You Know What This Presidential Race Needs? John McAfee | WIRED

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Caption: Brian Finke

Update: 9:19 am ET 09/09/2015 Several hours after this story was published, John McAfee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for President. He also launched an official campaign website.

If you didn’t think the 2016 election season could get any more batshit crazy than it already is, now, John McAfee—the self-described “eccentric millionaire,” who founded the anti-virus software company McAfee, and who once played Russian roulette with a loaded gun while WIRED writer Joshua Davis stood by—says he is considering joining the 2016 presidential race. But first, he says he’s hoping to persuade someone who is “smarter and more charismatic” than he is to run with his backing.

“I personally am still in a quandary about whether to run myself or find someone else for my party,” McAfee tells WIRED. “My advisors are pressing me to run.”

McAfee, who won’t name his advisors or his prospects for stand-ins, says he’s been mulling a run for some time at the urging of his online followers. “I have many thousands of emails saying please run for President,” he says. “It’s not something I would just choose to do on my own.”

But McAfee says he does believe the government is broken, largely because its leaders don’t understand technology as well as, well, he does. He points to the recent hacks of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and Homeland Security as proof.

“Things like this cannot happen or should not happen,” he says. “It’s clear that the leadership of our country is illiterate on the fundamental technology that supports everything in life for us now, that is cyber science, our smartphones, our military hardware, our communications.”

McAfee argues that the fact that the government is urging tech companies like Apple to create so-called “backdoors” into their systems that would allow the government to collect information on users is another sign that public servants just don’t get it. “That means allowing hackers easy access to anybody’s data,” he says.

The prospect of a President John McAfee may sound absurd to you. If it doesn’t, please recall that McAfee was once arrested in Guatemala after fleeing Belize, where he was wanted for questioning by local police for the murder of his neighbor. No charges were brought against him in the murder case, but McAfee’s backstory is still a tad colorful for politics, even in the age of Trump.

Yet the privacy arguments he’s making aren’t altogether unlike the ones that Apple and other tech companies have been lobbying for in Congress.

Like Lawrence Lessig, the Harvard professor who is running for president to push an agenda for campaign finance reform, McAfee seems far more concerned with having his voice heard on one particular issue than with taking a seat in the Oval Office.

Which may explain why McAfee is seeking a stand-in for his presidential run. He also said he didn’t want to discuss other elements of his platform until he, er, knows whether he or someone else is going to be candidate. That announcement should come within the next 48 hours, according to McAfee. As for whether Donald Trump’s surprising popularity had anything to do with his presidential ambitions, McAfee said, “I have great respect for the man but he has nothing to do with my decision to run.”

Donald Trump’s official campaign logo—a banner reading “Make America Great Again!”—isn’t as typographically offensive as, say, Jeb’s logo. But it is pretty generic and, as far as logomarks go, not that adaptable. How on Earth will he ever get that banner on an app button for mobile?

Here’s an idea, from astute design observer Matthew Gordon in Boulder, Colo.: why not just co-opt Obama’s campaign logo and make it his own? The Obama logo, designed before the 2008 campaign by Sol Sender, depicts a new sun rising over rolling hills—a symbol of new beginnings and American optimism. If you just flip it upside down and paint it orange, though, you have a symbol of Trump himself—wispy golden mane and all. Sure, it’s a narcissistic logo for a presidential campaign. And yes, the idea is rife with copyright protection issues. But unconventional antics haven’t bothered Trump before.

Today, there will be no throwback photos of Bill or selfies with Kim Kardashian gracing Hillary Clinton’s Instagram account. Instead, the presidential hopeful’s 238,000 followers will get a glimpse inside a day in the life of Texan native Rusean Pieternelle, who will be taking over Clinton’s Instagram account throughout the day.

The Insta-stunt is meant to highlight the importance of Clinton’s so-called New College Compact, which aims to drive down the cost of higher education through, among other things, federal and state investment. According to a Clinton aide, “Pieternelle was chosen to operate the account because his experience coincides with Clinton’s focus on college affordability as a key part of her economic agenda.”

