monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration isn't telling the full story on its politically charged decision to ask people about their citizenship in the 2020 census.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was flat-out wrong in claiming the citizenship question had been regularly included in the Census Bureau's decennial survey to all U.S. households in recent decades. She also didn't provide context in asserting that a greater level of citizenship data is needed to comply with the Voting Rights Act.

The decision to include the question in the 2020 census has stirred worry among opponents that it will intimidate immigrants, leading to an undercount and decreased political representation in Democratic-leaning communities where they tend to live.

Meantime, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who announced his department's move to change the 2020 census, appeared to skew the science behind his decision when he asserted that the impact of asking about citizenship had been "well-tested.

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The private sector, already struggling to provide adequate access to care in many communities, is ill-prepared to handle the number and complexity of patients that would come from closing or downsizing V.A. hospitals and clinics, particularly when it involves the mental health needs of people scarred by the horrors of war. Working with community providers to adequately ensure that veterans’ needs are met is a good practice. But privatization leading to the dismantling of the department’s extensive health care system is a terrible idea. The department’s understanding of service-related health problems, its groundbreaking research and its special ability to work with military veterans cannot be easily replicated in the private sector.

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"I have fought to stand up for this great department and all that it embodies. In recent months, though, the environment in Washington has turned so toxic, chaotic, disrespectful and subversive that it became impossible for me to accomplish the important work that our veterans need and deserve. I can assure you that I will continue to speak out against those who seek to harm the V.A. by putting their personal agendas in front of the well-being of our veterans."

GOP considers balanced-budget amendment after adding more than $1 trillion to the deficit

Whistleblower says 'cheating' may have changed Brexit vote outcome
Chris Wylie implicates Canadian company AIQ in testimony to U.K. parliamentary committee

There’s new reporting about anti-LGBTQ hate group leader Tony Perkins’ role in crafting the latest White House policy banning transgender troops from serving in the military -- and that’s only the most recent reminder that we should be very, very worried about the Trump administration’s coziness with anti-LGBTQ hate groups and extremists.

Hours after the White House released an updated policy banning transgender service members from serving in the military, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern reported that “behind the scenes, a ‘panel of experts’” crafted a report justifying the ban. The so-called experts included Perkins, president of anti-LGBTQ hate group the Family Research Council (FRC), and the virulently anti-trans Ryan Anderson from the Heritage Foundation, who wrote an entire book dedicated to discrediting the transgender experience. Stern also reported that Vice President Mike Pence, who has a long history of anti-LGBTQ animosity and is a longtime friend of Perkins’, “played a leading role in the creation of this report.” This is yet another disturbing example of anti-LGBTQ extremists’ influence on White House policy and close relationships with the administration.

After a federal judge in Maryland cited Maine Gov. Paul LePage’s stay at President Donald Trump’s hotel in Washington, D.C. in a ruling allowing a lawsuit against the president to proceed, the Republican governor lashed out at the judge on Wednesday.

“I didn’t realize that I could buy the President so cheap, a night in his hotel and he’s in my back pocket,” LePage told Portland television station WGME.

“The judge that did that is an imbecile. He’s a complete imbecile. That’s all I can tell you,” he continued. “Any district court judge, whether it’s state or federal, puts that in the paper because I stayed in the hotel is an absolute imbecile. And I hope that goes national. And I hope he hears it because he’s an absolute imbecile.”

Documents shared by Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie spell out how parent company SCL Group tried to influence elections worldwide.

One letter also refers to its support of 15 psychological operations involving the UK's Ministry of Defence as of January 2012.

The Foreign Office is quoted as saying another part of SCL was "a joy to work with" on a counter-terror operation.

The files also refer to work done for Ambassador Bolton on US votes.

This appears to be a reference to John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN. He was recently appointed as President Trump's National Security Adviser.

The Guardian had previously reported on his involvement in a Cambridge Analytica experiment to target YouTube videos at profiled US voters.

The political consultancy is in the spotlight after reports that it amassed the data of millions of Facebook users without their consent and used this in political campaigns.

The firm has said that it "destroyed" the information when Facebook demanded, although Channel 4 News has reported that copies of at least part of the trove are still in circulation.

"We take allegations of unethical practices in the past by our former global (non-US) political consultancy very seriously, and they are currently the subject of a full and independent investigation which we have instigated to establish the facts," said Cambridge Analytica in a statement it published on Tuesday.

"Its findings will be made available in due course."

The files were released by the UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

They detail some of the work undertaken by Cambridge Analytica and companies it has been linked with, including SCL Group, Global Science Research and Aggregate IQ.

Mr Wylie had referred to several of the documents in his appearance before the committee on Monday.

In one document, SCL said that encouraging people "not to vote" might be more effective than trying to motivate swing voters.

Describing its work in a Nigerian election, SCL Global said it had advised that "rather than trying to motivate swing voters to vote for our clients, a more effective strategy might be to persuade opposition voters not to vote at all".

It said this had been achieved by "organising anti-election rallies on the day of polling in opposition strongholds" and using "local religious figures to maximise their appeal especially among the spiritual, rural communities".

