Ann Ravel

Ann Ravel, a member of the Federal Election Commission, spoke with Dan Morain of The Sacramento Bee on May 16, 2016 about the agency's lack of enforcement.

BY ELLEN GARRISON

egarrison@sacbee.com

Ann Ravel, formerly California’s chief elections watchdog, has resigned her seat on the Federal Election Commission.

In a letter to President Donald Trump dated Sunday, Ravel called on the president to do something to increase transparency in elections and reduce the influence of “dark money.”

“I respectfully urge you to prioritize campaign finance reform to remedy the significant problems identified during the last election cycle,” Ravel wrote, noting Trump’s own criticism of the campaign finance system during his race for president. “Disclosure laws need to be strengthened; the mistaken jurisprudence of Citizens United reexamined; public financing of candidates ought to be expanded to reduce reliance on the wealthy; and commissioners who will carry out the mandates of the law should be appointed to the expired terms at the FEC.”

Ravel was appointed to the FEC by President Barack Obama in 2013 along with Republican Lee Goodman. Prior to joining the FEC, Ravel, an attorney, served as chair of the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

The letter doesn’t specify a reason for her resignation, but Ravel told the New York Times that she felt she could be more effective on the outside and had remained in her post because Obama asked her to stay until after the November election.

Trump has the power to appoint her replacement, though the candidate cannot be a registered Republican. The law prohibits more than three members of the six-member FEC being from the same political party.

Since joining the commission, Ravel has been outspoken about what she describes as gridlock on the panel. Her critiques landed her an appearance on “The Daily Show” during which the irrelevance of the commission was compared to male nipples.

Earlier this month, her office produced a report titled “Dysfunction and Deadlock: The Enforcement Crisis at the Federal Election Commission Reveals the Unlikelihood of Draining the Swamp.” The report accuses three members of the FEC of allowing major violations to be swept under the rug.

A bloc of three commissioners “routinely thwarts, obstructs, and delays action on the very campaign finance laws its members were appointed to administer,” the report reads.

Ravel’s report contends that gridlock has worsened: In 2006, commissioners deadlocked on 2.9 percent of substantive votes on matters under review. In 2016, the report says 30 percent of substantive votes ended in a deadlock.

The document also cites reductions in fines, failure to enact rules forcing transparency post-Citizens United and refusal to investigate major alleged violations.

In 2006, the FEC assessed more than $5.5 million in fines, according to the report. In 2016, the commission leveled $595,425 in fines. The report further points out that Ravel’s old agency, California’s FPPC, imposed $900,000 worth of fines last year.

It identifies 18 cases “in which the agency failed to require meaningful accountability from individuals, corporations, labor unions and dark money groups.”

As head of the FPPC, Ravel received attention for focusing on major offenses rather than less-significant transgressions and pursuing cases quickly. In 2012, she sued to reveal the donors behind an $11 million donation from an Arizona group aimed at blocking Gov. Jerry Brown’s tax hike proposition and supporting an anti-union proposition.

Most recently, she was mentioned as a possible contender for the post of state attorney general after Kamala Harris was elected to the U.S. Senate in November. Brown ended up nominating Rep. Xavier Becerra, who was confirmed to the post last month.

Ellen Garrison: 916-321-1920, @EllenGarrison

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/article133713434.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/election/article133713434.html#storylink=cpy

Politics

Trump used $258,000 from his charity to settle legal problems

By David A. Fahrenthold September 20, 2016 

How Trump used his charity to settle his business's lawsuits

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The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold explains the latest revelations about how Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump may have violated the IRS's rules regarding charitable funds. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

Donald Trump spent more than a quarter-million dollars from his charitable foundation to settle lawsuits that involved the billionaire’s for-profit businesses, according to interviews and a review of legal documents.

Those cases, which together used $258,000 from Trump’s charity, were among four newly documented expenditures in which Trump may have violated laws against “self-dealing” — which prohibit nonprofit leaders from using charity money to benefit themselves or their businesses.

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In one case, from 2007, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club faced $120,000 in unpaid fines from the town of Palm Beach, Fla., resulting from a dispute over the height of a flagpole.

In a settlement, Palm Beach agreed to waive those fines — if Trump’s club made a $100,000 donation to a specific charity for veterans. Instead, Trump sent a check from the Donald J. Trump Foundation, a charity funded almost entirely by other people’s money, according to tax records.

The check to charity from the Trump Foundation.

