Hillary Campaign Desperate Weekend Memo

Campaign Chairman: Clinton Knows Email Setup Was A “Mistake”

Buzzfeed: John Podesta sent hundreds of top Clinton supporters a memo over the weekend following the critical IG report on the former secretary of state’s email setup.

   

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.”


Read the full memo below:

To: Interested Parties
From: John Podesta, Campaign Chair
Date: May 28, 2016


As Hillary Clinton nears the point where she will officially clinch the Democratic nomination for President, we intend to spend the coming months focused on the issues of greatest concern to the everyday lives of working families.However, we know that our opponents will continue to try to distract us with attacks, including on issues like Secretary Clinton’s use of personal email while at the State Department.

Since last year, Secretary Clinton has said her use of a personal email server was a mistake. And while there have been ongoing reviews of this matter, the completion of the Inspector General’s examination gets us one step closer to resolving this.

While the rules surrounding use of a personal email account were clarified after Secretary Clinton left office – and the Inspector General recommends the State Department take measures to even further clarify them – the Secretary has once again acknowledged this was a mistake. And she has taken responsibility for that mistake – including in many interviews she’s done since the report’s release.

What she thought would be a convenient way to communicate with family, friends and colleagues – by using one email account for both her work related and personal emails – has turned out to be anything but convenient. If she could go back, she’d do it differently.

Parts of the report underscore what Secretary Clinton has said all along about her email practices as Secretary of State. For instance, the report confirms Secretary Clinton’s email account was well-known by many State Department officials throughout her tenure, and there is no evidence of a breach of her email server.

Had Secretary Clinton known of any concerns about her email setup at the time, she would have taken steps to address them. She believed she was following the practices of other Secretaries and senior officials.

What has also been missed in a lot of the discussion is that the report brings to light the longstanding and systemic problems in the government’s electronic recordkeeping systems.

Secretary Clinton believed her emails to and from officials on their state.gov accounts were automatically captured and preserved in the State Department’s electronic system.

It was not until the Department contacted her in 2014 that she learned this was not the case. And since then, she has taken unprecedented steps to ensure public access to her emails — providing the Department with all of her work-related emails, totaling 55,000 pages, and calling for their release.

Secretary Clinton also agrees with the Inspector General’s recommendations that electronic recordkeeping practices and policies need to be upgraded. Printing out 55,000 pages of emails is not a good use of time or resources, nor should it be the standard for preserving records given technology available to us today.

There is a lot at stake in this election. This week Donald Trump officially clinched enough delegates to become the Republican nominee. That means an unqualified loose cannon is within reach of the most powerful job in the world.

While we understand the questions about Secretary Clinton’s email practices, we are confident that voters will look at the full picture of everything she has done throughout her career. We have faith in the American people. They know we have to be focused on solutions that will make a real difference in people’s lives.

Hillary Clinton will continue to dedicate her campaign to getting results on behalf of America’s working families. She rejects the strategy of pitting Americans against each other in favor of an approach that recognizes how much stronger we are when we come together. With your help, we will take that message across the country and earn a great victory this November.

Public School Costs/Results

It would be important for all owners of real estate regardless of whether there are school aged children to ask some hard questions of the respective school system. Chicago is a symptom of a big problem where results are quite questionable.

The Real Cost of CPS Borrowing: District Now Owes $38,000 per Student

ManhattanInstitute: By all accounts, Chicago Public Schools has made significant academic progress over the last 15 years. Since 2003 the district’s proficiency rates on the National Assessment of Educational Progress exam have more than doubled in math and have nearly doubled in reading.

But this progress is now threatened by severe financial mismanagement. The district faces a budget crisis driven by the rising cost of past, unpaid bills that is crowding out spending on today’s teachers and students.

