usaf-vet
usaf-vet's JournalEsper defends shifting defense funds for Trump's border wall
Source: AP
MUNICH, Germany (AP) — U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Friday defended his decision to divert billions of dollars in funding for Navy and Air Force aircraft and other military programs to help pay for President Donald Trump’s promised wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
Esper was asked by a reporter about criticism from Democrats and Republicans in Congress, including Rep. Mac Thornberry, a Republican from Texas, who called the diversion of funds contrary to the constitutional authority of Congress.
“Border security is national security,” Esper said, “and national security is our mission.”
He added, “The action we took is legal under the law, and so it should be no surprise, and I’ll just leave it at that for now.”
Esper spoke on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich.
The Pentagon announced on Thursday that Esper approved shifting $3.8 billion in funds that Congress had previously authorized for F-35 fighter aircraft and other military programs. The money is being diverted to help the Department of Homeland Security build portions of the border wall. The Pentagon indicated that more such actions could be coming to provide additional funding for Trump’s signature campaign promise.
The action drew sharp rebukes from Democrats as well as Republicans.
Read more: https://apnews.com/80e3a6eb9a20ffa8f31c02c0529cb53b Click to copy RELATED TOPICS Mexico International News General News Immigration Border security Politics Germany Latin America Munich National security Europe Mac Thornberry Mark Esper Donald Trump Esper defends shifting defense funds for Trump’s border wall
Why paper is considered state-of-the-art voting technology. SAFE ACT H.R.2722 116th Congress.
H.R.2722 — 116th Congress (2019-2020)
See here:https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/2722/text
On June 27, the House passed a bill that would bolster America’s high-tech voting infrastructure with a low-tech fix: paper. Introduced by Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA-19), the SAFE Act requires that all voting machines involve “the use of an individual, durable, voter-verified paper ballot of the voter’s vote.” While the inclusion of paper ballots may seem like a technological step backward, the SAFE Act’s affinity for paper is not a quirk. Election security experts from Harvard, Stanford and the Brennan Center for Justice all recommend the phasing out of paperless voting, and twelve of the thirteen Democratic candidates who have declared a position on election security support mandating the use of paper ballots.
Yet despite expert consensus, political activism, and availability of funding, opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate makes it unlikely that the SAFE Act or any paper ballot standard will be implemented by 2020. With no method to verify votes in the case of software or hardware failure, paperless voting machines represent a large vulnerability. Failure to act on election security risks not only a loss of trust in the next election, but in the democratic process as a whole. [BOLD my addition for emphasis]
THE ROLE OF PAPER BALLOTS IN VOTING MACHINES
Broadly speaking, there are three classes of voting machines. Today, the most commonly used devices are optical scan machines. In this system, poll workers use an optical scanner, a device which registers marks on a page, to process voters’ paper ballots, storing the results electronically. This system has a paper audit trail by design, and election officials can compare the paper ballots each voter fills out with the scanner’s tabulation.
A less common class of voting machines is ballot marking devices, in which voters select their choice on a screen. Rather than storing the selections electronically, the machine then prints a paper ballot to be either hand counted or scanned by a computer.
The only widely used machines that do not incorporate paper as a necessary part of their design are direct-recording electronic (DRE) machines. When using DREs, voters select their choices onscreen, transmitting the data straight into the voting machine’s memory. While DREs can record voters’ choices onto paper, many do not. These DREs that completely forgo paper ballots are among the most vulnerable parts of American election infrastructure.
FROM PAPER TO PAPERLESS AND BACK AGAIN
America’s turn to paperless voting has its roots in the confusion caused by ambiguous ballot marking during the 2000 election. In its aftermath, Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which allocated $3.9 billion to help voting precincts replace old lever and punch card systems with state-of-the-art equipment. While computer scientists warned Congress at the time of the dangers of paperless systems, HAVA passed both chambers of Congress without requiring that funds be used to purchase systems that utilize paper ballots.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/techtank/2019/08/14/why-paper-is-considered-state-of-the-art-voting-technology/
MIT: Hackers could alter ballots in widely used voting app
Source: AP
By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — An internet voting app that has been used in pilots in West Virginia, Denver, Oregon and Utah has vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to change a person’s vote without detection, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The analysis of the Voatz app, which has mostly been used for absentee voters and overseas military personnel, found that attackers could “alter, stop or expose how an individual has voted.”
Voting security experts have long argued that online voting is dangerously insecure.
“We all have an interest in increasing access to the ballot, but in order to maintain trust in our elections system, we must assure that voting systems meet the high technical and operation security standards before they are put in the field,” Daniel Weitzner, an MIT scientist who oversaw the report, said Thursday.
