American Bridge 21st Century

American Bridge 21st Century or AB PAC[1] is a liberal American Super PAC that supports Democratic candidates and opposes Republican candidates.[2] It was founded by David Brock in 2010 and is associated with Media Matters for America. It is an opposition research hub for the Democratic Party.[3] The group physically tracks and monitors Republican candidates and officials and uses social media to deploy its findings.

American Bridge 21st Century
FormationNovember 2010
FounderDavid Brock
Founded atWashington, D.C.
TypeSuper PAC
MethodsOpposition research
AffiliationsMedia Matters for America
WebsiteAmericanBridgePAC.org

Methods

American Bridge PAC employs over 50 "trackers" to follow and record Republican candidates across the country.[4] These trackers are equipped with high-tech recording gear and are assigned Republican targets to follow and record. According to the New York Times, the organization "aims to record every handshake, every utterance by Republican candidates...looking for gotcha moments that could derail political ambitions or provide fodder for television advertisements by liberal groups."[5] USA Today described the group's goal as "uncovering an unguarded moment, a controversial position, a gaffe or flip-flop, anything that can be used to torpedo a political foe's campaign."[6] The organization compiles opposition research dossiers on the Republican candidates they are targeting. The group's opposition dossier on Mitt Romney was 2,500 pages long. American Bridge PAC attempts to tie Republican candidates to the Koch brothers.[7]

In 2018, American Bridge spent $20.9 million, mostly on employee salaries including the opposition researchers.[8]

The PAC discovered that the Trump Institute's book was plagiarized, with at least 20 pages coming from a 1995 Success Magazine article.[9]

Donors

American Bridge PAC is largely funded by Democratic donors and labor unions. Billionaire hedge fund manager George Soros was the group’s largest donor for the 2012 and 2014 cycles, contributing $1 million in 2012 and over $1 million in 2014. In 2012, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees donated $575,000.[2] American Bridge was one of several progressive political groups to coordinate fundraising efforts for the 2012 elections.[10]

gollark: ... Debian?
gollark: Installation only takes hours!
gollark: Use Arch Linux, the superior Linux.
gollark: Isn't the market for high-powered VPSes/servers quite saturated at this point?
gollark: Even with computers they still managed to mess the phone network up so horribly.- calls appear to use an awful voice codec- multimedia messages are overcharged massively for- caller ID spoofing is a very common thing- mobile phones have stupidly complex modem chips with excessive access to the rest of their phone, closed source firmware and probably security bugs- SIM cards are self contained devices with lots of software in *Java*?! In a sane system they would need to store something like four values.- "eSIM" things are just reprogrammable soldered SIM cards because apparently nobody thought of doing it in software?!- phone towers are routinely spoofed by law enforcement for no good reason and apparently nobody is stopping this- phone calls/texts are not end to end encrypted, which is practical *now* if not when much of the development of mobile phones and whatever was happening- there are apparently a bunch of exploits in the protocols linking phone networks, like SS7

References
  1. "FEC Form 1, name change" (PDF). Federal Election Commission. November 10, 2019. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  2. Piaker, Zachary (June 27, 2014). "American Bridge 21st Century". FactCheck.org. Annenberg Public Policy Center. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  3. Lorber, Janie (February 13, 2012). "American Bridge 21st Century Super PAC Is Hub of Left". Roll Call. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  4. Burns, Alexander (July 28, 2013). "American Bridge watching GOP". Politico. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  5. Shear, Michael (July 8, 2011). "Trailing G.O.P. With Cameras, Seeking Gaffes". New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  6. Schouten, Fredreka (May 23, 2012). "Researchers dig deeper for dirt on political opposition". USA Today. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  7. Haberman, Maggie (June 22, 2015). "Democratic 'Super PAC' to Take On Koch Brothers". New York Times. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
  8. "American Bridge 21st Century/AB PAC". FactCheck.org. February 19, 2020. Retrieved February 29, 2020.
  9. Martin, Jonathan (June 29, 2016). "Trump Institute Offered Get-Rich Schemes With Plagiarized Lessons". The New York Times. Retrieved July 1, 2016.
  10. Duszak, Alexandra (May 19, 2014). "PAC Profile: American Bridge 21st Century". Center for Public Integrity. Retrieved December 9, 2015.
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