What are the odds of a Dept head keeping their job in the wake of an OIG audit like Hillary's?

I couldn't see Kerry surviving a scandal like this and not being asked to step down by Obama. We need to remember that this isn't the first scathing audit by OIG.

Sanders says Clinton’s email situation has changed

"Months after telling Hillary Clinton that Americans were “sick and tired of hearing about your damn emails,” Bernie Sanders may be changing his mind.

Interviewed Friday on “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO, Sanders was asked if the furor over Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of state had become large enough for the Vermont senator to reconsider his refusal to engage Clinton on the issue.

“It has,” he said. “But this is what I also think: There is an enormous frustration on the part of the American people.”

The State Department’s inspector general found in a report released this past week that the email setup violated department rules, that Clinton never sought permission for it, and that the proposal would have been rejected if she had. The report handed Clinton’s Republican opponents a fresh line of attack — and Sanders, too, if he chose to take it. Clinton’s competitor for the Democratic presidential nomination won praise at a candidates’ debate on October when he said, “Enough of the emails. Let’s talk about the real issues facing America.” At the time, his campaign used the comments in a fund-raising email.

Seven months later, the delegates to be chosen June 7 in California and five other state nominating contests represent a last-ditch effort to close the gap with Clinton before the Democratic convention in July. Clinton holds a nearly insurmountable lead in pledged delegates, and is far ahead in popular votes. But a strong performance in California could boost Sanders’ case that superdelegates — party leaders and elected officials not bound to any candidate — should switch their allegiance to him on the basis of perceived electability against Republican Donald Trump."


http://www.columbian.com/news/2016/may/28/sanders-says-clintons-email-situation-has-changed/

That OIG audit changed everything and officially validated Hillary failures at the State Dept.

Poor polls, scandal, a cussed rival … how it’s all going wrong for Hillary Clinton

"The week that Donald Trump finally sealed the Republican presidential nomination ought to have been a triumphant one for Hillary Clinton. With a final few delegates nudging him past the official finishing line on Thursday, here at last was the candidate that Democrats always dreamed of running against: unpopular, undisciplined and ostensibly unelectable in November’s general election.

Yet in the Alice in Wonderland world of American politics in 2016, nothing is what it seems. Clinton supporters would instead have to stomach six impossible things before the week was out.

The first was the sight of the former secretary of state falling behind her Republican opponent in an average of national opinion polls. Though by a wafer-thin – and probably temporary – margin, the breaching of this symbolic threshold could yet become self-fulfilling if it normalises the once unthinkable prospect of a Trump-themed White House

Then came a damning report by an independent inspector at the Department of State, who contradicted her claims that she had been allowed to use a private email server for official business while serving as the nation’s chief diplomat. Once again, things were not quite as simple as they appeared, and Clinton allies argue that the report also shows other former secretaries of state up to the same tricks. But only one of them is running for president. With the FBI still investigating whether she broke federal law, this is an old wound that could reopen again before the contest is over.

Some Democrats, such as progressive champion Elizabeth Warren, show signs of trying to rally around their beleaguered team captain, yet the ongoing FBI investigation also complicates the ability of the party’s most influential cheerleader to come to the rescue. At a press conference in Japan, the normally loquacious Barack Obama flat out refused to take a question from a journalist asking whether the email scandal undermined Clinton’s “trustworthiness”."


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/28/hillary-clinton-us-presidential-electiond-democrats

Hillary Clinton just had the Worst Week in Washington

"By now, Hillary Clinton almost certainly expected that she would be well into a general election fight against Donald Trump — punching down at the target-rich real estate developer amid polls showing her sweeping into the White House.

Not so much.

Instead, Clinton spent the week in California, fighting for votes in advance of the Golden State's June 7 primary against the still-lingering challenge of Bernie Sanders.