Read more: https://apnews.com/708a578811bfdcffec1f2cfbae3cc063
All forms of electronic voting are vulnerable to hacking. Paper ballots might still be the most secure method of providing secure election results. Including a reproducible audit of the vote tallies and the legitimate winners.
As Trump grows more dangerous, Republicans face another big test.
It’s true that the basis for this new Senate measure — the 1973 War Powers Act — has generally proved to be a flimsy constraint on presidents. It has been regularly abused by presidents in both parties, including Barack Obama, helped along by Congress’ regular abdication of its authority.
It’s also true that even if this measure does pass the Senate — even without it getting gutted by Cotton’s amendment — Trump will veto it.
But it would nonetheless constitute a powerful statement for a majority of both chambers of Congress, including the one controlled by the president’s party, to stand for the principle that Trump cannot exercise his warmaking authority without authorization. Forcing him to veto this would underscore for the country his dangerous efforts to consolidate his powers.
Right now, GOP senators are engaged in a massive exercise in excuse-making to explain away Trump’s latest abuse: his open and explicit command that Attorney General William P. Barr interfere in the case against longtime confidant Roger Stone.
This has focused intense attention on senators such as Susan Collins (Maine), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), all of whom have comically asserted in one way or another that they hope Trump has learned from his impeachment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/02/13/trump-grows-more-dangerous-republicans-face-another-big-test/
Hope Hicks, former top aide to Trump, to return to the White House as reelection campaign heats up
Source: Washington Post
One of President Trump’s longest-serving aides and closest confidantes is returning to the White House after leaving in 2018.
Hope Hicks, the president’s former communications director who served an outsize role in the White House and spent many hours a day in the Oval Office, will rejoin the administration, officials said Thursday.
She will work for Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and political adviser, the White House said, on political affairs and other “strategic” matters. She will not be part of the White House communications shop.
“There is no one more devoted to implementing President Trump’s agenda than Hope Hicks. We are excited to have her back on the team,” Kushner said.
Hope Hicks, the president’s former communications director, will rejoin the administration and work for Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and adviser. (Reuters)
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hope-hicks-former-top-aide-to-trump-to-return-to-the-white-house-as-reelection-campaign-heats-up/2020/02/13/1e828954-4e74-11ea-a4ab-9f389ce8ad30_story.html
Canada: thousands of travelers affected as Indigenous-led rail blockade continues
Source: The Guardian
Thousands of travelers in Canada have been affected and billions of dollars worth of freight traffic delayed as an Indigenous-led blockade of critical rail lines continues to cripple the country’s train network.
'Reaper of death': scientists discover new dinosaur species related to T rex
Read more
Via Rail, the crown corporation that operates much of Canada’s commuter rail service, announced on Wednesday that trains on the Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa routes would be halted until at least Friday. More than 150 passenger trains have been cancelled since the blockade began, forcing an estimated 24,000 people to find alternate travel routes.
Canadian National Railway, which owns the tracks, warned it “will be forced to shut down significant parts” of its vast Canadian network, which moves oil, grain and forestry products to markets in Asia and the United States, unless a resolution is reached.
For the past week, Tyendinaga Mohawk protesters in Ontario have defied a court injunction and blocked railway tracks in support Wet’suwet’en activists in British Columbia who are locked in a standoff over a multibillion-dollar natural gas pipeline that would cross through their traditional territory.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/12/canada-protests-indigenous-rail-blockade
A cancer in the body. Trump's post impeachment behavior leads me to believe he's convinced 2020.....
....is already a done deal.
Symptoms that nothing has changed.
He fires at will.
He breaks promises that he just made the day before.
He convinced he can outspend nearly every Democratic candidate.
He believes no one can compete with him toe to toe. Dollar for dollar and he might be right.
For me, I will vote blue no matter who..... but please consider that none of the promised from any democratic candidate will ever see the light of day if Trump steals a second term.
Let me put it this way. I have just gone through cancer treatment in the last couple of years and I now look at Trump in this light.
Doctor speaking to the patient (aka Our Democracy): "I'm sorry but you have a fast-growing malignant tumor."
Patient (aka Our Democracy): "What are my options doctor?"
Doctor: "first you could get a second opinion". "But I would avoid consulting Dr. Senate he and his colleagues agree you're cancer-free"
Patient: "So what then should I do to attack my cancer?"
Doctor: "First you MUST excise (aka 2020 election) the cancerous tumor now before it grows to a systemic threat"
Patient: "Remove the cancerous tumor FIRST"?