CPS’ budget crisis was not created overnight. For more than a decade, the district has struggled with a widening structural budget deficit. Since 2001, inflation-adjusted spending per pupil increased by nearly 40 percent. In 2001, CPS spent close to $12,000 per student; in 2015, $16,432. Yet revenue has not kept pace: CPS per-pupil revenue has not matched per-pupil spending, with revenue falling short, on average, by $1,000 per pupil since 2001. More recently, the revenue gap has widened to nearly $3,000 per year.

CPS has papered over its annual shortfalls by borrowing vast sums from bond markets. As a result, CPS bonds are now rated as “junk” and the district has to pay a huge premium to get anyone to buy them (three times the rate for benchmark government bonds).

What’s more, by failing to make the necessary pension contributions, CPS has borrowed even larger amounts from its current and former teachers through the pension fund—today the district owes the fund billions upon billions. CPS owes bondholders and the pension fund more than $38,000 for every student, up from less than $10,000 in 2001.

Rising debt service costs are beginning to take a real bite out of district resources. And CPS has scrambled to keep pace while protecting classroom spending. Since 2011, CPS has made nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in budget cuts “away from the classroom,” with administrative and programmatic spending hit especially hard. Nevertheless, from 2001 to 2015, annual per-pupil inflation-adjusted spending has been hit hard as well:

  • Spending on textbooks has declined by 36 percent.
  • Spending on classroom supplies has fallen by nearly 60 percent.
  • Budgets for elementary school sports (coaching stipends and equipment) have been cut by the millions.
  • Annual per-pupil spending on capital repairs and replacement has dropped by 55 percent.

Because the majority of a school district’s spending is on salaries and benefits, there is only so much that can be cut beyond that. Which is why Chicago’s teachers are feeling the budgetary pressure. Since 2001, CPS teacher salaries, as a share of total CPS spending, have fallen by more than 10 percentage points, while pension contributions have jumped, from 2 percent of total CPS spending to more than 10 percent.

Teachers’ retirement benefits have also been reduced. Changes for new teachers instituted in 2011 represent an average total compensation cut of about 10 percent compared with teachers who began working before the changes took effect. For career teachers the drop is even larger—representing a reduction of more than 40 percent of the total potential benefit value.

There are only three ways to right CPS’ sinking financial ship: Secure additional revenue, reduce teachers’ retirement benefits, or cut services for current students. Start with revenue. Given that the Legislature is mired in a long-running budget standoff, securing significant additional state aid seems unlikely. Raising more local revenue faces another constraint: Chicago’s property tax increases are capped at the rate of inflation.

As for cuts to retiree benefits, the Illinois Supreme Court has prohibited pension reductions for all but future hires, thereby disallowing even the modest changes to teachers’ benefits. For these reasons, major service cuts to Chicago’s public schools—however undesirable—appear most plausible.

Afghanistan: Schools are Bunkers

This was Afghanistan in 1960’s.

How Afghan Classrooms Became Bunkers

HRW: Since the 2001 U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan, Western countries have invested heavily in education there. But as security across the country deteriorates, schools in many places are under threat, not only from resurgent Taliban forces but also from the very Afghan security forces that are mandated to protect them.

2016-May-Afghanistan-1

Increasingly, the country’s national forces are using schools—many of them constructed by foreign donors and often the only concrete-reinforced, multi-story buildings in smaller villages—as their military bases during offensives into Taliban-held areas. Even if the buildings remain unscathed, the military occupation interrupts children’s education. But all too often, the schools become battlegrounds as the Taliban counter-attacks government positions, leaving the buildings damaged or in ruins and denying children an education until they can be rebuilt, if ever.

In 2015, the United Nations mission in Afghanistan documented 20 cases in which government security forces and armed opposition groups occupied schools for military purposes. During a brief research mission in April, Human Rights Watch identified 11 schools that were under occupation and being used for military purposes in just one small area of the Baghlan province alone, suggesting that the problem is underreported and getting worse. An investigation by the Guardian newspaper in April uncovered two British-built schools in Helmand province being used as Afghan army bases, including one in which students were still attending school on a lower floor.

