In a memo to top supporters, Hillary Clinton’s top official sought to clarify the campaign’s response to a new report from the State Department inspector general and move past a controversy that has dogged the candidate now for 15 months.
The 600-word letter from John Podesta, Clinton’s chairman and longtime adviser, addresses the IG report’s various findings, but comes back to a single point again and again: that Clinton knows the use of a personal email server was a “mistake.”
“And she has taken responsibility for that mistake,” Podesta wrote to several hundred of the campaign’s most active supporters and financial backers.
The memo, obtained by BuzzFeed News, went out by email over Memorial Day weekend, five days after the release of the highly critical IG report. The investigation, separate from an ongoing FBI inquiry, concluded that Clinton failed during her tenure as secretary of state to comply with record-keeping policies.
In the days after the IG’s findings became public, Clinton made appearances on four television networks to push back on the report as nothing new. “There may be reports that come out, but nothing has changed,” she said. “It’s the same story.”
(The IG report included some new details of how Clinton’s email arrangement was set up, including correspondence from within the State Department.)
The Podesta memo takes a more contrite posture, reminding backers three separate times that Clinton has called the email setup a mistake and continues to do so in the wake of the IG report. “The secretary has once again acknowledged this was a mistake,” Podesta writes. “If she could go back, she’d do it differently.”
Podesta also takes up one of the report’s key findings: that Clinton’s email practices did differ significantly from past secretaries of state, contrary to the candidate’s frequent argument that, broadly, her email use was not “unprecedented.”
Clinton used a non-government account to conduct State Department business, as did former secretary of state Colin Powell. But no other former secretary of state has maintained government correspondence on a private home-based server.
Although Clinton argued again in a Univision interview on Wednesday that her use of a personal account was “not at all unprecedented,” the memo from Podesta alludes to the distinct aspects of her arrangement. At the time, he writes, “she believed she was following the practices of other secretaries and senior officials.”
The IG report concluded that Clinton had an “obligation” to discuss such an arrangement with State Department officials, including for security reasons, but found “no evidence” that she “requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.”
The report came as an unwelcome development for Clinton’s campaign, just days before officials expect to clinch the Democratic nomination when polls close on June 7. The email scandal, dragging into its second year, has not helped Clinton fight the perception that she is untrustworthy or too often mired in controversy.
“We understand the questions about Secretary Clinton’s email practices,” Podesta writes in his memo. But, he adds, “voters will look at the full picture of everything she has done throughout her career. We have faith in the American people.”
Hillary carries so much baggage it makes one exhausted just thinking about it.
Much of it is frivolous and mostly little bits and pieces of wrongdoing or deception; not even worth paying attention to on it's face.
The problem is that there's so much of it that it morphs into what is a major pile of negativity that it's impossible to ignore or write off.
Bottom line Hillary and Bill are both typical "mainstream" Establishment politicians who are well groomed in rolling around in the mud with the rest of the corrupted players who fill the ranks of both the left and right of this political Establishment.
None of this is news, nor is it new or shocking. In fact it's been around so long that most people of the generations that grew up with it are indifferent to it. It just the way it is they say and then go about their business trying to eek out a life in what "trickles" down to them from those who have convinced them that "it's just the way it is."
2016 is different. Revolution is in the air. The current generation aren't buying the same-o, same-o BS and they are coming out in droves to challenge it's perpetrators.
The themes are based around those seen as "outsiders" - "anti-Establishment." And best of all for both the right and the left, there are standard-bearers to lead them; Sanders and Trump.
In 2016 it's not the way it was. Times are-a-changin.
The Republicans have already heard the message and it's time the Democrats followed suit rather than bringing their party to the point of no return.
There aren’t a lot of certainties left in the US presidential race, but here’s one thing about which we can be absolutely sure: The Clinton camp really doesn’t like talking about fossil-fuel money. Last week, when a young Greenpeace campaigner challenged Hillary Clinton about taking money from fossil-fuel companies, the candidate accused the Bernie Sanders campaign of “lying” and declared herself “so sick” of it. As the exchange went viral, a succession of high-powered Clinton supporters pronounced that there was nothing to see here and that everyone should move along.
The very suggestion that taking this money could impact Clinton’s actions is “baseless and should stop,” according to California Senator Barbara Boxer. It’s “flat-out false,” “inappropriate,” and doesn’t “hold water,” declared New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. New York Timescolumnist Paul Krugman went so far as to issue “guidelines for good and bad behavior” for the Sanders camp.
The first guideline? Cut out the “innuendo suggesting, without evidence, that Clinton is corrupt.”
That’s a whole lot of firepower to slap down a non-issue. So is it an issue or not?
First, some facts. Hillary Clinton’s campaign, including her Super PAC, has received a lot of money from the employees and registered lobbyists of fossil-fuel companies. There’s the much-cited $4.5 million that Greenpeace calculated, which includes bundling by lobbyists.
One of Clinton’s most active financial backers is Warren Buffett, who is up to his eyeballs in coal.
But that’s not all. There is also a lot more money from sources not included in those calculations. For instance, one of Clinton’s most prominent and active financial backers is Warren Buffett. While he owns a large mix of assets, Buffett is up to his eyeballs in coal, including coal transportation and some of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the country.
Then there’s all the cash that fossil-fuel companies have directly pumped into the Clinton Foundation. In recent years, Exxon, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have all contributed to the foundation.
An investigation in the International Business Times just revealed that at least two of these oil companies were part of an effort to lobby Clinton’s State Department about the Alberta tar sands, a massive deposit of extra-dirty oil. Leading climate scientists like James Hansen have explained that if we don’t keep the vast majority of that carbon in the ground, we will unleash catastrophic levels of warming.
During this period, the investigation found, Clinton’s State Department approved the Alberta Clipper, a controversial pipeline carrying large amounts of tar-sands bitumen from Alberta to Wisconsin. “According to federal lobbying records reviewed by the IBT,” write David Sirota and Ned Resnikoff, “Chevron and ConocoPhillips both lobbied the State Department specifically on the issue of ‘oil sands’ in the immediate months prior to the department’s approval, as did a trade association funded by ExxonMobil.”
Did the donations to the Clinton Foundation have anything to do with the State Department’s pipeline decision?
Did they make Hillary Clinton more disposed to seeing tar-sands pipelines as environmentally benign, as early State Department reviews of Keystone XL seemed to conclude, despite the many scientific warnings?
There is no proof—no “smoking gun,” as Clinton defenders like to say. Just as there is no proof that the money her campaign took from gas lobbyists and fracking financiers has shaped Clinton’s current (and dangerous) view that fracking can be made safe.
Still, the whole funding mess stinks, and it seems to get worse by the day. So it’s very good that the Sanders camp isn’t abiding by Krugman’s “guidelines for good behavior” and shutting up about the money in a year when climate change has contributed to the hottest temperatures since records began. This primary isn’t over, and Democratic voters need and deserve to know all they can before they make a choice we will all have to live with for a very long time.
