Watch the Democratic presidential debates on CNN and CNNGo at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, July 30
Sanders
Warren
Klobuchar
O’Rourke
Buttigieg
Bullock
Ryan
Hickenlooper
Delaney
Williamson
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First Night of the Second Round of the Democratic Primary Debates
Highlights:
Transcript:
Fact check:
Analysis:
:
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Rep. Mike Conaway of Texas will not seek reelection in 2020, according to multiple GOP sources, becoming the fifth Republican to announce their retirement over the past two weeks.
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Conaway has served in Congress for 15 years, but stepped into the national spotlight in 2017 when he was tasked with leading the House Intelligence Committee’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The panel’s then-chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), had agreed to step aside from the investigation amid ethics charges against him.
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Retiring
Rep Mike Conaway (R-TX)
Rep Paul Mitchell (R-Mich)
Rep Martha Roby (R-Ala)
Rep Pete Olson (R-TX)
Rep Rob Woodall (R-GA)
Retiring from Congress to seek different office
Rep Bradley Byrne (R Ala)
Rep Gianforte (F-Mont)
Moving from the majority to the minority changes your mindset about why am I here, am I getting things done,” Davis said. “It’s a very frustrating life for some of these members right now. There’s been no pay raise for 11 years. You’ve got to maintain two households.”
Democrats will try to make life uncomfortable for those Republicans who won the narrowest races in 2018. Already, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has highlighted 19 Republicans they say are on their retirement watch list — including two, Olson and Rep. Rob Woodall (R-Ga.), who have said they won’t run again.
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Two of the members who announced their retirements last week — Reps. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) and Martha Roby (R-Ala.) — represent deep-red districts where their successor will almost certainly be chosen in the Republican primary.
But a third, Rep. Pete Olson (R-Texas), holds a seat that is likely to be competitive. Olson won election to his final term by just 5 percentage points in 2018, and Democrats have signaled that districts like his, in the rapidly growing Houston suburbs, are their prime targets.
Six Republicans have now said they will not seek reelection next year. Two more, Reps. Bradley Byrne (R-Ala.) and Greg Gianforte (R-Mont.), are running for a different office.
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Watch the Democratic presidential debates on CNN and CNNGo at 8 p.m. ET Wednesday, July 31
Biden
Harris
Booker
Yang
Castro
De Blasio
Bennet
Gabbard
Gillibrand
Inslee
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Cross posting
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Follow the debate with their commentary…
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Joe better but not forceful. Kamala defensive. Booker making strong points. Yang sounds sane. Inslee not bad. Castro handling himself fine. Gabbard making good points, Bennett still not strong. Gilibrand stronger today. What do you think?
Robert Costa
It’s 9:45 p.m. and there’s been little to no discussion (yet) of Mueller, impeachment, Speaker Pelosi’s strategy, the debt deal, the Federal Reserve, and foreign policy. These are pressing issues here in Washington and for the nation. They are also areas where I’d like to hear more from these candidates.
From Wapo live (above)
Ashley Parker
Both last night and tonight, President Trump has been remarkably restrained when it comes to weighing in — or not — on the Democratic debate.
But he finally sent a tweet this evening, objecting to the blame his administration shoulders for the child separation policy, and instead blaming Obama.
There’s something fascinating about how much this issue seems to be bother Trump — it was one of the key forces that impelled him to attack Cummings, as we wrote earlier this week — but I also have another question. Which is: How different do we think this week’s debates would be, were Trump acting as the Twitter narrator of the whole show?
A: Robert Costa
I’m actually not surprised he’s laying off the “tweet” button on his phone this week, at least about the debates. White House officials tell me he doesn’t want these 20+ candidates to be the face of the party. He’d prefer to paint Democrats as a party defined by four liberal minority congresswomen and video footage of urban challenges in Baltimore.
Wrap up
Robert Costa
Thanks so much for joining us tonight. We really appreciate your time and comments.
Here are my parting thoughts following the closing statements.
Bill de Blasio : A proudly liberal New Yorker who is trying to get into the Sanders-Warren tier of this presidential race. He probably helped his cause tonight and had some effective shots at Biden. But he’s dealing with a New York media market that’s deeply skeptical of his campaign and grousing daily about his time away from the city.