It boasted of devising a political graffiti campaign to create a youth "movement" in Trinidad and Tobago and of disseminating "campaign messages that, whilst ostensibly coming the youth, were unattributable to any specific party". It said as a result "a united youth movement was created".

In Latvia, it said it had recognised that "unspoken ethnic tensions" were "at the heart of the election".

"The locals secretly blamed the Russians for stealing their jobs... armed with this knowledge, SCL was able to reflect these real issues in its client's messaging," the document said.

The files spell out how SCL helped the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office "in strategic planning to counter violent jihadism" in Pakistan.

"I wouldn't only recommend them, I'd work with them again in an instant," wrote an official, whose name has been redacted.

In a Tuesday night court filing, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office revealed that it has linked a Trump campaign official who is cooperating with the special counsel’s investigation to a person who “has ties to a Russian intelligence service and had such ties in 2016.”

According to Mueller’s office, Rick Gates — a longtime associate of former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort — was “directly communicating” with a “Person A” who Gates identified to associates as “a former Russian Intelligence Officer with the GRU.” Those contacts occurred “in September and October 2016” and are “pertinent to the investigation.”

A GRU agent is believed to be responsible for hacking Democratic National Committee emails that were published by WikiLeaks. According to a recent Daily Beast report, Guccifer 2.0, the “lone hacker” who took credit for supply WikiLeaks with the emails, “was in fact an officer of Russia’s military intelligence directorate (GRU)… an attribution that resulted from a fleeting but critical slip-up in GRU tradecraft.” In its declassified report about Russian interference in the 2016 election, the Director of National Intelligence assessed “with high confidence” that the GRU “used the Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets and relayed material to WikiLeaks.” Longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone exchanged Twitter direct messages with Guccifer 2.0 during the 2016 campaign.

During the same months Gates with allegedly in touch with the former GRU officer, Trump was exploiting the stolen emails on the campaign trail. The future president mentioned WikiLeaks 164 times during the month of October 2016 alone — but then preposterously claimed after the election that WikiLeaks had “absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”

WikiLeaks published a batch of emails stolen from former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta on October 7, 2016 — just hours after the Washington Post published hot mic audio of Trump bragging about sexually assaulting women, and days after WikiLeaks sent Donald Trump Jr. a decryption key and website address for hacked documents in a Twitter direct message exchange.

The court filing detailing Gates’ connection with the former GRU officer pertains to the upcoming sentencing of Alex Van Der Zwaan, a Dutch attorney who worked with Gates and Manafort. Last month, Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about his interactions with Gates and Person A.

Paul LePage seems like a very nice and thoughtful person.

Maine Gov. Paul LePage left an explicit message on a Democratic lawmaker’s phone voicemail on Thursday morning, accusing the legislator of calling him a racist and subsequently expressing a desire to challenge him to an armed duel.

“I want you to record this and make it public,” LePage told Rep. Drew Gattine in the message, according to audio posted by the Portland Press-Herald. [Really smart to insist it's on record.]

LePage left the message after Gattine made comments on Thursday, slamming the governor for his racially-charged comments about the racial profile of suspects arrested for drug trafficking in Maine. [“These are guys with the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty … these types of guys … they come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, they go back home,” LePage told a large crowd. “Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we have to deal with down the road.”]

“Mr. Gattine, this is Gov. Paul Richard LePage. I would like to talk to you about your comments about my being a racist, you -----,” the Maine governor said in the voicemail. ["************"]

LePage dared Gattine to “prove that I’m a racist” and insisted that he had spent his life supporting African-Americans. [Yes, I'm sure he has!]

“I’ve spent my life helping black people and you little son-of-a-bitch, socialist -----,” he added. “I am after you. Thank you.” [c***sucker]

The governor then, according to the report, invited a Press-Herald reporter and two people from a local ABC affiliate for an interview in which he lamented the fact that he was not in the 19th century, calling Gattine "a snot-nosed little guy," adding "now I’d like him to come up here because, tell you right now, I wish it were 1825."

"And we would have a duel, that’s how angry I am, and I would not put my gun in the air, I guarantee you, I would not be (Alexander) Hamilton," LePage continued. "I would point it right between his eyes, because he is a snot-nosed little runt and he has not done a damn thing since he’s been in this Legislature to help move the state forward.”

Gattine clarified on Thursday that he never called LePage a racist, contrary to what a television reporter previously told the governor.

“What I said to the television reporter today is that the kind of racially charged comments the governor made are not at all helpful in solving what the real problem is,” Gattine said, according to the Portland Press Herald.

Describing its work in a Nigerian election, SCL Global said it had advised that "rather than trying to motivate swing voters to vote for our clients, a more effective strategy might be to persuade opposition voters not to vote at all".

It said this had been achieved by "organising anti-election rallies on the day of polling in opposition strongholds" and using "local religious figures to maximise their appeal especially among the spiritual, rural communities".

Jane Mayer
‏@JaneMayerNYer
The real issue: Koch Machine wants to Privatize the V.A.- hurting 9 M Veterans