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The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Halls of Shrewd'm / US Policy
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Author: Dope1 ⎊  😊 😞
Number: of 86282 
Subject: ActBlue, on its last legs?
Date: 03/12/25 12:04 PM
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The democrats' money laun-, er, fundraising platform Act Blue - a subject I've written about in the past - appears to be on its last legs. Several execs have quit and they're down to just 1 lawyer:

nytimes.com - Actblue democrat fundraising resignations

ActBlue, the online fund-raising organization that powers Democratic candidates, has plunged into turmoil, with at least seven senior officials resigning late last month and a remaining lawyer suggesting he faced internal retaliation.

AB has been a way for dems to launder money for years, directing some $16 billion to their candidates over the past 16 years or however long they've been around. But they do more than that. Barack Obama pioneered turning off the AVS system for credit cards so he could hide foreign donations and Act Blue has certainly carried the torch:

ActBlue only began requiring safeguards such as a card verification value, or CVV, following heightened scrutiny late last year. These are “standard procedures to guard against identity theft and fraud,” according to the letter.

Yeah, nothing says "Trust but verify" like turning off card security.

But they've also pioneered a form of fraud called "smurfing":

thefederalist.com - Amid chaos at actblue house republicans seek answers about potentially fraudulent and illicit financial activi

This drew attention to ActBlue’s fundraising practices and raised alarms about potential “smurfing” — a criminal practice that consists of dividing large transactions into smaller ones to avoid legal reporting requirements, obscuring the identity of the donor. As The Federalist reported, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has been calling attention to “smurfing” through ActBlue for years, pointing out foreign actors could use the system to influence American elections under the radar.

The democrats have always accused the GOP of doing what they were already doing, and in this case they've been on the payroll of...pretty much the rest of the world...for more than 15 years.

Here's hoping ActBlue is toast.

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This community has written 86,214 posts about US Policy. The article-length ones it recommended most:
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