Hillary Hacker Cartoon

Ann LePage, wife of nation's lowest-paid governor, takes waitressing job

Could you ever picture Hillary Clinton working as a waitress? 

The waitress bounded with a cup of chowder and a plate of fish and broccoli.
It was Ann LePage's first double shift at McSeagull's, a bustling restaurant touting double-wrapped bacon scallops and views of Boothbay Harbor.
The wife of Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage had kept a low profile for the first few weeks of her summer job. But then her husband told a crowd at a recent town hall that his wife took a job to "supplement" his $70,000 salary, the lowest of any U.S. governor.
The LePages live with their dog, a Jack Russell terrier mix named Veto, in the Augusta governor's mansion and bought a $215,000 Boothbay home two years ago. The governor recently tried but failed to increase his successor's salary to $150,000, above the nearly $135,000 average for all 50 state governors in 2015.
Ann LePage said being a waitress is "something I've always, always wanted to do."
Her daughter Lauren made $28 an hour last summer at McSeagull's. LePage said she spent years taking care of her mother, who long suffered from scleroderma and passed away in October.
Now it's time to follow through on her interest, LePage said, adding: "I know she'd be proud of me."
Wearing a black McSeagull's T-shirt and sneakers with pink shoelaces, LePage greeted customers with an easy: "Hey, how are you?"
LePage, who's saving up for a Toyota RAV4, works three days a week, and is asking for more shifts.
"Because of who I am and who I'm married to, I want to work extra hard just so I can show them I can do the job," she said.
She doesn't tell customers, or co-workers, who she is unless they ask.
But when a reporter revealed her identity Thursday, the news just confirmed a customer's inklings.
"I knew, that's why I kept staring!" exclaimed Nina Stoddard, of Bridgton, a Republican.
She later wondered: "I mean, is she really here just making money?"
Her friend Laurie Green, of Casco, said she loved it.
"I really hate a lot of our politicians nowadays that have the wealth, the money," said Green, an unaffiliated voter. "They have no clue what the average person out in the world is doing."
Stoddard agreed and suggested LePage herself should run for office: "It's the best of Maine, the best of who we are. Two feet on the ground."

Top IT official: Disabling security for Clinton server laid out 'welcome mat' for hackers

A 2010 decision temporarily disabling State Department security features to accommodate Hillary Clinton’s private server effectively laid out a "welcome mat" for hackers and foreign intelligence services, a leading IT official who oversaw computer security at the Defense Intelligence Agency told Fox News.
"You're putting not just the Clinton server at risk but the entire Department of State emails at risk," said Bob Gourley, former chief technology officer (CTO) for the DIA. "When you turn off your defensive mechanisms and you're connected to the Internet, you're almost laying out the welcome mat for anyone to intrude and attack and steal your secrets."
He was referring to revelations from new court-released documents in a lawsuit by conservative watchdog Judicial Watch. They show the State Department temporarily turned off security features in 2010 so that emails from then-Secretary of State Clinton's personal server would stop going to the department's spam folders.
Gourley, who has more than two decades of cybersecurity experience and is now a partner with strategic consulting and engineering firm Cognitio, noted the Russians did breach the State Department system at some point – though it’s unclear when, and whether disabling the security functions in 2010 played a role.
He said, though, that when the Russian presence was detected in 2014, there were indications “they had been there for quite a while … [and] also hacked into unclassified systems in the White House.” He said the Russians would have tried “everything possible to get in.”
Gourley said: "A professionally run system is going to keep their defenses up all the time to at least make it hard on them.”