Pieternelle is a father of two, who went back to school at the age of 30 to expand his career options. “It’s always a choice between getting the experience to move forward but taking a pay cut, or staying put to try to make enough and pay off debt,” Pieternelle writes in a post that will go up later today. Clinton’s college affordability plan includes a call for scholarships and child care for student parents like Pieternelle.

This is just one of many examples of candidates experimenting with using Instagram in what is sure to be the most photographed election season in history. Earlier this week, Bobby Jindal began running political ads on the platform, and Instagram reports there are ads running from prospective candidates from both sides of the aisle, though it did not disclose who.

But while this is Clinton’s first Instagram takeover, her campaign has handed over the keys to one of her social media account’s before. In May, a business owner named Mary Jo Brown took over Clinton’s Twitter feed for the day, as a way of highlighting Clinton’s small business platform.

The days of the TV attack ad are far from over. But a new report from a group that tracks ad spending shows that digital ads may soon play just as important a role for political campaigns.

In 2016, political ad spending will reach a record high of $11.4 billion, 20 percent more than was spent back in 2012, according to Borrell Associates, a research firm. It’s a huge jump, but what’s more notable is just how that money will be spent. About $1 billion will be spent on digital media, a nearly 5,000 percent increase from the measly $22.25 million spent on digital ads back in 2008. And that’s only the beginning.

According to the report, spending on digital media by the time of the 2020 presidential election cycle will explode to nearly $3.3 billion dollars. That will still trail the current $8.5 billion spent on broadcast television but not by nearly as much.

More than half of the $1 billion budget in 2016 will be spent targeting social media sites, the report predicts. But even with such huge growth, these figures show just how far behind the political world is compared to the private sector. As the report notes, $1 billion is still roughly 9.5 percent of campaigns’ overall advertising budgets. In other industries, digital media often accounts for 30 to 50 percent of the money spent on ads.

Trump reported to Manhattan Supreme Court this morning after saying this weekend that he was going to receive “no special treatment” fulfilling his civic duty. Of course, that may have been wishful thinking. After all, when the most talked-about presidential candidate of the election season is just a few seats away, what’s a self-respecting potential juror to do but Snapchat it for all the world to share?

Peter Hamby, Snapchat’s head of news, called attention to the sighting on Twitter:

One Snapchatter aside, it appears everyone else is giving Trump his privacy, because, you know, he really doesn’t like calling attention to himself.

If you thought the debate over the US-Iran deal couldn’t get any more ludicrous than this Snapchat filter, then, my dear friend, you were sorely mistaken. For today, the White House’s own Iran Deal-themed Twitter account, @TheIranDeal, blew that Snapchat stunt straight out of the water. Or, shall we say, straight out of Compton.

Read it and weep, or sigh, or lament the sad state of political discourse. Pretty much however you decide to express your feelings about this brilliant mess below is okay by us.

Yep, that’s right. The White House just promoted the Iran Deal with an NWA meme. It’s just the latest example of how politicians are trying to tap younger supporters by pandering to them shamelessly, often to tragically ludicrous effect.

In a statement to Buzzfeed, which inspired the not-so-inspired “Straight outta …” meme, a White House official said, “To the extent this tweet reaches audiences that our more traditional tweets have not, it will have accomplished the intended objective, especially if it spurs them to learn more about the deal.”

In that case allow us to suggest another tweet for @TheIranDeal: “Remember when Kim dumped Kris for Kanye and it was a totally good idea and then they had Nori? Aw! And now Kim’s pregnant again? Yay! So, the Iran Deal’s gonna be just like that!”

That’s more than 140 characters you say? There’s always Instagram!

Campaign season took on a new level of strange today—and you know it’s already been pretty darn strange—when Hillary Clinton’s social media team asked followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to explain how student debt makes them feel in three words or less. Well, not exactly words.

The stunt was a way to promote Clinton’s newly announced college affordability plan. And it only sort of worked. Some people were genuine:

Some were genuinely insulted:

And some were genuinely incoherent:

Emoji: for when you’re truly at a loss for words.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has agreed to hand over her private email server to the FBI for examination after government investigators claim that two emails that passed through it contained classified information.

That info referenced satellite images and electronic communications, according to the Washington Post, and was reportedly found in emails originating from the CIA.