Eva Resnick-Day, the 26-year-old Greenpeace activist who elicited the “so sick” response from Clinton last week, has a very lucid and moving perspective on just how fateful this election is, how much hangs in the balance.
Responding to Clinton’s claim that young people “don’t do their own research,” Resnick-Day told Democracy Now!:
As a youth movement, we have done our own research, and that is why we are so terrified for the future…. Scientists are saying that we have half the amount of time that we thought we did to tackle climate change before we go over the tipping point. And because of that, youth—the people that are going to have to inherit and deal with this problem—are incredibly worried.
What happens in the next four or eight years could determine the future of our planet and the human species. And that’s why we’re out there…asking the tough questions to all candidates: to make sure that whoever is in office isn’t going to continue things as they’ve been, but take a real stand to tackle climate change in a meaningful and deep way for the future of our planet.
Resnick-Day’s words cut to the heart of why this is not just another election cycle, and why Clinton’s web of corporate entanglements is deeply alarming with or without a “smoking gun.”
Whoever wins in November, the next president will come into office with their back up against the climate wall. Put simply, we are just plain out of time. As Resnick-Day correctly states, everything is moving faster than the scientific modeling has prepared us for. The ice is melting faster. The oceans are rising faster.
And that means that governments must move much faster too. The latest peer-reviewed science tells us that if we want a good shot at protecting coastal cities this century —including New York, the place where Bernie and Hillary are currently having it out—then we need to get off fossil fuels with superhuman speed.
A new paper from Oxford University, published in the journal Applied Energy, concludes that for humanity to have a 50-50 chance of meeting the temperature targets set in Paris, every new power plant has to be zero-carbon starting next year.
That is hard. Really hard. At a bare minimum, it requires a willingness to go head-to-head with the two most powerful industries on the planet—fossil-fuel companies and the banks that finance them. Hillary Clinton is uniquely unsuited to this epic task.
The real issue is not Clinton’s corporate cash; it’s her deeply pro-corporate ideology.
To understand this worldview, one need look no further than the foundation at which Hillary Clinton works and which bears her family name.
The mission of the Clinton Foundation can be distilled as follows: There is so much private wealth sloshing around our planet (thanks in very large part to the deregulation and privatization frenzy that Bill Clinton unleashed on the world while president), that every single problem on earth, no matter how large, can be solved by convincing the ultra-rich to do the right things with their loose change. Naturally, the people to convince them to do these fine things are the Clintons, the ultimate relationship brokers and dealmakers, with the help of an entourage of A-list celebrities.
So let’s forget the smoking guns for the moment. The problem with Clinton World is structural. It’s the way in which these profoundly enmeshed relationships—lubricated by the exchange of money, favors, status, and media attention—shape what gets proposed as policy in the first place.
For instance, under the Clintons’ guidance, drug companies work with the foundation to knock down their prices in Africa (conveniently avoiding the real solution: changing the system of patenting that allows them to charge such grotesque prices to the poor in the first place).
The Dow Chemical Company finances water projects in India (just don’t mention their connection to the ongoing human health disaster in Bhopal, for which the company still refuses to take responsibility).
And it was at the Clinton Global Initiative that airline mogul Richard Branson made his flashy pledge to spend billions solving climate change (almost a decade later, we’re still waiting, while Virgin Airlines keeps expanding).
In Clinton World it’s always win-win-win: The governments look effective, the corporations look righteous, and the celebrities look serious. Oh, and another win too: The Clintons grow ever more powerful.
At the center of it all is the belief that change comes not by confronting the wealthy, but by partnering with them.
At the center of it all is the canonical belief that change comes not by confronting the wealthy and powerful but by partnering with them. Viewed from within the logic of what Thomas Frank recently termed“the land of money,” all of Hillary Clinton’s most controversial actions make sense.
Why not take money from fossil-fuel lobbyists? Why not get paid hundreds of thousands for speeches to Goldman Sachs? It’s not a conflict of interest; it’s a mutually beneficial partnership—part of a never-ending merry-go-round of corporate-political give and take.
Books have been filled with the failures of Clinton-style philanthrocapitalism. When it comes to climate change, we have all the evidence we need to know that this model is a disaster on a planetary scale. This is the logic that gave the world fraud-infested carbon markets and dodgy carbon offsets instead of tough regulation of polluters—because, we were told, emission reductions needed to be “win-win” and “market-friendly.”
If the next president wastes any more time with these schemes, the climate clock will run out, plain and simple. If we’re to have any hope of avoiding catastrophe, action needs to be unprecedented in its speed and scope. If designed properly, the transition to a post-carbon economy can deliver a great many “wins”: not just a safer future, but huge numbers of well-paying jobs; improved and affordable public transit; more liveable cities; as well as racial and environmental justice for the communities on the frontlines of dirty extraction.
Bernie Sanders’s campaign is built around precisely this logic: not the rich being stroked for a little more noblesse oblige, but ordinary citizens banding together to challenge them, winning tough regulations, and creating a much fairer system as a result.
Should the Democratic party clean up it's act and support someone who will not only lead them out of this chaotic election but also put America back on a track that will benefit all Americans?
Yes! Chances are this will be resolved at convention time where changes can be made as to how delegates are pledged, etc. Given that Hillary is as unliked as Trump has left Democrats in a quandary because Trump could (and probably would) beat Hillary in the GE. He has one thing she doesn’t. He’s an “outsider” anti-Establishment candidate which is what voters want this election cycle. Hillary is neither which leaves her in a vulnerable position when it comes to getting both Independents and the Bernie fans. My guess both would go to Trump when push came to shove. Bernie, on the other hand has the best shot at taking down Trump. He’s an “outsider” anti-Establishment, and most important trustworthy with little or no baggage to unpack. There’s very little to attack him with except for a few bad judgement calls in the 70’s and 80’s. If the Democratic leadership is to avoid committing political suicide they need to reform their party (rules, platform, etc) and allow the people to select the nominee; how novel an idea is that?
Sanders explained, "We knew when we were in this, that we were taking on the entire Democratic establishment. No great secret about that. And yet we have won twenty states, we're in California right now, I think we have a good chance to win here. I think we have an uphill fight, but there is just a possibility that we may end up at the end of this nominating process with more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton. "
"What has upset me, and what I think is -- I wouldn't use the word 'rigged' because we knew what the rules were -- but what is really dumb, is that you have closed primaries, like in New York State, where three million people who were Democrats or Republicans could not participate," Sanders added. "You have a situation where over 400 super delegates came on board Clinton's campaign before anybody else was in the race, eight months before the first vote was cast. That's not rigged, I think it's just a dumb process which has certainly disadvantaged our campaign.
