The State Department agreed back on April 2 to investigate department-wide email preservation policies in the wake of the controversy over Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, the National Archives and Records Administration announced on Thursday.
Archives’ release of State’s correspondence came hours after a former Archives litigator and other records management experts appearing on a panel expressed anguish at the slow pace at which the government is complying with email recordkeeping requirements.
Secretary of State John Kerry has asked State’s inspector general to review the agency’s recordkeeping and FOIA practices, said the letterfrom Deputy Assistant Secretary for Global Information Services Margaret Grafeld. The letter was in response to a March 3 message from Archives Chief Records Officer Paul Wester Jr.
Grafeld’s letter stressed State’s “longstanding demonstrated commitment to managing our records” in partnership with the Archives. It described formation of a “working group” led by Undersecretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy last year that produced an August 2014 memo to senior State leaders reminding them of record keeping obligations and warning them not to use private email. “Secretaries Clinton and [Colin] Powell had used non-government accounts during their tenures, but the degree to which records were captured in the department’s systems was unknown,” it said. The 55,000 emails Clinton turned over to State in December, the letter noted, are being reviewed for responsiveness to Freedom of Information Act requests.
Not included in the response was any information on Clinton’s original decision to set up a private email server.
“Where was everyone?” demanded Jason R. Baron, former director of litigation for the Archives, speaking at an open government panel at the National Press Club Thursday.
APRIL 10, 2015, 7:42 PM LAST UPDATED: FRIDAY, APRIL 10, 2015, 10:48 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
Companies with public contracts in New Jersey gave a record amount of money last year to a new breed of political advocacy groups that can influence elections without facing the state’s tough pay-to-play restrictions and disclosure requirements.
Although it was an electoral off-year with no statewide candidates on the ballot, contractors gave $1.8 million to PACs and outside groups in 2014, a 16 percent rise over the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday by the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. Direct donations from contractors to candidates’ campaigns fell 15 percent, to $9.1 million, ELEC reported.
“Independent groups are becoming a major force in politics, both nationally and in New Jersey,” said Jeff Brindle, the executive director of ELEC. Contractors are pouring more funds into those groups because “it’s a way around the law — it’s a way around pay-to-play” restrictions, and it allows many donors to remain anonymous, Brindle said.
New Jersey law generally bars any company with a contract worth more than $17,500 from giving more than $300 to gubernatorial candidates and party fundraising committees. Any contractor that gives money has to file a disclosure with ELEC.
Columnist Andrea Peyser says Hillary sets back the battle for “girl power’’ by decades
By Andrea Peyser
April 9, 2015 | 10:55pm
Hillary Rodham Clinton is the first dame ever to have clawed her way to the dizzying heights of American politics through a combination of ruthless cunning and the unabashed pity doled out by gullible voters, most of them Democrats.
She’s a lady whose star power is not based on her intellect or contributions to the common good, but on her willingness to excuse randy husband Bill Clinton for turning her into a fool.
Widely considered the Democratic Party’s best hope for keeping the White House in 2016, the former first lady, US senator from New York and secretary of state sets a rotten example for her sisters everywhere.
So why can’t feminists, Hillary’s fellow Democrats and even some Republicans face the truth? Supporting the candidacy of this calculating symbol of Tammy Wynette’s song “Stand By Your Man’’ represents a grotesque insult to the fairer sex.
On NJTV cooking show, New Jersey governor keeps presidential plans to himself
By HEATHER HADDON
April 7, 2015 9:36 p.m. ET
Gov. Chris Christie calls his pasta sauce “gravy,” once cooked many of his family’s meals, and believes garlic should be browned before being tossed into the skillet.
These tidbits were revealed in a new show marrying cooking and politics that debuts on New Jersey public television Wednesday. Whether the New Jersey Republican will run for president, however, wasn’t disclosed.
“Good try, though,” Mr. Christie quipped at host Nick Acocella when he tried to get the governor to divulge if he’s running for higher office.
A longtime New Jersey political analyst, Mr. Acocella featured Mr. Christie as his first guest on the “Pasta & Politics” show, to air on NJTV. The men converse about state politics as they cook a meal together, and then sit down to clink wine glasses and have a taste.
Pitching himself as a different kind of Republican, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Tuesday officially announced he will seek the GOP nomination for president.
“I have a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words” Paul said at a campaign rally in Louisville to a group of about 1,000 supporters at the Galt House Hotel. “We have come to take our country back.”