The Ustad Golan Jelani Jelali Middle School, in the village of Postak Bazaar in the Baghlan province, is a case in point. Its most recent troubles are only the latest in a long litany of woes. In 2010, the Taliban laid siege to the school when it was occupied by the Afghan police, gunning down seven policemen inside a classroom. “Their blood just wouldn’t wash away,” a school official told me, “so we had to chip it away from the wall with an axe.”

 

In 2015, the Afghan police were back at the school, setting up base with sandbagged positions on the second level while students tried to continue their schooling below. Alarmed school officials managed to get a letter from the Kabul authorities ordering the police to leave, but the police commander ignored them, saying that he was staying put. When the students needed to take exams, school officials again presented the letter to the commander, but his police officers fired their guns in the direction of the assembled teachers and students, forcing them to flee.

Nearly a year later, the police were still occupying the school despite the repeated entreaties of the teachers and school officials. When we visited in April, the Taliban fighters were closing in, putting the children’s school right on the front lines of a brutal conflict. A school official told us:

Now the Taliban are getting closer, and we have had to close the school because of the security. All of the schools in our area are closed for the moment. The Taliban front line is now just 30 meters from the school. The students, out of fear, are not coming to school. We went to see the police chief again, but he just said that as with the prior agreement, the police stay on the second floor and we can use the school on the first floor.

The Taliban, too, have used schools in the area as military bases, refusing to abandon them even in response to pleas from village elders desperate to save their schools. The Swedish government financed construction of the Khail Jan Shahid Primary School in Omar Khail. In 2015, the school opened its doors to 350 boys and girls. Soon afterward, Taliban fighters came to occupy the school, refusing to leave when asked by village elders.

Early this year, government forces attacked the Taliban forces based at the school, raking the building with gunfire and mortar rounds. The Taliban fled, but the school compound was left in ruins less than a year after it had opened. Even in its ruined state, the school continues to serve as a military base. When Human Rights Watch was there in April, a contingent of Afghan local police paramilitaries occupied the building.

For many families in Afghanistan, education for their children remains one of the few routes out of poverty. The increasing presence in schools of government security forces and the Taliban is not only putting education out of reach but also destroying much of the educational infrastructure that Afghanistan’s donors have invested in so heavily over the last 15 years. In many villages, it is also turning Afghan security forces into despised occupiers rather than giving villagers a sense of security.

Parents of girls are particularly less likely to allow their children to attend school if it means co-habiting a school with armed men or facing a potential attack. When a school or the route to the school is perceived as becoming more dangerous or when a school closes and students are forced to travel farther to one that is still open, girls are far more likely than boys to be kept home by anxious parents.

People in the United States and Europe who take pride in the fact that their governments are supporting education in Afghanistan are likely to take a dim view of their aid money being used to essentially build bases for security forces. Governments that have taken steps to limit the use of schools for military purposes by their own armed forces will be in a better position to credibly work with the Afghan government to discourage it in Afghanistan, ensure that occupied schools are vacated, and promote security force policies and practices that better protect schools.

An international Safe Schools Declaration, which provides guidance on how to better protect schools from attacks and military use, is helping to focus attention on the issue. Since the declaration was published, 53 states, including Afghanistan and many other conflict-affected countries, have made a political commitment to this effort. About half of the European Union countries have signed on. For countries that sign on, the next step is to incorporate these protections into domestic policy and operational frameworks. For those states that haven’t yet endorsed the declaration, which is one year old today, that’s a clear first step to demonstrating their commitment to safer schools around the world.

Ultimately, signing on to the Safe Schools Declaration is the easy part. A true commitment to protecting schools from attacks and preventing their use for military purposes requires political will and action on the ground. It requires governments to be willing to issue orders to their troops not to occupy schools and to hold security forces that ignore such orders, such as those occupying schools in Afghanistan, accountable.

