Members of Congress on Thursday called on Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg to give them details regarding ads for opiods and other illicit drugs on the tech titan's platform. A letter signed by 19 lawmakers pressed for details about such ads given disturbing reports by the Tech Transparency Project and the Wall Street Journal. "Meta appears to have continued to shirk its social responsibility and defy its own community guidelines," the letter read.
"What is particularly egregious about this instance is that this was not user generated content on the dark web or on private social media pages, but rather they were advertisements approved and monetized by Meta." The Tech Transparency Project in March reported finding more than 450 ads on Instagram and Facebook selling an array of illegal drugs. Many of the ads "made no secret of their intentions," showing photos of prescription drug bottles or bricks of cocaine, and encouraging people to place orders, according to the non-profit research group.
The investigation involved searching Meta's Ad Library for terms including "OxyContin," "Vicodin," and "pure coke," TTP reported. The letter from Congress members to Zuckerberg asked for answers from Zuckerberg by Sept. 6.
Questions included how may illicit drug ads Meta has run on its platform, what it has done about them, and whether viewers were targeted for such ads based on personal health information. Meta planned to respond to the letter. "Drug dealers are criminals who work across platforms and communities, which is why we work with law enforcement to help combat this activity," a Meta spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.
"Our systems are designed to proactively detect and enforce against violating content, and we reject hundreds of thousands of ads for violating our drug policies." Meta continues to invest in improving its ability to catch illicit drug ads, the spokesperson added. Kamala Harris is expected to take on companies unfairly jacking up prices as she sets out her economic agenda Friday in her first major policy announcement as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.
The vice president, who replaced President Joe Biden atop the ticket last month, has been carried by surging enthusiasm, bolstered by new government figures this week showing inflation cooling. More Americans now trust Harris to handle the economy than her Republican rival Donald Trump , according to a new University of Michigan poll, the first time in this election cycle that the former president has been behind on the issue. But with the Democratic National Convention just days away, the 59-year-old vice president has been under increasing pressure to tell voters exactly what she stands for.
And while she has previewed a handful of policies, she has yet to settle on a concrete plan for governing, instead framing the sprint to the November 5 election in broad terms as a "fight for the future." " Elections aren't just about winning. They're about accumulating political capital for a particular agenda, which Ms.
Harris can't do unless she articulates one," the conservative Wall Street Journal said in an editorial. Harris's first economic proposal -- to not tax tips -- perplexed some Democrats, who mocked the proposal as a "ploy" for votes after Trump first floated something similar. She was on firmer ground on Thursday as she touted a likely vote-winning cut in medication costs for seniors and took part in her first joint public event with Biden since she replaced him amid concerns over his mental acuity.
In her widely anticipated speech in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday, Harris is expected to call on Congress to pass the first federal ban on so-called "price-gouging" that will come with penalties on food companies that unfairly increase prices. - Personal attacks - Harris will also draw a contrast with Trump's economic vision, US media reported, arguing that his plan for tariffs of up to 20 percent on imports will drive up costs for food and other everyday items. Some strategists have been telling Harris to keep things vague -- avoiding potentially divisive granular policy detail -- as long as the wave of enthusiasm over her candidacy shows no signs of breaking.
Others have advised her to put some distance between herself and Biden, who has struggled in his approval ratings on the economy, although their joint appearance Thursday suggested they remain close. Harris has adopted much of Biden's economic agenda, promising to eradicate "junk fees" while bringing down prescription drug prices and housing costs -- and keeping the president's no-tax-hikes pledge for those making under $400,000. On Friday, she will "launch an urgent and comprehensive four-year plan to lower housing costs for working families and end America's housing shortage", campaign officials said.
Harris will call for the construction of three million new housing units over the course of her first term, introduce increased tax incentives to builders of starter homes and rental housing, and take on corporate landlords who are jacking up rents. Trump has been seething since Biden bowed out of the presidential race and passed the torch to Harris on July 21, and Republicans have been begging the former president to focus on policy and quit his personal attacks on his new opponent. But Trump has been unable to stay on message, griping about Harris's crowd sizes, attacking her mixed race heritage and calling the former California attorney general stupid.
In a rambling North Carolina speech Wednesday meant to focus on his own economic message, Trump devoted much of his attention to personal insults and even said he was "not sure" that the economy is the "most important subject" in the election. Donald Trump is scheduled to be sentenced for his New York State criminal conviction win 34 felony fraud counts next month, but on Thursday the ex-president, who was granted immunity for official acts by the U.S.