But that was a cakewalk compared with what came out of Washington on Tuesday. The State Department's inspector general released an 83-page report detailing a series of missteps made by Clinton when she decided to exclusively use a private email server and address for all of her electronic correspondence as the nation's top diplomat.


Here's the key snippet, as reported by WaPo's Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger:

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 initially sought to downplay the report as old news. "It’s the same story," she told Univision anchor Maria Elena Salinas. "Just like previous secretaries of state, I used a personal email. Many people did. It was not at all unprecedented."

Except that it was. While other secretaries of state had used personal email addresses, none of them had exclusively done so. And as Helderman and Hamburger noted, the State Department IG report scolded Clinton not only for using the email address exclusively but also for slow-walking the release of those emails to the State Department.

For Clinton, who has struggled for more than a year with how to best respond to the email problem — and to the broader honesty and trustworthiness questions it raises — it was exactly what she didn't need as she seeks to finally close out Sanders and unite the party in the face of a surprisingly strong showing by Trump in early general election polls.

By Thursday night, Clinton was calling in to cable shows to revise and extend her initial dismissiveness about the IG report. Too late. Damage done."


https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/28/hillary-clinton-just-had-the-worst-week-in-washington/

Damage done. Worst week indeed!

Bill Maher And Bernie Sanders Talk About the Canceled Trump Debate and More

DMX Had the Best Response to Bernie Sanders Using "Where the Hood At?" at a Rally

"Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders wowed the crowd at a rally in Lancaster, California Thursday by walking out to the distinctive sounds of DMX. Sanders chose the 2003 Grand Champ cut "Where the Hood At?" much to the delight of attendees whose cheering almost drowned out the alleged Ja Rule diss of yesteryear:

In a statement to Complex, DMX reflected on the track's legacy while reinforcing its memorable refrain. Peep that statement in its entirety below:

"Where the hood at?"

Twitter promptly exploded upon news of the DMX x Bern crossover, with some even letting the moment serve as their final push to vote for Sanders should he become the Democratic nominee"

Hillary Clinton Won’t Say How Much Goldman Sachs CEO Invested With Her Son-in-Law

"WHEN HILLARY CLINTON’S son-in-law sought funding for his new hedge fund in 2011, he found financial backing from one of the biggest names on Wall Street: Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein.

The fund, called Eaglevale Partners, was founded by Chelsea Clinton’s husband, Marc Mezvinsky, and two of his partners. Blankfein not only personally invested in the fund, but allowed his association with it to be used in the fund’s marketing.

The investment did not turn out to be savvy business decision. Earlier this month, Mezvinsky was forced to shutter one of the investment vehicles he launched under Eaglevale, called Eaglevale Hellenic Opportunity, after losing 90 percent of its money betting on the Greek recovery. The flagship Eaglevale fund has also lost money, according to the New York Times.

There has been minimal reporting on the Blankfein investment in Eaglevale Partners, which is a private fund that faces few disclosure requirements. At a campaign rally in downtown San Francisco on Thursday, I attempted to ask Hillary Clinton if she knew the amount that Blankfein invested in her son-in-law’s fund.

Watch the video:


After repeated attempts on the rope line, I asked the Clinton campaign traveling press secretary Nick Merrill, who said, “I don’t know, has it been reported?” and said he would get in touch with me over email. I sent the question but have not heard a response back.

The decision for Blankfein to invest in Hillary Clinton’s son-in-law’s company is just one of many ways Goldman Sachs has used its wealth to forge a tight bond with the Clinton family. The company paid Hillary Clinton $675,000 in personal speaking fees, paid Bill Clinton $1,550,000 in personal speaking fees, and donated between $250,000 and $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation. At a time when Goldman Sachs directly lobbied Hillary Clinton’s State Department, the company routinely partnered with the Clinton Foundation for events, even convening a donor meeting for the foundation at the Goldman Sachs headquarters in Manhattan.

