The Donald Trump Conversation: Murdoch, Ailes, NBC and the Rush of Being TV's "Ratings Machine"

In his first magazine cover interview and photo shoot as the leading Republican, the reality TV presidential candidate lets loose on Hillary's email scandal ("Watergate on steroids"), Bill Cosby ("Was he drunk?"), whether he'll go on Megyn Kelly's show, why he won't accept vice president, Melania as first lady, and if he even needs Fox News and the haters.

A version of story first appeared in the Aug. 28 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.

I'm sitting in the reception area of Donald Trump's offices on the 26th floor of Trump Tower in New York when an assistant comes to fetch me: "Mr. Trump would like to see you," she says, as if I were a contestant on The Apprentice, the NBC reality series that brought the real estate mogul's bravado and business savvy to 20 million Americans each week at its peak. She leads me to a vast conference room where cameras click as Trump, 69, signs papers with another man. Standing at attention are two of his children, Ivanka, 33, andErik, 31, and about a dozen others. The scene has the pomp of historical significance one might associate with the Yalta Conference. Except this agreement being signed is for new Trump hotels in Asia in partnership with a gentleman who, Trump enthuses, is "the richest man" in his country (at press time, the deal was yet to be announced). Pens write with flourish, there is applause. Trump then calls me over: "Janice! You got to see this woman!" he says, motioning to a female dressed in a suit sitting next to the "richest man." It's never explained to me whether she is his wife or colleague. I don't know if she understands what is being said. "Isn't she beautiful? Beautiful!" he continues as she stands expressionless. "This is your business to know these things," he says to me, as an editor. "Just look at her!"

Via: Hollywood Reporter

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[VIDEO] Wilmore Grills #BlackLivesMatter Activists: What’s Your Beef with Progressives?

HOW CAN YOU TAKE SOMEONE SERIOUS THAT GOES ON THE NIGHTLY SHOW?

Larry Wilmore invited two of the #BlackLivesMatter activists who confronted Hillary Clinton during a private meeting last week to appear on The Nightly Show last night, and his first question for them was, “Why do you think it’s so important to make white people feel uncomfortable?”

“When we’re talking about race in this country, that’s often what happens, people get uncomfortable,” Daunasia Yancey answered.

As he did on his show last week, Wilmore pressed the activists to explain what the movement’s beef is with progressives in general and Bernie Sanders in particular, arguing that the two groups would seem like “natural allies.”

Julius Jones, who repeated his claim that “all lives matter” is a “violent” statement, told Wilmore that sometimes you have to be “honest” with your friends and in the case of the Democratic candidates, they are not doing enough to align themselves with the movement. “Bernie Sanders, for as much as he was walking with MLK, he ain’t walking that walk now,” he said.

Later, Wilmore asked the activists if they have any plans — “and please say yes” — to interruptDonald Trump on the campaign trail. The answer? “Yes.”

Via: Mediaite

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[VIDEO] 15,000 government emails revealed in Ashley Madison leak

Thousands of clients using the affair-oriented Ashley Madison website listed email addresses registered to the White House, top federal agencies and military branches, a data dump by hackers revealed.

The detailed data, released Tuesday, will likely put Washington, D.C., on edge. The nation’s capital reportedly has the highest rate of membership for the site of any city.

Indeed, more than 15,000 of the email addresses used to register accounts were hosted on government and military servers.

Buried in the list are emails that could be tied to multiple administration agencies, including the State Department and Department of Homeland Security, as well as several tied to both the House and Senate.  

For a month, hackers using the name “Impact Team” have been holding hostage the dating profiles of those who registered on the site. The group threatened to publicly out the potential adulterers if the site’s owner, Avid Life Media, didn’t take down Ashley Madison, which uses the tagline, “Life is short. Have an affair.”

Security researchers said on Wednesday that they believe the data released following the hack at Ashley Madison is authentic.

“This dump appears to be legit,” said David Kennedy, CEO of information security company TrustedSec, which monitors cyber attacks, in a blog post. “Very, very legit.”