The resurgence of Islamic terrorism and President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran is shaking up the race for the White House, pushing national security to the forefront of the GOP primary debate.
The primacy of foreign policy could be a problem for Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), the libertarian Tea-Party favorite, who is set to launch his presidential campaign next week in Louisville. He proposed steep defense cuts when he first came to the Senate and has expressed wariness about foreign military interventions.
On the other hand, the new dynamic could help Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who have touted their experience on the Foreign Relations and Armed Services committees, respectively, as they make the case for their candidacies.
MARCH 29, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MARCH 29, 2015, 1:20 AM
BY MARC FISHER
THE RECORD
GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz is a lightning rod for controversy, a stickler for process, an evangelist for conservative principle, a constitutional wonk in ostrich-skin cowboy boots.
Marc Fisher writes for The Washington Post.
TED CRUZ looked out over a sprawling audience of Iowa farmers and agri-business leaders, people who rely on federal subsidies of ethanol, and the man who would be president stuck it to them.
“I know you’d like me to say I’m for the renewable fuel standard” — that’s the subsidy of their product — “that’d be the easy thing to do,” he said. “But I’m going to tell you the truth.” He’d take away their subsidy, he said with a big smile.
The farmers sat on their hands.
A week earlier, in a vast ballroom at Maryland’s National Harbor, where blood-red conservatives gathered to evaluate a showcase of Republican presidential wannabes, Cruz was again the steely man of principle. He railed against Washington, slammed his opponents (“Hillary Clinton embodies the corruption of Washington”) and asked the true believers to demand of their candidates, “When have you been willing to stand up against Republicans?” The son of a Cuban man who saw what happens when freedom is stripped away swore that “I’ll die before I let it happen again.”
This time, the crowd stood as one, roaring with admiration and hope.
A ‘modern Jeremiah’
His father describes Cruz as a “modern Jeremiah,” delivering the final warning before the collapse, sending an unpopular but vital message. His Harvard law professor, Alan Dershowitz, calls him “off-the-charts brilliant.” Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and unsuccessful presidential candidate, once dubbed Cruz a “wacko bird.” His own wife says Cruz’s supreme certainty had a way of being “irksome.”
It is Cruz’s ramrod devotion to principle — or, its flip side, an unyielding insistence on getting his way — that could propel him to the front ranks of Republican contenders for president or render him unelectable.
Cruz, 44, was a marvel in high school, a kid who memorized the Constitution and wowed audiences with his speaking skills. In college, he was a prodigy and a pest; the same people who avoided having dinner with him went out of their way to watch him debate. As a politician, the senator from Texas is what he’s always been — a lightning rod for controversy, a stickler for process, an evangelist for conservative principle, a constitutional wonk in ostrich-skin cowboy boots.
Those who find his newly announced presidential campaign thrilling and those who find the notion of Cruz in the White House disturbing agree that his devotion to principle reminds them of that of Barry Goldwater, the movement conservative and 1964 Republican presidential nominee who famously said “I’d rather be right than president” and got his wish.
Uncertainty
Beneath Cruz’s mesmerizing speaking style — midnight-smooth delivery, never ruffled, even as he drops lacerating lines about the evils of Obamacare (although he acknowleged he signed his family up for Obamacare last week) — and his unthreatening appearance — suits, slicked-back black hair, baby-faced complexion — how the senator would govern remains unclear. Is he a rigidly uncompromising originalist or, as Cruz argues, more like Ronald Reagan, who preached conservative populism but governed as a dealmaker?
Although his father often proudly introduces his son guaranteeing that “Ted will not compromise,” Cruz says he follows Reagan’s approach: Push for limited government, but take what you can get. Despite the popular caricature of him as inflexible, Cruz says, “If they offer you half a loaf, you take it — and then come back for more.”
No Copies of Clinton Emails on Server, Lawyer Says
By MICHAEL S. SCHMIDTMARCH 27, 2015
WASHINGTON — An examination of the server that housed the personal email account that Hillary Rodham Clinton used exclusively when she was secretary of state showed that there are no copies of any emails she sent during her time in office, her lawyer told a congressional committee on Friday.
After her representatives determined which emails were government-related and which were private, a setting on the account was changed to retain only emails sent in the previous 60 days, her lawyer, David Kendall, said. He said the setting was altered after she gave the records to the government.