The Democratic primary isn’t about delegate count. The Democratic primary is about defeating Donald Trump in 2016. Currently, Bernie Sanders defeats Trump by 10.8 points. Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump by 0.2 points the other day (in an average of polls), and is now only 1 point ahead according to Real Clear Politics. In addition to poll numbers, CNN disclosed the findings of a recent State Department report“slamming” Clinton’s use of a private server.
This report is highlighted in a CNN article titled State Department report slams Clinton email use:
(CNN)A State Department Inspector General report said former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to follow the rules or inform key department staff regarding her use of a private email server, according to a copy of the report obtained by CNN on Wednesday.
The report, which was provided to lawmakers, states, “At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”
…the report notes that interviews with officials from the Under Secretary for Management and the Office of the Legal Adviser found “no knowledge of approval or review by other Department staff” of the server.
…the report says that the Inspector General’s office “found no evidence that the Secretary requested or obtained guidance or approval to conduct official business via a personal email account on her private server.”
Thus, every legal defense of Clinton’s emails has just been shattered.
First, Clinton’s “convenience” excuse, which rests upon the notion that the State Department allowed her to use a private server, is now obsolete. As explained in the State Department report, there’s “no evidence” Clinton asked for, or received, approval for a private server.
Whether or not the over 30,000 emails she deleted were truly private (or about yoga) is now irrelevant; they should never have been combined with classified data, on an unguarded private server.
This isn’t Whitewater. It’s a huge story, and a controversy that will lead to the FBI recommending indictments. If you disagree, then store your Social Security number, bank account information, and address on a friend’s private server. After you’ve stored your most precious data on another person’s server, then try to sleep easy at night.
Nobody before Clinton, Republican or Democrat, has ever linked a private server to government networks used to store Top Secret intelligence.
Hillary Clinton broke State Department guidelines, which makes storing 22 Top Secret emails on the server even more egregious. As explained by CBS News in January, these files contained Special Access Program information:
The Obama administration confirmed for the first time Friday that Hillary Clinton’s unsecured home server contained some of the U.S. government’s most closely guarded secrets, censoring 22 emails with material demanding one of the highest levels of classification.
…But seven email chains are being withheld in full because they contain information deemed to be “top secret.” The 37 pages include messages recently described by a key intelligence official as concerning so-called “special access programs” – a highly restricted subset of classified material that could point to confidential sources or clandestine programs like drone strikes or government eavesdropping.
It is a crime to store Top Secret intelligence anywhere other than government networks; regardless of whether or not Clinton believed her server to be more secure. Furthermore, SAP data is so secretive, the U.S. government often times denies the existence of these projects.
The “high bar” that defenders of Hillary Clinton cite was just lowered to a level indicating she intentionally used a private server. This intent correlates to legal consequences. Intent means a deliberate act, and this deliberate act can’t be explained as “convenience.”
The Espionage Act states that whoever is “entrusted” with state secrets must ensure this data isn’t “removed from its proper place of custody” and that “gross negligence” isn’t a defense:
Yes, Clinton’s 22 Top Secret emails were “illegally removed from its proper place.”
Also, how did Brian Pagliano transfer this intelligence from secure State Department networks, onto a private server, without authority or documentation from State?
Who helped Pagliano transfer this data?
The recent State Department report states there’s no documentation approving Clinton’s server.
This intentional need to circumvent U.S. government networks correlates to breaking State Department guidelines. As written in the Inspector General’s report, “At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service.”
According to The Washington Post, “she ignored” everything from government record keeping to cyber security. Also, “Ms. Clinton had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods.”
If The Washington Post is correct, and “Ms. Clinton had plenty of warnings to use official government communications methods,” and her email use actually broke State Department rules, then Espionage Act laws directly relate to the 22 Top Secret emails on a private server.
There goes the “convenience” excuse found in a CNN article from 2015 titled Hillary Clinton: I used one email ‘for convenience’:
“I opted for convenience to use my personal email account, which was allowed by the State Department, because I thought it would be easier to carry just one device for my work and for my personal emails instead of two,” she said.
After the recent State Department report, even this benign excuse would lead to repercussions. Now, we know that State never gave her permission to own the server, even for the sake of convenience.
The FBI is investigating this case as political corruption—not just for mishandling of classified information.
Any foreign intelligence service worth its salt would have had no trouble accessing Ms. Clinton’s emails, particularly when they were unencrypted, as this column has explained in detail. Yet Hillary was more worried about the American public finding out about what she was up to via FOIA than what foreign spy services and hackers might see in her email.
What she was seeking to hide so ardently remains one of the big unanswered questions in EmailGate. Hints may be found in the recent announcement that Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe, the former head of the Democratic National Committee and a longtime Clinton intimate, is under FBI investigation for financial misdeeds, specifically dirty money coming from China. In fact, Mr. McAulliffe invited one of his Beijing benefactors over to Ms. Clinton’s house in 2013. Not long after, Chinese investors donated $2 million to the Clinton Foundation.
That an illegal pay-for-play-scheme, with donations to the Clinton Foundation being rewarded by political favors from Hillary Clinton—who when she was secretary of state had an enormous ability to grant favors to foreign bidders—existed at the heart of EmailGate has been widely suspected, and we know the FBI is investigating this case as political corruption, not just for mishandling of classified information. That certainly would be something Ms. Clinton would not have wanted the public to find out about via FOIA.
McAuliffe had a business working with Chinese nationals who came into the United States under a special visa program, Morris said Tuesday on "Newsmax Prime." The visa program is "honest, but is corrupt," Morris told host J.D. Hayworth.
"What it says is: If you invest half-a-billion dollars creating jobs in the United States – you invest in a company – we will give you a visa to come to the United States," he said. "So it's basically cash-for-visa, only it's legal. And McAuliffe had an enterprise going in, getting a lot of people in under that program, some of whom were barred from admission to the United States because of national security grounds."
Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan. This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today. More dangerously, it shapes the thinking of government officials and military planners working in a world that still contains more than 15,000 nuclear weapons.
Truman exulted in the obliteration of Hiroshima, calling it “the greatest thing in history.” America’s military leaders didn’t share his exuberance. Seven of America’s eight five-star officers in 1945 — Gens. Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur and Henry Arnold, and Adms. William Leahy, Chester Nimitz, Ernest King and William Halsey — later called the atomic bombings either militarily unnecessary, morally reprehensible, or both. Nor did the bombs succeed in their collateral purpose: cowing the Soviets.
Clinton’s super-donors poured millions into the State Department. Why was the government so reluctant to release the names of these high-rollers and socialites?
Hillary Clinton may have suspended her political career temporarily when she became secretary of state. But the Clinton fundraising machine was in full swing and raising millions of dollars for the State Department under her watch, an analysis by The Daily Beast has found.