Security journalist Brian Krebs reported several of the site’s users told him their real information is in the data dump.

The leaked database is staggering, according to researchers, and larger than expected at 37 million records, or nearly 10 gigabytes compressed.

“For folks that may not know, that is massive,” Kennedy said. “Huge.”

“It's full account information,” said Robert Graham, CEO of Errata Security, in a blog post. That includes full names, emails, phone numbers, addresses and passwords.

“It also includes dating information, like height, weight, and so forth,” Graham added. “It appears to contain addresses, as well as GPS coordinates. I suspect that many people created fake accounts, but with an app that reported their real GPS coordinates.”

Other tech news outlets, such as CSO, have discovered British government officials, United Nations employees and Vatican staff among the millions of people in the leaked database.

However, the site reportedly did not check the validity of email addresses, and it’s likely that many of the government email accounts were faked. For instance, several emails were registered at “whitehouse.gov,” whereas White House officials use “eop.gov” for email communications.

The hackers have indicated their mission is to publicly shame the company, while also teaching its users a lesson.

Via: The Hill

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CALIFORNIA TO SEIZE FARMS FOR JERRY BROWN’S WATER TUNNELS

The State of California is planning to use eminent domain law to acquire hundreds of farms in the Delta for a controversial, multi-billion-dollar underground water tunnel project proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown.

According to documents obtained by environmental group Restore the Delta, state water exporters and the Delta Design Construction Enterprise (DCE) division of the Department of Water Resources are planning to acquire 300 pieces of land from Delta farms to ensure right of way for the Bay Delta Conservation Plan tunnel project.

The $15 billion project, under development for the last eight years, has long been favored by Brown, who wants to use the twin underground tunnels to move water from the northern part of the state to the south by diverting it around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

But the project has faced stiff opposition from environmental groups like Restore the Delta and others who say the tunnels are not environmentally sustainable.

In a statement, Restore the Delta executive director Barbara Barrigan-Parilla blasted the “arrogance” of state officials for using eminent domain to acquire farmers’ land.

“While Delta and good-government activists are busy mobilizing comments in a democratic process, we discover state agencies view public oversight as simply a distraction,” Barrigan-Parilla said. “These documents arrogantly envision groundbreaking ceremonies as early as July 2016. Bulldozers and cement trucks are ready to roll! Red ribbons are budgeted! All for a $60 billion boondoggle without even one permit. Clearly, water officials under the Brown Administration view the Delta as a colony.”

Brown has tussled with environmental groups over the tunnels before. In May, the governor told critics of the proposal to “shut up, because you don’t know what they hell you’re talking about.” Brown said that “millions of hours” had gone into poring over every aspect of the tunnels, and has called the project an “imperative” that “must move forward.”

Yet despite the governor’s enthusiasm, the tunnel project has not yet been approved.

Water exporters and some agricultural interest groups support the tunnels. Californians for Water Security, a group made up of the California Chamber of Commerce and various farm and labor groups, has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on television and radio advertisements in support of the project.

But California’s plan to use eminent domain to acquire the land has created an increasingly rare moment of unity between environmental groups and Delta farmers.

“It is wrong and premature that the Department of Water Resources has a unit creating a secret land acquisition plan to take 150-year-old farms, like ours, through condemnation,” Courtland farmer Richard Elliott said in a statement, noting that his family has never sold any of its land. “The entire plan doesn’t make for sustainable food policies, smart land use practices, or even common sense.”

According to the documents, the state would make Delta farmers one offer to purchase their land, after which the farmers would have 30 days to accept or reject a deal. But after those 30 days, the state could still plan to force the owners to sell using eminent domain law.

The plan also calls outright for minimal “external” oversight.

“All transactions are conducted, reviewed and approved internally by DCE staff and managers to maintain control and avoid unnecessary delays to schedule,” the documents state. “DCE shall seek to minimize external review and approval requirements.”

Tony Francois, an attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who specializes in water and property rights, tells Breitbart News that the use of eminent domain does not allow for a proper system of “checks and balances,” even for controversial state infrastructure projects.