Every day, children in many parts of Afghanistan risk their lives to reach their schools and get the education they hope will give them better futures. The continuing use of such schools by Afghan security forces and the Taliban risks depriving yet another generation of Afghan children of an education and puts children in the direct line of fire. Even in a place as torn by conflict as Afghanistan, children have a right to a safe school that shelters them from the effects of war, and Afghanistan’s government and donors need to do more to protect that most basic of rights.

White House: No Cyber Danger, Really?

White House Fails to Detect a Single Cyber Threat

After ordering ‘national emergency,’ Obama admin finds no cyber danger

FreeBeacon: The White House has been unable to detect a single cyber security threat more than six months after issuing a “national emergency” to deal with what the administration identified as growing and immediate danger, according to a new government report.

Six months after President Barack Obama invoked emergency powers to block the assets of any person caught engaging in “malicious cyber-enabled activities,” the administration has not identified a single qualifying target, according to the Treasury Department, which disclosed in a report that “no entities or individuals have been designated.”

Related: Iranians Hacked From Wall Street to New York Dam, U.S. Says 

The April 2015 directive issued by the White House identified an “increasing prevalence and severity of malicious cyber-enabled activities” among individuals living outside the United States.

Related: Map of Government Hack Activists

These activities were said to constitute “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” prompting Obama to declare “a national emergency to deal with this threat.”

A half a year later, the White House still has not invoked this power to combat growing cyber threats, despite a rise in such activity among rogue nations such as Iran, North Korea, and China.

Related: White House Cyber Security Initiative

“The Department of the Treasury took no punitive licensing actions, and it assessed no monetary penalties,” according to the department’s first periodic review of the president’s emergency order.

The White House has not explained why it has not yet invoked its powers, even following reports that Russian hackers penetrated the State Department and “sensitive parts” of the White House’s computer networks last year.

Related: Cyber attacks against our critical infrastructure are likely to increase

The Pentagon and other branches of the U.S. government also have been the targets of these types of attacks, which officials have traced back to the Russians, North Koreans, and others.

Military organizations tied to the Iranian government also have been identified as hacking into the email and social media accounts of White House officials.

The emergency powers invoked by Obama could be used to sanction individuals tied to these attacks if the administration agrees that such a determination should be made.

Those responsible for the cyber attacks already reported by the media and currently being investigated by federal authorities could quality for designation under these emergency powers.

The cyber threat posed by other nations and foreign criminals continues to grow, according to the White House, which moved to take further action on this front in February.

“Criminals, terrorists, and countries who wish to do us harm have all realized that attacking us online is often easier than attacking us in person,” the White House disclosed in announcing the creation of national plan of action to combat cyber terrorists. “As more and more sensitive data is stored online, the consequences of those attacks grow more significant each year.”

A month after Obama invoked the emergency powers, Congress launched a probe into data breaches at the White House. Some lawmakers suspected that the White House had attempted to downplay the extent of these attacks by Russians and others.

Fighting on the Same Side of Iranian Militias

BAGHDAD – American commandos are on the front lines in Syria in a new push toward the Islamic State group’s de facto capital in Raqqa, but in Iraq it is an entirely different story: Iran, not the United States, has become the face of an operation to retake the jihadi stronghold of Fallujah from the militant group.

On the outskirts of Fallujah, tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers, police officers and Shiite militiamen backed by Iran are preparing for an assault on the Sunni city, raising fears of a sectarian bloodbath. Iran has placed advisers, including its top spymaster, Qassim Suleimani, on the ground to assist in the operation.

The battle over Fallujah has evolved into yet another example of how United States and Iranian interests seemingly converge and clash at the same time in Iraq. Both want to defeat the Islamic State. But the United States has long believed that Iran’s role, which relies on militias accused of sectarian abuses, can make matters worse by angering Sunnis and making them more sympathetic to the militants. More here from HoustonChronicle

Armoured vehicle modified by Hashd engineers carries AAH emblem during the operations to move toward Fallujah

London-Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that Iran is involved in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan to defend national interests.

