More here:

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/chinese-intelligence-officers-and-their-recruited-hackers-and-insiders-conspired-steal

https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/press/rep/releases/grassley-statement-on-birthright-citizenship-issue

The 2016 election made clear that our digitized election systems are vulnerable. Many of the country’s voter registration systems, voting machines, and election management systems are antiquated. Political campaigns had feeble cybersecurity practices and weren’t ready for cyberattacks. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter ignored the risks of data mining and propaganda operations. We were unprepared for Russian tactics.

It will not be as easy for Russia this time. In the last two years, federal, state and local election officials have made substantial efforts to secure our election infrastructure. Basic cybersecurity practices have been applied across most of the 50 states, and more than $800 million of federal and state funding has been allocated to secure election systems against online threats, including $380 million appropriated by Congress under the Help America Vote Act. With this combined with state and local funds, 34 states are spending on new security measures in preparation for the 2018 election, conducting cybersecurity assessments and training, implementing stronger authentication and access controls for election systems, and replacing vulnerable voting machines and voter registration systems.

The Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have programs to protect campaigns and election systems and to practice incident response plans for attacks on election systems. DHS designated election systems as critical infrastructure in early 2017 and created two Information Sharing and Analysis Centers to share cyber threat information among election officials. In August, DHS held a three day exercise with 44 states to practice coordinated responses to cyberattacks. DHS and FBI both have cybersecurity training and support programs for campaign and election officials across the country.

Delaware and Pennsylvania will have a “voter verifiable paper audit trail” (VVPAT) for all votes by 2020, bringing the total number of states with paper trails to 38. Two more states (Florida and Missouri) already use paper ballots for all but their accessible systems for voters with disabilities, and five more states (Kentucky, Georgia, Louisiana, Kansas, New Jersey and South Carolina) have committed to implementing VVPAT (although they may not be ready by the 2020 election). Some states have gone even further. California has allocated $134 million to upgrade and secure its election systems and has established an Office of Elections Cybersecurity within the secretary of State’s office.

There is more to do, of course. All 50 states need voter-verified paper trails and manual post-election audits of those paper records to identify any manipulation of electronic voting records. State and federal officials must allocate funding to robust cybersecurity practices for election systems, including voter registration, election management, and election night reporting systems, and to maintain and upgrade these systems. Campaign and election officials must do more with DHS and FBI to secure their systems, and also take advantage of pro-bono initiatives by private companies. But it is wrong to say we are unprepared.

Russia did not manipulate or disrupt voting in 2016. Hardening voting machinery would not have protected us in that election. Russia used stolen documents, social media manipulation, conspiracy theories and false narratives promoted through the media. Russian trolls continue to promote conspiracy theories and divisive rhetoric, groups linked to Iran are using crude campaigns to imitate Russia’s tactics, and scammers in Bangladesh have even co-opted political causes on social media to sell T-shirts.

Russia’s dilemma is that the scare tactics of 2016 will be less effective in 2018. Information operations will not be as disruptive. Social media companies are increasing transparency and countering malicious content on their platforms, and the public has become rightly skeptical of sensational stories on social media. Campaigns and party organizations have strengthened cyber defenses to keep documents and email more secure. The real question is what Russia will do next: replay the 2016 formula, try something new, or just sit tight and enjoy the spectacle. We’ve made it harder to use the easy or cheap attacks used before, and this means interfering with the electoral machinery, while more difficult and riskier, might be more attractive to the Kremlin than it was in 2016.

More:

https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/413944-america-makes-some-strides-in-securing-elections-from-russia

Republican congressional candidate Joyce Bentley recently tweeted out a “QAnon” conspiracy theory video which claims that “the deep state” occupies “the highest levels of power" and the "cabal" includes members who are part of "a dark and deeply sinister death cult with a strong reliance on symbolism and numerology with levels of cruelty unimaginable to all right-thinking people."

The Nevada Republican Party’s website includes Bentley in its list of “our” Republican candidates and encourages people to vote for her. She’s also endorsed by the political arm of the Nevada Firearms Coalition, an independent organization that is “affiliated with and recognized by the National Rifle Association” as one of its state associations.