“The fact that they don’t have the project approved has generally not been a bar to acquiring the property,” Francois said. “If the project is controversial, they don’t need any special approvals to acquire the property, and that starts making the project look more inevitable. [State contractors could say] ‘Hey, we’ve already spent the money acquiring the property, we better get started building it.”

Francois added that the use of eminent domain exempts the state from being subject to California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental impact reviews, which havecaused stalling on some infrastructure projects for years, or even decades.

“If these reports are correct, then we have further confirmation that the tunnels project has been a foregone conclusion,” state Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) told the Associated Presson Monday. Wolk said the environmental impact review, “which should be used to choose a project, is simply being used to justify a favored project.”

Francois says the state is on solid ground for claims of eminent domain to acquire the property, as long as it can prove the water tunnel project constitutes a “public good.” Less clear, he says, is the issue of “just compensation” for the land the farmers will be giving up.

“Are they only taking the property they need for the underground tunnels, or are they taking the surface estate as well?” Francois said. “It’s the cutting [the land] up that creates a significant problem that farmers think they are not getting properly compensated for.”

According to the AP, the tunnel project is officially in a public comment phase until October.

Via: Breitbart

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Top de Blasio backer mulling run against ‘anti-business, anti-cop socialist’

One of the nation’s wealthiest black business leaders is considering mounting a self-financed campaign to topple Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2017 — saying he has lost faith in the candidate he once supported.

“I’m giving serious thought to running for mayor of New York City . . . I was a political supporter of Bill de Blasio,” real estate mogul Don Peebles told The Post on Tuesday.

Peebles and wife Katrina contributed $9,675 to de Blasio’s 2013 campaign and inaugural committees, records show.

But during an extensive interview, the lifelong Democrat — who is reportedly worth $700 million — delivered a withering attack on the mayor’s handling of taxes, charter schools, stewardship of the NYPD and chilly relations with Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“I’ve lost confidence in him. It would be irresponsible of me to do nothing,” said Peebles, 55, who owns the largest African-American-run real estate company in the United States.

“He’s anti-business, he’s anti-wealth, he’s anti-accomplishment. His performance has not been up to par. He’s failed.”

Top de Blasio backer Don Peebles (right) says the mayor has failed the people of New York City, and that he would consider running against the candidate he once supported.

Peebles’ mulling of a mayoral run comes amid reports that some disaffected Democrats are looking for an alternative to the mayor in the next election.

Among the names being mentioned are city Comptroller Scott Stringer, Brooklyn Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.

Peebles said that if he runs, there’s a “90 percent chance” he would challenge de Blasio in a Democratic primary.

He added that he would self-finance a campaign and spend “whatever it takes” to win.

Describing himself as a “pro-business” Democrat, Peebles described de Blasio as a divisive “socialist” who wants to punish wealthy people with higher taxes.

“My approach is to expand opportunity by increasing the size of the pie, not taking away from others. The mayor is supposed to be the mayor of all the people, not be the mayor of the Socialist Party.”

He slammed de Blasio on numerous fronts, from his management skills to his chat with his son, Dante, about how to act if approached by cops.

“That was disrespectful,” Peebles said. “What he should have been saying is that the NYPD is the best police department in the country.”

Peebles argued that the mayor hurt himself by continuing to press for an income tax hike on the rich to fund his pre-K program even after Cuomo offered state money for it.

“It’s very frightening. His basic view is that all businesses and wealthy people are not paying their fair share. That’s not true. It’s wrong,” he said.

Peebles also took issue with the mayor’s handling of education, saying he’s siding with the teachers union instead of standing up for kids and charter schools.

Peebles said he and his wife have supported faith-based and alternative schools in Florida and his native Washington, DC.

Via: New York Post

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15 States Finally Standing Up Against Obama’s Unconstitutional Regulations

Fifteen State Attorney Generals have filed suit against Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency for their sweeping and unconstitutional carbon regulations.

