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Abrams' voting rights PAC hauls in almost $15 million

Stacey Abrams

Stacey Abrams' voting rights group raised more money in the last six months than the top 18 congressional leadership PACs.

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Fair Fight, the new voting rights advocacy group created by Democrat Stacey Abrams, says it's raised an astonishing $14.6 million just in the last six months.

Abrams created the political action committee after her narrow loss to Republican Brian Kemp in the Georgia governor's race of 2018. She lost her bid to become the nation's first black female governor, Abrams said, because of widespread voting problems including malfunctioning machinery, excessive wait times, canceled or missing voter registrations, and challenged absentee ballots. In response, Fair Fight has sued the state in federal court while launching an expansive campaign to ease access to the ballot box and boost education about the voting process in time for the presidential election.

The fundraising haul for the last six months of 2019 suggests the effort has hit a chord on the left. By way of comparison, the combined fundraising for the top 18 leadership PACs for members of Congress was $4 million less than what Fair Fight brought in.


In its short lifetime, Fight Fight has raised $18.8 million. From July to December, the PAC received thousands of donations, of which 13 percent were small-dollar contributions of $100 or less. But Fair Fight also received several large donations from wealthy individuals and organizations.

Most notably, Democratic presidential aspirant Michael Bloomberg chipped in $5 million, accounting for one-third of the group's total fundraising during this period. Probably as no coincidence, the billionaire media mogul will join Abrams on Friday for Fair Fight's invite-only voting right summit in Atlanta — a high-profile platform for a candidate who is not trying to win the earliest nominating contests but counting on doing well in big states voting after that. Georgia, which votes March 24, is one of six states with more than 100 convention delegates voting that month.

While Abrams has not endorsed Bloomberg, or any other presidential candidate, she's on the short list of potential running mates for many of the Democrats.

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Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50: Connecticut

Credit: Hugo Balta

Connecticut: Democracy, Innovation, and Economic Resilience

The 50 is a four-year multimedia project in which the Fulcrum visits different communities across all 50 states to learn what motivated them to vote in the 2024 presidential election and see how the Donald Trump administration is meeting those concerns and hopes.

Hartford, Connecticut, stands as a living testament to American democracy, ingenuity, and resilience. As the state’s capital, it’s home to cultural landmarks like the Mark Twain House & Museum, where Twain penned The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, embodying the spirit of self-governance and creative daring that defines the region.

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More than fifty years ago, comedian George Carlin delivered a monologue entitled Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television.” It was a tribute to the legendary Lenny Bruce, whose “nine dirty words” performance led to his arrest and his banning from many places.

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Why Fox News’ settlement with Dominion Voting Systems is good news for all media outlets
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Last week, the ultraconservative news outlet, NewsMax, reached a $73 million settlement with the voting machine company, Dominion, in essence, admitting that they lied in their reporting about the use of their voting machines to “rig” or distort the 2020 presidential election. Not exactly shocking news, since five years later, there is no credible evidence to suggest any malfeasance regarding the 2020 election. To viewers of conservative media, such as Fox News, this might have shaken a fully embraced conspiracy theory. Except it didn’t, because those viewers haven’t seen it.

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If the means justify the ends, we’d still be operating under the Articles of Confederation. The Founders understood that the means—the governmental structure itself—must always serve the ends of liberty and prosperity. When the means no longer served those ends, they experimented with yet another design for their government—they did expect it to be the last.

The age of AI warrants asking if the means still further the ends—specifically, individual liberty and collective prosperity. Both of those goals were top of mind for early Americans. They demanded the Bill of Rights to protect the former, and they identified the latter—namely, the general welfare—as the animating purpose for the government. Both of those goals are being challenged by constitutional doctrines that do not align with AI development or even undermine it. A full review of those doctrines could fill a book (and perhaps one day it will). For now, however, I’m just going to raise two.

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