Rafsanjani explained during an interview with Aftab News that Iran cannot leave these countries easily, adding that continuing what they have started with there is not an easy mission.

He considered Iran’s intervention in regional crises as one of the international challenges his country is facing.

He added by saying, “Arab and Islamic countries are united against Iran in Syria and now want to control things in Iraq.”

Moreover, Rafsanjani admitted that Iran is facing troubles in the region; adding that these problems should be solved by proper management in order to reach a suitable solution.

On the other hand, Rafsanjani called for Americans to be “flexible” with Iran for a few years in order to gain the confidence of the Iranian officials; thus normalizing U.S.-Iranian relations.

He also implicitly pointed out that Rouhani wants to meet U.S. President Barack Obama. But “Khamenei’s pressure exerted on the Iranian president,” in addition to the unsuitable circumstances, “prevents such meeting from taking place.”

Rafsanjani acknowledged the existence of profound differences in the Iranian leadership, accusing some officials of deceiving public opinion.

Three days ago, Commander of Iranian Quds Force Qassem Soleimani pointed out implicitly to the existence of negotiations between Iran and the U.S. on the crises in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council defended Hassan Rouhani by explaining that one of his major political pledges, regarding ending the house arrest of Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, has not been met yet because it is out of the government’s powers.

Notably, Rouhani is passing through very critical times due to the increased pressure exerted on him and as a result of the long list of accusations directed by his allies and rivals.

In addition, Rafsanjani mentioned that Iran is facing great internal challenges because of the political disputes, unemployment, and inflation.

Iranian websites circulated news on Rafsanjani’s statements at the time when former Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Mohsen Rezaee attacked the Saudi foreign minister with racist terms.

Furthermore, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Amir Abdullahian said that Tehran is determined to continue playing its advisory role in the region, reiterating Iran’s continuous presence in Syria, according to IRNA official agency.

He explained on Monday that Iran, with pride and determination, continues its advisory support in the region, pointing out to Iran’s crucial role to guarantee security and stability in regional countries and the world.

Iran justifies its military presence in Syria and Iraq by considering itself playing an advisory role, yet it names its militants in these areas with ideological titles such as “Defending Shi’ite Shrines,” showing contradiction between the official speeches given in Iran and the involved institutions that are sending armed militants to Arab countries.

In a common matter, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran Ali Shamkhani defended Iran’s decision to intervene in Syria and Iraq.

Meanwhile:

Turkey plans to install computerized automatic weapons to secure border with Syria: report

Turkey is stepping security measures on its border with Syria, including plans to install computerized automated firing systems, Yeni Şafak newspaper reported Monday.

IHA Photo

The weapons would be part of “smart towers” equipped with thermal imaging systems to prevent illegal crossings over the border.

If anyone gets within 300 metres of the border a warning will be sounded in three languages, which if not heeded, will trigger the weapons system, according to the report in the pro-government daily. The Ministry of Defence has yet to comment on the reports.

Securing the border with Syria plays a crucial role in Ankara’s foreign policy. Faced with a grave threat from across the border, Ankara has repeatedly asserted that any threat from Syria will receive retaliation in kind.

Around two dozen people have been killed in the Turkish border town of Kilis by rocket fire from DAESH terrorists since January, which has prompting the Turkish military to respond with artillery, and Turkish Special Forces carried out an operation within northern Syria earlier this month to take out DAESH teams which were launching these rockets.

Turkey, although a member of the U.S.-led coalition battling DAESH, has received almost none of the support requested from its allies in the fight against the extremist group, and has increasingly indicated Ankara is prepared to take unilateral action. The Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have stepped up attacks on DAESH in Syria in recent weeks, after rockets fired by the group repeatedly landed in Kilis, in what appeared to be a sustained and deliberate assault. More than a dozen rockets hit the town in just the last week.

Gunfire and occasional explosions from across the border could be heard on Wednesday from a hill in Kilis, which is home to more than 100,000 Syrian refugees.