The fifteen states who petitioned the court on Thursday are West Virginia, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

If you are like me, you are wondering where your state is in the list.

The Blaze reports that under the unconstitutional regulations, the EPA will “regulate the electricity industry and require states and utility companies to meet goals, providing rewards and penalties.”

EPA spokeswoman Liz Purchia told Reuters, “To ensure that the Clean Power Plan’s significant health benefits and progress against climate change are delivered to all Americans, EPA and the Department of Justice will vigorously defend it in court.”

Fine, but you have no constitutional authority to do so.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said, “This rule is the most far-reaching energy regulation in the ... to transform itself from an environmental regulator to a central planning agency for states’ energy economies. The Clean Air Act was never intended to be used to create this type of regulatory regime, and it flies in the face of the powers granted to states under the U.S. Constitution.”

The attempt by the states could be more easily dismissed through nullification of EPApolicies, since they are not even law and since the EPA is an unconstitutional agency. However, something had to be done immediately.

“If we were to wait on the EPA to get this rule published, it could be well into 2016 before the States complete arguments and receive a ruling on a request to stay this rule,” Attorney General Morrisey said. “By that time, many states will already be in the middle of drafting their compliance plans ahead of the September 2016 deadline. We want to ensure that no more taxpayer money or resources are wastefully spent in an attempt to comply with this unlawful rule that we believe will ultimately be thrown out in court.”

“While this request is not typical, the EPA is playing games by putting the risk of a delay in publication entirely on the states,” Morrisey added. “We hope the court will spare our states any more unnecessary harm, and that the EPA will not needlessly delay the publication date.”

Of course, Barack Obama, being the Marxist that he is, called the unconstitutional measures “the single most important step the U.S. has ever taken to fight climate change.”

The problem is that there is no climate change. There is no global warming. All of this is false science in order to extort money from the American people, impose communism inAmerica, shutdown business and eventually control the people.

“This is one of those rare issues because of its magnitude, because of its scope, that if we don’t get it right, we may not be able to reverse it,” Obama said. “There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change. That doesn’t mean it’s hopeless. We can take action.”

The problem is that men do no create the weather or change the climate. God does. He determines how far the seas go (Job 38:8-11) and how hard the winds blow (matt 4:39). Yes, even hurricanes, tempests and such are at His command. Climate change is nothing more than a ruse. It is a lie because it comes from those whose father is the father of lies (John 8:44), the devil.

It’s long past time that states began to start banding together to ignore, not go to court with, the federal government in matters like this. Furthermore, they should ignore the court’s ruling, which is just that (ie. A ruling), and begin nullifying and interposing themselves between citizens, businesses and other entities in the states and the federal government.

Better yet, why don’t we simply band together to eliminate the federal government altogether and go back to sovereign states and Articles of Confederation. That would eliminate much of the tyranny that is strangling us today.

Via: Tea Party Command Center

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MUST-SEE: BLACK WOMAN RIPS COUNCIL OVER ILLEGAL ALIENS

LOS ANGELES — Chanell Temple, a black woman originally from Huntington Park, delivered a strident, politically incorrect speech against illegal immigration on Monday evening at the local city council meeting.

Temple, who now lives in the Hawthorne area of Los Angeles, was protesting the council’s recent decision to appoint two illegal aliens to city commissions. She told Breitbart News she had not intended to speak at the meeting, but was offended when someone compared illegal aliens to slaves. She added that she supports Donald Trump “a hundred percent.”

Here are her full remarks (in video and transcript below):

…undocumented illegal immigrants who have been assigned to the position of commissioner.

The Huntington Park City Council is being paid with taxpayers’ money to do a job within rules and regulations. According to your board behind you, it says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I want to paraphrase that and say: Where there is no law, the people perish.

In the U.S. we have one rule of law. I also want to talk about the Fourteenth Amendment, which was added to the Constitution in regards to blacks being given birthright citizenship because blacks helped build this country, including the White House—twice.

(Interjection: Right on!)