Michael Bennet : A moderate senator who comes from the key state of Colorado. He reminds me of Senator Klobuchar. He is offering a message of centrist change and insider knowledge of Washington.
Jay Inslee: The candidate of climate change made repeated warnings on Wednesday that the fate of the world is on the line if the next U.S. president does not act. This message has made him popular on the left and could eventually give him a bounce. But it’s unclear how he’s going to expand his appeal.
Kirsten Gillibrand: A New York senator who argues that she is firmly grounded in the reality of being a working mother and can be a voice for working Americans. She took on Biden tonight, weaved in personal stories with anecdotes — and likely helped her effort to make the next debate stage.
Tulsi Gabbard : The anti-hawk and anti-establishment Democrat made her points on foreign policy and offered a worldview that could perk the ears of Democrats who have problems with Biden’s Obama record on war and national security. She also gave a detailed critique of Harris’s record in California, which caused the senator to have to grapple with tricky issues not related to Biden.
Julian Castro: Saying “adios” to Trump, Castro said at the end, should be the goal of Democrats. He had a winning presentation and once again a focus on immigration. No missteps, but no significant breakthrough beyond his exchange with Biden on immigration and the Obama legacy, where Castro noted he has learned lessons from the past.
Andrew Yang: A better turn this time for Yang, who brought more of the energy he showcases on the campaign trail as he talks through issues like universal basic income.
Cory Booker: Passionate and eager to clash with Biden, Booker also got to touch on many of his key themes. He likely emerges in a stronger position.
Kamala Harris: She defended her work in California again and again. While the night was expected to be a barrage on Biden, it was at times about Harris and her decisions and positions. She was sharp in explaining her views, but emerged with a few political nicks on her armor as well.
Joe Biden: His closing statement summed up his argument: He believes he’s best positioned to beat President Trump. He acknowledged that he hasn’t always been a favorite of liberals, and even drifted a bit from the Obama administration on trade tonight. But he carries on, remaining a target and vulnerable, but at center stage.
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Second Night of the Second Round of the Democratic Primary Debates
Highlights:
https://live.washingtonpost.com/debatelivechat-073119.html
@dragonfly9 this one is yours 
thx
Transcript:
Fact check:
Analysis:
:
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Voting machines data was allegedly intentionally destroyed…in Georgia.
Stacey Abrams loss there certainly comes to mind.
Washington (CNN) - In a federal court filing, lawyers representing election integrity advocates accuse Georgia election officials of destroying evidence that was "ground zero for establishing hacking, unauthorized access, and potential of manipulation of election results."
The brief, filed by the Coalition for Good Governance, argues that state officials “almost immediately” began destroying evidence after a 2017 lawsuit alleged Georgia’s voting machines were outdated and vulnerable to hacking.
"The evidence strongly suggests that the State’s amateurish protection of critical election infrastructure placed Georgia’s election system at risk, and the State Defendants now appear to be desperate to cover-up the effects of their misfeasance — to the point of destroying evidence," the lawsuit reads.
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Thursday’s court filing alleges a broad effort from state officials to “intentionally” destroy “fundamental” evidence.
“This type of evidence is not merely relevant and unique, it is fundamental, and it is forever gone. After abundant notice of their well-known duty to preserve evidence, the State Defendants did not simply neglect to disable some automated purge function in their IT systems. Rather, they intentionally and calculatingly destroyed evidence,” the lawsuit states. “Such conspicuously outrageous conduct can only raise the question: What were the State Defendants trying to hide?”
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Another wrinkle in the monitoring of whether ‘outside, ie foreign’ information can be traced and held accountable. Looks like the FEC is stepping up to review possible illegal foreign contributions.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) announced Wednesday that it is seeking public comments on a rule-making petition that would define “valuable information” as an official campaign contribution that must be regulated.
Why it matters: It is already illegal for campaigns to accept foreign contributions, so if passed, this rule would institute an outright ban on campaigns accepting unregulated “foreign” and “compromising” information, according to the proposed guidelines. President Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last month that if a foreign government offered dirt on a political opponent, “I think I’d take it.”
- “If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ — oh, I think I’d want to hear it,” Trump said.
