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A Right-Wing Truck Dispatcher Is America's Fairest New Election Night Vote Counter

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Photograph by Emily Berl for Buzzfeed

There was really no reason to think that the “Ace of Spades HQ Decision Desk” would be a hopeful sign for American democracy in 2014.

The Decision Desk swings into action on primary election nights, with Brandon Finnigan, a burly 29-year-old, nailed to a busted black leather armchair at one of those cheap beige aluminum desks, halfhearted fake wood top, toward the back of a low-slung house at a truck stop crossroads deep in California's monotonous Inland Empire. Dripping sweat every day since the air conditioner broke, Finnigan is the sole employee of a small truck dispatching company where he pulls the noon-to-midnight shift. He manages the dispatching job on one computer monitor. Finnigan's second monitor, however, is for election results.

Between calls from drivers broken down in San Diego, and between visits from men there to drop off paperwork, he tracks election results for Ace of Spades HQ, a conservative blog run by an anonymous, combative figure known only as Ace. Ace and his site’s mission has not, historically, been the sort of thing David Brooks gets excited about. The blog's motto is, “Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.” Its founder’s scabrous style of parody has at times given offense: “Please don’t call Sandra Fluke a slut,” he tweeted (and later deleted) of the abortion rights advocate and liberal icon . “Respect her for what she is, a shiftless rent-a-cooch from East Whoreville.”

And yet, politics is always surprising, and the eternal Washington consensus — that anything that’s good for democracy must come from the center — has not been borne out here.

Finnigan — along with his dozens of volunteer Google spreadsheet jockeys — is the most ambitious face of a major and democratizing shift in the way Americans learn about the results of the most important elections in the country.

“I want to fundamentally change how results are reported,” Finnigan told BuzzFeed News. His goal is both to modernize the local election boards and to deflate what he sees as false drama imposed by slow Associated Press calls and desperate television commentators. “I understand you need an element of suspense and you need something to jibber-jabber about on election night. But you got to jibber-jabber all year. I just want the results.”

Until about 2011, the way Americans received their information — who won, who lost — was dominated by the television networks. Their theatrical presentation and deliberate mystification turned their "analysts" — smart, numerate political hands with years of election experience — into a kind of political priesthood whose calls, particularly in the disputed 2000 election, were alleged to have shaped the outcome of a close race. Virtually all other contests were "called" by only one entity: the AP. The news wire neither rushes nor explains its decisions, which have been turned into a different kind of mysterious black box in part because it is bound contractually to share its results first with the news organizations who pay for those decisions. The AP essentially controlled when Americans learned who won an election.

But something significant has changed in the last few years: The geeky new obsession with political data. It really started with liberal bloggers who took polling seriously, and with the nerd king Nate Silver, who made his name reassuring Democrats that Barack Obama was, still, winning.

The conversation has moved from polling to the polls. The people counting the actual votes — county officials across the United States — have started putting precinct-by-precinct tallies online. Now that same data that only the AP could access, anyone can access. And so a group of a couple dozen devoted journalists and partisans assemble on Twitter on Tuesday nights through the summer and fall to watch election returns, county by county, pop up on the websites of registrars and clerks. They parse the results as they come in, they argue over what they mean, and sometimes they catch the sort of substantial errors — transposed digits, or uncounted ballots — that happen occasionally in preliminary election counts. They typically reach a consensus about who will win long before the AP has made its once-definitive call, based on the same factors the AP looks at — the likelihood that the candidate who trails in the vote can close the gap with the outstanding votes, given both statistics and the voting history of the precincts waiting to be counted.

Now Finnigan and his ragtag Decision Desk have taken that transformation a step further. His volunteers, unlike the rest of amateur and professional media alike, don't just rely on published figures and AP tallies. They've also begun to replicate the AP's vast information-gathering network at the clerks' offices that don't report data swiftly online, organizing a cadre of what's now 130 volunteers to collect results directly from local officials. It's the next logical step for the small fraternity of election-night analysts, doing in public what the large media institutions have typically done in the dark. And while they have a tiny fraction of the AP's roughly 5,000 local reporters gathering results, they naturally focus on the relative handful of races of national interest, and have become central to a political conversation that has been for years now shaped on Twitter. Their slick website, built by a volunteer developer and blogger named John Ekdahl to aggregate both polling and election results, relaunched this week.

The volunteer election callers have caught major errors, including thousands of uncounted votes in Virginia’s Fairfax County last year. They've also hashed out bitterly partisan controversies in remarkably objective terms. And perhaps most importantly, they've punctured the mystery around the mechanics of democracy and produced flashes of consensus in a country whose partisans often seem to occupy different realities, and whose media have never been less trusted.

"Those of us in the amateur election projection world on election night are using our familiarity with the nooks and crannies of geography to beat the AP to the punch. The AP's job is to be cautious, but most of the time these elections can be called well before the AP does," said Dave Wasserman, an editor at the Cook Political Report who tweets from @redistrict (and caught the Fairfax County error), but laments that he has to be absent from Twitter for big election nights — because he's under contract to NBC.

AP's Washington bureau chief, Sally Buzzbee, said she welcomes the Twitter conversation.

"Anything that helps people understand how elections happen and the process and of democracy is terrific. Transparency is wonderful," she said, adding that participating in the Twitter conversation would distract analysts from their jobs and undermine the organization's core mission. "Everybody in AP is comfortable that we don't break news on Twitter — we break news by giving our stuff to news organizations."

But the participants in the new, live results conversation see the AP as a stodgy monopolist, ripe for disruption.

"What Ace of Spades is doing is really great because it's so transparent — and because the AP needs competition," said David Nir, the political director of the venerable liberal site Daily Kos, and often the man running @DKElections, another of the core election night feeds. "What the AP does is very opaque and nobody knows what goes on behind the wizard's curtain."

From behind his Fontana desk, Finnigan shares the bipartisan goodwill.

"When you’re dealing with people who really love elections, like we do and they do, partisanship doesn't really matter — you want to report what's going on," he said.

Photograph by Emily Berl for BuzzFeed

Finnigan traces his start as an unofficial election junkie to 2004. He was an art major at McDaniel College outside Baltimore, a little stoned, watching the results come in — and frustrated as theatrical network anchors "kept holding back" on declaring George W. Bush the victor.

"Once I heard the number of absentees, I was like — there's no reason for [John Kerry] to not concede, he's not going to win," Finnigan recalled.

In 2006, he followed his girlfriend to California for the summer, then decided to stay, landed the truck dispatching job, and dropped out of school. The job gave him ample time to become more politically engaged online, moving to the right from his undergraduate libertarianism to hold strong views not just on lower taxation and less government but also strong opposition to abortion. He's also "extremely libertarian" on drugs and LGBT rights. He found a home on Ace of Spades HQ, a blog devoted in part to heated combat with the liberal and mainstream media. Its founder's sheer obsessive energy has at times put the site in the center of the national conversation, as when Ace (who didn’t respond to a request for his real name, which Finnigan also doesn’t know) caught a strange, quickly deleted tweet by Rep. Anthony Weiner and helped start the chain of events that led to his resignation.