More than a dozen donors to Clinton’s non-profit foundation and her various political campaigns poured money into an endowment she launched into 2010 to pay for the upkeep of the Diplomatic Reception Rooms. The 42 sumptuous salons at State Department headquarters in Washington, decorated with 18th and 19th century American furnishings, are used to welcome foreign dignitaries, conduct diplomatic meetings and swearing-in ceremonies, and host official dinners.
By the following year, the campaign had raised more than $20 million to permanently fund restoration and maintenance for the rooms and their collections of rare American artwork, thanks largely to reliable Clinton donors.
Nearly half of the 37 people and organizations who donated to the State Department campaign, known as Patrons of Diplomacy, also gave money to the Clinton Foundation, according to State Department and foundation records. Of the 11 people who served as co-chairs for the campaign, agreeing to contribute their own money or to help raise funds from others, six also gave to the Clinton Foundation, a global charity started by former President Bill Clinton.
Hillary Clinton met Chinese billionaire Wang Wenliang, whose involvement with Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is at the center of an FBI investigation, during a Sept. 30, 2013 fundraiser at her home in Washington D.C., according to an explosive new report from Time.
Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe invited the Chinese businessman whose donations to him have been named as a focus of Justice Department investigators to a 2013 fundraiser at Hillary Clinton’s personal Washington, D.C., residence.
An American company controlled by Wang made a $60,000 contribution to McAuliffe’s campaign three weeks before the fundraiser. Less than a month later, a separate Wang company pledged $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation, the first of several donations that eventually totaled $2 million.
The Wang representative said that all of his political and philanthropic donations in the U.S. were done at the recommendation of Mark Fung, his legal counsel. In 2012, Fung appeared with Hodges in a video news report for Chinese television from the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., discussing the strategies for winning political influence in the United States. “If you really want to influence, let’s say, U.S.-China policy it is almost worth it to have emphasis and influence on the state level,” he said in the report.
Wang’s representative also said that Wang met twice with former President Bill Clinton to discuss the Clinton foundation, once in the United States and once when Clinton was visiting China.
The Clinton campaign did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesman for McAuliffe confirmed both the fundraising meeting and a subsequent meeting in Richmond to discuss soybean exports.
Hillary seems hell bent on lying her way through this regardless of what the facts (truth) are.
This statement is 100% false and she is well aware of it but continues to make it;
"'This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. And I know that because it is well known, it’s pointed out in the report.
What she also fails to say is that she refused to cooperate with the State Departments fact finding while ALL other Secretaries of State's did.
"The Democratic presidential front-runner spoke one day after a State Department report concluded that she had gone around department procedures in setting up and using a private email system that operated outside government security and record-keeping controls.
"In a short television interview in Las Vegas, Clinton repeated her long-standing explanation that previous secretaries of state also had used private accounts. "'This report makes clear that personal email use was the practice for other secretaries of state. And I know that because it is well known, it’s pointed out in the report. But it was still a mistake,' Clinton said. 'And as I’ve said many times, if I could go back, I would do it differently. I know people have concerns about this.'"
Those comments, said Chris Cillizza, "showed, yet again, that Clinton will stick to her story on her email server even if the increasingly indisputable facts get in the way.
One of the two big dominoes in the Hillary Clinton email controversy toppled today: The State Department’s inspector general released its report on the email practices of Clinton and a number of other past secretaries of state. (The other major domino is, of course, the FBI investigation into Clinton’s decision to exclusively use a private email server while serving as the nation’s top diplomat.)
The report, which you can read in its entirety here, badly complicates Clinton’s past explanations about the server and whether she complied fully with the laws in place governing electronic communication. And it virtually ensures that Clinton’s email practices will be front and center in Donald Trump’s fusillade of attacks against her credibility and honesty between now and Nov. 8.
The inspector general, in a long-awaited review obtained Wednesday by The Washington Post in advance of its publication, found that Clinton’s use of private email for public business was “not an appropriate method” of preserving documents and that her practices failed to comply with department policies meant to ensure that federal record laws are followed.
The report says Clinton, who is the Democratic presidential front-runner, should have printed and saved her emails during her four years in office or surrendered her work-related correspondence immediately upon stepping down in February 2013. Instead, Clinton provided those records in December 2014, nearly two years after leaving office.
Clinton used an inappropriate method of preserving her documents. Her approach would not have been approved if it had been requested by a more junior member of the State Department staff. The report also suggests that despite a Clinton aide’s insistence that the method of preserving her emails had been submitted to a legal review back in 2010, there is no evidence that such a review took place. And, here’s the kicker: Clinton refused to sit for a formal interview. Oomph. Double oomph. Heck, that might merit a triple oomph.
The Clinton campaign will push back hard on this report — as it has against anything that suggests she was at all in the wrong in the creation and protection of her email server.
Clinton’s team has spent months casting the State Department inspector general’s office as overly aggressive and working hand in hand with congressional Republicans to cast the former secretary of state in the worst possible light.
That’s a very hard story to sell, given that the current inspector general was appointed by President Obama. It is, by the way, the same problem Clinton faces when she tries to cast skepticism on the ongoing FBI investigation. This is an FBI that is overseen by an attorney general — Loretta E. Lynch — who was also appointed by Obama. It’s tough to make the case that a Democratic administration filled with Democratic appointees are all somehow out to get the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.
Then there is the argument, which Fallon makes above, that Clinton was far from the first secretary of state to use less-than-airtight methods to ensure the preservation and security of her email correspondence. As the IG report makes clear, she wasn’t. Again, Helderman and Hamburger:
The 83-page report reviews email practices by five secretaries of state and generally concludes that recordkeeping has been spotty for years.
It was particularly critical of former secretary of state Colin Powell — who has acknowledged publicly that he used a personal email account to conduct business — concluding that he too failed to follow department policy designed to comply with public-record laws.
There are two very important differences among Clinton, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, and former secretaries Powell and Condoleezza Rice when it comes to email practices.
The first is that Clinton is the first and, to date, only secretary of state to exclusively use a private email address and server to conduct her business as the nation’s top diplomat. All of the other names above maintained both a private and a government-issued email address. That alone doesn’t make her guilty. But it does make her unique.
Because of her elevated status in our political world, she is — and should be — subject to more scrutiny than, say, Powell, who hasn’t voiced an interest in running for president in 20 years. That’s particularly true because Clinton has put her time at State at the center of her argument for why she should be elected the 45th president of the United States. Look at what I have done and judge me by it, she says. That has to include the bad as well as the good. This is a bad day for Clinton’s presidential campaign. Period. For a candidate already struggling to overcome a perception that she is neither honest nor trustworthy, the IG report makes that task significantly harder. No one will come out of this news cycle — with the exception of the hardest of the hard-core Clinton people — believing she is a better bet for the presidency on May 25 than she was on May 23.