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The court-released emails show State Department IT staffers struggled to resolve the issue in December 2010, and it was considered an urgent matter. "This should trump all other activities," Ken LaVolpe, a senior technical officer, wrote on Dec. 17, 2010.
The disabled software was designed to block so-called phishing emails that could insert viruses into the system. Another senior State Department official, Thomas W. Lawrence, wrote that Clinton aide Huma Abedin was personally checking in for status reports on the progress.
The State Department inspector general's report released in May found Clinton's personal server used exclusively for official State Department business violated government rules. It also reported that in early January 2011 -- a month after the security feature shut-down -- an IT worker shut down the server because he believed "someone was trying to hack us." The individual, who was not identified by name in emails released by the IG, reported a second incident only hours later, writing, "We were attacked again so I shut (the server) down for a few min."
An email also from this time period documented Clinton's concern about getting a government email account. In November 2010, Clinton wrote to Abedin: "Let's get separate address or device but I don't want any risk of the personal being accessible.” Though Clinton said all her work-related emails were turned over, this document was provided not by Clinton but by Abedin.
While Clinton swore under oath last fall all records had been provided, campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said in a statement that Clinton did not have all the emails.
"We understand Secretary Clinton had some emails with Huma that Huma did not have, and Huma had some emails with Secretary Clinton that Secretary Clinton did not have," he said. He asserted the November 2010 email shows that “contrary to the allegations of some, Secretary Clinton was not seeking to avoid any use of government email. As indicated in this email, she was open to using a state.gov account but she simply wanted her personal emails to remain private, as anyone would want."
The FBI is investigating Clinton's emails practices. Agents are looking into whether classified information was taken outside secure government channels, and whether the server was compromised by a third party. Fox News first reported in January the FBI investigation had expanded to public corruption and whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, according to three intelligence sources.
This week, the head of WikiLeaks Julian Assange told a British television network that he was in possession of Clinton emails that have not yet been released, indicating the system was compromised.
In an interview with British Television Network ITV, Assange said he has Clinton emails that are not public, and there is "enough evidence" for criminal charges, including regarding the Clinton Foundation, though he claimed she was too protected by the Obama administration for an indictment to go forward.
"There's very strong material, both in the emails and in relation to the Clinton Foundation," Assange said.
The Clinton campaign has dismissed claims the server was compromised by a third party, including those of Romanian hacker "Guccifer." Fox News was first to report his claims that he accessed the server with ease in March 2012. The Justice Department extradited the hacker to Northern Virginia where he recently agreed in a plea deal to cooperate in future investigations and testify before a grand jury.
An NSA whistleblower said the Assange claim should be taken seriously, given WikiLeaks’ track record of releasing authentic documents.
"It just says that she put all this material on a server that was insecure, that anyone in the world could access it and break in," said Bill Binney, a former National Security Agency specialist who spoke out against the agency's broad surveillance programs. Binney was investigated by the FBI, though there was no evidence he mishandled classified information.
Binney said there is a double-standard at play in the Clinton case, given more than 2,100 emails on her server containing classified information have been identified. He called her files “vulnerable [to] attack [from] all people in the world -- hackers, governments, everybody."

No ‘Texit’: Trump says Texas ‘will never’ secede, amid renewed calls

Trump: Texas would never secede from US if I were president

 

Donald Trump splashed cold water Saturday on renewed calls by U.S. secessionists for Texas to break away from America in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.
“Texas will never do that, because Texas loves me,” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee told reporters, while touring his golf resorts in Scotland.
So-called Texas nationalists, who for years have waged a quixotic campaign to secede, swiftly seized on Thursday’s Brexit decision to demand a similar referendum, only on Texas “independence.” In the spirit of the vote, supporters like Texas Nationalist Movement leader Daniel Miller called for “Texit” -- a hashtag trending Friday on Twitter.
However, even as Britain’s vote to leave the E.U. raises the prospect of similar referendums across Europe, the push for Texas or any other state to break away from the U.S. stands little chance of succeeding. While Trump says the U.K. vote exposed an anger in the electorate that will rear its head elsewhere, he indicated he does not think that extends to any secession movement inside the United States – especially if he’s in the White House.
“Texas would never do that if I’m president,” Trump said, adding the same goes for Vermont when asked about a secessionist movement there.
Trump’s comments mark a rebuke from the candidate who has drawn explicit parallels between the anti-establishment sentiments that fueled the Brexit decision and those fueling his campaign on this side of the pond.

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The secessionists have long faced setbacks at every level of government.
The White House, in response to a petition, said three years ago that Texas simply cannot leave the union.
The state Republican Party took up this same issue at their convention just last month – and defeated a bid to get a Texas independence measure in the party platform.
The Texas Tribune, in an analysis Friday, also said that while Texas could potentially split into separate states it could not legally secede. The Tribune quoted the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who once wrote in a letter, “If there was any constitutional issue resolved by the Civil War, it is that there is no right to secede.”
Nevertheless, Miller issued a statement Friday urging Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to call a referendum.
“The win for Brexit opens the door for Texit by establishing, concretely, that it is possible to have an adult conversation on independence and letting the people have the final say,” he said.
After winning independence from Mexico in 1836, Texas was its own republic until 1845, when it joined the U.S. Secession advocates argue the second-most populous state in the country is burdened by the federal government and has a large-enough economy to survive on its own.

Clinton campaign offers chance to see 'Hamilton'-- at a cost

WASHINGTON –  Hillary Clinton supporters will get a chance to see the hit musical "Hamilton" if they're willing to pay prices that are breathtaking even by Broadway standards.
Tickets for a special matinee July 12 to benefit her campaign start at $2,700 each, while $10,000 will get a "premium seat" that includes a photo session with Clinton.
The campaign website says that for $100,000 people can get a deal that includes two premium seats, a "wrap party" with Clinton "and other special guests" plus other benefits.
The hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary is the hardest ticket to get on Broadway, even at a record $849 for a premium ticket and even higher prices in a thriving black market.
"Hamilton" won 11 Tony Awards, including best musical.