Supreme Court , asked Judge Juan Merchan for another delay, until after the November election – claiming not granting one would amount to "election interference." Legal experts seem split on what could, and should, happen. "Trump, who was convicted for his criminal efforts to conceal information from the public in the days leading up to the 2016 election, is now asking the judge to delay sentencing and therefore deprive the public of relevant information in the days leading up to the 2024 election ," noted national security attorney Brad Moss.
"It’s a pattern with this guy." It's a pattern that's being noticed. READ MORE: JD Vance Attack on ‘Woke’ Companies Supporting BLM ‘Sounds Like a Conspiracy Theory’ "Trump also feverishly tried to delay the start of the trial earlier this year, filing successive unsuccessful interim stay requests in a state appellate court the week before opening arguments in April," Courthouse News reports.
"Like those efforts, legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold believes this latest letter to be a longshot ask. Gold, a criminal defense attorney at the New Jersey-based Helmer, Conley & Kasselman, told Courthouse News on Thursday that Merchan is likely 'fed up' with Trump’s constant delay efforts." “The judge seems aggravated, and I would be too,” Gold said.
Gold also suggests Judge Merchan might move ahead with the September 18 sentencing date, but hold off on the effective date until after the November election. Professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, a former U.S.
Attorney sees no need for compromise and suggests the judge should stick to the schedule. She writes : "Judge Merchan should give this one a hard pass." But MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin is looking deeply into Trump's letter, and suggests the "conventional wisdom" that Trump will not obtain a delay might be flawed.
Also flawed, Rubin writes, is Trump's attorneys' letter to Judge Merchan, which "highlights how ill equipped the Supreme Court's immunity decision is to resolve key procedural questions in the NY case," she notes . After looking at Trump's thrice-denied conflict of interest claims and recusal request against Judge Merchan, Rubin adds , "Then there's the timing of the letter. Judge Merchan moved Trump's sentencing from 7/11 to 9/18 1) because of Trump's post-immunity decision motion to set aside the verdict 2) and did so the day after SCOTUS ruled.
They've known sentencing was scheduled for 9/18 for 6 weeks." READ MORE: ‘My Wife Had This Baby’: JD Vance Trounced for ‘Misogynistic’ Views on Women and Family She then goes back to the U.S.
Supreme Court's ruling for Trump on presidential immunity. "In the ordinary course, a New York defendant would have to proceed to sentencing before a verdict is appealable. But *this* New York defendant brought a successful SCOTUS case that applies, at least in part, here," she explains.
And because Trump is being treated differently by the highest court in the land, she explains , "specifically, the Court ruled that a denial of immunity is appealable before trial. Does that mean the denial of a motion to set aside the verdict (predicated on the admission of official act evidence) must also be immediately appealable? Trump says yes." Here's where her suggestion that the Supreme Court's immunity ruling, at least in part, is flawed, comes into play: "Parsing the language of the majority opinion closely, the Court's holdings that immunity decisions must be made 'at the outset' of the case and are appealable before trial don't necessarily apply to evidence.
But it's also not crystal clear that they don't." Rubin concludes , "strip away the baseless accusations of judicial conflict & prosecutorial malice, and the letter raises a serious, unanswered procedural question. I'll predict Merchan will forge ahead--but to me, even Team Trump's strategic delay notwithstanding, it's not an easy call.
" READ MORE: ‘Underestimating Harris’: Former Bush Strategist Warns Polls Off as Enthusiasm ‘Skyrockets’ Donald Trump is in a pickle. It doesn’t seem to matter what he does or doesn’t do. According to 538’s national polling average tracker, the former president’s share of the electorate was at 43.
5 percent on the day Joe Biden dropped out of the running. Today, in his race against Kamala Harris , his share of the vote is 43.5 percent.
All the new movement, as the pollsters say, has been on the Democratic side. To put this another way, the vice president is the fluid candidate. She can move voters, with good performances and bad.
Trump , however, is the static candidate. He can’t move voters at all (perhaps because most Americans have made up their minds). There was no bump after the Republican National Convention.