Please do not tarnish the name of black slaves by comparing them to your plight. There’s no comparison. None.

Black slaves did not break into this country, okay. They were brought here against their will. Also, black slaves are not immigrants. Immigrants are people with a choice, they come here by choice. Black slaves didn’t have choice.

That’s offensive to me because I’m a descendant of a black slave. And trust me, Ancestry.com works and I can trace my people back from when they landed here on the boat. I know the village where my people came from in Africa, OK? So please, do not try to get away with using that. That’s very offensive.

This country has been good to illegal immigrants. You have been given jobs, houses, tax money, free tax money, welfare, Social Security, they open up business for you guys, et cetera.

None—I don’t know of any illegal aliens who have been hung from a tree. I don’t know of any of them illegal aliens who have dogs been sicced on. So that’s very offensive for you to sit up here and allow these people to say that and get away with it. Things that people are going to feel sorry for. That’s very offensive, OK? Do the right thing.

My people get three strikes. I have a nephew in jail now–22 years!–for something he didn’t do.

My people commit a crime, they go to jail. You people commit a crime, they get amnesty. It is wrong…

(Cheers, applause)

And we’re not going to have it. We’re not going to have a set of laws for you people and a set of laws for us.

And if you can’t follow the law, talking about “perish,” your job needs to perish.

You get paid with taxpayers’ money and you are misappropriating taxpayers’ money when you pick up your check.

(Cheers, applause)

In an interview Tuesday morning, Temple explained further:

I grew up in the Huntington Park area. I was raised in that area. I live in Hawthorne now. That area over there has been a Latino area for decades, for a long time. They witnessed racial tension in that area. My mother was a property owner over in that area.

What I said last night was not my intention. What kind of disturbed me is when someone got up and talked about slavery. There is no comparison. They need to stop pretending like they are being mistreated. They have pushed and disturbed the community. They have 95% of the jobs and they still act like they are mistreated.

Yes I am black, but I’m an American. They are getting away with murder. I was in Sacramento recently, and I protested about Kate Steinle. Then they get a get-out-of-jail-free card, and my nephew is in jail. They release them–30,000, if not more–every year. They put them right back on the street and it’s not right.

The black community–we’re tired of them citing civil rights because of people like Al Sharpton. They are being treated better than American citizens with our tax money.

I’m just tired. I lost my job. I was told I did not speak Spanish and I was terminated from my job. Even now it’s difficult to get a job. They told me I was fired for not being able to speak Spanish. I applied to McDonald’s and they told me that they don’t hire blacks–and it was a black owner. I filed with EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). I have my documentation. I was denied a job….But they didn’t do anything. They are putting illegal immigrants before blacks. I applied for three jobs with the County of L.A. and they didn’t give me a job, and when I filed a complaint they called me a racist. I ended up homeless.

We have a rule of law. Why can’t they obey the law? Little do they know they are making us [Americans] closer. We are standing as Americans, as all races and colors. They want to throw out the race card. We are tired of being abused, and it’s got to stop.

Our politicians are giving them the power in the fight against us–the people using our tax money, writing these laws and using them against us….

Yes, black lives matter, but if we had jobs we wouldn’t be put in these situations to be attacked. A lot of parental rights have been restricted and are being taken away. There’s a lot in the black neighborhood that needs to be worked on. We need to get our house in order first and we need to get jobs back to get back on track.

We have no recourse. We are not being represented. Now we’re in the shadows, we are being buried in the shadows.

 Via: Breitbart

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Obama's Toxic Environmental Pollution Agency by Michelle Malkin

Here in my adopted home state of Colorado, orange is the new Animas River thanks to the blithering idiots working under President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency.

It's just the latest man-caused disaster from an out-of-control bureaucracy whose primary mission is not the Earth's preservation, but self-preservation.

As always, the government cover-up compounds the crime — which is why the agency's promise this week to investigate itself has residents across the Rocky Mountains in stitches. Or tears.