Clinton remains blessed that Republicans are on the verge of nominating Donald Trump, a candidate whose numbers on honesty, trustworthiness and even readiness to lead are worse — and in some cases, far worse — than hers. But Trump’s task of casting her as “Crooked Hillary” just got easier.
Why all the secrecy about her emails and the private server she kept them on?
Why is she refusing to cooperate (meet) with the State Department to discuss her reasons for violating the rules?
As someone who says they want to serve the public and is asking for their trust she does a lousy job in demonstrating her ability to do either.
Secrecy breeds mistrust, especially when it involves a public figure who wants to hold public office. Voters are entitled to know who they are voting for; secrets and all.
A new report released by the State Department Inspector General critics Hillary Clinton, stating that she failed to follow the rules in regards to her use of a private email server. Clinton also failed to inform key department staff of her practices:
“At a minimum, Secretary Clinton should have surrendered all emails dealing with Department business before leaving government service and, because she did not do so, she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.”
The report also says that even if she had sought permission to use a private email server during Secretary of State, she would not have received permission to do so. Clinton had “had an obligation to discuss using her personal email account to conduct official business.” In addition, there were some officials that knew about Clinton’s use of a private server and failed to instruct her to use the department’s official email. When concerns were finally raised in 2010 by two employees in record-keeping their superior “instructed the staff never to speak of the secretary’s personal email system again.”
Clinton and several of her senior aides refused to be interviewed by the inspector general for the report. It is still unclear what kind of backlash this will cause for Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign.
Cris Kyle, whose memoir “American Sniper” was turned into a Hollywood blockbuster, greatly embellished his military service record, according to newly revealed documents.
Kyle, the former Navy SEAL known as the deadliest sniper in U.S. military history, claimed in his book to have been awarded two Silver Stars and five Bronze Stars, “all for valor” — but, in fact, he earned only about half that total, reported The Intercept.
The website obtained internal Navy documents that showed Kyle earned only one Silver Star and three Bronze Stars with Valor, and Navy officials confirmed that service record through 10 years in the military and four deployments.
Kyle was warned at least once by a former commanding officer before his memoir was published that he had inaccurately portrayed his medal count, according to one current Navy officer who spoke to The Intercept.
His separation document, or DD214, actually lists even more medals than Kyle claimed in his book.
That document lists two Silver Stars and six Bronze Stars, although it’s not clear where the discrepancy originated.
Even as more information points to Hillary breaking rules and putting classified information at risk she continues to insist that she did nothing wrong; using the lame excuse that everybody does it.
The truth is that "nobody" else has broken the rules the way Hillary has. Hillary is the first, and one and only, government official who used a "personal server" to manage and control her government email account. Not only does that violate the rules of her office by making what is government information private and in her total control, but it also creates a much greater risk that someone could access (hack) her server and expose classified information.
News is moving quickly on Hillary Clinton and her emails, and as in all evolving controversies, some of it has more impact than others. In a sentence, Wednesday's news was not great for Clinton, but not earth-shattering either. Let's walk you through it and its political implications.
What happened: The State Department's inspector general — who is supposed to be the agency's impartial observer — issued a report declaring that Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state was "not an appropriate method of preserving documents."
In exclusively using a private email server — and then keeping the documents to herself for nearly two years after leaving the job — the inspector general's report said Clinton did not comply with the federal government's policy of keeping federal records. (Since they technically belong to all of us, the people she worked for.)
But it's just as important to highlight what the inspector general's report did not say: The report did not say that Clinton broke the law. It's true the FBI is also looking into her emails, but as we've written in this space before, it's very unlikely they'll indict her, given most other criminal cases that could be compared to hers involved some added level of espionage or wrongdoing. We just haven't seen evidence that's the case with Clinton.
Still, the IG report is the latest blow for the Clinton campaign, says Fix Boss Chris Cillizza: "For a candidate already struggling to overcome a perception that she is neither honest nor trustworthy, the IG report makes that task significantly harder. … [Donald] Trump's task of casting her as 'Crooked Hillary' just got easier."
If you want to delve into the email news more — and lots of people on both sides of the aisle are really, really interested in this! — you should definitely check out these stories from The Post helping contextualize it:
The most revealing findings of the report: Like the fact that there were two hacking attempts on her server, and also that record-keeping by secretaries of state has been spotty for years.
A Romanian hacker actually helped reveal Clinton's use of a private email when he hacked into one of her top adviser's emails. The hacker pleaded guilty Wednesday to charges related to all sorts of high-profile hacks.
As was easily predicted Donald Trump has begun to "unpack" the huge pile of baggage (political dirt) the Clinton's are carrying into this election.
This is only the beginning and guaranteed to get worse as the months go by. Hillary (and Bill) are defenseless because, unfortunately most of what Trump is dishing up is factual. He's just adding his "flair" to it. And, there's little doubt that he's good at it.
For their part, Hillary and Bill will work hard at ignoring it, but that doesn't mean voters will. Tabloid type press dies hard.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is reviving some of the ugliest political chapters of the 1990s with escalating personal attacks on Bill Clinton’s character, part of a concerted effort to smother Hillary Clinton’s campaign message with the weight of decades of controversy.
Trump’s latest shot came Monday when he released an incendiary Instagram video that includes the voices of two women who accused the former president of sexual assault, underscoring the presumptive Republican nominee’s willingness to go far beyond political norms in his critique of his likely Democratic rival.
The real estate mogul has said in recent interviews that a range of Clinton-related controversies will be at the center of his case against Hillary Clinton.
“They said things about me which were very nasty. And I don’t want to play that game at all. I don’t want to play it — at all. But they said things about me that were very nasty,” Trump told The Washington Post in an interview. “And, you know, as long as they do that, you know, I will play at whatever level I have to play at. I think I’ve proven that.”
A Romanian computer hacker who obtained some of Hillary Clinton's emails by breaking into the account of one of her advisers is expected to plead guilty this week, clearing the way for his unfettered cooperation with federal prosecutors.
Marcel Lazar, who was extradited from Romania in March to face U.S. charges, claimed in interviews aired earlier this month that he also hacked into the Democratic presidential candidate's personal server. However, that claim has not been verified and a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign has rejected the idea that Lazar ever made it into her server.
Clinton's email arrangement is the subject of an ongoing FBI investigation, believed to be focused on how email messages deemed classified wound up on her server
The answer is simple. Voters just plain don't trust Hillary which is very much a part of the Establishment they also dislike.
This is evident by the way the Democratic Establishment has been running this campaign; diligently working to rig it against Bernie Sanders who is overall not only the most favored candidate, but is genuinely trustworthy and honest. Someone that neither side of the political Establishment want's in politics or the Oval office.
Political analysts have underestimated Trump from the jump because they’ve been looking through the rear-view mirror of politics as it used to be.
Trump’s rise suggests a new kind of politics. You might call it anti-politics.
The old politics pitted right against left, with presidential aspirants moving toward the center once they cinched the nomination.