In another case, court papers say one of Trump’s golf courses in New York agreed to settle a lawsuit by making a donation to the plaintiff’s chosen charity. A $158,000 donation was made by the Trump Foundation, according to tax records.

The other expenditures involved smaller amounts. In 2013, Trump used $5,000 from the foundation to buy advertisements touting his chain of hotels in programs for three events organized by a D.C. preservation group. And in 2014, Trump spent $10,000 of the foundation’s money on a portrait of himself bought at a charity fundraiser.

Or, rather, another portrait of himself.

Several years earlier, Trump used $20,000 from the Trump Foundation to buy a different, six-foot-tall portrait.

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State Dept carries out layoffs under Rex Tillerson

© The Associated Press FILE - In this Feb. 10, 2017 file photo, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is seen at the State Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Molly Riley, File)

While Rex Tillerson is on his first overseas trip as Secretary of State, his aides laid off staff at the State Department on Thursday. 

Much of seventh-floor staff, who work for the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources and the Counselor offices, were told today that their services were no longer needed. 

These staffers in particular are often the conduit between the secretary’s office to the country bureaus, where the regional expertise is centered. Inside the State Department, some officials fear that this is a politically-minded purge that cuts out much-needed expertise from the policy-making, rather than simply reorganizing the bureaucracy.

There are clear signals being sent that many key foreign policy portfolios will be controlled directly by the White House, rather than through the professional diplomats. 

Not a single State Department official was included in the White House meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner - who has  no regional expertise or diplomatic experience -  had a greater role in the meeting than the Senate-confirmed secretary of State. 

Watch: Watch: Pres. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister hold press conference

Rex Tillerson was absent Wednesday but did join Kushner and Netanyahu for dinner the night before. Acting Deputy Secretary of State Tom Shannon was on the official schedule to take his place but was then shut out of the White House meeting.

In an emailed statement to CBS News, a State Department official explained that the decision to modify the meeting was made at the White House to “allow for a more personal discussion.” That presumably is a reference to the long-standing friendship between Trump, Kushner, and Netanyahu. 

That particular incident was disheartening to many State Department officials who hope that Mr. Tillerson - who had a long career as Exxon Mobil’s CEO -  will bring his worldly experience and management to a building that has been demoralized by the Trump administration’s antipathy toward multilateralism and cavalier approach to diplomacy.

Two sources also told CBS News that Ambassador Kristie Kenney, the Counselor of the State Department and one of the last remaining senior officials, was informed that she will be let go. She is a career foreign service officer who had served as an ambassador under Presidents Obama, Bush and Clinton. Her staff was told that Secretary Tillerson does not intend to fill the counselor’s position anytime soon.

While positions are often reshuffled during transitions and those perceived as politically-oriented are moved aside, the departures leave the positions vacant at a time of global instability. In Thursday’s presser, President Trump referred to “mass instability overseas, no matter where you look.” 

“The middle east is a disaster,” he complained. “North Korea - we’ll take care of it folks; we’re going to take care of it all. I just want to let you know, I inherited a mess.”

Watch: Full video: President Trump's impromptu press conference

“It is irresponsible to let qualified, nonpartisan, experienced people go before you have any idea of their replacement. You can’t do foreign policy by sitting in the White House, just out of your back pocket,” explains Tom Countryman, Former Assistant Secetary for Non-Proliferation who was let go earlier this month. Countryman worries that the White House is displaying an intent not rely on the State Department for foreign policy in that no one will be in place to challenge the edicts drawn up in the Oval Office. 

This may be what President Trump was referring to when he repeatedly said that “our people” are not yet in place at U.S. government agencies. He blamed the leaks of embarrassing White House transcripts of his phone calls with foreign leaders - including difficult conversations he had with Mexico and Australia - on officials who had previously worked for the Obama Administration. 

R.C. Hammond, a State Department spokesman, did not respond to the specific question of what motivated the layoffs but provided the following statement: “As part of the transition from one administration to the next we continue to build out our team. The State Department is supported by a very talented group of individuals, both Republicans and Democrats. We are appreciative to any American who dedicates their talents to public service.‎” 

Hammond previously worked for Newt Gingrich and is a new hire at the State Department.

Trump's Tap Dance on Broken Glass

SACRAMENTO -- Confused and heartbroken.

Attorney and Co-President of the Florin Japanese American Citizens League Josh Kaizuka said that is how he felt when he found out about President Donald Trump's executive order temporarily barring people from seven predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S.

Kaizuka said it is a feeling all too familiar.