Finnigan started commenting there and emailing Ace in 2007; the founder soon asked him to blog, and he provided obsessive electoral coverage, along with longer apolitical diversions — a piece on living in a haunted house, and a long guide to his other hobby, astronomy.

Finnigan, working weeknights alone in the Fontana office, started the informal "Ace of Spades Headquarters Decision Desk" in 2012, with only the vague approval of Ace. Then, he and a small handful of volunteers began tracking publicly available results of the hottest elections in a Google Doc. They gradually grew more numerous and sophisticated, and this February Finnigan emerged as a major figure in that small, influential Twitter conversation as @AOSHQDD. This summer, his team began to really take on the AP at its own game: not just projecting elections based on public results, but also calling county offices directly to feed the tallies into a spreadsheet.

What followed was an inspiring spectacle: Students, stay-at-home moms, retirees, people battling with cancer and looking for a distraction — a range of members of Ace's conservative community — dove in. There were a dozen volunteers, then 30; now some 130 are "self-assembling" for this November.

One of those volunteers is Carol Tarasewicz, who is home from her longtime job as controller for a real estate management company with neck pain, "living on painkillers," she said. She'd been listening to the conservative talker Mark Levin, and talked Finnigan into letting her monitor Levin’s hobbyhorse, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's widely ignored primary. She tracked the county-by-county results obsessively, and frantically emailed Finnigan when Chesterfield County went for his rival, David Brat.

At 6:31 p.m., @AOSHQDD called the race for Brat. AP followed about half an hour later.

And what did Tarasewicz get out of the evening’s work? The thrill, and the distraction.

"It's fun — that was the most exciting night of my life since Scott Brown won in Massachusetts," she said.

Via Twitter: @aoshqdd

The amateurs are still a long way from replacing AP. One major difference is the scale: The AP calls state legislative contests in 50 states, county, and city races in some places, for an expected total of more than 5,000 this year.

Another is the philosophy. The AP believes, for instance, that it has a public trust not to issue its magical call on major races in situations where that could prevent people from turning out for still-competitive down-ballot ones. So this August in Hawaii, where voting was delayed in two storm-damaged precincts for a week, the AP waited a week before calling the Democratic senatorial primary — despite the fact that results from the other precincts made the result a foregone conclusion.

"We don't want to do anything that suppresses voter turnout," said Buzzbee.

For Finnigan, who had made the call on election night, calling was a matter of simple math, and of transparency with what was, after all, public data: “There was absolutely no way those districts were going to overturn [Brian] Schatz's lead,” he said.

In the radical transparency of Twitter and the web, there’s also less of a trade-off between speed and accuracy than the AP has. Your readers see the same data you do. If you get it wrong, they see where you’re coming from, and you can correct. And neither Finnegan nor the AP executives pretend there’s more than intelligent analysis, memory, and judgment to figuring out whether a race is really done. Finnigan has, this year, gotten 47 out of 48 right. (The AP got just six of 4,653 calls wrong in 2012, Director of Election Services Brian Scanlon said.)

If 2004 spurred Finnigan's frustration with the mainstream media mystification, it was 2012 that brought home to him the value to his own movement of aggressive, accurate election results. In the waning days of the 2012 election, many conservatives simply refused to believe public polling suggesting President Obama would easily win reelection. Instead, they resorted to amateur "unskewing" of the polls — removing Democrats from their samples. The plan seemed reasonable; it turned into an embarrassing debacle, evidence to conservatives and their enemies alike of a dangerous detachment from reality that crystallized when Karl Rove, late into the defeat, tried to persuade Fox News not to accept its own analysts' call.

"I wanted to punch my TV set when Rove said 'no,'" said Finnigan. "We knew Florida was doomed about an hour in, and here's a guy who's a supposed expert … That whole mentality of not trusting things and being distrustful of the numbers — no, the polls are what they are, accept that."

American elections have always been, in close races, frighteningly contingent. The machines are rusty, the volunteers are clueless, the voters get confused. And some of what has undermined recent confidence in the machinery of democracy is substantive and irresolvable disputes over voting practices: Did an early call in 2000 send Republicans in the Florida panhandle home? How many Kerry voters were dissuaded by the long lines in Cleveland?

But that lack of confidence also at times misunderstands a system's piecemeal fragility and makes it hard to manipulate on a large scale. And Twitter has played a surprisingly powerful role in nipping what could have easily become perennial conspiracy theories in the bud. This was never clearer than in a high-profile Wisconsin judicial race in 2011, where the Republican clerk of Waukesha County discovered “missing” votes that added 8,000 to the Republican candidate’s margin — something that liberals and conservatives on Twitter argued about, and then agreed on.

“I don't know any serious analyst who thinks that election was stolen,” said Daily Kos’ Nir.

This, too, is a shared partisan interest — there may be few matters of broad national consensus left, but the importance of trustworthy elections is one.

The deep motives that draw Ace of Spades HQ and Daily Kos together, though, remain partisan. Partisans don't just want to enjoy the drama. They want to win. Nir got his start running the Swing State Project, a blog whose aim was in part to demystify polling results and tell liberal Kos readers where to volunteer and where to donate. Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas recalled in an email that in his first year blogging, 2002, he got carried away by wishful thinking of a Democratic sweep — and vowed, after that, to maintain a "slavish devotion to data."

"We want to win. Not spin. Win. And in order to do that, you have to look at the real facts, not what you want to happen," said Daily Kos Executive Editor Susan Gardner in an email. "And I would guess that's why Ace of Spaces, on the other side of the aisle, is better than 'objective' news sources."

Finnigan's host, Ace, is less philosophical about the matter. He takes an anarchist approach to his own site, and so Finnigan thanked him, at the time of the relaunch, for “our total indifference and utter lack of influence, encouragement, or inspiration.” Ace responded with the headline, “Local Moron Makes Good.”

Ace said in an email that he had paid little attention to the machine Finnigan was building and tuning, until the night of June 10, when he was having dinner with a friend, who looked up from his phone to report that Cantor had lost. Ace didn't believe it.

"Is that confirmed? Is that from a real source?" he asked.

"It's from your site," the friend replied.

"I was a bit worried, wondering if [Finnigan] had gotten too far ahead of the numbers," Ace recalled. "But as the numbers came in, of course, they confirmed his call."

Photograph by Emily Berl for Buzzfeed

UPDATE: This story has been updated to make clearer that Ace's remark about Sandra Fluke was intended as parody, in an argument about humor and faux outrage.


Top Consulting Firm Emerges In Early Hillary Clinton Efforts

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About once a month, the pro-Clinton groups everyone knows — Ready for Hillary, Priorities USA, and Correct the Record — meet to compare notes. A fourth group is there, too: Dewey Square.