Anti-politics pits Washington insiders, corporate executives, bankers, and media moguls against a growing number of people who think the game is rigged against them. There’s no center, only hostility and suspicion.
Americans who feel like they’re being screwed are attracted to an authoritarian bully – a strongman who will kick ass. The former reality TV star who repeatedly told contestants they were “fired!” appears tough and confrontational enough to take on powerful vested interests.
In this era of anti-politics, any candidate who appears to be the political establishment is at a strong disadvantage. This may be Hillary Clinton’s biggest handicap.
The old politics featured carefully crafted speeches and policy proposals calculated to appeal to particular constituencies, such as female boomer college graduates or Latinas under 40. In this sense, Mrs. Clinton’s proposals and speeches are almost flawless.
But in the new era of anti-politics Americans are skeptical of well-crafted speeches and detailed policy proposals. They prefer authenticity. They want their candidates unscripted and unfiltered.
It sure seems that way when you begin to look at the inner workings of this Clinton run so-called non-profit charitable organization. What looks benign on the surface might actually be oozing corruption just below its surface.
This time it involves one of Hillary's attack dogs who it seems has been playing musical chairs with donors who funded his political campaign and which coincidentally is locked in tight with no one other than the Clinton's.
As part of the probe, the officials said, investigators have scrutinized McAuliffe's time as a board member of the Clinton Global Initiative, a vehicle of the charitable foundation set up by former President Bill Clinton.
Among the McAuliffe donations that drew the interest of the investigators was $120,000 from a Chinese businessman, Wang Wenliang, through his U.S. businesses. Wang was previously delegate to China's National People's Congress, the country's ceremonial legislature.
"Neither the Governor nor his former campaign has knowledge of this matter, but as reported, contributions to the campaign from Mr. Wang were completely lawful," said Elias.
Wang also has been a donor to the Clinton foundation, pledging $2 million.
U.S. election law prohibits foreign nationals from donating to federal, state or local elections. Penalties for violations include fines and/or imprisonment.
But Wang holds U.S. permanent resident status, according to a spokeswoman, which would make him a U.S. person under election law and eligible to donate to McAuliffe's campaign.
Neither Wang nor his company used to make the donations have been contacted by U.S. investigators, according to the spokeswoman.
It couldn't be learned what else the FBI and Justice Department are investigating as part of the probe in McAuliffe.
Yet, because of a political system that is rigged to serve the needs of those in charge voters are being forced to choose between two evils; Trump or Clinton, neither of which are good for America.
Thecoming presidential race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump begins in a virtual dead heat, a competition between two candidates viewed unfavorably by a majority of the current electorate and with voters motivated as much by whom they don’t like as by whom they do, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Never in the history of the Post-ABC poll have the two major party nominees been viewed as harshly as Clinton and Trump.
Nearly 6 in 10 registered voters say they have negative impressions of both major candidates. Overall, Clinton’s net negative rating among registered voters is minus-16, while Trump’s is minus-17, though Trump’s numbers have improved since March. Among all adults, Trump’s net negatives are significantly higher than those of Clinton.
When Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont took the stage this week after falling short in the Kentucky primary, supporters of Hillary Clinton wondered whether he would finally soften his tone and let her move on to a general election against Donald Trump.
They didn’t have to wonder for long.
Sanders credited Clinton’s victory to “a closed primary, something I am not all that enthusiastic about, where independents are not allowed to vote.” He commanded the Democratic Party to “do the right thing and open its doors and let into the party people who are prepared to fight for economic and social change.” And then he promised that he’s staying in the race until the convention. “Let me be as clear as I can be: We are in ’til the last ballot is cast!”
The performance prompted cheers across a crowd of about 8,000 in Carson, Calif., highlighting the mistrust and alienation that Sanders’s most ardent fans feel about Clinton, the Democrats and their “rigged” system. Yet the whole spectacle also sent shudders through those supporting Clinton, who are growing increasingly irritated by Sanders’s ever-presence in the race —
and nervous that he is damaging Clinton.
All of it seems to have come to a head in recent days, as bitterness on both sides has boiled
over and prompted new worries that a fractured party could lead to chaos at the national convention and harm Clinton’s chances against Trump in November. Two realities seem to be fueling it all: The nomination is, for all intents and purposes, out of Sanders’s reach yet his supporters are showing no signs of wanting to rally behind Clinton.
Republicans like to complain about the nation's debt; ranting about cutting social services and not taxing the wealthy. What they don't talk about is how Americans are burying themselves in debt while trying to hang on to a glimmer of the so-called "American Dream."
In reality what is going on is that the banks are once again setting up the economy to blow up and, for the second time in less than a decade strip Americans of what little wealth they have scrapped together since the 2008 bubble burst.
Americans are once again being duped into believing that "owing" is "owning" that once again is creating a nightmare scenario that will take a long time to wake up from.
U.S. credit-card balances are on track to hit $1 trillion this year, as banks aggressively push their plastic and consumers grow more comfortable carrying debt.
That sum would come close to the all-time peak of $1.02 trillion set in July 2008, just before the financial crisis intensified, and could signal an easing of frugal habits ingrained by the recession.
The boom has been driven by steady economic conditions and an improving job market that have made creditworthy consumers less reluctant to take on debt. In addition, lenders have signed up millions of subprime consumers who previously weren’t able to get credit.
Consumers are taking on other forms of debt, too. Auto-loan balances surpassed $1 trillion in the first quarter, a record for the industry, according to a report Thursday from credit bureau Experian.
Credit cards are one of the few business lines working for banks right now. Low interest rates have hurt margins on ordinary lending, and a combination of tougher regulation and volatile markets has crimped profits in trading. But banks’ card operations are benefiting from low delinquency rates and could become even more profitable if interest rates rise.
Card issuers are trying to capitalize on the good times by raising customers’ credit limits, giving out more cards and pumping up perks.
“We’ll continue to take this opportunity as far as it will take us,” Richard Fairbank, chief executive at Capital One Financial Corp., said in a recent conference call with investors.
A Federal lawsuit alleging widespread confusion over California's presidential primary rules asks that voter registration be extended past Monday's deadline until the day of the state's primary election on June 7.
"Mistakes are being made," said William Simpich, an Oakland civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit Friday.
At issue is whether voters understand the rules for the presidential primary, which differ from those governing other elections in California.
Unlike statewide primaries — where voters now choose any candidate, no matter the political party — the presidential contests are controlled by the parties themselves. Democrats have opened up their primary between Hillary Clinton and Vermont Sen.Bernie Sanders to voters that have no political affiliation, known in California as having "no party preference."
And here's why Bernie is the best candidate to take the White House in 2016.
Democrats feel the Bern...