"The administration today is trying to divide the different groups based on race, religion, and that's the same kind of thing that happened to Japanese Americans," Kaizuka said.

Ninety-three years ago immigrants from Asian countries, including Japan, were banned from entering the U.S., and 75 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, the law that sent some 120,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans into internment camps.

"You don't have the right to tell me I can’t go outside. Or put me in some sort of incarceration," Kaizuka said.

The signing of Trump's executive order comes at a crucial time in history.

Monday, California observed "Fred Korematsu Day." The Japanese-American Civil Rights activist refused to go to internment camps because he believed incarcerating people for their ethnicity was unconstitutional. Monday would have been his 96th birthday. Google honored Korematsu by changing their "Google Doodle" homepage to show a cartoon of the activist.

Kaizuka fears there are too many parallels between what happened to the Japanese-Americans last century and what is happening now to Muslim-Americans.

He says an immigration ban would result in segregated neighborhoods. And a Muslim registry - as Mr. Trump has hinted at during the campaign - could result in kids identified with tags over their necks.

Both were realities for Japanese Americans in the 1900s.

On Monday, the Council of American Islamic Relations announced a lawsuit, challenging Trump's executive order, calling it unconstitutional.

"Due Process and equal protection is what makes America great. And not what Donald Trump is doing," CAIR National Executive Director, Nihad Awad, said.

"They've already been vetted. And they're being denied access to the U.S. That's just not right," Kaizuka said.

The JACL said they stand united with CAIR, saying what President Trump is doing is simply unconstitutional. And that it goes against everything that the United States of America stands for.

"People of good conscience have to unite and stand up for democracy, the Constitution, and make sure these lessons are remembered, and the mistakes of the past do not keep repeating itself.

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North Korea test-fires ballistic missile, South Korea says

Updated 7:17 PM ET, Sat February 11, 2017

(CNN)North Korea on Sunday test-fired a ballistic missile, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported, citing the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul.

The South Korean military is working to determine whether the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, Yonhap reported. It is the first missile test conducted by North Korea since Donald Trump became US president.

United States Navy Admiral Grace Hopper

United States Navy Admiral Grace Hopper (1906–1992) was one of the first programmers in the history of computers. Her belief that programming languages should be as easily understood as English was highly influential on the development of one of the first programming languages called COBOL. It is largely due to Grace Hopper’s influence that programmers use “if/thens” instead of 1s and 0s today.From a young age, Grace had a curious and analytical mind.

When she was seven, she decided she wanted to figure out how clocks worked. To find the answer, she took apart every single alarm clock in the house! When her mother found out, instead of scolding Grace, she limited her to taking apart only one alarm clock at a time.Grace’s parents encouraged her curiosity in other ways, too. Her mother, Mary Campbell Van Horne Murray, had been very interested in math as a young woman, but hadn’t been able to study anything beyond geometry because it wasn’t considered proper for a lady at the time. She made sure to encourage Grace in her interests and not to limit her based on her gender.Grace’s father, Walter Fletcher Murray, wanted all of his children to be self-sufficient and made sure his two daughters had the same education and opportunities as his son, which was unusual for the early 20th century. With this encouragement, she went on to study math and physics at Vassar and then Yale, earning her PhD in mathematics in 1931.

After graduating, Grace stayed at Vassar to teach math for the next ten years before turning to the US Navy.A ship in port is safe; but that is not what ships are built for. Sail out to sea and do new things. Grace HopperWhile women had been allowed to serve in the navy since the 1800s, they were limited to nursing and, starting with the turn of the century, some administrative duties. With the start of World War II the military became a little less particular about gender. In 1942, the Navy put together an all-female division called Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES), giving women the opportunity to do more for their country during a time of great need.Grace Hopper took a leave of absence from teaching at Vassar to enlist in the US Navy Reserve in 1943, becoming a part of WAVES. She had to obtain an exemption in order to enlist since she weighed in at 15 lbs (about 7 kg or 1 stone) below the required weight of 120 lbs (about 54 kg or 8.5 stone). Despite what could have been a disadvantage, she graduated first in her class and was assigned the rank of lieutenant, junior grade. She was immediately assigned to the programming staff for the new Mark I computer (an electro-mechanical computer weighing over 10,000 lbs/4500 kg) at Harvard University.After World War II ended in 1945, Grace requested a transfer to the regular Navy, but her request was denied due to her age — she was 38 at the time. She was now completely hooked on computer programming, turning down a full professorship offer from Vassar to continue to work at Harvard as a research fellow under a Navy contract.