Spencer Platt / Getty Images

Three groups in Washington have made it their business to put Hillary Clinton back in the White House: Priorities USA, Correct the Record, and Ready for Hillary. Every month or so, players from each get together. But whenever they gather for the so-called "working group" meetings, there's a fourth partner at the table.

That's the Dewey Square Group, a guarded, well-connected consulting firm that has quietly emerged at the heart of the quasi-official campaign-in-waiting. They are, said one top Democrat, getting the structural details of a campaign "teed up and ready when the days comes" — a characterization Dewey Square denies.

Three top strategists from the group, a one-stop-shop public affairs firm staffed with veteran Democrats, have in varying combinations regularly attended the pro-Clinton meetings, according to five people familiar with the gatherings.

Most of the operatives in attendance help run the three pro-Clinton organizations: Ready for Hillary, a volunteer-driven group, has built a list of Hillary supporters three million people long; Correct the Record, a research-driven effort, defends Clinton in the press; and Priorities USA, a big-money super PAC, plans to spend millions of dollars in television ads to clear a path to Election Day.

Buffy Wicks, the executive director of Priorities USA, has for the last six months called the officials from the groups together at her M Street offices. The agenda rarely varies. The strategists gather to check in, to trade ideas, and discuss challenges. It's an early, coordinated machine — an outside, independent effort not attached to Clinton or her direct staff. And the players are in regular contact about prep for the 2016 campaign they hope Clinton will pursue.

While the groups go around the room and give updates on their progress, operatives from Dewey Square are also at the table, listening intently. The attendees from the firm include Michael Whouley, a seasoned organizer who ran Bill Clinton's field operation in 1992; Charlie Baker, one of the firm's founding partners; and Minyon Moore, a longtime adviser to both Clintons.

Last summer, officials from the same Boston-based firm — including Whouley; Baker; and Jill Alper, another Dewey Square strategist — put together a presentation for Clinton about running for president. The meeting, first reported by Politico, took place at Clinton's Whitehaven Street home in Washington.

In more than 15 interviews about Dewey Square this month, people close to Clinton, and to the groups working on her behalf, described the firm's strategists as central to the pre-2016 efforts — not by way of official status, sources said, but because of their breadth of experience and long ties to the former first family.

Dewey Square's calling card is discretion. The officials there rarely see their names in print, and a spokesperson for the firm dismissed the premise that Whouley, Baker, and Moore should be singled out. The Democrats contacted for this article declined to speak for attribution about the group's involvement.

Ginny Terzano, the spokesperson for Dewey Square, would not discuss the specifics of the meetings, but pointed out that one of the firm's officials, Baker, is also on the board of Priorities USA. Early this year, the super PAC refashioned itself as a pro-Clinton effort after spending millions in 2012 to put some of the most cutting and effective television ads on the air against Republican Mitt Romney.

"Dewey Square Group principals attend and participate in a variety of political meetings with Priorities USA and other organizations because of their official role and their known expertise in waging successful campaigns," Terzano said.

When asked about the function of the Dewey Square officials in the pro-Clinton working group meetings, Terzano said, "their role is like everyone else's role — to discuss winning elections and the steps needed to get there."

One person familiar with the gatherings said the firm's strategists don't say much about their own work, but act as informal advisers, posing questions to the other organizations. Terzano flatly dismissed the idea that Dewey Square officials run the meetings, calling the description "inaccurate." Wicks, the executive director of Priorities, convenes the meetings but does not chair them, sources said.

There have been about six meetings so far. They take place at the Priorities USA offices, housed within the Messina Group, the eponymous consulting firm whose founder Jim Messina ran President Obama's reelection campaign. Messina, who has not attended every meeting, also serves as co-chair of Priorities USA.

Asked if Dewey Square officials have hosted further meetings with Clinton herself, Terzano said, "As noted already, we never discuss private meetings."

In the months since the presentation at Clinton's Whitehaven home, word spread in Washington that Dewey Square officials were "laying down a structure if a campaign were to happen," as one Democratic operative put it. Another said the firm's officials were getting prep work "teed up and ready when the day comes."

Terzano said the group is not involved in any such efforts. When asked whether the firm's officials have been involved in plans for a possible campaign, including work related to staffing, financials, or state strategy, Terzano said, "No."

As for the working group gatherings, Terzano said, "We never discuss private meetings, but they are political experts like the rest of the people involved in the four organizations you named," she added, referring to Ready for Hillary, Correct the Record, Priorities USA, and a fourth group, EMILY's List, a Washington nonprofit that recruits and helps elect pro-choice women to office.

EMILY's List also maintains a presence in the working group meetings, sources said, though the nonprofit is not as prominent a stakeholder as the others. Stephanie Schriock, the organization's president, also serves on the board of Priorities USA. She is joined in that role by Dewey Square's Charlie Baker.

The pair's presence on the Priorities USA board is somewhat typical of the Clinton effort. Most players are linked in some official capacity, or by past experience.

The effect can be overwhelming. For example, David Brock, the founder of Correct the Record, is also a board member of Priorities USA — as is Allida Black, the chair of Ready for Hillary. Alper, one of the Dewey Square officials who gave the presentation to Clinton last summer, is a longtime adviser to Jennifer Granholm, the former Michigan governor who now co-chairs Priorities USA.

And Whouley, the veteran field organizer, has been connected to Clinton circles for decades. He ran Bill's field operation in 1992, helped organize the reelection campaign in 1996, managed Vice President Al Gore's presidential race in 2000, and was credited with Hillary Clinton's primary win in New Hampshire in 2008. John Kerry once dubbed him "the magical Michael Whouley."

The ties among the operatives are on frequent display. This spring, when Minyon Moore, the Dewey Square official closest to Hillary Clinton, was connected in a Washington Post report to businessman Jeffrey E. Thompson's campaign violations, it was Correct the Record that first spoke out in her defense. The allegations, said the group's top adviser, were "brazenly false." (Dewey Square released a statement saying Moore was "unaware of any inappropriate activities.")

To what extent Dewey Square officials would work with Clinton on her actual campaign — rather than the independent, outside efforts of groups like Ready for Hillary, Priorities USA, and Correct the Record — remains an open question.

One former Dewey Square strategist, Guy Cecil, is considered a leading contender for the role of Clinton's campaign manager. Cecil currently services as the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Clinton, who stepped down as secretary of state early last year, has only recently jumped back into politics. She appeared earlier this month at Sen. Tom Harkin's Steak Fry, a premier fundraising event in Iowa, the early-voting state, and has started fundraising for Democratic candidates running in midterm races this fall.

Clinton has said she hasn't made up her mind yet about whether to run for president, and won't announce her decision until sometime next year.

New Pro-Marriage Equality Ad Targets Supreme Court: "It's Time"

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“One nation, indivisible — except if you’re gay.” Freedom to Marry to run marriage ad in D.C. on the day before the justices are slated to consider whether to hear one or more of the marriage cases.