On October 17, Bentley tweeted out a YouTube video with the title “Q – We Are The Plan” by the account “Storm Is Upon Us.” Both phrases are references to “QAnon” or “The Storm,” a sprawling and nonsensical conspiracy theory which claims that an anonymous government official with “Q” clearance has been leaving clues online about President Donald Trump’s actions against the so-called “deep state” and its alleged activities, including child trafficking. The “Storm Is Upon Us” account contains other videos dedicated to QAnon, including one video that says various political figures would have been "hung … for treason" by the Founding Fathers.

Media Matters has documented right-wing media figures who have helped spread the conspiracy theory online. QAnon surfaced in the news during the summer when a man who was reportedly influenced by the conspiracy theory drove an armored truck to the Hoover Dam and blocked traffic on the nearby Mike O'Callaghan-Pat Tillman Bridge (he is now facing terrorism charges).

The video Joyce Bentley promoted on Twitter contains numerous conspiracy theories. Here are some of the claims in the video:

“Our world has been under the growing influence of a vast transgenerational criminal mafia that was able to rise up to the highest levels of power. … Through a system of threats, blackmail, and bribery, they would come to occupy the highest levels of power in government, corporations, and education. You may know them as the deep state, or cabal.”

“Most dangerously of all," members of the deep state "achieved almost total influence over the media – their primary means of controlling the good people of the world who were just trying to get on with living.”

“There was no way to continue without a plan to eliminate all threats to their survival, even if it meant imposing a single world government under their jurisdiction – where no national identity, police force, or military could stop them. They called it globalism.”

“Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal funded [Barack] Obama’s Harvard education and took power by proxy, picking his entire cabinet while buying vast quantities of control in our largest media companies.“

"The western faction of the cabal was different. It was another kind of sick all together: a dark and deeply sinister death cult with a strong reliance on symbolism and numerology with levels of cruelty unimaginable to all right-thinking people. The reach and scale this secret society had achieved would have sent destabilizing shockwaves across the world were it ever to be publicly exposed.”

Media Matters has previously documented numerous Republican officials and candidates who have ties to conspiratorial media figures and social media groups. (In some instances, local Republican officials reversed their backing after news surfaced that the candidates were pushing conspiracy theories.) In July, a Twitter account for the Hillsborough County Republican Executive Committee of Florida tweeted out (and later deleted) a video promoting QAnon.

https://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2018/10/30/nevada-gop-backed-congressional-candidate-promotes-qanon-video/221930

California spent $4 billion on Medi-Cal coverage between 2014 and 2017 for people who may not have been eligible for the government-funded health plan, according to a state audit released Tuesday.

Medi-Cal provides health coverage to 13.1 million Californians, approximately one-third of the state’s population. To qualify, a single adult must make less than $16,754 annually.

County workers typically determine whether someone is eligible for health coverage under Medi-Cal, then send that information to the state. But the records don’t always match up.

The audit found 453,000 beneficiaries who were marked as eligible in the state’s system, but not in the counties’ — indicating that they may not have actually been eligible for Medi-Cal. These beneficiaries may have died, moved or begun making more money and no longer qualified for Medi-Cal.

Yet the state’s Department of Health Care Services paid $4 billion to health plans and doctors for those patients’ medical care over four years. The audit found that 57% of the discrepancies lasted for more than two years.

In one instance, a Los Angeles County resident died in December 2013, yet the state continued to make monthly payments to the beneficiary’s Medi-Cal health plan until August of this year. The state ultimately paid the plan $383,000 for a person who the state “should have known was no longer in need of services,” according to the audit.

“Although Health Care Services has established a process for notifying counties of beneficiary records that require follow-up, gaps in this process allowed the problems we identified to persist,” State Auditor Elaine Howle wrote in a letter to the Legislature accompanying the audit.

The audit also found 54,000 people who were marked eligible in the county system but not the state, which may have delayed or made it difficult for them to access services for which they did qualify.

“These individuals may have experienced hardships in accessing health care services, as they would have been denied benefits until the system discrepancies were resolved,” the audit says.

The audit recommended that the department implement a better system by the end of the year and recover erroneous payments by June. The department said it agreed with the recommendations but could not comply with them within that timeline.