It was in the 1940s that Grace Hopper’s most famous anecdote occurred: Grace and her team of associates were having a hard time figuring out what was causing a glitch in the Mark II computer they were working with. Finally, they discovered the source of the issue: a live moth was stuck in one of the electrical switches controlling a circuit.Grace loved to tell the story about how they “debugged” the early computer by removing the moth, bringing the obscure engineering term into popular use in computer science.In the 1950s, Grace started working for a company called Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation as the senior mathematician on the team developing a new computer called UNIVAC I (UNIVersal Automatic Computer I), which became the second commercial computer produced in the United States. It was at this position that she created what is called the “A compiler.” In computer programming, a compiler is a program that transforms source code written from one computer language into another, usually less complex, language.While compilers are indispensable to programmers today, they were revolutionary at a time when computers where mainly used, as their name implies, for performing computations:“Nobody believed that,” she said. “I had a running compiler and nobody would touch it. They told me computers could only do arithmetic.”Eventually her work there was recognized and she was named the company’s first director of automatic programming two years later.To me programming is more than an important practical art. It is also a gigantic undertaking in the foundations of knowledge. Grace HopperGrace Murray Hopper at the UNIVAC keyboard around 1960In 1959 a consortium was formed called Conference on Data Systems Languages, or CODASYL, with the purpose of developing a standard programming language that could be used universally on any computer. Grace Hopper was asked to serve as the technical consultant on the committee, which later developed the programming language COBOL. She also developed validation software for COBOL to make sure the language could perform its function. COBOL, which stands for “COmmon Business-Oriented Language”, is still used in order-processing business software today.We’re flooding people with information. We need to feed it through a processor. A human must turn information into intelligence or knowledge. We’ve tended to forget that no computer will ever ask a new question. Grace HopperGrace continued to work on COBOL as the director of the Navy Programming Languages Group, and was promoted to captain in 1973. Throughout the seventies, she pioneered work in designing and implementing technology standards for the US Navy. The tests and standards she developed were later adopted by the National Bureau of Standards (today called the National Institute of Standards and Technology), and helped to shape the future of programming.

Humans are allergic to change. They love to say,

“We’ve always done it this way.”

I try to fight that.

That’s why I have a clock on my wall that runs counter-clockwise.

Grace HopperGrace tried to retire twice, in 1966 and 1971, but both times she was recalled to active duty indefinitely. She was promoted to commodore in 1983, a title that was later renamed to “rear admiral, lower half,” and finally retired for the last time in 1986 at the age of 80. At the time, she was the oldest active-duty commissioned officer in the US Navy. At her retirement she was awarded the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the highest non-combat award possible by the Department of Defense. She then worked as a consultant to Digital Equipment Corporation until her death in 1992.[Grace Hopper appears to be] ‘all Navy’, but when you reach inside, you find a ‘Pirate’ dying to be released” Jay Elliot, authorIn the course of her lifetime, Grace Hopper was awarded 40 honorary degrees from universities around the world, along with numerous awards and honors including:First winner of “Computer Science Man of the Year” award from the Data Processing Management Association in 1969First person from the United States and the first woman from any country to be made Distinguished Fellow of the British Computer Society in 1973. First woman to receive the National Medal of Technology as an individual in 1991. Nicknamed “Amazing Grace,” she serves as a role model and inspiration to women working in a variety of STEM fields today. Without Grace Hopper’s work and the influence of her ideas on the development of computer programming, the field of computer science would look very different today.The most important thing I’ve accomplished, other than building the compiler, is training young people. They come to me, you know, and say,

‘Do you think we can do this?’ I say, ‘Try it.’

And I back ‘em up. They need that. I keep track of them as they get older and I stir ‘em up at intervals so they don’t forget to take chances. Grace Hopper

This post was written by KeriLynn Engel and originally appeared on amazingwomeninhistory.com.

Why Vice President Pence is Lying about General Flynn's Telecon?

WEST SACRAMENTO CA (IFS) -- Could Mike Pence pass a lie detector test?  Yes.  Without any problem.  Remember the old saying, "How can you tell if a politician is lying?"  His lips are moving. VP Pence is lying about General Flynn and the Logan Act violation. When President Trump's fall from grace and VP Pence is up, it's going to be hard set to place him in the driver's seat.  I wouldn't trust him as far as you could toss a dead baby elephant.  Mr. Pence would throw his own mother under the bus without batting an eye. -khs