- Worth noting : FEC Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub has made it a priority to prevent candidates from receiving assistance from foreign governments.
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The Democratic National Committee has set stricter criteria for the third set of debates, which will be held on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 in Houston. If 10 or fewer candidates qualify, the debate will take place on only one night.
Candidates will need to have 130,000 unique donors and register at least 2 percent support in four polls. They have until Aug. 28 to reach those benchmarks.
[…]
Seven candidates have already met both qualification thresholds and are guaranteed a spot on stage. They are:
Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey
Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind.
Senator Kamala Harris of California
Former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont
Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts
Three other candidates are very close: The former housing secretary Julián Castro and the entrepreneur Andrew Yang have surpassed 130,000 donations and each have three of the four qualifying polls they need, while Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has met the polling threshold and has about 120,000 donors.
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Presidential candidate Mike Gravel is out of the race.
Former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel is ending his quixotic bid for president, which was run by a pair of social media-savvy teenagers.
Gravel’s official Twitter account broke the news Wednesday, saying, “the #Gravelanche is not over. We’re gonna keep going.”
The campaign said it will donate its funds to charity and form a liberal think tank called the Gravel Institute to produce “leftist policy papers” on subjects including “ending the American empire,” “reforming our Democracy,” and “direct action by elected officials to end injustice and suffering.”
“As the campaign ends, we’re going to help build institutions on the left which can grow power, shape policy, and create strong activists for the long haul,” Gravel’s campaign wrote online.
Campaign manager David Oks and chief strategist Henry Williams, whose snarky tweets targeted more moderate 2020 candidates, will move on to a fellowship with the left-leaning Jacobin magazine.
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Rep. Kenny Marchant calls it quits, becomes 12th House Republican to retire
Republican Rep. Kenny Marchant said Monday he will not seek reelection to represent his Dallas-area district, leaving open a third Texas House seat heavily targeted by Democrats in 2020.
Marchant’s announcement comes days after Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.) announced he would not seek reelection in a sprawling border district and less than a month after Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) declined to seek reelection in the Houston suburbs.
All three men won reelection in 2018 by five percentage points or less — in Hurd’s case, by only a few hundred votes.
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Sam Stein talks with Harry Reid about 2020
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Yes. Frightening…
“He’s carried the term bullshit as far as it will go,” Reid said at one point, offering the slightest chuckle in appreciation of the line he’d just delivered.
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Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said on Wednesday night that she believed President Trump was a white supremacist, broadly accusing him of dividing Americans along racial lines and providing direct and tacit support to those who believe white people are superior to other races.
Asked in a brief interview with The New York Times if she thought Mr. Trump was a white supremacist, Ms. Warren responded without hesitation: “Yes.”
“He has given aid and comfort to white supremacists,” Ms. Warren said during a campaign swing in western Iowa. “He’s done the wink and a nod. He has talked about white supremacists as fine people. He’s done everything he can to stir up racial conflict and hatred in this country.”
Ms. Warren’s comments amounted to one of the starkest condemnations to date from a leading Democratic presidential candidate about Mr. Trump’s language toward minorities and immigrants. She spoke hours after former Representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas gave the same assessment of Mr. Trump. Asked by MSNBC if Mr. Trump was a white supremacist, Mr. O’Rourke replied, “He is.”
“He’s dehumanized or sought to dehumanize those who do not look like or pray like the majority here in this country,” Mr. O’Rourke said.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, another leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, also believes Mr. Trump is a white supremacist. Mr. Sanders was asked on CNN on Sunday if he believed the president was “a white supremacist or a white nationalist,” and Mr. Sanders replied, “I do.” A senior campaign official confirmed on Thursday that Mr. Sanders believed Mr. Trump was both.
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Exclusive: Critical U.S. Election Systems Have Been Left Exposed Online Despite Official Denials
The top voting machine company in the country insists that its election systems are never connected to the internet. But researchers found 35 of the systems have been connected to the internet for months and possibly years, including in some swing states.
By Kim Zetter
Aug 8 2019, 10:55am
For years, U.S. election officials and voting machine vendors have insisted that critical election systems are never connected to the internet and therefore can’t be hacked.