“Thus, there are no hdr22@clintonemail.com emails from Secretary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the server for any review, even if such review were appropriate or legally authorized,” Mr. Kendall said in a letter to the House select committee investigating the 2012 attacks in Benghazi, Libya.
The committee subpoenaed the server this month, asking Mrs. Clinton to hand it over to a third party so it could determine which emails were personal and which were government records.
At a news conference this month, Mrs. Clinton appeared to provide two answers about whether she still had copies of her emails. First, she said that she “chose not to keep” her private personal emails after her lawyers had examined the account and determined on their own which ones were personal and which were State Department records. But later, she said that the server, which contained personal communication by her and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, “will remain private.” The server was kept at their home in Chappaqua, N.Y., which is protected around the clock by the Secret Service.
Mrs. Clinton’s disclosure on Friday only heightened suspicions by the committee’s chairman, Representative Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, about how she handled her emails, and it is likely to lead to more tension between her and the committee.
Mr. Gowdy said in a written statement that it appeared that Mrs. Clinton deleted the emails after Oct. 28, when the State Department first asked her to turn over emails that were government records.
CNN Confronts Stephen A. Smith for Wanting Black Americans to Vote GOP – And He Doesn’t Back Down
By Jennifer Van Laar
In a speech earlier this week, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith urged black Americans to vote Republican at least once. Smith also said that by blindly voting Democrat blacks label themselves “disenfranchised.”
Smith was interviewed by CNN’s Michael Smerconish to offer further explanation of his comments:
“We’ve bought it hook, line, and sinker … The vast majority of black Americans look at the Republican party as the enemy. We look at the Democrat party as our support base.
Because of it, they have a license to take us for granted. The Republican party has a license to summarily dismiss us because they believe they’ll never get our vote anyway, and then we end up finding ourselves devoid of any kind of representation whatsoever because nobody is really competing to garner our vote and our support.
I wanted folks in my community to stand up and recognize that if you go to a house or you go buy a car or whatever the case may be, you don’t just see something you want and say, ‘I want that. Tell me what the price is and I’ll pay for it.’ Somebody has to flatter you in order to garner your dollars and your support.
I think the same should apply to politicians who want to represent us.”
Smerconish agreed that most Republicans “never even make the ask” for the black vote, but that Rand Paul seems to be doing just that. Smith had some advice for Rand Paul:
“He can highlight some of the inconsistencies and the discrepancies the opposing party might be throwing in our direction, things that we may not know.”
“If you’re running for the presidency, you have to surround yourself with a bunch of folks that look like us.”
Smith contends the Hispanic community has already figured this out and this is why immigration reform is such a hot topic. He believes the black community should be following this lead, and pressing both parties more on issues important to their community.
After Smerconish expressed his hesitation to embrace identity politics, and a fear this would lead to “Balkanization,” Smith replied:
“I am a black man, from a black community, and I’ve watched us suffer religiously, whether it’s with unemployment … whether it’s incarceration, whatever the case may be.”
“I think that the interest of the country is paramount and should usurp all other interests. but if you’re talking to me about my community, I’m going to speak on what’s affecting us and how we can alleviate those concerns.”
Smith ended by saying he isn’t advocating for one party over the other, but rather advocating for blacks to not be so transparent in their support for one party over the other.
