned as a violation of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures.
In Minneapolis, where more than 2,000 agents have been deployed as part of President Donald Trump's "Operation Metro Surge," reports abound of agents harassing, detaining, and brutalizing mostly nonwhite residents, many of them US citizens, often using explicit racial profiling.
Mamdani emphasized that "this cruelty is no faraway concept."
"ICE operates here in New York. In our courthouses. Our workplaces. They skulk at 26 Federal Plaza—the same building where I waited in fear as my father had his citizenship interview," he said. "ICE is more than a rogue agency—it is a manifestation of the abuse of power. And it is also new. It was founded only in 2002. Four mayors ago, it did not exist. Its wrongs need not be treated as inevitable or inherited. In fact, there is no reforming something so rotten and base."
During the speech, Mamdani asked faith leaders to pass out tens of thousands of "Know Your Rights" flyers and booklets written in 10 different languages, informing readers of their right to remain silent, to ask for a judicial warrant, to speak with an attorney, and to request an interpreter.
"I urge you to share these with your congregants—even those who are citizens, even those whom you think ICE may not target," he said. "These materials apply to us all: those who have been here for five generations, those who arrived last year. They apply to us all because the obligation is upon us all. To love thy neighbor, to look out for the stranger."
In addition to the warrant requirement, Mamdani's order requires city agencies to develop training for employees on how to interact with immigration authorities when they show up.
It also states that data collected by city agencies must not be shared with federal immigration officials, as the Trump administration has sought to weaponize data from programs like Medicaid and Social Security to target people.
It requires city agencies to complete an audit within the next two weeks to demonstrate compliance with the city's sanctuary policies.
Murad Awawdeh, the president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition, applauded the mayor "for taking decisive action to fight for our immigrant neighbors."
"New York is a city built and maintained by immigrants—from its culture to its skyscrapers—and today's executive order will bring us closer to a city where every New Yorker can live in safety and dignity," he said. "Mayor Mamdani's announcement recognizes his responsibility to defend all residents from abusive immigration enforcement, and our moral obligation to protect our immigrant neighbors from these attacks."
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Trump-GOP Law Slashes Amazon's Tax Bill by 87% as Company Fires 30,000 Workers, Profits Soar
"Congress made a choice: cut assistance for the most vulnerable to double down on a tax code already favoring dominant firms," said one progressive think tank.
Feb 06, 2026
The tax law that congressional Republicans and US President Donald Trump enacted last summer has proved to be a massive boon for Amazon, slashing the corporate behemoth's 2025 tax bill even as its profits surged and it moved ahead with mass layoffs that have cost 30,000 workers their jobs since October.
Citing a new securities filing, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that Amazon's "current US taxes, an accounting measure of taxes incurred last year, declined to $1.2 billion from $9 billion" while the company's "pretax US profit increased by 44.5%, to $89.5 billion. On a cash basis, the company paid $2.8 billion in federal income taxes last year after paying more than $7 billion in each of the prior two years."
The 87% decline in Amazon's federal tax bill for 2025 was largely attributable to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's corporate-friendly depreciation tax breaks.
The new securities filing comes just days after Amazon confirmed it axed 16,000 corporate jobs as part of what's believed to be a sweeping effort to replace workers with robots and artificial intelligence models in the coming years.
The Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank, noted that the tax benefits that Amazon and other giant corporations are raking in "didn't come free."
"The same law slashed Medicaid and the [Affordable Care Act] and is now exacerbating our medical debt crisis," the organization wrote on social media. "Congress made a choice: cut assistance for the most vulnerable to double down on a tax code already favoring dominant firms."
In a statement on Friday, Amazon—founded by billionaire Jeff Bezos—said its dramatically lower tax bill "reflects... changes by Congress" purportedly aimed at encouraging "greater investment in the American economy, its innovation, and its workers."
The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) noted Friday that Amazon is one of four companies that "have now disclosed that they collectively received $51 billion in federal tax breaks in 2025, much of that likely from the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) that was signed into law by Trump over the summer."
"The annual financial reports recently released by Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Tesla disclose that these corporations collectively reported $315 billion in US profits for 2025, and collectively paid just 4.9% of that amount in federal corporate income taxes—with Tesla paying exactly zero," wrote ITEP's Matthew Gardner. "That amounts to a collective tax savings of $51 billion last year for these four giant multinational corporations, versus what they would have paid if they paid the full 21% federal corporate income tax rate."
" Tax cuts pushed through by the Trump administration last year and in 2017 have made it possible for the fastest-growing companies in the world to pay record-low federal income tax rates on their income," Gardner added. "The tax avoidance of these four companies alone blew a $51 billion hole in the federal budget last year, and this is likely just the tip of the iceberg."
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