Although the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency says the information was classified, a State Department spokesman disputed this, saying that the top-secret designation was merely a recommendation and that the CIA information had not been marked classified at the time the emails were distributed. What’s more, the official said, State Department staffers had “circulated these e-mails on unclassified systems in 2009 and 2011″ before some of them were forwarded to Clinton, who was secretary of state at the time.

The public learned in March that Clinton had maintained a private email server from her New York home during her tenure as secretary of state throughout President Obama’s first term in office.

“I saw it as a matter of convenience,” she said at the time. Because she couldn’t send personal emails on her government-issued phone, she set up the server using clintonemail.com as the domain to conduct personal correspondence.

Clinton has been accused by Republican lawmakers of using the server to hide her activity as secretary and bypass public records requests. She resisted handing over the server in March saying that it contained personal correspondence with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

“I believe I have met all of my responsibilities, and the server will remain private,” she told reporters in March.

She did, however, turn over two thumb drives to the State Department containing about 30,000 emails that she said held work-related information. It was among a sampling of about 40 of these emails that investigators say they found the two emails containing classified information. The two thumb drives will now be turned over to the FBI for examination, along with the email server.

Harvard Law School professor Larry Lessig has announced a pretty bonkers plan to extract big money from politics, and it might involve him running for president. You know, if no one better comes along.

By “referendum president,” Lessig means a president that runs on one issue and one issue only. In this case, the issue is campaign finance reform. Last year, Lessig launched a Super PAC called Mayday PAC that backed candidates who supported these reforms. Now, he’s taking that idea one step further.

It’ll work like this: Lessig is asking the public to contribute to a crowdfunding campaign to end what Lessig calls a “rigged system.” If the campaign raises $1 million by Labor Day, and if none of the Democratic candidates agree to make campaign finance reform a core issue in their campaigns, then Lessig will run for president. If he wins, he promises to serve for as long as it takes to pass reforms, before handing the reigns over to his vice president.

“No doubt, there should be someone better than me,” he says in the video—a phrase that has most certainly never been uttered in a presidential campaign announcement video. “This campaign is not about a person. It’s about a principle—an American principle that we must reclaim.”

This campaign isn’t really about winning the presidency, either. Instead, it’s about bringing the issue of corporate involvement in government to the forefront. “Until it is fixed,” Lessig says, “no sensible reform is even possible.”

Check out Lessig’s full video below:

Who did you watch the debates with last night? Probably not Hillary Clinton! Or Kimye, for that matter. Earlier in the evening, Kardashian posted saying she was on her way to meet the “our next President” and hoped she would get a selfie with her, and lo and behold:

It wasn’t just a private party of three, of course. This was Justin Bieber manager Scooter Braun’s fundraiser for Clinton, and other famous guests included Usher, Kris Jenner, and Jason Collins. Clearly, this year’s election trend is a selfie with Hillary. Or rather, a Hillfie.

(Translation.)

Getty Images

If you weren’t planning on watching the Republican debates tonight, perhaps this will convince you to reconsider. Food delivery startup Eat24 is launching a very special debate night promotion: every time Donald Trump says “Mexico,” you get a free taco.

That is, every time he says “Mexico,” Eat24 will post a $5 coupon code to Twitter, enough to cover the cost of a taco, or, you know, any other food item under $5. “We believe in freedom of the belly, so it’s totally up to you,” the company wrote in a blog post, which is essentially a backhanded jab at Trump’s now infamous comments about Mexican immigrants.

Democracy has never sounded so delicious.

The Republican party is pretty well doomed if doesn’t do more to embrace Hispanic voters, according to a new web tool released by the Mark Zuckerberg-backed advocacy group Fwd.us, which pushes for immigration reform. The tool aggregates both population and voter data to show how an influx of Latino and Asian American voters will sway elections in the future, potentially costing the GOP future victories if it fails to soften its stance on immigration issues.

Fwd.us also created a new web app, 2016 Candidate Tracker, that monitors and organizes everything that both Democratic and Republican candidates say about immigration.