Doctor: "YES! Then you would follow-up with chemotherapy (aka subsequent house and senate elections) to stop further growth of any remaining cancer cells." (aka MoscowMitch and his caucus)
Patient: "how long will these steps take? Surgery and chemo?
Doctor: "you will be looking at several years surely 2020-2024 if all goes well"
Patient: "what else might I do between those years?
Doctor: "my advice would be to follow-up surgery and chemo with targeted radiation therapy (aka state elections) to destroy any remaining cancer cells (aka rightwing republican congress members)
Patient: "Ok! Then what?
Doctor" "take care of yourself (aka Constitution), get your health back (aka your rights), work every day to care for what you could lose if you don't first get rid of the Stage IV Cancer (aka Trump)
More Than 3 Dozen Military Hospitals to Stop Treating Retirees, Families, Memo Shows
Military families and retirees receiving care through 38 military hospitals nationwide will soon be forced to go off-base instead, and some pharmacies at those hospitals will stop providing drugs to those not on active duty, Military.com has learned.
A 12-page memo, reviewed by Military.com, was sent to the commanders of 50 military treatment facilities, or MTFs, targeted for changes. It details for commanders the impacts of a planned MTF restructuring, the subject of an upcoming report to Congress. It also includes a letter to commanders explaining upcoming changes, signed by Lt. Gen. Ronald Pace, who directs the Defense Health Agency, and provides communications guidance to public affairs personnel.
The changes are a part of a review of military hospital operations and a system consolidation under the Defense Health Agency ordered by Congress in 2016. Aimed at increasing a focus on military readiness, the consolidation includes a plan to cut about 18,000 uniformed medical personnel and increase focus on active-duty support.
But to do so, the hospitals must cull the number of family members and retirees to whom they currently offer care. The report to Congress detailed in the memo lays out the Pentagon's path for those changes.
"DoD must adapt the military health system to focus more on readiness of the combined force, while continuing to meet our access to health care obligations for active duty families, retirees and their families," the Feb. 3 memo states. "With a challenging array of threats around the world, we need our military medical facilities to keep combat forces healthy and prepare our medical personnel to support them."
THIS SADLY IS WHAT THEY CALL SUPPORTING THE TROOPS
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/07/more-3-dozen-military-hospitals-stop-treating-retirees-families-memo-shows.html
Payback: Trump ousts officials who testified on impeachment
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Exacting swift punishment against those who crossed him, an emboldened President Donald Trump ousted two government officials who had delivered damaging testimony against him during his impeachment hearings. The president took retribution just two days after his acquittal by the Senate.
First came news Friday that Trump had ousted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the decorated soldier and national security aide who played a central role in the Democrats’ impeachment case. Vindman’s lawyer said his client was escorted out of the White House complex Friday, told to leave in retaliation for “telling the truth.”
“The truth has cost Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman his job, his career, and his privacy,” attorney David Pressman said in a statement. Vindman’s twin brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman, also was asked to leave his job as a White House lawyer on Friday, the Army said in a statement. Both men were reassigned to the Army.
Next came word that Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, also was out.
Read more: https://apnews.com/2bc056ec4cab05b7c5069cbac5e3fa9c
Air Force suicides surged last year to highest in 3 decades
Source: AP
WASHINGTON (AP) — Suicides in the active-duty Air Force surged last year to the highest total in at least three decades, even as the other military services saw their numbers stabilize or decline, according to officials and unpublished preliminary data.
The reasons for the Air Force increase are not fully understood, coming after years of effort by all of the military services to counter a problem that seems to defy solution and that parallels increases in suicide in the U.S. civilian population.
According to preliminary figures, the Air Force had 84 suicides among active-duty members last year, up from 60 the year before. The jump followed five years of relative stability, with the service’s yearly totals fluctuating between 60 and 64. Official figures won’t be published until later this year and could vary slightly from preliminary data.
Air Force officials, who confirmed the 2019 total, said they knew of no higher number in recent years. Data and studies previously published by the Pentagon and Air Force show that 64 suicides in 2015 had been the highest total for the Air Force in this century. A 2009 Air Force study said suicides between 1990 and 2004 averaged 42 a year and never exceeded 62.
“Suicide is a difficult national problem without easily identifiable solutions that has the full attention of leadership,” Lt. Gen. Brian Kelly, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, said in a statement. He said the Air Force is focused on immediate, midterm and long-range solutions to a problem faced throughout the military.
Read more: https://apnews.com/b6fa278e5078e3479adbe4745b765ed7
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