On Sunday, Freedom to Marry is launching a one-day television ad campaign in Washington, D.C. The ad, unveiled Friday morning, starts by focusing in on the states with marriage equality:

On Sunday, Freedom to Marry is launching a one-day television ad campaign in Washington, D.C. The ad, unveiled Friday morning, starts by focusing in on the states with marriage equality:

But then, the ad shifts to the states banning same-sex couples from marrying, noting: "They're taxed unfairly, denied Social Security and parenting rights, and can lose a family home when their loved one dies":

But then, the ad shifts to the states banning same-sex couples from marrying, noting: "They're taxed unfairly, denied Social Security and parenting rights, and can lose a family home when their loved one dies":

"Every day of denial means real harm to real families," the announcer goes on to say, tracking with comments made by Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson at a discussion with reporters earlier this week:

"Every day of denial means real harm to real families," the announcer goes on to say, tracking with comments made by Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson at a discussion with reporters earlier this week:

The ad concludes with the message for its target audience, the Supreme Court justices and those with whom they interact: "It's time to end marriage discrimination."

The ad concludes with the message for its target audience, the Supreme Court justices and those with whom they interact: "It's time to end marriage discrimination."


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Holder Outlines New DOJ Initiative To Help Minority Kids

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Outlines new efforts for stronger support for juvenile offenders that will be part of President Obama’s “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative.

Attorney General Eric Holder.

Gary Cameron / Reuters

WASHINGTON — Outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder Friday announced a set of new juvenile justice reforms designed to reduce the number of minority underage Americans in the criminal justice system, pledging to continue working on the issue even after he leaves the Department of Justice.

"Although my time at the Justice Department will draw to a close in the coming months – once my successor has been nominated and confirmed – I want you to know that my commitment to this work will never waver," Holder said Friday morning at a gathering of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference in Washington.

The Smart on Juvenile Justice initiative is public private partnership the Obama administration hopes will "promote system-wide reform and bolster our efforts to end racial and ethnic disparities," Holder said. The efforts are part of President Obama's My Brother's Keeper program, details of which the president is expected to expand on Saturday night to the group.

The partnership will use funding from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention in combination with the Pew Charitable Trusts Public Safety Performance Project to increase opportunity and to reform and lessen juvenile contact with the criminal justice system, Holder said.

The partnership is targeting communities in Georgia, Hawaii and Kentucky.

His remarks came before a panel on voting rights hosted by Rep. Marcia Fudge. Panelists included Marc Morial, CEO of the National Urban League and Sherrilyn Ifill, President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

Holder received a warm applause and was introduced by Fudge. "I have no intention of letting up or slowing down," he said. I am honored to discuss our ongoing efforts with you once again today. And I am proud, as ever, to stand with so many dedicated public servants, devoted advocates, and passionate leaders of our ongoing fight for equal rights and equal justice."

Congressman: Race Of Holder Replacement Irrelevant Because Clarence Thomas Is Black

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Rep. Bobby Scott : “People that can do that good a job are hard to find.”

Rep. Bobby Scott.

Astrid Riecken / MCT

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Bobby Scott said Thursday that Attorney General Eric Holder's replacement need not to be a person of color, but rather simply a solid appointment to lead the Department of Justice, "because [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas is a person of color."

Justice Thomas, who is black, is frequently criticized in Democratic circles for his conservative stances on social and legal issues.

Holder, who will stay in his job until his replacement is named and confirmed, announced Thursday that he was resigning his post.

"I was disappointed [by Holder's resignation] obviously because he's done such a good job," Scott told BuzzFeed News Thursday evening during an awards reception hosted by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.

Asked specifically if he believed President Obama should nominate another person of color, Scott downplayed the importance of race. "I think we need a good Attorney General who will enforce civil rights, voting rights, and I think [that's] much more important" than another minority taking the job.

"People that can do that good a job are hard to find," he added.

Scott is the ranking member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations.

Iraqi Prime Minister's Warning Of An ISIS Subway Plot Confuses His Own President

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“I tried to ask him but he’s on his way to Baghdad on a plane.”

Iraq's President Fuad Masum

Pool / Reuters

NEW YORK — Iraq's president says he is as confused as anyone by his prime minister's warning Thursday that ISIS is planning an imminent attack on the New York and Paris subway systems.

"Personally I don't have any information about this," said Iraqi President Fuad Masum in an appearance Friday morning at the Council on Foreign Relations. "I have not heard or seen exactly what he said."

"It could be an expectation of this to happen by a sleeper cell and they retaliate — they could resort to such things," Masum said. "But as detailed accurate information, I have not seen any information on this and I have only seen through the newspapers what he said."

"The nature of the statement, how it was made, was not very clear and I tried to ask him but he's on his way to Baghdad on a plane, that's why I could not get hold of him," Masum said.

Iraq's new prime minister Haidar al-Abadi told reporters at the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday morning that ISIS was planning to attack the New York and Paris subway systems and that he had learned of the plot from ISIS militants who had been captured by Iraqi intelligence agents.

The alleged plot was news to everyone, including U.S. officials, who said they had no information about such a plot. New York City officials said that New Yorkers shouldn't worry about the threat: "We are convinced that New Yorkers are safe," New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a press conference.

There "is no specific credible threat whatsoever that they have uncovered to the United States," Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran and Iraq Brett McGurk told CNN on Thursday.

Members Of Congress, Groups Team Up To Oppose Blocking Of LGBT Sites

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“In an age when high-speed broadband is transforming almost every aspect of our lives, we must ensure online access to every adult and child,” the lawmakers said in a letter.

Congressman Mike Honda

AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, file

Several members of Congress and advocacy groups are calling on the Federal Communications Commission to ensure online resources for LGBT people aren't blocked by web filters at federally-funded schools and libraries.

In a letter to FCC officials organized by Rep. Mike Honda — the California Democrat who is the founder and chair of the Congressional Anti-Bullying Caucus — the group of lawmakers and nonprofits said content filters are used to block pornographic or offensive websites but can also be used "to block access to particular viewpoints in a discriminatory manner," such as websites with LGBT resources and content.

Thirteen members of Congress and 23 advocacy organizations — including the American Civil Liberties Union, GLAAD, and The Trevor Project — signed onto the letter. The push comes just after software giant Symantec announced its web filtering products will no longer block websites just because of their LGBT content. And this week, advocates have raised concerns over filters blocking LGBT sites on in-flight Wi-Fi.

The lawmakers state in the letter that the FCC is required to establish filters and policies to block Internet content that is "obscene; child pornography; or harmful to minors." And with that, they urge the Commission to consider how such filters could be discriminatory.

"We are aware that you are in the midst of a proceeding to modernize the E-rate program," the lawmakers said in the letter. "We encourage you to consider this problem in the course of this proceeding and adopt a solution to end this practice. For example, the Commission's regulations could make clear that LGBT educational content should not be filtered in a discriminatory manner."

A request was made with an FCC press contact as to whether the commission can or will make sure LGBT sites are not blocked by web filters at schools or libraries.