Zuckerberg and fellow tech entrepreneurs founded FWD.us in 2013. Fixing the dysfunctional US immigration system is an issue dear to Silicon Valley, which depends heavily on foreign workers.

Airbnb pushed into Cuba back in April, shortly after President Obama announced the start of normalized relations with the Latin American country. And now, Hillary Clinton wants other tech companies to follow.

Today, during a speech at Miami’s Florida International University, the former Secretary of State made a case for ending the long-standing embargo with Cuba, arguing that by isolating the country, America is “strengthening the Castro’s grip on power, rather than weakening it.” And she made it clear that the Internet, and tech companies at large, have an important role to play in ending that isolation.

As Clinton noted, only about 5 percent of Cubans have access to the open Internet. “We should make it clear, as I did as Secretary of State, that the freedom to connect is a basic human right, and therefore do more to extend that freedom to more and more Cubans,” Clinton said.

She called on businesses to build joint ventures with Cuban companies and find ways to expand operations there. “I’m told that Airbnb is already getting started,” Clinton said, noting that Google and Twitter “are exploring opportunities, as well.”

In New Hampshire, this stance was met with a round of applause. But fear not, tokers. Given the growing support of recreational and medical marijuana throughout the U.S., these threats aren’t likely to give the New Jersey Governor’s already weak polling numbers a boost.

Check out Christie’s talk, below. The action starts around 1:34.

Yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told constituents in Kentucky that the “gender card alone” wouldn’t be enough to score Hillary Clinton a win in next year’s presidential race.

In a Facebook Q&A later in the day, the Democratic candidate responded to McConnell’s comment, arguing, “There is a gender card being played in this campaign. It’s played every time Republicans vote against giving women equal pay, deny families access to affordable child care or family leave, refuse to let women make decisions about their health or have access to free contraception. These aren’t just women’s issues, they are economic issues that drive growth and affect all Americans.”

Clinton’s savvy social media team then took that idea one step further, tweeting out a picture of a card that delineates all of those policy changes, accompanied by a new hashtag: #gendercard.

Following similar comments made by President Obama, Hillary Clinton says that in order to ensure technology is creating jobs—and not displacing them—the country needs more training programs that can funnel low-income Americans into the tech-driven workforce.

“In an age of technological change, we need to provide pathways to get skills and credentials for new occupations and create online platforms to connect workers to jobs,” she said in a speech on economic policy in New York City today. “There are exciting efforts underway, and I want to support and scale the ones that show results.”

Those programs will be critical to lowering the youth unemployment rate, she said, in which some 6 million Americans between 16 and 24 years old are neither currently working nor in school. That unemployment rate is especially high among young black and Hispanic people. Training plays a role in helping people secure those jobs, but Clinton said we must also ensure that even as technology eliminates the need for some jobs, there are enough new ones to take their place.

“The best antipoverty program is a job, but that’s hard to say if there aren’t enough jobs for people to help lift themselves out of poverty,” Clinton said.

To increase the number of available jobs, the former Secretary of State laid out a plan to offer businesses $1,500 in tax credits for every employee they hire and train.

Clinton attributed this decline to the fact that other countries have adopted policies to support working mothers, like affordable child care and paid family leave. This was not the first time Clinton has argued for these family friendly policies as economic drivers, and as her campaign continues, you can be fairly confident it won’t be the last.

Clinton also decried the “outrage” of women, particularly women of color, making substantially less than their male counterparts in the same jobs. “For far too long these challenges have been dismissed by some as women’s issues,” Clinton said. “Well, those days are over.”

Add Hillary Clinton to the list of labor advocates coming after the gig economy.

In her first major speech outlining her economic platform today at New York City’s New School, the Democratic presidential candidate vowed to crack down on “bosses misclassifying workers as contractors.” The promise follows a wave of legal action that’s been taken against companies like Uber recently, which argue that drivers should be compensated as employees.

Clinton, who emphasized the need to raise wages throughout her speech, said that businesses that allow people to make extra money by renting a spare room or driving their own car can often threaten solid labor practices. “This on demand or so-called gig economy is creating exciting opportunities and unleashing innovation,” she said, “but it’s also raising hard questions about workplace protection and what a good job will look like in the future.”

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