After the EPA and officials and their contract workers accidentally spilled three million gallons of pent-up toxic sludge on August 5 from a defunct mine in San Juan County that hadn't operated since 1923, EPA apparatchiks delayed notifying residents for more than 24 hours. They vastly underestimated the volume and spill rate of gunk. Then, while refusing to release data, EPA head Gina McCarthy flew to the glowing river to fecklessly declare that the water "seems to be restoring itself."

The cleanup costs for the Colorado spill alone are estimated at $30 billion. Small farmers, ranchers and tourist-related businesses will be reeling for years to come — yet the EPA is simultaneously pushing forward with Draconian ozone regulations (based on cherry-picked junk science) that will punish the state's residents with no discernible health benefits.

If only Mother Nature could help wash away the institutionalized corruption that has been leaching from Obama's EPA headquarters since Day One:

—BP oil spill data doctoring. Former White House Director of the Office of Energy and Climate Change Policy Carol Browner and the EPA suffered no consequences after they repeatedly lied and cooked the books in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010. Browner, who pulled the puppet strings of then-EPA head Lisa Jackson, misled the public about the scope of the disaster by falsely claiming that 75 percent of the spill was "completely gone from the system." Then she falsely claimed that the administration's initial report on the disaster was "peer-reviewed."

The Interior Department inspector general also singled out Browner for misrepresenting the White House's blue-ribbon science panel, which opposed a six-month drilling moratorium, and exposed how she butchered their conclusions to justify the administration's preordained policy agenda.

Browner, an inveterate left-wing crony lobbyist/activist, left office without so much as a wrist slap. Brazen data doctoring and destruction are her fortes. As EPA head during the Clinton administration in the 1990s, she was held in contempt by a federal judge after ordering a staffer to purge and delete her computer files. Browner had sought to evade a public disclosure lawsuit by conservative lawyer and author Mark Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation.

—Email evasion and transparency trouncing. While Browner was doing her dirty work as Obama's unaccountable eco-czar, Jackson busied herself creating sock-puppet email personalities to circumvent public disclosure rules as the agency crafted radical climate-change policies in secret. She learned the tricks of the trade from Browner. Jackson admitted to using the pseudonym "Richard Windsor" on one of at least two separate secret government accounts. Competitive Enterprise Institute fellow Christopher Horner discovered the elaborate ruses in 2012. The agency had stonewalled Horner's FOIA requests on the use of alias accounts at the agency; CEI sued to force the administration to comply.

In December 2012, Jackson resigned amid multiple investigations. Not a wrist slap. Not a scratch. In March of this year, a federal judge blasted the agency for avoiding a separate FOIA request by Levin's Landmark Legal Foundation related to sock-puppet email accounts created by Jackson and others "who may have delayed the release dates for hot-button environmental regulations until after the Nov. 6, 2012, presidential election."

Apple Computer hired Jackson in 2013 (and all of her multiple personalities). Two months ago, the company proudly announced that it was promoting Jackson to "vice president of Environment, Policy and Social Initiatives" and head of the company's "global government affairs and public policy teams."

—Enabling sex predators and porn addicts. Last month, the EPA inspector general finally testified on Capitol Hill about the agency's chronic mismanagement of alleged sexual perverts on the payroll. One employee "engaged in offensive and inappropriate behavior toward at least 16 women, most of whom were EPA co-workers," the IG reported. Supervisors "were made aware of many of these actions and yet did nothing."

Well, not exactly "nothing." The employee was actually promoted to assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Homeland Security — a position he used to harass six more women.

Two other EPA workers were caught binging on porn during work hours; one was observed getting his X-rated fix by a minor who was at the office during Bring Your Child To Work Day. EPA allowed one perv to retire with full benefits; the other is still on leave collecting a $120,000 yearly salary.

Double standards. Data destruction. Imposition of radical job-killing regulations. Law-breaking with impunity. Only in Washington does a rogue government agency with an $8 billion budget get away with such serial incompetence and criminality in the name of the "public good." Protecting the environment has become a full employment racket for green crooks and cronies.