The letter cites a report this year by the LGBT Technology Partnership and Institute, which found that LGBT people are vulnerable to such filters and internet policies at schools, and also points to a 2011 ACLU lawsuit against a Camdenton, Missouri school district that blocked LGBT websites, but not sites with anti-LGBT content. A federal judge ruled in the 2012 the school must stop using the filter, according to the letter.

"In an age when high-speed broadband is transforming almost every aspect of our lives, we must ensure online access to every adult and child," the letter states. In a statement, Ian Thompson, legislative representative for the ACLU, said, "The FCC now has an opportunity to address this problem, and they should act to do so."

Read the letter here:

Dem. Senate Candidate Who Hit Opponent For Copying Words Actually Copied Two Of His Plans

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From the farm bill!

Dave Domina Facebook / Via Facebook: votedomina

The Nebraska Democratic Senate nominee likes the Farm Bill so much his energy and agriculture issues pages are just pasted word-for-word from it.

Dave Domina, a high-profile attorney in the state of Nebraska, often stresses the importance of the farm bill in his race to fill the seat of retiring Republican Sen. Mike Johanns.

"The Farm Bill is a five-year agreement, and Senate terms are six years," Domina said in one campaign stop. "That makes the Farm Bill an issue in this election."

On his issues page, Domina writes that the farm bill is of the most importance to the state.

"This makes the Farm Bill an immediate issue, right now! My opponent takes the opposite view; he accepts large sums of financial support from persons and organizations committed to never again passing a Farm Bill. Only my position will protect Nebraskans and the engine of our State's economy."

What Domina doesn't do on his issues pages, which are framed as his plans for the state, is distinguish which words, including an introduction titled "the challenge," are taken directly from the legislation and which words are his own.

Domina himself once attacked his opponent, Republican Ben Sasse for using similar language as the White House when discussing the minimum wage.

From a post by Domina:

Folks, Joe Jordan of Nebraska Watchdog recently asked Ben Sasse a simple question on a simple issue: 'Do you support raising Nebraska's minimum wage?' Do you understand Mr. Sasse's answer in the video below?

The only part that makes much sense is the phrase 'ladders of opportunity' – a phrase Sasse cribbed from the White House plan to create economic opportunity for all.

Domina's campaign didn't immediately respond to a comment request from BuzzFeed News.

Here's the part of the Agriculture Act of 2014:

In the United States, some 16 million jobs depend on the strength and continued success of American agriculture. Our farmers grow the safest and most abundant supply of food, fiber and energy in the world. Innovations in agriculture allow families to put healthy, nutritious food on their tables at a lower cost than in most other countries.

And here's Domina introduction:

No government can survive with a hungry population. In the United States, 16 million jobs depend on the strength and continued success of American agriculture. Our farmers grow the safest and most abundant supply of food, fiber and energy in the world. Innovations in agriculture allow families to put healthy, nutritious food on their tables at a lower cost than in most other countries.

Here's the Act again:

Through USDA's Broadband Program, the Department provides funds for the construction,improvement, and acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in rural communities. The program will target funds to rural communities that currently do not have broadband service.

And here's Domina:

Through the USDA's Broadband Program, the Department provides funds for the construction, improvement, and acquisition of facilities and equipment needed to provide broadband service in rural communities. The program will target funds to rural communities that currently do not have broadband service. Expansion of quality broadband access is critical for the preservation and growth of rural communities.

Again, here's the Act:

The bill authorizes a new loan program, administered by the Department of Agriculture, which will issue zero-interest loans to any electric cooperative or coordinated group of electric cooperatives for the purpose of lending the funds to their customers to make energy saving retrofit and structural improvements.

And here's Domina:

I support a new loan program, administered by the Department of Agriculture, which will issue zero-interest loans to any electric cooperative or coordinated group of electric cooperatives for the purpose of lending the funds to their customers to make energy saving retrofit and structural improvements.

The rest of his agricultural page, which runs five more paragraphs long, is likewise taken directly from the Agricultural Act.

Domina's energy plan is likewise copied from the Agricultural Act:

The popular Rural Energy for America (REAP) program has helped nearly 4,000 farmers, ranchers and rural business owners lower their energy bills by installing renewable and energy efficient systems. The bill provides robust funding for REAP and authorizes a streamlined application process that will help for farmers and rural businesses move forward more quickly on small projects.

Promotes Advanced Bioenergy Production The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) provides support for farmers and ranchers who wish to plant energy crops to produce and use biomass crops for conversion to advanced biofuels or bioenergy. Agricultural producers in BCAP project areas may contract with the Department ofAgriculture to receive biomass crop establishment payments up to 50 percent of costs, plus annual payments in amounts determined by the Secretary in subsequent years to help to compensate for lost opportunity costs until crops are established. The program will receive $125 million in mandatory funding.

Supports the Growing Bio-Based Economy The bill will reauthorize and modify USDA's BioPreferred Program and the Federal GovernmentProcurement Preference Program. Many of the modifications are adopted from the "Make it Here,Grow it Here" initiative which includes reporting of biobased purchases by the federal agencies and auditing and enforcement of the biobased label. The program will receive $15 million in mandatory funding.

Biorefinery Assistance Program This program provides loan guarantees for renewable energy projects. Eligibility for the program hasbeen expanded to include biobased manufacturing and renewable chemicals, which uses agricultural products to make value-added products. The program will receive $200 million in mandatory funding under the bill.

Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels This program provides production payments for advanced bioenergy sources such as methane digesters, advanced biofuels and biopower. The program will receive $75 million in mandatoryf unding under the bill.

And here's the Domina:

The popular Rural Energy for America (REAP) program has helped nearly 4,000 farmers, ranchers and rural business owners lower their energy bills by installing renewable and energy efficient systems. The bill will provide a streamlined application process for farmers and rural businesses applying for small and medium sized projects.

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program (BCAP) provides support for farmers and ranchers who wish to plant energy crops to produce and use biomass crops for conversion to advanced biofuels or bioenergy. Agricultural producers in BCAP project areas may contract with the Department of Agriculture to receive biomass crop establishment payments up to 50 percent of costs, plus annual payments in subsequent years to help to compensate for lost opportunity costs until crops are established.

Growing the Bio-Based Economy
The bill will reauthorize and modify USDA's BioPreferred Program and the Federal Government Procurement Preference Program. Many of the modifications are adopted from the "Make it Here, Grow it Here" initiative which includes reporting of biobased purchases by the federal agencies and auditing and enforcement of the biobased label.

Biorefinery Assistance Program
This program provides loan guarantees for renewable energy projects. Eligibility for the program has been expanded to include biobased manufacturing and renewable chemicals, which uses agricultural products to make value-added products.

Bioenergy Program for Advanced Biofuels
This program provides production payments for advanced bioenergy sources such as methane digesters, advanced biofuels and biopower.