Why would anyone choose Sanders over Clinton? I suppose consistency is one reason - he's not changed his positions on basic issues of justice and fairness in 40 years. Yes, he was there for civil rights in the 60's, protesting, getting arrested, working to change the system. Same with feminism, gay rights, immigrants, etc. Our current call to reign in excess corporate power? Yup, Sanders in the 60's.
Integrity is another. Sanders HAS NO SCANDALS attached to him. Even his opponents agree that he is a rock, even if they don't like the shape of that rock. That whole socialist thing? It's a label he wears proudly, although it may not mean what some think it means.
He supports the average voter instead of giving special access to the wealthy. Don't believe it? Why does he have the highest support ratings of anyone in congress, with the lowest negative ratings? The voters he serves like him!
He has no enemies. Clinton has made many - the entire Republican party. Sorry, but it's true. Many hate her enough that they have pledged to begin impeachment proceedings immediately on election. Sanders is a true independent, and has worked across the aisle both ways.
He brings with him a surge of young voters looking for change and hope they saw in insufficient quantity 8 years ago. Make no mistake - Sanders campaign is not with Democrats, but they benefit from it. Millions who are sick of politics as usual, watching the leaders suck up to any old corruption as long as they can get donations, ignoring what voters want. These voters come because of his message of change, and will stay to make that change, and make it stick. Not so bad for the Democratic party as it's all stuff the party wanted, but didn't have the political muscle to pull off. With these new voters they will.
Judgement. Anyone can make a mistake, but Sanders has been on the right side of many important issues. And let's face it, Clinton has been pulled left as a result of the Sanders campaign. So it really boils down to a single question: Do you vote for the real deal, or the one adapting a position to win power?
Long before Bernie Sanders, there was Eugene Debs. He was a longtime socialist and union organizer, and five-time candidate for president. At his electoral high tide in 1912, he got nearly 6 percent of the presidential vote, by far the best any socialist has ever done in national politics. That is, until now.
Bernie Sanders, though he does not subscribe to the more traditional socialist views of Debs, still calls himself a socialist, and got within spitting distance of capturing the nomination of one of America's two parties. That is beyond question the electoral high water mark for an American socialist — at least for now. Why?
As people are continually rediscovering, Sanders gets most of his support from young people, across race and gender. Indeed, though a spectacular volume of punditry has focused on Sanders' lack of support among African-Americans, a recent Gallup survey found that black millennials (defined as being from age 20 to 36) give Sanders higher marks than whites or Latinos, at 67 percent approval. Hillary Clinton is not so popular, particularly among whites:
The allegations raised against Donald Trump in a recent New York Times article are nothing compared to the Clintons’ history, the presumptive Republican nominee said in an interview with Fox News’ “Hannity” aired Wednesday night.
“For example, I looked at The New York Times. Are they going to interview Juanita Broaddrick? Are they going to interview Paula Jones? Are they going to interview Kathleen Willey?” Hannity asked Trump, according to a transcript of the show. “In one case, it’s about exposure. In another case, it’s about groping and fondling and touching against a woman’s will.”
Trump replied, “And rape.”
“And rape,” Hannity repeated.
“And big settlements, massive settlements,” Trump added. “And lots of other things. And impeachment for lying.”
“Smearing,” Hannity said. Trump then mentioned Bill Clinton being disbarred for five years in Arkansas. “You know, he lost his law license, OK? He couldn’t practice law. And you don’t read about this on Clinton,” he said.
Of the three women Hannity mentioned, Jones accused Bill Clinton of exposing himself to her at a Little Rock, Arkansas, hotel in 1991, while Willey has accused Clinton of groping her in 1993. Broaddrick, who was known as Jane Doe No. 5 during the Paula Jones trial before coming forward, alleged in 1999 that Clinton had sexually assaulted and raped her in 1978. In 1999, Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, called Broaddrick’s allegations “absolutely false."
Broaddrick, speaking to Breitbart News in an article published earlier Wednesday, said the Times should devote its energy to investigating claims of sexual assault against Bill Clinton.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton have refused to comment on the issue during the campaign, though Trump has previously hinted that he would go after the former president’s history with women.
After Trump tweeted on Tuesday that Bill Clinton “was the WORST abuser of woman in U.S. political history,” the former president declined to engage. Speaking to reporters in Puerto Rico, he said, “I think people are smart enough to figure this out without my help.”
At a campaign rally earlier this month, Trump suggested Hillary Clinton was an “enabler.”
“Hillary hurt many women, the women that he abused,” Trump said. “She’s married to a man who got impeached for lying. He was impeached, and he had to go through a whole big process and he was impeached for lying about what happened with a woman. And she’s gonna take ads about little Donald Trump? I don’t know. I don’t think so. And Hillary was an enabler, and she treated these women horribly.”
The Clinton campaign fired back at Trump's latest attack.
“Trump is doing what he does best, attacking when he feels wounded and dragging the American people through the mud for his own gain,” spokesman Nick Merrill said. “If that’s the kind of campaign he wants to run that’s his choice. Hillary Clinton is running a campaign to be president for all of America. It’s not surprising that after a week of still refusing to release his taxes and likening Oakland and Ferguson to the dangers in Iraq, of course he wants to change the subject. So while he licks his wounds, we’ll continue to focus on improving the lives of the American people.”
Bill Clinton did not immediately respond to a request for comment — both Clintons have said in the past that they do not plan on engaging with Trump in personal attacks.
It's hard to find any differences between the Francis and Bernie, especially when it comes to scolding the "billionaires and millionaires."
As Bernie, Pope Francis sends a clear message to the wealthy who got there by exploiting others. He leaves little wiggle room for them to rationalize their lusty attitudes about money and has no problem ostracizing them.
The broad meaning of the pontiff’s homily was summarized with a simple image:
“A glass of water in the name of Christ is more important than all the riches accumulated through the exploitation of the people.”
From trafficking sex workers to failing to grant vacation to employees, Francis criticized those who seek profit at any price.
Pope Francis has blasted employers who do not provide health care as bloodsucking leeches and he also took aim at the popular “theology of prosperity” in a pointed sermon on the dangers of wealth.
Referring to businesses that hire employees on part-time contracts so they don’t have to provide health and pension benefits, Francis said Thursday (May 19) that was akin to sucking the blood from their workers’ veins, leaving them “to eat air.”
“Those who do that are true leeches, and they live by spilling the blood of the people who they make slaves of labor,” the pontiff said at morning Mass in the chapel of the Vatican guesthouse where he lives.
Cutting staff during the summer months to avoid providing benefits is a phenomenon in Italy, but the pope said this type of mistreatment and enslavement of workers is happening all over the world.
“We thought that slaves don’t exist anymore — they exist,” the pope said. “True, people don’t go and get them from Africa to sell them in America anymore, no. But they exist in our cities. And there are traffickers, those who use people through work without justice.”
Francis also focused attention on the “theology of prosperity,” which, as the pope explained, says “God shows that you are good by giving you great wealth.”