Via: CNS News

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Unsecured Hillary Emails, Hackers Worry Senate Homeland Security Chairman

Federal officials and Hillary Clinton’s lawyers may not be the only ones with copies of the former secretary of state’s official emails, according to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chairman Ron Johnson.

Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, told FBI Director James Comey in an August 17 letter that he is “deeply concerned by recent reports that classified information in Secretary Clinton’s email may exist outside of the federal government’s possession.”

The homeland committee chairman wants Comey to explain “whether additional unsecured copies of classified information currently exists.”

Johnson also said he is worried that hackers, foreign governments or other unauthorized persons may have hacked Clinton’s emails. He asked Comey for answers by Aug. 31.

Via: Daily Caller

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Do We Want a Business Model for Our Country?

With the nation polarized and unable to move forward, many people are suggesting that what our country needs is a business model for governing. Forget about the moral issues. Run the nation like a business and everything will come out all right. Find a candidate who gets things done in business and that person will do the same thing for America, Inc. You can’t argue with success.

Such a pragmatic proposal definitely resonates with those who are fed up with government. People are tired of not getting things done. They don’t like running the country in the red. Getting the country on a spreadsheet is an attractive idea.

The problem is we don’t need a business model for governing. We already have one and it’s not working.

Our political system has always had something of a business model built into it. We already find in the literature of the Founding Fathers references to the nation as a “commercial republic,” a union of legitimate self-interest, aimed at providing progress, prosperity and security. American political rhetoric is full of economic references that hold progress and prosperity as the height of well-being. Anyone who strays from this narrative is quickly reminded, as was Bill Clinton in 1992, “It’s the economy, stupid!”

If there is an image that corresponds to our political model, think of a thriving farm co-op or public corporation of shareholders. Citizenship is a kind of a co-op membership full of legitimate benefits with distributed risks, voting privileges, few liabilities, and plenty of entertainment. The key to keeping everyone happy is a robust economic order that ensures that members renew their membership with great enthusiasm.

However, this business model for governing depends upon two important pillars. The first is a great consensus to get along and smooth over differences, which is assured by the outward appearance of prosperity and the promise of the American dream.

The second pillar is a vague moral code that ensures some kind of order and serves as the foundation of trust and confidence that allows business to flourish and the rule of law to prevail. As long as these two pillars stand, the system works well.

But when the economic dynamo stalls or sputters over a long period of time, the glue of consensus no longer holds. When the vague moral code falls into decay, trust and rule of law disappear. What we are witnessing today is the breakdown of this cooperative business model.

That is why everything seems like a free-for-all. Everyone wants to blame the other for the failure of the co-op. Our elections have become like shareholder brawls where the officers are frequently changed. Opinion polls serve as quarterly earnings reports to which all scramble to adapt. Who wins is often the one who promises the most in the least amount of time. Americans are seeing a model that used to work so well now working contrary to their interests by not paying out dividends, but distributing uncertainties that cause anxiety, depression, and stress.

Via: American Thinker

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Fox News' Ed Henry Rattles Hillary at Shaky Press Conference: 'Did You Wipe the Server Clean?'

In a contentious exchange with reporters after a Las Vegas Town Hall event Tuesday, Hillary Clinton insisted anything she did with her email server was "legally permitted" and said the media were the only ones asking about it.

Asked if she had wiped her private email server clean before turning it over to investigators last week, she jokingly told Fox News' Ed Henry, “What, with like with a cloth or something? I don’t know how it works at all.”

Henry pressed the Democratic presidential candidate by pointing out that leadership is about taking responsibility.

“Look, Ed, I take responsibility,” Clinton replied. “In retrospect, this didn't turn out to be convenient at all and I regret that this has become such a cause celebre. But that does not change the facts. The facts are stubborn – what I did was legally permitted.”

Clinton last week handed over to the FBI her private server, which she used to send, receive and store emails during her four years as secretary of state. The bureau is holding the machine in protective custody after the intelligence community's inspector general raised concerns recently that classified information had traversed the system.

Via: Fox News

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