GOP Congressional Candidate: Welfare, Entitlements Are Slavery

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“One could effectively argue that the state is their master.”

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Republican Congressional candidate Zach Dasher once said entitlements and welfare are forms of slavery.

Dasher who is the cousin to the Duck Dynasty family and challenging incumbent Republican Rep. Vance McAllister in Louisiana's 5th Congressional district made the comments six months ago on his Internet podcast Willingtothink.org.

Dasher has been endorsed in his challenge to McAllister by Sarah Palin and the Louisiana Tea Party.

"What about today, though? Does that still go today in America?" Dasher said on his podcast, contrasting Hebrew slavery with the history of slavery in the United States.

"Well, in Western society, we see these causes among us right now in 2014. How does our society deal with them? The answer is that with welfare, well, if you can't afford to pay for anything — you can't buy your own food, your own healthcare, your own education — well, what happens? Well, the government steps in and they say, 'We'll take care of that for you.' Isn't this a form of slavery, though? I would argue that it is."

Dasher continues by saying that prisoners are also "slaves to the state."

The congressional hopeful then adds if take government assistance, "you essentially become property of the state."

"If you are poor and you go to the state for help, you essentially become property of the state," he said. "And those entrenched in the entitlement culture are almost completely dependent on the state for their food, their shelter, their health care, their transportation, their education, and now even their cell phones."

"One could effectively argue that the state is their master," he adds.

Unlike Hebrew slavery, Dasher said, "under our system of slavery, one rarely escapes."

"They don't get out of slavery," he said. "In fact that's why we see generational entitlement. We have a system now that deals with poverty that no one ever escapes. At least in the Hebrew culture, you have to give them kudos that they're only there for six years. Folks in America, they're there for life."

Clinton Foundation Denies Sending Press Escorts Inside Bathrooms

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At CGI this week, like at a lot of big events, reporters were tailed by escorts — including one inside a restroom. Officials say they conducted a review and found no proof that a volunteer “deliberately” followed a reporter into the bathroom or “was asked to” do so.

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

It was just another meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, the 10th-annual gathering of the high-profile conference this week in New York: The same motley of corporate sponsors and celebrities, donors and heads of state, mingled with the former first family. The same soundtrack, Matisyahu's "One Day," played on loop before each panel. And the same young volunteers, dressed in a standard uniform of navy and white, stood vigil at every corner, in every hallway, and before every doorway of the sprawling Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan.

The volunteers, an army of college and graduate students, were also tasked this week with one of their perennial duties: to escort reporters from the press room on the lower level to other areas of the conference. These places included the lobby, the Metropolitan Ballroom, the banquet rooms where "breakout sessions" took place — and any bathroom outside the designated for journalists.

But some volunteers, according to reporters on site for CGI, actually followed their conference companions into the restroom, rather than waiting outside. Amy Chozick, who covers Hillary Clinton for the New York Times, wrote an item on Wednesday afternoon about being escorted to the restroom by an unamed female volunteer, who "waited outside the stall in the ladies' room."

Officials with the Clinton Foundation, which houses CGI, said on Friday that after looking into the matter, they found no proof that a volunteer "deliberately" followed a reporter into the bathroom. Aides said that as a matter of policy, CGI staffers and volunteers had never been instructed to accompany press inside restrooms.

"We confirmed that no staff member or volunteer for the Clinton Global Initiative was asked to follow any reporter or guest into a bathroom," a Clinton Foundation spokesperson said. (As part of their inquiry, foundation officials said they questioned members of the volunteer staff, which numbered 165 people.)

Another reporter said Friday they had also been followed into a restroom by their escort on the Sheraton's main floor. In this particular case, the journalist said the volunteer may have just had to use the bathroom as well. The volunteer did, then waited for the reporter outside the stall before they headed outside together.

Much has been made of the episode this week.

Reporters and political observers have cast the incident as the latest iteration of an old story, two decades in the making: that Hillary Clinton hates the press.

The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza wrote a piece on Wednesday bearing the headline, "The Clinton team is following reporters to the bathroom. Here's why that matters." The article described the escorts as further proof that Clinton — and her retinue of staffers and advisers — "always assumes the worst of the press horde and acts accordingly." The next day, the editor of the Washington Free Beacon, Matthew Continetti, wrote a fiery column on the subject.

Continetti made specific reference to the comment that the Clinton Foundation's Craig Minassian sent the Times on Wednesday. When asked about the escort policy, he forward a press release about American Standard's "Flush for Good" campaign, which aims to improve health in developing countries, with the comment: "Since you are so interested in bathrooms and CGI."

Clinton Foundation officials dismissed the notion that CGI escorts revealed anything about Clinton's attitude toward the press. The volunteers working the annual meeting were students, not Clinton staffers, they said.

The shepherding of reporters to and from the press area, even to restrooms (though not inside them), happens occasionally at political events of great size, like inaugurations, the United Nations General Assembly, and functions featuring members of Congress or cabinet secretaries. This year, 50 current and former heads of state, including President Obama, attended CGI, according to the officials.

At these kinds of events, organizers have required reporters to be escorted — whether by a staffer or volunteer or member of the Secret Service — to find a bathroom, go for a smoke, or exit the venue.

The parameters for press access at the annual gatherings have largely stayed the same since the first CGI meeting in 2005, foundation officials said.

One reporter for Reuters tweeted on Wednesday that he had also been escorted to the bathroom, but not inside it, by people working at the CGI America conference, a separate event, held in Denver this June. On Thursday, a senior editor for the New Republic tweeted a story on the Jim Romenesko's media blog about similar practices at a CGI University meeting in St. Louis last year.

Foundation officials said they don't use press escorts at every event. They named two as examples: a CGI University event this spring and a CGI Latin America last December. Those venues could "accommodate broader access," they said.

This year, about 1,100 members of the media, including reporters from national, foreign, and philanthropy-focused press outlets, were accredited to attend.

This article has been updated.

Chelsea Gives Birth To A New Clinton: Charlotte

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Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky, Bill and Hillary Clinton’s first grandchild, was born on Friday, Sept. 26. “Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude,” Chelsea tweets. In a statement on Saturday, the new grandparents add, “Chelsea is well and glowing. Marc is bursting with pride. Charlotte’s life is off to a good start.”

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

Chelsea Clinton gave birth on Friday to a daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky.

The baby girl is Chelsea's first child — and the first grandchild of Bill and Hillary Clinton, the former first family. The 34-year-old announced her daughter's arrival in a one-sentence tweet, posted early on Saturday morning at 12:32 a.m.

"Marc and I are full of love, awe and gratitude as we celebrate the birth of our daughter, Charlotte Clinton Mezvinsky," Chelsea's tweet read.

Chelsea, the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, said during her pregnancy that she and her husband Marc Mezvinsky chose to keep the baby's sex a surprise.

Clinton had the child on Friday, a spokesman, Kamyl Bazbaz, told BuzzFeed.

Bazbaz had no additional details to add.