The so-called prosperity gospel is popular in the U.S., where its preachers are often on cable television, and it is a common phenomenon in Latin America, where the Argentine pope is from, and in Africa and Asia.
The problem, Francis said in his homily on Thursday, is that “you cannot serve both God and riches” because the love of money becomes “a chain” that makes it impossible to follow Jesus.
Francis took his cue from one of the day’s readings for Mass, a fiery passage from the Letter of James about the punishments the rich will suffer for having exploited the poor.
The broad meaning of the pontiff’s homily was summarized with a simple image: “A glass of water in the name of Christ is more important than all the riches accumulated through the exploitation of the people.”
Trump has 45 percent support, while Clinton trails with 42, putting just within the poll's margin of error.
Clinton rival Bernie Sanders, meanwhile, leads Trump 46 to 42, according to the same poll.
The presumptive GOP nominee is buoyed by his support among whites, leading Clinton 55 to 31 percent. That margin grows among whites without a college degree, 61 percent of whom favor Trump, while just 24 percent back Clinton.
But the real estate mogul still struggles with women voters, half of whom back Clinton, and just 36 percent support Trump.
The former secretary of State also holds commanding leads Trump among blacks (90 to 7 percent) and Hispanics (62 to 23 percent).
The poll surveyed 1,021 registered voters from May 14-17. It has a margin of error of 3 points.
You need to ask yourself. Self; Is putting a Millionaire Establishment Politician in the oval office good for the average working American?
Hillary Clinton made more than $1.4 million on paid speeches and over $5 million off book royalties in 2015, according to financial disclosure forms released on Tuesday.
The forms, which are legally required for presidential candidates, detail how Hillary and Bill Clinton made money in 2015 largely from paid speeches, a practice that has drawn the ire of liberal Democrats who have rallied around Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Bill Clinton delivered 22 paid speeches in 2015 for $5,250,000. Fifteen of these speeches were already reported in Clinton’s 2015 financial disclosure report. Incomes from the seven that had not been reported total $1,665,000.
Hillary Clinton delivered six paid speeches in 2015 for $1,475,500. These speeches included three in Canada, two in California and one in New Jersey — all of which were already reported in previous financial disclosure forms.
In total, Bill and Hillary Clinton gave 28 speeches in 2015 for $6,725,500.
It is becoming clear that Bernie supporters are not about to sit back and allow the Democratic Establishment power barons to hijack the nomination process. What we are seeing now is the spark that lights the flame of the Revolution Bernie stands for. Voters are angry and there's nothing more formidable than angry voters when they are being bullied. Establishment Democrats who insist that Hillary be nominated no matter what voters want are in for a big surprise.
(Update/clarification: This situation escalated out of control when Roberta Lange, Chairwoman of the Nevada State Democratic Party & member of the national DNC Executive Committee subjectively called the results of a voice vote, adjourned the meeting using a gavel, and left. According to a Democratic Party spokesman, the national party or its Chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, "did not have a part in this.")
Adryenn Ashley posted several live videos (below) from inside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, where arcane secondary rounds of the delegate selection process of Nevada's Democratic caucus erupted into chaos Saturday night. Bernie Sanders supporters demanded 64 rejected pro-Sanders delegates listed in a "minority report" prepared by their campaign be allowed to participate in selecting delegates for the national convention.
State party chair and DNC executive committee member Roberta Lange refused to reconsider their decision not to allow this, adjourned, and fled the building amid a chorus of boos; leaving hotel security and local police officers to handle the angry Sanders supporters.
Earlier in the day, the Sanders camp objected to several of their delegates being disqualified from voting for administrative reasons, and booed Sen. Barbara Boxer when she called for unity. "If you're booing me, you're booing Bernie Sanders," she told them. "Go ahead, boo yourselves out of this election."
The longest of Ashley's videos is the most consequential, others posted further below:
Sanders supporters are observed considering a sit-in in Ashley's video, but hotel security forced them out, saying "it is now in the hands of the attorneys."
"Please leave peacefully," the security officers said. "Please leave, it is not safe here."
"If we do not leave, it becomes a big issue," said one Sanders supporter. "I'm not leaving."
At one point, Ashley loses the video connection, but audio remains. "I don't know if you can see this," she says. "I don't know if you can hear this, but there are twenty armed sheriffs here to help them steal the election... They're saying leave now or else."
After minute nine of the above video, Ashley asks someone what is going on: "We've got 620 viewers here, you have nothing to say?"
"The guy that is speaking is not a member of the DNC, he is head of security for Paris [hotel]. He says he is a dedicated --I don't know if he is a Democrat," someone responds. "But the election process, and please leave. It is not safe here. And by it is not safe here, I expect he means all those sheriffs at the front of the room... They are asking us to 'leave the private property at this time.' This should be national news. This needs to be national news."
Eventually they shut the lights off to get the Sanders supporters out.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign, including her Super PAC, has received a lot of money from the employees and registered lobbyists of fossil-fuel companies. There’s the much-cited $4.5 million that Greenpeace calculated, which includes bundling by lobbyists.
One of Clinton’s most active financial backers is Warren Buffett, who is up to his eyeballs in coal.
But that’s not all. There is also a lot more money from sources not included in those calculations. For instance, one of Clinton’s most prominent and active financial backers is Warren Buffett. While he owns a large mix of assets, Buffett is up to his eyeballs in coal, including coal transportation and some of the dirtiest coal-fired power plants in the country.
Then there’s all the cash that fossil-fuel companies have directly pumped into the Clinton Foundation. In recent years, Exxon, Shell, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron have all contributed to the foundation. An investigation in theInternational Business Times just revealed that at least two of these oil companies were part of an effort to lobby Clinton’s State Department about the Alberta tar sands, a massive deposit of extra-dirty oil. Leading climate scientists like James Hansen have explained that if we don’t keep the vast majority of that carbon in the ground, we will unleash catastrophic levels of warming.
During this period, the investigation found, Clinton’s State Department approved the Alberta Clipper, a controversial pipeline carrying large amounts of tar-sands bitumen from Alberta to Wisconsin. “According to federal lobbying records reviewed by the IBT,” write David Sirota and Ned Resnikoff, “Chevron and ConocoPhillips both lobbied the State Department specifically on the issue of ‘oil sands’ in the immediate months prior to the department’s approval, as did a trade association funded by ExxonMobil.”
Did the donations to the Clinton Foundation have anything to do with the State Department’s pipeline decision? Did they make Hillary Clinton more disposed to seeing tar-sands pipelines as environmentally benign, as early State Department reviews of Keystone XL seemed to conclude, despite the many scientific warnings? There is no proof—no “smoking gun,” as Clinton defenders like to say. Just as there is no proof that the money her campaign took from gas lobbyists and fracking financiers has shaped Clinton’s current (and dangerous) view that fracking can be made safe.