But a group of election security experts have found what they believe to be nearly three dozen backend election systems in 10 states connected to the internet over the last year, including some in critical swing states. These include systems in **nine Wisconsin counties, in four Michigan counties, and in seven Florida counties—**all states that are perennial battlegrounds in presidential elections.
Some of the systems have been online for a year and possibly longer. Some of them disappeared from the internet after the researchers notified an information-sharing group for election officials last year. But at least 19 of the systems, including one in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, were still connected to the internet this week, the researchers told Motherboard.
The researchers and Motherboard have been able to verify that at least some of the systems in Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Florida are in fact election systems. The rest are still unconfirmed, but the fact that some of them appeared to quickly drop offline after the researchers reported them suggests their findings are on the mark.
“We … discovered that at least some jurisdictions were not aware that their systems were online,” said Kevin Skoglund, an independent security consultant who conducted the research with nine others, all of them long-time security professionals and academics with expertise in election security. Skoglund is also part of an advisory group, not associated with the research, that is working with the National Institute of Standards and Technologyto develop new cybersecurity standards for voting machines. “In some cases, [the vendor was] in charge [of installing the systems] and there was no oversight. Election officials were publicly saying that their systems were never connected to the internet because they didn’t know differently."
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The systems the researchers found are made by Election Systems & Software, the top voting machine company in the country. They are used to receive encrypted vote totals transmitted via modem from ES&S voting machines on election night, in order to get rapid results that media use to call races, even though the results aren’t final.
Generally, votes are stored on memory cards inside the voting machines at polling places. After an election, poll workers remove these and drive them to county election offices. But some counties want to get their results faster, so they use wireless modems, either embedded in the voting machines or externally connected to them, to transmit the votes electronically. The system that receives these votes, called an SFTP server, is connected to the internet behind a Cisco firewall.
For security reasons, the SFTP server and firewall are only supposed to be connected to the internet for a couple of minutes before an election to test the transmission, and then for long enough after an election to transmit the votes. But the researchers found some of the systems connected to the internet for months at a time, and year-round for others, making them vulnerable to hackers.
Hacking the firewall and SFTP server would allow an attacker to potentially intercept the results as they’re transmitted and send fake results to the FTP server, depending on how securely the ES&S system authenticates the data. Although the election results that are transmitted via modem are unofficial—official votes are taken directly from the voting machine memory cards when they arrive at county offices—a significant discrepancy between the unofficial tallies and the official ones would create mistrust in the election results and confusion about which ones were accurate.
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“These are all secure technologies that if [configured] correctly work just fine. It’s just that we have no faith that they are done correctly.”
But Motherboard has learned that connected to the firewalls are even more critical backend systems—the election-reporting module that tabulates the unofficial votes as well as the official ones, and the election-management system that is used in some counties to program voting machines before elections. The researchers said that gaining access through the firewall to these systems could potentially allow a hacker to alter official election results or subvert the election-management system to distribute malware to voting machines through the USB flash drives that pass between this system and the voting machines.
Online, the researchers can only see the firewalls configured in front of these systems and cannot see anything behind them—a federal law makes it illegal for them to probe beyond the firewall. But ES&S documents posted online in various counties show that these critical backend systems are connected to the firewall, and ES&S also confirmed to Motherboard that this is the correct architecture in counties that want to transmit results electronically.
ES&S has long insisted that election-management systems are air-gapped—that is, not connected to the internet or connected to any other system that is connected to the internet—and the company insists to Motherboard that the diagram it provided isn’t showing them connected to the internet.
“There’s nothing connected to the firewall that is exposed to the internet,” Gary Weber, vice president of software development and engineering for ES&S, told Motherboard. “Our [election-management system] is not pingable or addressable from the public internet.” This makes them invisible to bad actors or unauthorized users, he said.
