POLITICO's Cambridge Analytica Collection (March 27, 2018)

I’m told among the first rules of any contest are: know your opponent, followed by: don’t underestimate your opponent. The DNC and DCCC has repeatedly failed on both counts, as demonstrated by serial catastrophic failures: Gore’s loss; Obama/DNC failure to build/maintain an informed engaged grassroots infrastructure; Judge Merrick Garland capitulation; the 2016 campaign debacle.  Now we're entering another election season and it seems nothing has changed, ...          (to be continued after this index) 

POLITICO's Cambridge Analytica Collection

Cambridge Analytica helped ‘cheat’ Brexit vote and US election, claims whistleblower

           By MARK SCOTT | 3/27/18

Facebook data scandal opens new era in global privacy enforcement

           By MARK SCOTT AND LAURENS CERULUS | 3/26/18

US regulator confirms investigation of Facebook

           By NANCY SCOLA | 3/26/18

Justice and FEC asked to investigate Cambridge Analytica

           By LORRAINE WOELLERT 03/26/2018

Facebook’s digital empire hard to shake despite Cambridge Analytica scandal

           By MARK SCOTT  3/25/18

Activist suggests Vote Leave broke spending rules in Brexit campaign

           By CARMEN PAUN | 3/25/18

UK authorities raid Cambridge Analytica HQ

           By SARAH WHEATON | 3/24/18,

Cambridge Analytica boss went from ‘aromatics’ to psyops to Trump’s campaign

           By JOSH MEYER | 3/22/18,

British data protection agency takes center stage in investigating Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data

           By ANNABELLE DICKSON AND MARK SCOTT | 3/22/18

Cambridge Analytica academic who mined Facebook data: I’m a ‘scapegoat’

           By ZACH SAYER | 3/21/18

Cambridge Analytica suspends CEO Alexander Nix

           By PAUL DALLISON | 3/20/18

Trump campaign sprints away from Cambridge Analytica

           By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM | 3/20/18

POLITICO London Playbook: Russia next steps — Getting into Cambridge — Brexit scoop

           By JACK BLANCHARD 3/20/18

Europe’s data protection authorities eye Facebook, Cambridge Analytica

           By LAURENS CERULUS | 3/19/18

Cambridge Analytica boasts of dirty tricks to swing elections

           By POLITICO | 3/19/18

Politicians worldwide raise questions about Cambridge Analytica’s use of Facebook data

           By MARK SCOTT | 3/18/18

Trump-linked firm exploited data on 50M Facebook users: report

           By STEVEN OVERLY | 3/17/18

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As Russia probes progress, one name is missing: Bannon’s

           By DARREN SAMUELSOHN | 12/11/17

Assange: Trump-tied firm sought WikiLeaks help before election

           By MATTHEW NUSSBAUM 10/25/17

Mega-donor urged Bannon not to resign

           By ELIANA JOHNSON, KENNETH P. VOGEL AND JOSH DAWSEY | 4/6/17

US billionaire who helped Trump campaign also helped Leave.eu

           By HELEN COLLIS | 2/26/17

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Trump team builds ‘psychological profile’ of Clinton for debate

           By KENNETH P. VOGEL, BEN SCHRECKINGER, ALEX ISENSTADT AND DARREN SAMUELSOHN | 9/26/16

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Freedom Partners, Funding Dirty Tricks - 2013, Politico Exposé

And then there's the money, more tales of intrigue and secrecy:

The Koch brothers' secret bank, Freedom Partners

By MIKE ALLEN and JIM VANDEHEI  |  09/11/2013

https://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/behind-the-curtain-exclusive-the-koch-brothers-secret-bank-096669

An Arlington, Va.-based conservative group, whose existence until now was unknown to almost everyone in politics, raised and spent $250 million in 2012 to shape political and policy debate nationwide.

The group, Freedom Partners, and its president, Marc Short, serve as an outlet for the ideas and funds of the mysterious Koch brothers, cutting checks as large as $63 million to groups promoting conservative causes, according to an IRS document to be filed shortly.

The 38-page IRS filing amounts to the Rosetta Stone of the vast web of conservative groups — some prominent, some obscure — that spend time, money and resources to influence public debate, especially over Obamacare.

Kochs in-house Political Spy Organization. Mayer, and Vogel - 2015

The amount of disturbing information is overwhelming.  Here are excerpts from another New Yorker article by Jane Meyers, describing the Koch in-house political surveillance operation.  It's followed by Politico's Kenneth Vogel's reporting on the unit's operation along with looking into the strategy and thinking that drives these people.   

I'm sharing this because I think the Democrats of La Plata county should be able to take a crash course on what they are up against with this oh so friendly sounding "Americans for Prosperity" who have moved into town with their silver tongues masking sinister intent. 

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Do the Kochs Have Their Own Spy Network?

By Jane Mayer  -   November 18, 2015 in the New Yorker Magazine

Five years ago, when The New Yorker published my piece “Covert Operations,” about the ambitious and secretive political network underwritten by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, the Koch brothers complained mightily about the story’s title, protesting that there was nothing at all covert about their political activities. Since then, the two have embarked on an impressive public-relations campaign meant to demonstrate their transparency and openness. 

But today, the Politico reporter Kenneth Vogel came out with a blockbuster scoop suggesting that the brothers, whose organization has vowed to spend an unprecedented eight hundred and eighty-nine million dollars in the 2016 election cycle, are more involved in covert operations than even their own partners have known.