Bright yellow sweatshirts emblazoned with I TIM KELLER are being handed out to city residents experiencing homelessness, but no one seems to know who is behind them. Tim Keller running for re-election as mayor says it isn't him, and his campaign called it a disgraceful stunt. Some people said they got the hooded sweatshirts at shelters; others said they were handed out on the street. Pebblez, who is unhoused, said the people distributing them did not reveal who they were: They didn't identify themselves. They had no tags. They weren't wearing anything. They just asked if we wanted sweaters.
Independent mayoral candidate Andrew Cuomo received sharp criticism after his campaign inadvertently launched an AI-generated Criminals for Zohran Mamdani ad on social media during Wednesday night's mayoral debate, which was labeled as racist and Islamophobic. The two-minute ad, aired around 20 minutes after the start of the Oct. 22 debate, was quickly deleted by the Cuomo campaign but drew widespread condemnation from social media users and has been reshared countless times.
A new attack ad from Senate Republicans uses Sen. Chuck Schumer's real words about the government shutdown but in an AI deepfake of the Democratic Senate Minority Leader. The 30-second video posted on X and YouTube by the National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday raised alarms among many observers who warned it crossed a new boundary in politics and could unleash a flood of AI-generated deepfake attack ads.
in a way that compelled me to say "hmm, I bet I could write something funny about that." Isn't it interesting that the stories that work best for The Trash Report are the ones that come about on the nights I'm not in charge of my child's bedtime and get a quiet hour to stare at my small rectangle with a glass of wine? It's a science, this writing thing.
A new ad for Cuomo, who is also running for mayor, uses generative video to depict the former governor as a subway operator, stock trader, stagehand, and window washer, as Cuomo narrates, "There are a lot of jobs I can't do, but I'm ready to be your mayor." Adams' use of AI - often campy and memeified - hinted at how the technology could be integrated into politics, Semafor previously wrote.
Newly filed records with the Department of Justice show that Israel's government has quietly launched a two-track influence operation in the United States, blending big-budget political advertising with grassroots-style influencer campaigns. The filings reveal that a firm called Bridges Partners LLC has been hired to manage an influencer network under a project code-named the "Esther Project." It is unclear if there is any link to Project Esther, a plan to combat antisemitism published by the Heritage Foundation, an American right-wing think tank.
Omnicom Group and Interpublic Group (IPG) on Friday agreed to a finalized consent order from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that imposes restrictions on how the agencies can handle advertising around political content. Omnicom and IPG in June said they would adhere to the regulator's demands to not deny ad spend to publishers or platforms based on "specific political or ideological viewpoints." Following a mandatory public comment period, the order has been updated with more specific, expanded directives.
➡️ Things took a weird and annoying turn in today's top stories, starting with Log Cabin Republicans attending a Kennedy Center concert just to heckle a musician who criticizes Trump. Pete Buttigieg had an appropriate response to Tucker Carlson claiming he's not really gay, and a Moms for Liberty chair stripped down to her underwear at a school board meeting to make LGBTQ+ people look bad (somehow).
"How radical is Abigail Spanberger?" a voice says at the start of the 30-second spot. "She didn't just vote to let men in girls' locker rooms. She wrote the bill. Spanberger believes this man has the right to undress next to little girls, but it gets worse. If a child wants to change genders, Spanberger says the parents shouldn't be told. That's insane."
It's garbage day in Kentucky, which begins the ad, as candidate Nate Morris criticizes Mitch McConnell for the political messes that need cleaning up.