There was no bump after his attempted assassination. There was no bump after Biden became the first incumbent in half a century to decline his party’s nomination. What can Trump do? According to Republican strategists and MAGA fans like “ Charles in Charge ” sitcom actor Scott Baio, the solution is “policy, policy, policy.
” “That’s it,” Baio told Fox host Jesse Watters last week. “There’s no name-calling. There’s no making fun of anything.
When he gives a speech at these rallies, policy. Period. Once he goes off the rails, it becomes confusing.
I wish I could talk to him and say stick to policy.” Baio is in good company. Former presidential candidate Nikki Haley said the same thing.
If Trump has any chance of winning over independent voters, wayward Republicans and even conservative Democrats, he has to stick to policy. He has to talk more about the economy, inflation, immigration and other issues that are typically seen as bipartisan. Otherwise, Haley told Fox host Bret Baier, Trump won’t grow his stagnant voter base, and if he can’t do that, he loses.
“I want this campaign to win, but this campaign is not going to win talking about crowd sizes,” Nikki Haley said last week. “It’s not going to win talking about what race Kamala Harris is. It’s not going to win talking about whether she’s dumb.
You can’t win on those things. The American people are smart. Treat them like they’re smart.
” I think the fundamentals here are correct. If Trump does not expand his base to include swing voters and at least some Democrats, he’s not going to win by honest means. So advising him to stick to policy is shrewd.
The voters Trump needs are prudes. Bragging about crowd sizes, calling Harris dumb and other trash-talk is likely to backfire. But the choice between policy-talk and trash-talk might be a false one.
It’s missing something, namely, it does not matter what he’s talking about, whether policy or trash, because he doesn’t make any sense. The next paragraph is a sampling of Trump’s big “economy speech” in North Carolina last night. In it, he appears to “go off the rails,” as if he can’t help but trash-talk his enemies.
That, however, is an interpretation that gives him too much credit. When you read this, resist the temptation to make it make sense. Let it be what it is – total gibberish – to conclude the man is habitually incoherent, so much so that, in practical terms, he’s speaking a language no one understands.
“This isn’t a rally,” he said, “but this is a different type of thing today. We are going to talk about one subject and then we will start going back to the other, because we sort of love that, don’t we? No, it’s important. They say it is the most important subject.
I am not sure it is, but they say it is. Inflation is the most important, but that is part of the economy. Kamala Harris wants to be in charge of the entire US economy, but neither she nor her running mate – another beauty, isn’t he? He signed a bill.
He wants tampons in boys bathrooms. I don’t think so. But they’ve never held a private sector job .
.. It’s no wonder they are both socialists.
They are actually beyond socialists. I think they skipped over socialists. .
.. When people find out who they are, they don’t do well in the election.
They have destroyed this country.” It’s not that he “goes off the rails” and away from policy towards trash. It’s that he “goes off the rails” and away from reality towards la la land.
As Scott Baio said, “it becomes confusing,” and guess what? When Trump goes to la la land, he loses swing voters he must have to defeat Kamala Harris by honest means. He doesn’t need to stick to policy. He needs to stick to coherence – to making sense.
Alienation by gibberish is one of the biggest unexplored facets of the election, but there are signs of it coming to the fore. Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, was on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today. He quoted a Republican participant in his latest focus group, who said, “I just feel like we need to take the party back, and it's not going to happen if Trump or another Republican is in office right this second.
" She said her reasons for voting for Harris included the fact that JD Vance , Trump’s vice presidential pick, is “probably the most unlikable American I can possibly think of to run our country,” that “the RNC looked like a wrestling match,” and that “the debate was a disaster.” That’s it right there. Think about it.
Every time I read about the June 27 debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, the assumption is that the event was a disaster for Biden, not Trump. But he was a mess. Now that Biden is out of the picture and the possibility of a second Trump term is clearer in voters’ minds (and Kamala Harris is an appealing alternative), there appears to be room to rethink what happened.
People are ready to admit Trump was a disaster. Every public event since has made the point – Trump’s habitual incoherence is getting worse, and the worse it gets, the more he alienates voters he must have to break through the ceiling of 43.5 percent of the electorate.
His acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, his interview at the meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists, his press conference last week at Mar-a-Lago, his “economy speech” last night in North Carolina, and today’s presser at his New Jersey club – all of them featured gibberish so acute that he may as well have been speaking a foreign language. His trash-talk isn’t alienating swing voters. His gibberish is.
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