Clinton has dodged questions about her relationship with Goldman Sachs throughout the campaign."


https://theintercept.com/2016/05/27/hillary-clinton-wont-say-how-much-goldman-sachs-ceo-invested-with-her-son-in-law/

AP FACT CHECK: Clinton misstates key facts in email episode

"ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Over the months, Hillary Clinton misstated key facts about her use of private email and her own server for her work as secretary of state, the department's inspector general reported this week.

According to the findings, she claimed approval she didn't have and declined to be interviewed for the report despite saying "I'm more than ready to talk to anybody anytime." Scrutiny of her unusual email practices appeared to be unwelcome, despite her contention those practices were well known and "fully above board."

A look at some of Clinton's past claims about her unusual email set-up and how they compare with the inspector general's findings:

CLINTON: "The system we used was set up for President Clinton's office. And it had numerous safeguards. It was on property guarded by the Secret Service. And there were no security breaches." - March 2015 press conference.

THE REPORT: Evidence emerged of hacking attempts, though it's unclear whether they were successful.

On Jan. 9, 2011, an adviser to former President Bill Clinton notified the State Department's deputy chief of staff for operations that he had to shut down the server because he suspected "someone was trying to hack us and while they did not get in i didnt (sic) want to let them have the chance to."

Later that day, he sent another note. "We were attacked again so I shut (the server) down for a few min."

The following day the deputy chief emailed top Clinton aides and instructed them not to email the secretary "anything sensitive."

Also in May 2011, Clinton told aides that someone was "hacking into her email," after she received a message with a suspicious link, the new audit report said.

The Associated Press has previously reported that, according to detailed records compiled in 2012, Clinton's server was connected to the internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers. It appeared to allow users to connect openly over the internet to control it remotely.

Moreover, it's unclear what protection her email system might have achieved from having the Secret Service guard the property. Digital security breaches tend to come from computer networks, not over a fence."


http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_DEM_2016_CLINTON_EMAILS_FACT_CHECK

The Real Scandal of Hillary's emails, it's not what she wrote—it’s her tendency to wall herself off

'In a February 23 hearing on a Freedom of Information Act request for Hillary Clinton’s official State Department emails—emails that don’t exist because Hillary Clinton secretly conducted email on a private Blackberrry connected to a private server—District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan exclaimed, “How in the world could this happen?”

That’s the key question. What matters about the Clinton email scandal is not the nefarious conduct that she sought to hide by using her own server. There’s no evidence of any such nefarious conduct. What matters is that she made an extremely poor decision: poor because it violated State Department rules, poor because it could have endangered cyber-security, and poor because it now constitutes a serious self-inflicted political wound. Why did such a smart, seasoned public servant exercise such bad judgment? For the same reason she has in the past: Because she walls herself off from alternative points of view.

In the journalistic reconstructions of Clinton’s decision, two things become clear. First, State Department security experts strongly opposed it. As the Washington Post’s Robert O’Harrow Jr. reported in a terrific piece in March, “State Department security officials were distressed about the possibility that Clinton’s BlackBerry could be compromised and used for eavesdropping.” Soon after Clinton became Secretary of State, they expressed that distress in a February 2009 meeting with Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills, a longtime Clinton loyalist. In a March memo to Clinton herself, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric Boswell wrote that, “I cannot stress too strongly … that any unclassified Blackberry is highly vulnerable.”


The second thing that becomes clear is that these security experts ran into a brick wall of longtime Clinton aides whose priority was not security, but rather her desire for privacy and convenience. “From the earliest days,” writes O’Harrow Jr., “Clinton aides and senior officials focused intently on accommodating the secretary’s desire to use her private email account” and in so doing “neglected repeated warnings about the security of the BlackBerry.” In August 2011, when the State Department’s executive secretary Stephen Mull broached the idea of replacing Clinton’s personal Blackberry with a “Department issued” one, Clinton’s Deputy Chief of Staff and close personal aide, Huma Abedin, replied that the “state blackberry…doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/484634/
The bubble is real.