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-medical-audit-20181030-story.html

Former First Lady Michelle Obama is billing her “Becoming” book tour as “an intimate conversation” with her — at least as intimate as you can get in a stadium setting like the Forum in Inglewood.

Now we learn that some famous friends, announced Tuesday, will keep her company along the way, starting with Oprah Winfrey moderating the event in Chicago on Nov. 13, the day the book goes on sale.

Obama will spend a little more than a month hitting 10 cities in 12 appearances — she’ll stop twice in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C. — in cozy spots like the Barclays Center in New York, Capitol One Arena in D.C. and American Airlines Center in Dallas.

The tour comes to the Los Angeles area on Nov. 15 with Tracee Ellis Ross on hand at the Forum. It’ll wrap up with its final “conversation” on Dec. 19 in Brooklyn with Sarah Jessica Parker moderating.

Valerie Jarrett will be in D.C. on Nov. 17 and Dallas on Dec. 17; Michele Norris has Boston on Nov. 24 and San Jose on Dec. 14; Elizabeth Alexander will moderate in D.C. on Nov. 25 and Brooklyn on Dec. 1; Phoebe Robinson takes the reins in Philadelphia on Nov. 29 and Detroit on Dec. 11, and Reese Witherspoon is at the helm in Dallas on Dec. 13.

Tickets aren’t cheap and vary by venue, but 10% of available seats have been reserved and donated free to charities, schools and other organizations in the various cities. A limited number of people can purchase different VIP “meet and greet” packages and packages that include a signed copy of the book, to be shipped later. Select online ticket purchases include a copy of the book.

The memoir covers the time from Obama’s childhood on Chicago's South Side through life as an executive and mother balancing the demands of both worlds to her stint at the White House.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-entertainment-news-updates-2018-michelle-obama-announces-arena-tour-with-1540925393-htmlstory.html

The crisis in United States-Saudi relations precipitated by the brazen murder of Jamal Khashoggi raises a critical question that the Trump administration plainly wants to avoid: Can the United States continue to cooperate with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman? The young prince’s almost certain culpability in Mr. Khashoggi’s killing underscores his extreme recklessness and immorality, while exposing him as a dangerous and unreliable partner for the United States.

No astute observer should be surprised to discover that Prince Mohammed is capable of such action. Yes, we may be shocked by how heinous Mr. Khashoggi’s murder was, and by how blatant the many lies told by the Saudis have been. Of course, many Americans, from Silicon Valley to the editorial pages of our leading papers, were snowed by the crown prince’s promises of reform and the deft marketing of his leadership. But, for those willing to see past his charm offensive, Prince Mohammed had already revealed his true character through numerous impulsive and vicious actions.

The deadliest exhibit is the war in Yemen, which has cost tens of thousands of lives and killed countless civilians, including children, because the Saudis arrogantly refuse to employ responsible targeting techniques. It has been a Prince Mohammed operation from the start.

The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen shares direct responsibility, along with the Houthi rebels and Iran, for the worst humanitarian crisis in the world, while the United States has continued shamelessly to provide support to their bloody war. Although the Obama administration initiated support to the coalition to help defend Saudi territory from Houthi incursions, it finally moved to curtail arms sales when the aims of the war expanded and the constraints we tried to impose were flouted.

At home, the crown prince has locked up civil society activists. He imprisoned for months hundreds of members of the royal family and other influential people in the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton and demanded they surrender huge sums of money and valuable assets in exchange for release. He has forced out rivals and close relatives, including former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef. And, as the Khashoggi case suggests, he has undertaken a global purge of Saudi dissidents wherever they reside.

The crown prince kidnapped the Lebanese prime minister and denied it. He imposed a spiteful, full-blown blockade on neighboring Qatar, another important American partner, and has sought to goad the United States into conflict with Iran. Stung by two mildly critical tweets by the Canadian foreign minister, Prince Mohammed abruptly downgraded diplomatic ties with Ottawa, yanked 7,000 Saudi students out of Canadian universities and limited transport and trade links.

More Here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/29/opinion/khashoggi-mbs-saudi-arabia-susan-rice.html