Earlier in the week, the Clintons' daughter spent three straight days on stage at the Sheraton Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, where the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative took place. Chelsea, who in recent years has taken a leading role in her family's foundation, participated in multiple panel discussions, lunches, and dinners, and on her feet from Sunday night to Wednesday afternoon.

Chelsea's family did not announce a due date during her pregnancy. But at the time of the conference earlier this week, according to a source close to the Clinton family, Chelsea was already slightly overdue, and expecting the baby any day.

References to the very pregnant Chelsea were a constant refrain at the conference throughout the week. As the tenth-annual CGI meeting closed on Wednesday, Bill Clinton joked about what he called his daughter's "imminent birth."

Clinton first announced that she was expecting her a child at a Clinton Foundation event in April for "No Ceilings," a women and girl's development project that Hillary Clinton started after leaving the State Department last February.

Sitting beside her mother, Chelsea shocked attendees at the Lower Eastside Girls Club that day when she paused at the end of the event to add — almost as an aside — that she had just "one more thing to say very quickly."

"Marc and I are very excited that we have our first child arriving later this year," Chelsea said. Mezvinsky, a former Goldman Sachs banker, had slipped into the event through a door toward the back of the room before Chelsea spoke.

The audience applauded, and Hillary flashed a wide smile as her daughter made the announcement. The former first daughter added, "I just hope that I will be as good a mom to my child and, hopefully, children as my mom was to me."

Clinton and Mezvinsky were married in Rhinebeck, N.Y., in the summer of 2010.


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Longtime Holder, Obama Friend: Next Attorney General Will Be A Woman

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“I’m not gonna put her name out,” Ogletree says.

Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Larry Downing / Reuters

Ted S. Warren / AP


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Mary Burke Explains Why She Missed Copied Text In Plans She Spent "100s Of Hours On"

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“I read through every single one of these ideas but I didn’t necessarily read through all the plans of other governors.”

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Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mary Burke explained Saturday how she missed noticing the large sections of copied text in her jobs and rural communities plan, despite saying she had spent "hundreds of hours" putting it together.

"Well, I read through every single one of these ideas but I didn't necessarily read through all the plans of other governors," Burke said on News3's For the Record. "So, Mr. Schnurer was one of the people we utilized to put together this plan and he — these are some ideas and best practices that he saw going on and around the rest of the country and that he had brought to here, to us."

The Burke campaign has placed blame on an outside consultant named Eric Schnurer, who also worked on the other campaigns as responsible for the similar text. The campaign has since cut ties with him.

"I wouldn't have included them if I didn't think that they were good for Wisconsin," she said in the interview. "And anyones that are not his language and what he used in other plans are cited, um, from other sources. We have something like 83 footnotes in this plan. So there is a lot of sourcing from where this information came from."

Burke has found herself under scrutiny in the closely-watched Wisconsin governor's race against incumbent Scott Walker since BuzzFeed News reported on the copied text in her "Invest for Success" economic plan, veterans plan, and rural communities plan.

BuzzFeed News reported "Invest for Success" took nearly-verbatim portions of the jobs plans of five other gubernatorial campaigns, and then found additional copied text in her rural communities and veterans plan also included failed 2010 Nevada gubernatorial candidate Rory Reid, a newspaper article, a Wisconsin school press release, academic journals and reports, and a local newspaper column.

Burke has struggled to address the copied text. She initially said last week she would provide updates and sourcing, but her campaign later responded to her statement by saying no changes would be made.

"Certainly, anything that is not directly from Eric that should be cited would be cited," Burke said as quoted by the Associated Press.

Burke's spokesman, Joe Zepecki, told the AP that following a review no changes were going to be added to the plan.

"Where cites are appropriate, they have been made," he said. "In other instances work product that has been identified as coming from Mr. Schnurer has been addressed by cutting ties with him."

Obama On Holder: "We Will Miss Him, Badly"

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A night of the warmest praise for the attorney general at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual dinner.

Larry Downing / Reuters

WASHINGTON — When civil rights activist Wade Henderson, a recipient of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Chair's Phoenix Award made his remarks Saturday night, it wasn't perhaps then yet known to the thousands in the room that Attorney General Eric Holder was, in fact, in attendance.

But when Henderson commented on the privilege it was to be in Holder's company, that all changed. Those around the attorney general began to stand and applaud. Before long, the entire room was on its feet in a scene that seemed to almost embarrass Holder, but signaled his importance within the administration and with black lawmakers, on the eve of his eventual exit from the country's top law enforcement post.

For his part, Holder, who was flanked by Valerie Jarrett, stood and waved. It was the emotional highlight of the evening in which President Obama spoke forcefully about changing the justice system, especially as it related to the shooting of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenage who was shot and killed by a Ferguson, Mo., police officer.

Later, in his own remarks, Obama opened by paying tribute to Holder, someone "who served the United States as a prosecutor, as a judge, and as Attorney General of the United States."

"He has been a great friend of mine. He has been a faithful servant of the American people," the president said. "We will miss him, badly."

Obama acknowledged Brown's parents in attendance, but not before saying that he would not comment on the investigation. He tied his comments on Ferguson to news that an announcement is forthcoming in which he will launch a White House appeal to the local level in search of commitments to help better the lives of young black and Latino boys as part of his My Brother's Keeper initiative.

On Thursday, BuzzFeed News reported President Obama would reveal more details about his plan for the program, which he says will pull from federal, nonprofit and private-sector support.

Obama seemed relaxed, and was joined onstage by First Lady Michelle Obama after a lengthy introduction from Democratic Rep. Chaka Fattah. Immediately, he made an allusion to his now infamous sartorial choice last month in the White House Briefing Room to address matters of national security.

"If it wasn't black tie I would have worn my tan suit," Obama said to laughter, eventually cracking a smile and then a short chuckle. "I thought it looked good."

GOP Opposition Research Firm Is Editing Democratic Politicians' Wikipedia Pages

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America Rising’s contributions, which span thousands of words, are almost solely edits to Democratic politicians’ pages.

A Republican opposition researcher for the firm American Rising is editing Wikipedia articles of Democratic candidates.

BuzzFeed News found the edits while browsing the edit history of politicians' pages looking for IP addresses associated with political advocacy groups.

The edits, which come from a user named "Sprinkler Court," who identifies himself as Court, always discloses that he is a researcher for America Rising.

"I am adding details of a video that surfaced of Braley making disparaging comments about Chuck Grassley. I want note that I have a COI with this edit, as I work for America Rising," reads Sprinkler Court's description of his edit to an article on Bruce Braley.

Sprinkler Court's own Talk Page on Wikipedie also identifies himself as an America Rising researcher:

Howdy, I'm Court. I've set up this account for making contributions to articles or topics on various things I'm interested in. I also ought to add that I am making contributions to articles and topics where I may have a conflict of interest or vested interest. I work for a Republican research firm called America Rising LLC in Arlington, Virginia. For total clarity, I'll always disclose potential conflicts or vested interest on Talk pages where I discuss edits using this account. My aim is to ensure that I follow all the relevant guidelines, make constructive edits and contribute productively to discussions. If you have any feedback on my editing, or would like to ask me any questions, please do leave me a note on my Talk page and I'll be happy to reply.