“You want to rumble Rove?” Glenn pens open letter to Karl Rove
by Glenn Saturday, Mar 21, 2015 at 10:06 AM EDT
An open letter to Karl Rove: You want to rumble Rove? Come on to my show and let’s have it out. Bring it on. I would love to take you on WITH YOUR RECORD AND THE RECORD OF THE GOP. I could do it with my eyes closed and in a coma. You hung yourself on O’Reilly. By using my words to mock me, the audience heard my words. I would bet a good portion agreed with me. I was right at CPAC in 2011 and never invited back. What a shock!!! If you don’t think that the Republicans are progressive light then you don’t know the history of the movement started by Teddy Roosevelt and the GOP. There are good men and women in the party that believe in the constitution. Are you one of them? Do you seriously believe that Jeb Bush is not progressive light? Help me out with Common Core and Jeb Bush! How about Orrin Hatch’s role in targeting Mike Lee? Can you name a better, more honorable man than Mike? How about Mitch McConnell and his targeting of Ted Cruz and Mike Lee? How are things working out for all of the campaign promises? How about the deficit? The war? Defunding ObamaCare? Oh, didn’t the GOP vote to confirm Cass Sunstein? How is illegal immigration working out for you? (Actually, I know the answer: really well as your big corporate buddies love it. Especially down in the colonias). It is modern day slavery. Has Grover started any new Muslim Brotherhood front groups you and the Bushes can pass off as the good guys? How about some more FCC regulation on the Internet? Can you tell me one thing you have done? I mean beside the PATRIOT Act, the NSA and not stopping the IRS from massive abuse of power. Oh, I forgot! You did get to the bottom of Benghazi. Oops. Nope. It must be because you are swamped in actually fixing the VA system for all the men YOU put in harms way. Gosh, sorry. No, you aren’t even doing that. Wow. How do you find your way out of bed in the morning? Well maybe you don’t go to bed, because I know I couldn’t sleep if I were you or any of your cronies. So let me rephrase. You guys couldn’t find your way outside standing in an open door frame. How is the health of the three equal branches of government? I will say this; you are better than the president. You are only half as bad. You are only doing the fundraising dinners, while he is doing that AND playing golf. It is almost like you are progressive light. I know, you understand ‘strategy’ and I don’t. I know, you can’t push for these things right now! You will lose the presidency in 2016. No, now you have to compromise on things like immigration etc. so you can win the White House. THEN you will have the White House, the Senate and the House. That is when you really go for it … Right? Next time. Not now. That when things really change! Just like they did when you had both branches under Bush!! Crap. Another bad example. You guys have the spine of a worm, the ethics of whores, and the integrity of pirates. (My apologies to worms, whores and pirates) You are right about one thing, I have said this before. You are also right that you don’t need to worry about me. You need to worry about the American public. Because they have had it up to their teeth with you, the GOP and the DNC lies. You need to worry about yourself. After blowing almost a billion dollars on ‘I love government healthcare Romney,’ I would guess you don’t have too. Many more chances to save what is left of your career. It is sad that you can no longer hear the American People because they could save you. Instead you listen to your political consultants and the amazing thing is you still believe all of it. Can you not smell what you are shoveling anymore? The world has changed. The whole world is being redesigned. Not by government but by dreamers and doers. You are the taxi medallions in an Uber world. You don’t have to be young to see that. You just have to be open and honest. Instead, you just continue to shine up the progressive agenda of people like Jeb, pressure, corrupt or threaten freshmen and smear the good people of this country who believe in the actual principles enshrined in the Constitution. It is sad what the GOP has become. You would campaign against Reagan. (Cruz has the principles of Reagan- but all you see of Reagan was HOW Ronald Reagan won, not WHY he won). JFK would be too small government for the GOP as you see it. “Government isn’t the solution, Government is the problem”. You believe only government run by the Democrats is a problem. By the way: clever whiteboard trick. Only problem, the quote was right. Ted Cruz knew what you guys were doing and called you on it. He won’t play your game. Which is why millions of Americans support him and you and your progressive corporate fat cats will try to destroy him and anyone else that tries to tell the truth. Good luck with that. The future belongs to free people. The genie is out of the bottle. You will not be able to corral the spirit of America. Because it isn’t a person or a place. It is an idea. Do you know why America is failing? Because we don’t even know who we are anymore. Why? Because people like you only care about ‘interests’ instead of ‘principles’. Your interests, the party’s interests or national interests. Those all change depending on the day and situation. Principles never change. When you and the GOP find your unchanging and eternal principles – other than keeping your power and controlling people’s lives – let me know. The people don’t trust Washington anymore. You haven’t given us a reason to, we are not as dumb as you thought and we will never sit down and shut up again. #defundtheGOP. Find the person you believe in, not the party. George Washington was right. You have gone from being a man I thought was a good guy to a sad and quickly forgotten figure of the past. It is never to late to change. You just have to be willing to admit your mistakes and live by principles. I have done so. When will you?
Right after he finished his term as governor, one politician many years ago decided to make a very big leap. He had the chutzpah to begin running for president. This little-known former governor, not from a big state, spent most of his time in Iowa and New Hampshire. There, he sought to know everyone of importance who played a role in shaping the political fortunes of aspiring presidential candidates. No crowd was too small, no event too minor. He was everywhere and after a certain amount of time the people of the Hawkeye State and the Granite State got to feel comfortable with him and he developed a following.
When the other, better-known names started to show up, they soon realized that they were too late. This little-known former governor had locked up the key endorsements because he had done the early work of contact and cultivation. The primary reason for his early auspicious electoral success was that this was his only job: running for president.