ES&S DIAGRAM SHOWING THE CONFIGURATION FOR THE CISCO ASA FIREWALL THAT SITS ON THE INTERNET IN FRONT OF AN FTP SERVER THAT RECEIVES VOTES TRANSMITTED FROM VOTING MACHINES. (THE FTP SERVER IS LABELED HERE AS DATA COMM RMS, FOR RESULTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEM). THE DIAGRAM ALSO SHOWS THE BACKEND ELECTION-MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (EMS), WHICH IS USED IN SOME JURISDICTIONS TO PROGRAM VOTING MACHINES BEFORE EACH ELECTION, AND THE REPORTING SYSTEM (EMS CLIENT) THAT COLLECTS VOTES FROM THE FTP SERVER AND TABULATES THE RESULTS. ELEVEN STATES USE ES&S’S DS200 OPTICAL SCAN MACHINES WITH MODEMS TO TRANSMIT RESULTS ON ELECTION NIGHT (THE NUMBER OF COUNTIES IN A STATE THAT DO THIS VARIES). IMAGE: ES&S
But Skoglund said this “misrepresents the facts.” Anyone who finds the firewall online also finds the election-management system connected to it.
“It is not air-gapped. The EMS is connected to the internet but is behind a firewall,” Skoglund said. “The firewall configuration [that determines what can go in and out of the firewall]… is the only thing that segments the EMS from the internet.”
And misconfigured firewalls are one of the most common ways hackers penetrate supposedly protected systems. The recent massive hack of sensitive Capital One customer data is a prime example of a breach enabled by a poorly configured firewall.
“If they did everything correctly [with the ES&S systems] as they say they do, there is no danger,” Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, told Motherboard. “These are all secure technologies that if [configured] correctly work just fine. It’s just that we have no faith that they are done correctly. And the fact that [election officials are] saying they aren’t on the internet and yet they are on the internet shows us that we have every reason to distrust them.”
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Even proper configurations won’t secure a firewall if the firewall software itself has security vulnerabilities that allow intruders to bypass all the authentication checks, whitelisting rules, and other security parameters set in the firewall’s configuration file.
“If this system hasn’t been patched and has a critical vulnerability… you may be able to subvert any kind of security scheme that you’ve put in place,” Skoglund told Motherboard.
“Not only should ballot tallying systems not be connected to the internet, they shouldn’t be anywhere near the internet.”
While no one is suggesting that any of these systems have been manipulated or hacked, the findings highlight how little local and federal election officials understand how these critical election systems are really configured and connected, and the extent to which they are beholden to what the vendors tell them.
Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) said the findings are “yet another damning indictment of the profiteering election vendors, who care more about the bottom line than protecting our democracy.” It’s also an indictment, he said, “of the notion that important cybersecurity decisions should be left entirely to county election offices, many of whom do not employ a single cybersecurity specialist.”
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When will Hickenlooper take the hint and move into the CO Senate race…this would be the time. The Dems need the Senate for any real momentum and change. He is stubbornly holding on…keeping himself in the national spotlight.
Democratic group urges John Hickenlooper to run for Senate in Colorado - Axios
Why it matters: Hickenlooper would almost certainly win the nomination for Senate — he’s favored by 61% of Democratic primary voters in Colorado, according to a new poll by the Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group.
- The same is harder to see at this point in the cycle for his presidential fortunes.
- He has been polling between 0% and 1% since the beginning of 2019.
- Several of his top staffers ditched him after the first debate, leaving his presidential campaign in shambles.
"It’s a big sacrifice for Hickenlooper, but a sacrifice that America needs," said Josh Morrow, 314 Action’s executive director.
- The Hickenlooper campaign declined to comment.
The backstory: Morrow told Axios he’s heard from Democrats in Colorado close to Hickenlooper, as well as many among their organization’s nearly 1 million members, who are yearning for him to drop out.
- “We’re hoping John understands there’s a real need for him in the Senate to put this country back to normal,” Morrow said.
- They’ve monitored Hickenlooper’s stagnant polling and low fundraising numbers throughout the cycle, and they think their grassroots network of Democratic supporters can help raise at least $500,000 for him through small-dollar donors.
- The group bought the homepage ad on the Denver Post’s website for the entire day tomorrow, and they’re placing digital ads around the country to raise money for this effort.
- If he doesn’t decide to run, Morrow said all the donations will be refunded.
UPDATE: 8/13/19 NYT points to his changing status
Ok …pending departure for Hickenlooper from Presidential campaign and entry to Senate Race.
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Maddow flashed a USA map on her show last night and here’s where T performance as President is ‘underwater.’ or unfavorable/disapprove. These polls are good guesses, but never leave any doubt that the T campaign is well underway to thwart those numbers. 
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