America Rising told BuzzFeed News they have an "internal policy" of allowing "fact-based edits to political Wikipedia pages" that may take place "as long as the individual is 100% transparent that they work for America Rising when making those edits on page."

Here's a picture of his Sprinkler Court's user page:

Via en.wikipedia.org

His contributions, which span thousands of words, are almost-solely edits to Democratic politicians:

Via en.wikipedia.org


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TN Democratic Senate Nominee Plagiarized Almost Everything Written On His Website

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“I had no idea that this material was cut and pasted on my website from other sources.”

Gordon Ball For U.S. Senate / Via gordonballsenate.com

Democratic U.S. Senate hopeful Gordon Ball appears to have plagiarized nearly every word on his issues pages from a vast array of politicians including West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Ball, a practicing attorney is taking incumbent Republican Sen. Llamar Alexander in the heavily Republican state.

Ball has likewise used much of the plagiarized text in an interview.

Ball told BuzzFeed News that he agrees "with these views and approved the content."

The Senate candidate added, however, he was unaware the text had been take from a number of different sources word-for-word.

"I had no idea that this material was cut and pasted on my website from other sources," he said.

Ball's issues pages can be viewed here.

The many examples are below:


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Uber Uses The Same Statement Almost Every Time A Driver Gets Accused Of Bad Behavior

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Safety is Uber’s No. 1 priority. Safety is Uber’s #1 priority. Safety is…

Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters

When an Uber driver gets accused of behaving badly, the story inevitably ends up making national news. But no matter what the alleged offense, Uber has repeatedly used the same statement to assure the public it's trying to improve.

Uber requires background checks for all of its drivers, but the ridesharing company has been accused in many of the places it operates for not being thorough enough.

"Safety is our #1 priority," or some version of that, has made its way into numerous reports about drivers doing everything from sexually assaulting passengers to attacking them with hammers.

Uber said: "Rider safety is Uber's No. 1 priority. We take reports like this seriously and are treating the matter with utmost urgency and care."

Uber said: "Safety is Uber's #1 priority. We take reports like this seriously and are treating the matter with the utmost urgency and care."


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Iowa GOP Senate Candidate's Husband Sued House Painter Over Unfinished Work

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The threat of potential legal action from Democratic opponent Bruce Braley toward a neighbor has become a major issue in the Iowa Senate campaign.

Joni For Iowa Facebook

Republicans in Iowa have cried foul over Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley's dispute over his neighbors chickens crossing onto his yard, which he implied he would take legal action to resolve it.

But Braley's challenger, Republican Joni Ernst, has had her own past legal dispute: Her husband sued — and won — a house-painter over unfinished work on the Ernsts' home.

Gail Ernst, Ernst's husband, eventually had the court garnish the painter's property — including a truck — when he couldn't pay the amount rendered in the judgement.

An Ernst spokesperson told BuzzFeed News, "Unlike Washington politicians who spend money with no regard for what they get, Joni actually believes that when you spend money, you should get something in return."

The threat of a lawsuit in the Braley chicken dispute has become a major element in the campaign this year. Ernst has used the incident to call Braley, who was formerly the president of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association, "a litigious individual" whose behavior in the incident was "not the Iowa way."

In another interview with Chris Moody of Yahoo News Ernst hammered Braley, arguing the way to resolve a dispute is to reach out to the other person.

"He is a trial attorney and the only way he knew how to solve a problem is to threaten to sue a neighbor over a chicken," she said. "The Iowa way, if I had a disagreement, was to reach out to my neighbor and say, 'Hey come on over, let's have a glass of tea and let's talk about this.'"

In another interview with Radio Iowa, Ernst she said Braley's actions were not "Iowa way."

"When Iowans find themselves at odds with each other, the way we should do business is through words, amicably, with a handshake," Ernst said.

In July 2002, Ernst's husband Gail wrote an email to the Better Business Bureau of Iowa saying a man named Steve Akers failed to finish painting their house despite a $3,000 advance. Ernst said he wanted Akers to finish the job.

In July 2002, Ernst's husband Gail wrote an email to the Better Business Bureau of Iowa saying a man named Steve Akers failed to finish painting their house despite a $3,000 advance. Ernst said he wanted Akers to finish the job.

Via Court Documents

Here's a copy of the original contract sent to "Gale(sic) and Joni Ernst":

Here's a copy of the original contract sent to "Gale(sic) and Joni Ernst":

Steve Akers Painting


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Supreme Court Puts Early Voting Restrictions In Ohio Back In Effect

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A day before early voting was to begin in Ohio, a 5-4 split court stops lower court rulings from going into effect that allowed for more extensive early voting in the Buckeye state.

United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

ETIENJones/ETIENJones

WASHINGTON — A day before early voting was due to begin in Ohio, the Supreme Court, on a 5-4 vote, stopped it before it began.

Although early voting will still happen in Ohio, the state's NAACP had sued to stop a new state law and an associated order from Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted that restrict early voting in the state from going into effect.

The group won at the trial court and the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals, but, on Monday afternoon, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a stay of this past week's order from the 6th Circuit — putting the new rules back into effect.

The court's more liberal members — Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — would have denied the state's request for a stay.


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DNC To Host $25,000 Per Person Fundraiser With Obama In NYC

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Invitation obtained by BuzzFeed News invites the well-heeled to a small “discussion” session at the home of the former head of the Intrepid Sea & Air Museum and his husband.

From the invitation obtained by BuzzFeed News.

WASHINGTON — The president will attend a $25,000-per-person fundraiser at the New York City home of Bill White and Bryan Eure on Oct. 7, according to an invitation to the high-dollar event obtained by BuzzFeed News Monday.

White is the former president of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum. He now chairs The Constellation Group, "a strategic business and partnerships development firm that advises corporations, foundations, and high net worth individuals with their business challenges and philanthropic endeavors," according to press materials. White's husband, Eure, is a senior vice president at the New York office of a London-based brokerage firm.

The couple are prominent supporters of Democrats. According to White's Instagram, he and Eure had dinner with Hillary Clinton in New York last week. The White House hasn't announced the travel publicly yet, but Eure spilled the beans when he posted a New York Post story hinting at the high-dollar event.

The money raised at the event is slated for the Democratic National Committee. Tickets are $25,000 each. The DNC confirmed the event in an email.

The event comes less than a month before the midterm elections in which Democrats are breaking spending records as they try to protect their majority in the Senate. The invite went out Tuesday, amid high-profile — but anonymous — sparring between the Obama administration and the current chair of the DNC, Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Despite reporting indicating Democrats are losing their faith in Wasserman Schultz, the White House went out of its way earlier this month to praise her performance as chair.

The invitation:

The invitation:


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