David Mamet: Why I Am No Longer a ‘Brain-Dead Liberal’
An election-season essay
By David Mamet Tuesday, Mar 11 2008
See also that most magnificent of schools, the jury system, where, again, each brings nothing into the room save his or her own prejudices, and, through the course of deliberation, comes not to a perfect solution, but a solution acceptable to the community—a solution the community can live with.
Prior to the midterm elections, my rabbi was taking a lot of flack. The congregation is exclusively liberal, he is a self-described independent (read “conservative”), and he was driving the flock wild. Why? Because a) he never discussed politics; and b) he taught that the quality of political discourse must be addressed first—that Jewish law teaches that it is incumbent upon each person to hear the other fellow out.
And so I, like many of the liberal congregation, began, teeth grinding, to attempt to do so. And in doing so, I recognized that I held those two views of America (politics, government, corporations, the military). One was of a state where everything was magically wrong and must be immediately corrected at any cost; and the other—the world in which I actually functioned day to day—was made up of people, most of whom were reasonably trying to maximize their comfort by getting along with each other (in the workplace, the marketplace, the jury room, on the freeway, even at the school-board meeting).
And I realized that the time had come for me to avow my participation in that America in which I chose to live, and that that country was not a schoolroom teaching values, but a marketplace.
Readers say No question, Aronsohn must suspend his columns well before the election to avoid running afoul of NJ election laws
No question, Aronsohn must suspend his columns well before the election to avoid running afoul of NJ election laws. Thank you for pointing this out.
“The (The Villadom Times) publisher appears to have been involved in only one minor political dust-up, when Democratic Bergen County Executive candidate Dennis McNerney in 2002 called for an investigation of his Republican opponent’s periodic column in the Villadom. McNerney contended that then state Sen. Henry P. McNamara should have disclosed the column, called Straight Talk, as an in-kind contribution from the Vierheiligs.”
So Boyd Loving was right on the money when he commented that Paul Aronsohn’s monthly column in The Ridgewood News may be a violation of NJ State Election Commission Laws and also unethical.
Sounds like the Ridgewood News might have the same sort of dust-up if they keep on with the mayor’s monthly PR column.
Running foul of election laws is the name of the game, as in the Mike Sedon anonymous email.
Scott Walker on Jeb Bush: We need a name from the future, not the past
By Nick Gass
3/13/15 12:25 PM EDT
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker alternately praised and took swipes at his likely presidential rivals during an interview with the Tampa Bay Times on Friday in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Asked about Republican establishment support for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Walker said the “next up” mentality has not worked with candidates like Bob Dole in 1996, John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012, and it won’t cut it against Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
“Jeb’s a good man. You’re not going to hear me speak ill” of him, Walker said, noting that Bush called him two days before announcing his leadership PAC. “I just think voters are going to look at this and say, ‘If we’re running against Hillary Clinton, we’ll need a name from the future – not a name from the past – to win.’ “
Walker acknowledged Bush’s fundraising advantage as well.
Walker tests his message in New Hampshire
By Jesse Byrnes
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, tested his message of “growth, reform and safety” in New Hampshire on Saturday with a speech at a grassroots workshop in Concord.
In his first trip to the second-in-the-nation presidential nominating state since 2012, Walker donned a sweater he said he bought for a buck from Kohl’s, a big retailer founded in his home state, and cast himself as an executive willing to roll up his sleeves to streamline government and protect the homeland.
Walker kicked off his speech by touting his close geography growing up near fellow Republican Wisconsin natives Reince Priebus, Republican National Committee chairman, and Rep. Paul Ryan, recalling that he and Ryan “both flipped hamburgers as kids at McDonald’s.”
Walker’s speech relied on familiar themes, touting reforms during his tenure in Wisconsin to argue that success should be measured “by how many people who are no longer dependent on the government.”
He also suggested his two sons could take off a semester of college to campaign with him, should he run.
Fielding a question on whether he would abolish the federal income tax, Walker said the idea “sounds pretty interesting” but stopped short of giving it his endorsement, emphasizing cuts in other areas of the government.
Presented with a blue baseball cap from a pro-gun member of the audience asking about foreign policy, Walker immediately strapped the hat on his head and threw up an air rifle pose, grinning.
Walker said the biggest national security threat facing the U.S. was” radical Islamic terrorism.”
“I am not proposing to engage full-scale boots on the ground, but I’m not taking that off the table,” he said.
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